Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental

Erin Bailey: Welcome everyone to Reading Inspire's podcast.

Today I'm chatting with Dr. Shannon Kane, who is a good friend and former colleague of mine at the Inspire Teaching Demonstration School in Washington DC and today we're gonna be talking about AI and literacy.

So welcome, Shannon, if you can start by sharing about your story, how did you get into education and literacy?

AI because I've known you for a while, but AI is new to all of us, so I'd love to hear how you got into it.

Shannon Kane: Sure.

Thanks Erin.

I'm really excited to be here.

So I got into education, I would say in a sort of a unique path.

I actually, when I graduated college, I thought I was gonna work in international development in public.

Health.

I went and pursued a master's degree, a joint degree in the, in that field.

And I started to work sort of internationally in education.

as we know, things can change quickly, both internationally and domestically.

And so I was sort of redirected to continue my interest in education sort of a different path, and an opportunity, opened up here in dc.

That I was able to take advantage of and sort of turned my focus to K 12 education, here in the States.

Became a teacher and worked as a classroom teacher, bilingual teacher for about five years before I went and pursued my doctorate in literacy at University of Pennsylvania.

And knowing that I still always wanted to work with teachers and kids, I did a couple of different things.

That's where our paths connected when I was doing some work at the Inspire Teaching School and eventually found myself in higher ed in my current role as a assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland.

So that's sort of how I. How I came to education and in terms of ai, honestly, a colleague of mine and I were sitting around just sort of
thinking about, you know, AI and hearing teachers talk about it and you, I feel like you can't get online without seeing ads for AI and teachers.

And we were just talking about how we use it ourselves and we're wondering, you know, how.

How can we use it as professionals to support our roles as teacher educators, but then also.

What is our responsibility?

How can we ethically and critically support our teachers, pre-service teachers, and even our in-service teachers, sort of, exploration and use of ai, not only as professionals, but then as they looked to support their own students use of ai.

And so we started a self study and it sort of has, has grown from there.

collecting data, doing a lot of research on it, doing PD on it.

And it's just sort of continues to grow as AI does

Erin Bailey: Makes a lot of sense because you work with pre-service teachers.

Everything is new in education to them.

Right.

Shannon Kane: Absolutely,

yeah.

And honestly, even in inservice teachers as well, I think AI is very new to them, and so yeah.

Erin Bailey: It's new to e it's new to everyone.

Do you feel like pre-service teachers are, because they're more digital natives, are they more comfortable using ai?

Shannon Kane: Actually it's the opposite, which we find completely fascinating.

So we've done a, we've done a bunch of in-service.

So our most recent in-service, we worked with about 85 teachers this past August, around ai, and everyone in the room uses it to varying degrees.

Their understanding of it, their comfort with it obviously varied tremendously.

There's been no formal training on it.

They just sort of, it's kind of like the wild, wild west, right?

Figuring it out themselves.

Um, but they're all in on it.

They love the efficiency of it.

They wanna know more about it.

Whereas our pre-service teachers, I think because of the age that they are, a lot of them have been hearing there's this sort of like, taboo around ai, right?

And so they've been hearing, you know, it's cheating, it's bad, it's this, it's, it's, you know, if, if you're caught using it.

and so.

They tend to be a little bit more sort of cautious about it.

when in, you know, one of my courses we talk like, Nope, we're gonna use it intentionally.

And they're like, wait, like you're letting us use it?

And I'm like, well, I'm not just letting you use it.

Like we're gonna learn about it together.

We're gonna.

Critically, you know, evaluate the responses.

When should we use it?

When is it not helpful?

And so, but yeah, it, I assumed the same thing that our pre-service teachers would be all about it, and they actually are a little bit more cautious, which I appreciate.

but it's definitely coming from, I think they're just constantly have been bombarded since they were in high school and stuff that it's cheating, it's bad, you're gonna be caught.

so yeah, it's

interesting.

Erin Bailey: I was just thinking that too, as you were saying that because they're pre-service teachers and many of them are undergrad
students, they've really just come from high school where it's been drilled into them perhaps that it's cheating and it's wrong.

So then going into a new landscape of college and teacher training and now.

They're being challenged to use it.

I can see why they would be cautious with it.

