September 30, 2025 • 30 mins
Ever wonder why some schools thrive with new tech while others drown in apps? We sit down with Mark Anderson—educator, author, and longtime edtech leader—to unpack what actually moves the needle: student voice, ethical AI literacy, and clear frameworks that save time without sacrificing judgment. From a 1:1 iPad rollout that focused on pedagogy and family trust to a nationwide student digital leaders network, Mark shares stories that prove culture and purpose beat gadgets every time.
We dig into the heart of AI in education: how to prompt better, how to spot bias, and how to keep learning at the center. Mark explains why novices risk “de‑skilling” if they over‑outsource, and how experts “ride the machines” to become even more effective. You’ll learn the STAIRS prompt method for clarity and quality, plus a practical simulate–analyze–refine workflow that pressure‑tests lesson plans before they hit the classroom. Along the way, we explore representation gaps in AI outputs, the environmental cost of models, and why authentic audiences push students from “good enough” to genuinely great.
If you care about critical thinking, adaptability, and metacognition, this conversation gives you tools you can use tomorrow. We lean on TPACK to decide when not to use tech, and we reframe hype with a simple compass: so what → so that. So what a tool can do X; so that teachers reclaim time for feedback, students see themselves in the work, and learning actually improves. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who’s wrestling with AI, and leave a review to tell us which strategy you’ll try first.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris (00:13):
Another episode of Shift Ed Podcast coming at you.
We're uh we're joining you herein our new uh 2025-2026 school
year.
And I'm bringing again, I youknow all my guests, you uh my
listeners, sorry, love to uhhave when I have people come
over from the overseas, and Ihave Mark Anderson, the IC
(00:34):
evangelist tech, who is comingin to talk to us a little bit
about getting our mindsetsaround all this tech that we
have surrounded by us and how wecan leverage it to actually get
kids engaged and excited aboutlearning.
We know it's not an easy task,but Mark is gonna come and share
some of his amazing knowledgeand and just Mark is is uh an
(00:56):
author, blogger, an educator,you know, a thinker.
So he dabbles in modern daytechnology, what's going on.
He's got a great finger on thepulse of what's happening in the
ICT world.
So, Mark, thanks so much forhopping on here with me today.
It's a real pleasure having youwith us today.
Thank you so much, Chris.
Mark (01:18):
And I feel like I should put on a podcast voice.
So hi, welcome.
You're making me sound justlike some funny bloke from from
England right now.
It's it's um it's delightful tobe with you, and thank you for
the opportunity to come andshare.
I love sharing.
I got into teaching to helppeople, you know, make a
difference, have an impact inthe world, make my dent, as it
(01:39):
were, in the universe.
And so any opportunity to sharelike this is always gratefully
received.
So thanks so much for havingme, and thank you to all of you
for listening.
Thank you.
Chris (01:49):
So, Mark, let's get let's start off with I always ask
this question to kind of likesituate the guest and where
they're at and what they've kindof gone through to get to this
point that we're at today.
What are some of theexperiences that you'll never
forget that helped kind of shiftthe direction that you were
taking?
(02:09):
I mean, you started off as aschool teacher and then evolu,
you know, you evolved andevolved.
What were some of those momentsthat you experienced throughout
your career so far that reallyinfluenced the direction of
where you are today?
Mark (02:24):
I think you know, looking back with a land with a lens of
of you know, being just over 50shh years old, I I think back,
and I think about my mum andawful lot as well, right?
With these sort of things, youknow, she she's you know in her
mid-70s, and I think you know,if she's born in 1949, think
about the you know differenttypes of technology she's had to
get to grips with, you know,and as she she's seen during her
(02:47):
her lifetime, you know, wherescience fiction has become
science fact.
And I see I think back to mytime during the sort of you
know, late 70s, early 80s, intothe noughties, and things I'd
see on television like Star TrekNext Generation and like you
know, the the the characters onthere uh holding like these
thin, wafer thin like pad, likethey were called pads, right?
(03:10):
You know, and I'd I'd see thesethings in their hands, you
know, and I'd be like, my god'samazing.
Meanwhile, I was using a game,you know, gaming console which
would load from a cassette,right?
You know, so that that's thecomparison from where I was
then.
Right.
And you know, I'd think tomyself, like, never in my
lifetime would I see technologylike this, it's just so amazing,
and yet here we are.
And so you asked, you know,about what's you know, has been
(03:32):
some sort of pivotal points forme.
And the iPad was was one ofthose moments.
So in 2011, when the iPad wasreleased, we started a little
research project in my school,looking at how it might be
helpful for teaching andlearning, and just part of that
teaching and learning toolkit.
So, not like the de factocomputer for a computer room,
but just like you have a ruleror a compass or a pencil in your
(03:54):
you know analog sort oflearning toolkit.
So, so having something likethat would be really good.
And it and it worked out reallywell.
So in 2012, we rolled out to1,400 students in our school,
from age 11 to 18.
And the impact of that with afocus not on the technology, but
on how we can support teachersto help them with their
(04:16):
learning, reduce their workload,help children with their
learning, improve pupil andparental engagement, all of that
sort of thing.
That that was a really sort ofbig thing for me.
And I was already doing a fewthings.
I went to some conferences andheard about people, you know,
people, some brilliant peoplesort of sharing about the impact
of blogging and all this thing.
(04:36):
So I was I was I was sharing myjourney and sharing the things
that weren't working at ourschool because you know, words
like M or phrases like MDM thesedays are you know just de
rigueur, right?
These weren't and the thingsexisted really for devices like
an iPad back in 2012.
So it taught me an awful lotabout the importance of what
happens between the i betweenthe device and the chair.
(04:58):
Because getting the technologyright isn't that isn't that hard
really in the scheme of things,but bringing people on board
with it and making that workboth for educators, for leaders,
for parents, for children, youknow, who parents very quickly
got concerned about how muchtime their children were on that
device, so how you manage wedidn't call it screen time, we
called it etiquette with thedevice, you know, when it when
(05:21):
it's right to, when it's not to,all these sorts of things.
And so that was a reallypivotal thing.
And taking on board studentvoice as well was another big
landmark thing for me.
I started a thing, I'd learnedabout it from the US, and uh a
few educators who were sharingon Twitter, as it was at the
time, about what they weredoing, um, had student digital
(05:43):
leader groups, and these werestudents, you know, pupils, uh,
young young people who werereally interested in technology,
often didn't fit into that moldof being uh, you know, in the
on the sports team and all thosedifferent things, but would
would would really rise to thechallenge of of working and
helping around all thingstechnology.
So we started a student digitalleader group at my school,
(06:04):
which over the course of threeyears went from like three
students up to 50.
We had loads of them.
And and they would join us onon staff PD days, you know, so
they would learn about how touse the tools.
They came to our strategymeetings and would tell us about
what tools they felt besthelped them learn.
Right, you know, you know, theythey would they were saying,
Well, we we'd like to make anapp.
One of my pupils became one ofthe um sort of youngest app
(06:27):
developers in in the world,ended up speaking Apple events
around the UK and they went overto Cupertino for one of the big
Apple launches.
You know, really, reallyamazing stuff.
