Michael Conner: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to another episode of Voices for Excellence. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Conner, CEO, and founder of the Agile Evolutionary Group, and of course, the proud host of VFE and today's guest. I'm gonna take off my Dr. Conner hat and introduce her. As Michael and Julia, because Julia Fallon, like I said, is just an extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary educator and also an extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary friend of mine.

Michael Conner: I absolutely love Julia. We are on, I like to say this kind of group nerd texts. By way of Jacob Kantor. Thank you Jacob for putting all of us nurse together on this text and you should see some of the messages that are going back and forth. Rob is like Rob Dickerson. Love you, Rob. Rob is designing something with [00:01:00] ai.

Michael Conner: Julia is doing writing another report. Sabba is, is changing the world with ai. It's just an app, Sophia, who's a part of that, and we have just all became close. When we see each other in person, great conversation, share the platform. I learn from each and every one of them, and again, like I said, have become very, very extremely close friends in this network.

Michael Conner: So I want to introduce again, my personal friend, one of the greatest educators I think in that subjectively and subjectively stated, Ms. Julia. Fallon, who is currently right now the executive director of SETDA, and then also she was the former program lead at the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Education, changing the World with her work, working directly with CTOs and CIOs across the country.

Michael Conner: I even when I was at FETC, when Julia was like, Hey, we have an invite only party, an event that's, do you wanna come? [00:02:00] I felt special. I was like, okay. Yeah, Julia. Yeah. Julia, this is awesome. So. Without further ado, I want to introduce my personal friend, like I said, a great and extraordinary impactful educator within this ecosystem and really change the dynamics of technology and artificial intelligence, which we're gonna get into this episode.

Michael Conner: Miss Julia Fallon. Now, Julia. I know you paid me a million bucks to say all that about you,

Julia Fallon: so I, I wish I had the money to give you to say that, all that stuff. So thank you so much for that warm introduction. And I, I agree with you, our group chat, I feel like it's a group of learners. We definitely, you could tell we are a group of learners and we are sort of like, I'm blown away by what Rob Dixon does with ai.

Julia Fallon: Like, I'm literally like, I feel like I'm such a basic user compared to him, but I'm learning from everybody, kind of what we're. Kind of in the space, right? It's, it's just, and again, shout out to Jacob Kantor for kind of pulling us all together to, to have that happen and, and it just organically has grown [00:03:00] on its own.

Michael Conner: Yeah, and I mean, it is just, and to my audience, you know that right there, that text thread that we're in with Julia, Saab, Jacob, um, Rob and, and, um, Sophia, uh, literally to me that's like five to six different podcast episodes unpacking each of their intellectual property. Bringing Rob is at this another level.

Michael Conner: Uh, I can't wait to have him on VFE as well, but Julia, this is focused on you and we've been trying, we've been trying to do this for months. I mean, literally for months. I mean, we were talking at F uh, FETC at Topgolf. I'm like, yo, Julia, we swing in the, the, the, the nine, the nine iron. Julia, what's the date?

Michael Conner: Then, you know, change it with that, but. So glad to have you on specifically in the month of March, right? Definitely for my VFE viewer viewers. This is gonna be an extraordinary, extraordinary episode. But Julia, I wanna highlight [00:04:00] you and I wanna highlight your work, but also I wanna see what that association is with a song so we all know, or to my audience, right?

Michael Conner: You're multi, multi. Let, let me get this. I wanna stress that friend, multinational, award winner, former program lead, like I stated at the outset, at the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Education and now the executive director of cita. What song describes your leadership signature in the ecosystem?

Julia Fallon: For those of you that don't know out there, I also moonlight as a, a dj. I learned how to mix during the pandemic and it's sort of taking on its own life and everything else. But there is a song that I will always pick, I think as the one that describes me, but it's also my most favorite song, and it's been my ringtone since 1999.

Julia Fallon: So. For those of you that remember when we used to have to buy ring tones, I used to buy the ringtone. Don't have to do that anymore, thankfully. But I what I would say that it's probably, and if you're a house head [00:05:00] and if people understand what that is, and that is my audience, but if you're a house head out there, it's gotta be, the music sounds better with you by stardust.

Julia Fallon: It is my, it's iconic. And even if you're probably not a house head, you probably have heard it somewhere on the, on the radio waves. Still going strong and everything else, but I think why it works for me, and to answer your question is that. Leadership is sort of a collective rhythm, right? It's not a solo performance.

Julia Fallon: I don't do this all by myself. I always give credit, especially in the position that I'm in now to my CA community. I've been part of the community for 23 years, 17 and a half as a state member when I was representing Washington, and then five years now as the executive director. But I, it's a collective rhythm, right?

Julia Fallon: We do it together. It's not all on just me. Even our group chat is a, a, a sort of a mini version of that kind of collective vision and rhythm and everything else. And for me, I'm very systems focused. So the music sounds better with you is almost like when systems work, when people feel seen [00:06:00] and connected and in sync.

Julia Fallon: So I think sometimes about like systems and that song, like it's the music is better with somebody else, right? I can enjoy the music myself, but it's almost so fun to share it with folks and do that sort of thing. And in my role as a dj, right? Like I think about this song and everything else. I have to read the room, I have to adjust tempo, and I have to create conditions where other people get to shine.

Julia Fallon: And that's really why I think my, it, it kind of describes the leadership too and everything else. And again, it's a very iconic song and it just brings a lot of joy and happiness when I hear it.

Michael Conner: I, uh, first Julia, I, I wanted you to bring up the dj. I was gonna keep it to a professional vertical, but yes to my audience.

Michael Conner: What, uh, twi-, what is it? Twitch. Julia. It

Julia Fallon: Twitch? Yep. Twitch. It's a live streaming platform.

Michael Conner: Yeah. On Friday nights, and I remember Julia was like, Hey, you know, come check it out. This is what I'm DJing to my audience. Yes. Julia is, I mean, I had me bumping my head like this, right? With Julia, so [00:07:00] please check her out.