I'm wondering from the teachers that you worked with, the 85, you said 85 in-service teachers, what were some of the common ways that they were using ai?

Um.

Shannon Kane: They were using it from simple things like helping with emails, you know, and responding to everyone's favorite report card comments to some of, I would say the more advanced users were using it for some differentiation, right?

So supporting multilingual learners, maybe differentiating some texts, some text.

Tasks, trying to maybe infuse a little bit of creativity here and there, but to be honest, a lot of it was really surface level, I think because there has not been a lot of formal training.

So our goal for the session was really to give them some little bit of background understanding so they could walk away with knowing.

About the tools that they were using and to see them really as tools, and that they still were in charge and the professionals.

and then also just some, you know, transferable things that a little bit beyond that surface level.

you know, we sort of showed them how they could create.

Very simple, games that students could play online.

You like have the, have the AI do the coding for them to instant translators to, you know, different fluency, you know, things.

And we were really working with groups across elementary and secondary.

And so, I would say that most of the teachers were using it for, again, that surface level, which is a great start.

but I think without a lot of intentional training and support, I think that's what you really.

Would expect from folks.

and they're just starting to sort of see the potential in, you know, scaffolding, differentiation, student choice, et cetera.

Erin Bailey: I think I'm there with them.

I'm, for me currently as a AI user, I'm at the surface level, haven't gotten that deep, and mostly I'm doing things right now that I think would be time savers for me.

Or take away tasks and allow me to focus more on other tasks.

Shannon Kane: A hundred percent, which is a great use of it.

Right.

you know, because, and we, we lay that out with our pre-service teachers as well as our, as the in-service teachers in that, you know.

There is so much work.

There's like, you could work nonstop as an educator and still have more to do.

Right?

And so if you can lean on AI to, to help, to be efficient, to knock out some of the lower level tasks and create space for you to focus on the, the tasks that require the knowledge about students or the, the differentiation or the harder or heavier lifts.

Right.

That's great.

So you've saved time and you are able to focus on the sort of longer lever or the, the tasks that are really gonna push student learning further,

Erin Bailey: So here's an experience that I've had recently working with.

Foundational skills.

as a teacher, when I taught phonemic awareness and phonics, I did a lot.

I paid attention to the mouth shape, you know, pronouncing the sound and the mouth shape.

I'm working with a colleague on training.

AI and video AI to be able to do this because currently you can, you know, have an AI avatar, but it doesn't seem that the technology is sophisticated enough to match the mouth

Shannon Kane: Mm-hmm.

Erin Bailey: the sounds and even training it in the sounds.

And we all have different dialects.

So if I'm the teacher, the phon names would need to be, in my dialect.

So I'm wondering if you've seen anything or had any experience in AI supporting those foundational reading skills.

Shannon Kane: So I think, I mean, it can definitely, for early readers and those foundational skills, I think AI is continuing to evolve, right?

I think that, you know, as you mentioned, with growing sort of advancements with video recognition and even sort of dialect and, there's.

Also been AI work done with, especially with multilingual learners, sort of, supporting with like accents and things like that.

So, I mean, that is again, continuing to evolve.

But I think in general, the fact that, you know, there are speech recognition tools now, that can support, which again, doesn't have the visual sort of cues, which is important.

But if, if we know it's a matter of just practicing the sounds and the student has that sort of, let's say the teacher's done sort of the
initial assessment and knows that the student is making the sounds with proper mouth placement and such, and they just need practice, right?

You have the speech recognition tools where students are reading aloud and there is that immediate feedback around pronunciation around.

Fluency.

there's a lot of games and interactions, right?

Where, and again, this is something that is, it's once you learn how to do it in terms of, having the AI do the coding.

And what's nice about it is it produces games that are.

In a closed system.

So you don't need the internet.

It's not a at cost thing, which again goes to equity as well.

You know, students can do a lot of the matching of the sounds, can repeat sounds, can do a lot of the pH segmentation and replacement and deletion, right?

and so, and again, it's at their pace, but it's also interactive and game-like.

And so while these are not necessarily anywhere near replacements for that initial instruct.

and they're not sort of universal solutions for all.

