Remote Possibilities: District leaders share best practices of online learning 

Kevin Hogan This episode of Innovations and Education is brought to you by Stride professional development. Are you tired of one-size-fits-all PD. Do you want to differentiate your professional learning? Discover strides expanding library of on demand bite sized and mobile friendly courses that meet teacher and school learning needs. Based upon micro learning principles, strides, courses are developed by educators for educators as content experts are paired with instructional designers who have been teachers as well. For more information go to stridepdcenter.com. OK and welcome to the latest episode of Innovations and Education where we here at East School Dive deep into the world of education technology. And innovation. Today's episode is all about remote and online learning strategies, a topic that is near and dear to each school's heart. Obviously, for over 25 years. But that has evolved dramatically as a result of the COVID pandemic. And especially in light of other recent global events, has really taken a turn for what I hope will ultimately be the better. Join with me today are three guests who bring a wealth of expertise and insights to the. Abel. Throughout our conversation, we explore how districts like merit and public schools in Connecticut. Keller Independent schools and in Texas have navigated the shift from traditional to online learning environments. Will uncover their strategies, their challenges and the transformative impact of this sort of technology on their classrooms and their students. So sit back and enjoy. OK, thanks, everybody for joining me today, especially considering the top. Trick of remote and online learning strategies. Who would have thunk in 2019? We we probably could have had this conversation then. I think a lot of it. Would have been theoretical. Now knowing all three of you, you're very progressive and sophisticated and tech savvy, so there probably were some elements of online learning that you're at least attempting to use. However, BP versus AP before the pandemic and after the pandemic, we're certainly in two different places. So maybe we'll kick off if each of you can just kind of introduce yourselves in your district and give us a kind of a perspective of where you see the state of play when it comes to online learning strategies and remote learning strategies. From 2018 to to 2024 and Susan, maybe I'll put you on the hot seat first. Susan Moore, Director of Technology, Meriden Public Schools Sure. So I'm Susan Moore. I'm the director of instructional technology and curriculum for the merit and public schools. We are located in Central Connecticut Urban School District with a student population of about 8800 students, which is actually an. Increase as many districts have been seeing enrollment decreases, we have seen a huge population increase, particularly in our English learners. Even throughout this school year, we were getting 5 new students a week. Throughout the whole year, so that that was a challenge for us. You know, we have a fairly high needs population, so about 20% of our students receive special education services. About 77% of our students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. Susan Moore Umm. Although we're universal, free breakfast and lunch. So that's kind of the district in a nutshell. They leave anything out that you might. Be interested in. And that's that. Speaker The. Susan Moore That's the district bell. And so I would say that pre pandemic Meriden had already been dipping its toe into online learning. So. You know, we had some tech savvy teachers who were doing things with Moodle or UM, Schoology. Uh, some teachers had started in Google Classroom, but Google Classroom was, you know, still in its infancy and didn't have a lot of features. At the time, and so it, it was mainly used by. Early adopters who were looking for a way to kind of flip their classroom. We had actually done some PD with John Bergman back in the day, and so we had a fair number of teachers who were kind of experimenting with this flipped classroom model. The other way that we were using it was for personalized learning experiences. So if a student had an interest in learning about something, and we didn't. Have a teacher who was qualified to teach that or had experience teaching it. We were allowing students to self design programs of study around an area of interest and they could get that content through a MOOC. Coursera was coming onto the scene. It was really big at that point. So you know we. We had some experience with online learning and then. Thursday night, we're shutting down Friday and Monday we were up and running again in Meriden so we really did a lot with getting everybody, every single teacher in the district, to have that online presence and the easiest access point for us was using Google Classroom. So teachers who. Had not yet. Dipped their toe. Were thrown into the bathwater and you know, we did our best to support them with our technology integration specialist and providing professional development. But it today, as I'm looking at it today, I think you would be hard pressed to find a teacher in the district who is not using Google Classroom. And we still have those teachers who are using more advanced models, like a very robust Moodle course, but it is rare. I I can't even think of a teacher up the top of my head who doesn't have some sort of online content available for students because it became such a game changer in terms of making resources available to students. When they're not in the classroom. Kevin Hogan So any sort of. History of resistance. Let's say in the past of which you know. Maybe it was in your district, but I would say in a general sense, we were writing articles about how to convince that last cohort of teachers who don't like technology or afraid of technology, how they, you know, how they can become more enthused. Engaged. All