Hey everybody it's Sam Kary from The New EdTech Classroom. I recently sat down for
an interview with Dr. Marquita Blades to talk about the importance of technology in education
and i wanted to share some highlights from that conversation with you let me know your thoughts
about it in the comments below and also be sure to check out dr marquita blades she's
doing some amazing work in education and she also has an upcoming virtual conference that
i'll be keynoting i'll put a link for it in the video description if you want to check that out
sam tell everybody about this amazing youtube channel that you started
uh what made you start it and how large it has grown to this point so we hear about all these
instructional strategies that we should put in place a lot of buzzwords out there like
differentiation udl right personalizing learning making it engaging authentic etc
all these kinds of things that you might fit in a pd and hear somebody telling you that you need to
do those things and then you leave and you still have kind of no sense of how to do those things
so i very much came to technology from a place of knowing that those strategies were important but
lacking the skills and understanding and pool really in my opinion to do those effectively
and it just seemed like there was a universal experience out there that there was just still a
gap a huge gap actually between you know how that like these ideas and concepts out there and how to
actually put them into practice and i felt like there was no bigger gap than the world between
education technology and actual thinkers you know here i was in san francisco
teaching in the innovation capital of the world so-called and really almost nobody that i knew
in my teaching community really used technology all that much right like people used it a little
bit but i knew that there were all kinds of programs and products and all kinds of bells and
whistles and things that could happen but that was not trickling down somehow to the actual classroom
so i have always been kind of experimental and wanted to start bringing that into my
own classroom to give it a try and see how it would have an impact and over time
saw just how transformative it could be and wanted to bring that to other teachers and show them
not just hear the program and how to use this program but how to actually take what's
useful from this program and powerful and pair it with what we do so well as
instructional experts and package it essentially with you know research-based high-impact pedagogy
and that's where you really have a transformative impact i saw that in my own classroom always
working in title 1 school impressing fact never worked in a classroom that even had
one-to-one computer so i ran a pretty much a fully technology integrated platform at a school that
did not have one-to-one computers if you can kind of wrap your head around that we're actually at
a really exciting time in education right now where we have some tools that we can use that
can actually help us achieve some of the results we've been looking for i like that you mentioned
the heavy emphasis on instruction and making it practical for teachers and also that integration
of technology that sometimes we really miss i like the fact that you said you were running
full-scale tech in your classroom but your school was not one-to-one because i think a lot of times
educators believe that if students don't have their own personal device that it's going to be
very difficult to incorporate technology in a practical way
and to consistently incorporate that so can you maybe share how you were able to pull that
yeah off think one is just about a mindset about what technology integration means
it doesn't mean that every single thing has to be done with technology it's
selecting technology and using it strategically when it fits that really to me it's more a mindset
it's more perspective about awareness of high impact instructional strategies and then awareness
of the wider array of tools that are available to you that can actually help you implement those and
that doesn't mean you do away with everything pencil and paper clearly i still did a lot
with pencil and paper and you might do things that are actually on the back end of a pencil and paper
product right that can enhance it with technology you have a kid make something like a poster
project as an example but then they can upload it into their digital portfolio they can annotate it
show what means do voice over or video explaining why they chose it how it showed their learning
and now you've added an element of self-awareness investments in their own learning and so that's
what i mean by taking a strategy it's not that we want that tool it's that we know we want to build
student investment in their own learning self-efficacy so we're going to go out and find
a tool that helps us achieve that and we'll bring that in at the end of a pencil and paper product i
do want to be clear that i'm a huge advocate for one to one i think it's very important that we
all are now more than ever really pushing to make sure that schools are offering one-to-one devices
i think that's a critical component to closing the digital divide so i kind of started on this
whole project showing people about instructional strategies and wanting to show people how they
could achieve things that they wanted that i knew they wanted to do with technology i've
also added kind of a layer of understanding that i actually think it's our responsibility actually as
educators in our society today that we're teaching students how to use technology because that is the
future job market that is the world in which we live so we need to be preparing students for that
world so where we are now is in a situation where we really have to make our students
college ready career ready however whatever students are going into they're going into a
world where they may have to completely function online as a professional and
they need to be prepared for that in a school setting i believe pretty strong strongly it is