It's definitely another avenue that allows students to sort of do some independent practice in this low pressure environment.

and we all know that repetition is key with these foundational skills.

And so it's just another, another way to get that repetition in a way that hopefully students won't be bored, they're engaged, and allows them to build those early literacy skills.

Erin Bailey: I was thinking that too.

A, a repetition that's fun and engaging because if it's just repetition, then it feels like a burden, a task.

Students aren't going to be interested in that.

But the way you're describing it, if the teacher does the initial instruction and the student just needs more practice and repetition, it's actually a engaging way.

And I, I feel like if I were the teacher in this scenario, I might even say something to the student like, you're helping train this system.

And by you interacting with the system, you are becoming the teacher, to the, to this AI tool.

Shannon Kane: Right.

And the other thing too is when we think about sort of like small group work or that repetition work, right?

There's that fine line between work that's reinforcing skills and helping students move towards mastery and sort of busy work.

and we know the importance of, being able to work with students in small groups are one-on-one.

And then what is everyone else doing?

But one of the things that AI has really created an opportunity for is it really allows for you to create these very targeted, Intended differentiated sort of opportunities of repetition and practice in game form for students.

That literally takes like seconds, if not minutes, right?

Like so, and allows you now to create these very targeted opportunities, game format for students.

And if we think about the amount of time that would've taken to do by hand or cutting or pasting, right?

Like now all of a sudden like.

It, it would, it's great in, in theory, but I just don't have the time or space to do it.

But AI has really opened that space.

So it's like, I've taught my whole class these skills and so now I know this group needs to practice this and this group needs to practice this, and I'm gonna work with this
group, and everyone's getting what they need, in this, again, you know, low stakes, having fun, interactive opportunity to sort of reinforce through repetition and practice.

Erin Bailey: That's great.

well, I know you're an expert in writing instruction too, so I wanted to make sure I asked you how, AI can help students at the beginning
phases of writing, like generating ideas, planning and organizing their writing and helping them think through the writing process.

Shannon Kane: Great.

So, I mean, I think this is a great question 'cause I think this is probably one of the areas where, you know, people assume plagiarism or you know, that AI is doing the work.

But I think it's great because balance is really everything.

So.

the best use of AI would really be sort of a nudge for students and not a crutch, right?

So just similar to as teaching, right?

We wanna teach students writing.

We don't fix their writing.

And so, you know, with AI, it can offer anything from visual prompts to graphic organizers to sentence starters, right?

So all of that brainstorming, right?

So I. One of the challenges is, and one of the reasons why students often most get, get frustrated the most is you know, they're staring at that blank page.

Right?

Like, they don't have an idea.

They don't know where to begin.

They're overwhelmed.

Right?

It's like that paralysis by analysis, right?

And so when they sit with you, they're able to brainstorm and bounce ideas off.

And depending on the age of the students, sometimes older students can do it with a partner, but we know younger students, you know that partner work can be hard, right?

Developmentally, that it's not necessarily.

Doesn't come natural to them, and it's not in their wheelhouse, but AI can be that partner, right?

Like you can't always sit next to every student, that needs help brainstorming and help them.

But AI can be that tool, right?

you know, it can create from structured planning templates to like, you know, having it.

Have the student work through who the audience is or what happens next, right?

So it's that metacognitive planning and idea generation, but it's actually not doing the content generation.

Right.

So, you know, in some ways it's truly that scaffolding that we envision right outside of a building.

And it's, you know, the, it's supporting the building as it's being built.

Well, here we can use AI to really create that scaffolding for our students' writing.

The student's still generating the content, but the AI is helping them to create that content versus creating it for the student,

Erin Bailey: Yeah, I'm, I'm trying to think of a example.

So a really popular.

writing prompt, at least when I was teaching for third graders, was to rewrite a fairytale, right?

And you could change the setting.

The characters the prompt.

So if I'm a student and I am bouncing off ideas with my ai, language agent, and I say, you know, I really like, aliens and AI says, how about Goldilocks and the three aliens?

Or, you know, I'm making up a scenario, but from your experience.

Do students still feel like they have agency, and do they feel ownership of that when they are generating ideas together with ai?

Shannon Kane: I think they can, right?

I think it's also the what's next in the process, right?

