2025: An InstructureCon Odyssey

Welcome to Educast three thousand. It's the most transformative time in the history of education.


So join us as we break down the fourth wall and reflect on what's happening, the good, the bad, and even the chaotic. Here's your hosts, Melissa Lobel and Ryan Lufkin.


Alright. Welcome to this special episode of the Educast three thousand podcast. I'm your cohost, Ryan Lufkin.


And I'm your cohost, Melissa Lobel.


And we are coming to you live from a bubble? I mean, this is a bubble.


Definitely a bubble.


At InstructureCon twenty twenty five.


So if you aren't joining us, the theme is what myths and, myths and legends.


Myths and legends.


Yeah.


And this is definitely we're surrounded by the Loch Ness Monster. I just saw Bigfoot walk by. Yeah. There's a crash alien spaceship on our main stage, but we're really just in the beginning of day two. Right? And so let's talk about a little recap of what we've seen so far.


Yeah. It's been exciting. The energy is really great with all of our customers and everybody interested in what's going on in our world. The big topic, no surprise, has been AI. That is for sure always, and Ryan's very happy about that. But, really, I think more than even just AI, it's how are we using this in really meaningful ways to affect learning. You know, we've all been talking a lot about how can we do it to simplify experiences and reduce burdens, But the conversation is now being, I think, elevated further into how do we impact learners.


Absolutely. And and we're in this transition phase. Right? We're moving from the broad application chat bots, really more into the agentic AI phase. And we had an exciting announcement around that yesterday.


Yeah. We sure did. And a lot of exciting announcements. I'm gonna have you share those, Ryan, but I will I did wanna say that agentic shift, I think, is a really important one, and it's one that we're not talking about enough in education. Yep. I think we're so focused on the use cases that perhaps we're not also thinking about thinking outside of what's right and right.


I also think it's a limited view of the use cases. Right?


Like, we're just we're just starting to explore what these AI tools are capable of Yep.


Especially when they we think about it in the agentic mode. Instead of instead of accomplishing an individual task, how can they work across our all of our software to help us really truly save time and accomplish really complex tasks?


Absolutely. And, Ryan, I'm gonna queue you up for this. What we talked a lot about is the importance of having a foundational platform to support all of the different kinds of applications of AI. So being able to create, you know, specific capabilities and features to support teachers and learners and students and educators, but then also to extend that to other partners, but that agent piece. So we we did have an announcement around an agent. Do you wanna share a little bit about that? Right?


We did. Yesterday, Sharon Vijay Singh, our chief product officer, announced Ignite AI and our Ignite agents. So the Ignite agent, we, you know, developed in cooperation with AWS, and it is a tool that can work across the five hundred APIs that Canvas has in our our LTI deep LTI framework to really accomplish really complex tasks. And then this morning, we actually demoed something that we've partnered with OpenAI Mhmm.


To actually develop a course module that involves the application of an AI agent in a Socratic learning method. Right? So instead of giving the student the answer, they're interacting with the tool in a way that's assigned by the educator. But then also the educator has this transparent view of that interaction.


So they can actually measure how well the student is using the tool, how engaged they are. But make sure that that AI tool is actually giving the appropriate answers too, right, which is we've talked about that human in the loop piece as well.


Absolutely. And I think the exciting part about this work is it it takes us away from this conversation, and I think this is important for us to do, from detection. Right? It's not all about where is AI being used.


But it's and and shame on you for using it. But it's much more about, no. Let's use AI in ways that are not only meaningful to our learning, but that can demonstrate the process behind that learning and that can help students and even teachers just be more prepared for a very AI oriented world. And I know you really are passionate about literacy.


I think that really feeds both pieces of this. Right?


I was gonna say if you've listened to the podcast before or you've seen Melissa where I present, you know, that AI literacy is so core. Getting people to move beyond the idea that these are cheating tools and move to the idea that these can be used really effectively.


Yep.


They can be used in really novel and engaging ways that don't replace an educator Yeah.


