How Do You Lead Tech Innovation Without Losing the Human Touch?

Michael Conner: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to another episode of Voices for Excellence. I am 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, before we even started recording the episode, I kind of have like this Mount Rushmore in that I just absolutely admire within the education ecosystem.

Michael Conner: Uh, the first Kathy Hurley, right? She's on that Mount Rushmore that I absolutely love every time I see her. Give her a big hug, big kiss. She's just that, that natural energy that you know, that she is a pioneer, a catalyst in the education ecosystem. And the second name I. That comes to mind on that Mount Rushmore VFE secured her.

Michael Conner: We got Jen Womble on the podcast, and Jen has just everywhere that you can think of when it comes to education and [00:01:00] technology and artificial intelligence, whether it be FETC, whether it be district administration, Dalle Jen is there. She's serving as a mentor, as a guide, as someone that you can lean on and just say, Hey, Jen.

Michael Conner: You know, I'm having, you know, issues with X, Y, and Z with AI and technology. Jen will either provide that answer for you. Or she'll put you in the direction of where to go, and it is just an absolute honor to have a good friend on VFE having her here just to be able to share her knowledge, her expertise, strategies from across the ecosystem of how to truly integrate.

Michael Conner: Technology, AI and education as well, and education and totality where we're heading within the next five to 10 years. So it is, without further ado and honor to have Jen Womble, who is the chair of FETC and for my audience that don't know what that acronym means, because, you know, education is the acronym.

Michael Conner: Soup as it is, is Future of [00:02:00] Education Technology Conference, and also serves as a chair for district administration. So. Jen. Yay. How are you? 

Jennifer Womble: Well, I'm incredibly humbled. I need to take you with me every day and let you do my introduction. That was so kind and I'm thrilled to be here. As you know, we are very good, fast friends, and I cannot wait to chat with you.

Jennifer Womble: It's just like, you know, being anywhere, meeting on the street and getting to have a good talk with you, so this is amazing. Thank you for having me. 

Michael Conner: Absolutely. The last time I saw Jen was in San Diego and was at the ASU GSV conference and we were at an event and I'm like, Ooh, there go Jen. Let me pick her break automatically.

Michael Conner: Nerd Michael Conner came out, was like, Jen, let me gravitate. And you know, I kind of did that. I like to say the icky shuffle from the Cincinnati bagel move over here. Move over. Move over. Hey Michael. And then I just went right in and we just started conversation. 

Jennifer Womble: Well, my nerd hat is always on, so I am open to that at any time.

Jennifer Womble: [00:03:00] I'm willing to talk tech and education 24 7. So you did the right thing and I'm glad. 

Michael Conner: There we go. And hey, that little icky shuffle got you on the VFE podcast. So thank you for coming on, Jen. And again, this is just purely, I like to say more in the lines of a podcast that provides strategies, ideas, methods, techniques, maybe new innovative ideas that my audience haven't even thought about.

Michael Conner: I. And bringing on the experts to actually lament that for them. So Jim, we're gonna get right into the first question, which I always say that this is a fun question where my audience get to know who you are. And as I said, as a leading and trusted voice in education, specifically around tech and ai, in education and interface, you serve as a mentor to many stakeholders throughout the ecosystem.

Michael Conner: Don't matter what tier it is, whether it be superintendent or down to the classroom level. The FETC and district administration chair, you see everything. But for those that do not know Jennifer [00:04:00] Lobel, what song describes your leadership signature in the ecosystem. 

Jennifer Womble: Okay, this is a toughie, but I think you might've witnessed this.

Jennifer Womble: For most people know that I always carry a little disco ball in my purse. You always have to have a party in your purse. 'cause I love to dance. And so it has to be upbeat. And I also think that at the very core of my mission is I literally believe that every single human has unlimited potential. There is not a single person, no matter where you're from, no matter what you do.

Jennifer Womble: No matter where you're raised, there's literally limitless potential in every human. So when I was thinking about this song, I really think, and of course I'm a workout fiend, so it had to be Will. I am because that's my generation. Those are my peaks, right? So I'm going to go with Hall of Fame because not only does it mention.

Jennifer Womble: Teachers, students, the impact that you can have on other people. The fact that no matter what you do, if you are a teacher, you're a champion. If you're a [00:05:00] student, you're a champion. Like I love the words and that resonate. And you know, the other thing is, you know how you start singing along with your headset at the gym.

Jennifer Womble: There's a line that I always love and it says. Uh, you can go the distance with a smile. And so no matter what challenges we are facing in education, we're gonna go the distance. We're gonna be persistent, we're gonna have impact, we're gonna inspire, but we're gonna do it with a smile. And I think that that positive intent and education.

Jennifer Womble: Is what lifts up students. It's what keeps administrators going day in and day out. And I think that at the end of the day that if we could all have a little dance in our step and be inspired at the same time, we'd go a lot further. I. 

Michael Conner: Absolutely Jen, well stated because when I think of, I like to say the AC stage of education after COVID Ovid 19, there's going to be a myriad of challenges.

Michael Conner: And what I mean by challenges is that when we start to think of what transformation reimagination look [00:06:00] like to prepare generation Alpha and our newly welcomed be generation beta, who was born January 1st. First, we have to really start thinking about what this new model, education model ecosystem looks like for them.

Michael Conner: And I think that with the challenges, presents opportunities with that level of persistence that you talk about, but doing it with a smile, doing it with an open mind for continuous innovation, for continuous learning. I, I love the whole aspect of yes, because of technology, because of AI and how we leverage that, there is this unlimited potential, limitless potential around how we can prepare students for the future.

Michael Conner: I always like to say future of the work and future of the world. So, but your disco ball, yes. I know that infamous. I, I tell you, Jim, with that disco ball, we just gotta put it out and be like, Hey, just with the dancing and everything, 

Jennifer Womble: I love it. And I would tell you, I have loved Will. I am since a [00:07:00] lot of people don't know this, but his work in LA with STEM schools and with students in low income schools and does the work he has done in STEM has really been inspiring for a long time.

