Transformative Principal

[00:00:00] Welcome to the show. I am Jethro Jones, your host. This is actually a simulcast between two podcasts, a Vision for Learning, where we talk about AI and futuristic stuff about education and Transformative principle.

Jethro Jones: And today we have Eric Francis of Maverick Education on the program. He specializes in providing guidance, support, and training to academic leaders and classroom teachers on how to develop rigorous learning environments and deliver engaging educational experiences that engage and encourage students to [00:01:00] demonstrate different levels of thinking and understand and use their depth of knowledge through inquiry and by questioning with good questions.

Eric does a lot of stuff. He is an expert on depth of knowledge and knows, has probably forgotten more about it than I have ever known. And so Eric, welcome to the show. Great to have you.

Erik Francis: Thanks, Jethro. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate you giving me the time and allowing me this forward and share.

Jethro Jones: So we're gonna get into what Maverick education AI is and all that stuff. But this is a tool that you created to help make it easier for people to understand and use and create all kinds of things with AI around depth of knowledge that I. The other things just don't measure up. And so, we'll talk about that a little bit more, but what's one of your big takeaways from this from our conversation today?

Erick Francis: The big takeaway is this. Imagine if there was an AI assistant that could help you plan and provide teaching and learning experiences that are not only standards driven, [00:02:00] but student supportive using depth of knowledge, DOK as a concept, framework, and language accurately, appropriately, and authentically.

Jethro Jones: Yeah. Well, and that is the title of our show today. The Future of AI is Authenticity. So, I'm excited to chat with you about this. My big takeaway is we get into some discussion about the value of having. Excellent AI as opposed to good enough ai. So this is a great conversation. I'll get to my conversation with Eric here in just a moment. (ad here) So being an expert in depth of knowledge, what made you want to do an AI bot? About depth of knowledge, like where a lot of people have depth of knowledge, things in their chats already. Chat. GPT already understands depth of knowledge at a cursory level. Like why did you feel like you had to make your own?

Erik Francis: A lot has to do with accuracy and [00:03:00] authenticity. There's a lot of misinformation out there and much misinterpretation about what exactly depth of knowledge is. And also what has become the concern I've had is that. We don't know what the knowledge source of the AI that we're using, um, AI chat, GPT Open AI is like Google and that I can enter in depth of knowledge or DOK and now I'm gonna get 50 million hits back.

That references depth of knowledge or DOK doesn't mean the sources are accurate. What I've discovered with open AI is that it basically synthesizes. All those 50 million hits in Google into an explanation in links, so it gives back information that's not necessarily accurate. It doesn't do a litmus test to say, is this an inaccurate document or is this an accurate source or a liable source? [00:04:00] It just says, this says depth of knowledge. I'm gonna go and give it to you. The other thing is that because there's such misinformation about what exactly depth of knowledge is, there's so much misinterpretation of how it can be applied and used, accurate, and appropriately. It's drawing from inaccurate sources. So there's many times I've used ai, be it open AI through chat GPT or through these other companies that have or profess to say, we can basically determine the DOK level of your activities. We can actually create activities and questions at different DOK levels. Well, what's your knowledge source? They're not drawing upon accurate knowledge source and accurate sources of information. So a lot of the confusion is that a lot of people think that depth of knowledge is based upon the complexity of thinking, and that's when been in a lot of narratives. But that's not what depth of knowledge is. It's not about [00:05:00] the complexity of thinking or cognition. It's not about even the content. It's about context. What exactly, and how deeply do students have to comprehend and communicate their learning? So there's not a lot out there that's an accurate document that says this is what depth of

Even the ones that are accurate. There's different perspectives and different things that people have done with depth of knowledge.