That actually empower an educator to save time, focus on the learning, create better engaging, more personalized learning for students. And so it's as overwhelming as the conversation with AI can be as you mentioned. Like Yeah. We hear it everywhere.


It's all the time. We're like we almost lost over. I've been really excited about hearing our customers talk about our educators talk about how you wow. This is I can actually apply this.


It's it's changing their thinking around how I use this in the in the classroom.


Yeah.


It's like it's up leveling the excitement around the Yeah.


So, Ryan, I have to ask you, and I I know you have thoughts on this. So we had a pretty special keynote last night. Yes. We had a pretty special speaker, and I know I wrote down a number of the things that he said, but maybe share a little bit about that conversation that was had last night.


Yeah. So Zach Pendleton, who's our chief architect and frequent partner of Melissa and I's, actually had the chance to interview Baratunde Thurston, which was if you don't know him, he's a futurist. He's a talks a lot about AI. He actually runs another podcast that has an AI producer slash co host. Right?


Yeah.


And he talked about the the process of developing that tool and that how they use it on the show and the future of AI. And I honestly, I was I was taking notes aggressively on some things he said. You know, the one quote that he talked about was, you know, the idea that in a lot of ways AI is consuming data without consent, control, or compensation, which I thought was so fascinating. I wrote that down, so I was like, oh, yeah.


I mean, that is the challenge. But, man, it's such insightful, and I know there's probably some social posts out there kind of highlighting more about that. But I was honestly it was funny. Zach did a great job of you know, I it was one of the few where I was like, I'm jealous.


I didn't get to interview him on this side. You know?


Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, one of the other things that I wrote down, he talked about AI shifting from a tool to a teammate.


Yeah.


And I loved that. Right? Because it's about as we think about what we get out of AI, it's only as good as what we put in AI. Yeah.


Right? And so and to me, that's just there's a level of humanness to that. And as we think about, really, the far out future, right, the next three to five to seven years, we need to be thinking about how are we using AI beyond just a tool set for what we do now Yeah. But for a companion in a much bigger scope to really rethink and reenergize our practice.


I talk about Lane Freeman who I presented with North Carolina and his this idea that he treats his his AI tool as a lazy graduate assistant. Right?


Yes. Yes. Yes.


Then you'll never be disappointed, but you also, like, know to check their work and check their outcomes. And their task, they're really, really good at and their task, they just don't have the expertise for. And and he reiterated that. Bertinelli, like, really hit on that piece where that partner aspect is key. And when you would when you start talking to it like your partner and you give it context like you would another human that you're asking for instead of treating it like a a simple Google search. Right?


Yeah.


So much more powerful. I and I you just saw the heads nodding in the audience and people getting really excited about that.


Absolutely. I also loved the the last thing I'll mention about what Thirteen Day shared, you know, he gave a little bit about his story. And he starts the conversation with, you know, I'm the product of and he talks about his parents. And he said, I'm also a product of Head Start.


Yeah.


And I think we don't talk enough about what shaped us Yeah.


You know, when we're having these conversations. Right? When we introduce ourselves to others or we start talking about this, we talk about, okay, here's what we're doing now. But so many of these moments have shaped us, and those things, as he talked about, are gonna shape how we use AI and how we build Exactly. Tooling of AI. So I just really valued, like, his grounding in that. And he also talked about being a proud Earthling, and that had nothing to do our thing.


Actually. Yeah.


Even our theme. Right. No. No.


But it was he has a very meaningful part of our brain.


He's literally sitting next to a UFO on the stage talking about being a proud Earthling.


Yes.


But I actually love that because he was like, what when you step back and you look at this moment, we are we are on a rock hurling through space at the perfect temperature at the perfect time. Yes. The privilege of being here and what we do with that privilege, I thought was just fascinating. And and again, you saw the head nodding, but I was like, yeah.


The be being proud of Earthling, celebrating the things that we have in common more than the things that divide us, I thought, you know, just a just really uplifting, really positive. And it's just a funny gentleman. Like, he was, you know, incredibly smart, incredibly funny. He was a great way to kick that off.