it took was a not to be glib, but all took us a global pandemic to to kind of bring them over there. So that's great. Thanks, Susan. Then Misty, maybe you can give us a little bit of your thoughts. Misty Shea, Educational Technology Facilitator, Keller Independent School District Hi everybody. I'm Misty Shay. I am in Keller, TX, which is part of the DFW Metroplex. We actually just link ourselves on to Fort Worth, UM, we have a little over 30,000 students, 5000 staff and we are varied free or low SES students ELL we we have it all. We're very we're. I hate this this saying, but we have a beautiful melting pot. It's cliche, but I'm going to use. So kind of same, uh, same thing. I'm educational technology. I'm not sure if I said that. If I did. You could skip this part up, but uh. But I'm an educational technology. My role primarily is to work with curriculum instruction. We're embedded under them to uh, make sure teachers are integrating technology in a purposeful manner, so using that curriculum and then. Teaching them really cool tips and tricks. Which is kinda. Great pandemic. That was our way in the classroom like. Ohh. Did you know this great technology could ease this pain point in. Classroom or having trouble with engagement in in your classroom? Let's do this. So we did a lot of book studies. And so we and we did project based learning back in the day and. And so we had last sets of Chromebooks and class sets of iPads and like our Fine Arts teachers really loved using iPads and art classrooms. So we had, like she said little. Pockets of teachers that were doing these amazing things we had had, UM, canvas. Way prior, like our AP teachers, our Advanced Placement teachers in high school, you really utilize that and you had a smattering of canvas users. We had a lot of Google Classroom users back in the day like Ohh Gee, we had websites. So like we've always had some kind of peace where we always told our teachers it's going to be a lot easier for you if you have some kind. Of online aspect. Whether it's just the stuff that you're tired of your it's asking for over and over and it's online, or your students are always wanting that test you post on Friday, let's stick. Online. And then you you will have to do that again. So we were always trying to help teachers with the process and uh, to make things easier. So technology was kind of that cool equalizer and I felt like a lot of our teachers like, oh, that, that that's a pain point. I'm gonna do that. But and then and then that happened and wow. Like we went full throttle. Our curriculum coordinators, everybody. We just, it was like all hands on deck admin style and we were all creating online courses for those that have never really they had stuff online, but it wasn't a full blown course. We were talking about pedagogy, how to really engage your students online, making sure you're building not just that surface level stuff, but you're still digging deeper, which is what every educator. There's. To do, that's their. That's their joy. But how do you do it online now? UM. So that was kind of our, you know, we were in there. Course, designing Co, teaching, doing a lot of YouTube lives for them. So we would have the YouTube lives for our teachers, like making it fun and engaging, like, oh, let's, you know, add graphics to your canvas course to make it more engaging. Let's use this tool. Care to you? You know again, what were their pain points and how could we help fix that? And we also went 1:00 to 1:00 during the pandemic, which is why, no, I'm kidding. Touch. This is in a little bit of a financial crisis right now. I'm not gonna say that was the. Reasoning. But we are one to one now. Man, it's been amazing. And so all those really cool things that we had taught them pre pandemic, they're getting to utilize in a one to one device. So now instead of shooting devices for kahoot, they all get to play kahoot together or Blick it or GIM kit, you get to gamify and learning a little easier because the students have devices. Are there issues with that? 100%, which is what we're working through now during the cool AI apocalypse. Not kidding. I'm not going to call it that thing. But with with all of AI, you know, now we have something even cooler to look and be like. Oh, now we have devices and this is where we get to go. Text so always kind of keeping our face forward. What are we going to do? How can we again use the pedagogy, use what we have online and definitely convince those teachers that the amazing things that they've done in their classroom are not changing. You're still going to do that amazing instruction. You're still going to collaborate together in the classroom, grab great discussions, do the things that you know is just good. Good. Stuff like good things, you know, as a teacher, even though you been teaching 30 years, but now we have this really cool tool. I mean, we even have phones. We have these amazing computers or things, devices in our hands. They can take it beyond, make it more global and impactful. And now I can collaborate with the class in India, you know, talking about the same things. And so I just feel like. Like I'm gonna dispatch stuff. I'm I'm kind of. I'm excited that it went this way. I'm not going to say I'm happy that there was a pandemic, but I'm excited that schools were forced into this because it really did open doors that I don't think we. I think we were cracking open, but I don't think we were ready to just throw both doors open like I'm here and it really did force us into that. And I just think there are so many great things on the horizon. Do that, yes, there are issues, but I just see. Amazing more amazing things than I see pain points. You know, there's always a Band-Aid. Yeah. I mean, duct tape, duct tape and WD40I mean it always. Kevin Hogan Works. That's the old school technology, right? Misty Shea Hey, you've got to have both. Kevin Hogan Thanks Misty and Jeff. Jeffrey Bradbury, Technology