On this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, Corey Quinn sits down with Adam Larsen, Principal Developer at Aurora Educational Technologies, to explore what technology and AI should actually look like in K-12 education. They discuss using tech to empower teachers rather than replace them, the risks of outsourcing critical thinking to AI, student data privacy, and what happens when schools become dependent on tools that may not be affordable forever. Adam also shares how AWS became his go-to platform for solving complex education data problems, and why sometimes the best technology is simply the one that reliably gets the job done.

Show Highlights: 

00:00 Critical Thinking Warning

00:15 Meet the Guest

01:07 From Psych to Edtech

02:07 Teachers and Tool Whiplash

07:29 AI as a Teaching Aid

10:07 Process Over Shortcuts

14:29 Tech Misconceptions in Schools

16:38 Privacy and Picking Vendors

21:50 AI Costs and Ecosystem Bets

26:33 Building on AWS and Wrap Up

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