Get Tech Ready for Back to School: Practical Tips for Teachers

Hello, and welcome to Unbox Innovation, the podcast brought to you by Boxlight. I'm your host, Michelle Dawn Mooney. Today, we're talking about get tech ready for back to school. Tis the season, and we have a lot to cover. And I can't wait to bring on our guest today. Evan Brus is training and development specialist at Boxlight, and Evan is going to walk us through some exciting things happening for the school year and give us some tips and tricks that we can use to make this the best school year yet. Evan, thank you so much for being with me today. Yeah. Thank you, Michelle. Glad to be here. Looking forward to getting into the conversation. Before we do, can you give us a brief bio if you can? Of course. Yeah. So as you said, I am currently a training and development specialist with Boxlight, which is broadly an education technology solution company. So what I do on a day to day basis is work with educators around the country, primarily in the United States, with developing, planning, and working with all of the new technology that their district purchases for them and that we create. Prior to that, I was a classroom educator. Unlike most of the teachers that I work with, I was not in the k twelve system, but I was at the university level. I was a teacher at Arizona State University, actually in their biology program. I taught in the classroom, both small and large groups of students, and also started developing their online education program, which is how I transitioned into this career, experiencing the growth and development of the online education sphere even a little bit prior to COVID when, of course, everybody had to learn what online education was. So that's where I've been. But now as I said, I work with teachers day in, day out on solving whatever problems they're having because let's face it. No matter how fun and exciting technology is, it always comes with some trade offs, and there are always a few little kinks to work out. Absolutely. And I love that you can really have a grasp on both sides. You're being an educator and now kind of working with helping those educators do the best that they can. And let's just start off here. A little kind of disclaimer as you already kind of mentioned with technology. I I like to say technology is great until it's not. Right? Because we all know we've all been there when we've had those little hiccups, but it really is amazing the advancements we've seen in technology and how it can be used. So I guess starting us off here because it can be a little overwhelming. And I think the goal of this podcast is to share information. But before we even get into that, can you give us kind of just a brief synopsis for those out there who are already they haven't even heard what you have to say about technology, and they're starting to get white knuckled? Because just the thought of, oh my gosh, more technology, it it can really be overwhelming. It absolutely can. You know, teachers, I am constantly in awe of everybody that I work with because I remember those days myself, but it's even more pressing at the k twelve level. The amount of things that people are having to keep track of, to organize, to do at the start of the school year, especially with all these new faces coming in, setting new behavior expectations, and all that. The last thing they wanna do is anything that makes their job harder. And so the promise of technology has always been, oh, it's gonna make things easier in so many ways. And let's face it. Sometimes that just isn't the case. Sometimes things don't work the way you expect them to, or maybe they might even be a little bit broken until we get some bugs worked out with the software developers. New features are, you know, famously, sometimes they don't do quite what you expect. And so I always counsel anybody I work with that you should only integrate whatever platforms or features or new apps, what have you, anything that you actually are comfortable with and makes your job a little bit easier. Don't use things for their own sake. Just because somebody says, oh, this is a great tool. Don't feel like somehow you are obligated to use this, unless, of course, it's like a district mandate. But most of the time, it's left up to you. Don't stress yourself out unnecessarily. While I will give some tips and some various platforms, I'll name drop a few. Don't necessarily run out and try to download and use all of these in your glass next week. That's not going to be a recipe for success. We all know the best way to actually start using this stuff is to accumulate that knowledge, that experience gradually. So give yourself the grace to get started slowly. If you see something that I mentioned today that looks really fun, go ahead, try it out first. And only after you feel comfortable and your class is doing alright with it, using something yourself is different than using it with twenty five other people at the same time. Then once that's a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more smooth, start adding some more things if you feel they're necessary when you really have a use for them. So don't feel obligated to run out and try all this stuff because it is a challenge. And my hope is that some of this makes your life a little bit easier, not the other way around at the start of school. Absolutely. And I'm so glad you made all of those points because it's nice to know we can take a little bit of a breath here before we get into the conversation that, as you said, this isn't an overnight fix. This is not something that you will be adopting all at once, but if it can help slow and steady wins the race. So excited to get into the conversation. So let's start here. What are the first steps that teachers should take to ensure they are prepared for integration in a new classroom when it comes to technology at the start of