Open AI's Impact on Education
Key Points
- The episode explores how open‑AI concepts are reshaping industries, especially education, by making learning more accessible, personalized, and aligned with modern job market demands.
- AI is driving a surge in demand for new skills, opening pathways for diverse talent and enabling people from varied backgrounds to pursue roles they previously might not have considered.
- Both guests stress a human‑centered, ethical approach to AI, arguing that technology must be guided by inclusive values to benefit teachers, students, and the broader workforce.
- Justina Nixon shares her path from being one of the few Black women in mechanical engineering to becoming IBM’s first Chief Impact Officer, using her engineering mindset to transform traditional philanthropy into tech‑driven social‑impact solutions (e.g., leveraging 4G/5G for disadvantaged communities).
- April Dawson, an associate dean of technology and innovation, adds perspective on how AI is already influencing curricula and legal education, reinforcing the need for educators to embrace AI responsibly.
Full Transcript
# Open AI's Impact on Education **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yvwua9RHIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yvwua9RHIM) **Duration:** 00:41:56 ## Summary - The episode explores how open‑AI concepts are reshaping industries, especially education, by making learning more accessible, personalized, and aligned with modern job market demands. - AI is driving a surge in demand for new skills, opening pathways for diverse talent and enabling people from varied backgrounds to pursue roles they previously might not have considered. - Both guests stress a human‑centered, ethical approach to AI, arguing that technology must be guided by inclusive values to benefit teachers, students, and the broader workforce. - Justina Nixon shares her path from being one of the few Black women in mechanical engineering to becoming IBM’s first Chief Impact Officer, using her engineering mindset to transform traditional philanthropy into tech‑driven social‑impact solutions (e.g., leveraging 4G/5G for disadvantaged communities). - April Dawson, an associate dean of technology and innovation, adds perspective on how AI is already influencing curricula and legal education, reinforcing the need for educators to embrace AI responsibly. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yvwua9RHIM&t=0s) **Open AI Transforming Education** - In this episode, IBM leaders discuss how openness in artificial intelligence is reshaping education and the workforce, creating new skill demands, expanding opportunities for diverse talent, and emphasizing ethical, human‑centered implementation. ## Full Transcript
hello hello welcome to Smart talks with
IBM a podcast from Pushkin Industries
iHeart radio and IBM I'm Malcolm
Gladwell this season we're diving back
into the world of artificial
intelligence but with a focus on the
powerful concept of open its
possibilities implications and
misconceptions we'll look at openness
from a variety of angles and explore how
the concept is already reshaping
Industries ways of doing business and
our very notion of what's possible on
today's episode Dr Lorie Santos sat down
with two women at the Forefront of AI in
education Justina Nixon santiel is vice
president and chief impact officer of
IBM corporate social responsibility and
April Dawson is an associate dean of
technology and Innovation and professor
of law at North Carolina Central
University School of Law
together they explore the transformative
impact of AI on education and the
workforce as technology rapidly evolves
Industries are being reshaped and the
demand for new skills is at an all-time
high this is opening up opportunities
for diverse Talent enabling individuals
from various backgrounds to excel in
roles they might not have previously
considered they also address the ethical
considerations of AI emphasizing the
importance of maintaining a human
centered approach whether you're a
teacher a student or someone interested
in the future of work it's essential to
embrace the role of AI in the education
landscape AI is not only changing the
way we work but also how we learn making
education more accessible personalized
and aligned with the demands of the
modern job
[Music]
market Justin and April so great to meet
both of you I'm so excited for this
conversation thank you for having me and
thank you for having me Justina to start
could you share some insights on your
journey to becoming IBM's Chief impact
officer and how your background in
engineering shapes your approach to
corporate social responsibility so I've
had an interesting Journey I'm an
immigrant I was one of the only black
women who graduated from my schools
mechanical engineering program many many
years ago I started my engineering
career at a nuclear facility that's
around 45 miles outside of Buffalo New
York and eventually worked for one of
the largest telecommunications companies
in the world in engineering marketing
and eventually incorporate social
responsibility I was hired to lead the
organization away from traditional
philanthropy to creating platforms and
solutions that leveraged 4G and 5G
Technologies to positively impact
disadvantaged communities and that has
what has led me to the work that I do at
IBM today I have the honor of being the
company's first Chief impact officer and
it's such a privilege and a
responsibility to be at IBM which has
such a huge history in sustainability in
Social and in the ethical space as well
when I consider how my background in
engineering ties into the work that I do
I actually think Engineers are very
