Chris Kennedy, Superintendent of Schools/CEO at West Vancouver Schools

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Welcome to AI, a podcast exploring Canadian education and the future of work in an AI driven world. I'm Melissa Sariffodeen, former CEO and co-founder of Canada Learning Code, and I'm Ryan Oliver, the chief executive officer of Ampere and Canada Learning Code. I want to thank you for joining us and listening to another episode of AI. Today we have a really interesting guest, from the West Vancouver School Board.

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But before we get to that, we want to do our usual one real, one artificial. Today we are just going to focus entirely on the real. And specifically, anytime I'm talking to anyone from West Vancouver. I am reminded of the 2010 Pangnirtung Print Collection. So for those not familiar. Nunavut is a bastion of incredible artists, and there are some amazing print collections that come out fairly regularly out of King, like, Cape Dorset.

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And not as much recently, but in the past. Out of pen or tongue. Mona Vuitton. There are two pieces of art that, you know, maybe we can include in the show notes, or I would encourage you to look up. One is called downtown Vancouver. The other is called Bridge and Pang. They're talking about both from the 2010 collection.

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And both of those pieces are done by LCP. Issue a duck. An incredible artist who passed recently, and I was lucky enough to get to be on the ground floor when she was developing those. The reason those two pieces were developed is, is there is an original copy of both of those that exists, in commute in, in Pang or Tang, where they are joined together.

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It is it is Vancouver flowing into Pang her tongue and vice versa. And that was a piece originally commissioned, for the 2010 Olympics, when Chung interviewed my home community. At the time was, sister cities with West Vancouver, where our guest is from today. And we, we collaborated on a bunch of different initiatives over the 2010 Olympics.

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And I and at the time, I was in a role as the senior advisor of culture, with, the, the Department of, Economic Development in the government of Enroute. And we got to do quite a bit of, of work in Vancouver around the 2010 Olympics, bringing over 100 artists down to the Olympics and those two pieces in particular always have a special spot for me.

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It's just an example of of the power of Inuit arts and the way it can kind of capture not just these traditional scenes like polar bears and hunting, but what modern Inuit art often looks like in the way it can capture, not just Canada, but the world. And I would encourage you to look those up. That's it's two pieces from the 2010 collection again, bridge, Bridge in Bangor, tongue and downtown Vancouver.

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On that note, Melissa, to you to introduce our guests from West Vancouver. I love that connection to our next guest in West Vancouver. So Chris Kennedy is a superintendent of schools CEO with the West Vancouver School District, based in West Vancouver, British Columbia. He has taught secondary English and social studies and has been both an elementary and secondary school principal.

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Chris is going to speak to us about the culture of yes, and how his school board is looking at reimagining learning in the age of AI.

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Joining us today is Chris Kennedy, superintendent of schools, with West Vancouver School District. Former teacher of English and social studies, rose to superintendency in October 2009. Chris is also a writer and presenter. Runs his own blog, The Culture of Yes. And thanks so much, Chris, for joining us. Thanks for having me.

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It's, it's exciting time in education around AI right now. It is indeed. Yeah. And that's that's what we're hoping to talk to you about because, West Vancouver said some really neat things. So go ahead. Yeah. Super excited to hear back. Or maybe we get to start there. Like to hear a little bit about your background.

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And and I'm actually kind of curious if there was like a defining moment for you when you're like, oh, AI is here in education and, you know, and it was that like, for you. So yeah, let me be a little bit about your background and kick us off. Yeah. So, you know, there's been lots of, technology initiatives over the last 20 years, but like pretty early on after, you know, the, the launch of ChatGPT, nothing felt more like the web 2.0 excitement in the last 20 years.

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And what was happening around chat ChatGPT and just the speed and the curiosity, and the disruptive nature. And as I saw people beginning to ban things, that always makes you curious, like, obviously this is going to have a huge impact. And, you know, banning is never the long term solution. And but just in that spoke to sort of the speed at which things were happening, people were reacting.