the school year? Absolutely. Well, the first thing to do is to make sure that the devices that you have are working, whether that is a student one to one program or maybe going through your own devices. Maybe you have some sort of, digital display. Some people have smart boards, some people have interactive flat panels running Android, some people have projectors. Whatever that is, make sure that's physically up and running that, you know, the screen turns on, the bulbs don't need to be replaced, all that. And then, of course, there's the issue of software. So some things need updates. You know, every so often, you'll run into an app that forces you to update before you can use it. And if you're trying to do that for the first time in front of your school, you know, your class is watching. They're bored for a minute while this loads up. It's never a good experience. So try to get some of that just really, maintenance level stuff out of the way when you are preparing your classroom for the new year. Some people, as of September third, might be already a few weeks into school. You probably already done this. Some people are just getting started. So just make sure that physically everything is running, and when you need an app to open, it actually opens, and it doesn't prompt you with another dialogue, terms and conditions, all that stuff that just breaks up the flow and gives those students another reason to tune out. So that's probably step one. And then step two would be to look through anything that might be available to you, starting this school year. Maybe you've heard about something from a coworker last year, or maybe your admin sent out an email saying we're gonna try this new program this year, and getting those in order as well. So after you get the basics done, time to explore a little bit and see what might make sense in your classroom for the upcoming year. And that's kinda where the fun part is, is trying out new things and seeing, you know, oh, this could be really beneficial in small group time, or this would be great for independent work at home, that sort of thing. So that is kind of where we're gonna start today in diving into some of those strategies for looking for those options, and how you know what to implement and what to leave alone for a while. And you talk about things being fun because there is a lot of fun to be had when it comes to some of these technologies. I think some of us have a habit of wanting to skip over some of the details and maybe cut quarters with time needed because we wanna get to the good stuff. Right? So with that said, how important is it to keep your rosters and learning management system or LMS updated, and what impact can this have on your teaching? Of course. And this is not necessarily the fun part. Like you said, this is just going through lists, almost like spreadsheets of your students, making sure that everybody's accounted for. So a lot of these platforms will communicate with your learning management system. Not all, but many have an automatic link. So any student maybe who comes and goes throughout the year who isn't in your learning management system quite right, maybe they're missing their information tying to you as their classroom, then you're going to have issues communicating with them, assignments, anything like that. So it's a very basic level. Just make sure that everybody who is supposed to be in your system actually is. I know in a lot of districts, students can move around from school to school. They may even leave the district entirely for some of the year. Maybe at a random time, they'll show back up in your classroom. You never really know what's going on in these students' home life, where they're living, where their parents need to move for work. So just staying on top of people popping in and maybe disappearing from your learning management system will make a world of difference because you wanna make sure that they're still included in your classroom, they're still a part of your community even if you're not sure if they're in your LMS just yet. So that's important. But, also, a lot of these platforms, some of them may actually automatically talk to Google Classroom, to Blackboard, to Canvas. Some of these other apps and services, if you're using them in your classroom, you may have to manually input a list of students, which depending on the platform could be fairly simple, could take a fair amount of time. So be prepared for that as an eventuality, and try to choose services if possible that automatically connect with what you've already done on the learning management system side. But, you know, some things are really great tools. Tinkercad springs to mind as this great three d design and creativity tool, where you're going to have to email your students their username and password, and set up that class that way And making sure that your two lists of students match up, obviously, is gonna be pretty important. So just be aware sometimes you're gonna have to take that little extra step, and do that ideally in advance of whenever you're using those tools in class. When it comes to really staying on top of things with so many apps and services available, how can teachers effectively manage updates and new features to enhance their teaching? We talked about that overwhelming factor, but what are the best methods we can use in this capacity here? Yeah. You know, it sounds like a small thing, but something that always trips people up is just the simple reality of having usernames and passwords for all of these things. Almost every service requires you to log in. And, you know, we aren't the best as humans at remembering all those numbers and letters. So while it is, of course, essential to have a secure passwords, when possible, try to use a password service, you know, 1Password or the built in password manager in your browser, for instance, things that can help you