skilled at analyzing data and at
Innovative problem solving the other
thing where there's a lot of alignment
with my engineering background is really
around how do I think about using
technology to solve some of the biggest
issues that we have in society and I get
very excited about innovating and
creating and leveraging Technologies
like Ai and hybrid Cloud to really bring
those into the work that we do and to
solve some of those big challenges that
we have in society today around
sustainability and education that's
fabulous April tell me about your path
to becoming associate dean of technology
and Innovation as well as a professorin
law so I am a child of an educator
actually Educators both my parents are
Educators I went to high school where my
mom taught and it was in the 80s and it
was during that time period when
teachers were given Apple Computers so
they were brand new my mom brought one
home I started you know playing with it
and I just kind of fell in love with the
technology I received my undergraduate
degree in computer science science
because of that early exposure I went to
Bennett College here in Greensboro North
Carolina it's an HBCU a historically
black college in University I was a
programmer after graduating from Bennett
and I've always loved technology but I
also had a love for the law so after
being a programmer for a couple of years
I decided to go to law school and even
as a lawyer I leveraged technology in my
private practice when I decided to begin
teaching almost 20 years ago I would ask
myself how could I leverage the
technology to enhance my teaching to
help the students better understand the
material and so when our Dean at the
time brownie Lewis when she was able to
facilitate a $5 million Grant to North
Carolina Central University School of
Law we created the technology law and
policy Center and she asked me if I
would be interested in serving as the
inaugural associate dean of technology
and Innovation so suffice it to say I'm
in my dream job I'm able to combine my
love of Technology my love of law my
love of education and so it's really an
exciting time to be in a position like I
have I love that April what inspired you
to integrate Ai and Technology into your
law
curriculum it's interesting as I
mentioned before I've always used it
personally as an educator but the
thought of teaching a class that really
kind of focused on technology and the
legal implications of that really
occurred because uh Ray Thomas who was
an IP lawyer and worked at IBM at the
time in 2020 so around the pandemic he
encouraged us to take advantage of the
IBM skills build training program the
Train the trainer program so really not
until that time period did I even really
even think about teaching a tech Focus
legal class and during that time period
a couple of my other colleagues and I we
did the Train the trainer blockchain
course I did the data science course and
then that next summer we team taught the
blockchain for lawyers class which we
designed and then I taught a data
science for lawyers class and so that
was you know really kind of the first
iteration of us really being intentional
about teaching technology and law and
then one of my other colleagues Dr sabon
Grady she is a professor at the school
of library and information Sciences here
at nccu she reached out to me and said
would you be interesting in teaching a
joint AI in the law class that would
include her master's of information
science students and my law students so
it's a wonderful interdisciplinary class
where you have Master's students and law
students and we talk about the
foundations of AI we talk about the
legal implications of policy
implications and so really you know this
kind of all started because of the
resources that IBM have made available
to
ntcu that's so cool and that class
sounds amazing I wish I could like drop
out of being a professor and attend this
class it sounds awesome and so this is a
question for both of you in this age of
AI and open technology does the role of
Education change are we kind of in a
different spot with what education
should be doing now when I look at the
role of Education today from the
corporate point of view I think it does
change I was having a discussion earlier
today with some members of my team and
we were discussing early professional
hires so people would want to hire right
out of college and one of the first
things that I shared was some of the
tasks that they would have done
previously will be automated we will be
using AI for those basic tasks that in
the past would have hired an inter turn
or a recent college graduate to do and
it's so critical now that we look at
higher level types of tasks that we'll
need college graduates to do and I can
foresee in the future hiring someone
from college who does not have at least
a basic understanding of AI there will
be some roles where they will have to
have an advanced understanding
especially if they're in an engineering
role or computer science role but across
the board they will need to understand
AI so when I think about the way that
education is changing whether you're a
college student whether you are an adult
professional you will need to be a
lifelong learner and you will need to
understand how to continuously upskill
and res skill yourself to be able to
understand Technologies like AI because
of the rapid acceleration of these types
of Technologies and I think that's very
important I think everyone has to be
prepared if they're not doing it today
to upskill and res skill themselves and
I can't foresee any roles in the future
where candidates will not need to have a
very basic understanding of AI or even
Advanced understanding of
AI That's great April let me ask you a
