Episode 13
For teachers struggling with technology, my recommendation is just to start with one good solid tool, make sure not to use it as a toy and make sure you learn it deeply but in a way that truly drives learning and once you're comfortable with one tool, then add another tool but make sure it meets a different academic need and then add a third.
Husena Jadliwala
Hey there, amazing listeners! Welcome to another episode of Educator Insights. I’m your host, Husena Jadliwala, and I’m thrilled to have you join us for what promises to be a very fascinating conversation. So, grab your headphones and let’s dive in. Today, we have a special guest. A very warm welcome to Tamara Ferguson, the Instructional Technology Specialist at Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District. Tamara, your expertise is truly inspiring. I’m really excited about the conversation on this topic of teachers and technology, and this synergy of new learning transformation. Thanks a million for being here. Let’s kick off this awesome conversation.
Tamara Ferguson
Thank you for the invitation to participate in your podcast. I’m not sure that my experience is inspiring, so you’ve kind of raised the bar really high for me, but I will do my best to honour the privilege of being here today and sharing relevant insights. Thank you for having me…
Husena
That’s amazing. You know, whether or not you believe it’s inspiring, I do believe that the listeners do need to know a little bit about your background and journey so that we can move this conversation forward. You have had an interesting journey as far as I know, from being in the classroom to your current role as an Edtech specialist. Could you speak a little bit about what it is?
Tamara
Absolutely, my journey began in education twenty-five years ago. I spent 20 years in the classroom, mostly as a science teacher. At the beginning of my journey, if any of you have been in the classroom for a long time, you can speak to this as well. If you had a class computer, you might have had one, and that was my classroom computer. I had one teacher computer and, if for anybody that’s really young, an overhead projector. I don’t know if everybody who’s listening knows those, but yes.
Husena
I love that it’s like it’s, it’s real throwback there.
Tamara
Can you name this tool? But yeah, it’s like the telephone. They’re like, ‘Oh, how do you turn it on?’ Okay, I digress.
Husena
Yeah, can you ask some of the younger kids, like, ‘What is that?’
Tamara
Over the next twenty years, I have seen classrooms change so much. They have transformed, and honestly, it’s not just with technology. It’s just everything is so different today than it was when I started teaching all those years ago. I am now in my sixth year as an Edtech specialist for Cyprus Fairbanks ISD. For those who don’t know, it is a city just outside of Houston and includes a little bit of Houston. So, Cyprus is northwest of Houston in Texas, United States, and it has been a really fulfilling experience supporting both students and teachers on their own learning journeys in the classroom. And of course, my focus as an ed-tech specialist is supporting technology specifically.
Husena
That’s really amazing, and I love how you said that. It went from overhead projectors to what we see in classrooms now. Ah, and the fact that you were there at that time when technology was not used to the extent it is now, you must have some firsthand experience in the classroom that influences your approach to educational technology now. So, do you have any insights into that?
Tamara
Interestingly enough, I had thought when I took this job that how I taught in my classroom would be totally relevant to how I support teachers. Let’s just say that was a learning curve for me.
Husena
Interesting, very interesting.
Tamara
Yeah, yeah, it is interesting because just like a brand-new teacher comes in and has their education degree and they believe all these things about a classroom, then they walk into the classroom, realize, ‘Ooh, I have to rethink a few things.’ That was exactly my experience as an ed-tech specialist and as a teacher, I was a person who embraced technology and actively learned all the tools as they emerged, and I absorbed them. And I thought that I could share that enthusiasm with other teachers. However, that wasn’t entirely the case when supporting teachers, and I learned that people are on this spectrum from those that jump into every single tool, it’s all great, to teachers that have no value in technology and would prefer us just to live in a world of paper and pencil. And we have everything in between that as well, and I support everybody on that spectrum. And it’s important that I know where they stand on that spectrum and how to support. So, one of the things that became very important for me to be successful in this job is not to assume. I can’t assume to know what a teacher needs. It’s so important to ask what a teacher needs and, more importantly, what they actually want me to do for them because my role is not to push teachers, but in fact, simply just to guide them and support them as they use technology in both innovative ways but in meaningful ways to drive learning.
Husena
It’s interesting that you mentioned what you did in the classroom didn’t necessarily translate to what every other teacher wants to do because you know how usually when we talk about teaching in general, just talking about teaching, we always talk about, ‘Okay, we need to know our students on an individual level. We need to know what their learning styles are.’ It’s the same thing with teachers. Now you are teaching teachers. That’s exactly what you’re doing, guiding them as you mentioned. So, yes, as you mentioned there, they all have different teaching styles.
