Digital Creativity in Education

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Susan

Well, hey, Adam, thank you so much for joining me today.

Adam

Absolutely excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Susan 

Of course. So for those who may not know about you or your background, can you share a little bit about yourself, your background, and how you found your way into the world of education and technology?

Adam 

It’s so strange how I found my way into the world of education and technology. Let me tell you, it is so, it’s such a forest gump kind of story. I’ve been teaching, this will be my 25th year teaching. but prior to teaching, I actually went to school, originally to be in television. I wanted to be on television or on the radio. so it’s ironic that I’m doing that now with the classroom dynamics podcast, and being in education and doing some things that actually are related to television and radio and broadcasting.

But long story short, I worked at the Geraldo Rivera talk show for just a few months. I was only making about $19,000 a year. I love telling this story because it’s so unbelievable. And a friend of mine who went to Hofstra University with me, he went for business. He couldn’t find a job. It was, you know, four or five months already. He couldn’t find a job. He went back to their job placement office and stumbled to upon a an opening for the New York Mets as a videographer scout. So you had to know baseball and you had to be in television and you had to know a little bit about baseball. And he said, you got to go for this job. You’re going to love it. It’s like right up your alley. You love baseball. You love the Mets. You were in television. This is like has your name on it. And I thought to myself, there’s just no way. Right. No way. But long story short, I submitted the resume and I got interviewed in the Mets clubhouse.

I didn’t think I was going to get the job, I was grilled for about an hour about baseball knowledge and things about television. And I think I did a pretty decent job, but I just didn’t think I was going to get the job. And the last question, the guy who interviewed me, he says, is there anything else you want to ask or know? And I said, no, you know what? I’ll be very honest with you. Again, I didn’t think I was going to get this job. I said, I don’t care if I really get the job. I said, but.

Yeah, I care, but I don’t because, you know, to be honest with you, I have bragging rights with my friends for the rest of my life because I’ve been in the Mets clubhouse. Who gets to be a fan of that team and actually go into that clubhouse? And apparently that’s what got me the job because he called me a few hours later at home and said, listen, you did really well on the interview. There was nothing wrong. said, but what puts you, you know, set you apart was your last answer, how you just didn’t care if you got it, but you had bragging rights. And he said, That’s all we needed to know. And I said, wow, you know, I was just, again, I didn’t think I was going to get it. But, and so it was that cockiness, I guess, of, you know, all right, it was fun. This is cool. And I have a story for the rest of my life. Well, PSI was with the Mets for five years. And then what happened, the transition to, into education was my mom had been a school aid for a number of years in the elementary schools in New York City. And after you know, the season was over, you know, baseball’s only seasonal spring training till whenever the season ends. She said, why don’t you, you know, go in and be a substitute? You know, it’s better than getting unemployment and doing nothing. You know, you’ll make a little bit of money, you’ll keep busy. And then when baseball starts, there’s no obligation to stay and you just go back to baseball. I said, you know, what a great idea. So I started doing that and I started to like it a lot. And for two years, I actually did both where I actually went back to school to become a teacher.

So I was working with the meds during the day or sometimes at night till two in the morning, sometimes going home, sleeping, waking up and going to school for the whole day. And I did that for two years and after two years, it just took a toll. know, granted I was 23, 24 years old, but it took a toll and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I wasn’t getting any benefits or anything like that. you know, education to me was a great way to, I don’t want to say fall back, because it wasn’t my original plan, but.

That’s how I got into education and taught sixth grade and fourth grade and even fifth grade for a while. And then about 15 or 16 years ago became the media arts technology teacher at my school and the rest is history.

Susan 

Amazing. What an incredible story and so many twists and turns which I think you know so many people think that you start as an educator and you kind of make this your veteran career forever but no there’s so many different ways that you can enter and kind of find your way into the field which I love that story that’s great and seriously who gets to sit in the Mets clubhouse?

