Speaker 1 — Opening Narration:
Welcome to All Learning Reimagined, the podcast that defies convention and redefines the purpose and practice of education. Here, we venture beyond institutional boundaries. Whether you’re a parent, educator, or curious mind devoted to lifelong growth, this is your space to challenge assumptions and co-create a more humane and intuitive approach to education. Let’s reimagine what education can be.

Speaker 1 — Opening Narration:
Together, we’re reimagining the future of education, one inspired story at a time.

Speaker 2 — Host:
Welcome back, everybody. Thank you to my regular listeners for all of the communications that you send me. It’s really inspiring to know that there are so many amazing things going on out there.

Our topic today is actually part two of last week, when I started talking about technology as a co-creator — as in learning to create with technology, but not be led by it. It felt like it was a really important topic because it seems to be everywhere right now. Everywhere you go, people are talking about AI. There seems to be a sense of urgency and pressure on social media that you’re going to be left behind. Some of it seems to be fear-based, in my opinion: push, push, push. You must have technology or else.

For regular listeners who know me, you know that I really love the natural way of learning. That doesn’t mean we cannot co-create with technology in a conscious way. So this is part two. Last week, we discussed reframing how we see technology and also putting ourselves back into the driver’s seat as creator beings. Technology is a tool, and it’s the intention behind it that really determines the outcome.

I think it was last week that I mentioned Shakespeare’s famous quote from Hamlet: “There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” It was just us reflecting on our own interpretation, our mindset, our own perspective, and how we’re assigning value to how we’re using technology or not. Technology really has always extended human capability, with books and calculators and the internet. It has slowly and closely snuck into our lifestyle.

Some people are saying, “Oh my gosh, AI is taking over.” Well, I’m sorry to say technology already has. I cannot even go and get petrol in my car without technology today. It’s pretty much everywhere. The fear really does arise from those who are disconnected from their own capacity. So it’s okay to ask: how can we come back to that? How can we come back to our heart space and create from there?

A calculator didn’t remove our ability to think, but it did free us to explore more complex problems. That’s what we’re building on this week with part two of the conversation.

For any new listeners, welcome, welcome. You are able to go back to any of the archived shows. These podcasts are only half an hour, deliberately so, because I really like them to be in small, sizable chunks where we can fit in a half hour here and there in our lives. It’s very difficult sometimes to listen to podcasts that are so long and try to fit them into your day. So 30 minutes is easy to digest.

For the newbies, I write an article that goes with and complements the show’s topic each week. Many times, the articles have suggested activities — things that are tried, true, and tested for parents of homeschoolers, educators, grandparents, or anyone who would like to dive in a little bit deeper. You can find all of those archived shows and archived articles on bbsradio.com/alllearningreimagined. We’ve got over a year’s worth now, so there is so much there to explore and dive into. Enjoy. This is my passion. This is my passion project, and this is a hobby that I have. I really love this.

Enough about the business side of things. Let’s dive into this conversation. Really, it’s a discovery. I’d love to be able to lead this conversation so that we can discover and settle into our own selves and our own heart space, and feel within our body: does this align with me? Does this not align with me? And why not?

When you’re in tune with yourself, you often get that feeling: “This doesn’t feel right. It feels off.” Or, “Yes, this feels good.” Go and sit with that information. Journal with it. Think about it when you’re walking. Ask yourself the question just before you go to sleep. If you’re driving in a car, have a conversation with someone next to you. What’s your opinion? What’s their opinion? Where do you see technology going in the future?

There are so many people out there talking about 6,000-plus patents that have been hidden from ordinary people. I don’t have evidence that any of this is true, but if it is, then a lot of those were technologies that could do extraordinary things. So I really do feel that in the next couple of years, we’re going to see a lot of revealing of technologies that are going to reshape our future.

When it comes to learning and education, launching things and deciding how we can use this technology to help everybody, particularly communities, and to free us up so that we can have more time to create, relax, be, explore, and build relationships, then that can only be a good thing, in my opinion.

Okay, so we did talk about AI as a collaborator, but not an authority. Where I left off last week was discussing teaching discernment. Discernment, in my opinion, is an overused word these days. Lots of people talk about discernment, but I’m not actually sure everybody truly knows what it means.

