Enhancing Learning: Integrating Technology and Addressing Diverse Needs
In this episode, we explore the thoughtful integration of technology in education, with a focus on supporting students with learning differences. We discuss strategies for evaluating and implementing ed tech tools to create accessible and effective learning environments. Dr. Joan McGettigan shares insights on balancing innovation with proven pedagogical practices, and the importance of collaboration between IT and Ed Tech departments.
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Transcript
Peter Frank 00:00:02
Phil, welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS,
Peter Frank 00:00:05
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Peter Frank 00:00:08
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.
Peter Frank 00:00:12
We'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Peter Frank 00:00:15
special guests from the Independent School community,
Peter Frank 00:00:17
and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Peter Frank 00:00:21
And now please welcome your host. Kristina Lewellen,
Christina Lewellen 00:00:25
Hello everyone, and welcome back to
Christina Lewellen 00:00:27
talking technology with Atlas. I am Kristina Lewellen, the
Christina Lewellen 00:00:30
President and CEO of the Association of Technology
Christina Lewellen 00:00:33
Leaders in Independent
Bill Stites 00:00:34
Schools. And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites 00:00:37
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites 00:00:40
Jersey, and
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:42
I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:44
and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in Richmond,
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:47
Virginia.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:48
Hello, gentlemen. How are you today?
Christina Lewellen 00:00:50
I'm in pretty good so, Hiram, you were on the road, right? So
Christina Lewellen 00:00:55
yesterday you were in warm temperatures. Today, you're in a
Christina Lewellen 00:00:57
snowstorm, and already, as we got on the pod to begin
Christina Lewellen 00:01:01
recording, you had an electricity flicker. How cold is
Christina Lewellen 00:01:06
it there? It's
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:08
19 degrees, according to my phone. But I do
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:11
want to wish a belated Happy birthday to my mom. We
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:14
celebrated her 79th birthday over the weekend. Awesome. Nice.
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:19
So it was all exciting town in Florida.
Bill Stites 00:01:22
Happy birthday, Mama Cuevas, that's really
Christina Lewellen 00:01:24
exciting. Happy birthday to her. And you
Christina Lewellen 00:01:27
know, you got to love a long happy life with lots of family
Christina Lewellen 00:01:31
coming down to Florida to celebrate with you. There's
Christina Lewellen 00:01:33
nothing wrong with
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:34
any of that. Nothing wrong at all palm trees
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:37
and little bit of libation. Yeah. Which
Bill Stites 00:01:43
never hurts. She deserves
Christina Lewellen 00:01:44
it. Well, gentlemen, we have an exciting
Christina Lewellen 00:01:47
podcast today. I'm really excited we're gonna dive into ed
Christina Lewellen 00:01:50
tech a little bit more. You know that we go back and forth on
Christina Lewellen 00:01:53
this pod. We talk about it and technical things. We talk about
Christina Lewellen 00:01:56
ed tech things. Sometimes we profile individuals who have
Christina Lewellen 00:01:59
done incredible work in our space. And I think today we're
Christina Lewellen 00:02:02
going to do a bit of all of that. Today we welcome to the
Christina Lewellen 00:02:05
podcast. Dr Joan McGettigan, she is the Director of Educational
Christina Lewellen 00:02:09
Technology at the Windward school in New York, and so
Christina Lewellen 00:02:13
joining us from probably pretty chilly temperatures, is Joan.
Christina Lewellen 00:02:17
Hello, Joan, welcome to the podcast.
Joan McGettigan 00:02:19
Hello all. I'm honored to be here. Love the
Joan McGettigan 00:02:22
Atlas podcast. You all have the best people and have the best
Joan McGettigan 00:02:27
conversations. So excited to join in today. Thank you guys.
Christina Lewellen 00:02:31
We have a fan. You might be our first I
Christina Lewellen 00:02:36
love this. As I mentioned, you are up in the colder part of our
Christina Lewellen 00:02:39
country right now. How cool is it? Where you are? Well,
Christina Lewellen 00:02:43
yesterday,
Joan McGettigan 00:02:43
the wind chill was seven degrees.
Christina Lewellen 00:02:47
That's single digit. That's pretty
Christina Lewellen 00:02:48
rough. Yeah,
Joan McGettigan 00:02:50
so I'm looking out on fields that are filled
Joan McGettigan 00:02:53
with snow. We have campuses in Westchester, White Plains, New
Joan McGettigan 00:02:57
York, but we also have a campus in Manhattan, so no snow there,
Joan McGettigan 00:03:03
but White Plains is overflowing with snow and ice. Can
Christina Lewellen 00:03:06
you tell us a little bit more about the
Christina Lewellen 00:03:08
school? Are you a K, 12?
Joan McGettigan 00:03:11
No, we are actually one through nine. So we
Joan McGettigan 00:03:13
have three campuses. We serve a special population, students
Joan McGettigan 00:03:18
with dyslexia and other language based disabilities. It's not
Joan McGettigan 00:03:23
similar to other independent schools where a lot of students
Joan McGettigan 00:03:26
could be lifers. You know, I'd say Christophers, they come in
Joan McGettigan 00:03:29
and they stay at that school in Richmond for life, right? It's a
Joan McGettigan 00:03:33
big deal to graduate, and you have this incredible community
Joan McGettigan 00:03:37
here at Windward. Our intent is actually to get them out the
Joan McGettigan 00:03:41
door. We want to be able to bring them in and help them
Joan McGettigan 00:03:46
read, help them write, help with executive functioning skills,
Joan McGettigan 00:03:51
and then successfully out place to the school of their choice in
Joan McGettigan 00:03:56
usually, an average of three to four years.
Christina Lewellen 00:03:59
That's really incredible. I can't wait
Christina Lewellen 00:04:01
to dive into all the ways that technology supports that
Christina Lewellen 00:04:04
mission, but first, let's pause and get a little bit of
Christina Lewellen 00:04:07
information about you. Tell us about your background. You have
Christina Lewellen 00:04:10
had a lot of different roles. You've approached this work
Christina Lewellen 00:04:13
through different lenses. So can you tell everybody a little bit
Christina Lewellen 00:04:16
about your journey?
Joan McGettigan 00:04:17
I actually started off on Wall Street. I
Joan McGettigan 00:04:20
was a research associate on tobacco and food companies of
Joan McGettigan 00:04:25
all things, and through volunteer work at a school in
Joan McGettigan 00:04:29
Harlem, fell in love with teaching so much my parents
Joan McGettigan 00:04:32
dismay, I announced that I was going back to school because I
Joan McGettigan 00:04:35
had never taken any education classes. So I got my master's in
Joan McGettigan 00:04:40
elementary and masters in educational technology, and then
Joan McGettigan 00:04:44
became this kind of role at Trinity Episcopal in New
Joan McGettigan 00:04:49
Orleans, after three years, moved back to Connecticut and
Joan McGettigan 00:04:53
became a classroom teacher at a public school in New Canaan,
Joan McGettigan 00:04:57
Connecticut for about 10 years. And then ventured back into
Joan McGettigan 00:05:02
technology, moved down to Florida so Hiram, love the palm
Joan McGettigan 00:05:08
trees, miss the sunshine. And I was at a school, North bar
Joan McGettigan 00:05:11
Preparatory School, which had no technology when I joined them.
Joan McGettigan 00:05:16
And over time, we became one to one iPad program, pre K through
Joan McGettigan 00:05:21
12 became an Apple Distinguished School, added a boarding
Joan McGettigan 00:05:25
population of almost 500 it was really great community, and in
Joan McGettigan 00:05:33
time, moved back to Connecticut, back into public school world.
