This interview was originally recorded on October 25, 2024, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
Elana Leoni:
Welcome, everyone, to our podcast All Things Marketing and Education. I'm Elana Leoni and I've devoted my entire career to helping education brands build their brand awareness, engagement and ultimately grow their lead. Every week, my guests who range from educators to edtech entrepreneurs to experts in the field will all share tips, strategies and insight in either social media, content marketing and community building. I'm so excited to be your guide to help transform your marketing efforts into something that's truly authentic and consistently provides value for your audience. Enjoy.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode. Today I am super excited to chat with Amos Fodchuk, he's the president and founder from Advanced Learning Partnerships known to many as ALP. As soon as I met Amos, I knew that he wasn't just someone who understood edtech, that was clear, but he's also someone who works side by side with districts to make real meaningful change happen. This is stuff that people don't talk about a lot. So, as soon as I heard what he was doing on top of his incredible knowledge of edtech, I jumped at the chance to have him on the show. He has this incredible passion about bringing a systems wide approach and, if you don't know what that is, we're going to get into it but it's all about how do we work within the ecosystem of K12 education and not just work with individual stakeholders, right?
In this episode, we dig into what it really takes to implement tech effectively in K through 12 education and we get into a lot of what everyone's talking about now, Generative AI. Amos is going to talk about his unique year of learning that ALP creates, it's a model that's a year-long collaborative process, it builds lasting literacy and policies around all sorts of tech, including Generative AI, but specifically any type of emerging tech. We also talk about workplace wellness which is a big part of ALP's work and so much more. If you're into edtech, working in a school district or you're just curious about the next big thing in education, this conversation is packed with insights that can help all of us navigate this fast-moving space. Anyways, I don't want to get in your way, here is Amos.
Welcome, Amos, to the show, I'm so excited to have you on. I feel like, when I first started working with you and the first time I met you, I said this man needs to be on the show, we need to have a good conversation. I'm so excited to have you on.
Amos Fodchuk:
Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chop up with you today, Elana.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And I guess the reason, I think, one, you're just a good human, two, I feel like the way you talk is, I don't know, you have a Braveheart-esque to you. I feel like, if you talk, I want to go to war with you or something but-
Amos Fodchuk:
I would've face painted it if I knew that was going to be my bio. I would've found a horse or at least a donkey and we could have charged down the-
Elana Leoni:
Yes, freedom. But the third one is is that you have a very unique role for so long too in edtech where you are in your own business, in your own consultancy but you work so deep and collaborate so deep from the district side to implement all sorts of things, including technology. So, we've never really had anyone on the show to that experience and I think our audience of edtech professionals will find it fascinating what you do to help systematically get people ready. So, that's what I'm excited about. I don't want to spoil it and get right into it, I want to talk really quickly about you so the audience knows a little bit more about you. You have decades of experience in the field, tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to your current focus and what you do at ALP right now.
Amos Fodchuk:
Well, I'm an educator and I have been since I started the profession as a 22, 23-year-old in South Korea. I've taught abroad, I've taught in Canada and the United States, I spent over a decade teaching at the high school level. And I love, to this day, being in schools, being in classrooms and learning and finding ways of discovering and remaining curious is my job description. I just always want to be learning and I've been grateful throughout my career to have the opportunity and be surrounded by people who challenge me and, at the end of the day, that's what I do in my role at Advanced Learning Partnerships.
What we do on a day-to-day basis is work with school systems in support of our profession and in support of the relationship that they build continuously with their communities. And so, the way that we go about that work is through an organizational change lens. So, we're not just focused on training, we're not just focused on the mastery of technology tools or even pedagogy, we're focused on how can a school system and how can learning evolve over time in response to continuously changing conditions that are local, that are beyond local, that are within our control, that are beyond our control and that creates so much complexity that can be overwhelming.
