EP 19 - Michelle Ament talks about AI’s impact on education and the importance of human intelligence in an AI world.

In this episode, John and Jason engage in a discussion with Dr. Michelle Ament about the impact of AI on education, its role in reducing transactional tasks for educators, the significance of human intelligence and soft skills in an AI-driven world, how AI can be leveraged in professional development, and the potential future of AI-integrated, relationship-based classroom environments tailored to individual student needs. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com 

Join Our LinkedIn Group - Online Learning Podcast

Links and Resources:

• Dr. Michelle Ament is the Cheif Academic Officer at ProSolve
• Michelle Ament on LinkedIn
• Jason's AI 4 Language Translation Video
• An intro to the Zone of Proximal Development

Transcript

We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!

False Start

[00:00:00] Michelle Ament: Thank you for having me this morning. I'm so looking forward to this conversation. 

[00:00:04] Jason Johnston: Yeah, and we just wanted to get started just to understand a little bit about you and your background, where you've come from. Currently, you're a chief academic officer. And

John Deletes Jason's Notes

[00:00:14] John Nash: Oh, I did that, didn't I?

[00:00:16] Jason Johnston: John just deleted all my notes.

[00:00:19] John Nash: No, I didn't. I moved my notes and put them below yours.

[00:00:25] Jason Johnston: I'll try again.

[00:00:28] John Nash: Podcasting at its best.

[00:00:31] Michelle Ament: This is fun. 

Start Intro

[00:00:33] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.

[00:00:37] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast.

[00:00:42] John Nash: Yes, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation that we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, Online learning's had its chance to be great, and a lot of it is, but there's still a bit that isn't. And how are we going to get to the next stage, Jason?

[00:00:58] Jason Johnston: And that's a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?

[00:01:03] John Nash: I love that. Perfect. What do you want to talk about today?

[00:01:06] Jason Johnston: I would love to talk about online learning. How does that sound as a theme, overall theme, for our conversation today? But more specifically, I would love to talk with, we've got a guest with us, Dr. Michelle Ament. Welcome, Michelle.

[00:01:21] Michelle Ament: Good morning.

[00:01:23] Jason Johnston: How are you?

[00:01:24] Michelle Ament: I'm doing great. Thank you for having me this morning. I'm so looking forward to this conversation.

[00:01:30] Jason Johnston: We're really looking forward to having you with us. We just wanted to get started just to understand a little bit about you and your background, you're currently, the chief learning officer you've had a background in personalized learning technology and learning curriculum and design fifth grade teacher, one of my question for you today Michelle is how did you get to where you are today?

[00:01:51] Michelle Ament: Great question. I think about why, where I, how I got to where I am today is I love the design of learning. So when I went into teaching, I was a classroom teacher. I've been in education 25 years. And like you said, I started in fifth grade and was an elementary teacher. And what I loved about teaching first was the daily interaction with kids, of course, but the design of learning.

So it was all about, Yeah. learning, figuring out what learners needed, what were some of their strengths, what were some of their areas of growth, and then figuring out how to design really engaging learning. And so in the classroom, that's what fueled me every day. It was like a problem to solve. How could I design something that was really relevant, highly engaging?

And authentic for kids. And then I went on to lead in that way and led in several di