Week in Edtech 5/2/2025: Trump’s AI and Workforce Orders, Accreditation Shakeup, ESSER Fallout, Israel’s AI Tutors, Duolingo’s Language Leap, and More! Feat. Anna Iarotska of Robo Wunderkind, Julia Dixon of ESAI, and Tigran Sloyan of CodeSignal

Join host Alex Sarlin alongside special guest co-hosts Ben Wallerstein and Anna Kimsey Edwards, Co-Founders of Whiteboard Advisors, as they break down:

[00:03:00] Trump’s AI Executive Order launches cross-agency education task force
[00:05:00] 27 states already advancing AI education policy
[00:07:00] Workforce EO targets 1M AI-related apprenticeships
[00:10:00] Accreditation EO pushes competition and student outcomes
[00:14:00] “Beyond Degrees” report urges non-degree pathways
[00:21:00] Edtech funding hits record low in Q1 and Q2, says HolonIQ
[00:23:00] ESSER cliff and political uncertainty stall school spending
[00:28:00] Falling enrollment squeezes K-12 budgets nationwide
[00:30:00] Duolingo adds 150 AI-generated cross-language courses
[00:30:45] Google Audio Overview now available in 50 languages
[00:31:00] Panorama acquires AI writing tool Class Companion, Kollegio raises seed round for AI college advising
[00:32:30] Anthropic forecasts AI-only employees within a year
[00:36:00] Israel announces national rollout of AI tutors in schools

Plus, special guests:

[00:36:45] Anna Iarotska, CEO & Co-founder of Robo Wunderkind, unveils the first K–5 AI Literacy Curriculum
[00:50:55] Julia Dixon, Founder & CEO of ESAI, reflects on her Shark Tank debut and democratizing admissions advising
[01:02:00] Tigran Sloyan, Co-Founder & CEO of CodeSignal, shares how TED Talks are becoming interactive learning journeys

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Chapters

• 3:31 Trump’s AI Executive Order launches cross-agency education task force
• 5:31 27 states already advancing AI education policy
• 7:31 Workforce EO targets 1M AI-related apprenticeships
• 10:31 Accreditation EO pushes competition and student outcomes
• 14:31 “Beyond Degrees” report urges non-degree pathways
• 21:31 Edtech funding hits record low in Q1 and Q2, says HolonIQ
• 23:31 ESSER cliff and political uncertainty stall school spending
• 28:54 Falling enrollment squeezes K-12 budgets nationwide
• 30:54 Duolingo adds 150 AI-generated cross-language courses
• 31:39 Google Audio Overview now available in 50 languages
• 31:54 Panorama acquires AI writing tool Class Companion, Kollegio raises seed round for AI college advising
• 33:24 Anthropic forecasts AI-only employees within a year
• 36:54 Israel announces national rollout of AI tutors in schools

Transcript

[00:00:00] Ben Wallerstein: If you look at like a general assembly program these days, doing really exciting work internationally and with big employers, eight ish thousand dollars, $9,000. You know, like Marco used to, had a proposal that was like an $8,000 program, workforce program, but there's a layer of money, not including things like wraparound services or predicate learning experiences that people need to participate in those programs.

There's a level of funding around that area that hasn't historically quite fit within federal parameters, and we're starting to zero in on that. Apprenticeships is a piece of that. Workforce PE is a piece of that, and it's really exciting. 

[00:00:35] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Still, in many cases, less than 10% of the overall school district budget.

Yes. And so we think that we're gonna start to see while delayed spending, you know, it's going closer and closer into the summer, to the start of school year, we still are gonna see spending start to pick back up because students are gonna be back in school. In the fall, but it's been a tough start to the year for sure, and and I think a lot of people are feeling that.

[00:01:02] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here 

[00:01:16] Ben Kornell: at EdTech Insiders. Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter and offer our event calendar and to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben.

Hope you enjoyed today's pod.

[00:01:42] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to week in Ed Tech from Ed Tech Insiders. We have two incredible special guests today, on a day that. Government affairs and education are taking is just absolutely wild. We have Anna Edwards and Ben Wallerstein from Whiteboard Advisors. Thank you guys both so much for being here today. It is a crazy time in education in EdTech, and I'm really excited to hear your take.

[00:02:03] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Awesome. Thanks for having us, Alex. Thank you here. 

[00:02:05] Alex Sarlin: Thank you. I'm so happy you're here today. So let's start with executive order mania, as we say. Anna, let me pass it to you. I, there was a big flurry of executive orders this week related to education, apprenticeships, all sorts of things that I think our audience should definitely be aware of.

Kick it off. 

[00:02:20] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Yeah. Thanks so much and thanks for having us again. It's crazy to think about how much has happened since the last time we were on with you. Definitely a lot of activity at the federal level, and then we've also been closely following what's happening at the state and local level and the response to what's been happening at the federal level.

But last week was a big week. There were seven executive orders that came out from the president on the 23rd, and a few of them got a lot of attention and a lot of support. Some of them a little bit more controversial, but we really wanted to talk about a few here today that we think are particularly exciting.

One of them related to AI education. You know, I think you've seen a lot of buzz in the ed tech space around this executive order. It's probably of note that it came a few weeks after A-S-U-G-S-V where there was a notable kind of misstatement by Secretary McMahon on ai, and so I think the White House really wanted to show that they have been thinking about this issue of AI and education.

In a way that spans even outside of the Department of Education, but touches on the Office of Science and Technology Policy, office of Cyber and Crypto. And so there are a bunch of different agencies, department of Labor and Commerce that all are a part of this executive order, which will create a cross department task force to look at AI and education, preparing teachers to use AI and equipping students with the skills to be prepared for future careers that will involve ai.

And so we've seen a lot of bipartisan support for this executive order. Applause from the EdTech community and supporters that have been talking about how the US needs to get ahead of this in order to be competitive globally. And so this is one that'll be interesting to see how it unfolds. It's really being driven by the White House, and we hope that there will be opportunities for third parties and advocacy groups to weigh in and to be a part of the conversation and for states and districts to be a part of the discussion as well.

Because a number of states are already leading the way in thinking about this issue. So, Ben, I don't know if there's, is there anything you'd wanna add in on the AI eo? 

[00:04:28] Ben Wallerstein: No, I think there maybe three dimensions all contemplated through the EO in some form or fashion. One has to do with technological advancement, sort of guardrails and how those are addressed.

The technological and sort of implementation dimensions of using AI in school. There's sort of a second piece, which has to do with teacher professional development. How do we equip educators to both use AI as a tool and to sort of understand the implications? And then there's. Really like third dimension, which I think is most interesting, really deals with how we learn about AI and learning about ai, not only to learning about AI or sort of the like technical facets of it, but what is the potential of AI as a tool.

I. That learners can use to solve problems and to express themselves through technology. Right. And those are you. You think about, I think like global competitiveness and sort of the demands of the economy and how we continue to unlock the potential of our students and young people in really profound ways.

Those are the bits that are gonna be, I think, in many ways, most exciting and that the EO and other efforts in states like Utah provide a really solid impetus for hopefully. 

[00:05:36] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Our team reminded me that there are now 27 states that have passed state policy related to AI or put out some sort of regulatory guidance.

So this is an issue that states have already been leading on and many states have actually put in place structures similar to what the AI does, AI executive order does at the federal level in their own states as well. So there'll be a lot of interplay between states and districts as this one rolls out.

[00:06:02] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing who is on the task force and sort of how they put that together. 'cause I think that's gonna show a lot of sort of where it's actually gonna go. Other interesting part of the order that I think is related to other of these executive orders is that they talk about seeking increased participation in AI related.

Apprenticeships and apprenticeships is another bipartisan issue that this administration is a big fan of, but they're specifically saying AI apprenticeships are one of the roots in which young people might be able to start building these sort of AI literacy and AI skills that will be the workforce of the future, and I think that's a good transition.

So you mentioned seven executive orders, mind blowing. The AI one got a lot of the attention, but what were some of the other ones that caught the two of your eye as you looked around this amazing landscape? 

[00:06:46] Anna Kimsey Edwards: I think Ben can talk about what we saw with higher education, particularly around accreditation.

But to your point on apprenticeships, there is actually an EO preparing Americans for high paying skilled trade jobs of the future. That's similar to the AI Executive Order, creates this cross-agency task force to look at emerging industries and the pathways and competencies that are needed in order to fill those jobs in those industries, and to make sure that we're aligning K 12 post-secondary workforce training programs to have the workforce ready for those jobs.