I think having then the students reflect on their use of the tool, right?

Like what did they find helpful?

What didn't they find helpful?

Because there's going to be other things.

The AI may suggest that you're like, I mean, anyone who's maybe used AI for email or like giving feedback or, you know, people sometimes forget that even if you use Grammarly, Grammarly is now all AI use, right?

So when it's making suggestions for your writing, sometimes you're like, oh, that's a great suggestions.

But other times you're like, no, who would write like that?

Or, that doesn't sound like me at all.

Right?

So we need to teach our students to do that as well, right?

That not every suggestion or nudge by the AI is, good.

And so, but having students sort of decide, well, why didn't you like it?

Well, I didn't like it because it didn't, it wasn't really what I meant, or I didn't like it 'cause it didn't sound like me or I didn't like it 'cause it was.

Silly or lame or whatever, you know, stupid, you know, whatever the, whatever a elementary student would say, you know, to that response.

And so I think it's, getting them to reflect on the tool, is really then what ensures that they have that agency, right.

And that they have that voice.

'cause they're in control.

You don't have to take every suggestion.

I mean, and I think as teachers modeling that, right?

when I give feedback to students, you know, or when I've received feedback, I don't, I don't have to take every piece, but it's that
sort of why am I intentionally choosing not to incorporate that piece of feedback or why I am intentionally choosing to incorporate it?

It's that I think that really gives us our voice and agency, right?

Like when I have that choice to make that decision, our students still have that choice.

We just have to emphasize and underscore that with them.

And the same happens.

When you, the teacher give written feedback, right?

There are some things that yes, spelling, maybe we, if it's a word that they should absolutely know, we may be like, check that on the
word wall, and you expect them to spell it correctly, or, you know, if it's a skill around punctuation that they know, yes, you expect it.

But other than that, you may just give more open-ended suggestions.

And so just like with teacher feedback, you don't have to take all pieces of feedback from ai, but it's the why you are taking it or why you're not taking it.

That I think is an important step that we can't skip to ensure that students do have that agency and voice.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, I, I can even imagine this as, you know, you thinking of your traditional writing unit and one interactive writing lesson could be you, my.

Modeling how you're interacting with AI in your own writing and, and doing a think aloud of, Hmm, I'm not going to use this because it doesn't sound like me.

I liked the way I wrote it before, or, uh, yes, that sounds a lot better.

You know, help me think about this.

So I think that's, really important to model that for students so that they can start to do it on their own.

Shannon Kane: Absolutely.

And then again, it becomes a tool and it's not just a replacement.

Right.

And, and understanding that, and we do that all the time as adults, and we need to do that modeling and that metacognition, whether we're writing with a traditional pen, whether we're writing on a, you know, computer, whether we're using ai.

And so.

it's just really important.

We can't skip that step.

If anything, I'd argue it's more important with a tool like ai, because again, we want it to be a tool.

We want it to be a nudge.

It's not a replacement.

It's not a crutch, it's not a shortcut.

And showing students that when you use it as those things, it's really problematic because it doesn't produce accurate stuff all the time.

It's not always.

The best written work, you're sometimes you read it and you're like, that's really awkward.

Like no one would write or talk like that, you know?

And so students need to see that and understand that.

Erin Bailey: And it's a way to introduce plagiarism too.

It's a, it can actually be a non-example and lead to a lesson, I'm think.

Of this was, this was before ai, but I had a student teacher once who was writing with a student and she, and he was writing a book about pandas and the title of the chapter was Growing Up Small or Starting Out Small.

And she said, oh, starting out small, that's a great title for your chapter on Panda Babies.

And he said, yeah, it's such a great title that this author did it in this book.

he had clearly.

Plagiarized and she kind of looked at me like, oh my gosh, like what do I do now?

You know, she's a student teacher, so this is her first time in the classroom.

And I said, no, actually this is a great way to introduce plagiarism to that student.

And I can see that too, with how to introduce plagiarism with ai.

Shannon Kane: Absolutely.

And then also thinking about it as we think about mentor texts, right?

Like so.

Sometimes we use mentor texts as examples, right?

And sometimes we use them as non-examples.

And the same can be true with AI as a mentor text.

Erin Bailey: That's great.