Tamara
Exactly. That is exactly right.
Husena
And learning styles, and then there’s you need to meet them where they are, which is basically what you said as well.
Tamara
Yeah, the your readiness level is something we evaluate in our students. Ah, and our children students. But as a teacher supporting teachers, there’s also a readiness level in your teachers, and sometimes they’re just overwhelmed by other things, just like our students are overwhelmed by other things in their life. And they may not be in that growth mindset today, but maybe they’ll be there tomorrow, or maybe you just gotta let them submit their grades.
Husena
No, that’s fair. That’s fair, that makes perfect sense. You know, that said, and you also did mention that they are teachers who, if they find no value in technology, as you mentioned, but the truth of the matter is that the technology, it is here to stay for the most part. So, what are some significant trends, especially in the future of technology, that you see within the education industry?
Tamara
That’s an interesting question, and I don’t know that I’m fully equipped to know that because I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t know everything. But these are my thoughts. I really believe that AI isn’t going to be a standalone. Right now, AI has kind of been in the background for many years. We just didn’t know it, and we may have been frustrated by the eva saw chat, but that was AI when you talked in circles with it. And of course, machine learning too has been playing around in the background as well. But right now, we have the standalone thing, the world playing in like it’s a toy, and some of the outputs of AI, especially the generative AI, is laughable. However, I think it’s going to become a seamless integration. It’s eventually going to be something that allows us to truly personalize learning for kids. It will be more able to evaluate open-ended questions, and I think it’s going to not just be seamless in our education world, but in every aspect of our daily lives. We won’t even know it’s there anymore. Right now we open up a separate app to access AI, at least Generative AI. But I don’t think that’s going to be part of it as it further develops. Also, something else that I think might be, and I may be wrong. But I really think with handwriting recognition and all these applications that are building that into their software and apps, that digital marking is going to maybe replace what we do on paper and pencil. We will just use our touch screens or tablets and write on those screens just like we would have paper. I think it’s going to be a complete integration of this touch-based technology. We already see it on our phones; we have styluses that go with our phones, we have styluses to go with their tablets, and increasingly we have people that are just writing straight on computers. They flip them backwards like a tablet and they write on them. I have a feeling that that is going to begin to drive a lot of what we see in the learning environment. Especially since there’s that school of thought, and I’m not sure if what’s been done for studying of it where students need to write to understand, and I remember in college I’m like, I need to write that down. So, I remember it, and yeah, everything you had to write everything down I did too.
Husena
I did that too, I totally, I can totally relate.
Tamara
And I don’t know that it’s the same to type bit doubt as it is to write. Now we have that opportunity to write on our screens, label, mark, and draw, and I think that’s going to take over a lot of what we do in paper and pencil. Something else that I think might be interesting is 3D models. It’s already a big part, like universities and specific programs, but as it becomes more affordable, I think we’re going to see more and more of that in classrooms, especially since you don’t need headsets for some of it anymore. It’s something that actually works on like three-dimensional screens. But right now, that technology is too expensive for the public-school space. But I see it coming, and of course, everybody knows there’s teacher shortages and four-day school weeks at some of our schools. I think lesson delivery is going to change too, the way we teach. And that means that how we create content is going to accommodate the fact that you just, if you do a four-day school week, you’ve just taken away 20% of your school week from your kids, and we are going to have to accommodate that. And on that note, standardized tests are probably going to change too, so we’ll probably change the way we teach because they are likely going to become more open-ended, especially with AI integrating in there. That means that you can have multiple ways to answer the same question and still be recognized as correct. Right now, you have to basically, when you do those self-checking of open-ended questions, you have to come up with every single possible way that a kid will answer that question for it to check it on an open-ended question, and that’s tough. But AI is going to make that easier for us. And the last thing I think might be, right now, we have since COVID a huge smattering of tiny little companies that have popped up with the newest bling of technology and have created a very crowded field. I think over the next few years, we’re going to see all these smaller companies either disappearing or getting gobbled up by bigger companies, and that will be partly driven by limited funds, particularly in the United States because there is being the drying up of the COVID funds that schools have used to provide the technology to students. So, I think they’re going to be much more selective in what they choose, and that will create a need for companies to rise to the challenge.
