Episode 701: Back to School with Tech: Assistive Technology as a Springboard

Ashley Mengwasser:

Georgia teachers, it's back to school for the 2025-2026 academic year. Classroom Conversations is right here with you with a special set of episodes on this, the platform for Georgia's teachers. I'm Ashley Mengwasser. As we kick this school year into gear, the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting are bringing you a special three-part feature to get those wheels turning. Introducing a Classroom Conversations “minis” series, Back to School with Tech! Each of the next three episodes in our special feature is about half our usual episode length, because aren't things delightful and miniature? Before we launch season seven, it's the perfect time to introduce teachers' most prized tech tools for the classroom to start your year of student impact strong. How could we call ourselves the platform for Georgia's teachers if as much as inviting you into our studio, we didn't invite ourselves out to where you are?

Last year we visited the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park near the airport where educators statewide attended the annual smash hit of more than two decades. It's called the Georgia Educational Technology Conference, or Georgia ETC. Educators descended on the conference with bells on to encounter the latest bells and whistles in educational technology, or ed tech. I was there, a mere woman on the street, or a woman at the conference, with a microphone to sound off about the services your fellow educators are embracing. Part one of Back to School with Tech begins right now.

Now we sit down with our first guest and here she is, Heather Van Looy from Fulton County School District. Hi, Heather.

Heather Van Looy:

Hi.

Ashley Mengwasser:

How are you?

Heather Van Looy:

So nice to be here.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I'm so glad to see your smiling face. You came from Fulton County. What brings you to Georgia ETC? What's your role in your school?

Heather Van Looy:

So I am the Director of Instructional Technology for the district, and as an instructional technology leader, I always love to come to GaETC to hear from other people and get energized by a network of people who are like-minded about the benefits and impacts that educational technology can have. And so it's a great place to be.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It is an annual hootenanny I'm told, and all the educators from all levels love it just like you. Have had any light bulb moments here already today?

Heather Van Looy:

Well, obviously as a leader in educational technology, I come with a lot of background knowledge, but right now AI is such a huge thing in education. Generative AI is the biggest disruption in instructional technology since the invention of the internet.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh, my.

Heather Van Looy:

And so if you really think about what would it be like if our students didn't know how to use the internet, that would be a travesty, right?

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right.

Heather Van Looy:

They would not be competitive. And so it's really, really key and important that we teach our kids how to use AI so that they are competitive in this world, not only in school but beyond. So I've been focusing my conference on going and learning about different ways that people are using AI in their classrooms.

I went to a really great session yesterday with Holly Clark. She's the author of the AI Infused Classroom. If you haven't read that book, I highly recommend. It's excellent. And she just has great ideas about how we can use AI with students, not so that the AI is doing the work for them, but so that the AI is helping them through a process and allowing them to be creators and do amazing things. Specifically in her session yesterday, she talked about how she used a combination of apps, Book Creator, which is a tool that is, there is a free version. There's also a paid version, but it allows you to create electronic books. Students can create their own e-books.

And so she had students create a poetry journal. They used school AI to help them brainstorm and think through their ideas about poetry. The AI will not write the poem for them, but it coaches them through the process.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Through that process of creation.

Heather Van Looy:

And ask them questions. So then once they had the poem, the teacher used a tool, and I'm blanking on the name of that tool, to create a song from the poem and then they went into Canva and used Canva or Adobe Express are both free tools for educators. The district just has to get them turned on, but they're free to the district. And both of those tools have AI image generators in them that teachers are able to have students use what they're learning to create an image. So they create an image to go with their song and poem.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh my gosh.

Heather Van Looy:

The lesson about teaching the kids how to create the prompt. If you just say, give me an image of, I don't know, a pink rabbit, right?

Ashley Mengwasser:

That's just what I was thinking.

Heather Van Looy:

It might give you a pink rabbit, but it might not be what you were looking for. But if you say, give me a Pixar style image of a pink rabbit with pink bows on its ears that's looking like it's ready to play, then that image-

Ashley Mengwasser:

The more info, the better.

Heather Van Looy:

So the kids were learning how to write descriptive paragraphs basically in order to get the image that they wanted.

Ashley Mengwasser:

So you described sound, you described text that they're writing, visual imagery. Book Creator is a new one for me. I've already learned something. Give us just a bit of context about your school system and tell us about Fulton's Vanguard.

Heather Van Looy:

Sure. So Fulton County is a large district in the metropolitan area. We have 98 schools, approximately 90,000 students, so we're a massive district. And our instructional technology team is really tiny. It's just myself and two other people. One person who's over all of our media centers and another person who's over instructional technology.

