August 21, 2025 • 50 mins
What if we stopped trying to 'fix' students and instead fixed our educational system?
As CEO of CAST, (the Center for Applied Special Technology) Lindsay Jones helps schools utilize Universal Design for Learning to create inclusive education systems for all students.
Starting with the premise that "people aren't broken," Lindsay guides us through CAST's journey from its 1984 founding (when Harvard neuroscientists were first bringing personal computers into education) to today's AI revolution. She shares how their early work with students with significant disabilities evolved into the universal design for learning framework now implemented worldwide.
The parallels between the early Internet era and today's AI landscape provide valuable perspective. Just as educators once worried about students accessing information online, today's concerns about AI reveal our need to normalize new technology while thoughtfully addressing its implications. Lindsay argues that the current moment presents a unique opportunity to build accessibility into AI educational tools from the ground up, rather than expensive retrofitting later.
Lindsay also emphasizes the irreplaceable role of human educators – while AI offers powerful support, the "magic moments" when teachers connect with students and transform their learning cannot be automated. Universal design isn't about creating 30 different lesson plans for 30 different brains, it's about removing barriers so all students can access learning in ways that work for them.
For parents seeking to advocate for better design, educators looking to integrate AI thoughtfully, or technologists aiming to create truly accessible tools, this episode offers both practical wisdom and bold vision for education's future.
Learn more about CAST:
aiEDU: The AI Education Project
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (00:05):
Hello everybody.
I'm Alex, co-founder and CEO ofAIEDU.
We're here at the Austinedition of AIED Studios with the
amazing Lindsay Jones.
Lindsay, you're going to do abetter job introducing yourself
than I will.
But yeah, tell us who you areand maybe just about what you're
doing here at South bySouthwest.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (00:22):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
It's always great to talk withyou, Alex.
I'm excited to be here at Southby Southwest we.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's always great to talk withyou, Alex.
I'm excited to be here at Southby Southwest.
We've got a lot of great stuffgoing on.
My name is Lindsay Jones.
I'm the CEO of a nonprofitorganization named CAST and
formed 40 years ago a verysimple premise People aren't
broken.
We can design systems better,and that's what we do sort of
(00:44):
every single day, and what we dois focus on designing in
research, in professionallearning for K-12, higher ed
workforce and in bringingtogether a community that's
committed to variability andneuroscience and cool, fun
design.
It makes the world better.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (01:05):
And CASA's a lot, so maybe you can just
reach into the hat.
It doesn't have to be your beststory.
What's just like one projectthat you're really proud of.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (01:13):
Yeah, there's so many.
I mean, I almost think I reallythink honestly, one of the ones
that is super important rightnow that we are really really
interested in and learning a lotfrom is our Sight Center.
We run a center that bringstogether people from across the
United States, totally focusedon conversations about how do we
(01:35):
make all technology in schoolsinclusive.
So many people think about justvery siloed, they think in very
siloed ways about technology,and this center is all about
convening and conversation andlearning and that's thinking
about living the UDL principles.
We've invented something calleduniversal design for learning
(01:57):
and what I think of with that isthe work that's come out of
that, which is amazing.
It's tons of guidebooks fordistricts about how do you do
with this and it's ways thatthey work together and it's
super inspiring.
But I actually think the waythat CAST was created is
something that we live every dayand that is there were some
(02:18):
neuroscientists working atHarvard and they had an idea
about people not being brokenand they started working with
individuals with disabilitieswho had really significant
disabilities so physical,cognitive ones where people were
being told you know, theirparents were being told you will
never, your child won't livealone.
So they worked with themintensely and all of those
(02:43):
students went to post-secondaryeducation, which was like
completely unthinkable.
But what they decided was wecan't work intensely with every
student, but now we've seen thisamazing possibility and it was
what created universal designfor learning as a framework
that's used all over the world.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (03:02):
I'm trying to think.
40 years is like this is thedawn of the internet and
personal computing.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (03:07):
Yeah, it started in 1984.
So, like the year personalcomputers are kind of coming out
right.
They tell stories of bringingtheir computers into Harvard
Like there were no computer labs.
There were.
Yeah, there were no computerlabs there were.
Yeah, there were no computerlabs.
There was nothing and they were.
Just they did some of the earlycreation of like speech to text
(03:31):
.
They did ways to.
They created a top, somethingcalled Book Builder which we use
all the time.
We highlight text right, theywere the first groups kind of
working on that and creatingthat, and so to see it
accelerated through the markettoday is incredible.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (03:47):
Yeah, and it feels it's interesting
because we were just at a roundtable and you know people were.
There was a lot of talk aboutuser-centered design.
How do we make sure that thefolks that for whom AI is being
built are actually a part of youknow informing the design?
And I and it feels like Casthas been really elevated in your
profile You've been tapped tobe a part of some of the leading
(04:09):
organizations that areadvancing AI equity in education
, edsafe AI Alliance being agreat example of that.
It's not a new topic, though.
This idea of the user-centereddesign isn't new.
Is the AI moment creating a newopportunity for us to sort of
have that conversation withfolks who you know previously?
Or maybe a little heartburnfrom the way that attack was
(04:32):
sort of thrown at schoolswithout necessarily the
investment up front?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (04:35):
and understanding what needs were
actually were yeah, that's agreat way to put it and that's
what I was just thinking aboutin that conversation, because
people, I think AI, the momentthat we're in with AI is so
democratizing right, the waythat people can, it can be.
(04:56):
Let me qualify that a minute butlike it can be, and one of the
things that we, that we aretrying to do all the time is
help make things born,accessible, born user friendly,
and most of the time they aren't.
We heard some concerns downthere about kind of how it can
be too expensive.
You have to have people reallyfocused on that know it.
(05:20):
And then we heard from otherpeople that actually it's
happening a lot that people userdesign around neurodiversity or
even bringing down otherbarriers is happening a lot.
People are just calling itdifferent things because there
is a reality of like there's amarket that you're selling to.
You want to sell to the biggestmarket or at least make your
(05:41):
product as available to the mostpeople who can buy it.
So we heard two reallyinteresting things down there.
I think two sides of it Onewhich is accessibility, can be
expensive.
Another one which was we'rejust not calling it that, we're
just not using some of thosesame words, and that's where we
want it to get to, where it iscompletely built in.
It's not separate andsegregated.
(06:01):
So I thought that was excitingand AI presents a moment for
that, because many ed techproducts, if they don't use AI,
come right, which are thepredominant number of them in
some ways.
But they come to us and we havea product certification.
We created it because educatorswere like I can't, I don't even
know.
People say it's UDL, I don'tknow if it is.
(06:23):
There's a lot of confusion inthe market, but they're done,
they're already created.
So they're having to go backand retrofit their design and
(06:43):
it's clunky.
It can be wonderful, but it'sexpensive to retrofit.
It's clunky.
So with the newness of AI, it'sa great moment to just revive
that conversation and say youhave a great ability here to do
something incredible right fromthe start and it's an
accelerator and it's aninnovator or a way for you to
innovate.
I mean, to me it's like a verysimilar argument to the space
program.
Right, you're starting tocreate things.
(07:05):
You don't even know what you'regoing to invent.
So we're working really hardevery day with people to try to
make them see the possibilitiesthere.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (07:15):
I mean, I think it was one of the threads
that I found very compelling waswhen you talked about
retrofitting and the exorbitantcost of having to go back and,
you know, modify something thatwasn't designed from the start.
It's actually way more expensivethan if you get it right from
the beginning.
And so, you know, I think it'san interesting bridge that we
can build for folks who maybethey're not necessarily coming
(07:37):
at this motivated by, you know,access and inclusivity, but they
are motivated by, you know,successfully deploying a product
, and one of the things that wekeep hearing from the AI space
is that the capabilities keepmoving forward and organizations
have just not figured out howto deploy them, because there's
just sort of gaps in terms ofthe folks who are the end users
(07:58):
don't really understand what todo with these tools, and so
there's a bridge that we can.
I think that we can build whatto do with these tools, and so
there's there's a bridge that wecan.
I think that we can build, andI'm curious, like, what are?
How early on are we in thisprocess?
Because cast is, you know, abig organization by nonprofit
standards, but you can't do thisalone and I mean, do you, do
you have the resources to getthis done.
I mean, what's standing in theway of, you know, achieving this
(08:20):
vision that you just describedfor us?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (08:30):
Yeah, so we can't do anything alone.
I feel like there's no way.
And then, even in thisenvironment, it's more important
than ever to be working withgood partners to start to be,
because there's so manyconversations happening, so many
things being built and they'regoing to reach such bigger
audiences that we have to be atthe table in those conversations
.
And I think that's what we aretrying to do.
We're trying to learn on ourown and build, and I mentioned
(08:51):
with our districts the 300 plusschool districts that we work
deeply with in the United States, which is a tiny amount, but
it's a lot and in all differentkind of ways that we're working
with them.
But we surveyed them to see arethey reflective.
We asked them questions aboutAI what do you know about it?
Are you using it?
Are you interested in it?
(09:12):
And we have some preconceivednotions about it.
If you're a district that'sworking with us, you're open to.
You know you're looking tobring down barriers, you're open
to innovation, but we're stillkind of wondering are they
matching what we're seeing innational surveys?
And 100%, they are, absolutely,and I think that one of the
biggest things was about 70% ofthem that responded were very
(09:33):
focused on.
We think that we could be doinga lot more with our technology
for multi-lingual learners, forlearners with disabilities, and
so that just tells me CAST needsto partner, because we have
unique knowledge about kind ofhow you can embed UDL in
different ways.
We've got a productcertification that we've worked
(09:53):
on for years.
That's a rubric where we'redeeply looking at those.
But there are so many peoplebuilding we can't even and we're
like a teardrop in the bucket.
I mean, oh my gosh.
So that to me, if everybodycould build in from the start
with some of that knowledge, canwe start to build developer
(10:14):
processes.
That would be awesome.
That's what we're really tryingto do is where can we get at
the foundational level to informthe design?
So we're not going product byproduct like our founders did,
person by person.
We're trying to say, okay, udlframework opened it to everyone,
what's that for AI?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (10:31):
Yeah, we have.
I mean, it's just, I feel likeit's such a gift to be in this
moment of time where, once in ageneration, there's this sort of
technology paradigm shift andwe're at the very beginnings of
this new era of AI.
I feel confident saying that Ithink maybe two years ago I
would have been more qualifiedand I don't know if I'd call it
(10:51):
the age of AI.
I think we are actuallyentering the age of AI and we
have the benefit of having had afew revs with sort of rapidly
scalable technology like theinternet, the computer.
You know when the internet camearound.
I'm curious.
I mean I was, I was in, I wasin high school, I was in, I
guess, elementary school and Ihad like dial-up.