Husena
When you started, you said that you’re not sure if you’re an expert at this, but you give me so many points to think about. So, I think you’re definitely wrong there, but you know I just wanted to mention something about when you mentioned about digital marking. That’s a very interesting point that caught my attention more than anything else, mostly because most of my teacher friends, that is the one headache in their life: marking, especially when it’s handwritten. Ah, because not only is it, you’re checking the questions, it is also your deciphering their handwriting sometimes, which is annoying, and you’re right, technology is going to take all of these small new instances away from teachers, hopefully so that they can concentrate more on learning objectives. But I mean, there are pros and cons, there are challenges to using technology in the classroom. Ah, but as we look into the…
Tamara
Yeah, before you ask me that before you ask for the next question, let me address the handwriting part of it being a headache for teachers. Oh. That actually totally reminded me of 2 things I remember watching on a news channel, and I don’t remember what news channel it was, but they were interviewing people with their use of like Siri and other types of AI where they make requests for it to do things or whatever chats they’re using. They had said that they have to be more precise in their speaking and it was forcing them to speak without running words together and making sure what they say clear. And we see that in our own school district. We have a software that uses handwriting recognition for assessing whether or not you are on the right track for your math solutions and one of the teachers that uses it regularly said she goes first. It was a huge headache. But now for the system to actually work, the kids have to write better, and she’s found that their handwriting is so much better, or the handwriting recognition just doesn’t work for them, and the kids were like, ‘oh, it just got better at reading my writing,’ and she’s like, ‘maybe not, your handwriting is just better.'”
Husena
No, and that’s a true point because I feel like there was a time when students’ handwriting was really good, and it was also partially because all we could do in school was write? We didn’t all have our own computers then. I feel that there was a period where kids just had terrible handwriting because everything just became typing, and it just got worse. But now, like you said, technology is bringing in handwriting recognition and students are forced into to practice and make sure they’re writing in a legible fashion. So, you know it’ll, it’s like a full circle.
Tamara
Yeah, no, no chicken scratching anymore.
Husena
But you know, that said, transitioning from this futuristic view, there are current obstacles that teachers are obviously facing with technology integration in their classroom. So, are there any thoughts that you have on this? Perhaps some reflections from teachers that you work with or even from your own experience in the classroom? What are some key challenges that teachers face in their classroom and integrating technology?
Tamara
That’s a really, really good question. I might think there might actually be an elephant in the room with that. But I think that the big, big, big elephant in the room right now, and I feel the pain of teachers because when I’m in the classrooms and I see this going on, I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” It’s the student distractions, and everybody blames it on the phones, but it’s not just that; it’s computers, it’s tablets, it’s everything. And back in the old days, distractions looked different. It was a magazine inside of your textbook or it was passing notes or whatever. And now it’s so prominent and so easy for our students to access distractions that actually absorb all of their time, and those, of course, are the games and Youtube and other things that kids are on. I’d have to say that’s probably the number one frustration of teachers. And some schools have handled it by, “We’re just gonna say no cell phones,” and then there’s other schools and other teachers that have managed to mitigate that distraction relatively successfully, and I think there’s room to talk about that. Another obstacle I think our teachers have is just the time to learn and keep up with the constant updates. As a classroom teacher, I basically dedicated certain blocks of time to learn, and for the most part, that was summertime because the day-to-day stuff, keeping up with teaching and the curriculum and classroom management and parent phone calls and grades and missing work… Where are you gonna fit in there? “Oh, I’m gonna take a 3-hour seminar learning this new tool.” It’s definitely in the bottom of the list, and even now when that is my job, I struggle with keeping up with all of the technology updates. I swear they roll them out every hour, and that’s my job, so I could understand that, and something really interesting that I learned last year was how stressful learning technology is not just to some teachers but to a lot of teachers. I didn’t realize that until I went to a conference last summer, and the presenter asked the audience, and I was in the audience, “What is the most frustrating thing to you as a teacher?” And the teacher answers, she goes, “Oh, learning the new technology we have to learn every August before we go back to school.” And I responded, “Really?” And she goes, “Says the edtech person in the classroom.” I was like, “Oh,” but I really wanted to know, so I totally interrupted the session, and I said, “How many of you feel that way?” Because it was really important for me to know that, and all these hands went up. So a lot of teachers find learning new technology in August to be hugely stressful, and that changed both my perspective and how I support teachers. But also in understanding where teachers really are with all the stuff that just gets inundated on them every single year. And the last thing I think is an obstacle might actually be the status quo. We are moving into an era of scripted lessons. We are moving into an era where everybody needs to do what everybody else is doing because it creates problems when kids in this class are doing something innovative and I’m doing workshops. That actually stifles our ability for teachers to explore new ways of teaching. And it shuts it down and it creates a stagnant learning environment for our kids, and it puts us behind the curve when we are looking at a world that is moving at breakneck speed in innovation.
