Tech Conversations You Can Do

How often do you & your colleagues talk about technology? Is it more of a gripe session? Is anyone excited about a tool or program? Lately I've been having quite a few conversations involving technology. And most have had an element of frustration to them. 

Listen, I love technology. I think it can do some pretty awesome stuff, but I feel like we are moving away from using tech to enhance learning and toward using tech because it's available. Why? There is so much more pressure on schools and teachers than ever before. I also believe there is a growing misconception that technology has some sort of magical powers. But that simply is not true.

Here's a recap of the recent conversations I've been part of ... have you had any of them, too?

• One conversation revolved around kids finding ways around our filter.
• Another conversation revolved around upgrading our Google accounts. 
• Another conversation was about what LMS should each grade use and why.
• Yet another was about how old should the kids be when they take their chromebook home. 

None of these conversations are earth shattering. Nor are they "new". But I do feel like we are looking at it all with a different lense right now. We know that shoving tech at our kids is not the answer. We even know that tech can have some negative effects on our kids. But I feel like we are "resigned" to the idea that kids HAVE to have tech all the time. 

I'd like to start moving the conversation in the direction of when is tech appropriate and purposeful rather than just accepting it. I want to engage with our teachers that while the kids have a device, that doesn't mean everything must be done with tech. I want to ensure that our kids know we are putting every effort into structuring their education in a way that maximizes their opportunities.

I know one person can't move the needle, but one person can strike up a conversation and encourage others to give thought to these questions. Once the conversations start & keep flowing, you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

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INFOhio: Decodable and Phonics eBooks for Early Readers

WEBSITE ↬ INFOhio: Decodable and Phonics eBooks for Early Readers

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ ELA, early reading

GRADE LEVELS ↬ preK-3

I am an INFOhio Coach and I love their resources. I believe it is a very under used resource and I wanted to be sure to share this one out. With the focus on early literacy, these books and resources can go a long way to help your students (and yourself!) with supporting their early reading.

Not only does this share books for your early readers, it also shares professional learning ebooks to support YOU in teaching.  

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers sharing the books with their students but also the ability to create collections to share with other teachers can be super helpful when you work as a team to support each other. While reading with physical books is super important, having access to quality ebooks is also a great classroom activity (or to share with home for times when parents ask what digital resources are available). 

Teachers can also take advantage of the professional resources included in this article.

*** Interested in more resources like this? Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Supporting Each Other You Can Do

I'm writing this in the quiet morning of snow day #2. It's also brutally cold outside. There is a LOT going on right now, both in my little world and the bigger world beyond. And I'm not just talking about the weather. Politics, education, family life, social media, health, aging, etc. I was inspired today to write from a more personal perspective. We are ALL struggling in one way or another. You may not see it in others and you may not want to admit it about yourself. But we are. I am.

I read quite a bit. Not always books, but articles, emails, and blogs. I tend to be focused on educational resources. I enjoy them. I also try to share out when I find good articles and resources. This morning, as I was snuggled on my couch, I read "The #1 Reason My First Years of Teaching Were So Hard" from the We Are Teachers daily email I receive. The author, Kelly Treleaven, wrote this about 2 years ago, but what she shares is true today. It's a hard truth. And an ugly truth. Really ugly.

Reading this article where Kelly shares how hard her first several years of teaching were, has reminded me of how I felt my first years and also how I felt each time I stepped into a new teaching position over the last 20+ years. Overwhelmed. Scared. Nervous. Unsure. And the ultimate realization that I was reinventing myself. I was becoming a newer version of myself. Something so super scary at the beginning, but now looking back, necessary for me to be who I am today. I wasn't told or taught anything like this. I also didn't have all of the pressures that exist in 2026. Technology was vastly different. Support was wildly different, both inside and outside of school. Rules and requirements looked different. I could never have dreamed of being a district Technology Integration Specialist when I began teaching 5th grade at a little Catholic school in August, 2021. 

