Speaker 1: 0:13

another episode shifted at podcasts, um coming in today. Uh, we're in the midst of fall term, one almost over in our school system, um, and today I have a great guest, eric Kurtz, who is an ed tech guru I would say a world leader in education and just provides amazing resources, an amazing book he has out which we'll get to. But, eric, where are you coming in from? First off, Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Hey, thanks for having me so much. Uh, so I am from northeast ohio. Uh, just just south of cleveland, uh, not too far. Usually that's what I give people as a point of reference.

Speaker 1: 0:54

I have to not familiar all that much with ohio right, right, ohio, I think we share the same kind of temperate zone. You know like we're heading into winter here now right, air is getting a little chillier and our brains a little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, Ohio winters can be. They can be rough. It, just you don't know. I think in the last few years it's been more a matter of cold than snow. I remember being a kid and having a lot of snow days. Now it seems we have a lot of weather days, but it's because of cold, Like it'll just get so cold that it's not safe for the children to be out or the buses can't start or things like that. So we'll see what this winter holds.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Yeah Well, we've had some unexpected warm temperatures oh my gosh yes. Actually on Monday, where it was like 25 degrees, I don't know, I can't do the conversion to you. That's totally fine, it's freaking hot.

Speaker 2: 1:52

I'll say that, yeah, it's today here in Ohio. On the Fahrenheit scale it is going to be 72, which basically is like room temperature.

Speaker 1: 2:02

You know it's very nice.

Speaker 2: 2:03

It's an incredibly pleasant day, but I think it's the last one. It looks like we have about a 20 degree drop coming in tomorrow, so we'll see. But yeah, that's, that's where I'm dialing in from.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Enjoy, enjoy the weather today. So, Eric, I always love to ask, kind of like, where it all started for you. Sure Education wise.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:23

What, what was, what was your draw? To want to be in education and and work with students and build learning capacities and um, and then we talked before we hopped on here and how that evolved into right from student to teacher. Uh, yeah absolutely so.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Um, so this is my 33rd year in education. I've been doing this a while. I was a middle school math teacher, taught middle school math for seven years before moving into a role as a tech coach, tech integration specialist, whatever what attracted me to it? I mean, of course, you know you're talking about, you know Eric, who was, you know, 17 years old and making decisions. You know, that's a whole different, eric. It's kind of hard to imagine that, but basically it was that when I was in high school, I did spend a good deal of time tutoring classmates and helping, and I found it was something that I was good at, that I was able to take information they might be struggling with and put it in a way that they could understand, and I found satisfaction in doing that. I liked being able to help other people, liked being able to help other people, and so I think that experience of being a tutor in high school to my friends drew me toward that and I ended up picking math as the area that I was going to become a teacher in. Not because I love math and, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anything negative about math. Math's fantastic but like if I was going by passion. It would have been science oh my gosh, I mean I just I love science or it would have been language arts or something like that. The reason I picked math is I remember thinking this I was like I wanted to pick something that I thought a lot of students struggled with. Like I'm going to pick something that unfortunately, there's a stereotype of, oh, math is boring, or math is dry, or math is whatever you know, and there's amazing teachers that is not the case at all in their classes. But that's a stereotype that's out there. And I thought, well, okay, let's do that, let's make math fun, let's do that. So that was my goal and I felt like for the first seven years when I was a math teacher, we had a lot of fun. I mean, I taught middle school, so you know that you can get away with a lot of fun things. So that age group, you know.

Speaker 2: 4:51

But I tried to make it really hands-on. You know, if we were learning how to multiply mixed numbers, well, we cooked pancakes. The kids came in and I had, like, all these ingredients, I'm like hey guys, we're making pancakes today, but here's my recipe. And oh no, it's only enough for this many. We needed enough for all of you guys. We need to take this recipe and multiply it by, you know, two and a third, you know. And so we had to do all the math. But then we actually cooked the pancakes and ate them and, you know, just tried to make it into something that was like so. So I so just try to make it into something that was like so I love that, I really did.

Speaker 2: 5:27

But I also loved technology.