I mean, the way Norman Webb originally came up with depth of knowledge, the purpose of it. Has changed and evolved. It evolved when Karen Hess made it a measure for cognitive rigor. It's evolved where I took and made it a method model for teaching and learning. So that's why I came up with my own ai, based upon my work with depth of knowledge and building upon the research of those who are accurate and the research of others. To show how depth of knowledge can be used, not only accurately and appropriately, but also authentically and even innovatively [00:06:00] to address things that we wanna do in education.

Jethro Jones: Let's talk about that for a second because one of the things we did is we compared the same question across your AI with your stuff, school, AI, and chat, GPT and I. It seemed like school AI and chat GPT were good enough. But then when I looked at yours, it was very easy to see that yours was much richer and gave a much better answer to the question for a specific standard that we were looking at, gave better resources and things like that.

And this is one of the unique areas with AI that. One of the things I say all the time is you can get AI to do anything, but to get it to do something really specific is much more challenging. So AI can understand and talk about depth of knowledge, but it's like everything is at a basic surface level.

And what I saw with your AI when you showed it to me [00:07:00] was that it went much deeper and gave much better. Examples and perspectives and the things that I could look at it, not being an expert myself and say, I can see how this is better. How did you make that happen And how what is, why is that so important?

Erik Francis: Well, let's start with why it's important. Okay. Let's take it from a teacher standpoint. Basically, we could do all the math we need to do with a calculator. I. How many of us in school or how many of us are math teachers are saying you can't just rely on the calculator, but the layman or the general public will say, Hey, I can just do this with a calculator.

Why do I need to know this? Or why do I need to know a different way to do something? Because what I like to say is when the technology gets more advanced, the technology doesn't make things less complex. It makes [00:08:00] things easier. Which means that it's lessen the load, which means that it's lessen the effort for us.

A calculator did not change the complexity of a problem, or it changed, basically made it easier to calculate that problem, made it quicker. And like, you know, we said, and like we discussed, there are people who are gonna say, you know what? It's good enough. Well, if it's good enough and that's your attitude, then I hope so, because if it's good enough, then I hope it's good enough for your kids so that they can succeed at the level that they're expected.

And our kids are not. Look, we are not getting to the level that are getting our kids to the level that they need, and we are not getting all our kids. And I believe in that. I believe that all kids can succeed that collective efficacy, but. You have to know why they have to do, how they do what they do. It's not that I can know that this is a DK two because [00:09:00] of these simple descriptions. That's abstract. Just because it says that says is DK two. Why? You know, I like to compare it to that line in dead Poet Society. If you remember when we ranked, you know, give Byron a five 'cause you can't dance to it, you know? We don't know why and I think that's the thing we need to get back to, and that's even back to the realm of questioning I have, which is why do we do how we do what we do? Let's think of it this way. Why do, how do we unpack the standards? How do we traditionally unpack standards? What do we do

Jethro Jones: Well, I don't remember 'cause I haven't spent that much time doing it. So what do.

Erik Francis: right? Okay. We traditionally circle the verbs and underline the nouns, and then we make a T chart and we put all our verbs underneath the skilled column, and we put all our nouns and noun phrases underneath the concepts and content problem. This is a great method that Larry Ainsworth introduced back in 2001, [00:10:00] 2002, 2003, when he wrote unpacking and unwrapping the standards.

I think the book's called Unwrapping the Standards. It's a great method. Has anyone ever asked why we do that? What if I told you it's because that was the way we unpacked? No Child Left Behind Standards, and those standards assessed kids on two things, cognition and content skills and stuff. One of the miscommunications about these new standards is that it's not about cognition, it's not about context.

It's not about the complexity of both. It's about the context. That's what depth of knowledge is what exactly, and how deeply do I have to think about or know or learn about this? And that's the thing. It's not just doing it, it's about comprehension. Depth of comprehension and extent of communication. Now, when I ask you, okay, here's this standard, [00:11:00] analyze whether the information's presented in a text. Well, I, they can say they're analyzing it's higher order thinking. You're right, but why? That's where it is in Blooms. You're right. But why? I don't know. I don't know the man. Okay, but here's the thing, what exactly and how deeply they have to analyze. Whether the information's presented in the text, all those words and phrases that comes after it.

