 Hello, everyone. This is Ross at Teacher Talk, the most influential blog on education in the UK. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Vicki Davis, aka Cool Cat Teacher on Twitter, who is the host of the 10-minute Teacher Podcast and also one of LinkedIn's top education voices 2020. And I'm sure I've missed a few other things. Teacher as well, Vicki. Good morning here. Oh, good afternoon for me. Good morning to you in Georgia, America. How are you? I am excellent. It's a joy to see you. We've known each other online for quite some time. Yeah, we're just saying this is easily 10 plus years. Now, Vicki, you started blogging as a teacher 2005, you mentioned. Could you just give us maybe a reason why? Well, I went to the GAETC conference. It's a conference here in Georgia. A man named David Warlick, who many of there would have heard of, spoke about blogging and podcasting and all of these things. And I wanted to bring it to my classroom. But before I teach things, I want to understand them myself. So I started blogging so that I could turn around and teach my students. And somehow people started reading. It was more of a surprise to me than anybody else. And I was like, well, hey, there's an opportunity here because I've always tried to blog as a beginner, as somebody who's just learning new things. And there's just a lot of awesome teachers out there who need encouragement. And I'm glad I can be one of those people who encourages and is helpful. So, you know, 10 years, I'm sure you've been through a whole roller coast. There are blogging experiences. Could you just give us maybe a couple of really amazing insights or accolades and maybe one or two horror stories? So could we start with the positives? Are you talking about about blogging? Well, I think that the times that I have realized that sharing and helping other people can change your own life, writing a camel in the Middle East, dune bashing in the Middle East, seeing the penguins in South Africa, writing a toboggan with my students down the Great Wall of China in Red Square in Moscow. Oh, thanks to your blog. Yeah, I've really, you know, it's interesting. I was a business woman. I'm still a business woman, but went to Georgia Tech, had no plans to be a teacher. And when I became a teacher, I had people who said, well, you're not ever going to accomplish your dreams of, you know, riding, traveling, all those will just be gone. And truly, teaching and then sharing and being helpful has, you know, I've traveled the world in just have so many amazing memories of places. And every time I go to one of those places, I remember sitting in a tent in South Africa was the first time I was actually sent somewhere, not to speak, but just as a blogger to cover a conference. It was Microsoft covering their their global teachers conference. And I was in that tent and I was watching the beautiful African singers and just everything going on. And I was like, okay, this is real, you know, when you get up at 5am, as you know, Ross, and you're blogging or you're writing, or you're doing all the sacrifices that you have to do to be helpful on an ongoing basis for this many years, you think it's a kind of a lonely thing. But then when you get out and you meet people, you're like, well, this can change your life. And, you know, you don't start blogging because of traveling the world. But the goal is always, how can I help people? Yeah. And it's lovely when, you know, you go on the travels and someone says, oh, I've read this and anything. Oh, I'm not writing on my own. Someone actually benefits from this. And what give me a horror story, perhaps, you know, maybe on your own workload or things like that. Are there any I think, well, I would say, well, the workload, you know, can get you, but I would say the biggest horror story for me is that if it ever goes to your head, there have been a few times you can get pride, right? And not healthy pride. You can think that somehow you're the only one with the ideas or you're the only one with the way to do things. And that, you know, the great proverb says pride comes before a fall. And it truly does. I think that keeping an attitude of understanding that we're a servant, we're a helper, we're an encourager. And when you get, when you get over impressed with yourself, nobody's going to be impressed. So I think that the horror story has been my own flaws as I cope with the changes. Because here's the thing about it. Blogs come and go. And many, many years ago, I will say this. I had somebody I respected and admired so much, I will not say the person's name because I still respect and admire the person. And I kept noticing I would lose the ability to DM this person on Twitter. It's like, what's up? Well, I had this person's phone number. So I messaged this person and said, well, what's up? I can't DM you on Twitter. And this, this hero of mine said, well, you have more followers than me now. And it just makes me feel bad. So I have to unfollow you just so that I can feel better about myself. And I was like, Oh my goodness, I don't want to play King of the Hill. I want to