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Happy Sunday AI Educators

This week my head is in strategy. 

Strategy is about leadership in the future. If we want to lead a new era of education in this Artificial Intelligence world then we are going to have to strategise. Urgently.

Building on the Three Box Solution to Innovation by Vijay Govindarajan, that I explain in my talks and workshops, you'll see this edition of the newsletter delve deeper.

Below you will also discover that the three new AI tools for teachers and students that we have added to our AI tools repository aieducator.tools. I'm excited about these three, they are 🔥.

Don't forget my FREE webinar series in partnership with Angel continues this week. On Wednesday we will explore the power of AI in the hands of students. Join us or refer a friend and you could win a copy of The AI Classroom book. 

🛠️ AIeducator.tools

I've had a great week testing out these new additions to our Artificial Intelligence tool repository for education at http://aieducator.tools

I'm excited to share with you:

- MagicSchool
- WriteSparkle
- Leapp

This week's new tools are 🔥

Strategy is about leadership in the future.

In the Artificial Intelligence Era, we find ourselves in, this should humble any organisation trying to develop a strategy. And we all should be. If the only constant is change, then to earn its leadership in the future, the education system must adapt.

This is what we call innovation.

Educational leaders are faced with a crucial decision point. The pace of technological advancements such as AI, shifting expectations from society and the emergence of unconventional competition have created an environment where the transformation of the education system is essential if it is to survive.

To meet this challenge, we must create fresh educational models and foster innovative ideas. However, it's a challenging task. Overcoming resistance to change, taking calculated risks, balancing priorities, and resolving conflicts will be critical elements. But above all, the key lies in strong leaders being able to hold both current core practices (Box 1) and innovative ventures (Box 3) in harmony.

Hopefully we have Box 1 covered, so let’s look at Box 3 innovation.

Box 3 innovations are non-linear. Linear innovations are the optimisation of Box 1. In this new AI era optimising what we are already doing will just delay the demise of the system. To save it we need non-linear adaptation. Box 3 innovation.

We can create non-linear innovations by:

- Dramatically redefining our target audience,

- Reinventing the value we offer them,

- Or redesigning the end-to-end value chain architecture by which we deliver that value

Let’s look at these.

Redefining our target audience

Example from business:

Up to the late 90s McDonald’s main target audience was children. Their brand consisted of children’s characters and their restaurants were optimised for childrens parties. Due to the exposure of health dangers, McDonald’s drastically and successfully changed their audience to ‘lower income’ families.

An education system can’t change their students but it could shift its attitude to who the students are. Here are my suggestions:

Reinventing the Value You Offer Customers

Example from business:

I remember when I first started using Amazon. It was primarily an online book shop. Within a short space of time Amazon completely changed the value that it offers their customers. The main service Amazon now provides is content streaming and cloud computing solutions.

How could an education system reinvent the value it offers to its students? Here are some ideas:

Redesigning the Value Chain Architecture

Think of this as how an organisation captures value and structures it for their audience.

Example from business:

A prominent example of an industry that’s drastically changed its value chain architecture is newspapers. Over the last decade every media organisation has adapted how it delivers its products to its customers. Laying out their content in a newspaper format, printing it on paper and distributing them into newsagents is now a small part of their operations. Now their content is posted online for customers to access directly through their device.

How could an education system redesign its value chain architecture? Here are a few suggestions:

Box 3 innovations serve to bridge the chasm between the lofty objectives of the educational system — cultivating students for prosperous life outcomes — and its practical capabilities. I posit that, in the dawning age of artificial intelligence, our current educational structures are ill-equipped to realise this mandate effectively.

Contrasting with Box 1 innovations, which tread a linear and gradual path, aiming to close the gap between present performance and targeted growth, Box 3 innovations are architects of tomorrow. They spur new growth trajectories through seismic shifts and radical transformations.

This essay will serve as a preliminary exposition, a preamble if you will, as I delve into exploring an innovative blueprint for the future of education in an AI era.