Evolving Educational Technology Use From Translational to Transformational

Transcript

Kris Szajner (00:00)

Welcome everyone to the Learning Loop Podcast, your best source for educational insights and trends. I’m Chris, your host. Today’s special guest is Alex.

Alex Keeney (00:08)

Okay.

Kris Szajner (00:17)

He’s an integration technology teacher serving K through fifth grade students in Minnesota. He’s an expert content creator and being our most recent guest in our Seesaw Showdown. In today’s interview, we will discuss how Alex leverages Seesaw to improve educational outcomes through technology best practices. Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex Keeney (00:37)

Perfect, thank you for having me.

Kris Szajner (00:39)

Super excited you’re here and a fellow Minnesotan as well. We might hear some of those oops and don’t you know what’s going on here, but we’ll see how that goes. I just wanna kick off with a basic question here. Can you share your journey into educational technology? What sparked your interest into transitioning into this specific role?

Alex Keeney (00:42)

Yep.

Thanks

Alex Keeney (01:00)

Yeah, I think really my interest was, wasn’t interest to start, but I felt it was more forced on me. Being a newer teacher in 2020, we had a little bit of a shift in teaching come March when we had the pandemic come through. And that’s actually where got my start with Seesaw. Before then I heard about Seesaw, I heard about, you know, just other technology resources that were available, but.

you know, when we have to start teaching on technology, you’re kind of thrown to the wolves and you have to get good at it, you have to know what to do. And so not only did I really start my C-sodger near them, but that is really what prompted me to really dive deeper into technology, knowing that, you know, we not only have to teach students on this, on technology right now, but how in the future can we leverage what we know students are good at on technology to improve their educational outcomes and their just learning.

opportunities in the classroom when we get to see them in person again. And so ever since this, since learning, Seesaw has been an integral part of my classroom and so I have other technology resources as well just because I have gotten more comfortable with them and then I know the students themselves.

Kris Szajner (02:04)

Sure.

Alex Keeney (02:13)

just like teachers had to, they had to get comfortable with them as well. And I think from that I just knew this is something we need to work with more and it’s something that we can leverage to really enhance students’ learning opportunities.

Kris Szajner (02:16)

Yeah.

Kris Szajner (02:26)

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I love too how the inspiration came out of need, but then it shifted more towards a best practice from there as well. think, you know, through the pandemic, a lot of people went through that same journey. They went through that of, you know, I feel burned out. I don’t know what to do. Or I’m feeling, I don’t know exactly what the answer is. And it’s good that you came out of that and kind of came out with that breath of fresh air of like, this is what we should be doing. This feels right. And this is the support.

that we wanted to have our classrooms have.

Alex Keeney (02:59)

And it feels almost more proactive than now because shifting to distance learning was a reactive thing. We had to do it. But now how can we set students up where hopefully we never have to go through that again. But if we do, or even just using technology in the classrooms, we want students to be good at that. We want to find ways to incorporate it. And being more proactive with it, think, sets them up not only for situations like that, but just to be 21st century learners and really be able to succeed in their future.

Kris Szajner (03:02)

Yeah.

Kris Szajner (03:07)

Yeah.

Kris Szajner (03:29)

Absolutely, for sure. love that and I love that being the principal too with as you’re thinking about coaching and how you’re supporting those classrooms, know, having that be a foundation that will, you know…

prevent anything like that coming up in the future. As long as, know, knock on wood, we don’t actually come across something like that again. But it’s a good best practice too, to kind of build into it. I want to just lean into what you just shared there and a little bit more on your philosophy in general. Can you just describe your philosophy around technology in the modern classroom? I know you shared a little bit about it during COVID. Like, what does it kind of look like when you walk into a classroom and support a teacher?

Alex Keeney (03:46)

Ha!

Kris Szajner (04:10)

that philosophy that you bring into that classroom to support a modern teacher.

