0:01

Hey everybody, we're back and I am excited.

0:04

I get to talk to Katie Capshaw today. I have been looking forward to this conversation for a while, so I'm really,

0:08

really, can't wait to get into it.

0:10

But Katie, I know that not everybody may be familiar with who you are, so why don't

0:15

you take a second, tell us a little bit about who you are, where you are, what you

0:17

do. Sure, my name is Katie Capshaw, like you said.

0:22

I am a middle school librarian in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is the

0:27

direct center of the state of Tennessee, very exciting.

0:30

And I have been a librarian for 10 years.

0:33

And I also have been, I'm the past president of the Tennessee Association of

0:38

School Librarians. So I was president in 2022.

0:42

Yeah, so that's what I am, that's what I do.

0:45

Awesome, love it. So you're in school librarianship.

0:50

What was your path to the school library?

0:53

How'd you end up there? Yeah, well, that's a great question.

0:56

I was a teacher.

0:58

I went to college to be a teacher, elementary education.

1:02

I graduated in a different century.

1:06

When things were things were very different, I actually didn't teach for the

1:10

first few years because back then it was hard to get a job in elementary education,

1:15

especially I grew up in a college town a little bit east of here where I live

1:20

currently and everybody.

1:23

stayed after graduation. So there were like 50 to 100 applicants for every teaching job.

1:28

Not the way things are today, but that's how it was back then.

1:32

So I did a few other things.

1:34

I was, I tutored, I worked at a tutoring company as a director.

1:37

I was a church secretary for a little while.

1:40

And then I ended up teaching when we moved to South Georgia and I taught middle

1:45

school, ELA and social studies for six years in Southwest Georgia in a little

1:50

tiny town called K -Roe.

1:52

Georgia spelled like Cairo, Egypt, but they definitely say Cairo.

1:57

Home of the Syrup Makers, that was their high school mascot.

2:00

Yeah, true story. It's very interesting.

2:03

And so I taught there. It was very different from how I grew up.

2:09

It was 75 % minority, about 80 % free and reduced lunch.

2:13

I grew up mostly in a white southern town and middle class mostly, you know.

2:20

So that was really different and I learned a lot and I grew a lot and it was really

2:26

hard sometimes, but it was a good place.

2:28

It was challenging, but I learned in about year four that I wasn't really cut out to

2:34

be a teacher. I was like, classroom teacher is hard and not as much fun as I thought it would be.

2:44

and by then I, you know, I was married and I had two kids and it was just getting to

2:48

be a lot. So my instructional coach locked me into a room with her one day.

2:52

I think maybe the door wasn't locked, but I felt like it was.

2:55

She wanted me to help her write a grant.

2:59

I guess, cause I was a writing teacher. She decided I was a good writer.

3:02

Maybe I had written some good emails. I have no idea.

3:05

I've never written a book before or anything, but she was like, you're a great

3:08

writer. And I was like, I am. Okay.

3:10

And so we wrote this grant and in the.

3:13

process of writing the grant, we found out, I found out that the librarian was

3:17

supposed to be over technology and the books and was supposed to be this

3:23

innovative person bringing all these innovative things.

3:27

Well, our librarian in our school, bless her heart, as we say here in the South,

3:31

was pretty up there in years and had been there, had been a librarian for 50 years.

3:40

Yeah, and so she wasn't even really qualified.

3:43

anymore, if you know what I mean.

3:46

So, and it was just not a place that anyone wanted to go.

3:49

So if she had been on top of things and a place where people had went, you know, I

3:54

wouldn't say anything about her age. It wasn't really her age.

3:57

It was just her, like she just did what she knew, which wasn't a lot.

4:01

So I was shocked to find that out and not really having thought much about a school

4:07

librarian. When I was in high school, we had to do one of those like personality career

4:13

tests. Mmm, yeah. my homeroom teacher bringing us up one at a time and she was like, yours says you

4:18

should be a teacher or a librarian.

4:21

She was like, you should be a librarian.

4:23

That's a great job. And I thought, that sounds like the most boring thing ever.

4:28

What are you talking about? I mean, I like to read and I go to the library, but yuck.

4:34

Of course I was all of 17, you know.

4:36

And so I forgot all about that until I came back full circle and I was like, my

4:41

gosh, she told me I should be a librarian. I should have listened.

4:44

So in finding that out while I was in this locked room with this instructional coach

4:49

trying to write this grant, I was like, are you serious?

4:53

Is this what the librarian is supposed to do?

4:56

Cause I was searching, it was 2009 or 10 and I was searching for new technology or

5:04

I was still like, when I first started, I was still using an overhead projector with

5:08

a marker. You know, I come home with like marker on my hand and we just got projectors in our

5:14

classroom and we all had a teacher desktop.

5:17

That was, and there was two computer labs.

5:20

That was what was happening. And in the meantime, the iPhone had come out, you know, or was, had just come out,

5:26

like, you know, iPads were coming, like things were happening in the world, but

5:30

not in our little rural school in Georgia.

5:32

So. I'm in a pretty decent district.

5:36

And when around that same time, I could be a little bit off.

5:40

But around that same time, we had cows computers on wheels, which we had like the

5:47

gigantic 32 inch tube televisions hooked up to like a some kind of a laptop or a

5:55

desktop and you had to plug that you had to haul this monstrosity in your room and plug it in and like there

6:00

was maybe one per hallway so you had to share with every it was insane.

6:05

So yeah, I hear you on the maybe not as up to date on the technology stuff.

6:09

had this laptop cart that was ginormous and it had these laptops that had Windows

6:14

95 on them and you would power them up and by the time they got powered up and you

6:19

could log in, it was time to go to the next class.

6:22

No, I was like, why are these here?

6:25

You know, so through this process, I'm making a short story long here.

6:29

I was like, wow, that sounds great.

6:31

And some other people I had learned about had gone through a program at Georgia

6:36

Southern University. It was all online, which was...

6:39

whole new thing for me going to school online.

6:41

Wow, weird. And I talked to my principal and I was like, hey, so if I start this program,

6:49

would you consider me when our friend in the library retires?

6:54

And he was like, yeah, I would definitely consider you 100%.

6:57

You should do that. And in Georgia, they were about to pass a law where your upper degree wouldn't count

7:03

for a raise unless you were doing.

7:06

that position. So if I got the library degree, I wouldn't get a raise unless I was a librarian.

7:12

And so if I started right then in 2011, yeah, 2011, then, or 2012, something,

7:20

2011, I think, then I could be grandfathered in.

7:24

And so even if I didn't get the job, so I was like, well, I got to do this now

7:27

because it was about to run out. So I started my program then, ended up having a baby in the middle of it, baby

7:33

number three. You know, but it was the fun.