Jennifer Womble: So I love when there's a musician that has a. Segue with our education community that also keeps us upbeat and moving. So there's a lot of reasons that I think that will be my song. I think. 

Michael Conner: Well, I am, I, I, I love that. I tell you, he's, he, uh, he's one of the eclectic artists, I like to say. 

Jennifer Womble: Yeah. Because Yeah.

Jennifer Womble: And we just 

Jennifer Womble: gotta see him at ASU GSV with his new AI product. 

Michael Conner: Everybody's coming out with an AI product, so I'm right. I'm, yes, I'm in the right, in the right. But speaking of that, right, with multiple AI products and AI tools, your vision, Jen, I tell you, you want to talk about, I thought, I, I thought I have bold visions about what I want accomplish.

Michael Conner: Your vision, right? Your vision for FETC, your vision for district administration. I mean, I can only imagine at the outset of when you started to now, because you have truly, this vision [00:08:00] has truly impacted the education ecosphere at every single tier within the model. Now, first, if you can. Unpack the work of FETC and district administration for my audience.

Michael Conner: If they don't, if they don't know what FETC is, I mean it's like one of the biggest conferences in the country, but if they don't know what it is in district administration. And then the second part, Jen, is what are the major. Themes of development that can be anticipated. I'm talking about personal professional development that can be anticipated if I went to A-F-E-T-C conference or I went to one of the institutes or be a part of the academies for district administration.

Jennifer Womble: There's a lot to tackle there. First, I will say that we are in a really interesting transition period in the United States as a whole, so we are seeing transition. From all these amazing new technologies, we're seeing transition in a financial situation where we're changing funding pockets all around states and, and national implications there.[00:09:00] 

Jennifer Womble: We're changing the way our culture and lifestyle are what parents expect from schools, what students are expecting to learn. So in order to navigate. All of these amazing things that I think are truly transformational. Just like you described, especially in a post COVID world where we have everything happening from kindergarten behavior issues to device management issues, like we're dealing with a lot of challenges.

Jennifer Womble: So we want to be that support system and create a community behind leaders so that they have a place of support where we can really start to scale the very best strategies. Ideas and products. So we talk on the business world a lot about how do we scale great products and, and put 'em in the hands of more customers, right?

Jennifer Womble: But I, my goal is really how do we scale the very best professional development, the very best ideas to integrate in the classrooms and scale those. I think all the answers to our challenges are already happening in school districts around this country. We just haven't found [00:10:00] those districts yet. We just haven't had a conversation with them and we haven't.

Jennifer Womble: Scaled their ideas. So the idea of FETC and district administration is to build community. We wanna connect the people who are leaders at the district level, at the school level, and the classroom level, library level. We wanna connect those folks with other people in their same roles. So they can find those solutions, they can network with them, they can support and encourage them, which is really important.

Jennifer Womble: So yes, we meet once annually every January. We're very intentional. It's always in January because that's a part of the school board buying cycle. So we know that every school district has a February deadline to get that draft budget for the next school year. So every January we wanna show them. Every single new technological innovation that's gonna be on the market and ready for them that they can incorporate into their vision for the next school year for improving student outcomes.

Jennifer Womble: So we get together, we've got 10,000 folks coming [00:11:00] together to do professional development. Let's learn strategies, let's learn skills. How do we implement this in our classrooms, in our media centers across our district, right? So we provide level. All, every tier, every level has its own independent training.

Jennifer Womble: So there's eight different roles in a school and and district, and so we're training all of them. So we're providing that pd, we're providing access to providers, so we have over 450 companies that come, but they, we want them to build relationships with school districts so that they understand. How are we improving student outcomes by implementing these products in our school?

Jennifer Womble: So it's not a one and done, it's not coming by this, it's like, let's build a relationship so that we can be with you through the long haul and improve this, you know, cycle of what's now really, we've been saying it for a long time, but it's really lifelong learning because. Now we're learning, but then as jobs are changing, we're relearning and we're upskilling and we're relearning again.

Jennifer Womble: So we [00:12:00] really have to emphasize this continuous cycle of learning and a, a real love for it. So we do that specifically through district administration. That's our magazine and e-newsletter. And it services about 270,000 administrators around the country. So they're getting it in their inboxes, they're getting the latest articles, the latest news, and then I host a series of webinars.

Jennifer Womble: Every month we're hitting hot topics from key speakers. So we're communicating year round, and we're trying to really make sure that that community that you start to network with and build community around. We're now sharing ideas. We're scaling the very best ideas. So if. Glen Robbins is building an eSports lab in New Jersey.

Jennifer Womble: Then we wanna make sure that the folks in California know how to do that and have an asset there that they can build and be responsible. If Forney ISD in Texas is building a CTE program, we wanna make sure that the folks in New York know about that, so, so how do we kind of scale the very best strategies and ideas?

Jennifer Womble: The only way we can [00:13:00] do that as humans is through our networks. So we're just really trying to build that community support year round. Those individual district administrators. We've got some specialty events. So Dolly is our signature event for district administrators. And so those leadership institutes are really designed strategically to train leaders.

Jennifer Womble: It is not easy. I. To be a leader in education. Right now, the job of a superintendent is 10 times a CEO. A school principal is almost there too, right? I mean, it is. The day is so packed and there is a very high turnover, as you know. So constant need for leadership training and times of change is, is just really a priority.

Jennifer Womble: So that is really on every level. We refer to all of our attendees and all of our partners as leaders because every single one of us is leading the way right now. 

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And Jen, thank you for the work with district administration and FETC because as you stated within your answer, you're addressing every single [00:14:00] thread within the education stakeholder group, whether it be from superintendents to CIOs and CTOs as I know there, uh, specifically, and then also at the classroom level.

Michael Conner: I think that now we need to, and I really love the intersectionality of how you're using scaling. Or scaling from the business lens to the educational lens, but focusing on cap, uh, capacity capabilities of various stakeholders within that stakeholder group. One thing that resonated with me, Jen, is you focused on building relationships, companies as well as with leaders, and now kind of living in both worlds.

Michael Conner: Right? From that education, the PK 12 vertical, uh, serving as a superintendent, engaging with many different companies. And then now on the other side of the business education aspect of it, realizing how important and foundational relationships are. Uh, this is more of a sub [00:15:00] question, Jen, when we talk about.