Alex Keeney (04:17)

You know, I think that shifted even over the last year, last month, last however long, just as I start taking in new information, trying new things. And I think right now my main philosophy is using technology, not as the sole teaching source. We don’t want to send students to technology to learn. We want to be able to use it to enhance their learning opportunities. And so lately when we go into classrooms, really focusing on, you know, having students collaborate and work together on a task, on a,

subject areas with specific content and using that technology as a place where they could go as a resource. They can go and research topics. They can go and keep track of notes on there, but they’re still collaborating. They’re working together. They’re using the technology as a tool, not just as something where they go to and they, you

They sit and I’ll use an example. I when I started out teaching, I maybe wasn’t the best at this. You send students to technology and you think, hey, they’re on an iPad, they’re reading a book, they must be gaining some great 21st century skills here by listening to a story on the iPad because they’re using technology. And I found that that’s not as effective as.

using it as a tool, having them go to the technology for a little bit but still collaborating with others, working through ideas, working through problems, using it as that resource that students can keep coming back to but they aren’t stuck with, if that makes sense. So really that focus on collaboration, problem solving, and using technology is something that is a part of the lesson, not the whole lesson itself.

Kris Szajner (05:41)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kris Szajner (05:52)

Love it. Love that the framing there too. think it comes back to what I remember hearing as a technology coach too is like we don’t want students.

consuming what’s happening on technology. We want them to actually create with the technology as that goes. And I think part of your role too is demystifying that with teachers. Like getting them to understand that you want to shift away from just being absorbed in something and having it be the destination where they go just to consume it, but to go somewhere and actually use the tools for better and to create and enhance that lesson as you go.

Alex Keeney (06:29)

I completely agree and that’s something where this is my third year in the role as a technology coach or integration technology teacher in my district. And I’ve seen a lot of shifting and thinking with that idea. know, before it was the, we send students onto the Chromebook, onto the iPad to do X, Y, Z, and they go through those tasks and they’re done. And now it’s been a lot more of we use this alongside all these other things that we do in the classroom, know, math specific.

reading specific science, we use it as that tool to help engage our students but

really to enhance their lessons. And that shift has been really cool to see as a coach. And I know it’s not always quick. It takes time. It’s hard to just jump into something like that. But those teachers that have, have noticed the classes are more engaged. They get more out of their learning opportunities. And it’s just overall, it’s a much more creative and collaborative environment. It’s been really fun to see.

Kris Szajner (07:29)

I love that you’ve gotten to the other side of that. You’ve gone over the hill and you’re kind of riding it on the backside. That’s a really important place to be and one that’s super rewarding too for your specific role and where you want to see teachers and classrooms moving towards.

I want to ask another question kind of around the same topic of like, what does good technology look like, usage look like in a classroom? When you are either working with a teacher or go into a classroom, how do you distinguish between technology just being used versus technology really enhancing the learning like you’re talking about?

Alex Keeney (08:10)

Yeah, that is something that if you have asked me last year, I may not have had the same answer. Like I said, my mindset has shifted quite a bit. It’s been changing and one new idea that I came across this year, and this is through grad school work, is the T, oh boy, I’m gonna mess this up, the T framework. I call it the three T’s, that’s how I remember it.

translational, transformational, and transcendent teaching and using it with technology. In a classroom that does translational teaching with technology, I think of that paper pencil activity now just being moved to technology. know, something they could do there, which it has its purposes. That’s completely fine. However, I want to see more teachers

Kris Szajner (08:50)

Yeah.

Alex Keeney (08:55)

move to that transformational transcendent teaching. How can we use technology as a tool to enhance collaboration, to enhance problem solving skills? Not just in a sense check off boxes or answer questions on technology, but how can we get deeper? So when going into classrooms, when I see that they’re working on technology, maybe with a worksheet that they could have done paper pencil.

That’s a great opportunity to start saying, yep, you’re using technology. That’s a good place to begin. But now how can we push that? How can we maybe get students working together where they can share ideas, share thoughts, they can work together? Is there ways that we could push this even deeper? Can they, you know, have a blog where they share their thoughts and ideas? Can they work with other groups and share thoughts and ideas or draw out or create representations of what they’re learning or what their thinking is? And I think when you get to that, that’s

when you really start to get that meaningful experience on technology. And again, not to say that that translational approach is bad. There’s just so much more that we can do. I don’t want us to stop there. I want us to keep striving to get better and better with technology use.

Kris Szajner (09:56)

Yeah.

Kris Szajner (10:05)

And I’m sure your teachers are much more willing to get to that point and to open that conversation just from your specific approach to of like it’s okay that we’re starting here and we want to continue to move to X, Y, and Z as we look at your classroom, your students, your teachers, and your journey as well as a coach too.