7:36

My degree is actually in instructional technology with an emphasis in library

7:40

media, which is weird in Tennessee.

7:42

They don't do that here, but in other states they do because in Georgia I was

7:46

supposed to be over both. So my love of technology and my love of being a library user and reading books and

7:53

really the key was I wanted to help teachers because there was no one to help

7:57

us find these new web 2 .0 tools were a big thing.

8:02

And -hmm. know, Prezi was coming out, you know, whatever that is.

8:06

And all those things were starting to happen and we were so far behind in the

8:11

education world. And so that's kind of what jumped it off.

8:14

I wrote a grant while I was teaching, I got iPads, I went to a big conference and

8:18

learned all about this stuff. So I was really excited.

8:21

My motivation was help students, help teachers.

8:25

What a great job this must be.

8:28

So I ended up not getting the job at the school.

8:31

They did. kind of force her into retirement.

8:34

But a teacher that had been there before had been a librarian for several years and

8:37

wanted to come back to our school and no one realized that she wanted to do that.

8:41

So she got the job, but we ended up moving a couple years later to, well, about a

8:45

year later to North Carolina. And I got my first library job there.

8:49

I was an elementary librarian at a really fancy school, right by the race car, the

8:56

racetracks. Charlotte Motor Speedway was like in our backyard.

9:00

And, like Stuart Haas Racing was there and Hendrix Motorsports.

9:05

And I ended up riding with our tech facilitator an $81 ,000 grant to the Jimmy

9:12

Johnson Foundation for Makerspace, because that was a brand new thing no one had ever

9:16

heard of. And we won.

9:20

Yeah, so we got all kinds of stuff.

9:23

We got all kinds of stuff. And then we moved the next year to Tennessee.

9:27

So there's that. And then I was a middle school, I was elementary here for about a year and a

9:33

half. And then I moved a middle school job came open and middle school is my jam.

9:39

I even when I was in school and it was elementary was one through eight or K

9:42

through eight. I still preferred that four or five, six, seven, eight grade levels.

9:47

Kindergarteners terrify me.

9:50

I can't even imagine. No.

9:52

into the library, I was just shaking in my boots.

9:54

Like the first day they dropped kindergartners off, my EA, my assistant

9:59

just sat at her desk because she knew I'd never taught a kindergartner in my life

10:04

and just laughed at me. I mean, they don't know how to sit down on the carpet.

10:09

They don't, it's like you're speaking a different language and they were all

10:12

English speakers, you know, and they had been to like preschool.

10:17

I was pretty sure, you know, But then they were sad because they just left their mom and got dropped off with

10:22

this teacher and then she's going to drop them off in another place.

10:25

You know, it was wild. So I ended up at middle school and I've been there ever since about eight, seven,

10:31

I guess, six and a half, seven years. Middle school is, I think, where I belong with the weird kids.

10:37

Yeah, yeah, I'm totally with you on that. I started in high school and I was working with like juniors and seniors my first

10:43

year and a half and it was fine.

10:46

I moved, got a middle school job because I needed a job, but just fell in love with

10:51

it. Like I've had the opportunity to move to high school several times and once in a

10:55

while I'll teach like a ninth grade class and I don't know, like there's pros and

11:00

cons, but middle school is just so, what I love about them is they're still in that

11:04

stage where things can be fun and interesting.

11:07

Right. not all like too cool for school necessarily.

11:11

So I don't know, that's my own personal bias, but they're definitely still a

11:16

handful. my goodness, everyone's like, why do you work with middle schoolers?

11:20

That's terrifying. And I'm like, well, if you understand that they're like their worst self.

11:27

So think about yourself at 12, 13, were you a great person?

11:31

And they're like, no. I'm like, there you go.

11:34

So if you realize that they're only gonna get better from there and maybe you can

11:38

help them, that's all you need to remember.

11:40

And when they do crazy things, you're just like, that's on brand.

11:45

Yep, it sure is.

11:50

God, no. I don't know what it means, but it definitely defines you.

11:58

Right, right. Yeah.

12:01

Whatever. So I want to jump back for just a second before we dive into the lesson.

12:07

But when you were giving us your story of progression into the library, you had

12:13

mentioned how like when you were originally given that aptitude test and

12:18

told, librarian, you kind of went like, that's boring.

12:21

And thinking of like, even when you started to learn about, library is supposed to be in

12:25

charge of technology too. Like, I think that's so frequently, so many people's experience, like not just

12:32

educators, but you know, students have been through schools and now they're

12:35

adults making policy and making decisions. And it's like, they don't, they maybe didn't have the strongest library program.

12:42

And so they're, they can't picture it in their heads.

12:46

And it's so frustrating to know.

12:49

I mean, we all know. how important the school library program is, right?

12:54

And all the research and all the data. And it's like, if you were good data -driven decision makers, everybody would

13:00

have school librarians. But, sorry, I don't want to go off on too much.

13:04

you talk to, like, when you tell them you're a school librarian, I get nervous

13:08

for just a second because inevitably, like, three out of five have a horrible

13:13

story about a librarian, right?

13:16

my elementary school librarian was awful.

13:18

She was so mean, you know, or whatever.

13:21

I am so funny. Like, when in school, in library school, and they would ask, like, you know, what's

13:26

your, what's been your experience with librarians? I don't remember.

13:30

Yeah. I don't remember my librarians at all.

13:32

I think they were there. I remember going to the library in elementary school.

13:38

I remember going in middle school. I remember liking it.

13:42

I remember going in high school. I remember them helping me find books I needed for class.

13:47

I don't remember them teaching us lessons.

13:49

I don't remember anything else. So, and I feel like probably most of my students, that's how they're gonna be

13:55

like, I don't remember you. But I think that's part of the problem, yeah.

14:01

exactly. But anyway, we could talk about this all day, but instead we're gonna focus on one

14:07

of the other aspects that you brought up, which is the technology sort of angle that

14:11

you are so interested in, because I agree, like educational technology, incredibly

14:15

important. And you are here actually to share a lesson about some educational technology.

14:19

So how nicely does this tie together?

14:22

I love it. So why don't you tell us a little bit about where did this lesson come from?

14:26

And then we'll kind of get into what it is and how it goes.

14:28

Well, to be perfectly honest, I was just trying to find something fun to teach my

14:34

eighth graders because you know, in the second semester of eighth grade, they are

14:37

too cool for school. And AI is becoming such a thing.

14:41

And I've been to a couple of like PD sessions about AI.

14:45

I've played around with some chat GPT.

14:48

All of it is like blocked at our school, in our system.

14:52

And they introduced like magic school to us, the AI program.