Speaker 2: 5:27

So the entire time that I was a teacher, for those seven years, I ended up being the go-to guy in the building If you had a technology question. People suddenly realized oh hey, eric knows how to make things work and help with this and he can show you how to use Microsoft Word or whatever we were using back then, how to use Microsoft Word or whatever we were using back then. And at that time then we had an influx of money in the state of Ohio through some state funding that allowed for connectivity in buildings. We finally got internet connectivity, we got computers in the buildings and that was the switch. My district decided to create a position for somebody to help teachers use the technology that we were suddenly getting, and I switched on over. So I went from teaching the kids to teaching the teachers, and that's what I've done ever since. I was at that district for 21 years and now the last 12, I'm at a regional service center, an educational service center, where I do the same thing, but for about 35 districts up here in Northeast Ohio.

Speaker 1: 6:25

And when was it that they introduced, you know, computers brought the internet in, Do you remember?

Speaker 2: 6:31

So that would have been right around 1999. So I started teaching in 92 and I taught for seven years, so 99 is when I switched into this tech role. Right around that time so 98, 99, we had something called SchoolNet Plus. That was the funding source in the state of Ohio and the goal was to get one computer for every five students that was the ratio they were shooting for and to have internet connectivity in every building. And so prior to that, no, I mean there was hit and miss things, I mean we. I mean there was hit and miss things, like you know. I mean we. We did have a couple of computers here and there. I had one in my room. We had some connectivity, but it was very limited, and so that was the turning point and a lot of schools at that point started looking for okay, you know, let's get somebody to help with this process of, now that we've got the technology, what do we do with it?

Speaker 1: 7:26

Exactly, and those early years I mean I did something very similar to. I think it was still around 1999 as well 2000.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:34

Where we gave every kid a computer across our whole school board, which encapsulated probably 43 schools, encapsulated probably at 43 schools. How did you find teachers reacting when, all of a sudden, they had this, you know, open highway to the world, plus these devices? Those early years, do you remember their reactions to technology and ed tech?

Speaker 2: 7:59

Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know that it's all that different than now, absolutely. I remember having some early adopters. So what they ended up doing was they basically put me in one of the computer labs, like an open computer lab. That became my office and my job was to lure teachers into the computer lab, like bring your students to the lab, I will help you, I will help teach a lesson, I will be your right-hand man to assist you in this. You will not be alone, but please don't leave the room because I want you to learn too while the students are down here. And so, yeah, I mean, you had your early adopters, people that were just excited about it. You had others that were hesitant for so many reasons. It could have just been, you know, overwhelmed with how many other things they had to take care of, or just, you know, being unsure about how to use the technology. So you know, I did loads of trainings. You know all these afterschool sessions that you know again, trying to pull people into those to help bring them along. And so I think it's.

Speaker 2: 9:02

You know, a lot of those things are probably still similar today. You're always going to have folks along a spectrum. I've always seen my role as meet the teachers where they're at. You know, if that teacher is excited, awesome, empower them and help them run. If that teacher is, you know, struggling and they're a little nervous about the tools, find something that's going to be a good match for them, figure out where their pain points are and say, okay, well, here's a tool that can help address that and then hold their hand and bring them along with it. So it's all about meeting our teachers where they're at, just like we do with our students. I mean, it's good education all around. You know, as a teacher, you know understanding where people are at and helping them move along.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Right, yeah, and I remember too in those early years I mean again, very similar paths here and I would be in the room and the kids would be pretty OK, you know they'd figured out, they'd push buttons and navigate their way, but I felt my role was really just as you said, that right-handed person next to the teacher, and it was really I was there for them, not the kids per se. Um, what, what other techniques did you find, like strategies that you used that that were particularly effective in? Um, you know, bringing them to the water. I mean, you can't make them drink, but you can at least push them along a little bit. What were your strategies for helping teachers become more comfortable or exploring a tool that maybe they had no idea of?

