K-12 EdTech Leadership Needs a Bigger Seat at the Table to Overcome Cybersecurity, Staffing, Professional Development Challenges

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Experts Talk. It's a gloomy day here behind me in in Dallas, Texas, but don't worry, we we are bringing the sunshine with today's conversation, at least with the energy and the expertise of our panel today. Again, welcome to the show. Experts Talk is MarketScales' premium debate and discussion roundtable, where we sit down with the top voices in your industry to discuss major trends, topics, technology, timely news, again, the market movers that are shaping your industry. And again, we platform the voices of your industry, the experts, the thought leaders, the researchers, professors, and professionals that are shaping the industry to get a pulse check on these market movers, understand the opportunities, the challenges, and get decisive and get actionable with our take away, so that you, the audience, feel better equipped walking away from this conversation to crush your day to day in your industry. So, welcome to the show. I'm your host, per usual, Daniel Litwin, the voice of B2B. I'm pleased to be here. If you hear some, thunderclaps, that's just the storm behind me, okay? It's not, it's not sound effects here for the, drama of the topic today, but there are some challenges that we are gonna have to break down here on today's conversation, which as we see below, we've got some EdTech priorities that EdTech leaders are, in some cases struggling to balance, and so with our conversation today, we're gonna get actionable with how they can approach those challenges and how the larger edtech industry can help support EdTech leaders in K through twelve districts. Now, before we get into the show, I want to make sure that you, the audience, know where to tap into other Experts Talk content. Head to marketscale dot com for not only previous episodes of the show, but also a lineup of upcoming shows, including our full lineup for next week's shows, where we're gonna be talking about edge computing for smart cities, and many more fantastic topics. Also, the future of retail healthcare with Walmart closing so many, well actually all of its Walmart health clinics, where does retail healthcare stand in the primary healthcare space? All that and more coming up on Experts Talk. Check it out, tune in Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays at ten AM central. Alright, team. Let's jump into today's conversation. So what we're gonna be unpacking today is Kosen's newest twenty twenty four state of ed tech district leadership report. This is a report that yearly reveals K through twelve ed tech leaders main concerns and priorities as they work to invest in new edtech tools, collaborate on goals with district leaders, and shore up lingering and new challenges surrounding the implementation and the best use of existing EdTech solutions. K through twelve EdTech leaders' priorities are numerous. Right? They've got a lot that they're balancing. Everything from harnessing AI, right, to cyber security threats and digital equity, to, integration of new advanced technologies, to professional development, to enhancing staff capabilities, to diversity of their staff, to meeting students' educational goals more fundamentally through the technologies and the ecosystems that they are fostering. So naturally, it's a heavy weight. Right? And we're going to be getting more granular with this report to see where they're really honing in and saying, these are areas that we feel challenged, and priorities that we have, solutions that we need to craft as an ecosystem for the twenty twenty four-twenty twenty five school year. So with our conversation today, we're gonna pose how should k through twelve EdTech leaders strategically tackle this multitude of fronts? Right? They're getting hit from all angles, while still prioritizing that main goal of bringing useful integrated ed tech tools to both students and teachers, but also parents in the larger, k through twelve ecosystem. So join us as we unpack some of these specific takeaways from the show, and again, break down the priorities that are leading EdTech leaders' strategies for the upcoming twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five school year. Let's go ahead and introduce our panel and let the Experts Talk on Experts Talk. I'm pleased to welcome our four panelists. Hello to everyone. This is gonna be a stacked discussion with a lot of powerful perspectives. Let's go ahead and go down the line and give everyone a hello. We're joined by Lena Marie Saleh. She's the EdTech guru and a design educator at Canva. Lena, great to have you on. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me today. Absolutely. Welcome back. We're also joined by doctor Thomas Waite. He's president and CEO of k sixteen Solutions. Thomas, good to have you back. How you doing? Daniel, very good. Good to have the report out and good to be with you too, Terrordot. Yes. Let's do it. We're also joined by mister Ryan Lufkin, VP of global academic strategy for Instructure. Ryan, welcome to the show. How are you? Thanks, Daniel. Appreciate you having me. Looking forward to talking to to these smart folks. Yes. Absolutely. Yourself included. And last but not least, we're joined by mister JW Marshall. He's VP of marketing at Summit k twelve. JW, good to have you back, man. How are you doing? Great to be here again. Great to not be hosting, and and looking forward to, some fireworks here with all of our debate. Absolutely. Yeah. Hey. Look. Sometimes I'll take the responsibility off your shoulders and do the do the hosting job for you. Though you've got that nice you got a nicer mic than me today, so I don't know. You know, we're we're competing for host gig here today. Alright team. Let's jump in. Again, we're gonna be breaking down the Coasen EdTech report here, to get a pulse check on edtech leaders top priorities in twenty twenty four. Let's just clarify here for our audience first. When we talk about edtech leaders, you know, every district, depending on size and resources, has a different, you know, point man. Right? Different decision maker to really take on the responsibility of EdTech as an ecosystem for the whole district or for the school. Can you all clarify a little bit what that ecosystem looks like today? Right? Who is the EdTech leader of today, and what do they have to work with? Right? How established and mature is that as a department, or is it just an extension of IT? Right? How much investment is there to make the EdTech leader truly a leader sitting down at the table with other, you know, district leadership? Give us that pulse check for our audience to to get a better picture of who we're even talking about here. Yeah. Yeah. I jump in and say it's so wildly inconsistent across the country, across individual states. It's hard to actually put a put a label on that. Right? We see just a a, you know, a a terribly inconsistent level of, support and adoption and oversight, really from school to school, from district to district, that that that would be my perspective. Yeah. And so much of it depends on the size of the district. The smaller districts, it could be someone that wears seven other hats. A large district may have a huge team, or they may have a small team, and they may be understaffed. So it really varies district to district, if they're adequately staffed and how large that staff is, and if it's even someone's full time job. It really does, run the continuum. That's the key. It's usually not some most of the time, it's not someone's full time job. I'm exposed to hundreds of schools. Sometimes