Michael Conner: Authentic relationships and what I loved, how you, uh, what you underscored the focus around student outcomes, right? It's not about the shiny tool, the software, it's about the impact on students and how you can accelerate, strengthen the level of effectiveness and efficacy of pedagogy in the classroom.

Michael Conner: Jen, in a really simplified manner. What is, or how do we define relationships from the company to the superintendent so that the superintendent, his or her team knows that this is an authentic relationship where the product is going to scale outcomes and preparation and skills and talents for students.

Jennifer Womble: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think one of the best skills that most superintendents have, almost innately. Is intuition. And I think one of the things that when superintendents have intuition, when they first meet people, they can tell if they have what I call this golden thread in education and people [00:16:00] who are really firmly grounded in education.

Jennifer Womble: It is part of their person to really love children. Want them to succeed, want them to learn and want the future to be better. Like those core values are kind of emitting. So when you meet someone from a company, you can really intuitively tell, do they have this golden thread? Like are they gonna, no matter what at any cost, make sure that our kids are improving and learning.

Jennifer Womble: Like you can you, there's almost that sense. And I think once superintendents and district leaders, especially CIOs are really good at this. When they sense that they trust people and every product's not perfect when it comes to market, and we know that and it needs to be fixed, but are they willing to listen?

Jennifer Womble: Are they gonna listen to our staff? Are they gonna listen to our IT team? Are they gonna continuously upgrade this tool or device so that we as a district are seeing students improve and the outcomes what we expect, right? Over time, we're the [00:17:00] customer. So, but. There has to be that level of trust. Do I trust this person?

Jennifer Womble: Are they on the same mission as I'm on? Uh, if they're not on this mission, if you don't trust them. I think in education, trust and relationships are hand in hand. And if you don't have that built, then it's not a product or a partner you should work with. 

Michael Conner: Absolutely Jen, and, and I loved how you stated that organizations, ed, tech companies, startups that are developing platforms, the focus should be on how are you upgrading your individual tool to accelerate outcomes for students.

Michael Conner: And I, what I love about now, Jen, and you're really pushing people too. Is that it's not about the tool, it is about the impact that it has, uh, on students, the impact that it will have on teachers to improve instruction, to deepen the levels of rigor. Ken Shelton, he said this a while ago, which has still, you know, still resonates with me, is that we are so [00:18:00] high.

Michael Conner: On the knowledge taxonomies of tools that we forget that we're still at this low level of rigor, uh, when it comes to the context of instruction and how to be. 

Jennifer Womble: I would also say, and in belonging, if we don't have that foundational belonging, if we don't have those foundational social, you know, and emotional skills, we'll never even get to a synthesis.

Jennifer Womble: Right? We're not gonna get there. So. So I think that that measure of human capacity is really important to remember as well. And, you know, having really authentic conversations with providers and partners because not all districts have the highest broadband. Not all districts have one-to-one devices.

Jennifer Womble: Like you have to be really honest with your provider about what you have, and they've gotta be really honest with you. And, and that will really build trust over time. And if you're together working as a team. There's really nothing you can't do and create together because there are some endless possibilities of this.

Jennifer Womble: The new technologies coming out that are really exciting. 

Michael Conner: Absolutely, and I think that you highlighted the two [00:19:00] key themes, Jennifer, and working in reciprocity with each other has nothing to do with tools, has nothing to do with anything pertaining to the sales cycle. It's about trust. Relationships. So, Jen, I wanna go onto the next question because I think finally right, you and I, I always like to say, you know, people like you and I, the, I always called us the incubators of innovators in the BC stage of education before COVID, where we would talk about AI and technology.

Michael Conner: And we were considered the outliers, right? But now in this AC stage of education, the curiosity level has increased immensely when it focuses on technology and artificial intelligence. And now we're the cool kids on the block. I, I always love saying that, not the new kids on the block, the cool kids, right?

Michael Conner: But. Jen, but when we think about this, right, it is good to actually see the conversation happening at the leadership level and at the classroom level. This invites or [00:20:00] elicits innovation and transformation. So from a twofold perspective, Jen, what are the biggest opportunities and challenges that you're seeing?

Michael Conner: Ecosystem while leveraging education technology in traditional standard systems of our operating model. That's the first question. And then the second question is, now when you have this theory of action for implementing education technology within the operating model. Will it really prepare students for the future of the world and future of work?

Jennifer Womble: Yeah, so I'll tackle each of those separate, but I'm gonna start from saying we're not preparing them for the future. We're preparing them for the now because like our company just hired a vice president of ai, so we used to say we're getting kids ready for the future. But the reality is they're using it now and for the first time kids are coming to school, already have using these tools.

Jennifer Womble: Unfortunately, a lot of the research shows us that they don't even know that they're using ai. About 45% of people [00:21:00] don't even know they're using it when they're using Snapchat or playing Fortnite or Canva or Adobe. So, so we have a long way to go in just educating people with some basic foundations of AI literacy.

Jennifer Womble: So I'll start with, I'm gonna actually start with some challenges. So the number one challenge for school districts right now is infrastructure. If they do not have the strong enough broadband and their students do not have access to the internet, they're not gonna be using AI tools. You know? So we need to make sure foundationally at the very core, that we are providing that in every school district.

Jennifer Womble: So if your wifi is not as strong as Starbucks in your classroom, you can't expect to be doing. AI videos and you can't expect those things to be happening. So there's a lot of infrastructure demands that people aren't aware of, energy demands. So we need to actually educate our community about what those are so that we can actually fight for things like E-Rate and, you know, other funding sources to [00:22:00] provide access to everyone.

Jennifer Womble: And that's really important. The second challenge I'm gonna say is training time or just time in general. We need time to train families and educate them on what this is and how it's gonna impact them and how it's already impacting them and, and can be helpful and training our. Staff, adult learners need more time than student learners.

Jennifer Womble: We know this from Andrew G, right? They need, they need to have time to experiment and practice and play and work with these things to develop, you know, lessons that are valuable. They also need time to experiment personally. To make sure it's something that they wanna do and that they understand, you know, that's really important for your staff.