Husena
You know what? You’ve mentioned is so true because when many times we talk about challenges that teachers face in the classroom, what I find is we get into the details of they have specific challenges, like rostering their students or stuff like that; we get into the integrity, but the truth of the matter, I think, one of the main things that you mentioned: learning New Tech is stressful and taking out the time to learn new Tech. That’s another problem teaching the whole profession of teaching is something that unless you do it, you will really not understand that a teacher has to work before work. They have to work during work. They have to work after work. They’re working all the time, you know it’s true. You know that.
Tamara
Yeah, your teachers that are fully invested, that is absolutely true. They work seven days a week; they’re there for their kids after school, and there is a point in that conversation with themselves, they have to say, “What about my family?” and that’s what we’re looking at right now with teachers pulling back. They’re like, “I don’t have the time to learn this because I have other needs that need me to be focusing on as well,” and we have to honor that and respect that when we’re supporting teachers. Yeah.
Husena
Exactly. It’s not a kind of job where a teacher can just switch off. You know there’s some jobs where you can switch off after work. You did your 9 to 5. You’re done, but teachers are, they are.
Tamara
My husband has my job.
Husena
There are people, I’m not sure, don’t, I don’t think you do either. But there are people who have that.
Tamara
No, yeah, my job is very much like a teacher’s job where it’s seven days a week. In fact, my husband had to have a conversation about they goes. Okay, there is a point where you need to make sure that you give your family one full day and I’m like, guess I know, I know.
Husena
Exactly, but you should, I agree with your husband, but yeah, that’s it. It’s just difficult to find the time, and then when you do find the time, if you find technology frustrating as it is, it’s like a vicious cycle of unhappiness more than anything else, which is why, you know, it is important like you said earlier in our conversation to meet the teachers where they are, understand where they are with technology, what they want to do with technology, what their interest level is, and then guide them to give them the right tools, the right advice so that they can bring that forward. But you know, maybe I’ve spoken for you a little bit, but considering these obstacles, considering these obstacles that you just mentioned that teachers are facing, how have you tried to successfully overcome these obstacles in your role as an Edtech specialist?
Tamara
Well, I don’t know that I’m always successful, but there are some things that I think is important when you’re supporting teachers because there is a gap for them in understanding, especially if technology is new for them, how they can overcome these obstacles themselves so providing that information helps their teachers, and of course, the big one is kids on phones or if they’re on a computer and they’re supposed to be on a computer, on never on a different tab or they created virtual desktops for themselves or whatever they’ve done is the big thing, I think, is addressing that because I think that creates the biggest headache for our teachers, and that means that I have to help our teachers rethink how they manage their students in their classroom because that management now includes a whole separate piece, their technology personal advices and classroom devices. And I really try to get teachers to focus on misbehaviours being teachable moments. We are teachers first, we are not the police of behaviours in our classroom, and if you always think of something as a teachable moment for your kids, it really changes both your relationship with your students and the lens that you think of misbehaviours. All you have to do is go to a staff meeting and see all the teachers on their emails, go to training see all the teachers on their phones. We are exactly like our kids in the same way and these are all teachable moments for our kids. Personally, I find that it also works better in the long run because you create that community in your classroom rather than a punitive environment. But when you’re putting this all together at a big picture, I think we need to think about it just like we designed seating charts to minimize distractions in student talking. We need to do the same with the way we manage our technology in the classroom. One of the things that I really encourage our teachers to do is actually to slant computers for their students like when you give directions you ask the kids to slant the computer does not close them. But you put them like at a twenty-degree angle. So, the kids can’t see the screens, or you can even have them turn their computers to face you. We actually flip them around where they see the back of the computer, you see the front that way you know where every kid is on their screen have, they logged in where they’re supposed to be all they are on the same web page. And the purpose of that isn’t to be a gotcha moment. It’s to make sure your kids are right with you when you’re teaching them. It means that oh I can see that kid right? There is not yet logged in that means when I’m done directions I need to go straight over to that kid and help them log in it means that you’re not leaving kids behind and that reduces some of the frustrations that your kids have. I think it’s also important to chunk the information and not just your curriculum. We’re so good at chunking our curriculum information to make sure we check on our kids, do guided practice and independent practice. But we have to do the same thing with technology. There is an assumption that kids don’t need training and technology. They just get it. They’re all digital citizens and they’re all digital natives and the reality is our kids need the same support. We do. They need you to help them guide them though when you get on those first websites the very first time where if you’re asking to do an application where they construct something they need the instruction on that tool that is separate from the content because if you ask a student to simultaneously learn a tool in content at the same time your kids will either learn the tool and that’s what they’ll spend their whole time making pretty and they have nothing to turn in or they’re going to spend their time on the content. And then their product is inferior because they didn’t understand the tool. So, it’s important that we actually chunk the learning of that to support that you know so great.