(11:12):
The first time I accesseddial-up, um, and I mean, were
conversations like thishappening?
Was there sort of this almost,you know, meta conversation
about like what does this allmean?
Or people much more tactical.
Tactical like, just like how dowe get computer labs into
schools?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (11:27):
It's so funny.
It's so funny you mentionedthis, so I was a little older
than you at that time.
I'm not going to you know,obviously not that much older,
but one of our founders wasDavid Rose is David Rose and he
has in every conversation he'swith us as an emeritus member on
(11:47):
our board and in everyconversation I have had with him
over the last year heconsistently says this reminds
me so much of when the internet,when we launched.
When the internet launched andhit the world and we were all
trying to figure out what's itgoing to mean for us and what's
it going to look like and howare we going to use it, and
there were all these initialquestions about if you can just
(12:08):
get information off the internet.
Kids are cheating, like so manyparallels, right.
So that's actually been reallyhelpful for us as an
organization in our own learningto try to think about, you know
, because there is no roadmapand your brain is seeking
certainty.
And how can I predict, how willI make the best product, what
should I avoid and things.
(12:29):
And we have the UDL guidelineshelping us in.
You know his ways, but it hasbeen really striking and it's
been the commonality between theage of the Internet and now
this, and that's been a goodframe for us internally as we're
doing our own design, thinkingabout should we approach people
in this moment and what theyneed.
You know, alex, it was sointeresting in the conversation
(12:55):
that we were just havingdownstairs Someone mentioned the
normalization of this.
I thought that was so spot on,like it's happened so fast.
I totally, you can totally, sayit's the age of it.
It's not an overstatement, butthat now we're talking about how
do we normalize it so we cankind of approach it calmly, see
(13:18):
where it fits in our world, makesure it doesn't displace
teachers, make sure it enhanceseducation.
We need to be thinking moreabout that.
That was a really interestingmoment and that's very similar
to internet the panic around itinitially.
How will we control it?
How are they going to use itnegatively?
What will kids see?
Many of the same concerns seemto have surfaced then as well.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (13:41):
And the computers and the Internet.
It's really interesting becauseyou know if you were someone
that back when the Internet camearound, and.
I would argue that you know,because I was around for a
couple.
I remember the first time Iused Facebook and I feel like
most of the conversation was notabout this is going to
decentralize information andwith that will come sort of this
(14:03):
mixed bag of opportunity andthe democratization of
information.
But also, you know, a lot ofrisks that come from now not
having control of what and wherepeople are getting information.
And there's a good side to thatcoin.
There's also this you knowdarker side, and we're seeing
this um, there's a lot ofexamples of, uh, you know, the
internet creating sort of likebad outcomes, uh, at scale, and
(14:27):
and so I I feel like theinternet creating bad outcomes
at scale.
And so I feel like the internetkind of teaches us that we have
to take seriously.
When people are talking aboutrisks and concerns, these are
not just sort of idle worry, andyet I don't know that.
What could we say differently?
You go back it's like theInternet was definitely going to
happen there.
It's not that we had anopportunity to stop it, and so I
(14:48):
think sometimes I worry thatthere's so much of a focus on
the dangers and the risks thatwe're not able to move into this
space of almost liketroubleshooting and problem
solving together.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (15:00):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Yeah, I totally agree.
(15:29):
And I think that that was whenhe said the normalization
normally a word I don't likenormalization right in the world
of variability, but it was true.
It was something like how canwe calmly?
Technology is a massive positiveif you are an individual with a
disability, because what thingsthat are nice to use for people
who don't experience thatdisability are wide world
opening for someone with adisability.
So I think maybe I ampredisposed to optimism around
this because I've seenincredible progress and just
amazing, life-changing, amazinguses of technology and I want
(15:50):
that to keep happening.
So maybe I'm like veryoptimistic, but I don't think
you can.
We want to control it.
We need to be cautious, givenwhat we've learned with the
internet, but I don't want thatto stop us from some of the
incredible stuff that's comingthat we really can.
(16:12):
That will help everyone learn.
And you talk a lot about theimportance of educators and
that's not going to change.
That shouldn't change.
But we can, I think, acceleratetheir power and their work and
(16:35):
bring students into it more inways that I mean when I'm seeing
some of the stuff that we'reseeing like it's incredible.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (16:42):
It's living up to a lot of the promises
that were being made.
I mean, have you played withSesame?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (16:47):
I don't know if we've talked about this
yet.
No, no, so there's this tool.
What is it?
I don't even know what that is.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (16:50):
Sesame is a , a, a company, that, or it's a
tool, I don't know if thecompany the company is also
called Sesame is aconversational voice chatbot, so
kind of like what you know, ayear or two years ago, people
were, you know, foretelling.
Like you know, in the nearfuture, you're going to
literally be able to just have aseamless, fluid conversation
(17:12):
with AI and I think Sesame isthe now the closest we've ever
gotten and it's, you know,there's like there's a few, it's
not perfect, but it's veryclearly we're going to almost
near indistinguishableconversationality and so many
concerns right, like if you're aparent, right, and it's a good
thing it isn't Elmo, because Ithink I would have some
(17:32):
questions of my own aboutwhether kids should be talking
to an AI Elmo.
But when we think about studentswho are English language
learners, students who areneurodivergent and, frankly,
students who don't have twoparents at home to just talk
about what they've learned inschool when they go home, these
sort of big ideas are nowevolving into very potent and
(17:53):
plausible tools and technology,and I guess this question is how
do we sort of materialize thevision of the beneficial
outcomes from that?
And it feels like this isactually something that the
technologists can't do bythemselves.
And so I guess, like one thingthat I've and we're going to be
(18:13):
talking about this in our panellater today you know you talk
about educators and sort of likewhat is the role of, or how do
we get folks comfortable to aplace where they're able to
actually participate in thisexploration and contribute and
sort of move the ball forwardtowards those beneficial
outcomes?
One of the things that seems tobe standing in the way is just a
level of comfort and almostthis sense that you have a role
(18:36):
in the conversation and shapingit, and I think that's a really
big barrier to cross becausepeople understandably like AI
has always been something thatis in the realm of technologists
in silicon valley and you know,I was literally told point
blank by somebody once that I'mjust not, not smart enough to be
founding an ai nonprofit,because they're like you don't
know, you, you've never createda machine learning model like,
(18:59):
why, like, who are you to besitting here and like, trying to
, trying to do work in the space?
Um, but you.
But to your point now.
Language models have sort ofsignificantly lowered the bar
and made it more accessible.
People can get hands on um andyet I still feel like a small
sliver of people have reallygotten like, have rolled up
their sleeves.
Maybe they've played with it.
Um, what?
(19:20):
What can we do, whether it'said or just like anybody who's
listening, like what are the?
Yeah, what are the?
What can we do, whether it'sAID or just like anybody who's
listening, like what are the?
Yeah?
What can we do to bring moreorganizations and individuals
into this project?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (19:29):
Yeah, well , first of all, that person is
just like such a stereotypicaljerk, right.
We all have to deal with thosepeople.
But that aside, I think there'stwo things that are really
important about why many voiceshave to come in.
First of all, you're going tohave a much better design, right
, the way to find barriers is totry to think about someone else
(19:53):
, like it's trying to putyourself into someone else's
shoes and see how they mightexperience it, right.
So UDL guidelines try to helpyou do that, but the best way to
do it is co-design anddeveloping relationships with
different members, intentionallyseeking out community partners.
I think at this stage, we aregoing to have to normalize it
(20:14):
among our community, so it'sgoing to take a little bit of
work, and maybe this is whereour organizations have a role to
play, right, which is gettingour communities ready to be in
those conversations.
I don't think you need to be atechnologist or whatever the
right word for that would beright.
Software engineer.
I don't even know Whateverthose people are.
We don't need to be that to beable to inform the design right
(20:35):
On our team.
We work with developers.
We don't have any in-housedevelopers.
We used to and now we work withlots of, because there's so
many amazing developers outthere running their own
companies and they work with andwe have different size projects
and we work with.
We can kind of pick and choosebased on what they do right.
We don't need them in-house.
The in-house what we have iskind of the knowledge around UDL
(20:56):
.
And this is the second thing,which is one of the best things
that universal design forlearning or any design thing is.
You don't have to any focus oninclusion.
What is the goal I'm trying toaccomplish?
Right, what is the goal of this?
And that's actually it seemslike.
Of course you're going to saywhat's the goal, right, but when
(21:18):
we actually start deeply askingthat, all of a sudden you
realize oh, there's a lot ofstuff I'm lumping into this
product or question.
It's not actually needed to getto the goal.
And I think that's where you'regoing to co-design.
Voices are going to come in andthey're going to see that the
(21:39):
easiest example of that as aproblem is, if you are testing
someone's ability to read, tosee words on a page and read
them right, then it's importantthat they actually you watch
them right read the words,physically read those words.
But if you're testing theircomprehension, do you care if
they read them with their eyesor do you care if they read them
(22:01):
with their ears?
Do you care?
It doesn't matter.
That's not the goal of thelesson.
It's a simple, simple example.
But I think, when you werethinking about the technology,
what is the goal of the product?
And that's something whereeducators need to be involved.
I'll also just say about why weneed educators in this and
where our organizations, I think, can really help, and what I'm
(22:22):
excited about.
Because of my history indisability rights and education,
I have toured, like many, I'vebeen very lucky to tour many
incredible private LD schools,schools that serve kids with
learning disabilities around thecountry Incredible, extremely
costly schools.
(22:42):
So these are very privateschools.
They can cost $100,000 a year.
They're very expensive.
This is a small slice of ourworld that is able to go to
those schools, but theincredible thing about them is
the commonality is they'reteaching kids about the brain
and the teachers have beentrained in many different
(23:04):
programs, many differentinterventions, many different
things, and they are likeartists, right, they are sitting
with a kid, understanding thecomplexity, getting to know, and
they're kind of bringing themin.
They're weaving them in basedon what they see and what
they're then observing, andsometimes they do follow a
(23:27):
program right, weaving them inbased on what they see and what
they're then observing, andsometimes they do follow a
program, right.
But that is not something thatyou can have.
Maybe, eventually, ai will dothat, but I think we're years
away from something like that.
What you have in that human isan understanding of the student,
an understanding of allstudents.
Right, you're bringing a lot ofexpertise to this that you've
(23:49):
observed over the years.
But that kind of access toknowledge and the way they're
creatively constructingindividualized programs for
students if they had, the firststep to me is they'll have AI
tools helping them.
That will become part of whatthey're doing.
But that is a uniquely humaninteraction that's happening and
(24:13):
I think probably people wouldsay, oh, there may be people out
there like, well, we could seeAI doing that.