And so, our goal is to find ways of feeling present in time and space and aligning ourselves around outcomes that matter and being really disciplined, data informed, competency-based as we go about the work shoulder-to-shoulder with school systems. So, that's what we do, what that looks like in reality is that can work with a school or a school system or even a state or provincial entity and focus on innovation or change and work backwards from that and to identify what type of professional learning is needed, what type of strategy is needed, what needs to be designed, what needs to be refined. And once we have some metrics in place, once we've defined our roles, then it really just boils down to hard work. And so, at the end of the day, that's what we get to do, we just get to do it in 500 plus communities across an entire continent.
Elana Leoni:
So, this systems approach, like you said, is unique but it's ironic or weird that it is unique because I do believe, now that I've seen it in action with you, it's the only way truly to make change. And when you have different stakeholders involved, there's this level of ownership across the change that happens that's really quite beautiful. And we're going to get talking a little bit about GenAI in particular but I think, for edtech people listening on the call, you come in with that systems level approach. And then we also have edtech people that have a product they need people to use but sometimes they're only working with one stakeholder or they're just coming in and saying, "Hey, here's how you get started." So, do you want to talk a little bit about how you could see that apply a bit more to what they do because I think there's some valuable nuggets?
Amos Fodchuk:
Yeah, I'm happy to speak to that. That has been, I'm not sure if it's a secret sauce, it certainly has been our mission since ALP was forged over 15 years ago and that has been to find ways to foster innovation, incubate it, study it and then scale it once we know enough about it. And so, in the edtech space, there's often a top-down mindset, whether that's from the district as it goes through a one-to-one or a blended or a personalized initiative or as it unpacked and operationalized as Generative AI or any other emerging technology, there tends to be this top-down initiative based implementation. And in the edtech world, there are a lot of entities, a lot of corporations, a lot of non-profits that are focused on solutions and rightly so, that's the value proposition that they bring.
But a one size fits all or a scaled and rapid implementation often falls short of everyone's aspirations and expectations and our experience has taught us that, when we lead and start with the teaching and the learning and the leadership outcomes and we find the right nodes inside a school system to invest resources, invest support, to identify really high quality use cases and then adopting a top-down bottom-up approach requires professional learning support, it requires strategy and that's where ALP's value proposition in school systems comes from. Is school systems that are making big investments in tech but do not want to see pockets of excellence become their success story, that's a pretty good role description for how we end up working with a community over multiple years.
ALP service portfolio is really deep and it's really wide so it allows us to start in virtually any area that a school system needs the support. So, we could start working with school principals around leadership capacity or we could start with strategy around the purposeful integration of Generative AI. And we can start in virtually any area to identify where the capacity is either strong and can be spread or is light and requires some deepening for full systems integration.
Elana Leoni:
And I'm like, "Gosh, so many good things in here." So, as someone who's trying to keep up with you and my audience, I'm like, "Okay, he said some really good things," one is top-down bottom-up. And that's not just for what you do in terms of professional development or learning, as a marketer in edtech, that's what we do as well is how do we make sure that we are talking to both stakeholders in a way that really helps them directly but then gets them to understand and work together too. So, if we're saying bottoms up, the people that are using your product, how do we make sure that they understand the product, they can align it directly to the curriculum which is a really great trend I've been seeing, it's let's not just use tech for tech's sake, this shouldn't just be a nice-to-have, how do we directly align it. So, how do we get them to be active users and then consistently saying, "Oh, I can do this, I can add more and become even advanced users."
But then, on the top side, how do we make sure that they know what their users like the teachers are actually using the product, how they're using it, how are they supporting that implementation. And then what you said is how do we make it as outcomes-oriented as possible, how do we design with that and that's a beautiful thing. It's very hard to do but how do we ensure that we're all understanding why we're using the tech and then trying to measure the little data points to show evidence of either outcomes or engagement or whatever the things that the school leadership cares about. So, top-down, outcomes driven, no one-size-fits-all, customized, there's lots of things, the more we say it, the more we can start at least being ready for it. It's not as easy as just saying it as you know because you're rolling up your sleeves with districts every day.