Joan McGettigan 00:05:38
This kind of role in Darien, Connecticut, for entire school
Joan McGettigan 00:05:42
district, and then was looking for a place that was really
Joan McGettigan 00:05:46
mission driven, and was fortunate enough to join
Joan McGettigan 00:05:49
windward and helping students again with dyslexia and other
Joan McGettigan 00:05:53
language based disabilities. So that's kind of my fast journey
Joan McGettigan 00:05:57
over the past few years. That's
Christina Lewellen 00:06:01
awesome. I can definitely recognize and
Christina Lewellen 00:06:04
identify with the desire to be connected to the mission. Like
Christina Lewellen 00:06:07
doing work in pursuit of a shared goal is really cool, and
Christina Lewellen 00:06:11
we've definitely talked about that a lot, both within Atlas,
Christina Lewellen 00:06:15
but also on this pod. Can you tell me what Director of
Christina Lewellen 00:06:19
Educational Technology means for your school, what does your job
Christina Lewellen 00:06:23
description sort of look like, or what does your day to day
Christina Lewellen 00:06:25
look like?
Joan McGettigan 00:06:26
Christina, it's a really interesting question.
Joan McGettigan 00:06:28
Windward is a school that historically has never used that
Joan McGettigan 00:06:33
much technology, if you look at all the research about the
Joan McGettigan 00:06:36
connection between handwriting and comprehension. So for
Joan McGettigan 00:06:43
windward to hire me in this position really was the sort of
Joan McGettigan 00:06:48
leap of faith in eventually we're going to bridge the
Joan McGettigan 00:06:53
curriculum and technology and see where we can use technology
Joan McGettigan 00:06:58
thoughtfully, purposefully to really help students in this
Joan McGettigan 00:07:03
world that is becoming more and more AI focused. You know, how
Joan McGettigan 00:07:07
can we help our students to take advantage of that? How can we
Joan McGettigan 00:07:11
use technology to help support their development of executive
Joan McGettigan 00:07:15
functioning skills? So there's a variety of areas that I'm making
Joan McGettigan 00:07:22
progress in working with the faculty, but I probably spend a
Joan McGettigan 00:07:26
good bit of my time also doing things like curriculum mapping.
Joan McGettigan 00:07:30
So we are using Understanding by Design as our framework, and
Joan McGettigan 00:07:35
using a tool that I think you all agree is become increasingly
Joan McGettigan 00:07:39
popular in independent school world Toddle so our faculty like
Joan McGettigan 00:07:44
how easy it is to get the curriculum in there. Then once
Joan McGettigan 00:07:48
we have that in, you know the ability to make those
Joan McGettigan 00:07:52
connections for where technology can integrate in a really
Joan McGettigan 00:07:57
thoughtful process to help serve this population is going to be
Joan McGettigan 00:08:01
really powerful. So I know it might seem unusual that I'm
Joan McGettigan 00:08:04
spending so much time in curriculum, but I think
Joan McGettigan 00:08:07
historically, anyone in educational technology needs to
Joan McGettigan 00:08:12
develop a pretty good comprehensive understanding of
Joan McGettigan 00:08:16
what curriculum is across all subject areas and all grade
Joan McGettigan 00:08:20
level areas, because how else can we serve those populations
Joan McGettigan 00:08:24
if we don't understand how everything fits together, all
Joan McGettigan 00:08:28
those puzzle pieces? Since you
Christina Lewellen 00:08:30
took us to the big picture, let's stay
Christina Lewellen 00:08:33
there for a minute before we sort of drill down into the
Christina Lewellen 00:08:36
specifics of how your school uses technology to help those
Christina Lewellen 00:08:40
students with that successful transition that you noted. But
Christina Lewellen 00:08:44
let's stay higher than that and look at the World Economic Forum
Christina Lewellen 00:08:48
recently issued a job outlook, looking at the types of
Christina Lewellen 00:08:52
technology skills that we need to focus on looking at the
Christina Lewellen 00:08:56
future of jobs. So this report, released in January 2025 gives
Christina Lewellen 00:09:00
us some insight into what is happening and where things are
Christina Lewellen 00:09:05
going. How does that influence this work that you're doing
Christina Lewellen 00:09:09
around curriculum mapping? You
Joan McGettigan 00:09:12
know, it's so interesting. Kristina, and if I
Joan McGettigan 00:09:14
can take a leap back to the past, this particular report, I
Joan McGettigan 00:09:20
look forward every year to it, because I think it's fascinating
Joan McGettigan 00:09:23
to see how it has changed over time. I think analytical
Joan McGettigan 00:09:28
thinking has pretty much stayed as one of the top core skills
Joan McGettigan 00:09:33
over the past 1516, years. But I remember when I joined North Bar
Joan McGettigan 00:09:38
Prep in Florida, we had a course required for graduation that was
Joan McGettigan 00:09:45
mastery of Word, PowerPoint and Excel, and it was like this
Joan McGettigan 00:09:51
standalone class, and it did not serve its purpose anymore, so we
Joan McGettigan 00:09:55
moved that down to sixth grade. Designed a new class for.
Joan McGettigan 00:10:00
Branding and digital communication so that students
Joan McGettigan 00:10:03
would be better prepared. And that was really based on looking
Joan McGettigan 00:10:07
at that World Economic Forum report on jobs and outlook and
Joan McGettigan 00:10:12
thinking about our students really need to be trans,
Joan McGettigan 00:10:16
literate. They need to be able to navigate, interpret, create
Joan McGettigan 00:10:21
content, assess content in a variety of formats. And so I
Joan McGettigan 00:10:26
think that was a shift that we all felt in technology was
Joan McGettigan 00:10:30
helping our students gain these new skills and knowledge and
Joan McGettigan 00:10:35
apply it in a variety of ways, versus this kind of stand alone
Joan McGettigan 00:10:40
class. So when I look at curriculum mapping, I'm always
Joan McGettigan 00:10:44
looking to see where can we fit those transliterate skills. UbD
Joan McGettigan 00:10:50
approach always will ask us, what do we want students to
Joan McGettigan 00:10:55
know? What do we want students to be able to do? And why does
Joan McGettigan 00:10:59
that matter in understanding your why, as Simon Sinek always
Joan McGettigan 00:11:04
pushes right, underscores everything. And so if we are
Joan McGettigan 00:11:08
preparing students to successfully, in our case,
Joan McGettigan 00:11:11
successfully out place to environments that are heavily
Joan McGettigan 00:11:15
digital, we really need to look to this report and see where
Joan McGettigan 00:11:22
does it fit in our curriculum, in a way that makes sense, and
Joan McGettigan 00:11:25
in a way, and sorry to go on a bandwagon here, but I'm very
Joan McGettigan 00:11:30
much in this kind of subtraction mode right now. I feel like
Joan McGettigan 00:11:34
every year, schools add and add and add, and it's simply not
Joan McGettigan 00:11:38
possible. And I think this is one of the reasons students and
Joan McGettigan 00:11:43
certainly teachers, feel overwhelmed so much to do and
Joan McGettigan 00:11:47
that simply is impossible. So if you know your why and your
Joan McGettigan 00:11:50
mission, and you've drilled out and what is the essential things
Joan McGettigan 00:11:55
that you want students to know and be able to do, then I think
Joan McGettigan 00:11:58
it clarifies everything. So when I look at those top skills from
Joan McGettigan 00:12:04
the World Economic Forum, analytical thinking, Okay, I'm
Joan McGettigan 00:12:08
hip with that, resilience, leadership, creative thinking.
Joan McGettigan 00:12:12
You know, it goes all the way down to empathy, curiosity. But
Joan McGettigan 00:12:16
what fascinated me this year is, you know, the they do that 10
Joan McGettigan 00:12:21
fastest growing skills by 2030 I think, was the cut off point,
Joan McGettigan 00:12:27
and suddenly, this is the first year I saw a shift. And what was
Joan McGettigan 00:12:31
number one was AI and big data. And I was kind of shocked, and I
Joan McGettigan 00:12:37
was like, Where the heck did analytical thinking go? And I'm
Joan McGettigan 00:12:41
looking at it, and I think it moved down to number nine. So
Joan McGettigan 00:12:45
this influence of AI has this shift not just here, but around
Joan McGettigan 00:12:51
the world. And as you all have experienced, and as ATLIS has
Joan McGettigan 00:12:55
talked about quite a bit in the past year, is cybersecurity. So
Joan McGettigan 00:13:00
you have these two things that have popped up to the top of the
Joan McGettigan 00:13:03
charts, if you will, this really interesting change.