We are that's far, I think.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (24:21):
I agree.
I agree, you're looking at mefor confirmation.
I think that's right.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (24:24):
Because you're looking at me and I'm
like maybe it's not far, but Ithink it is actually.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (24:28):
Well, I think the idea of completely
replacing the role of theteacher is, if not far away.
Maybe it should never happen,even if it was possible.
But yeah, I mean, I think overthe next, let's say, five to 10
(24:48):
years, what seems much morelikely is the suite of tools at
the disposal of a specialeducation teacher, for example,
is going to get significantlywider and higher quality, but
it's still going.
There is not going to be like Imean.
Also, I mean, even if we justtry to narrow from, you know,
diversity from the disabilitycommunity and focus on
neurodivergence, there is notone tool for a neurodivergent
student.
It's like well, are theydyslexic, are they autistic, do
(25:09):
they have ADHD?
And so the only way this works,I think, is, to your point,
teachers that are able tounderstand when and how to
deploy some of these verypowerful tools that they're
going to have at their disposal.
But it's interesting becauseyou mentioned something about
like actually really understand,like what is the?
What are you actually trying todo?
(25:30):
And something that was mentionedearlier today in a conversation
was this idea that you know alot of people building AI
schools right now are makingthis assumption about education,
which is, well, the need theteachers have is they need more
time.
They're overworked, they'reburdened with all of this sort
of compliance-based work thatthey have to do, and so, if AI
(25:55):
can give them more time, that'sgoing to drive demand for the
products.
But then if you really ask,well, what is the goal of it?
What is the teacher's goal?
It's not to save time, right.
The teacher's goal is toactually improve outcomes for
their students Now.
If they have more time, theyhave more time now to focus on
(26:16):
how they can improve thoselearning outcomes.
But it's, I think, an example ofif you're not sort of in the
seat of an educator, you canhave these assumptions about
what the motivators will be.
In the seat of an educator, youcan have these assumptions
about what the motivators willbe.
And to your point about thevalue of this is I mean,
everybody's trying to carvetheir space out in the AI space.
(26:37):
All these startups are tryingto figure out what their
competitive advantage is.
What you're describing to mesounds kind of like a really
ripe you know greenfield set ofthings that companies could do
to actually stand out.
And I mean, have you workedwith for profit companies?
Have there been startups thathave come to you and said hey,
you know, we're trying to figureout how to actually develop
(26:57):
something to be a little bitmore to appeal to the folks that
you serve.
I mean, is that a service thatCAS provides?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (27:04):
Yes, absolutely, and it's so fun,
it's so fun, it's so that's likeour favorite thing because it's
boring.
They're coming to us andthey're saying we want to be
born accessible, as we would sayRight, but yeah, there's a lot
of these startups that have cometo us and we're working with
the new schools venture fundwith a couple of them, and
that's good Cause.
We again, again, it's liketrying to get to scale is always
(27:24):
, um, the issue, but yeah, um,gladio lit lab a lot of them are
are out there and creatingincredible products, but they
are.
They have an understanding ofwhat is the goal.
What am I trying to solve?
So what's the problem that Iwant to solve?
That's my and my goal.
(27:44):
I'm going to be reallyrigorously focused on that.
And they have, I would say, ahumble sense of I don't fully
understand my market and I wantto figure out how to understand
my market.
They don't typically have tonsof capital, so they're thinking,
you know they can't run hugefocus groups and do those
(28:05):
traditional kind of things, butit's like universal design is a
way to kind of bring that in andI think bringing in it they're
already committed to bringing ineducator voice and student
voice is actually the best partof all of this is because when
you this made me think of this,when you just said what do
teachers actually want?
And I think when we talk withour teachers, they want I'm
(28:29):
going to say it in a very quickway right, but there are magic
moments when you are workingwith a student and you see them
get it right, or you see themfeel confident or learn or try
again or whatever form it takes.
It's learning, it's thinking.
I just changed this person'slife right, like I gave them, I
(28:51):
opened a door for them.
That's what we're trying to getat, and it's hard, it does take
time, but I think that's where,if we can normalize some of
this.
And then the hardest part ofthis is thinking about the
current conditions in schoolsright now are challenging the
(29:12):
sort of working conditions.
Everything the structure is sohard right, that you were
mentioning this with how ed techtools and new AI tools or
others can seem like justanother thing.
It's hard.
How will I fit that in?
It feels like we see that withUDL as well.
It's like you're telling methere's 30 different brains in
(29:33):
my classroom.
Now I got to make 30 differentversions of the worksheet I got
to.
I can't Like what are youtalking?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (29:40):
about.
How do you respond to thatteacher.
Yeah, I mean, how do yourespond to that when you hear
something like that from ateacher.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (29:47):
We hear that so much and what we do is
we bring in other teachers whotalk about why actually this?
When you are working with UDL,there is a process, as you're
putting.
You've got to invest with us inthe beginning time, right, and
all of a sudden you will watchthat you won't be investing as
(30:08):
much time, the classroom willshift and change and you will
experience more of these momentsand the students will start to
lead their own learning.
That's the thing that gets mealso like.
So first of all it's like, ohmy lord, I got 30 brains in a
room, holy moly.
And then it's like you want thestudents to lead their what?
Like it's going to be chaos,it's going to be.
(30:30):
That is not a good idea, right?
Even I have to say I'm not aneducator, even as a parent.
When I first saw that I waslike I'm not sure we should be
doing that and it's not quite.
But they learn.
The point is you scaffold andthey learn how to lead their own
learning.
And then I have walked into.
I'll take you into BridgesAcademy in charter school in DC
(30:52):
the next time you're there.
Unbelievable educators in thatroom and they fourth, fifth
grade classroom.
Amazing.
What 30 kids, a couple teachers, two teachers in the room and
you think, are these kids goingto?
This could be total chaos, andwatching them learn the system,
(31:12):
interact and work with their ownlearning is stunning.
I think it's stunning everytime I see it and I deeply
believe it should be in everyclassroom.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (31:21):
But that's how we win over teachers it's,
but that's how we went overteachers.
Yeah, I mean there's, there's,there's.
So all this multi-dimensional,uh you know, systemic challenges
in education.
One of those is students don'tfeel like education is relevant
anymore.
You know, levels of um, theirtruancy are going through the
roof there.
I mean, there's some districtsthere's like 40 of the students
(31:42):
are not showing up to schoolevery day.
Um, and what you're describing,I mean, while it seems it might
sound really intimidating, itfeels like we need to figure
this out.
It feels like we need to findways to empower students to
actually be more invested intheir own education.
I don't think there's an AItool for that.
I think that's actually whereteachers are going to have to
(32:04):
come in and they understand theunique circumstances of their
students and their culturalcontext.
But I have to imagine thatthere's actually in the hands of
a teacher who, you know, is aliterate.
You know, when I justinterviewed the founders of this
, one of the leading podcaststudios called Kaleidoscope, and
they're telling a story abouthow using stories is one of the
(32:27):
ways that they are able toconnect audiences with sometimes
esoteric and complicated topics.
They're like the key is youneed to hook them right at the
beginning, and so you have tohave some sort of surprising
story or fact that you know,just sort of like gets them to.
You know, start payingattention.
You know, my first reaction iswell, not every teacher is going
to be able to come pull intothe reach in their pocket.
plot like the perfect story yeahand not every student is going
(32:50):
to care about that one storythat you pull.
You may need a few differentexamples.
Um, language model seems like areally good uh, that seems like
a really good use of a language.
Models like whatever you'reteaching, especially like the
really dry, uh parts of your,your syllabus.
You know, ai can, actually youcould partner with AI to figure
out, like, how do I create thisengaging moment or even just
sort of short inquiry orproject-based learning activity
(33:11):
right at the front, thebeginning of the class?
But I just don't know.
There's a script where it's notlike well, every class starts
with a story because at acertain point maybe that will
get dry, right.
So I think you need to like so,yeah, the magic of how you get
people to feel empowered and tosort of have this ownership.
It feels like the nut to crack.
I'm who are the otherstakeholders that need to be a
(33:32):
part of this?
I mean, obviously the teachers,and we need to figure out how
to support them.
But yeah, who else is sort of apart of this movement?
You know, if we're talkingabout building cultural norms,
you're really talking aboutbuilding a cultural movement.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (33:44):
I think it's students and parents.
When I think about disabilitylaw, the only thing that has
moved that civil rights lawforward Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act isparents Parents coming together
with educators, and I reallythink it's students.
I mean, what you're citingabout engagement is real.
(34:05):
It is dropping like a rock inmany different factors.
We see it.
Gallup polls have it right.
There was just an article theother day.
Rebecca Winthrop's book has justcome out I can't think of the
name of it, but Atlantic talkedabout it.
So many middle schoolers notengaged Young men, young men I'm
the mom of a 17 year old.
(34:25):
There is an issue with youngmen in our nation and something
that our schools are are notengaging them, and I see that.
So there, it's very real.
As you said, chronicabsenteeism is one startling
example of it, but I think youhave to have students involved
in it.
In fact, with UDL, that's partof it, right, and you hear it
(34:48):
with lots of different thingsvoice and choice XQ was talking
about it, right, there arefactors as they're looking
through those, but I really feellike it's a different way to
think about.
It has to be a partnership ofparents and students and schools
, and that's hard right now inour country right, it has always
(35:13):
been a challenge.
There's sort of a creativetension between parents and
schools in some ways.
That has always existed and hasbeen good and made the system
better.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (35:22):
So if you're a parent that's listening
, like literally, what is stepone for that parent?
And like let's say they're at aschool where there isn't you
know a history of sort of likereally engaging, there's not an
obvious forum for them to justshow up Like what would your
advice be to a parent who'strying to figure out, like what
do I do tomorrow to kind of justlike start nudging my school to
start thinking about this stuff?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (35:45):
I mean, my advice would center on start
with, things like universaldesign for learning, because I'm
, you know, I think inclusion isreally important, but it's like
thinking about ways you'regoing to approach the school to
understand what they're doing.
I do think it's, you know, away in is there are many parent
organizations, there are ways, Ibelieve in public schools and
we work with charters, we workwith private schools, we work
with anywhere learning ishappening, we work, but I think
(36:08):
most people are still workingwith public school or sending
their children to public schools, and so you know there's a lot
of different ways and I think,interestingly, with AI what a
great question to ask it rightTo start.
I personally think that's agreat way to get some initial
information about how you shouldmove forward.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (36:28):
There's actually that's actually another
good point.
You then the problem wouldprobably go something like I'm a
parent, I'm about to meet withan assistant principal.
I don't know about whetherthey're leveraging universal
design principles.
Maybe I'm feeling a little bitintimidated.