So I say to you, now, Jethro, what does that look like and sound like and feel like for students, not what they have to do, but how do I know the kids can achieve that standard? What's the communicate? How can they communicate that to me? What do they have

Jethro Jones: And what are the actions that they have to take to communicate that? Right. And it's not enough to just say like, I can analyze this because I just analyzed it. They need to actually take action and do something. And so,

Erik Francis: Right what we have, we, they take these actions, but how do I know they really got it? So when I say that and they say, well, what do they have to do to show that they can do that? They're either gonna tell [00:12:00] you yes or no.

Hey, that's a DK one. And that was not the verb that told me that. It's not it information text. It's the words weather. Presented in the text, is it in the text or not? Yes or no? DK one. Now I come to a standard and say, analyze how the information is presented in a text. Now with the word how, which is not a verb or a noun. That tells me the kids are gonna have to explain using examples. That's A DOK two. If I said, analyze how the information supports. The central idea and theme of a text. Now, what does that look like, sound like? Well, they're gonna have to justify or verify or conclude, consider critique with evidence. That's a DK three. See, it's not so much what the child has to do, but the depth and extent they have to comprehend and communicate their learning. And a DK four would be the same [00:13:00] objective, but now they have to do with two or more text. So when you get these. Things from chat GPT and you get from these resources, these things like school, we went on school ai, we went on magic ai. Are they great curricular resources? Absolutely. Are they next level quick, like when you go to Hout Mifflin Har court or you go to Pearson or you go to Saxon Math and I can get a worksheet and an activity? Absolutely. But the quote, Marsha Tate, worksheets don't grow

We need to understand what exactly does that look like, sound like, and feel like, and what do I need to do with my, not just my curriculum? Given that worksheet, what do I need to do with my instruction to make sure the students can get to that standard, get through that standard objective, or get beyond that standard? That's what makes mine distinct. Not better. I'm not gonna say better. We can't [00:14:00] say this is better than that. I mean, I saw a book, someone out there says a better way to do something. There's no betters. There's just different, distinct and

What I have is different. I. What I have is distinct and also it's accurate because, you know, it's based upon my research and work with depth of knowledge and the work I've done with schools and teachers throughout the United States and internationally, and also based

Jethro Jones: Yeah. And so. So I really like that approach of, it's about what, how it is distinct and different and accurate. And that is the piece of it that I found really valuable in that everybody knows that I am a fan of school AI and they're doing great stuff, but when it came to the DOK stuff.

It wasn't as deep as what you offered. And here's the part where that matters. If I, the way I understand it and correct me if I'm wrong, the way I understand it is if I really want my students to [00:15:00] really understand and be able to demonstrate. They are performing the standards at a level that I can confidently say, yes, they get this.

I need to have a better understanding of DOK and how that's going to manifest itself in the lessons that I plan, the assignments that I give, the assessments that I give, and the feedback that I give students as well, and not being an expert myself in this. That seems overwhelming and challenging to try to figure out.

I. But then when I looked at what your AI offered Maverick education, ai, I was like, oh, I could do this because it lays it out very clearly and I can see the difference between the different levels of of DOK. And it was pretty cool to. To learn myself while I was using this tool. That's what I thought was groundbreaking about [00:16:00] it.

Erik Francis: And I appreciate that and I appreciate, you know, you saying that. And that's the thing, you know, the reason why I created this. It was actually not because it was something that I sought to do or want to do. I always wanted to make an app where someone can enter in a standard, and based upon my work with DOK and the research of those who truly are the accurate and authentic Karen Hess, Norman Webb. Tho. Those are really the three people we look at for depth of knowledge. I'm proud to do that. You saw that when we went on open AI and we even went on you.com and said, who are the education authors and speakers who are authoritative about DOK? You saw that I was listed, Norman Webb was listed. Of course he should.