That didn't include a call for over 1 million registered apprenticeships and. Again, this is an area that we're seeing governors on both sides of the aisle. Talk about apprenticeships, talk about CTE high school transformation, and how we really think differently about the way that we're preparing students to be successful.

Of course, we need students literate and able to do math, but there are all of these other competencies, durable skills, and then hard skills. That are needed to be ready for the jobs of the future. So it'll be interesting to see how this one unfolds. You know, I don't think it's really clear exactly what a comprehensive workforce strategy that calls for, how they're going to come up with that and the role that industry and corporations and business leaders themselves will play in informing that, which hopefully that will be a significant part of the work.

But again, I think there is a lot of excitement across states and both sides of the aisle to see this one come out because it really echoes a lot of what we're already seeing in the field. 

[00:08:24] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. Ben, I wanna hear from you on this and on this accreditation, which is really interesting, this accreditation order.

But just one quick thought. One of the things that's so interesting about this apprenticeship order is that. Apprenticeships. Again, bipartisan people have wanted this for a long time, but there's been a lot of constriction. We've talked to Ryan Craig on this podcast a lot, who's a really huge advocate of apprenticeships, but has gone really deep into sort of why there aren't as many, and historically many of the apprenticeships have been in the construction trade or the apprenticeship registry has been really hard to actually use so that companies who wanna do apprenticeships can't actually navigate a way to register them properly.

So I am just personally not always a huge fan of this administration politically, but it is really interesting. I think in this sort of burn it all down moment, some of the things that are coming out of this education policy are pieces of it that I think a lot of people really have wanted to happen for a long time.

Like. Apprenticeships, like more job relevance, CTE, durable skills, all the things you just mentioned, Anna, and it's like, it's interesting to see this sort of assertive, aggressive push towards a very different vision of what education is really for and how it can be a transition to career. This is what I actually hoped this administration would be doing right off the bat before any of the other stuff that sort of came out about the Department of Ed or anything like that.

These are actually, I think, potentially really positive. We'll have to see how they all work out. But Ben, what do you think about this workforce apprenticeship a million registered apprenticeships? And I'd love to hear you talk about this accreditation one 'cause that is also fascinating. 

[00:09:47] Ben Wallerstein: It was interesting the week prior to the apprenticeship eo Seth Harris, who was acting Secretary of Labor for President Obama and Deputy, and then served as Chief economic advisor.

The Biden administration on workforce policy, who's a colleague of ours, wrote the intro to our newsletter. So this is two weeks ago, and we asked him like, you're a Democrat. You just came outta the Biden administration. Share your thoughts on Trump and what you anticipate happening. And he sort of makes this point that apprenticeships are obviously super bipartisan and he anticipates strong executive action for the Trump administration with respect to expanding opportunities for apprenticeships and in some ways leaving some of the red tape that inhibits the ability of employers and institutions to create those at the local level.

And of course, then next week we have the eo. Again, not entirely unanticipated, but I think this is absolutely an area where there's tremendous bipartisan support. Everybody likes the idea of apprenticeships. They're harder to stand up at the state and local level for a whole host of reasons. The folks at Apprenticeships for America are doing really important work in this area, advocating, working with community colleges and working with employers to try to alleviate a lot of those pressures.

But more than handful of states have really. Taking control over the implementation of apprenticeship programs over the last maybe decade or so. I think it was starting with Tennessee, which gives them much more control and allows decision makers that are more proximate to the needs of employers and the realities of institutions and of learners to stand those programs up.

My adopted home, state of Alabama, there's a guy named Josh Laney who runs the apprenticeship program here, who's really, really smart. I to it's amount of opposition on this. If you, Biden was issuing executive orders to expand apprenticeships six months ago, so that's true. Everyone agrees on it. It's a challenging thing to scale and when you look at, you know, we didn't have this in our notes, sorry, but the house version of budget reconciliation was passed I guess two days ago.

And, well, it depends on when we show this, but which includes a workforce Pell provision that workforce Pell provision is paid for in large part by upping the credit requirements for regular Pell, I think up to 30 credits. So sort of like the traditional program becomes more costly in some ways. It's like creates like this deterrent effect, but also creates economic savings that open the door for workforce Pell, which I think is sort of novel when you look at historically what some of the other pay fors.

That folks were considering in that context. But I think apprenticeships, what's happening in the WEA context, workforce pe, they're all sort of solving for this same sort of an issue, which is question is like, what's the market clearing price in a way for a level of typically instructor led training that enables individuals from a range of backgrounds to acquire skills that are valued in labor market.

I mean, merit America is doing really interesting work in this area. If you look at like a general assembly program these days, doing really exciting work internationally and with big employers, eight ish thousand dollars, $9,000, you know, like Marco used to, had a proposal that was like an $8,000 program, workforce program, but there's a layer of money, not including things like wraparound services or predicate learning experiences that people need to participate in those programs.

There's a level of funding. Around that area that hasn't historically quite fit within federal parameters and we're starting to zero in on that. Apprenticeships is a piece of that. Workforce PE is a piece of that, and it's really exciting. 

[00:13:12] Anna Kimsey Edwards: And eventually, workforce innovation reauthorization of the WEOA bill that all of this could lead up to.

Yeah, 

[00:13:19] Ben Wallerstein: and it all fits into. A lot of these things I think we look at as being a response to the Trump administration, but I kinda look at the Trump administration as a response to where public sentiment was headed. 

[00:13:29] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Yeah. 

[00:13:30] Ben Wallerstein: And then the implementation of things that are in turn response to that sentiment.

And so, but you also look at, I mean, Strada standing up cred lens, which is this new nonprofit that intends to equip states, but also individuals with better understandings, state policy makers with a better understanding of like the relative labor market value of non-degree credentials, which we don't have a lot of data on that right now.

Right. You look at even Lumina sort of focusing on credentials of value. And so the question, you know, is really moving away from sort of like historic proxies, which obviously Ryan and other people have talked about toward more discreet understanding of what are the underlying skills associated with the acquisition of a credential or the experiences that undergird the acquisition of a credential.

How do those things translate into. Labor market value and how do we quantify that at scale in order to inform where we as individuals choose to spend our time and money and where we as policy makers choose to invest, right? They all kind of, I think, fit into that same thematic. 

[00:14:27] Alex Sarlin: And we just saw a report come out this week from Jobs for the Future, along with American Student Assistance about this Beyond Degrees Report.

A lot of people are sort of coming at this and have been for a number of years about how do we break the degree monopoly on social mobility in the us? Shouldn't there be other pathways? Shouldn't there be lower cost pathways? Shouldn't there be pathways that are more aligned to specific careers, including especially new collar, brand new careers, including AI and many others?

And it feels like. The critical mass is starting to build, I've said this for a while, but it does really feel like the critical mass is starting to build that their public sentiment, as you say, has been moving that way. ROI, expectations for traditional college have been going down for quite a while and now there's sort of this open war on traditional education and I think there's this feeling of, okay, what would it take to have an education system, a sort of post-secondary education system in the us Yeah.

That really does align to where we all sort of see the puck going and not just have it be the same system and how, you know, sort of force change, talk about the accreditation because accreditors have played a really interesting role in keeping the system the same for a long time. 

[00:15:32] Ben Wallerstein: Yeah. Just on that last point you made, I think we're moving from what was a fairly simplistic view of.

What, if you look at like Maria Flynn's writing and the work of JFF, historically, people talk about like a skills first agenda or a skills-based movement. And I think the kind of simplistic view of that is let's focus on skills instead of degrees. Let's break the degree. Monopoly companies are cutting degree requirements from jobs and Trump 1.0.

We had like the EO obviously around eliminating degrees, and that's been replicated in loads of states and Maryland and others on a bipartisan basis. But I think now what we're beginning to see is a much more nuanced and sophisticated approach to that skills agenda. It's not just about eliminating degree requirements, it's not just about challenging the degree even.

It's about understanding and quantifying skills through assessment, through learning experiences that result in credentials. And so GFF has an initiative on financing the future of, of post-secondary education. So it's much more multifaceted than that. And I think that's, I think that's where the conversation has headed.

A accreditation is a big piece of that. I mean, just riffing here, there's like, call it three components of this, right? One is. How do you introduce greater competition among accreditors? Right? How do you make it easier for an institution to choose different venues, right? Like to venue hop in ways that maybe would allow them to innovate faster?