And people say all these lovelythings about it, but it was
just about listening to thestudents and giving them that
opportunity, taking on boardtheir voice, you know, and and
and allowing them to do that.
And that led to a a UK-widestudent digital network where
(06:51):
any school that wanted to getinvolved could come on board and
get involved.
But you used to have a weeklyTwitter chat to get together and
share wins and ideas.
We'd have like nationalconferences, all this sort of
thing.
Those are just I mean, I I canshare lots of little stories
like that, but it it's aboutgiving others that opportunity
to grow, I think.
Chris (07:08):
I love that idea too, the iPad, because I remember too.
I mean, I think we've we'relike brothers from a different
mother in the sense that yourpath is what I did as well.
So I started at a one-on-oneiPad school, you know, trying to
leverage it to get kids moreengaged in their learning.
And what you said really stuckout was that once they had the
(07:28):
iPad, they started to developvoice, but getting it out in the
world was really powerful, andthat's where social media came
in.
And and you touched on thatsocial media point.
Do you find that students, oncethey started to harness the
power of social media, startedto engage them more in learning
(07:49):
and and in school when they wereallowed to use it as a part of
what they were learning?
Mark (07:54):
Definitely 100%.
You know, when when there's aquote from someone and I forget
his name now, it's quite a f Imight come back to it and oh,
I'm after Google it.
Um but he he said in his whenwhen you you know ask a student
to you know speak to you, thatthey'll tell you what you want
to know, sort of thing.
But when they tell it to theworld, you know, they'll they'll
(08:14):
they'll do it significantlybetter.
I've it was much more eloquentthan how I've shared it there.
But when you when students knowthey've got a much wider
audience, you know, then then itbecomes exceedingly real for
them, you know.
Yeah, what was I I think it waswhen they when they have to do
work for you, they'll make itgood enough, right?
As in good enough to just getthe passing grade or whatever.
(08:35):
But when you have to whenyou've got a much bigger
audience, they'll want to makeit really good.
Right.
And so, yeah, and we've seentools, you know, various ed tech
tools like Pobble, for example,they want to help young people
make a writing exit uhexceedingly excitable and and
and and uh incredibly umbrilliant writing.
Yeah, and yeah, the idea isthat they write and then they
(08:58):
publicly blog it and having andthe networks then feedback on
each other.
So they know they got anaudience that's actually gonna
give feedback on it.
We're seeing similar thingsrecently as well, like with some
of these brilliant AI tools,whereby there's one tool I met
with them this morning aboutsome new work they've been doing
on their tool, actually, acompany called Olex here in the
(09:20):
UK.
And based upon the quality ofyoung people's writing, it
generates an image using whatthey call their imaginator.
And obviously, the morecomplicated, the more detailed,
the more rich they're writing intheir stories and the work that
they do, the better the output.
It's a garbage in, garbage outapproach, isn't it, right?
Right, right.
And so the more that theyactually put into what they're
(09:41):
writing, the better the output.
And then that again is a realmotivator for young people to
improve their writing andimprove what it is that they're
doing so that you get thatbetter output.
Chris (09:50):
But yeah, yeah, right.
And and kind of like talkingabout AI, I mean, since
November, what is it, 2022?
I mean, it's just been ineducation anyway, on like there,
like talking workshops and howdoes it work and training and
what do you find the greatestasset right now is with AI for
(10:10):
teachers when they're using itin their profession?
Are there are there things thatwe didn't see back in November
2022 that we're starting tounderstand where the power lies
with the AI for educators?
Mark (10:25):
It's interesting because you know, there's always your
early adopters and things.
I heard a statistic just thislast week, Chris, where they
were saying that in terms ofindustries, education is the
industry which uses AI the most,which is just phenomenal to
hear and really good because youknow there have been a few
times.
I don't know if you've gotkids, Chris, but mine certainly
set through that hole.
Are we nearly there yet?
(10:46):
On long journeys.
I've felt like that with EdTech over the past few decades,
you know.
And and the pace of adoptionand change with AI has been
phenomenal.
What I am seeing is I talk alot in my work around desire
lines, in the idea, which is theidea that you want to get from
A to B as quickly as possible.
Okay.
And for teachers, that's oftenabout reducing workload, being
(11:10):
able to give feedback to youngpeople as quickly as possible,
all of those sorts of things.
And there's been a bit ofpushback in the educated
community because learning isn'teasy and it requires a
struggle.
And so, if like my childrenwere when they first started
using AI, it was taking aphotograph of the question and
then saying, What's the answer?
and just going, there's nolearning taking place there at
(11:31):
all.
That's just ticking a box,right?
So AI literacy is super, superimportant.
But I think I think it'stwofold, really.
I think teachers have becomebetter at writing prompts.
I think the AI's gotten betterat recognizing what it needs to
do and bringing that through.
But what is really powerful iseducators and young people.
(11:51):
There's a brilliant report bythe Alan Turing Institute,
sponsored by Lego, and in therethey're talking about bias and
ethics.
All right.
So teachers are starting torealize now that a lot of the
outputs are influenced by bias.
And so they're becoming moresavvy to the ways in which they
can mitigate that with theprompts that they write and
(12:12):
within the tools that they'reusing, right?
What's really interesting aswell, though, is that you know,
particularly young people ofcolour, and in in the report
from that Alan Shering InstituteI mentioned, and I can give you
the link to share in the shownotes afterwards, right?
Yeah, then but young people ofcolour are gravitating away from
wanting to use AI because, andI think this is pretty much
quotable this bit, they don'tsee themselves represented in
(12:36):
the outputs.
Interesting.
And that's you know, fromwhether you're using VO3 with
video, whether that's you know,Mid Journey or DALI or whatever,
you know, any of those sort ofthings.
Uh it's it's reallyinteresting.
I've been reworking recently aswell with the BBC, and you
might have heard of we havethese um video series for young
(12:57):
people called BBC Bite Size,yes, across a whole wide load of
topics.
And I've just been I've beenworking with them as their lead
consultants, producing AIliteracy videos.
And again, that there's there'sa lot of misconceptions around
energy usage and those sort ofthings.
Right.
But what's been really good inin the sort of the research and
field work I've been doing tobring forward ideas about what
(13:19):
what matters to young people,they're b they are more
increasingly you know discerningusers, which is lovely because
we know metacognition andself-regulation is super, super
important.
It's great to know that youngpeople are really keen to use
this technology properly andbeing mindful of you know the
environmental impact of usingit, being mindful of the the
(13:43):
scraping behind it, you know.
Chris (13:45):
I can talk about this stuff for ages, so I'll find in
the air for a second, but it'sloads in the end too, like we're
training the future users ofAI, and I mean who knows what's
gonna what it's gonna be, youknow, yeah 20 years down the
road.
But I I I love what you'resaying that we need to not only
just train them about how to useit, but how to use it
(14:07):
ethically, because it is biasedI totally see that.
I mean, there's been so manystudies about it that that that
it's biased you know, you haveto somebody told me 8020, right?
Like AI can do about 80% ofwhat you want it to do, like
administratively or like lessonplan wisey, but the 20% is on
(14:27):
still on on the teacher to vetit, to edit it, to make sure
that it's represented accuratelyin in what it's saying.