Michael Conner: Friday nights on Twitch. At the end of the episode, you'll be able to access her, support. Her work a really, really good dj. I always like, she puts on the Cape, right? This is when she puts on the Cape when she becomes a dj, but you are absolutely right. Right. Julia, when you talk about that collective rhythm and that collective vision and being a systems thinker, and as you were describing that, Julia.

Michael Conner: I always think about the complexity and how arduous it is where we have a learning organization moving in that collective rhythm around the sheer vision of the desired output. When I think about that from a systems lens, a systems design, human-centric design standpoint, to be able to achieve that collective rhythm, that's the hardest, right?

Michael Conner: Well, one of my performer professors always stated that it's not so much the hardware that's difficult or complex to change is more of the software. [00:08:00] IE mindsets, mental models, having that collective efficacy collective work to move in the synergistic manner around the vision. So I love when you said the collective vision adjust, adjusting to the temple, knowing the room, all of that is so contextualized.

Michael Conner: It's contextualized perfectly. When we think about how we redesign the model, I should say modernize the model systems design. And discipline execution in this shared context, collective rhythm, right? We gotta, Hey, why did,

Julia Fallon: well, and, and I think it's also like creating conditions for flow, right? Like we're not controlling every single No, we are literally.

Julia Fallon: And I think about like this as a DJ too. You are, you're, you're creating this environment for people to connect. Right? And, and, and it's an emotional connection. I could throw out all the facts and figures, and I think I read this in like Bowman and Deals Reframing Organizations, which is a, a book that I hold dear.

Julia Fallon: To, I think my leadership style and what, how I look at [00:09:00] systems, it's really facts and figures are not gonna move things. It's when we tell the stories or when we can connect with somebody's humanity. I think that's what moves things forward and how do we do that in a collective way? So again, conditions for flow, it's not about control, right?

Julia Fallon: Like it's really just creating that space for things to happen.

Michael Conner: Yeah. Dynamic work versus control and demand. Unbelievable explanation. And you're right about that. Storytelling. Storytelling and then moving, creating those conditions. Unbelievable answer. Now, five years as the executive director of SETDA, and to my audience, that acronym means she's the executive director for the State Education Technology Directors Association since 2021.

Michael Conner: So now under your leadership, SETDAs played a pivotal role. Julia was shaping the nation's landscape when it comes to education, technology, and ai. I hear you referencing the white paper that was disseminated out of SETDA read it all the time. Use that now within my keynotes as well as use that within my [00:10:00] course that I created and now hopefully moving towards this micro-credential program.

Michael Conner: Around the 22nd century using your work or SETDA work out of that. But also too, you developed the US Department of Education's 2024 National Education Technology Plan. So not only from the SETDA plan, but the US Department of Education Plan. But first to my audience that might not know what is the core work of SETDA, what does that look like and what are some of the major milestone steps that you have achieved?

Michael Conner: And then second. Can you just walk us through in kind of like the simplistic manner, the contextual threads of why the National Educational Technology plans matters in the AC stage of education after COVID-19?

Julia Fallon: Sounds great. So, yeah, I took the leadership position here right in the middle of the pandemic.

Julia Fallon: Well actually, you know, the, after the, not even the first year we had gotten through, but, and, uh. SETDA has been around actually for 25 years. We're gonna be celebrating our 25th [00:11:00] anniversary later this year. And SETDA has really existed to help states use technology as a lever, right. For equity, coherence, system improvement.

Julia Fallon: It's not a novelty thing, right? We've been doing it for 25 years. Uh, we actually made the joke at the beginning of the pandemic, this is when I was still a state leader. We wanted to get, I told you so shirts, like we already, we already knew that we might not have enough devices. Internet connectivity, professional learning for teachers, you know, are they gonna be skilled to be able to, you know, meet the demands, what the pandemic basically handed to us.

Julia Fallon: But the things that SETDA really has done really well. One is we help states design really smart and flexible frameworks, right? If you think about folks at the state level, there's only a few of us in each of the departments of education across, or state education agency, as we call it, in the federal language across the country, right.

Julia Fallon: And it was nice to actually have counterparts in other states going, oh, you're working on that too. I'm working on that. What are you learning and how do we come together? We are a very small and mighty membership association compared to our [00:12:00] counterparts like Cosine and ISTE. We're maybe under 500 people total.

Julia Fallon: Not all of them are state agency people, but people that are maybe state focused affiliates. And then we have corporate members that also believe in our mission and mission and everything else. So policy and governance is really a big part of our, what we do. We do advocacy around the. Things that we need both through, you know, E-Rate for federal funding, titles two and Title IV under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Julia Fallon: Help support ed tech initiatives at state level, ultimately at the local level. And you know, things like KT l cybersecurity and of course we're talking about AI now these days, and privacy and safety and, and all of the things. So there's definitely ways that we can be the state voice we can provide that.

Julia Fallon: That United voice around a, an, an issue, a particular issue that affects the ed tech space. The other thing that we do is we also look at infrastructure and capacity, right? At the end of the day, if you don't have the infrastructure, it doesn't matter if you have all the teacher training and you have devices for kids and everything else, you need [00:13:00] safety.

Julia Fallon: You know the networks. You need funding, you need the, the, the stuff there in order to do the other things. So. We talk a lot about data and privacy and cybersecurity and professional learning and procurement, which is the most least sexy topic out there, but it actually moves the needle because it's a process, right?

Julia Fallon: It's a strategic process. If you literally look at it for districts and for states, and the other thing that we do at SETDA, one of the pillars is it's the human systems, right? We help our leaders be better leaders. I know that. Who I am today is because of my com. You know, my community that I has been part of for the last 23 years, helping me be a better leader.

Julia Fallon: It's professional learning. It's learning how to do implementation readiness. A lot of folks that are. Uh, state leaders in our space are the implementers and integrators. They might be sitting at the, you know, the leadership table at the Chief State Chiefs level. Some of them do depending on their org chart, but a lot of us we're more at the programmatic level where we're then taking legislation or we're helping [00:14:00] craft legislation at the state level and then pulling it, and then how does it get implemented in practice at the end of the day?

