Reflection: My year limiting my phone & watch

This one is going to feel a little different. It has literally taken me months to write this blog, not because it's difficult. It's because it almost feels silly. And it all starts with a law the state of Ohio passed last year. Thanks to House Bill 250, by July 2025, all Ohio school districts had to "establish an official policy governing cellphone usage during school hours and seeks to minimize student use of cell phones in K-12 schools." (link to article)

Each district needed to have a policy. A policy. Something showing how they were going to limit cellphones during the school day. My district chose to go with a no phone & no smartwatch during the school day policy. I was overjoyed! Phones and watches are a huge distraction. I knew that. I lived that the year prior when I was back in the classroom after 8 years. I read "The Anxious Generation" (Jonathan Haidt) and I agree with the research he has collected ... phones are harming our kids. Yes - I was pumped to see how this policy impacted our kids. I was worried not all of the teachers would follow it.

Then I started thinking ... I was in a unique position. I was the technology teacher, for peke's sake! I was newly back in the classroom and it was only in my 2nd year at this district. I did my best to balance offline and online activities in my room. I brought in the local police department to talk with the kids about being safe online. Everything I did had some kind of technology component to it. My whole job was about using tech better/safer/well.

I also saw my colleagues, friends, family, and myself. I saw how we all interact with our devices. As adults, WE can't help ourselves. Not allowing phones & smartwatches in the classroom was exciting! But then I thought about MY phone and MY watch. 

Sure - I'm an adult.

Sure - I "think" I'm good about managing my time on my phone.

Uhhh, well - I put a time limit on social media for myself.

... and - I'm still drawn to notifications ... so much so I didn't turn them back on after my last summer vacation so I DIDN'T feel that "need" to look at that red bubble. (It HELPS!)

Sure - I'm a good example.

AM I a good example? I thought long and hard about this. 

Does being an adult give me a "pass"? 

Right?

I thought about it for a looooooong time and I decided I was going to follow the policy, too. By choice. I decided I would live the same ban as the kids. I also thought it would be a great conversation piece with them and my colleagues. 

With each group of students, I started with the same statement. "You have to leave your phone & watch in your locker by district policy, per the state of Ohio. I am choosing to follow this same policy." I did clarify I would be putting them in my desk drawer because I don't have a locker, and I would check it at lunch and my plan period.

There was very little pushback and questioning. The #1 question they had for me was, "Mrs. Kiefer, what if your family needs to get ahold of you?" Easy, I responded, I gave them all the office phone number to call. The office can get ahold of me. (Plus, my 2 youngest daughters also had a phone ban at their school.)

It was shocking. Shockingly GOOD! Yes, it was hard at first. I had all the thoughts I'm sure the kids did. "What if someone texts me?" "What if I miss a phone call?" "My wrist feels naked." "Will I still close my exercise rings?" "What if there is an emergency?"

Guess how many phone calls I missed from my family? A couple. 

Guess how many were urgent. None. 

Did I miss text messages? Yep! I would check it at lunch and sometimes there were a shocking amount. 

How many of them meant I missed out on something? Not a single one. 

I survived. And I loved it!!! I had a new appreciation of being able TO TEACH. I didn't have buzzing on dinging on my wrist or in my pocket. I taught. I interacted with the kids. It was great! I believe my students were far less distracted. I did have to take a few phones and watches, but it wasn't anything like the year before. 

After a full school year of this, I find that it's a lot easier for me to put my phone down while I'm at home and walk away. I don't feel like I have to be glued to it. I have very few notifications on my watch. It has gone back being more of a watch than anything. (Ok, I'm a runner, so it tracks that for me and it's pretty awesome at setting timers when I need to remember something in 5 or 10 minutes.)

I share this because I know I'm not alone in feeling the same addiction to devices as our kids. I share this because being mindful of how we used devices is the greatest example our kids see. I share this because I'm 46 and I survived a year in the classroom without my phone in my pocket or my watch on my wrist. I share this because YOU CAN DO THIS, TOO! And I hope you see and feel the impact on YOU, so that you can work towards the same positive impact with our kids.

I hope you read this and try it. Give it a week. I promise you'll notice a difference. And then I hope you share a message here. How'd it go? How did you feel? Let me know below, or reach out on social media. I'd love to hear from you.

And if you are interested, I've written more on this topic. You can find it here: Phones + School ... What Do We Do?

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A New Take on Resources You Can Do

Happy summer! It has been a wonderful change of pace.  I love teaching - I love the kids, the connections, colleagues, challenging my brain in many different ways, the routine, etc. - but I also love the breaks. Kind of.

A day off here and there is like sneaking a little extra dessert. Summer for me can feel like I'm stuffing my face with chocolate. I need to keep a close eye on what I do so I don't overindulge. I always plan out projects and learning and activities. 