Which kind of brings me to thisquestion to you Where do you
think we need to go as teacherslooking down those 20 years from
(14:48):
now?
How do we get these kids readyfor something that's so hard for
us to imagine what it will belike down the road?
And I know we've had theseconversations in education since
the dawn of education, youknow, how do we prepare kids for
a future that we're not awareof?
I think AI throws more of morestuff into the soup that we're
(15:10):
making for that future.
How do you see it?
How do you what are some tipsor tricks that you give to
teachers that through the lensof preparing our future
generations for that future withthis technology that we know is
going nowhere?
How do you speak to that to toteachers or administrators or
you know people in theeducational sphere to to a
(15:33):
question like that?
Mark (15:36):
That's a really good question.
At a leadership level, right?
I'll talk about you but you'reprobably aware of Dylan Willem,
John Hattie, a guy called AaronHamilton, the three of them
wrote a great paper about 13risks to do with AI and things
we can do to mitigate that risk.
To that effect.
Again, I can share a link tothat.
Totally.
It's really good reading.
(15:56):
And one of the things they talkabout in there is the impact of
a novice educator using AI,okay, versus an expert educator
using AI.
And what they say is that youknow, a novice educator doesn't
really have at their earlycareer sort of status the depth
of knowledge, domains ofknowledge to be able to
(16:18):
interrogate the outputsufficiently so that when the AI
inevitably gets somethingwrong, you know, you talk about
Pareto's role 8020.
Personally, I talk more about7030 or 6040, actually.
Although it's gettingincreasingly better, right, as
we get closer to AGI, right?
It's getting better and better.
But if novice educators don'thave that domain of knowledge,
(16:42):
they're going to de-skillthemselves over time.
As we outsource more and moreof our sort of resource
creation, lesson planning, allthose things to AI.
What Dylan Willem, John Hassie,and Aaron Hamilton say in this
paper is that they become likenovice minus over time.
They de-skill themselvesbecause they don't have the the
(17:02):
domain knowledge to you knowcheck the outputs properly.
And I and I can see it myselfwhen I first started teaching,
you know, I'd finished my schoolweek, I want to in the end of
the week, I want to do I do mymarking, do my prep, and I want
to get out as early as possible.
I can see why you'd want you'dwant to get that done as quickly
as possible, right?
But what they also then say isthat experts will get even
better, they can interrogate theoutputs and they can extend
(17:24):
them even further, and they movefrom being not just expert
teachers to what they call elitebecause they're doing what they
call riding the machines.
Okay.
So with that sort of lens, itstands to reason that
conversation is important.
So so many educators, you know,we we talked about this a
little bit off air before westarted to recording, right?
(17:45):
Many educators see using AI asbeing something where you might
be cheating, you know.
But actually, you know, you'rebeing smart, you're you're
you're you're it's what it is tobe a modern educator to use the
right tools at the right time.
But as you're new to something,you know, a professional, you
know, try and use some relatablesporting terms like a
quarterback or a racing cardriver doesn't start in a
(18:08):
Ferrari straight away, you know,you you build yourself up to
the the big game, Ferrari.
You don't you don't you don'tstart at the top end, you you
build yourself up to it.
So, what can you as a leader doto support your colleagues who
are earlier in their career tohave those conversations?
How do you quality assure thoseoutputs?
How do you make sure thatyou're giving them the right
(18:28):
facets and tools and andeverything else so that they can
become better, so that they canride the machines themselves
too?
And I think that that thinkingapplies really well to young
people too, because it's notjust about how to use the tools,
it's about you know, we wetalked about the iPad stuff back
in 2012, 2013, whatnot, Chris.
(18:49):
Right?
I was always just as happy towalk into a classroom and see a
teacher not using technology asI was to see a teacher using
technology when they couldexplain the pedagogy and the
thinking behind it.
One of my favorite models forlearning is T Pak, and and you
know, if you if if in 2025 youdon't know T Pak, then do some
research.
But you know, it's aboutcombining your pedagogical
(19:11):
knowledge, your contentknowledge, along with your
technological knowledge, andit's not about using tech all
the time, you know all thesethings, but I'll I'll share this
for listeners.
That sweet spot in the middleof that three-way ven is about
knowing when it's right to ornot to use technology, and and
the the the writers of this guy,Misha, and I forget his name
now.
Terrible, old age.
(19:33):
Yeah, good teaching andlearning is about using knowing
when to or not to usetechnology, open bracket because
sometimes that's the rightreason, close bracket, right?
And so in one of the one of thethings in my book, and I'm sure
we'll come on to this later, inthere, the five C's, one of the
C's in there is cognizance.
(19:53):
After you've got yourconfidence and your competence,
it you know, competence, you canuse the stuff, competence, you
know how to use it and you'reusing it well, and it's
cognizance about when to or notto use those tools.
Because going on to the AIthing, back to the AI thing,
Chris.
You know, sometimes using AIcan be a bit like using a
sledgehammer to tup in a nail,can it?
You know, so giving our givingour young people the the skills
(20:17):
to to be able to use thesetools, know when to use them,
when not to use them, I think isreally, really important.
I also think it's really,really important thinking about
some of the outputs fromorganizations like the World
Economic Forum, where they'retalking about that sort of
future skills around criticalthinking, adaptability,
resilience, the growth mindsetstuff, problem solving, you
(20:37):
know.
We can talk about it.
Chris (20:42):
Right?
Like merging those two togetheris is key.
Mark (20:47):
It absolutely is.
And if you think about how theexperts become elite, it's about
by going, but it's aboutcalling out the AI and saying
you're wrong, you know.
And in my demonstrations, Italk about, you know, back
along, you might have seen this.
It used to be the case that ifyou'd asked ChatGPT how many R's
there are in Strawberry, right?
It would tell you the wrongnumber.
And and no matter how manytimes you went back and said,
(21:08):
listen, mate, there's there'sthere's three R's in Strawberry.
No, no, no, there's two.
Look at it, yeah, it doesn'tmatter how you told it.
And they fixed that problem.
And uh I went back because Iwhenever I would present that
sort of thing at events andthings, Chris.
I'd uh before I went in, I'dalways check it to make sure it
still actually worked.
And then I was doing an eventabout six months ago, right?
And it said, Don't worry, no,we we fixed it, we fixed that,
(21:30):
we fixed the otherhallucinations.
This was Chat GPT, we we fixedthis, we fixed the other.
I was like, this is brilliant.
I said, What have you fixed?
Well, we fixed loads of theseanomalies where you know that we
say that there's you know threeR's in strawberry when there's
two, and uh that there's threeN's in banana when there's two,
and I'm like, hang on, therearen't two N's in banana, so it
(21:51):
still gets things wrong, and sothat and that ability to be
inquisitive and to call out thethe hallucinations that come
through, and you know, you'dyou'd hope that educators, you
know, in their within theircontent knowledge alongside
their pedagogy would know anawful lot, but you you need to
be able to call this stuff out,don't you?
And so helping educators andyoung people better do that
(22:12):
helps them and promotes thosecritical thinking skills,
doesn't it?
Chris (22:16):
Totally, totally.
Well, and you have a reallygood publication that you put
out not too long ago about tipson creating prompts for
teachers.