Particularly in the education space, not everything that is generated is accurate, and not all of it is aligned with what we choose or what we prefer. It’s about being able to see through propaganda or manipulation and being able to check: is this aligned with myself? And not only with your belief systems, because as we know, belief systems can be hijacked and we can be programmed. The human mind is very, very programmable, particularly with repetition. Our television — tell-lie-vision — is programming us with its regular program. So we do need to be aware of whether the belief systems we have are actually ours. Where did they come from?

When we’re discerning, it’s often about feeling into your own self. It’s that going within to see if it aligns with your own true self, your true essence, your heart-soul essence. Teaching children to do this sounds complicated, but it’s actually easier than you think, because particularly young children naturally do this. They naturally have this discernment. That’s why you have your two- and three-year-olds having tantrums, because they don’t want to do something. They know it is against what they want. They have a very strong discernment tool when they’re young. It’s just that we program them out of it.

When it comes to using technology, giving technology too early to children really does rewrite their brains. We’ve seen evidence for that. We’ve seen scientific evidence that it rewires how they see, how they think, and how it shapes their brain and how they act. So there are cautions to be had there, particularly around the fact that we don’t know what they are watching and how it is manipulating their brains to respond to stimulus. This is the danger from my perspective.

I’m seeing lots of children today — and as regular listeners know, I’ve been in the education game for well over three decades, so 30-plus years. I have particularly observed, for the last 10 to 15 years, so many children who are almost addicted to outside stimulus. They no longer listen within themselves, particularly once you get to middle and upper primary, secondary school, and university. For some children, there’s a big disconnect. It seems to be those who use technology, or blindly use technology, and lose that sense of self and connection to nature.

If there’s no balance between the two, then it’s not using technology as a collaborator. It’s almost using technology as an authority: “Let me see what AI tells me. Let me see what Google tells me.” They’re addicted to searching on Google. Whether you Google or not — I mean, it’s terrible, the fact that we use Google as a verb these days. “I’m going to Google it.” Seriously, why can’t we say search or research? Let’s use proper words here. We don’t need to use a company’s name, which is ingrained in Western society, and that is quite scary when you think about it.

So coming back to stepping up and saying, “Does this information feel true to me?” and sitting with it — yes, that may seem boring. Yes, that may seem too simple, but it’s not. That’s what discernment is. It’s cross-checking information. As some of you out there would know, how can you cross-check information on the internet when the same company owns so many different media outlets and so many different publishers? When you have the same conglomerate company behind the scenes that actually owns or creates all of the textbooks, and they are the ones who are giving the yes or the no to the information that is taught in schools, how can we discern from that? How can you cross-check?

I can easily say, “I’m just going to search another website,” but the other website basically regurgitates the same information in different words. If that same website comes from the same background source, then that’s not really cross-checking. This is the danger of our society today, and with the internet, because in the age of AI, anything can be made to look real.

I don’t know how many times someone has shown me a video clip and said, “Oh my gosh, have you seen this?” I’m looking at it going, “How do you know that’s even real? How do you know that’s not AI-generated?” We need to really stop and listen, and not blindly follow our senses without using discernment and questioning: where did this information come from? Does it feel true to me? Then we need to add our own perspectives to the query and the conversation, and cross-check where we can.

Cross-checking can just be asking people around you, although that can also be a dangerous slippery slope because they’ve been programmed at the same time in the same cultural society. So what do we do with this? In my opinion, discernment is the new literacy that is essential in any learning environment, in any home. Teaching children to really stop and listen to how their own body feels is essential.

We basically have three minds. We’ve got our brain, which we know as a tool. We have our heart, where our wisdom is kept. If we really sit and listen to our heart, it can tell us so many things. All of our knowledge is stored there. It’s our knowing, our inner knowing. Then, of course, we have our gut, which is a whole show in itself, talking about our gut and our intuition. When they align and it logically makes sense, and it feels good, and your gut and instincts align, those can be discernment tools, which are really important.

I wanted to share with you today some different activities you can use to hone these skills. They’re fun to do. Children really get into them. They really love them. In my opinion, navigating society and the world that is shaping very, very quickly — too quickly for us to keep up with, quite frankly — many of us have whiplash by looking at all of the new things that are coming out and trying to keep up with it. But it’s about linking your self-knowledge to get clarity and also the wise use of tools, not allowing the external stimulation of technology to control us.

It’s how we’re choosing to use it. Just because it presents information to us doesn’t mean we blindly follow it. It’s okay to say, “I need to sit with this. I’m going to cross-check this.” Sometimes slower is faster. Speeding things up doesn’t necessarily make things easier.

