Balancing EdTech Innovation with Student Success: A Conversation with Mary Beth Hertz

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, we'll 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 back. Today we're diving into a topic that's been on everyone's mind. ai, also known as artificial intelligence, generative ai, gen, ai, whatever you want to call it. It has huge ramifications in ed tech and our world. In this episode, I am joined by my friend MaryBeth Hertz, who I have been lucky to learn alongside really about anything, all thing ed tech, all thing education for decades.

Mary Beth is somewhat what I call a canary in a coal mine. She is someone I have always admired for thinking through how technology can and should be used in education to first and foremost always improve learning and not using tech for tech sake alone. She is never one to jump on the bandwagon just because something's new and shiny. Instead, she asks the important questions, the ones that keep us grounded and ensure we're always centering our decisions on again, what is best for our learners. So in addition to ai, we really do talk about all things ed tech. This is a great episode if you are an EdTech founder or anyone in EdTech to talk about how can we leverage this technology, but in general, what should we be doing in the industry to truly help educators and students and how do our products and our services play a role in that? So as we find ourselves navigating all of these unchartered waters in EdTech, I love that I'm able to bring this conversation to help you enjoy. Welcome to the show, Mary Beth, I'm so glad to have you today.

Mary Beth Hertz:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, it's been such a long time and I feel like I don't get to connect with you as much because I don't have this pulse that we used to connecting us on Twitter, but I am glad for your presence on LinkedIn so I can still learn from you on social media a little bit. And are you on threads as well?

Mary Beth Hertz :

I am. I have a threads problem, and so I had to move the app to a very hard to get place on my phone because that is my suck, my time suck.

Elana Leoni:

I got to make sure that I have push notifications on for you because it automatically push notifies you. And at Isti, I was talking to some people like Laura Thomas and Jen Roberts or something, and I get push notifications every time they do a thread. Oh, wow. It's going to be dangerous, right? Anyways, welcome to the show. I have learned so much from you over the years. We first connected in the Edge utopia Twitter days, and I've learned a lot from you of, I look at you as one of the people that think about things quite critically when there are trends. Let's not jump on the bandwagon just for the sake of it. Let's ask some critical questions. And today I'd like to talk about just EdTech in general, but we're going to be talking to a lot of you EdTech folks around AI and digital literacy and media literacy, and how do we navigate all of this unknown space in a way that makes sense for our learners, right? Let's center on that and let's not use student-centered as the buzzword and just say it, right? So why don't we talk to start with Marybeth, just your background in ed tech. Why Ed Tech? How'd you get into it, and where are you at now with your relationship with EdTech?

Mary Beth Hertz:

puters at that time. That was: 2000

And so I actually got on Twitter, I just remembered this because of the isti conference. So I was going to isti and the only way I could really figure out what was going on was Twitter. And so that was how I ended up at Iju Blocker Con with Steve Hargan on and a bunch of other folks. So, so that was kind of my journey into ed tech and it just kind of blossomed from there with me trying to figure out what should we be teaching with this stuff and what should kids know? And everything was changing so fast all of a sudden you could interact with the internet. And so what do you do when you can actually talk to the internet and the internet talks back, and so what does that actually mean? So yeah, I also ended up being a technology coordinator and then director of educational technology. So I've kind of been in all facets, both classroom teacher, curriculum development, it all different kinds of facets in ed tech.

Elana Leoni:

And that's why one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is that you have these layers of appreciation of knowing this is how it interacts on different levels within the education system. And it felt like your story is like, yes, we had computers, but we just had ways to type. So you were already thinking about how do we integrate it in, even if it's a shiny new tool, which right now we have some parallels with ai. We've got shiny new tools, but how do we effectively integrate it into the learning process? And it felt like you were there way back in the day when computers were a thing and your dad was building 'em and things like that.

Mary Beth Hertz:

t a year ago, actually, June,: 2023

It's just kind of part of what we do in the back. Then it was like, whoa, look at this. It's so cool and it does this or it does that. And then now we've gotten to a point where that's just the expectation of how kids are interacting or learning. And part of it is because those tools and are integrated into the world and into the workforce and into our everyday lives in a way that they weren't before. And so it is not impetus for innovation, it's an emphasis for just existing in the world that we live in. So I think the shiny new toy right now, I think I have said before that I feel this kind of sense of responsibility as someone who was there when Web 2.0 came along to share my own regrets and my own, I don't know what the other word would be, but I threw these tools into the hands of children and didn't think about their privacy, didn't think about what these companies were collecting about, didn't think about those kinds of backend hidden kind of things that were happening that none of us really thought about. And we talk about if the product is free, you are the product. We didn't really realize that. And so I feel like having gone through this before that I have a sense of responsibility to not necessarily sound the alarm, but just kind of calm people down. Don't fall for the shiny new joy because we did that and that's why we are where we are right now.