Practical a practical guide forteachers on on effective
prompts when they're using AI.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat, Mark?
Mark (22:33):
Yeah, of course I can.
Yeah, absolutely.
What I did, I've released abunch of free um little guides.
Um, if you go to my website, umthey're all on there, they're
also on my profile on LinkedInand and what have you.
There's no gateway to fill youremail address in.
I'm not gonna start spammingyou with X, Y's, or Z.
Yeah.
Probably the worst businessmanin the world, to be honest,
Chris.
But um, you know, each of themhas an introduction which talks
(22:56):
through what a prompt is, orwhat a good one looks like, a
prompting strategy, which I callmy stare approach.
And I'll talk about that injust a moment.
And there's a book foreducators, there's a book which
covers sort of 14 or sodifferent subject areas, and
within each subject area,there's sort of for 15 prompts
across different domains of sortof teacher resource creation
(23:16):
activity from lesson planning tokeyword charts to whatever.
Super cool.
I've got I've got one formiddle leaders as well, and one
for for senior leaders as well.
Cool.
And in there is that stairapproach, like I mentioned,
S-T-A-I-R.
And what I share in therearound that, and then you get a
level of detail for a goodprompt from looking at the
(23:37):
prompt examples throughout thebook as well.
And and just to say, other youknow, libraries like this are
available.
Ethan Mollick, for example, hasgot some amazing prompts in his
libraries that he's got aswell.
But my stare approach asks youfirst of all to be really
specific with a prompt that yougive.
So, and that's about thelanguage you use.
(23:58):
I'm sure, like me, Chris, youknow, you've written a prompt,
it produces the output, youthink, oh, I forgot to put this
in.
Or I didn't phrase that quitethe right way.
I said make something, and Iand I I meant it, I wanted it to
be portrait, and it's come atlandscape, and oh, I meant yeah.
So be really specific aboutwhat you do and tell it in
minutiae what it is that youwant it to do as well, which is
the T of stare.
(24:19):
Okay.
The A is to make thingsactionable.
Okay, so don't just give it onething.
If you're creating a lessonresource, don't just ask for the
lesson plan, ask for thekeyword cards, ask for any
adaptations you want, any anylow-stakes quizzes that you want
to download as a as an Excelfile to put into Microsoft Forms
or whatever tool you're using,you know, really get into the
(24:40):
nitty-gritty.
Be prepared, which is the I ofstare to iterate.
It's not gonna get it rightfirst time.
So make sure that you you goback and and you know work with
it.
There is a there is there is animportant um sort of health and
safety warning around theiteration thing, right?
If you're looking for a perfectoutput, then you're gonna be
(25:01):
sat in front of your your laptopor your device for for quite
some time.
You we talked about the sort of80-20, I went a little bit
lower than that, but if you tryand get it to it doing 100% of
it, getting it absolutelyperfect, there becomes that
tipping point where you becomeless productive, yeah.
I I think it's it's it's goodto have that sort of mindset um
(25:21):
and and just be mindful aboutwhen it's time to you know take
your winnings and run.
Yeah, right.
I felt that at times actually,Mark.
Yes.
That that tension, right?
Yeah, so don't be afraid to Iremember like I was creating an
image and just wouldn't get aword right on the image, and I
spent another 20 minutes tryingto get it to put an output with
the correct word on the image.
When the reality is I couldhave taken that image, popped it
(25:43):
in PowerPoint, and just put theword on myself manually, right?
I mean, yeah, which would havebeen the quicker output to to
success.
The final part of the staresort of prompt guide thing is
the is the R.
And that's about giving theprompt a role.
AI tends to, if you say, youknow, you're if you're if you're
(26:04):
a physics teacher and you'reteaching a physics class, and
say, you know, you're workingand supporting a physics
teacher, you are a physicsexpert yourself with 20 years'
experience of teaching andlearning in the classroom, try
this.
So, yeah, so be specific, tellit, actionable, make sure you
iterate it because you will haveto, and give the prompt a role.
Since doing that and sharingthat resource, I'll if it's okay
(26:27):
with you, Chris, I'll shareanother resource because this I
think has been real.
This is this is and I and Ishare this with all my schools
that I work with and teachers Ishare with and things.
There was a great piece ofresearch, and again, I can share
the link to this, that showedthat if you run a simulation on
an output, okay, and then get itto analyze the simulation and
then get it to you produce a newversion of what it was you try
(26:48):
to make it on the first step,you get a much better output at
the end of it.
So there's a lesson planningrefinement resource that I've
got again on my website and andon my LinkedIn.
But it's essentially afour-step process.
So let's say step one, you makeme a lesson plan and you've
written quite a detailed promptfollowing like the stair
approach, okay?
You've put you put in whatevercurriculum you're following, and
and you've given it a role thatyou're teaching this and so
(27:08):
forth and so on, and what haveyou.
You then get it to run asimulation, second step, okay.
And it's really fun to watch,actually, because it runs like a
real class.
You know, Kai from the back ofthe classroom put his hand up
and says, Sorry, miss, butright?
And it does all of that.
So it runs a simulation, andthen if you if you and the third
part is about a bit like whathappens with lesson observation,
(27:30):
you know, as an educator, yeah,leaders will come in and see
you teach and have a discussionabout how well you're doing, and
student outcomes it run thatanalysis in that kind of mode,
okay, and then off the resultsof that analysis, synthesize
that into improvements for thelesson planning, and then get it
to run the lesson plan again.
And if you download thatresource, I've got templates for
each of the four stages thatyou could just copy and paste
(27:51):
and change some of the, youknow, just the the parameters
which will be different for eachperson, but yeah, you can use
that to just to generate theoutput.
And that's been reallypowerful.
Really powerful.
That's amazing, amazing.
Chris (28:04):
Well, I mean, I just I've been you know on your site
oftentimes, and it's always gotsomething new, always a great
thought provoke.
It's just it's a wealth ofinformation.
Emmerich, I want to thank you.
I I don't want to use too muchof your time in the day,
actually your evening, but Ireally appreciate you coming on
and making us all smarter.
I mean, some of these tips andthe resources that you produced
(28:27):
around this surely will help oureducators kind of get their
heads around how AI can beleveraged in the classroom for
students and learning.
And I appreciate all of thelinks that you were that we'll
put in this post of of all theplaces and and research that you
had mentioned.
It's important for us toconnect all those together as
(28:50):
well.
So, Mark, I just want to endoff by a big, big thank you.
This has been great.
I feel like right at the startof the school year with some
like new inspired uh thoughtsaround AI and tech as well.
So thanks so much.
And I wish you all the best.
And uh I would love to catch upone day.
Um, you produce so much stuff,and this just never stops that
(29:13):
this conversation will never getold.
Mark (29:15):
No, and that's the beauty of technology, right?
You know, it's uh every day's alearning day.
There's always a new update tosort of consider and think
about.
And if you want one sort ofthing to sort of take away from
all of this as well, you know,when when someone says to you,
Chris, you know, I've had thisamazing tool that does this,
right?
A healthy dose of so what.
So what?
(29:36):
So what it can do, that right,and then forcing the
conversation around so that,right?
Because if you can flip it froma it does all these things, so
what, so that it helps you, youknow, with your teaching or
their learning or reducing yourworkload.
