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Room: B2A/B2B
For the Digital Pathways conference, we have gathered a panel of experts from various backgrounds to discuss the impact of AI on education and how it is shaping the future of learning. Artificial intelligence is transforming education by providing innovative ways to personalize learning, improve teaching methods, and enhance student engagement. It has the potential to revolutionize the way we teach and learn by enabling us to create intelligent systems that adapt to the needs of individual learners.
Our panelists will discuss the following topics:
- AI and Personalized Learning: AI can provide personalized learning experiences by adapting to the needs of individual learners. Our panelists will discuss how AI can be used to create personalized learning experiences, and how it can help educators to identify and address the unique needs of each student.
- AI and Teaching Methods: AI can provide teachers with valuable insights into their teaching methods, and help them to identify areas where they can improve. Our panelists will discuss how AI can be used to improve teaching methods, and how it can help teachers to identify the best practices for teaching specific subjects.
- AI and Student Engagement: AI can help to increase student engagement by providing interactive and immersive learning experiences. Our panelists will discuss how AI can be used to create engaging learning experiences, and how it can help students to stay motivated and engaged throughout their education.
- Ethical Considerations: Our panelists will also discuss the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in education. They will explore questions such as: How can we ensure that AI is used in a way that is fair and inclusive for all students? What measures can be put in place to prevent the misuse of AI in education?
Overall, our panel of experts will provide valuable insights into the potential of AI in education, and the challenges that need to be addressed to ensure that it is used in a way that benefits all learners. We hope that our discussion will inspire new ideas and approaches to teaching and learning, and ultimately help to create a brighter future for education.
(This description was generated by Chat GPT)
| Aman Sahota |
| Aman Sahota is the co-founder of Ei Amplified. Ei Amplified was named the 2021 Canadian EdTech Startup of the Year. Their startup is an Ai Platform that provides advanced large scale qualitative analysis. Their Ai is a natural language processing solution that breaks down text to understand the needs of all stakeholders while incorporating a lens of EDI by looking at demographic data. Their Ai is able to break down data by any differences within a population including age, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, location etc. With Ai his company focuses on providing biweekly/monthly measurements in a digestible platform opposed to lengthy annual reports. Aman Sahota graduated from the University of Toronto with a BSc in earth and environmental systems, forest biomaterials, and a minor in energy and environment. He sits on the steering committee of Erin Mills Connets and is a member of the Anti-black racism and Systemic Discrimination collective. He also sits on the Peel District School Boards community roundtable in order to advocate for the community. Also, he is a Board of Director at the Citizens for the Advancement of Community Development. Aman Sahota has also done speaking engagements for the United Nations Science Summit and for the University of Toronto. His goal is to make societal change through technology. |
| Christina Nowak |
| Cristina is the Chief Learning Officer at The AI Education Project, a nationally recognized nonprofit focused on bringing AI education to teachers and students everywhere. Cristina’s team builds and distributes free, accessible AI curricular materials, leads teacher trainings, and steers national thought leadership aimed at raising the bar for AI literacy in K-12 schools. Cristina is a long-time educator and entrepreneur with experience in public school classroom teaching, curriculum design, instructional coaching, and program management. She previously worked with organizations like Girls Who Code, AI4ALL, and Boolean Girl to design and implement equitable computer science programs for K-12 learners throughout the country. |
| Kelly Powers |
| As an active member of the CS movement in our country and internationally, Powers’ engages with CS researchers and leading educators to bring the most relevant CS methods and content to students who don’t have access to Computer Science. Powers’ has had the opportunity to serve on the AI4K12 committee to develop guidelines for teaching AI to students in grades K12, served as a content expert and active contributor to the NSF sponsored EAGLE Grant, “Seeding an Assessment Hub & Catalyzing a Community of Educators,” served on the National CSTA’s Teacher Professional Development Task Force from 2016 - 2018 to investigate PD resources, strengthen and expand the CS teacher professional development pipeline and continues to work with schools to develop a CS/CT curriculum and integration pathway that makes sense for them. |
| Mike Zamansky |
| Mike Zamansky has been teaching CS at the K12 and college level for over thirty years. He the architect of Stuyvesant HS’s highly regarded CS program, the inspiration for The Academy for Software Engineering, and is known as “the Godfather of CS Education in New York City.” Mike currently runs Hunter College’s CS teacher certification and undergraduate honors CS programs. Mike blogs at
http://cestlaz.github.com and is on twitter as @zamansky.