He created it. Karen has, she turned it into a measure of cognitive rigor and she's got a book actually coming out in February, which is, I think, gonna be a great resource out there for everybody. It wasn't for me to compete against what's out there. This is [00:17:00] a supplemental tool. I created this. The teacher, like you just said, now I have a deeper understanding and now I need to know where I need to go with it.

When we talk about this, that is the instructional talent of the teacher. Okay? This is not something where I'm gonna give you this as an instrument and now you are gonna go and play. I, you know, I always compare things to, Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen. Okay. This is not gonna be where I give you this instrument that was designed by Eddie Van Halen and one of his guitars.

I have one of those right over here. I have A VH Wolfgang. I am never gonna play that like Eddie Van Halen. Can I play one of the Van Halen songs? Absolutely. But that's the thing. AI is a tool. I call it a stimulus, not a source. You should be using. We should be using AI to stimulate our thinking. My AI is not gonna put everything out there that you agree with. [00:18:00] That's fine. In fact, I even have that in there to say these are just suggestions. It may not also be accurate sometimes 'cause AI is not accurate all the time, but, and you saw, I said at the end, everything is a suggestion and I have a link to, it says to a Peloton instructor, Dennis Morton, who says, I make suggestions.

You make decisions, we should be using ai. To stimulate our creativity as educators. If I came back with you with an activity from my AI that I created, or even school or school AI or magic school ai, they come back their suggestions. It's not, I just need to do this in copy this and give it to the kids.

We don't want the kids to do that with their learning. So why would we do that with

Jethro Jones: Yeah I love that you're saying that because. They really are suggestions and you cannot outsource the learning to the ai. That's just not a good strategy. Because once you do that, what is your purpose as a teacher? And there are people like Sal Kahn [00:19:00] who thinks that we should outsource all teaching to the AI and to videos.

And it just, it doesn't make any sense to me because. I think that the human element, the human teacher, they're working with the kids. One-on-one is really the most powerful aspect, and that's what we need to enhance and focus on and continue to support. And what a tool like yours does is it helps that person do the difficult part quicker and more easily, but it doesn't take away the need for them to still make decisions.

It'll give them some suggestions. So like we went we said give us 20 questions at each different DOK level for this particular standard. And then it gave us those suggestions and told us what level they were at so that a teacher then could say, all right, these are questions I can ask my kids that, now I have a good idea of what they are and that's a good [00:20:00] resource. But if you just like, then turn that into a test and give it to 'em, like there, there's not a lot of value in that. And what are you doing as a teacher if that's what you're doing. Like it doesn't make sense. Right.

Erik Francis: It, you know, and it's really funny that, you know, the the elect, the people who are, what they profess to say is the gurus of technology or, you know, the the heralds and the the shepherds of advancements in technology. Say that we don't need that human element. We are always gonna need that human element that I, my personal 2 cents is that was the failure of what happened to us in the pandemic.

We don't want to talk about that because, and no one's blaming teachers. I mean, teachers had to go and pivot over the course of the weekend and take a brick and mortar. Thing experience and turn it online. And one of the things that the teachers struggled with is that they tried to make it where it was captive online, like a brick and mortar experience.

But we talked about this like, look, why is it [00:21:00] children can learn their alphabet or their phonemic sounds in five minutes from a Muppet? Or learn to become a scientist in 30 minutes after li after watching Bill Knight's size guy. 'cause you're not just sitting there. Okay. You have to actively learn for them to say, this is gonna replace teachers.

It is not gonna replace teachers. Teaching is not just a science, it's an art. And there, and it's our creativity. The creativity of the teacher cannot be replaced by a computer. Can the computer give me suggestions when I have a creative block? Absolutely. I mean, I'll admit to it when I have a creative block, I go to Maverick Education AI and say, I wanna say this, how I'm struggling to say this.