Those are my sort of threenorth stars, yeah.
If you can, if you can add to aso that, it does one of those
three things, then that's goingto keep you on the straight and
(29:57):
narrow, I think, aroundpedagogy, around support.
Chris (30:00):
learners or helping you with because you know we all
know wherever you teach in theworld as educators there's
always something else to doright so if you can reduce that
workload then it's it's gonna beworth a look at amazing well
mark anderson ict evangelistcheck it out thank you and we'll
put all the links in this inthe descriptor and in the blog
(30:21):
post that we'll put out aboutmark in this conversation so
mark thanks again yeah cheerschris thank you so much thanks
everybody happy new academicyear
Another episode of Shift Ed Podcast coming at you.
We're uh we're joining you herein our new uh 2025-2026 school
year.
And I'm bringing again, I youknow all my guests, you uh my
listeners, sorry, love to uhhave when I have people come
over from the overseas, and Ihave Mark Anderson, the IC
(00:34):
evangelist tech, who is comingin to talk to us a little bit
about getting our mindsetsaround all this tech that we
have surrounded by us and how wecan leverage it to actually get
kids engaged and excited aboutlearning.
We know it's not an easy task,but Mark is gonna come and share
some of his amazing knowledgeand and just Mark is is uh an
(00:56):
author, blogger, an educator,you know, a thinker.
So he dabbles in modern daytechnology, what's going on.
He's got a great finger on thepulse of what's happening in the
ICT world.
So, Mark, thanks so much forhopping on here with me today.
It's a real pleasure having youwith us today.
Thank you so much, Chris.
Mark (01:18):
And I feel like I should put on a podcast voice.
So hi, welcome.
You're making me sound justlike some funny bloke from from
England right now.
It's it's um it's delightful tobe with you, and thank you for
the opportunity to come andshare.
I love sharing.
I got into teaching to helppeople, you know, make a
difference, have an impact inthe world, make my dent, as it
(01:39):
were, in the universe.
And so any opportunity to sharelike this is always gratefully
received.
So thanks so much for havingme, and thank you to all of you
for listening.
Thank you.
Chris (01:49):
So, Mark, let's get let's start off with I always ask
this question to kind of likesituate the guest and where
they're at and what they've kindof gone through to get to this
point that we're at today.
What are some of theexperiences that you'll never
forget that helped kind of shiftthe direction that you were
taking?
(02:09):
I mean, you started off as aschool teacher and then evolu,
you know, you evolved andevolved.
What were some of those momentsthat you experienced throughout
your career so far that reallyinfluenced the direction of
where you are today?
Mark (02:24):
I think you know, looking back with a land with a lens of
of you know, being just over 50shh years old, I I think back,
and I think about my mum andawful lot as well, right?
With these sort of things, youknow, she she's you know in her
mid-70s, and I think you know,if she's born in 1949, think
about the you know differenttypes of technology she's had to
get to grips with, you know,and as she she's seen during her
(02:47):
her lifetime, you know, wherescience fiction has become
science fact.
And I see I think back to mytime during the sort of you
know, late 70s, early 80s, intothe noughties, and things I'd
see on television like Star TrekNext Generation and like you
know, the the the characters onthere uh holding like these
thin, wafer thin like pad, likethey were called pads, right?
(03:10):
You know, and I'd I'd see thesethings in their hands, you
know, and I'd be like, my god'samazing.
Meanwhile, I was using a game,you know, gaming console which
would load from a cassette,right?
You know, so that that's thecomparison from where I was
then.
Right.
And you know, I'd think tomyself, like, never in my
lifetime would I see technologylike this, it's just so amazing,
and yet here we are.
And so you asked, you know,about what's you know, has been
(03:32):
some sort of pivotal points forme.
And the iPad was was one ofthose moments.
So in 2011, when the iPad wasreleased, we started a little
research project in my school,looking at how it might be
helpful for teaching andlearning, and just part of that
teaching and learning toolkit.
So, not like the de factocomputer for a computer room,
but just like you have a ruleror a compass or a pencil in your
(03:54):
you know analog sort oflearning toolkit.
So, so having something likethat would be really good.
And it and it worked out reallywell.
So in 2012, we rolled out to1,400 students in our school,
from age 11 to 18.
And the impact of that with afocus not on the technology, but
on how we can support teachersto help them with their
(04:16):
learning, reduce their workload,help children with their
learning, improve pupil andparental engagement, all of that
sort of thing.
That that was a really sort ofbig thing for me.
And I was already doing a fewthings.
I went to some conferences andheard about people, you know,
people, some brilliant peoplesort of sharing about the impact
of blogging and all this thing.
(04:36):
So I was I was I was sharing myjourney and sharing the things
that weren't working at ourschool because you know, words
like M or phrases like MDM thesedays are you know just de
rigueur, right?
These weren't and the thingsexisted really for devices like
an iPad back in 2012.
So it taught me an awful lotabout the importance of what
happens between the i betweenthe device and the chair.
(04:58):
Because getting the technologyright isn't that isn't that hard
really in the scheme of things,but bringing people on board
with it and making that workboth for educators, for leaders,
for parents, for children, youknow, who parents very quickly
got concerned about how muchtime their children were on that
device, so how you manage wedidn't call it screen time, we
called it etiquette with thedevice, you know, when it when
(05:21):
it's right to, when it's not to,all these sorts of things.
And so that was a reallypivotal thing.
And taking on board studentvoice as well was another big
landmark thing for me.
I started a thing, I'd learnedabout it from the US, and uh a
few educators who were sharingon Twitter, as it was at the
time, about what they weredoing, um, had student digital
(05:43):
leader groups, and these werestudents, you know, pupils, uh,
young young people who werereally interested in technology,
often didn't fit into that moldof being uh, you know, in the
on the sports team and all thosedifferent things, but would
would would really rise to thechallenge of of working and
helping around all thingstechnology.
So we started a student digitalleader group at my school,
(06:04):
which over the course of threeyears went from like three
students up to 50.
We had loads of them.
And and they would join us onon staff PD days, you know, so
they would learn about how touse the tools.
They came to our strategymeetings and would tell us about
what tools they felt besthelped them learn.
Right, you know, you know, theythey would they were saying,
Well, we we'd like to make anapp.
One of my pupils became one ofthe um sort of youngest app
(06:27):
developers in in the world,ended up speaking Apple events
around the UK and they went overto Cupertino for one of the big
Apple launches.
You know, really, reallyamazing stuff.
And people say all these lovelythings about it, but it was
just about listening to thestudents and giving them that
opportunity, taking on boardtheir voice, you know, and and
and allowing them to do that.
And that led to a a UK-widestudent digital network where
(06:51):
any school that wanted to getinvolved could come on board and
get involved.
But you used to have a weeklyTwitter chat to get together and
share wins and ideas.
We'd have like nationalconferences, all this sort of
thing.
Those are just I mean, I I canshare lots of little stories
like that, but it it's aboutgiving others that opportunity
to grow, I think.
Chris (07:08):
I love that idea too, the iPad, because I remember too.
I mean, I think we've we'relike brothers from a different
mother in the sense that yourpath is what I did as well.