make a bigger hill. You know, if I can find people, I love it when I have people on my podcast who've never been interviewed before. Like, yes, this is an awesome person. And they're going to go on and have an amazing career. And it may be a lot, quote, more than other people think I have. That's okay. No, I like that. I know you make a big hill, so others can stand in it also. And tell us there's a brief synopsis of your kind of education life as a teacher, your career, where you where you've worked. This is year 19 for me in teaching. I have been a full-time teacher and IT director. I was at a small private school in South Georgia for 16 years. I loved that job. I loved that school, but very often people don't know what IT directors do. So there was a period where I had no planning period. And I was IT director. And they gave me something called prom here in the United States, which is a thing that the juniors do for the seniors, the grade 11s do for the grade 12s. And it's not a fun thing to do if you're like me. I didn't plan my wedding. My mom planned my wedding. So, and I realized that that particular school, it was the workload, was just killing me. And there are people that don't root for you. My friend Angela Myers calls it crowd bucket mentality that the easiest way to keep a crowd in the bucket is to have two in there. And I remember I was getting ready to go speak at the Berkman Center at Harvard. I was so excited that I had learned in my old school not to tell people. And again, I love this school, but I had learned not to tell people because I would always catch grief. And I was in the front office turning in my lesson plans. And one of my colleagues came in who I care about and just destroyed me with what she said. She said, Oh, I hear you're going to Harvard. If you come back too big for your britches, we'll have to take you down a notch. So it and I was just like, like, this is a dream. Like be happy for me. Say, Hey, I'm so glad somebody from our school can have this great opportunity. So I'm in a new school now show where Christian Academy in Albany, Georgia. I make movies with my students. Movie making has been a passion of mine now for about I've been making movies since 2006 with kids, but I've had some kids go on to do some incredible things. I mean, I have a student who's a first assistant director, he's done stranger things episodes, he's done, you know, family feud, hip hop things. And so this this whole ability to craft a story, I think is awesome. So I do that with kids. My workload is is still heavy. But it's not it's not like you have to teach seven straight classes with no planning period and fix my computer. What are the what are the pressures that you know you have or you know, the people that you kind of work with online for teachers in Georgia in particular, you know, the usual pressures on teachers as you're marking your assessment, you know, all that type of admin. Is that the case where you are? I think the pressures on teachers are ubiquitous around the world. They are very teachers. And I do kind of think that this year, so many teachers have risen up to be remarkable teachers that I do think that the respect of many of teachers has gone up because they see what's happening and the in some ways unreasonable expectations on teachers with we want you to teach remotely to kids who are in trauma, who belong to parents who are in trauma in a world in trauma. And we want you to keep up with everything, run your regular pace. And it's just a difficult time right now. But you know, the pressures of teaching are always there. And it's the extra things sometimes it's that I'm not just a teacher. I'm also monitoring lunch. I'm also working with carpool. I'm also working with whatever clubs they've given me and all the other things. So the pressures for teachers that there's never enough time to do all the things. And this is about kids. And for me, a breakthrough happened really in my year two or three or maybe even four of teaching. When I realized it's all about relationships, I always say you have to relate before you educate. So one reason I can get so much done in my classes, I don't like to give tests or homework, but we work the whole 53 minutes I have those students. And when we go online, they still work. I taught an awesome artificial intelligence course and interviewed some of the amazing people around the world who were experts in AI in the spring, had to get a distance in. But it's about relationship because they know that I care. I know them, I know who they are. And once you build those relationships, it's like a bridge over which you can learn, you can walk across and learn together. COVID aside, what are the things that get teachers excited in Georgia at the moment? For context here in England, we love all the social media. It's not for everybody, but at least there's been a big explosion here in the UK for research and form practice. What is it for teachers at your side of the pond? I think it's almost right now impossible to put COVID aside because we've been trying a lot of places like my school. My school has