Jennifer Womble: Um, and also the ability and flexibility in that training to, you know, have some autonomy, try things themselves, but also forgiveness for failing, like. If we try to create a bus route system with AI and it doesn't work the first time, we're gonna have to have some forgiveness to try again. If we are gonna [00:23:00] try a financial system to look at our budgets and pull out, you know, excessive costs, we're gonna, if it doesn't work the first time, we're gonna to try again.

Jennifer Womble: And we don't always give ourselves that flexibility, but we're gonna really need to try that along with this kind of new funding paradigm that we're talking about now, the opportunities. Feel very limitless. Like we've said that word before, the, for the first time ever, you know, we have the ability if right now, so many of these AI tools are free, so we have the ability to provide access to.

Jennifer Womble: Every student to a tool that is an AI assistant that could really empower them if they even just knew that they, it was accessible. Right? So all the years you and I have been in education, we're not gonna say over 30, but we will. But we have been looking at research for a long time, a really long time in education.

Jennifer Womble: And so every ounce of research that you look at, you know, especially from the last 20 years, when we look at students needing to make learning gains, [00:24:00] there's only one thing. That has ever prevailed time after time research after research at almost two standard deviations. Two Sigma is when you have one-on-one tutoring.

Jennifer Womble: One-on-one, teacher time, one-on-one. So we know we now for the first time, have the ability right around the corner. And Israel, as a nation did this last week, they gave every single child in their country an AI tutor, but in America through Gemini or. Chat, GPT or Canva, students have access to a free tutor, a one-on-one tutor.

Jennifer Womble: What parent does not want their child to have help 24 7 with all the things they need to do and learn. I know that once my kids hit a certain level of school, I needed someone to help me with their homework and I was glad the internet was there to, but you know. These kids, uh, have the ability to have a personalized tutor, which I think could really change [00:25:00] if we do this right.

Jennifer Womble: Right. It's gonna, there's scars and there's security issues. But if we do this right, we could empower student no matter your income, no matter where you live, no matter what you have access to. I think this could empower students in a way that we've never seen before. That would really blossom creativity and critical thinking.

Jennifer Womble: And what we know about how kids are using AI already is 45% of what they're doing is not schoolwork. So not only are they looking at this for learning, and we want to inspire them to learn and be motivated for that, but they need life help. They need life supports. They have questions they're looking for answers to in all kinds of sectors.

Jennifer Womble: So, you know, empowering people with these life skills of how to use something appropriately is really important. For device management, for organizing their time for all that. So I think that around that opportunity of having an a tutor like [00:26:00] that or having this tool. Is leveling the playing field like we never really dreamed of.

Jennifer Womble: Like access to limitless learning is something we've never been able to offer before and so I'm super excited. We're building out a VR classroom for FETC next year. So I was yesterday on our call with Optima Ed and, and Meta and in our conversations. They literally have a library now of content curriculum.

Jennifer Womble: So if I wanted to go learn welding, I could literally put on a headset. And go in and learn it. If I wanted to learn how to aqua agriculture, build, grow kelp underwater, I literally can put on a VR headset and learn that, because we can do that now. So these kinds of, you know, AI scripted personalized learning experiences.

Jennifer Womble: We could never offer that before. So schools can really talk about career training. They can really talk about future opportunities for every single child. I just [00:27:00] really think that's the window that opens when we allow AI to come in. 

Michael Conner: Yeah. And And Jen, thank you for that. And underpinning the research that you're talking about when I keynote, whether it be nationally or internationally, I always bring up our good friend Benjamin Bloom, with his research study that you just highlighted, the Two Sigma problem from 1985.

Michael Conner: And to my audience, Jen had just eloquently highlighted the two Sigma problem. Study 1985 from Benjamin Bloom, and in essence, this was 1985 to my audience that Benjamin Bloom said that if we reached a one-to-one level of tutoring, this is 1985, one-to-one level of tutoring, achievement and outcomes would increase by two standard deviations.

Michael Conner: Now, when you think about 1985, to my audience, there was technology very limited. No internet. No, no internet, no. Worldwide web. We didn't even have the A, [00:28:00] the dial up where you put in the disc and the dial up. 

Jennifer Womble: They have, we're using a word processor, 

Michael Conner: word processor in 85. So the only way to get to that one-to-one level of tutoring, I.

Michael Conner: Was by people and obviously cost, right? It would've been a laborous cost on any learning organization or school to get to that one-to-one level. Now, in 2025, I always like to use this from an asset mindset where now Benjamin Bloom study. Is called the two Sigma prosperity because now what Jen had just eloquently just identified in her answer, whether it be through the mixed realities or virtual reality, through an AI assistant, that could be a reactive intelligence systems or even generative intelligence systems, there is absolutely no reason why we can get to that two standard deviation or even higher.

Michael Conner: Because now we have that one-to-one level of instruction that can be [00:29:00] undergirded with technology and artificial intelligence. What a way to bring in that research, Jen. Thank you for that. And yes, I think one of the critical challenges that are gonna be ongoing for learning organizations, for classrooms and schools is how to be able to support the expansion of infrastructure.

Michael Conner: We are, I, I was, I remember Jen, I was in Vietnam. And when I was in Vietnam helping them with their digitalization strategy, one of the core foundational kind of drums that Vietnam was facing, or Hano was facing, was how are they going to update and scale their infrastructure to ensure that the infrastructure or the front end experience or the outputs.

Michael Conner: For students won't be interrupted or disrupted. Uh, truly, truly loved that, but that continuous experimentation. I remember Jen, I, when I was an educator, this was in the BC stage of education, superintendent, even CAOI always be like, we have to experiment. Various programs and inter integration before scaling.

Michael Conner: And I remember people used to say, you are not going to [00:30:00] experiment on my child. My child is no widget. This is not a science lab. This is school. And I'm like, no, we're just trying to see what the effect is. There's no, I was like, so I won't say clinical trials in education now. Language is warranted. And I loved at the outset when you said, now my corporation, we launched a campaign and our slogan is The Future of education is now.

