EdTech Loop Ep. 96: EdTech Inspiration

It's early November here in Northern Michigan but it already feels like mid December, possibly February, and we're trying to avoid early onset cabin fever, so we look to Danelle and Stephie to provide some much needed "Ed-Tech Inspiration," to get through the bleak early winter.

Show Transcript:

Danelle Brostrom 0:00
Obviously it's smarter than I am.

Larry Burden 0:08
Where's this come from

Danelle Brostrom 0:08
because you have to edit out all the stupid things that we say,

Stephie Luyt 0:11
Now the pressures on.

Larry Burden 0:13
gotta delete that

Stephie Luyt 0:14
You're like Botox.

Larry Burden 0:21
It's Episode 96 of the EdTech Loop podcast. My name is Larry Burden and she drank a bit too much of the apocalyptic Kool Aid after binging 16 straight hours of Black Mirror its Danelle Brostrom. And here to reel our Ed tech hero back from the dark side, it's Stephie Luyt. To coax Danelle back from the edge, this week's moment of zen trends hopeful.

Moment of Zen 0:44
I hope that in this year to come you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world, you're doing things you've never done before. And more importantly, you're doing something.

Larry Burden 1:06
After checking the unseasonably cold hourly forecast our decision was made to stay in, and partake in this week's meat of the show: Ed Tech Inspiration. It's Northern Michigan here, it's early November, it already feels like mid December, possibly February, and we're trying to not get into that early kind of hunker down mood. So we needed to find a little inspiration today. It was a great idea that Danelle had yesterday, as far as coming up with a topic for this podcast. So we all have lists, let's just jump right into this.

Danelle Brostrom 1:43
I can start. My first favorite thing that I love right now, Common Sense Media had an amazing blog post on ISTE. It was written by Liz Cline who's their VP of Education Programs, and her idea is to, "Pause for People." We talk a lot about digital lives and how to find balance with your media and real life, and I think this idea of pausing for people is beautiful, and it's simple, and it's a great thing to keep in mind. So when you're in real life and someone is talking to you, pause what you're doing and privilege that human standing in front of you over what's on your screen.

And she says this, "I'm no tech hater. I strongly believe that technology does help connect us with people in meaningful ways, and it should be used for powerful learning in the classroom. But even with all that potential the face to face interactions that you could be having. You should be having, starting now."

I love that idea of pausing for people, and I'm really trying to do that when I'm in meetings when I'm, when somebody comes in and interupts me at my desk either turning around for my screen or closing my screen and just pausing for people. It's a great thing to talk about with kids in the classroom to.

Stephie Luyt 2:45
That's a beautiful way to say that whole idea of a balance between how we use tech and how we, how we function IRL. It's a really good way to think about it. There's nothing more valuable than pausing for someone, and having that conversation.

Larry Burden 3:02
I love that you're making an active step to do that. Sometimes we want to do that but we still have our device up, or we have our device open and it's amazing how our eyes just naturally fall back down into it. David Noller, the TechNollerGist, mentioned that when he's using devices in his class they're open, as soon as they're not being used, he tells them, close the device, close the lid. It's easy to get distracted by the device. So we need to be probably very, very deliberate in what we do to make sure that we are pausing for people.

Danelle Brostrom 3:36
And tell people around you that this is something that you're trying to do too because I want you to check me on it. If we're in a meeting together and you see me not pausing, remind me of that. My kids have been checking me on it. My four year old will say, and I've got her saying this, I told her what to say so it's really funny when she says it, but she'll say, "daddy, what's more important right now me or your phone?" and he's like, okay, that is a kick in the teeth, I'm putting this phone down. You are more important to me always. But I think that's a good, you know, pausing for people, we need to make sure we're doing that.

Stephie Luyt 4:05
I also feel like in meetings and in just events in general I feel like people are trying to be more mindful about that. I feel like there was a time where it was, hey great look at how busy you are, I'm going to check these four different things, and I'm going to have this open, and I'm going to be looking at this device, and, and that was almost a good thing. But I feel like that pendulum has swung a little bit and we're seeing more, I'm seeing more active examples in adults of trying to model that balance because we can't multitask in the way that we think we can. I 100% can't, and I think the research proves most people can't.

Larry Burden 4:39
I can almost guarantee you guys do it when you go into a meeting. I take a look at the table and see how many people have their phone on the table. And over the past year I've noticed, less.

Stephie Luyt 4:51
I agree.