manage that and not leave you locked out of a service that you really wanted to try out, or maybe you need to create a new account on the day of the lesson. That wouldn't be very good if you especially have students linked to your old account. There are a lot of universal logins available. So Microsoft, Google both have usually a little button on a website where you can log in using those accounts. That might help you stay on top of things. This also goes for the students too. Maybe your school, if you have a one to one program, will have some sort of pattern with usernames for the students. Probably, they'll have their own individual passwords, of course, but making sure that students can access the services and they don't automatically just have their password disappear out of their head, would really be helpful. So making sure that they take the time to actually pay attention to what they're writing down when they create these accounts, and maybe there is a password reset from the back end that you can do, for example, through Google Classroom, to make sure they still have access to that equipment. And then, of course, you mentioned updates and new features. I personally would probably leave things alone as much as possible. I, myself, at least on my personal devices, I love to try out all the new stuff. I get very excited when a new feature comes out or the interface changes and, oh, look what they did here with this. But when you're actually teaching, that can get very confusing. You wanna know where the present now button is. You wanna know where the search icon lives. And sometimes they move that stuff around. So my recommendation is always to apply software updates and, at least when you have control over that, to apply that at the start of the school year right about now when you have some time before the students come in or before you start using that platform, and then also on scheduled breaks. You know, you can go, for fall break is coming up in not that many more weeks for some of us, Christmas break. You can time those updates so you have a little bit of a chance to absorb that new interface and any new features if you wanna practice them out yourself. As opposed to coming into your classroom and noticing that, you know, the layout of your board in front of the classroom is now all different. It's a different wallpaper and the apps changed. We would hate that to happen. So at least when you have that level of control over your devices, if you can cancel a software update, postpone it until you're ready. I know in Boxlight, we always push our software updates at school break times. So the school IT teams and the teachers have a little chance just to absorb that information. And if there are any issues, we can work that out before it's in front of the students. And depending on your school district, of course, what access you have to which tools will no doubt vary. So Yes, ma'am. What are some strategies for finding out if, in fact, your district has invested in new educational tools? And then how can you advocate for access to tools that you find beneficial? Mhmm. Definitely. Now a lot of districts will go ahead and purchase district licenses or school licenses for software that isn't free. And in addition, a lot of other software maybe will have a tier where it's, you know, additional features for educators with a paid plan, for instance, as opposed to the free tier that everyone can access. And I find that a lot of times teachers just don't know if that's available to them. And sometimes the school will pay for something and the teachers have no idea. So it's always a good idea to talk to the IT team, the technology director, or even your school administrator just to see, hey. Do we have access to this? I've I read about this tool in this really cool article or I saw this video on TikTok of another teacher using this. Do we have that, or can we get that? Look how cool this is. So most of the time, your admin is gonna be the best source for that because they're gonna be able to make that push, for the financial side of things. You're going to want to get them on your side and convince them, and look how cool this is. Concrete examples, you know, my my team and I could really use this for collaboration, and look how great this is for small group time. And I find that at the start of the school year, people often are a little bit more open to that idea, that maybe they want their teachers excited when they come back into the classroom. It's a time of year where everybody is trying to inspire the team and make sure we start the year off strong. And so if you find something that you think is really beneficial, oftentimes people can flex things a bit and make that happen for you. If you're curious if something is already available to you, you don't have quite the contacts in the district, you know where to look, a lot of places also will have a district software center. So if there's a downloadable app or a passcode or something for that device that you might need to access it, checking in the district software center may be a good step on that front as well because people often have limited ability to install their own applications. You know, you're on a managed device from the district, and so checking on what they allow you to install is a good hint about the kinds of things that they will allow you to use the paid software versions of. But another strategy, of course, is just to use free tools. Thankfully, we live in an age where Google especially has so many excellent classroom ready tools, all available for free forever, And Microsoft isn't far behind in terms of access to their tools. So most of the time, you will probably be able to find an alternative even if you don't have access to the fancy version. Yeah. And you really wanna take advantage of anything that's available to you and utilize those resources. Speaking of which, how