Julia Fallon: So. Those are kind of the three pillars I think. I, I think I hit your question there and everything else, but under our leadership, we are considered one of, you know, a very trusted federal partner. We have been for a long time, we worked closely. Uh, we were the, the contractor of the lead contractor for the 2024 national ed tech plan.

Julia Fallon: That was a feather in our cap. We've been involved in every single iteration of the National EdTech plan. This was the first time we actually got to lead the work and one of the approaches that we took for that was. We already know what the research said and everything else we've done lit reviews those.

Julia Fallon: I feel like those past n ETPs were very much like lit reviews. Like this is why we should use technology. Here's all the reasons why. We really worked with the department to create more of a visionary document, like what do we want it to look like? We have the lit review. So that's where we came up with those three, um, to really talk about those three divides and a lot of people.

Julia Fallon: Know about Ed Tech, about the digital access divide, [00:15:00] right? You know, do we have enough devices and connectivity and all the infrastructure stuff. But we really looked at the design divide. Do teachers have the time and space to actually use technology in their instructional practice? So like, what does that look like?

Julia Fallon: And we highlighted the Universal Design for Learning model, which has been around for. Long time, you know, 40 years, but it was actually written into the Every Student Succeeds Act. I don't think people realize that. And that's 10 years old already. And then we also have the digital design divide, which is about use, right?

Julia Fallon: We want kids to be using technology in active ways, not passive ways. We don't want to see. Kids just using it for test prep or you know, you have a digital worksheet versus a P worksheet. We want kids to be using it, you know, research, communication, collaboration with their classmates to be really using it to create and to contribute, right?

Julia Fallon: Because that's are the skills that they're gonna need when they leave our systems. So it's really like elevating, sort of like shifting from tools to conditions for learning. That's really where we've been going lately. [00:16:00] It's not just about the tools anymore. It's really like how do you create the conditions?

Julia Fallon: For the, this learning to happen, this modern learning experience. And I think we're elevating, obviously still AI cybersecurity, 'cause it's, I mean those are the things that we talk about, but digital equity, right from side conversations to really be more systems priority. It can't just be the ed tech people or the IT people holding that.

Julia Fallon: It has to go to the front office. It has to be your, your state chief's. You know, your, your directors of technology, your business managers, they all have to understand how it supports the, the sector. And I'm, that's your first question, so I'm gonna stop there to see if you have any comments, and then we can talk about why the NATP matters.

Michael Conner: So, Julia. Profound, and there's a lot in there that I think that my audience could be able to unpack, be either be able to identify specific slithers of strategies to employ, but what wa what was so profound of what you stated? Because now I, I go back to my 22nd century [00:17:00] education model, Julia, and I think about how now the 22nd century.

Michael Conner: AI centric learning ecosystem. Moving from the standardized model to these learning ecosystems. Part of my theory of action or value proposition, however you wanna look at educational business context. What resonates is this global readiness, and you highlight it to specific sentiments, design, divide, and the digital design divide.

Michael Conner: Now,

Julia Fallon: well is a, it's digital design divide and the digital use divide. So there's a use divide. That's really what it is. I just tripped over my own words there before.

Michael Conner: So now Julia, I think about this because like you're saying, moving from the, creating the conditions of learning and this shift from intentional shift.

Michael Conner: From tools to conditions of learning. When I think about now, the utility, the implementation, the integration of artificial intelligence, [00:18:00] I referenced to some of our international counterparts, countries that have adopted one country. China has already adopted. Nationwide rule that starting in kindergarten, students will receive four to six hours of AI instruction.

Michael Conner: Now it's very abstract, right? AI instruction, four to six hours. I don't know if there's specific technic couples protocols, policies that have been adopted universally, or is it more on the lines of giving semi-autonomy too? Each of the designated men ministries within China to adopt four to six hours of AI instruction based off of their contextual, uh, needs and outputs.

Michael Conner: But Julia, again, just a country adopting four to six hours of AI instruction weekly versus where we're just still learning the shift from tools to creating a condition of learning. Does this from a global competitive standpoint, not even looking at the PISA [00:19:00] data from a global competitive standpoint, does this put us behind in the global context?

Julia Fallon: Advantages us as a country for a couple of reasons. We have, like right now, today, right as we're talking, we have lots of political. Conversations happening, right? Screen time, cell phone bands. But then we wanna be, you know, AI and workforce. Like, it's like, where do you figure out how to make this work at the end of the day so that kids can be safe, right?

Julia Fallon: We want safety. We wanna make sure that all our data isn't getting sucked up by these, uh, systems. We wanna make sure that, you know, schools aren't being taken down by cybersecurity tax. We wanna make sure that, you know, but kids need the skills. And I also talk about like equity. Not like socioeconomic sometimes I'm talking about in the same building.

Julia Fallon: So when we talk about the design divide, what's interesting is, you know, my kid's a junior in high school, and when she entered high school a couple years ago, she had to take biology. Everybody had to [00:20:00] take biology, right? It's a graduation requirement. You gotta get it done. And her last name starts with F and her best friend's, last name starts with M.

Julia Fallon: And they're going in this two sections of Biology 1 0 1 with two different teachers, and they're having varying levels of, you know, experience there and who's getting the skills that's gonna maybe put them ahead as a workforce at the end of the day. Like there's an equity, like we're, we don't have our, I don't wanna use the word poop in a pile, but I'm gonna use that like a poop in a pile in terms of.

Julia Fallon: What the, like the federal government is providing guidance. We have a decimated US Department of Education right now with no Office of Ed Tech leadership, which is unfortunate because when you think about the Office of Ed Tech under the prior administration, they were very future focused in terms of the NETP and AI guidance already getting put out there.

Julia Fallon: They were thinking ahead, which is kind of, when you think about a federal agency, they're not usually. Forward there, they're kind of more reactive, and that was a nice, refreshing thing to see that they were thinking about how we can be looking at this ahead of the curve versus behind the curve. [00:21:00] With the current administration, we have two things happening.

Julia Fallon: One is we're getting rid of supports right from the federal side about what it looks like, but that the same time you want an AI ready workforce and you wanna have, you know all of this stuff and take advantage of it. Those things are not like, they're not meshing very well. So we're sitting in the middle here going, are we seeing another, I told you so.