Jennifer Womble: I love that. I love it. I, I've actually been really torn about the title of our event lately because we changed it after the first 35 years. When I came on board in 2010, I changed the name from Florida Education Technology Conference to the Future of Education Technology. 'cause we had such a national, international audience.

Jennifer Womble: And now I just keep thinking it's not the future. It's literally how are we preparing them right now. So, I mean, I think this is really hot on everybody's mind because it's, it's really a changing world and there's an urgency and an immediacy, and I do hope, and one of the [00:31:00] things I am a little worried about with funding is a challenge is.

Jennifer Womble: We've gotta make sure that we are funding research in this education research in this time of change that we're doing. You know, we did a big experiment with our kids with cell phones in the Wild West, letting them have cell phones, you know, many years ago. So now we need to continue this research. 'cause one of the most interesting things I've seen so far, a study by Microsoft was using these AI tutors.

Jennifer Womble: Are only effective when there is a caring, loving, adult knowledgeable teacher in the classroom. So yes, having an AI tutor is a major part of one-to-one learning with success. However, you've got to have that adult in the room. So I don't, don't see in any future where there's not a teacher and so we've gotta start building the capacity of our teacher workforce and building that pipeline.

Michael Conner: Well stated, Jen. Well, well, well stated. And, and Jen, you know, just like many people, I look to you and, and I try to find the latest information, [00:32:00] right? And Jen, you send this out, whether it be through social media, whether it be, you know, you send something to me or whoever, you know, in text messages about critical information.

Michael Conner: Pretty much. I was like, oh, wow. You know, the, when I received the new executive orders, when it pertain to AI and workforce development, I really started to dig into that. And guess what? A day later it starts hitting, you know, the news and everything. So you're getting the information before an anybody's getting this information.

Michael Conner: But Jen, the executive order, right? It brings like, Hey, AI workforce development, 22nd century focus. I was reading it. I was like, oh man, I created a, a, a. Framework around this. But Jen, for those that really don't know the, the intricacies, the complexities within the language of the executive order, right?

Michael Conner: What does that mean for companies in educational learning institutions? But moreover, how do we now switch our approaches to be in alignment where [00:33:00] innovation is warranted, is guaranteed and preparing students for this 22nd century. 

Jennifer Womble: Yeah, it's an exciting time and we were all a little bit caught off guard when it did, when that announcement came out.

Jennifer Womble: But super happy to see that, you know, the executive orders came out with kind of a mission driven statement. Now we won't see till probably the end of July or August, who exactly is gonna be on the national task force. What their plan is exactly gonna be and how that's gonna go into, what's been put forward is the, you know, the congressional budget.

Jennifer Womble: So there's, there's a lot of pieces we still don't know, but the point that. We are making a statement as a nation that, number one, AI literacy is a priority that we need to, first and foremost make sure that all of our communities, our parents, our staff. Are informed about AI literacy. And so, you know, for the last two years, FETC has partnered with AI Literacy Day and we've got a group, a consortium of organizations from AI and edu and, you know, digital [00:34:00] Promise and teach ai.

Jennifer Womble: So we've all come together to say we need to raise awareness about what this is and what it looks like and have materials and resources available for districts. So this is everything from how at it. AI is very complicated. This is not something easy. It's easy. This is a computer science, you know, dream.

Jennifer Womble: But it's also, if you are not that kind of technical literate person, it can be overwhelming. So how do we use verbiage to folks where they understand what this technology is, what it's capable of, and then what are the safeguards that are needed? What are the cybersecurity, you know, interest here? What are the good, the bad, and the ugly?

Jennifer Womble: We need to inform everybody about. Equity issues, hallucination, there's a whole vocabulary that comes with this. Everything from hallucinations to vibe, coding. I mean, these are things if you haven't been involved with AI, can sound like a foreign language and we don't wanna isolate anyone from the education process.

Jennifer Womble: So. First and foremost, we need a foundational understanding of AI literacy. [00:35:00] So that was one piece of it. The second piece of it is that there is a necessity to incorporate AI and AI skills in order to develop apprenticeships. So. We have really, I think a lot of us in education, the past 10, 15 years we've been on this CTE pathway.

Jennifer Womble: We need to be training folks in a lot of different areas and pathways. This has been a mission of a lot of districts, right? But the idea that we need to build apprenticeships where students are interacting with local businesses. So one of the things we really need every school district to be proactive at is really building relationships with their own community.

Jennifer Womble: You know. 43% of your funding comes from your own community. You know, your school board comes from your community. So you need to also work with your community to know what businesses are there, what opportunities are there, what kind of skills do they need to hire so that as schools start to think about, we're gonna have students go out and be apprentices, [00:36:00] who are they gonna partner with?

Jennifer Womble: If you haven't already established those partnerships, then you won't have anybody to send apprentices to. So, as they develop this national apprentice registry. So that, you know, we have this ability for students to work with industry and have skills and in real life experiences, we're gonna really need to make sure that our community comes together to support that.

Jennifer Womble: It's gonna require a lot of local support, so already districts can be getting ready for that so they can be getting ready for AI literacy training, getting ready for building connections in their community. And these might not be traditional occupations that you're thinking about, but these might be future forward careers.

Jennifer Womble: You could be working with marketing agencies where kids are doing streaming and video production with AI that that might not even exist yet. So you might be actually bringing to your community new jobs so that this is kind of exciting. I think there's a lot of fear of ai 'cause people have been hearing.

Jennifer Womble: AI can replace you, right? [00:37:00] But it's also gonna create a new myriad of jobs if you have the AI skills. So what we wanna do is prepare kids to be in that position, to take on these newly created occupations, but these partnerships will be a great way to do that. The other piece of the puzzle that was announced, there was a piece about behavior management and school districts and behavior.

Jennifer Womble: A lot of the verbiage is about making things local and making 'em state based and regionally based, which I think you know, a lot of people, it's surprising. Don't know. I. Your standards come from your state, your pay comes from your state. The title of your positions comes from your state. So your state and local school boards have a lot of control and I think the call to action here is to really embrace local community more and bring more people into the conversations, especially business people that might've been left out before.