slightly different version of the
question what is the significance of AI
for students and young professionals
today when we think about the disruption
that Genai especially has caused within
the legal profession students have to be
more Adept when it comes to feeling
comfortable being uncomfortable and
learning something new the other thing
that I would just kind of emphasize from
an educational standpoint is this also
means that Educators have to approach
teaching differently you know I've been
teaching for going on 20 years and
things are kind of being turned on their
head somewhat right and I have had to
upskill and res skill we can't teach
that what we don't know we can't monitor
that what we don't know just as the
students have to understand generative
AI the Educators have to understand it
as well yeah this is something I felt in
the classroom myself as a psychology
Professor right is that I'm realizing
how much I need to kind of go back to
school and learn about all these AI
tools not just so I can teach it but
just so I can understand how my students
are using these things right but also to
figure out how I can enhance the
educational experience of my own
students in Psychology right by giving
them access to these tools and so April
I'm curious in your experience how does
AI actually enhance the educational
experience for your law students and I'm
curious if you could give an example of
the type of thing you do in your
classroom yes so one of the things that
I I tell my students is you got to get
your hands dirty you can't understand
these tools if you don't kind of dig in
and just see how they work so one giving
them permission and encouraging them to
do it in terms of how they might be able
to
use these tools to help them learn
better I encourage them to as they're
wrestling maybe with Concepts that are
confusing they haven't completely
wrapped their heads around it and when
we think about large language models
these tools are really helpful in that
sense right if there's a passage in the
book and you're not quite following it
or there's a a case right and you need
some assistance in breaking it down
running that information through a large
language model and then ask asking
questions about it can be really
beneficial also in the law score the
legal context large language models are
really helpful for that as well but one
thing I do caution my students is that
any understanding that you think you
have gained through the use of these
tools you need to Circle back to your
professor and make sure that your
understanding is correct I love that and
I I've seen the importance of that in my
own classroom too you mentioned so many
of the things that these tools are great
at but I think another thing that AI in
the classroom can help us with is
democratizing the classroom and so
Justina I'm curious in what ways do you
think integrating AI into education is
help us going to bridge these gaps and
actually democratize access to education
even more yeah I think it's going to
really make a difference in providing
access to education in many different
ways I want to give you an example
through our IBM skills Bill program
we're infusing AI technology into the
platform to create a more personalized
enhanced experience for Learners in
every language so we are creating
personalized learning Pathways we are
tailoring the access to our Learners to
meet their individual needs and we're
also using AI to answer questions in a
more timely and accurate manner if you
really think about it you will need a
significant staff to be able to respond
quickly to questions to make sure the
questions are accurate with AI we can
answer questions immediately we can
answer them in a more sophisticated way
than we did in the past and we can also
offer course recommendations and
learning Pathways that meet their needs
we have courses such as AI ethics and
prompt writing and getting started with
machine learning all the way to actually
using coding to help create these large
language models so when you think about
the average learner that we are working
with they may want just an introductory
course on AI ethics or understanding how
to use AI in their day-to-day work or
they actually may want to understand how
do you really leverage or code for large
language model and I think it's
important to give them all the different
options and create those personalized
learning Pathways for them the other
thing around really democratizing
opportunities to provide free access to
this kind of learning and we do that
again through our skills build program
if you have courses that you can only
pay to access then you're really not
given the opportunity for everyone to
advance and to learn so by leveraging AI
on our platform but also providing that
free access we're really helping to
bridge the gap you know for Learners and
make sure they can upskill and res skill
themselves and help them also increase
social and economic
Mobility this sounds like an amazing
program Justina can you describe the
vision behind IBM skills build and how
it's built to reach so many Learners
around the world world yeah so IBM has
always been committed to investing in
the future of work and we've offered
educational experiences for many many
years and IBM skills build is a program
again it's free it's open anyone can
access it but it's really around getting
access to the right technical skills and
workplace learning skills so that you
could be prepared for a career in
technology but in any industry and any
field we know now that understanding
technology understanding AI or cyber
security or any of those Tech topics are
needed whether you're working in a tech