14:57

So I was digging into that. I went through the certification whenever, you know, all the sessions.

15:02

So I'm a certified, whatever, managed school person.

15:06

But it doesn't really have an aspect for the kids.

15:09

So I've used it for myself. Like I wrote a recommendation letter for another teacher and I used it and it was

15:14

amazing. What a great letter. I was like, I couldn't have written that in that much time.

15:20

And I've used it for different, like an application and some different project

15:26

things that I've done. and thought it was great and really want to see.

15:30

Go ahead. really good luck with it to write formulas and short scripts for automating stuff in

15:38

Google Docs and Google Sheets.

15:40

Chat GPT, I'll say, here's what I want it to do, and it'll spit it out.

15:43

You throw it in your spreadsheet, and boom, does it.

15:46

It's great. Yeah, I mean, it's so powerful and can be such a good tool.

15:52

But I think teachers are afraid of it and students just think of it as a way to

15:57

cheat. And let's be honest, students since the beginning of time with a slate and a

16:03

chalk, piece of chalk have been trying to figure out what to cheat, right?

16:06

Like it's not new. And teachers have been figuring out that kids have been cheating since that time

16:11

too. So we're pretty smart on both sides.

16:14

And so I was just like, I gotta figure out a way to make this happen.

16:20

And so, or to figure out what can help students.

16:22

And somebody, I wish I could remember who it was, told me about School AI.

16:28

I can't remember if I saw it somewhere.

16:30

I really have no recollection, but someone wonderful told me about School AI.

16:35

And so I just looked it up and it is a...

16:39

a tool for students and teachers.

16:41

It's both. It has a teacher side and it has a student side.

16:45

And so I was talking with our technology department under central office because

16:48

I've learned you have to approve everything, make sure it's okay.

16:51

When I was a younger teacher, I would have just done things and asked for later.

16:55

But since I am going to expose the whole school and not just one class, I figured

17:00

that I should probably get permission. And they were like, yeah, we're testing it out at the high school level.

17:07

I know it was my instructional coach. She's the one that told me one of my instructional coaches.

17:11

They have an office in the library and she said somebody is using this because we

17:15

were talking about AI and I was like, cool.

17:17

I'll check it out. So it's really cool.

17:19

And so I thought I need to figure out a way to teach my students how to be

17:24

responsible with AI and also give them a tool that they can use.

17:29

And let's just like I hate when there's an elephant in the room and we don't address

17:33

it. Mm -hmm. never been one of those teachers that wanted to lie to my students.

17:38

You know, like if you don't pass this test, you're not going to the next grade.

17:40

Like we all know that's not true. So why are we?

17:43

Cause then they're never going to trust me. So when, when I say something that's true, they're not going to believe me.

17:49

And like a pet peeve of mine is being lied to even a little white lie.

17:53

You know, I just don't appreciate it. Just shoot straight with me.

17:56

So, if I'm not going to like it, I'm just going to have to get over it.

17:59

So I'm not the kind of person that wants to just like make stuff up.

18:03

about, you know, like you're gonna explode or you're gonna go to jail or, you know,

18:07

all those things. Like even when I teach copyright, I'm like, people, it is illegal.

18:12

I'm like, but you're not going to jail, but you could be sued.

18:16

You probably won't be in school, but if you keep doing this as a habit, one day

18:21

you might be, you know, I'm just trying to shoot straight with them.

18:23

So that was where it all came out of something cool.

18:25

I have just taught it to eighth graders and it went really well.

18:31

And so, yeah, that's where it came from.

18:33

Awesome. I love it. So let's walk through sort of how the lesson works.

18:38

So it sounds like the students are coming to you rather than you going to them like

18:41

they're coming down the library. Yeah, the way that I work, I'm a flexible schedule.

18:46

So I set my own schedule. I have sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

18:49

I have about 1 ,200 students.

18:51

And this is something that I have, it's taken me several years to figure out a

18:56

good method. So what works best for me, they come with their ELA teacher, their English teacher,

19:01

because they are on a block for that. That's the only class they have 90 minutes or two to.

19:07

class periods. And so this works out well.

19:09

We have three mini schools, each mini school has two teachers.

19:12

So one will come the first half of the block, one the second for three days.

19:17

So I see all the kids in that grade in three days.

19:20

I usually do. So that gives me like Mondays and Fridays off, or it gives me two, not off, but two

19:26

days a week where I can do library work or collaborate with a different subject.

19:31

So that works out really well. So I see like six.

19:34

8th grade, I usually start with 8th grade, 8th grade one week, 7th grade, 6th grade,

19:37

then repeat. Occasionally, if it's like a short week or a holiday or something like that, we'll

19:43

skip. And then every other time they come to see me, so they come to see me once every

19:48

three weeks, they always check out books.

19:50

And books are due every three weeks, it just works out nice.

19:53

Every other time they come to visit me, I'll teach them a lesson of some sort,

19:57

either in collaboration with the teacher or just something.

20:01

Usually I teach a lot of research stuff.

20:03

You know, we have a lot of free databases with the Tennessee Electronic Library.

20:08

So sixth, seventh and eighth, we do just different lessons.

20:12

Sometimes I'll do book tastings. I did book tasting musical chairs with my sixth and seventh graders.

20:18

That was fun. And so with my eighth graders, I needed something different because I knew that

20:24

they would not that chaos would rain if we tried to do musical chairs.

20:28

And we had done a book tasting traditionally the year before.

20:31

So I was just looking for something different. So they come to me, that was a long answer for sure.

20:37

Yeah, they come to me in the library.

20:40

Gotcha. That's a really interesting schedule too.

20:42

Like it's flexible, but it's almost sort of like a fixed flex in that you've got

20:47

that regular route. That's really, hmm.

20:49

I'm completely flexible. I said that, but that's what I like and it works best for my teachers.

20:54

So on the week I'm not teaching lesson, they can just come check out.

20:57

They can send them a few at a time and towards the end a lot of teachers were

21:00

doing that. Or I have a lot of games and makerspace and stuff, so a lot of times they'll just

21:07

come and let the kids.

21:09

Do whatever and the students just know like if they don't behave, then I'll just

21:15

ask the class to leave and they don't want to leave so.

21:18

that's awesome. I'm envious.

21:20

I'm gonna have to think about if I can set something up like that with my teachers.

21:24

That's really cool. Yeah, I got that whole schedule from another friend across town because I just

21:31

had been begging teachers and coming up trying to come up with different ways and

21:35

I didn't want to take up all of their time because they're a tested subject, you

21:38

know, but they tend to really love they the school I'm at now really loves to come

21:43

to the library and the teachers love to bring them. So it works out really well.

21:46

Yeah. the eighth graders are coming in and I assume that they're bringing devices with

21:53

them that they're going to work with.