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It made me think like, oh, this is this is not like, this is not like, you know, VR or some of those other things. I think that we've seen, though, or some of the other things we've seen in the last decade that sort of nibbled at the edges of education. This is actually radically going to change, what teaching and learning looks like.

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That's really neat. I tend to agree with how many schools are in West Vancouver. Like how many schools do you ultimately superintend? Yeah, so we have we have 18 schools in our in our district, 14 elementary and four high schools. Right on. And so what's, you know, like in terms of do you want to speak to kind of some of what was that moment when, when you started to implement some changes?

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I've got your code of conduct, your kind of your AI guidelines here in front of me. But what what was the moment for implementation that you realized? Kind of. We gotta we gotta jump on this. Yeah. I think, I think what we did some really smart things strategically right at the beginning. That allowed because lots of people were playing.

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And so you had this you had people who were experimenting and then people who are too scared to experiment because they didn't want to do something wrong. And so I think what was really helpful was we put somebody in charge of it. We created some we created some guidelines for it. We began to network people together, like, you know, we engage in change management pieces that rather than just say, well, I there use it if you want or, or the other, don't use it until we figure it out.

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We have we put some structure around and say we're going to live in an AI rich world, so let's figure out what that means. It looks like for education. Let's start networking. People together must not be driven by the tech companies as well. I think I was you know, there was a lesson of the last 20 years in social media was that we got kind of, you know, social media was driving our changes and we go, we're going to do this differently this time.

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We're going to help say, this is what we want to do, and then figure out how we can use the technology. Hopefully to do that. I love that, and you see that. And I think it was interesting to, we were researching and preparing for this conversation to like some that approach that you've taken, like, can you maybe bring some like color or examples to some of the things that you are, you know, most compelled by that are happening in, in the schools, in your district or like really tangible examples.

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Yeah. I think that would be really helpful for those that are tuning in. Yeah. So I think early on the, the biggest while was were in translation, you know, a large, large new Canadian community, you know, so it's a child that arrives from Iran, has never does, speaks no English, is seven years old and in, in a classroom all of a sudden they can translate in real time and feel like they're part of the community, and, and their parents who come to the front desk and ask a question, you know, we would usually have to go and get a translator and they would come back a week later.

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But now, in real time, our clerical staff can work with those parents around what their questions are, explaining what registration is. And so the the immediate ones we're translation. And then I think the, the other most powerful ones we've seen are actually around students who are, struggling learners, students with diverse learning abilities that, educational assistance in classrooms where we're leveling text to the appropriate level, we're creating math problems that we're at a level, you know, those kind of adaptations that we always say we want.

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I was allowing them to do them in real time. That's really cool. So, have you changed at all the assessment side? So you've talked a lot about like kind of implementation of, of, of where that kind of hits the kids as their, as their interaction with you. But how are you changing? Are you finding you have to change how you assess as a result the learning process?

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Oh, 100%. We have enough change right now. And so, you know, early on we we in every classroom, we adopted, some of the work out of Australia. The first is work kind of the color codes, you know, talk. You know what we want staff to talk up front about. Is this a red assignment? No, I orange assignment a yellow assignment.

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Is it a thought partner a work partner or is this a full I has you want I think where I've seen in the media especially the more you maybe university in, in high school where you get into trouble is where there is not a common understanding students think they can use. I the prof thinks there's no I and then the assignment comes in and you have this tension point.

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So really trying to work with our staff to be overt at the front end of the assignment about what their expectations were around AUC. And I think that, that shifts the other the other shift, I would say, is that we're noticing a far more about showing your progress, about how you use AI and what it looks like, rather than just final product.

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And so I think the world of, you know, because because I can produce great final product. That's great. But so that's less about what we're, we're interested in. We're more interested in the process that the student goes from the, the, the idea to that product and, and showing their work, showing work that becomes like so important in this like journey.

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And I and you know, again, there's so many interesting and innovative and sort of progressive things that you all done in this approach. Like, you know, I, I kind of, you know, think is it can anybody do this? Can any school district do this? Can any group of teachers, educators do this? Like curious like some of the challenges like that?