Amos Fodchuk:
Yeah. You mentioned Generative AI a few minutes ago, Elana. Over the course of the last couple years, we've made a big investment in walking the walk around how ALP leverages AI in our own work, in our own innovation so that we can speak from experience as school systems enter into an unexplored world. And whether they're making massive investments in the technology or just building literacy, I think that's a key area where we need to start as an industry. If we're helping school systems integrate technology with purpose, then we have to think about literacy as more than just training or more than just solution literacy. And I think that's something that we should probably unpack a little bit more which is what is the difference between training and professional learning because what we're trying to do here is we're trying to identify stakeholder groups that are really, really valuable.
Education is people, education is community and so, if a teacher is in a classroom and there are a hundred teachers in the building and a principal is in a school and there's a leadership team of a dozen, investing in their literacy and moving it beyond the functionality of the software solution, it enables them to become so much more powerful in making the best decisions for learning than if they're just focused on how to use a tool. And so, that's where we start in any technology initiative in any community whether it's around a new device, whether it's around a new approach to engagement through a technology solution or whether it's through something that we're all learning about in real time like Generative AI.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. So, let's get into Generative AI and I'm glad you made the distinction between training and professional learning as well. This is moving so fast, this field, and you are jumping in. Districts have this urgency to figure out how do they use it, how do they harness the opportunity but also do it in a safe way as we start uncovering some of the nooks and crannies that GenAI has. So, you want to talk a little bit about just what's the mindset of schools and districts right now and what's on their list of the things they absolutely come to you and say, "We need X, Y, Z," and then you're able to say, "Well, you also need X, Y, Z too." Just talk to us a little bit about the ebbs and flows in the trends right now that you're seeing.
Amos Fodchuk:
So, it's interesting we're having this conversation on October 25th which is the date that Gemini went live for students in any school system that has access to a Google Suite. And that happened on a Friday without much advanced notice or fanfare and we see a lot of that whether it's in the large technology companies like Microsoft and Google and Intel or if it's in smaller software solution providers that are really innovative, really agile. It's actually a vibrant and exciting ecosystem even in the emerging days of Generative AI integration but the trade-off with that rampant innovation is the absence of policy, the absence of guidelines and frameworks, the absence of a common language. And so, I think a critical component of our work in school systems is helping to create a common language that school systems can then harness their experience, their skill and the relationship capital that they have in their communities to really unpack and operationalize Generative AI in thoughtful ways.
So, sometimes we just consider, hey, here's a five-minute video or a two-day training on how to use particular Generative AI tool but, if all you're training on is the tool and not the competencies of learning, that training has a shelf life that's limited. When the next tool comes along or when the next iterative design on the same software tool refreshes, a lot of that training that school systems make investments in becomes obsolete. It's far better to invest in the people than it is in the tool in these early days of Generative AI, in my opinion.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, and there's some big challenges. Like you say, absence of policy, that's huge, there's ethical concerns, there's just a lot of overall concerns from the leadership, parents, students. And I do see, and you correct me because you're closer to this, but I do see a trend of schools no longer gut check reaction and saying I want to ban it. They're saying how can we enable this to ... And maybe I'm hanging out with the right people but I'm hanging out with people that are saying, gosh, this is such an opportunity but let's do it with some proper guidelines and let's enable our teachers first and foremost so then they can model some of really good behavior within the students. So, I see that trend, are you seeing that from your more bigger vantage point?
Amos Fodchuk:
Massively like another current event. In order to understand the position of Generative AI inside the K12 ecosystem, it's just as important to understand the developments on the software side as it is to understand the intersection of the software crashing into community. It was less than three weeks ago that the first lawsuit in Massachusetts came out where a family sued a school system because the school system awarded their child a lower grade as a function of using a Generative AI tool to create an essay response. And the crux of the lawsuit is that the school system didn't have adequate policies and training in place to reinforce a position around assessment like it did in the case of that student. Now, I don't know how that case is going to shake out but it's the first of what will be an incessant wave of legal challenges, of community disruptions, of unanticipated consequences of the usage of Generative AI.
