Voices of Leadership: Keynotes from the Institute

If AI is the Answer, What is the Question: Thinking about Learning and Vice Versa

The global economy is moving into an era of Intelligence Augmentation (IA). Science fiction often portrays "intelligence” as involving complementary roles of reckoning and judgment. For example, In the Star Trek series the judgment and decision making of ‘Captain Picard' are enhanced by the reckoning skills (calculations, analysis of multidimensional information, predictions) of the android ‘Data', a machine without human capacities like emotions. The human and machine work synergistically together to be better than their individual abilities. In the next few years, most occupations will shift to require working with a generative AI-based agent that has complementary skills and knowledge to the human worker. This talk will discuss what types of learning are most valuable for students to prepare for these IA interactions in work and life, as well as what types of teaching can utilize generative AI without undercutting students' academic integrity and learning.

ABOUT CHRIS

Prior to becoming a Senior Research Fellow, for 22 years Chris Dede was the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies. His fundamental interest is developing new types of educational systems to meet the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. His research spans emerging technologies for learning, infusing technology into large-scale educational improvement initiatives, developing policies that support educational transformation, and providing leadership in educational innovation. Currently, Dede is a Co-Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded National Artificial Intelligence Institute in Adult Learning and Online Education. He co-founded the Silver Lining for Learning initiative and developed a widely used Framework for scaling up educational innovations. From 2001 to 2004, he served as chair of the Learning & Teaching program at HGSE. Dede is an advisor to the digital puppeteering company Mursion, Inc., in which he has an equity stake.

Future-Fluent: Examining the Power of Literacy, Language, and Equity in a Tech-Driven Era with Artificial Intelligence

Explore the future of literacy and language fluency with AI, including a focus on technology skills. This session examines how to leverage artificial intelligence to equip educators and students with adaptable skills for an increasingly changing digital world while fostering strategies for equitable learning environments. Through interactive discussions, activities, and multimedia exploration, we will look at strategies for best practices for integrating AI-enabled (Generative and Non-generative) tools to enhance instruction, learning, engagement, and empowerment. We will collaboratively examine bias and how it affects Artificial Intelligence models while also looking at ethical considerations for AI and gaining strategies for promoting equity. By the end, participants will have a deeper understanding of digital literacy, digital fluency, acute language skills, and how to foster a higher technology acumen.

ABOUT KEN

Ken (He/Him/His)  is a highly distinguished professional in education, with a Master’s degree in Education with a specific focus on Educational Technology and New Media Design and Production. His academic background is complemented by over two decades of hands-on teaching experience, with a significant part of his career devoted to shaping young minds at the Middle School level through the lens of technology.

Ken is an esteemed member of the Educational Technology community, standing tall with accolades from leading global tech entities such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft. He holds the esteemed title of an Apple Distinguished Educator, a Google Certified Innovator, and a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, signifying his active and influential role in advancing educational technology.

Ken’s expertise extends to the sphere of policy-making, being a notable figure in the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Education Technology Task Force. A committed advocate for equal learning opportunities, he regularly imparts knowledge and insights through keynote speeches, personalized consulting, organizational culture/change, school/district transformation,  and hands-on workshops. His range of expertise covers an array of topics, including but not limited to, Organizational Leadership, Policy Analysis, Inclusive Learning Environments, Antibias/Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Multimedia Literacy, Cultural Intelligences, Design and Career and Technical Education (CTE).

iGen: Teaching and Guiding the Smartphone Generation

Today's older kids, teens, and young adults are Gen Z (also known as iGen), the first generation to spend their adolescence with smartphones. Gen Z'ers are growing up more slowly as adolescents, spending more time online, and spending less time hanging out with their friends in person. They are also more motivated by end goals and less by intrinsic joy than previous generations. You'll walk away from this session with ideas for how to better reach this generation in the classroom and help them be happier and healthier overall. 

ABOUT JEAN

Jean M. Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, is the author of more than 180 scientific publications and seven books, including Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future and iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. She holds a BA and MA from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

How Will We Respond to the A.I. Revolution?

How to Engage Learners in Every Space

Creative work can be hard. It can be challenging. It can sometimes be overwhelming to try and plan and incorporate into our schools. Yet, we know our students are going to have to be more creative than ever to successfully thrive in today’s world. This keynote shares how all kinds of spaces can provide a structure for creative teaching and learning, and how this process can empower our students to do remarkable work inside our schools right now. In a world that is ever-changing, our job is not to prepare students for something; instead, our role is to help students prepare themselves for anything.

ABOUT A.J.

