Technology Essentials in Education Episode 44:
A Future-Ready Approach to AI and Screen Time

Hello there. My name is Monica Burns, and welcome to this episode of Technology Essentials and Education. Today, I'm chatting with Thomas Murray. I've known Tom for more than a decade in the EdTech world. He's a fellow ASCD author and does such amazing work in this space. I've heard him keynote several times, and I'm going to chat with him about two big topics today: screen time and AI. He helped launch the Future Ready Schools Initiative and works alongside superintendents, technology directors, school leaders, and educators across the country. As we jump into this conversation, his insights on how to talk about screen time in your school community and what AI means for students and teachers are things I think you'll hold on to throughout the school year. So, let's get into the conversation with Tom Murray.

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Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you today about the Future Ready approach to AI and screen time. But before we get into all of that, can you share with listeners a bit about your role in education? What does your day-to-day look like?

Monica, it is so good to see you, and it's such an honor to be on the podcast. I love your work and the work that you lead, and it's been an honor to call you a friend for a long time. I love sharing this space with you. What an honor it is to be here. Just real quick, from my background: I've served as a teacher at both levels, as a principal at both levels, and at the district level before getting recruited to go to Washington, D.C., to eventually lead Future Ready Schools. I'm super excited to be here. What does my average day look like? It's different every day. It doesn't look like what it did when I was a teacher in the classroom every day or when I was leading a school. I have the opportunity to work with superintendents, technology directors, and principals on a variety of topics, including leadership, culture, and leveraging frameworks and tools. I also create and build resources for people to use, available for free. For example, my latest project, Future Ready Pathways, is helping redesign the secondary experience, particularly around dual enrollment, pathway opportunities, work-based learning, and industry-recognized credentials. Folks can check out futurereadypathways.org. We're focusing a lot of our direction right now on systemic redesign to support access and opportunities for learners.

Uh-huh. All that perspective—all the people you're talking to and hearing from—is really what I'm hoping to tap into in this conversation today. One thing I'm curious about is how the conversation around screen time has shifted in the past few years. Where do you see it right now? How has it changed?

It's a topic that's out there, that's for sure. From a Future Ready perspective, we're proud to say we've always had the same approach, and we always will: intentional use. Years ago, we did a research study on what effective use of EdTech actually looks like. We've been proponents of getting access and opportunity into kids' hands. We're huge proponents of giving kids technology and access, but only with intentionality. Technology is only as useful as how it's used. That device, Chromebook, MacBook, or whatever it is, is agnostic. How it's used is what really matters. We did a research study with Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, one of the top learning researchers in the world, and her team at Stanford to look at what effective use of EdTech actually looks like. It boiled down to three things. Number one: How interactive is the learning? When we talk about screen time, there's a huge difference in what students are actually doing. We've never really tried to look at textbook time and ask how many hours they're reading. Technology is a tool. I'll be the first to say nobody wants kids endlessly soaking it all in through passive use, because that's low-level. The first key is interaction: how much interaction is the student doing? That breaks down into active versus passive use. Passive use isn't inherently bad, and we will do it; it's just low-level. Think of passive use as consumption-based use: watching a video or looking at something static. It's not inherently bad, but we have to recognize it's low-level. The more time we spend on passive use, the more time we invest in lower-level learning. Time is one of the only currencies we can somewhat control in education because we only get so much of it. Active use, by contrast, involves creation and design, and a lot of STEM work falls under that, where kids are active in the learning. That was one of the first key pieces in contrasting the two. The national EdTech plan from a couple of plans ago had a great visual contrasting active and passive use. It was a great way to show how technology is being used and what students are doing with it. Number two was using technology to explore, design, and create. Those activities showed value. If you think about frameworks like Webb's Depth of Knowledge and Bloom's Taxonomy, great teaching is great teaching, and those are higher-level skills. What we've always said isn't worth the money is digital drill and kill.

Right.

Look at lower-level passive use and digital drill and kill. For eight years, we've been saying, 'Hey, this isn't worth the money. Evidence shows it's not changing anything. You're just spending more money doing it.' A lot of the pushback in EdTech over the last year has been around things that are basically digital drill and kill. Creation and design are higher-level skills. The more active we can be in exploring, designing, and creating, the more evidence and research show that this stuff works. The third piece from the research was the right blend of teachers and technology. That's not talking about blended learning; it means what's right for one student will be different from what's right for another. Great teachers personalize experiences and recognize the opportunity to look at different options and what each student needs. Maybe students choose different tools or programs based on the outcomes they're looking for and their needs. Evidence also shows that's important. At the end of the day, it's about being intentional. The screen-time conversation is the same as the EdTech conversation: we're not using technology for its own sake or just because it's cool, new, and shiny. We're doing it intentionally. Start with learning: What problem is this helping to solve? If it can increase opportunities or access, expand learning, or make learning deeper, I'm all in. If we're doing it as digital drill and kill, then I've got an issue, too. It's not all or nothing. We need to look at what it is and how it's being used to make sure we're talking about the same thing, because the issue around screen time today is convoluted. People are talking about many different things and lumping them together as if the device is the problem.