Education / Digital Media Teacher New Milford Public Schools First of all, thank you guys for having me. It's great to see everybody. I live in southern Connecticut. I'm currently a middle school technology teacher, but since the pandemic I've had an opportunity to work with consultants. School districts, both at the CTO level and also through being an instructional coach for the last 13 years. In addition to that, I'm also the founder of the teacher Cast Educational Network, where I've been having an opportunity to work with school districts. Ed tech companies not only through the pandemic, but also now that we're on this side, how can we help teachers and school districts really leverage out all this educational technology? To make an impact in the classroom. So thank you guys so much for having me here. I'm looking forward to this great conversation. Kevin Hogan And talk a little bit about your, your experiences, BP versus AP when it comes to online, I know you've been writing and talking about these issues for a long time. I won't date you, but I know it's been something that has been at the top of your list for for. A long time. What? Where have you seen the evolution go? Jeffrey Bradbury You know, as everybody else here has said, getting some kind of learning management system up and running is successful and. And. I talked a lot about the innovation curve right, making sure that there's always a few people in the district that are going to get it, move with it and and just have at it. And then how do you take that innovation and start to move it throughout the district? How do you get those first followers? How do you get over the hump? So that way every single teacher out there is not only seeing it, but learning from it, experiencing it? And also being able to bring that down to their students. You know, I've had an opportunity to work with hundreds of school districts and also at the cabinet level to really help people create what that vision is for educational technology. One of the questions that we always start with is when you walk into that classroom, what exactly do you want to see? What do you want learning to look like? How do you want classrooms to be innovative? And so having the opportunity to. Actually walk school district. Back start with their strategic plan and try to figure out, OK, now that we are where we are now that you are in this direction, that you're moving in, how can we take the vision of this school district, the vision of the Community and through instructional coaching for your educational technology? How do you help to form a vision that actually is going to be able to show? What the students can do in the classroom to help them be successful, and then a lot of work with that whole portrait of a graduate thing to help make sure that the vision that a school district has is being seen right gradual. Susan Moore There it is. There it is. Kevin Hogan Great stuff. Great stuff. Thanks, chef. Well, let me ask you this. You know, there are so many new phrases that came up over the past few years when it came to talking about online learning. A hybrid learning was one a a model that that, that came out pretty quickly. Another one was the the Virtual Academy, which was another model that. We kept hearing about and during the depths of the pandemic. Having conversations about how there will always be this now this fully virtual remote model for certain students, that whether that's. You know, because they have particular needs or because of, you know, whatever behaviors in the classroom. Let me ask each each do any of you have a virtual Academy model currently in your districts? Susan Moore We we do not have a fully virtual Academy, we that we have a handful of students who are kind of in that model, but it because of the number of students it would, I wouldn't. Consider it a. Cap an Academy we had actually started with. A program we thought was going to be a virtual Academy for students who might be school phobic, right? Or have extreme anxiety, and we're struggling in the program and we found that even with those students. Bringing them in into a smaller. Environment. Was so much more productive for them than having them be full time online just to have that support. And you know, particularly supportive adults, but also interaction with peers. Umm. So no, we do not have a full time virtual Academy. Kevin Hogan This year, Jeff, have you have had any experience with those? Jeffrey Bradbury Models in a district that I previously worked in, they were starting to build out their online learning Academy and it's it's working right now. I don't want to say the names of anything like that, but I mean the district does now have a fully virtual program out there. It's been very successful, especially for that district. When you have so many. Students who, due to whatever reason, single parent home, not a lot of people around, not a lot of support. Those students could actually be at their house doing what they need to support their families and then some of them are taking courses in the afternoon. Some of them are taking online courses throughout the day, but they're able to not only be able to be successful in their education, but also be successful as members of their family. And of their community. Also recently I had doctor Richard Savage on the show. Who's the Superintendent out in California for the I think I'm gonna say this wrong. California virtual. I'll get the exact name. But I mean, his school district literally is half of California. And he's been very successful in creating an entire virtual school district where students are learning at a very high level, completely online. And all the teachers are still connected. All the teachers are still a family professional. Learning happens. And it was really awesome to have him on the show to talk a little bit about how that was built and. What the model can be for other school districts? Misty Shea So pandemic