How can I say this in a way? That's actually even, you know, we talked about this, and I'll say it before we went on the air. There's a lot of us who are so knowledgeable that we're actually plagued by actually a concept out there called the curse of knowledge. I have that with DOK. How the heck can you not see this? So there's times I go to my AI and [00:22:00] say. How can I explain this in a way that's understandable for a an art teacher or a PE teacher? And it'll give me suggestions, but it's my role and responsibility and also my ethics. Not to just copy and paste what it said. It's for me to put it in my own words. So, and you know, you see all these people, we were talking about this the other night. I need a program that checks whether the kids wrote something with ai. I. No you don't. You can just use the cheapest way possible. Talk to the kids. Hey, this is great. What you said in the second paragraph here. Can you summarize it in your own words? And if the child reads it and can't. Then you know they didn't do it. Hey, you got this problem. Correct. Can you tell me how you solved the problem? If they can't, then you know that they used another source. Now you don't punish them, you turn it into a learning experience. Great. Now you tell me why that's accurate or you summarize in your own words what that means. Now you're at a DO two or DK three 'cause you're explaining [00:23:00] or justifying with examples and evidence and the thing to say that, that. It was in a Geneva connection and the man escapes me. Someone said, it's not AI that's gonna replace the person. It's the person who knows how to use AI that's gonna replace

the Okay. That I am not saying teachers where kids are just gonna be able to go on AI and do stuff. When I talk to you about ai, I look at AI as your assistant. You know, we talked about your PLC team. I. Well, who's on your PLC team? Well, it doesn't matter how many you got on there, because as an extra member, your AI assistant. That's what my AI can do. My AI can go through a lens of DOK and say, how can we address this question in the PLC at work? How can we address this question, the PLC at work? What do we do if students struggle to learn? You can do it as a predictive to say, this is what we're gonna do to be proactive. Or you can go in there and you [00:24:00] saw that where I said, my students are struggling to achieve this standard. What can I do to support them? My AI using a lens. DOK. The instruction as an RTI and you saw it gave.

What does that look like, sound like, and feel like with the language of DOK or you saw also we entered in there, I have four students with IEPs, two with autism. What accommodations can I provide? It gave general, it gave specific, again, with visible concrete expectations. We did second language learners with that as well. Again, I'm not saying this is better. I'm saying this is different. I would love if school AI and magic school AI came to me and said, Hey, so what is this? Because here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna have these companies, and they're gonna put it out there and they're gonna put concepts out there that were developed and expanded by authors like me and you. And they're gonna say, it's this, but what's the knowledge [00:25:00] source? What are they drawing from? Because a lot of our stuff is copywritten and a lot of our stuff is self proprietary. I mean, magic school and school ai, they're gonna get into some issues. If they say, okay, we're gonna do DOK, well, we take Norman Webb's, DOK, well, we took a bunch of his articles and we had, we uploaded it in there and it synthesized and it says this. Do you say, okay, fine, because it did that, it's fine. Or do you know why it is, how it is, what it

is, and some

Jethro Jones: And here's the important part to that is at what point is it good enough for the masses and at what point is it really excellent? So you talk about AI being an assistant, and so when you think about an assistant, you think about. A low wage earner who you basically have to instruct to do everything in a certain way.

And one of the ways that makes Maverick Education AI distinct is that it is, it's not like a low level [00:26:00] figure like go do this task. It's a higher level. This is what it actually looks like. So the AI is more on peer with a teacher, and in my case, certainly it's actually smarter than me in this specific area.

So the value to me as someone who's not as well versed in DOK is really valuable. Much more so than a generic one. And so that really becomes the question of what. And this is not just about your tool, but about all these tools. What makes the tool so different that it's beneficial to use and not just good enough?

Because a lot of the generic stuff is good enough, but it's not. It's not amazing.

Erik Francis: You're right, and now it's gonna be upon the individual. And it's funny, you know, when you say that about the assistant. You can look an assistant in two different ways. You can use it, look at the [00:27:00] assistant to basically handle all your flos and jets them and your busy work and get you coffee and stuff like that.