Speaker 2: 10:43

Absolutely, and so you know it's a wide range of things. It is the professional development, for sure you know, having as many PD opportunities as possible so that teachers can be trained and get comfortable with this content or newsletters or blog posts or things like that, to provide that to them. But again, a lot of it is trying to meet them where they're at, by finding out OK, what is it that you're trying to accomplish? Because technology shouldn't be something you're trying to add on top of what you're already doing. Nobody has time for that. Oh, I've got to do everything I'm already doing and you want me to now also do technology. It was a matter of saying no, no, no, no, no. Tell me what you're doing in the next two or three weeks or the next month or whatever. What's coming up in your class. Let's find a way that we can use technology to assist with that, so it fits what you're already doing but elevates something. Maybe it increases student collaboration, maybe it gives a little bit more student choice, or maybe it allows for some deeper critical thinking, whatever. Let's just bump things up a little bit, but let's put technology in a spot where you're already going to be doing something. We're not adding something more on top of it and hopefully, you know, doing that help the teacher see a logical connection between technology and their goals for the students and hopefully it was something that they learned from. Hopefully it was something that maybe even saved them time.

Speaker 2: 12:33

I don't know. Sometimes it's tough the first time you do something. It may take a little bit longer, but hopefully like oh no, this wasn't bad and I see the benefit of it. So I think you know that philosophy is so important, that technology is not to drive the curriculum. The curriculum is to drive the use of the technology. Technology is the tool. It gets exciting Like oh, I found this shiny new tool. I want to use this in my class. That's great, but it's still got to be what are your objectives, what is your curriculum, what are you trying to have the students accomplish and what's the right tool to assist with that?

Speaker 1: 13:11

Absolutely, totally agree. I'm oftentimes talking to teachers too, like technology, I try to not even talk about it, like it's always about what's your intent, you know. Exactly, without a doubt, yeah, and technology always can find its way in, like and you kind of bring it in without too much stress, or like the focus on it, because I do find, yeah, when it's the focus on the how-to of um it, it deviates from what. What's our purpose here?

Speaker 2: 13:41

yeah, and I don't think that'll ever change. You know whether it was, you know you know, 30 years ago or whether it's. You know whether it was, you know you know 30 years ago or whether it's you know right now. That's the, that's the approach we should be taking to uh get buy-in from teachers to support teachers, to support students. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 13:58

And what do you think, eric, about a little bit of the pushback that's happening about just the wellbeing of students and technology? Um, like, where's that balancing act where we can use ed tech in our classrooms and it's not this scrolling, endlessly scrolling and kind of detaching from reality through, typically, their phones, the kids? How do you get that balance in teachers that might be a little kind of hesitant. Or how do you talk about that with teachers, of of that balance of how much we bring in and how much we just don't bring?

Speaker 2: 14:35

Yeah, I mean, and that's not just something for students, I mean that's the same for us as adults. I struggle with that. I mean that's um years ago. I um, I mean that's years ago I added to my list of PD sessions I do. I added one on digital well-being because I realized, yeah, this is something I struggle with and, you know, I find that, as a teacher or as a tech person, I can justify it so easily. You know, oh no, I'm doing a good thing, you know, writing this blog post, making this video. You know, being on the internet because, oh no, I'm fine. You know I'm on Facebook, I'm on this, but no, I'm looking up really cool educational things and at the expense of, maybe you know, balance, you know, physical health, mental health, emotional health, relationships, all these other things. And so, yeah, I started doing a session about that, about digital well-being and how it's important for our students, but how it's important for us as well.

Speaker 2: 15:42

And you know, part of it is just having the conversation. Know, part of it is just having the conversation. Part of it is, you know, being aware of how that could possibly affect you. Thankfully, there are some good, you know, free curriculums out there. Google has several. I've got a bunch that are linked in in that particular PD that you know we can use to at least have that conversation about finding a healthy balance in there, you know, and then you know, I think for me it's honestly a matter.