So I started at a one-on-oneiPad school, you know, trying to
leverage it to get kids moreengaged in their learning.
And what you said really stuckout was that once they had the
(07:28):
iPad, they started to developvoice, but getting it out in the
world was really powerful, andthat's where social media came
in.
And and you touched on thatsocial media point.
Do you find that students, oncethey started to harness the
power of social media, startedto engage them more in learning
(07:49):
and and in school when they wereallowed to use it as a part of
what they were learning?
Mark (07:54):
Definitely 100%.
You know, when when there's aquote from someone and I forget
his name now, it's quite a f Imight come back to it and oh,
I'm after Google it.
Um but he he said in his whenwhen you you know ask a student
to you know speak to you, thatthey'll tell you what you want
to know, sort of thing.
But when they tell it to theworld, you know, they'll they'll
(08:14):
they'll do it significantlybetter.
I've it was much more eloquentthan how I've shared it there.
But when you when students knowthey've got a much wider
audience, you know, then then itbecomes exceedingly real for
them, you know.
Yeah, what was I I think it waswhen they when they have to do
work for you, they'll make itgood enough, right?
As in good enough to just getthe passing grade or whatever.
(08:35):
But when you have to whenyou've got a much bigger
audience, they'll want to makeit really good.
Right.
And so, yeah, and we've seentools, you know, various ed tech
tools like Pobble, for example,they want to help young people
make a writing exit uhexceedingly excitable and and
and and uh incredibly umbrilliant writing.
Yeah, and yeah, the idea isthat they write and then they
(08:58):
publicly blog it and having andthe networks then feedback on
each other.
So they know they got anaudience that's actually gonna
give feedback on it.
We're seeing similar thingsrecently as well, like with some
of these brilliant AI tools,whereby there's one tool I met
with them this morning aboutsome new work they've been doing
on their tool, actually, acompany called Olex here in the
(09:20):
UK.
And based upon the quality ofyoung people's writing, it
generates an image using whatthey call their imaginator.
And obviously, the morecomplicated, the more detailed,
the more rich they're writing intheir stories and the work that
they do, the better the output.
It's a garbage in, garbage outapproach, isn't it, right?
Right, right.
And so the more that theyactually put into what they're
(09:41):
writing, the better the output.
And then that again is a realmotivator for young people to
improve their writing andimprove what it is that they're
doing so that you get thatbetter output.
Chris (09:50):
But yeah, yeah, right.
And and kind of like talkingabout AI, I mean, since
November, what is it, 2022?
I mean, it's just been ineducation anyway, on like there,
like talking workshops and howdoes it work and training and
what do you find the greatestasset right now is with AI for
(10:10):
teachers when they're using itin their profession?
Are there are there things thatwe didn't see back in November
2022 that we're starting tounderstand where the power lies
with the AI for educators?
Mark (10:25):
It's interesting because you know, there's always your
early adopters and things.
I heard a statistic just thislast week, Chris, where they
were saying that in terms ofindustries, education is the
industry which uses AI the most,which is just phenomenal to
hear and really good because youknow there have been a few
times.
I don't know if you've gotkids, Chris, but mine certainly
set through that hole.
Are we nearly there yet?
(10:46):
On long journeys.
I've felt like that with EdTech over the past few decades,
you know.
And and the pace of adoptionand change with AI has been
phenomenal.
What I am seeing is I talk alot in my work around desire
lines, in the idea, which is theidea that you want to get from
A to B as quickly as possible.
Okay.
And for teachers, that's oftenabout reducing workload, being
(11:10):
able to give feedback to youngpeople as quickly as possible,
all of those sorts of things.
And there's been a bit ofpushback in the educated
community because learning isn'teasy and it requires a
struggle.
And so, if like my childrenwere when they first started
using AI, it was taking aphotograph of the question and
then saying, What's the answer?
and just going, there's nolearning taking place there at
(11:31):
all.
That's just ticking a box,right?
So AI literacy is super, superimportant.
But I think I think it'stwofold, really.
I think teachers have becomebetter at writing prompts.
I think the AI's gotten betterat recognizing what it needs to
do and bringing that through.
But what is really powerful iseducators and young people.
(11:51):
There's a brilliant report bythe Alan Turing Institute,
sponsored by Lego, and in therethey're talking about bias and
ethics.
All right.
So teachers are starting torealize now that a lot of the
outputs are influenced by bias.
And so they're becoming moresavvy to the ways in which they
can mitigate that with theprompts that they write and
(12:12):
within the tools that they'reusing, right?
What's really interesting aswell, though, is that you know,
particularly young people ofcolour, and in in the report
from that Alan Shering InstituteI mentioned, and I can give you
the link to share in the shownotes afterwards, right?
Yeah, then but young people ofcolour are gravitating away from
wanting to use AI because, andI think this is pretty much
quotable this bit, they don'tsee themselves represented in
(12:36):
the outputs.
Interesting.
And that's you know, fromwhether you're using VO3 with
video, whether that's you know,Mid Journey or DALI or whatever,
you know, any of those sort ofthings.
Uh it's it's reallyinteresting.
I've been reworking recently aswell with the BBC, and you
might have heard of we havethese um video series for young
(12:57):
people called BBC Bite Size,yes, across a whole wide load of
topics.
And I've just been I've beenworking with them as their lead
consultants, producing AIliteracy videos.
And again, that there's there'sa lot of misconceptions around
energy usage and those sort ofthings.
Right.
But what's been really good inin the sort of the research and
field work I've been doing tobring forward ideas about what
(13:19):
what matters to young people,they're b they are more
increasingly you know discerningusers, which is lovely because
we know metacognition andself-regulation is super, super
important.
It's great to know that youngpeople are really keen to use
this technology properly andbeing mindful of you know the
environmental impact of usingit, being mindful of the the
(13:43):
scraping behind it, you know.
Chris (13:45):
I can talk about this stuff for ages, so I'll find in
the air for a second, but it'sloads in the end too, like we're
training the future users ofAI, and I mean who knows what's
gonna what it's gonna be, youknow, yeah 20 years down the
road.
But I I I love what you'resaying that we need to not only
just train them about how to useit, but how to use it
(14:07):
ethically, because it is biasedI totally see that.
I mean, there's been so manystudies about it that that that
it's biased you know, you haveto somebody told me 8020, right?
Like AI can do about 80% ofwhat you want it to do, like
administratively or like lessonplan wisey, but the 20% is on
(14:27):
still on on the teacher to vetit, to edit it, to make sure
that it's represented accuratelyin in what it's saying.
Which kind of brings me to thisquestion to you Where do you
think we need to go as teacherslooking down those 20 years from
(14:48):
now?
How do we get these kids readyfor something that's so hard for
us to imagine what it will belike down the road?
And I know we've had theseconversations in education since
the dawn of education, youknow, how do we prepare kids for
a future that we're not awareof?
I think AI throws more of morestuff into the soup that we're
(15:10):
making for that future.
How do you see it?
How do you what are some tipsor tricks that you give to
teachers that through the lensof preparing our future
generations for that future withthis technology that we know is
going nowhere?
How do you speak to that to toteachers or administrators or
you know people in theeducational sphere to to a
(15:33):
question like that?
Mark (15:36):
That's a really good question.