21:55

OK. I'm in charge of that.

21:59

Yay. So because we use Fallout Destiny library manager, then our district, when we went

22:06

one to one during COVID, they bought resource manager.

22:10

So because the librarians know how to check out books, they assumed we could

22:14

check out laptops and do inventory of both.

22:16

And then somehow we also became the tech help center.

22:20

Surprise, surprise. It's always the other duties as a sign that I always find interesting.

22:26

yeah, so, but yes, so I asked ahead of time and I reminded the teachers every

22:31

day, the teachers that were coming the next day, just a reminder, because I've

22:34

been a teacher and barely remembered my name sometimes.

22:37

So just reminded them laptops and library books.

22:41

So they come wandering in, they've got their laptops.

22:45

What are they gonna, to start the lesson off, what are they gonna see or are you

22:49

gonna do class instruction, individual, how does it go?

22:53

So we do class instruction, we'll collect their books to return to my EA, we'll

22:56

check those in. And then they have a seat, we have a little, we have kind of two big spaces in

23:01

the library. One is kind of the makerspace fun side, we have some soft furniture and stuff on that

23:07

side. And the other side is just tables and chairs.

23:09

I have a smart board over there. And so that's the classroom side.

23:14

And we have a door that, we have doors on either side, and we have a closet with

23:20

snacks for teachers, they have to pay for them, but.

23:23

So we have a lot of coming and going in the library a lot.

23:26

And I found when I was on that side where the main door was that every time someone

23:30

walked in, we all had to acknowledge them. And if it was the famous teacher, we all had to like stop and wave.

23:35

So we kind of moved to the smaller side and there's less distraction.

23:39

So they come in, they have a seat. And then the lesson starts.

23:43

I just start with the common sense media is where I got this lesson from.

23:48

And it's called it's for the six through eight.

23:51

I'm a. Common Sense Media Teacher.

23:56

So I went through that program.

23:59

And yeah. Yeah, so you just go and sit through several webinars and then you become a

24:06

certified Common Sense Media Teacher.

24:10

So it's in the six through eight grade band.

24:13

If you go to commonsensemedia .org under the four educators, you can get a free

24:19

account. and under the sixth through eighth grade band, and it actually is for sixth through

24:24

12, this lesson, but it's just called What Is AI?

24:28

And so in that, they have a slide presentation, they have a video, they even

24:34

have a handout and some other things. I skipped the handout.

24:38

The thing that I like about Common Sense Media and their slides is that it's in a

24:42

PowerPoint, and so you can just take it, download it, and then you can change it.

24:47

Gotcha. I've used their stuff for a lot of things.

24:50

And so I just adapted it.

24:52

There's a, and so it on the board when they come in, it says, what is AI?

24:56

The first slide.

24:58

And so they're super excited about that.

25:01

They're like, so that I can hear them talking to each other, you know, it's the

25:05

thing we use to cheat on our homework or whatever.

25:08

You know, it's gonna take over the world.

25:10

It's gonna kill us all. All those things.

25:12

The chatter was fun. And it even has like a learning outcome and all those kinds of things.

25:17

So if you're going to be observed, you could, you know, definitely use that.

25:21

We kind of hopped through that because I always like to be a good teacher and tell

25:26

them where we're going with this.

25:28

And then there's a short video and it's kind of an animated video and it's about a

25:33

minute and a half long. And it just kind of explains the difference between the two different types

25:39

of AI. And if I say them now, I'll get them wrong.

25:41

Cause I taught that lesson a couple months ago.

25:44

That's okay. the correct terms.

25:48

and so we, it kind of goes through both of those.

25:51

And so that was interesting, you know, the difference between like an Alexa AI and

25:56

then that chat GPT AI, those, the generative AI, I'm pretty sure is the

26:01

right word. And then the basic AI and just kind of what the difference is.

26:05

And then it goes into just some discussion questions that are really good.

26:09

There's some terminology, some vocabulary.

26:12

that we went through, which was all really good.

26:16

And so we discussed, and then there was like a turn and talk discussion at your

26:20

table about the pros and cons of generative AI.

26:25

And then like, why not just it's going to take over the world and we're all going to

26:30

die. But why do you think that?

26:32

And then just really focusing on AI can do a lot of things, but it can only do what

26:36

it's taught to do. And so we talk about any tool in the hands of

26:42

The right person is going to do a good thing and in the hands of someone with ill

26:46

intent is going to do bad things. So I'm like, think about a hammer, right?

26:50

A hammer is not good or bad.

26:53

Well, I say, is a hammer good or bad? And they try to tell me good, you know, and I'm like, it's not, it's just a tool.

26:58

It doesn't have a moral compass.

27:00

But in the hands of someone good with good intentions, it's going to build a school.

27:04

It's going to build a bookshelf. It's going to build things.

27:07

In the hands of somebody with malicious intent, it could kill you.

27:11

And then they're like, Whoa, that went dark.

27:13

And I'm like, I'm just trying to keep your attention, you know, and I'm like, but

27:17

true, or it could hurt you can tear things down.

27:21

So same with social media, same with AI, same with any kind of tool.

27:27

And then I talk about how in the future, in the not too distant future, you're

27:32

going to be adults, you know, for their 1314, some are 15.

27:37

So in the next four, three to five years, you're gonna be an adult and you're gonna be making these

27:42

decisions about where this technology goes.

27:45

You're gonna be the ones building it, using it.

27:48

And so you need to make sure that you're doing it with good intentions and with

27:52

good ethics. So we kind of discussed that a little bit.

27:57

Just try to give them a lot of things to think about.

28:01

And we had some really good discussions. Of course, we had some really, you know, lame discussions.

28:05

I mean, these kids do say skippity toilet.

28:08

So it wasn't all beautiful, but there were some really good discussions and some

28:13

really good insight from kids who don't always talk, which is always nice that

28:18

they. too is in that turn and talk, when they're talking about like, whether they think

28:25

it's going to be good or bad, or you know, what it might do when you have them talk

28:28

about the why, and where do you get that information from?

28:31

I could see that spinning into its own sort of a lesson on let's talk about media

28:35

and information literacy. And where do we get our information?

28:38

And can we trust what we see in movies and TV shows?

28:41

Or we find out about this stuff. So I mean, not that...

28:44

you need to layer that on, but I could see that being a nice tie in with a different

28:47

lesson if you were doing that.

28:50

Yeah. could be a good whole, like if there was a class on ethics or something like that,

28:55

this could be, or if they were doing something about ethics in a particular

28:59

class having a lesson, I think this would be really good.

29:01

It's a really good jumping off point at least. And I know when they go to high school, which they were just a few months away

29:07

from, this is gonna be really tempting to use.