company or whether you're working in
retail or illegal or any of these
different Industries so we want to make
sure we could provide that access to
Learners in 2021 we launched a global
commitment to skill 30 million people by
2030 and we are making significant
progress against that goal just last
year we reported that we skilled 11.5
million Learners around the world and
these are Learners that enrolled in IBM
courses including accessing our platform
IBM skills build and it's really the
Cornerstone of our education work at IBM
we really focus on scaling our work
through Partnerships so we partner with
historically black colleges and
universities and that's how of course we
got the chance to meet April we partner
with nonprofit organizations across the
globe we also partner with governments
to make sure we provide that free access
to the communities that are aligned with
their National agenda around Skilling
and those communities that are most in
need it's really important that we scale
the program through those Premier
Partnerships so that's extremely
important to us the vision behind IBM
skills build is truly inspiring in a
world where technology is changing every
industry having access to these crucial
skills is more important than ever this
initiative is breaking down barriers and
ensuring that people from all walks of
life can participate in the future of
work in order to effectively scale a
platform the Strategic collaborations
with educational institutions nonprofits
and governments are key it's clear that
IBM is deeply invested in creating
longlasting change in communities around
the world this approach will strengthen
the workforce globally helping to bridge
the digital divide and create more
Equitable opportunities in the tech
space so now we're shifting gears to
think a little bit about the real world
insights Justina what can you tell us
about the skills first movement this
seems to be an open approach to
attracting top talent what are you
hearing from students and partners yeah
so IBM has been leading the skills first
movement for quite some time and one of
the things that we realized and we
actually tested this out is that you
don't always need a four-year degree to
be successful at a tech job so when we
looked at the job postings that we had
we decided to make a commitment to have
at least 50% of our job postings not
requiring a 4-year degree and when we
started hiring people without a 4-year
degree in certain roles we realized that
they were as successful as those with a
La year degree now this doesn't work
across the board but this is really a
way to get access to what I consider to
be untapped talent that are skilled in
different ways maybe they've had some
experiences already maybe they have a
different set of Badges and certificates
or other credentials that can support
them getting access to some of the roles
that are offered by companies so this is
really a way to help address the
opportunity Gap and provide a pathway
for
Talent what impact do you think AI has
had on global learning standards broadly
so far I think from the perspective of a
law student realizing that this little
Universe in which we kind of thought we
might operate has expanded when we think
about Ai and we think about the
implications of AI it goes far beyond
our State national I mean you have to
have an understanding of what's going on
in other countries so even when we're
thinking about the regulation of AI and
the governance of AI and policies
surrounding AI it means you have to be
open to learning about what's happening
in other countries where AI is
disrupting those spaces as well so again
I think it really underscores for our
law students how you have to see
yourself as part of a larger team
lawyers don't work in isolation and it's
really good that law students are
recognizing that while they're still in
school so it really seems like these
Technologies are kind of changing the
learning experience in law by making
kind of broader and maybe more Global
Justina can you share an example of how
IBM skills build has made a significant
difference in other kinds of learning
Journeys yeah absolutely I mean this is
one of the most rewarding parts of my
job what I get excited about is when I
travel and I meet with students who have
been a part of IBM skills build and they
have been able to use the learning the
certificates the opportunities that
we've provided them around mentorship as
well to be able to move into a better
paying job or a new job that they did
not have the opportunity previously we
had one of our Learners his name was
Oscar and he arrived in California from
Mexico when he was around 5 years old
and he worked and he attended College
full-time but during his last semester
he was introduced to the IBM skills Bill
program through the Hispanic Heritage
Foundation one of our partners and
through the career assessment tool of
the program he identified areas where he
could Excel and IT allowed him to dig
deeper into learning paths that match
his interest and his skills so he
started taking courses such as AI
fundamentals he earned credentials and
he was able to get a better role when he
graduated from college so we have so
many beneficiaries of the program who
have been able to access the training
also access the mentorship that we
provide through the program and able to
give get a better paying on new job
because of it that's fabulous April I
know your students have used IBM skills
build can you give us an example of how
it's made an important impact on a
student's Journey yes absolutely so I
mentioned that we taught a blockchain
for lawyers class and one of the
students had a big interest in in
blockchain cryptocurrency he actually