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You've all faced in this and how you thought about it? And, you know, balancing that like height versus there's a reality of this and and trying to like wade through. But you know, really the obstacle is that you've come up against cultural, technological, whatever it may be. Would be really interesting to understand as well. Yeah. You know, so one that was that we didn't come up against, I was sure we were going to get parent pushback.

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And we haven't we we the we run parent education sections, which I think are super important for people to do and parents love them because they're trying to upskill themselves, not just their children. And like I really thought because I really thought parents would be wary of it, but I think they see their their jobs, their lives being upended by AI as well.

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And so they they want to learn side by side with their, with their child about it. So that that's been really interesting. I think I think just the speed at which all of this is happening, it will all, you know, that the, you know, the the idea that you kind of I will it will never be worse than it is today kind of approaches that thought means like that's that's anxiety raising because, you know, you just think, hey, you know, what are we asking?

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Are we asking teachers who have to continually redesign and their lessons and their assessment methods on the fly all the time? You know, it's teaching it a brutally complex job already and now asking them to, in real time, continue to be adapting is as the technology changes. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. No. Go ahead. Just. No, I just look at a comment on that.

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I just love that. Because I think so much of this comes down to trust. And, you know, I'm kind of curious because you got no parent pushback, which is it's also not, you know, typical, you know, with, well, it's my experience in any type of technology adoption, and I'm sure it does a lot about the way that you all worked and communicated with your parents in your, in your, your schools, in communities up until that point.

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Right. Like, it's not you know, it wasn't just that, but, I just think like, that's that's really, really interesting. And, you know, if there was anything specifically that you had, you know, done, I get I think it is a reflection of the culture of already established, but kind of curious if you feel like there was anything, you know, unique to to that in this sort of like frame of trust that you're all, that you're all on the journey, you're on.

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Yeah. So what we're trying to do is whenever we bring in an expert around I speaking to staff, we're having the same people speak to our parents. And so we always we do an evening session with parents. We've we have a pro day with our staff the night before. We're doing a parent education session with that same person, trying to have everybody hear the same people.

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So like, like we're all trying to figure it out and trying to enter into it, like with a sense of curiosity. Like I have a current thinking around how we use AI, but I'm super open to the fact that that's probably going to shift in the next 12 months and trying to say, hey, that's what school has always been about.

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School has always been a place of curiosity and learning and not about absolutes. And so you try to create a culture where where staff are curious and don't get anxious. And we're parents, you know? Right. Like, parents often want to replicate their own school experience for their children. And so it's been interesting to see that with AI, it's been different than with other technology shifts, because I just I do I do think they're seeing it in their life.

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They want to make sure their children are prepared for the world that they're participating it. Yeah. That's so interesting. So I'm curious about the teachers you've got, you know, I think, like, you know, there's teachers of all ages and all backgrounds, and not everyone's a tech expert. How have you helped them bridge this moment? Yeah. And and to be sure, we all have a range in terms of AI usage in school classes in schools.

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And so when we said it's important, you know, we we've tried to we do a bunch of professional development around it. We've created networks of teachers. So, you know, where the, the, the biggest tension point is typically around language arts in high school right now. You know, it's about essay writing. That's the I, the biggest anxiety piece.

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And so trying to bring them together around that like and and and I know some, some will go know why all all writing has to be in the classroom and not trying to be dismissive about and but but that's that's not the long term answer to this. But like I get that's for some that's a part of the short term solution as we kind of try to figure out what do what does assign what do assignments look like?

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How do I know if a student's actually learning in English? Because all the metrics I used three years ago don't seem relevant anymore. Like that's, that's that's hard. Like, and I think I, I see math and science have it's easier to use it as a, as a work partner. The language arts English and social studies, I think that's where we're trying to figure out what the new assignments look like, because the old assignments all of a sudden seem kind of stale.

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Yeah. I feel like, okay, I can I keep going back to this, like idea of trust. Like, I feel like there's a such a on on both directions in many ways. Right. Like there's this, you know, sort of decentralizing and sort of like leveling the playing field in terms of everybody, in the, in the school community. And then also this element of like, we're building it as we go, which I think is like such a great, you know, way to approach it.