Speaker 2: 16:18

It sounds almost silly but it's setting boundaries for myself, like I know, I feel like I'm telling on myself here but, like you know, when I get done with my, done with my work day 4.35, whatever it is I kind of basically just like, okay, I'm leaving my phone here, I'm going to head upstairs and make dinner or whatever, and my wife and I are just going to connect, we're just going to talk. Wife and I are just going to connect, we're just going to talk. You know, and it's kind of like a no tech zone for a while there, you know where. Okay, later on I'll head back down and I'll you know, you know, get some more work done or something like that. But having you know actual boundaries, because if you don't, it just it gets, it gets eaten up If you don't actually have spoken, agreed upon things, where it's like, okay, yeah, at that time of day, that's it, boom, phone's away and we're just connecting. We're talking face to face, you know.

Speaker 2: 17:16

So I guess you know, in the classroom again, I'm yes, my job is to help show how to use technology and education, but I don't want to ever give the impression that every lesson has to have technology, every lesson must be tech integrated. No, no, no. You know we need kids connecting and talking, but the thing is, I mean that can coexist. I don't know. Has edu protocols made its way up to you guys? Does that phrase mean anything to you? If not, so John Carripo kind of really spearheaded that.

Speaker 2: 17:54

He's from out in the West Coast and edu protocols is basically just a framework of teaching where you're using technology, but it's all about getting students engaged in the learning process, and so what you're trying to do is sure, yeah, you're using tech and stuff like that, but there's always built-in times where students get in pairs and they discuss things with each other, or they're in groups, or they're doing a class share, or there's things where students are literally like that's part of it.

Speaker 2: 18:28

You, you are talking to another student and I do a session on those, because I I think those are fantastic. It's a way to make sure that students aren't just cause. I mean it actually came from the fact I had a school that was saying hey, eric, can you do a training that would help address this? They go, we walk around and we see we look in the classrooms and we see everybody's got a Chromebook in front of them, every student's got a Chromebook, but nobody's connecting with each other. We just see them, you know, sitting there typing away and that's nice, they're behaved. But we want to see interaction and so I did a training with them where I showed a lot of these ideas and you know I've only heard great things anytime I share that stuff where people are like, oh my gosh, yeah, the students, they're debating, they're defending their rationale, they're connecting and I think it's so important that we keep that as part of the learning process.

Speaker 1: 19:19

Yeah, we often overlook those soft skills, say of those cross-curriculars where yeah, those cross-curriculars where, yeah, I mean those are the skills too. When you look at jobs nowadays like, what do you wait? No, I don't want somebody that got 98 in math.

Speaker 2: 19:33

No.

Speaker 1: 19:35

I want a problem solver.

Speaker 2: 19:38

You're exactly right. Yeah, it's been several years ago now, but Google hired the economists to do a um, a big in-depth study of businesses and what they were looking for. And yeah, the top five skills are basically the four C's. They had problem solving and critical thinking broken out, but they had, like, problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking those are the top five things that businesses are looking for in students, so they need to be doing those things in their learning, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 20:11

Oh for sure. Well, I was driving my son to school this morning and he has a test and he's like dad, why do I have to memorize all this stuff? You know, speaking to me, cause I've been an educator my whole life, really, or in schools, and I still can't answer it. You know, I like I just I'm not sure. Son, you kind of got to jump through the hoops. So there's this disconnect between what we're getting kids ready for in school and then the reality of what they're facing in the real world. And I've started to see over. You know, the last handful of years, that, even if you leave out of university, there's no guarantees, right, that, oh, you're going to get the. You know the last handful of years that, even if you leave out of university, there's no guarantees, right, that, oh, you're going to get the job you want and everything's going to just fall in place. What do you think about that disconnect and how can we lessen that gap a little bit more?

Speaker 2: 21:02

Well, yeah, I agree, I think a lot of times when I do keynotes or things, I'll talk something to that effect of how I mean it's nothing revolutionary, we've heard it a hundred times, but we need to prepare our students for their future, not our pasts. You know that we need to be thinking about that. Take artificial intelligence as an example the genie's out of the bottle, it's not going back in, it's here and the current estimates they're talking, in the next five years, 300 million jobs getting significantly affected by it. 30%, 25%, depends upon what study you look at Talking about. Yeah, some jobs getting eliminated, but not necessarily. A lot of times it's just jobs getting modified. Like, okay, if you're going to be competitive, if you're going to be able to go up against somebody else and get that job, yeah, you need to understand how AI works, how you can leverage it, how you can use it appropriately.