it's an off shoot of I a lot of times, it's an off shoot of IT. Frighteningly enough, sometimes it's the old school AV who work their way into this position who can't spell the word innovation that, ends up on top of this thing called education technology. Yeah. Definitely varies from district to district. And what's interesting is, you know, even, within the same city limits, it will look different for the structure. So I think a lot of times when people are ed tech ed tech on the ed tech side of the world, they don't really understand how it works in education, but it could be really just a teacher in the classroom in a very small district who's has this, responsibility, or it could be an IT professional who has no real understanding of education and how the education landscape works inside the classroom, to, you know, just an everyday paraprofessional could also be doing this, on their own time. So it's just an interesting landscape of how it, works within the scope of things. And I think what's also interesting is you talked about, like, what's the impact and what that kind of looks like in the classroom is I've been seeing rumblings of a lot of districts cutting now their IT or not IT, but, they're, like, ed tech, teachers, and now they're putting that stress onto the teachers themselves to kind of pick up this scope. So we're really seeing a big change in the leadership, positions and how that would look for twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five. Yeah. And to build on that point, we're seeing a lot of schools that implemented different technologies during COVID or or, during that, you know, two year, rush to to fully online learning. Actually, going back and looking at their technologies and their personnel, and because we've had the ESSER funds essentially dry up, looking at where do they cut. And, unfortunately, they're cutting a lot of the resources that support educators, and and be able to use the tool. I was a little surprised to see the study didn't have more, more points around, resources for educators, professional development for educators, training for educators around emerging, technologies, and a better usage of those technologies in the classroom. It's a good point. And I'll add my Yeah. JW, go. I was just gonna add my sympathies to the the ed tech leaders because it is a tough position to be in, where no one's ever happy. Right? Either we're not doing enough for to support our educators, we're too hands off, or we're doing too much and we're have too many constraints. And and now with AI, which we'll get into in other, areas, it it it is a tough position. Being an educator is a very tough position, but, equally tough. Some of these district roles, especially the ed tech leader for the district, and I think a lot of it comes down to the superintendent and the top leadership. What kind of emphasis, what kind of, resources, and what kind of focus do they put on the EdTech, stack on cybersecurity on these different topics and and support that leader or those leaders in the district. It's a tough job. So I wanna get that out of the way up front. Thank you to everyone in this role, everyone watching. You've got a tough job, and there's no one size fits all. So hopefully, we add some insights that, will help you today. Two. I would like Ryan makes a good point on on in the report, the where's the money being spent on the staff and the staff development for those that find themselves into these roles? Are they training? Are they meeting with with people, like, on this panel to understand where the cutting edge is of the work they have to do? But maybe maybe interestingly enough in the report, and I don't know if you can put this in the report, they I'll volunteer to help them on the report next year. Are do these decision makers have the power and authority to innovate? Are you putting bureaucrats into these positions where they're students and staff really feel they have the authority? So somewhere in there, Daniel and panel, is decision making, bureaucracy, because that's gonna that's gonna kinda cut through the it's gonna kinda cut through the crap, to use an academic word, on are you empowered to make some decisions? Because, usually, Ryan and others know on this panel when you speak to these people behind the scenes, a lot of them know what to do. And it's not always a matter of money, but authority, decision making, standing behind this decision because there's a lot of I just think it's a little bit sad, and there's a lot of CYA. You're afraid to make a mistake. You're afraid to make a cybersecurity mistake. I'm unpacking too much there, but I want it down to, do you have the authority to make a decision in this in these positions? I would love to see hear from a survey group, part of this report next year. That'd be great. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. And that's and that's a great point because like you've all just mentioned, a lot of our the EdTech leaders of today, probably found themselves in EdTech. Right? Either they were a teacher who Mhmm. You know, maybe just has a penchant for education technology, and it's just like, hey, you've been rewarded with more work and a new position. You're also the ed tech leader of the district. Enjoy. Or it's someone in IT who fundamentally understands the technology ecosystem, and maybe it's just like, hey, you know, we had a mass influx of these technologies during COVID. This is a necessity. You had to learn this, and now it's just kinda like, okay, now you just manage the ecosystem. And so, it's like you have disparate pieces of knowledge, but Yeah. Perhaps a lack of unity around, consolidating that knowledge around an action plan, and then again consolidating that knowledge and action plan around authority to execute on it, you know, when you actually go to the table and are working with district leadership. So, it's as much as, you know, this report is going to get into specific, like, cybersecurity challenges and, you know, digital equity challenges, I am curious y'all's thoughts though on that just more professional execution layer of this that is not present in the report. How does that context of just what tools EdTech leaders even have to work with today, how does that kinda color the conversation we're even gonna have today, and how effective or actionable these kinds of solutions or strategies we offer even can be? I'd love to hear other folks' perspectives, especially since everyone here works with these EdTech leaders directly, you know, where are their challenges in actually executing and and, I don't know, getting that gavel and really being able to smash it over some change. Well, I think both Thomas and and Lina alluded to this, but the education is such a unique industry. And if you don't come from education background, I don't think you fully understand the level of pedagogical knowledge and, concerns for academic freedom and these these different things we have to juggle to really deliver education in the classroom with technology. Right? And and I think we've we've gotten so tied up in the past in debates around, is it online learning? Is it hybrid learning? Is it high flex learning? And, really, we're kind of starting to say, look. Let's back it off and call it technology enhanced learning because all learning should be in technology enhanced learning in the twenty first century. Right? Students wanna access it on their phones. They wanna access it mobile, but they also have to be accessing good quality, teaching and learning materials. Right? And and to Lena's point, I think you've gotta have educators making the right decisions on those technologies, people with the right