Jennifer Womble: You might have had, you know, programs for automotive or programs for agriculture. Maybe you didn't have programs with law firms [00:38:00] or with business firms. So expanding the conversation about what's gonna be needed across all bands, I think is gonna be really important. And by the end of the summer, hopefully, we'll see.

Jennifer Womble: I did hear that within the first week, they had over 7,000 comments. Public comments come in on the executive order, so it's. It is something that's getting a lot of feedback from around the country, um, and I'm excited to hear that because I think we need to put everybody's ideas on the table and discuss it.

Jennifer Womble: All the, there's some very complicated security issues and guardrails for children that definitely need to be embedded into this. It's a little bit of the wild west right now. You know, anybody can go on, rep it and build an app or build a digital assistant that can take the place of a, you know, software or app.

Jennifer Womble: So there's. There's a lovely amount of capability, but there also needs to be some guardrails. So as school districts, we need to figure out what we're accountable for and then also what we're responsible for teaching. If, if students are leaving us without being prepared, then that's on us, right? That's on us.

Jennifer Womble: So we [00:39:00] need to make sure right now, proactively over the summer. School districts need to start changing their mindset about ai. Some of them are still in the, it's just for cheating mode and there's gonna be a mindset switch. So a lot of leaders are gonna do a lot of culture building. I mean, Jimmy Casas will tell us culturize all day long, right?

Jennifer Womble: And now you're gonna have to put that to work. You're gonna really have to bring, you know that to the table and let people experiment. Build a culture around what it means to be flexible and adaptable. What it means to utilize AI in new ways, changing your assessments at your school level. I mean, there there's gonna be some work that's gonna have to be done.

Jennifer Womble: We're not sure if this is gonna be an unfunded mandate, but because there's this national call to action, there's been a lot of corporations who are. Interested in participating? So there are other foundations I just saw today. Tori Birch Foundation, my favorite Shoes, right? They are offering a program to teach women how to [00:40:00] design apps with ai.

Jennifer Womble: So there may be some new opportunities for grants and other programs in ways we haven't had before in education. So we're gonna have to, in our school districts, look out some new funding sources or some new opportunities. That might look a little bit different than the ways we've traditionally been funded to try to help support these efforts.

Michael Conner: You know, to my audience and Jen, what I usually do is when there's an in-depth answer that is multilayered in the context of strategies, I always encourage my audience to use this as a professional learning platform that is heterogogy, self-directed learning to my audience, please that answer that Jen just provided, rewind that.

Michael Conner: Right, and segment it because I count it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 different strategies that can help the classroom level or the leadership level when you bring up Jamie's work. Yes, because Jen, I think [00:41:00] the missing No, or, or I always say the missing component, right? With regards to what this digital transformation can look like.

Michael Conner: We have to impact culture. Mindsets, right. Culture. We have to now ship from, I like to say the standardized culture to this integrated digital culture where now we have to shift this mindset from like this traditional growth mindset to this hybrid of a growth AI mindset because we can't keep on kicking the can down the road.

Michael Conner: And I loved how. You clarified this misnomer and a quote that I always reference from one of my professors from Harvard Karim Lakhani, author of Competing in the Age of ai. He always states that AI won't replace humans, but humans without AI will be replaced with humans with ai and creating that balance because you stated it correctly, AI literacy I fluency should be a [00:42:00] priority I've seen now.

Michael Conner: Three different countries. I just got back from India a couple days ago, and they're talking about, or they have the movement or progression towards this adoption where AI is gonna be taught starting at kindergarten. I know that there are countries that have that, so I think that China, 

Jennifer Womble: China has done it.

Jennifer Womble: Six hours required. K six. 

Michael Conner: Unbelievable. Six hours, right? Six hours. When we think about that, so now this executive order, when we focus in on, or talking about ai, leveraging AI in the classroom. Now, I always like to say. Implicitly is actually giving the innovators permission to innovate against the traditional nodes of the education model.

Michael Conner: I always like to say this and I can't take it. Take credit for it. This is a good friend, a mutual friend of ours, uh, Richard Carranza, who I was saying to disrupt the Jeffersonian model. And I think that now with ai. Play in this part of it. It definitely can. And apprenticeships, I love the bringing it back to community, right?

Michael Conner: Because I always like to say that now we need to, [00:43:00] you know, disrupt the model or refine the model, where now students are actually applying these specific skills in the community, underscoring the AI skills that they're gonna need. For, to prepare them for the future of the world because we're seeing jobs now.

Michael Conner: I mean, 70 last time I checked, there's been an increase of AI jobs from pandemic post pandemic five years, 74% increase. Organizations and companies now are using AI at eight or 82% of companies are using some form of ai. So when we think about generation alpha and generation beta, when they matriculate out of the PK 12 continuum.

Michael Conner: What type of jobs are going to be available to them. Wow. We have to be able to prepare. 

Jennifer Womble: We really don't know. That's the crazy part is that we really, nobody can even predict. I mean, the same way when we were in high school, we didn't have genetics. 'cause there were, it wasn't genetics yet. Right. And now people are using AI and genetics.

Jennifer Womble: To possibly cure future diseases, like to, to look at databases [00:44:00] and analyze massive amounts of data around the world. So, I mean, you know, it, that evolution of how knowledge can change over time is why we've gotta focus in schools on really making sure students. Loving learning and understanding how to learn because we honestly don't know.

Jennifer Womble: We know they need it to know, understand ai, but we don't know how they're gonna use it. That that's completely unknown. And I think the one thing that the president's executive order really does and is a call to action for businesses is it was the awareness that globally, uh, you know, to be globally competitive.

Jennifer Womble: Our education system is the economic driver of this nation. We train every single person who's going to be working. And so we've gotta make sure that we're ready and viable and globally competitive. And that's only what's fair to every child. So, you know, I think that. Putting the, marrying those two concepts together is gonna help bring more people to the table who might not have been in the education business before, or supporting education, but having more of an [00:45:00] awareness of how powerful education really can have that difference and, and it could really help a lot of businesses.