can teachers make the most of those new resources maybe that are available at school libraries such as three d printers or stem charts? How can they be used to integrate into lesson plans? Of course. I find when I visit a district oftentimes, they're not even aware on the ground and the classroom level of the kinds of things that are purchased already by the district and just waiting for being used by the students. So, you mentioned three d printers as a classic example. They make a great demo, and so tech directors love to buy three d printers. And let's face it. I have one behind me. We like to sell them three d printers. And they're an amazing classroom tool, but they have to be introduced in a way that the teachers know what to do with them and, crucially, then know that they exist. If they're hiding in a closet, maybe in the library was often where they get put. You don't even know how to use something you don't even understand that you have access to. So that's the real challenge is discovering what's out there for you already. A lot of times, these really high purchase items, they're going to be shared among classrooms. So you might have a lab kit that can be rented out for the day, and then, you know, multiple classrooms would share that device. The printers, you have to book time on them, for instance, so you're not overlapping with another teacher. And so a lot of that is handled, hopefully, by a particular stakeholder in the school. Oftentimes, that's the librarian, but it might be the STEM teacher in the case of something like that lab kit. And sometimes that equipment goes really underutilized. So I would check with those teachers who have more of a special focus, or tend to accumulate a lot of equipment. They have the space for it in the library, see what they have, and check. But once you understand what you have, the real challenge is discovering how to use it. So integrating those things with your existing lesson plans can oftentimes be really daunting. Now a lot of times, districts will have somebody working on curriculum, and hopefully, they integrate the things that they've placed in those schools so you can use them directly with the curriculum. You know, maybe there's a unit, where you're learning about density, and so the three d printer can be perfect for that. You can print objects of different densities, then have the students test them out right there in class, a really classic standard for elementary education. And so, hopefully, they've done that work of integrating with your existing curriculum. But if not, there are a number of ways. There are a lot of helpful online resources, from our company and others as well that will give you a leg up in that direction. So if we're talking about the STEM equipment, for example, my stem kits dot com is our STEM curriculum. It's completely standard aligned and assumes, a variety of stem equipment that you may have purchased. So you can check the lessons that work with our sensor probes. So if you wanna do a temperature lesson, that's where you turn to. And if you have access to a printer, you can look for the three d printing lessons, whether that's one of our printers or not. You have that flexibility. So those resources are out there. They usually just take a little extra, time investment to plan ahead, And I know that's not always the easiest thing to do, but if you have access to that equipment, the thing that hurts my heart the most when I see this stuff is a district that spends a ton of money on really great high high end equipment and then they don't follow through and communicate with the teachers, then they have no chance of using it and it just collects dust. And with all of the funding and other systemic issues in our education system that we're trying to work through as educators, just flat out wasting money on equipment that nobody knows about is one of the most annoying to me. Yeah. I'm sure. So I don't think we can get through any talk about tech without mentioning AI because artificial intelligence is a hot topic everywhere, but especially in education. So what are some practical ways that teachers can use AI to create lesson plans or activities, but then kind of a cautionary tale. What ways can teachers also avoid potential pitfalls? Because we have a great debate when it comes to AI. It's so great. And then it can be a little scary. Definitely. And AI is really at the forefront of teaching nowadays. I mean, whether you like it or not, your students are almost certainly making use of AI, perhaps in nefarious ways. So it's important to understand what the tools can do and to use them in ways that help to improve the quality of your teaching. I was a really strong AI skeptic, maybe about a year ago when these tools started flooding the market, because I saw that they were replacing things that we need real teacher creativity for. You know, I'm I'm a hobbyist photographer myself. And when I see somebody saying, oh, AI is just gonna replace all photography. I'm like, well, probably not because you're still photographing real people most of the time. Same goes for educators. You know, you have your own perspective, and it's important for you and your unique classroom community to have that connection and that communication that stems from what only you and your individual students can put together. But with that being said, there is a lot that AI can do to help alleviate some of the drudgery. For example, there are tools that will allow you to draft communication with students and teachers. So if you're like me and you hate writing mass emails, and every Friday, you need to send out your newsletter, but that always is a challenge for you to finish that, edit that, make sure everything is up to date. Well, there are AI services that will accomplish that for you. There are AI services that will help you with data analysis, for instance. There are AI services that