Elana Leoni:

And I think those are good warnings. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. What are the things that we should be looking for as EdTech companies and vendors that are producing technology that students and teachers are going to be using in the classroom? What are the things they must have? We'll talk a little bit more about that, but before we get into the, I don't want to say it's negative, super helpful, but I want us to be real about what we really think and how EdTech can really help grow this industry and do things in a meaningful way. But before we go there, let's talk a little bit roses and sunshine of what gets you super excited right now, specifically in EdTech. What have you seen that you're like, wow, this is awesome, and this fundamentally could be a huge opportunity?

Mary Beth Hertz:

Yeah, I think something that I hadn't really been focusing on before in EdTech Sphere, that because of the experiential learning stuff I've been doing with past school year supporting internships and service learning projects and things like that, there are two tools that came across my path that I hadn't known of before. And one is Ruler and one is Blaze. And so Ruler is, I don't know how to explain it, it's almost like old school, but it's an opportunity for kids to kind of build a portfolio where they post videos or images, reflections, and then they can create this journey that creates a timeline where they can actually throw that up on a board or as a part of a presentation, and it captures their journey, whether it's through an internship or a trip they went on or something that they experienced where it's basically a online journal that they keep, but the teacher can put prompts up there, they can respond, the kids can respond to each other. And so it creates this whole community out, wow, I'm making all, let me back up again. Try that again. It creates this whole community centered around experience, right? Centered around their own individual experiences. And so I think to me, those kinds of tools where it's almost like going backwards if in some ways, if that makes sense. I feel like nobody blogs anymore.

All of our connections, all the stuff I learned back in the day was from reading about people's experiences and their blogs and learning from them and commenting, and nobody comments, nobody blogs, everything's just like engagement, farming, little quips. And so for me to come back to that, and they're not necessarily long form, but to tools that kind of bring back that human element of creating connections, meaningful connections that are not just the social media kind of attention grabbing stuff and building that community that I know you and I remember from back in the day, and the other tool I mentioned, just it creates a platform where schools can put partners up where they have in the community for internships, job shadows, things like that, and then allows kids to actually sign up for those opportunities. And when they go there, they can actually check in and say, I'm here, and they can write reflections and they can do things like that. So it creates a platform again with the student at the center. So that's something where both of the tools have the student experience at the center of it and that it's there to help the student build experiences and create experiences and reflect on those experiences. So for me, that's really exciting to see that centered instead of we can drill your kid in this academic subject until they pass this test real good is not necessarily what I'm excited about.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, I like the way you phrase it. It's like sometimes we need to go backwards to understand what we're missing. So quick algorithms, everything is quick, immediate responses, immediate reactions. And when we fail to pause and think critically, and I know we're going to talk a little bit about media literacy and digital literacy and things, but those tools that you were talking about is can we go back to the things that we're actually working, giving people time to think through things and God forbid we actually read the article or the blog post and then we think respond in a comment. Those things, it got me excited, and I just want to let our audience know that any tool that Mary Beth mentions is not a sponsor of this podcast. It's completely, I told her to just talk about the things that work, and it's important that we talk about that openly, but it just reminded me of let's go back in time and think about the things that work because what we're missing right now is critical thinking across our nation.

Mary Beth Hertz:

And that's again, that sense of responsibility I have as someone who bridges the generations of no internet and internet to be like, I remember when we had the thing and it was before times. And so I feel like I have to pay it forward just that I have had that experience.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. So why don't we talk a little bit about, because you've had those experiences and EdTech is evolving, there's a lot of new players, there's a lot of players being acquired by other players, but what do you hope that the role that EdTech plays and specifically EdTech vendors, because EdTech is really ubiquitous to, it's not no longer a siloed thing. It's something that we actively all look at how can we integrate effectively in the learning process? But with that said, there's a lot of things that were like, gosh, I really wish they would do this, or I really wish the industry as a whole would support us in this way. What are the kind of gut reactions you have to those prompts?

Mary Beth Hertz:

Honestly, I don't know that in said, my thoughts on that have changed much. I used to run the Philly ed tech meetup before kids, so that was a decade ago. So we had a lot of pitch competitions and work with a lot of ed tech companies, local and some of them even involved in the Milken Prize competition and stuff like that. But I think what I saw a lot was people who were like, I went to school and when I was in school, I wish I had this and I'm going to build it and I'm going to raise money for it and I'm going to make it and I'm going to sell it. And so I don't think that's changed. I think you still have folks who just have this thought of their own experience or maybe they're seeing their kid have an experience too, and they just go, this is not unique to ed tech.

