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It wasn’t all about AI in education 2024! In this special episode of Innovations in Education, editors Laura Ascione and Kevin Hogan go through the list of the most-read stories from last year and identify the best insights for our readers looking forward to next.The computer-generated transcript is below:

Kevin HoganHappy New Year. Happy New Year 2025, Laura. This is our annual Gabfest on the latest and greatest of eSchool News. We saw last year and what we're kind of looking forward to. The future happy holidays, Laura.

Laura AscioneThanks. Happy holidays. Yeah. I look forward to this chat. I love talking about this.

Kevin HoganYeah, it's. It's fun to kind of look back and see, you know, all the various different topics and aspects of our worlds. You know, we covered a lot of stuff. E school between. Events between the CoSN and the ISTEs and the FETCs, as well as just all the you know, stuff that our contributors are bringing in and some of the conversations we're having, there's a lot to unpack, right.

Laura AscioneAbsolutely, yeah.

Kevin HoganLet's dive right in. I don't think we could go more than 3 minutes in 2024 without mentioning. The acronym of the decade. No, not COVID, but AI, right?

Laura AscioneYeah, who knew that something would eclipse the number of headlines we had about COVID and COVID gaps. But AI has done it. And I think that's really evident in our predictions stories, and we've solicited predictions and trends for 2025 from educators, from industry leaders, from policy makers. And I was expecting a number of AI predictions, and I was not disappointed. I think this is an interesting thing. In 2025 is, you know, for the past couple years we've had AI is kind of this novel thing, right? And a lot of people have been worried about it. Students use it too. Will it impact their writing ability? They really. And will they absorb what I'm teaching them? And I think I think the number of people who are worried about that is going to decrease. It already is decreasing, and I think in 2025, we're going to see an emphasis on. I think two things. One is really what AI can do for the classroom beyond just alleviating administrative tasks or being a quick reference tool for students. Think we're going to see it get into. Deeper part. Of learning and then the second thing. Is that I think we're really gonna focus on ensuring that students are building AI skills so that when. Leave. School, whether they're entering the workforce, entering a certification program or going on to a two year or four year. Program. They have the beginning of these AI skills because we're hearing so much about having the ability to use AI to know how to prompt it to learn more about it as it evolves. Those skills are really going to be critical for competitiveness, not just. In the US, but really globally.

Kevin Hogan

And you know, it's really kind of interesting when you think of it.

SpeakerA.

Kevin HoganTopic and you know, some mornings I wake up. Was like that. Going to talk about this again. But it really is something that is kind of, you know, it's affecting all aspects, not only of education but society. But when you look at education itself, there's so many different flavors of it, right? You mentioned the classroom and the idea of cheating. And students are definitely at the forefront of. Like you know that that's the one that is kind of maybe the most sexy or the most like. That people talk about. But there's so many other different ways in which it's infiltrating. The way we teach and learn, and as you said administrative, there are as many tasks being automated that way in the back office as they are kind of in the classroom. And I think our coverage kind of reflected that, right. Meaning we at first maybe 2023, there was a bit of a fear cycle. Right, every teacher. To lose their job to AI. Students. Every student was going to cheat. And then there was a hype cycle. And then you saw it reflected in a lot of the Ed tech shows where everyone was suddenly. An AI company. Because they're implementing it into their technology and I and I think you're right, I mean we are approaching the kind of the. Then I call it the reality cycle where. As transformative and disruptive as it is. It might start to become a little bit boring, especially to the students, because unlike us oldies, I mean this is something. They've been used to and a tool that. Had, right? But again, teaching etiquette, teaching literacy in the right ways and wrong ways to use it. It's just like the same as you're teaching them how to use the Internet.

Laura AscioneAbsolutely. And I think that is one of the critical pieces of this and that kind of illustrates, again, where human teachers are so necessary, human teachers are. Going away. But yeah, and I think I shared this story in an internal conversation we had. My daughter was working on a biology project, and she knew what she wanted. For one section of this. But she needed it. Inspiration and. And you know, without sharing too much. Her personality. Detail if she does have ADHD and you know. So, if something stumps her, she might just kind of Chuck it to the side and and not complete that portion. But she went right to an AI tool she already had. The genesis of what she wanted, but the AI tool really helped her expand on what she wanted and helped her organize her thoughts. And she mentioned it in a very offhand way, and it was so natural. Control way, I think is a great illustration of how kids are using it. It's not this big robot in the sky that, you know, I think those of us who grew up with, you know, crazy sci-fi films and stuff might initially think of. It was another resource for her and I think I think again, teaching kids OK, this is. Great resource. When do you use it? When do you not use it? Is it acceptable to? What do we cite and how do we? How much credit do we have? You know, and there we've run a lot of contributed pieces from educators and industry experts who were getting. Just that. Hey, instead of telling your kids they can't use AI, let's create an AI rubric. Let's look at it. Appropriate to use when is it. When is it not OK as long as your original voice is coming through? This is great if you're using it to write an essay and turn it in. Not so great. So I think it's really interesting. I think it's pretty fascinating to see. How have we gone from? You know, like you said, the. 2023. Period to where we are now.

Kevin HoganYeah. So the general consensus is that we welcome our new AI overlords. But know that we can still have some control over, right? Mean we're gonna. We're gonna keep writing. This in 2025.

Laura AscioneOh, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin HoganSo what? I mean, what else? When you look back over your editorial calendar of the hundreds of stories that we've posted up to E school news that you see worthy of kind of doing an A once over.