Julia Fallon: Shirt moment. You know, like, is that where it's gonna be? Like, what are we doing here? Are we gonna be more coherent around the systems here? Right. And I feel like COVID post pandemic current uncertainty in the space is really not creating new problems. Right? It's revealing where we have system design flaws.

Julia Fallon: Like it's really highlighting these gaps. Right. So if you think about it, and this is maybe why the NETP maybe matters in that, you know, after COVID kind of stages, we are talking about where agency matters more than screen time, right? We wanna make sure that students have agency, right? That's the active versus passive use kind of space We want kids to [00:22:00] have.

Julia Fallon: To to be learners, right? Like to con have, like, and who's controlling that learning, right? It's not, the NATP wasn't about devices, it's about who's controlling, who's in control of the learning. So if you think about the digital design gap, right? Educator capacity is really an infrastructure thing. It used to, I think few people would be like, oh, let teachers do what they do.

Julia Fallon: It looked like when I was at school 50 years ago, et cetera, et cetera. And no teachers also need to have As, as a profession, they also need to understand how things work for them. Technology has hit the sector and we are woefully behind, and I have been on record to say. I hate the word innovation in the ED space because I don't think we're being innovative at all.

Julia Fallon: I feel like we've been laughed a couple of times by other industry sectors and we're just trying to figure it out. And anytime we kind of like make an incremental jump, it looks like we're moving towards something. We look modern, but we aren't modern. So how do you become modern? Right. And not just be good enough to kind of pass like a sniff test and everything else.

Julia Fallon: So, but educator capacity, so I want teachers. [00:23:00] I don't want it to be forced upon them because the teachers, at the end of the day, right, they are the human in the room that can understand how to reach a student and get, you know, make the learning environment really well. But they do need to have some skills and they need to have good judgment about when to use something and when not to.

Julia Fallon: And if you use frameworks that are out there that have been used for a really long time, like UDL, it's not about necessarily having every kid use technology in the same exact way. It's about creating the conditions that. If you're talking about how DNA binds to itself, right? One kid might choreograph a dance to demonstrate knowledge about how that happens.

Julia Fallon: Another kid might do a video and to show how it happens, but the teachers created the conditions to demonstrate knowledge, and there's a way to use technology to help get kids there, right? To do that. So I feel like for me, we, we overlook educator capacity. We kind of said, oh, well, X, Y, Z. But the crazy thing about COVID, this is what I noticed.

Julia Fallon: Is no one missed the bell schedule or [00:24:00] chem lab during COVID, right? They missed the ritual and community. So how do we create learning spaces that still honor the ritual and community? So it looks like the school that we all have gone through, right? I know what prom looked like, I know what a basketball game looked like.

Julia Fallon: I know what, you know, that sort of thing. But then it may look different in terms of the learning environment. So for me it's around coherence versus compliance. And I, I, I'm, I, I hope that we can figure out a way to kind of get right there.

Michael Conner: Coherence versus compliance

Julia Fallon: over compliance. It's, I mean, I don't want it, compliance is one thing, but how do you do more of a coherence in this space?

Julia Fallon: Right. That we all are kind of. Moving towards the same shared kind of vision of what we want for our kids.

Michael Conner: Yeah. Coherence over compliance. I loved how you articulated that there are systems design flaws, apps. A hundred percent correct. Because I mean, you and I can just sit down and arbitrarily identify what are some of those gaps that we see within the system and [00:25:00] itself and the construct.

Michael Conner: Love how you focused on capacity, but again, you kept on referencing, you referenced this four different times, conditions for learning. And I think that is so vitally essential. It kind of is that that throughput leading towards how we build systems, uh, systems around capabilities so that there won't be any flaws or gaps and it coherence to over compliance.

Michael Conner: I'm gonna steal that, Julia, because I think that's so. True. But Julia, I wanna stay on this topic, right? Because there are specific. Components from the 2025 state ed tech report that I want to unpack. And what, what shocked me, and I heard you said this at F-E-T-C-I followed up and read the actual report itself.

Michael Conner: The report is really compelling, really. It was well written sequence very well. But some of the things initially shocked me, and one was that the details that AI has surpassed cybersecurity as a state priority coupled with. [00:26:00] Infrastructure investments in technology, right? So we know that information and from the, from the state ed tech report.

Michael Conner: But that same report, same report, Julia revealed that 27% of states have plans to sustain projects funded by pandemic era eser dollars. Now first, how will education be able to sustain these radical shifts in the context of ai? And then two. Districts are experiencing tight, tight, tight budgets. We know that I speak to superintendents pretty much every day, and I know what they're trying to work with.

Michael Conner: How do we sustain technology in AI initiatives as priorities for strategic budgets within, or strategic budgeting within learning organizations, superintendents and board of educations.

Julia Fallon: So what's interesting about those Esser funds, and I think people think that. Now that they're gone, that there's no money going to states.

Julia Fallon: And that's not necessarily the case, right? [00:27:00] There's regular funds that go to the states that go ultimately to districts every year. Right? That's your s that's the Every Student Succeeds Act money. And that is something that we always advocate for that is actually, is appropriated, it's actually allocated appropriated levels.

Julia Fallon: 'cause it's not, all of, it's not, um, the good news is. Under the current fiscal year budget that just got passed so that things can still operate. It was mostly level funding and Title one actually, and I think IDA received a slight increase. That's good news. But the astro funds were one-time funds that got sent to states during the the pandemic.

Julia Fallon: Right. To be able to meet what was going on. And what we found is last year, so last year in 2024, we asked the question, as a state, when you, as you know, that these funds are gonna go away, these one-time funds, you made investments in technology, whether it's buying devices or training your teachers or whatever you decided to do underneath the rules.

Julia Fallon: Are you gonna continue to invest as a state? The federal rules are gonna go away. Will you, as a state, step up and [00:28:00] sustain some of the initiatives? Because what that money allowed it to do, 'cause it was a bump, allowed it to maybe dip into something that they may have not invested in before to be able to invest in it.