At a leadership level, right?
I'll talk about you but you'reprobably aware of Dylan Willem,
John Hattie, a guy called AaronHamilton, the three of them
wrote a great paper about 13risks to do with AI and things
we can do to mitigate that risk.
To that effect.
Again, I can share a link tothat.
Totally.
It's really good reading.
(15:56):
And one of the things they talkabout in there is the impact of
a novice educator using AI,okay, versus an expert educator
using AI.
And what they say is that youknow, a novice educator doesn't
really have at their earlycareer sort of status the depth
of knowledge, domains ofknowledge to be able to
(16:18):
interrogate the outputsufficiently so that when the AI
inevitably gets somethingwrong, you know, you talk about
Pareto's role 8020.
Personally, I talk more about7030 or 6040, actually.
Although it's gettingincreasingly better, right, as
we get closer to AGI, right?
It's getting better and better.
But if novice educators don'thave that domain of knowledge,
(16:42):
they're going to de-skillthemselves over time.
As we outsource more and moreof our sort of resource
creation, lesson planning, allthose things to AI.
What Dylan Willem, John Hassie,and Aaron Hamilton say in this
paper is that they become likenovice minus over time.
They de-skill themselvesbecause they don't have the the
(17:02):
domain knowledge to you knowcheck the outputs properly.
And I and I can see it myselfwhen I first started teaching,
you know, I'd finished my schoolweek, I want to in the end of
the week, I want to do I do mymarking, do my prep, and I want
to get out as early as possible.
I can see why you'd want you'dwant to get that done as quickly
as possible, right?
But what they also then say isthat experts will get even
better, they can interrogate theoutputs and they can extend
(17:24):
them even further, and they movefrom being not just expert
teachers to what they call elitebecause they're doing what they
call riding the machines.
Okay.
So with that sort of lens, itstands to reason that
conversation is important.
So so many educators, you know,we we talked about this a
little bit off air before westarted to recording, right?
(17:45):
Many educators see using AI asbeing something where you might
be cheating, you know.
But actually, you know, you'rebeing smart, you're you're
you're you're it's what it is tobe a modern educator to use the
right tools at the right time.
But as you're new to something,you know, a professional, you
know, try and use some relatablesporting terms like a
quarterback or a racing cardriver doesn't start in a
(18:08):
Ferrari straight away, you know,you you build yourself up to
the the big game, Ferrari.
You don't you don't you don'tstart at the top end, you you
build yourself up to it.
So, what can you as a leader doto support your colleagues who
are earlier in their career tohave those conversations?
How do you quality assure thoseoutputs?
How do you make sure thatyou're giving them the right
(18:28):
facets and tools and andeverything else so that they can
become better, so that they canride the machines themselves
too?
And I think that that thinkingapplies really well to young
people too, because it's notjust about how to use the tools,
it's about you know, we wetalked about the iPad stuff back
in 2012, 2013, whatnot, Chris.
(18:49):
Right?
I was always just as happy towalk into a classroom and see a
teacher not using technology asI was to see a teacher using
technology when they couldexplain the pedagogy and the
thinking behind it.
One of my favorite models forlearning is T Pak, and and you
know, if you if if in 2025 youdon't know T Pak, then do some
research.
But you know, it's aboutcombining your pedagogical
(19:11):
knowledge, your contentknowledge, along with your
technological knowledge, andit's not about using tech all
the time, you know all thesethings, but I'll I'll share this
for listeners.
That sweet spot in the middleof that three-way ven is about
knowing when it's right to ornot to use technology, and and
the the the writers of this guy,Misha, and I forget his name
now.
Terrible, old age.
(19:33):
Yeah, good teaching andlearning is about using knowing
when to or not to usetechnology, open bracket because
sometimes that's the rightreason, close bracket, right?
And so in one of the one of thethings in my book, and I'm sure
we'll come on to this later, inthere, the five C's, one of the
C's in there is cognizance.
(19:53):
After you've got yourconfidence and your competence,
it you know, competence, you canuse the stuff, competence, you
know how to use it and you'reusing it well, and it's
cognizance about when to or notto use those tools.
Because going on to the AIthing, back to the AI thing,
Chris.
You know, sometimes using AIcan be a bit like using a
sledgehammer to tup in a nail,can it?
You know, so giving our givingour young people the the skills
(20:17):
to to be able to use thesetools, know when to use them,
when not to use them, I think isreally, really important.
I also think it's really,really important thinking about
some of the outputs fromorganizations like the World
Economic Forum, where they'retalking about that sort of
future skills around criticalthinking, adaptability,
resilience, the growth mindsetstuff, problem solving, you
(20:37):
know.
We can talk about it.
Chris (20:42):
Right?
Like merging those two togetheris is key.
Mark (20:47):
It absolutely is.
And if you think about how theexperts become elite, it's about
by going, but it's aboutcalling out the AI and saying
you're wrong, you know.
And in my demonstrations, Italk about, you know, back
along, you might have seen this.
It used to be the case that ifyou'd asked ChatGPT how many R's
there are in Strawberry, right?
It would tell you the wrongnumber.
And and no matter how manytimes you went back and said,
(21:08):
listen, mate, there's there'sthere's three R's in Strawberry.
No, no, no, there's two.
Look at it, yeah, it doesn'tmatter how you told it.
And they fixed that problem.
And uh I went back because Iwhenever I would present that
sort of thing at events andthings, Chris.
I'd uh before I went in, I'dalways check it to make sure it
still actually worked.
And then I was doing an eventabout six months ago, right?
And it said, Don't worry, no,we we fixed it, we fixed that,
(21:30):
we fixed the otherhallucinations.
This was Chat GPT, we we fixedthis, we fixed the other.
I was like, this is brilliant.
I said, What have you fixed?
Well, we fixed loads of theseanomalies where you know that we
say that there's you know threeR's in strawberry when there's
two, and uh that there's threeN's in banana when there's two,
and I'm like, hang on, therearen't two N's in banana, so it
(21:51):
still gets things wrong, and sothat and that ability to be
inquisitive and to call out thethe hallucinations that come
through, and you know, you'dyou'd hope that educators, you
know, in their within theircontent knowledge alongside
their pedagogy would know anawful lot, but you you need to
be able to call this stuff out,don't you?
And so helping educators andyoung people better do that
(22:12):
helps them and promotes thosecritical thinking skills,
doesn't it?
Chris (22:16):
Totally, totally.
Well, and you have a reallygood publication that you put
out not too long ago about tipson creating prompts for
teachers.
Practical a practical guide forteachers on on effective
prompts when they're using AI.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat, Mark?
Mark (22:33):
Yeah, of course I can.
Yeah, absolutely.
What I did, I've released abunch of free um little guides.
Um, if you go to my website, umthey're all on there, they're
also on my profile on LinkedInand and what have you.
There's no gateway to fill youremail address in.
I'm not gonna start spammingyou with X, Y's, or Z.
Yeah.
Probably the worst businessmanin the world, to be honest,
Chris.
But um, you know, each of themhas an introduction which talks
(22:56):
through what a prompt is, orwhat a good one looks like, a
prompting strategy, which I callmy stare approach.
And I'll talk about that injust a moment.