I don't want to get into anargument, but I really am
(36:48):
passionate about, you know,helping the school evolve.
You probably get a reallyhelpful, almost like, agenda for
the meeting with some greatopening questions, and what I'm
hearing from you is startingwith curiosity.
So maybe don't make theassumption that I think assuming
good intent is going to beimportant, because there's a lot
of antagonism between parentsand schools and, as with every
(37:11):
anytime, you're trying to workcollaboratively.
I think figuring out how tobuild that bridge is critical,
otherwise you're not going toget anywhere.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (37:19):
But so I think we're starting to see the
need.
Actually, what I would say is Ithink it's a recognition that
we need to be normalizing someof these concepts with parents.
We need to be familiarizing ismaybe a better word.
We've lived at CAST in therealm of research, neuroscience,
all of those things, and wework with educators, but it just
(37:39):
seems like educators work withparents too.
We need to be kind of helpingthem explain universal design,
inclusion and students withdisabilities and various needs
to them.
So that's really we just saw aneed for it right now.
But you know what's so funny?
You mentioned your mom was aneducator.
Is your mom still working?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (38:00):
She's in her last year at Akron Public
Schools.
Look at her Congratulations.
Good for her.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (38:03):
She's probably really excited year at
Akron Public Schools.
Congratulations, good for her.
She's probably really excited.
She is pounding the days, nodoubt.
My mom was an educator in Ohio,in Lakewood Public Schools, and
she was a special ed teacher,special ed teacher, special ed
director.
So I grew up in her classroom,going after school to her
classroom right, and that had aprofound.
That's actually probably why Ido what I do.
(38:24):
It had a profound impact on meas a very young kid.
Right I was particularly inthird grade.
I went to a school down thestreet from where my mother
taught.
She taught in a public schooland at the time I was in a
parochial school right down thestreet and I would go in the
morning into her classroom and Iwould come after school and I
(38:47):
knew all of her students rightbecause they would be come in
the morning, be coming afterschool.
And one day our schoolschedules did not mix and so my
mom didn't have childcare and soI just went for the whole day
to the school and I went intosomeone else's one of her
friend's classrooms a thirdgrade classroom.
I just went for the whole dayto the school and I went into
one of her friend's classrooms,a third-grade classroom.
I was helping in the classroomor something, and it struck me
(39:10):
that entire day I never saw mymom, I never saw her kids.
I was like where are they?
Because obviously I was lookingfor them.
I remember distinctly lookingfor them all day.
Where are they?
And that was the day that Ilearned what segregation is in
my life.
They were special educationstudents and they were not
(39:31):
coming into lunch, they were notcoming in the hallway, they
were not.
They were occasionally.
I'm sure they were moreinvolved in the.
They were in specials, theywere in other things.
Right, I was in third grade.
But the absence of that and itit was such a stark moment
because I was pretty good for Iwas, I like, know those kids, I
was friends with those kids.
(39:51):
They were people.
They are I don't know themtoday, but they were people to
me then and it was just such amoment of like that is a design
problem.
Everyone loses in that andwe've come come so far.
That was in the whatever, theearly 80s maybe, as CAST was
being formed when I was inmiddle school.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (40:11):
I distinctly remember the special
education class was totallyseparate and sometimes they
would sort of emerge out of theroom that they had.
And so you've said we've made alot of progress but at the same
time no-transcript.
(40:48):
Literally every single brain isunique.
Kind of intimidating to ateacher who now has some very
unique new fingerprints thatthey have to design for I mean,
I have some obvious we couldhave a conversation about the
role of AI here, but I'm curiousabout what has worked really
well for teachers who you'veseen, like you know, take this
(41:09):
on and thrive.
What can we learn from teacherswho you know took that challenge
on and were really successfulin addressing it?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (41:17):
I think the first thing is the way we
think about the problem, andthat is parents fought for
inclusion In the special edworld.
That's a legal term and we useit all the time and it means
access to the general edcurriculum.
I feel like it's something Ineed to say now.
But parents fought for thatbecause they're with kids all
the time, right, all day, andthey see kids for who they are
(41:41):
all the time.
Sometimes our researchers wantto segregate kids and provide
interventions in a medical kindof way, almost, where you take a
dosage of this and then we seeif it works.
But we don't live our lives thatway.
Right, we don't have workplaces.
It's not like AIEDU has anoffice where all the people with
disabilities go in that backcorner over there, right?
So some people will ask thequestion in our community how
(42:05):
can we better resegregate to?
Just?
There's a hope that we'll teachthe kids separately and then
they'll come to a place wherethey can integrate and socially
they'll just be all OK.
We've moved beyond that.
Right now it's all about howcan we do it better in an
(42:26):
inclusive environment whereeverybody's in the room.
One of the ways we do that isuniversal design for learning,
because it's about barriers andhow do we find them and drop
them, and educators are right tosay they need support.
It's about staffing models inschools.
It's about empowering kids, andyou don't need tech or AI to
implement universal design forlearning.
(42:46):
That's really important, Ithink that's very important to
say.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (42:49):
AI is not the unlock for this.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (42:52):
Yeah, but if you can use it well, it can
be really helpful, which is whyco-design with educators is so
important and students Becausethey're already living they will
give you all the problemsthey're facing, the design
problems.
So if you're co-designing withthem, they're going to help you
(43:12):
get to your goal.
They're also going to help youthink of new products you should
be creating, right.
But I think that's so.
That's what I would say.
I would say like we can't thinkabout going back.
We have to think about how dowe educate everyone together,
because they're going to livethe rest of their lives together
.
And we also know that rightbefore I left NCLD, we did a
(43:34):
study of students with reading,writing, math disabilities and
they experience anxiety anddepression at two to five times
the rate other students.
I believe that that is becausethey're in schools that make
them feel like failures and theyfail.
And they fail because thedesign isn't right, and I'd be
(43:55):
happy for someone to prove mewrong and then we'll go look at
something else.
But I think it's like I'veheard enough stories of that,
that I believe the social costof resegregating to deliver some
dosage in a perfect environment, which isn't happening anywhere
anyway, isn't the answer.
It's like let's go all in on.
(44:16):
How do we do a better job inthe general ed classroom so
they're prepared for career, forcollege, for whatever they do
in the rest of their life?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (44:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And if AI can help us get there, so be it yeah.
I think this is a great way toclose.
I mean, I'll take some licenseto share a closing thought
because I think this is really,really important.
You know we have.
You know AIEDU is relativelyyoung as an organization.
We've been around, you knowlong by AI standards, we've been
around since 2019, but we'rereally early to this space
(44:48):
compared to orgs like CAST,which have been around for 40
years.
And you know, we've enjoyed alot of, like a huge influx of
funding and support because ofthis like shiny object, which is
artificial intelligence, andit's not a Trojan horse
no-transcript, and it's not aTrojan horse, because I'm very
open about this.
So I don't know what thetransparent version of a Trojan
(45:08):
horse would be.
But I mean, I think ourstrategy is very much use AI,
harness AI as the shiny objectthat is bringing people back to
conversations for which they'vethrown up their hands and the
philanthropy space is gettingsmaller.
The philanthropy space isgetting smaller for K-12.
And when I've talked to funders, it's because they're like,
(45:29):
yeah, we've tried, we've beendoing this work and you know
what, we're not really feelinglike we're moving the needle
enough, but we're reallyinterested in artificial
intelligence and I think thatthis transparent horse is all
about.
Use this moment as a chance forus to go back and really double
down on some of these, like theanswer you know the answer to
(45:50):
how do you build ai tools thatare going to successfully scale
as universal design anduser-centered design.
The answer to how do we getkids ready, uh, for the future
of work and for, you know, thejobs of the future.
It's not using ai, it'sactually durable skills.
You know, it's the amer AI,it's actually durable skills.
America Succeeds had theirdurable skills framework.
We have portraits of a graduatewhich for decades, have talked
(46:14):
about critical thinking and nowwe're hearing from the smartest
thinkers that that skill isactually maybe the most
important for a student that'strying to differentiate
themselves.
It's a bit of a sleight of handwhere you're bringing people in
and sort of inviting them toget excited about this new
technology, which islegitimately exciting.
But I think there's a role forthe non-technical focused orgs
(46:36):
the orgs that aren'tspecifically squarely focused on
building the technology tocenter all these other concepts
that we now have a lot ofexperience under our belt, to
kind of know what does work andwhat doesn't work and the
challenges.
Many times in project-basedlearning is like this.
We know project-based learningis important.
It's not necessarily beingimplemented successfully, and so
(46:57):
the issue is not that PBL isn'timportant.
It's that we need to helpteachers do more PBL.
Ai might be able to help you dothat actually.
So that's sort of the that'swhat we're thinking about.
It.
Lindsay, anything that youwould.
We're in South by Southwestright now, so it's March.
This will probably come out inApril or May.
(47:17):
Very hard to imagine what theworld is going to be like even
just two months from now, butwhat is a closing thought that
you'd like to share with theaudience?
Someone who is maybe inspiredby this conversation is trying
to think about whether they're aparent or otherwise.
Yeah, what advice would yougive someone who's trying to
lean in a bit more?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (47:36):
Well, I'm going to say two things.
The first thing I'm going tosay is that's why your answer,
what you just said, the way youframed kind of how AI can help
us in this moment, is exactlywhy it's important that you are
who, you are right, that you arebringing your view to AI EDU,
that you have a view ofeducation that you've seen
through your mom, Alex.
That's like the way.
I totally agree with the wayyou just framed that.
(47:58):
It's a wonderful tool to get atsome of these issues that we've
been dealing with for manyyears and that we can fix.
We can fix them, we can iterateon those designs, and you're
the perfect person to be doingthat.
So I'm just thinking of theperson who said to you well,
you're not.
You know, you don't have allthat.
It's like, yeah, it's good, youdon't.
(48:18):
In many ways, you're bringing alot of other amazing things to
it.
So that is something I want tosay because don't lose sight of
that that's an important viewthat we need.
What I would say two months,holy moly.
This has been a race like areally bananas race, but what I
would say is I think parents area big part of what makes good
(48:42):
education as we move forward.
I think educators and parentsworking together is the secret
to everything, and then engagingstudents, and so I would just
say from Cass' perspective,we're looking at really working
deeply with parents and helpingthem understand and trying to
understand how they caninfluence education, how we can
(49:03):
just share some informationabout how kids learn what they
may want to know as they go intoschools.
We also are really focusing onfaster ways to get to educators.
We're focusing on kind ofreading and math.
Our NAEP scores are a challengeright, and so I think, going
forward, we're trying to figureout what are good ways to get
(49:25):
information to people, and thenreading and math are always good
as grounding influences.
