NC teacher wins AI challenge; Europeans amazed at America | Hour 3

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio and Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. I'd like to welcome to the program Carrie Roblado. She is an elementary school teacher, second grade teacher at Star Elementary that is in Star, North Carolina, gateway to Bisco in Montgomery County. Carrie, how are you welcome to the show. I'm doing great. I hope you are. I'm doing great as well. So congratulations on your big win. This is for This was the Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge in the educator category. Okay, so first tell us what this challenge was. How'd you find out about it too? Yes, sir, so thank you for having me today. I am, like you said, a second grade teacher here in Montgomery County. And we have a grant, a National Science Foundation grant with NC State University where we're working with teachers to learn to learn more about AI and what that looks like in the K five classrooms. And so they came. NC State came to us and said, hey, we've got this connection with NSF and we would love for you all to participate in the Presidential AI Challenge. And this is the first year. So it was just an amazing experience. And I wrote my proposal and didn't expect you know, I said, well, here we go, let's see, you know. And then I won the state and then I did my regional interview and I said, oh, wow, okay, that was really good. I felt good about that. But then I won and headed to Nationals. So it's been a really humbling experience. So is the So you won the state, you won the regionals, you went to Nationals, and you won the nationals two yes, sir, yeah, Sarah. That was announced on Monday, and I'm still like, wait, does that really happen? Right? So, so what do you win? What do you get? Do you get like a trophy or something like a medal or or what. So a beautiful medal experience. We went, We're honored at the White House, a reception in the Rose Garden, and then we did the partners Amazon, Dell, Microsoft had prizes for us as well. Yes, sir, And so when you say us, who are you talking about? It's not just you because you won in the educator category. But I'm assuming there were kids with you or students, that's right. So for me, I was a team of one, and so I won for my for my track, but there were two other tracks that had students. So there was an elementary, middle, and high school track within each track as well, so six groups. And then for the educator tracks, there was a track B where those educators actually invented apps with for with using AI. And so for me my track, I taught students about AI in an innovative way. All right, so let's talk about this this innovative way. Your your project name was called AI Insect Detectives, which I think wasn't that a TV show from like the seventy No, I'm kidding, yeah, but it was, So what is the AI Insect Detectives? What was that? Yes, sir, So we my students were learning about insects in our reading curriculum and it ties into science as well, and so in looking at the challenge. I said, oh, I've got this unit coming up. What if I had students classify insects versus non insects and so they can learn about like the fundamentals of AI. And so we did like a paper version first where they you know, sorted out insects versus non insects and those images. And then they learned that your computer, actually it isn't seeing images, it's seeing pixels. Right, So those tiny little dots if you think of your old school video games, right you remember those? Oh? Yeah, And so they learned that when they they then went and put those picture cards online on teachable machine, a free web based program, and then they went and created their own AI classifier. And their AI made mistakes. So when they went and scanned a picture of a cardinal, it would say, oh, that's an insect. And my students would say, well, why is it saying, Oh, we trained it on images of ladybugs that are read. Wow, Maybe our AI is saying, oh, this has to be an insect because it's also read. And so my student learned that AI with AI, the most important part of AI is the human in the loop, and we can make mistakes, right. Yeah, garbage in, garbage out. It's all in who's putting the info and what info is getting inserted into it. So these are second graders that could understand the concept of what. AI I even is absolutely and that at one point they even asked at the end, like, well, who trained the AI on my mom's phone? And what if they're making those same mistakes like we did? Oh they would that's like. Further and said, well, wait a minute. You know our local fast food restaurant down the street has AI now and it's always making mistakes, right, So who's training that AI to take our orders? That's like a that's like a scene from the Matrix. That's like, uh yeah, which is very valuable to understand that, like the front end garbage in component of any AI system. For them to grasp that, I mean, it's impressive. I would not I would not have thought that second graders would would understand that concept at all. Did that take any like education on the front end or is that something that they just kind of naturally understood? So they came to that naturally. You know, we did this for four days, thirty minutes each within our ELA enrichment block, and so in those conversations. You know, we were always talking about, well, what about these mistakes, right, you know, we've got some errors here, bugs in our programs, you know. And so eventually by day four they were able to draw that conclusion like, wait, our AI was not perfect, and so neither is our other you know, the agents we have at home or the agents we're using on our cell phones. Right, So who's training that? And that's something I want them to take with them as they they grow up and they get you know, they're using AI on their own, you know, as they're older, so they can think about that and validate the AI they're using. Yeah, I mean that. Because like for kids growing up today, and you know this better than anyone as a second grade teacher, like we I'm a gen xer and so I you know, I remember pre Internet, you know, well, like