And there's a book foreducators, there's a book which
covers sort of 14 or sodifferent subject areas, and
within each subject area,there's sort of for 15 prompts
across different domains of sortof teacher resource creation
(23:16):
activity from lesson planning tokeyword charts to whatever.
Super cool.
I've got I've got one formiddle leaders as well, and one
for for senior leaders as well.
Cool.
And in there is that stairapproach, like I mentioned,
S-T-A-I-R.
And what I share in therearound that, and then you get a
level of detail for a goodprompt from looking at the
(23:37):
prompt examples throughout thebook as well.
And and just to say, other youknow, libraries like this are
available.
Ethan Mollick, for example, hasgot some amazing prompts in his
libraries that he's got aswell.
But my stare approach asks youfirst of all to be really
specific with a prompt that yougive.
So, and that's about thelanguage you use.
(23:58):
I'm sure, like me, Chris, youknow, you've written a prompt,
it produces the output, youthink, oh, I forgot to put this
in.
Or I didn't phrase that quitethe right way.
I said make something, and Iand I I meant it, I wanted it to
be portrait, and it's come atlandscape, and oh, I meant yeah.
So be really specific aboutwhat you do and tell it in
minutiae what it is that youwant it to do as well, which is
the T of stare.
(24:19):
Okay.
The A is to make thingsactionable.
Okay, so don't just give it onething.
If you're creating a lessonresource, don't just ask for the
lesson plan, ask for thekeyword cards, ask for any
adaptations you want, any anylow-stakes quizzes that you want
to download as a as an Excelfile to put into Microsoft Forms
or whatever tool you're using,you know, really get into the
(24:40):
nitty-gritty.
Be prepared, which is the I ofstare to iterate.
It's not gonna get it rightfirst time.
So make sure that you you goback and and you know work with
it.
There is a there is there is animportant um sort of health and
safety warning around theiteration thing, right?
If you're looking for a perfectoutput, then you're gonna be
(25:01):
sat in front of your your laptopor your device for for quite
some time.
You we talked about the sort of80-20, I went a little bit
lower than that, but if you tryand get it to it doing 100% of
it, getting it absolutelyperfect, there becomes that
tipping point where you becomeless productive, yeah.
I I think it's it's it's goodto have that sort of mindset um
(25:21):
and and just be mindful aboutwhen it's time to you know take
your winnings and run.
Yeah, right.
I felt that at times actually,Mark.
Yes.
That that tension, right?
Yeah, so don't be afraid to Iremember like I was creating an
image and just wouldn't get aword right on the image, and I
spent another 20 minutes tryingto get it to put an output with
the correct word on the image.
When the reality is I couldhave taken that image, popped it
(25:43):
in PowerPoint, and just put theword on myself manually, right?
I mean, yeah, which would havebeen the quicker output to to
success.
The final part of the staresort of prompt guide thing is
the is the R.
And that's about giving theprompt a role.
AI tends to, if you say, youknow, you're if you're if you're
(26:04):
a physics teacher and you'reteaching a physics class, and
say, you know, you're workingand supporting a physics
teacher, you are a physicsexpert yourself with 20 years'
experience of teaching andlearning in the classroom, try
this.
So, yeah, so be specific, tellit, actionable, make sure you
iterate it because you will haveto, and give the prompt a role.
Since doing that and sharingthat resource, I'll if it's okay
(26:27):
with you, Chris, I'll shareanother resource because this I
think has been real.
This is this is and I and Ishare this with all my schools
that I work with and teachers Ishare with and things.
There was a great piece ofresearch, and again, I can share
the link to this, that showedthat if you run a simulation on
an output, okay, and then get itto analyze the simulation and
then get it to you produce a newversion of what it was you try
(26:48):
to make it on the first step,you get a much better output at
the end of it.
So there's a lesson planningrefinement resource that I've
got again on my website and andon my LinkedIn.
But it's essentially afour-step process.
So let's say step one, you makeme a lesson plan and you've
written quite a detailed promptfollowing like the stair
approach, okay?
You've put you put in whatevercurriculum you're following, and
and you've given it a role thatyou're teaching this and so
(27:08):
forth and so on, and what haveyou.
You then get it to run asimulation, second step, okay.
And it's really fun to watch,actually, because it runs like a
real class.
You know, Kai from the back ofthe classroom put his hand up
and says, Sorry, miss, butright?
And it does all of that.
So it runs a simulation, andthen if you if you and the third
part is about a bit like whathappens with lesson observation,
(27:30):
you know, as an educator, yeah,leaders will come in and see
you teach and have a discussionabout how well you're doing, and
student outcomes it run thatanalysis in that kind of mode,
okay, and then off the resultsof that analysis, synthesize
that into improvements for thelesson planning, and then get it
to run the lesson plan again.
And if you download thatresource, I've got templates for
each of the four stages thatyou could just copy and paste
(27:51):
and change some of the, youknow, just the the parameters
which will be different for eachperson, but yeah, you can use
that to just to generate theoutput.
And that's been reallypowerful.
Really powerful.
That's amazing, amazing.
Chris (28:04):
Well, I mean, I just I've been you know on your site
oftentimes, and it's always gotsomething new, always a great
thought provoke.
It's just it's a wealth ofinformation.
Emmerich, I want to thank you.
I I don't want to use too muchof your time in the day,
actually your evening, but Ireally appreciate you coming on
and making us all smarter.
I mean, some of these tips andthe resources that you produced
(28:27):
around this surely will help oureducators kind of get their
heads around how AI can beleveraged in the classroom for
students and learning.
And I appreciate all of thelinks that you were that we'll
put in this post of of all theplaces and and research that you
had mentioned.
It's important for us toconnect all those together as
(28:50):
well.
So, Mark, I just want to endoff by a big, big thank you.
This has been great.
I feel like right at the startof the school year with some
like new inspired uh thoughtsaround AI and tech as well.
So thanks so much.
And I wish you all the best.
And uh I would love to catch upone day.
Um, you produce so much stuff,and this just never stops that
(29:13):
this conversation will never getold.
Mark (29:15):
No, and that's the beauty of technology, right?
You know, it's uh every day's alearning day.
There's always a new update tosort of consider and think
about.
And if you want one sort ofthing to sort of take away from
all of this as well, you know,when when someone says to you,
Chris, you know, I've had thisamazing tool that does this,
right?
A healthy dose of so what.
So what?
(29:36):
So what it can do, that right,and then forcing the
conversation around so that,right?
Because if you can flip it froma it does all these things, so
what, so that it helps you, youknow, with your teaching or
their learning or reducing yourworkload.
Those are my sort of threenorth stars, yeah.
If you can, if you can add to aso that, it does one of those
three things, then that's goingto keep you on the straight and
(29:57):
narrow, I think, aroundpedagogy, around support.
Chris (30:00):
learners or helping you with because you know we all
know wherever you teach in theworld as educators there's
always something else to doright so if you can reduce that
workload then it's it's gonna beworth a look at amazing well
mark anderson ict evangelistcheck it out thank you and we'll
put all the links in this inthe descriptor and in the blog
(30:21):
post that we'll put out aboutmark in this conversation so
mark thanks again yeah cheerschris thank you so much thanks
everybody happy new academicyear
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