did kind of open our eyes to the option opportunity to give kids students and we kind of focused it more middle high school when they're wanting to take French floor, but we don't have French floor and so really and again uh finding a need, we did have those students that you know are homebound for illness or again. In these circumstances, UM or we had a lot of students going above like they don't want to pay a college to take AP or Government and ECON so they can take a virtual option and get those credits. We also partner with a lot of local colleges and so that our students do online course. As you get those college credits, so we have a lot of our students that are going into college with a lot of like as sophomores because they've gotten so many credits, dual credit, online credits, and all of those options. And we're kind of slowly coming away from having just the full a student fully in an online course just because again, we want them to have that student to student interaction. We want to make sure they have counseling services and all the services we have UM on a campus, UM, but we do have, uh, we have some classes that the teacher in the class. You know, is just almost. She is making sure all the students are working on their online classes together, so they still have to come in, but they're taking French for they're taking our CTE career technology courses that aren't on each campus or we don't have a teacher for it. We don't have a teacher for this advanced math. So they're able to still work at their pace. And work up to their level. And just because we don't have a teacher, we don't want to limit them. UM in their learning cycle. So that's kind of where we have found online learning to help us and to help our students and families. UM. We did have it to where students would take a lot of their core like English history, but like I said, we're slowly moving away from that model just because we do value that student student interaction, I mean. I'm part of the I I believe that. Teaching students to communicate, to collaborate, and all of that is a key function into getting them ready and to be really be released, catch released. I'm getting to be ready to be into society and so if they're only at a computer, you know taking classes, yes, you can have amazing discussions through canvas or Google Classroom. Yes, we can do that. But there's something about. You know. Human human interaction you can't replicate UM, unless you are truly with the human. Having those discussions and interactions. And I'm not speaking for our entire district. This is just what Mr. Shay thinks. And. But I do. We are pulling back and I just I. I just can't. I don't know. It works for some students. I just really see the value of the the peer-to-peer having teachers having a campus community. Kevin Hogan So my take away from your answers here is that maybe it's not Even so much the technology, the platforms, but districts becoming more flexible and offering solutions to their students through the use of this technology which. Became tried and true and that where everyone could see that as, as as a full answer in maybe maybe in 2018. There would have been maybe more steps to go through to service that one student who needed those extra services, and now everyone's kind of like, oh, yeah, well, we get it. We can we we can figure that out is that would that be fair enough to say? Susan Moore I think online learning has become a viable option for you know it's a valid learning model, right? And I think the the pandemic proved that and now I think districts are working to find that balance, right. Where do we, where and when do we need to be in person. Where and when can we support? The online model and. Really, what's going to provide the? Most opportunities for our students. Kevin Hogan Yeah, well, I guess I have to ask this question then, but what were the things that definitely did not work? I can actually, as a parent, start with my freshman in high school with fulfilling the stereotype of the hoodie with his laptop in his bed with the door closed. The press. I I had three beta testers here during all of this, and the idea of. And I wrote these articles too. There was the teacher would go into the classroom and would be kind of doing a mook model right where they're giving a presentation to 30 kids that were spread out amongst their district. That one I haven't seen replicated. Now that things have gone back to normal. Do you have any other examples of that or? Then you concur with with my particular example there of the one to many remote model. Susan Moore Yeah, I mean we we happen to. Keep our class sizes in check, but as you creep up in grades, you creep up with class sizes. Whether you're in person, uh or online. But you know, I think we definitely saw, especially at the younger grade, the impact that the lack of social interaction had. Once they were back in school, right, so that when we first came back to school there were, there was definitely a learning curve for. Behavior, right? What? How do we act when we're in a classroom? You know? And I know I I. Well, I think it's other. I'm. I don't want to speak for other districts, but uh, absenteeism does seem to be, uh, a universal issue. You know, we've made some some really good gains this year. In terms of reducing our chronic absenteeism, but I think for students who got used to being at home all day, it's, you know, in some cases it's it's it's become a hard sell that no, you need to be in school every day. Kevin Hogan Yeah, misty. Well, you you talked about, you know, the year 1 to one district and so the students have the opportunity to do their work at home, but maybe you could talk about some of the challenges that that you experienced. Misty Shea So we definitely so you know, we always have we all had to come up with some kind of attendance and how are we going to manage this and what does it really mean if you attended a are you sitting there asleep as the zoom is on, does that work? Can your parents check you in you know we had some some scary thing not scary and uh not educational sense but like. For teachers, we're having to. OK. Hey, Sally wasn't on today. Oh, her. Was on, yeah, but to get attendance, she had to at least comment one time, or she had it, you know, so every teacher was doing kind of their own as a district. We set certain policy for what counted as attendance to get, you know, state money and everything like that. But then the the teachers were having to decide, you know, to give grades because, you know, teachers are in charge of thing. OK, you've learned. 