Bill Stites 00:13:08
So John, you touched on so much. And one of
Bill Stites 00:13:10
the things that really resonated, at least with both
Bill Stites 00:13:14
Hiram and I, had to do with the paring back and looking at what
Bill Stites 00:13:19
you're using and those different tools, and really coming back to
Bill Stites 00:13:22
that, and it's a topic that we've discussed both on the
Bill Stites 00:13:24
podcast and in general, and I have a question that relates to
Bill Stites 00:13:29
that you mentioned the type of school that you are and the
Bill Stites 00:13:32
student population that you serve, and again, the specific
Bill Stites 00:13:36
issues that you are working to address within that population,
Bill Stites 00:13:40
when It comes to those tools and when it comes to the choice of
Bill Stites 00:13:44
those tools. Recently, ATLIS hosted a webinar that Chand or
Bill Stites 00:13:49
Simon ran, and he was talking about using this dei lens for
Bill Stites 00:13:53
evaluating the tools, looking at the from a very broad spectrum
Bill Stites 00:13:58
in terms of looking at it with students that may be neuro
Bill Stites 00:14:01
divergent, students that have different types of learning
Bill Stites 00:14:03
issues, as well as a number of other different topics. When you
Bill Stites 00:14:08
start looking at those tools, when you start trying to think
Bill Stites 00:14:11
about the ways in which you're going to pick and choose those
Bill Stites 00:14:14
things, how do you take the uniqueness of windward and apply
Bill Stites 00:14:18
that to that vetting and evaluation process that you have
Bill Stites 00:14:21
to go through, and what are you specifically looking at that
Bill Stites 00:14:24
might be different than what a boarding or a K 12 college prep
Bill Stites 00:14:28
standard curricular type school be looking at?
Joan McGettigan 00:14:32
Well, it's interesting. So let me begin and
Joan McGettigan 00:14:35
AI world, we have a few different tools that we're
Joan McGettigan 00:14:39
piloting this year, before we think about what are things that
Joan McGettigan 00:14:43
we want to put in play to actively support students, one
Joan McGettigan 00:14:47
of those tools is school AI, the ability of our teachers to build
Joan McGettigan 00:14:53
a custom chat bot to support our students is everything. Because,
Joan McGettigan 00:14:58
as you may imagine, I. We rely heavily on direct instruction
Joan McGettigan 00:15:02
and scaffolding, and so if we can build something within using
Joan McGettigan 00:15:09
that tool in particular, it's really helpful for students to
Joan McGettigan 00:15:13
kind of get just the support that they need and be able to
Joan McGettigan 00:15:18
make those connections that help deep in their learning without
Joan McGettigan 00:15:23
some of the other AI tools that are out there that are maybe too
Joan McGettigan 00:15:26
helpful or misdirect students. You know, we set the agenda.
Joan McGettigan 00:15:31
When you're building that custom chat bot as a teacher, you're
Joan McGettigan 00:15:34
setting the parameters of exactly what guidance you want.
Joan McGettigan 00:15:39
So we're looking at, how can this really help our students?
Joan McGettigan 00:15:43
And we've done a little bit experimentation just to see how
Joan McGettigan 00:15:47
that fits. For example, we did this with students writing
Joan McGettigan 00:15:51
poetry which is not something that they would normally do in
Joan McGettigan 00:15:55
our program, so additional scaffolding was helpful, and
Joan McGettigan 00:15:59
then they were able to take that poetry, which is really song
Joan McGettigan 00:16:04
lyrics, and then pop that into suno and have a song. And it was
Joan McGettigan 00:16:09
a really engaging couple of lessons. And students were using
Joan McGettigan 00:16:15
their analytical thinking, but they were also using a lot of
Joan McGettigan 00:16:18
creative thinking, and it was kind of a powerful experience
Joan McGettigan 00:16:23
that and then another tool that we were looking at, because
Joan McGettigan 00:16:27
we're interested in, how can this be helpful? For example, in
Joan McGettigan 00:16:30
math, and I don't know if you all are familiar with snorkel,
Joan McGettigan 00:16:33
snorkel also allows you to provide those parameters. So
Joan McGettigan 00:16:38
it's an AI tool that was originally built by former math
Joan McGettigan 00:16:42
teachers, but you can apply it in other curricular areas as
Joan McGettigan 00:16:46
well. So as the students are writing their work, you know,
Joan McGettigan 00:16:50
and solving these mathematical problems, snorkel is looking at
Joan McGettigan 00:16:54
it, and you the teacher, have set the parameters of where it
Joan McGettigan 00:16:58
can step in and provide guidance. So you just finished
Joan McGettigan 00:17:01
your problem, Hiram, and you submitted it, and stork Cole
Joan McGettigan 00:17:05
came back and said, Hey, Hiram, great job. You got a lot of that
Joan McGettigan 00:17:08
algorithm correct. But could you take a look at step three for
Joan McGettigan 00:17:13
me? Remember, you want to blah, blah, blah. And so you would go
Joan McGettigan 00:17:17
back in and you would take a look at it. And maybe you're
Joan McGettigan 00:17:21
saying, Yes, I got that wrong and I'll fix that. Or you might
Joan McGettigan 00:17:25
say, I don't understand. Can you help me? And snorkel comes back
Joan McGettigan 00:17:29
and says, Oh, for example, you can do this, this and this. So
Joan McGettigan 00:17:34
it's not giving you the answer, but it's giving you that
Joan McGettigan 00:17:37
necessary scaffold to help you make the connection and fix any
Joan McGettigan 00:17:42
errors you might have in either your understanding or in your
Joan McGettigan 00:17:46
calculation. That's just an AI experience. Additionally, I
Joan McGettigan 00:17:51
think the Microsoft Learning accelerators have been another
Joan McGettigan 00:17:56
interesting piece that we've looked at. So reading progress,
Joan McGettigan 00:18:00
we haven't tried the math progress yet, but reading
Joan McGettigan 00:18:03
progress, if listeners are not familiar with it, and it's free,
Joan McGettigan 00:18:07
available to everyone, you don't have to be a Microsoft school,
Joan McGettigan 00:18:10
is that students have, in our case, it could be a word list,
Joan McGettigan 00:18:14
but it could also be a reading passage. And students are
Joan McGettigan 00:18:18
recording their reading. They can do it with video, but it can
Joan McGettigan 00:18:21
just be audio as well. You the teacher, again, are setting the
Joan McGettigan 00:18:25
parameters for all the things that you would like to know. So
Joan McGettigan 00:18:29
just like in running reports, right, you are looking for
Joan McGettigan 00:18:32
omissions, mis pronunciations, repetitions, where students
Joan McGettigan 00:18:37
might stumble over a multi syllable word. So you're looking
Joan McGettigan 00:18:41
at all of those different pieces, and it provides feedback
Joan McGettigan 00:18:46
to the student that's positive, that's encouraging. And you all
Joan McGettigan 00:18:51
know how difficult it is to get students to go back and do
Joan McGettigan 00:18:54
anything a second or third time. No one likes how they sound,
Joan McGettigan 00:18:59
right? And so students will play the recording. They're like, Oh
Joan McGettigan 00:19:02
no, no, I I can do better than that, and I'll go back again and
Joan McGettigan 00:19:06
again. And what's happening is it's helping in their reading
Joan McGettigan 00:19:11
comprehension and also in how they're speaking and how they're
Joan McGettigan 00:19:17
presenting. They have another learning accelerator that works
Joan McGettigan 00:19:21
on just presenting that gives them live feedback as they're
Joan McGettigan 00:19:24
going through their PowerPoint slide deck. It will say, for
Joan McGettigan 00:19:28
example, would say to me, I gesture too much. It talks about
Joan McGettigan 00:19:32
eye contact and pace of speech. So it's giving really rich,
Joan McGettigan 00:19:38
robust feedback in a way that's helpful to kids. Search coach,
Joan McGettigan 00:19:43
reading progress, presenter coach, you know, all of these
Joan McGettigan 00:19:47
different learning accelerators, I think can be game changers and
Joan McGettigan 00:19:52
in real time and in real time. Yeah, it's impressive. Joan, I
Joan McGettigan 00:19:58
love everything you're doing. I. Say
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:00
this is an interesting time, because
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:03
windward is, to an extent, redefining assistive technology.
