Presentations

Personal Productivity with AI (#OECN25)

By John Mansel-Pleydell

Originally presented at the OECN United Conference on March 27, 2025.

Discover how AI tools can boost your personal productivity in this hands-on PD session. Learn to use AI as your personal assistant, proofreader, and first draft creator to tackle daily tasks like writing emails, summarizing data, providing feedback, crafting spreadsheet formulas, and analyzing information. Perfect for beginners, this session introduces practical ways to simplify your workload and enhance efficiency with AI.

Download PDF of Presentation (Original in Canva)

Download AI Productivity Cheatsheet.

Taming the Digital Wilderness (#OETC24)

By John Mansel-Pleydell

Feeling overwhelmed by the digital chaos? Join us for an enlightening session at OETC, where we'll help you regain control of your online life. Whether you're drowning in a sea of Gmail messages or buried under an avalanche of files in Google Drive, we've got you covered. In this session, we'll explore practical strategies and essential tips to streamline and organize your digital existence. Learn how to create Gmail labels and filters that will declutter your inbox and boost productivity. Discover the art of creating and color-coding folders in Google Drive for efficient file management. But that's not all! We'll also delve into the world of web browsing by showing you how to add bookmarks and folders in Chrome, ensuring you never lose a valuable resource again. Plus, we'll introduce you to Google Tasks, where you can easily create and manage to-do lists, ensuring that no task goes unattended. Don't miss this opportunity to conquer the digital wilderness and simplify your online life. Join us at OETC and leave with practical skills and newfound digital organization.

AI in EDU: The Power of Good

By John Mansel-Pleydell

This informative session will provide an introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) and explore its current and potential uses in K-12 education. We will kick things off by discussing what exactly AI is and providing some background knowledge to level-set our understanding. From there, we will have a thoughtful dialogue about how AI can be utilized in schools and classrooms to augment and enhance learning. Rather than reacting with fear to these technological developments, we will take a solutions-oriented approach that focuses on finding the good in these tools. The session will give us a chance to dig into some specific AI-powered learning platforms and software, allowing us to go hands-on with these technologies. By evaluating real-world examples, we will better understand the pros and cons of implementing AI in an educational context. To wrap up, we will discuss next steps for ourselves and our schools when it comes to effectively leveraging AI in ways that provide the most benefit to our students. Please join us for an insightful session that will give you a balanced, researched-based introduction to AI in K-12 education.