Tag Archives: technology

Sorry, my brain is full

Since March there have been so many new demands on educators. The path has not been easy. And the new school year has added many more expectations compared to having 70% of the year already completed, when Covid-19 brought with it the new phrase, ‘remote learning’.

How do I do effective group work with students one or two meters apart? How do I do collaborative projects and minimize the sharing of resources? How do I facilitate student-to-student communication when some students are in class and the rest are learning from home? How do I effectively engage students working from home on web conferencing tools. These and many more questions combine to overwhelm educators who are coping with learning on the fly as they navigate a new frontier.

It really isn’t easy.

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Let’s pause here and think about our students:

How does it feel to be new to a country, not know the language, and have to learn, when everything said needs to be translated and most words are not understood?

How does it feel to be introduced to y=mx+b when you struggle with Math, and never really understood how ‘x‘ was a number, and fractions confuse you?

How does it feel to have to learn the krebs cycle when the chemistry and vocabulary is all totally new to you?

How are you supposed to interpret the meaning of a story when every 5th word is either new to you or seems out of context related to the words around it?

How are you supposed to work from home when the home environment is filled with distractions and interruptions that don’t happen at school?

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While educators struggle to learn in new environments and with new tools, let’s pause and think about how hard learning is for some of our kids, who are also learning in new environments and with new tools… and new content they have never seen before.

Decades behind where we should be

I have been on Alexa with my in-laws for over an hour trying to help them set up a wireless printer. We just got disconnected after they tried to take Alexa over to the router. This is way harder than it should be. It’s worse than trying to load disks and follow the instructions, so that I could access the internet through AOL… back in the late 80’s!

I just reconnected with my in-laws and they’ve had enough for the night. I’m not sure if they are truly done or if they just feel that they are taking too much of my time… they aren’t but I’m guessing that’s playing on their minds anyway.

Here’s the thing, none of this is easy and I’d probably struggle a bit even if I was there. It wasn’t just me trying to help them navigate a simple menu, it was a confusing set-up. The tiny keyboard gave limited buttons that my in-laws struggled with, having to hit the 1/2 button twice for 2 and the 3/4 button twice for the number 4. It’s a complicated 10-digit password on the wifi that is the default set-up. It’s the printer asking for a PIN rather than Wifi Password as the default, with PIN instructions buried somewhere in the tiny font instructions.

It’s not just this printer. I recently spent an hour and half helping my daughter switch to a new iPhone. I couldn’t load a purchased app on my TV to let it screen share easily from our Apple products. I spent about 30 minutes trying to sync two bluetooth speakers that have a ‘friendly’ app to help me.

How is it that in this day and age of connectivity, nothing likes talking to each other and every connection takes so much effort?

What does it mean to be tech savvy?

A number of years ago, I wrote this:

 I am not Tech Savvy! If I had a pair of dimes for every time someone said, ‘Dave, you are good with computers, can you help me with this…” then I could retire early. I’ll explain this with a tangent example: The fact is that I happen to be a very good driver. Put me behind the wheel of a car, even in a snow storm, and I’ll get you to your destination safely. However, don’t ask me to do anything more to the car than put gas or windshield washer fluid in it… maybe check the tire pressure… that’s it! Give me a working computer and I can do pretty good there too! Not because I’m savvy though… just because I spend hours trying things.

Yesterday @AubreyDiOrio tweeted:

And I responded:

Then @RobHeinrichs replied to me saying:

We are all good at different things that we are also not necessarily experts in. Our mindsets really do matter. Our willingness to be patient, ask questions, and tinker also matter.

When I say I’m not tech savvy, it means that I don’t know how to code or do programming. It means I can’t build a computer without a manual, a dozen YouTube ‘How to’ videos, and phoning a friend. It means that when I see an error, I can only fix it with the help of Google… if I can fix it at all. It means I point people to tech support after I’ve failed to help.