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:10
Bill and I, a few years ago, did an audit for the landmark School
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:14
up in Massachusetts, which is a very similar school to windward,
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:18
and we learned a great deal about the needs of their
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:23
technology program, just by the very nature of their mission,
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:27
and how proud they were when actually students left because
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:30
they were successful right in their program, to actually
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:34
become mainstreamed into their local schools, whether it was
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:38
local to Massachusetts or because they were a boarding
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:40
school to be able to go back home. And so I really have
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:44
enjoyed hearing you discuss the use of these tools, but in a way
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:49
that's not even labeling it as assistive but as a way to
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:55
accelerate learning in general.
Joan McGettigan 00:20:58
Thank you. Hiram, I think these tools can
Joan McGettigan 00:21:02
be a great choice for any school, and look at how much we
Joan McGettigan 00:21:08
try and help students discern what is good and verifiable
Joan McGettigan 00:21:13
information against what is not. And if you're not using
Joan McGettigan 00:21:18
databases and you're just using search tools. What is the best
Joan McGettigan 00:21:23
way to search? How can I use different limiters to help me
Joan McGettigan 00:21:28
find the best information? And so I look at that search coach
Joan McGettigan 00:21:33
tool, and it's great. It talks about things that maybe not
Joan McGettigan 00:21:37
every classroom teacher does. You know? What does it mean if a
Joan McGettigan 00:21:40
website ends in.gov where can I find good statistics? What are
Joan McGettigan 00:21:46
ways that I can set terms that really help me? And because it's
Joan McGettigan 00:21:51
adaptable to each student, you know, if you're having a
Joan McGettigan 00:21:55
particular struggle, it works with you. It's not just spitting
Joan McGettigan 00:21:59
out stuff in general, same for any of these things. So we, I
Joan McGettigan 00:22:03
think I'd look to those kinds of tools. To your point that it's
Joan McGettigan 00:22:08
kind of assistive technology, but it's something that can
Joan McGettigan 00:22:12
elevate the learning for all students.
Christina Lewellen 00:22:16
So Joan, staying in that realm of
Christina Lewellen 00:22:18
assistive technology, and I think you're right. I do think
Christina Lewellen 00:22:21
that it helps all students. I love some of the examples that
Christina Lewellen 00:22:24
you've given, but specifically for a school like yours, does
Christina Lewellen 00:22:29
win word have kind of like a big picture philosophy with some of
Christina Lewellen 00:22:32
these assistive technology tools. And I'm just curious how
Christina Lewellen 00:22:36
schools who maybe don't have learning differences as a
Christina Lewellen 00:22:40
primary population. Can take advice from you in terms of how
Christina Lewellen 00:22:44
to evaluate these tools, because, again, like Bill said,
Christina Lewellen 00:22:46
I think that plenty of our schools are looking at AI tools
Christina Lewellen 00:22:49
to be that resource and provide that immediate feedback for
Christina Lewellen 00:22:53
their students in various capacities. But do you have kind
Christina Lewellen 00:22:57
of a philosophy or policies or ways that you go about
Christina Lewellen 00:23:02
evaluating these specifically to a student's strengths and
Christina Lewellen 00:23:06
weaknesses. The
Joan McGettigan 00:23:08
program here relies heavily on direct
Joan McGettigan 00:23:11
instruction, so if you walked into different classrooms, you
Joan McGettigan 00:23:15
would see students like really trying to make sense of text
Joan McGettigan 00:23:19
that they're reading. They're using different kinds of symbols
Joan McGettigan 00:23:24
to really reinforce that learning when they're doing
Joan McGettigan 00:23:26
notes, this is very scaffolded learning. So it really starts
Joan McGettigan 00:23:30
with writing by hand all of this information, and then being able
Joan McGettigan 00:23:36
to transfer it into different kinds of frameworks. So if we
Joan McGettigan 00:23:40
have an assistive technology philosophy, it's really looking
Joan McGettigan 00:23:46
at what makes sense in integrating technology in a way
Joan McGettigan 00:23:50
that is really purposeful, extremely focused, and is going
Joan McGettigan 00:23:56
to support the program. So it's not going to give the answers,
Joan McGettigan 00:24:00
but it's going to provide a scaffold, so that's really what
Joan McGettigan 00:24:04
we look for. There's lots of AI tools out there, even Grammarly,
Joan McGettigan 00:24:09
that will help correct a student's writing as they're
Joan McGettigan 00:24:12
going along. But normally, by the time students are typing an
Joan McGettigan 00:24:17
essay, for example, they already have kind of worked through all
Joan McGettigan 00:24:21
of those things that you would depend on, Grammarly, etc, to
Joan McGettigan 00:24:25
fix that's kind of the difference that you might see
Joan McGettigan 00:24:28
between windward and sort of a more standard academic program
Joan McGettigan 00:24:33
where students might be actually composing on a computer. We're
Joan McGettigan 00:24:37
composing by hand
Christina Lewellen 00:24:38
first. And I think that's really awesome,
Christina Lewellen 00:24:41
that you delineate those steps. And I also think it makes a lot
Christina Lewellen 00:24:44
of sense, because I've often said that while some of those
Christina Lewellen 00:24:48
fundamental skills are necessary, and in your case, the
Christina Lewellen 00:24:52
research shows right with the handwriting. We've even had a
Christina Lewellen 00:24:55
neuro scientist on this podcast to talk about that kind of
Christina Lewellen 00:24:58
thing. But what I. Often point out to heads and Business
Christina Lewellen 00:25:03
Officers is that in the workplace, I don't care if the
Christina Lewellen 00:25:08
team is using Grammarly, you know, I don't care if they're
Christina Lewellen 00:25:11
using an AI tool to coach their public speaking skills. So if
Christina Lewellen 00:25:16
that's the case, I ask provocatively, does it matter if
Christina Lewellen 00:25:20
we teach grammar anymore, sort of like once the graphing
Christina Lewellen 00:25:24
calculator came out. Was it important for us to know how to
Christina Lewellen 00:25:27
do that by hand, or could we just turn to this tool that was
Christina Lewellen 00:25:30
available to us? So I think that we're at one of those points of
Christina Lewellen 00:25:33
capitulation in education, and you guys are approaching this
Christina Lewellen 00:25:37
from necessity and in alignment with your mission for your
Christina Lewellen 00:25:41
students, but I think it really brings some interesting food for
Christina Lewellen 00:25:44
thought for schools who are in the general independent school
Christina Lewellen 00:25:48
space and maybe don't have those special considerations to think
Christina Lewellen 00:25:52
about, right? So Bill and Hiram, you guys aren't dealing with a
Christina Lewellen 00:25:56
population of learning differences specifically, but
Christina Lewellen 00:26:00
I'm sure that what she's saying makes a lot of sense to how you
Christina Lewellen 00:26:04
guys are going about this too.