We all agree on reading andmath as things that kids should
learn in school and parents needto have good information to
help them feel empowered andconfident in conversations with
schools, and those make the bestconversations and then,
honestly, it's just helping oureducators have a better sense.
(49:48):
We've got that survey and nowI'm like we got to do something
for our educators and we'regoing to need good partners like
you guys to make that happen.
So I appreciate all you'redoing.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (49:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of work to do.
Lindsay Jones, thank you somuch for joining me.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (50:00):
Thank you, and then I think we're
literally walking to our panelright now.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (50:05):
I think we're gonna, we're gonna stop
rolling and, uh, I'll probablyhave to find my suit jacket
wherever that is.
Um, yeah, thank you again thankyou so much.
Hello everybody.
I'm Alex, co-founder and CEO ofAIEDU.
We're here at the Austinedition of AIED Studios with the
amazing Lindsay Jones.
Lindsay, you're going to do abetter job introducing yourself
than I will.
But yeah, tell us who you areand maybe just about what you're
doing here at South bySouthwest.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (00:22):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
It's always great to talk withyou, Alex.
I'm excited to be here at Southby Southwest we.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's always great to talk withyou, Alex.
I'm excited to be here at Southby Southwest.
We've got a lot of great stuffgoing on.
My name is Lindsay Jones.
I'm the CEO of a nonprofitorganization named CAST and
formed 40 years ago a verysimple premise People aren't
broken.
We can design systems better,and that's what we do sort of
(00:44):
every single day, and what we dois focus on designing in
research, in professionallearning for K-12, higher ed
workforce and in bringingtogether a community that's
committed to variability andneuroscience and cool, fun
design.
It makes the world better.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (01:05):
And CASA's a lot, so maybe you can just
reach into the hat.
It doesn't have to be your beststory.
What's just like one projectthat you're really proud of.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (01:13):
Yeah, there's so many.
I mean, I almost think I reallythink honestly, one of the ones
that is super important rightnow that we are really really
interested in and learning a lotfrom is our Sight Center.
We run a center that bringstogether people from across the
United States, totally focusedon conversations about how do we
(01:35):
make all technology in schoolsinclusive.
So many people think about justvery siloed, they think in very
siloed ways about technology,and this center is all about
convening and conversation andlearning and that's thinking
about living the UDL principles.
We've invented something calleduniversal design for learning
(01:57):
and what I think of with that isthe work that's come out of
that, which is amazing.
It's tons of guidebooks fordistricts about how do you do
with this and it's ways thatthey work together and it's
super inspiring.
But I actually think the waythat CAST was created is
something that we live every dayand that is there were some
(02:18):
neuroscientists working atHarvard and they had an idea
about people not being brokenand they started working with
individuals with disabilitieswho had really significant
disabilities so physical,cognitive ones where people were
being told you know, theirparents were being told you will
never, your child won't livealone.
So they worked with themintensely and all of those
(02:43):
students went to post-secondaryeducation, which was like
completely unthinkable.
But what they decided was wecan't work intensely with every
student, but now we've seen thisamazing possibility and it was
what created universal designfor learning as a framework
that's used all over the world.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (03:02):
I'm trying to think.
40 years is like this is thedawn of the internet and
personal computing.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (03:07):
Yeah, it started in 1984.
So, like the year personalcomputers are kind of coming out
right.
They tell stories of bringingtheir computers into Harvard
Like there were no computer labs.
There were.
Yeah, there were no computerlabs there were.
Yeah, there were no computerlabs.
There was nothing and they were.
Just they did some of the earlycreation of like speech to text
(03:31):
.
They did ways to.
They created a top, somethingcalled Book Builder which we use
all the time.
We highlight text right, theywere the first groups kind of
working on that and creatingthat, and so to see it
accelerated through the markettoday is incredible.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (03:47):
Yeah, and it feels it's interesting
because we were just at a roundtable and you know people were.
There was a lot of talk aboutuser-centered design.
How do we make sure that thefolks that for whom AI is being
built are actually a part of youknow informing the design?
And I and it feels like Casthas been really elevated in your
profile You've been tapped tobe a part of some of the leading
(04:09):
organizations that areadvancing AI equity in education
, edsafe AI Alliance being agreat example of that.
It's not a new topic, though.
This idea of the user-centereddesign isn't new.
Is the AI moment creating a newopportunity for us to sort of
have that conversation withfolks who you know previously?
Or maybe a little heartburnfrom the way that attack was
(04:32):
sort of thrown at schoolswithout necessarily the
investment up front?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (04:35):
and understanding what needs were
actually were yeah, that's agreat way to put it and that's
what I was just thinking aboutin that conversation, because
people, I think AI, the momentthat we're in with AI is so
democratizing right, the waythat people can, it can be.
(04:56):
Let me qualify that a minute butlike it can be, and one of the
things that we, that we aretrying to do all the time is
help make things born,accessible, born user friendly,
and most of the time they aren't.
We heard some concerns downthere about kind of how it can
be too expensive.
You have to have people reallyfocused on that know it.
(05:20):
And then we heard from otherpeople that actually it's
happening a lot that people userdesign around neurodiversity or
even bringing down otherbarriers is happening a lot.
People are just calling itdifferent things because there
is a reality of like there's amarket that you're selling to.
You want to sell to the biggestmarket or at least make your
(05:41):
product as available to the mostpeople who can buy it.
So we heard two reallyinteresting things down there.
I think two sides of it Onewhich is accessibility, can be
expensive.
Another one which was we'rejust not calling it that, we're
just not using some of thosesame words, and that's where we
want it to get to, where it iscompletely built in.
It's not separate andsegregated.
(06:01):
So I thought that was excitingand AI presents a moment for
that, because many ed techproducts, if they don't use AI,
come right, which are thepredominant number of them in
some ways.
But they come to us and we havea product certification.
We created it because educatorswere like I can't, I don't even
know.
People say it's UDL, I don'tknow if it is.
(06:23):
There's a lot of confusion inthe market, but they're done,
they're already created.
So they're having to go backand retrofit their design and
(06:43):
it's clunky.
It can be wonderful, but it'sexpensive to retrofit.
It's clunky.
So with the newness of AI, it'sa great moment to just revive
that conversation and say youhave a great ability here to do
something incredible right fromthe start and it's an
accelerator and it's aninnovator or a way for you to
innovate.
I mean, to me it's like a verysimilar argument to the space
program.
Right, you're starting tocreate things.
(07:05):
You don't even know what you'regoing to invent.
So we're working really hardevery day with people to try to
make them see the possibilitiesthere.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (07:15):
I mean, I think it was one of the threads
that I found very compelling waswhen you talked about
retrofitting and the exorbitantcost of having to go back and,
you know, modify something thatwasn't designed from the start.
It's actually way more expensivethan if you get it right from
the beginning.
And so, you know, I think it'san interesting bridge that we
can build for folks who maybethey're not necessarily coming
(07:37):
at this motivated by, you know,access and inclusivity, but they
are motivated by, you know,successfully deploying a product
, and one of the things that wekeep hearing from the AI space
is that the capabilities keepmoving forward and organizations
have just not figured out howto deploy them, because there's
just sort of gaps in terms ofthe folks who are the end users
(07:58):
don't really understand what todo with these tools, and so
there's a bridge that we can.
I think that we can build whatto do with these tools, and so
there's there's a bridge that wecan.
I think that we can build, andI'm curious, like, what are?
How early on are we in thisprocess?
Because cast is, you know, abig organization by nonprofit
standards, but you can't do thisalone and I mean, do you, do
you have the resources to getthis done.
I mean, what's standing in theway of, you know, achieving this
(08:20):
vision that you just describedfor us?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (08:30):
Yeah, so we can't do anything alone.
I feel like there's no way.
And then, even in thisenvironment, it's more important
than ever to be working withgood partners to start to be,
because there's so manyconversations happening, so many
things being built and they'regoing to reach such bigger
audiences that we have to be atthe table in those conversations
.
And I think that's what we aretrying to do.
We're trying to learn on ourown and build, and I mentioned
(08:51):
with our districts the 300 plusschool districts that we work
deeply with in the United States, which is a tiny amount, but
it's a lot and in all differentkind of ways that we're working
with them.
But we surveyed them to see arethey reflective.
We asked them questions aboutAI what do you know about it?
Are you using it?
Are you interested in it?
(09:12):
And we have some preconceivednotions about it.
If you're a district that'sworking with us, you're open to.
You know you're looking tobring down barriers, you're open
to innovation, but we're stillkind of wondering are they
matching what we're seeing innational surveys?
And 100%, they are, absolutely,and I think that one of the
biggest things was about 70% ofthem that responded were very
(09:33):
focused on.
We think that we could be doinga lot more with our technology
for multi-lingual learners, forlearners with disabilities, and
so that just tells me CAST needsto partner, because we have
unique knowledge about kind ofhow you can embed UDL in
different ways.
We've got a productcertification that we've worked
(09:53):
on for years.
That's a rubric where we'redeeply looking at those.
But there are so many peoplebuilding we can't even and we're
like a teardrop in the bucket.
I mean, oh my gosh.
So that to me, if everybodycould build in from the start
with some of that knowledge, canwe start to build developer
(10:14):
processes.
That would be awesome.
That's what we're really tryingto do is where can we get at
the foundational level to informthe design?
So we're not going product byproduct like our founders did,
person by person.
We're trying to say, okay, udlframework opened it to everyone,
what's that for AI?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (10:31):
Yeah, we have.
I mean, it's just, I feel likeit's such a gift to be in this
moment of time where, once in ageneration, there's this sort of
technology paradigm shift andwe're at the very beginnings of
this new era of AI.
I feel confident saying that Ithink maybe two years ago I
would have been more qualifiedand I don't know if I'd call it
(10:51):
the age of AI.
I think we are actuallyentering the age of AI and we
have the benefit of having had afew revs with sort of rapidly
scalable technology like theinternet, the computer.
You know when the internet camearound.
I'm curious.
I mean I was, I was in, I wasin high school, I was in, I
guess, elementary school and Ihad like dial-up.
(11:12):
The first time I accesseddial-up, um, and I mean, were
conversations like thishappening?
Was there sort of this almost,you know, meta conversation
about like what does this allmean?
Or people much more tactical.
Tactical like, just like how dowe get computer labs into
schools?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (11:27):
It's so funny.
It's so funny you mentionedthis, so I was a little older
than you at that time.
I'm not going to you know,obviously not that much older,
but one of our founders wasDavid Rose is David Rose and he
has in every conversation he'swith us as an emeritus member on
(11:47):
our board and in everyconversation I have had with him
over the last year heconsistently says this reminds
me so much of when the internet,when we launched.