I need that routine. I thrive on it.

One of my favorite things to do is listening to podcasts or music while I fold laundry. It's a productive task (laundry) while I squeeze in entertainment (podcast/music). Recently, the podcast was Jennifer Gonzalez's "Cult of Pedagogy" episode 251: Holding Students Accountable in the Age of AI.  Her conversation with Tony Frontier was great and really got my thinking about one specific area. Asking kids how-who-what helped them with their work. Not in an effort to catch them cheating, but rather it's like a peek in their brains about how they are getting things done so we know where better to help them. If we encourage this honest & open sharing, I think we can get a better gauge on our students learning. 

Tony's point was to ask for sources, not just on big assignments, but on ALL assignments. Not to "catch" AI use, rather getting students comfortable with citing their sources - all of them. Whether it was a family member at home, a Google search, an AI chatbot, an encyclopedia, a textbook, etc, asking students to identify what is helping them can go a long way with teaching academic honesty and integrity. (Thank you Tony & Jennifer!) 

I thought of how I could apply in my classroom of the last 2 years. Could an idea like Tony's give me an insight to their learning? Probably. Most of our work was done inside the classroom but we used resources often. They could share if they Googled something or asked a classmate for help. And if they worked on it outside of class, they could do the same by sharing whatever resources they used, whether human or digital or print. I see the goal to have students see, document, and share more insight to how they are doing their work.  

The more I think about this idea, the more I really like it! You could even set goals of using a variety of resources for different assignments/projects. Example, "In your paper, you need to use 3 different types of resources" and then have a list of resources to choose from. 

I hope I inspired you to contemplate this idea! Give Tony & Jennifer a listen and think about what this could look like in your class. If you try it out, will you let me know?

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My Next Chapter ...

I have been keeping a secret for a few months.

I am closing my Madeira Middle School Technology Teacher chapter. I am returning to my previous district ... and I am pumped! Elated!

Two years ago, I made the decision to leave Ross and start a new chapter at Madeira. That decision came with a lot of heartache and tears. It was the right move for me at the time and I do not regret it. This time, my job change comes without tears or heartache.

I am leaving a great district and a great building. I reunited with a great friend and met lots of wonderful educators. I was challenged to teach a variety of classes and connect with lots of students. I saw first-hand the challenges of being a "newbie", a classroom teacher, and a special area teacher. I had a lot fewer responsibilities.

I am going back to do the same job I left, this time with a colleague in the same role. I am going to see a lot of familiar faces and some new ones. I am going to miss seeing some faces that have also moved on in the past two years. 

I am going back to a new administration with a reinvented vision. 

I am going back home and I will get to write my Ross 2.0 chapter. I know this is the right move and I look forward to each new page.

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AI Learning I Am Doing

If you are in education, I'm sure you have been inundated with AI tools, resources, how to's, why/why not, do/do not's, and so much more. I know I have been.  ChatGPT was release on November 30, 2022. A little more than 2 years ago. I did a search on Amazon for "artificial intelligence books" and it returned over 20,000. Wow. 

I am not opposed to AI, but I'm super hesitate to just go all in. I have serious concerns with introducing AI far too early to our students only to find out in a few years that we've unintentionally weakened their educational foundation. I'd like to take a slower approach and be mindful with what and how I incorporate AI in the classroom.

I have been in the ed-tech world for at least a decade and I have my favorite resources so I have been sticking close to them in this world of AI discovery and learning. Catlin Tucker comes out near the top. She and Katie Novak have recently release a book, "Elevating Educational Design with AI: Making Learning Accessible, Inclusive, and Equitable". What I am most excited about this book is that it is not pushing a tool or prompts to feed o AI. 

In their own words, this book wants to  "empower teachers with an adaptable and rigorous educational design framework that embodies the best ideals of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and blended learning". 

I have not yet gotten my hands on this book, but I have listened to a couple of Catlin's podcasts where she shares about the book and it really piqued my interest. I think they might be of interest to you, too. Here are the two I've listened to:

• 12/17/2024: Designing for Equity and Engagement: A Preview of Elevating Educational Design with AI (14 min) 
  
  
• 01/14/2025: Preview of Elevating Educational Design with AI (18 min)

I'd love to know if you have read Catlin's book. Is it helpful? Do you have other resources you'd like to share? 

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OETC 2025 Presentations & more!

I presented twice at Ohio's Educational Technology Conference (OETC) in early February. I haven't presented in quite some time - and thanks to the encouragement from my curriculum director, I put in for and was accepted. It felt really good to get back into the presentation world and I very much enjoyed going to OETC this year.