also had a master's in information
science and so he was a dual degree
student he was o in my AI in the law
class so he not only got the blockchain
certificate he got the AI Foundation
certificate he want up being the
editor-in chief of the Law Journal and
he is a legal Tech lawyer and so this
kind of goes back to what Justina was
saying about making sure that the talent
that's there has access to the resources
it really does make a big difference in
so many of our students lives that's
such an inspiring story Justina I'm
curious what impact skills build has had
on the communities you work with maybe
even Beyond just students yeah so it has
had a tremendous impact in our
communities I think one of the big
things about digital skills and
upskilling and reskilling is not just in
certain areas for example I mentioned
the story of Oscar who was graduating
from college got access to skills build
it helped him get a better paying job
but we have programs in sustainability
as well we are working with farmers in
the middle of Texas and we are providing
access to skills build as well so that
they can use the technology and
understand the technology that we are
bringing to them through our
sustainability accelerator program and
what's so interesting about this is we
need to upskill and res skill them as
well right so if you think about certain
jobs where you just need to better
understand the data or the technology
our Partnerships with nonprofits to be
able to bring it to people in different
fields and sustainability is one that we
focus on as well that has been inspiring
to me we also have programs where we
focus on girls especially in India and
make sure we're giving them access to
this kind of training and mentorship
again to make them competitive in the
marketplace to make sure that they have
an opportunity at a good paying job and
that they could be independent so our
Global Partners work with us on
leveraging skills build curating it in a
way that makes sense for their
communities that they want to impact and
we focus on women who have left the
workforce and they want to return we
focus on Veterans we focus on black
communities in the US Or Hispanic
communities so we really look at those
really great Global Partnerships and
make sure we are bringing in people who
would have been otherwise left out of
the tech field and giving them the
opportunity to resk and upskill
themselves and helping them throughout
Partnerships connect to good paying jobs
as well so so far we've been focused on
students and their learning but now I
want to turn to both of your learning
I'm curious what are some challenges
that you've faced in your careers and
how have you overcome them yeah sure so
one of the things that I quickly found
out was that law school was not as I
envisioned you kind of go in you think
it's one thing it's another the
curriculum can be very surprising it's
not like the undergraduate curriculum
and I just had to kind of reach out and
develop mentors and I was very lucky in
that I had a number of individuals who
provided me with you know a tremendous
amount of support and I think that's one
of the reasons why I love teaching so
much is to be able to support the
students and just help them kind of
build their community and their Network
so they can Excel and then they can
reach back and help others Excel as well
I love that Justina same question what
are some key challenges that you've
faced in your career and how have you
overcome them yeah I'm smiling because
what April mentioned is exactly the
experience I've had I was one of the
only black women to graduate from my
school's mechanical engineering program
and when my children were very young I
also stepped away from the workforce for
several years to focus on them and I
don't think I would be successful today
without the help of mentor
they're the ones that really help me to
be successful to understand the
corporate environment to connect me with
other opportunities and I think it's
important to me to make myself available
to others and that's a a really big part
of what I do I want to make myself and
my field more representative of the work
that we do and I want to make sure that
I provide access to others and give
others the same types of opportunities I
have and that's why I do enjoy leading
this type of work at IBM you're here to
both of you giving back to to the
students that we were back in the day
it's so important Justina IBM has a goal
of equipping 30 million Learners with
technology skills by 2030 as part of the
IBM skills builds programming why is
this initiative important and how is IBM
planning to exactly achieve this yeah we
believe the talent Gap is one of the
biggest challenges that we face in
society today so AI of course is is
accelerating this movement and there's
more of a sense of
urgency however we know that there is a
significant Talent Gap and that there
are many people that are disadvantaged
who are not getting access to the right
opportunities and that's why we made the
commitment to skill 30 million people by
2030 and that's why we're providing free
access to programs like IBM skills build
with over th courses in 20 languages to
make them accessible to all and to give
others the chance to be successful last
year we also announced a commitment to
train 2 million people in AI over the
next three years because again we
understand the importance of AI and
understanding it to be successful in any
job especially an entry-level job so
we're continuing to expand our AI
offerings because we know that it is
exacerbating the talent Gap and we know
that these skills will be in demand
significantly by corporations so April
Justina just mentioned you know all the