Speaker 2: 22:10

I don't know who came up with the quote, but I love it. The quote says AI will not take your job. People who know how to use AI will. You know that? It's about that and so you know that's part of it is saying, as schools, we need to do our best to look toward the future and say, okay, we can't predict it. I mean, we're every as humans. We're notoriously bad predicting what the future is going to look like, but you know as best as we can say, okay, well, ai is going to be a part of it. So, instead of saying okay, let's shut this down, let's block this, let's get it in our filters and shut it down and whatever, I understand if you need a little time to figure stuff out and get policies put in place. Totally, absolutely, don't just rush headlong into this, but the goal needs to be rush headlong into this, but the goal needs to be okay.

Speaker 2: 23:12

Ultimately, how can we use a tool like AI effectively in our classes? Model it for our students, encourage our students to engage with it in school safe ways so they can learn how to identify inaccuracies, identify biases. To identify inaccuracies, identify biases, understand what limitations are there, but also understand how it can help them be the best they can be. And so right now, that's kind of what my main push is. I would say. You know, for years my focus has been this that whatever. But right now I would say probably 95% of my trainings are with schools on helping them get up to speed on AI. At first it was really basic stuff, but now we're getting more into okay. So now let's really look at how can this, how can this improve education? You know how can it really make a difference and how can we use it practically in our classrooms.

Speaker 1: 24:05

For sure, I really liked your book too. Control-alt-achieve Common Tools for. Uncommon Ways. You also did this webinar called the ABCs of AI.

Speaker 2: 24:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Can you expand on that a bit, what the ABCs are?

Speaker 2: 24:21

Oh, yeah, oh yeah. So the ABCs of AI is probably the most common training I do at this point. I imagine in a few years it won't be. It'll be one of those things that's not as necessary, but that's where we as a school system are right now. Everybody seems to be. There is all about AI, b is the benefits of AI and C is the concerns of AI.

Speaker 2: 24:47

So the A portion, the all about AI, is what is AI, which I know seems a little silly. We feel like, oh, doesn't everybody know? No, no, no. Actually, a lot of folks are still really just learning about this. So what is it? But also, what are the tools? What right now are the tools that are available? Yeah, you got your chat, gpts and stuff, but what about all of these amazing educational implementations of artificial intelligence? So the A portion of the training is what is AI and what are the tools. The B portion is the benefits.

Speaker 2: 25:21

How can we use this? How can we as teachers use it? How can it assist us? Teacher guidance, counselor, principal, doesn't matter, whatever. Use it. How can it assist us? Teacher guidance counselor, principal, doesn't matter. Whatever the case, how can it be your assistant? And I really want to emphasize that AI is not here to do your job. It's here to help you do your job better. So AI is the assistant. You still have the final say the buck stops with you. You've got to verify things, you've got to put your personality into it, you've got to adjust it for your students. So, yes, but it can be that TA. Now I don't know if you've got TAs up there.

Speaker 2: 25:55

When I was in college, I was a TA, a teacher's assistant, when I was in college. That's helped pay for my college. So you know graded papers and stuff like that. I became a public school teacher. I'm like, hey, where's my TA? Well, we don't get them. Well, now you've got one. If you so choose, you can have a 24-hour personal assistant and our students can have a 24-hour personal tutor. It's not just the benefits to us, it's the benefits to our students. It's true. Personalized learning, where each student can have this additional help. Evenings, weekends, when I can't be there as a teacher, the AI can help supplement that, meet them where they're at, explain things and so forth.

Speaker 2: 26:34

But having said that, a's and B's are great, we have to have the C's of the ABCs, which is addressing the concerns of AI. We cover loads of things in that session. I talk about academic integrity. So, dealing with cheating, we do a deep, deep dive into how do we address potential cheating with AI. But then we talk about other things inaccuracies, biases, data privacy, how to educate students about AI, things like deep fakes and using AI to impersonate others.