Bill Stites 00:26:05
Yeah, one of the things that's come up a couple
Bill Stites 00:26:07
times in this conversation, and it's something that we've been
Bill Stites 00:26:11
thinking about and talking about and kind of trying to get more
Bill Stites 00:26:13
information on Jen, is when you were talking about the amount of
Bill Stites 00:26:16
handwriting that a student is doing and starting at that
Bill Stites 00:26:19
point. And one of the things that we've been interested being
Bill Stites 00:26:23
that we've been a one to one school for as long as we have,
Bill Stites 00:26:26
being that the device that we've been providing this entire time
Bill Stites 00:26:30
has been generally a MacBook Air or the some derivative thereof,
Bill Stites 00:26:34
over the course of these years. And one of the things that we're
Bill Stites 00:26:37
wondering is when it comes to writing, when it comes to note
Bill Stites 00:26:41
taking, when it comes to people can't see, but everyone on the
Bill Stites 00:26:44
call can. I'm holding up my Apple pencil. I have my iPad
Bill Stites 00:26:47
here in terms of what it means to transition from pen and
Bill Stites 00:26:52
paper, pencil and paper, into a digital note taking piece,
Bill Stites 00:26:56
whether that is for actual note taking, whether that is for
Bill Stites 00:26:59
annotation, what's that for? And that transition in terms of in
Bill Stites 00:27:03
the connections that are made in the brain when you do that, and
Bill Stites 00:27:07
what steps should we be taking as a school to think about that?
Bill Stites 00:27:11
Because the device that we provide does not offer that type
Bill Stites 00:27:15
of tactile interface, whether there is, and this is the
Bill Stites 00:27:18
primary question that we're even trying to get to is, is there a
Bill Stites 00:27:23
difference between pen and paper, or Apple Pencil and
Bill Stites 00:27:28
digital tablet? Because again, the idea that you can get, like
Bill Stites 00:27:32
that PDF from a teacher, those electronic pieces, and you can
Bill Stites 00:27:35
annotate on top of those, you can note, take on top of those,
Bill Stites 00:27:38
or you can write on top of those. And the way it's been
Bill Stites 00:27:41
described to me is that if you're using a keyboard, you're
Bill Stites 00:27:44
generally just processing really quick. You know, it's the idea
Bill Stites 00:27:47
of note taking for speed, but once you put that stylus in your
Bill Stites 00:27:52
hand, you're actually synthesizing all of that and
Bill Stites 00:27:55
therefore making stronger connections between the learning
Bill Stites 00:27:58
and actually what you're doing. But again, the difference
Bill Stites 00:28:02
between pen and paper and this and that, what are you seeing in
Bill Stites 00:28:05
those areas?
Joan McGettigan 00:28:06
It's a really interesting point bill, because
Joan McGettigan 00:28:09
I also have a big fan of iPads. I've got my Apple pencil and I
Joan McGettigan 00:28:14
will just write away. And I never thought about it that much
Joan McGettigan 00:28:18
before coming to windward, I would do sketch noting, and I'm
Joan McGettigan 00:28:22
sure that if someone was looking at a scan in my brain, they
Joan McGettigan 00:28:25
would see lots of different areas lit up. Because you're
Joan McGettigan 00:28:28
right, you're synthesizing all that information. So it's
Joan McGettigan 00:28:32
interesting, when you look at all the research, is something
Joan McGettigan 00:28:35
to be said for the handwriting, but it's also having that
Joan McGettigan 00:28:39
greater physical interaction. So we're, I think, changing devices
Joan McGettigan 00:28:45
next year, and looking at writable Chromebooks. But in
Joan McGettigan 00:28:48
that case for us, we're adding that film on top for iPads. It's
Joan McGettigan 00:28:54
like paper like so there's a variety of them out there,
Joan McGettigan 00:28:57
because it adds the necessary resistance for if you're doing
Joan McGettigan 00:29:02
digital notes that you're better inscribing on your brain the
Joan McGettigan 00:29:07
information coming in and those films range in cost anywhere
Joan McGettigan 00:29:11
from 11 bucks up to really high quality ones. I think at 35 or
Joan McGettigan 00:29:16
40 it's something about having that same resistance that you
Joan McGettigan 00:29:21
would have on paper that helps better inscribe. This is why
Joan McGettigan 00:29:25
people will even pay more money for those you know, those
Joan McGettigan 00:29:29
tablets that are like the stone tablets that have even higher
Joan McGettigan 00:29:33
quality paper, it just adds that necessary resistance where your
Joan McGettigan 00:29:38
brain is actually taking in all of the information and
Joan McGettigan 00:29:42
transcribing it in your brain. It's fascinating. We
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:46
have found with our students, they often go to
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:49
college, and they have, I would call a little bit more of a head
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:52
start, because we do a lot of handwriting in our English and
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:56
history classes, they are allowed to compose. Is an award
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:00
process or and we're convinced they're totally different
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:04
skills, yes. And in addition to that, what we have also found is
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:09
that the majority of students that our alums encounter at
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:14
higher ed don't have the endurance to handwrite anymore,
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:20
and as a result, they can't keep up if they're trying to do note
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:23
taking in the standard format. I love the fact that you're
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:26
actually creating multiple modalities of learning for your
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:30
students to equip them with a variety of information and
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:35
skills that they're going to need as they get older.
Joan McGettigan 00:30:38
It's such a great point. And if I can relate
Joan McGettigan 00:30:42
this back to something that we started at North borough prep.
Joan McGettigan 00:30:46
We started off the one to one program in pre K. We started
Joan McGettigan 00:30:50
like the reverse. You know, most people start like 12th grade and
Joan McGettigan 00:30:53
work their way downward. We actually started with the
Joan McGettigan 00:30:55
earliest learners moved up, so by the time it hit that six
Joan McGettigan 00:30:59
through 12th grade mark to use your point, we started venturing
Joan McGettigan 00:31:04
into digital note taking with things like good notes and
Joan McGettigan 00:31:07
Notability. But what was a really interesting development
Joan McGettigan 00:31:10
to me was looking at the research of Mary Ann Wolfe, who
Joan McGettigan 00:31:15
has been at Windward, I think at Windward Institute, she's
Joan McGettigan 00:31:19
presented two or three times on this idea of digital reading. So
Joan McGettigan 00:31:24
note taking I'm with you, is handwriting and building up that
Joan McGettigan 00:31:28
resistance. We have handwriting class. We have handwriting club
Joan McGettigan 00:31:32
for those kids who join us later and maybe haven't had that
Joan McGettigan 00:31:35
experience. So yeah, we work with them in getting that muscle
Joan McGettigan 00:31:39
memory developed. But on the flip side, going from writing to
Joan McGettigan 00:31:44
reading, you know, they're going to be placing into schools that
Joan McGettigan 00:31:48
are heavily digital. And at North Broward, at that point, we
Joan McGettigan 00:31:51
had become 93% digital textbooks, everything,
Joan McGettigan 00:31:56
everything was digital. So at the high school level, they had
Joan McGettigan 00:32:00
back airs and iPads. One was the work device, and one was kind of
Joan McGettigan 00:32:05
like your backpack with all of your different books in it,
Joan McGettigan 00:32:08
right? And it started off in the English department. They said,
Joan McGettigan 00:32:12
Hey, every single app that we use, whether it's Kindle or
Joan McGettigan 00:32:18
Apple iBooks, we also have IB curriculum there. These IB
Joan McGettigan 00:32:22
textbooks, they all have at least five different colors that
Joan McGettigan 00:32:27
you can use to annotate digitally. So we're going to
Joan McGettigan 00:32:30
make that purposeful. Each color was assigned a particular thing
Joan McGettigan 00:32:36
we did that consistently grades six through 12 in English,
Joan McGettigan 00:32:40
right? So every year those kids were coming in and yellow means
Joan McGettigan 00:32:45
this, green means this, blue means this. The other
Joan McGettigan 00:32:48
departments were like, Hey, we can make that work. And I said,
Joan McGettigan 00:32:51
you have to make it related. Though you can't make the yellow
Joan McGettigan 00:32:55
like dramatically different, because the whole point of this
Joan McGettigan 00:32:59
is to make that visual memory of what yellow means. So social
Joan McGettigan 00:33:04
studies, science, they all started to align to what the
Joan McGettigan 00:33:09
English department had done. And so when kids left us and went
Joan McGettigan 00:33:13
into college, where so much of their stuff was digital reading,
Joan McGettigan 00:33:19
they understood not only how to annotate and do the sticky notes
Joan McGettigan 00:33:23
and really understand that process, but they understood the
Joan McGettigan 00:33:28
reason why we were doing it is because Mary Ann Wolfe will tell
Joan McGettigan 00:33:31
you, digital reading is different as adults, we scan, we
Joan McGettigan 00:33:36
scan constantly. We're not taking in all the information.
