Now I'm saying this as someone who of course uses my own device quite often, and plenty of time is doing planning/design work outside of school! But the vast, vast majority of K-12 educators aren't—and unless tools/access are provided within their work hours/resources, it won't happen, imo.

To go back to my original point, this why I used the word "equipped" and where a lot of the AI discourse is out of touch with the typical teacher who does their work for school entirely on a district device, often on the school's network. They don't have access to any of this right now.

Genuinely curious, though: what agents can be used right now on district devices?

I feel like in almost all cases this would mean discarding student privacy laws and many district policies, unless those are adjusted quite drastically, yes? (Though right now there is already a ton of those violations happening with AI and no one is doing anything about it, so yeah...)

So essentially you're relying on teachers (and, potentially, students) to do this work outside of school to develop that expertise, taking on all the risk that comes with it using their own devices/information, correct? I have not seen many examples of this happening safely in schools, at least.

In my understanding (could be wrong), very few K-12 teachers have capacity to use these tools within their systems in safe manner that does not violate district policy, etc. That goes for students, too. (To be clear: I also don't think that's a bad thing.)

At the K-12 level, aside from quite-rare outliers, the vast majority of us (*raises hand*) aren't even close to equipped to respond to the impact of agentic AI.

If you know, you know. (Also: this season of Survivor is pure ridiculous joy and it is exactly what the doctor ordered this October!)

This really resonates as the skill I’d want to cultivate in novice T’s as an intention: “Eventually, each teacher builds a repertoire of things to notice and a larger pool of ways to respond.” We need to name the repertoire/pool for novices to help them begin naming those things for themselves.

Maybe the most important lesson the past several years have offered in education is that, far more often than not, efficiency is the opposite of presence. Yes, we tell ourselves that if we’re efficient with A then we’ll be more present with B. But if we’re honest with ourselves…

Wouldn’t that be amazing and the results would be impressive! I wish there was an easy way to help the public and politicians understand this.

"Experience has taught me that responsiveness isn’t abandoning the plan. Responsiveness is teaching the students who showed up in class rather than who I imagined when I wrote the lesson." 🎯 🎯 🎯 Imagine if we designed schools for this type of responsiveness?

What I appreciate about this "move" is that sometimes, when things aren't going well, we assert more control in response as teachers—which, predictably, can make things worse. More choice/agency for students though? Can be a powerful shift, and also a timely one!

Love this move: designing for joy/good in the times you are going to need that joy/good. Savvy but also meaningful. ✔️

I've had MANY conversations with students who see this in themselves and friends: "persistence is reduced because AI conditions people to expect immediate answers thereby denying them the experience of working through challenges on their own." Arguments re: how could be used ≠ how it is being used.

October is a month you 100% feel as a teacher. In every way. What’s something you do to get through the more-challenging stretches of this work?