Alex Keeney (10:27)

For sure, and I think that’s something that’s…

Other coaches, I think the coaching role is so important in schools. You know, we want to teach our students, but who teaches us? It’s the coaches. Like, we need that resource to just bounce ideas off. And you know, maybe it’s not even coaches, maybe it’s our teammates on our grade level team or someone in the building. being able to bounce ideas off other people is so huge. And I love this role because not only do I get to work with technology and resources like CSSA, but then I get to work with staff and what I might see at one building.

Kris Szajner (10:38)

Yeah.

Alex Keeney (11:00)

I can take, learn from, and now introduce that in another building. And I can share these perspectives of this teacher had these ideas, this worked really well, and I see you having similar wants in your classroom. Maybe we could try what they’re doing and work on it here. And so being able to bring those ideas around has been, it’s just been great. I get to learn a ton, but then I also get to pass that learning along to others, which has been really my favorite part of this job. It’s been awesome.

Kris Szajner (11:28)

For sure. Love it. When I was a coach, I called that spreading the virus, where you’re literally taking the idea and you’re trying to get somebody infected with it as you go to a different building or a different grade level even. So love that that’s something that you’ve come across and found success with as well.

Alex Keeney (11:36)

Yep.

Kris Szajner (11:47)

I want to continue down this kind of track around best practices and what does success really look like and really lean into practical strategies and things. So what is one underutilized technique or strategy that you would like to see more classrooms adopt within Seesaw?

Alex Keeney (12:07)

You know, specifically, you know, thinking back to the Seesaw Showdown that we just had, I came out of that talking to a lot of the teachers in my buildings about Flip, why am I forgetting, FlexCards, thank you, FlexCards, yep, yep. That, think, is a really cool tool. If I was in the classroom and I had…

Kris Szajner (12:16)

Yeah.

Kris Szajner (12:25.406)

The flex cards, yeah, yeah.

Alex Keeney (12:33)

students where I had specific activities I might be doing every day, I think that’s something I would really utilize. I think that is fun to see because that introduces some randomness. But along with that, we could have students use flex cards, be able to use voice recording or screen recording to share their thinking, show their thinking, and maybe even be able to use either the blog or just work with other people to…

share their thinking with peers. I think this isn’t necessarily just a seesaw thing, but I think seesaw can be great to utilize in gaining skills around collaboration and finding ways to get students to work together. And I keep bringing up collaboration because I think that’s something that with technology is just underutilized itself. We get so used to, we have our one Chromebook, we have our one iPad for each student, we want them to stay on that one device.

I think it’s a great opportunity for us to branch out and connect with more students. And CISA is a great resource to use to do that. You can work on an activity, work on a page, work on a problem, do your thinking, show your thinking with the pen tool, with your voice, but then share that with others as well. whether that’s just walking around the room and connecting with other peers or in some other format, I think that is a great thing that CISA could be utilized for, connecting with other people.

and sharing thinking.

Kris Szajner (13:56)

It goes back to what you were talking about, how you don’t want students to be just consumers of the technology and just immersed in it. I think one-to-one devices is the most beautiful gift that we could give a classroom, but it could also sometimes be a curse on the back end of a teacher might think that.

We put them in front of their single device and we have them watch X, Y, and Z or have them do X, Y, and Z and it can sometimes end to the opposite effect that you were saying. We’re removing the collaboration. We’re removing those deep conversations and that connection that they’re building with each other. So I love that you’re finding power in bringing that back into kind of the way that you’d want it to look.

you know, students talking with each other. They’re using CSUN in way that’s going to help them to showcase their offline learning and also is going to remove them from just kind of, I’ll say, parked in front of a screen as they go through the rest of their activity.

Alex Keeney (14:55)

Yep, and I think it’s hard as teachers because it does feel messy. And you know, as teachers, I’m guilty of it too. I don’t like to feel messy. It’s hard. But being able to just even try that, know, try collaboration, just being able to take that risk has been really great. I’m working with a classroom right now in a project where it’s really centered around collaboration, working with others. You’re partnered up to do a coding activity. And it’s the first time I’ve ever done

Kris Szajner (14:59)

Sure.

Kris Szajner (15:05)

Yeah.