And how do you create competition among accreditors by enabling institutions to venue hop? How do you make it easier for new accreditors to come into being, and by coming into being really meaning, how do you make it possible for new accreditors to sort of, to play the role that legacy accreditors have played in acting as arbiters of quality in ways that open the door to federal subsidies?

So it's competition among accreditors. Competition by allowing new creditors in. And then it's all with sort of like an outcomes orientation, right? Yes. 'cause the presumption is, and again, I think this is overly simplistic too, like if you look at say, wasc, like WASC has certainly been one of, if not the most innovative accreditors you had like incubation period.

You had incubation provisions, you had institutions like Minerva coming up through wasc. I think we'll continue to see some really interesting types of institutions being accredited through some of the legacy accreditors. So I think it's unfair to say that the legacy accreditors were not outcomes oriented in addition to being inputs oriented.

But that's certainly a big component of the EO as well. There are absolutely really important dimensions of the EO dealing with DEI and other facets of accreditation and the extent to which accreditors are compliant with federal law. Obviously, the terminology that we use from a rhetorical and a political standpoint doesn't always translate very well into the legal realm, and so that creates ambiguity.

There's a push for a greater emphasis on sort of programmatic level data and the disaggregation of data to better understanding and quantify outcomes. And again, if you look at a creditors like wasc, like they've been doing a lot of really innovative work in that realm already, but there's certainly, you know, the push is like increased competition.

[00:18:39] Alex Sarlin: Yep. 

[00:18:40] Ben Wallerstein: And greater focus on outcomes as opposed to inputs. The other piece that I think is potentially the most interesting is a push towards. A renewed emphasis on experimental sites. Mm-hmm. Which is a creature of the Higher Education Act that in effect gives the US Department of Education tremendous latitude to experiment and create new programs.

So like Cap Palace, flex Path program was initially created through ESI. So you know, arguments have been made that the Biden administration, debt forgiveness should have really gone through esis, where they have more colorable legal case than, than they might have had in other context. But the ability to use.

Experimental sites authority to create new kinds of programs and enable institute support institutions in creating those programs is a part of the eo. And that's really exciting too. 

[00:19:28] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, that's a really nuanced analysis. I think you have a lot of insight there. I mean, personally drives me a little crazy that they put together these Yes, we know, DEI political stuff about, Hey, you gotta take out your DEI requirements.

If you're an accreditor, like we get it. That's the okay with the stuff that I think is incredibly, really prescient and smart. Like you said, new accreditors, the deal more competition with accreditors. This focus on value, this idea of, they call it student oriented accreditation and they specifically call out, you know that a lot of degrees have negative returns on investment.

So they say, how might we have the accreditors. Be accrediting high value programs, new models of education. They're trying to make more people act like WASC and maybe even bring in new accreditors out of left field, which there aren't often in the United States that might be trying to do things that are really look a lot less like what you've seen in accreditation in the past.

Maybe remove in-person hours, which is a huge one for, for online education. 

[00:20:25] Ben Wallerstein: Another big thing that happened last week, and I'm sort of biased on this one, we're somewhat involved in it, but you know, ACE and the Carnegie Foundation put out the new Carnegie classifications. It's a huge deal, right? Like, and again, it like clearly that work was underway long before President Trump was elected.

This is where I get into like sort of from a heuristic standpoint, like what's driving the conversation, right? Like, but that's absolutely an effort to rethink how we classify institutions, how institutions identify and classify themselves in ways that are more responsive to the expectations of learners, the objectives of policy makers.

You know, Tim Knowles wrote a piece about this where the very point you were just making around credit hour requirements. 

[00:21:06] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Yeah. 

[00:21:06] Ben Wallerstein: Which are a big driver of cost and arguably arbitrary distinction or determinant of quality as well. So. 

[00:21:13] Alex Sarlin: Exactly, so this is all very exciting. I wanna talk about the sort of slowdown in the ed tech market because this is also something that affects everyone who listens to this podcast.

And you know, we got a new hole in IQ report last week saying even lower funding. Even then last year, it's just in the first quarter. Oh my god. You know, it just continues to go down. But you've also been really in the trenches. Tell us about how you feel about the EdTech markets. 

[00:21:38] Anna Kimsey Edwards: It's interesting because a lot of it is connected to the discussion and the uncertainty that we're seeing in DC And we talked about a few of the executive orders that, you know, we think that there is bipartisan consensus round, but there have also been executive orders that have caused a lot of challenges for school district leaders, for state education leaders, for higher ed institution leaders.

And that uncertainty is, without a doubt having an impact on just the level of. Ability to make a clear decision and know exactly what's happening. Even though, you know, we heard in the press conference where the president put out the executive order to eliminate the Department of Ed. He said, in no uncertain terms, we are not cutting or proposing cutting Title One funding or IDEA funds.

And that's been consistent from Secretary McMahon and from Congress. But I think when you then see an executive order come out, that put into question the late liquidation approvals that states and districts had received for esser funds, it creates the concern that we're hearing. We're gonna get our Title one and our IDA.

And our Title II and our Title III and our Title iv, but we don't really know that we can take that to the bank right now, and so I think that's really caused a lot of delayed decision making in the K 12 market. In the first two quarters of this year, you had the Esser cliff, which is real, and a 20% increase in.

Per pupil purchasing power go away. And even though districts shouldn't have spent money on personnel necessarily, or ongoing recurring costs, many did. And so that hurt. And then you also have declining student enrollment, which means that you're also losing dollars for having students in those seats.

And that's the way that school districts are funded. And so then you add the political uncertainty to that and the fact that state budget cycles are still working through legislative session. And so that means a district doesn't necessarily feel when they're looking ahead to the next school year that they can.

With confidence, sign a contract for a new service or for a new software. And so everybody's kind of installed the first two quarters, and we've seen that across the organizations that we work with. That said, we are seeing state legislatives start sessions start to wrap up, and so in the places that sessions have concluded, a number of states have actually increased K 12 spending.

And so I think that will start to fuel maybe purchase orders and contracts and new partnerships as there's certainty that, that at least that. 80% of the budget that comes in many cases, 90% of the budget that comes from state and local sources that that you know is coming to your bank account as a school district.

And even if there's some question of the 10%, which again, our insider surveys and all of the conversations we're having lead us to believe that there should be confidence for at least through the next school year, that those funding sources at the federal level will remain stable. But at least as the states wrap up, we should start to see spending again.

Does that mean it's like a rosy picture for the K 12 market? And I know Ben has perspective on just how challenging it's going to continue to be. Like it's going to be challenging, but will districts still be spending the funding that they're getting? And is federal funding still in many cases less than 10% of the overall school district budget?

Yes. And so we think that we're gonna start to see while delayed spending, you know, it's going closer and closer into the summer to the start of school year, we still are gonna see spending start to pick back up because students are gonna be back in school in the fall. But it's been a tough start to the year for sure and and I think a lot of people are feeling that, but yeah.

Then I know you had some thoughts on that. 

[00:25:17] Ben Wallerstein: I'm biased, but you know, Alex, my co-founder, has more experience working with education technology companies, with states and school districts in the context of complex procurements than probably anyone, including me. And so I trust her instincts more than mine.

It's really more of a question for Anna. Like if you think about the universe of say just like K 12 school districts and you divide them into bands, like you have the, the biggies, new York's, five times as big as la and then you know, LA's, you know, so you have these like top tier, really big bracket, right?

Like, and then you have like mid-size districts, smaller districts, like however you think about those. We've talked a lot about, you know, the fact that it's kind of a tale of two cities, you know, some districts budgeted in ways that were really smart, let's say, and kind of planned for the future, invested in deferred maintenance using short-term dollars.

Others, you know, made hires. We've seen that chart from our colleague Margaret Rosa, which shows sort of like the pace of hiring and then declining student enrollment. Let's say we have like the bad cities and the good cities. Is it like. A third are in the bad city category and two thirds in good cities.

Is it like how endemic is the fallout, or am I thinking about that in an overly simplistic way? 

[00:26:28] Anna Kimsey Edwards: It's such a good question, and you can't really even ban by district type without looking at states because it, it really varies based on the state and how much funding states are putting in to offset the impact of the esser cliff.

And we've seen states in the southeast, like Georgia, South Carolina, that had budget surpluses, Texas is actually even increasing their per pupil funding, as I mentioned, alongside an ESA and a voucher bill. And so in many places. Even though there might have been districts that would've been hit with the esser cliff and felt it in a more painful way, the state has stepped in and provided kind of a safety net of state funds.