And if the same thing happens, if we're not careful, we're going to learn the same lessons over and over again through the scaled implementation of social media, the scaled implementation of one-to-one devices, the scaled implementation of cell phones. Generative AI is unique in the sense that it is unlike anything we've ever seen before, however, the way that it enters into schools, the way that it enters into homes because there is no difference between a school and a home if a child has a device with them regardless of whether it's owned by the family, the child or the school system. And so, at the end of the day, you can't control for that, you can't ban for that. What you can do is build literacy and you can build habits. And again, the importance of local frameworks, the importance of professional learning for the adults and choice for the kids are some really important drivers that are going to build a more sustainable solution than banning it. Because, at the end of the day, whatever you ban is just going to create a little moat around which people will swim.
Elana Leoni:
Nice, I love that, I love that. All right, so school districts mostly realize, hey, we need to figure this out. When they come to you, what are the things they're looking for that are their top of the ... Their hot button issues of, hey, we need X, Y, Z. I'm just curious on are they more in reactive mode or are they more in like, "Hey, we don't know what we don't know because so much to learn."? What's their triage right now?
Amos Fodchuk:
Well, right now we're working with almost 170 school systems across North America in what we call a year of learning cohort. So, the first step that we've taken in our work is to ratchet down the rhetoric, ratchet down the anxiety by acknowledging that you can't be perfect at something that didn't exist two years ago and that you can't understand every nuance of Generative AI as it continues to evolve at a pace faster than we can keep up with. So, where school systems are now coming to us is they're asking for space and time to have unrushed but facilitated and really focused conversations that result in policy, principles, frameworks, guidelines, common language, protocols, procedures. This stuff isn't available on a website and, even if it would be, it still requires some really, really careful customization for it to actually work in a rural community in Wyoming, in a suburban school district in Illinois, in an urban school district in Virginia or Ontario.
And so, school systems are benefiting from time and facilitation to just make sense of this and come up with what we call a year of learning plan. It includes everything that you need to operationalize your community's resources. What does the school district do well? That should be your drivers of innovation. Where are your school districts gaps? Well, once you know what those gaps are, then you can afford resources that gap those and fill them in and that buys you time to build a relationship with your community, to ease the anxieties of teachers and school principals and to build literacy around how to integrate these tools with purpose in a way that doesn't radically transform and update everything.
A big challenge that we're seeing now, there's a real concern that students and teachers alike are using Generative AI tools or overusing them in a way that is going to threaten the development of their skills. Now, that's a real concern and so what we need to do as a profession and as a partnership in these school systems is understand, not just how the technology could erode skills, but how the evolution of assessment, how the evolution of curriculum, how the evolution of pedagogy will create new opportunities to define learning and to measure learning in a way that brings us back to skills refinement. I think the easiest way for me to say everything that I just did in 15 words or less is worksheets never worked or, if they did, they worked 15 years ago. A learning experience has to be more than a static exercise. And when we find technology tools being used to overcome static assignments or static assessments, we have to be reflective about our role in framing learning experiences as much as we do about whether someone should or should not be using the tech.
Elana Leoni:
Mm-hmm. So, so much there I want to follow up on but the one thing you ended on strong is that Generative AI offers us the opportunity, a new opportunity to redefine what learning is. And a lot of us that are familiar with the SAMR model look at how do we integrate tech meaningfully and can the tech do something that we never imagined it could do to make learning hit home, to make sure that we are equipping our students to be ready for this future that we have no idea what jobs will happen, what their tasks will be. And it just really solidifies that, if you are not thinking about Generative AI and if your product ...
Your doesn't necessarily always need to have Generative AI but you do need to know that your schools and districts really have this big challenge at hand but this huge opportunity at the same time. They're trying to figure out, of all their tech stack, what are the policies in place, what goes where, what tech does what, which one's substituting what, it's really hard but really framing it in that this is a new opportunity. And probably one of the biggest opportunities if we think about it because we talk about the introduction of Google, the introduction of one-to-one devices or cell phones or the internet way back in the day, these were all disruptions but this feels like one of the biggest ones.