Reading Kelly's article, I feel my passion to support our newest teachers being reignited. I've already jotted down ideas I will take to my integration colleague in the hopes of building out a support structure for our district's new teachers ... not just our 1st years, but all new-to-us teachers. I want to delete the "assumptions" that "someone" is helping them. I am guilty of that quite often. Are you? 

Here are a few of my thoughts right now:

• assign every new-to-us teacher to either myself or my colleague
• identify a couple of staff in their building who've agreed to support them
• set up regular in-person meetings with them to help acclimate & ask questions
• prepare a notebook or collection of specific "helps" for the newbie in their position
• what programs are provided
• who is who in their building & district
• login information for our "stuff"
• links to our already built Staff Help Hub, highlighting key pieces of info
• an FAQ section
• place to write down questions or needs
• identify things we can do to help welcome them (work with building principals & Sunshine committee)
• reach out right now to our new teachers from this year to identify pain points they experienced & how we can help next years' newbie

Can you help me? What other things might YOU have wanted as a new teacher? What areas do we need to focus on specifically for our newbies - insurance? retirement? class management? Please help!

Teaching isn't easy. It never was. It still isn't. It's tougher than ever before. We can't keep losing those brave enough to choose teaching because they lack the support. We are teachers. At our core, we care. Not just for our students. We care for each other. Let's make it visible. Reach out to the newbies in your building. Check on them. I didn't make it this far on my own ... I have had so many wonderful people help me along the way. Let's return the favor. We will all be better for it.

P.S. I share out a lot of resources. Ones I create, ones others create, how to's, people I follow, etc. PLEASE share these. Time is a HUGE problem. Let's cut down the time we spend searching and instead spend out time supporting.

*** Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. It is delivered right to your inbox. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

New & Stressful Adventures You Can Do

I recently had a very "nerdy" and stressful learning adventure! Our middle school had decided to host a career day and I was asked for "spreadsheet" help. Little did I know what all that would entail! This is a true testament to having a PLN, confidence in my own knowledge, and quite a leap of faith.

I don't exactly remember thinking I knew the "answer" to figuring out how to schedule the kids, but I did offer to help make it happen. Weird, right?

Here was the situation - 569 students. 31 presenters. 4 sessions each. No more than 20 students per session. The students were going to be given a Google Form to request what presentations they see. How was I going to do this? Ultimately, we settled on assigning the presenters to one of 7 career categories, and allowing students to choose 4 of them. Then the real work began.

I turned to Google Sheets. I believed this was the only way to make the schedules. I researched but wasn't coming up with anything other than a manual assignment ... ugh! THEN, I turned to my PLN. I threw the question out. And I got THE response that confirmed an idea ... throw this scenario into Gemini! It worked!

I am still very much in the camp where AI isn't the answer to everything - only some things. And this is definitely one of them! I put the following prompt into Gemini: "I need to create a career fair schedule for 600 students. We will have 30 presenters who each have 4 sessions. The presenters are labeled into 7 themes and students will be allowed to select 4 themes total. Write me a Google Apps Script to schedule the students after they complete the Google Form with their selections. There can only be 20 students in each session."

It gave me back exactly what I needed to do to the Sheet that resulted from the students making their selections and it gave me the Google Apps Script to copy & paste into the Sheet to create the schedules. It was scary and wild. I wouldn't know if it worked until we had all the students fill out the Form. The afternoon we felt confident we had the vast majority of our students, I hit the "run script" button. And waited. And waited. It took roughly 10 minutes - and voliá! Two new tabs appeared - one with 4 sessions assigned to each student and one with the students who would be in each of the 4 sessions for the presenters. Holy cow! Mind blown!!!!

From there, I took a deep breath! It worked! And, because we actually had more spots that we did students, every student received their 4 choices. Now I just needed to make a schedule each student could read and a roster for each of the 4 sessions for our presenters. (Thanks, Google Docs + Auto-crat!)