We have done a lot of amazing things with technology in Fulton, and we are not getting it done with just that tiny little team. So we have a team called the Vanguard team. It's a volunteer team of about 350 passionate educators who just love instructional technology.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Amazing.

Heather Van Looy:

They really like what it can do to transform learning and that they can take activities that maybe didn't have technology and add them and really augment the learning and modify it so that they're enhancing what students are able to do for joyful, rigorous, innovative learning. And so we pour into our Vanguard team, teach them all kinds of things about instructional technology and best practices and pedagogy and the ISTE standards. And then-

Ashley Mengwasser:

They.

Heather Van Looy:

Disseminate it at their schools.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Ah-ha. Your representatives.

Heather Van Looy:

That's right. Each Vanguard member comes up with, their school team comes up with a goal, a smart goal of what they want to do to be intentional about making an impact in their school with technology. And then they do an action plan and they come up with how they're going to really go about and be purposeful in making an impact and teaching people how to use technology in the best ways so that they're not just using it as a substitution so that instead of doing a worksheet, kids are doing an online worksheet. That's not really what we want. We want kids to be creators instead of consumers of information.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Exactly. Producers.

Heather Van Looy:

We want them using the technology in really magical ways that makes learning come alive.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Absolutely, and you made an excellent point when I first talked to you this morning. You said, and it's so good that you're not just here to soak up all this great ed tech. You're also here to remind everyone about the pedagogy. Tell me what that was.

Heather Van Looy:

I think it's easy to get caught up with what's new and shiny and people get excited about the tool. And what we really want is for people to be thinking about the learning outcomes that they want. I want kids to learn how to collaborate with each other. I want them to learn how to creatively communicate or to be designers of their own learning or constructing knowledge. And how does the technology enhance that?

So it's really important in educational technology that we always lead with the learning outcome. What are we trying to accomplish? And then what are the tools that are going to help best accomplish that? And I think it's sometimes easy to get caught in the trap of, oh, this is this really great tool that I want to use and really need to keep our eye on the prize, which is the learning. What is it that we want kids to learn? And then how can the tool enhance and really bring...

Ashley Mengwasser:

Some dynamism to the path.

Heather Van Looy:

Some dynamism to that. One of the great things about technology is that it gives kids the ability to collaborate with each other. It gives them a real-world audience beyond the four walls of their classroom and just their teachers, the audience. They're able to have meaningful ways to share what they're knowing and learning, which gets kids more invested in the product that they're creating and wanting to do a good job because they know people are going to be looking at it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Student engagement soars when you do these things.

Heather Van Looy:

For sure.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What is your final message to our educators listening? What should they do next in their systems?

Heather Van Looy:

I think that anytime that you are a teacher, in today's day and age, this is a tough business. People are being asked to do more and more. People are burnt out, that technology can spark things up for the teachers as much as it can for the students. When you have kids who are lit up about writing because they're getting to create a podcast as a part of their writing, then it's invigorating for them. And I can't tell you how many people, how many teachers contact me and say, "I went to this training that you guys did about podcasting or about Minecraft and education, or whatever the tool is. And it has just changed how I'm looking at things and my kids are so excited and they're engaged." So I say, wherever you are in your technology journey, think about the things that you want kids to learn and then go learn something new and try it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Absolutely.

Heather Van Looy:

There's nothing wrong with not knowing. You don't have to be the expert. One of the standards from ISTE, that's for educators is co-learn with your students. Try things out. If you run into a problem, figure it out and troubleshoot it together. And so sometimes I think people feel like they have to be an expert on something before they step into it and try it with their students. And I say, don't do that. Just give it a try and see where it goes. Learn from the process, reflect on it, and learn from the experience along with your students.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And to your point, you don't have to be an expert because the technology is an enhancer of the learning objective, which our teachers all have mastered, right?

Heather Van Looy:

That's right.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Absolutely. Thank you for being here today, Heather. Heather Van Looy from Fulton County School District. Thank you.

Heather Van Looy:

Thank you for having me.

Ashley Mengwasser:

With this next interview, I went for the gold, Neal Golding, seventh grade life science teacher at Bear Creek Middle School in Fulton County. Welcome to the show, Neal.

Neal Golding:

Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

This is your very first Georgia ETC.

Neal Golding:

Yes, it is.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What are your notes so far, Neal?

Neal Golding:

Wow, it's been very enlightening. I went to the exhibit and saw a lot of vendors that the work that they're providing, the amenities are just overwhelming. It's being at my school, I'm going to get all the information. I'm going to create a presentation so that way I can pitch it to my principal.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Fantastic.

Neal Golding:

It's well worth it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You're in awe. He's awestruck right now. When you walk into that hall, would you say that you're wide-eyed with wonderment, just all that's being displayed there?