A.J. Juliani has been writing at AJJuliani.com since 2011. He’s the author of 8 books about learning, including best-sellers Empower, Launch, and his newest title: Adaptable. Mr. Juliani has worked at every level of education as a teacher, coach, administrator, and now faculty at UPenn GSE Penn Literacy Network. He shares more about his story on his website: https://www.ajjuliani.com/about and you can also connect with him on Instagram (@LearningwithAJ) and Twitter (@ajjuliani). 

Go Forth and Be Bold

Educating for the Future

Wisdom informs innovation; the latter simply cannot exist without the former. In the push for future-focused schools, we need to take an honest look at the strategies and practices of our past. Which highly effective strategies and technology need to accompany us on the path forward? Which practices never worked to begin with, and need to go the way of the floppy disk? In addition to these questions, there is an engagement crisis in our nation’s schools.  Weston will challenge and motivate participants to look at how and why technology and engagement must work together to cultivate curiosity, create participatory classrooms, and nurture a desire to persevere in all students.

ABOUT WESTON

Weston Kieschnick is an award-winning educator, best-selling author, TEDx speaker, coach, husband, and father. He is the author of The Educator’s ATLAS, Bold School, Breaking Bold, co-author of The Learning Transformation: A Guide to Blended Learning for Administrators and the creator and host of Teaching Keating; one of the most downloaded podcasts for educators and parents on iTunes. Weston has worked in collaboration with innovative tech and publishing companies (Google, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Apple) to redefine teaching and learning in the digital age. As such, he’s advised educators from every state in the US and more than 30 countries around the world. Districts where Mr. Kieschnick has designed content, implemented initiatives, and trained educational leaders have been recognized by the Learning Counsel as being among the top ten in the nation for their work in blended learning. You can find Weston’s work published in EdWeek, EdTech Magazine, The Spark, and featured on TED, the 10-Minute Teacher, Teaching Tales, Kids Deserve It, and LeadUp Teach.

Love is Stronger Than Hate

Chris Singleton is a former minor league baseball player drafted by the Chicago Cubs. He became a nationally-renowned speaker with a message of resilience, forgiveness and unity following the loss of his mother in the 2015 Mother Emanuel Church Tragedy in Charleston, S.C. Chris now shares his message with over 80 organizations annually and his clients include: Boeing, The Houston Texans, Microsoft, Biogen, Volvo, Deloitte and over 150,000 students and educators across the world.  

One of his children’s books, Different – A Story About Loving Your Neighbor, was a best seller in its category and has been featured by national media outlets, including The Obama Foundation. Chris’ overall mission when speaking is to inspire his audiences with his story of resilience and to unite millions of people with his belief that, “Love is Stronger Than Hate.” 

TEACH LIKE A PIRATE

New York Times Best-Selling author Dave Burgess will present a high-energy, entertaining, and inspirational program that will transform the way you look at your role as an educator. Learn how to dramatically increase student engagement, design wildly creative lessons, and build a course that is a life-changing experience for your students.

Using a unique combination of magic and humor, he will reignite your passion for the education profession and show you exactly how to make school an amazing place that has students wanting to knock down the walls to get in.

Teach Like a PIRATE has sparked a full-scale revolution in the educational world and has inspired teachers from all over the globe to achieve new levels of excellence in their schools and classrooms. This program is your chance to experience the one-of-a-kind presentational style of unbelievable intensity and outrageous energy that has transfixed audiences at packed venues across the nation.

ABOUT DAVE

Dave Burgess is The New York Times Best-Selling author of Teach Like A PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator and co-author of P is for PIRATE: Inspirational ABC’s for Educators. He is a highly sought after professional development speaker well known for his creative, entertaining, and outrageously energetic style.  

His workshops, seminars, and keynotes not only motivate and inspire teachers, but also help them to develop practical ways to become more creative and engaging in the classroom. Dave empowers teachers to embrace the mighty purpose of being an educator and sparks them to design classes that are life-changing experiences for students.  

As a teacher at West Hills High School in San Diego, he was the 2001 and 2012 Golden Apple recipient and the 2007/2008 Teacher of the Year. He was voted a faculty standout for seventeen consecutive years in categories such as: Most Entertaining, Most Energetic, and Most Dramatic. At a ceremony in Washington D.C., the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences awarded him the 2014 BAMMY for Secondary School Teacher of the Year. 

He specializes in teaching hard-to-reach, hard-to-motivate students with techniques that incorporate showmanship and creativity. 

The Role of Education in a Phygital Future:

The Wonder of Learning for Today, Tomorrow and Beyond! We know that successful education is measured by experiential learning styles — but how will digital technologies enhance the pillars of learning? And will they enhance or disrupt? Metaverse expert and speaker Kelly Vero wants to change the way we think about education, and utilizing live use cases as well as documented discoveries, she wants to explore the changing world of education — with you! In her talk, you will learn about how the metaverse became the buzzword for every vertical, alongside a vision for how educators can utilize the full force of this new technology to enhance physical learning in a digital space.