Julia Fallon: What we found in 2025 though, is it actually dropped to 6%. So what we're seeing is states are cons, you know, constricted budgets as well. Everybody has like this economic uncertainty they're dealing with all that kind of stuff. And that was not a surprise, right, the 27 to six because some of them are like, well, we might not be able to sustain it.

Julia Fallon: We don't have the funds coming in, and the feds aren't obviously underpinning that anymore. What we're finding though, with ai, especially everybody's talking about it, it doesn't mean that cybersecurity isn't important and then some other met needs. It just kind of jumped to the number one slot. What we're trying to figure out is it's not a program, right?

Julia Fallon: It's not, we don't have an AI program. This is a general purpose capacity, right? Are we gonna use it internally for operations? Are we gonna use it? Are school districts gonna use it for operations? Are they gonna use it in the classroom? Are they gonna do AI literacy? Like how do we, like, how does it start to get implemented?

Julia Fallon: And really what it is, [00:29:00] it's about, it's like governance first and tool second, right? We need to create sort of the container saying. This is where you should use it. This is where you probably shouldn't use it. Like that's guidance, right? But then go forth, right? And then you can figure out, well, how tools support that kind of container.

Julia Fallon: I had the fortunate luck and I've been telling the story just after when Chat GPT kind of hit the scene. I was on a flight from Seattle to DC and there's nobody in the middle seat. So this is also like fortuitous for me, but. I started talking to this guy as you do on a plane, and it turns out he runs AI for the Department of Defense.

Julia Fallon: Here I am trying to also verify that this is really legit. Like he's not just some guy telling me this, but you know, like looking at my, my wifi and seeing it and he was legit. It was really him. And I said to him, okay, you run the Department of Defense, what, what advice would you give K 12? 'cause you have a system that's way more complicated and complex than our system, right?

Julia Fallon: And there's a lot more. Stake in that space than our space. And he said, you need to develop those use cases. And in essence, I think that's what we're trying to do is [00:30:00] figure out what the use cases are, where are we gonna use it, where are we gonna be? Like, no way, Jose. And even today, I think this week there is a big push about.

Julia Fallon: AI generated, you know, images of, you know, minors and nudes and everything else. Like maybe we need to get to a place at the federal level. There's a call for, like, you just can't do this. You have to like, figure out how to stop it. And that might be a use case. Like we don't want to do it as a country. We might come up with that.

Julia Fallon: Right. But, um, we, what we are trying to do with AI in particular is kind of embedded into those existing workflows and in some ways it might even cause us to rethink the system. Right. There might be a better way to. Do a process using ai, so treating it more as infrastructure and not as an enrichment, right?

Julia Fallon: It's not an extra, it's, it's gonna be here, it's gonna be part of our systems. How do we like, you know, ex you know, slot it in there and everything else. But, and I, I think for me it's not about necessarily like funding more. It's about funding differently, right? So how do we sunset low [00:31:00] impact tools? You know, how do we consolidate.

Julia Fallon: Platforms. I think you were there when I told a, a startup community like, don't build us another LMS, we don't have time.

Michael Conner: End it. You said it end it

Julia Fallon: just like we don't have time for you to build another lms and nobody has the wherewithal to migrate to a new LMS that right now

Michael Conner: you, Julie, I remember you said it.

Michael Conner: We were on a panel to my audience. We were on a panel at EdTech week. There was about literally 150 people in our session at Ed Tech Week, and Julia so kindly stated, if you are building another LMS, stop. Do not build it immediately. Stop right where you're at. FETC. We're on another panel. Highly attended.

Michael Conner: I said this before and I said it again and I'll say it again. Stop. Do not design another LMS. I was waiting for that. Julia, go right ahead.

Julia Fallon: But I, I think for me, is really, I think people can figure out what the pain points are with current [00:32:00] LMSs, right. And then help. Alleviate those pain points, and I know you have articulated very well in the same panels about working with us to solve problems.

Julia Fallon: Don't come to us thinking that you are assuming what our problems are. Like really sit there and listen and talk to us at the state level, at the local level, like what problems are you trying to solve? Tell me about what you're doing. And then you could figure out if there's an alignment between your product and what they're trying to do.

Julia Fallon: Right? And maybe bow out. I mean ethically in some ways, if your product doesn't do that, don't try to make it, you know, fit a, fit it in there. Just say this isn't gonna work out. Go find somebody else that's probably gonna do that. But I think it's, for me, around funding and everything else, like right now is like how do we invest in people and systems and not necessarily more and more pilots of stuff?

Julia Fallon: And for me, the question isn't around can we afford ai? It's more like, can we afford not to redesign around it? Right. Like, can we. That's the trade off there in everything else. So I think we [00:33:00] can use AI to reduce costs elsewhere, whether it's time or duplication or inefficiencies. But I don't think it's a program per se.

Julia Fallon: Right. Like and that gets wonky when it's a program. It's harder to put your arms around because programs then bleed into other spaces and everything else.

Michael Conner: Julia, when I was in superintendent of schools, I remember I was a part of the American Rescue Plan Committee and they were reviewing data and a lot of the districts across the country were invested in people.

Michael Conner: In lieu of exactly what you were stating to invest in systems and capacity, longstanding more than people. Obviously we want our people, there's importance within every single stakeholder, but that one time funding from a sustainability standpoint. Systems capacity lasts longer than people in organizations with that.

Michael Conner: Very good. And, and this is, I think, is going to be the problem of practice [00:34:00] in the AC stage of education is exactly what you were talking about, is the intentional interconnectedness of technology and AI within the operating model and how we address. Design systems design within those specific variables of the operating model operations curriculum and instruction technology facilities, right?

Michael Conner: How do we now deconstruct to reconstruct these new tenants within the operating model? And I, and, and Julie, please, an electrical banter has wanted, I don't know, collectively. If we all necessarily know what that looked like when it comes to systems design around AI coherence within the model, because now you're talking about, as you were, as you stated, a shift [00:35:00] from tools where we're looking at the alignment of intelligence systems to the organizational needs, and then the coherence, vertical horizontal alignment.

Michael Conner: Within the system itself. This is where now you have to, and there's no way you have to dismantle silos where now work becomes interdependent. Julia, this is a, a, a a one word question.