This all comes down to knowing yourself first, then engaging with the world. Everything you need is within you. We create our own realities from within. External stimulation can influence us, but when you are solid and grounded and you know who you are, it is very difficult to sway you, because you’re using all of the tools available, not just the mind.

So, practical examples for children. These are some that I have played with or observed others doing with children, and they’ve worked fantastically.

The first one is story co-creation. Children write stories. They have characters and settings and themes. You can definitely use technology to help expand those themes. You can get them to generate dialogue ideas. You can get them to generate images. You can blend different images straight away, and you can do it without using copyright. That’s how I use AI. When I write my articles each week, I actually use an AI technology to create the image to go with my article, purely because I don’t have time to go searching for the right image. I basically type in, “This is what I want,” and it creates it. Bang, done.

It’s useful because it saves me time, and quite often I have to push back on the image that it gives me. I say, “No, I don’t want that image. Change this. Do this. Do this.” You can actually co-create with it. The same thing can happen when you’re writing and telling stories. Children have amazing imaginations, and when they are co-creating and using technology to help them generate, particularly children with learning needs, you can get it to help edit what you’re producing, publish what you’re producing, and shape it. Those co-creations can be absolutely amazing.

So there is creativity plus authorship, because you’re still authoring it, but you’re doing it with a tool and with discernment to choose what fits what you want. This is the thing: humans are the creators. They are the ones making the decisions. They are the ones looking at the information being presented to them, and they are choosing to use it or not.

One of the other things to be aware of is passive consumption versus conscious creation. We’ve already been talking about this, but I really wanted to name it. Passive consumption is something you see every day. Adults and teenagers, in particular, have their phones and they’re scrolling endlessly. Or they might be accepting answers blindly, or using it purely for entertainment only.

Conscious creation is when you’re creating something meaningful. You might be questioning or refining. You’re using the tool, the technology, to express, contribute to something, or explore something. It might be that you’re in a community and you’re connecting with others. Or possibly, instead of scrolling endlessly, you are using microlearning, doing small courses or online courses, and upskilling yourself.

The risk is not the technology itself. It’s being passive and stopping questioning. When we stop creating and questioning, that’s when we forget that we are the origin point for using technology.

My next example is one that has been around for so long. Any teachers out there will definitely resonate with it, and that’s passion projects. If a child is interested in animals, building, sewing, fashion, growing plants, gardens, fixing cars, or anything else, you can use technology to do research and upskill.

Really, you could do a university degree these days with YouTube. There are children out there doing it. They’re not graduating with a piece of paper to say that they actually did a course. And yes, university lecturers out there, I know you’re screaming at the radio right now. I get it. I totally get it. But this is genuinely happening in our world.

There are students and teenagers out there who are not seeing value in the education system anymore. It is obsolete to them. It is too slow. It is out of date. Why would they spend three or four years studying at a university when they can go onto the internet and have access to lots of short courses and microlearning courses, upskill themselves in the specifics that they want and choose, and then create their own job, create their own pathway?

It’s happening. Whether you want to put your head in the sand or not, it’s already happening. The days of traditional education are numbered. That is because a lot of our universities and schools are preparing children for jobs that will be obsolete in five to ten years’ time, possibly even sooner. It’s happening as we speak. That doesn’t mean there will be no jobs for anyone. It means that it’s going to shift. Skill sets will shift. Staying with a very rigid curriculum doesn’t suit anymore.

We’re in the process of having a look at what we can do to use technology to enhance our learning, to free us up so that we can become more conscious creators of the life that we want and actually have a lifestyle. Who wants their children to be stuck in a rat race until they retire, only to have a few good years to relax? No one wants that anymore. The children don’t either. That’s why there’s such a huge pushback on the system. That’s why there are so many school refusals. That’s why, globally, there’s such a massive shift toward homeschooling, because the traditional system is becoming very fast obsolete. Something has to give.

In the meantime, using things like passion projects allows children, teenagers, and adults to create. This podcast that you’re listening to right now is my passion project. I don’t waste time on social media. I don’t waste hours watching television. It’s boring. I would rather go and create. I go and talk to people. I like to write. I love to write. That’s why I write articles each week. I have so much experience that I want to share, and I love talking. So tick, tick, tick: I’ve decided to use a passion project.

Yes, I use technology. I’m recording on technology right now. It’s not the enemy. It’s a tool that I’m choosing to use in my conscious creation, and children can do this too. If you’ve got a child interested in animals, they could research habitats and design a dream wildlife sanctuary. There are so many different things they could use technology to help with in their passion project.