been 15 weeks of in-person learning, which is pretty remarkable. A lot of schools can't do that. I think teachers right now just long to get back to the classroom and some sense of normalcy. That's what teachers are hoping for and longing for when it's reasonable. This is just such a hard time, Ross. If we had done this interview a year ago, I would have said that teachers got excited about things that could save them time and save them time with grading, but teachers everywhere, there are a lot of things as you and I both know that can save teachers a whole lot of time, but because it's new, they think, well, it's hard. I always show this that we have this old thing called a mimeograph. I'm not sure what you call it over there. It's where they used to mix the liquid and they would turn it and it would print out the test. This was back in the 80s. It was like a chemical reaction. I banned the machine over here. It's an old-fashioned photocopier, isn't it? Yeah. What I tell teachers is that if you could do that, there's absolutely nothing that you or I could teach them. Ross said it's harder than that because that was like you had to like that thing work. But if we could just help them understand, help teachers understand that they can save time, that the tools like Nearpod are in Pear Deck allow you to check for understanding every two to three minutes. When you do that, you can teach things faster, more efficient, and that quiz or that test should never be a surprise. You shouldn't say, oh my goodness, half the class failed. You should already know if they know it before you ever test. That's what formative assessment's about, and that's what edtech tools truly give us, as well as a way to personalize in many ways. Go down the edtech route. Would you define yourself as an expert or someone who's very curious and loves to explore new technologies? I would say that a lot of people call me an expert, but the thing is that who can truly be an expert because there's so many tools out there. I'm always learning about new tools. I would say that I am an enthusiastic expert who's continually learning from other teachers. And what are the insights from your blog? All the teachers clicking and downloading, reading things. What kind of secrets or insights can you tell us? What are teacher habits? Well, I think podcasts, as you know, are growing rapidly. A lot of folks are really starting to listen to that and understanding that's a part of their personal learning network that they can add. I think teachers like lists. They like simplicity. They like things that work. They like to hear from other teachers. I think there's been sort of a pushback on quote thought leadership for people that haven't been in the classroom for a while, especially now. In some ways, it's like if it was written before February 2020, it may be irrelevant. So people are looking for current information about how to cope with what they've got to do. Especially that remote teaching dialogue. I've spent much of my own lockdown experience trying to understand the research in terms of technology. How's lockdown been for you, Vicki? The whole process? Well, we were, I called it my at-home sabbatical. Because lockdown just makes you feel like you're in prison. Yes, true. That was a good perspective. Yeah, so we went on March 13th, and then I was back at work by mid-June, and we've been in person learning since then. You know, I started making sourdough bread again. But I worked. I worked from probably sometimes two and three in the morning to midnight. We did not miss any days of instruction for distance learning. We took the whole school online, K3 through 12th grade. Went all the way through. We actually added an extra day of instruction, got rid of a day that was supposed to be a sort of vacation day. It was very, very hard work. I hope I never have to do it again. Helping so many people get online and so many kids get online and truly learn and engage. We're all better prepared now, aren't we? Like you said, earlier we've done it. We've done it now, and it won't be so hard the second time. Well, I'm not sure, you know, a lot of folks will say it was trauma teaching or it was emergency teaching in the spring. Our pedagogical approach needs to change because a lot of folks, what they did is, as you're aware of the SAMR model, they just substituted. They said, okay, I lecture, so here's now I'm going to lecture. And then those who did that are kind of like, well, why is everybody turning their camera off? And when I call on them, why aren't they there? Well, it's because actually, if you called on them in the classroom, that they wouldn't be there either, because we know that we have to change things up to keep this generation interested. So the the weaknesses are even more apparent, but the strengths are even more apparent too. For my school, we had No Zoom Wednesdays. It had to be all online for Wednesday. It had to be asynchronous. And the teachers met for professional development. We met with mentor groups and we met with mastery groups. So mentor groups are, I'm sort of a lead teacher in a particular