I wanna return to something you mentioned earlier.

You mentioned equity.

I'm sure many teachers, you know, we're all working at different schools, different families, children coming from different backgrounds.

So what are some of the equity considerations that schools and teachers should keep in mind when they're introducing AI literacy tools?

Shannon Kane: Well, I think equity is obviously crucial.

I mean, in all things, but especially here because if it's meant to be a tool to sort of create access points and supports, we wanna ensure that all students have those access points and supports, right?

And so I think.

I think the first thing is, or a key thing is that schools, ensuring that AI is accessible on multiple devices, right?

Whether they, you know, that includes working offline or low bandwidth or, and, and the availability of in different languages.

we had a student panel recently, it was last spring, and it was fascinating because it was students from local high schools in different counties.

And one of the students says, you know, I come, uh, you know, the county that my school is in is very affluent.

My school is very affluent.

But the decision at the time was to ban an ai, and he was like, well, that's all fine and good.

But only on school computers.

He's like, but all of us that have our own computers, we can get it whenever we want.

So he's like, so for myself and my peers, okay, you can ban AI use on school devices, but we can also access our school accounts from our personal devices, which have no bans.

but he's like, any students that are reliant on the school devices are now already in an unequal footing from us.

And this was from a student in high school.

So they're very aware of these things.

And so again.

If the policy is just to ban it outright, because as adults we don't know how to figure out how to teach it critically and reflectively and ethically.

Well, we're, are, we are creating an, an inequity, an inequitable situation by that.

so I think again, it's, if you're gonna have it accessible, it should be on all devices.

It should be on, you know, offline, low bandwidths, et cetera, and realize if you're banning it, you are creating an equity situation.

I think the big thing is teacher training.

Right.

And so, again, because if one, stu, if a group of students happens to be in a class with someone who's very comfortable and familiar with it, their experience is gonna be very different than someone who may have no idea how to use it and avoids it.

Right?

and we, again, it's not just about having access to the tools.

We want the tools to be used critically.

We wanna reflect on the tools, et cetera.

just not tossed in the classroom.

And again, like the wild, wild west of, of the internet, right?

And another thing, another thing is in parents, right?

That I think that contributes to the equity question as well.

you know, having, making sure families understand it right and support how it can support learning, sort of demystifying it.

because like many of our pre-service teachers, I'm sure that a lot of the messages that parents are hearing, you know, maybe on it's bad, it's cheating, et cetera.

And so I really think that if we want.

Equity to truly be considered.

It's about access.

It's about understanding the use of the tool and agency, right?

that all has to be present if we're really going to ensure that, you know, AI is not for some, is not just available for some, mm-hmm.

Erin Bailey: that's really powerful.

coming from a student as you were talking, I was thinking we've also navigated, somewhat navigated this road before, right?

I, when I first started teaching, it was around the time when smartphones came out and there were the first iPads and everyone was kind of confused about what to do then.

Like, oh,

Shannon Kane: Mm-hmm.

Erin Bailey: Band, smartphones and iPads in the classrooms or you know, and then some of the more progressive schools was everyone had one-to-one tablets.

So we have navigated these waters similar waters before, and we can learn from that.

Shannon Kane: Absolutely.

I mean, I think that's huge, right?

And the same thing, even like the internet, right?

Like when the internet was first coming, you know, coming around.

I think it's sort of like, hopefully we're learning from what we did.

Well and then, and even just thinking about, you know, when COVID came about, how we as schools had to pivot right?

And go to sort of online learning, right?

There were aspects of it that we did really well, and there were aspects that were not done well and or like highlighted some areas that we needed to fix.

So hopefully we're learning from those, you know, past sort of either technological integrations and advancements and then, you know, global pandemics.

And so hopefully we can take from that.

And again, listen, because I thought it was incredibly powerful to have these high school students point that out.

Like, hey, my school district decided to ban it, which is all fine and good, but everyone that has their own device has access to it and we can use our own devices.

To access school stuff.

So really you're only banning it from a group of students based on socioeconomic status.

And to hear that come from the mouth of high school students, I'm like, anyone else could have said that.

And I don't think it's anywhere near as powerful.