I mean, it's an entrepreneurial thing in general that are you creating, solving a problem that nobody has is a question that a lot of entrepreneurs have to ask themselves. So for me, I think that question is the eternal question. So if you're an ed tech company, is the product you're creating, is it, what problem is it solving and is that an actual problem that not just your kids' classroom teacher has, but that you see replicated across many classrooms? So I think for me, that's what I hope that, have you tried being a substitute teacher? You signed up to Stu and see what it's like to actually be in the classroom? Have you volunteered in your kids' local school or district? Have you actually talked to teachers across, whether it's schools, grade levels, something like that? And then thinking also about your product, who is the actual audience?

I think sometimes with ed tech, because there's so many little niches in education, are you K to three? It's like K to three is way different than four to eight or four to six or something like that. So I think I see a lot of ed tech companies struggle with figuring out who is your actual audience. Sometimes I see and we do this, and I'm like, but nobody needs that in this grade level or in that context. So I don't think that's changed. I don't think there's anything new about that, but that's always been kind of something that I've seen.

Elana Leoni:

And I'm head nodding over here because in my experience of mentoring ed tech startups, I call it seeking out confirmation bias at times is this is my experience, this is how I did it. So therefore, if I'm going to be searching for people, I might actually look for something that confirms my bias around it. And really what you're saying is, gosh, you need to look nationally and not only grade level, but there's niches within education and there's urban and rural and charter and magnets and academies, and there's all sorts of different stakeholders in education. And we need to make sure that what you are doing is truly solving a big problem that potentially fits most of their needs and not based on assumptions or confirmation bias or narrow your audience,

Mary Beth Hertz:

Be real about your audience and say, this is specifically for these kinds of schools, teachers, whatever. So I think it can go either way. Either you have to realize that your product is not universal and that it isn't a product for a specific audience, or you need to make sure if you don't want to be limited and you want to be able to have a more broader impact that you need to do that research.

Elana Leoni:

And it's a really interesting question. Sometimes I ask people in startup methodology around, would you rather have something that goes deep and narrow within ed tech or something broad? And typically a lot of EdTech will start deep and narrow if they have that product market fit that we were kind of warning against, but then they're forced to grow and the way they grow sometimes broadening it out where it shouldn't be too. So it's a real interesting conundrum, but really making sure when you do grow intentionally, making sure your product still has that product market fit. And a lot of times when you launch, you might assume a product market fit, but they use it exactly the opposite way, right?

Mary Beth Hertz:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, think about Twitter itself. Twitter was never meant to all the hashtags and all that stuff. I mean, that was created by the users. There was no, that wasn't how the company originally envisioned people using it. And I think it's the openness to either A be the pivot where it's like, oh, people are using this differently, or I'm getting this feedback and actually listening to the feedback. I think what I've found is, sadly, not all the time, but there's a small percentage of folks who don't look to teachers as professionals. And so when they get feedback from teachers, they overlook it, they say, oh, they just don't understand, or they just don't get it, or something like that. So I think understanding teachers are extremely professional and know hell of a lot more than you do. Sorry, not sorry that if they're giving you feedback, listen to the feedback and it can actually improve your product or what you're doing.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, and that's what I heard from you is that it's not like a one and done thing with feedback too. So if you are, for those of you listening that are fans of Steve Blank or Eric Re for the Lean Startup, Steve Blank really talks about making sure that you're integrated and doing 70 plus deep interviews of stakeholders all across the ecosystem of where you're jumping in, but it's not a one and done thing. It's consistent because your product's going to evolve and your users' needs are going to evolve, and who knows what's going to happen in this academic school year and how needs are going to be changing and things like that. So I hear from you consistently listen and integrated in your day to day with educators, and that's a theme no surprise we hear across our podcast guests. Yeah, there's nothing worse

Mary Beth Hertz:

Than a company forum that offers you to give suggestions and upvote suggestions and then completely ignores it when there's like 475 thumbs up, we want this feature.

Elana Leoni:

Ouch. Ouch. So let's talk a little bit about AI because I think there's a parallel what you were talking about way back in the day when tools were, we had this onslaught of freemium tools on EdTech and we're like great free tools, but you said the product was us, and I wish I would've asked these critical questions. So when it comes to ai, what are you seeing people not ask? What questions are they not asking, and what do you hope vendors actually are more mindful of when they integrate AI?

