How to Bridge the Teacher / Tool Divide
I nearly spat my lasagna out of my mouth.
The group of school leaders I was dining with was clearly the loudest in the restaurant, and we were starting to get sidelong looks from other diners.
“$12,000 yogurt machine”.
A business manager from a school in Queensland had just given the perfect example of how not to do organisational change. Let me explain:
In order to improve staff morale, the principal decided to buy a serious coffee machine. As we all know, coffee is a teacher’s love language. So far so good.
As the budget was tight, the business manager convinced him to forgo the $1,800 implementation package. Rather than paying the fee and being trained by a representative, they rolled the dice with the manual and a few YouTube videos.
Seven weeks and 547 coffees later, the staff room smelled of rancid cream cheese and burnt hair.
The final straw came when the drama teacher selected a cappuccino, and the machine pumped out a thick tube of yogurt into the coffee shot. Something was rotten.
This brilliant staff-morale initiative had turned into a $12,000 yogurt machine.
This is the perfect metaphor for AI in education.
Implementation + Training > Everything Else
There’s not a single tool out there that works well if you don’t know how to use it.
I read this quote the other day. It’s as true for AI as it is for coffee machines.
It doesn’t matter how good an AI tool is if no one can use it.
Yet, when deciding on an AI solution for tired and time-poor students, implementation and training are often not seen as the vital puzzle piece that they actually are.
When adopting any new technology, teachers (I include myself here!) need to discuss, disagree, and debate. We need room for guided practice and structured learning.
Instead, we often get sent a link and a login and have to fend for ourselves.
At MyTeacherAide - we pride ourselves on being market leaders in staff training. We don’t outsource our training to sales reps or technicians.
In fact, training and onboarding are so important to us that I manage it personally as the CEO.
Earlier this month, I had the enormous privilege of onboarding staff from Chairo Christian School onto MyTeacherAide.
Not only were we able to adapt the tools to suit their context, vision, mission, and special curricula, but I also led robust conversations about philosophy and theology.
As a result, there are over 400 teachers who are now equipped to create better resources in less time and cater to the diverse needs of their learners.
In summary, if your school is to get any benefit at all from AI; teachers need more than simply being sent a link and a login.
Without robust training and onboarding, AI tool initiatives are liable to simply be $12,000 yogurt machines.
Tune in next week for a deep dive on AI and student wellbeing!
Until then,
Happy Teaching!
Paul Matthews
