 I'm Grady Edwards with Beau Gorszewski. Welcome to DISCAST, a podcast from the Ori County Schools digital integration team. We believe that educational technology can be used to transform teaching and learning in the classroom. We strive to spotlight the good work our teachers are doing across our county and hope our discussions will inspire possibilities for your classroom. Your journey into the world of that tech starts right now. Welcome to the DISCAST, or should I say welcome back to all of our HCS teachers. We want to send a huge welcome back to all of our teachers back to work as the new year begins. But before we get too far, we wanted to talk about all of the summer work that took place this year and a very special announcement. A huge DISCAST announcement. We'd like to welcome Carey Quick-Correll to the digital integration team. Carey is a former middle school science teacher at Whittemore Park and North Myrtle Beach and an instructional coach at North Myrtle Beach. She has already been a fantastic addition to the team and we are very happy to have Carey with us. We even have Carey here to say hello and tell us a little about herself. Thanks guys. I'm very excited to start this new adventure with the DISC team with my background in science education as well as my experience as a curriculum coach. My hope is that I can support lifelong learners along their own journey and continue to learn and grow from my fellow colleagues here at Ory County. It has been a busy summer and Carey is greaty with the breakdown. Well Carey, it was great working alongside you as a coach and now I'm looking forward to working with you as a fellow DISC. Welcome to the team. And boy are you right. It was a busy summer. We had curriculum work with EdTech Task Force members, three days of professional learning with George Curros and our Dismiss in July with EdTech Task Force, not to mention a fantastic A-team with school leadership and the first poster session PD ever. What a summer. Right you are greaty. It was a fantastic summer of learning and innovation. The workshops with George Curros gave our leadership teams and EdTech Task Force members a great charge going into the new year. Speaking of the EdTech Task Force, we had quite a few new representatives that got to host PD for the first time. Quite a few of them were our tech innovators of the month. Did you know that in the month of May, we had Chris Condeli of Homewood Elementary, Michelle Hull of Green Seafloids Middle, and Carolyn Hamilton of Conway High School. Great job May Tech Innovators, but back to George. During his three days in Ori County, he sat down with the DISC to answer some questions. Let's listen in. We were able to sit down with George and ask him some specific questions about his presentation, book, and other areas of professional development. Our first question for George was about his quote, technology will never replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational. We asked George to speak to this quote. Well I think for me, I think that there is some fear and I think justified fear that there are aspects of things like, for example, you get a bunch of iPads, right? And the first thing that teachers ask is like, what are the apps? Not all teachers, but many of them, right? What apps should I use? Where the first question should be, what should I be creating with this, right? So if you use a technology that is totally about schooling the kid, knows a program, I have a struggle with that. But if I use a technology that in a transformational way that I couldn't do without it before. So like, I get a really simple analogy, right? So if I get on a plane, and all I do is move the plane and go from gate to gate, but I don't ever fly, I'm using an advanced technology in a way that I could use another technology to do better, right, a car. It's only when the plane flies that it matters. And I think that when we're looking at things like iPads, you know, if your kids are only consuming information, but not actually creating content, not actually sharing that, there's always that concern is that, yeah, it's just the teacher's being replaced by another content delivery system, whereas we really want to shift it that it becomes more personal through the use of technology where you're working, collaborating with one another. The technology is kind of just part of the process, but not the end goal. And so how do we get teachers, so like even the examples this morning I was sharing about how, you know, students not only watching YouTube videos, but actually creating YouTube videos so they can teach others. That's not just a kid in front of a computer, there's lots of planning, lots of collaboration that has to go through that process, but the kid will actually know the content way deeper than if they just watched a video, right? If I have to teach the entire world, it shifts things for me. So I think that's something that always has to be addressed. And I think when teachers see like, yeah, like, hey, we're now delivering content through this medium instead of you, but we only see our roles as content delivery, then then yeah, there is a I can see the concern, right? So next we talked to George about his opening keynote and the importance of building relationships. Why are relationships so vital when building a culture of innovation? I think for me, and I think for any teacher, any staff member is that we build the relationships. And I think a lot of people get it, it's like, oh, like, we want to be these like fluffy schools where, you know, it's all about every kid is cared for, which is obvious, right? But the reason why we build the relationships is that we feel that we work with people who have our back, right? That we work with people that when we take risks and things don't necessarily work the way that we wanted them to work, do I have the support of that person or are going to be like, you know, attacked for it? And I think that we