Ready to unlock the power of AI in education?
Join us for the BC Explore AI Summit on May 3rd, a transformative virtual event showcasing ideas from Canada’s leading EdTech educators for educators across British Columbia.
With 15 workshops ranging from AI basics to the cutting-edge, participants will gain hands-on experience with AI tools, learn best practices for implementing AI in diverse learning environments, and discuss ethical considerations around AI in the classroom.
Workshop Highlights:
- AI for Educators: Foundations
- AI Through a Social Justice Lens
- AI, Policies, Access and the Impact on the Future
- Microsoft Learning Accelerators
- And so much more!
There is so much goodness that you’ll likely have a tough time deciding which sessions to attend. Thankfully, all sessions will be recorded, so you can catch up on what you missed. If you can’t join us live at all, don’t fret. All recordings will be available to everyone who registers.
Don’t delay! Join a community of educators exploring the power of AI. Register for the Explore AI Summit now!
Learn more about the workshops below:
Block 1 – 8:30am to 9:30am PDT
AI for Educators: Foundations for Saving Time and Engaging Students
Presenter: Michelle Armstrong
New to AI? Feeling overwhelmed by the buzz? This workshop is your perfect starting point! Participants will discover how AI can streamline lesson planning, enhance communication, and provide access to a wealth of relevant learning materials. We’ll explore practical applications of AI for creating engaging activities, generating assessments, and ensuring content accessibility for all learners. We’ll also take time to address your questions and concerns, ensuring you leave with the confidence and knowledge to start exploring AI in your classroom.
Copilot: AI at your fingertips
Presenter: Sean Robinson
In this interactive workshop, educators will explore the evolving world of artificial intelligence and learn how to harness its potential for enhancing teaching and learning experiences. We’ll delve into various aspects of AI, including complex prompting, using Copilot, leveraging resources and prompt banks, and ethical considerations. Whether you’re a seasoned educator or just starting your AI journey, this session will help you with practical strategies and insights to become an AI champion in your educational context.
AI, Your New Partner in the Digital World
Presenter: Michel Gagnon
In this workshop, we’ll explore how AI can be an invaluable partner for teachers in all subjects from kindergarten to grade 12. With a range of accessible and often free tools, AI can assist in creating dynamic lesson plans and customizable assessment rubrics. It supports all students, including those with neurodiversity, by making activities more accessible. Additionally, AI can help with administrative and personal tasks. Understanding AI’s advantages and limitations is crucial for its effective use. This workshop will also provide a tool to help you start exploring AI at your own comfort level.
AI Through A Social Justice Lens
Presenter: Monica Gadsby
AI through a social justice lens lets us rethink how data is being used within the context of diversity, equity and inclusion. We need to reinvest in what it means to be human with ethics and morales at the forefront of education. In this session we will identify ethical challenges in AI development and deployment. Summarize how AI algorithms can perpetuate bias and discrimination. Relate AI principles to real-world scenarios, considering social justice implications. Connect AI ethics to broader social justice movements. Tool being used: Replika, Google, Gemini, Stable Diffusion.
AI Literacy - Who, What and When?
Presenter: Cari Wilson
AI Literacy is the ability to understand, evaluate and use AI tools safely and effectively. With the rapid spread of AI into every corner of our lives, being AI literate is increasingly important. In this session I will go over the process we have used in our district to prepare for an AI Literacy K to 12 scope and sequence. I will share our thoughts, the resources we used and some of the resources we have created!
Block 2 – 9:45am to 10:45am PDT
Unlocking the Coast: Navigating Education with Microsoft Co-Pilot
Presenter: Emma Cottier
Join us for a journey of discovery as we explore how Microsoft Co-Pilot can revolutionize your teaching practice. Learn how to seamlessly streamline assessment with AI-powered grading and feedback. Discover how to boost your productivity with automated tasks and personalized lesson plans. And unleash your creativity with Co-Pilot’s assistance in crafting engaging and innovative learning content. This session will leave you feeling inspired and equipped to navigate the educational landscape with greater ease and efficiency, just like navigating the stunning waters of the West Coast of British Columbia.
Artificial Intelligence 201: Digging Deeper
Presenter: Victoria Woelders
This deeper dive session on AI will begin with a very brief introduction to AI, focusing on Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) and its widespread applications in education, productivity, and daily tasks. Participants will go deeper into understanding prompt creation, predictive text and generative text. You will explore ways to create and use effective prompts in your professional and personal life within the context of Learning Models and Large Language Models.
This session will provide a flexible space for individual exploration, allowing you to experiment with CoPilot while the online presentation is happening. This is an enhanced class from the beginner AI classes, and you’ll receive practical guidance and real-world applications to integrate AI effectively into your workflow.
Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of AI and its role in education as we navigate the exciting possibilities of CoPilot AI together.