Speaker 2: 27:08

There's a wide range of potential concerns and as much as I do get excited about the potential good for AI and as much as I'm trying to push the needle in the positive direction, you can't do that if you don't also address the concerns. If you just say no, no, no, no, it's going to be fine, well then it's not, because then you're not preparing for it. So we have to have good policies, good guidelines, good instruction for our teachers, good instruction for our students, good communication with parents about what is being expected, and so that all has to go together. So that's what that typically I do. That one is like either a full day workshop or maybe a half day workshop with schools. I have done like really, really quick abbreviated versions just to give a couple of key points, but most of the time that's that's done as a multi-hour workshop when I'm working with schools.

Speaker 1: 28:04

Yeah, and again, talking about our early adopters, how have you seen those early adopters integrate AI into a lesson or a theme? Could you give us a couple of examples of where you've seen AI integrated in an effective way?

Speaker 2: 28:23

Yeah, now, keep in mind that's a really broad question. There are so many ways to use AI. I will first just say, of course, ai can be used for daily tasks. It can help save time, it can help you brainstorm, it can help you generate content, it can help you adjust content. All of that's good. I'm in no way. But let's get to more of what you're asking about. What about impacting students? How about changing things like that? Well, that's what I get excited about. Take something as simple as doing what I call an AI interview.

Speaker 2: 29:01

Basically, a teacher can say hey, we've been learning about X, y, Z in class. We've been learning about, you know, the American revolution. Or we've been learning about metamorphosis and we've been learning about, you know, wild weather. We've been learning about whatever, guess what guys. We have a special guest in class today. You know we have. You know, jay Gatsby from the great Gatsby is joining us today in class. Or we're going to be talking to a hurricane today. A hurricane is joining us in class. And basically, you just tell chat, gpt, gemini, claude, whatever, say, hey, I want you to pretend to be this.

Speaker 2: 29:42

Now I've got a prompt that I've worked out over time that tries to get ahead of potential issues. It talks. It tells the AI avoid biases. You know, strive for accuracy. If you don't know the answer to something, don't make it up. Let us know that you don't encourage critical thinking, blah, blah, blah. So I got this really big prompt that I use, but in the end, what it does is it allows the students to be way more engaged. You know they can start asking questions they're interested in. Hey, we'll ask it this, but the teacher is totally in control. The teacher is the one who's still doing the typing, so they can decide which questions go in and which ones don't. But the students get to ask what they're interested in and they get to learn about things in a more engaging manner, while all along the teacher is encouraging critical thinking, saying well, hey, if the AI says something you don't agree with, let's talk about it. Why did it say that? You know, let's push back on that. Now. That's an easy intro, but you can go further.

Speaker 2: 30:44

Now we have so many tools that allow every student individually to talk to a customized AI chatbot, whether it is school AI or whether it's brisk teaching or Mizu or Fobiz there's a bunch out there where the teacher can customize an AI chatbot and then the students can just click a link and chat with it. But it's school safe in that the students are not creating accounts, they're not logging in, it's just all anonymized. But the teacher can monitor the whole thing. The teacher sees everything, the student types everything the AI types, and so now we've got a situation where there's one of me and 25 of them. I can't reach every kid on the level I want, but now the AI can come alongside and every student can have a conversation, or they can have a debate, or they can do brainstorming or they can get tutoring, and that's the kind of stuff I'm getting excited about is seeing things that we've known for so long are valuable educational practices, but we've said they're just not practical. We're talking about personalized learning.

Speaker 2: 31:56

If you go, I'll give the credit to Sal Khan for sharing this. That's who I saw it from originally. He was talking about Benjamin Bloom doing a study back in the 80s where he was trying to say how do we increase achievement, and he showed the bell-shaped curve and he said well, if we implement mastery learning, we can move every student's achievement one standard deviation up, he goes. There is something better than that, though. There is a way. There is a way to move everybody's achievement to standard deviations up, but the only way to do that is to give every student a personal tutor. Well, we can't do that, so let's just work on mastery learning.

