The story behind the work.

I've spent 30 years in education — as a classroom teacher, curriculum leader, and principal across the United States, Hong Kong, and Australia. Twelve of those years have been in Australian schools.

My mother was a teacher for 40 years. Toward the end, the growing paperwork pushed her to early retirement. She told me: 'I just want to teach kids to read.' That stayed with me.

AI has arrived. Traditionally, schools adopt a technology tool. Working off the known tech-adoption playbooks, most school leaders use traditional procurement procedures, ICT review, and policy to push adoption.

But AI is an arrival technology. Staff and students can use it with or without school adoption. For schools, this presents risks as well as opportunities.

AI magnifies the misalignment of philosophy and practice within a school. Principals navigate clickbait and strong community voices without the time to separate truth from hype. ICT managers and other leaders realise that shadow use of AI tools is happening, but they don't know how to approach the conversations and protect the school.

There never seems to be enough time to have these important conversations.

I give schools the knowledge and skills I would have wanted when I was in schools. My work focuses on building a school's internal capacity to make wise decisions as AI continues to evolve.