My EdTech Life

Why AI Won't Save a Classroom Without Curiosity ft. Olivia Odileke | My EdTech Life 364

What if the missing ingredient in your classroom isn't a new tool, a new curriculum, or another PD session, but curiosity itself? In this episode, I sit down with Olivia Odileke, founder of Spark Curiosity EDU, Education Week contributor, and creator of the Spark Curiosity GPT Coach. Olivia brings an industrial engineering background into the world of education, and her perspective on how we teach, how we evaluate, and how we use AI in classrooms is one you don't want to miss. We get into why so many teachers are burning out trying to cover the curriculum instead of letting students uncover it. Olivia shares her seven-minute teacher talk rule, her Spark Task method with multiple entry points for every learner, and the powerful idea that the smallest unit of school improvement is a teacher who feels psychologically safe to try something new. We also dig into AI in the classroom and how Olivia is using it to amplify student thinking, not replace it. From the Spark Curiosity GPT Coach to her Fearless Educator Radio project with 100+ AI-generated songs for educators, Olivia is showing what it looks like when teachers use AI as a thought partner instead of an answer machine. Plus, get all the details on the Spark Curiosity Conference, July 31 to August 2, 2026 in Austin, Texas, where Olivia and her team are modeling what a curious classroom can actually feel like. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 02:38 Olivia’s Path to Inquiry 10:00 Engineering Mindset in Teaching 14:05 Seeing Students and Sparking Curiosity 34:26 Fail Forward Culture 39:04 Spark Curiosity GPT Coach 45:27 Curiosity With AI 49:26 Conference And Closing Connect with Olivia: 🌐 Website: https://oliviaodileke.com/ 🤖 Spark Curiosity GPT Coach: https://ai.sparkcuriosityedu.com 🎵 Fearless Educator Radio: https://fearlesseducator.com 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-odileke/ A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors who make this show possible: ☕ Come Back Coffee https://comebackbev.com/ 📚 Book Creator https://bookcreator.com/ 🎓 EduAide.AI https://www.eduaide.ai/ 💛 Support the Show: If My EdTech Life has given you some practical ideas to build on what you're already doing well, consider becoming a Producer or Super Producer through our Buy Me a Coffee membership. Your support keeps the conversations coming. 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife/membership [https://buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife/membership] Stay Techie ✌🏼 Support the show [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife]

What AI Can't Replace in Instructional Design ft. Jonathan De La Cruz | My EdTech Life 363

AI can write your design doc. It can build your storyboard. It can draft your script, your rubric, your assessment, your video outline, and half of your e-learning module before lunch. So what's left for the instructional designer? According to Jonathan De La Cruz, everything that actually matters. Jonathan is an instructional designer at a supply chain company and at a Plano, Texas startup building an AI-assisted learning management system. But before all of that, he was a music educator. He worked at DePauw University and Indiana University. He played mariachi on weekends, jazz combos, cathedral gigs, Costa Rican punk reggae, full symphonies. He didn't know "instructional designer" was a job title. He just knew he loved video editing, building websites, and figuring out how learning actually happens. In this conversation, Jonathan and I talk about the parts of instructional design AI is genuinely making faster and the parts no model will ever touch. The language you use when you collaborate. The way you receive feedback. The relationships you build before you ever press record on a training. The reason someone will or won't watch what you built. Jonathan also breaks down the custom AI agent he trained on his reviewers' feedback patterns to cut his iteration cycles from version 5 down to version 2. He shares how he manages a tech stack that includes Articulate, Camtasia, Arcade, Figma Make, Claude Code, Gemini, NotebookLM, and Perplexity, and why he just bought a Claude Code membership last week. If you're an instructional designer wondering where you still fit, an educator thinking about transitioning into ID, or anyone trying to figure out what the human in the loop actually does, this episode is for you. 🎙️ What We Cover: ✅ Why a music educator's brain is built for instructional design ✅ The "agency" lesson Jonathan's first CEO taught him ✅ How to build trust in AI inside a workplace that doesn't trust it yet ✅ The "but vs. and" language hack that changes team collaboration ✅ Why "feedback" is a neutral word and "criticism" isn't ✅ The custom AI feedback agent that cut his iterations in half ✅ His real working tech stack as an instructional designer in 2026 ✅ The human capacities to invest in if you want to stay irreplaceable ✅ Why your training won't land if nobody in the room likes you Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Instructional Design and AI 12:29 The Journey from Music to Instructional Design 21:13 Navigating Confusion in Instructional Design 22:54 The Importance of Collaboration in Instructional Design 27:33 The Human Element in Instructional Design 30:16 Integrating AI into Instructional Design Workflows 39:14 The Importance of Communication Skills 45:46 Final Thoughts and Advice for Future Designers 🔗 Connect With Jonathan De La Cruz on LinkedIn. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-de-la-cruz-0b9831346/] ☕ Huge thanks to our sponsor Comeback Coffee [https://comebackbev.com/] for keeping us energized and creative through every episode. Check them out and grab some coffee soda! 🎧 Listen to My EdTech Life on every major platform: 🌐 Website: https://www.myedtech.life [ https://www.myedtech.life] 🎙️ Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, and wherever you get your podcasts 💛 Support the Show: If My EdTech Life has given you some practical ideas to build on what you're already doing well, consider becoming a Producer or Super Producer through our Buy Me a Coffee membership. Your support keeps the conversations coming. 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife/membership [https://buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife/membership] Stay Techie ✌🏼 Support the show [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife]