Adam 

I know it really was a dream come true. know, I like I President Bill Clinton during the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson and you know, like you I went to the World Series and I got to hang out with the players. It was literally the best time of my life. Such a dream come true. You know, you couldn’t ask for anything more, but it was that’s all it was. It was it was a dream come true. And then once the dream started to fade a little bit, I had to become more of a reality person and get into the quote unquote real world, you know, because that really wasn’t the real world for me.

Susan

Yes, but you get to bring that wonderful experience now to all your students as well. So you have been at your school for 25 years now, right? What has kept you excited and motivated to stay at that school? So many teachers are struggling with staying right now. So what has been the secret for you?

Adam
Yeah, you know, most teachers do leave the profession now. A few years ago was within the first five years. Now it’s actually in the first three years sometimes that people are leaving. You know, I just I like my school. I like where we’re located. I like the the people we work with are great. The families are always supportive. So it’s not a school where you feel like you’re being run out.

And you know, the technology, because I’m in technology and always use technology, even when I was not a technology teacher, when I was in fourth, fifth and sixth grade, I was using laptops with the kids. I was creating a class website so that they can go to have all this stuff before Google Classroom was very popular. You know, I think being in technology, even now as a teacher, there’s so much technology at everyone’s fingertips that there’s always something new.

There’s always something fun and engaging you can bring into lessons with your kids. You know, whether it’s a project, whether it’s creating something in Canva, you know, a timeline or a poster, there’s always something that really can enhance what you’re doing as a teacher. And I think that’s what keeps me going for now. You know, I could technically retire in five years and probably will after 30. You know, that’s a nice career. But, you know, it does allow me to keep things pretty fresh. You know, just that, the idea of what’s new this year, technology is exploding, you know, now with AI it’s opened up a whole new world. It’s really opened it up to the point where, you know, you can say, okay, you know, this is, I can make this fun. And that’s where the days kind of go by and fly by.

Susan 

Yeah, and I really appreciate that because some people find that kind of rapid change to be frustrating or scary because they can’t repeat lessons from previous years, right? Because technology becomes outdated. But I love how you really approach this with the idea of a fresh mindset of being able to kind of open up a Christmas gift, you know, every year because it’s something new. So as a tech media teacher, what are some specific ways that you use technology to make learning come alive for your students?

Adam 

You know, I’d start, I see kids from grades one through five and I try to build every grade level so that it makes sense and the things that we learned one year just don’t go away. But, you know, build on one another as you go through the grades. you know, I started first grade with a simple, very simple program called Tux Paint. I’m sure your listeners have used it or seen it. It is the most perfect program to use with first graders, even kindergarten, because it teaches them the basics of, you know, what certain icons do, what the computer is going to do if you use that particular, you know, tool. It’s obviously it opens it up to engagement and, you know, exploration and creativity beyond belief because it is digital. And let’s be honest, I say this all the time. Let’s be honest. You put a kid in front of a computer or screen and it’s kind of like a horse with blinders that’s all they see. You know, I once did a coding lesson where the kids were pretty much they got to the point where they were all on their own. I was sitting with someone on the floor working on one of their their programs and the superintendent and the principal stepped in. I had no idea. The kids had no idea and I turned around and I was like, Dr. Brian, my god, like I didn’t realize you were standing here and we’ve been here for five minutes and I was wow.

And she said, yeah, she’s like, this is the perfect 21st century classroom. You didn’t even know I was here. The kids are helping each other. They’re all engaged. They’re all doing. No one’s fooling around. This is fantastic. What did you do to get them to? And, you know, of course I gave a whole song a dance, but honestly, it was a computer. You know, they just, they’re so into it. They love using it no matter what the age.

You know, I tell everyone the story of my daughter when she was about two years old I brought home my first iPad and she got into it and I said how did you get into my iPad and I locked it and she Preschooled that mean not even she’s two she clicked my passcode and got it and then so the Hand -eye coordination just the ability to understand how it works, you know You and I we we were not born into this We we kind of had to learn it as it as it came through and that’s the story for most teachers

Adam 

except if you’re a new teacher. If you’re a new teacher within the last maybe five years, this is something you kind of grew up with. So using technology should be a lot easier to, you know, just incorporate it into lessons than maybe someone who is a veteran who’s been around for 30, 35 years. But TuxPaint is such a great one. use Bill Gilbank’s He Created Brush Ninja Animation. What a great program, a free program online.