backgrounds. Otherwise, you know, you're getting technologies that aren't gonna be adopted. They're not gonna deliver the outcomes that you want with students. And and I think that's we're at a turning point right now where we're we're slimming those technologies back, but it is the time to make sure we're using the right technologies moving forward. And it is unfortunate. I've seen, you know, with the debate around AI, we see some people saying we're gonna step back. We're going medieval on them is a is a quote I've actually heard. We're going back to pencil and paper, and it it's the wrong answer, to address an emerging technology that throws new challenges. Ryan, I've heard that I've heard that twice. You and I have not talked. You and I have not had that talk. I've heard the medieval thing twice in two different states. I can't believe you brought that up. They let's let's agree right here for any EdTech leader listening. I'm sorry, Lena. I just jumped right in to w. Modality be damned. It's just learning, period. Whether we're just learning together, what I'm reading on a book, iPad, doesn't matter. It's just learning. So modality be damned. Damn good point, Ryan. I'm sorry, Elaine. I jumped all over. Well, and I was just gonna say a similar thing. I hopefully, we're moving past the debate of what's better online learning or in person learning. There's no right answer. Good online learning is good. Bad online learning is bad. Good in person learning is good, and there's plenty of bad in person learning. And so we gotta move past this duality of which is better and talk about for that district, for that school, for that teacher, for that student, what is gonna meet their needs that day. And it needs to be a hybrid approach. Right? There's no replacement for in per good in person instruction, coaching, tutoring, teaching. But the enhancements and the ability of AI and I see we're gonna talk about AI. Ninety ninety seven percent are is seeing the benefits in k twelve. Only three percent are banning AI. I think that's a massive step forward from some of the disruptive technologies of the past, like having a phone in the building, you know, and that was banned forever, then they embraced it. Now we may be shifting back towards less of a phone because we don't need it anymore. But I think it's encouraging to see some of these, numbers from the report. In AI specific, I think that represents the larger embrace that technology is part of the core now. It's not an ancillary that is, you know, just in a computer lab. Right? It is embedded. And now let's do the real work of figuring out what's the best way to teach with this with all the options and modalities that we have, like you said, Thomas. Yeah. Good point. And I and I think as as far as that goes, I think what we is disappointing and what we've talked about many times about this report is that it doesn't talk about how to actually embrace those types of technologies. And so that's where we see people going into the medieval approach, of stepping backwards because they are too overwhelmed and don't have enough time. Everyone is time poor and will always be time poor in education. But they don't have enough resources to actually support, leveraging the use of technology in any capacity, whether it be a phone, whether it be something old school. You know, a lot of the teachers don't embrace technology. I think we did see them doing it during COVID, and then we saw teachers, you know, kind of taking a step back to what was more comfortable for them. So I think I think what we have to do and what this report should really embrace is really how do we support that educator system to actually be able to embrace technology because technology isn't gonna go away. It's here. It's been here for ages. So going back to the medieval, times is not actually going to be beneficial for students in the longevity of their lives because what they're gonna see, when they graduate is way different than what we see today. And we've already seen AI advance so much in just a short amount of time, just thinking about ChatTPT and what it originally started with, you know, being on a wait list, being able to use it, to it being used every single day in every single technology that we see. We really need to do a better job of supporting them and how and how do we do that for a tech leaders of people of varying backgrounds. Yeah. And, Emily, I think that point's amazing because the the not being given, you know, that the that reaction of of we're gonna go admit it to a lot of really is a result of not being given the alternatives and being trained on what to do as an alternative. What are the alternate assessment paths? How do we, you know, teach students how to use it ethically? They're not being given those tools, and so that's they're falling back on what they know. So is this a matter of money, do we think? Is this money or decision authority and execution? I mean, I think it's mindset I think it's mindset first. It's mindset first, and then the money plays into that with the authority. But, really, it's and, again, I think it starts with the superintendent down the the school board. Right? They're setting the tone for, are we just gonna CYA, or are we gonna innovate or some come in somewhere in between? And and then I think that mindset is set at the top. And many districts, in a positive way, are embracing this. They're saying we're using this in our jobs. We're using this as administrators. We're trying to be more efficient and productive. Maybe we should not do the same old tired cycle of putting our head in the sand as long as we can until it's unavoidable. Let's hit this head on, and I I think there's some positive signs. Although, I I have I have sat in classrooms where or, in groups of educators and said, who thinks it's okay for educators to use this to build rubrics, to build lesson plans, to to do those kinds of things? And all the hands go up. Who thinks it's okay for students to use AI? And all those two hands sit down. Right? Like, there is a duality happening right now that it's okay for educators to use it. We don't think it's okay for, for students to use it. And they've they've gotta actually train students, right, on the right way to use it. I think the other piece too is IT for all of time and, eternity has had the perception that if we build it, they will come. I I can't in my twenty plus years, I can't, you know, even count the number of times that IT has rolled out technology without the right training in place thinking, oh, people will just use it when we roll it out, and it doesn't happen. And that's why I think I naturally went to, like, where's the training? Where's the professional development in this report? That's gotta be part of it. Otherwise, they're not gonna see success. Ryan, you know, our our companies work together, Ryan, and I I represent cutting edge technology, bleeding edge technology, which can make me the enemy, in a lot of schools, me, the company, because, you know, let's have some technology when we catch up to it, but we certainly don't want bleeding edge. Yet Ryan has spoken to thousands of schools. I I don't I don't know how many clients, customers, thousands. And you bring up a great point, which Steve Jobs would bring up, which is, you know, there's one quote where, well, we'll tell you what you need and why you need it. There's that way to put it. But the real essence of what he was saying is, how do you use it? How will you use it? So I would like to be with those students. And, JW, you're right about the the superintendent can set the tone for decision making authority to make these things happen. But how do the students and staff want to