Julia Fallon: How, how, for me, I feel like, so from my vantage point, right? And the folks that we work with, a lot of it is guidance first, right?

Julia Fallon: And I think looking. Guidance, just, it helps kind of define the container. And I know a lot of times when states are putting together guidance, they put together stakeholders. It's not like some random person's, you know, job in the back corner that's making guidance. It, they literally will engage a task force, put it together and that sort of thing.

Julia Fallon: But ultimately, especially in the AI space, I really [00:36:00] do think that the guidance has to reduce cognitive load, not add to it. Right? We don't wanna add more stuff, so. I feel that effective guidance really has clear values and guardrails, right? And, and, and values should, they should reflect context, right?

Julia Fallon: Like context over compliance, right? One size guidance fails, and I'm sure you know this, in real classrooms, it really fails, right? And some, and, and a lot of this is like. Anchored more in lessons learned and not necessarily theory, right? Like this is, you know, we have this like we want like No child Left behind.

Julia Fallon: Great idea in theory. Lessons learned. How we measured it obviously was a pain point for people, right? In the assessment space and everything else. It didn't mean that it, we didn't wanna still try to serve all those students, right? But it was a pain point. The assessment became the thing, right, that we all focused on versus are we creating conditions for all students to be successful, which is what I think the intent behind the law was.

Julia Fallon: Was to [00:37:00] make sure that all students were successful, not just the ones that the system fit for. I feel like there's gotta be some room for agency and trust, right? We have to trust that educ educators need permission to experiment in some ways, not just rules. We need to help them build their judgment muscle, because in AR, they're never gonna learn everything.

Julia Fallon: And I think that's where people get very overwhelmed, like, I gotta know everything. I'm like, no, you need to have a judgment framework. Like is this, should I be using it here? Then you can kind of go down the, the rabbit hole from there. Uh, whether or not you wanna be using it in your classroom, uh, time is very much a design restraint in our system, right?

Julia Fallon: Like, we just, we don't, you know, everybody's gifted the same amount of time, you know, in the world. Everybody has the same amount of time every week to do things with, but I feel like adoption fails when we ignore sort of workload realities, and we have to figure out a way to kind of work around that. I feel like it's learning with technology, not about the technology, right?

Julia Fallon: It's like. It's not about the technology. We've been talking [00:38:00] about this a lot with professional learning, right? Again, in our state trends report, we talk about professional learning always being one of those top unmet needs. Not one or two, but it's always been up there like how do we do it? And SETDA did release a report last November around professional learning systems and how to use both the Title two, A Federal dollars that states and districts get, but also other professional learning dollars to actually figure out how do we help teachers learn how to.

Julia Fallon: Design their instruction with technology, not just learn about it. And, and for those folks out there, like in the ed tech developer space, you can't just come in and say, well, we're gonna offer training and it's only about how to use your tool. Like, I'm gonna open a file, I'm gonna do X, blah, blah, blah. It has to be like, how do I use this tool in an instructional practice, especially when you're hitting the ed tech side and then.

Julia Fallon: I feel like we have to sort of as leaders model what learning looks like. I feel like, and maybe this is where I use sort of my DJ and how I actually got on Twitch story to come into play. I started DJing on Twitch [00:39:00] when I know I knew nothing. I thought I better be out there when learning is kind of messy because no one is this top DJ overnight.

Julia Fallon: Like you start from somewhere and there's time and effort and focus that's put in. And how is we as leaders do that also publicly, right? So that people can see that we are also learning as we're going. It's, it's a, there's a transparency there because I think if we're not learning publicly, like how we're doing this, I think systems do stall on that, right?

Julia Fallon: So. I don't know if that kind of answers your question necessarily. I know we went ai, but I went more systems again, on top of the whole thing.

Michael Conner: No, there. Here's the thing, Julia, you went above and beyond because systems in AI are not mutually exclusive and there has to be, you know, there's this context where.

Michael Conner: We have to pay attention to the operating model and how we're designing in the context of our systems of integrating ai. Uh, when I think about, you know, we always talk [00:40:00] about curriculum, instruction and tools, and you stated it that we have to have this shift from tools. There's a lot of tool investigation going on in our classrooms.

Michael Conner: There's a lot of utility of AI tools. Within instruction, but how is it influencing the level of coherence in the context of the design that addresses what you stated, that there are system design flaws, because it's usually not how you said it. Coherence over compliance is usually compliance over coherence.

Michael Conner: The traditional construct of education, as you stated, is not, you know, context over compliance is usually compliance over context, where context has to adjust to the complacency. Hence why we see immense tensions in education. You're, you're, you're absolutely right. There's time is a critical design restraint because time needs to be the [00:41:00] essential variable for anything that we do, but.

Michael Conner: Julia, I wanna go onto the next question because I really want to hear your answer in this, and you were just alluding to guidance, right? And roughly, and probably you can regurgitate and recite the data, the specific data regarding this. But for reading from that report, about half of the states are prepared with AI guidance within the past year.

Michael Conner: So I want you now, 'cause you used that word guidance several times within your answer. For level setting purposes to create that as you would state, collective rhythm, right? Defined effective guidance in the context of an impact lineage from the state education agency to the local education agency to our schools.

Michael Conner: How can we make AI guidance focus on coherence in lieu of just checking a policy, policy check, or a policy in the box IE. Compliance that we're so used to. [00:42:00]

Julia Fallon: So what's interesting is I think there's over like 35 states now that have is, or a state education agency that has issued guidance, like guidance, and usually that typically is.

Julia Fallon: More of a vision and some really went deep and some people did a cut and paste. No lies, right? Like, and I'm not gonna call out the, the states that just have a webpage that, you know, slap some stuff up on there and everything else. Um, because everybody's trying. I feel like every, every state's trying, they're trying to get their arms around this and they have other priorities and other things that are conflicting also with what's going on, right?

Julia Fallon: There's just a lot of things happening. Again, that time we don't have time sometimes to, to do this, but for us. What our group members are doing is now that we have the guidance out there, and some have already have revised their guidance, right? They already have, you know, 18 months have gone by, they've gone, and it's a living document more so than anything else.

