I just got back from FETC 2024 in Orlando, and I need to process what I experienced. As a Featured Presenter this year, I had a front-row seat to something remarkable: the entire tone of the AI conversation in education has shifted in twelve months.

At FETC 2023, the hallways buzzed with anxiety. Should we ban ChatGPT? How do we catch AI-generated student work? Is this the end of the essay? The dominant emotion was fear.

At FETC 2024, the fear has not disappeared, but it has been joined - and in many sessions, overtaken - by something else: curiosity. Practical curiosity. Teachers asking not "Should we allow this?" but "How do I use this to teach fractions better?" That shift matters enormously.

Three Themes That Dominated the Conference

1. From Detection to Design

Last year, a significant number of FETC sessions focused on AI detection - tools to catch students using ChatGPT, strategies for "AI-proof" assignments. This year, those sessions still existed, but they were outnumbered by sessions on assignment redesign.

The smartest educators I spoke with have realized that the detection arms race is unwinnable. Instead, they are redesigning assessments to work with AI rather than against it. One middle school teacher described having students use ChatGPT to generate a first draft, then requiring them to critique it, fact-check it, and improve it. The AI output became the starting point, not the finished product.

This is exactly the kind of pedagogical thinking I have been advocating. When we stop fighting the technology and start leveraging it, we often end up with better learning experiences than what we had before.

2. The Professional Development Crisis

Session after session circled back to the same problem: teachers need training, and most districts are not providing it adequately. I heard variations of the same story from educators across the country. Their district sent an email about AI policy. Maybe they got a one-hour workshop. Then they were expected to figure it out on their own.

This resonated deeply with my own experience. As a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Coach, I have been running workshops, and the hunger for practical, sustained PD is overwhelming. Teachers do not want another webinar. They want someone to sit with them, show them how these tools work in the context of their subject area, and help them think through the implications.

The gap between what teachers need and what they are receiving is the single biggest barrier to responsible AI integration in schools right now. It is bigger than budget. It is bigger than policy. It is a capacity problem.

3. Equity as a Central Concern

I was genuinely encouraged to see equity woven into so many conversations at FETC this year. Presenters from CoSN and other organizations made a compelling case that AI literacy is not optional - it is a civil rights issue.

Students who learn to use AI effectively will have advantages in college and the workforce. Students who are shielded from it, or who only encounter it through bans and punishments, will not. The parallel to early internet access is striking. We know how that divide played out. We have a chance to do better this time, but only if we act deliberately.

My Own Session: What I Learned from the Audience

I presented on practical AI integration strategies for classroom teachers, and the Q&A session ran long. What struck me was not the questions themselves - they were thoughtful and specific - but who was asking them. These were not early adopters or tech coaches. These were veteran teachers, many with 15 or 20 years in the classroom, who recognized that something fundamental had changed and wanted to respond professionally.

One question has stuck with me. A high school English teacher from Georgia asked, "I have been teaching for 22 years, and I have never felt this unprepared. Where do I start?" The vulnerability in that question deserves a real answer, not a platitude.

My answer, then and now: start by using the tools yourself. Not to teach with them yet. Just to understand what they do. Spend a weekend asking ChatGPT or Google Gemini to help you with something you are genuinely working on - lesson planning, a recommendation letter, a rubric you have been meaning to revise. Get a feel for what the tool does well and where it falls short. That firsthand experience is worth more than any keynote.

What Comes Next

FETC 2024 confirmed something I have been sensing since last fall: the education field is ready to move past the panic phase. Not everyone, and not all at once, but the momentum is shifting toward engagement rather than avoidance.

The challenge now is infrastructure. We need professional development pathways that are accessible, practical, and ongoing. We need school leaders who model AI use rather than just legislating it. We need curriculum frameworks that treat AI literacy as a foundational skill, not an elective add-on.

I am more committed than ever to building those resources. The platform I have been developing - what I am calling iTeachAI Academy - is designed to address exactly this gap. Teachers learning from a teacher, with real classroom context, at a pace that respects how busy they already are.

The AI conversation in education has changed. FETC 2024 made that clear. The question now is whether we can change fast enough to keep up with what our students need.

Janette Camacho, Ed.D., is the Founder and Chief Learning Architect at iTeachAI Academy (classes.iteachai.co). She is a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Coach, FETC 2024 Featured Presenter, Adobe Creative Educator, and Apple Teacher with 28+ years of K-12 classroom experience.