I think your point though, on declining student enrollment in Marguerite's data is really important to look at. I was down with, uh, district leaders in Miami and Broward County, so third largest and sixth largest districts in the country last week. You know, Miami's facing a $50 million budget deficit.

Broward to 70 million, and that seemed like a lot. And then they both reminded me the billions of dollars that their budgets actually encompass. And really the issue there isn't esser related whatsoever. It's a hundred percent because of declining student enrollment. And in South Florida there's been an impact because of immigration policy and other factors in newcomer, migrant students coming into those systems.

Texas and California have also experienced those declines in a similar way. But the biggest factor, and I thought, well, is it the ESA bill? Right? Like is it because of the expansion of Universal ESAs education savings accounts and students going to private school alternatives or charters? And both district leaders said that really the the biggest contributor to their budget holes is declining student enrollment because the children just hadn't been born.

So when you look at 20, 25 kindergartners, the parents of would be children and would be kindergartners that were quarantined in a pandemic. There just was a decline in birth rate. And so we're starting to see that now play out, not just in South Florida, but across the board and evenly in many places.

And so if that trend continues, that's what districts are looking at in terms of. Potential to have to consolidate schools and close schools because the birth rate has declined. So it's a really interesting dynamic. 

[00:28:54] Alex Sarlin: That's a fascinating set of points. I hear a sort of good news, bad news piece of this, right?

The good news may be is that as we get to this set of end of this Esser era, even with the uncertainty coming from the federal government. There are still budget surpluses in some places there is still purchase orders to come. You know, ed tech companies who maybe have had slow seasons don't have to give up because there is still some money to be spent and as things are get evened out, 90% of the budget are, is coming from state and local levels.

That's the good news. The bad news, I think it's a really interesting point is that this, this second order, pandemic effect, right? I mean Esser, we spent the last five years in esser land in lots of ways, or last three years, but it's all pandemic related. But the second order of the pandemic effect is less birth rate.

You know, smaller birth rate. There's obviously immigration stuff going on right now. ESAs and vouchers and all of this movement is taking people outta public schools. We saw right after the pandemic a million students leave the public schools and I think that's continued to stagnate at least, if not decline.

So that might be the next set of things we talk about when we talk about school budgets is, you know, we've been talking esser for a while. You two have been talking esser, you getting in great detail for a long time, especially you Anna. But maybe the next thing coming to the fore is these demographic issues, which is so.

Intriguing, and I love talking about it, but it is a little scary because you know, I can imagine some of these schools are starting to have to figure out how to deal with something that's obviously beyond their control. I know we're almost at time here. There were a couple of EdTech stories I think we have to cover.

I'm just doing really fast. I know we have a hard stop, but we saw. Duolingo launch 150 new language courses this week because they've used AI to do all of this language to language. So now they can teach, you know, Turkish to French people and Spanish to Swahili. They said they created more courses this year than they created in their entire history using ai.

Really interesting Google Audio overview. That's the podcast that can be made from any material is now available in 50 languages. So those are both stories that are really interesting in terms of, you know, multilingual learners. Obviously we saw class Companion get acquired recently by a Panorama education.

That's an AI startup that does feedback, written feedback. It's a great start. I really like Class Companion. So that was an interesting exit to see and we saw Collegial get its seed round for being an AI college counselor, which is really interesting from Al and others. We are also seeing, uh, we're gonna have two great guests on this episode right after this talk.

One is with Julia Dixon from SAI, who just got off of. Shark Tank she just presented at EdTech Startup on Shark Tank. SAI is a college counselor. It basically helps college students tell their story for college admissions, great product. She has some interesting talks about findings from that. And we talked to Rin Sloan from Code Signal who has just made a partnership with Ted as in the TED Talks and he's making TED talks into interactive experiences so that you can actually not just watch the videos but actually make sense of the, the ideas in them and practice them and bring them into your life.

Really interesting. So I know we all have to go, but any thoughts on any of those stories? Lemme throw it to you Ben, 'cause I know you're limited time here. 

[00:31:54] Ben Wallerstein: I did chat with the founder of Collegio Reach was in that I think Owl, I think Jeff at Ventures. Really exciting business for sure. You know, as good a shot as anyone at delivering really like scaled.

Direct to consumer support in ways that democratize, because it's the whole package. It is like, like essay writing, and just that to me seems really interesting and for sure very, very disruptive. 

[00:32:18] Anna Kimsey Edwards: It shows also just the interest in AI tools. There's a race right now, I think for some of the more traditional publishers and LMS players, bigger technology platforms like a Panorama to incorporate AI into their offerings.

And so I think we're gonna see a lot of that type of partnership where you have these AI startups that then end up, you know, getting acquired because every solution provider needs to have an AI solution, and they might not be able to develop as quickly as some of these other startups have already been able to do.

And it just makes sense to grow that capability through acquisition. 

[00:32:55] Alex Sarlin: Couldn't agree more. You know, Ben Cornell and I have been anticipating that we've been talking all year about how I think this is a good thing, right? Bringing together some of the incumbents who are already scaled, who have those multi-year contracts, who are, you know, are, are out there with some of these really innovative, very cool AI startups that are doing amazing things but have to do the slog to get noticed.

[00:33:14] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Build a sales team and like all sales team. So it's, 

[00:33:18] Alex Sarlin: it's a very natural connection and I hope to see a lot more of those. 'cause I think it would be good for both sides. I think it would be really fantastic. Acquisitions can be hard to actually integrate, but at least conceptually it will be fantastic for some of these.

Startup. I'm excited to see what Panorama and classic companion, how they come together. Because I think you're right. This is a canary in a coal mine for what could be a lot of different m and a this year. Absolutely. Last thing just to bring up, I know I'm keep going and going, but I'll, I'll let, I'll let everybody go.

But your point about apprenticeships and workforce alignment was so interesting and one headline that caught my eyes today is that anthropic, you know, we didn't talk a ton about the big AI companies, but they had a headline basically about saying that full AI employees are maybe about a year away. And that's post agentic.

That's not just AI that can do things, that's ai, that can do. A lot of different things and figure out what to do and put it all together so that we saw, there was a great article in the Atlantic about how the job market is starting to, you're starting to see, you know, entry level jobs being potentially threatened by, 

[00:34:16] Anna Kimsey Edwards: I think it shows why, you know, coming full circle to the beginning of the conversation, our policy makers are education leaders.

The K 12 post-secondary, you know, workforce level. We have to think about what the system is producing now because the technology is, is evolving so quickly that we could wind up in a really challenging position with millions of Americans not actually prepared for the jobs that will pay well and then out of a job because AI actually does it pretty well.

And so I, you know, I think there are certain things that humans will always be able to do best in their, you know, their relational, the critical thinking. And that's really where the discussions I think, need to happen around workforce and these task forces that aren't just about preparing individuals to be competent in the skills, but also the human nature of complex problem solving so that you can train the ai AI so that you know how to use it.

And that's gonna be a really important consideration. 

[00:35:20] Alex Sarlin: Totally. The ability to work with ai, to know how it works, to know what it can do, and to be able to work alongside it to improve your productivity and efficiency is going to be just like a core skill. We didn't even mention that Israel this week announced that every student is going to have access to private AI tutors thanks to a partnership with a company called E Self, and they are clearly thinking exactly what you're thinking, which is this is where the puck is going.

This is where the world is going. And giving students access to AI tools, younger and younger is just going to be something that safeguards them against this changing economy that we are all I. You know, the AI cliff, we could call it when entry level jobs get taken by ai. Anna Edwards and Ben Wallerstein, incredibly great episode.

I'm so happy to get the two of you, brilliant mind on all of this incredible stuff happening in the government. Thank you so much for being here with us on EdTech Insiders, and we'll go to our guests. Thank you, Anna, 

[00:36:14] Anna Kimsey Edwards: Alex, always fun. Talk soon. We're here with 

[00:36:15] Alex Sarlin: Weakened EdTech for EdTech Insiders with Anna Roka.

She's the CEO of RoboKind, which has really exciting and very, very topical news about an AI literacy curriculum, the very first AI literacy curriculum for K through five. Welcome, Anna. Before we get into the curriculum, tell our audience a little bit about what RoboKind is and what you've been doing to grow throughout the us.