29:11

So, and then we talk about how, yes, you can, because one of the questions is, how

29:16

can you use AI? And so one of them is like, to do our article of the week.

29:22

Like they're confessing their sins in front of me and their teacher is sitting

29:26

there too, because the teacher stays with them.

29:29

And I was like, and the teachers were like.

29:34

You know, and I said, okay, well, here's the deal.

29:37

You could do that for sure, but what you need to understand is that your teacher

29:42

has read your essays before and they've read your articles of the week.

29:47

They've read your, they know what you sound like.

29:50

They know what an eighth grader sounds like. You have to read one eighth grade essay and you know what it sounds like.

29:56

And so they know if you're cheating.

29:58

And number two, there's software that does the reverse.

30:02

where you can put a paper in and tell how much is plagiarized.

30:06

And that was shocking to them.

30:08

They had no idea. And sometimes I think we give them more credit.

30:13

They really don't know everything.

30:15

yeah, no. And they know so little about technology.

30:18

Like, they've got this very shallow surface level understanding of so much

30:23

technology, and yet we seem to imbue them with this mystical technology sense, which

30:30

just is really not the case. But...

30:33

Yeah. Yeah.

30:35

were completely shocked by that part. And I said, there's most college professors will run your essay through

30:43

this, this AI tool and see how much has plagiarized.

30:48

And there's a certain percentage that you can't go over or you, you know, you're

30:52

going to get a bad grade. And they were like, Whoa.

30:55

And I was like, yeah. Like, and I'm not, and again, I'm not making stuff up.

31:00

them because I want them to believe me when the reality comes.

31:03

And I was like, this is real. And one was funny.

31:06

We had a substitute in there in one class and he was a college student and he had

31:11

already been out of school, you know, and for the for the year and he he stopped me,

31:16

which is fine. Like I'm all about collaboration.

31:19

Like the teachers can talk and he was like, listen, this is real.

31:22

He was like, my teachers do this.

31:25

Yeah. he was like, and you need to know how to use this.

31:28

And later on, he was like, that was a really good lesson.

31:30

And I was like, thanks, man. Appreciate it.

31:33

Nice to hear from the peanut gallery. I just saw the coolest idea for, I'm going to say for catching kids that have been

31:41

using AI to plagiarize. I saw it.

31:43

Somebody had posted online, having the kid read the piece when a parent and an

31:51

administrator are there and listen to the kids stumble through all the words they

31:55

don't know. and all the phrases that don't make sense to them because they don't understand what

31:59

all this is. So like they can spit out this thing and they figure, I'm going to turn it in.

32:04

They're going to see it. It'll be marked great. But if they have to actually interact with them, the work so transparent.

32:11

So yeah. prove it, I feel like if you handed it over to the parent, they'd be like,

32:15

there's no way my kid wrote this. I've seen his text messages.

32:18

You would think. You would think.

32:20

you know, I know some parents, like that's how I would be.

32:22

I'm a parent of three kids, so I'm always, and a teacher, so I'm always suspicious of

32:27

them. Like I never believed them, but I know a lot of parents aren't that way.

32:30

Yeah, unfortunately.

32:33

But, sorry, I keep sidetracking us, but this is such an interesting topic and

32:38

there's so much going on with it these days that it's hard not to digress.

32:42

I mean, this was like a 30 minute lesson tops because I got to wait for them to get

32:46

in. I got to make sure they can check out books.

32:49

And so to kind of wrap it up, what we did is we went to school AI.

32:54

So I had created a free account and in that it creates a link very similar to

33:01

like a PlayPosit or Nearpod, things like that.

33:05

And so the kids don't have to have an account.

33:07

They don't have to log in. Nice.

33:10

there is some really cool tools in the School AI for students.

33:14

I'm gonna click on it so I get this right.

33:17

And there's a thing called spaces in School AI, spaces.

33:21

And when you go to spaces, they have like a sidekick guy that's like your tutor for

33:28

your kids. They have bell ringers, exit tickets, videos that you can find, and those are

33:33

all for teachers. But then for kids, they have subject tutors, which is brand new, I just saw.

33:39

And what I had found was the featured collections.

33:43

So if you scroll a little bit farther down, if you go to the space, the spaces

33:47

section of school AI and its history comes to life.

33:52

And so what it is, is that they have generated these characters in history and

34:01

the kids can interact with them.

34:04

And so what I had done is I picked a few.

34:09

And I gave them the links to those and we put them on my website because they, a lot

34:15

of times they will launch off of that.

34:17

And so I showed them where to go on my website and they could just click the link

34:20

of the one they wanted to look. So there was like Martin Luther King and it was, I think it was February or March.

34:27

I think we had just finished up Black History Month. So that was interesting.

34:30

I think it was February. And then I picked like Alexander the Great because they had learned about that.

34:37

I picked like Winston Churchill. tried to figure out like what they were learning about in history class right

34:43

then, American history, picked a few of those. I think Sacajawea was one of them.

34:48

And so then they picked one and they clicked on it and then they interact with

34:53

it. So they type the questions and then the AI answers them as they are that character.

35:00

And there's a feature where you can push play.

35:04

So I asked them if they had headphones to bring them.

35:06

Of course they don't, like one kid did. Yeah.

35:09

And one teacher did actually have some in past amounts, so that was cool.

35:13

But if they have headphones, they could play it in a voice that AI had generated

35:17

to be like that person.

35:20

So it was really cool. The funny thing about it is I practiced with it a bunch and I typed all kinds of

35:26

horrible things in it to make sure that it was middle school proof, right?

35:30

So I said all the bad words and all kinds of other things.

35:34

And like, you know, just any... terrible thing you could think of that a middle schooler would ask, which we won't,

35:41

which was all things, which we won't mention here, but everything I could think

35:44

of. I typed it in there because regular chat GBT is going to give you some answers to

35:49

some questions that the children have.

35:51

Okay. This one, it would just say, it seems like you're off topic.

35:56

Why don't we, and then it will ask the question again, or it will say, I think I

36:02

asked George Washington something really inappropriate.

36:05

about his wife maybe and he was like, that's a personal question that I'm not

36:10

going to answer. So it was funny because it was me and like my assistant and some instructional

36:16

coaches and like our tech guy and I was like, all right, let's think of all the

36:20

bad things we could think of that a middle schooler would ask it.

36:22

I didn't say skip any toilet because that was new.

36:25

I hadn't learned that yet. But so what it does, it's really interesting because it tries to get the

36:32

kid to go down a path. the AI like has, it has an agenda.

36:38

And what it's trying to do is get that student to like internally reflect about

36:43

things. Like it really tries to get, cause somebody was like, I feel like I'm in

36:47

counseling. Like, is this a therapist?