use it? So, Ryan, I think you hit on it. How is this going to be used? That's what we need to bring you. I don't want to create something in our laboratory and bring it because we think it's cool. I just wanna sit back. I wanna listen to the students and the staff because if we put our we put the students and staff in the center of our decision making circle, so to speak, and we don't go wrong when that happens. So, Ryan, very important point about how do they what do they want and how will they use it? And then let's bring that forward. It's a subtle point, but I think it's very good because often this technology, someone maybe at the district level or somewhere is making a decision on tech. Wow. Look at this, and it's a great price. We're gonna use this. Well Yep. We're we're seeing that right now with, yeah, we're seeing that right now with whole districts saying, oh, we're implementing, Microsoft Copilot. We didn't we weren't part of the decision. They're just pushing it out for that a couple of times in the last two weeks. Yeah. But I think that's what that's what happened during COVID is that educators finally got a seat at the table, and so they were pulling educator thing. Like, what do you want? How do you wanna use it? How do you wanna do all those things? And then as soon as we went back, they're like, bye. Sorry. Educators, you don't have a seat at the table. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the idea. Educators don't have a seat at the table, then that's when we see these technologies. So so IT leaders are like, yeah. That's a great price. I'm gonna embrace this technology. This is what I think is interesting. So they'll adopt a full school technology. And then they'll just be like, hey. We're gonna roll it out. But teachers are like, well, we never said we wanted this, and we are not interested actually in using that in any capacity. So then they go on to buy their own technology using their own budgets to buy certain things or even paying out of pocket. And so that's what we're kind of seeing as far as that goes. But I think also a big thing that we're not you know, there's a big elephant in the room, and that is that we're not we're not actually setting up EdTech leaders with as much success as we would like them to have. So even as companies, we're providing our own professional development. We're doing our own trainings. We're offering these things, but there's not, like, a unified approach. It depends on what the district values. And if the district values that, then that's when they're embracing and they're rolling out this technology. So we are seeing schools doing that. We're seeing big leaders making these, you know, really they are do they do want this bleeding edge technology. They do want their teachers to embrace it. But then if they are in, like, a rural society or maybe more low income, it doesn't sit within their values because their values are test prep and making sure that they have high scores and that sort of thing. So depending on the value, there's no unified, really systematic approach to really how do we help these EdTech leaders. Each company is offering that in silo. But there isn't something from the top like, you know, hey. Let's let's support these EdTech leaders in these spaces. It's kind of an opt in approach. So Lena or even JW then, do we need a report from and by the students, from and by the staff, and from and by or faculty, students, and staff? I wonder what that would bring to these Yeah. Strengths and parents. Yeah. Parents were a part of the table too, and now they're no longer having the prominence and the seat that they have at the table. You know? So I think, yeah, we we need all parties involved. And and I wanna touch on the professional learning again, the professional development. I think this is one of the biggest misses and biggest opportunities for EdTech companies, for districts to really step up our game. We expect teachers to be great, in the classroom, teaching their students, following the best research pedagogy, and we have high expectations for them. But the way that we deliver PD is not up with the times and not up with the technology either. We need more really, you know, concentrated microlearning courses or micro credentials to be able to keep up with this stuff. Right? We're expecting this in the classroom, but we're not modeling it. Right? We know that's the best way to teach. And just to look at the report again for the the respondents of this report, eighty five percent indicated they were extremely or very interested in, more professional learning for cybersecurity. That makes sense. That's a very high priority. Seventy eight percent IT crisis preparedness, which goes side by side with the cybersecurity if there's a breach. But then right one percent under that seventy seven percent deriving and sustaining k twelve innovation. And that, I think, is the heart of it. And so they want it, and we just as leadership in districts at the state level, the federal level, and the EdTech community, I think we have a big opportunity that we can step up our game with new and innovative professional development that's gonna land and not just the sit and get boring on another training day where I'm just gonna zone out. That's how our kids feel when they go to a classroom that's not AI enhanced or technology enhanced and they power down. We gotta do better. So, JW, they so, yes, on those stats, but then at the same time, what's the number one issue is budget constraints. So everything you're saying makes sense, but what do we tell them about budget? How how do we deploy this? Absolutely. And that's where I think they want it. They they need it, but the budget has to come and back to that mindset of the the leadership, state funding, federal funding. We've gotta fix this problem. Right? That we can't just go from more money than EdTech's ever had and tech schools have ever had, districts have ever had, to a massive fiscal cliff. We've gotta address that funding, source to be able to do the things that we want to do and we know we need to do. Let, Ryan and Lena and I and JW get into that budget. We'll find the money for the EdTech. We'll find the money. I think we we can figure that out. And then it it's interesting. The the twenty twenty four national educational technology plan really makes a lot of recommendations around moving from passive use of technology to active use of technology in the classroom, and it lays out some very bold, you know, challenges, some some some bold expectations that align better to the, you know, the funding we used to have than the funding we have moving forward. I think there's a little bit of a a schism there. Right? Like, we're not gonna give you as much money, but we really expect these high high level technology adoption in the classroom. So move forward. Right? But I but I do think and I saw it with my own kids during COVID. JW, I love your point about teachers no or, parents no longer being part of that decision making process. During COVID, we pulled parents in. We had a lot of information, you know, that we we were expected to support the kids in ways we've never done before. And now we're back in the classroom. And and, Lena, just to the point that, you know, educators had a voice, and now that's gone. Parents had a voice, and now that's gone. And I think that's that's unfortunate because I think a lot of parents really got used to being closer to their their students' learning experience, having information around how they were doing on a weekly basis, things like that that we just don't get anymore. And I think that's that's interesting from a from a parent side. I think that's that's unfortunate. I think we can we actually can work those groups back in for more, productive experience more productive, educational experience across the board. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. JW, I do wanna challenge you about microlearning because you say micro credentialing. So you're talking about how professional development needs to look differently. In your mind, how does it actually look different if we're just micro credentialing, for the most part, is just doing sit and get, online learning by yourself for the most part. So how do EdTech companies or how do district leaders really innovate to professional development? That's a great question. I appreciate and and I was thinking off the top of my head there, but, again, there's good micro credentialing and bad micro credentialing. Right? If it's just a, you know, a sixty minute webinar that you put into, five minute chunks that's essentially the same thing, then that's not innovating. That's not helping. I think it's distilling down what could be done in a day of traditional PD in, you know, ten, five minute, you know, micro credentials so that then you can bring people together and collaborate and discuss and have action plans. So it's smarter learning, smarter professional development, and using the tools that are available. Some of it asynchronous, some of it synchronous, some of it AI driven. But I think it's the fast cycle iteration of we are in this mindset too of, well, we'll create it once. It's a one and done. It'll give up covers for the year, and then we'll do it again. And this annual, you know, sometimes more than a year before we do, oh, we gotta update our training on HR policies every three years, five years. We need to be constantly creating new content that is timely and relevant and helping the administration, helping the teachers, and trickling down to the students. So I don't think there's a a one size fits all, and I don't have all the answers, but I do think we need to be more creative, more innovative, listening more. Right? Asking We asked students what they wanted to learn and how they were invested in the pandemic, and that really moved the dial towards getting to where we're meeting the students where they're at. We need to be asking teachers, IT professionals, tech leaders, what what do you need? And we're asking. And now it's not enough to to take the the survey and have a benchmark of here's what we wanna learn. And then a year from now, say, well, we moved the dial one percent forward. We gotta take this information, and we gotta act on it in fast cycle iterations. Yeah. Daniel, if you I'm gonna jump back in here. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I I just wanna jump back in here to sort of reframe, the discussion around AI. Not really to talk about AI, because I know we're all a little AI'd out, but to use it as an example for how this dynamic of, you know, a sort of struggle for executing, you know, on an an authority level, you know, budget concerns, but also the focus on what purpose is this technology actually serving in the classroom, using AI to sort of frame that up. So, okay, from the report, we saw forty nine percent of respondents said that there is a lack of teacher training for AI integration. Right? But, like JW said, ninety seven percent of EdTech leaders say that AI is going to have a positive impact on education, and so there's this overwhelming, adoption trend of AI with a vision for AI's role in the classroom. But then we get into all of these risks around, you know, twenty percent are saying we're going to launch solutions that are gonna try to check students' work for AI. There's this sort of question around how do you even teach around AI? How do you empower teachers and students to make best use of this technology? And it brings me back to my school days. I like that y'all brought up the phone policy thing. You know, I'm just thinking back on like how our phones would literally get snatched out of our hands when we were walking in the hallways when I was in high school, and that's it, your phone's done. You gotta go and see the, you know, the vice principal of your grade to get your phone back at the end of the day. Phones were blacklisted. Now they're fundamental pieces of technology for personalized education in the class so as the ecosystem understood what role could this actually play in the classroom, and how can we meet our communities where they're at and engage them in that way, then we started to see a different policy change, a different mindset, and more useful tools that take advantage of these technologies. So then when I think of AI, we think of, you know, how is this going to impact students' capacities to to learn? Are they going to lean on AI to do their work for them, and then we're we're, you know, not helping them actually acquire hard skills for, you know, reading comprehension, for investigation and research. And that brings me back to policies I remember from my high school days of, like our citations and our sources on our written material. You know, Wikipedia was blacklisted, but we were never encouraged to go to Wikipedia and find the primary sources on Wikipedia that were being referenced, dig in there, and then cite those. It was just kind of like if you even think Wikipedia when you're sitting down to do a research paper, you're a bad student. You failed. And so, a I could be seen in this similar light where if it's not intentionally brought into the classroom and the whole ecosystem doesn't see the way that it could be integrated into the learning experience. It could be either sort of hard censored or could be used for kitschy, kind of fun things, but how is it actually integrated in a productive way in the classroom? And so, that's all just context here. What I want to get y'all's thoughts on is when we look at AI as an example of this dynamic of new technology that the entire, you know, education ecosystem is kind of struggling to understand what's the best way to actually bring this into the classroom. What strategies and advice do you have for k through twelve leaders, for the districts at large, for ed tech leaders, to refocus and look at some of these new technologies for their primary purpose, which is, how do they integrate into the classroom, how do they literally better serve students to meet educational goals and to, you know, prepare them for professional careers, for life's challenges, whatever it might be. What strategies, what mindsets, you know, what what kind of conversations should we be having to align these, sort of disparate pressures around new technologies? I I have kind of a unique perspective because I have a I have a daughter who just finished her freshman year at the University of Utah. I have a son who's in seventh grade, both using Canvas. Right? So I look over their shoulder and, you know, look at what they're doing in the Canvas experience. But it it's so interesting because you talked to my daughter, and I I asked her about AI, and she said, oh, my professors built it into the process. Right? When we're writing papers, they say use it for, you know, putting words on paper. Use it for, summarizing large sum you know, complex concepts, things like that. Use it in these different ways, but they're building it into the process, and they're making students understand when to use it and when not to use it. And that's great because I think that's the right approach. The I've talked to my son who's in seventh grade, and he said I say, what what conversation are you having around AI? And he says, we're not. It's a cheating tool. They tell us not to use it. Right? And so your comparison to Wikipedia is so apt. I