[00:36:39] Anna Iarotska: Thank you, Alex. So RoboKind is a hands on a robotics based STEM program for K through five, and we focus on developing skills for success in the future careers and. Future life of students and the skills are problem solving, computational thinking, communication, collaboration, learning agility. So our thinking initially was to create an engaging hands-on experiences that, of course, connects also to what kids learn in other course objects, but focuses more on skills development.

And yeah, we are now, as you already mentioned, in very exciting times because we feel like that this big important concept of STEM has grown, naturally grown and added ai, which we. Also adding to our mix. 

[00:37:29] Alex Sarlin: Yes, it's gonna be S-T-E-A-I-M soon. You know, we've gotta figure out how to pronounce that. So tell us about your K five AI literacy curriculum.

And I mean, it's incredibly timely because just this week we saw an executive order from the federal government basically saying they're creating a White House task force on AI and education, and truly trying to encourage the entire school system to really embrace AI literacy for all ages. And here you are already saying, Hey, we know how to do that with a skills-based, play-based hands-on approach for younger students.

Tell us about the curriculum. 

[00:38:03] Anna Iarotska: Yes. For us it was really very natural extension because when we were thinking from the very beginning, how do we introduce kids, how we help them develop computational thinking, understanding how computational systems work from early age. And we are doing that with hands-on experience.

And now we have ai, which is. Everywhere. And kids are already exposed to AI from a very young age. Really young age. 

[00:38:28] Alex Sarlin: Yes. 

[00:38:29] Anna Iarotska: So how do we help students in K five understand what AI is, what it can do, what it can't do, where its limitations are. And with our hands on robotics based program, we actually can do that.

So we designed an awesome experience and it makes me my, like, I'm excited about it myself because we have so many different sensors in the robotics kit and it's actually always been a bit of a challenge for students to conceptualize what are those sensor values are. So we are designed a hands-on experience where kids train small neural networks on their robots and they basically teach their robots to start using language categories in programming instead of sensor values.

And in order to do that, they go through guided. Small neural network training by themselves and yeah. 

[00:39:24] Alex Sarlin: Amazing. 

[00:39:25] Anna Iarotska: That's very cool. Very exciting. But the goal is, of course, to just help students build this foundational understanding of what AI is. 

[00:39:34] Alex Sarlin: It reminds me of Seymour Papd and Mindstorms and the idea of how did you get coding into the classroom early by making it more hands-on.

I remember the little turtles that you would program to go around, but this takes it to a, a whole other level. You have physical robotics kits with sensors, with wheels, with different pieces that you can put together and design. I mean, that's amazing. The idea of K five students training neural networks and knowing what that actually means to do that.

That's exciting. And I mean, you're aligned with the Isti AI standards, right? Because if ISTI has put out AI and education standards, and that's one of the core ways that we're thinking about how to teach AI literacy, and you are aligned there. Tell us about how you decided to do that. 

[00:40:14] Anna Iarotska: So what I actually like a lot about guidance from is that they also focused on how to do hands-on projects and how to build a foundational understanding.

'cause in early ages, probably when, like a year ago we would talk about ai, what AI and K five should mean. Everyone was so much focused on prompts and like all like from generation and we were kind of like, hmm, I, I dunno, right? Like is it, is it really education if you're just teaching kids to give a better instruction to ai?

So that's where we like, we saw a kind of great feed and we were very much encouraged by how East see sees it and like what their recommendations are. We need to do it hands on and like, we need to focus on building a foundational understanding of ai. And I actually have like a very recent story from the classroom when we were like speaking to an educator who was sharing that she created a project for her sixth graders who like they had the chance to have a conversation with the historical personality, which was AI generated, but actually like the kind of like a bit yes.

Scary part is that it was an amazing experience and kids. We're convinced that there was some real person behind it. 

[00:41:32] Alex Sarlin: Mm. They 

[00:41:32] Anna Iarotska: kind of like, they couldn't realize that all of this really convincing experience was completely AI generated. Oh. You know, like data model generated. And that why she was like, look, we need to make sure they can distinguish between what's real and what's not.

And that's why we need to kind of, and we need to start early because, yeah. Another story is that actually, do you know which AI tool is the most widely used tool with seven, eight, 9-year-old kids 

[00:42:05] Alex Sarlin: that used to be a replica? Is it something like that? 

[00:42:07] Anna Iarotska: Snapchat. Ai. 

[00:42:09] Alex Sarlin: Snapchat ai. Oh my goodness. Okay. 

[00:42:11] Anna Iarotska: Yeah. 

[00:42:12] Alex Sarlin: That makes sense.

But it's also Yes. That's scary. It's so interesting you say that. 'cause you know, we think about AI literacy and it's obviously this brand new term, but when you describe it the way you just did, it sort of overlaps with media literacy too. It's like AI literacy, understanding what's real, what's not real, what's AI and what's not.

What does it mean to be ai? And that's as well as how to build a neural network and what's happening under the hood. There's a lot of different aspects. 

[00:42:35] Anna Iarotska: Exactly, so like I actually see this as an important part of media literacy and of social studies lesson as well. Yeah, we believe that like it's also good to have a hands-on experience where children also just understand technology and then there is a connection they can talk about like large implications for society, possible biases, which our over reliance on AI algorithms creates.

So it's definitely like it has to be integrated in everything we learn at school in some ways. So that's why I actually think that executive order is like very timely because the change we are undergoing as a society is major and we have to reflect it in our educational system. 

[00:43:19] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, I'm really optimistic because listeners to this show, we'll play a drinking game.

'cause I say this every time, but like I always think of AI as our new internet moment. I think that this is the coding revolution, the internet revolution, the computer science revolution. We all lived through that. It wasn't that long ago. So I think this is feeling of let's not make the same mistakes this time that we made last time and let.

All of these things change in society and not force the education system to catch up and take it seriously and teach core skills. Both, you know, as you mentioned, critical thinking skills, the underlying durable skills, but also the technical skills and the tools because you know, we've been 20 plus years in this sort of computer science world, and the schools are still struggling to get coding wrapped into it.

And may be too late now at this point, frankly. But now we're getting to this amazing point where AI is around and it's only been two years, but there's already this mass movement to start doing exactly the kind of thinking that you're doing. How do we help young students know how to make their own ai, to know how it works, to understand the principles of it, to think about the ethics of it, like you just mentioned, the alignment problem bias.

I'm really optimistic because I think our head is not in the sand on this one. We are very. Now this executive order is an official stamp from the federal government saying, yes, go for it. We really need AI literacy and we need AI to be taught and to teachers. One thing you do, which is really interesting is that you do not expect any tech experience from educators when they're teaching Robo Wonder Kin or this AI curriculum.

Tell us how you do that. How does the teacher training and sort of the system itself support educators who made themselves not know a whole lot about how AI works? 

[00:44:55] Anna Iarotska: Yeah, so like that's definitely a big part of our package of services that we do. Teacher training and coaching throughout the program implementation.

'cause frankly, we don't have any choice, right? Like we. We can't just rely on those already trained teachers. We need every teacher in elementary school to be able eventually to be able to do that. And that's initially what we were also doing with our STEM program that we always, so, and our STEM program is a subscription based program where we provide both curriculum and teacher training as part of the package, and we make it sure that it works.

So in some way, we actually like work with a very grateful audience because they understand the value of play. So K five teachers, you don't have to convince them that learning happens through play. They need. Sometimes a bit more support on adopting those new tools. And so for us it's all about, yeah, training teachers and supporting them throughout the year and then making sure that if we designed, you know, like their learning experience accessible to kids as, as young as kindergarten age kids, that also their teacher experience, user experience of our curriculum, but also support in terms of the product support is at the same level and also very, very accessible for us.

It is like, it's a big part of the work we do, but I think it's very important because, you know, like without teachers it's difficult to create an amazing learning experience at school, and we're definitely not putting kids just in front of a. Excluding a teacher. Like for us, this hands-on playful experience is key.

[00:46:34] Alex Sarlin: So you are so well aligned with some of these new initiatives coming out. The idea of professional development for teachers around AI and AI literacy, the idea of getting AI literacy and hands-on AI education to school at all levels and thinking about preparing students for the jobs of the future at an early age, and knowing that AI is going to be, you know, part of our lives for going forward.

When you saw this ai, you know, executive order come down, right, while you were already bringing together, you know, I think 30 many, many districts to do this amazing movement, I'm sure it was a little bit very validating. What was that like for you? And tell us how that is accelerating, maybe your plans to get AI literacy into the school system.