the last generation that didn't grow up just swimming in all of this stuff. And for kids now, their whole world is going to be AI infiltrated. It's like the fish that doesn't know it's wet. So this is like letting them know, actually there is water around. You, right correct. Yeah, Well, so while you were up in DC at the big event at Nationals. First, I guess the first question I had. Were there any other North Carolinians that you that you came across that were in the finals that made it as. Far as you did. Yeah, there was a student team from Winston Salem and they were high school students that created an app for detection Parkinson's detection. And that was really really cool to hang out with them and get to know them and learn more about their project. That was very a very proud moment to have, you know, Philitar Hills there. Yeah, that's impressive. I actually saw there was an article about AI detecting pancreatic cancer three years before any human detection. Uh, is possible? Like and that's like to me, Like, that's the exciting part. I mean, I have some concerns about AI and how it's going to get implemented and used for what and all of that. I think everybody should. I think that's healthy. But the promise of like especially in like the medical side of this stuff, Like, to me, that's really exciting. Like I think they're like we could see breakthroughs at a very rapid pace because of the computational abilities of AI. I agree, And that's why I feel so passionate about teaching AI literacy early. You know, so students have that foundation and they can be good citizens for. Oh what was my other question? I asked if you saw the North Carolinians, Oh, was there any other projects up there that you saw that you were just like blown away by? Oh? Absolutely, I was amazed by every single person there. You know. I competed against four other groups of amazing educators from Hawaii, New Jersey, Kentucky, Yeah, Tennessee, all across the country. And my one particular friend, she made a chat in the box, which was an unplugged AI game where students could learn AI without the use of a device, And I said, all right, I'm ready for you to send me that game when you're ready. All right, Well, congratulations, we appreciate it. Thanks for representing North Carolina and Carrie Roblado. I hope I pronounced that correctly, all right at Star Elementary School. Congratulations, Thanks for your time, Thanks for having me, Yes, ma'am, have a great weekend. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go overall the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. One of the one of the nice things I think I mentioned this a couple of weeks back when Twitter opened up. It's like auto translate tool, so like it used to be. You know, if you were on Twitter and you came across somebody who was tweeting in Japanese. You would not be able to read it. You would have to kind of like paste it into a translator or something. Well, Twitter now known as x stupid names. Anyway, they they have been implementing auto translation tools, right, so they they feed into their AI systems, right, you know, the entire you know language, and they integrate that into their programs apparently, And so now people are able to communicate with people in other languages. But when you see their when you see their reply or their tweets, it's in your language. And so a couple of weeks or maybe it might have been about a month or so ago, they rolled out the Japanese translator, and immediately you had people in Japan and people in America that started talking to each other directly. And it was like a beautiful moment in Internet history, in world history. I would be so bold as to claim, because the people who are having these conversations, it's all like this is how like this is like here are pictures of our cowboys. Uh here you know, here's how we cook our beef, and like there's this cultural exchange that occurred. It was awesome. It was awesome, and we're. Seeing another one of these events, And as much as it chagrins me to say, it has to do with soccer, I kid, I kid soccer. I'm just kidding. I don't actually hate soccer. I just know that, you know, people love to hate on soccer for you know whatever. So I just it's gratuitous. It is, okay, I do it for the laugh. But with the World Cup now being hosted in America, we have all of these people from all over the world that are coming to watch their soccer matches, right, And I think America is playing tonight against Paraguay, Paraguay, Paraguay, whatever. So we got a game tonight, but they've got these different matches being played all over the country in different cities and stuff. And so you've got these Europeans who have now landed in America and they are not going to the places that they normally would go to, right Because normally, if you're a European and you can afford to travel to America on a vacation, where are you going to go? Generally you're going to go to the big cities. Right, You're going to go to New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC or something. Right, You're going to go to those places because that's what you do, right, But because the matches are being held in all of these various venues, you've got now people that are going to places that they otherwise would never have gone to. For example, there's this German dude that has been just all over social media because his name is Freddie and he's from Germany. And when he came he I guess he's watching matches in the Southeast, in the Deep South too, So like he was on his way to Auburn University and he landed I don't remember where he landed, but he got a rental car, and so he's driving all through you know, Georgia into Alabama, Stan. Like I'm just kiddings, you know, he's driving this all of these you know, regular roads, back roads and stuff, stopping at all these places. And he's not the only one. So there are several of these You'repean visitors and they're out there taking pictures of like the most mundane things to us, stuff that we see all the time. They're floored by a bass Pro shop. Like they go into a bass Pro shop and they're like, look at this place. This is just crazy. The