Before I was a technology trainer I was an ELA teacher for a very long time in my career. I loved teaching novels and engaging students in the writing process. Teaching students to engage with their own ideas about specific topics and to build connections with the larger world through writing still is one of the favorite parts of my career. I was lucky enough to have administrators that understood my love of technology, and the skills I have for writing grants to bring that technology to my classroom.

A couple of months ago I was asked Katie Garrett, an associate director at UEN, to help a group of college and graduate students explore podcasting. These students were from the American Indian Resource Center and were developing a podcast to highlight the work of the AIRC. They also wanted to explore the issues facing American Indians who are in college or graduate school. We spent an hour or so together developing ideas, touring the studio, and recording their voices for the first time.

I have a distinct memory of sitting in my third-grade classroom, surrounded by bright colors and desks, learning about phonics. My teacher instructing us to sound it out and figure out the world by struggling with the sounds. It was a reading lesson, which at that point I needed more help with my spelling (still do), but other students needed it.

When I was in school I know I had some pivotal conversations about learning without knowing they were about learning. I knew that I was unhappy at a few key points in my education and I know that I spoke about those issues with those around me, teachers, other students, and counselors.

Last year at this time, I was working on developing a course for Utah Education Network. The course was, and still is, a passion project for me.

What I really love in podcasting is when you get a group of people with disparate backgrounds and they, without planning, synchronize their comments.

Artificial Intelligence is a topic that almost immediately makes for panic. I don’t know if it is the philosophical idea of humans creating intelligence or the demonization of AI through popular science fiction (looking at you Matrix, Transcendence, and about a dozen other movies), but every time AI is brought up, even pre-Chat GPT, it felt like the air was moving out of the room. AI is a tool and should be thought of as such. Like cassette tapes to the recording industry, AI is being worried about as a way for students to do less thinking and writing.

I started taking goal setting seriously when I started teaching K-12. I had just completed a grad program in English and was just about to finish my second degree in education and I realized that I had not read for fun in years. My life was a mess of professional goals and obligations (conferences, new courses, lectures) and lists of books that I needed to read, not wanted to read. So, after a few adjustment months, I started reading for fun again.

One of the consistent things that I have learned and continue learning about Utah education is that there are a lot of incredibly dedicated and hopeful individuals working within the system for teachers and students. Funnily enough, a good chunk of those individuals in the last few years have been connected to the Utah Teacher Fellows.

Open Educational Resources, or OER, is an underutilized part of education. I know many educators who head first to Teachers Pay Teachers rather than spending time looking for something in OER.

We are four episodes deep into Get Googley and I just keep digging into my comedic tool belt (which is very shallow). This time it was writing New Year’s resolutions.

Gitte Frederiksen’s TED Talk “Great Leadership is a Network, not a Hierarchy” hit a deep chord with me. Leadership often takes on the role of gatekeeping with workers sharing ideas or their struggles with their leadership and the ideas being struck down or the struggles ignored.

After yesterday’s post about AI, I feel like cannot escape it now. That afternoon I was reading You are not a Gadget and much of the chapter was on the associated problems of artificial intelligence and algorithms. This morning I opened my email and there was another edtech company sharing their latest AI-driven project (more on that in a future blog).

A few months ago I was teaching a session on digital literacy/citizenship and I posed a simple question, “Should students learn about Artificial Intelligence?”

The answer generally from 30+ educators was “Of course not.” Not enough time in the curriculum, too little expertise in our teacher pool, students don’t need to know this. I immediately shot back, “Of course they do.” We are surrounded by AI now more than ever and it is only getting better and easier to use in daily life.

One of my favorite education-related videos over the last ten years is Richard Culatta’s “Rethinking Digital Citizenship.” It explores how and why we teach our students from a young age the dangers and prohibitions associated with technology, but now the proper ways to use technology for good, nor praise them for their good uses. It is an amazing deconstruction of why, as a society, we have determined that students can only understand technology in terms of the evils it can perform.

There are conversations that I have as a podcast interviewer that I wish could go on forever. Speaking to them for hours and hours just sounds like a delightful way to spend the day. Often it is because the interview sits in this great sweet spot of my own personal interest in the subject and the interviewees are so knowledgeable and engaged in their own work that their passion just shines. Dani and my interview with KnowledgeWorks experts Virgel and Lillian were one of these interviews.

Anyone who has spent more than a few weeks working with educational technology starts to see a growing mass of tools and curricular moves, webinars and update after update after update. It is a lot to pay attention to and build a structure for your classroom. So many directions and so many of them are seemingly overwhelming.

I first encountered the term “Imposter Syndrome” just after starting my graduate degree from a professor friend. I was describing how I felt a bit odd teaching college courses. I explained that I had just left my undergrad behind less than six months ago and I was now in charge of a course of undergrads seeking writing instruction. She tried to assure me, but I was obstinate that it felt weird and a bit off. “Imposter Syndrome,” were the next words out of her mouth.

When I received my first 3D printer on a grant in 2016, I was already fascinated with the possibilities for creating and printing objects for my classroom and students.

Last year on UEN Homeroom, Dani and I were lucky enough to have an amazing conversation about how to approach teaching Native American culture in Utah classrooms and some of the best practices. The conversation was a great discussion with two wonderful educators from BYU, Heather Francis and Brenda Beyal. This year, thanks to the Utah Teacher Fellows Podcast and guest host Natalie Johnson, there is a follow-up to that conversation. Brenda Beyal returns with the director of the Native American Curriculum Initiative, Cally Flox. Come learn about the Native American Curriculum Initiative at BYU and how it is helping to transform how Utah educators are discussing Native cultures.