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Is there anything that you're finding, like particularly tripping you all up in terms of like maybe misconceptions or media? I think you mentioned at the at the top of the conversation, you know, just is there. Yeah. Like, is there anything that you would do or advise or wish was written differently about the time that we're in with respect to AI, things that are maybe, you know, making it more difficult to to foster that sense of culture and, and community.

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Yeah. I think, you know, I'm excited by it. But I think always having to come back then, I always try to ground myself in risks and possibilities, like there's a whole bunch of bad things that I has, you know, around safety in schools, around deepfakes being created, around really some, some things that we need to be all over as well.

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And so as much as we are curious and interested in this, and, you know, part of my job is to get people excited about the possibility. I also want to I think it's also super important that I balance that with the risk side. And there are a bunch of risks, right? I, you know, students, students more than anybody else, raised legitimate concerns around the environment and AI.

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And they want to know, what is this, you know, what are the impacts of what are the impacts of AI usage on on our world? Like those are super fair question. So we and like I, we should embrace those that we shouldn't be just driving this train this I train out saying, you know, this is where we're going.

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Like, we should be interested in all of those, all of those pieces as well as we do this. And so I think even for those of us who are, who are maybe, can see around the corner a little better than others, I think we all need to just be continue to ground ourselves in both sides of this conversation.

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Yeah, it feels to like you're deciding. We can better address those concerns. We can better have those conversations if we aren't creating a prohibition like it's it's it's we're going to be able to have those conversations when we when we're actually using the thing we're talking about and where better, where better for kids to learn than in school, right?

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Like this. We're better to, you know, where you put school's values onto a new onto technology like what combination is the right combination? Rather than students learning in isolation or playing in isolation without the values that are attached to a school system. So I think that's really, really important. You know, another piece I think, yeah, that's really important is I think as a school district, yeah, we've done some good things, but we've networked with other school districts like, like this is a like this isn't a we're not competing with everybody in this.

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And so this is the this is I think that uniquely Canadian way that we go about things is that we actually we actually are all in this together. And so if if we're doing some good work in one piece with AI and we can learn from a place in Ontario is doing different work, that's super helpful. And that we're it's, it's, it's not like we're trying to beat each other in this.

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And so I feel like I, I, you know, has helped create there's a bit of a national conversation around AI education. And you don't typically get that, you know, because of education being a provincial jurisdiction. Right? Yeah. The so like there, I'm curious, I've been looking at, at your blog, and you did you've done 500 posts.

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That's incredible. Congratulations. I yeah, I am on year two. Oh, yeah. I have my New Year's resolution being okay, this is the year I'm going to write more. I'm going to start a blog. I'm going to do this, and I've yet to do it. So I am at still absolute zero. But but but about 400 days in, I think I'm like, I'm really gearing up for it.

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But, no, I, I an article from around this time last year you wrote, could I reduce student tech use? And I think, like, this is one of the biggest concerns. You know, my own kids have, like, my, other parents we work with on a regular basis is like, could, you know, like, are we just going to live in the matrix?

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Right. And, and, you know, I think you have an angle here that's like, pretty similar to, what I've heard from, like, an organization like the Alpha School in, in Texas. Right. Like just this idea that, like, we can minimize the time on technology. But I'm curious to expand on that because I found that one really interesting.

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Yeah. So and we've been we are we're very purposeful. We have two areas of focus in innovation AI and physical literacy that we actually that we want to kids to be more active than ever while being using the the latest digital tools. And so at least like I am finding for myself, I am on my computer less now because I use AI more.

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AI is taking care of a lot of the finicky work, of of with a PowerPoint presentation or some of the editing work I do. It's and it's a I'm still doing the creative work, but often that creative work I actually don't do on a computer, I, I'm a, I'm a hand writer and then a converter over to technology for work for when I produce a document.

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And so I'm just using, I'm just taking a photo of it. And then pushing it into AI is helping put that into a final product. And so I'm using AI to create products, but I'm actually on my computer less than I was 12 months ago. And so I'm just I'm I would love us to find ways to make sure that as we move this down, that we, you know, that we want kids outside more, we want kids all doing.