Husena
I was just gonna say that’s such a good point because I feel like I’ve heard some publishers that I work with as well. They’ve mentioned that, you know, when we make content digital, we want to make sure, especially if it’s assessments, right? We want to make sure that the students are being tested for what they are supposed to be tested on and not they’re not being tested on how well they’re able to use that assessment tool because then that takes away from what we are you’re actually trying to achieve.
Tamara
Yeah, that’s a challenge for them, is to make tools that are intuitive that don’t require a big poll in learning. And part of that has to do with the people making these tools aren’t teachers, and that they are probably those people that build tools are really comfortable with technology and always have been, and they don’t always understand what it feels like and looks like for a student or a teacher to come into this and go, “I don’t know where to click.”
Husena
Right? Right? You have to like put yourself in their shoes, and it’s not necessarily the easiest thing to do.
Tamara
Absolutely, and that kind of leads me to the next point. Reluctant teachers or teachers are just like, “This is so stressful, I don’t want to learn it,” and of course, they have that mindset that they—it’s hard for them to overcome or if it’s just a time factor. And addressing that obstacle to help them be successful is something that I have to plan for. But one of the things that I like to do is to create a wow moment when I walk into a classroom, and that might look like, for instance, I did a training at a school on the new interactive panels we had. And it was science teachers, and they didn’t want me to be there. They were like, “I just want to do it the way I’ve always done it,” and they were mad. But I walked in and almost like, “Well, I really need to train you on this tool because it’s going to be the center point of your instruction, so I have to be here. This is important.” And the first thing I noticed is that there was an HDMI cord, an electrical plug, and another plug that was strewn across the walkway from the panel to her computer, which was a huge tripping hazard. And I was like, “You know what? There’s my wow moment right there. I can show this lady how to unplug it all. And how to send her stuff from her laptop to her panel so that she doesn’t have to trip over the cable when she’s walking around her test.” And it really was for her, as soon as I did that, she’s like, “What else do you have?” And then that group of teachers wouldn’t let me leave, and they made me late for my next training because I had so many questions and—
Husena
Nope. Okay, this is crazy because you know how educators talk about we want our students to have that aha moment, you’re having that aha moment with your teachers. It’s exactly that.
Tamara
It’s just like I show you one thing and I and I see, is this going to lead to you wanting more? And honestly, if the vibe’s not there after I show you one or two things, I cut the training short. I did that once when I was on another campus. It was another required training for the staff, and they all came in mad, and I—That’s not my campus, like I don’t work on that campus every day. I don’t know what’s going on in the background. I don’t know what’s on their plates. I don’t know these teachers personally, and I do my best to know my teachers, but when you support thousands of teachers, you don’t get that opportunity to really know your teachers away a classroom teacher does her own students. But you can see the body language when they come in, and I found out that they had grades due, and that they really needed to get that done, and I knew it was a required training. So I said, “Let me show you one thing, five ten minutes, and then I’m going to send you on your way,” because they were not in the ready space to learn. And they really appreciated that, and then they asked me back to finish the training later because they wanted it. I gave them the little wow moment, and then I sent them on their way just enough to wet their appetite so that they would invite me back and they did so. Because a teacher doesn’t want to learn in that space right now about the technology in classroom doesn’t mean that they always feel that way. But yes, reading the room is very important and sometimes when we have teachers, it’s not because they have.
Husena
Yeah, it’s important to read the room which is exactly what you did.
Tamara
They have timetables. It’s just a really nervous about technology. So one of the things that I might do is actually work alongside that teacher to actually create the lesson and then if they’re still nervous because there’s always that, “Okay, you showed me how to do it just like you teach math problem and then I go to do it on myself and I’m like, ah, you did show this to be right.” It’s the same thing for a teachers, they—they go in there and they think they remember it then they get to this hump of this, “I don’t know how to get over this,” and you’re there to help them over that hump and you get to smooth out their lesson with them and they. They understand that you’re not there to write or evaluate them. You’re just there to help and it goes a long ways to have that, it’s like having a crutch in your room when you need to when you’re limping when you need to assistance when you’re walking schedule for sure.
Husena
For sure, for sure, these are all really valuable insights on how to overcome their challenges and learning technology. But I just want to understand from your perspective, how have you witnessed technology changing the traditional role of a teacher and with their respect, but the learning experience for students as well? If you have any success stories or examples where technology has significantly enhanced teaching and learning process.