look at relationship building as crucial to actually be able to further push the work that we're doing, giving analogy, because people say, well, you know, you don't have to have a relationship to learn. And that's true. That's a hundred percent true. There's tons of people I have learned from that, you know, I don't necessarily like they've never treated me well, right? But I think about this one professor I had, he was he was a history professor and he got me so hooked on history and I was just so fascinated and he was easily the best lecturer I've ever had in my life. He was just so fascinating to listen to and just interesting. And I could just sit. I wouldn't even have to write notes. I would just absorb everything is saying just the way he would say it. But I always wonder how much further because he would just do his thing. Leave. That was it, right? I always wonder how much further I could have actually gone in that area. If there is any connection, if he actually knew my name, you know, actually helped me figure out some of the things that I want to dive into. I felt that was good in his class because I could do well in his test because I could easily remember the things that he said. But I actually don't necessarily know if I understood them as well, right? And I think that for that real deep dive where we go beyond the notion of regurgitation and replacing learning with the term regurgitation, which I think happens too often is that we use like studies that all kids will, you know, without devices, learn better or learn worse than kids with without them or whatever. But when you actually dig into the learning, it's basically because the kids are better regurgitating, but it doesn't mean they understand. And so I think that relationship piece, when you're looking at all these other factors around what happens in schools is that I know that I'm supported, I know I'm cared for, so I can be pushed to become better. I don't I think as an adult and maybe it's because I'm getting older and all I feel is you attacking me or going at me all the time, but I don't feel you value anything that I do. I don't really have interest in what you have to say. And it doesn't mean you can you can say however you want. But it doesn't help me grow. And I think that's that's what we have to look at is that we want to build these relationships at every level of our school. So kids can be pushed to their next level that they they know they're they're safe to challenge themselves. So I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to me. We asked George to elaborate on the idea of school teacher versus classroom teacher. So I kind of distinguish between the idea of classroom teacher versus school teacher. And this is just stuff that, you know, just was really to help me clarify and a lot of people resonate because they can physically visualize what I'm talking about. So when I talk about the idea of a classroom teacher, it can be a teacher who, you know, knows your stuff, you know, builds good relationships with their kids. But they also when they leave the classroom, they have no interest in getting to know other kids in the school, right? And it doesn't mean they don't care. I think a lot of people get next up. It's just that they don't necessarily build the connections. They're often the ones who send kids the office really quickly that of kids they don't know because they don't have a relationship, which they would never send a kid in their own class that quickly, right? To the office because they have some relationship built. So when I talk about the idea of school teachers, school teachers great with their content, good with their class, but they walk out of the room and they look at that whole community that every kid is, you know, one of their own. Like for me, there's an easy transition for me to become a principal from a teacher because there's elements of things I did as a teacher that were normal to a principal, right? Like I don't feel comfortable when I see kids walking down the hallway and adults don't acknowledge them because you have no idea what's going on in that kid's life. And a simple positive acknowledgement of a child can actually make a difference for a kid. You have no idea. And and I'm not saying that every teacher wants to be a principal. We're trying to develop the school to become principals. But what I'm really focusing on is that when we look at our school community. Do I look at the custodian as someone I can have a conversation? Like I think of our custodian as a student. Mr. Rorkey, he was one of my favorite people in that building. We used to talk to him all the time. And I'll tell you, if you did graffiti in the school, there is a massive issue with the kids because the kids love Mr. Rorkey. So we took more ownership because we had that relationship with him, right? And so I think that's something that I really focus on that all levels. If you look at high school dropout rates, if you interview kids, there is a consistent theme as in many of the dropouts that the kids believe no adult would care if they left. So you hear quotes like, well, if every kid had at least one adult and that's all nice and stuff, but I don't think that in a 12 year period that one adult is actually enough. And I think that we need to do our best to become advocates for all of our kids, all of our staff, whether we teach them that year or not. And I think that's that's for me is why I really try to talk about those terms, really get think of of of an individual's role in the whole of the school. Right? It's not just about my class is about every kid, right? If I share things with you, if I share things with you as a teacher because I know they'll help your kids, that to me is a school teacher. When I hold things because I don't want you to take my stuff because I've worked so hard to build it. That's the classroom teacher, right? I don't want to just give you my stuff right away because I worked