Yeah, and I think what you unpacked there is something teachers and school leaders are really grappling with: how to communicate quality, intentional use cases to each other and to members of their community. For a parent or community member concerned about how much time students spend on screens, but who isn't in classrooms every day, what would you want them to know? What would you recommend a school leader or teacher share to help them understand what might be going on?

I think delineating some of the pieces we just started talking about is really important. First, I look at this conversation as a dad. I'm a dad of two teenagers. One of my kids regulates herself pretty well and is conscious of not wanting to be stuck on a screen all day. The other one, if I'm not saying, 'We have some time limits here,' would probably stay on it 24 hours a day and be a zombie by the end of the day. He's younger, so we're working on some of those skills. From a district perspective, what advice would I give? Transparency is important. When we know things from research or evidence, we have the opportunity to share that. We also have to clarify what we mean when we talk about screen time. I think the average parent, and I include myself, is looping instructional activities together with being on TikTok or YouTube, and with using an EdTech tool that actually supports learning. That's part of the issue. If I'm a school leader working on this topic, one thing I'd say is to be transparent about how and why you're using something. If you can't answer the why really well, you probably shouldn't be using it. Be intentional. Schools have the opportunity to be intentional. They know their communities are talking about this, they're getting pushback, and they see it in the media, online, and sometimes at board meetings. They hear from parent groups saying they don't want technology used, or they want to go tech-free, as in LAUSD. The last thing district leaders can do is put their heads in the sand and pretend nothing is happening. Develop a game plan: 'Here's how we use it. Here's how we're intentional about it. We also recognize there's a time for it to be off and away, and that's okay, too.' Great learning can look like that. Intentionality and transparency are really important, along with sharing why we're doing what we're doing. We're going to use some tools because we want kids creating and designing, maybe building a company or doing entrepreneurial things they can't do without them. We want our kids to be relevant in a world of AI. The last thing we're going to do is say, 'You can't do any of that in this bubble we call a school,' and then send you outside of school with no idea how to do it. That's not a solution, either. Being intentional in our messaging is important, starting with leadership and teachers. What expectations do we set as a district? If I walk into your classroom and kids are mindlessly on computers nonstop all day, every day, we're going to have a different conversation. Supporting teachers in what technology use could and should look like, and in what the evidence shows, is a huge starting point. Then be transparent with parents about how and why we're doing certain things.

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Yeah, and just that storytelling to parents—to say, 'This is what's happening,' and understand they might make certain assumptions because of things they see at home or hear from others. But really opening that door and letting them know what high-quality use cases a school and its teachers are committed to. I would imagine AI, not just screen time, is something that comes up a lot, not just in family conversations but with the school leaders and educators you support. How does AI fit into the screen-time conversation? Is it adding to the time students spend on devices if they're exploring AI-powered tools? Can it actually change how that time is used? What does that look like? What are you seeing?

I think how it's being used is the underlying question. Going back to number one, we shouldn't just measure the number of minutes on a certain screen. Some policies say no more than a certain number of minutes per day. I hear you, but what does that look like? You and I have both been in the classroom. How would teachers monitor that across a whole team? Again, what's happening on that screen? Going back to active use, how do we shift? AI is an opportunity for creation, coaching, helping to solve problems, and thinking differently. The goal with AI isn't more screen time; it's being able to learn in new and different ways. It's fascinating to look at what the evidence shows. The challenge with any research around AI is that by the time a study is complete and comes out, AI has already changed drastically. One study that gets cited often, from MIT about a year ago, looked at writing and different ways of using ChatGPT. They looked at what happens to the brain and learning when someone starts using ChatGPT from the get-go to draft ideas and everything, versus doing their own thinking first and then using it as a coach and for feedback. Fascinatingly, the brain lit up differently; the neurons were different depending on how it was being used. AI could be used as a crutch. Some people call this cognitive debt: repeatedly outsourcing your thinking could become a problem. We have to be honest about what we're seeing. If the neurons are firing less from a learning perspective, that's probably not a good thing. The study didn't find that AI is good or bad. Just like with EdTech, it matters how it's used. Other studies I've seen have backed this up. If we allow AI to do all the thinking, people in that study couldn't recite even one thing they had supposedly written an hour later. That's not a good thing, in my opinion. Nobody's looking for that. But the flip side is that when I put in the cognitive effort first—maybe writing the piece and putting my ideas down—and then use AI to make it stronger, get feedback, push back, or fact-check ideas, using it more as a coach, the results are actually better. The same tool and activity can produce different outcomes depending on where it's used in the process and how hard the brain is working. When I think about AI, it's again about being intentional—not about the minutes used, but about what it is and how it's being used. We need to make sure we're not using it as a crutch to outsource our thinking, but more as a coach. I recently did a session on coach versus crutch, looking at some of the studies and having an honest conversation: if we get this wrong, kids can lose; if we get it right, kids can become more independent. That's a big responsibility we have to recognize, and I know districts are wrestling with it right now.