Mary Beth Hertz:

Yeah, I mean, I think the first piece that I get concerned about is just the legal piece. Kids need to be 13 to use these things. And if you're putting in the hands of young people, that's only if your API is chat, GPT, from my understanding, the Claudes and the mid journeys and all those other generative AI tools require even a higher 18 and over. So making sure that whatever you're using is compliant in that way. But then also thinking about if students are using it, why are they using it? Are they using it because it's cool and it does cool stuff, or are they using it because it's actually giving them a value add to whatever's happening in the classroom? And I think the hard part is that it's shiny, it's new, it's exciting, and people don't quite understand it. And so it's easy to want to be on top of what's shiny and new and not to fall behind.

But I also think the questions that people should be asked, the number one question people should be asking is, what are you doing when my students log into your platform, especially if they're talking to your bot or they're uploading their files to be scanned, what are you doing with that information? Because for instance, Snapchat has their little AI friend of her pal, I forget what that thing is called, but it has a little AI friend that you can talk to. I mean, if a kid is, and I say this only because a lot of kids are used to, at this point, many kids are used to talking to ai. It's a person. And the kinds of things that kids could say or enter into those tools could be very personal in nature. And we have to be thoughtful about what companies are doing with that information.

This isn't just like, it's not just a Google search, these tools talk back and talk back in a very human-like way. So I think there's also, I don't know if schools are using a readiness rubric either. How ready are we for doing this kind of stuff with putting these tools in the hands of teachers and students? And I don't necessarily know if it's the job of EdTech companies to support that, but I feel like transparency is really important that folks should be asking, what kind of support do you offer when we are going to use your tool? Is it just simply it isn't working, or is your company offering any kind of professional development workshops or things like that on what AI actually is and what these tools are actually doing? So I don't even know if I answered the question, but

Elana Leoni:

That's a questioning first of all. I would say that, like you said, when it comes to privacy and knowing age limits, that's a huge thing. And I would say that there was a moment at Isti where I had a friend shared with me. She went around and just asked people about their privacy policy and as it relates to AI and the data sharing. And a lot of vendors could not talk about it in an intelligent way because it's something that not everybody on the floor might be familiar with.

But the worst thing was is that they actually, as they were discovering one of the vendors, they realized as they looked in their privacy policy that they weren't even supposed to be selling it to the grade levels they were once they looked in the privacy policy. So these are things that we need to be, this is hard stuff and it's changing all the time. We need to have extra care as it relates to privacy and our children's data. And the guidelines are changing all the time. Like you and I were talking about, they just released some guidelines around ai. If you are incorporating AI into your product, this is your job. You should know about these things.

Mary Beth Hertz:

Yeah, there's a loophole too that a lot of companies use that for me as a former tech director, and for me as somebody who'd be looking at a product, and it's killing me that I can't remember what it is, but people, it's specific language you can put in a policy that means that it basically offloads the responsibility for all this stuff to the school instead of the vendor. And to me as a tech director, that's a red flag that you are saying that you are not taking responsibility for this, that you're offloading it onto me. It's fairly common practice, I think, but I think if you're, and it depends. Some folks in districts and schools are more versed in that kind of stuff than others, and it may not be a red flag for them, but that's just something that I think you had mentioned the privacy policies and sometimes the privacy policies are intentionally vague.

Elana Leoni:

And sometimes I look at tech companies and say, gosh, what kind of staffing do they have to really help navigate these really ever-changing and nebulous policies? Do they have someone that has a data privacy or those type of, we had somebody on our show that was the head of Remind at the time, and they had their entire job was to navigate the data and the privacy and the safety of the data around it. So those are the things I look at is like, are they well staffed? Have they made a commitment? Are they learning as quick as they need to because it's happening every day, right? Yeah. Well, your budget is your priority. That's what I always say. Well, there's so much. Your budget is your priority, and if you find that language or that data, what you were talking about in contracts, we can put it in the show notes so people are a little bit more aware.

It's a really good red flag to look out for as well. We talked a little bit about AI and some things to avoid. I think just on a high level, you talked about, gosh, this is such a new field. How do we start with some education and just AI literacy and just general digital literacy? I know that's a huge bigger umbrella topic, but we need to move with some education. So I don't know if you have thoughts around that proactively is how do we move with the industry and get our kids excited, but in a knowledgeable way, right?