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| Dr. David Doermann |
| Dr. David Doermann is a Professor of Empire Innovation and the Director of the Insitute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at the University at Buffalo (UB). Before coming to UB, he was a Program Manager with the Information Innovation Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). At DARPA, he developed, selected, and oversaw research and transition funding in computer vision, human language technologies, voice analytics, and media forensics. From 1993 to 2018, David was a research faculty member at the University of Maryland, College Park. In his role in the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, he served as Director of the Laboratory for Language and Media Processing and as an adjunct member of the graduate faculty for the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical Engineering. He and his group of researchers focused on many innovative topics related to the analysis and processing of document images and video, including triage, visual indexing and retrieval, enhancement, and recognition of visual media's textual and structural components. His recent research has focused on advanced AI techniques applied to computer vision, medical image analysis, federated learning, neural architectural search, binary neural networks, and the detection of false and misinformation in multimedia content. David has over 300 publications in conferences and journals, is a fellow of the IEEE and IAPR, has numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Oulu, Finland, and is a founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition. |
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Cracking the #GenZ Code: Engaging AI Projects for Every Classroom
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| presented by Christine Nowak of AI EDU
Room: A1
Think artificial intelligence isn't relevant to your content? Think again! Learn to leverage this highly engaging field to spark creativity, ignite debate, and promote engagement in your classroom. Participants in this session will explore real-world examples of AI hand-picked to appeal to our Gen Z learners: from social media to visual art to employment. You'll hear how one experienced Buffalo-born educator is leveling up classrooms across the country with AI. Then we will work together to explore and create accessible, captivating project ideas that empower students to understand how AI impacts their everyday lives. Leave feeling confident that you can amp up your classroom engagement through the incorporation of AI projects! No prior AI or CS knowledge required for you or your students.
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| The Ultimate Tech Event Showcase |
| presented by Michael Drezek of Lakeshore CSD
Room: A2
One of the ways we can get more educators to champion educational technology and initiatives is to bring regional, national, and global events to their classrooms. What events are out there? Come learn about ways you can engage and empower your classrooms and leave with a calendar of potential activities and events for the school year!
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| Virtual Field Trips in Google Earth Voyager |
| presented by Mansel Wells of Erie 1 BOCES
Room: A3
Google Earth contains over 700 expeditions from all over the world related to a variety of educational topics. This session provides a list of these expeditions containing the topics in a searchable spreadsheet. Participants will also be shown how to create their own expedition to be used in Google Earth.
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| Play with Prime (LEGO Spike Prime) |
| presented by Dan Thomas of Southwestern Central School
Room: Active Learning Space
Here is your chance to learn about and interact with the LEGO Spike Prime Robot. This robot combines all aspects of STEM/STEAM learning from design, computational thinking and coding.
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| Building Paper Circiuts on Our Way to Interactive Art in All Content Areas |
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presented by Laurie Yager of MORIC
Room: Creation Space
Paper circuits make use of familiar craft materials such as paper, tape, and stickers to build projects that can come to life through the power of circuitry and physical computing. Paper circuits can be used in cross-curricular applications in many exciting ways. Bring computer science into your general education classroom!
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| Creating Math Journals in Book Creator |
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presented by Dan Wodarczak of Erie 1 BOCES
Room: B2A
Book Creator is not the same as simply creating a book with words and pictures. Book creator also allows for links, videos, files, and much more. In the math classroom teachers can use Book Creator as a way for students to learn and demonstrate their learning. Teachers are able to share videos, audio, manipulatives, and so much more. There is a great deal of teaching and learning that can be done using this resource.
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| Developing an Innovation Accelerator to Support Digital Fluency |
| presented by Jeremiah Okal-Frink of Dell Technologies
Room: A1
Students, teachers and leaders are facing a future of continuous change. We need to develop a continuum of experiences and classroom practices that support the development of habits of innovation, digital fluency and digital literacy. This session will collaboratively explore specific strategies, technologies and practices that accelerate innovation in our classrooms, schools and districts.