for this and I'm not just letting you teach other kids of the stuff, right? I think that's where I try to make the connection. So our next question for George was, what could we do to improve our PD sessions and how can we effectively personalize our PD? Well, so let's just distinguish between the two. So personalized learning, I think, has been connected with tech initiatives in the sense that we run some program, the technology knows the kid and it starts personalizing to the child, right? I'm not saying that's bad, but I'm saying that we are. And I think this is a comment you made earlier is that you're creating systems that will eventually replace teachers because I could do that with a thousand kids, right? And so we I was actually in Del Mar School as they're in California and they actually really talk about the personalizational learning. So when they talk about the personalizational learning, I'm sure they have some elements of, you know, what I'm talking about with the technology, but it's really, do we know the kids in front of us? Do we know who they are? Do we know what they sound to? Can we identify their strengths, right? So like, even I'll give you the notion of response to intervention, multi-tiered support systems you hear often in schools. A lot of times what when we talk about our kids who are struggling, what we do is we focus on what the things we can't do. We say, like, here's the here's the strategies we're going to do to actually make them better at this process. Now take that take that notion and then apply it to a teacher, right? So teachers struggling and all I do is focus on what they can do. And I just keep hammering them all the time. We get a team around this. Do you think that person would want to work for me? They would hate it. And so I think that when we talk the personalization of learning, we want to find out who the people are in front of us. And so I know that and I think this is the trick, right? So we have a vision and hopefully it's a co-created shared vision. And I think both of those words co-created shared are really important. And it's more likely shared if it's co-created, but if you can't call it shared if I had no input. When you look at that, we have people going, you know, towards a similar vision. Can we create opportunities within learning as a group or as a whole? Where we start to personalize stuff. So as you're seeing today, there's things that obviously I want to make sure that I address today, but I also wanted to do it in a way that's honoring the questions of the people in front of me. Because I think when we think about personalization, we think about, okay, we're going to offer like ed camp style. We're going to have 50 different sessions and, you know what, like knitting might be great, but it's not necessarily doing anything to further the vision of the school. And so how do we tie it in? And so you see this a lot of times. So like a school district, they'll have a district vision and mission. They'll have a high school mission and vision. There'll be an elementary school mission and vision. There'll be like a technology team, mission and vision, a curriculum team. It is hard enough to get everyone on board with one. It is way harder to get everyone board with six, right? And so the key there is, do you have a shared vision throughout the district that every school has some ownership over in the sense that the vision for the district and how you attain it is going to look different than at the high school level than as a technology team? The pathway to get to the end goal is different. But the end goal is the same wherever you go. And I think like I've worked a lot of districts and like, no, no, no, it's good because, you know, we want to really personalize it to each school community and things like that. So I as a teacher, do I focus more on the vision of the high school that I work at, or do I focus on the vision of the district, which one supersedes the other? And then you just get people messed up. And I think, like I said, the community that you work in is so important in understanding them. But if you're really going to be effective to actually achieve even a singular vision, you have to give people ownership over the process of how they get to that end goal, even though the end goal might be the same, right? And I think it's the same like we talk about in school, the notion of personalized learning versus individualized. Well, the the when we talk about individualized learning, it's often, you know, kids taking different paths but to the same end goal. But when you do the personalization of learning, it can be kids taking different paths towards different goals. How do we create opportunities for both, right? So for example, genius hour might be something that doesn't have to tie into the curriculum, but gives kids, you know, the opportunities to learn how to learn. Whereas individualized learning, I have a curriculum goal, but the kids can do different types of assessment to show they're learning that space. That's more of an individualized. So I think even at the staff level, we have to create those opportunities as well. That we do tap into the areas and strengths and interests of our people, give them some opportunities to learn things that are important to them, but we still have to keep people on a, you know, together on a vision. And if we can't keep people together on a vision because they don't see it's relevant, then maybe your vision's not good, right? So that's something to focus on. And finally, can you explain our role as educators in preparing students for authentic learning experiences? So I think that, so first of all, I don't necessarily ever talk about preparing kids for jobs that don't exist because at no point in human history did we ever, are there all the jobs in the future? We're already determined. Schools have always, you know, we've always known there's change in the world. The rate of change is