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And I think that we can I think the I don't think they are mutually exclusive. Right. Like and so I think this idea of of of more AI but less technology is an interesting one that we should keep at the forefront of the conversation because I think it's super possible. Cool. That's awesome. Yeah. It's so interesting. I think back like a decade ago when we were ramping up computer science and, you know, and then and then, yeah, like so some of the parallels, but also just like thinking about how different this time is than it was before, and not just because, you know, to your point, like, everybody's impacted much, much differently and much

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more severely in some ways than the the movement towards coding, so to speak. But I think the, the other piece or, you know, I reflect a lot on is, is that like role in the classroom of technology, which is really, really interesting. So yeah, that's I'm like I'm like really noodling on that and, and trying to like reconcile some of the movements around, you know, social media and technology use in classrooms and like, where do we all stand on that?

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So that's really cool. Or something you mentioned a little bit earlier, just around like students, and their concerns. And that's something I've seen. The post-secondary world too, is, you know, they do seem to be more critical and sometimes more critical than than, you know, even I may be. Yeah. And so how are you making space for that?

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I guess, you know, like, we're all optimists. I think, you know, largely with respect. I think you certainly, you know, have, you know, talked about the possibilities, but, like, what? What are you or how are you all thinking about managing the sort of the downsides or some of the things like the deepfakes, etc., like what does that process look like?

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Yeah. And so I think, the good additions now kind of in year three of AI for us is, is just on AI, digital literacy for all students, right from right from kindergarten to grade one up that you can learn about real and fake rate at grade one, you know, and and while they well it might not be on technology the the the things you're learning later translate in grade eight and nine to AI are the how they show up in AI.

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And so we have digital literacy lessons that are, the common ones across the district. And so, you know, truthfully, while doing it, we're also upskilling our staff at the same time as every staff engages with their students in these digital literacy lessons. One last month around I want again and it says it's important. It says this is this is part of who we are and what we do.

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But it also goes, these are things that you should be thinking about and mindsets that you should have as you engage with this, these technologies. And so I think that's been that's been super important is, is that we we don't just open it up and go, hey, have fun. There we go. Okay, here are some skills that we want to help build in you.

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So that you can use these in thoughtful, ethical, and productive ways and have debate about have debate about in the environment. And I think that's a super great debate. We should have. Yeah, I totally there's something else just in building that. Right. If you don't mind like going back and forth. But something I noted, was and I don't know if this is sort of like, you know.

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Yeah. You want to speak to it, but this, I think restraint that you have you in on the tool use. Right. And like this sort of this, you know, building some parameters, and, and just being like, really thoughtful and maybe more curated, I guess, in your approach. And I think that, you know, there's lots of ways to go with that.

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But, you know, just something that you mentioned, like, how are you? Was that like how intentional was that or how was your sort of thought? Like a lot of folks are like, okay, should we just try to use everything, you know, or or not like an, you know, what was your what your take or what was your thinking behind the way that you've approached specifically?

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The constraints that you're, you're putting into your approach. Yeah. So we've we've been really clear about having people use, you know, 2 or 3 tools started with magical AI and embrace it and open it up. Now to Gemini, that people are using. And the reason is, is that we can support 2 or 3 tools. We can support staff in 30 tools.

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And then also, you know, also just because of AI and the and issues around privacy and, and student data and like we, we want to be we want to we want to have a limited number of places and so that we can be careful and thoughtful, about the kind of information we are feeding into the AI systems and, and, and even still, like, I'm anxious when people say they use report card, they create AI using AI to create report cards.

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I'm not opposed to people using it. I'm just concerned that people are going home to ChatGPT and are dumping a bunch of personal data into the AI system, and then churning out outputs, and without really thinking through the security parameters. And this is a, you know, this is a 12 year old child personal information that you've you shared with a big tech company.

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Like, we need to we need to be really cautious and thoughtful about how we're using all the data that we have. The AI super powerful and what it can do with that data. But we just need to be super careful about it, too. Yeah. I'm curious just to expand on that a tiny bit is, you know, our primary audience is is going to be teachers, other superintendents, people who are curious, who are AI curious in the education system.