To use for anything you want to show you know the life cycle of a butterfly you can create an animation You want to show the the you know like you know how a three -dimensional? Figure can can rotate and create it yourself What a great program for use of you know in social studies science English language arts to create a story There’s so much you can do so I try to always keep this relevant in terms of what they’re learning with their general regular classroom teachers, but to bring in what I can bring in and then just start lifting that level so that they really start to get into it to the point where they’re embedding themselves in those lessons that they did and that learning. So, and I think that’s just the way I see it. I don’t know if that’s the perfect way, but it’s been working for years now, so I’m not changing.

Susan 

No, I hear that and I love how you naturally try to find integrations across content areas so that we’re making learning relevant for our students throughout the day. I’m curious with your experience with technology and that we put a screen in front of our students and they’re just immediately captured, what are your thoughts on some of these cell phone bans that are going on in schools or the argument that maybe we shouldn’t be having these screens in front of our students for so many hours a day.

Adam

You know, I’m going to take it back and stuff further before I answer that. So and if I don’t answer, just remind me what you wanted. A few years ago, I started really starting every year from grades two through five with a keyboarding unit. How do you how to touch type? Right. Because that was something that kids, know, you should learn, you know. And then iPads came into play and cell phones came into play and a parent during parent teacher conferences. She wasn’t being negative. She was just asking just a very generic, you know, like, why are you doing keyboarding? Said, well, you know, we do a coding unit and we use the computer all the time in here. They have to know where the letters are and what the function keys do and what the symbols do. They have to know how to navigate a computer, not just by touch. And I even said, you know, state tests in few years, which already started happening last year, they’re all going to be on the computer. They can’t spend, you know, 20 minutes looking for the t key when they only have 25 minutes to write like a short response you know so there’s there’s reasoning behind it and i i’ll totally understand that makes sense you know i’m so grateful that’s such a great skill for them to have and i said but you know what to be honest you’re now even typing and i started you know when i learned how to type it was just chicken pecking two fingers right it it’s not that anymore you know people are typing with their thumbs or like me holding cell phone with one hand and using their pointer or their middle finger to actually type the words or even just speak. Use the speak feature on the phone to do that. to me, don’t… with the cell phones and the bands, I get it, but I don’t get it. It makes sense, but it doesn’t make sense at the same time. I think in this case, two things could be true at the same time. You know, it could be a bad thing, but it could also be a good thing because if these kids are taking technology into their life…

You know, look, you get into a car, you don’t know where to go. I’m going to go into maps. I’m going to figure out what’s the best way. And if traffic is telling me this is bad, I’m going to take an alternate route. Why are we telling kids not to use them when in the real world they’re going to have to use them? know, Zoom meetings used to be just on the computers. Now Zoom meetings are also can be on a phone. You know, you have everything from FaceTime to all these different applications that you’re using.

So yes and no, think to some degree, think yes, maybe students shouldn’t use it. Maybe a teacher should have a little bit more power to say, OK, you can take out your cell phones now or this is not the time to use them. We once had a situation where our Internet went down and this was years ago. And one of the kids said, can I go get my cell phone and use my I think at the time it was only like 3G or 2G or something like that. It was a while back. And I thought to myself,

I didn’t even think of that. Here’s a 10 year old who just suggested, okay, I still want to do my work. And since we have no wifi in the building at the moment, I can go get my cell phone and create a hotspot and continue and not miss a beat. Well, holy wow, go for it. You know, and, I sent a bunch of them back to the rooms to get their cell phones. Some of them shared their hotspots. Some didn’t, some figured out another way to do it offline, but that’s the mentality. So, you know, going back to that that question about whether or not it’s a good thing or not. At times yes, at times no. For emergency purposes, you really want to have them. I wouldn’t want my own daughter not to have her phone in school. So I think it’s up to debate still. I think that the best way to do it is still yet to come. But I think eventually, I think someone will figure it out. They should anyway.