Michael Conner: And, and Jen, it's needed, you know, and because I was, you know, I've reviewed two very broad country plans, right? The UAE have we, the UAE 2031 that focuses on sustainable development goals. And you see AI embedded in, in every single thread, including education. And Vision 2030, which was launched by the Saudi Arabia and what we see with Saudi Arabia, again, you see this thread, strategic thread of AI integrated in every single industry within those broad plans.

Michael Conner: It's about time we have to do it as well. But Jen, just kind of blowing right. Great segue into this. What advice, Jim, would you give a district or a site-based leader or a teacher that is developing a comprehensive strategy? To implement AI in their classrooms, their schools, or their organizations. [00:46:00] Where do we start?

Michael Conner: We've been having a great conversation back and forth, but some of my audience members might say, Jen, I don't even know where to start. So how, how do I balance success with shifting this strategy despite the complexities of with aligning mindsets, culture practices, pedagogical behaviors, all these tools?

Michael Conner: Yes, it's great, but. Where do I start to develop a strategy to implement ai? 

Jennifer Womble: Yeah, that's great. And this is, I think, what a lot of leaders are struggling with, and I think that's why some districts have already opened the flood gates and some districts are still closed because they're still trying to come up with their, you know, call to action and what their strategy's gonna be.

Jennifer Womble: First and foremost, as a leader, you need to be seeking out. Other district examples of where people are because there's no reason to reinvent this wheel on your own. You know, there's definitely some great work that's already out there. Fullerton California was really kind of first in, in L-A-C-O-E to put out, you know, [00:47:00] some guidelines and standards.

Jennifer Womble: And of course, they have already iterated those guidelines and standards since they've done them. And so there are some groups that are now, uh, teach ai. Keeping a database of, you know, 30 districts that are kind of ahead of the curve here. You can look at the state statutes as well, but from a leader's perspective, I think your first call to action is to role model using AI yourself, because you cannot expect your own staff and district, anybody from.

Jennifer Womble: The folks serving in your cafeteria, your classroom instructors, your media aides, your, you know, special staff, any of them to use it unless they see you doing it. So I think baby steps with experimenting, using it, whether you're doing it for meeting notes or you're using some AI in your observation responses or just some of the things, there's a lot of administrators doing some really strategic work with AI it to make their own lives.

Jennifer Womble: You know, more feasible and usable, and then you're role modeling. You're gonna create some slides, use some of those [00:48:00] tools. And then that starts the ball rolling. You know, being a district leader means you're leading everything all the time, right? So you've gotta be at the forefront as the role model. And then the second step is encouraging staff to experiment.

Jennifer Womble: You know, maybe not put it in your lessons yet, but I was actually just talking to a district yesterday and they were telling me that they just allowed teachers. To start playing this year with some, some, just a few. Not all, but some of the classroom lessons. Try this lesson. Try it. Go back to your team.

Jennifer Womble: How'd that work out? Did it work? Did it not try it here? How'd that work? And it could be as simple as starting with some key activities, like make a list of groceries now, put it in chat, GBT, and tell me what I can cook for dinner. Like giving people some practical ways that they can just think about it.

Jennifer Womble: And use the tool and talking to it, having that Socratic conversation, what comes from conversation? You know, you can go back to eliciting some of the research we know about education. When you talk about ai, [00:49:00] you know, when we look at Dr. Sosa's research on what we retain and remember, number one, it's gotta be novel, right?

Jennifer Womble: There's nothing more novel than AI right now, so we we're in a good place there. And then secondly, if a student teaches it, they have a 90% retention rate. So when we're talking back in a Socratic way to AI and conversational L lms, I. Within, allow your teachers to do some of those with their students and then see how their test scores compare.

Jennifer Womble: How are those outcomes when they were talking to it versus when they did a pencil and paper exam? So let them do some experimentation. Encourage that experimentation for a while before you approach policy. You definitely have to educate staff and district on the safeguards right away. If you haven't already done some training with your IT work with your C-T-O C-I-O, it group your media specialist, we've gotta know those safeguards.

Jennifer Womble: We cannot be putting student data into un walled in un. The outward [00:50:00] gardens that are, you know, public students', data is too sacred. So you've gotta have that. You know, if you haven't done that already, that's an immediate, that jumps to number one. Security trumps everything first, right? But definitely role model.

Jennifer Womble: Let people play with it, the security issues. Then start to develop what is going to be your plan. How do we see. Students at the end of the day, what should our students look like and be able to do with ai? Now we're gonna design backwards. We're gonna use our friend SBA wall. We're gonna use our design thinking and design backwards.

Jennifer Womble: We're gonna say, what do we want students to be able to do when they leave our school and leave us now. Let's work backward and build that into our programs. It does. AI doesn't have to be an every lesson. It's not going to be an everyday thing. It might, you might not be using it that way. If that's not the most strategic way of use, teachers know best.

Jennifer Womble: They're the experts in pedagogy, so let's let them play with that AI and say, Hey, if they need this skill, maybe that teacher's not the one that's gonna have 'em [00:51:00] vibe coding and building apps, but maybe another teacher will. So the opportunity for a lot of experimentation. For how they build creativity and critical thinking into their lessons is gonna be based on their own personal experience so they can support those students better by you allowing them and embracing some of that experimentation, let me tell you, they're going like wildfire.

Jennifer Womble: For two years at FETC, our AI sessions have been packed. People, the teachers who are using it are loving it for grading. They're loving it, you know, for feedback. They're loving it, you know, for so many different things that they're using as part of their day, creating video. I mean, there's, it's endless right now, and they're evolving so fast.

Jennifer Womble: We're. We're doing. Our next webinar is on some tools from Canva and the Canva AI tools that have just come out are remarkable, and as of May 20th, they'll be free and fully accessible to every student K 12. So to not utilize some of these tools and let teachers practice and have that time. And then [00:52:00] I would say also, as a leader, you've got to build in time to have these conversations with your community.

Jennifer Womble: You have got to be sending video out, and now it can be in 50 different languages at one time because we have. All these AI capabilities, right? It, we've gotta be sending out videos and newsletters. We've gotta be bringing our community to the table as stakeholders so that that fear is broken. And also so that parents know how to support their children.