36:49

Cause it's like, when you ask it a question, you know, you would ask Martin

36:53

Luther King, of course they tried to ask him all kinds of horrible questions too.

36:57

But, and it just, it didn't, it didn't play that game.

37:01

But you know, what, how did you feel about the way you were treated?

37:04

And he would answer them in a very good answer, but then always ask a question

37:10

back to the student. Like, how have you experienced prejudice in your life?

37:15

Or, you know, if Amelia Earhart, you know, what was it like to be the first woman to

37:19

do these things? And then she would say, what is something you've accomplished in your life?

37:23

And it was really trying to get the students to like go down this reflective,

37:28

I couldn't quite figure out where it was headed because it'll just keep going.

37:32

Like I played around with it for a while and I was like, I don't think it's ever

37:35

gonna end. Now, when I kept asking inappropriate questions, it finally was like, I think

37:39

we're done. And I was like, okay.

37:44

But what you could do, cause the kids caught onto that too.

37:48

And I was like, and so I explained to them, you can follow their line of

37:51

questioning or an answer them and they'll continue to lead you down this reflective

37:56

intrinsic path. Or you can change the subject and ask them a question.

38:02

But it wasn't like, I thought it was just gonna be like historical facts and stuff,

38:06

but it's definitely trying to get them to like see whatever the great characteristic

38:11

this character has in history, it's trying to get the student to see that in their

38:15

own life, which is weird.

38:18

Yeah, I've like played with it for a while and I was like, what are you taking?

38:21

What are you trying? What do you wanna know about me?

38:23

What are you asking me all these things? What's the greatest thing I've accomplished?

38:27

How did, why did I feel that way? Like it does kind of feel like therapy.

38:31

That's interesting. I remember at some point reading about like some of the earlier computer

38:36

programs, very, very basic, simple things, but they would do that same kind of a

38:41

thing. They found that people would like write responses to a computer asking them, how

38:47

are you doing? Like, and a lot of people really engage with it in that way.

38:52

So clearly, yeah.

38:57

Yeah. I heard an interesting.

39:00

I'll say opinion. I'm not even going to call it a debate that said that we shouldn't get in the

39:05

habit of thanking our technology because it's not a person.

39:09

And therefore, you know, like we don't want to build the bad habit of treating

39:13

inanimate objects like inanimate objects.

39:16

Yeah, I don't know. I kind of go back and forth on that.

39:18

I feel like good manners are good manners, but maybe that's just me.

39:22

So the one thing I'll say, the one thing that was a little snafu was I signed up

39:26

for a free account and you can only have 150 interactions a day on those spaces.

39:37

So what I found the first day was by about the fourth class, because I'll see five

39:42

classes a day, about the fourth class I ran out.

39:45

And I was like, what? Because the kids were picking several.

39:49

So they would pick one and then they would be like, I wanna talk to so and so on.

39:52

So I had to go back and be like, listen, I'm limited and I need the end of the day

39:57

kids to be able to do this. So you can only pick one.

40:00

And after that, it worked out pretty good. I just kind of threatened them.

40:03

So that's something I didn't realize.

40:05

And I don't see 150 kids in a day, but really close to that many.

40:10

So we were running pretty low by the end of the day.

40:13

So that's a little pro tip.

40:16

Good tip. Good to have in the hip pocket.

40:19

So it sounds like the kids are really engaged in this lesson and in learning

40:23

about both having the discussions about AI and then getting to interact with these AI

40:27

historical figures. Right, and at the end of it, we asked them, they were super into it, whether

40:33

they were asking true questions or not, whether they were just trying to, they

40:37

were trying to trip it up. And at the end I said, how does this make you feel using this?

40:43

And they were like, there was a really strong feeling of they didn't like it.

40:49

They thought it was too creepy.

40:52

That they didn't like someone else in person, like it was just too real for

40:56

them. Huh. a lot of kids thought it was really cool and a fun way to learn about history.

41:02

But yeah, I was, I thought they would like it a lot more than they did, but it really

41:07

freaked them out. For the most, like I would say like probably, it was probably like 60 to 70 %

41:14

were like, nope. And they were like, it's cool, but it freaks me out.

41:20

And I was like, okay, I thought it was really cool.

41:23

I don't think I would have caught that. back to the fact that they don't quite understand how it's doing that.

41:29

Like it's only doing that because someone taught it to do that.

41:33

And so I think that's the mystical thing about AI is it's not gonna, like we've

41:39

seen so many movies where, I mean, like we're at my house, we're currently in the

41:44

summer, we're going through the Marvel cinematic timeline, like we're watching

41:49

the timeline order. So it's the age of Ultron Day.

41:52

And so like we've seen those movies, right?

41:56

Where it takes over, the AI takes over and it's going to destroy the world.

42:00

And so I think we think that's going to happen.

42:03

But really AI can only do it. It does learn, which is kind of scary, but still it has a programmer.

42:11

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, so much of it is pattern recognition.

42:15

So it's not even necessarily like it seems a lot smarter than I think it really is.

42:21

I think it's easy to kind of trick us into or trick people into thinking pattern

42:26

recognition is more than it really is.

42:29

But so much to dig into.

42:31

It's a really cool tool. I like Magic School as well.

42:34

Magic School is mostly is all for teachers right now, but it has some really good

42:38

things that you can use to do and and most school districts will approve you to use

42:42

Magic School or school AI.

42:45

So that's the other plus, but school AI has those things for teachers like lesson

42:51

plan generators. I used to like I said to write a letter of recommendation.

42:55

a bunch of other things, but also has the student one and it keeps adding to it.

43:00

Like I just saw they have like tutors.

43:03

So you could actually, there's bell ringers you could assign to your students.

43:07

I just would recommend playing around with it a lot to make sure that you know what

43:11

it's gonna do. Yeah, before you turn it loose on the students, yeah.

43:16

and feel free to cuss at it and ask it some really inappropriate questions and

43:19

see what it does. It's a good point.

43:21

I mean, I don't know that I would have thought ahead enough to do that kind of

43:26

prep, but that is an incredibly important part of making sure these tools that are

43:30

going to interact with the students are going to interact in a way that we feel is

43:34

appropriate to the students. Yeah, I was just like, I've got to see what this is going to say because I think

43:40

because because I'm over technology and oftentimes they'll come to me and like

43:46

I'll have seen the things or heard about the things that the students have done

43:50

with the laptops that they get in trouble for and our SRO officer, his office is in

43:55

the library too. So I hear a lot of things there in the library.

43:59

I'm kind of the gateway of lots of things happening.