Joan McGettigan 00:33:39
We're not making those connections. It's like when you
Joan McGettigan 00:33:42
start on driving on the Jersey turn bike, and suddenly two
Joan McGettigan 00:33:45
hours go by and you're like, wow, I don't remember driving
Joan McGettigan 00:33:48
down any of this, right? And so Mary and Walt is saying you have
Joan McGettigan 00:33:52
to put obstacles in the way of students, and this idea of
Joan McGettigan 00:33:58
digital annotation is one of them. So if you can slow them
Joan McGettigan 00:34:02
down by using a purpose for all these different colors,
Joan McGettigan 00:34:07
highlight colors, right? If you can say one of my requirements
Joan McGettigan 00:34:11
is putting in these sticky notes for doing a summary. So, oh, on
Joan McGettigan 00:34:16
each page, I want a two sentence sticky notes, summary of what
Joan McGettigan 00:34:20
you just read, because I want to slow you down. I want you to
Joan McGettigan 00:34:24
connect and really have a deeper understanding of what you're
Joan McGettigan 00:34:28
reading. I'm not sure how any of that will apply to win word,
Joan McGettigan 00:34:34
because obviously for us, reading is crucial, so going
Joan McGettigan 00:34:39
through direct instruction and all of this, but I can see where
Joan McGettigan 00:34:44
maybe in eighth grade before students naturally are out
Joan McGettigan 00:34:47
placing to high school, that might be an area to explore.
Christina Lewellen 00:34:53
Yeah, that's super interesting. And one of
Christina Lewellen 00:34:55
the things that we talked about with Richard cullata of ISTE
Christina Lewellen 00:34:59
recently. Be he was on the pod, and he talked to us about this
Christina Lewellen 00:35:03
great analogy of when you're talking about younger kids and
Christina Lewellen 00:35:09
technology, we sometimes are measuring the wrong things. So
Christina Lewellen 00:35:13
he says, you know, parents will put a limit on screen time. And
Christina Lewellen 00:35:16
say, well, they only get an hour of screen time a day. Aren't I
Christina Lewellen 00:35:20
doing a great job, and yet, if that one hour a day is engaging
Christina Lewellen 00:35:25
in really not healthy corners of the interweb, then that can be
Christina Lewellen 00:35:30
problematic. Just like if you were to say that a child could
Christina Lewellen 00:35:34
eat anything they wanted to eat for one hour per day, we're not
Christina Lewellen 00:35:39
certain that they're getting their nutrients if time limit is
Christina Lewellen 00:35:43
the only way that we're monitoring their engagement with
Christina Lewellen 00:35:46
technology. This is something that I've noticed there are a
Christina Lewellen 00:35:50
lot of questions around younger students and tech. So do you
Christina Lewellen 00:35:55
have any thoughts or guidance? You know, I think a lot of
Christina Lewellen 00:35:58
schools will at least kind of go down the path of scaffolding
Christina Lewellen 00:36:01
toward their middle and upper schools, but when you're looking
Christina Lewellen 00:36:04
at your lower school students, is there a way that you
Christina Lewellen 00:36:08
personally think about technology and how we introduce
Christina Lewellen 00:36:12
that in a healthy way to this generation of learners?
Joan McGettigan 00:36:17
I'll go back again to North Bar Prep, where
Joan McGettigan 00:36:20
we rolled out iPads with those pre K through grade five
Joan McGettigan 00:36:24
students. First, it was incredibly interesting seeing
Joan McGettigan 00:36:27
those teachers explore and figure out what makes sense
Joan McGettigan 00:36:32
developmentally for this age group. So it really came back to
Joan McGettigan 00:36:38
sort of that idea of trans literacy in being able to
Joan McGettigan 00:36:42
capture learning a variety of ways. And so one of the things
Joan McGettigan 00:36:46
that we did is we started on the road of digital portfolios, and
Joan McGettigan 00:36:51
we actually gave ownership of that to students. The tool we
Joan McGettigan 00:36:55
used was Book Creator, because it allowed them to bring
Joan McGettigan 00:36:59
everything in the world. We were at Google App school so they
Joan McGettigan 00:37:02
could embed things from Google Drive. They could record audio,
Joan McGettigan 00:37:05
the video, photos. They started recording all of their different
Joan McGettigan 00:37:09
learning. But one of the things that frustrated teachers, and
Joan McGettigan 00:37:13
frustrated me as a former math teacher, is that trying to get
Joan McGettigan 00:37:17
to what their mathematical thinking was in the moment. No
Joan McGettigan 00:37:22
matter how quickly you turn an assessment back to a student, if
Joan McGettigan 00:37:26
I say, Hey, Bill, I'm not quite understanding, like, why you
Joan McGettigan 00:37:29
have this answer on number three, that quiz you took
Joan McGettigan 00:37:32
yesterday, and Bill might say, I don't know that was yesterday. I
Joan McGettigan 00:37:36
don't remember what I was thinking. So we started using an
Joan McGettigan 00:37:39
app, which I know you guys know, explain everything. And so we
Joan McGettigan 00:37:44
cave students like, Okay, you're in second grade. Here's your
Joan McGettigan 00:37:48
math problem. You're going to draw a picture, and the whole
Joan McGettigan 00:37:51
time that you're solving this, you're going to record and
Joan McGettigan 00:37:54
articulate your thinking. And so again, I go back to how do you
Joan McGettigan 00:37:58
get students to do anything more than once, students would listen
Joan McGettigan 00:38:03
to the recording and hate it and do it again, we found like this,
Joan McGettigan 00:38:07
really nice growth in their mathematical abilities, but also
Joan McGettigan 00:38:12
something that is not normally mentioned or measured to Richard
Joan McGettigan 00:38:16
coladas point is their articulation of their
Joan McGettigan 00:38:19
mathematical thinking. It grew just from doing these monthly
Joan McGettigan 00:38:25
assessments that would then go into their portfolio, so that
Joan McGettigan 00:38:29
when it was shared with parents at the end of the year in
Joan McGettigan 00:38:32
student led conference, parents could actually see the growth,
Joan McGettigan 00:38:36
not just in their mathematical abilities, but in their child's
Joan McGettigan 00:38:40
understanding and articulation of that mathematical knowledge.
Joan McGettigan 00:38:45
And I think that's something incredibly interesting. So with
Joan McGettigan 00:38:50
our younger learners, for example, I was just at a fifth
Joan McGettigan 00:38:54
grade lesson talking about how they were going to present this
Joan McGettigan 00:38:58
information, how they were going to make it their own. And it was
Joan McGettigan 00:39:03
so interesting hearing those students, and I'm going to go
Joan McGettigan 00:39:07
off on a little bit of a tangent here, but just to give you a win
Joan McGettigan 00:39:10
word, kind of a win word adjacent like how a technology
Joan McGettigan 00:39:14
lesson is a little bit different for us, these fifth graders had
Joan McGettigan 00:39:18
just created an all about me poster in Word so that they
Joan McGettigan 00:39:22
could understand how a document is formatted, how you bring
Joan McGettigan 00:39:25
images in, how you format those images, all of that. So now
Joan McGettigan 00:39:30
they're in a research project on the architect Maya Lin, the
Joan McGettigan 00:39:34
teacher, took a screenshot of the word task bar and then a
Joan McGettigan 00:39:40
screenshot of the PowerPoint task bar. And I don't know that
Joan McGettigan 00:39:44
a lot of schools do this, but it was really interesting to me.