Laura AscioneI think another area and this again is another topic that really came through as I'm gathering our predictions for 2025 is not just a focus on student well-being for improved student mental health, but kind of linking better student well-being. To positive student outcomes to improved outcomes and student success. Achievement is 1 area that I think is really growing and I think we've always known, you know, a child who is hungry or stressed or has anxiety at home, cannot sit in a classroom and learn as well as a child who does not struggle with those Challen. But I think there's a lot more attention being paid. To this area now, and I don't want to leave out teacher well-being either because I think teacher well-being and teacher burnout, those are another couple areas in the school mental health umbrella that we don't want to neglect. I do think we're seeing more attention paid to student well-being and how that translates to improving a student's academic achievement, which I think is important.

Kevin HoganAbsolutely. I think it's kind of a byproduct of the pandemic, really, that mental health is always something that was nice to have maybe, especially in maybe wealthier districts, you would have the budgets to maybe have extra counselors or things on the side, but it wasn't front and. Until March of 2020, right. We all. Everyone experienced this group trauma and this realization that before you begin any sort of instruction, whether it's in person or in a remote set up, you ask people how they're feeling. And for the students and. And as you say, it's just as important for the faculty. It's like. Do you feel safe? You feel? Like, OK, are you, you know? Are you ready? Ready to learn? And one of the ironies I think that when we went through this great beta test of remote learning and using zoom and using, you know, other tools where we were apart, there were some innovations that came about that are helpful in that space of. Mental health, specifically one-on-one meetings with teachers. Instead of having that back-to-school night with 3570 parents for the 35 students in the classroom, maybe you just set up a zoom. And you had a one to one that way a lot of the special education dynamics of IEP meetings. Other things that you know. Weren't even allowed to be. They had to be in person and. Because of the pandemic they did. Had to. Remote. They said, you know. This actually works a little bit better. The dynamics are a little bit better than being in person with a principal or a guidance counselor. Open up a little bit more, so I agree with you that that is something that. Thankfully, it seems to not have gone back to normal, right? Mean it. It's kind of stuck.

Laura AscioneYeah, I. I agree, and I think all like you said, all for the better.

Kevin HoganYeah, yeah. I know one thing I have here on my list is something that never went away. Even enduring it is the idea of cybersecurity and network security that continues to be a big headache and you know. A big challenge for most of the districts across the US. Any takes on that?

Laura AscioneYeah, I think. And again, this is another stand out from our trends. I think that as we have more, you know and people have been saying this for a while. Have more devices connecting to school networks as we have more student data that we're trying to keep. Safe and secure, bringing in more Edtech. And also as the bad actors become more sophisticated, I think the need for really strong cyber security practices and evolving cybersecurity practices. Becomes really, really. Imperative and it's interesting. And I think part of this, you know, going back to COVID all of a sudden we had one to one, you know, remote access. Know that poses a threat to school networks, and then, even as things kind of normalize. And kids are back in classrooms. You still have personal computing devices and sometimes multiple devices accessing or multiple devices per user accessing school networks, and I think sometimes it's hard to stay on top of it. I know in my children's school district we were told very much. Specifically, no personal devices will be allowed into school this year. Yeah. That has not been the case. So you have personal home laptops connecting to the school network, and then they're at home downloading whatever they're downloading. I think it is hard to stay on top of things like this, particularly in large districts, even though you tend to have larger teams for larger districts. But I think you also know there is a lot of talk of hackers becoming more sophisticated and as personal data becomes more valuable to people who want to take advantage of it, right? This round the clock vigilance that will be needed to really keep networks safe and secure. That's not even going into, you know, the kids. Might be. Trying to hack into their. Networks just to see if they can. Which can open up, you know, a lot more headaches. Those kids realize.

Kevin HoganAbsolutely. That kind of leads into my predictions for 2025 and what we're going to be. Writing and talking about is just that, the use of devices limiting screen time, limiting device management within the district it seems it started. In June this year, when I was at a press conference with the Superintendent from Los Angeles talking about how they were going to be, you know, starting what you're saying, that your kids' districts are doing it, which is limiting those uses.SpeakerThat's it.

Kevin HoganGoing to be a big deal. That's my number one projection going forward, but. To wrap things up, what? What are they? What are you looking for? I guess we can try to keep the glass half full. What's happening in 2025?

Laura AscioneYeah, I think there's a lot of uncertainty. I do think that talks of perhaps dismantling the Department of Education, while that has been brought up, I know we have talked before about how that is a pretty heavy lift. And there's a lot that goes into it. So while that is something that has been mentioned, I don't know that that's something that is necessarily going to occur, at least not in 2025.SpeakerIII I.

Laura AscioneThink uncertainty is probably the word of the day around that I know. Not sure. About funding, it is likely, I think, from what I've read and heard that the Department of Education is not going to receive as much funding, or maybe it will. You know, education is not gonna get the bucks, and so when that happens, we'll see. Because we're already dealing with, you know, the Esser funding expiring and a lot of districts are realizing, oh, now we've got to cut back on staff or now we suddenly don't have the funds to maintain all of these. Programs and hardware and everything that we brought in. I think it's definitely. It's going to be a tricky time funding wise, but I think we can all agree that we're very hopeful. That it won't be as bad as some people worry it might be.

Kevin HoganFrom your lips to God's ears. Well, as always, great having a conversation with you, Laura. Always fun working with you. I think we really hit all the high points and the low points over 2024 looking back and looking forward to seeing what we can cover and seeing. The advancements and the progress of our industry and our schools in 2025. As always, thank you. And once again, happy New Year.

Laura AscioneAbsolutely. Thanks Kevin.

Kevin HoganAnd that's all we have for this month's episode of Innovations in Education. Be sure to go up to eschoolnews.com and add your name to the subscription list if you want to get this podcast every month. If you're not already doing so, be sure to go into our webinars where we have other conversations. Some of the top and most important issues that you need to learn for the way that you operate your school districts. So, thanks again for listening and. A great day.

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