quicker than ever as it has the century before, as it was the century before. I think that what is massively different now is we need to help kids create, think about how they create opportunities for themselves, not learn how to work for other people all the time, right? And I was not saying if you work for someone else, that's a bad path, but there's a lot of opportunities that kids can actually make for themselves. And a good friend of mine, A.J. Giuliani, brilliant educator, he says something along the lines of, we're not trying to prepare kids for something, but we're trying to help them prepare to learn anything. And the idea, and I think this is a whole premise of the notion of the innovator's mindset, that no matter what comes my way, I will be able to figure it out and I'll be able to create opportunities for this. So I'm gonna ask this question all the time. So what's the next big technology? What's like the next big thing in education? And my answer is always the same, I have no clue. All I know is no matter what it is, I will be able to figure it out and I'll be able to create something to make it better for kids. And I think that's something that we really need to shift to is that we are so scared to change and scared of the next or the next new thing because we don't know what it is as opposed to being comfortable, like yeah, there will always be something new and will I be able to figure it out? Do I have the skills and the tools personally that whatever learning comes my way, I'll figure it out? And when you talk about the idea of like, we have curriculum, we have this and state tests and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, 100%, there's constraints on the system, there's always gonna be barriers and we always have to like address those barriers in some manner, but I think Katie Novak, she's actually my co-author for my next book coming out called Innovate Inside the Box, she said the grade three kid right now doesn't care about what you're trying to do for 2030. They want the best opportunity right now. And so what we focus on in our book is the idea that how do you make incredible things happen with inside the constraints? And I think that's one of the shift and that's something that I'm talking about is that, hey, you know what, there is certain curriculum things but can you get a kid to create a YouTube video, explain it, whether you know how to make a YouTube video or not, get the kid to figure it out. They still are covering the content while they're developing these other skills that they might want to utilize for other parts of their life. You don't have to teach all the kids the same way, even though sometimes you have to teach all the kids the same thing. And so I think that as long as we're creating or developing our students as people who can figure out whatever it is that comes your way will be fine. But if you're trying to, like so for example, I'm not saying coding is a bad thing but if you're trying to ensure that kids, all kids can code because there's gonna be so many coding jobs that open up. What happens when technology does like, like, you know, artificial intelligence does all the coding for you. And so do those skills become irrelevant as opposed to do we teach coding because the skill develops like problem finding skills and all these other aspects, right? Not just like simply preparing kids for coding jobs. I don't think that's, and Brian Asimov does a great job talking about like the bigger benefits of coding as opposed to just simply preparing kids for coding jobs. And so I think that's where we always have to shift is making sure that no matter what comes our way we'll be fine. Yeah. Good deal. Appreciate it, thanks. Another thank you to George for taking out of his schedule to meet with us. I know we will carry a lot of that discussion and mindset with us as we visit schools this year. Absolutely. Bo, before we end today's podcast, I wanna give a huge shout out to all of our ETTF members. It was such a pleasure working with those of you on the curriculum team and on the professional development team that blew away our first ever poster sessions. I know I learned quite a bit from those presenters during those two days. You bet, Grady. And for those of you who missed the poster sessions have no fear, we will include a link to all presenter resources in the podcast YouTube description. Be sure to watch our podcast on YouTube to see some videos and pictures from the two day poster session. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter with at dear disses. Kudos to so many of our fellow Ori County educators and hashtag relentless leaders that have been sharing on Twitter like at Lapeer James, at mbhs underscore principle and at Chris Plowman Wren. Please be sure to give them a follow and see how they are changing things in their schools. Don't forget to also interact with us on our Facebook fan page at dear disse. Finally, check out our hashtags and join the adventure like hashtag HCS PDL, hashtag EDDF, hashtag HCS badges and get your admin's attention with hashtag lead HCS and hashtag poster PD. Finally, take us home, Carrie. Thanks for listening everyone. We look forward to learning and growing with you this year and having an excellent start to your school year. To continue to follow our story, please subscribe to the Discast. Thank you for joining us today and always remember in the words of George Kuros, technology will never replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational. See you next time. Thanks for watching. Be sure to like, comment or apply to one of our other videos or share the playlist below. Subscribe to our channel and enable notifications so that you don't miss out on the next episode. Don't forget to check out our other resources like the Discast podcast and see what else is going on in Ori County schools. Be sure to follow at dear disses on social media or contact us via email or our blog. Thanks.