will help you draft an IEP for students who need that. So some of these things that are more on the busy work front that maybe you put off till the end of the day or you wish you had more time for the creative and more engaging aspects of teaching, that's where I see it really becoming more useful. So there are a few types of AI that I can mention that may help you out. The first one that most people probably think about is your standard AI chatbot. That's something like a chat GPT, a Google Gemini, a Microsoft Copilot. And those are really useful in a lot of different contexts. Kind of their utility stems from their flexibility. You ask it a question, and it will reply with pretty much whatever you needed. So that could be drawing a picture, that could be creating a menu, or, you know, asking about a particular historical figure. But they are a chatbot. So if the kind of teaching you're doing requires a little bit more visual aspect, maybe a little more structure than just paragraphs of text, then we start running into some of the limitations of those. And there are certainly really great educational opportunities from chatbots. I've seen people do debates in class where you can have it, you know, take the side of a historical figure, and the students can challenge it and ask about, you know, why did Abraham Lincoln make these decisions about, you know, how to go about the civil war and all of the societal issues surrounding that. And so that's a really great use of it. But at times, the chatbot interface can feel both a little bit limiting and a little bit intimidating. And so there are a few new services out there. Magic School is one that springs to mind that has sort of a more streamlined approach. Instead of having to type in the prompts one by one, you'll have a little button that just says something like, hey. I need, some choice board options for my class tomorrow. And you click it and away you go. And it's a lot more, I would say, efficient for educators, and I really like that approach. One of the products from Boxlight, the new MyClass teaching software, MyClass can automatically generate a lesson for you. And the thing that I like the most about it is that anything it generates in this slide, you can do slide intros, you can do pictures, you can do bullet points about each individual topic and subtopic, but the best part is that you can edit that all afterwards. So it will give you a list of information. And if you need to trim that down, if you need to change it, if it's made an error that you spot, you can go in and adjust it, which is super important because AI hallucinates a lot. That's kind of the the fun term for when AI just completely goes off the rails and gets things wrong. And we always wanna make sure that there's a way back from that. So, ideally, before the students see this content, you're managing it. You're sifting through it. That's why some of these chatbots scare me a little bit because they can just start talking about something that you'd rather not bring up in class at least at that time. So just be aware of that. The other thing that AI use is going to help you with is also recognizing when students are using AI. In some cases, that might be appropriate, but a lot of the times I hear about students using AI when really they're supposed to be using their own brains instead. And so once you understand sort of the diction of some of these chatbots, the types of vocabulary, the sentence structure they like to use, and you'll pick up on that just from reading the responses that it gives to you. You're probably going to have a finer tuned sense for when students are maybe playing outside the rules a little bit. There are also, of course, services to detect that as well. You can find any number of them out there on the Internet, but just use caution when you start using these new tools. Make sure you're aware of some of the limitations, and the things that maybe we wish the AI wasn't quite so good at, like, writing student papers for them. And I like how you hit on, you know, there's a lot of talk about, will AI take this job, that job, creativity and that human creativity that you cannot duplicate, with chat GPD or anything else and using technology in the right way will allow teachers to have more time to use the creativity and the things that make them so special. And that's why we have our human teachers. So how can teachers balance the use of technology in the classroom to ensure it serves a clear educational purpose and doesn't detract from effective teaching? Absolutely. And I find that a lot of people tend to really become enamored with technology for technology's sake. Maybe not so many teachers, but just a lot of members of the general public. They see something new, and they get really excited about it. And that's great, but it's here as a tool. It's not teaching for us. It's just another classroom tool, and we should make sure we use it as such. There are times when it's appropriate to use technology. There's times when it's better to take the low tech approach. I would always want to balance face to face time with my class, making sure they actually still know how to write with a notebook and pencil as opposed to simply typing, and practicing some of those fine motor skills, especially at the younger ages that otherwise go undeveloped. But classroom technology, just make sure when you're thinking about integrating a new tool or an app or something exciting you found that it has a clear defined purpose. Start from the goal. You know, we we talk about backwards lesson design where we want to, first of all, lay out our objectives and then build the lesson from that. The same goes from technology. So think about what you need to accomplish in your classroom and try to find a tool that matches that or at least comes as close as possible. Instead of going the other direction where you see a really fun