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What you know, if this is if they are in a district where, where maybe there is a fully Ivan or they're just starting to develop their policies around it, what are the tools that they should look to? You mentioned Magic School. Did you have any recommendations there? And kind of what's worked for you, what you'd stay away from?

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Yeah. So I think I think matching up to your environment, you know, that you're most districts are kind of landing in either Gemini or Copilot right now. And it's kind of like in if you're a Microsoft environment, it makes sense that you probably go with copilot. People don't like to jump to multiple systems. You know, you want to create is less friction as possible.

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And so I think either a either magic or either a, either a copilot or Gemini, depending on if you're a Microsoft or Google environment. I know OpenAI is doing some interesting stuff in education. The problem is it's a different environment than the rest is happening in right now. And so I think for school systems, that's a challenge.

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And then and then you might want to look at 1 or 2 kind of schools. Specifically I created tools we magic school. I am brisk for ones we use but I school I teacher I there's a number of of of school specifically created tools and and they can have power to that. You know that I know that the big companies you kind of use their main tool and they kind of make it work for education.

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It's also kind of helpful sometimes have an education specifically created two of you. So, I would I would just be wary of trying to say we're going to support Copilot and Gemini and Magic School and teacher AI in school. I when you support everything, you kind of support not some probably. And so like I think you should be careful about that.

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It's kind of nice. Yeah I think it's like super, super practical too. I think something you said earlier and sort of selfishly, because I spent a lot of time thinking about platforms and like the control that these platforms have, but I think that's kind of the right balance. Like there's a pragmatic approach here, which is like this has got to be compatible and it's going to work.

00;25;59;25 - 00;26;20;02
But there's obviously tools that are, you know, more vertical and and really designed for the classroom and like trying to strike the right balance. And I think, you know, overall, most people we speak to, you know, would say it's less about the tool, you know, it's more about getting started. And the discussion and the training and, you know, like and being innovative and embracing it more than anything.

00;26;20;02 - 00;26;39;02
But I'm always kind of curious because it, you know, it starts somewhere to start with a tool. Right. And you can often like, get distracted by that. I so I hope everybody who listens does take a look at your blog. So I know Ryan mentioned it earlier. And like, just huge kudos to the discipline that you.

00;26;39;04 - 00;27;12;01
Well, I found that I'm writing more in the AI with the in the AI world now, because people are curious and I'm learning as people are engaging with as it's been. And it helps me that's how I process my thinking is, is is through writing. And so like I look at some of the earlier stuff I wrote on AI and what I thought it would do, and I probably shifted, I've probably become I was probably more of an AI enthusiast two years ago, because I was so excited with the launch of ChatGPT and the possibility, and I still am excited, but I now I, I've been, I, I've been more educated on

00;27;12;01 - 00;27;27;26
the risks that are attached to what's happening to with with what's going on. Yeah, yeah. It's great. No. It's like, well, you know, it's like there was a saying like at 1% better every day is like habit and consistency. It. All right. So anyway and it's a plug for everybody to check it out. But I wanted to sort of like you know take inspiration from that.

00;27;27;26 - 00;27;50;08
And one of the things you posted about is like what is like, you know, definitely still a yes. Or maybe the flip side of that is like, you know, in everything, in education, I guess, like what what still deserves a yes. But also, what is it, a no for you, if you don't mind. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think, in these AI rich world, in-person experiences are becoming more valuable.

00;27;50;11 - 00;28;13;23
And, and school is about an in-person experience like no other. And so I actually think the, the act of school, where you bring together a thousand young people and a hundred adults in a building every day and make society work, I feel like that is like more important than ever in in a world where, where you can get technology to do so many of these, so many of these different things for you.

00;28;13;26 - 00;28;30;04
And then I guess the. No, the. No. And you think on the technology is, is I'm not going to let AI right for me. I'm going to hold on. I'm going to hold till the end. And AI helps to edit. AI helps me with word choices. But I'm not going to I'm not going to farm out life thinking to technology.