Larry Burden 4:52
Whereas so that trend that you're talking about, I think is taking hold. I think people are recognizing that the multitasking skill, isn't really a skill.

Danelle Brostrom 5:01
I agree, it makes my heart happy.

Stephie Luyt 5:03
My first favorite thing is, is pretty nerdy, but I've been doing a lot of looking into evidence based practice in libraries which comes out of the healthcare field

Larry Burden 5:13
I'm not going next.

Danelle Brostrom 5:14
I like this one already.

Stephie Luyt 5:15
The part I wanted to highlight is you can collect subjective data, as well as objective data. And the piece in subjective data that is meaningful to me is really that idea of a narrative and the storytelling. It's falls under the "anec-data." So anecdotal data. And it's telling the story about the connections. It can be about anything, but the something I'm thinking about is the number of our schools are focused heavily on relationship building and connections. And they are always doing that but for some it's like the top focus this year. And just trying to quantify for lack of a better word, how some of those connections get made with individual students or staff members in the library, and how valuable that is for way down the road, even. I just read a report last night, it was from NPR, and it was some research that had been done that, if a student even has one positive connection with an adult, it can help buffer them against, really some of the things that come up on like the ACES Survey, our those childhood trauma experiences. And like, those meaningful connections, and even what seems like a small interaction reaps benefits down the road. And so my point here is just saying that having anec-data to show those connections, it's very valuable. Like, that is time well spent. And it's kind of the same idea that Danelle is talking about in terms of making connections. Like, those, those connections are meaningful, and they can be very powerful for our kiddos. So, anec-data is my one of my favorite things.

Larry Burden 6:53
At the start of last year, our opening PD for the school year. We focused on something called the ISSN, the Intense Student Support Network. And I don't know if this happened over at Central High School, but I know at West Senior High, all the people that attended that PD wrote down something that they were going to do for students, be mindful of doing for students that year. And we ended up having, documenting the full list of things. And as far as something that would create a positive environment and would be what, what, what's the term again?

Stephie Luyt 7:25
anec-data

Larry Burden 7:26
Anec-data, that was, you know, I look at it because it was a spreadsheet of anec-data, and it was, it was very inspiring. We actually made a video out of it with the running, the running comments. "I want to make a kid, one students smile today," I'm going to say hi to a student everyday," "I'm going to try to imagine, trying to focus on their needs over mine." And we just it was all, just so many great comments from our educators, and it was nice that they had a moment to reflect. Because sometimes it's hard to reflect on that anec-data and recognize how important it is because you're wrapped up in so many other things. It's nice that, that became a focus.

Danelle Brostrom 8:03
Everything we should be doing. Kids, if they don't have that they can't learn. And that, those are the kinds of things we, we need to be doing every day.

Larry Burden 8:10
I'm not nearly as cool as that.

Danelle Brostrom 8:12
What'cha got Larry.

Larry Burden 8:14
The thing that I'm inspired about or that's inspiring me is the continued focus on STEAM and STEAM education. I love the A. I so love of the A. You know, we're all familiar with, with STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. Throw the arts in there. Some of the comments that I ran across were, "It removes limitations and replaces them with wonder, critique, inquiry and innovation." The four C's, the 21st century skills, are all based, kind of in that artistic mindset, the creative mindset, collaboration creativity, critical thinking, and communication. Art is the tool to get those things done. So it's kind of like that connective tissue. It's like if STEM is the muscles and the, the skeletal structure. The A is the tendon, it's the ligament. It's all connecting it together, and I think that that's always been kind of a separate thing. You know, we always look at it any of our schools, especially high schools, the Arts Wing, it's kind of over there, it's those kids, you know, the artsy kids. And later on in life, when we're in business, or in any other field, we always go for it we really wish we had that creative person to kind of, not only bring some visual flair, but the viewpoint, the value of the viewpoint of, of a Creative, to look at a problem, and do that problem solving, from an outside perspective, I think is really what the A, brings to STEM is that, that creative problem solving.

Stephie Luyt 9:46
The jobs, and the challenges, and the fields that aren't even created yet, like, the creative problem solvers of the world are going to be able to make the future happen. That is so, such a valuable perspective.

Larry Burden 9:59
Next,

Danelle Brostrom 9:59
Next, the next thing that I am super inspired by are the Michigan Social Studies Standards.

Stephie Luyt 10:05
Interesting.