Yet I’m asked tech questions all the time. I’m looked at to solve problems that I don’t know how to solve when I’m asked. But I’m willing to put in the time, research, and energy to figure it out… and I’m not afraid to ask for help myself. That’s not savvy, that’s patience and effort, all dressed up to look like savvy… it’s a fun outfit, and you can wear it too.

A step behind

I asked my daughter if she saw this new way of cutting a mango?

“Dad, you are so behind on your Tik Tok trends, I saw that ages ago.”

Yes, I’m behind. We all are in different areas of our lives. There is always a new tool, a new approach, a new technique that you will bump into.

The iPhone did everything with one button, now the new ones don’t have a button. People try to put gas in Teslas. Light switches you touch instead of toggle. Apps update, move things around, and add features you need to stumble on to know they are there. And now even the rules for social engagement keep changing.

No one is ‘caught up’, everyone is a step behind somewhere. These days, that’s normal. Things change quickly. Some would say too quickly. But things change, and we catch up.

We just need to give ourselves a little time. We just need to accept some ambiguity and unknown. We need to be unafraid to ask questions. We need to know that it’s ok to feel a little behind… as long as we aren’t stagnating, we are moving forward.

Data, Tales, and Tools

I love this quote by James Clear,

“The two skills of modern business: Storytelling and spreadsheets. 

Know the numbers. Craft the narrative.”

But it made me think of a third skill: understanding the technology we use.

It’s not enough to know the numbers, you have to know what to do with the numbers. It’s one thing to be able to look at an excel spreadsheet, it’s yet another to know how to use pivot tables and macros in order to make those numbers really useful to you.

It’s not enough to craft the narrative unless you know how to use the advertising, social, and search tools to deliver that message. It’s one thing to craft a narrative, it’s yet another to get that story or message to the people who need to hear it.

Too often we understand the basics of using tools, but we don’t know how to harness all the features and benefits of our tools. Excel can help manipulate and make sense of data far more than I’m capable of using this powerful tool. Zoom allows breakout rooms and surveys that most people don’t use. PowerPoint can record, and translate, and follow different paths depending on responses to questions. Twitter is more powerful if you understand hashtags. Website analytics can tell you where people are visiting your site from, what they click, and what pages they leave your site from.

Yes, we need to know the numbers, and be able to craft a narrative, but we also need to know how to harness the power of the tools we use to make sense of our numbers, and to transmit and share our narrative to its intended audience.

It changes everything

I came across this quote last night:

“Technological change is neither additive nor subtractive. It is ecological. I mean “ecological” in the same sense as the word is used by environmental scientists. One significant change generates total change. If you remove the caterpillars from a given habitat, you are not left with the same environment minus caterpillars: you have a new environment, and you have reconstituted the conditions of survival; the same is true if you add caterpillars to an environment that has had none. This is how the ecology of media works as well. A new technology does not add or subtract something. It changes everything.” ~ Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

I’ve previously shared in a post titled, ‘Transformative or just flashy educational tools?‘

A tool is just a tool! I can use a hammer to build a house and I can use the same hammer on a human skull. It’s not the tool, but how you use it that matters.

That’s how technology isn’t just ecological. Adding a caterpillar to an environment changes the environment, it changes the equilibrium in unforeseen ways, but ways that are inevitable based on all the moving parts seeking to find a new balance. The environment finds a new homeostasis.

Technology has bias. It has uses, and it has unintended uses. A technological advancement doesn’t just have unintended consequences, it also has unintended uses and misuses. When it is misused, the response is often an over-reaction. We’ve seen that in schools with internet filters, cell phones, and social media.

Technology also has bias in what we pay attention to. The idea of a multiple choice test is a technology that made questions about ‘the what’ of specific content more relevant than ‘the how’ and ‘the why’. It also invited teachers to develop questions and answers designed (on purpose and by mistake) to confuse the student… after all, it defeats the purpose of a multiple choice test to have only one answer be relevant, but only one answer is ‘right’.