70% of this math topic, you've learned 80%. You know what you know. And so they had to kind of. Figure out well how now? How do I assess these students besides just giving them that Google that quiz or that canvas quiz or whatever at the end? How can we verbally also say because you know all learners? I was the person you get, you put a test in front of me and I'd be decent. You talked to me about it. I could probably on the whiteboard explain the entire math problem, but I would get test anxiety. And so I know teachers are really trying to, uh, assess learning in different ways. Uhm. Through the pandemic. Something that we did focus on pre pandemic when we were back in even in our online courses, it's just really good course development, making sure they were accessible, making sure it was varied, making sure that it students were engaged and had plenty of time to make sure they were accomplishing creating prerequisites. So they had to get through the lessons in a linear fashion. And so there are some things we learned from pandemic like, oh, this happened. But oh, this is a good answer for now, so any of our online classes have kind of utilized almost like a global learning like oh, what did y'all do? Oh, that worked. Awesome. So we almost became collaborative on an on a global scale. Just what worked for you, what didn't work for you? How can we get your successes and and our successes and merge together. And so we kind of learned an adaptive. Way to make sure so the students that are taking online courses now we've kind of I don't say Ambassador I there's always. For growth, but we have figured out how to make sure they're engaged. They're turning in their assignments, that they're aware that if they finish up the course, they don't get a credit at all. You know, how do we contact the parents? How do we collaborate with them? How do we collaborate with the students? So we found a really good model, and I feel like a lot of our online students want to be there. So that's another point. So the fact that we're. Helping them through whatever's happening in their life. Most of them do want to be there, so we have very few students who are, you know, dark hoodie in their room, depressed because they don't want to be there or sleeping through first and second period because why not? My computer's open. I can just go right back to sleep. And we're still learning. Speaker Yeah. Kevin Hogan Jeff, how about you about some of the things that you that you saw that during that great experiment that maybe not were that you're not going to implement in classes going forward? Jeffrey Bradbury You know, I had a a slightly different point of view from all of this. When I was going through this. In the 1920s school year, I had started the position in a in a school district as a middle school teacher, and I walked into that year creating my Google sites. Everything was all set up. I connected it into Google Classroom. Everything was set up. Everything that I was doing was completely self-sustaining online. Anyway, kids came in and I basically pointed them to the computer and I taught and I shared all that great stuff, but it was an I was teaching in a in a digital environment anyway. Fast forward to March 16th, 20th, whatever that day was, and I just happened to not go to work that day and. There wasn't a difference for me whether I'm sitting here teaching in a classroom or whether we were all virtual for me, nothing changed. The kids still came in. They still got onto their computer. They still had their stuff. It was just that the the the walls looked a little bit different. Yeah. So I have a little bit of a different point of view on all this because for me personally going through this. Not much of this stuff was any different. When I became an instructional coach for that particular district the following summer, then it was OK well, this works right. Here's the model. Here's what we can do. So I focused my attention not on my own kids, but on the, you know, 2000 teachers that I was now responsible for. Let's get your websites together. Let's create something for your department or for your. You know, school building, whatever it happens to be, uh, we decided to then create. You know parent university to help the parents learn how to deal with all of this stuff. We started to do, you know, teacher, professional development where the coaches were pushing in and helping out. So it's a little bit of a different point of view on all this because as a teacher, I I personally didn't feel the I'm going. I don't know if this is going to come out right. I didn't feel the burden of the pandemic. So much because I was already teaching in a certain way. So that way, OK, we just went home for the day and honest when all this happened, I was actually living 3 1/2 hours away and I was driving 3 1/2 hours to get to work every day. So. Going home was kind of, you know, I didn't have to drive anymore, so it was. I didn't have to pay, right? Kevin Hogan One of the one of the pros. Jeffrey Bradbury And I was. I. Misty Shea Was good. You sparked something very interesting though. You had set ground procedures. Your students had expectations. You already had something in place that was similar to what they were experiencing at home. And you, you're one of the high Flyers. You're one of the