changes that we're seeing in AI I'm
curious what role you think Educators
play in terms of making students aware
of all these technological and societal
changes happening in their fields yeah
educators are so vital and one of the
things that I've noticed is that
students who have not engaged with the
tech have not done so either because an
educator a teacher or Professor has told
them not to that you know they just say
you know no you can't use it or they
haven't said anything at all they
haven't encouraged them to to look into
it to try it and we have to encourage
students to become familiar with these
tools for all the reasons that jusa
mentioned in terms of what the workforce
is demanding but also if we don't
provide them with guidance then there's
the real chance that they will use them
inappropriately so we have to provide
them with permission to dive in we have
to teach them how to use these tools
ethically with Integrity what are the
best practices and again that kind of
goes back to something I mentioned
before which I speak about a lot is that
it requires Educators to themselves
learn about these tools and that's one
of the reasons why I was so appreciative
of the trainer program because again we
started offering courses at the law
school because these courses were
provided free of charge of course to our
faculty so we were able to upskill and
res skill and then turn around and share
that with our students so educators are
are vital but I also think that we need
to make sure we do a better job as a
society of supporting our Educators so
that they can gain the knowledge and
then pay that forward to the students
right because not everybody's providing
the kinds of free resources says the IBM
provides for teachers who really need it
April in what ways has IBM skills build
changed your perspective on the
potential of AI in education well as far
as the potential it makes it so much
easier right I mean it lightens the lift
for educators if I had to design the AI
foundations class you know ground up
there's no way I could have done that
and if we're thinking about exposing
students regardless of their area of
study to AI or to
technology those that are experts in
those particular spaces they're not
going to be able to build those courses
so having something like IBM skills
build available so that we can you know
design a course around those modules
that are already put together is
incredibly helpful and so it means the
potential of providing AI education to
all students it just really increases is
the possibility which is good for for
all of
us Justina as you think about your work
at IBM how do you balance the need for
technological innovation with the
importance of maintaining a human-
centered approach in education I really
like how April touched on ethics earlier
because it is so important that we
continue to make sure the human is at
the center of everything that we do and
that we are protecting people even as we
Foster Innovation with AI and the way
that IBM has done that we've had
reasonable policies and guard rails in
place around everything that we do
around AI I'm actually a part of our AI
ethics board we meet on a regular basis
to discuss cases to discuss technology
and we actually have discussions and
make decisions on what is the right
thing to do and we are always
considering a human- centered approach
how do we make sure that we are protect
in people and how do we make sure that
we have their voice in every decision
that we make we have three principles
around trust and transparency and the
first is the purpose of AI is to augment
human intelligence not replace it the
second is that data and insights belong
to their creator so with anyone that we
work with we make sure that we protect
their Data Insights and it belongs to
them it doesn't belong to us and then
any new technology including any AI
products systems platforms must be
transparent and explainable so I think
that's important to have those types of
principles in place I'm proud to be a
part of the AI ethics board making
decisions around how AI is deployed and
I think making sure that we continue to
keep humans people at the center of
every decision we make around Innovation
is how we protect them so we've talked
so much about all the changes that that
are happening right now Justina I kind
of want you to put on your like you know
future prediction cap what future
developments do you anticipate in the
realm of open education I think that and
I've been in education a very long time
and I remember us talking about
personalized learning maybe 10 years 15
years ago and I'm not sure it ever came
to fruition in the way that we imagined
and we know that the teacher will always
be the guide they will always be the one
that's needed I don't think any
technology will ever replace teachers
but I think what AI can do is enhance
that experience by really creating
personalized learning content and
experiences in the education space I
think that is one of the things that I
would say should be something we see in
the very near future around the
acceleration of AI April you've done so
much elegant work teaching your students
about Ai and Technology I'm curious what
advice you have for other Educators and
technologists looking to advocate for a
skills first approach or more AI
training for their students what advice
would you have for them the first piece
of advice that I always give is don't
feel overwhelmed because you you can I
mean there's a lot going on it's hard to
keep up with how fast things are moving
even for those of us that that love this
space you don't have to do everything at
once just you know baby steps and that's