Susan 

Yeah, yeah, you know, I’m always amazed at hotels that still charge for Wi -Fi, because I’m like, why would anybody pay for that when I can just turn on my hotspot? You know? Now, you’ve worked with some pretty innovative companies like Promethean and others. Can you share a couple of standout moments that really impacted the way that you teach and the way that you teach specifically with technology?

Adam

Yeah, we once had a parent in our building. She’s still there. She’s at Scholastic. And she at the time we were just starting to use smart boards. We weren’t even at Promethean level yet, but we’re at smart boards. And she said, we’re we’re starting to change all of our our teaching resources into smart board lessons so that teachers can not only use the resource, but they could also get a disk that has the work from the book on it and kind of seamlessly, you know, interact with the panels or the boards. And so I was invited to ISTE in Philadelphia, this might have been 2012, and I was asked to demonstrate someone else’s work from a book that they had done. they sent it to me and I looked it over and I found a couple of lessons and it did a demo. Unbeknownst to me, the author of the book was sitting in the front row. I had no idea.

And afterwards she came, but she was an author and editor from Scholastic. And afterwards she came up to me, she said, you know, introduced herself, this is who I am, you just did my lesson, that was fantastic. I didn’t even think about how you did it, how the other teachers would do it. And she said, did you ever think about writing a book? And I said, no, honestly I haven’t. And she said, think about some topics. And we ultimately decided upon managing the digital classroom, which came out a year later.

So that was a big change because it was just now it wasn’t, I wasn’t so much in the classroom teaching the kids. Now I was in the classroom teaching the kids, but also creating things that teachers technically around the world at the time could do and use in their classrooms. And I thought that was just a whole different perspective and a whole different way to look at it. And that lens was totally eye -opening because it just, did make me think, okay, well, if I’m doing it in my classroom this way, is that also going to work for someone who’s in England or someone who might have a different standards -based curriculum in Australia? And I had to really start to think about that and build it so that it would be multi -layered like that. And that led me to Permethean, which led me to Logitech, which led me to Classroom Dynamics, the podcast that I do now. So, you know, it’s crazy. That’s why I say when it was such a far -scup moment, back with the Mets. It’s that far as Gumpian stuff has actually continued to some degree. And I’m always thinking, what’s next? What’s going to happen next? It’s kind of cool.

Susan 

Yeah, and similarly, that’s very similar to how I started this organization. I was actually a music teacher at the time, and we were going through arts integration. I was just using our site to document, you know, this is what’s working and what’s not. And thinking about that, you’re right, it does shift how you look at education beyond just your own classroom. And I think we’re all so much luckier to have you do that, right? Because you’re saving us steps and you’re sharing ideas, and I think that’s… the brilliance of where our world is headed is having that open sharing network of community. Now, you’ve talked about your podcast a couple of times now. Can you tell us more about what you cover on the show and more about where people can find that podcast? Because I would love for them to listen to that as well.

Adam 

Yeah, thank you. It’s classroom dynamics. It’s sponsored by Logitech. They are the ones behind the show. They are the ones who actually approached me to do it.

Ironically enough, I originally had said no to them when they were asked me. It was a year ago in June and I said, you know, we just finished the school year. was a rough year. was the first really good solid year back since the pandemic. And I was just like so burnt out. And they were like, well, can you try? I was like, you know, thank you. But thank you for thinking of me. I think it’s a great idea. But I don’t think I can. I don’t think I have it in me now. Well, and then the answer was, well, can you try three?

I said, okay, they twist my arm over a couple of weeks and can you try three? We did three and the response was so good that they wanted me to do five more. And that started to lead into finish up that season, which ended up then season two, which was the spring and now we’re gearing up for season three coming out. And it’s all worldwide ed tech professional development.