going it is already but it's going to emerge as the new you know equity crisis essentially in our
country i think we saw that right in remote i i'm definitely lamenting the fact that there's
not enough reflection i think about what we can learn from this past experience and take away you
know at least i'm not seeing that a lot in major news publications and conversations it's all about
the physical location of school which i understand but is not necessarily the most
important thing in today's world what i wish we would be thinking about is why was the world of
education so unequipped to make that ship whereas other industries were capable of you know sliding
right into a hybrid or fully remote situation i think that's a more interesting question to ask
you mentioned how this pandemic has kind of forced a shift that education was not prepared for it
also pulled the veil back on a lot of equity issues that people were unaware of or either
didn't feel were a priority to address in combination with the fact that a lot of people say
instruction should come second to relationship how do you address that equity issue that relationship
building piece and all of that while still focusing on high impact instructional strategies
that incorporate technology i think it's wrapped up altogether i think you you cannot
have you cannot be an effective teacher you cannot create an effective classroom culture
with just impressment alone simultaneously you cannot create an effective classroom culture with
just relationship building alone right you're not going to move students and really do what
is our fundamental job which is prepare students with skill development that they'll need right and
i think often people think of technology it's kind of existing in this like technocratic world that's
not that's totally separated from relationships or community building
and i just don't see that it's true to me one of the most powerful things that we can
do as educators with our curriculums is implement universal design for learning the intention of it
is to essentially look at barriers and entry points to your curriculum to make your curriculum
access more accessible at the first tier so we're not talking about tier 2 tier 3 strategies for
different differentiation or accommodations we're talking about opening up your curriculum so that
it is accessible through providing choice for the way that students access knowledge and providing
toys for the way that students also understand why what they're doing is important and then how
they show knowledge and to me what that's about is about widening the academic tent which gets
to this issue that is so core and that's this issue of belonging and that is not to throw a
bunch of crises but i think another one we have is that a lot of students don't feel like they belong
in schools you drop out of school arguably because you don't feel like you belong there
and so part of what we can do is not just define what is academic in this very narrow way but
expand our definition of what academic means and again a tool or one of many tools that we can use
is education technology we can use technology tools to give students more choice and more
opportunities for how they can show knowledge by you know making a podcast making a digital comic
digital books doing audio production that's a kind of real tangible way that we can put
equity practices in place and make curriculum more culturally relevant by
opening it up i love it and we it sounds like we can allow our students to show mastery of what
they've learned by incorporating some transferable skills and technology can really facilitate those
transferable skills that they can now take and apply to many different situations that they're
going to face once they leave that classroom when we're thinking about planning our instruction
you know we're actually tasked with a pretty significant job right teaching is incredibly hard
and there are so many elements of it that need to be dialed in to be an effective teacher and
i i love the tpack model i'm not going to get all into that and talking about like frameworks but
it's really looking at what is core in your content what is enduring understanding
and then when you're thinking about the technology you're using as well what is
something that i can show students how to do that's going to transcend my individual classroom
so a teacher should feel success if they feel like they have been able to inculcate an
understanding of some enduring concepts thematic concepts big picture concepts in their content
and some skills that transcend what you do in your class if you learn how to do video editing
i mean who knows what kind of world that opens up for your students tell the people what they
can expect when they register for teach to empower and they attend your uh keynote session on day two
i'm really looking to inspire educators to be excited about the opportunity that technology
can bring to our teaching i know that a ton of people have gotten pushed into this world and and
i want to help people see that it's just a window people just got a little window in and there are
so many ways that we can really purposefully strategically use technology to not just
transform educational experiences for students but i believe also reignite our passion and
excitement enthusiasm for teaching and know that what we're doing is providing a relevant education
for students that's going to prepare them for our world and also address some of the equity issues
that we're facing in our society thanks so much for watching this video to the end and be sure
to check out that playlist above if you're interested in learning more about how to use
technology and education and if you need some help getting started i've also put a link to download
over 20 free resources in the video description as well as a link to get some more information
about my 21st century classroom online course thanks so much and i'll see you in the next video