Amos Fodchuk:
Elana, I remember in the early 2010s when personalization was on everyone's lips and there were massive promises for personalized learning that came about 2012, '13, '14, '15. And the definition of personalized learning was Shangri-La and it never was realized because the technology was not on the same trajectory as the promise or the vision of what personalization could be. So, what was the compromise? It was adaptive software and adaptive software had some promise. The way that it got implemented was computer labs and dedicated screen time each day for literacy, numeracy and any other development that a school district prioritized or that an edtech provider offered a solution for. What that resulted in was a competition between the teacher's talent and the turnkey solution that came through a software application. And unfortunately, the success of adaptive software left a lot to be desired.
And so, when I think about Generative AI as a transformation agent, I think about down the road, it's not here yet but it's probably going to get here sooner than we envision. The capacity for large language models to authentically personalize, not just for the teacher, but for each student is going to be real in a way we've never imagined before and that's exciting. It's also terrifying because, as much as that can be a promise for a vision that has existed for a long time that's finally arriving, this is also going to be an equity issue on an exponential scale if we don't get access right. And so, if we have solutions that offer authentic personalization but they're cost prohibitive or that they require a really, really tight interface with a talented and well-prepared teacher or a stable teaching force, then we're going to see a gap in learning unlike anything we've seen before and that's why the policy, that's why the guidelines and frameworks are so important.
I do think there's one more component that is critical and we can get into the notion of local leadership and advocacy if that's interesting to you. I think that, to me, can set one of the greatest leadership opportunities in education systems and for educators in decades.
Elana Leoni:
I just want to re-emphasize what you said around equity and access because that is on everyone's mind. And do you want to talk a little bit of maybe some policies that are happening or some things that you're seeing in districts that at least they're doing small tactical things to keep equity and access top of mind? So, when maybe districts or edtech people are listening to this call and saying, "Oh, that's interesting, that's something small or that's on the policy level but equity and access has to be top of mind and I'm glad that we're thinking of that way." When I think of policies and I see the news, it's always mentioned, which is nice, I just want to make sure that there's action behind the talk a little bit.
Amos Fodchuk:
Yeah. One of the first things that ALP did was partner with a law firm in California, F3 is their shorthand firm name. And the reason why we partnered with F3 was because we needed a partner that is focused on the intersection of policy at the federal and the state level in order to create the best possible guidance for school systems. And so, one of the first outputs that we partnered with F3 to create was a vendor letter and I'm aware that most folks who are going to consume this podcast are going to be people in this space who are selling into school systems. Well, what we believe is that the best possible customer is an informed customer and, especially from the point of view of renewal, especially from the point of view of scaled impact, it's easy to sell into a community that doesn't know better, it's always best to build partnerships in school systems that have a vision and a strategy and a level of literacy that allows them to engage with purpose with their vendors.
And so, coming up with a vendor letter that clearly defines what thresholds of acceptability are for student data privacy, what thresholds of acceptability are for learner functionality of the support as it relates to learning outcomes. If you have a good solution in this space, you want that, you want to be able to compete to high levels of usage criteria, of procurement standards and there are some high profile examples of what happens when that doesn't get done right at the school district level and at the vendor level. And so, that's an area where I think school systems are becoming increasingly savvy, it's something that we highlight in our consultative approach to school systems. So, to me, that's one area of policy innovation that can't come soon enough.
We do run into, occasionally, school systems that feel as though they're going to wait for the federal, the provincial or the state level agencies to come up with the policy. Well, that may or may not come and it may or may not be good when it does. And so, locally, I think it's really important for school systems and their school boards and their legal representation to have a practical policy that's reinforceable. It doesn't have to be overly granular but it has to exist. People need to know what their left and right limits are, what their north star is and, when that's in place, the professional preparation and the experience of your teachers and your leaders becomes more relevant.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And even just hitting home on what you talked about before is the lawsuits, the interesting one about, hey, that school or that district did not have the policy in place to enforce it so, therefore, the student using whether it be ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or whatever it may be, the Generative AI, it's not enforceable. But I'm curious just like you to follow that and to see what other things pop up because this is just eat the popcorn and then see what comes up. But if you're riding the wave and waiting for other people, like you said, that's probably not the safest, it's also being reactive and you're not empowering your team and, therefore, you're not empowering your students as well.