that's absolutely fine thank you as a
professor I have to say I needed to hear
that so giving myself Grace taking that
one to Heart in fact I have in my
PowerPoint presentation the first slide
I put up is of a turtle and it says slow
your roll and it's like I'm gonna be
talking about a lot of things but I want
you to remember this this slide just
slow your roll it's okay the other thing
that I encourage professors to do is to
join an educator community group and
there are a lot that have popped up as a
result of geni and the disruption that
we're seeing just in the education space
and so how can we crowdsource Our advice
without a doubt if you're thinking about
a particular assignment and how you
might use gen and crafting that
assignment or incorporating it it in the
assessment there is a professor out
there who has either already done it or
they're also thinking about it so you
know let's be more collaborative and I
will say that's been really wonderful
for me as a law professor being able to
collaborate with professors from other
disciplines and the last thing that I
would say you know sometimes it can be
hard to convince your colleagues within
your
institution to be Progressive and if you
can bring an outside speaker to come in
and kind of just share what's going on
that can oftentimes get people moving
even if you within the building aren't
able to get that same traction so those
are kind of the three pieces of advice
that I'll typically give
professors so this has been a fabulous
conversation but we are reaching the end
of our time but before we wrap let's do
a speed round ready first question April
1st complete this sentence in five years
AI will
blank in five years AI will be more
fully leveraged to help lawyers better
serve their clients more effic ly and
will help close the access to Justice
Gap nice Justina same question in five
years AI will have disrupted every
industry and there would have been
significant advancements made in
education and sustainability with the
use of
AI okay speedr question number two what
is the number one thing that people
misunderstand about AI Justina you first
the number one misunderstanding about AI
is that is going to destroy everyone's
jobs I think that people with AI skills
or understanding of AI will have some
advantages in the workplace April the
number one thing people misunderstand
about AI is that only computer
scientists or mathematicians or
Engineers can understand it you can gain
an understanding again through baby
steps and there are so many resources
available if you explore the information
in bite-sized pieces you can begin to
wrap your head around it okay next speed
round question what advice would you
give yourself 10 years ago to better
prepare you for today Justina you first
the advice I would give myself 10 years
ago is to continue learning I always
love understanding technology I always
Dove deep into whether it's machine
learning or 4G and 5G
Technologies understanding Ai and hybrid
today is something that I also enjoy
doing so I would say continue learning
continue diving into these Technologies
continue understanding what it means for
you and your future career April uh
being more
interdisciplinary so stay current with
the evolution of computer science but
also incorporate the study of data and
ethics and sociology because the
challenges that are posed by AI they're
multifaceted and you have to have an
understanding in these areas to really
address the promise and the challenges
of AI final speed round question how are
you already using AI in your day-to-day
life today April so I use it in my
teaching the other way that I plan on
using it in the future is surveying the
students and then using the data
analysis tool to help me gather that
information and figure out how best to
address the information that I've
received from my students nice Justina
yes so the way that we're using AI today
is to actually analyze complex and large
data sets in our sustainability work to
provide insights to some of our partners
on how they can increase crop yield for
example or how they can deliver clean
energy solutions to rural areas so we
actively using it in the program
programs that we have within our
corporate social responsibility
portfolio and also integrating it into
our skills Bill
platform well thank you both so much you
did excellent in the speed round but it
was just so fabulous to talk to you both
today I think this is a time of so many
exciting challenges in the field of
education and it was fabulous to hear
more about how Ai and IBM skills buil in
so many Technologies can help us out
thank you both so much for this fun
conversation thank you for having us it
was great yes thank you thank
you what an insightful conversation with
Justina and April this discussion
demonstrated how technology and
education can intersect to create a
meaningful impact in today's educational
landscape students must utilize AI in
the classroom in order to prepare for
the modern Workforce and Educators must
use the technology including IBM skills
build to train students for the
complexities of tomorrow's challenges
as April and Justina emphasized impact
starts by centering the humans using the
tool ensuring they're empowered to
access adopt and Excel with the
technology is just as critical as the
power of the tool
itself Justina and April's work is a
powerful reminder that as we continue to
integrate AI technology into our
Educational Systems we have the
opportunity to create more Equitable and
accessible learning environments it's
clear that the future of learning and
technology is bright and the adoption of
AI is crucial in shaping that
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