Tamara
I do have a good story because for me, it was a paramount moment in my classroom and in my profession as to what changed me literally; it was transformative. And of course, I’ve been in the classroom long enough, as we established at the very beginning of our conversation, that I was here in the dark ages when we had overhead projectors; that was our technology. So, absolutely, the technology, like literally, exploded onto the scene in the early 2000s. But the integration of technology, of course, was a progression like most people. It’s a progression when you’re learning things; you take it in manageable chunks. But there was a transformative moment for me, and it was in the year 2009 and 2010. During that phase of time, kids started to get what we called smartphones. Before that, there were dumb phones. We don’t call them smartphones anymore; they’re just phones. And then they had the iPhone, now they had iPads, and they had iPhones, I guess, is probably the phone that most kids had in that era. And they would bring them to class, and they were a novelty item to them. However, that year in 2010, and I remember that year because it was, you know, there’s just some years of just sticking your head really deep, that was a year that I had a class of kids that, oh my gosh, it was a train wreck of a class. The kids were not passing anything that I gave them, two assignments, tests, quizzes. It didn’t matter, but they weren’t even passing, getting through the door properly. Yeah, yeah, and I dug a little bit, and I realized the majority of my class were students with special accommodations of various kinds.
Husena
Oh my, oh my god.
Tamara
They had never passed a state assessment. I think only 2 or 3 of the kids actually passed a reading assessment ever, and I was teaching science. So, I looked back at their district monitoring assessments that we give out a couple of times each year, and they had not passed any of those either. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this class is something else. It explains so much.” My students had no history of success in reading, math, or even science, which, how do you not be successful with Science? Science is amazing and, I mean, it was just a disaster of fights, yelling, screaming, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, maybe I need to rethink my job.” It was out, like, “Oh my gosh, I cannot handle this class and I’m like I’ve in the classroom for like 10 years and I can’t do this.”
Husena
Oh my, which was to that extent. Wow.
Tamara
But I discovered Adobe Captivate, and I realized that with this one program, I could redesign the way I taught and combined with the fact that our students actually had their own devices. And Chromebooks at that point were coming to be like a thing, so I bought 4 Chromebooks, and we also had what we called COWs. Does everybody remember COWs, computers on wheels? I could check those out? Yeah, but COWs.
Husena
Oh, computer on, we do. I didn’t know there was an abbreviation but okay.
Tamara
Yeah, yeah, so I could check out them. Wow, is that there was 15 of them still not enough for all my kids but of course, somebody else could check them out so it wasn’t like I could hog them but it allowed me enough to be able to use technology to actually drive the learning of the class and support it. It allowed me to work with students individually in small groups and provide this instruction in conferencing opportunities particularly since behaviour management was such an issue and that small group instruction allowed me to connect to our kids and actually talk to every single kid in a way you can’t do in a whole group. It changed my relationship so dynamically that one time before Christmas we had a fire drill and I dreaded fire drills during fourth period because my kids came out of the room like while the animals running and screaming and you know we’re supposed to be in lines and quiet right and it was like oh my god they’re going to fire me and of course one day before Christmas my kids went out and I hadn’t realized it until they came back in and they all sat down and they just picked up wherever they left off. And I didn’t think anything of it because I had grown up with the kids and 1 girl put up her hand and she said do you realize if this had happened in September this would never have happened here and I was like what she goes, everybody’s working.
Husena
That’s amazing that you opened that door.
Tamara
Like it was but it allows our students to be able to work through these learning documents that I created when you have kids that that work really quickly through independent work and you have to have like for them to do or the ways they get in trouble or you have those kids that you need you to slow down. So things like vocabulary development, reading, watching a video all those things were done at their pace and it allowed me to be able to move kids that wanted to fast track into tasks more quickly and kids that needed the support, to get that support whether it was small group instruction. Or whatever it was all our kids got what they needed in that environment and it changed the whole way that I taught from 2010 to the point now left classroom I never went away from that small group model I never went away from interactive learning documents. And supporting kids and what was really cool is that my classroom space became conceptual learning where we spent our time on Labs instead of direct instruction where I just stand in front of the classroom and I natter away at the kids. But it allowed me to really have conversations and understand where their learning needs were and technology was the tool that allowed me to do this.
Husena
That’s such a great story; I’m so grateful to you for sharing. It’s inspiring. We started the conversation where I described you as inspiring, and you said no, but that was inspiring.
