You Can't Shape What You Won't Use: Anne Leftwich on AI at Indiana University

EPISODE DESCRIPTIONAnne Leftwich runs learning technologies for all of Indiana University, and her message to AI holdouts is blunt: you can't shape what you won't use. Refuse to touch the tools and you forfeit your seat in the conversation about how they get used in your classroom and your kid's bedroom. In this episode she walks through how IU earned the AI Transformation Award at TechPoint's 2026 Mira Awards, why President Pam Whitten pushed for a GenAI 101 course that takes students, faculty, and staff from their first prompt all the way to building an AI agent, and what she learned watching her fifth graders train a chatbot and discover algorithmic bias without any adult pointing it out. We also get into the Lilly Endowment AI implementation grant, why she calls AI a Trojan horse for sneaking good pedagogy back into education, why banning tools in K-12 fails the same way abstinence-only everything fails, and her friend Brad Wheeler's math on the pace of change: what used to take a year now happens in 45 days.

ABOUT THE GUESTAnne Leftwich is the Associate Vice President for Learning Technologies at Indiana University, where she reports directly to the CIO and helps lead AI strategy across every IU campus. She holds the Barbara B. Jacobs Chair in Education and Technology as a professor of Instructional Systems Technology in the IU School of Education, with over 20 years of research on K-12 technology adoption, computer science education, and AI education. Her NSF-funded PrimaryAI curriculum teaches artificial intelligence to students in grades 3 through 5 through life science.

GUEST LINKSLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-leftwich-9b52646/Indiana University profile: https://uits.iu.edu/about/leadership/aleftwic.html

TIME STAMPS00:00 - Anne's role at IU and the Mira AI Transformation Award03:42 - Why students resist AI07:35 - You can't shape what you won't use12:08 - Lilly Endowment grant and IU's four work streams14:48 - NotebookLM, Claude tutors, and rethinking the lecture20:53 - Fifth graders discover chatbot bias25:08 - Why banning AI in K-12 backfires31:28 - Sycophancy, AI Barbie, and teaching what's under the hood39:54 - Soft skills and how to measure critical thinking49:42 - Rapid fire: org charts, philosophy jobs, robotics, the singularity

CONNECT WITH JASON PADGETTDirector of Growth and Partnerships at CitizenAI📧 jason@mycitizen.aiLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-grant-padgett/X: https://x.com/NoCodeCAIONewsletter (No Code CAIO): https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7399599285849346048Available for interviews and keynotes on AI in education → jason@mycitizen.ai

AGI PODCAST NETWORKSchool's Out Saturdays: https://schoolsout.agipodcast.ai/Field Notes newsletter: https://schoolsout.agipodcast.ai/field-notesIndiana AI education events: https://schoolsout.agipodcast.ai/eventsAll AGI Podcast shows: https://schoolsout.agipodcast.ai/network

TOOLS JASON RECOMMENDSMindStudio → https://get.mindstudio.ai/q7n7u5cttkdqRiverside.fm → https://riverside.sjv.io/e1xyBrWispr Flow → https://ref.wisprflow.ai/jason-padgett

RESOURCES MENTIONEDGenAI 101, IU's free course now open worldwide: https://expand.iu.edu/browse/learningtech/gen-ai/courses/genai-101TechPoint 2026 Mira Awards: https://techpoint.org/2026-mira-awards-winners-indiana-techpoint/PrimaryAI, NSF-funded elementary AI curriculum: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1934153Google NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google.com/Magic School AI: https://www.magicschool.ai/SchoolAI: https://schoolai.com/Lilly Endowment: https://lillyendowment.org/