Divided Attention vs Focused Conversations

This month, I have attended two virtual "lunch and learn" sessions offered by my school board. Or, rather, I should say that I attempted to attend two lunch PD (professional development) workshops. 

As the chairperson at my school, it is my job to cover the office during lunch if the principal is unavailable. It just so happened that on both of these days when these sessions were scheduled, I was required to keep an eye on the front desk. It was impossible to listen attentively to the directions on screen and properly monitor my surroundings. Sorry, Lumio! Sorry, My BluePrint!

I'm not even sure how our office administrator gets through her virtual professional learning while at her desk. She shuts the door, but that doesn't help. There are still kids who need ice or band-aids. There are still staff coming in with questions. There are still parents dropping off or picking up their children. I know about multitasking, but when learning new things, you need to minimize the distractions. 

That's why I was very fortunate this past week to be part of two uninterrupted, focused conversations.

The first was for the Library Exchange Podcast. 

Run by the delightful duo of Julie Saunders and Jan Wilson, recently (and soon-to-be) retired school librarians from Georgia, USA, this podcast can be heard almost anywhere podcasts are shared. You can see the list of their previous recordings on https://www.libraryexchangepodcast.com/ 

Jan and Julie certainly did their research on me. They knew about this blog, the CTV appearance, the awards and more. (I shouldn't expect any less from experienced school librarians!) The theme of our discussion was "Thinking In The Library". Once the podcast gets published, I'll post the link here.

On Saturday, October 3, I was part of a panel, run by the TPL Innovator in Residence, Ryan Kelln, called AI & Young People: The Future of Thinking.

Young people are the first generation growing up with AI everywhere. What does that mean for how they think, make things, and become themselves?

Join us for an honest conversation about AI and youth. Panelists will share what young people are actually doing with AI, what worries them, and what adults keep getting wrong. Audience questions welcome. This is not a lecture about the dangers of cheating or bad choices; it's the ageless conversation about agency, creativity, and thinking for yourself, but in the age where digital intelligences are developing too.

I was on a panel with some fantastic minds: Ronit Novak (founder and editorial director of The Grain thegrain.ai), Dashiel Carrera (Incoming Assitant Professor of Arts and Machine Creativity HKUST https://www.dashielcarrera.com/), and Omar Shahin (Masters student at TMU).  

The recording will be available later and I will try to link to it if possible.

Preparing for a panel can be a tricky thing. We took a lot of questions from the audience, a small but thoughtful dozen attendees, who had legitimate concerns and valuable insights. One of the listeners asked about resources parents can access to help them understand AI and support their young children with AI use. I mentioned three (Common Sense Media, Media Smarts, and AML) but forgot to mention one of my favourites, Ctrl-F from Civix. I was prepared to mention and quote some of the middle school students I work with at my school, but the opportunity never arose. I really wanted to make sure that young people's voices were represented on the panel. Since I didn't get a chance to share what was said back in March 2026, I'll share some of their thoughts here.

The original question, phrased so it wouldn't be too leading, was "What is something you are curious about when it comes to AI?"

• How will AI improve? At what point will I question if a video I'm watching is real or not? When will all the little bugs in AI disappear and the line between real and AI be impossible to tell? (Grade 8 student)
• How does AI get programmed and what is the hardest language when it comes to communicating with artificial intelligence? (Grade 8 student)
• How does it actually work? / How is it so quick? (multiple students)
• Who made AI? Why did people create AI? How did they create it? (multiple students)
• When you tell AI to predict what's gonna happen to you in the future, is it real? (Grade 8 student)
• What will it be like in 2099? / How fast will it develop in the future? (multiple students)
• Why does AI need so many resources to operate? (Grade 8 student)
• Will it ever be able to reach the level of a human brain? (Grade 8 student) / What would happen if AI gained its own thoughts? (Grade 7 student) / Can AI replace humans? (Grade 7 student)
• Does AI have any limits? (Grade 7 student)
• When people say AI will take over the world, do AI actually have their own thinking other than data? (Grade 7 student)
• Would any students' lives change, if there's no AI, would it be a good or a bad impact? (Grade 8 student)
• Is everyone gonna use AI for their daily life in the future? (Grade 6 student)
• Can AI make a new AI? (Grade 6 student)

And then there were some comments rather than questions:

• I'm curious about the full potential of AI and even maybe a bit unsettled (Grade 7 student)
• If [a] human does things slower but more accurate but we ask AI to do it, but it's more inaccurate than us doing it, I don't know if I should use ... (Grade 6 student)
• I don't like AI very much.