Then came the next twist ... one presenter had to cancel and 3 more volunteered to come! Whaaaaat? We also found about 7 students that hadn't filled out the form, so we got them to do it ASAP and I had no other choice but to re-run the script. Yikes! I should have had more faith in the process, but I was incredibly nervous it wouldn't work. But it did! I just pushed the run script button and it overwrote the initial schedules and rosters. 

I am still amazed that it worked so nicely! This is the kind of problem I believe AI is built to help solve. 

Do you have a daunting challenge ahead of you? I strongly recommend trying out Gemini. I do believe the prompt is key ... knowing the parameters of the output your are looking for as well as asking for a Google Apps Script. And don't be afraid to adjust the prompt. Still need a little reassurance? Reach out! I'd be happy to help.

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Student Thinking You Can Do

I'm going to expand on a blog I wrote a year ago when I was back in the classroom as a Technology Teacher.  I shared "Project Breakdown You Can Do" about how I used John Spencer's video writing prompts in my 7th grade technology class. I really loved this project. It had student choice, creativity, a wide range of depth opportunities, and a lot of student driven aspects. I encourage you to read it along with this one.

I'm going to focus more on the student thinking aspect of this project. I was lucky enough to go to a workshop about Gemini this week and had a great conversation with a PLN friend from another part of Ohio. We got to talking about using AI in the classroom and he referred to teachers concern about students still DOING the thinking and how we tackle that. I shared an overview of the activity I did with John Spencer's writing prompts and how I feel activities like this can help teacher avoid AI generated content. 

Sure, my students 100% could have fed the video into an AI tool and it would have spit something back out. BUT ... here's the key to where I believe students wouldn't reach for AI ... 

#1 - they had 100% choice in which prompt to respond to 

#2 - they had 100% choice over the tool/design they used for their final project

#3 - I required them to converse with peers about the expectations of the prompt

#4 - I required them to converse with peers about how they'd be graded, down to how many points each rubric element was worth

#5 - peer feedback was built in to the project timeline

#6 - they graded themselves with an explanation before I did and reflection was required

The student choice on their topic wasn't super new to them, but they struggled when they were allowed to choose their tool. We had an entire conversation around what tools are available and what might work or not work for each prompt. Talking through that helped quite a few of them ... some still needed more guidance, but it helped. 

I saw struggle - and perseverance - kick in with the conversations around the expectations. It was shocking to ME how tough it was for them to really understand what the prompt was asking them to do. I realized how little practice they have ever had with this. They are so used to being told exactly what to do and how to do it. 

THE toughest part of this activity was when it came down to them talking about the grading rubric. I told them this project was worth 50 points. THEY needed to decide where they felt these points should be assigned --> what was the criteria and how many points. Wow! The complete randomness they assigned points really opened my eyes. Either they think teachers have some magical training in rubric math or they have zero clue 😁 . 

I know a lot of teachers have students reflect on their work, but doing it in addition to them grading themselves was enlightening. They didn't just choose points, they had to explain their point value. Quite a few of them were harder on themselves than I would have been. 

When I think about this, it feels like a very overwhelming project, but honest and truly it wasn't. I posted links in our LMS for the prompts, had the conversations planned, provided the generic "what is required for your prompt" half-sheet, and the rubric worksheet ready, but otherwise, it was work and think time in class. If they chose to - or felt they needed to - they could work on it outside of class. 

Lots of student thinking - lots of AI proofing - but this was a project the kids very much enjoyed! I had to "close the chapter" on this project for a lot of them because they wanted to continue working on them ... while it made me very happy, sometimes we have to recognize we can fiddle and adjust and never feel "done". 

If you are interested in the student components I've talked about, I've added them to my Templates for Teachers blog where I share all the items others can make their own copies and use "as is" or make modifications and customize. You can find it here: John Spencer Writing Prompts activity

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