My first presentation was "Citizenship, Connection, & Collaboration in the Tech Classroom." When I began at Madeira Middle School, I felt it was important to infuse digital citizenship with my students. And I wanted to encourage a community infusion, so I asked the Madeira Police to join forces. They happily agreed and we are on year 2 of our collaboration. It has been a wonderful collaboration.

My second presentation was a collaboration with the art teacher at Madeira "Collaboration to Create a New Course". We were tasked with creating a course for our incoming 6th graders this year and we designed Digital Art. We shared our story of creating Digital Art and where we are going from here. It was great to co-present with Liz and share our success. I hope we can inspire you - or someone you know - to create a new course. Our students love this class and we do, too!

Finally, the day after I returned from OETC I did a super fast - 2 minute - demo slam for Book Creator. I've never done one of these before and it was great! In my 2 minutes, I shared how Liz & I use Book Creator for our Digital Art class' portfolios. They love using it and we love seeing them build them over the semester.

You can watch my 2 minutes here: 2025 Demo Slam. You can see the entire list of slams, from this one and previous ones here: Community Demo Slams

I hope you enjoy these!

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"Lifelines" You Can Do

I've noticed the many of the students I have right now are hesitant to work independently. I don't mind questions, but it's not so much about not understanding as it seems to be they want hand-holding. I wracked my brain to try something to encourage independence and inspiration hit! 

Big time!

Do you remember the game show, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Do remember the lifelines each contestant was given? Bingo. 

I decided to give my students 4 lifelines the first time I gave them a digital breakout to work on. Most students said they were familiar with digital breakouts, but when we got to work on it, most of them froze on what to do. I'm so glad I decided to use the lifelines!

The four "lifelines" I gave them were:

• ask a classmate
• help from Mrs Kiefer
• Google It
• Google It

I explained to them a digital breakout would take some work. They'd be challenged and may not find the answers right away. But they could use a lifeline to help them if they were really stumped. Ultimately, if they didn't use a lifeline, I'd reward them with a bonus point on their total score. They could earn a total of 4 bonus points. This really motivated them! (I also told them if they didn't write their name on their lifelines they'd lose any chance of the bonus points ... I'm also working to instill responsibility! I'm shocked at how many of them did NOT write their name on theirs!)

I'm not quite sure who had more fun with these lifelines; the kids or me? They would ask me a question and before I'd answer, I'd say to them, "Are you sure you want to use this lifeline?" The vast majority of the time, they hesitated and waved me off. It really encouraged them to think strategically about using each one.  And they were super honest about when they DID use one, even if I wasn't right there to mark it off - they'd do it themselves.

The second time I used them this quarter, I collected them from the students as they left the room. The social studies teacher across the hall from me noticed them and asked about them. I shared the story and he asked if he could borrow the idea - he had noticed the struggle, too, since we share the same kids. I laughed and said, "Of course! But you have to find your own bitmoji!"

I made mine in Canva and I would suggest you look at the assignment you want to use it with and think about what would be an appropriate number and type of lifelines and go from there. I also shrunk them down so they are about the size of a bookmark - 4 to a single sheet of paper - rather than an entire sheet. I ran off a bunch, so I always have a stack ready to go at any time. 

This is such a fun addition to ANY activity. It can be added to ANY lesson - ANY grade - ANY content.

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Google Sheets Teaching You Can Do

Google Sheets is one of my favorite Google applications. (I think I say that about all of them, don't I?) I have chosen to purposefully add Sheets to the curriculum I teach with my 6th graders. This quarter, I felt like I needed to step up the learning portion before I gave my students the Google Sheets Choice Activity to show off their learning. 

I turned to my favorite "tech extraordinaire"  ... Eric Curts! He has so many amazing Google Sheets activities. I had been using one of Google's Applied Digital Skills lessons previously, but I felt like it was a little dry for my 6th graders, so I collected several of Eric's Sheets activities and really looked at what skills I wanted to focus on and then chose Sheets that worked with the selected skills. I put together a teacher version and a student version to make it easier for me to see what skills should be focused on on which sheet.

I present: Google Sheets ... Teacher workbook & Google Sheets ... student practice! It's posted on my connected blog, Templates for Teachers, so you can also browse for other activities for your classroom. I don't dig into complex Sheets formulas - most of it is on the basic level. My students haven't had much experience with Sheets - most couldn't even remember ever using it.

Sheets doesn't have to be an overwhelming tool - it is a powerful tool, that with some learning, can be beneficial to have at your fingertips. The "Directions" tab was a great way to start and probably the tab we spent the most time on. Laying this strong foundation was a great starting point. I'm definitely using it again!

If you use it - will you let me know how it goes? I'd love to hear feedback.

*** 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!  ***