That’s basically what it is. So, you know, we’re not a podcast kind of like yours where it’s, very informational. We’re not a podcast that’s complaining about the system, or we’re not a podcast complaining about what Joe did in, you know, during the math lesson on Friday, or we’re not that we’re not complainers. We’re, we’re just more informative and just trying to keep up with technology is so hard. We, kind of touched upon it a little bit before. It is so hard. There are so many things out there and awesome thing. it’s almost like going into you know, you’re a kid in a candy store. Like, where do you go first? What’s the best thing to use for your kids for your grade level for the topics you’re teaching? Are you out of classroom? Are you a support person? Are you teaching at home? Are you you know, a parent who is an at home teacher for your own kid? There’s so much that we offer. You know, we’ve done everything from scratch coding with Elaine Atherton.

Adam 

We did have, and these are my two favorite ones, we did have, I mentioned already Tux Paint. Ben Gilbanks was on, he’s the creator of the open source Tux Paint. We had Bill Kendricks on from Brush Ninja Animation. We’ve had Dr. Nadine Embryon, she’s from Minecraft. So we’re trying to bring this sense of like professional development because we have to be honest, and I think your listeners are probably gonna all shake their head in unison when I say this, but professional development is so hard to come by, especially on a consistent level. You know, there are some schools, offer professional development, but it’s just, let’s get through the 45 minutes or the hour. You know, go plan, work together, there’s your professional development. That’s not professional development. Professional development is developing your professionalism in what you’re doing. And so what we’re trying to do is bring this whole sense of, you know, where can I go?, what’s gonna be free and easy, what is something that is going to work for me and integrate with some of the platforms I already use like Google Classroom and things like that, so that it just lifts the level of everything that you’re doing in a classroom. That is honestly, I think the bottom line for every teacher, you don’t wanna get stagnant, you don’t wanna become boring, you want to engage those kids because let’s face it, engagement also leads to better behavior.

So, you know, if you’re really putting in the time to listen to our podcast, just to get some tips and tricks and really dive really deeply into some of these programs that are out there, I think it’s worthwhile because then at least you have something to start with and you could actually hear from the people who are creating it or hear from the people who are experts in their field in that particular niche that…that you’re working with with education. So that’s what we do. It’s all, like I said, worldwide professional development. Up until now, in our first year, we’ve already been listened to in 67 countries and almost 700 cities around the world. It blows my mind because going back to last year, was no thanks. I don’t think I want to do this. So go figure, right? It’s crazy how the world works.

Susan 

Right? Right? That is so true. You just never know what is right around the corner waiting for you. I’d love that. We’re going to put the link to your show in the show links here as well so that people can find it, subscribe and listen. But before you go, you’ve had so many different experiences from leadership to awards to like just these amazing opportunities, right?

Where, from your perspective, and given all of those experiences, where do you see the future of ed tech going, particularly with AI becoming more…

Adam 

That is such a great question. I don’t think, you if I had a crystal ball, it’d be pretty good to answer that question. I don’t know. just the rate of compounding advancements that are happening are just… almost to the point where it’s like, okay, if you don’t put in that effort to keep up, you are going to fall behind. You know, like the biggest thing with AI, you know, you’ve heard this one probably before, you know, AI is not going to replace a teacher. Let’s be honest, it’s not going to happen. Maybe in 100 years, I could maybe I, you know, I could totally see that possibly. But let’s I mean, that’s that’s like Star Trek, beyond science stuff. But you know, if you’re not using AI, you’re not learning how to use it, how to create effective prompts to just help you manage your time or to do something for you that, you know, puts you in two places at once or three places at once sometimes. If you’re not using it, then AI won’t replace you, but someone who knows how to use AI will replace you. That’s the bottom line. So, you know, for all new teachers out there, for all teachers that are seasoned, for all teachers that have been veterans for 25, 30 years like myself, if you’re not using it, you are going to fall behind. You know, I think the future of education, if you just look back, forget about the future, look back the last three or four years. I think the pandemic had a lot to do with speeding up the process because let’s face it, the pandemic happened. Everyone panicked. We stayed home for months. I actually taught at home from my basement using a Promethean panel that was sent to me during the pandemic for six months. It was crazy. You know, I became like a test subject with Promethean to kind of see if that would be something that futuristic kind of classrooms would. There were parents that thought that I was still in school because I was standing in front of a panel. And so yeah, could I do my job at home?