So like, let's listen to the kids in this case.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, absolutely.

so thinking about different learners, different backgrounds, what, what have you found is the best way for AI to reach a wide range of learners?

I know you have ex. Sense of work with multilingual students too.

Shannon Kane: I mean, I think that's one of the, the, the.

Cool things about ai, right?

Is this adaptive learning?

And I think, you know, the early iterations of it were those like assessments, right?

The online assessments and adaptive learning.

but I think the fact that it can, can be used in teaching and not just assessments is really helpful and powerful.

I think, you know, for multilingual learners, like just the translation, like real time translation.

from oral language, you know, for, and as thinking about like the growth of, multilingual learners, like, so I work in the state of Maryland, and you
know, obviously there are some counties within the state that have a larger population of multilingual learners and so therefore have more supports.

But at this point, there's no county in the state.

Doesn't have at least one multilingual learner.

And as we can think about, you know, counties where the population is much lower, but growing, like resources are catching up.

And so to be able to use AI for translation, real time instantly, visual supports, bilingual dictionaries, right?

just for it to be able to effectively allow for differentiation, the fact that you can put into AI a prompt involving WEDA levels and literally have it generate work for first.

Students.

and again, these are things that, that teachers are ultimately tasked with doing, but take time.

And again, if you're a teacher who's just starting to get multilingual learners in your class or maybe have not had, you know, a student from this level before, like, these are things that again, can, can be amazing resources.

But I also think of other learning differences with students.

Um, you know, from text to speech, speech to text, pacing, just this.

Responsiveness, um, not only to the learner's needs, but also to instruction.

It really does create so many multiple entry points to content in different ways, which again, is like the true essence of differentiation, right?

Like if we're, if differentiation, we're thinking about across content, process, product, classroom, environment, and assessment, right?

AI can really help with all, with most of those things.

Maybe not.

Classroom environment a little potentially like if we think of listening.

but yeah, so the fact that it can support teachers and students across all of those categories, I think is huge.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, and I'm thinking also how great the translation services are for families and getting messages home families, and it might not be perfect.

Shannon Kane: Absolutely.

Erin Bailey: it might not be perfect, but it's better than, you.

As the teacher trying to mime something to a, a family.

Right.

It's gonna get you at least halfway there.

Shannon Kane: Or relying on students to do translations, which I think can be unfair and awkward.

Right.

And so, and they are getting better.

Like it, the accuracy of not only are like the mistakes and hallucinations in stuff like chat GBT or a Gemini.

Drastically lower in these new versions that have just come out.

But the translations, are getting incredibly accurate.

and so, like you said, it may not be a hundred percent perfect, but it's definitely getting the idea across.

It's absolutely better than not translating and respecting home languages.

And it's certainly better than relying on a small student to do the translating between two adults.

Erin Bailey: I've done it before.

Guilty of

Shannon Kane: Yep.

Oh, I have too.

What?

Absolutely right.

Like you can't get someone on the language line.

and it's a language you have not to speak and like you have to in the moment.

And so it's like, like you said, miming small child, like you're using anything possible.

But now that you have this another, another tool and the fact that it's all, and the fact that most of these are also now on your phone, so it's not even like you have to awkwardly carry your laptop around.

It's a game changer I

think.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, for sure.

this has been wonderful, Shannon.

I wondering if you think about, I, I was gonna say in the next five years, but honestly, AI is evolving so rapidly, I'll say in the next one or two or three years.

What emerging AI capabilities do you think or hope will have the biggest impact on K through eight students to learn to read and write?

Shannon Kane: Hmm.

That's a great question.

I think one thing that you already mentioned is just the visual, so.

Training AI to, to be able to recognize, you know, mouth placement and sort of how you make phony value, the, the phone names and stuff.

I think that goes along with this idea of like multimodal ai.

and so again, the text, the speech, the visuals, right?

Like, so it's almost like a holistic learning environment.

the fact that that's changing at such a huge pace, I think is so exciting, right?

Because at like.

When that multimodal environment is, is sort of complete.

like think about it.

So you could have this AI system, it could listen to a student read, at the same time it could pop up sort of vocabulary visuals, right?

And then students can write and illustrate based on their own drawings, like write almost instantly, right?

And the other thing.