The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI ft. Cheryl Strauss Einhorn | My EdTech Life 362

What happens to your judgment when AI starts answering before you finish the question? In this episode, Dr. Fonz sits down with Cheryl Strauss Einhorn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylstrausseinhorn/], founder of Decisive, decision-sciences educator at Cornell and the University of Miami, and author of the new book The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI (Cornell Publishing, May 8th) [https://amzn.to/49sHI3U]. Chery [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylstrausseinhorn/]l spent over a decade as an investigative journalist at Barron's, where her bearish company stories halted stock trading, shut down companies, and once helped send a CEO to ten years in prison. That work taught her something every educator and student needs to hear right now: the hardest part of any decision isn't the information. It's the judgment. Cheryl [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylstrausseinhorn/] walks us through her AREA Method (Absolute, Relative, Exploration & Exploitation, Analysis), a system for complex problem solving built to check our cognitive biases and protect our thinking when we work with AI. She unpacks why "AI as a time-saver" is a myth doing real damage in classrooms, why students still feel pressure to run their assignments through AI to "polish them up," and why the eight moments of human judgment in any complex decision are the things educators should be teaching first. We also get into the cautious advocate's question: what mindset shift do tenured professors need to feel their expertise still matters? How do we lower the barrier for the educators who haven't started using these tools yet? And what does learning look like five years from now if we get this right? Whether you're a K-12 teacher, a professor, a district leader, or a student wondering how to keep your own voice in your own work, this conversation will give you a framework to stop outsourcing your thinking and start leading the machine. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to AI and Decision Making 04:59 Cheryl's Journey and the Area Method 09:57 Understanding the Human Edge in AI 14:59 Reclaiming Agency in Decision Making 20:10 The Area Method Explained 24:48 Challenges and Insights from Teaching AI 31:06 The Role of Educators in AI 38:37 Debunking AI Myths 📚 Connect with Cheryl: Website: areamethod.com [https://areamethod.com/] Book: The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI [https://amzn.to/4w8UpL6] (May 8) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylstrausseinhorn/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylstrausseinhorn/] 🙌 A huge thank you to our sponsors who keep this mission going: ☕ Comeback Coffee [https://comebackbev.com/] for keeping us caffeinated and ready to podcast 📚 Book Creator [https://bookcreator.com/?utm_campaign=4566333-H1%202025%20Be%20an%20Author%20Month&utm_source=myedtechlife&utm_medium=podcast] for empowering student voice in classrooms everywhere 🏫 Peel Back Education [https://www.peelbackeducation.com/] for helping teachers do more with less 🤖 Eduaide.AI [https://www.eduaide.ai/] for putting thoughtful AI to Peel Back Education [https://www.peelbackeducation.com/] exists to uncover, share, and amplify powerful, authentic stories from inside classrooms and beyond, helping educators, learners, and the wider community connect meaningfully with the people and ideas shaping education today. Authentic engagement, inclusion, and learning across the curriculum for ALL your students. Teachers love Book Creator. [https://bookcreator.com/?utm_campaign=4566333-H1%202025%20Be%20an%20Author%20Month&utm_source=myedtechlife&utm_medium=podcast] Support the show [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife]

If You Live on Earth, You've Been Opted Into AI ft. Valerie Brock | My EdTech Life 361