Amos Fodchuk:
Yeah, that's 100% it. And what we've learned over the last year and a half especially is the importance of resisting the urge to learn in isolation, to design and implement in isolation. School systems in North America predominantly exist in isolation of each other. It's a little bit like when I was a teacher, the loneliest space in a school was a classroom and that's a paradox because there's humans all over the place. But because we're so busy, we're so focused on what's immediately in front of us, whether it's the classroom, the school or the district scale, so many resources go into innovating around the same failing practice, so many resources and time go into building out frameworks, plans that could be done collaboratively.
And so, something that we did and we're seeing tremendous benefits from is creating this cohort that we call a year of learning cohort. And so, that consists of hundreds and hundreds of education leaders representing close to 200 school systems that are, not only learning locally with our talented consulting teams, but also with each other. And by continuing to bring them together in order to benefit from guest speakers or practitioners or to learn from one another, that creates a pollination effect that builds that level of literacy, builds that level of wisdom and experience that is beneficial, not just to the school systems, but to the solution providers because they're able to see with more clarity what these school leaders are prioritizing, what they need. When a school district leader can speak to a problem they want to solve with specificity, that is exactly what we're looking for as intermediaries in this space.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And again, this is consistently evolving and it's not like you're saying, "Hey, we come in and do one training and we're one and done and maybe it's once a quarter or whatever it is," this is a year of learning. This is everyone raising their hand and saying we don't know what we don't know and it's changing every day so we need a long time to be able to come in. And what I loved that you said is they have the time and space to think about it and collaborate for what works best for them. Because no research paper you can go to, there's no best practices for how to do it in rural schools in Alabama or whatever it may be so they need the time to really understand what the opportunity and challenges are and then figure out how it'll best work with them and then, hopefully, have local leadership, like you said, develop these policies that can enable them.
But it's year-long, this is not ... And this is roll up your sleeves, nitty-gritty stuff. So, when I see you posting on LinkedIn and your team, I'm like, "Yes, more of this," because we tend to just talk about the results at the end but, really, the good stuff is in the nooks and crannies of really that collaboration and it's so hard.
Amos Fodchuk:
Well, the key word is collaboration, Elana, and I would call out a case study real quickly is what's happening in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Department of Education and the Superintendents Association of Virginia were extremely strategic by identifying that the best way to bring literacy and support to school systems is through a community of practice model. And so, ALP was fortunate enough to be a partner and remains a partner in that work that's unfolding in real time where our consulting team is working with 72 out of the Commonwealth's 131 school systems in literally every corner of the Commonwealth in a five-day facilitated executive consulting package or model that allows these teams to learn together, between one another and to exchange resources, to refine resources together and to strategize around how to operationalize them over a six-month implementation timeline.
And so, we're hitting a threshold capacity, a tipping point of sorts in a state in real time because key stakeholder groups at the state level or at the provincial level are prioritizing a practical and realizable way of bringing literacy to school systems. I think that's a really important trend and I think it's something that we're going to see more and more of. We've gone to great lengths to ensure that our facilitation is aligned to emerging standards around safety, around the ethical use of AI and around leading with learner-centered models and staying true to the core functionality of school systems which is to create learning experiences for all and finding the appropriate ways of interjecting or inserting emerging technologies including, but not limited to, Generative AI to solve for some real gnarly problems or to uplift some opportunities.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And this entire conversation I love is that we're talking from a systems level approach, we're talking holistically and really trying to be as proactive as possible. But let's flip it a little bit because we also see the industry itself being really reactive at times. Like, "Oh, gosh, I don't have a GenAI product, let's put something in and sell it to districts," or teachers are just grasping it, shiny tech object syndrome and saying, "Okay, let's use this." So, there's a lot of reactive stuff going on and then there's pressure from school districts to say, "Oh, my gosh, all these teachers are using this GenAI product, I don't know. Should I say yes? No?" and then the vendors might be pressuring them because there's so many teachers using them. Can you talk a little bit about the chaos of the reactiveness because we've been in this beautiful world that you create, the systems oriented, but there's this pulse of people FOMO, trying to miss out and then edtech developing with AI but ... I don't even know how you would answer that but maybe it spurs something.