Joan McGettigan 00:39:48
And she said, Okay, just like we do when we look at text, let's
Joan McGettigan 00:39:52
break this down. How are these two similar? What does this do?
Joan McGettigan 00:39:57
What does this do? And the kids were like, look, it's. The same,
Joan McGettigan 00:40:00
you have this, and that's the same as this. And the purpose of
Joan McGettigan 00:40:03
that is that. And they started making connections. And you
Joan McGettigan 00:40:06
could see, like, the light bulbs going off all over the room,
Joan McGettigan 00:40:10
because they were looking at, insert, oh, insert. Oh, that
Joan McGettigan 00:40:14
means, like, you put something in. Oh, look, we did that and
Joan McGettigan 00:40:18
worked with this. And, okay, here's PowerPoint, and we're
Joan McGettigan 00:40:21
inserting and look, you can insert this and this and this,
Joan McGettigan 00:40:25
like they started making all of those different connections. And
Joan McGettigan 00:40:29
I just think that's an example of a more direct instruction
Joan McGettigan 00:40:34
making that scuffle for them, but something that is incredibly
Joan McGettigan 00:40:39
helpful. You know, those Microsoft Office pass bars can
Joan McGettigan 00:40:43
be incredibly complicated for young learners. And so when I
Joan McGettigan 00:40:49
think about those kinds of lessons and using technology
Joan McGettigan 00:40:52
with them, I think, okay, how can we be helpful and
Joan McGettigan 00:40:56
supportive? But going to your point, Kristina, about what does
Joan McGettigan 00:41:01
it mean. Then, when they get home and screen time, you know,
Joan McGettigan 00:41:05
every parent presentation I speak to that point, because,
Joan McGettigan 00:41:09
again, it's not the quantity of screen time, it's the quality.
Joan McGettigan 00:41:13
So if you have a child who's building a replica of
Joan McGettigan 00:41:18
Williamsburg in Minecraft, you know, just because they just
Joan McGettigan 00:41:22
learned about it, and they love Minecraft. That's an amazing use
Joan McGettigan 00:41:26
of their time. And that might take three hours, but, gosh,
Joan McGettigan 00:41:30
that's three hours of learning that's amazing, as opposed to
Joan McGettigan 00:41:35
playing some kind of shoot 'em up game, which doesn't add any
Joan McGettigan 00:41:40
depth of understanding or knowledge or skills. So
Bill Stites 00:41:44
Joan, I was laughing when you said, explain
Bill Stites 00:41:47
everything in terms of picking a tool. And the reason I was
Bill Stites 00:41:50
laughing is because many, many moons ago, Reshan Richards, who
Bill Stites 00:41:54
was the inventor, the founder of explain everything, is a friend
Bill Stites 00:41:58
and a former colleague, and actually friend of the podcast
Bill Stites 00:42:01
we've had him on. I want to kind of touch on that, because where
Bill Stites 00:42:05
Sean and I worked together for a number of years, and we had a
Bill Stites 00:42:07
very close working relationship. And again, it's kind of just
Bill Stites 00:42:11
part and parcel of the program here at MKA. And you've
Bill Stites 00:42:15
mentioned his name when we started out, kind of joking
Bill Stites 00:42:17
around about our good friend Bernie McCormick, who is now
Bill Stites 00:42:20
with you at Windward one of the things I'm very curious about is
Bill Stites 00:42:24
if you could tell us about what your relationship with Bernie is
Bill Stites 00:42:28
like, and how that relationship is really helping advance the
Bill Stites 00:42:33
mission of what you're doing, given the nature of the school
Bill Stites 00:42:36
that you have, but really at any school, that close working
Bill Stites 00:42:39
relationship between the ed tech side of the house and the IT
Bill Stites 00:42:42
side of the house is so important. Can you describe what
Bill Stites 00:42:44
that's like for you there windward? Sure. Bernie
Joan McGettigan 00:42:47
is our CTO and has a wealth of experience
Joan McGettigan 00:42:51
before he came to windward, he was at a similar LD school in
Joan McGettigan 00:42:55
Brooklyn, and just also personal experience with learning
Joan McGettigan 00:42:59
disorders and dyslexia and how that relates to technology. So
Joan McGettigan 00:43:03
he is a really deep understanding of the pedagogy
Joan McGettigan 00:43:07
that's involved in that, and it's really interesting. I know
Joan McGettigan 00:43:11
that you all have those really collaborative environments as
Joan McGettigan 00:43:14
well, and sadly, a lot of schools do not. It's kind of
Joan McGettigan 00:43:18
like a divorce, right between it and ET. And some schools don't
Joan McGettigan 00:43:23
even have any kind of ET support. It's just it saying,
Joan McGettigan 00:43:27
Well, this is what we can afford, so this is what we're
Joan McGettigan 00:43:30
going to do, without having that kind of conversation of what is
Joan McGettigan 00:43:34
the pedagogy? Why are we doing this? How is it going to serve
Joan McGettigan 00:43:37
our students? How is it going to serve our teachers? Just to give
Joan McGettigan 00:43:41
you an example of how Bernie and I work together, along with Lisa
Joan McGettigan 00:43:45
Murray, who is our incredible Associate Head of School for
Joan McGettigan 00:43:49
academics, we have these conversations about what is
Joan McGettigan 00:43:54
going to best serve our students. How is the technology
Joan McGettigan 00:43:57
going to work in a population of students who may struggle with
Joan McGettigan 00:44:02
executive functioning. So what are ways that we can kind of
Joan McGettigan 00:44:06
reduce some of like the multiple steps? So, for example, you have
Joan McGettigan 00:44:11
using clever badges to log in when I first came to win word
Joan McGettigan 00:44:16
students logged in and they had passwords that I think were like
Joan McGettigan 00:44:21
27 characters. And I said, how can you use this with a
Joan McGettigan 00:44:28
population of students who are dyslexic? That doesn't make any
Joan McGettigan 00:44:32
sense, because at the time, there wasn't that kind of
Joan McGettigan 00:44:35
conversation. This is before Bernie came. There wasn't a
Joan McGettigan 00:44:39
conversation between the IT and et side, you know, it was
Joan McGettigan 00:44:42
saying, No, we have to have that because of security and this and
Joan McGettigan 00:44:46
that will know that does not serve the mission of the school,
Joan McGettigan 00:44:50
does not serve our students. So Bernie changed that, and now
Joan McGettigan 00:44:55
we're on board with clever and that's going to make that small
Joan McGettigan 00:44:59
piece. Is so much easier for our students. What was anywhere from
Joan McGettigan 00:45:05
a five to eight minute delay in getting any technology infused
Joan McGettigan 00:45:09
lesson off the ground just because of the difficulty of
Joan McGettigan 00:45:12
logging in. Suddenly, that barrier was removed, and that's
Joan McGettigan 00:45:17
what the two sides should always be talking about. You know, I go
Joan McGettigan 00:45:21
back to the Heath brothers, my favorite authors in the world.
Joan McGettigan 00:45:25
And actually, Dan Heath is going to be at ISTE this summer. He
Joan McGettigan 00:45:29
just came out with a new book called reset, which had just
Joan McGettigan 00:45:32
started and is wonderful. But before that, they had a book
Joan McGettigan 00:45:35
called Switch. And all of us deal with change. Change
Joan McGettigan 00:45:40
management is something we talk about in technology all the
Joan McGettigan 00:45:43
time. So in switch, they said there are three things, and
Joan McGettigan 00:45:47
they're not the inventors of this. They just pulled the
Joan McGettigan 00:45:49
information together in a way that makes it really relatable.