demo on AI and you try to create an activity that you weren't going to do anyway, but because AI exists, you think, well, hey. I better use it and try it with this activity. Far better to go the other direction. So I would say just pause and consider, is this really the best way I could accomplish this task? Maybe it's better to close our Chromebooks for a while and work without them, in this particular case. I know there are so many issues with students having access to classroom devices where they go off and they do their own thing. Maybe that's a a a website they shouldn't be viewing on their Chromebook, or they pull their smartphone out and they get distracted and they actually don't follow along with what you're saying. So also at the same time, we have to be setting expectations for our online behavior and what's called digital citizenship. So knowing what is appropriate online and how to protect yourself even as a educator or as a student. So Google actually has a really great program called Be Internet Awesome, that walks students through the perils of living online. So things like spam or, maybe how to protect your identity, how to look out for red flags on social media, etcetera. That's really becoming even more important now than ever. Students are living on their smart devices, but that doesn't mean they're automatically good at communication or, collaboration with peers. And they need to practice those skills on technology, but also in person. So make sure you're not neglecting that sort of baseline of human communication that needs to take place because it's really all the same types of interactions, whether they're doing that through a keyboard or whether they are doing that in your classroom. Building one will inevitably affect the other. So make sure that you're taking that into account and just keeping an eye on what students are up to as well as having that clear defined purpose for the technology at all times. So you're not just, making sure or so you're not I'm trying to think how to say this here. Just make sure you have that clear defined purpose with technology so that you're not just using the tool for fun, but instead having that educational value for all your students. It's really important to keep that in mind. And a lot of value from this conversation. I think we could talk for a few more hours about all of technology, what it can bring to the educational world, but, unfortunately, we're almost out of time. So any final thoughts, Evan, and maybe some resources that you can share? Because I'm sure people are listening to this and saying, you know what? I I wanna learn more or I have questions. Where can they go? Where can you send them? Of course. Well, just recently in our conversation, I brought up the Google, service, the be Internet Awesome. So if you just search for that, that is going to provide you with a whole list of resources, both guides, reading material for your students, but also some fun games for them to become better digital citizens. So that's a really great resource right there. And we also talked about some AI tools. So depending on whether your school is primarily Google School or a Microsoft School or maybe you mix use a mix of both, Google Gemini is their sort of chatbot, and then Microsoft is Copilot. Those will all be available from the Google or Microsoft websites. You can just give them a search. They will be more than happy to point out their new AI tools for you. As far as Boxlight goes, we here at Boxlight create, MyClass, which is a really fun, and very powerful educational software. It runs on front of classroom devices, student devices. You can present lessons. You can build lessons. I mentioned the AI lesson builder feature. You can have a full blended learning experience if you need that or just limit that to in classroom interactions. Basically, the sky's the limit for how you wanna use my class. It'll do a little bit of everything for you in your, education. And then, we also have three d printers, classroom supplies like lab equipment, robotics, etcetera through our STEM division, which is really great at providing not only the devices, but also that curriculum. How do we go about using these things? Trying to streamline the integration of those tools as much as we can to make the teachers' lives that much easier so they don't have to come up with all of these new strategies for using something like a three d printer if your school has one available. So I would, visit the Boxlight website, and we have links there to both our software division and our STEM division. Of course, we have a whole range of classroom solutions. Those are just the ones top of mind at the moment for embracing new technology and the kinds of solutions that might be out there. It really is exciting to see all the technology. I almost wanna go back to school. Almost. Not quite, but it is it is tempting to see what the students have now and the teachers have as well. Evan Brusch, training and development specialist at Boxlight. Evan, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here. I'm so excited, as I said, about all of this is going on, and thank you for kind of not only putting some things out there that teachers can learn about, but giving them that grace as you said, and the freedom that they can take a deep breath and they don't have to learn all of this overnight. So appreciate your time today. Yes. Thank you, Michelle. Great talking to you. Thank you. You as well. And I wanna thank all of you for tuning in and listening to Unbox Innovation, the podcast brought to you by Boxlight. And as Evan said, you can visit boxlight dot com for more information there on everything that Evan talked about and more. If you want to hear more engaging conversations like the one you heard today. Thanks again for joining us. I'm your host, Michelle Dawn Mooney. We hope to connect with you on another podcast soon.