If you’ve got a child or a student who’s a builder, then they can use technology to do different sketches and designs. Yes, you can use pencil and paper to do sketches, but you can do more advanced 3D sketches using different technology programs to create and design ideas. Technology can help come up with the materials so they can go and physically build it. It’s such an amazing tool that can be used and is being used in so many different places around the world.

I’ve had big conversations with amazing beings out there who are doing this. The technology can support the curiosity. It is not replacing the curiosity. It can enhance the skill set so that the student can take it further and expand on what they know.

That brings us to activity three: creative expression. I get really sad when I have a group of students and I say, “Let’s write a poem. Let’s write a song. Let’s go and write,” and all they want to do is go on AI, type the instruction, and then within seconds, there is a perfect song or a perfect poem presented to them. But it’s not their own voice.

This is one to really sit and listen to with discernment. I feel a heartache for all of the authors, music artists, and artists in any medium who are seeing their fields being dominated by technology. This is something I feel quite passionate about: we must not lose our own voice. I know that I have seen a huge swing against technology-driven music or technology-driven artwork because people want authentic, real creativity that a human has created.

However, I know a musician who uses a technology program. Many people are using it. You can type in what you want a song to create, and it even sings it for you and produces the whole thing. It publishes it for you. Great, if that suits you and what you want to do. Fantastic.

However, what she is doing is using the technology as she writes her songs and lyrics. She’s using it without having to pay for musicians or a recording studio, and she’s using it to play and come up with demo tapes. Once she’s got that sorted, she can use that technology to help take it to the next step before she goes and records live with her singing.

So you can co-create with it. It doesn’t have to mean losing your own voice. You can record, perform, share with the community, and extend what you’re doing with technology, as long as you’re not losing your inner voice.

That leads me into activity number four, which is inquiry learning, where children can ask a really big question — any question. For example: how do you want to reduce waste in your home? Then you can use technology and AI to gather lots of ideas, and then go and test the solutions in real life. This is something you can do in classrooms all the time. Research, action, and reflection can happen, and technology can enhance that.

Activity number five is creating, not just watching. So we can shift from watching videos and watching YouTube to creating the content. We want content creators. We don’t want passive consumers. You can get children to create mini-documentaries or nature observation journals, or teach others something they’ve learned and create their own videos. They can become content creators, which, of course, is a huge world out there. A lot of teenagers are making a lot of money — far more than their parents — by being conscious creators. They’ve cottoned on to the fact that they don’t have to go through a traditional system in order to create a lifestyle for themselves. It’s very, very interesting.

Microlearning, which I’ve mentioned before, is the last activity that I have today. There are lots of microlearning activities that children can do using technology. While I am running out of time and don’t have time to go through all of the activities that I’ve got, you can find them all in the article that I created for this week. Go to bbsradio.com/alllearningreimagined, and you’ll find the article and all the activity instructions that I’ve shared with you today, and more, of course.

I’ve also got a small section there, which I should probably mention, with guidance for parents. Children don’t need perfection, but they do need guidance. There are lots of small shifts and things that parents can do to take technology from distraction or consumption to creation and contribution. When the child knows themselves as a creator, even a small moment co-creating with technology can become quite powerful. So parents out there, check that out in the article as well.

That brings me full circle to what I was saying at the beginning of episode one, which I did last week: technology is not the problem. Disconnection from self is the problem. That’s the concern. But when the child knows who they are, when they trust their inner voice, and when they’re guided by beautiful adults such as yourself, or peers such as yourself, to create, question, and contribute, then technology can become the tool for expansion, not the tool for limitation.

I’m going to leave it there, beautiful listeners. I love you all. I will listen to you and talk to you next week. Thank you for joining me on All Learning Reimagined. Until next week: explore, experience, express. Go out and live learning.

Speaker 1 — Closing Narration:
Thank you for joining us on All Learning Reimagined, where passion illuminates the path forward. Remember this: the future of learning doesn’t arrive from above. It begins within. You are the spark, the shift, the living answer to education’s silent call for transformation.

So stay curious, stay awake, and let inspiration be your compass, because how we learn today is not just personal. It is profoundly generative. It shapes the very architecture of tomorrow’s world. We are not separate from the system. We are its evolution.

Until next time, trust the wisdom of your own unfolding, and let your life be the lesson that lights the way for others. Thank you.