Julia Fallon: And we have state states issuing ai, state legislatures issuing guidance as well because they're gonna start putting arms around like we don't wanna use again, it's, I feel like it's the use case thing, like we don't want it [00:43:00] used here, we want it used there. We wanna make sure that people understand what the use cases are gonna be.

Julia Fallon: But ultimately for context, right? At the local district level, a lot of the policies that we're seeing are giving the flexibility right, to the districts. Right? There also has to be some fidelity, right? At the same time. But that's where I think districts can then look at their context and figure out how it works within their local communities, right?

Julia Fallon: And perhaps, you know, engage in the same sort of. Exercise and practice that states do where you get stakeholders. And I hope to God that students are part of that conversation because ultimately they're the ones that have, that they get impacted by it the most. And you might find, and I think we're seeing this in the cell phone things, students actually are liking the fact that they don't have to have their phones.

Julia Fallon: You know, like the phones on, you know, on or whatever they get, someone is kind of making a decision for them, right? The cognitive load for a kid is now off the, off the table, but. Could we have students at the [00:44:00] table? Can we have parents at the table? Can we have school leaders at the table? Can we have the, you know, the regular educator at the table too, right?

Julia Fallon: Not just the one that, you know, always uses the technology and is gung ho. Can we have the ones that maybe are trying to figure out how to adapt it? And they can ask good questions to be part of that. But that's where I think the context happens, right? And the use case, the real life use cases, and we can walk through some of that.

Julia Fallon: You know, what about this? What about that? What happens in this thing? So that you can think about how those decision making frameworks happens, which then ultimately leads to better judgment, right? By the teacher, should I be using it or not in my design of my, you know, instruction here? And that helps, right?

Julia Fallon: And there's gotta be some feedback loops. You know what I mean? It can't just be a one and done like, oh, the school board signs off on it. You know, you do all this work, you send it out. Is it working? Does it need to be tweaked? You know, is there a situation that popped up that they didn't plan for? But it's really around, you know, [00:45:00] the checkbox guidance.

Julia Fallon: Like, I don't want this. You know, we don't want people to say, well, we work with district's, check, you know, we did whatever. But I think you avoid checkbox guidance, right? By measuring use. Are people actually using it? Guidance is is there to be used. It's not just a shelf document and put away, or we take it out and we hit you over the head with it, right?

Julia Fallon: Like saying, Hey, you should have done what? It's really helping a framework. And when you hit those boundaries or those edges, does the framework actually allow you to make a decision from there? Or do you need to actually open that thing back up and say, okay, now we have this as it goes forth. Right? And then how do we design for implementation, not optics, right.

Julia Fallon: Not the optics. Like I know a lot of people wanna be out front and center and I think I wrote something on this, my LinkedIn recently, 'cause I got, I got this uh, end of year, you know, I was in my inbox after vacation. I was reading these end of year reflections in January. And this one person's like, well we predicted.

Julia Fallon: I'm like, the game is not to predict it or be right, the game is to like get in there with [00:46:00] us and move us forward. That's the leadership that I don't really wanna see at the end of the day. So again, it goes back to. How do we create guidance or those frameworks that reduces cognitive load, right? It doesn't add to it.

Julia Fallon: And I think those are the ones that, those types of documents and those types of exercises and practices are the ones that will go forth and lay a foundation for us. You know, integrating it with fidelity and flexibility.

Michael Conner: I, I, I love your answer, Julia, because A, you had me when we, when you stated that student voice, students need to be involved in the design process right now in the AC stage of education generation.

Michael Conner: Alf soon to be matriculating in the PK 12 continuum generation Beta, obviously within time, but generation alpha specifically need to be a part of the desire. I think there's too many adults that set around in a circle. That are very smart, that are like you, Julia, that are like Rob, that are like Sophie, Saba, Jacob, where we all set [00:47:00] around or where they SETDAround, and I'm not talking about them in particular, but the adults who make decisions for kids when the kids are not, or the families are not directly involved in the design process because again, they are the end users, the customers, as we stated, the most important customers.

Michael Conner: But Julia, this is the really, the first time. That I, that it was framed in such a definition that makes so much sense on the goal of reducing cognitive load. Right. And you know, and going through the feedback loops to be able to now strategically reduce cognitive load around the language of the guidelines.

Michael Conner: Right. And Julia, I think you might state it even better than what I can state. Is that in lieu of policies? Because policies are, to me, represents the standardization of specific behaviors, values, and norms of a learning [00:48:00] organization. Um. Guidelines have that, I like to say exploitation exploration to have that level of adaptive or being adaptive within the LEA schools, even at the SEA level.

Michael Conner: One phrase that I think that really resonates with me and I'm sure resonates with my audience, designed for implementation. Wow. To my audience, there's roughly about three or four different answers, Julia. I say this every episode, we use this as an asynchronous tool for professional learning, andragogy, hetero, GoGy at its best.

Michael Conner: And to my audience, the, there's about three or four answers that I would like for you to go back, right? And to take a look at and to unpack surgically and synthetically so that you can identify specific strategies within your learning organization, state education agency. Coherence over compliance context over compliance, [00:49:00] flexibility, and fidelity design restraints because of time design for implementation.

Michael Conner: Julia, I got my whole notebook here. I'm writing all of this down. But Julia, I love you so much. I'm only gonna limit you to, uh, three words on this last answer and I know I can't, I know I can't, Julia, keep to my audience keeping Julia fouling quiet. That never happens. So,

Julia Fallon: and then get her with a golf club.

Julia Fallon: That's a whole other story.

Michael Conner: At Top Golf, we had so much fun. That's a different episode, right? A different episode of Top Golf and being dj. But Julia, what three words do you want our audience today to leave today's podcast regarding designing a technologically enabled education model in the AC stage of education?

Julia Fallon: I would say coherence. Agency and trust.

Michael Conner: Oh, you really gonna follow the rules?

Julia Fallon: I'm really gonna follow your,

Michael Conner: the only reason why you're doing that is because we have an audience watching us. [00:50:00] That's the only reason why, Julie,

Julia Fallon: I'm complying versus

Michael Conner: compliance. Well, can I instead of in Louis, you being compliance, can you expand on coherence agency and trust?