44:01

Sometimes kids. sorry. will hang out in there while they're writing out what they did wrong, you know.

44:07

So I get a lot of that. So I was just like, I have to know before I hand this to kids.

44:12

And I think I'm sure that I've done some things where I've gotten burned before and

44:16

not done my prep and then like, yeah, I didn't know I was gonna do that.

44:20

yeah, we all have that, at least that one bad day, if not multiple bad days where

44:24

it's like, why did I not?

44:28

Yup. Yup. Been there.

44:31

That's for sure. So it sounds like the students enjoyed the lesson.

44:36

Did you get any kind of feedback from either the students or the teachers?

44:40

I did. The teachers all said that was a really good lesson.

44:43

They really thought it was super timely and important and they appreciated that

44:46

because they had just started having some real problems with kids using AI to do

44:51

some of their work. And then the students all I asked them, you know, how was it?

44:56

My son was in eighth grade at the time and he's always my he's one of my students in

45:02

my class. So he's always a good.

45:05

you know, lit mischeck. And so I was like, what'd you think?

45:08

And I asked him beforehand, I had him like kind of interact with it ahead of time,

45:11

just to see how it would go. And he thought it was really cool.

45:14

He was like, it was a good lesson, mom. And then I think my greatest compliment was when the fifth graders that are gonna

45:22

come to our school next year, they came in to do a tour.

45:27

The elementary school buses them over and we have current students give them a tour.

45:32

Mm -hmm. they come to the library and I give them a little hello and a spiel.

45:36

And the one girl was like, so Ms.

45:39

Capshaw, sometimes she teaches us lessons and sometimes we just check out, but like

45:43

they're usually pretty good. Like she taught us about AI and it was really cool.

45:47

And I was like, when an eighth grade girl compliments you, you know that you're the

45:53

best. yeah. I wasn't, I hadn't said anything yet.

45:55

I was just standing there waiting for her to let me talk, you know?

45:58

And I'm always like, when they want to give the tour, I'm like, you go ahead and

46:01

hear what you say. And then, like I've had some girls, last year was my first year at that school.

46:07

I moved from across town, because we moved across town and my son was coming to the

46:11

school I'm at now. And he was a sixth grader at the time.

46:13

He was like, mom, please come be our librarian.

46:16

It really needs help. And I was like, okay.

46:19

Because they had a job opening. And it worked out.

46:22

It's closer to home. It's only 10 minutes away.

46:25

But last year when they were giving the tour, they were like, Miss Capshaw's done

46:28

a lot of really good changes in here. It's really fun.

46:30

And she has some really good books.

46:32

And I was like, ooh. So anytime I could get a compliment, and even the boys, even the boys, which are

46:39

harder to win over in the library sometimes, not always.

46:42

I have some really fabulous readers, but they did give me a lot of good feedback.

46:49

And the fact that she remembered it like two months later was, I think, probably

46:55

the coolest thing. Yeah.

46:57

that's awesome. And it sounds like this is a lesson that would be pretty easy to differentiate for

47:03

different ability levels or different language.

47:08

want to say I've lost the word, but you know where I'm going.

47:12

Yes, thank you. It seems like this would really fit in with a lot of different groups, a lot of

47:19

different dynamics. Yeah, so I see everybody in the school.

47:22

So I have students.

47:25

I had students that don't speak English. We have lots of students this year, especially that are fresh newcomers is

47:31

what we call them. So and they were able to interact with it.

47:35

I think you can change the language, but a lot of them read the language better.

47:39

And then sometimes they'll they'll switch out their computer and their keyboard and

47:43

stuff to be in Spanish. But.

47:47

And then I have all kinds of levels.

47:50

I have gifted students all the way down to special ed students.

47:55

So we have autistic students, students with lower IQs.

48:00

I didn't do it with like our structured intervention where they're in one, they

48:06

stay in the same class all day, not them, but yeah, all kinds of learners that were.

48:14

able to do this lesson and enjoy it in their own way.

48:18

Yeah, absolutely. So and you already gave us a tip on make sure you do a little testing to make sure

48:24

it's going to do what you want it to do. Anything else that if somebody is going to try this for the first time, they should

48:28

try and bear in mind as they're getting ready for this.

48:32

no, I would just say play around with it.

48:35

the no, the limit, there's a limit to how many interactions you can do in a day.

48:41

I kind of, I, I went back and forth as to whether or not to pick just one person for

48:46

them to interact with. and in the end, I just like choice.

48:51

I just like to give students options.

48:54

but it's 150. I thought when I first read it was 150, like per character, but it's just 150.

49:00

interactions a day on your account.

49:04

So... interaction is the whole conversation?

49:08

Just them opening it up at all.

49:11

Them clicking on it and opening up that character.

49:15

But if they type something and the character responds back and they type

49:18

something else, that's still only one interaction, because it's just, okay,

49:21

okay. Just wanted to make sure that I was clear on that, okay.

49:24

just the one time they open up the link.

49:26

I guess you get like 150 hits on the links total for the day.

49:31

So I gave them probably like eight options, which probably is overkill, but

49:35

I'm just like, I like options. So I guess because I'm a school librarian.

49:41

Well, I was looking at the page too, and there's 25 different historical figures

49:45

there that each one of them looks like someone I would want to talk to.

49:48

So I can totally see why not give them some possibilities.

49:52

That's really great. try to pick people that might be relevant and a few scientists and a few historical

49:58

history people.

50:01

So, but yeah, I think that would be, I think it was a good way for them to just

50:06

jump into something. Cause I was trying to think of, you know, how could they interact quickly?

50:14

Cause they only spent about five minutes doing it.

50:18

Cause by the time we got to that, and you know, some of the classes move faster than

50:22

others. Mm -hmm. based on their ability levels.

50:25

And I can always tell when one class has, because another teacher, there's an extra

50:31

teacher in the room too, but also because you can just tell by the pacing.

50:35

So they may not have gotten as much time.

50:38

In some classes, maybe got a little bit more time. But in the end, it was about a five minute window that they could use it.

50:44

And then of course, those links just stayed up on my page so they could go

50:49

back. I just asked them not to go back until I was done with the lesson for the week.

50:53

and then we could go back and play with it.

50:56

And it worked out. The rest of the week we didn't run out of hits.

51:02

Yeah. Well, I love this. I love this idea.

51:04

I love this lesson. Thank you so much for coming to share it.

51:07

We're going to now go in a completely different direction and we're going to do

51:09

our book break. So this can be any book you want, personal, professional, for students, for

51:16

yourself, just for fun for the summer, whatever you like.

51:19

So what's a book or two that you think people should have on their radar?

51:24

Okay, so of course I love to read books.

51:27

I love middle grade books. They're so much fun.