Danelle Brostrom 10:06
I know, right. You would never thought that one would have been on my list. No, they just were approved in January 2019 and it was after.

Larry Burden 10:13
You just had a meeting on this.

Danelle Brostrom 10:13
I did that's why it's kind of in my, in the forefront of my brain right now. They were approved after this big five year discussion and it became political as these things often do, but the final draft is the part that I love. It has this heavy focus on inquiry, and the entire first few pages of the Standards introduction talks all about how social studies should be taught. And how different it is from how we used to teach it. So it's heavy into inquiry and that should be the primary form of instruction for social studies. And that students and then they put, and teachers, kind of in parentheses, like as a second thought, like, oh yeah teachers should help too. But mostly the students should be crafting these investigative questions that matter. That teachers should provide and help students develop tangible opportunities to take informed action. And I just love this focus on inquiry. If we do true inquiry, then I think we can come, we can knock out like 95% of those ISTE Standards that we work so hard on.

Stephie Luyt 11:07
And ASL.

Danelle Brostrom 11:08
Right? It's, it's beautiful. I think Trevor Mackenzie's work on incredible become important as we unpack with the shift and kind of how, how this changes our teaching. He wrote a series of books, one is called, "Dive Into Inquiry," that I'm in the middle of right now. But he has another book called, "Inquiry Mindset," that's more K-7 focused. This one is more K-12 focused. But even just looking at his companion website, there are a ton of resources that, how to take students from, here's what inquiry is, which is wouldn't be very structured into this like free inquiry work students are actually solving problems that they care about. And I just, I love that scaffolding, and there's, there's even a section that I was thinking about he calls, "Teacher Librarians Your Inquiry Superhero." That they're the ones who are really helping you understand and empower within this learning idea. It's just, it's beautiful. I'm excited to see how inquiry into the social studies standards really changes the way we teach and how it starts to excite kids. This is a topic I'm passionate about, social studies instruction, and I'm excited to see how we can make kids passionate about this too.

Stephie Luyt 12:15
And let them follow what they're curious about reminds me a little bit of Genius Hour. It's that same following the, the area that you're passionate about, and, and seeing kids in that world, it's pretty empowering.

Larry Burden 12:29
The fact that this is actually in the standard is great. I think we have educators that do this, that focus on this. Our superintendent was just in, was mentioning in a board meeting recently that he was in a classroom where he was observing a teacher do exactly this. I think she's been doing it for years. The fact that it's a standard shows was me, or tells me that we're recognizing that we are we are no longer the gatekeepers of knowledge, and that our job really is to spark curiosity and inquiry. And the fact that it's a fundamental shift now it's not just something we're talking about it's actually embedded in the standards. We're not talking about content. We're talking about,

Danelle Brostrom 13:13
Process

Larry Burden 13:14
Process. That is a foundational shift in how we're educating and how we're expected to be educating.

Danelle Brostrom 13:21
It's amazing to see that in our standard.

Larry Burden 13:23
Two years ago we were frustrated that we had been talking about this. And it wasn't happening fast enough, and now...

Danelle Brostrom 13:30
It's there, and I would definitely encourage people to go to Trevor Mackenzie's website because there are a lot of resources on how to start inquiry. One of the things that he shares, and it's kind of fantastic. He took the UN Sustainable Development Goals and made this, I guess it's a slideshow, and each of the squares are interactive. So you click on the one that talks about poverty, or you click on the one that talks about access to clean water, and it shows you this little kid friendly video that would be a great starter for inquiry into that topic. Response, it's real world, it's inquiry, it's going to be great for kids and teachers.

Stephie Luyt 14:06
My next thing is everything over at TADL. I spent yesterday there. Thanks to TADL for hosting our PD. We had our K-12 library staff there for the morning and they were gracious enough to provide the meeting space. And just being reminded again, I spend a lot of time at TADL, but we have such a gem there of resources, as well as a community space. And the number of innovative programs and opportunities to our, for our community. Every time I'm there there's something else that I think, oh my gosh they're doing this. You know you can borrow a theremin, if you want to do that.

Larry Burden 14:44
Because why wouldn't you.

Stephie Luyt 14:44
It's not everyday, right? Besides the theremin lots of other gear for any kind of audio visual project that you might have. You know, it's just a beautiful community space, and I actually looped back over to the library at the end of the day, my son had robotics, so I started the day there early and then was there at the end of the day and saw some of the same teens that had been there all day, taking part in all of what's there for teens, you know. And I thought what a great space, you know, being there, so much yesterday, just saw kind of the, the evolution of the day. And like, how people are using this. It's just, it's just awesome, and I just wanted to thank them for the experience being there, but also just say that's one of my favorite things currently.