have a slide that I put up, when I talk a lot, and it it has the calculator and the Internet and Wikipedia. And all of these were viewed when they were released as the death of critical thinking. You know, and and still today, we walk around with phones that have all of the words information in our pockets, and we still need teachers and, learning guides. Right? Like, none of these have have eliminated the need for that. And Titan Partners actually came out with some great research the end of last year that showed kind of the traditional adoption curve and where educators fell versus students. And it's alarming how far behind, students' teachers are falling. And if they're not keeping up, if they're not exploring it, they're not able to teach students the right ways to use it. And I think we need to make sure that we kinda go back to the basics. I think we're we're talking at the you know, the report talks about this administrative level, and they've got great plans. They see great things, but they're not teaching educators the basics. And that same report said, educators who have actually played with the AI tools have a substantially more positive view of using them in the classroom than educators who haven't. Because when you just go play with chat g p t's public version, you start getting an understanding of what they're good at and what they're not good at, and then you're scared of them as cheating tools. You can start using them, in productive ways. Yeah. I think this is the scary thing, and the exciting thing is this is an opportunity to rethink everything the way we do all of it. Who who decided that you have to write all these papers in middle school or high school, and a teacher has to put them in their, backpack and take them home and grade all of them for days or longer and then come back. What job in the world does that? Right? Where you write papers for your boss all the time and they take them home and grade them and give you feedback. I'm not saying it's not important to learn how to write, but that seems like an outdated model that's really not affecting the vast majority of, you know, the education system anyways, but that's the one we wanna focus on. Students will cheat to write their papers. Well, maybe we need more oral exams. Maybe we need more, using TikTok video creation. I've heard a teacher in Texas that, didn't do a book report traditionally with the paper and they said, go make a one minute TikTok. You only have sixty seconds to explain this key concept of book. And she has never seen her students work harder that to synthesize that whole chapter of that book or that theme into one Probably more excited. More excited and they knew the their peers were gonna watch that. Right? And they were showing off. So be innovative. Be creative. This is the time to do it and you can go one way or the other. You can be really scared of it and put your head in the sand or you can embrace it and say this is an exciting opportunity for me as an educator to also reengage in new ways and learn with students and and be their guide. And so I think it's an incredible opportunity, and we just need more of those good stories to be told to inspire everyone else to to get on this bandwagon. It is, it's the basics. It's the fundamentals. Hate to bring in a sports analogy, but you look at the teams that that win. They win on fundamentals. And, Ryan Ryan, you hit it. So back to Daniel's question and JW, how do we do this? It's the fundamentals. You can use you could use Wikipedia if you understand what a primary source is. Do a lot of high school students or junior high understand what a primary source is? Or a secondary source if you're in a history class, English class, whatever it is. If you understand the fundamentals, then the power of what these large language learning models are bringing us in GTP, the generative models are bringing us. It has no limit. So there's a balance of fundamental discipline on understanding what learning is, how to learn, how to teach, and I know the faculty get this, and then bringing in this technology. You see in this report where there are three percent that wanna ban AI. Well, you're not gonna ban it. It's it's I I don't wanna say it's like burning a book, but ten years from now, I think we'll say it's like burning a book. You can't ban it. It's part of us now, and it's not going to go away. So, Ryan, you hit it. It's the fundamentals. Whether you're that college student or whether you're that high school student, if you understand the fundamentals of consuming education material, principally based the fundamentals of learning, and if you're teaching in that manner, all these tools simply make you better. So from an EdTech point of view and in the EdTech industry I'm in, selling into schools, do I wanna bring them a shiny new thing? No. I actually don't. I just wanna make what they have better. Yep. They have everything they need. They they for they have Canvas. They know what to do. Let's just make what they have better. So you can really cut through the clutter, Daniel, of whether they carry their phones around or not and just get down to the basics. Give them these tools. I know it sounds like platitude, but how many students understand a primary source? If you understand a primary source, then you know what tools you can use. You can understand how to interact with with GPT or Copilot or Claude and understand how to bring that knowledge forward. And by the way, when it comes to writing papers, JW, I was laughing when you said that because at this in this day and age, I have a board, and I have to do all this homework and submit all these papers. So maybe that never leaves you for life. But They need to rethink they need to rethink how they're doing that too. AI should be able to spit that out. If you're tracking things day to day, you should be able to hit a bug when they get the report. I agree. I also We don't keep finding new things, Lena. I think we need those fundamentals back. Clear the clutter out. So on on your note of sports, I do wanna say this. Teams that have really good fundamentals are also using AI and using technology to actually better their athletes. So Yes. Don't be fooled that it's just about fundamentals. It's actually about embracing technology because in baseball, right, you can see how fast something is going, but you can also see the direction. You can also analyze the pitches and how often they're coming, and that's what really good technology is happening. Any and there's a lot of math actually being used in sports and, you know, being able to, you know, find derivatives of things and how fast and how slow and, you know, all those The money ball concepts. Yeah. But a really good score Makes you money. Team is actually embracing technology and using it on a day to day basis to actually really dial down what an athlete needs to be their most productive self. And we can take that note from what sports just free. We're just embracing and utilizing, you know, all those types of things. But Right. Who cares who cares about that? What we care about is the technology and being able to support educators in the way that they need to, and they need to embrace it like Ryan, your daughter's, you know, teachers are doing and teaching the right way to use it. Because Wikipedia, you're right. When I was in college, they're like, don't use this. It's the worst thing ever. Well, I still use it. I just would use those primary sources that Daniel would say were in the notes and quote those as those, but I would just use Wikipedia because it was much easier and more synthesized information. And every single day, we're using AI everywhere. Now it's integrated in Facebook