SLV Fall Educators Conference 2026

Right now is the easiest it will ever be to get a seat at the tables where the big decisions about AI are being made. The ethical frameworks, the policies, the rules about what AI should and shouldn't do are being written right now, and educators and students NEED to be part of that conversation. But first, they need to get to the level of literacy and proven impact to influence those rooms. Most are sitting it out because of clear ethical reasons, because AI feels taboo, or because they don't see themselves as "technical enough" to have a voice. That needs to change, and it can.
 
 EF Education First found a way to change it. The world's largest education company with a global workforce built largely from former classroom educators has gotten many people to that table. These are sales, marketing, and operations professionals, not early adopters, not engineers. A year ago, most of them would have called themselves non-technical. Today, they are not only using AI properly, they are the ones ideating and building some of the highest-value use cases across the company, and they are doing it with ethics front of mind.
The result is one of the highest recorded AI adoption rates across any industry. More importantly, the people driving that adoption are the same people who were skeptical a year ago. They got to the table because someone taught them they belonged there.
 
That philosophy transfers directly to schools and districts. The professional development moment we are in right now is rare. People want to learn, they need to learn, and the barriers to entry are lower than they will ever be again. This session breaks down exactly how EF did it: the training philosophy, the ethical framework, the rollout sequence, the failures, and the specific methods that worked. Everything in this session can be applied to teaching your staff and students how to use AI in ways they can immediately bring into their personal and professional lives.
Your students and educators should be at the AI table. This session shows you how to get them there.