subject area, say math, and I'm going to help the other math teachers do well in understanding how I teach pedagogically online. Mastery groups were, we would pick a tool. So we'd say, okay, it's Ed Puzzle or it's Nearpod. You know, we would pick experts in each of those areas who would then, the teachers could pick their mastery group. And their goal would be to master that particular technology and that by the end of their session, they would have something created for the next day of class. So we leveled up very, very quickly. I think my big concern is that that I'm not sure as a whole how many people are doing it extremely well. So there are parents, you know, who are saying this is not teaching my child is teaching themselves or, or whatever. And so when we get back in person, the pendulum is going to swing and they're going to be schools that say we are 100% based in face to face instruction, and we use no technology because there is going to be a pushback. But those who understand that remote learning is a permanent part of the landscape of learning and life on this planet will understand that their children that blended learning is, as you know, you've looked at the research blended learning works best face to face and online, compared to online, have about the same success achievement rate. You can kind of get there with both of those. Well, when you truly advance exponentially, it's when you have a face to face classroom that's augmented with a blended learning classroom with with an online and you got bricks and clicks as I often say in my book writing expression. And now you've written a book here or there. Could you tell listeners, you know, where, where your knowledge and where you've published some of your work? Lightning classrooms engaging minds. I co wrote with a lady named Julie Lindsey, who's in Australia about how to globally collaborate. At this point, I've done more than led more than 30 global collaborative projects. The first is the flat classroom project that was in Thomas Friedman's, but the world is flat. And actually, you know, I have people say, you know, how did you know to go to distance learning is like, well, I actually pulled out flattening classrooms engaging minds and followed my own advice on everything. And because we had done it, if you can collaborate with Bangladesh, UK, Terry Friedman from the UK was one of our judges. Yes, he's an amazing friend of mine. I've actually been in the same place with him four or five times and he's remarkable. I love Terry. But he so so I pulled that book out. The second book was reinventing writing. That was 2013 2014. My children started graduating from high school. So that put me on a little hiatus. I'm actually working on another book. I have a book called Do What Matters, which is an online book that you can only get from my site. And that's sort of my productivity method of how am I able to do so. Cool cat teacher.com. Yes, cool cat teacher.com is my site and I'm cool cat teacher everywhere. So and then I'm working on it. I'm working on another one if I get through this craziness right now. Okay. So I'll ask you about that in a moment. What why cool cat teacher just that interest? Well, back. So I do have a marketing background and back when I was thinking of a name. Name is everything in Vicky Davis. It's a pretty common name. I actually have a sister in law named Vicky Davis. You know, I've got to have something different. Yeah. So it was brainstorming and writing down names and brainstorming and it was study hall with my students. And I was running ideas by them. And at the time, the mascot of my school was the Wildcats. And one of the teachers, one of the kids said, well, you're cool. So why don't you be the cool cat? And I'm like, well, cool cat blog wouldn't work. So let's do cool cat teacher blog. And everyone was like, love it, love it, love it, love it. And okay, went home, husband loved it. And it's kind of like when you're brainstorming ideas, one will jump out like the 10 minute teacher was probably idea number 200, you know, we were brainstorming podcast names. So that's been going for now podcast. So I had a podcast before called Every Classroom Matters. And that was on a network. And I wanted to self produce and how to have my own show. And for most of the time, I've been five days a week on that particular podcast called the 10 minute teacher started that in February 2017, we're at episodes 711 now. And it's, you know, the thing is, is that as a teacher, I don't have 30 minutes or an hour to listen to a podcast. I just don't. And so what I wanted to do was to have a really short podcast that teachers could get lots of different ideas as they listen. And then they could pick their ideas they want to go deeper into. Yeah, it's a very good tip for myself because, you know, I've tried to stick with 20 minutes and we've gone just above that. And I know that, you know, my blog in particular, two or three minute reads max. So I know you're very speaking a lot of wisdom there. So I'm going to try and make my podcast. The average person listens to 12 minutes unless they