A laptop in a student’s hands is a powerful tool for learning, and it’s a powerful tool for distraction. It’s a window into the world, it’s also a tool that can isolate students from their peers. It’s a way to transmit information to students, it’s also a way to give them voice and choice in a project.

In each of these cases, technology is disruptive. It alters the environment in unforeseen ways that do not move towards a new equilibrium. Technology doesn’t move the environment towards homeostasis, instead it undermines norms. It invites uses and misuses that are unintended or unwelcome, and that brings new concerns as well as new opportunities.

Technology doesn’t just change our relationship to the tool, it changes the relationship to our environment. It changes everything.

We can’t escape technological advancement.


However, we can expect tools to be used in unexpected ways, and we can respond with intention and purpose, which is a lot different that anger and frustration.

We can ask ourselves what the intentions of a tool’s use are, and we can reflect on whether these intentions are being met. Technology will fundamentally change our learning environments, technology will support and/or undermine our intentions. We are better off influencing this bias thoughtfully rather than letting unintended biases undermine us. Hammers can produce some amazing work, or they can cause a lot of damage.

Dave and Dave podcast 28

7 Parenting Tips During Covid-19 – Video Version

I recently revived my podcast. I’ve had conversations with Kelly Christopherson, Jonathan Sclater, Joe Truss, and Dave Sands. Because of COVID-19, I can’t sit next to people to interview them for my podcast. I couldn’t do that for Kelly in Saskatchewan or Joe in California anyway, but for sure that would have been the preferred approach to interview Jonathan and Dave. For all 4 of these interviews I used Zoom, and Dave and I were talking last week about the idea of also putting the podcast out on video. So, here it is, my podcast with Dave Sands in video form.

Description: This is the video version of Podcasting Pair-a-Dimes #28 with David Truss. My guest is Principal Dave Sands. We discuss 7 tips to help parents, who are supporting their kids learning at home (as a result of remote learning due to COVID-19). The 7 tips are:

    1. Manage Expectations
    2. Make a Schedule
    3. Minimize Distractions
    4. Learning occurs everywhere
    5. Set daily and weekly goals
    6. All screen time is not created equal
    7. Model learning.

I think this topic is relevant almost everywhere in the world right now, and I believe that we discussed some great tips for parent, not only when dealing with their kids learning at home, but also in general to support their kids success at school.

The tech won’t always work… and that’s ok.

I’ve been ‘playing’ with digital learning and technology for a while now. My first blog post was in 2006 and my first podcast was in 2012. It’s Sunday night and I published a podcast over an hour ago. It usually takes a while to get onto iTunes, because first it has to go to a podcast hosting site called Blubrry. I did this a week and a half ago, and it went to Blubrry and then to iTunes pretty quickly. But tonight the new podcast won’t move to that first step, and I have no idea why? Even after I ‘ping‘ the website, (even though that should happen automatically), my post won’t go to Blubrry. That’s the frustrating thing, I don’t think I did anything different but somehow it won’t work. It might need time, and everything will be fine in the morning by the time this is published. It might not and I’ll have a whole lot of troubleshooting to do.

I do podcasts for fun. I do podcasts to learn. I’ll learn from this, but right now it doesn’t feel like fun.

Educators, as you head into the new world of ‘remote learning’, while we cope with social distancing, empty schools, and COVID-19 continuing to keep us physically separate, please realize that the technology doesn’t always work as planned. It doesn’t always work for the neophytes, and it doesn’t always work for the people like me that think they know what they are doing. When you get frustrated, and you will, remember this: Remember a time when you were really excited to teach a lesson. You stayed up late figuring things out and setting up the handouts for kids. Then you got to school and the photocopier jams horribly. You have no time to get your printing done. Dang! Your whole plan is done and needs reworking. At that point, you didn’t say to yourself, “That’s it, I’m never using the photocopier again!” That would be silly.