Speaker 2: 32:36

Well, guess what folks, we can do it now. We can now give every student a personal tutor. We can. We can give them this additional support. That then doesn't just meet the kids where they're at, but it informs the teacher, it gives us actionable data to know which students are struggling where. And now I can pull those five kids aside and I can personally connect to them. So that's the kind of stuff I'm getting excited about, is stuff we've known for years. This is good educational practice, but we go, it's not practical. It is now. Now we can start doing these things.

Speaker 1: 33:13

Well said, great examples too, wow Um, I'll link those in a blog so people can go and actually look at them and check them out. Um, I guess I I want to wrap things up with with with this question how do you aggregate your blog? Um, control alt, achieve, like? How do you like, where does it all come? Like? Are you must be online, searching, mining internet, or like?

Speaker 2: 33:41

what's your?

Speaker 1: 33:41

process for absolutely you put out a newsletter, you add new apps, you I try, I shoot for every week.

Speaker 2: 33:50

Uh, some weeks it doesn't happen. Just because you know life, but yes, that is.

Speaker 2: 33:54

My goal is every week to share a newsletter. So, absolutely, I think it's important that we all find ways to aggregate, to pull things in. For me it's a couple of things. One of them is and this is going to sound old school I use an RSS aggregator. So I have found over the years maybe 150 wonderful ed tech blogs where people share great things, and I've added them to an RSS aggregator. So, basically, I go to a website and instead of me going to 150 blogs, I go to one website and it brings 150 blogs to me. And so maybe once a week, twice a week, it's like oh, time to head over to my RSS site and I just go click, click, click, click. Oh, that one looks neat, oh, let me look at that. Click, click. Oh, that one looks cool. And so it lets me quickly look at what all of my amazing colleagues all over the world have been posting, and it brings it in one place, and so that is one area.

Speaker 2: 34:53

Another is newsletters. Yeah, I put out a newsletter, but I subscribe to a ton of newsletters, and I had a blog post recently where I shared some of my favorite ed tech newsletters, and so I'm constantly reading those as well. And again, once or twice a week, hey, time to go through the newsletters. I've got a Gmail folder where they just all go into okay, let's see what Tony shared this week. Okay, let's see what Jen shared this week.

Speaker 2: 35:21

And I start going through and reading their newsletters and we're probably just recycling each other's content. But I find great things from Ryan and all these people. Oh, hey, that's a really cool one, and so it's things like that. On top of that, a lot of the things I share also just come from needs. I'll get emails from somebody saying hey, how do I do this, eric? Or I've run against this issue or we're having this problem, and so that's another big piece of it is solving problems. You know, whether it's in my day job, whether it's emails, I get A lot of things I end up posting are trying to address a concern. Somebody had a problem they had. Hey, here's a cool solution for that. So, between between, uh, the RSS feeds and the newsletters and just my day job and my communication with people, a lot of that is probably what gets the ball rolling on a lot of the content that I am sharing and also creating.

Speaker 1: 36:17

Well, I mean, it's one of my go-tos whenever I'm looking for the new things. And also, it's not only just the tools, but you also provide tons of webinars and PD and it's just such a rich, rich environment. And that's one of the things I always say to teachers is create a really solid network, um by reaching out, seeing what's out there and then following people and um, because there's no shortage of stuff.

Speaker 1: 36:44

But understanding the stuff and how it might be integrated is where I tend to get a ton of ideas from, from the people I follow. So absolutely. Thanks so much for for for creating that and maintaining it. Um, I'm sure it's a, uh, a love hate at times, just because it never ends, it's like, and the never ends coming out.

Speaker 1: 37:06

Um well, eric, this has been a real, real treat. Um, thanks so much for hopping on and talking a little bit about my pleasure and it's been really enlightening in a lot of ways and I'll share all the links that we've talked about in this episode. Um, but please go and check out control alt achieve uh, the website. His book is up there. Tons of on ai and uh, it's just a plethora of amazing stuff. So, eric, continue what you do and I'll surely continue following until the sun never comes up anymore.

Speaker 2: 37:37

That's right.

Speaker 1: 37:39

Thanks, so much, thank you.