size all of the products, available. All of the choices, like they they're stopping at fast food places and they're stopping at roadside diners. So Freddy's like sends out a picture. He says, dude, lmao, which means laughing by took us off. He says, this is a gas station and it's a picture of a Bucky's, which, okay, to be fair, like that is still kind of amazing to a lot of. Americans, right, BUCkies. He then gets to the stadium and as part of the match, they release a bald eagle that flies, you know, around the crowd like in the bowl of seed and then lands again on the whatever the falcon or whatever they're called. He's like, there's an eagle flying around the stadium. I have never seen a stadium like this before. He says, I love Americans. We were about to walk an hour to the stadium in the rain to save on an uber, and the receptionist at the hotel we were parked in front of decided to drive us there. He then he's got pictures from Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga. He said. An American next to us said this is the perfect sniper spot. They tubed down the Chattahoochee River. He is amazed by a soda machine, like one of those fountain drink machines with the touch screen where you get like seven thousand choices you can blend whatever soda you want, you know. He's like, how am I supposed to choose from all of these? And then he said, we found a German village in the mountains of North Georgia. I feel right at home. He said. Atlanta is like a rainforest. There's so many trees. Somebody needs to put him on payroll. Someone needs to, like, seriously, just pay this guy to drive around America. And I'm not talking about the big cities, right, I'm not talking about the tourist places. I'm talking about real America, what a lot of the coastal elites may refer to as flyover country. Because these people who are making these road trips and reporting what they're seeing and taking pictures like, it's letting Americans reconnect to how special this place is and its people. Happy two hundred and fiftieth birthday. Thank you. Europe looks up the British. They're just really be for some reason. So these videos that Europeans have been posting about their experiences in America now that they have come for the soccer matches for the World Cup games that are going on throughout the nation are like the best tourism campaign America could ask for, and we're getting it all for free. We're getting it for except for the English like for some reason, they're just miserable on like for everything. But it might be the teeth maybe, but like, for example, this guy, his name is Fabio. I'm not kidding. He's from Italy. He has just discovered free refills, free refills of Coca cola. Okay, I can these a thousand times. Yeah, but you won't drink a thousand cups of good and he's free. He says, you won't drink a thousand cups of coke. He says, you don't know me, and he proceeds to shoot. They are shooting video of this guy and he's just chugging cokes because they're free. You paid free, You paid it once, bro. Slow down, slow down, it's cold, slow down. That was good because it's free. Oh yes, please, thank. You, he says, I'm in paradise. Shoots another one. Should this one too? I'm gonna explode. That's look much Shoot, you don't need that, that's true. But it's free brain free Yes, that's what's that think to me? But it's so good. He got brain freeze, but he doesn't care because they're free refills. By the way, this is how I felt when I came down south from up North, because up in New York you don't get free refills except coffee and water. That's it. Coffee. You get free refills on coffee, and you get free refills on water, and that's it. Got a message here from Beth's favorite Russ, who says, in light of the conversation that so many Americans on the left don't like our country and all the Europeans losing their minds and loving our country, I propose a one four one exchange. Yes, the thought has crossed many Americans mind, Like, huh, these guys seem. To really love it here. I wonder if we could do a trade right all of the the. Two thirds of Democrats that say they don't they're not grateful or proud to be American? Would you be prouder or grateful to be over in Europe? Well, have I got a deal for you? You go over there and we'll take one of them, preferably the ones that are already here enjoying driving through the back roads in the Deep South. They're loving it. They're discovering waffle House. Waffle House, Oh my gosh, waffle House has gotten so much free advertising over the last week, it's insane. Like so many of these people are going to waffle House, and they are just amazed that they can go to any waffle house and have the exact same experience and get their food like super fast. They're discovering chicken fried steak and they're like, we are soul Brothers. They've discovered barbecue. Military liovers they get. They get pickup trucks from the car rental agency and they're blaring country music driving down the roads. There's one woman, Elsa, she's an influencer from Sweden, and she said, why did no one tell me Ranch Sauce is like crack Europe we need Ranch asap, which I was not aware Europe doesn't have Ranch. Look, I'm a gen xer, so I remember the pre Ranch era. Okay, Ranch was not always around. Ranch Ranch is fairly new to the scene historically speaking, you know, like I want to say with it, like probably about thirty years ago. I remember the first time I encountered ranch and you had to make it yourself because it was just a packet, you know, it was like a packet of seasoning and you had to add some I don't know. I was a little kid, so and we never had it. It was always at my friend's house because they ate salads growing up, and we never like our salad quote unquote salad. It was like iceberg lettuce that was just like ripped apart and thrown in a bowl. That was our salad and our dressing what mom called Russian dressing, which was ketchup mixed with mayo, and you would just throw a tablespoon of that onto the iceberg lettuce, and that was a salad, which is why I never liked salads. Whenever I'd go to a restaurant or something and they'd be like, oh, there's salad, Like I