to fix your grammar, to make it more fun, to make it more formal. So it's not gonna it's just not gonna go away. We just have to be able to utilize it in the right way. And, JW, to your point about teachers needing to rethink things, the thing about it is teachers are comfortable. It's really uncomfortable to make a TikTok video. It's very uncomfortable because teachers don't know how to do it. But guess what? Students don't need you to hand hold them. K? They just need you to support them and to support the creativity that they do. They already have it. They're doing it every single day. I have a pond outside in the back, like a walking trail. And now that I've been just on maternity leave, and I see t I see students every single day walking around the lake and recording Tik Tok videos with their friends, and they're playing, they're planning, and they're motivating. They wanna do those things. What if they were doing the ecosystem out back and looking at the snakes or, I don't know, whatever they're doing back there Yeah. And utilizing that for their day to day learning. I can guarantee you students are gonna be more motivated, more excited, and that motivates everybody along the pipeline than just doing boring paper pencils. Sorry, Thomas, that you have to write your papers. That sounds quite boring to me still. You know? Put it out to me in a TikTok video, and I'm like, yeah. I wanna watch this. And that's the that's the alarming part about what people say. I'm gonna go medieval on them. I'm like, you're gonna have to write, you know, grade how many handwritten papers? That sounds terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds horrible. Yeah. Right. And I'll end on this. But yeah. I'll end on this. I just feel like we talked about sports, even business. So much time and energy is put into the fine margins to get that extra point or to win. And in education, I think the exciting thing is we have wide margins. We have so much impact that these implementing these new ways of thinking, these new technologies into the classroom can have on our students. That literally is life changing, for so many kids, if we just embrace it. You know, if we put this much time and money and effort into, sports, you know, technology innovation into business, man, if we put it and apply it into education, we can have massive, massive gains. And so I think that's the most exciting thing for me is that it's only three percent. That was probably ten percent last year that we're heading the stand. We're moving in the right direction, and we just gotta keep encouraging each other, encouraging our students, our parents, the whole community to get involved in embracing, these new ways of doing, school. And, and it's gonna pay off for everyone big time. So what I wanna what I wanna end things on here is, getting a final thought from everyone on the professional development side of things. This came up several times in the conversation. I think it is an important point, and part of that is an extension of staffing. So in the report, there was a whole section on just challenges and priorities around staffing. I want to hit on these real quick. So the inability to hire skills skilled, excuse me, staff was a top challenge second only to budget constraints. Edtech leaders feel they have the most capacity, is in installing the apps. Okay? Great. We can effectively put pen to paper and get a new solution launched. Great. Where they're saying they are least staffed, most understaffed, the worst amount of, professional support is in instructional support, remote support to students and families, and then actual integration of the, technology into the classroom. And so when we think about this from a wider lens of this job market that's always in flux, you're always hearing there's so many opportunities, but then, when you go to apply for jobs, you have to apply to three hundred to hear back from three. You know, it's, in the education space, there's a severe need for skilled professionals, but then you you even wonder how do you get those professionals trained up to where they need to be, to when they apply, they are seen as useful, they are seen as a positive addition and investment for the larger district, and so I'm curious y'all's final thoughts here on how to even approach this question of better staffing out EdTech teams. Do we need to be putting our energy towards professional development of IT or education professionals to push them into the edtech sphere, kind of like we do with, you know, educators that then become principals and school administrators? Or are we thinking about it wrong? Should we not even really be having, like, a key, fully staffed ed tech team, and should the professional development be more decentralized to empower each educator and node in the classroom to feel more individually empowered to make best use of EdTech and manage EdTech concerns, you know, for their classroom, for their students, for their school and district. What do we think? How do we even approach that? I'd love to hear from everyone here to close things out. To find the universe and give three three, examples. It wouldn't be a Daniel it wouldn't be an experience with Daniel without that last question that is just a snap. Ryan, we need to talk. Well, no. I I think, you know, to what Thomas said earlier, are we are you hiring these individuals into an environment where they're gonna be successful? And if you're not, if you're are you gonna be the IT guy that they that every time you walk into the room, everybody goes, you know, like or are you somebody that's like, hey. He's bringing us something new and innovative today, and we're gonna do that. Right? I think we have to make sure that we've got that cultural, piece in place in our schools where innovation is looked at as a positive thing, so let's embrace those folks. I think the other piece too, and it's to what Lina said, educators are time poor. And so a lot of within Canvas, a lot of the features AI powered features we're working on are the simple time saving things. Right? It can write quizzes for you. It can write, wrong quiz answers. It can do first pass at at grading and things like that that will save teachers a a huge amount of time that they they can actually now turn to say, okay. Now I've got five minutes to learn to do a a piece of microlearning. I've got a little more time in my day. That's something we're very focused on. So culturally and then from a, you know, a resource aspect, I think we can bring those things together to to give them a lot more time and a lot more make it less of a burden, I guess. I think also, Los Angeles Unified School District has done a really great job. Sofia Mendez and her team, they have, like, an IT, you know, educational leadership team. And what they've done and what they've been doing for years is they've built modules around the EdTech that they provide. So if they have a Canva, if they have a Canvas, if they have, you know, even, Summit, if they have whatever sort of technology tools that they have, they empower educators to actually create professional learning around it, and they have this huge repository of learning. So teachers can go. They're required everyone is required for professional development to renew your license anyway and to, you know, increase in salary steps or whatever that states looks like. But being able to build that is really, really helpful. So I think those ed tech that ed tech team should be building some sort of training resources or providing, you know, office hours, like, you know, that sort of a thing to be able to empower the educators because we are never gonna be able to keep up with the technology