00;28;30;04 - 00;28;53;14
I've got I care about the art too much, and probably I may not write as well as I writes down the road here, but like, I'm not going to give it up because it's too important to me. Totally. All 500 plus later. Like you're definitely go, you know, top top 0.01%. Right. That's great. I appreciate that. As someone who's, like, tried to steal Unscalable edges in person and being with people, I think that that makes a ton of sense.

00;28;53;14 - 00;29;20;29
And, yeah, I appreciate that. So we will see more of the blog is basically right. Next slide. I just have one more question for I'm curious, like like you mentioned and I think like Melanie, both experience being and being in tech education from the nonprofit side is is education is a provincial responsibility. And so and so when the feds try to jump in and then makes, you know, you always you always get a push and pull, it's, there's a bit of have have not, who has who has the best access, the best teachers.

00;29;21;02 - 00;29;39;07
I am curious how the province of BC is, is, has both kind of, handled your own approach and, and whether it's an adopted some of what, West Vancouver's been doing or, you know, what kind of conversations do we have with BC? Has it been pushback? Has there been an embrace of it? And and have you seen it spread across the rest of British Columbia?

00;29;39;09 - 00;29;57;17
Yeah. So I, I really love what BC has done. So BC has this has found a nice middle ground right now on, what they've done. About they, they've, they've allowed districts to, to do their own thing around, around some of this. They've created some high level guidance, you know, some infographic for this is what AI is.

00;29;57;17 - 00;30;18;25
This is how you might see it. And then they've really encouraged us to network with other districts who are doing the work. And so they haven't taken a top down approach to the work. They're just they're really curious and learning alongside us. And so, they've allowed innovation to flourish while at the same time trying to come in behind and those maybe that weren't engaged, trying to hook them into people who work.

00;30;18;28 - 00;30;35;16
And so I really think the right approach, right approach around this is a networked approach. And and the B.C. government's really done that. I think that's a great model for other provinces. I do think it's an interesting model that in Canada, you know, I think, you know, we have a federal minister of AI and who has at once an AI innovation strategy.

00;30;35;16 - 00;30;56;03
I think part of that innovation strategy should be some some goals around what you want for K-12 education, even though you're not responsible for it. Yeah. That's great. Thanks so much, Chris. I really appreciate you. Taking the time. Do you have you have, any final advice like that? You would you would maybe throw to whether it's teachers, teachers, boards, anyone listening?

00;30;56;05 - 00;31;10;25
Yeah. I think for teachers who I just haven't engaged with it yet is to is to find some ways in your personal life to, to use AI and get comfortable with it, you know, before you go out and, and roll it out in a classroom, you know, plan your vacation, help plan your vacation with a help, plan a meal with it.

00;31;10;27 - 00;31;28;08
Give you make your date comfortable in the tools. Because then you'll be way more comfortable as you then talk to a student about how they going to write with it. You know, there's a whole bunch of ways that it can it can do interesting things in your life outside of your profession. And so engage with those maybe first and then figure out where it fits in your life in the school.

00;31;28;10 - 00;31;50;17
I love it. Just try it. Just try try it. Yeah, I love it Chris. Thank you so much. Honestly it's like so refreshing. I love the energy. I think the approach is so, yeah, it's like so holistic and balanced really. You know, and as I mentioned earlier, I think just the feedback and the response you have had within this, you know, the school community just shows, you know, the, you know, demonstrates that like trust and that commitment in that culture.

00;31;50;17 - 00;32;08;21
So, kudos. I really appreciate it. And, you know, it was great to chat with you. And, we're excited to see where all you all end up in your, you know, 600th blog post. Awesome. Thanks. You guys really enjoyed it. Thanks so much, Krista.

00;32;08;23 - 00;32;30;15
AI is a podcast from Ampere and Candle Learning Code, brought to you by the Penguin Foundation, hosted by Ryan Oliver and also for Dean. The show is produced by Zach Miller and edited by Zach Miller and Kyle Gordon. If you want to support AI, please check out the Penguin Foundation on Canada Helps and consider a donation. Thanks for listening.