don't want that. That's just lettuce and ketchup and mayo. And then of course I found out when I went to college and they had the salad bar, and I was like, wait a minute, you could put other things on the lettuce, like mind blown, Okay, But I didn't know that Europe doesn't have or maybe sweeten alone doesn't have ranch. I'm thinking we have a new export, like a new industry here in America. I mean, we already have the industry that creates the ranch dressing. We need to be able to get it over into Europe somehow. She did another post of her She says, Indiana is exactly how I dreamed America would be. Small towns, wide open spaces, cornfields, barns, cute horses or sorry, cute houses, diners, water towers, friendly people, great food, American flags everywhere, and so much more. And then she had a picture. Of a horse and carriage and she says, okay, so Amish people are real. Apparently they don't know that they do exist. And then she says, I saw a yellow school bus and I screamed with excitement. I guess they don't have yellow school buses over there, See what I mean? Like, all of these things that we just take for granted as part of our normal lives are everyday understanding of what it is to be an American and live here through the eyes of somebody from the old world. They like their minds cannot comprehend what they're looking at. There's another guy from Germany goes by the name of Fiago, and he was blown away by the Macy's in Chicago. This was really not the Macy's itself, although yes, kind of the Macy's, but the massive American flag that was hanging in the center of the store that's like four stories tall. He says, I only went in there because I had to pee during my four hour walk, but wow, that's a giant flag. I respect how proud Americans are of their country. It's unimaginable back home in Germany. And that made me feel kind of sad for him, you know, like you can't even like you guys don't display your flags like that. Let's say it, Scott says. Bo and Beth had a story this week about Hidden Valley ranch is looking for Ranch Ambassadors to travel to Europe singing the praises of Ranch. That is awesome, absolutely. Although I think they should be called Ranch Abassadors, and I would want to sash. I always want to sash. If I'm going to be an ambassador, I want a big satin like sash. You know. Gabby says, didn't Hidden Valley invent the ranch dressing? Yes, I believe that's correct. First time. I remember seeing it back in the eighties as a teenager. Stanley says, I went to college in Santa Barbara, California. I had a friend from Iceland. While there. We were talking about making lemonade one day and he suggested going to the story to get lemons. I said, why don't we just get them off the tree at the end of the driveway. He exclaimed, those are real lemons. I thought they were. I thought they were just decorative or sorry, decorative trees. Um, it's because ranch is poisoned. Oh, get out of here. It is not Jeff says, Uh, to be fair. As an American kid, I was easily amused with brain freezes and unlimited sodas. That there has to be that first time. Steve says, yes, Pete, there is no ranch in Europe due to the thirty banned ingredients in ranch dressing. Well, they don't know what they're missing. Well that now they do know what they're missing. I wonder if we could set up I don't know, if we could set up like a shadow fleet, you know, like Iran has been doing with their oil, except we would fill our tankers with ranch and we would park them off the coasts, you know, and the people could could come up, they could float up, and they could bring their own containers, you know, and we would just like open up a tap and just let the ranch flow. Pablo Daniel on Twitter, he does an account called World Cup Culture. He says Spain is getting a taste of Chattanooga, Argentina has taken over Auburn, Alabama. The Germans are pulling up to waffle House, and the Brits they're still finding something to moan about. The World Cup hasn't even kicked off and it's already incredible. One account called Secret Betting Club said few Germans like Freddy went to the US for the World Cup and have been traveling around the country. They ended up going viral because they were genuinely amazed by America and shared their enthusiasm online. As someone who has been to the US around twenty times, even lived there for a year, I can understand their reaction. In my experience, Americans are generally friendlier, more polite, and warmer than Germans, which, okay, that's not really that high of a bar, especially in the smaller towns and once you get away from the main tourist routes There's an incredible amount of beautiful nature, unique experiences, and fascinating places to discover if you know where to go. Even the food can be outstanding. The reasons their videos have gone viral is that for the past decade or so, most of the news coming to Europe about America has been negative. Do you I wonder about a decade? What's what's happened in the last decade? Anyway, As a result, many people have developed a distorted image of that country. If you follow German news and media, you mostly see stories about school shootings, racism, police brutality, political conflicts and similar issues. I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw a genuinely positive portrayal of America in the German media. So when people actually visit the US, their surprise by how different the reality feels from the image they had in their minds. In a way, I think America could use a rebranding. Growing up, I remember hearing stories about the American dream, and many of us in Germany dreamed of visiting or living in America. That sense of optimism and opportunity seems to have faded from the public conversation, which is why North Carolina needs to send a booth to the Great American State Fair in Washington, DC, the same reason you cannot just abandon your brand and let others write narratives about you. Get it together, Governor. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too. Until you heard it here, you can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecalanarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.