anyway. Edtech leaders aren't going to. So leverage your community of teachers who already are empowered and learning those types be able to be able to choose sort of what they feel is the most impactful for them and for the learning rather than a one size fits all, approach. Love it. And and, Lina, that was a perfect example of what I was trying to say earlier. Innovating, building modules, library, you you really helped me out there. I think last two things. One, the IT and the tech leader position has really changed in the last ten to fifteen years. I feel like ten to fifteen years ago, they were on the cutting edge. Online learning was new. Curriculum teams weren't even really looking at it. They were bringing solutions, and they were the heroes in a lot of cases. And over time, they've become the ones that everyone else thinks they know what they want, and I just need you to make it work, make it happen. And they've become more of an order taker and a, oh my gosh. I have an impossible task. All these different conflicting views, and how do I make it all work? So I think that, has not put the position in the best place. And before before we can talk about better training those, folks, I think we need to take a step back and say, how do we better recruit? Because working at a school district as a really smart, young, graduate, with Do they wanna work for a district Do they wanna work for a district, or they wanna work in in private sector? And so we really the funding needs to come to get the best and brightest into our districts, even in the state level, you know, and and government positions to help build this infrastructure. And I think we really need to do some soul searching on putting the the priority and the money behind it at all levels that we need to start finding the best and brightest and making this, really critical, position in districts more attractive. And so I think a lot of our conversation has been around how do we do that. And I think that is a is a good takeaway from this is let's keep that conversation going, and let's keep driving that forward. Yeah. I'll just I'll I'll close my comments on on the on culture. Culture will trump strategy. So is your culture one of bureaucracy? Can you make a decision? I I just here's where some districts or some people contact me afterwards and say, you don't know what you're talking about, which is fine. I'm used to some of that. But do you have a culture of innovation? And they're not words. It's it's not do you foster innovation? What do you mean by that? I'm gonna make a mistake. Are you allowed to make a mistake, or do you need to always be looking over your shoulder and worried about the mistakes you make in today's environment where everything's so public. If you step out of line, if you say the wrong thing. Until we kinda shift that culture for these district leaders, for these leaders in the schools themselves. And it really starts up top. What culture are they putting into place? So from a point of view of what I wanna sit there and tell them is it's not really about your budget. First of all, let me out their budget. I'll find the money, number one. Number two, foster innovation. What does what does that really mean? No ego. No no degrees. Don't impress anyone. No ego. That that culture will allow you to make mistakes. If you can make mistakes, you're gonna learn. I I would have the students together. I would have the staff together. I would have as many district leaders together. Not in the point of view of wrapping yourself around the tree and singing Kumbaya because that's gonna bring us the answer. Just setting the table, make some mistakes. You don't have to impress me, but let's let's use what we have and make it work better. That's all we need to do. I I know it sounds simple, and that's where it goes back to the fundamentals. And I don't mean fundamentals replacing technology. I mean, if you if you if you have Tiger Woods' swing Mhmm. And if you analyze it, you're gonna make it better. So AI does make everything you're doing better. And I'll just close with that and say it one more time. Foster innovation, which means be allowed to make mistakes. Try things. And for those district people at the schools listening now, don't ask permission. Go for forgiveness later and pilot experiment. It'll work. It's there. It is all there for you. These these students deserve more, and it's right there for them. And the staff deserves more too. That's great. And I think on that note, we'll go ahead and wrap things up. Folks, thank you so much for your analysis today. This was an incredibly productive roundtable. I appreciate you all really diving into not just the numbers and specifics of the report, but really what my goal for this conversation was, to use the report as a, a lily pad to bounce off and to Yeah. Get get real about some of the challenges that EdTech leaders face today, and how we should be just really reframing our entire approach to everything from technology integration, to professional development, to arming our educators and their EdTech leadership colleagues to make an impact that is putting students and teachers first. Right? That remembers the fundamentals to make sure that, hey, if we're talking EdTech strategy, it needs to be in service of learning outcomes, need to be in service of the students, and it needs to be in service of building a culture that fosters innovation, and that keeps education relevant. You know, in an age where everyone's sort of discussing, should I even be getting a college degree? How useful is this for me right now? Maybe I should just go learn how to be an HVAC technician because that's gonna pay me twice as much for a stable job. Hey, I'm I'm big on skilled trades, so no dis there or anything. But, you know, maybe it says something about the quality of our education if it's not keeping up to pace with what people really need, feel empowered to enter the real world. So it's a timely discussion, and that in and of itself is probably a follow-up discussion. Yeah. We could think it'd be a whole other episode there now. I know. I'm planting seeds in my own brain for the next one. So thanks to the four of you. This has been great. Again, folks, we've been hearing from Lena Marie Saleh, the EdTech guru and a design educator at Canva, doctor Thomas Waite, president and CEO of k sixteen solutions, Ryan Lufkin, VP of global academic strategy at Instructure, and J. W. Marshall, VP of marketing at Summit k twelve. Lena, Thomas, Ryan, and JW, thank you to the four of you. I'm looking forward to the next one. Y'all rock. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Daniel. Great conversation. Thank you, everybody. And thank you everyone for tuning in to today's episode of Experts Talk. If you like what you heard and saw today and you wanna tap into not only previous episodes, but future conversations, make sure you head to market scale dot com. You can find clips from the show as well as the full round tables. We've covered everything from EdTech, to retail, to AI, I mean, yeah, well, obviously AI, we're a little AI ed out here, but we've covered basically every topic. You can find the thought leaders, you can find the insights and get actionable with it. And hey, if you yourself want to sit sit down on an Experts Talk, hit me up on LinkedIn, or shoot me an email, daniel. Lytwinmarketscale dot com. Give yourself a little pitch my way, and who knows, you may just find yourself in the experts talk hot seat. Alright, that wraps us up for the week. Happy Thursday. Thank you everyone for joining us. I'm your host, Daniel Litwin, the voice of b two b, and we'll be back next week with more episodes of Experts Talk.