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| Minecraft EE for Everyone |
| presented by Dan Thomas of Southwestern Central School
Room: A2
Minecraft Education Edition is a great tool for creating and building. With the ever growing library of worlds and topics, Minecraft can fit into just about any curriculum from chemistry, to ELA to Social Studies and beyond.
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| The Panther Den Sports Podcast |
| presented by Andrew Wheelock of Erie 1 BOCES
Room: A3
This workshop will showcase how to create and publish an amazing podcast for sports or any content area. The Panther Den Sports Podcast has been around for 3 years and it highlights the coaches and student athletes in Pine Valley in a way that brings the entire school community together.
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| eRobots: Electrifying the Elementary Classroom |
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presented by Aimee Bloom of Erie 1 BOCES
Room: Active Learning Space
Will robots take over the world? Not if our elementary students can help it! Learn how to implement computational thinking skills, creativity, and collaboration into the everyday elementary classroom while enhancing problem-solving skills with the use of robotics.
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| Digital Compositions Made Easy |
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presented by Sarah Janis of Cleveland Hill UFSD
Room: Creation Space
Our high school English students made “digital compositions” in WeVideo to present their informational writing. Learn about why we chose this over a typical essay, as well as how we taught students to plan for and design a high-quality video.
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| Creative Native |
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presented by Amy Balling of Lancaster Central School District
Room: B2A
Are you tired of doing the same old thing day in and day out? Do you wish you were more creative or artistic? Wish you had more time in your day to draw, sketch, and play like you did in kindergarten? Wish you were as good in art as you thought you were back in kindergarten? This is the presentation for you! I will show you how to use the resources we have online to learn from experts around the world and help you become a better artist and find more balance in your life.
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| An eSports Journey: From Digital Pathways to Action |
| presented by Michael Drezek and Deann Poleon of Lakeshore CSD
Room: A2
Esports. Everyone seems to be talking about it but can it actually work? Learn how Lake Shore CSD (and others in WNY) are making this possible for students. Hear about our pain points and successes along the way. Walk away with a wealth of resources, ideas and connections to curriculum & career pathways.
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| Creating Escape Rooms Using Google Forms |
| presented by Dan Wodarczak of Erie 1 BOCES
Room: A3
Google Forms can be a great tool for assessment, but they can also be used for learning and having fun. In this session we will learn how we can create escape rooms using Google Forms. Participants will be able to create a check for understanding that will be fun and engaging for students.
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| Engage, Explore, and Impact with Exploratory Learning |
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presented by Melanie Kitchen and Dan Lynch of Erie 1 BOCES
Room: Active Learning Space
Participants will learn about ways in which Erie 1 BOCES coordinators are connecting students and educators to exploratory learning opportunities in our community by building engagement through design thinking strategies and technology integration. Participants will participate in a hands on Google Drawings activity designed for an exploratory event.
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| Coding with Micro:bit and Microsoft’s Makecode |
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presented by Mary Kovach and DeeDee Stasiak of Erie 1 BOCES
Room: B2A
The BBC micro:bit is a pocket-sized computer that teaches students how software and hardware work together. With programmable lights, sound, input buttons and sensors, the devices can be used for a range of classroom projects. Learn how to code a virtual or physical micro:bit microcontroller using Microsoft’s MakeCode programming language.
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| Drones Certifications and the Careers They Offer |
| presented by Brandon Turk of Rocket Drones
Room: B2B
The Rocket Drones session will cover the FAA drone cert for those 16 and older, the drone careers available, the drone skills that are needed for these careers, and what is being offered to better prepare students for these drone based opportunities.
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Cracking the #GenZ Code: Engaging AI Projects for Every Classroom
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presented by Christine Nowak of AI EDU
Room: Creation Space
Think artificial intelligence isn't relevant to your content? Think again! Learn to leverage this highly engaging field to spark creativity, ignite debate, and promote engagement in your classroom. Participants in this session will explore real-world examples of AI hand-picked to appeal to our Gen Z learners: from social media to visual art to employment. You'll hear how one experienced Buffalo-born educator is leveling up classrooms across the country with AI. Then we will work together to explore and create accessible, captivating project ideas that empower students to understand how AI impacts their everyday lives. Leave feeling confident that you can amp up your classroom engagement through the incorporation of AI projects! No prior AI or CS knowledge required for you or your students.
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