51:30

I've been trying really hard this year to read more grown -up books.

51:34

And last year, last year it was like my, I asked people to give me at the beginning

51:38

of the year, give me books to read and I picked 12 and it worked out really well.

51:42

I felt like such a grown -up because people would always ask me for book

51:46

recommendations and I was like, I only know middle grade books.

51:50

So now I have a few grown up books in my pocket, but my middle grade book that I've

51:54

really enjoyed this year is Hummingbird by Natalie Lloyd.

51:57

It's a newer book and it was on our volunteer state book award list.

52:01

It didn't win, but I wanted it to. It's a really, I love Natalie Lloyd, by the way.

52:05

She's a Tennessean and I love her books, but it's a book about a little girl who is

52:12

in a wheelchair.

52:15

And it is her story of.

52:19

finally convincing her parents who are like these super cool like hippie kind of

52:23

people. Well, it's actually her, her mom and dad are divorced, but her stepdad is the gym

52:29

teacher at the middle school in town. And it's a little tiny town in Tennessee.

52:33

And it's not a real town, but I think I feel like I've lived there, you know?

52:37

And so she finally convinces her parents who've homeschooled her because she has

52:41

brittle bone disease.

52:43

So that's why she mostly spends most of her time in a wheelchair.

52:47

She can walk. but she easily breaks her things, like her legs.

52:52

And so she spends most of her time in a wheelchair.

52:55

And because I think she went to kindergarten one day and broke something,

52:59

and so then her parents never let her go back to school.

53:01

So she's somewhere in middle school and she's convinced them to let her go to

53:07

school. And sort of the adventures that happen.

53:09

And then in the meantime, there's this magical thing happening in her town,

53:14

having to do with feathers flying in the sky.

53:18

and this magical hummingbird who will grant your request if you can find it and

53:24

you can only find it if you are worthy.

53:27

And so the town is being overrun with people coming to find this magical

53:31

hummingbird which comes every so often and there's other people she teams up with

53:36

some she makes some friends and they team up and try to go find it and she learns

53:40

about the history of herself, the history of her town, the history of her family.

53:45

all through it. It's really fun and really heartwarming and it's great for kids.

53:51

It's really super middle grades appropriate, but also would build empathy

53:56

for students who are, you know, abled and if you didn't know a lot about, which I

54:01

didn't know a lot about, brittle bone disease.

54:04

So that was really interesting too. So it was a great, it was a great heartwarming read, a little bit of magic

54:10

or maybe not a little bit of magic and a whole lot of reality.

54:15

a story that's got that like, this may be happening or it may not be happening and

54:19

it's up to the reader to decide how real or magical they want it to be.

54:23

Man. Natalie does a really good job of all those things.

54:26

And I think Natalie, I'm pretty sure that she has some sort of disability herself.

54:35

I can't remember exactly what it is, but a lot of her books revolve around that.

54:40

And then... who has osteogenesis imperfecta a while back.

54:46

Yeah, I learned it because of him.

54:48

So he was teaching me all about it. But yeah, he loved to skateboard and he wanted to play football.

54:54

And I was like, dude, are you serious?

54:57

But hey, he did his thing.

55:00

So more power to him. But sorry, you were gonna go and tell us another great book.

55:04

What do you got? I'll do really fast is a grown -up book that I read called The Women by Kristin

55:11

Hannah. I've read several books by her, they're historical fiction.

55:14

I love this book because it really brought to light I think a time in history that we

55:19

don't know a lot about. The one I read before was a World War II book and it definitely took like a

55:24

different spin on it. This is about women in the Vietnam War.

55:28

Hmm. So it's really interesting.

55:31

It's about nurses who were in country.

55:35

So they didn't see combat, but they saw a lot.

55:41

And then about half of the book is during the war and about half of it is what

55:45

happens after they come home.

55:47

And it follows one nurse mainly in particular.

55:51

There's a lot of things about PTSD and just, you know, in general, the people

55:56

coming back from Vietnam weren't welcomed, but it's...

55:59

especially women weren't even welcomed at the VA because they just were like women

56:04

weren't in Vietnam. And she was like, I mean, I was there, her two tours.

56:09

And they were like, but you weren't in combat.

56:13

But she was shot at and, you know, I mean, like, and then she saw like the horrors of

56:19

war, you know. So that was really interesting.

56:21

And it ends at the when they, when the Vietnam War Memorial in D .C.

56:27

is opened. and that's where it ends.

56:30

And I've seen that when we went to ALA, it was the first time I've been to DC.

56:33

And I saw that wall and I knew what I was going for, but there's still something

56:38

different about going. And I don't really have anybody in my family who died in the Vietnam War, but

56:44

just the enormity of seeing all those names on the wall was breathtaking.

56:52

Not in a good way, but.

56:54

no. Did you see there's also a, after they did the main, what people think of as the main

57:01

Vietnam memorial, off to the side, there's one for women who served as in nursing

57:07

capacities. It's just a, I don't want to say just.

57:13

It's a statue of, I forget if it's two or three people, but one of them is a woman

57:17

who is helping a soldier who has been wounded.

57:20

And it's a relatively new addition.

57:23

I say new, it's not like new new, I'm old, but it was not something that they

57:29

originally had planned to put in. And it was because women later on were like, we were there, we did, like we were

57:35

right there with the guys who were fighting and dying.

57:38

So we would like a little bit of recognition, please.

57:40

So they did finally put together a memorial for them.

57:43

Yeah, it was really, really interesting for that just learning about, I mean,

57:48

things I was born, I think right after right when it was ending.

57:51

So I don't know. And my dad was too young to serve.

57:55

So my grandpa was before Vietnam.

57:58

So we kind of missed that whole era.

58:00

But it was really interesting to learn all those things about the women's perspective

58:05

and just all the things that the women did.

58:07

And then especially how they were treated after.

58:10

It was really interesting. so interesting.

58:13

That's... highly recommend. I listen to it.

58:15

I'm a big audiobook listener.

58:18

I'm a busy mom with three kids and a librarian.

58:21

And so I listen like in the car when I'm, it's a great way to get like cleaning done

58:25

that I don't want to do, put in an audiobook, cooking dinner.

58:29

So it was a good listen if you are, anybody's an audio listener.

58:33

Nice. Love it. Well, thank you so much.

58:35

Not only did you bring us great books, you brought us a great lesson and you brought

58:39

us just yourself, which is you are a great person.

58:42

So I really appreciate you coming to share and taking the time because you're on

58:47

summer vacation and hopefully we're all going to be going on summer vacation soon,

58:51

but the end is near.

58:55

So thank you so much. I truly appreciate it.

58:57

really appreciate you asking me. This is fun.