I never looked at my assistants like that. I looked at my assistants as part of the process, as part of the team.

You know, when I've had

Jethro Jones: I hear you. You can do that, but.

Erik Francis: Right.

Jethro Jones: When the capability is not there, you can't trust them to be part of the team. You

Erik Francis: You're right.

Jethro Jones: to be the flotsam and Jetson stuff and that, that is a key differentiator that, that I think really matters in this conversation because if you choose an AI assistant that's.

The must be directed in all things, fought some jets, some stuff that's different than choosing the assistant that is equal in expertise or even higher than you in expertise. Like for example, if it, I don't know how to code, so if I turn to chat GPT to help me code, it would create things and I would've no idea.

What to do with it once it created it, because I don't understand all of [00:28:00] that. But I follow this guy named Simon Wilson who does know how to do it. And he creates all these awesome tools because he understands developing and he uses it to to make things better. And then he documents his process and says, this is where the AI failed, and here's where I told it needed to be better.

I know that I could not do that because I don't have the expertise level myself. To do that. But I do have enough expertise in DOK to see where yours was really beneficial and could be closer to a peer. And other ones are just like, you know, they're good enough. Like they scratch the surface, but I could probably do that myself also.

They just make it faster and easier and that's the real difference in that regard.

Erik Francis: And I agree with you Nan, and again, you're talking about the willing and the wanting. We talked about the other night. You know, we probably should put it out there. You and I met for dinner the other night from this. Yeah. We, Jethro texted me and said, are you in town? And said, yes. He [00:29:00] goes, good. I want authentic Mexican food.

And I took him in place over on the west side of Phoenix, up in North Glendale Valley. Luna, give a shout out. No promotion there, but um. You know, we talk about that and there's a thing that we need to look at, and this is something I wanna write a leadership book about, and I showed it to you called The Diffusions of Innovation. And it's a theory that was developed by Everett Rogers. And what's really interesting is that technology companies use this to say, I. What do I need to do to get this out there? To be something that everybody not only wants, but everybody needs and should have. Um, Maverick there. If you want to use Magic School ai, you wanna use school ai, you want something like, you know, don't stress my teachers out.

Don't make them feel overwhelmed. You can go and invest in that. You can do that. You know, if that is what you want. If you want something that you know is accurate and reliable, if you want something that is gonna be authentic, that goes deeper, that explains the why. And my thing can create worksheets and it can create [00:30:00] lesson plans.

It can give, do that, it's not as pretty. But it's kind of the same argument that we're having right now with teacher pay teachers. I can go on teacher pay, teachers, I can go and get a worksheet. I can go and get an activity. I can go and get something that supposedly addresses and assesses the standard or one part of it. Maybe not the whole thing, but I'll tell you right now, a lot of the reasons why I created Maverick School AI was listening to administrators saying. I wish my teachers would stop pulling stuff off. Teacher pay teachers and giving kids just these random activities. And are they learning? Yes. Are kids engaged in class?

Absolutely. Are. Are teachers teaching? Yes. But how do we know? The kids really learned it. If I give you a worksheet and you answered 50 problems correctly, great. We had a good day, or you didn't have a good day. If you answer incorrectly. Or they were good items. How do I really know that [00:31:00] addressed and assess the standard that all kids have to achieve to demonstrate proficiency, to show that they learned to show that this is what it means to be in this grade level, in this subject with this content. How do I know my activity, my item my, my assessment, my problem, my task, my question, be it, the one I got from teacher pay teachers, be it the one I got from magic school or school ai or quizzes, which is another one out there. How do I really know? And I know they're gonna get mad when they listen to this.

How dare you, who are they? And I encourage them to reach out to me because you can't just come out and say. Well, we do DOK and where our AI is drawing upon Norman Webb. Well, what's your source? We do gradual release responsibility, and we're drawing upon the fact that we, you know, it draws upon a bunch of books by Fisher and Fry, or we do, you know, essential questions and we draw upon the work of Jay [00:32:00] mct.