superstars. And I bet we had about 20% of our teachers that had canvas already up and their kids went in the modules that got their resources from, like, so they had some really amazing set procedures and just a chunk of ours didn't. So yeah, I agree with you. We were kind of catching those. Those the people up that maybe had great classroom procedures and now how does that look online? Because good teaching is great teaching, and you're probably one of the most amazing teachers in the entire world. So how do we mimic that online? So I love that you had talked about setting up your procedures. Your kids had expectations when they came in. They knew what to do. I always love to to joke. When I was, I call a baby teacher that I could not show up for the day and my kids would tell the sub what to do. Like you just had such good classroom procedures. And then how do we take that and make that online classroom procedures? I love that. Thank you for that perspective. Jeffrey Bradbury Anytime. Kevin Hogan 11 dynamic that I also noticed in having conversations over the past few years is it's maybe not even your teacher interacting with the student, but a teacher interacting with the family. Yeah, I think each of you mentioned having communications with parents that maybe wouldn't have happened. Uh before uh, because they had to, because they became the teaching assistants, right? Both and the and the IT assistant going back in a lot of kind of. Mind blowing stories of tech directors getting in their cars and driving Wi-Fi hotspots out to students who didn't have access at home. That was another realization, I think, for a lot of district leaders saying. I I hear about, uh, the the digital divide in theory, when I go to Steve, but I didn't realize it was in my own district. Maybe each of you can kind of talk about now maybe this new dynamic with parents or guardians or just kind of the wider community as opposed to just. You know Johnny in row 3. You know seat H. Misty Shea We definitely had to. The hot spots were big, so we definitely now have a checkout system for hotspots for our district. They can be requested. We definitely, you know, look at some things before we do that, almost like free reduced lunch, but not that sense. But we do have some some indicators that kind of help us. So we definitely have that was a something we noticed that we. We definitely wanted to lessen that digital divide and we started doing things like, you know, the parent university, uh, we uh. Another pain point for for us was we let teachers choose their learning management system. So as the person supporting. Thing it was like, OK, what are they using? Where are they housing it? Oh, it's a Google Drive folder. OK, in this Google Drive folder, what's the naming convention? OK, what assignment are you looking for? And so do you have zoom? Can you share your screen? And so that brought out some amazing conversations for our district where we decided, OK, we need to be one. LMS like to so the parents have the same thing, they they are trained here and then they work their way up. So we started a district initiative to stick with one LMS so that when we start training our parents at this grade level, they're used to it. And then by the time they get to the upper grade levels where the workload and the students are a little more autonomous. And but they still want to kind of make sure that they're getting their stuff done. They've already been trained. And so part of my job is to, uh, make a we call it our pair and a canvas parent Academy. So our parents have to go through. This is what you see as a parent when you're observing your student. This is what you're gonna see when they're missing an assignment. When they submitted an assignment. This is time you can view their grades. So we definitely had to think, uh, I was the parent who my child told me I couldn't teach. I was like thank you friend, but I I can I have a degree that says I can. So I I felt it. I felt it in my soul for those parents. And so being able to help them and think of from their perspective, what do they need to know to support their kids even if we're not in an online learning hybrid learning even all of our teachers have to have some kind of online presence. So they're required to put. Whether they're turning in assignments or they have something online, they have to communicate with parents and that's kind of where we. We, uh, discuss it with our teachers is if you're if you're emailing a newsletter, why put it in cubus each week? Then they are already paired. They get it in this one place that they have to go, so helping them need that as well, and then all their students are already there. You pair once, you never have to pair again. Then we really thought about all the things from a parent perspective, a teacher perspective, admin perspective. And what would work? What best for our families? As would they progress through our district and? That was that was really it was harder for teachers that were married to one LMS, you know, switching them over. But usually the change is the scariest. Once they're there, they're like, oh, I like this feature. And I like this. And a lot of the LMS's do a great job of, you know, making sure that the teachers have some of those things that they love. So it's been really nice having one. And especially for the families and communities so that we can support them, we can train them or have parents academies and they can ask questions. And then as an admin for the LMS, I can go help everybody. It's it's kind of. Susan Moore I think the I think the access points and the. Tools that Miss Lee mentioned to really. Get at the. At the heart they get access, right? So we've been a BYOB, BYOB, BYOD. You could, there's one you could cut out. We're not BYOB. Speaker Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Susan Moore So we've been a BYOD district for, for. Years, you know, probably going on 15 years, but one of the