Amos Fodchuk:
Well, that's a cycle that's existed as long as I've seen technology in education and we're in it again, for sure, and so I'm not going to pretend like that's not happening. I will say that one of our fastest growing services outside of Generative AI consulting is workplace wellness consulting. And not just give your teachers yoga on a Friday or a jeans day every month but actually understanding the core drivers of what contributes, not only to workplace burnout, but also workplace thriving. Educator burnout is nothing more than a far dot on a spectrum where the other side is fulfillment. And so, there is no AI solution in that service and it's one of our fastest growing and most in-demand needs for school systems because they're losing talent, they're losing people and it's expensive to find and replace them. And when you have a math classroom that starts the first two months of the academic term with a substitute teacher because you can't find enough people who are qualified and passionate to build literacy and numeracy in your school systems, that's more important than whether you have the most up-to-date version of AI.
And so, I would just encourage the edtech space to acknowledge that some of the core issues that their customer base has nothing and everything to do with Generative AI. In some cases, an appropriately positioned AI tool could solve a problem that these communities have never been able to do without it. In other scenarios, it's distracting them from reaching for the solution that they need. And I think this is such a wide market, it's such a deep pool that it has less to do, in my opinion, whether an edtech solution has best-in-class AI versus is it solving an authentic problem.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And that's what we talk about a lot is that product market fit and then also, especially in the fast-moving needs and space and funding ebbs and flows, that's changing all the time. So, when you start your product market fit, you're working hard, rolling up your sleeves to make sure that you have it and adapt your product to make sure it's always solving those unique challenges. And with the funding after the post-pandemic and the decrease of funding, everyone is raising their head and saying, "If your technology isn't a must-have and doesn't align with the line item in a budget, you're going to have a hard time. It can no longer be supplementary or complementary." So, what you're saying is that there's always been technology to distract and, if we're doing AI just to add in to say we have AI, we're fundamentally missing the real challenge. Is it aligned with what our stakeholders truly care about and is it solving it in a unique way that I couldn't do with a human otherwise?
Amos Fodchuk:
Yeah, I think so. I would say that what you just said, Elana, about the lean year or years ahead post ESSER funding in the US at least, is it boils down to impact metrics. And whether, as an intermediary or a solutions provider, you're helping your customer base build literacy around local impact metrics or you're bringing your own impact metrics to the table, I think there's always going to be a balance. I would just say that professional learning budgets are equally vulnerable to cost cutting, to lean times and there's a tendency in both edtech and professional learning to adopt more of a training mindset or more of a one-size-fits-all or an asynchronous approach to checking the box that everyone got the training. Neither of those outcomes are going to be transformational.
And so, our own experience in this industry has taught us a long time ago that, if we build literacy with our K12 leadership around impact and we have skill and we have a perspective and even possibly tools that augment the district's ability to study whether the professional learning or the technology solution is having the intended effect on student learning or on priorities that are important at the school district level, they're going to move mountains in order to maintain that renewal or that continued professional learning partnership. But if we're able to sell into successfully without impact metrics, we better enjoy that first year because it might be the only one we get.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, so true. And maybe just circling back to the workplace wellness stuff is, if you set a culture of learners, of consistent learning, continuous learning and everyone in the school and the teachers are feeling like they're learning even just about GenAI or whatever it may be, you have this thriving culture of learning and you're setting that example also for your students. And I know you're nodding your head because you do that in your own organization and that's even your tagline but that also helps with things like teacher turnover and teacher satisfaction and teacher impact. We know that the number one thing that increases academic outcomes is the effect of the teacher and sometimes, that teacher to student connection, they're not happy and they're not learning and demonstrating being a learner, that's another thing.