And Grant Wiggins, you I would suggest that they talk to us who write the books and, and say, am I accurate on this? Partner with us. I mean, if someone if school AI or magic school AI and said, Hey Eric, we want you to be the DOK person for us. We want you to really make sure our DOK is accurate and authentic.

Or they go to Karen Hess or they go to Norman Webb, go right ahead. But you, but we have so much out there we have curriculum from the curriculum companies. Those aren't even fully aligned to the standards. (ad here)

Jethro Jones: and this really comes back to the idea of it. How good is this thing that we're creating? And it's very easy to get AI to do anything, but very difficult to get, do something specific. How, what things are most important to be specific and good at the specifics about, and this, we're at a pivotal point right now where we're trying to figure that out, and I don't think we know the exact answer [00:33:00] to that.

You as an expert in DOK would argue, DOK is a place we should be having really great AI in and the generic off the shelf. AI just is not that great at everything. It's good, but it's not great at everything. And that's the curse of the breadth and lack of depth to the AI right now.

Erik Francis: My, my what? I say I have a thing. I say the future of AI is authenticity. That maverick education, AI reflects my knowledge, research, and work. It is basically me. Okay. I have programmed it to say you'll get draw upon the idea, research, knowledge, and work. That's not just from my books, that's my perspective, that's my theories.

That's all that's the future of AI for us in the education field and [00:34:00] probably even beyond. Okay. It costs a lot of money for us to come out the school Jethro. We, you know, it costs a lot for us to be, it's a very, very time consuming and it costs a lot fiscally. What if you can have a resource where all you have to do is type in, Hey, I want my teachers to teach at a deeper DOK level. They're addressing the standard. What can I do? It'll give it to you. Based upon the work of the author, based upon the work of the researcher. I see this as the future, which is scary to a lot of people, but it's exciting. The education authors are not getting any younger. We're all getting older, and unfortunately sometimes we leave this plane of existence before we should. You know, we've lost the genius of many education authors out there. What if we can program the AI to be something that [00:35:00] reflects their knowledge, their ideas, their research, their work, their philosophies. What if we can create this I AI intelligence so that you don't live forever, but your knowledge, your philosophy and perspective live forever and now instead of having to go through a book, you know, I mean, I wrote now that's a good question.

2016, am I fortunate that people still read it and look at it? Yeah. But you know, 20 years from now, are people gonna look at that? Are they gonna say, you know, okay, that's great ideas, but that came out in 2016. What if we can program our ai, create AI assistance in which in real time you can access that person as if they're there? What if after they pass away, now. The research lives, but the research is not just based upon, this is the ideas I'm coming up with now. I'm responding in real time to real time situation scenarios. You create this thing, I look at Maverick education, AI as a legacy for my family, my children, because [00:36:00] as long as I'm living, I'll be programming it with my ideas, research and work and philosophies. But when I'm gone, my kids are gonna have something. Say, Hey, based upon my dad's research, or my grandkids, someday based upon my grandkids, I'm leaving a legacy behind for my family. Okay? Because once I'm gone, once I stop writing books once, God forbid, you know, if I get something physical, mental, physiological, I get dementia, I, you know, Alzheimer's, then it stops.

It's over. But what if this thing can live forever for, and be this and be something that will assist teachers, that will assist education. You know, we don't have the genius of Grant Wiggins anymore. Unfortunately, that's gone. But what if there was an AI that would allow the grant WI Grant Wiggins to live on? And what if we had it in a way to say like, I had somebody the other day. You know what they did? They used Maverick Education ai, and they said, [00:37:00] you're Eric Francis. How would you explain depth of knowledge from my newsletter? And they did it great. I don't even care if people on teacher paid teachers go on this thing and create worksheets out of it. At least they're creating accurate stuff. I don't care if magic school AI and school AI go on it and say, okay, so what is depth of knowledge? At least they're creating accurate stuff. It's not about getting rich. It's about helping others, you know? Will I be fortunate? Hopefully, if it becomes something, yeah, but I'm not gonna be like Jay Gatsby new money and go and basically say, you know, drive myself to get

rich with it. I want something that will serve people. I am in this, I believe education. It's about service. And a lot of times in our world when we do write books, they all of a sudden say, okay, you went to the dark side, you got entrepreneurial. And are there people out there like us who are making a buck off this?