things that we quickly noticed with that is that all devices were not equal, right? So when students are bringing their devices from home, if they have them available, the yeah, the the size, the processing power, the crack screens, the missing keys. So we quickly shift, took shifted to 1 to one and and we've been a one to one district. We were one to one district well before the pandemic. And then it becomes an, an uh question of Internet access, right? So the hotspots we before the pandemic, we had maybe 50 hotspots in the district at the height of the pandemic through some funding support from the state of Connecticut, we were up to almost 400 hotspots. You know, next year we're we're looking at drastically. We've been whittling that number down every year with the with ECF coming to an end. We'll see. Does not so. We'll we'll see what happens with no more federal support for Internet Internet bills for families. Right. So that's coming to an end. We'll see. But then really he and we get the information to the parents and families that they need in their native language. So that was a real game changer for us. Bringing in a communication tool that not only allowed administrators at the district and school level to commute to communicate with parents in their native language, but to get that down to the teacher level, that's something that was a result of the pandemic and that will, you know, we're not looking back on that one. That's been a real game. Danger for us? Misty Shea That's beautiful. Kevin Hogan And Jeff, how about you're seeing a different dynamic? With the with. The parents and the idea of the the wider community in terms of having a remote online learning model. Jeffrey Bradbury I I think no matter what school district you're in, having different options for students to learn is important for your school district. You know, one of the project projects that I had the opportunity in my district at the time, I just to give you some context, you know, roughly inner city, 14,000 students, 75 languages that we supported when. I was. Called into the superintendent's office with this idea of let's create a communal event. Let's create a parent university. It was a a pretty revolutionary idea at the time, but we were able to get our instructional coaches together. Library media specialist together to serve as our instructors. We got district level administrators and basically it started off with. Let's help the community learn how this. Whole thing is. Working so that way, if there's any questions. We're here, so if you think about it, you know, like a college model. Hey, we're doing it class at 9:00 right here we go, etcetera. But then that expanded to being more than just teachers or staff members helping out the community. It actually started turning into community, starting to talk about community. For example, if there was a parent who was a. Attorney. Maybe they want to come on and do a parent university session about how to fill out the FAFSA and how to help out your student. Prepare. So you know, you can see how all these things take take a hole where the the, the vision and the concept was, let's actually have a virtual learning Academy, not just for our students. But also for the adults in our community as well. And you know the the concept was to expand that into, you know, English as a second language and computer skills and you name all those different things. It really did open up the community to be a supportive community for each other. So it was really cool to see all that stuff happen and and start to grow. Legs. Kevin Hogan Yeah. So because you have the technology platform has been implemented, it's there anyway, right? And then everybody's behavior. Has changed, uh, where they're more likely to to hop onto a zoom call. Whether you're or you're a parent or or not. I mean, I just always remember just my parents, the grandparents you're calling in and and doing face times. It was like, wow, this has been. A cultural change. That you don't. You don't have that resistance anymore. Jeffrey Bradbury It it was interesting. At the time, you know I was seeing it from a teacher's point of view. I was seeing it from the instructional coaches point of view. I was constantly in the Supers office trying to do the administrative point. Review, but also that it's that same year my triplets were in kindergarten, so I was handling it also at the same time as a father of three, going through it with kids that couldn't read, put all that stuff together and I don't miss it one single moment. Kevin Hogan Now I knew the toughest part of my job this afternoon would be to. In the conversation, Can you believe it? We're almost up against the the 45 minute mark, but I want to kind of just finish it up with asking you each a question about, you know, we kind of discussed the state of play of where we are with online learning and with remote learning models. Take a look into your crystal ball. And look about where you want to see your districts, your schools use of these models in the next couple of years so you know our readers, our listeners, as we just mentioned, everyone has at least started on this journey, right? There's some element of it there, but they're probably looking to to know what those. Next steps are you guys are probably all a few steps ahead of a lot of districts, so give them a little heads up about what you see coming down the Pike. And Susan, I'll put. You on the on our seat again for. Susan Moore Sure, you know, so I I know that Misty mentioned this already, that students being able to take those courses that aren't available in district or earn college credit through those online classes, I think the next iteration of that is how are we preparing students for? The job force, So what industry certifications can they be earning online if we don't have a program in our school that supports that so that they're really, whether they're going directly to college or not, they're