Danelle Brostrom 15:25
I would agree with you totally. Yesterday I was there as well picking up some MELCAT resources that I had ordered online and shipped right to my local library. And I walked in and

Larry Burden 15:35
Shout out to MELCAT.

Danelle Brostrom 15:36
I know, right? My kid was there and she was looking for some things. And that, that idea of connections with people, they are just so wonderful about talking to a child at their level, finding out what they're interested in, helping them find books. We're first taken the the card catalogs, they can look it up. And then helping them find that book on the shelf. And then, offering this additional series that they might be interested in. Like, they know their stuff, and they know how to get kids excited by reading.

Stephie Luyt 16:02
Absolutely. They're a great partner. One thing that I noticed yesterday that then looped around today, I, there's a sign in the, in the teen section and it lists all the dewey numbers for topics that you might not want to ask about. So, just think of a topic that as a kiddo you might be nervous to ask about, you know? And then as I was driving here today there was a story on the news about a person who was, you know what, growing up had some, some things that they were figuring out and spending a lot of time in the library and trying to learn about some of these issues but not wanting to ask questions, and so kind of fumbling their way through how to find the right materials. And I thought what a great thing that they're posting some information like, you might not want to ask but here's some places to start your inquiry.

Larry Burden 16:48
Is ours a diamond in the rough?

Danelle Brostrom 16:50
We are really fortunate for all we have in our library for the size of our community. We have just a really innovative, forward thinking staff over there. I mean, there are a lot of fantastic libraries, but I think we're just, we're extra fortunate and what we have in the size of our town.

Larry Burden 17:08
I was going to kind of jump off my STEAM conversation and actually go into one of the ISTE Standards. I really liked the Design Thinking Standard. So, students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions. Kind of piggybacking off of what I was saying before. It's somewhat similar, but again it's taking a lot, maybe oftentimes several problems and looking at them as a whole, and then getting our students to, instead of focusing on the small point also look at the bigger picture and teaching some of those design skills and recognizing the usefulness of those design skills and design thinking is, is very important. You know, Stephie, you had commented on maybe not liking the word standard. But really, maybe instead of standard, maybe a different word would be design. Because really that's what it is. They're taking the social studies curriculum, or the social studies standards and they're actually looking at social studies design, and how best can we create a system that will educate our students in the social studies field, most efficiently and most productively. It's a standard, yes, but really it's a design, and I think that's really something that is exciting that you see that pop up, obviously in the ISTE standards as something that's really important. Moving it along.

Danelle Brostrom 18:34
I only have one more thing and it's eSports. Wow, last week's pod was amazing. Um, I'm reading, "The New Childhood, Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World," by Jordan Shapiro. I don't agree with everything in the book but he does lay out a lot of things that kids can learn through gaming. It's super interesting, reminds me a lot of the Jane McGonigal book, the "Reality is Broken." She talked about why gaming makes us better. And I think I really got that sense last week talking to the guys. That the things that they're doing with eSports, and the MiHSEF is so much more than just having kids on video games. It's all of these essential skills that they're learning through video gaming, and it was so cool. So that's another thing that I love.

Larry Burden 19:16
One of the neat things about eSports is the fact that you can get all these kids together in a community. It's an online community, but it's a constructive, controlled online community. One of the things that a lot of parents, including myself, would have wished for, for my kids is neighborhood time. Where they can go outside, and explore, and play and find their friends and do whatever. It's this, "come back at five," that doesn't exist. It just does not exist because oftentimes schedules. They're here, they're there, a lot of our houses are far enough apart where the distance isn't really workable. Online is actually a place where that can happen, where you can get groups of kids together in a constructive, fun place. When we were out playing in the yard, in somebody's yard, it's not like we were being constructive. I mean we were because we're learning so many of those skills that would be learned through eSports. Similar, similar topics, similar skill sets, similar mindset. It's just the playing field has changed from the yard, which we can't, we can't seem to recreate anymore, to an online yard, which is available.

Danelle Brostrom 20:33
Did you read the Jordan Shapiro book?

Larry Burden 20:35
I did not.