Tamara
Are you ready for bed with a bed? Well, maybe I’ll inspire some other people to really think about the way that they use technology in the classroom because it’s not fluff. It’s such an important tool, just like anything else. Like I might need to take down a tree in my yard. I can’t just rip it up without any tools, and I may or may not be successful. I might choose a different tool. I could use an axe, I can use a chainsaw, I could use, I don’t know, a hedge cutter or whatever. Some of them will do a better job than others, and the tool for taking down that tree may vary depending on what tree it is I want to take down. That’s the same thing with technology. Technology is a tool that should be used to support learning in a specific way. It just can’t be, “Oh, we’re having a technology day.”
Husena
So, Tamara, thank you for sharing that. That was a really nice analogy, for lack of better words. But, you know, while you were talking about tools, I want to mention that there are two things that teachers are looking for. One is tools that will help them in the classroom. Another would be tools that might help them expand their own skill sets, right? Maybe even advance their career through professional development using some of these tools. Do you have any advice for teachers on what they should look out for when looking for tools for their classroom or for their own professional development?
Tamara
Okay, well let’s answer those two questions separately. The first one is when they’re looking out for tools. There are tons of tools out there. There are some really great tools that you can use really well, or not the way that they were intended for so they don’t support the learning in the way you want. But it’s really important to know when you’re looking at a sparkly fluffy tool. And I totally love sparkles. But I have an extension on my browser that allows me to put sparkles on my screen. Because we don’t want our educational tools to be sparkly and fun. We want them to actually meet their hype. We want them to drive the learning, and we do want fun to be part of that, we want the beautiful graphics. But classrooms are not sandboxes. They are learning environments, and we want to make sure that we’re purposeful in how we use our students’ time because that time is so valuable. And when you’re trying to assess whether or not something is being used the way that you want it to, think about whether or not it addresses misconceptions. How efficiently are you able to use it to identify whether or not your students are on the right track or not? Tools that do that are valuable. Does it support the individual learning needs of your students, whether or not they need to be accelerated learning? For instance, the ability to speed up a video is hugely important for some of your students, as is the ability to slow it down. Students with ADHD often need to watch videos at a faster rate because they process information so quickly. And this is something people don’t always understand; it’s because they think ADHD is not being able to pay attention to anything, where in fact, they’re paying attention to everything, and focusing their brain on a fast-moving video can actually help them attend to it. And I don’t necessarily mean that it needs to be 2 times speed. But maybe 1.2 or 1.3, which allows your students to be able to use that video in taking the information that they need. Also, does that tool address learning preferences? Not all your students want to learn in one format because they have a preferred way of taking in that information and putting it in. For instance, for me, I prefer to watch videos that speak, people that do videos and they just have graphics and text and they do music in the background and they’re not actually talking. I am not fully engaged in that video because that’s my learning preference. And also important is, does this tool build employable skills in our students? There’s digital communication in addition to in-person communication, the ability to do research, to be able to identify reliable information. We’re in a world where the stuff that you see and hear isn’t always true anymore. It used to be that if it were written down, you could rely on it. You can’t anymore. They have to be able to decipher where did this come from and what’s its bias and then they have to be able to implement that information in a meaningful way. Does that tool foster that also? Really important is, we’re getting into the education of our students is becoming so technical and abstract at an earlier age. Does that tool take those abstract concepts and help them understand more in a more concrete manner? Is it an animation that they can manipulate? Those kinds of things are so important with our students.
Husena
These are really good points, and that said, if our teacher is now also looking for tools that can help them expand their skill sets, I know we just work what teachers not having time to do anything, but let’s say they were, they did have time to do this.
Tamara
Yeah, but there are tools out there. I think it’s less about the tools because if you’re using tools in your classroom that extend your voice where you are able to support learning beyond your four walls. For instance, your kids have homework at home do they have support at home. If you’re using tools that enhance your learning, which is a deeper form of learning, for instance, a worksheet is great for drill and practice. It gives our kids that opportunity to apply learning. But does it deepen the understanding if you put it into a technology tool? Do your students have personalized quizzes based on their misconceptions? That would be an example of deepening. Ah, does it amplify your voice as a teacher, which basically means it clones you, so you don’t have to run around the room like a chicken trying to keep up with every single kid having a set of tools is one way to grow yourself professionally by doing more with that. If you’re looking to, for instance, grow out of a classroom into a edtech specialist role or taking a position in your classroom as a, or I mean in your school as a like a curriculum coach or a department chair, you are going to have to look for opportunities to build those leadership skills. One of the ways that you could do is perhaps create it like an ambassador program at your school and what I mean as a technology ambassador is you organize a set of teachers that adopt technology in a meaningful way, in a way that deepens understanding or uses it in a way that aligns with good pedagogy. If you have teachers and you foster that and then they use that grassroots effort to teach other teachers. How to use that, those are kinds of programs in your school that show that you have a leadership quality in aligns to technology if that’s the direction you want to go. That’s something that you could do as well. Also maybe having a technology committee on your campus where you talk about? Well, what is this doing for our students. Is it a good tool? Those are kinds of conversations in a leadership role that moving in a different direction might help you as a teacher. It also makes you better teacher too just saying right.