[00:47:16] Anna Iarotska: So like that was perfect timing, of course. And you know, just sometimes you need a bit of just good timing. So we felt like finally this is our moment for a very good timing and what I immediately see as an impact. So actually most of. School systems have been already working on this in some way. It just that those who are, were a bit more advanced.

They now have a confirmation to move even faster. And those who were somewhat slower to start, they know that they have no way around. So I do agree with you that this time I think we will, everyone will be moving faster as it was with stem because we just like notice that difference, the impact, uh, AI is making is so major that there is no like dragging feet this time around.

Yeah, of course. We now like, so there, executive order is the direction, but I do see that, you know, like it's not just mandate for, you know, the task force, it's mandate for everyone. And I hear like people we speak to sharing that they have been already, already spending quite some time internally to discuss what it means for, for them and uh, what kind of steps they will be taking.

[00:48:32] Alex Sarlin: It's an incredibly exciting time for AI literacy, for AI education, and I think especially at the K 12 level and even the younger K 12 level, because there's just a feeling of, okay, the verdict feels in. You know, it's like, is this thing so scary? We have to ban it from schools as people were doing in the first six months to a year.

Definitely not. Is it something that's going to affect society in a major way? Definitely, yes. I think we've all agreed. So it's starting to be like, now it's tactical. How do we do this? How do we actually teach this? What does it mean to get AI literacy in the classroom? And people like, you know, ISTE had been putting together great standards and people like yourself have been putting together great curricula and toolkits and teacher training and all the pieces.

So I am so thrilled to hear this news and it's just, just incredibly timely, as you said. So if people wanna learn more about what you're doing with your AI literacy curriculum, or if you're, if they have districts in mind that they say, Hey, we would love to connect this school or this district to Robert Wonderin, where can they find you online and where are you sort of taking partnership submissions?

[00:49:37] Anna Iarotska: Yeah, so robo.com, we have a banner now for those districts who are interested to register their interest, and we are looking forward to connect with them. 

[00:49:47] Alex Sarlin: This is Anna Roka, CEO of Robo Wunderkind. Just put out the first AI literacy curriculum for K five. It has robotics, which is also a big growing part of ai.

It has sensors and neural networks. Uh, really, really exciting. Thanks so much for being here to talk about it here on AED Tech Insiders Week in Ed, tech. 

[00:50:06] Anna Iarotska: Tech. Thank you, Alice. My pleasure. 

[00:50:09] Alex Sarlin: For our deep dive this week, we are here with Julia Dixon. She's the founder and CEO of SAI, which uses AI to help students tell their stories in the context usually of college admissions, which is incredibly important.

Welcome to the podcast. 

[00:50:24] Julia Dixon: Thanks for having me, Alex. Excited to catch up. 

[00:50:26] Alex Sarlin: Oh yeah. Well, you have lots of news, but let's start with the Flashiest news. You recently, this week you are going to appear on none other than Shark Tank, the incredibly popular entrepreneur pitch show. Tell us about that experience.

We're not gonna talk about any results here today 'cause it's gonna air this week. But tell us about that experience and what it was like pitching EdTech on Shark Tank. 

[00:50:48] Julia Dixon: Yeah, definitely. We are gonna be on Shark Tank this Friday, May 9th, 8:00 PM Eastern on A, B, C, and it's crazy to be saying that because it felt so ridiculous to even audition for this show.

For those who watch Shark Tank, you know the majority of products on there are physical products. A lot of. Consumer food and drinks and flashy objects, and there's not a lot of software in general. I mean, there's definitely not a lot of AI and high tech stuff, so I really didn't think there was a good chance of getting on the show.

But I also thought, you never know, and I really do think this is something that resonates with so many people. Anyone who's applied to college or has had a kid apply to college knows the struggle and how daunting it can seem and how hard it is and how expensive it is to get individualized support. So I thought worth a try.

The open audition was being held down the street from me in New York, so I just went and I pitched it. 

[00:51:43] Alex Sarlin: Amazing. You sent a photo in your last update email about. What it looked like and you had all these amazing, it looked like a sort of a college dorm almost. The setup there. It had like flags and couches and it sort of, it's just such a trip.

And you know, one of the things that is so interesting about essay, I've always respected about you and what you do is you really measure your success, not only by people getting into schools, which is obviously core, but also how much money they save because it's so expensive. And I'm sure that was part of your pitch.

Can you tell us a little bit about how. You are undercutting this unbelievably expensive college admissions, college advising industry. 

[00:52:20] Julia Dixon: Yeah, that's actually how I opened my pitch when I first auditioned. I said, this is a $3 billion industry of people who are spending money to get their kids into usually super elite schools.

And you know, on the one hand it's awesome that kids are getting individualized support and learning skills to tell their story and learning about these institutions and what it means to tell a story for different contexts. What does this school care about that's a little different than what this school does, and how do we go really deep to show them exactly how you'll thrive on that campus?

So I love that work. I did that work when I was a human advisor, but I thought it was something that. A lot more students should get to try a lot more. Students should learn the skills of building a personal brand and figuring out how to change the story for the different schools you wanna apply to. And so, yeah, I think if, you know there's a market, people are spending a lot of money, but that market could be a lot bigger if it was a lower price point and more kids could get that kind of individualized support.

So that's kind of what I went in with. And I think between the human side, which is we all know how hard this process can be, and honestly how anxiety inducing it is for kids, the amount of pressure we put on them. And then on the business side, this is a really big industry. It's ripe for disruption. And AI is a really good use case here, especially with the right ethical guardrails, which of course I also think a lot about.

And yeah, I think it was just the right time for this story. 

[00:53:39] Alex Sarlin: That's amazing. So speaking of the right time, you are sort of a seasonal, obviously, you support students in their admission process, admissions as a ebb and flow. Tell us about where you're at with SAI right now, I'm sure you've reaching tons of students, you have a amazing social media presence and that that continues to grow.

Tell us about what SAI looks like in May, 2025 and what you're looking forward to for the rest of this year. 

[00:54:01] Julia Dixon: Yeah, it's a good time to reflect because we're sort of in between admission seasons right now. But we had a really great 2024 admission season going into early 2025. It was our first year in market with a full fledged admissions product that not only helps kids with college essay topics, which is our very or beginning origin story, but now everything from picking the right schools that match the basics like your GPA and your budget, but also your personality and your culture fit, and all these things that are gonna indicate how you'll do at a certain school scholarship matching.

We have now, we help with every part of the activity section, quantifying your impact really, if there has to do with going to college and starting to pull your professional narrative together. Then we have it. And yeah, over 550,000 students used an SAI tool last year. Wow. And that's largely due to the fact that we reached over 35 million on organic TikTok views.

So TikTok is definitely been a great driver for us. I think just because again, it's the place kids are going to talk about this, to vent about this, to clarify different misconceptions and see each other's stories and college essays. So emotional and I think it's just a really, it's a fun and sometimes confusing thing to talk about.

And so we've really leaned into that content and yeah, now we're finally seeing where everyone got in and seeing the schools kids are going to how SAI helped in the process and my favorite's always. Like I'm literally going to a school that I didn't know about before. SAI like. That's really cool if we can put something in your purview that was just not on the radar before.

So yeah, it's been really exciting and a big year ahead now that we have all those learnings. 

[00:55:40] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. Any of these stories stand out particularly to you? 'cause it's May, you're getting all these letters about, Hey, I got into my, this school and I got into this. That's like what it's all about as an educator and an advisor.

When somebody says. I'm so happy because everything worked out for me. What stands out for you? 

[00:55:57] Julia Dixon: Yeah. Being a founder is really hard, and seeing kids' personal stories kind of makes it all worth it. So every time I get an email or like a message on TikTok, that's a kid saying that SA, I played a big role in their process.

It. Genuinely makes me emotional. We have a hall of acceptances where students agree to share their story publicly and we amplify their acceptances and try to celebrate everyone together. There was one student who, her story is public so I can share, but her name is Stephanie, and we have talked a lot because she has been one of our biggest evangelists for SAI and she says that, you know, her family would not have paid for a college counselor.

That was not something that was even on the table for them, but she convinced her mom that this was only $50 and worth it for the personalized support. And she got into every school she applied to, she got into Michigan Ross, she got into Northwestern, she got into Wharton, and she's going to Miami on a full ride.

And she, you know, is obviously a really smart kid, said she really struggled with. What to write her essays about and how SAI really helped her walk through what do each of those schools care about and what's the story we're gonna tell? That's the dream scenario. So seeing someone who gotten to all their dream schools and is getting a full ride, that's like the perfect example of, uh, someone who might not have gotten that individualized support.