Julia Fallon: I think for me it's about, one is we're designing for humans, right? I, I think at the end of the day, the goal for us isn't, and I'm gonna use students as the, the, the focus right here. The goal isn't preparing students for technology, right? It's preparing systems for the humans that they're going to be as they go out.

Julia Fallon: So how do we have a more coherent system that actually supports that we've, we've talked about workforce development and kids having skills to be successful. All day long. I've been talking about, I think we've been talking about since the eighties, right? Like, I mean, this is going on. This is work that's been going on for a long time.

Julia Fallon: I know that when I joined OSPI in the early two thousands, this I was in CTE, that's where I started, right? Talking about the skills that students need. Every kid, [00:51:00] regardless of where they go post-secondary. Are gonna need skills, right? They're gonna need skills. And for me, digital fluency is a civic fluency, right?

Julia Fallon: It's being able to commu to, to participate and contribute to, to society as a whole. And, and I'm not talking about jobs of tomorrow, like robot jobs and jobs we don't know of and what they don't look like. I'm talking about everyday jobs, a farmer and a combine. Have, I don't know how many people maybe have not been in a combine, especially city folks, but it's pretty complex in there.

Julia Fallon: So complex that the systems are doing their things and then you have kids doing tiktoks from the middle of there. You know what I mean? But it's, it's, it's really looking at the field and all that stuff. And people are farmers, people are accountants, people are nurses, people that we're all gonna be using technology.

Julia Fallon: And for me it's can they participate and contribute once they leave our system? At the end of the day, whatever they decide to do, post-secondary. Agency. I really feel that we need to have more agency centered learning models. Again, we've been talking about this for 20 plus years. It feels [00:52:00] like students need to be co-creators in learning.

Julia Fallon: That's how we know what learning theory says. Why are we not designing systems that allow students to do that? And I think people have this idea like, you know, well they need to know the 50 state capitals. Yes, they probably do. Right? But they need to be, they, they don't need to memorize it. Right. They need to figure out.

Julia Fallon: How do I learn what the 50 state capitals are and how do I verify if that information's correct? Because I don't think they need a logic in their brain cognitively, you know, maybe the state they live in, but not all 50. Like what is the purpose of that? Like really looking at the things that we're teaching now, how cells divide pretty much hasn't changed, right?

Julia Fallon: We have the science around that and everything else. The question is, is there different ways for students to explore that concept so that it, it actually constructs their own knowledge, right? And then them be able to demonstrate whether or not they know that. And it could be, again, through non-tech ways, it could be through tech ways, but can a teacher design a learning space where students can then demonstrate knowledge in the way that they know how, and maybe they do that, you know, [00:53:00] technology can help them do that.

Julia Fallon: And then trust. I feel like we need to have that as a default. You know what I mean? Ethics, safety, and trust by default. Like that's a non-negotiable in some ways. I want it. I trust teachers, you know what I mean? Like, teachers do not, I always think like teachers aren't teachers because they just, that's the thing.

Julia Fallon: And they're getting paid, you know, half a million dollars a year in a tech thing. They, they, they teach because they wanna teach and they find joy in that, and there's human connection in there. And can we trust them by default and not assume that they're just. Now granted there's gotta be some work about getting the folks that are not doing well outta the system, and maybe that's more feedback loops in the space and capacity.

Julia Fallon: But for the most part, teachers really want to serve their students and they want the support to be able to do that well. And how do we do that? I mean, and that's, these are big questions though, of course. So I feel like even with the three words, I, I mean these are big questions and big problems that we're all trying to solve together, but I feel like we have to have some sort of [00:54:00] trust.

Julia Fallon: That we are gonna figure it out if we work together. Again, it goes back to your first question. You know, leadership is not something we do alone. It is something we do with others, and that's how we will get better and improve, and collectively we'll make you know better outcomes for the students that we ultimately serve.

Michael Conner: Julia well stated. Well stated, my friend Coherence agency, love the extension and agency learning model that, as you stated, that goes back to learning theory 1 0 1 of truly what the design of learning should be, reduction of cognitive load. For the teacher per se, right. With regards to instructional practices and shifting the locals control back to the students.

Michael Conner: Um, absolutely agree with that. 1000%. Now an agency learning model with AI and the final word, I think we need a lot of that to. Is trust. Miss Julia Ballad. Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay. [00:55:00] Julia, if any, well, I'm gonna call you and I'm going to email you, but if any of my audience want to go further with regards to many of the mega, not just meta, a lot of the mega themes that you highlighted within this podcast episode, how will they be able to get in touch with you?

Julia Fallon: One is they can just go to our website, SETDA.org etda.org, where they can get, you know, our reports are out there for folks to use. Our state trends report is really good when you're trying to make some legislative requests, right, to show kind of like, you know, are you in alignment with what other folks are doing in this space and everything else.

Julia Fallon: But, um, I can be reached on LinkedIn, Julia Fallon as well. Feel free to reach out there and just know that right now I'm, I feel like I'm in a season of writing. I write all over the place, but I'm really trying to make sense of what's happening and I think I try to put that out there too. Like recently, like I'm trying to make sense of this, so I am been posting a lot more because I'm trying to figure out.

Julia Fallon: Again, that coherence, I'm trying to make sense and [00:56:00] hoping that other people are feeling the same way. And then again, modeling that public learning. I'm learning out loud too. I don't have all the answers for sure. Um, and I'm definitely, I'm glad that I'm connected in the space that I am and, and working towards making this, again, a better, a better learning experience for all students at the end of the.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. Julia, I can tell you this as a dear friend of mine, I am a big fan of your work. Thank you for the impact that you continue to have across this country, and also the influence, right? I, I learned so much from you. As well as the people in our, our little text group. But every time that you speak, Julia, I learn so much.

Michael Conner: I learn something new every single day by engaging with you. So Julia, I'm spoiled every day by you, but thank you for spoiling my audience with regards to the work that you do and your hope in electrical property in totality.

Julia Fallon: Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And on that note, onward and upward, everybody.

Michael Conner: Have a great [00:57:00] evening.