leaving high school. With marketable skills that they can put to work for them once they're beyond our beyond our district, then we hope they come back. And. Share everything they've learned with our students. Kevin Hogan Excellent, excellent. Thank you and Jeff. Go to you next. Jeffrey Bradbury You know, now that we're having this conversation and I have come a complete circle, I'm. I'm now currently again back in, in a classroom, teaching middle school. And I would love to see this whole online learning thing be expanded to as many students as possible when they can't be in the classroom. And I don't. I don't mean I'm homesick for the day. I mean I, you know, I I many teachers work in an environment where if a student for behavior reasons is not allowed to be in school for a day. You can all read into that. At least in my room. I I I again, I don't need to be there. It doesn't matter if the kids in ISS OSS on whatever you know, extended family trip, the website is still there, classroom is still working. Everything that I do has tutorials to it. I'm simply the guy that shuts the door and takes roll the the technology environment does the teaching and does the you know I've I've set. It up that way. I I would love to see this hybrid model be used even when students are not. You know when they're told not to show up to the classrooms. There's no reason for any of my students not to be continuing to work on their projects and stuff when they're not able to be in the class. So you know, there's a lot of different experiences in there for the districts that that I've come from. I'd love to see them expand on the work that we started many years ago. That there's a student that really can't be in school for today because they've got four other brothers and sisters and they're an only parent and they can't go. They need to have an amazing experience and they need to be able to be in an environment where they learn and they need to be in an environment where they can succeed and still have whatever options are available to them. So you know, we have the technology, it it, it's not expensive, but it's not cheap, but it's not expensive, making sure that everybody has an opportunity. And again, that just goes back to some of the work I've been able to do of. What's the vision for classroom learning? What is the vision for that graduates when they leave it? It's not sitting at a desk, it's having the skills and being able. To. Be that vision that every school district has for their graduates. Kevin Hogan That's great stuff. Thanks, Jeff. And Missy will leave you with the. Speaker Word. Misty Shea That's that's really hard. Nobody. How you cut that up. So I love what both of them said. I love UM, it has made things more accessible. UM, I love students being able to get what they need when they need it. Families getting what they need. And I'm. I'm hoping that this hybrid model continues to grow as we embark on the AI journey. How can we utilize that? Processes UM and again I know I'm the queen of Cliche. We are training them for jobs that don't even exist, so hopefully that's hybrid model. I don't need a teacher in this career technology course I don't need someone to teaches advanced. Calculus in a K12 setting and I just need someone in the world that can and and so opening that up we still need quality teachers and I don't ever want to replace them. We had quality educators and coordinators building these courses, so that's never going to go away. I never want to put a course out there that a quality curriculum coordinator didn't look at the pedagogy. The the design, the accessibility, I mean, you're still going to need amazing instructors doing amazing things. UM, but I do love that accessibility piece of how many more learners can we reach and how could we even get these pieces into places where education hasn't been up to par as maybe some other places in the United States or other places? And so I just see this as being a growing point where we realized it's possible. Now what's next? Where can we go next? So you know, I'm hoping my 7 year old truly believes that we're gonna have a beam me up Scotty, uh, someday he wants to be able to teleport from here to there. He doesn't think that he should have to drive anyway. So having this amazing technology in their hands, maybe that's going to be possible back to the future. Didn't even know Marty McFly didn't even know what 2025 and 2023 was going to be like. So just having all these models and all these learning opportunities that are open globally, it's it's endless. I'm, I mean, I expect to be over to you. You know, within the next 10 years? Kevin Hogan All right, it's a. Right. Well, again, thank you so much for your time and your insights. I always come away from these conversations feeling so much better about things, especially after, you know, having to talk about the pandemic, which I'm sick of. But it's still something that is. Kind. Of part of what we're dealing with the next time we have this, we got I think. We can fully say we'll be. Passed it and continuing to share these best practices with our readers and listeners. So congratulations for your work. It's hugely important. I hope you feel from your communities that that their appreciation for your, for your work, and again just look forward to following and covering your continued successes. And that wraps. It up for this episode of Innovations and Education. To listen to the full conversation and to dig into more resources, be sure to click over to E school. News.com. We've got a ton of it. And thanks for listening. This episode of Innovations and Education is brought to you by Stride professional development. Are you tired of one-size-fits-all PD. Do you want to differentiate your professional learning? Discover strides expanding library of on demand bite sized and mobile friendly courses that meet teacher and school learning needs. 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