So yeah, those stories are, are just amazing to hear. 

[00:57:20] Alex Sarlin: One of the things I really love about your product suite and just how you think about things is that the college admissions process, as you say, it's a beast, right? I mean it's just, it's complex. There's many parts to it. There's AC academics, there's financials, there's, you know, logistics, there's deadlines, there's all sorts of stuff that just makes it hard.

And that's a fantastic use case for AI because AI can sort of help structure something that would be very sprawling and complicated, but it's also very, very human. And you talk a lot about how SAI is really about helping students sort of identify and tell their personal stories in a way that is really authentic and really meaningful.

And I just, that combination of sort of being able to break through a complex and structured process, very sort of quantitative ish and then this very qualitative piece of like, find who you really are, express it in a way that really stands out and is meaningful and breaks through the noise. Really interesting combination.

I'm curious, as you sort of build the product, how do you keep those things in balance? 'cause if they're quite different ways of using AI, frankly, and, but you have both of them. 

[00:58:19] Julia Dixon: Yeah, I mean, to zoom out a little bit, I really do think one of the most important life skills we can be teaching high schoolers is, is how to tell a good story and then how to make the human connection.

I mean, anyone who's applied for a job or built a great network, like it's not really about the credentials you have that's kind of just checking the boxes. It's about like, did you connect with this person? Are they gonna remember you? Are you the kind of person, like, I want them on my team, I want them in my office every day.

And and college is the same thing. Like when someone reads a college essay, it doesn't really matter what it's about. If you can tap into like, dang, that's a cool kid. I would be friends with that person. Like, I want them on my campus. Like, those are the feelings you wanna evoke. And you know, we can guide you on, like, this topic might be a little inappropriate or a little more appropriate, but at the end of the day, you can write about a cup of coffee or you can write about like a tragic life event.

But if it evokes the, the same feelings of. You being a, a standout person and someone who has goals and, and empathy and is gonna contribute something awesome to this campus, that's what it's all about. So yeah, I really think about that holistic piece. I can't change your GPA, I can't change your test scores necessarily, but we can help you take all the raw material of your life, all the things that you did in school, outside of school, and package up like the most human story and put it in the context of like what these different schools look for.

And that's a skill that. I think it's, it's a great time to learn this. It's kind of the beginning of forming your professional identity, and I really do think of college admissions as like a wedge into that building a professional narrative that you can grow over time, and that's kind of what we're thinking about at SAI is if we can be the first place you come to craft this story, can we help you keep building it?

Once you get that college acceptance and you're starting to look at things for that summer or on campus, that's kind of what's in the pipeline for us. But it all comes back to like, how do I tell a good story and how do I make the most of the things I already have going for me? 

[01:00:10] Alex Sarlin: I love it. The image I get when I hear you talk about it is almost like a magic mirror, right?

It's like how do you see yourself through the lens of an admissions counselor through the lens of a committee? Alumni like. But in a positive way. It's not like, oh, I'm scared because how are they gonna judge me? It's how do I think about my story, my unique situations, my unique experiences, all the things that make me, me, but in a broader context and sort of tell Apro professional story.

I'm really excited to see this Shark Tank episode. I'm, I'm not a regular watcher of Shark Tank. I know a lot of people are amazing to see pitches, but, uh, I'm rooting for you, obviously, when we find out how it all went down, we'll see what is next for SAI and if there's some additional investments from of these sharks.

What fun that'll be. What was that experience like? Just last question, just like, what was it like actually being on the show? What, how cool? What did it feel like? 

[01:01:00] Julia Dixon: It was pretty terrifying, honestly. I mean, they do a good job, uh, preparing you and making you feel comfortable, but at the same time, like when you're actually standing in front of those people that you see on TV and, you know, have built these empires, it was so intimidating.

I almost don't remember it because I was just running on pure adrenaline, but ultimately I had a really good experience. I am really excited for people to watch it. I am personally gonna be cringing at myself. I think it'll be good, but you'll have to tune in and find out. But excited to kind of be representation for EdTech and yeah, for ai.

That's hopefully making some good in the world and I'm really glad they decided to go with this story. 

[01:01:43] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, I agree. I think you're a fantastic representation of the ed tech industry and ai, you know, the result. But good luck to you and, uh, everybody listening to this. Tune in on Friday to watch Julia Dixon, CEO and founder of SAI.

Show up on Shark Tank and, uh, pitch to those sharks about the incredible work she's been doing for college advising and admissions through ai. Thanks so much for being here with us. What a cool experience that is. We'll all be watching for what's happening next with you. Thanks for being here. 

[01:02:08] Julia Dixon: Thanks so much for having me, and thanks everyone for tuning in this Friday, a BCA PM 

[01:02:14] Alex Sarlin: for our deep dive.

This week we are talking to Rinn Soan. He is the CEO of Codesign and they are announcing some really interesting news and a very exciting partnership that I think should be a signal for the entire EdTech community. Rinn, welcome to EdTech Insiders, Alex, happy to be back. Yeah, we had a long form interview just a few months ago.

You are doing incredibly interesting work with your AI bot, Cosmo and with experiential learning, hands-on learning, and that's really what your announcement today is about. Do you wanna tell us what this partnership is all about? Yes, 

[01:02:45] Tigran Sloyan: absolutely. So we have just announced our partnership with Ted, where Ted has chosen to work with Codesign to transform TED Talks into live hands-on learning experiences to essentially bring it to life.

And I've been a massive fan of TED Talks because I feel like many of the ideas I've heard in TED Talks in the past have influenced how I think about the world, how I think about EdTech in general. But unfortunately, in many cases you hear these ideas and a week later you've pretty much forgotten about them.

And I've always wondered, how do you turn these ideas into skills? And you know it. I know it. The best way to turn anything into skills is to practice and practice it hands-on. So with this partnership, we have taken close to a dozen to start with of some of the best TED Talks out there and have added hands-on learning experiences on top of it.

So now if you're listening to a TED Talk on. Communication. You don't just move on, you actually go and do practice. Right? So let's say we just taught you the power of storytelling. Great, fantastic. Now let's practice it, right? Like pick a story maybe from your life, maybe from work, or maybe something that has, you've heard recently, and tell it to an AI that's going to kind of both react to what you are saying in a voice-based conversation, as well as potentially push back and ask questions to make sure that it's really in a sharp place.

[01:04:19] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. And as a instructional designer, this is music to my ears. We've known for a long time that active learning, that actually practicing and doing things rather than just watching others do them or watching somebody talk about them is much more valuable for learning. And I think the TED Talks are some of the most powerful ideas that mm-hmm we have as a society, but.

Yes, for right now, they're often in idea form. They're in a passive 18 minute video that you watch and you say, that was amazing. And you're lucky if you get a week, I think an hour, an hour from then you walk away and say, that was great, but I don't remember it already. So that's really powerful. And you've done a Ted Talk yourself, if I am not mistaken.

Tell us about that experience. 

[01:04:58] Tigran Sloyan: Yes. So this was almost eight years ago, and the talk is called Can Learning be Addictive? And this was, as you can imagine, an idea that I've obsessed over for several decades, which is, I. Learning traditionally is supposed to be this thing that you have to do. Right? And I've always wanted to create an experience to create a learning environment where learning is something that you want to do.

You crave to do it like with some of the most addictive games out there, right? But you're essentially addicted to something that is very good for you. Now, interestingly enough that talk is quite popular, but I talk a lot there about this idea of how neurologically our brains work, what happens in our head, right?

Where essentially you've got this concept of neurons, which most of us are familiar with, but we're not familiar with, is this substance called. Discovered almost a hundred years ago where the neurons, the connections in our brain, actually wrapped the myelin around that neuron to make it a super conductive neuron.

So it's one thing to essentially make the neural connection to know it, right, but it's another thing to be very, very good at it. It's the myelin wrapping around it that makes the difference. And the way you wrap myelin is essentially through practice, right? So it's kind of beautiful that eight years later we're bringing that idea to life and allowing people to not just make the neural connections when they watch the talks, but bring it to life through practice, and wrap the myelin around those neurons to get good at implementing it in their day-to-day life.

[01:06:41] Alex Sarlin: A hundred percent. I was just talking to my wife the other day about how you can't look at like a billboard and not read the words. It's almost impossible to do, and that's for exactly the reason you said because reading the signal of reading is so deeply myelinated as a neural network that you can't overrun it even if you're trying.