Yeah. I also that last point that you made, Ryan, the he reminded us of how special what we have. Yeah. And right now, it is a really hard world.


Right? And I'm sure many generations will say this, but there's a lot of change going on right now. And so one of the things that I really appreciated about him, and I've gotten a vibe here with educators is we're all like, yeah. Okay.


Our lives are getting turned upside down, but rather than dwelling in the muck Yeah. We're just gonna find paths forward.


We're gonna keep doing the good work because we all care about students at the end of the day.


You mean the analogy, just like a fire burns a forest Yeah. It also lays the groundwork for new trees. Right?


And so we can lean into the opportunity that what happens after the fire?


What happens after Yep. The most tumultuous change? How do we rebuild education? What are the opportunities around that?


Know, the Department of Education is somewhat being dismantled. How do we put the pieces back together? How do we shift responsibility? How do we take responsibility for those things?


And I again, like, it's one of those it was kind of a challenge to the audience to say, you know, shift your mindset. Like, let's figure out how we move forward in really positively.


Speaking of shifting your mindset, I'm gonna shift off of AI for a second. So as usual, in this conference, we'll do some product announcements and have a deeper product keynote. And in that, one of the things that got the most applause, and and I don't say this because it's the product, but it's the theme Yeah. Was accessibility Yes. And this commitment to being transparent about accessibility.


And I think if you would have said those things three or four years ago, people would have been excited, but there's not this rallying around how do we create accessible, universally designed environments so that everybody can thrive. And, like, I really just I appreciate the passion. And for a while there, I got nervous that it was all gonna be about, particularly in the US, the changing guidelines. If you're listening outside of the US, some countries do have fairly strict guidelines around accessibility.


And but educators are not taking this as a, oh, I've gotta have this done Yeah.


Alone. Right? They're, like, also thinking, I get why this is valuable. Yep. I just need to figure out how to do it quickly Yeah. So that I can get there, meet the requirements, but also because I know this is the right thing to do. Yeah.


And shout out to Walt from our product team. He did an outstanding demo Yes. Of an AI tool that it, you know, runs through and actually helps update check for accessibility and update accessibility. Yeah. But one of the pieces was a tool that automatically creates alternate text for PDFs. Yep.


And the how quickly that got a rousing applause from the audience.


Absolutely.


Because it it's one of the things where it seems simple, but if you've ever tried to turn a PDF, I think, the text out of a PDF Absolutely.


Not simple at all. And so the fact that you could do it in seconds, he's like, and he quoted some stats about how long it took educators on average to do that kind of stuff and how many hundreds of thousands of hours are spent annually on that kind of stuff. It seems like those little little things, but they make a big difference.


Oh, yeah. And, you know, speaking of that too, I visited a couple of higher education institutions earlier this year, and they were telling me there's a shift in their faculty around accessibility. For a long time, it was, that's not my problem Yeah. Or it's not that big of a deal, or I don't have any kids in my classes that need accommodations, so I'm not focusing there. And it what's really been interesting is watching the shift, and they've even shared, as we raise literacy similar to AI literacy, as we raise accessibility literacy, if you wanna call it that.


I think that's a weird way to call it. Yeah.


Yeah. If you wanna call it that to for faculty, they're now seeing like, oh, I get this.


Yeah.


Sometimes I can't read a screen because the color contrast looks weird.


Yeah.


Oh, I see why I actually need to think about this. This isn't just directly in response to a student that may need accommodations. This is actually in response to lifting all of us up to be able to learn most of that.


The accessibility, it has such kind of impact well beyond those individual students. And it has these kind of undiscovered. Right? It makes it easier for transcripting, and that makes it easier for AI tools to leverage those.


Right? Like, there's a there's a whole set of kind of unintended benefits that goes along with that. And, again, I have to shout out a lot of our we've got a great core of employees here in Instructure who I spent a lot of time with. I know you spent a lot of time with who really were raising that bar, being that gong, I guess, about accessibility in ways that really you're like, oh, yeah.


Alt text is incredibly important for image. Oh my gosh.


Yes.