Power Up Your Prompting
Presenter: Danny Leeming
Go beyond basic AI interaction and elevate your prompting skills in this hands-on session designed to unlock the full potential of your preferred LLM, be it ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, or others. Learn advanced tips and tricks for crafting effective prompts and prompt sequences that generate more relevant, insightful, and useful results. The session will focus on practical examples, strategic techniques, and best practices to help you tailor your prompts for specific educational or professional needs. Participants will also engage in interactive play time, experimenting with prompts to experience firsthand how thoughtful prompt design can enhance their outcomes and streamline their workflow.
AI-Powered Assessment with E2Grade: Simplifying & Streamlining Reporting and Report Cards
Presenter: Eran Earland
E2Grade is an AI-powered report writing tool and gradebook built for BC educators. This workshop will demonstrate how E2Grade seamlessly integrates a proficiency-based gradebook with competency-based assessment to generate clear, strength-based report card comments efficiently and consistently.
With reports always available, E2Grade enhances communication with students, parents, and counsellors, enabling more frequent and detailed progress updates. This aligns with proficiency-based assessment, emphasizing student growth and the development of curricular competencies throughout the year.
Take your reporting to the next level—turn report card writing into a tool for learning while saving time. By the end of this session, you’ll leave with a tangible tool, set up and ready to use in your classroom.
Building your AI Toolkit
Presenter: Cari Wilson
Every educator has a toolkit of books, resources and websites that they know they can rely on. In my toolkit, I have a whole section for AI tools and resources and my goal in this session is to help you build yours! We will look at teacher tools, student tools, LLMs, scope and sequence resources, AI literacy resources and more.
Block 3 – 11:00am to 12:00pm PDT
AI, Policies, Access and the Impact on the Future of Education Panel Discussion
Presenter: Danny Leeming
Panel Guests:
Join this insightful panel discussion featuring educational technology experts from across North America as they delve into the use of AI in schools. Drawing from diverse experiences and a range of educational systems, panelists will share their firsthand perspectives on policy-making procedures and the critical considerations behind them. Learn about the strategies they employ to implement AI responsibly, balancing innovation with safety and equity. The conversation will also address the ethical dilemmas associated with AI in education, such as data privacy, bias, and the impact on student learning. Gain valuable insights and practical advice from leaders shaping the future of AI in education.
AI in the Science Classroom: Generating Detailed Reports to Track Student Growth
Presenter: Eran Earland
Providing timely, detailed feedback is key to proficiency-based assessment, but keeping up with student progress throughout the year can be challenging. This workshop will demonstrate how AI tools can help science teachers generate clear, strength-based reports that track student growth in curricular competencies—without increasing workload.
As a secondary science teacher, I will share specific AI tools that support real-time feedback, lab report evaluation, and skill-based tracking. Learn how to use AI to:
- Generate detailed student reports aligned with curricular competencies.
- Provide formative and summative feedback on lab reports, scientific writing, and problem-solving.
- Streamline communication with students and parents through ongoing progress updates.
By the end of this workshop, you’ll have practical AI strategies to provide consistent, meaningful feedback throughout the year, making assessment more transparent and actionable for students while also saving time and stress.
AI and the Future of Literacy: Critical Analysis of AI-Generated Content
Presenter: Michael Fricano II
In an age of rapidly advancing AI, discerning truth from fabrication is more crucial than ever. This session empowers educators to equip students with essential critical literacy skills for navigating AI-generated content. We’ll explore how AI creates text and images, uncover its inherent limitations and biases, and learn practical strategies for identifying manipulated media. Discover how to teach students to evaluate credibility, analyze bias, and become savvy consumers of information in the AI era. Gain actionable techniques to foster digital citizenship and ensure students are prepared to thrive in a world shaped by artificial intelligence.
Creating templates for Copilot-assisted Instructional Coaching
Presenter: Stuart Gray
Learn how to develop, refine, and share templates that will allow you to harness the power of Microsoft Copilot as a partner within your Instructional Coaching cycles. Learn how to turn a video or audio recording of a lesson into a time-stamped transcript and have Copilot assess and analyze within seconds the following:
- Lesson time distribution: breakdown of time spent on instruction, discussion, guided inquiry, think-pair-share, practice, etc.
- Instructional strategies: breakdown of questioning techniques (Bloom’s Taxonomy), student interactions and engagement, feedback, transitions, etc.
- Wait time
- Visual data representations: charts or tables summarizing key insights.
- Key timestamps from lesson transcripts: notable moments for mentor-coaches and teaching fellows to review (these can be added as Callouts or pop-up Forms in your Microsoft Stream lesson recording for interactive reflection)
- Opportunities for high-impact teaching strategies
- Suggested lesson modifications
Accelerating Learning with Microsoft Accelerators
Presenter: Cammie Kannekens
Let’s dive into some of the AI-powered Microsoft tools that we can use in our browsers or inside of Microsoft Teams. How about SEL check-ins with Microsoft Reflect, growing independent reading fluency with Reading Coach/Reading Progress, increasing speaking confidence with Speaker Coach/Speaker Progress or improving life-long search skills with Search Coach? We’ll give a glimpse of all so you can dive into the ones that excite you most.