When the internet launched andhit the world and we were all
trying to figure out what's itgoing to mean for us and what's
it going to look like and howare we going to use it, and
there were all these initialquestions about if you can just
(12:08):
get information off the internet.
Kids are cheating, like so manyparallels, right.
So that's actually been reallyhelpful for us as an
organization in our own learningto try to think about, you know
, because there is no roadmapand your brain is seeking
certainty.
And how can I predict, how willI make the best product, what
should I avoid and things.
(12:29):
And we have the UDL guidelineshelping us in.
You know his ways, but it hasbeen really striking and it's
been the commonality between theage of the Internet and now
this, and that's been a goodframe for us internally as we're
doing our own design, thinkingabout should we approach people
in this moment and what theyneed.
You know, alex, it was sointeresting in the conversation
(12:55):
that we were just havingdownstairs Someone mentioned the
normalization of this.
I thought that was so spot on,like it's happened so fast.
I totally, you can totally, sayit's the age of it.
It's not an overstatement, butthat now we're talking about how
do we normalize it so we cankind of approach it calmly, see
(13:18):
where it fits in our world, makesure it doesn't displace
teachers, make sure it enhanceseducation.
We need to be thinking moreabout that.
That was a really interestingmoment and that's very similar
to internet the panic around itinitially.
How will we control it?
How are they going to use itnegatively?
What will kids see?
Many of the same concerns seemto have surfaced then as well.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (13:41):
And the computers and the Internet.
It's really interesting becauseyou know if you were someone
that back when the Internet camearound, and.
I would argue that you know,because I was around for a
couple.
I remember the first time Iused Facebook and I feel like
most of the conversation was notabout this is going to
decentralize information andwith that will come sort of this
(14:03):
mixed bag of opportunity andthe democratization of
information.
But also, you know, a lot ofrisks that come from now not
having control of what and wherepeople are getting information.
And there's a good side to thatcoin.
There's also this you knowdarker side, and we're seeing
this um, there's a lot ofexamples of, uh, you know, the
internet creating sort of likebad outcomes, uh, at scale, and
(14:27):
and so I I feel like theinternet creating bad outcomes
at scale.
And so I feel like the internetkind of teaches us that we have
to take seriously.
When people are talking aboutrisks and concerns, these are
not just sort of idle worry, andyet I don't know that.
What could we say differently?
You go back it's like theInternet was definitely going to
happen there.
It's not that we had anopportunity to stop it, and so I
(14:48):
think sometimes I worry thatthere's so much of a focus on
the dangers and the risks thatwe're not able to move into this
space of almost liketroubleshooting and problem
solving together.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (15:00):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Yeah, I totally agree.
(15:29):
And I think that that was whenhe said the normalization
normally a word I don't likenormalization right in the world
of variability, but it was true.
It was something like how canwe calmly?
Technology is a massive positiveif you are an individual with a
disability, because what thingsthat are nice to use for people
who don't experience thatdisability are wide world
opening for someone with adisability.
So I think maybe I ampredisposed to optimism around
this because I've seenincredible progress and just
amazing, life-changing, amazinguses of technology and I want
(15:50):
that to keep happening.
So maybe I'm like veryoptimistic, but I don't think
you can.
We want to control it.
We need to be cautious, givenwhat we've learned with the
internet, but I don't want thatto stop us from some of the
incredible stuff that's comingthat we really can.
(16:12):
That will help everyone learn.
And you talk a lot about theimportance of educators and
that's not going to change.
That shouldn't change.
But we can, I think, acceleratetheir power and their work and
(16:35):
bring students into it more inways that I mean when I'm seeing
some of the stuff that we'reseeing like it's incredible.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (16:42):
It's living up to a lot of the promises
that were being made.
I mean, have you played withSesame?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (16:47):
I don't know if we've talked about this
yet.
No, no, so there's this tool.
What is it?
I don't even know what that is.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (16:50):
Sesame is a , a, a company, that, or it's a
tool, I don't know if thecompany the company is also
called Sesame is aconversational voice chatbot, so
kind of like what you know, ayear or two years ago, people
were, you know, foretelling.
Like you know, in the nearfuture, you're going to
literally be able to just have aseamless, fluid conversation
(17:12):
with AI and I think Sesame isthe now the closest we've ever
gotten and it's, you know,there's like there's a few, it's
not perfect, but it's veryclearly we're going to almost
near indistinguishableconversationality and so many
concerns right, like if you're aparent, right, and it's a good
thing it isn't Elmo, because Ithink I would have some
(17:32):
questions of my own aboutwhether kids should be talking
to an AI Elmo.
But when we think about studentswho are English language
learners, students who areneurodivergent and, frankly,
students who don't have twoparents at home to just talk
about what they've learned inschool when they go home, these
sort of big ideas are nowevolving into very potent and
(17:53):
plausible tools and technology,and I guess this question is how
do we sort of materialize thevision of the beneficial
outcomes from that?
And it feels like this isactually something that the
technologists can't do bythemselves.
And so I guess, like one thingthat I've and we're going to be
(18:13):
talking about this in our panellater today you know you talk
about educators and sort of likewhat is the role of, or how do
we get folks comfortable to aplace where they're able to
actually participate in thisexploration and contribute and
sort of move the ball forwardtowards those beneficial
outcomes?
One of the things that seems tobe standing in the way is just a
level of comfort and almostthis sense that you have a role
(18:36):
in the conversation and shapingit, and I think that's a really
big barrier to cross becausepeople understandably like AI
has always been something thatis in the realm of technologists
in silicon valley and you know,I was literally told point
blank by somebody once that I'mjust not, not smart enough to be
founding an ai nonprofit,because they're like you don't
know, you, you've never createda machine learning model like,
(18:59):
why, like, who are you to besitting here and like, trying to
, trying to do work in the space?
Um, but you.
But to your point now.
Language models have sort ofsignificantly lowered the bar
and made it more accessible.
People can get hands on um andyet I still feel like a small
sliver of people have reallygotten like, have rolled up
their sleeves.
Maybe they've played with it.
Um, what?
(19:20):
What can we do, whether it'said or just like anybody who's
listening, like what are the?
Yeah, what are the?
What can we do, whether it'sAID or just like anybody who's
listening, like what are the?
Yeah?
What can we do to bring moreorganizations and individuals
into this project?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (19:29):
Yeah, well , first of all, that person is
just like such a stereotypicaljerk, right.
We all have to deal with thosepeople.
But that aside, I think there'stwo things that are really
important about why many voiceshave to come in.
First of all, you're going tohave a much better design, right
, the way to find barriers is totry to think about someone else
(19:53):
, like it's trying to putyourself into someone else's
shoes and see how they mightexperience it, right.
So UDL guidelines try to helpyou do that, but the best way to
do it is co-design anddeveloping relationships with
different members, intentionallyseeking out community partners.
I think at this stage, we aregoing to have to normalize it
(20:14):
among our community, so it'sgoing to take a little bit of
work, and maybe this is whereour organizations have a role to
play, right, which is gettingour communities ready to be in
those conversations.
I don't think you need to be atechnologist or whatever the
right word for that would beright.
Software engineer.
I don't even know Whateverthose people are.
We don't need to be that to beable to inform the design right
(20:35):
On our team.
We work with developers.
We don't have any in-housedevelopers.
We used to and now we work withlots of, because there's so
many amazing developers outthere running their own
companies and they work with andwe have different size projects
and we work with.
We can kind of pick and choosebased on what they do right.
We don't need them in-house.
The in-house what we have iskind of the knowledge around UDL
(20:56):
.
And this is the second thing,which is one of the best things
that universal design forlearning or any design thing is.
You don't have to any focus oninclusion.
What is the goal I'm trying toaccomplish?
Right, what is the goal of this?
And that's actually it seemslike.
Of course you're going to saywhat's the goal, right, but when
(21:18):
we actually start deeply askingthat, all of a sudden you
realize oh, there's a lot ofstuff I'm lumping into this
product or question.
It's not actually needed to getto the goal.
And I think that's where you'regoing to co-design.
Voices are going to come in andthey're going to see that the
(21:39):
easiest example of that as aproblem is, if you are testing
someone's ability to read, tosee words on a page and read
them right, then it's importantthat they actually you watch
them right read the words,physically read those words.
But if you're testing theircomprehension, do you care if
they read them with their eyesor do you care if they read them
(22:01):
with their ears?
Do you care?
It doesn't matter.
That's not the goal of thelesson.
It's a simple, simple example.
But I think, when you werethinking about the technology,
what is the goal of the product?
And that's something whereeducators need to be involved.
I'll also just say about why weneed educators in this and
where our organizations, I think, can really help, and what I'm
(22:22):
excited about.
Because of my history indisability rights and education,
I have toured, like many, I'vebeen very lucky to tour many
incredible private LD schools,schools that serve kids with
learning disabilities around thecountry Incredible, extremely
costly schools.
(22:42):
So these are very privateschools.
They can cost $100,000 a year.
They're very expensive.
This is a small slice of ourworld that is able to go to
those schools, but theincredible thing about them is
the commonality is they'reteaching kids about the brain
and the teachers have beentrained in many different
(23:04):
programs, many differentinterventions, many different
things, and they are likeartists, right, they are sitting
with a kid, understanding thecomplexity, getting to know, and
they're kind of bringing themin.
They're weaving them in basedon what they see and what
they're then observing, andsometimes they do follow a
(23:27):
program right, weaving them inbased on what they see and what
they're then observing, andsometimes they do follow a
program, right.
But that is not something thatyou can have.
Maybe, eventually, ai will dothat, but I think we're years
away from something like that.
What you have in that human isan understanding of the student,
an understanding of allstudents.
Right, you're bringing a lot ofexpertise to this that you've
(23:49):
observed over the years.
But that kind of access toknowledge and the way they're
creatively constructingindividualized programs for
students if they had, the firststep to me is they'll have AI
tools helping them.
That will become part of whatthey're doing.
But that is a uniquely humaninteraction that's happening and
(24:13):
I think probably people wouldsay, oh, there may be people out
there like, well, we could seeAI doing that.
We are that's far, I think.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (24:21):
I agree.
I agree, you're looking at mefor confirmation.
I think that's right.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (24:24):
Because you're looking at me and I'm
like maybe it's not far, but Ithink it is actually.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (24:28):
Well, I think the idea of completely
replacing the role of theteacher is, if not far away.
Maybe it should never happen,even if it was possible.
But yeah, I mean, I think overthe next, let's say, five to 10
(24:48):
years, what seems much morelikely is the suite of tools at
the disposal of a specialeducation teacher, for example,
is going to get significantlywider and higher quality, but
it's still going.
There is not going to be like Imean.