So, I'm connecting the dots as you're talking so I hope it's helpful. You're just like, "Yup, I know this. I do this every day, Elana." All right. Well, I think we could talk about this, gosh, forever. Maybe we have you on, it'd be fascinating to see six months later, hey, this is a whole new world of GenAI. But in the sake of this podcast, I do have to start ending it. I want to end on a really fun question that we ask all of our guests is so much of the space is inspiring in edtech but it can also be challenging, it can be draining and it's important that we find ways to inspire us and recharge us. What do you do personally in those days that you're like, "Gosh, I just had this great talk or I just had this challenge I didn't anticipate, I feel drained."? Are there things that you read, watch or just habits you do to recharge or get inspired?
Amos Fodchuk:
Oh, my gosh. Well, I am so lucky to have an amazing wife and children, so family, my brother and my extended family, having close and strong relationships with our loved ones is so important. I wouldn't be doing any of this without them and I wouldn't be doing any of this without them and so that's important. And I think, personally, I love nature so I find myself in nature whenever I can and I am constantly finding my way into forests. Owls, I love those creatures and have ever since I was a little boy and I love learning about them, I love finding them in nature. I just love the presence of a living thing in nature and so that is centering to me whether that's in a forest when I'm trail running or hiking or when I'm kayaking on a lake or in a river.
I'm really excited next week to sneak away after the Virginia Superintendents Conference to get out onto a lake and to paddle back into campsites that you can only access on your kayak. I'm going to spend a couple nights by myself with a book and journal, just no tech, I'm going somewhere where my phone doesn't work and I'm just going to enjoy the peace, the solitude, the reflection. I love to play music, I love to play my guitar, to go to live music shows. I saw a Sturgill Simpsons show the other day that just melted my face and I can't wait to just be around people in music. So, to me, those are two areas where I learn so much about teaching and learning and leadership even though it has nothing to do and everything to do with teaching and learning and leadership.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, because, if you don't feel yourself, you can't really be present around it. That's why I love this question so much and that's why I always constantly remind specifically educators who burn the candle at both ends and forget who they are sometimes for the sake of it. So, I love being able to remind them what are the joys of just being human and how can you refresh yourself. Amos, thank you so much for your time. For those of you that are listening and want to learn more or hear more about Amos, you can reach him and his company on his website. It's alplearn.com, is that correct?
Amos Fodchuk:
That's correct.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And then you can find him on LinkedIn at Amos ... Why don't you pronounce your last name? Sometimes I feel like I always butcher it.
Amos Fodchuk:
Yeah, Fodchuk. Just go ahead and say it.
Elana Leoni:
Fodchuk.
Amos Fodchuk:
It doesn't matter how it turns out, you just have to own it, yeah.
Elana Leoni:
Fodchuk. Sometimes I want to say Fodchuk but Fodchuk, that's F-O-D-C-H-U-K. And you can find them on LinkedIn and ALP is also really active on LinkedIn. So, if we want to figure out what people are doing in Generative AI, specifically workplace wellness, all these things that Amos is talking about, I really urge you all when you are in these issues, share about them on social media as well because we need to learn from each other, this is moving way, way too fast. All right, thank you so much, Amos, for your time and, everyone, we'll see you next time in All Things Marketing and Education.
Thanks again for listening to All Things Marketing and Education. If you like what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can find more episodes at leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast. You can also continue the conversation with us on Twitter @LeoniGroup or on LinkedIn. And don't forget, if you enjoy today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We're so appreciative of every single subscriber and review we get and it helps us reach even more people that need help. So, we'll see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Amos Fodchuk, Guest
Amos is an insatiably curious career educator who has served in Canada, South Korea, China, and the United States. He is the Founder and President of Advanced Learning Partnerships, driven by a passion for travel, diverse pedagogies, and sustainable organizational change. Amos focuses on building authentic, long-term partnerships with organizations aiming for learner-centered outcomes. When not engaged in his work, he enjoys trail running in North Carolina, exploring various music genres, and spending time with his wife and business partner, Katy, their children, Ansel and Evie, and their loyal retriever, Jasper.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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