You’ll try using some technology for the first time and it won’t go as planned. You’ll try doing a video conferencing lesson and it will flop. You’ll have students doing things you didn’t expect them to do. And you’ll work it out. You’ll connect with your students. You’ll laugh at yourself and they’ll laugh too. You’ll get a lesson or two from a student that knows more than you. And soon, you’ll feel much better about the technology and the strategies you are using.

Oh, and even then, there will be times when the technology doesn’t work… and that’s ok.

Just shifting online or shifting the learning?

Across the globe schools are closing due to Covid-19 and the learning is being moved online. I recently shared in my Daily-Ink post, ‘Novel ideas can spread from a novel virus‘:

Discussion about the possibility of remote learning invites questions about blended learning where some of the work, both asynchronous and synchronous, is done remotely. It also invites conversations and questions about what we should be spending our time on when we do get together?

…this virus is impacting the world the way it is might impact how we think about operating our schools and businesses in the future. What excites me isn’t the idea that more work might be done remotely, but rather the ideas behind what we do when we connect face-to-face, and how we use that time? Will we focus more on collaboration, team building, social skills, construction and creation of projects, and more personalized support? How will we engage students in learning when they might not be coming to school every day?

With the shift of learning at school moving digital, the only thing that seems to be shared on my Twitter feed as much as Coronavirus updates are online resources. There are tons of free resources that you can use/share and teach with. But the idea that all we need to do is put work we are usually doing in a class online can lead to disengaged and overworked students.

“In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus.” ~ James Clear

Here are a few things to think about as course content is moved online, and lessons are taught from a distance:

What can you do synchronously? There are amazing tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom that allow you to meet with students. How will this time be used? Will you lecture or allow students to meet in groups? Will it be a Powerpoint presentation or a discussion? If you are giving a presentation that can be pre-recorded or viewed online asynchronously, then are you utilizing your synchronous time effectively?

What can you edit out? Taking everything you do face-to-face and trying to put it online will be overwhelming, especially for students that already struggle in class. What are the essential things students need to learn? What skills and competencies do they need and how can you create a positive learning environment to learn these skills?

What assignments can you create that engage the learner with questions that do not have a single correct answer? How can you make the assignments open ended? For instance, these video writing prompts invite students to personalize their writing, and can provide a variety of writing samples that can show you their writing competencies… while not being cookie-cutter assignments that box students in. The videos are easy to embed and share, and the answers can promote great discussions when you meet synchronously.

To summarize, ask yourself a few questions when you are shifting from regularly meeting students to providing an online/digital program:

  1. What should you do to most effectively utilize synchronous time, when you have it scheduled?
  2. What can you take out of your course so that you are reducing the expectations of students working from home, with less support than they get at school?
  3. How can you make assignments engaging, interactive, and interesting?
  4. What kind of things will you assess and how can you ensure that assessment is something that authentically assesses the students skills and competencies?

How can you shift the learning experience beyond just shifting everything online?

Also shared on Pair-A-Dimes for Your Thoughts.

No longer tool agnostic?

I wrote and believe that we should be ‘tool agnostic‘ in schools,

“We should ensure every student has a good tool available to them, and we should ensure we use these tools when it benefits to have the whole class on the same tool. However we should also give students choice when we can, and be tool agnostic… as long as the tool they use does not hinder their ability to accomplish the tasks they want or need to do.”

I still believe this, but I’m noticing that the suite of tools we are providing are locking kids in to a degree. If I am in a Microsoft district and I’m going to collaborate on a presentation, I’m going to find it easier to use PowerPoint since everyone already has collaboration accounts. Likewise with Google and their slide presentation tool.

A Microsoft using teacher doesn’t have to leave OneNote to mark and give feedback to a PowerPoint, but does need to for Google slides. A Google school might also be a Chromebook school, reducing choice of tools even further.

It’s one thing to say we are tool agnostic, and yet another to realize we are pushing students into using common tools for ease of use for both students and teachers.

I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, it provides equity with ever improving tools, but I am recognizing that we are moving students away from being tool agnostic and it’s something to think about.