are a wild raving fan and just Yeah, that's true. And they're rare. So on that note, Vicki, I'm going to, we've passed my 20 minute barrier. No one's listening to it. But I'd like to just throw some quick fire questions that you can try and catch you off guard. And so I haven't been doing very well recently. So I'll see how it gets on. But, um, and then ideally, if you can't pause or hesitate and just blurt out the first response, start with what project is on your desk today? Taking my dad to first skin cancer surgery. Okay, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, I mean, yeah, well, you can leave that in. I mean, I think that we definitely leave that in. I mean, it's the reality that sometimes, you know, I've all I will say life gets in the way when we're teachers, teaching is hard enough. But then life makes things harder. And what book are you reading? Oh, I have so many, but there's a when I downloaded this morning, it's 50 writing. Oh gosh, I needed it. I wish I could remember it. It's 50 writing. It'll come to writing straight. Well, it's the next time. What's your top tips for writing a book? My top tips for writing a book are, uh, sit down and mind map the whole thing and then go to index cards and kind of group them and then just get it out of your head the first time, write it out. And then you can go back and you can start revising. Um, the other thing is that don't get hung up on whether anybody is going to read it or not, or don't start spending the money and deciding how you're going to go on a cruise, because typically most people don't get rich on books, but it's about leaving a legacy of helpfulness. And there are people who do get you and do appreciate you that will get a lot out of what you have to write. Uh, but writing is, I can't remember who said it, writing is just bleeding on a page and it's like your whole life. It's very pathetic. Um, what, what, what edtech tool you're still using 10 years later since you started blogging? Well, if it hadn't gotten rid of wiki spaces, it would have been wiki spaces. Um, I have been using Evernote a very long time. I've been using WordPress a very long time, Twitter very long time. And what's your, uh, what should go to resource during lockdown? Or couldn't you live without Google? Well, Google classroom was basically our, our classroom management system, but you know, Ed puzzle zoom. Okay. At top number one app you would recommend to teachers to you to try chrome, Google Chrome and know how to turn them on and off. Uh, that's a big thing. The teachers start getting into all these tools and they don't know how to turn their extensions on and off and they start conflicting with each other and slowing things down. So just learn like start off by learning how to use your Chrome web browser and then go into other tools that are, that are awesome. I think Nearpod is a great tool too. Um, if you weren't a teacher, you know, human teaching and podcasting and blogging is your dream job. What, what is that off the wall career you never had? Well, probably if I ever stop teaching, it will be just writing books full time. I've got some nonfiction and some fiction books that I've worked on for years and, uh, that and just doing, doing this blog podcast thing. Um, radio or, I don't know, create and invent. Give me three words your students would just use to describe you, your teaching. Um, intense, um, truthful, one more and hilarious. Excellent. Who would you recommend I interview next and why my friend Casey Bell from shakeup learning. I love her. All right. I've not heard, I've not met Casey, so it'd be nice to, uh, get, get connected. And finally, um, where can listeners find out more about your Vicki, you know, your blogs, links, podcasts, cool cat teacher.com. Okay. Very simple. My final question. I ask all my, uh, people I work with. Um, what would you hope to be your legacy? A legacy of helpfulness that when people look back and if they can read my content in 100 years, they say that she understood the heart of teaching and she did not let ed tech tools or the new stuff obscure the fact that it is about a relationship between teachers and students and that when a teacher truly connects with kids and they can change their lives and they can change the future of the planet. And I hope that I have a lot of kids all over the world who are repeating that they can be world class and how to treat others with respect, even people's different than them. And, um, that they, that they saw a teacher who just lived life to the full and didn't hold back and had no regrets. Fantastic. Um, well, Vicki, firstly, it's been wonderful to connect with you. Let's not leave it 10 years again. And, uh, can I just also say the reason we got in touch is we were both shortlisted for the LinkedIn top voices. So congratulations to you also. And for people listening, uh, your podcast 10 minute teacher, um, and your website coolcatteacher.com, uh, thank you for all the things that you do to inspire the teaching profession. And, uh, thank you for your time and keep up the good work. You too. Very much so. Thank you, Vicki.