Danelle Brostrom 20:35
That is exactly what he talks about. He goes through things like, that kids would have normally learned in the sandbox, and this is what they learned in the online sandbox, and it's the same thing. It's just in this online community versus this face to face community. And yes, you need balance, but they're also learning these things online. You need to read it, it's exactly what you're talking about.

Larry Burden 20:52
We've talked about this before, we're not leaving our students, or our kids at the playground and walking away. The eSports environment, creates a controlled environment. So suddenly that sandbox is being monitored. Instead of, we're just throwing them out there and, you know, who knows what's happening. There's adult moderation in that environment, which I think is really important.

Stephie Luyt 21:16
And adult modeling even like, yeah,

Larry Burden 21:19
We hope.

Stephie Luyt 21:19
Yeah. My next one is specific to this time of year but the, the Youth Media Awards. So the Children's Literature Awards will be announced in January, and so this time of year is such fun because there's such a buzz about what books might it be, and lists coming out, and people making predictions. And what happens for me as the immense addition to my reading list that I got this time of year, because it's like, oh, this one, this one, this one, this one, oh yes okay. So I just love the, the discussions happening around books and the, the buzz around books, and the excitement, and the discussions that are happening. And I'm headed to a conference next week and they'll be that times 1000 so this is it fun time.

Danelle Brostrom 22:03
So the stack next to your bed of the books you need to read...

Stephie Luyt 22:06
unsafe.

Larry Burden 22:08
I trying to think of your Twitter stack. Because I know, you know, after we had we mentioned Colby Sharp on a few pods and that obviously triggered an algorithm on Twitter at some point in time because we @ him a few times. And suddenly, I'm pretty up on all the new books and things that are coming out because that is my Twitter feed and I'm thinking, what is yours like? Is it just, just book, after book, after book?

Larry Burden 22:28
You've got to read this, you've got to read this, You've got to...

Stephie Luyt 22:28
Pretty much

Stephie Luyt 22:32
It's nerve wracking.

Larry Burden 22:32
I was just going to say, it's got to be overwhelming. I'm stressed just looking your mine and

Stephie Luyt 22:35
This is a fun time. Yeah.

Larry Burden 22:36
For sure.

Larry Burden 22:37
Stephie, do you have anything else?

Danelle Brostrom 22:37
I'm out.

Stephie Luyt 22:38
When you mentioned Colby Sharp, the one book that he, one of the books he talked about

Larry Burden 22:43
This year's Liz Kolb it would seem.

Danelle Brostrom 22:45
Colby Sharp

Stephie Luyt 22:46
He mentioned that he was reading "Atomic Habits." And then it popped up for a couple people, and so I just started it. So I can't say much about it but I am really encouraged by, it's an interesting look at sort of those small things, those small changes that you make. Nothing, in terms of a huge new philosophy, but I think it, it's really interesting, and if it gives me insight into how Colby Sharp reads 1000 books a year and then that can even translate for me to read a quarter of that number that would be a huge win for this book to help me do that. So get through that big list.

Larry Burden 23:25
I guess for there. TechTool of the Week.

Techtool of the Week 23:31
I want to share the, "Use Tech for Good," site. It's ustech4good.com, and they challenge youth and adults to find and create the good online. Replacing the fear with positive deliberate and constructive ways youth and adults can work together with technology. It is beautiful, and inspirational, and there's a ton of positive examples of youth in tech, and it's definitely my tech tool of the week.

Larry Burden 23:55
This is good stuff. Tutorials and Updates. TechNollerGist shockingly has a new tutorial, "Intro to Google Drive." I think there's a cottage industry on Google tutorials. Because Google updates and changes so many things so often, for the good 90% of the time. So, if you think you know Google Drive you probably don't, watch the tutorial, "Intro to Google Drive," by the TechNollerGist. Hey, I would ask for our listeners, leave a rating on iTunes and include your favorite trends in education in, in the review so it's a great way for us, A. to get reviews, so please leave a review, but also a great way to communicate with us on what you think is really cool in education right now. So leave a review and a trend. In closing, follow us on Facebook and Twitter @tcapsloop,

Danelle Brostrom 24:44
@brostromda,

Stephie Luyt 24:46
@StephiLuyt

Larry Burden 24:47
And get all the books. Subscribe to the podcast on podbean, iTunes, Stitcher and tune-in, downcast overcast, the Google Play Store, Spotify and wherever else you get your ear candy. Leave review, we love the feedback. Thanks for listening, and inspiring.

Danelle Brostrom 25:04
Jeez Larry, I wasn't gonna Black Mirror it.

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