Joan McGettigan 00:45:53
And they talk about, if you imagine bill sitting on top of
Joan McGettigan 00:45:57
an elephant, Bill is the driver, so you have to direct the driver
Joan McGettigan 00:46:02
or writer and give crystal clear actionable steps. And then the
Joan McGettigan 00:46:07
elephant, you have to motivate. And the elephant is kind of like
Joan McGettigan 00:46:11
our emotional side. You have to give the clear understanding.
Joan McGettigan 00:46:14
You have to connect emotionally. And then, most importantly, you
Joan McGettigan 00:46:18
have to shape the path, which means removing the barriers that
Joan McGettigan 00:46:23
don't make any sense. So yes, we have to do all sorts of things
Joan McGettigan 00:46:27
that drive people crazy, multi factor authentication, etc, that
Joan McGettigan 00:46:31
serve the purpose of security at the school, but there's no
Joan McGettigan 00:46:35
reason to have an extremely long password that makes it
Joan McGettigan 00:46:39
impossible, especially for students who are dyslexic, to be
Joan McGettigan 00:46:43
able to type that in and achieve success. So I think that's the
Joan McGettigan 00:46:48
perfect marriage between the two sides. Looks at how can we
Joan McGettigan 00:46:52
remove the barriers? What are the hardware and software that
Joan McGettigan 00:46:57
best serves our community, and what are ways that we can
Joan McGettigan 00:47:01
operationalize all of those things and make sound decisions
Joan McGettigan 00:47:06
based on pedagogy that makes sense for our school. I
Christina Lewellen 00:47:09
love that. Before we start wrapping up and
Christina Lewellen 00:47:13
let you get about your day, I do have a question around the
Christina Lewellen 00:47:18
reasons why you pursued the T lists. So you got T list
Christina Lewellen 00:47:23
certified, and I love that, especially because of your ed
Christina Lewellen 00:47:27
tech background. So what were some of the considerations for
Christina Lewellen 00:47:31
you as you considered sitting for that exam and going through
Christina Lewellen 00:47:34
all the prep for it?
Joan McGettigan 00:47:36
It's a really excellent question. I think it
Joan McGettigan 00:47:38
really stems back from when I was at North Broad prep, very,
Joan McGettigan 00:47:42
very unusual. My position actually oversaw. It usually
Joan McGettigan 00:47:49
don't have academics doing that.
Christina Lewellen 00:47:52
Wow, yeah, that is super weird. Yeah, super
Christina Lewellen 00:47:56
weird, right? Guys, have you ever heard of that? I don't
Christina Lewellen 00:47:59
think I have ever heard of the IT piece reporting to the Ed
Christina Lewellen 00:48:03
Tech piece.
Bill Stites 00:48:05
I can only think of maybe one, but I couldn't name
Bill Stites 00:48:07
it, if you asked me.
Joan McGettigan 00:48:08
But you can understand Kristina, right, that
Joan McGettigan 00:48:11
I came into that position. And granted, I did have sort of
Joan McGettigan 00:48:15
unusual background, that back in New Orleans, when we were
Joan McGettigan 00:48:19
putting a huge addition on to Trinity Episcopal I was up in
Joan McGettigan 00:48:22
the ceiling running wires. Okay, so maybe not all et people have
Joan McGettigan 00:48:27
run ethernet cables through their ceilings, but I felt like
Joan McGettigan 00:48:31
I did not have a solid understanding of everything on
Joan McGettigan 00:48:36
the IT side, and I felt like that kind of hampered my
Joan McGettigan 00:48:42
ability. So this was before Bernie came on board, and I was
Joan McGettigan 00:48:45
walking into this situation of those really long passwords and
Joan McGettigan 00:48:48
and the infrastructure desperately needed upgrading all
Joan McGettigan 00:48:52
of these things. And windward is very aware of this, and they
Joan McGettigan 00:48:55
wanted to be proactive and make all these changes. I felt for my
Joan McGettigan 00:48:59
knowledge base, while I might understand the ET side pretty
Joan McGettigan 00:49:04
well. If I could understand all of these other components as
Joan McGettigan 00:49:08
well, it would help my working relationship in partnership with
Joan McGettigan 00:49:13
the IT side. And I think that T list certification really does
Joan McGettigan 00:49:19
help with that, because it makes you think of operational things.
Joan McGettigan 00:49:23
It makes you think of policy things. It brings all of these
Joan McGettigan 00:49:28
different aspects in and going through and listening to your
Joan McGettigan 00:49:33
past podcasts, the webinars, all of those different resources was
Joan McGettigan 00:49:38
really helpful. So for example, because of the program, I
Joan McGettigan 00:49:43
created a tech advisory council here, and we split up into three
Joan McGettigan 00:49:49
different parts because we have a lot to accomplish, but one of
Joan McGettigan 00:49:53
those was bringing all of these different policies that we had
Joan McGettigan 00:49:57
out there, digital code of conduct, etc. Acceptable use
Joan McGettigan 00:50:00
policy and assistive technology policy, all these different
Joan McGettigan 00:50:04
pieces into one cohesive document that would also have an
Joan McGettigan 00:50:09
AI policy component and that T list certification clarified by
Joan McGettigan 00:50:15
thinking and helped me understand how to create a
Joan McGettigan 00:50:18
structure that would help make that happen.
Christina Lewellen 00:50:22
Thank you for sharing that. I love that
Christina Lewellen 00:50:24
that was the reasons behind why you pursued it, and in a weird
Christina Lewellen 00:50:29
way, I think that your answer is the first I've heard where
Christina Lewellen 00:50:33
there's a piece of the students in that answer, right? Like you
Christina Lewellen 00:50:36
mentioned the passwords being too difficult. Basically, you're
Christina Lewellen 00:50:39
like, Yeah, I got the T list because my students deserve this
Christina Lewellen 00:50:42
experience with somebody at the helm who knows how to address
Christina Lewellen 00:50:46
really long passwords, for example. So I love that this has
Christina Lewellen 00:50:51
been such a pleasure. I'm so grateful to you for coming in
Christina Lewellen 00:50:54
and bringing your perspective to our community. I'm so glad that
Christina Lewellen 00:50:58
you have those letters after your name, you're such a stellar
Christina Lewellen 00:51:01
representation of everything that we were trying to
Christina Lewellen 00:51:04
accomplish with the T list program. So thank you so much
Christina Lewellen 00:51:07
for joining us today. It's been really incredible. It's
Joan McGettigan 00:51:10
been my pleasure to have a conversation
Joan McGettigan 00:51:13
with this brain trust. So thank you. I've been long time fans,
Joan McGettigan 00:51:17
particularly of Hiram and Bill, and followed all of the
Joan McGettigan 00:51:21
different advice. So you don't know the impact that you have on
Joan McGettigan 00:51:24
people, right? But I want to let the two of you know from going
Joan McGettigan 00:51:28
to the ISTE conference before it was ISTE when it was ne CC, I
Joan McGettigan 00:51:33
think love it. They've had a big positive impact on my career.
Joan McGettigan 00:51:38
We're a tight
Christina Lewellen 00:51:39
community. Look at you guys, our fan. Thank
Christina Lewellen 00:51:42
you our first and number one fan.
Joan McGettigan 00:51:45
You have many fans. Kristina Alice serves many
Joan McGettigan 00:51:49
purposes, and it does it in a way that's exemplary. So I thank
Joan McGettigan 00:51:53
you,
Christina Lewellen 00:51:54
Dr Magette again, thank you so much once
Christina Lewellen 00:51:56
again for your time. My pleasure.
Peter Frank 00:52:00
This has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:52:03
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in
Peter Frank 00:52:06
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank 00:52:09
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Peter Frank 00:52:13
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Peter Frank 00:52:17
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Peter Frank 00:52:19
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