AI Is Already Here: What K-12 Teachers and Students Need Now

Welcome back to another edition of AGI Schools Out Saturdays, where we talk about preparing students for their future, not our past. I have a great episode for you today. My business partner, dear friend, Parochial school principal extraordinaire Rhonda Schwartz. We're going to get into the future of AI, the Pope's Encyclical, some business ventures that we've been involved in lately, the start of the school year, and the state of AI in the Midwest and education. Rhonda, introduce yourself and tell us what it's like being back at school.

Well, thank you, Jason, for that great introduction. Well, I'm Rhonda Swartz, and I have been a principal for about 19 years. I'm currently in a Southside Catholic school in Indianapolis, but I've been basically an Indianapolis Catholic school principal or executive director for the last 19 years, I guess. I'm at a new school this year, so it's been kind of fun and challenging getting us up and rolling for a new school year and getting to know the staff, getting to know their curriculum, what they have, what they don't have, what they need, what they don't need. So it's been kind of a whirlwind the last, well, since July when I started officially. So that's kind of where I'm at, what I've been doing. We've got some good things happening on the on the side. So, you know, you and me and it's been a good time. I'll let you dive into whatever you want to talk about.

Well, let's start with a little bit of your history with AI in education. So you implemented Gemini a little bit through Google Classroom, school AI. You've looked at Magic School. What has your experience been with vertical AI in the classroom or purpose-driven and with just teachers and AI in general for the past couple of years?

So I think there's been a lot of reservations that teachers have just around AI. I think there is just basically like when we came into education initially and we were learning smart boards or online curriculum, I think all of it comes with a little bit of reluctancy. And I definitely think I've seen that. There are some teachers that really want to embrace it, but they don't fully understand AI's capabilities. They're just using it at a very surface level. I went in this year and looked, well, last year, last school year at the last school I was at, I went in really looking hard at how we could transform AI. the teachers' lives with AI predominantly. Because that's really what I wanted to do is give teachers their time back. And I think with AI, we're able to do that, you know, better than we've ever been able to. And for those people who've never been an educator, there's just so many hours and days and weekends spent working planning and grading. And really, people don't really talk about the time. They think teachers have an amazing schedule because, you know, we work 180 days a year and we have our summers off. And, you know, we work from, you know, 7 o'clock in the morning to 3.30 at night and then we're done. And it just doesn't stop there. You know, back when I was a classroom teacher, I started in 1999 as a public school educator. Whenever you walk into a Target, you were always thinking about what can I get for my