What happens when a public school district builds a micro school inside itself, and doesn't apologize for it?

Rob Dickson is the CIO of Wichita Public Schools (USD 259), and he's not waiting for permission to innovate. Creative Minds, a K-6 vertical classroom where kindergartners learn alongside sixth graders. Future Ready Centers that look like businesses, not classrooms, where students earn certifications in advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity. An iterative, agile approach to systems change that treats failure as feedback, not failure.

Dickson's work bridges the operational and instructional sides of AI adoption, from changing app approval processes to training teachers on generative AI within weeks of ChatGPT's release. He argues that adaptability is the highest form of intelligence, and that schools must prepare students not for certainty, but for curiosity in the face of constant change.

What You'll Learn:

1. The three learning stages: K-5 learning by doing, 6-8 skill discovery, 9-12 skill development
2. Social fitness - how Generation Alpha navigates networks of billions, not 15
3. Why AI replaces tasks, not jobs - and what that means for curriculum design
4. How Wichita's Future Ready Centers and Creative Minds micro school operate
5. Arizona State's six levels of problem solving - and why academia lives in the first three
6. Humanity, Agency, Audacity: Rob's three words for being 2035-ready

What if AI isn't trying to fit into your classroom — but to rebuild it entirely?

Erin Mote, CEO and founder of InnovateEDU, explores what it means to navigate an arrival technology, one that doesn't fit into existing systems but fundamentally reorders them. Erin leads national and international work on AI literacy, including National AI Literacy Day (March 27th), and she's not here to hype or fear-monger. She's a scout: someone managing both the promise and the peril.

What You'll Learn:

1. The difference between arrival technologies (AI, electricity, internet) and adoption technologies (crypto, VR)
2. Why AI literacy is as critical in English and science as it is in computer science
3. Real examples of AI reducing bias, optimizing bus routes, and screening for dyslexia
4. How National AI Literacy Day (March 27) is calling in parents, students, and communities
5. Why "do something" is the only response that matters
6. Erin's two-word challenge: Do something
7. Her song choice: Happy (balancing promise and peril)

Can Your AI Guidance Actually Guide — Or Does It Just Add Cognitive Load?

Thirty-five states have issued AI guidance for schools. But how many of those documents reduce workload instead of compounding it? How many build judgment muscles instead of issuing checkbox mandates? And how many actually get used in real classrooms?

Julia Fallon, Executive Director of SETDA, has spent 25 years working with state education technology leaders to design systems that prioritize coherence over compliance. In this conversation, she reveals why effective guidance must anchor values in context, design for agency, and trust educators by default, or it will live on a shelf, ignored.

What You'll Learn:

1. Why AI is infrastructure, not a program, and what that means for funding and strategy
2. The three divides from the 2024 National Ed Tech Plan: access, design, and use
3. How No Child Left Behind's compliance trap offers lessons for AI adoption today
4. Why reducing cognitive load is the design principle most guidance ignores
5. What DJing on Twitch teaches about learning publicly and modeling transparency
6. The three-word challenge: Coherence. Agency. Trust.

Julia also shares her leadership signature song — "The Music Sounds Better with You" by Stardust — and why collective rhythm, not solo performance, defines systems-level change.