22 min
π My chat (+transcript) with John Bailey on the potential for AI in education Faster, Please! β The Podcast
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- Technology
Education was among the first victims of AI panic. Concerns over cheating quickly made the news. But AI optimists like John Bailey are taking a whole different approach. Today on Faster, Please! β The Podcast, I talk with Bailey about what it would mean to raise kids with a personalized AI coach β one that could elevate the efficacy of teachers, tutors, and career advisors to new heights.
John Bailey is a colleague and senior fellow at AEI. He formerly served as special assistant to the president for domestic policy at the White house, as well as deputy policy director to the US secretary of commerce. He has additionally acted as the Director of Educational Technology for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and subsequently as Director of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education.
In This Episode
* An opportunity for educators (1:27)
* Does AI mean fewer teachers, or better teachers? (5:59)
* A solution to COVID learning loss (9:31)
* The personalized educational assistant (12:31)
* The issue of cheating (17:49)
* Adoption by teachers (21:02)
Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation
Education was among the first victims of AI panic. Concerns over cheating quickly made the news. But AI optimists like John Bailey are taking a whole different approach. Today on Faster, Please! β The Podcast, I talk with Bailey about what it would mean to raise kids with a personalized AI coach β one that could elevate the efficacy of teachers, tutors, and career advisors to new heights.
John Bailey is a colleague and senior fellow at AEI. He formerly served as special assistant to the president for domestic policy at the White house, as well as deputy policy director to the US secretary of commerce. He has additionally acted as the Director of Educational Technology for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and subsequently as Director of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education.
An opportunity for educators (1:27)
Pethokoukis: John, welcome to the podcast.
Bailey: Oh my gosh, it's so great to be with you.
Weβd actually chatted last summer a bit on a panel about AI and education, and this is a fast moving, evolving technology. People are constantly thinking of new things to do with it. They're gauging its strengths and weaknesses. As you're thinking about any downsides of AI in education, has that changed since last summer? Are you more or less enthusiastic? How would you gauge your evolving views?
I think I grow more excited and enthusiastic by the day, and I say that with a little humility because I do think the education space, especially for the last 20 years or so, has been riddled with a lot of promises around personalized learning, how technology was going to change your revolutionize education and teaching and learning, and it rarely did. It was over promise and under-delivered. This, though, feels like it might be one of the first times we're underestimating some of the AI capabilities and I think I'm excited for a couple different reasons.
I just see this as it is developing its potential to develop tutoring and, just in time, professional development for teachers, and being an assistant to just make teaching more joyful again and remove some of the drudgery. I think that's untapped area and it seems to be coming alive more and more every day. But then, also, I'm very excited about some of the ways these new tools are analyzing data and you just think about school leaders, you think about principals and superintendents, and state policy makers, and the ability of being able to just have conversations with data, not running pivot tables or Excel formulas and looking for patterns and helping to understand trends. I think the bar for that has just been dramatically lowered and that's great. That's great for decision-making and it's great for having a more informed conversation.
You're right. You talked about the promise of technology, and I know that when my kids were
Education was among the first victims of AI panic. Concerns over cheating quickly made the news. But AI optimists like John Bailey are taking a whole different approach. Today on Faster, Please! β The Podcast, I talk with Bailey about what it would mean to raise kids with a personalized AI coach β one that could elevate the efficacy of teachers, tutors, and career advisors to new heights.
John Bailey is a colleague and senior fellow at AEI. He formerly served as special assistant to the president for domestic policy at the White house, as well as deputy policy director to the US secretary of commerce. He has additionally acted as the Director of Educational Technology for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and subsequently as Director of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education.
In This Episode
* An opportunity for educators (1:27)
* Does AI mean fewer teachers, or better teachers? (5:59)
* A solution to COVID learning loss (9:31)
* The personalized educational assistant (12:31)
* The issue of cheating (17:49)
* Adoption by teachers (21:02)
Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation
Education was among the first victims of AI panic. Concerns over cheating quickly made the news. But AI optimists like John Bailey are taking a whole different approach. Today on Faster, Please! β The Podcast, I talk with Bailey about what it would mean to raise kids with a personalized AI coach β one that could elevate the efficacy of teachers, tutors, and career advisors to new heights.
John Bailey is a colleague and senior fellow at AEI. He formerly served as special assistant to the president for domestic policy at the White house, as well as deputy policy director to the US secretary of commerce. He has additionally acted as the Director of Educational Technology for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and subsequently as Director of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education.
An opportunity for educators (1:27)
Pethokoukis: John, welcome to the podcast.
Bailey: Oh my gosh, it's so great to be with you.
Weβd actually chatted last summer a bit on a panel about AI and education, and this is a fast moving, evolving technology. People are constantly thinking of new things to do with it. They're gauging its strengths and weaknesses. As you're thinking about any downsides of AI in education, has that changed since last summer? Are you more or less enthusiastic? How would you gauge your evolving views?
I think I grow more excited and enthusiastic by the day, and I say that with a little humility because I do think the education space, especially for the last 20 years or so, has been riddled with a lot of promises around personalized learning, how technology was going to change your revolutionize education and teaching and learning, and it rarely did. It was over promise and under-delivered. This, though, feels like it might be one of the first times we're underestimating some of the AI capabilities and I think I'm excited for a couple different reasons.
I just see this as it is developing its potential to develop tutoring and, just in time, professional development for teachers, and being an assistant to just make teaching more joyful again and remove some of the drudgery. I think that's untapped area and it seems to be coming alive more and more every day. But then, also, I'm very excited about some of the ways these new tools are analyzing data and you just think about school leaders, you think about principals and superintendents, and state policy makers, and the ability of being able to just have conversations with data, not running pivot tables or Excel formulas and looking for patterns and helping to understand trends. I think the bar for that has just been dramatically lowered and that's great. That's great for decision-making and it's great for having a more informed conversation.
You're right. You talked about the promise of technology, and I know that when my kids were
22 min