100 % did it for six months. I did it very well. I know there were some teachers that had a hard time with it. I know there were some teachers that would never want to go back to it. If I had to could I? Yes, I don’t want to but it wasn’t to me as a technology teacher and being so immersed in technology. It wasn’t I didn’t skip a beat. I felt like I was just doing the same thing I was doing just the kids physically were not with me. I could still do everything else. But the pandemic I think just put such a fast forward skip ahead feel to it that Zoom meetings and just using classroom websites and Google Classrooms and digital everything. Now with AI, I think everyone is really trying to jump on that bandwagon because obviously, they want the business and let’s face it, education is a business. Whether you like it or not, it’s a business. You might be in it for the kids and you might be in it because this is where your heart is, but we have to, let’s be honest, it’s a business.

You know, so companies are vying for teachers to use their material because of that. So, you know, I think if you look at it, AI is going to change the way everyone does everything. You know, if I need something really quick, I could actually go to ChatGPT and ask it to create, you know, a five question or a 10 question multiple choice, you know, quick assessment on the basics of keyboarding or a program that we’re using. it will, 99 .9 % of the chance of the time, it’s done a great job. I might have to tweak a little bit here or there, but if I need a time saver right then and there, boom, I can do it. And I think that’s where it’s going to go because even teaching kids, there’s a lot of talk now that, you know, computer science and STEM was a big push a couple years ago and there were mandates to that. I have mandates to do, you know, right, computer safety. I have to do computer safety lessons, how to stay safe. One of my state mandates is a keyboarding unit.

I was doing keyboard and before it was mandated, now it’s mandated. All these things that I have to do now, computer science, have at least one computer science program unit per grade every year. I have to mandate and check a box and click submit every year at the end of the year. I think AI and teaching kids how to use AI is going to be just important down the road. I’ve already done PD workshops for my teachers in my school and my administrators who are sitting there listening to how this is going to work. Because they want to know how to use it effectively. They don’t want to fall behind either. You know, they’re doing a different form of the job, but they’re still doing the job. You know, so how do you how do you do that effectively, quickly, efficiently? Unfortunately, AI is going to have to become part of your repertoire, otherwise you’re definitely going to feel the pinch. And I would I wouldn’t even go as far to say in a year or two, I would say in a couple of months, if you’re not using it, you’re going to feel the pinch.

Susan

Yeah, yeah, 100 % agree. We’ve also done PD for teachers with AI and just the possibilities, as long as you know how to create the prompts, how to get really focused with it, the possibilities are really endless for the ways that you can use it and save yourself a ton of time. So I’m so glad that you brought that up and that you shared the positives. There’s so many people who talk about the negatives of AI, but there’s…

There’s got to be so many positives as well while we’re wrapping our heads around all of the other things that come with that. So I appreciate it.

Adam 

One of the things that you just mentioned, one of the positives is higher order thinking skills because if you’re not using those higher order thinking skills to prompt effectively, you’re not going to get the output that you’re looking for. So the thinking process is different. know, it’s like telling a computer what you want from it. I want this, this and that and be sure to also include this, this and that and don’t forget to. The idea of how you actually have to think that for a kid is going to be a whole different process in the future, even for the teachers, than it is now for sure.

Susan 

100%. 100%. Well, Adam, this has been such an enlightening interview. Thank you so much for sharing all of these ideas with us today. Where can people stay in touch with you and find out more?

Adam 

You could just follow us on Classroom Dynamics. You can find us on all the podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the whole gamut, we’re on all of them. You could also find us on Twitter at Class Dynamics, and we’re also on Instagram at Classroom Dynamics Podcasts. So hope you’ll join us and get ready for a great season coming up.

Susan 

We’ll be sure to put those in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for your time today and for sharing so much about tech with us.

Adam 

Absolutely, it was a pleasure, I had a great time.

 

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