ABOUT KELLY

Kelly Vero is a futurist, a game developer, and an architect of the metaverse. She has shipped several very successful AAA video games with mass market appeal for adult and children’s franchises and household name IPs. Before creating and refining characters in the Transformers continuous universe, Kelly was already hooked into the possibilities of technology where humans meet everything from robots and autonomous vehicles to fashion, wearables, and food. Influenced by the world around her, Kelly is also a bestselling novelist and science fiction writer, she has even developed and published children’s books to expand her audience beyond video games. Guided by pop culture, and covering every subject from Max Headroom to BTS, Kelly is passionate about the evolution of end-user and consumer generations towards future gazing and expressing ourselves through our own image and aspiration.

Kelly’s unique style can be found in a variety of video games that she has worked on or participated in, much to the delight of her unique sense of style. It is in her presence and style that she has been brought closer to the intersection of a variety of verticals where she works today. Combining her passion for video games with music, fashion and even the male dominated world of science fiction has brought forth the opportunities to design and develop experiences in phygital spaces. Working with everyone from luxury houses (Farfetch, LVMH and Audemars Piguet) to blockchain and NFTs (Sotheby’s, Christies and Luma); Kelly believes gamification puts the end-user front and centre as the beating heart of any application or experience.

Kelly was a late graduate of academia, mastering in Greek and Roman Mythology no less! But this has not stopped her from speaking fervently about the role of video games as education and its place in the metaverse. In her conferences she speaks eloquently about the cradle to grave approach in technology. Through the touch points of the present to the future from the pain points of working in a fast-paced, high-risk industry, she’s building tomorrow for everyone. It’s through these experiences that she can develop a vision of the future and commit to a democratic covenant of fairness, discoverability, and accessibility, online and in real life.

Education in the Metaverse

Is the Metaverse destined to replace in-person learning? This keynote will describe what the metaverse is, the trends in adoption of the metaverse across industries, and how the future of the metaverse may positively and negatively impact education as well as the future of the workforce. 

ABOUT VRITI

Vriti Saraf (@vritisaraf) is the CEO & founder of k20 Educators (k20educators.com), a design studio that builds metaverse spaces for learning. She is also a co-founder of the first decentralized autonomous non-profit organization for educators, by educators, called Ed3 DAO (ed3dao.com). Both organizations aim to reimagine education. Vriti has served as a teacher, a professor, a dean, and a director in public, private and charter schools both locally and internationally across k12 and higher education. 

Designing Learning Spaces for Health & Wellness

As we work through the logistics of educating during a pandemic, it has become clear that the space where our students learn matters deeply. It is essential that we design spaces that optimize academic achievement and provide the best work environment for our teaching professionals. To do this, we have to look to research and practical solutions happening all around the country. As we move through and beyond the pandemic, learning space design will be a key factor in the effectiveness of our schools, and this session provides ideas, tools, and resources to support this work.  

ABOUT ROBERT

Dr. Robert Dillon has served as an educator and leader for the past twenty years. Through this  work, he has excelled in change leadership, supporting organization with new ideas and energy, and providing solutions to meet specific organizational needs. Dr. Dillon draws upon his experience, national network, and research-based practices to support innovation that impacts learning. Dr. Dillon truly embeds himself in the work of an organization, supporting, coaching, and getting in the weeds where it is needed. 

Making Learning Epic 
The term ‘Epic’ is defined as a story that conveys a sense of significance. That’s what school can be: students’ taking part in a significant, purposeful story. Using funny, inspirational stories and researched-based strategies, Trevor shares how to use the power of story, brain science, and authentic learning to help teachers achieve true student engagement. Educators leave with proven practices to create authentic learning experiences, motivation to foster deeper student-connections, and a compelling reminder of the impact educators have on their students’ lives.

ABOUT TREVOR

Trevor is a teacher, author, creator, and founder of Epic PBL. His books The Epic Classroom and The Collaborative Classroom have helped teachers worldwide to create purposeful and dynamic learning experiences. Trevor has taught in middle, high school, and college classrooms, and currently teaches pre-services teachers at Grand Valley State University. He was a national faculty member for the Buck Institute for Education, and is one of the Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation speakers. His work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Edutopia, EdWeek, and WeAreTeachers. Trevor's inspiring and informative videos have been viewed over 35 million times. At the heart of Trevor’s work is the conviction that every student has the potential for greatness, and that every teacher can be equipped to unlock that potential.