Alex Keeney (15:25)

something like this. I’m grateful for the teacher that’s been helping me give this a try, let me come into their classroom, but it’s messy. know, students are going to get upset at one another because they’re going to have to collaborate, work through problems, but we want them to be able to do that in the future. We want them to be able to work problems out on their own. We want them to be able to connect with others and that’s not going to happen if we aren’t allowing those opportunities to take place. you know…

using technology and utilizing technology to be that kind of common tool, a common area to focus on with that. It just makes it so much more motivating for the students, I think more motivating for teachers, and just really engaging and leads to really great opportunities.

Kris Szajner (16:08)

That’s super, super helpful and super important too as you’re thinking about shifting the mindset, how you’re improving those learning outcomes versus just kind of having something new, shiny come into the classroom. We have two quick questions left as we close things up here. I do want to ask you a general question. I know there’s probably people listening who are like…

This is great, this is awesome, but how do I as a educator out here in today’s world, how can I stay up to date with what’s happening? So can you just share a little bit about how you hear about best practices, how you even learn about best practices yourself, and then how you absorb those so that you can transfer those onto your classroom teachers.

Alex Keeney (16:52)

Yeah, you know one way I’m learning a lot of things and this isn’t applicable to everyone is you of course going through some grad schooling I’m learning new things but before I was going through that really my sole way of learning was just through collaboration myself with other educators with other teachers within my buildings talking with grade level teachers on my team or even other teachers in the building and just seeing like what works for you what are you doing what works well and learning from other teachers is

something that just has helped me so much.

There’s some resources that I had never known about until another teammate had shared them with me. And now they’re staples in my classroom. Like they, it’s something that I wouldn’t know if I hadn’t just asked the question. and I think asking the question is also a big step being open, being honest and saying, I don’t know everything right now. I’d like to learn more and connecting with others I think is huge because we all have something that we can still gain some new knowledge we can learn. And I don’t think any of us have everything. We don’t know.

everything. So being comfortable asking questions and then just asking those questions to our teammates and to our colleagues. That has put me on the track to a lot of new technology resources and lot of new learning over the last few years.

Kris Szajner (18:08)

Yeah, I love that vulnerability conversation too there, I think.

Nobody likes being vulnerable and nobody likes kind of saying, I don’t know this or I feel uncomfortable with this even. And so just having that simple vulnerable conversation, we’re all humans in that specific realm, but there’s also a teacher’s heart in everybody’s world that we’re working with too. And everybody is always sympathetic of where are we? How do we continue to move forward and how do we support each other in a way that doesn’t feel overbearing or negative in any way, shape or form.

Alex Keeney (18:42)

I think we’re teachers at heart, we want to keep learning, we want to keep getting better. I go back to the messy things, sometimes asking questions in new learning can feel messy, but once you get through that mess, you learn that there are many great opportunities out there that if you hadn’t tried, you would never have been able to experience or you wouldn’t realize that hey, they work really well actually.

Kris Szajner (19:03)

Yeah, absolutely. Love it, love it. Final question here as we start to close up, for those who might be listening and want to implement just one change, what would be something that you would like to see as far as technology usage in classrooms? This can be in your district or at a broader global level. What is just one thing that you would like to see change when it comes to technology integration in classrooms?

Alex Keeney (19:31)

I’m going to hit the same topic I’ve been talking about a lot, it’s just think collaboration around technology and just having a chance for even two students to be paired up on one computer or one iPad and just talk about what they’re doing, what they’re working on. I think that just changes the mindset even of students of this is my device to this is a device I can use to share my thinking, to share my learning, and I get to become kind of a leader and teacher as a student and sharing out my own thoughts with others.

Kris Szajner (19:35)

Yeah.

Alex Keeney (20:01)

it’s messy, it can be difficult, but I think once you get through it and students are comfortable with it, there’s a lot of great things that come out of it and it really is a positive from what I’ve seen in the classes that I’ve been supporting.

Kris Szajner (20:14)

That’s awesome. So, so glad that you got to that point and so glad you’re reaping the benefits of what that actually means as far as collaboration that way too. We are at time Alex, I do want to say thank you so much for being here. Thanks for taking time out of your day to share your expertise. We learned a ton about technology integration, what it really means to classrooms, what it means to have sound tech integration and what kind of things it takes as far as a mindset to absorb that and continue to move forward.

Alex Keeney (20:43)

Of course, thank you so much for this opportunity. It was great to chat with you.

Kris Szajner (20:47)

Absolutely not a problem. Have a great rest of afternoon. Bye-bye.

Alex Keeney (20:50)

Bye bye.