Captioning is incredibly important. You know? We've gotta make sure that these tools are working because they're our peers. They're in our classrooms, but but it benefits everyone. And so they've done an amazing job with that.


Yeah. I agree. Brian, I'm gonna shift the conversation maybe and throw this at you. So so we've chatted a little bit about the conversations that have happened so far, AI, accessibility.


There's more to come around universal design and accessibility here. But, also, you and I are on stage tomorrow, main stage tomorrow, next to that flying the crashed flying saucer.


Flying saucer. Yeah. I think I'm saying you put me closest to the flying saucer.


Put you closest to the flying saucer. I I think I did. And I I think there's gonna be supposedly, I don't know, a campfire of some nature. So maybe we're on Mars.


I I do have to say, if you've if you've seen this at Instructure, somehow you and I always end up around a campfire.


Always. Around a campfire.


Years. Yeah.


Yeah. If we're gonna have hokey themes, it's coming our way. That is for sure.


You'll find this by the fire.


Exactly. Well, so maybe you wanna start a little bit with, like, what are we talking about tomorrow?


I mean, we talk a lot about those impactful eight. Right?


So we're narrowing I don't know if everybody knows our impactful eight that's our listeners.


So maybe Yeah.


Describe what it is.


Yeah. If so what? Two years ago, when you moved into this role, you and I sat down, and you said we can't boil the ocean. We've gotta really focus our efforts and our energy on the key themes that are impacting education across the globe at every level.


Yes.


And that was that's exactly how you put it. And and we sat down and we came up with the impactful eight. Right? Yep. And it's guided all of our presentations and that's EdTech efficiency and effectiveness Mhmm. Lifelong learning.


Yep. Come on. You know generative AI.


Generative AI underscores everything. Oh, yeah.


Industry partnerships, industry engineering, the science of learning.


Yep.


Assessment.


The state of data driven decision making, assessment Yep. And credentialing essentially. Yeah. Like, proof of learning.


And and those have really resonated. So we're gonna narrow in on four of those. You know, if you know me, of course, I'm doing AI literacy Always. And sitting down with Monica Hixson from University of Michigan who is just fantastic.


University of Michigan has led the efforts in AI literacy, I think, from literally the beginning, the the moment that AI was launched. And so I've spoken with other Dan Burgess and other members of that University of Michigan team in the past, and so I'm super excited to have Monica on stage with us. And we'll be talking a little bit about our perspective on AI literacy and why that's important. And then handing it off to what who's sitting next with Jody.


Is Jody nice?


Jody Sailor's sitting next to you, and she's gonna talk about the recognition of learning so that even beyond the credentialing piece, how are we thinking about giving individuals the ability and this is really important, especially as we think about the future. So so mind you, I will step back and say the impact relates all about thinking out.


Yes.


Right? I mean, some of these are hitting us right now as educators, but we also need to be looking at the future and making some predictions Yep. So we can start to correlate our work to that. But, anyway, Jody Sailor is amazing on our team, and she's gonna be chatting with Rodney from Elon.


And he's gonna be talking about how the comprehensive learner records and even just the recognition of formal and informal learning Yep.


Can change the way an individual learner views themselves, but also helps them be able to demonstrate their unique characteristics. And so they can talk a bit about what that's important.


Be oh, I mean and I see it with my I see it with Finley, my daughter, who's, you know, a a junior in college, and she's looking at stackable credentials. And how do I Yep. I don't know the job I want to do yet, but I know I wanna show these skills that I am interested in, am I developing? So how do I how do I what is the proof of that? How is that a certificate? Is it a badge? What does that look like?


Absolutely. You know what? I also love that I told this story. I don't think I've told this in the podcast, but it was a political science and history double major.


And shout out to the social sciences. There's a lot of soft skills that I really developed through that that I'm I'm happy about. But there's probably some hard skills that I have to learn later in my career. I would've I would've loved to have had some sort of analytics Yeah.