Also, I mean, even if we justtry to narrow from, you know,
diversity from the disabilitycommunity and focus on
neurodivergence, there is notone tool for a neurodivergent
student.
It's like well, are theydyslexic, are they autistic, do
(25:09):
they have ADHD?
And so the only way this works,I think, is, to your point,
teachers that are able tounderstand when and how to
deploy some of these verypowerful tools that they're
going to have at their disposal.
But it's interesting becauseyou mentioned something about
like actually really understand,like what is the?
What are you actually trying todo?
(25:30):
And something that was mentionedearlier today in a conversation
was this idea that you know alot of people building AI
schools right now are makingthis assumption about education,
which is, well, the need theteachers have is they need more
time.
They're overworked, they'reburdened with all of this sort
of compliance-based work thatthey have to do, and so, if AI
(25:55):
can give them more time, that'sgoing to drive demand for the
products.
But then if you really ask,well, what is the goal of it?
What is the teacher's goal?
It's not to save time, right.
The teacher's goal is toactually improve outcomes for
their students Now.
If they have more time, theyhave more time now to focus on
(26:16):
how they can improve thoselearning outcomes.
But it's, I think, an example ofif you're not sort of in the
seat of an educator, you canhave these assumptions about
what the motivators will be.
In the seat of an educator, youcan have these assumptions
about what the motivators willbe.
And to your point about thevalue of this is I mean,
everybody's trying to carvetheir space out in the AI space.
(26:37):
All these startups are tryingto figure out what their
competitive advantage is.
What you're describing to mesounds kind of like a really
ripe you know greenfield set ofthings that companies could do
to actually stand out.
And I mean, have you workedwith for profit companies?
Have there been startups thathave come to you and said hey,
you know, we're trying to figureout how to actually develop
(26:57):
something to be a little bitmore to appeal to the folks that
you serve.
I mean, is that a service thatCAS provides?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (27:04):
Yes, absolutely, and it's so fun,
it's so fun, it's so that's likeour favorite thing because it's
boring.
They're coming to us andthey're saying we want to be
born accessible, as we would sayRight, but yeah, there's a lot
of these startups that have cometo us and we're working with
the new schools venture fundwith a couple of them, and
that's good Cause.
We again, again, it's liketrying to get to scale is always
(27:24):
, um, the issue, but yeah, um,gladio lit lab a lot of them are
are out there and creatingincredible products, but they
are.
They have an understanding ofwhat is the goal.
What am I trying to solve?
So what's the problem that Iwant to solve?
That's my and my goal.
(27:44):
I'm going to be reallyrigorously focused on that.
And they have, I would say, ahumble sense of I don't fully
understand my market and I wantto figure out how to understand
my market.
They don't typically have tonsof capital, so they're thinking,
you know they can't run hugefocus groups and do those
(28:05):
traditional kind of things, butit's like universal design is a
way to kind of bring that in andI think bringing in it they're
already committed to bringing ineducator voice and student
voice is actually the best partof all of this is because when
you this made me think of this,when you just said what do
teachers actually want?
And I think when we talk withour teachers, they want I'm
(28:29):
going to say it in a very quickway right, but there are magic
moments when you are workingwith a student and you see them
get it right, or you see themfeel confident or learn or try
again or whatever form it takes.
It's learning, it's thinking.
I just changed this person'slife right, like I gave them, I
(28:51):
opened a door for them.
That's what we're trying to getat, and it's hard, it does take
time, but I think that's where,if we can normalize some of
this.
And then the hardest part ofthis is thinking about the
current conditions in schoolsright now are challenging the
(29:12):
sort of working conditions.
Everything the structure is sohard right, that you were
mentioning this with how ed techtools and new AI tools or
others can seem like justanother thing.
It's hard.
How will I fit that in?
It feels like we see that withUDL as well.
It's like you're telling methere's 30 different brains in
(29:33):
my classroom.
Now I got to make 30 differentversions of the worksheet I got
to.
I can't Like what are youtalking?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (29:40):
about.
How do you respond to thatteacher.
Yeah, I mean, how do yourespond to that when you hear
something like that from ateacher.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (29:47):
We hear that so much and what we do is
we bring in other teachers whotalk about why actually this?
When you are working with UDL,there is a process, as you're
putting.
You've got to invest with us inthe beginning time, right, and
all of a sudden you will watchthat you won't be investing as
(30:08):
much time, the classroom willshift and change and you will
experience more of these momentsand the students will start to
lead their own learning.
That's the thing that gets mealso like.
So first of all it's like, ohmy lord, I got 30 brains in a
room, holy moly.
And then it's like you want thestudents to lead their what?
Like it's going to be chaos,it's going to be.
(30:30):
That is not a good idea, right?
Even I have to say I'm not aneducator, even as a parent.
When I first saw that I waslike I'm not sure we should be
doing that and it's not quite.
But they learn.
The point is you scaffold andthey learn how to lead their own
learning.
And then I have walked into.
I'll take you into BridgesAcademy in charter school in DC
(30:52):
the next time you're there.
Unbelievable educators in thatroom and they fourth, fifth
grade classroom.
Amazing.
What 30 kids, a couple teachers, two teachers in the room and
you think, are these kids goingto?
This could be total chaos, andwatching them learn the system,
(31:12):
interact and work with their ownlearning is stunning.
I think it's stunning everytime I see it and I deeply
believe it should be in everyclassroom.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (31:21):
But that's how we win over teachers it's,
but that's how we went overteachers.
Yeah, I mean there's, there's,there's.
So all this multi-dimensional,uh you know, systemic challenges
in education.
One of those is students don'tfeel like education is relevant
anymore.
You know, levels of um, theirtruancy are going through the
roof there.
I mean, there's some districtsthere's like 40 of the students
(31:42):
are not showing up to schoolevery day.
Um, and what you're describing,I mean, while it seems it might
sound really intimidating, itfeels like we need to figure
this out.
It feels like we need to findways to empower students to
actually be more invested intheir own education.
I don't think there's an AItool for that.
I think that's actually whereteachers are going to have to
(32:04):
come in and they understand theunique circumstances of their
students and their culturalcontext.
But I have to imagine thatthere's actually in the hands of
a teacher who, you know, is aliterate.
You know, when I justinterviewed the founders of this
, one of the leading podcaststudios called Kaleidoscope, and
they're telling a story abouthow using stories is one of the
(32:27):
ways that they are able toconnect audiences with sometimes
esoteric and complicated topics.
They're like the key is youneed to hook them right at the
beginning, and so you have tohave some sort of surprising
story or fact that you know,just sort of like gets them to.
You know, start payingattention.
You know, my first reaction iswell, not every teacher is going
to be able to come pull intothe reach in their pocket.
plot like the perfect story yeahand not every student is going
(32:50):
to care about that one storythat you pull.
You may need a few differentexamples.
Um, language model seems like areally good uh, that seems like
a really good use of a language.
Models like whatever you'reteaching, especially like the
really dry, uh parts of your,your syllabus.
You know, ai can, actually youcould partner with AI to figure
out, like, how do I create thisengaging moment or even just
sort of short inquiry orproject-based learning activity
(33:11):
right at the front, thebeginning of the class?
But I just don't know.
There's a script where it's notlike well, every class starts
with a story because at acertain point maybe that will
get dry, right.
So I think you need to like so,yeah, the magic of how you get
people to feel empowered and tosort of have this ownership.
It feels like the nut to crack.
I'm who are the otherstakeholders that need to be a
(33:32):
part of this?
I mean, obviously the teachers,and we need to figure out how
to support them.
But yeah, who else is sort of apart of this movement?
You know, if we're talkingabout building cultural norms,
you're really talking aboutbuilding a cultural movement.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (33:44):
I think it's students and parents.
When I think about disabilitylaw, the only thing that has
moved that civil rights lawforward Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act isparents Parents coming together
with educators, and I reallythink it's students.
I mean, what you're citingabout engagement is real.
(34:05):
It is dropping like a rock inmany different factors.
We see it.
Gallup polls have it right.
There was just an article theother day.
Rebecca Winthrop's book has justcome out I can't think of the
name of it, but Atlantic talkedabout it.
So many middle schoolers notengaged Young men, young men I'm
the mom of a 17 year old.
(34:25):
There is an issue with youngmen in our nation and something
that our schools are are notengaging them, and I see that.
So there, it's very real.
As you said, chronicabsenteeism is one startling
example of it, but I think youhave to have students involved
in it.
In fact, with UDL, that's partof it, right, and you hear it
(34:48):
with lots of different thingsvoice and choice XQ was talking
about it, right, there arefactors as they're looking
through those, but I really feellike it's a different way to
think about.
It has to be a partnership ofparents and students and schools
, and that's hard right now inour country right, it has always
(35:13):
been a challenge.
There's sort of a creativetension between parents and
schools in some ways.
That has always existed and hasbeen good and made the system
better.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (35:22):
So if you're a parent that's listening
, like literally, what is stepone for that parent?
And like let's say they're at aschool where there isn't you
know a history of sort of likereally engaging, there's not an
obvious forum for them to justshow up Like what would your
advice be to a parent who'strying to figure out, like what
do I do tomorrow to kind of justlike start nudging my school to
start thinking about this stuff?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (35:45):
I mean, my advice would center on start
with, things like universaldesign for learning, because I'm
, you know, I think inclusion isreally important, but it's like
thinking about ways you'regoing to approach the school to
understand what they're doing.
I do think it's, you know, away in is there are many parent
organizations, there are ways, Ibelieve in public schools and
we work with charters, we workwith private schools, we work
with anywhere learning ishappening, we work, but I think
(36:08):
most people are still workingwith public school or sending
their children to public schools, and so you know there's a lot
of different ways and I think,interestingly, with AI what a
great question to ask it rightTo start.
I personally think that's agreat way to get some initial
information about how you shouldmove forward.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (36:28):
There's actually that's actually another
good point.
You then the problem wouldprobably go something like I'm a
parent, I'm about to meet withan assistant principal.
I don't know about whetherthey're leveraging universal
design principles.
Maybe I'm feeling a little bitintimidated.
I don't want to get into anargument, but I really am
(36:48):
passionate about, you know,helping the school evolve.
You probably get a reallyhelpful, almost like, agenda for
the meeting with some greatopening questions, and what I'm
hearing from you is startingwith curiosity.
So maybe don't make theassumption that I think assuming
good intent is going to beimportant, because there's a lot
of antagonism between parentsand schools and, as with every
(37:11):
anytime, you're trying to workcollaboratively.
I think figuring out how tobuild that bridge is critical,
otherwise you're not going toget anywhere.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (37:19):
But so I think we're starting to see the
need.
Actually, what I would say is Ithink it's a recognition that
we need to be normalizing someof these concepts with parents.
We need to be familiarizing ismaybe a better word.