That I think would be really helpful and sort of a game changer for teachers as well is, sort of, and AI is sort of inter, is becoming more and more integrated into sort of assessment planning and, you know, within closed systems.

So school districts, have the opportunity to sort of integrate AI in different ways for like goal tracking and stuff.

But one of the things that is sort of still.

On the near horizon is this idea of like longitudinal, progressive, pro progress tracking, right?

So it's not just about like right or wrong answers, but being able to see like how comprehension and sentence sort of like, let's say like writing structure and writing process grow over time, right?

So imagine if as a teacher.

You had sort of a co-teacher, in AI that could really help you sort of point to, growth over time of a child's comprehension or growth over time through writing, right?

If I mean to have that tool as, as, as a teacher, right?

I mean, talk about then being able to personalize, learn.

and so I think that those are two areas, right?

So that multimodal, um, capability and it's definitely, it's sort of there on the fringes now.

Like each of those tools exist, but really able to put them together and to really seamlessly and make it in a simple user, user-friendly way.

The other thing too that we're still, while some of the bias that we know exists within AI in writing form.

Has been addressed.

There's still a lot of issues and research being done around the bias, around images and stuff that AI produces.

and so that's an area that we know we need to improve on before we start really integrating all of that, like multimodality.

But it's possible.

it's.

AI is learning as is, and I think it, it will continue to learn and improve if we as sort of the masterminds, the pilots, the people in charge of it, want it to improve, right?

So I think as people were like, Hey, it's a problem that it's biased or producing inaccuracies, then therefore.

They've improved that.

Right.

And so I think, again, if we are critical consumers and so like, Hey, I have a problem with the biased and the prejudice and some of the image productions and we want it to be more accurate and call that out, it'll continue to improve, right?

And so I'm, I'm hopeful for that.

And again, the, as it gets smarter, for it to help teachers again, just make their practice for individual students stronger, that's what I'm looking forward for.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, I mean I, all of that gets me really excited.

But I think the key that you were describing is that AI is still learning.

We know it's bias, but as the.

Teachers of ai, we have the opportunity to untrain it, unbias it, train it to not be as biased, right?

And that comes from all of us having input.

So, and I think that goes back to equity too.

empowering students to know that they are teachers and trainers of AI as well.

And the more feedback they input into it, the better it will become for all students.

Shannon Kane: Absolutely.

I mean, it's one of those things if, if it is, if we value that, right?

If we want our tool to be less biased, to be more accurate and all that well, we have to give it that feedback and call it out and not accept it.

and so I think the more we do that and the more research that's continued to be done on it and to call that out and to name it, the better the tools will continue to evolve.

If it's not something we don't value or don't see.

that it's important, then it won't.

But, I, you know, and I think you're, you're spot on.

It is an equity issue and we need, we need to continue to focus on that and, you know, uh, hopefully create the, the strongest tools possible that are, that are grounded, in, you
know, in areas of equity and, you know, intentionally, Avoid issues like with bias and inaccuracies and things like that, but that's where that critical reflection and use comes in.

If we just accept it blindly, we're never gonna improve those things.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, absolutely.

so this podcast is called Reading Inspires.

So I always like to end by asking our guests, what does Reading inspire for you?

Shannon Kane: Oh, this is such a tough question.

so I think for me, reading inspires creativity, connection, and courage.

So.

Creativity.

I think it's hard for me to not get excited when I read.

'cause it's just, it's this storytelling, right?

It makes me think a new way or question or spark imagination.

Right.

the connection is that, you know, if you and I read the same book that sort of spark an excitement that we have.

also I feel connected.

Like if I read fiction, like historical fiction or just history to others, to my past.

So there's just that, just the connection to everybody.

And then really, ultimately around courage, because hopefully that's, that's that critical piece, right?

Like that critical literacy piece that I hopefully, you know, reading it.

Inspires myself and others to em to have empathy to speak up and ideally work towards change when we, we aren't happy with things, right?

Because, you know, stories and readings show us what's possible and hopefully the courage to sort of live our own and speak into our truth and our voices, and so gives me hope.

So I guess all of those things.

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

Very hopeful and thank you for this inspiring and hopeful conversation.

Dr. Shannon King.

Shannon Kane: Thank you so much.