There's no opt-out button for AI. That's the reality Valerie Brock, Curriculum Lead at Day of AI, brings to this conversation, and it changes how we think about AI literacy in K-12. In this episode, Dr. Fonz sits down with Valerie to unpack what AI literacy actually means (hint: it's not prompt engineering), why early childhood classrooms belong in this conversation, and how Day of AI is building developmentally appropriate, tool-agnostic curriculum that's now reaching students in Australia, Rwanda, Taiwan, New Zealand, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, the Philippines, and beyond. Valerie draws on 13 years as a New York City special education teacher and six years with NYC's Computer Science for All initiative to explain how accessibility, UDL, and real classroom experience shape every lesson her team creates. She also shares the stories behind Day of AI's NYC Public Library pilot, the family toolkits built with Common Sense Media, and the new AASA fellowship putting superintendents at the center of AI rollout. Whether you're a teacher, a school leader, a curriculum designer, or a parent trying to figure out where to start, this episode gives you the language, the framework, and the free resources to move forward. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to My EdTech Life 01:20 Meet Valerie Brock 02:30 From NYC classrooms to Day of AI 05:00 What Day of AI actually is 06:30 The "opt out" button doesn't exist 09:30 Accessibility, UDL, and designing for every learner 13:30 What AI literacy really means 17:00 The fear teachers bring to PD 19:00 The NYC Public Library pilot 20:45 Why kindergartners can handle this conversation 24:30 How Day of AI decides what's developmentally appropriate 30:00 Program Hubs around the world 35:00 The AASA superintendent fellowship 40:00 How to get started with Day of AI 45:00 Valerie's AI kryptonite and billboard message 🔗 CONNECT WITH VALERIE 🌐 Day of AI: https://dayofai.org [https://dayofai.org/] 💼 LinkedIn: Valerie Brock 🙌 THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS ☕ Come Back Coffee [https://comebackbev.com/] 📚 Book Creator [https://bookcreator.com/?utm_campaign=4566333-H1%202025%20Be%20an%20Author%20Month&utm_source=myedtechlife&utm_medium=podcast] 🎓 EduAid [https://www.eduaide.ai/].AI 🌱 Peel Back Education [https://www.peelbackeducation.com/] 👍 If this episode helped you, smash that LIKE button, SUBSCRIBE for more conversations with EdTech's best, and share it with an educator who needs to hear it. ☕ SUPPORT THE SHOW If My EdTech Life has added value to your work, consider becoming a member and helping us keep the conversations going. 🔗 https://buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife/membership [https://buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife/membership] Stay Techie ✌🏼 Peel Back Education [https://www.peelbackeducation.com/] exists to uncover, share, and amplify powerful, authentic stories from inside classrooms and beyond, helping educators, learners, and the wider community connect meaningfully with the people and ideas shaping education today. Authentic engagement, inclusion, and learning across the curriculum for ALL your students. Teachers love Book Creator. [https://bookcreator.com/?utm_campaign=4566333-H1%202025%20Be%20an%20Author%20Month&utm_source=myedtechlife&utm_medium=podcast] Support the show [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife]

The #1 AI Governance Mistake Schools Are Making ft. Betsy Cooper | My EdTech Life 360

Episode 360: The #1 AI Governance Mistake Schools Are Making ft. Betsy Cooper [https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-cooper-827042b/] What's the biggest mistake schools are making with AI right now? According to Betsy Cooper [https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-cooper-827042b/], it's not taking it seriously from day one. In this episode, Dr.Alfonso sits down with Betsy Cooper [https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-cooper-827042b/], Founder and Executive Director of the Aspen Policy Academy, for a powerful conversation on the AI governance decisions quietly reshaping schools — and what educators, leaders, and parents can do about it. Betsy [https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-cooper-827042b/] brings a one-of-a-kind perspective shaped by her work as a former DHS attorney, her time leading the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, and her doctorate from Oxford. Through Aspen Policy Academy, she's on a mission to democratize policymaking, helping teachers, parents, technologists, and community advocates learn how to identify problems, build solutions, and actually drive change. Together, Dr. Alfonso and Betsy [https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-cooper-827042b/] unpack why "ooh, that looks pretty, let's try it" is the wrong way to evaluate new tools, how smooth vendors and shrinking budgets are pushing districts into risky decisions, and why K-12 students need adult stewards more than ever in this moment. Betsy [https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-cooper-827042b/] also shares the castle and moat metaphor every school leader needs to hear, a three-step crisis plan for overwhelmed CTOs and superintendents, and her four-step policy impact framework for educators ready to advocate for change. Whether you're a teacher, CTO, superintendent, or parent, this episode will leave you with practical tools and a renewed sense of agency to push back, ask better questions, and advocate for the students who can't speak up for themselves. Chapters 00:00 — Welcome & Sponsor Shoutouts 01:30 — Meet Dr. Betsy Cooper & The Origin of Aspen Policy Academy 07:00 — What Policy Literacy Means for Educators (and Why It's Free) 14:00 — The 4-Step Policy Impact Framework 19:30 — The #1 AI Governance Mistake Schools Are Making 24:30 — How CTOs Should Evaluate AI Tools & Vendors 31:00 — Who Should Be Writing AI Policy for Schools 35:00 — Cybersecurity in K-12: The Castle, The Moat & The Breach Plan 39:30 — Cyber Civic Engagement & Becoming a Local Advocate 43:30 — Speed Round & Closing Thoughts Don't forget to: ✅ Subscribe to My EdTech Life on your favorite podcast platform ✅ Leave a review and share this episode with a fellow educator ✅ Visit www.myedtech.life for more amazing conversations 💜 Thank you to our sponsors: Eduaide.AI [https://www.eduaide.ai/] | Book Creator [https://bookcreator.com/?utm_campaign=4566333-H1%202025%20Be%20an%20Author%20Month&utm_source=myedtechlife&utm_medium=podcast]| Peel Back Education [https://www.peelbackeducation.com/] | Comeback Coffee [https://comebackbev.com/] Peel Back Education [https://www.peelbackeducation.com/] exists to uncover, share, and amplify powerful, authentic stories from inside classrooms and beyond, helping educators, learners, and the wider community connect meaningfully with the people and ideas shaping education today. Authentic engagement, inclusion, and learning across the curriculum for ALL your students. Teachers love Book Creator. [https://bookcreator.com/?utm_campaign=4566333-H1%202025%20Be%20an%20Author%20Month&utm_source=myedtechlife&utm_medium=podcast] Support the show [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/myedtechlife]