Or data analysis kind of certificate that I could have done in parallel. Yep. That would've given me a head start when I would be, you know, in my career doing the work that I'm doing, but then I also have these capabilities to really represent that work more holistically or more strategically. So so next to Jody, we'll move on to what we're talking about as Tracy Weeks, and she's got Julia Fallon for, she's the executive director of SITA, a k twelve really critical organization that's doing a lot of thought leadership around educational policy, especially in reaction to what's going on.


You know, it was just announced that SITA will be partnering with UNESCO and leaning in more on the AI literacy work that's being done. It's super exciting and powerful. But they're gonna talk about, like, how do we all, as a collective, move forward?


Like, how do we get through turbulent times together, and how do we action the right people on those Well and and Tracy is our in house, policy expert, and she she does such an amazing job.


I mean, you know, we had updates on national AI policy from the White House this week.


Right? Today, actually.


We've got state policies that are being updated on a weekly basis. And she I mean, my head swims thinking about how she keeps track of all of the policy information that comes out and distills it down for us and keeps us smart as a company and Yeah. As leaders. And so it's she's been on the podcast before.


She'll be on the podcast much more, because I think there's so much opportunity to discuss that. And so it's gonna be that's gonna be really interesting. Yeah. And then Tracy ends it off to you.


To me. Right? And, of course, similar to Ryan and his passion for generative AI and and AI literacy, of course, I'm gonna talk about the science of learning. I can't I'm a nerd when it comes to that.


I can't not. But what's really cool is I have Jason Black stock out with me. He is a founder, CEO of a nonprofit called How to Change the World, and they focus on sustainability education, but using an experiential practice. He has done this.


He's a a physics professor. He's done this for a long time in his career embedded in a number of universities, and now they're out there helping us do mass experiential learning. And it was interesting. We did a survey of all of our attendees before they came to the conference, and we asked them, okay.


What are some of the most important topics that you wanna be talking about? And the two that rose to the top were AI and experiential learning.


Yeah.


Shout out to my fellow educators. I am so stoked for you all. But I will say that we are also gonna be announcing a white paper, and it'll be launching in our community around experiential learning that Jason authored with some other leaders in the field that's gonna be just really awesome for us to be able to start to think about mass experiential learning. So that's our teaser for that as well. No.


That's awesome. And there's you know, we're the morning keynote there on Thursday, but, you know, this afternoon, we're recording this on Wednesday for everybody. You know, we've got Michelle Weiss who will be designing online learning, which is another one of those I'll be doing a super session with her after that. Yeah.


It's gonna be awesome. And, actually, tomorrow, Thursday afternoon, Robert Barnett, who's actually been on the podcast Yes. Is our afternoon keynote. And then we're I'm doing a super session with him after that as well.


So diving even deeper into those questions. So, yeah, chance to actually I've met him yesterday. I met him in real in real life IRL. And Yeah.


So yeah.


Love it.


It's I love that kind of blurring of, you know, we have amazingly smart people on this podcast. We have the benefit of sharing that with you, our listeners, and it's so amazing to bring that to the to instruct your client and share that as well.


Yeah. I love it. Well, I think that's a good sort of summary. Don't you think so?


I think so.


I mean, this going on?


Did I miss anything?


No. We're gonna go. There's a like I said, there's Loch Ness Monsters over there. There's a Okay.


Alien in a travel trailer. Something Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Little you know, it's one of those things where instruction can truly there's floating eyeballs.


I don't know.


But it's just that I just noticed those as well.


Oh, goodness. This is crazy. Floating eyeballs. There's a there's a spaceship and clouds in the lobby. It's one of those this is an experience unlike any other.


And and whether you're here with us and and listening to this afterwards or whether you're not, hopefully, you catch the vibes that are out there.


So Absolutely. Well, yeah, thanks, Ryan, and thanks for listening. You know where to find us and more exciting guests to come.


Yeah. We'll see y'all next time on the Educast three thousand podcast. Yep.


Thanks for listening to this episode of Educast three thousand. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and drop us a review on your favorite podcast player so you don't miss an episode. If you have a topic you'd like us to explore more, please email us at instructure cast at instructure dot com, or you can drop us a line on any of the socials. You can find more contact info in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Educast three thousand.