You know the feeling. It’s 5:30 in the afternoon. The school buses are finally quiet, but your laptop screen is still glowing. You have a parent letter to write about the new cell phone policy, a faculty memo to draft, and a board report due by morning.
You’re staring at it. That blinking cursor. The blank page.
For school leaders, the blank page is a villain. It’s the drudgery that keeps you chained to your desk when you’d rather be in the hallways, in classrooms, or at home with your family.
To help you, I’m introducing an online course that will guide you through practical tools and strategies for using AI for leaders.
But it gets better. If you’re an Alabama school leader looking for an ACLD-approved PLU, Practical AI for School Leaders gives you just that.
From Administrative Drudgery to Instructional Leadership
We didn’t get into leadership to spend four hours a day formatting spreadsheets or agonizing over the wording of an email. We got into this business to lead people. We want to spend our time on the instructional program. We want to help teachers grow and students succeed.
But the administrative stuff keeps getting in the way.
AI isn’t going to replace you. It can’t replace the unique perspective you bring to your school. But here’s the plain truth: you might be replaced by someone who knows how to use it to get a leg up on their workload.
I’ve designed a new course specifically for Alabama school administrators called Practical AI for School Leaders. This is a hands-on system designed to take the world’s knowledge and put it to work for you. If you’re not from Alabama, you are still welcome. Everything we talk about is going to help you. It’s just that Alabama school leaders can earn professional development credit.
A Framework: That’s an Important Key
Most people use AI for leaders like a Google search. They type in a few keywords and get a generic, robotic response. That’s why they get frustrated.
In this course, participants learn a framework repeatable in prompt after prompt. The blank page disappears. Generic answers that miss the mark become a thing of the past. You get a high-quality starting point that you simply refine and approve.
The Right Tool for the Job
You’ll learn how to use what I call the “Big Three” tools, each for its own strength.
We also dive into NotebookLM. Imagine uploading your school improvement plan or student handbook into a private notebook where the AI acts as your personal expert assistant. You can ask it to “find the gaps in my cell phone policy” or “create a quiz for students based on the student handbook.”
Productivity Secrets for Windows Users
Because the prompts we write will be sentences rather than a few keywords, you’ll get help with easier ways to input your prompts. I’m a big fan of voice input and text expanders. You’ll get the specifics on how you can add these tools and techniques to your digital treasure chest.
ACLD Approval and Course Details
Here’s the important part for my fellow Alabama school leaders. This course is an ACLD-approved PLU. You’re getting the professional development credit you need. At the same time, you’re building systems that will serve you every day long after the course is over.
The course begins March 1. So, don’t miss this opportunity.
How to Register
Registration is a two-step process for Alabama school leaders:
- Go to PowerSchool Professional Learning and search for the course title. Register there.
- Go to FrankBuck.org/plu and create an account on the Thinkific platform.
For everyone, regardless of where you live, go to FrankBuck.org/plu. That’s where you pay the registration fee, only $97 for the entire course. That’s also where you’ll see all the videos and hands-on exercises that take you from where you are to the place you’d rather be: more time for instruction and less time on drudgery.
A Real-Life Example
Just to let you know what you’ll see next week, I’m going to show you a real-life example of how I used NotebookLM to produce a podcast that tells people about the course. It’s something I did quite by accident.
I had planned out the entire course before I filmed anything. One of the hands-on activities I planned was to have participants take a self-assessment at the beginning and take the same self-assessment at the end. That would let people see how far they had come.
Composing the questions, wording the correct answers, and coming up with three incorrect answers for every question was something I knew would be time-consuming.
But I had a thought. What if I took the script that embodied the entire course, uploaded it to NotebookLM, and let NotebookLM create the self-assessment? It worked perfectly.
Just for fun, I clicked on “Audio Overview.” NotebookLM created a podcast of almost 14 minutes. It was not a copy of the script, far from it. It was amazing how it understood the material.
This was just for fun. If I had actually planned on taking the script and having NotebookLM make a podcast, I would have done some things differently.
Don’t Let the Blank Page Win
Don’t let the blank page steal another hour of your life. AI for leaders is the team at your fingertips that allows you to be the leader your school deserves. It handles the drudgery. You provide the uniqueness and the heart.
If you’re a school leader, particularly one from Alabama, this course is a huge professional development opportunity for you.
Alabama school leaders, go to PowerSchool Professional Learning and search for the course title. For everyone, go to FrankBuck.org/plu and register on Thinkific. The cost is only $97. But don’t wait. We start March 1.
Life doesn’t have to be as hard as we sometimes make it. We’ve got tools that can remove the drudgery and make the journey easier and more enjoyable. I hope to see you in Practical AI for School Leaders.
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Want to see more videos? Visit the YouTube channel.
Want to listen instead? Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or search for Get Organized! by Dr. Frank Buck wherever you listen to podcasts.
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