Jennifer Womble: Like this is a whole new thing that we're entering into together. And, you know, think about what that communication has been to your parents in the past and how that could be shaped in, in a new and kind of an exciting way for them. I do think this is layered on top of a time where people are really worried about literacy and numeracy.

Jennifer Womble: So we know those NAP scores are on our backs right now since COVID, and people are really worried about foundational thinking. So if you focus on adding an AI layer to assist. With numeracy and [00:53:00] literacy, I think you're gonna create a better culture and buy-in so that they can see that this is where we're improving student outcome, is by leveraging these tools and they're gonna help us get your student more of this, more information, more skills, more literacy, more numeracy, and that's gonna make their life better.

Jennifer Womble: So that communication has to be really strategic, but don't shy away from. Here's where our weaknesses are, but here's where AI could help us overcome some of those weaknesses too. 

Michael Conner: Unbelievable answer. And to my audience, again, back to back, I'm gonna ask you to replay this answer because I was so in depth, right?

Michael Conner: And, and Jen, what I, what I appreciate is that you segmented right where you can start from the outset to where you can go. There was about four or five different targeted areas that you acknowledge that are multi-layer, but the. Theme that implicitly came out was the intentionality around building [00:54:00] capabilities and capacities around this and scaffolding it.

Michael Conner: We always talk about how we scaffold instruction or pedagogy for our students. It's the same way with Andrew GoGy, how we're scaffolding this AI lift to build AI literacy and the capabilities and capacity to be able to leverage this. But experimentation, uh, absolutely. I, I, I really think that we need more of the strategic experimentation specifically on how we could continue to sustain and scale, scale innovative ideas and strategies to help curtail some of those, I like to say draconian type of gaps that we're seeing in literacy and numeracy.

Michael Conner: And when you talk about role modeling, that is all a part of a leader's leadership signature. Now adding that element. Of utilize in an underscoring AI in every single thread of his or her signature, but Jen. Last question, Jen. I don't know if I can hold you to this, but [00:55:00] I'm gonna try, right? And we've been talking about being unlimited and being limitless, but I'm going to limit you to only three words.

Michael Conner: I don't look, I, nobody listens to me, right? Nobody listens to me. So I always say this to everybody. Take it as it is, but what three words, only three words do you want our audience today to lead with regarding education, technology to prepare students in the AC stage of education. 

Jennifer Womble: So the first is easy 'cause that's connections.

Jennifer Womble: You've gotta connect to people. We've gotta connect content, we've gotta connect the technology to the content. We've gotta interconnect our experiences. So definitely connections. That's, that's just cornerstone to everything we do as humans. I would definitely say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go a different direction for number two.

Jennifer Womble: I'm gonna say, can I say a hyphenated word, human sense. Okay. So human centered is gonna be my second thing. So [00:56:00] even though we spend a lot of our time, you know, geeking out on technology, and, but the reality is everything is human centered at the end of the day. Is, are we doing this because it's the best thing for students?

Jennifer Womble: Are we doing this because our community will benefit from it? And we've gotta always keep that. In the, in that conversation and that thread alive, you know, that's where we build our trust. That's where, you know, we build what we're doing and I think that that just has to stay at the center of what we're doing.

Jennifer Womble: After that, oh, this is harder than I thought it was. Um, I'm gonna have to get, I'm gonna go close to limitless. I'm gonna say infinite. I'm gonna say infinite because right now we're, we are living in an, an age of inny. We really just don't know where. There's this really strange feeling that for the first time we don't know what jobs are coming.

Jennifer Womble: We don't know what technology's coming. We have really this kind of, there is infinite possibilities and I. I believe just like in our students have unlimited potential, I think that this technology is unlimited [00:57:00] and there's an infinite way, amount of ways to integrate it into the classroom. I don't think there's any one way that's gonna be perfect.

Jennifer Womble: I think there's infinite ways for leaders to try this in their districts. Not everybody's gonna be the same. There's gonna be differentiated. You know, answers. I know in my own way, I now have my own little AI assistant, which has made me infinitely more better at using my time. So I think I'm gonna stick with infinite because it's just really cool.

Michael Conner: I love it. Connections. Human-centered and infinite. So we say three and a half. 

Jennifer Womble: Okay. I, I was gonna go with a hyphen there, but I, I'll take it, I'll take it. I still stayed under the, I stayed, I stayed within the three, I stayed within. You

Michael Conner: met the criteria. You met the criteria. You, you pushing the edge as they were.

Jennifer Womble: I'm pushing. I, I always push the envelopes, so that's not new. We're we're, we're always evolving. 

Michael Conner: Jennifer Womble, thank you for coming on Voices for Excellence today. If any of my audience wanna get in contact with you, [00:58:00] wanna investigate on attending FETC or being a part of district administration or one of the legacy events at district administration, Dolly, and the plethora of programs that are available through district administration, how would they be able to get in touch with you or one of your team members?

Jennifer Womble: No, absolutely. So it's very easy. So we're fetc.org or, so that's the best way to get in touch with FETC and we're district administration.com. So you can see all of our programs and publications there. I'll say for me, LinkedIn, I respond. It's my real authentic self and it's my real information for contact there.

Jennifer Womble: And then, you know, I share, of course on Twitter and blue. Guy and Instagram and uh, Facebook and all the places. But I do really do a lot of the work and the research that I share is through LinkedIn. So I'm happy to connect with people there and see if there's ways we can help. And we love to partner with great companies.

Jennifer Womble: We love to partner with great districts. We wanna amplify the voices of the people doing great things so we can keep scaling 'em so we can [00:59:00] impact every student. 

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And Jen, and I'm speaking for many educators, I can say this. Thank you. For everything that you're doing within the ecosystem is truly not only helping me out, you know, obviously this crossover between, you know, being in the education sector, being a superintendent, and now being in this business world of creating new solutions, but, you know, providing information, critical knowledge and support that many of us need in this AC stage of education.

Michael Conner: So Jen, thank you. And onward, 

Jennifer Womble: thank you. I've been honored to be here today. I loved every minute. Thank you. 

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