I think that's really interesting way to look at it. So yeah, what you're doing I think is part of a really, really interesting, almost like movement that is mm-hmm. Happening more and more in the AI era where things that were once passive, like images or video or a text on a page, on a textbook page are suddenly interactive, right?

You can ask it questions, you can interact with it, you can practice it. I'd love to hear you talk about that trend, because this is something from people who I think we share the idea that active learning is much superior to passive, to absorbing cold content, as you say, like this could be a game changer for all of ed tech.

Tell me more about how you 

[01:07:34] Tigran Sloyan: think about it. I mean, the future of learning is hands-on and personalized and that future wasn't possible without Gen ai. Right? So while Gen AI is creating a lot of problems when it comes to ed tech specifically, it's one of the biggest opportunities in history because we've always known, like you said, instructional designers have always known that blooms to Sigma problem.

It's been 40 years. We know it. Personalization works one-on-one, tutoring works, but how do we do it? We didn't know hands on. Experiential learning really works because that's what gets people both motivated as well as building the neurons and the myelin around it that gets them to be good at what they do.

And especially when it comes to physical skills, this is almost obvious, right? You would never show somebody a video of kicking a ball or driving a bike, driving car or riding a bike and say, okay, now you know how to do it, right? Like you don't need to, no, it's almost a joke. But when it comes to more intellectual skill, more career relevant skills, we somehow sort of forego that and say like, oh, you know, it should work just fine.

Now, before generative AI revolution, both personalization as well as hands-on learning, were very difficult to achieve because how do you get me to practice communication in a scalable manner, right? Like very few people have access to a one-on-one tutor that would do this with them. Now we are creating with Cosmo and our hands-on simulated environments is allowing people to really experience that experiential learning and get feedback.

Because those two things go hand in hand. Like if you're practicing driving a car and no one's telling you what you're doing wrong, you're just gonna keep doing it wrong, right? Until something bad happens. But if somebody is observing what you do and actually giving you constructive feedback on what you're doing well, what you're not doing well, what you need to adjust, those two things hand in hand, make a learning experience that our ancestors would've dreamed of.

[01:09:36] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, it's really true that combination of repeated practice and retrieval practice and hands-on active learning and the, and feedback and, you know, meaningful feedback corrective, but also descriptive feedback that actually tells you what you're doing and how to improve process feedback. We know that to be the core of what fantastic learning looks like, but it's so difficult to scale and so Ted has had millions and millions of views of many of these videos, tens of millions of views, but the number of people who have turned off the video and then went and practiced it, you know, within a few minutes of watching it, it's probably in the single fingers.

You know, it's incredible when you think about the distance between how many people absorb content and how few of them actually go to practice it or get feedback on it in a way that they're actually gonna make it part of their 

[01:10:19] Tigran Sloyan: life. Yeah. And while we're starting with TED Talks, this is a part of wider initiative that we're calling Expert series because there is a lot of really fantastic acid learning content out there from TED talks to books to other learning materials that have been created over the decades.

But now you can actually take those and transform that into these hands-on learning experiences to help people actually build those skills. And we're already working with several book authors with several publishers to actually bring books to life too, in a similar way that we're doing for TED Talks.

And I can't wait for those to come out as well. 

[01:11:01] Alex Sarlin: That sounds really, really interesting and we didn't mention this. I'm curious, you know, what is the age target for this type of product? Is this for professional learning or mm-hmm. Are you thinking for university students, who do you envision using a TED talk and then actually active learning around it?

[01:11:15] Tigran Sloyan: The way we think about code signal in general as an educational product, it's kind of like Duolingo for professional skills, right? Mm-hmm. Because it has the hands-on component, the gamification, and the, you know, experiential and mastery focused learning, but it focuses on things that are gonna get you a job.

Now, from that perspective, it's both student age, so essentially university age learners, but also adult learners more, and. I think we have to really, really think about designing experiences that are catered for adult learners, because while AI presents a massive opportunity in education to rethink it, by far the biggest danger to our society from AI is within a few years time, you're gonna see hundreds of millions of people globally who've lost their job.

People in their thirties and their forties, who have families and who have built their entire career and livelihood around the skillset that they had. And those skill sets are getting automated in a very, very, very fast pace. Now, our educational system in general is not designed to reeducate adults. I mean, we're barely figuring out how to educate, you know, student educating adults.

We're sort of at complete. With ai now we just do not have an option than to take the responsibility as educational technology leaders to say adult education has to be a first class citizen. And when we think about learning, 

[01:12:47] Alex Sarlin: maybe I shouldn't get too political about this, but you know, there's already been so much job displacement over the last few decades, notably in manufacturing as we know.

And there's always been promises of retraining programs and upskilling. And that's always been part of the rhetoric of as technology takes jobs, the government should support retraining for people for, they call it, when new collar jobs is, is often one. We are getting to a place where the jobs that are gonna be displaced right now are going to be.

Very widespread. It's not manufacturing, it's not steel mills anymore. It's going to be all sorts of jobs that are going to be overthrown or taken over and paralegals, all sorts of things. So I think we may be, hopefully with tools like Code Signals sort of entering an era where we need vast retraining programs for all kinds of different skill sets for people.

It's just an unprecedented, we've never really had to do anything like that. 

[01:13:40] Tigran Sloyan: Yeah, I mean before, you're right, this has been happening for decades, but before we kind of got by because the rate at which was happening was somewhat manageable. Now we're entering an era where it's absolutely not going to be manageable and there's no way to just get by and say, okay, this is the problem that we can let burn.

It's one of those problems we can't let burn, and we have to utilize the positive power of this technology in education to fix the problem created by the same technology in other domains. 

[01:14:12] Alex Sarlin: So one last question while I have you. You know, I think turning passive learning content like TED videos incredibly high quality.

Some of the best speakers, best thinkers in the world, but it's still a passive video. It's an 18 minute video into an interactive learning experience that has mastery learning, that has practice, that has feedback is huge. The last piece of the puzzle for me about that is transfer is how do you actually take those skills and use them in the context that in which you need them and recognize the context in which you would use them again.

I'm curious if that's something you think about a codes signal, if that's where you're, somewhere you're going 

[01:14:48] Tigran Sloyan: in the future. It's a fantastic question because at the end of the day, you have to tie it to what would somebody do on the job and how would they actually approach it, which is why we're probably the only educational technology company on the market that started from the hiring side.

Right. And the reason we started from skills-based hiring side is I knew very well that. People who learn for just fun because they just enjoy the process of learning are the people who are already good. Like most of them already have a PhD or a master's because they just enjoy the process. They enjoy the existing system.

So the people that you need to design learning experiences for are those who would do that for, to advance their career for the economic outcome. Now, if companies are not doing skills-based hiring, and if the only thing that matters is a pedigree alternative, educational solutions would never actually work.

Now, while I started the company with the dream of discovering and developing the skills that'll shape the future, I very quickly realized that you have to put a pin on the education dream and go and fix skills-based hiring and a understand what do companies want, what skills truly matter, and have your finger on the pulse of these are the skills that matter, and those are changing faster than ever before.

So having the finger on the pulse of what skills matter is, number one. And two, having companies actually say more about skills than about traditional resumes. And it's the combination of the two that allows us to say, you know what? These are the skills you should practice. This is how that connects to jobs, and which jobs and at what level.

And it's that combination that creates a world in which you can actually go out there. Use a learning product to retrain yourself to gain new skills and go get a job and change your life. Instead of it being like, okay, you know you did this, the rest is on you. 

[01:16:44] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. Skills become the connective language between anything educational and the actual, you know, applied work.

If you can learn a skill but then use it in the context of the work that you're going to be using it in, you've successfully sort of moved it into exactly the the context you you need. That's what it's all about, especially with adult and workforce education. It is so interesting. I'm really excited to see this.

So this is coming out this week, right? This first set of 10 videos on code signal. 

[01:17:12] Tigran Sloyan: Exactly. Yeah. By the time this is published, it might already be live, 

[01:17:15] Alex Sarlin: so check it out. This is code signal.com/ted. I think it's a vision of the future of interactive content taking. Libraries of incredibly high quality content and making them interactive educational experiences.

Really exciting news. Thank you so much. This Istrin Slay. He is the CEO and Co-founder of Code Signal. Thanks for being with us here on EdTech Insiders speaking. EdTech. Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community.

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