Husena
No, of course, this is all really good advice and we’ve really covered a lot today. Your advice for educators has been very spot on and I’m sure our listeners would appreciate all of these insights. We are reaching the end of our conversation. So, I just wanted to ask that as we wrap up do you have any final thoughts or messages that you would like to convey to our audience made up both of educators and edtech enthusiasts.
Tamara
Okay, well, the first one is please hold off to tomatoes before you all throw them at me. But it’s important to know that phones and AI or whatever other new gadget or essential tool that is coming in our future that is going to distract our kids. Beyond belief. It’s going to be a permanent fixture in our lives every part of our lives and all you have to do is look at the adults that are on their phones. It’s ingrained in our lives as adults. It’s ingrained in our students. And if we are constantly just shutting things down I’m taking your phone away I’m blocking this from the internet you have to do that sometimes particularly when your students are younger and I get that we have to protect our students and we have to make sure that they’re safe in whatever environment is and for new things are coming in the horizon we have to make sure that. We don’t just open it up to them without knowing how we have to support that but at the same time we have to know if all we ever do is shut it down. How are we ever going to expect our kids when they grow into adulthood to responsibly navigate and self-manage this world that they now live in. It’s not even when they graduate they’re in that world right? now we have to use those teachable moments to manage not only our own behaviour because with that being said, all of this is true for us too. Do We have ah notifications that come off on our phone all day long and every time that comes off. Do we pick up our phone. And look at it. Do We have our email for instance for this podcast I turned off the email because I know I would want to read those emails and I would be part of my brain would be focused on those emails we have to manage our world of distractions and teach our kids How to do that Think it’s also important to know that everyone is on a ah spectrum of readiness and growth mindset and that can change from day to day just like our own students and but we need to understand that instructional design is different when using Edtech tools. It looks different implementation is different. It’s just like when you when you create a new activity in your classroom. The first period you give it to it. Those are your guinea pigs and you’re lucky if it goes off well it’s the same thing with technology you have to make sure you address those needs and plan for it and then adjust as you need to. For our teachers that are really comfortable with technology I challenge them to find ways to use that technology to support student centred learning environments or personalized learning and I say that because we cannot allow technology to replace us. If we do, you are going to find yourself like many of our librarians in our in our districts that they’re getting. They’re doing away they have media centers they’re doing away with the people in them, and we don’t want that to happen to our teachers. We are the most valuable resource in our classroom. It’s important that we build. That up in our practices. So, our students appreciate our value, and our parents also appreciate our value for teachers struggling with technology. My recommendation is just to start with one good solid tool make sure not to use it as a toy and make sure you learn it deeply but in a way that truly drives learning and once you’re comfortable with one tool then add another tool but make sure it meets a different academic need and then add a third and interesting thing about knowing 3 tools really well, that you’ll notice that ed tech companies copy each other which means once you know three learning the fourth one becomes so much easier than a fifth one? Yeah, like they’re all bunch of copycats which is not a bad thing because it means we not.
Husena
Yeah, it really isn’t a bad thing. It isn’t a betting why? why would you want to have all the tools be completely different from each other. It’s just increases the learning curve.
Tamara
It does and you want to have predictable interfaces when you open up a new software for the first time and when it doesn’t, it’s frustrating for our teachers when they’re trying to lie in this like this other program I’m like well I don’t know. where you were now.
Husena
Well, this was a really insightful conversation Tamara. I was hanging onto your every word. So, thank you I really was thank you. Thank you for sharing tha and thank you for joining us on today’s session as well and sharing your valuable insights.
Tamara
Yeah, thank you for having me I really appreciate the invitation and I hope that what I shared serves somebody in some meaningful way.
Husena
Thank you again to all our fantastic listeners. We hope this episode has sparked some fresh perspectives for you. Join the conversation on social media, you can use the #MagicEducatorInsights. Stay tuned for more educational vibes in our next episode until then keep the learning alive and catch you on the flip side.