Mary Beth Hertz:

ss, was it last year? Is that: 2022

Basically it's a mathematical predictor. And also pulling it up on my screen in my classroom or my smart board in my classroom and showing them how I asked it to write me three paragraphs and it kept giving me four paragraphs and I'd say, that's four paragraphs. And they would say, you are correct. Here's three paragraphs. Except it was four paragraphs again. And so they were like, really? So just having them understand that it doesn't, I think what the teachers and I, teachers and I, when we spoke during the school year, we feel that many of us feel that students think that it's smarter than they are, and so they trust the tool more than they trust themselves. And so I think the approach that I have found to be most helpful is to really demystify it. And that's why I kind of have an issue with the idea of the magic school thing because I think it perpetuates the myth that this stuff is magic and that it's magical.

There's also the human element. I mean, just like Facebook and Instagram have literally underpaid people in countries on the other side of the world being paid to look through harmful content and flag it. AI companies are doing the same thing. And so I think for me, the approach for me has been maybe it's just very concrete and real of just like, this is how it works. This is how it doesn't work. This is what it can do, this is what it can't do. This is what's happening. This is the larger implications, whether it's the people that are doing the content flagging, whether it's the amount of water that's being used. Every time you generate a fun little picture on Dolly, the water is being wasted and the power that's being spent, the amount of energy. So not really long-winded answer, but I think to me, the approach is just demystifying it.

And I think that's not that hard, don't necessarily, and I think that keeping it simple of just giving folks examples, and then I do like the magic school tool for people who are not ready to use just a chat GPT screen, like a blank screen to have them understand, oh, I'm dropping down filters and it's generating this. And then I had teachers in a workshop where they were like, but I don't really like that. Cool. They copy paste it or download it, put it into this other tool, and now you can tweak it and you can talk to it and you can do those kinds of things.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, what you said, sorry to interrupt. It's just like how do we truly, especially with kids too, you said that because they don't understand it, they may talk to it like a human. So we need that to front lo education of this is a tool, here are the back, here's how it operates. And not only for kids too and the students in our classroom, but for the teachers too. How does this fundamentally work? So then you can kind of take the bull by the horns and figure out how do you want to customize it, right?

Mary Beth Hertz:

Yeah. I think it's the power, right? Who's in control? And I think that's just kind of been the whole story honestly of tech is I think we've been pushing back on who actually is controlling this, whether it's the algorithms that are, it's crazy. Does culture drive the tech or is the tech driving the culture? And we're kind of hit this point where it's like chicken or egg. And so I think that the idea of you're smarter than it and you're the one in control is important because otherwise we end up with kids just copy pasting crap from chat GPT that isn't even accurate and trusting it more than they trust themselves.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. And I will end our episode on AI and digital and media literacy and all the things around ed tech with that kind of mic drop moment because it is something that you all should rewind and listen to is it's a fundamental question that comes up over and over again when we are introduced to new tech is how do we understand it? So we're a little bit more in the driver's seat and not vice versa. So Marybeth, thank you so much for your time. I would say that at the end of all of these heavy topics that we do need to talk about, we can't be afraid to talk about these things. I like to end our podcasts with a fun kind of uplifting, but also really practical question for the humans that are listening, which is all of us. But when you are feeling like you just kind of need to escape a little bit and get inspired, are there things that you read or are there something that you've read recently or watched recently that inspired you that you want to share with our audience?

Mary Beth Hertz:

I read a lot of sci-fi fantasy because it's fun to escape. So when I read the Raven Boys series, it's a wonderful series and I'm now in her dreamer series, but just, I like to explore just whole new sci-fi world to kind of escape. And I love watching, we watched Legend of Cora, which is the second inner airbender series, but there's a lot of fun dynamics around the complexity of friendships and families and siblings that my kids are old enough now where we actually get something out of it where we can have conversations about like, yeah, you see how they weren't getting along. And so-and-so was this. And that's been fun to kind of use that as an avenue to have those conversations. So I like to escape, but I also like to use, get to engage with my kids around cartoons essentially. I guess

Elana Leoni:

That is awesome. I've been on a bit of an escape fantasy kick myself, so I'm glad I'm not alone. For those of you that are like, I'm not sure what those titles were, we'll put all of the links to 'em in a show notes. Don't worry. You can attend two with for all of your thoughts and for really just letting us hear what we truly need to be talking about. We can't be afraid about talking about these typical subjects because this is a pattern we will see over and over again, Ed Tech. So I thank you so much for your time. I thank you for being a guest on all things marketing and education.

Mary Beth Hertz:

Thanks so much for the opportunity. It was great talking with you. Good to see you.

Elana Leoni:

Nice to see you too. Take care everyone. 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@leoneconsultinggroup.com slash podcast. You can also continue the conversation with us on Twitter, at Leone Group 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.