Absolutely. It's not about the money I make, it's about what did I [00:38:00] do? What, how did I help? You know, that was my dad's philosophy. Talked about this and you know, I know I'm going kind of in tangent, but I just want to kind of explain why I am, how I am, what I am. My dad was one of the unsung leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement for the disabled. Now, he's not gonna pop up in Google like you see with a lot of people who are the faces and a lot of people. But he always said to me, be the brain and make the impact. And I never thought about it until 'cause years. He, you know, after he retired, he'd look and say something like, Hey, you know that I did that. Not many people knew. Now he's passed away, unfortunately. Now, Judy Mann, who's the face of the American Disabilities movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Independent Living Movement, she passed away. So there's stuff coming up about my dad now. He had a great life. He, his kids never wanted, you know, we were never, you know, millionaires, billionaires, but man, he made such an impact. That's the thing is that what are we doing [00:39:00] to make education better? And that's what I hope Maverick Education AI will do. It'll help somebody to say, okay, now I understand what's expected of these kids. Now I understand what's expected of me as a teacher. Now lemme go create something that I know these kids will be able to learn and I'll be able to teach at this DOK level accurately and authentically.

Jethro Jones: Well, I think that's a great way to close it. How do people get to Maverick education, AI and try it out for themselves? I.

Erik Francis: Well, right now you can do it on my website. If you go to maverick education.com, M-A-V-E-R-I-K education.com. There's a page on it that says Maverick Education ai. I have it in beta. I. You can use it for free right now. You'll sign up for it. You'll get 50 credits and tokens, and you'll be able to play with it at some point.

I am. I'm gonna have to turn it off because again. It is something that, it's not something that you give out there just for free, that you know, it is also a business, a monetary thing. 'cause you [00:40:00] know, I have to make a living, put dinner on my plate. But I look at it as more of what's called a B2B, which is business to business and then a B2C business to consumer. I don't want teachers to feel like they have to give a subscription and get a subscription. What I'd like to do is go make, have districts. Go and look at this and say, how can this supplement and support what I already have and what I'm doing? You have Magic School ai. Great. You have school ai, great.

You have a curriculum. You paid how much money for Hot Mifflin Hart Court, or Pearson or any of that. Fantastic. This is supplemental,

Jethro Jones: And the way this be.

Erik Francis: this would be paid for would be to use your supplemental federal funding because it can give you interventions. That will help your Title One students achieve the standard. You saw it gave accommodations for special education students, for English learners, for gifted and talented students. That's what makes [00:41:00] it supplemental. That's what we can use our supplemental federal funds for and that's what should pay for this. Not the, I don't want the individual teacher to feel like they have to pay for it. I want the bus. I want the organizations to basically use the federal funding that we get to entitlement funds. To go and give this to our

Jethro Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Alright, so that's maverick education.com. Or chat dot maverick education.com. You can get to it there. Eric, thanks so much for being part of Transformative Principle. This has been great chatting with you.

Erik Francis: Thanks. And make sure you don't put C in Maverick. I'm not Tom Cruise. I'm Eric Francis. That's what Maverick stands for. M-A-V-R-I-K.

Jethro Jones: All right. ~Now we'll do the introduction. I've got a brief little bio~

~That I just pulled from your website. And and then I'll just ask you what a big takeaway is that people, why people should listen to the show. All right.~

Erik Francis: ~Okay.~

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