Kirk Gray

At Navigator Schools we kept running into the same issue: weekly CFU data just wasn’t coming in cleanly. Too many moving parts, too many interruptions, too much classroom reality. So we built a workflow that fixes the whole chain. Navi Auto-Grader spreads out the logistics, auto-scores in seconds, and collects consistent writing data without slowing instruction. Students scan a QR, respond via handwriting (snap a picture), earn Scholar Coins, and every submission is locked into a verification chain. The side effect we didn’t expect? More speaking + listening practice than our old CFU routines ever produced. It solves three problems at once: • inconsistent CFU data • time-intensive grading • the AI-resilient assessment challenge (Via Blockchain) Small shift, big unlock. Happy to show what it looks like in action.

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My colleague Kathryn Hemsing and I recently shared how we built Sharpen Advantage to bridge the gap: giving students a personalized, responsible AI study companion while empowering faculty with the insights they need to intervene early. Read more about Sharpen's journey from a Study app to an Enterprise Platform here: https://lnkd.in/eXQKGpCE #EdTech #Engineering #ResponsibleAI #SharpenAdvantage #HigherEducation

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💫How Denver Saved $1M & Streamlined Ed‑Tech: Key Insights from a K‑12 District A powerful reminder for all school systems and organizations heavily invested in digital tools: more tools don’t always equal better outcomes. Denver Public Schools, responsible for approximately 90k students, reduced over 1,000 ed‑tech tools to just 346. The result was a savings of $1 million, along with lower complexity and improved data security. Key takeaways: ⭐️Collaboration matters: Vetting committees included IT, legal, privacy, curriculum, and procurement teams. ⭐️Process beats chaos: A standardized evaluation for new tools ensures no one slips through the cracks. ⭐️Re‑evaluate regularly: Tools are revisited every two years allowing districts to adapt to innovations like AI. In a time with COVID era funding now gone, tightening budgets and looming cuts, this model promotes a strategic, data‑driven approach to technology adoption. ⭐️How does your district evaluate new digital tools? ⭐️Could a biennial review process help you reduce waste and improve compliance? ⭐️Have you seen similar ROI from tech consolidation? https://lnkd.in/gys_iNAc #K12Leadership #DistrictLeadership #EdTechStrategy #SmartSpending #EducationBudget #DigitalLearning #InstructionalLeadership #TechGovernance #DataPrivacy #SchoolImprovement

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One of the most common challenges that I hear today when speaking with academic library leaders change management around the adoption of generative AI tools & and services by their teams. We are excited to partner with Choice to deliver an 8 week course on AI literacy for academic libraries. Learn more at: https://lnkd.in/gGWX_zBh

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Re-reading The Lean Startup by Eric Reis recently gave me a much-needed reset on how I think about innovation and the role that I play as Director of Programming at The STARTedUP Foundation. A few ideas hit differently this time around: Innovation accounting was a big one. It’s a good reminder that progress isn’t about how busy we are or how many initiatives we launch—it’s about what we’re actually learning. Are we validating assumptions? Are we adjusting based on what teachers and students are telling us? Learning is the metric. Small batch sizes also really resonated. In our work, it’s tempting to build big, polished programs or resources upfront. But we’re often better served by testing smaller ideas with a handful of educators or classrooms, learning quickly, and improving as we go. And then there’s the 5 Whys. Simple, but powerful. Slowing down to ask “why?" and then asking it again, and again, and again, and again has helped surface root causes instead of just treating symptoms. It’s also where we’ve found some of our best opportunities to improve our programs and better support educators. Most importantly, this reread helped me reframe my focus: -Listening more carefully to teachers and students. -Looking for problems in need of solutions. -Not solutions in search of problems That mindset shift feels especially important in education, where real innovation starts with empathy and trust.

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I talk to K-12 IT teams all the time, and the same theme keeps coming up: they're drowning in manual work just to keep things running. New students enrolled? Manual updates. Someone transfers out? More manual changes. Compliance audit? Hope you kept good notes. Identity federation flips that entire model. One centralized identity, automated lifecycle management, and students can log into any device and get straight to learning — no IT intervention needed. We just published a solid breakdown of how it all works in K-12: https://okt.to/aLYpFw #K12 #EdTech #SchoolIT #Jamf #Cybersecurity #TechInnovation

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Feedback Aide is a diligent grad student (or teachers aide to use the K-12 term). It's a first reader scoring against a human-provided rubric. The human can override and adjudicate "close calls" in scoring and feedback. Learnosity balanced the need for tireless consistency (some thing AI can do) without cutting out the human.

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Great conversation with Zach Justus and Nik Janos on the Unfixed Podcast. I appreciated the opportunity to reflect on how SDSU is adapting to AI in ways that center teaching, learning, and people. At SDSU, we treat AI not simply as a technology deployment, but as an academic capability. That means starting with listening at scale through our campus-wide AI Survey, which now informs efforts across the CSU. It means building shared literacy through initiatives like the Academic Applications of AI (AAAI) micro-credential and the AI-Ready Course Design faculty development initiative. And it means pairing enterprise access to tools like Copilot, ChatGPT Edu and Gemini with a clear privacy posture and a commitment to equity and responsible use. Reflecting on the conversation, AI is not the next calculator. It's the next internet, maybe bigger. Realizing its value requires more than tools. It requires change management, shared language, and ongoing sensemaking across faculty, staff, and students. Supporting teaching and learning in the AI era demands work well beyond the classroom; it requires governance, trust, training, culture, and partnership between Academic Affairs and IT. When done well, AI is not something done to a campus. It is something built with the campus. Grateful to Zach and Nik for creating space for this conversation. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/g9mrjfv6

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