Yeah, and that idea of supporting students to work, live, and thrive in these spaces where they'll have access to different technology is so important. I'm sure you're having conversations around this as well. You alluded to some of the critical-thinking pieces that go into interacting with AI tools. How can educators help students become critical thinkers about the technology they use, whether it's an AI chatbot, a social media platform, or any other digital tool they might come across?

I think we need to be authentic and real. I was a tech director for a number of years, and I think the mantra of 'We're just going to lock it and block it' is naive. I say that truly out of respect, but kids will pull out their phones. I've never taught my 13-year-old son anything about ChatGPT, but he uses it all the time on his phone. Because he's using it, we've had a whole bunch of conversations. I think conversations, showing examples, and being intentional when things are wrong are important. A friend of mine who does some educational work shared that he looked himself up in ChatGPT, and it literally said he was dead.

Right. Yeah.

Use examples like that to show, 'Listen, it's not always right. We can't rely on this.' I see teachers trying to put white text into assignments so that if students copy and paste, it mentions something like gophers and Spain. You see these tactics people are trying to use to catch students. Instead of trying to catch people, my response is to teach them about the pitfalls.

Mhm.

Teach them that they want to own their learning. I've had fascinating conversations with high school students. You might think some would say, 'I'm just going to use it to get things done quickly, get the quickest score, and finish everything.' And yes, some kids will do that, because some adults will, too.

Yeah. Mhm.

We're all human. But hearing kids say, 'I don't want it to think for me. I want it to be me. I don't want it to be some bot,' is important. Help kids understand the pitfalls, biases, why AI draws images a certain way, and the ethical side. If it's pulling from datasets of everything that's out there, one challenge I give kids is that it's going to give us an average of things we already know exist. You can be better than that in the world. You can add your own brilliance, but that won't come from things that already exist.

Right.

When we look at that, I think it's about being real and honest with kids, showing them where it can go wrong, giving examples of bias, and talking about it. Also give examples of where it's appropriate. I had a fascinating conversation with my daughter. We have open conversations about when we would use it, when we wouldn't, what would be ethically okay, and what wouldn't. What would you be comfortable turning in? What might you say to your teacher? My daughter said her teacher talked to them about this and said, 'Once we write it, we can use it to help check grammar, give feedback, and get ideas.' The teacher trained the kids on the expectations and what they were okay with. If that conversation isn't taking place, you'll end up trying to catch students or using tools that filter for human writing. Just be real with kids, especially at the secondary level. We could debate what's appropriate for a kindergartner, first grader, or second grader; that's a different conversation from high school students, many of whom have a cell phone and will be entering the workforce. Keep it real with them. Share the pitfalls and struggles. Don't hide it from kids.

Right. Transparency is so key, particularly in spaces where it's understandably tempting to say, 'Let's just shut this all down.' That's not really going to address what we hope to do in these spaces: prepare students for a future where they have to make these choices and, hopefully, be transparent about their AI and technology use in different roles. This has been such a great conversation. For someone who wants to navigate conversations around screen time and think through what AI might look like, I want to make sure people can stay connected with you and your work. Where can they connect with you? Where can they learn more?

Awesome. My personal website is thomascmurray.com. You can find me there, and all my social platforms are linked there as well. I'd love for you to reach out. In terms of Future Ready and my day job, check out futureready.org, part of All4Ed, our home organization. We've got a lot of great resources around AI and other topics there as well. If you have any questions, reach out. Monica, it's always a pleasure to connect with you, my friend, and I appreciate all the brilliance you bring into this world.

Oh, likewise. It was so great to chat with you. Thanks so much, Tom.

It was a lot of fun chatting with Tom Murray today. If you're looking to go further into conversations around screen time and AI, he's a great person to follow. Now, let's finish up this episode with a few key points and takeaways from the conversation. Focus on intentional use, since a device is agnostic and how the technology is used is what really matters. Distinguish active use—exploring, designing, and creating—from passive, consumption-based use that stays low-level. Prioritize the right blend of teachers and technology, personalizing tools to what each student needs. If you can't clearly answer why you're using a tool, that's a sign you might not really need it. Thanks again for tuning into this conversation, and make sure to follow Tom Murray's work and all the things the Future Ready folks are working on. A big thank you to Jotform, the presenter of today's episode. To learn more about Jotform and how educational institutions can get a 30% discount on Jotform Enterprise, head to jotform.com/enterprise/education.