We've lived at CAST in therealm of research, neuroscience,
all of those things, and wework with educators, but it just
(37:39):
seems like educators work withparents too.
We need to be kind of helpingthem explain universal design,
inclusion and students withdisabilities and various needs
to them.
So that's really we just saw aneed for it right now.
But you know what's so funny?
You mentioned your mom was aneducator.
Is your mom still working?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (38:00):
She's in her last year at Akron Public
Schools.
Look at her Congratulations.
Good for her.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (38:03):
She's probably really excited year at
Akron Public Schools.
Congratulations, good for her.
She's probably really excited.
She is pounding the days, nodoubt.
My mom was an educator in Ohio,in Lakewood Public Schools, and
she was a special ed teacher,special ed teacher, special ed
director.
So I grew up in her classroom,going after school to her
classroom right, and that had aprofound.
That's actually probably why Ido what I do.
(38:24):
It had a profound impact on meas a very young kid.
Right I was particularly inthird grade.
I went to a school down thestreet from where my mother
taught.
She taught in a public schooland at the time I was in a
parochial school right down thestreet and I would go in the
morning into her classroom and Iwould come after school and I
(38:47):
knew all of her students rightbecause they would be come in
the morning, be coming afterschool.
And one day our schoolschedules did not mix and so my
mom didn't have childcare and soI just went for the whole day
to the school and I went intosomeone else's one of her
friend's classrooms a thirdgrade classroom.
I just went for the whole dayto the school and I went into
one of her friend's classrooms,a third-grade classroom.
I was helping in the classroomor something, and it struck me
(39:10):
that entire day I never saw mymom, I never saw her kids.
I was like where are they?
Because obviously I was lookingfor them.
I remember distinctly lookingfor them all day.
Where are they?
And that was the day that Ilearned what segregation is in
my life.
They were special educationstudents and they were not
(39:31):
coming into lunch, they were notcoming in the hallway, they
were not.
They were occasionally.
I'm sure they were moreinvolved in the.
They were in specials, theywere in other things.
Right, I was in third grade.
But the absence of that and itit was such a stark moment
because I was pretty good for Iwas, I like, know those kids, I
was friends with those kids.
(39:51):
They were people.
They are I don't know themtoday, but they were people to
me then and it was just such amoment of like that is a design
problem.
Everyone loses in that andwe've come come so far.
That was in the whatever, theearly 80s maybe, as CAST was
being formed when I was inmiddle school.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (40:11):
I distinctly remember the special
education class was totallyseparate and sometimes they
would sort of emerge out of theroom that they had.
And so you've said we've made alot of progress but at the same
time no-transcript.
(40:48):
Literally every single brain isunique.
Kind of intimidating to ateacher who now has some very
unique new fingerprints thatthey have to design for I mean,
I have some obvious we couldhave a conversation about the
role of AI here, but I'm curiousabout what has worked really
well for teachers who you'veseen, like you know, take this
(41:09):
on and thrive.
What can we learn from teacherswho you know took that challenge
on and were really successfulin addressing it?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (41:17):
I think the first thing is the way we
think about the problem, andthat is parents fought for
inclusion In the special edworld.
That's a legal term and we useit all the time and it means
access to the general edcurriculum.
I feel like it's something Ineed to say now.
But parents fought for thatbecause they're with kids all
the time, right, all day, andthey see kids for who they are
(41:41):
all the time.
Sometimes our researchers wantto segregate kids and provide
interventions in a medical kindof way, almost, where you take a
dosage of this and then we seeif it works.
But we don't live our lives thatway.
Right, we don't have workplaces.
It's not like AIEDU has anoffice where all the people with
disabilities go in that backcorner over there, right?
So some people will ask thequestion in our community how
(42:05):
can we better resegregate to?
Just?
There's a hope that we'll teachthe kids separately and then
they'll come to a place wherethey can integrate and socially
they'll just be all OK.
We've moved beyond that.
Right now it's all about howcan we do it better in an
(42:26):
inclusive environment whereeverybody's in the room.
One of the ways we do that isuniversal design for learning,
because it's about barriers andhow do we find them and drop
them, and educators are right tosay they need support.
It's about staffing models inschools.
It's about empowering kids, andyou don't need tech or AI to
implement universal design forlearning.
(42:46):
That's really important, Ithink that's very important to
say.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (42:49):
AI is not the unlock for this.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (42:52):
Yeah, but if you can use it well, it can
be really helpful, which is whyco-design with educators is so
important and students Becausethey're already living they will
give you all the problemsthey're facing, the design
problems.
So if you're co-designing withthem, they're going to help you
(43:12):
get to your goal.
They're also going to help youthink of new products you should
be creating, right.
But I think that's so.
That's what I would say.
I would say like we can't thinkabout going back.
We have to think about how dowe educate everyone together,
because they're going to livethe rest of their lives together
.
And we also know that rightbefore I left NCLD, we did a
(43:34):
study of students with reading,writing, math disabilities and
they experience anxiety anddepression at two to five times
the rate other students.
I believe that that is becausethey're in schools that make
them feel like failures and theyfail.
And they fail because thedesign isn't right, and I'd be
(43:55):
happy for someone to prove mewrong and then we'll go look at
something else.
But I think it's like I'veheard enough stories of that,
that I believe the social costof resegregating to deliver some
dosage in a perfect environment, which isn't happening anywhere
anyway, isn't the answer.
It's like let's go all in on.
(44:16):
How do we do a better job inthe general ed classroom so
they're prepared for career, forcollege, for whatever they do
in the rest of their life?
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (44:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And if AI can help us get there, so be it yeah.
I think this is a great way toclose.
I mean, I'll take some licenseto share a closing thought
because I think this is really,really important.
You know we have.
You know AIEDU is relativelyyoung as an organization.
We've been around, you knowlong by AI standards, we've been
around since 2019, but we'rereally early to this space
(44:48):
compared to orgs like CAST,which have been around for 40
years.
And you know, we've enjoyed alot of, like a huge influx of
funding and support because ofthis like shiny object, which is
artificial intelligence, andit's not a Trojan horse
no-transcript, and it's not aTrojan horse, because I'm very
open about this.
So I don't know what thetransparent version of a Trojan
(45:08):
horse would be.
But I mean, I think ourstrategy is very much use AI,
harness AI as the shiny objectthat is bringing people back to
conversations for which they'vethrown up their hands and the
philanthropy space is gettingsmaller.
The philanthropy space isgetting smaller for K-12.
And when I've talked to funders, it's because they're like,
(45:29):
yeah, we've tried, we've beendoing this work and you know
what, we're not really feelinglike we're moving the needle
enough, but we're reallyinterested in artificial
intelligence and I think thatthis transparent horse is all
about.
Use this moment as a chance forus to go back and really double
down on some of these, like theanswer you know the answer to
(45:50):
how do you build ai tools thatare going to successfully scale
as universal design anduser-centered design.
The answer to how do we getkids ready, uh, for the future
of work and for, you know, thejobs of the future.
It's not using ai, it'sactually durable skills.
You know, it's the amer AI,it's actually durable skills.
America Succeeds had theirdurable skills framework.
We have portraits of a graduatewhich for decades, have talked
(46:14):
about critical thinking and nowwe're hearing from the smartest
thinkers that that skill isactually maybe the most
important for a student that'strying to differentiate
themselves.
It's a bit of a sleight of handwhere you're bringing people in
and sort of inviting them toget excited about this new
technology, which islegitimately exciting.
But I think there's a role forthe non-technical focused orgs
(46:36):
the orgs that aren'tspecifically squarely focused on
building the technology tocenter all these other concepts
that we now have a lot ofexperience under our belt, to
kind of know what does work andwhat doesn't work and the
challenges.
Many times in project-basedlearning is like this.
We know project-based learningis important.
It's not necessarily beingimplemented successfully, and so
(46:57):
the issue is not that PBL isn'timportant.
It's that we need to helpteachers do more PBL.
Ai might be able to help you dothat actually.
So that's sort of the that'swhat we're thinking about.
It.
Lindsay, anything that youwould.
We're in South by Southwestright now, so it's March.
This will probably come out inApril or May.
(47:17):
Very hard to imagine what theworld is going to be like even
just two months from now, butwhat is a closing thought that
you'd like to share with theaudience?
Someone who is maybe inspiredby this conversation is trying
to think about whether they're aparent or otherwise.
Yeah, what advice would yougive someone who's trying to
lean in a bit more?
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (47:36):
Well, I'm going to say two things.
The first thing I'm going tosay is that's why your answer,
what you just said, the way youframed kind of how AI can help
us in this moment, is exactlywhy it's important that you are
who, you are right, that you arebringing your view to AI EDU,
that you have a view ofeducation that you've seen
through your mom, Alex.
That's like the way.
I totally agree with the wayyou just framed that.
(47:58):
It's a wonderful tool to get atsome of these issues that we've
been dealing with for manyyears and that we can fix.
We can fix them, we can iterateon those designs, and you're
the perfect person to be doingthat.
So I'm just thinking of theperson who said to you well,
you're not.
You know, you don't have allthat.
It's like, yeah, it's good, youdon't.
(48:18):
In many ways, you're bringing alot of other amazing things to
it.
So that is something I want tosay because don't lose sight of
that that's an important viewthat we need.
What I would say two months,holy moly.
This has been a race like areally bananas race, but what I
would say is I think parents area big part of what makes good
(48:42):
education as we move forward.
I think educators and parentsworking together is the secret
to everything, and then engagingstudents, and so I would just
say from Cass' perspective,we're looking at really working
deeply with parents and helpingthem understand and trying to
understand how they caninfluence education, how we can
(49:03):
just share some informationabout how kids learn what they
may want to know as they go intoschools.
We also are really focusing onfaster ways to get to educators.
We're focusing on kind ofreading and math.
Our NAEP scores are a challengeright, and so I think, going
forward, we're trying to figureout what are good ways to get
(49:25):
information to people, and thenreading and math are always good
as grounding influences.
We all agree on reading andmath as things that kids should
learn in school and parents needto have good information to
help them feel empowered andconfident in conversations with
schools, and those make the bestconversations and then,
honestly, it's just helping oureducators have a better sense.
(49:48):
We've got that survey and nowI'm like we got to do something
for our educators and we'regoing to need good partners like
you guys to make that happen.
So I appreciate all you'redoing.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (49:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of work to do.
Lindsay Jones, thank you somuch for joining me.
Lindsay Jones (CAST) (50:00):
Thank you, and then I think we're
literally walking to our panelright now.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (50:05):
I think we're gonna, we're gonna stop
rolling and, uh, I'll probablyhave to find my suit jacket
wherever that is.
Um, yeah, thank you again thankyou so much.
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