Neal Golding:

Oh, absolutely. There was one vendor that had financial literacy and I was like, man, there are students that get distracted and with all the technology that's there, they're all engaged by it. The good thing is that they're learning and once they get involved, it cuts out all the other stuff. The good thing is they're learning to understand what me teaching science, how to build a cell, learning all the organelles of the cell. That's what we're doing right now for cell structure. And then also in regards to the other things going outside of my content, I saw that financial literacy, I said, "Wow."

Ashley Mengwasser:

Wow.

Neal Golding:

That's something I'm willing to teach outside the school.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh, fantastic.

Neal Golding:

Of my content. I think young people right now should learn that going forward.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It's important.

Neal Golding:

They had the FICO score, you can manipulate variables and you can be able to see how your FICO score would look.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Incredible.

Neal Golding:

That's great.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Imagine equipping students with this as an educator. I'm not surprised that it lit your fire in there. Did anything else capture your attention in the exhibit hall?

Neal Golding:

Something that I saw in regards to understanding the data. I was using Quizizz, but on a personal…I don't know if you're familiar with Quizizz?

Ashley Mengwasser:

Tell us about Quizizz.

Neal Golding:

Quizizz, it's just a program. It's kind of learning. It checks for understanding, and it's an online program where you can test the students on how much they know.

Ashley Mengwasser:

See what they know. Yeah.

Neal Golding:

But the thing was, I was never able to get the data, what they have understood. So what I understood is that the school's platform will give you that data and break it down for you so you can be able to assist students with that.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Quizizz, there's a new tool I haven't heard about! And I understand you, Neal, use AI for lesson planning. Tell me how you do that.

Neal Golding:

Yeah. What I asked for from a particular program, can I say the program?

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah, absolutely.

Neal Golding:

ChatGPT.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh yeah, we know that one.

Neal Golding:

Yeah. I ask what I need and I'm not using a hundred percent of it. I take a look at it and then I put my own spiel on it. So from there, I add down, put in my information, and I get what Chat is telling me and then I can go ahead and push that out to students as well as my colleagues first to see if they will be okay with it. And then we decide what we will give to students for the week.

Ashley Mengwasser:

So it's a springboard for you?

Neal Golding:

Yeah. And what I love about it is the rubric. They have some great rubrics, so that way the students will be able to know what type of criteria is needed.

Ashley Mengwasser:

They need to meet.

Neal Golding:

For the assignment.

Ashley Mengwasser:

ChatGPT does rubrics?

Neal Golding:

Yes, it does. Breaks it down into columns and levels. What type of score they will get.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Makes it very transparent for the student learner. How else are you using educational technology tools in your work?

Neal Golding:

For education technology, I have students go on to what is called Canva more and more instead of doing the tangible stuff. And it's great to create models and on the project-based learning, but to see what they understand and they could share it to me on my computer, we're becoming more and more paperless. So just basically like with what I'm doing right now, plant and animal cells, they're creating the plant and animal cells providing the different organelles and description. So they can do somewhat of a compare and contrast of what they know between the two. And it helps me to understand what they know.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And then you basically have your students electronically share their work with you?

Neal Golding:

They share their work and they have their own designs and everything. It's pretty decent.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Is there one teaching strategy that you would like to impart with teachers before you leave us here today? Something that works well for you, that involves the use of an incredible teaching tool?

Neal Golding:

I would say think outside the box, basically. To not just, you know, it's a changing environment that we're in, and just learn to roll with the punches. So, with this digital age and what I saw in the exhibit, we have to now just-

Ashley Mengwasser:

You're pretty stunned here, Neal.

Neal Golding:

Yeah, I am. I'm embracing it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah, you are.

Neal Golding:

I'm embracing it. And the teaching strategy would be just to be prepared to go digital, be prepared to evolve. Okay.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Neal Golding:

That's the only way I could explain it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Well said. Go digital or go home, I guess, right?

Neal Golding:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What are you looking forward to doing first when you get back to Bear Creek Middle?

Neal Golding:

Have a talk with some of my colleagues and share with them what I've learned here, and from the different classes, and what I got from the exhibit. And just share with them that, "Hey, this is a way that we can go." And plus I'm going to ask for their assistance on creating this presentation that I could pitch out to my principal.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Good luck with your presentation and thanks for being here today, Neal.

Neal Golding:

My pleasure.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That's a wrap on part one. My wonderful guests gave great interviews in the towering halls of Georgia ETC. Little bit different sound texture, in case you notice. I love an immersion. Are you feeling inspired, educators? Registration is now open for this year's Georgia Educational Technology Conference on November 5th through 7th. Thank you to the Georgia ETC organizers for allowing Classroom Conversations to crash your party. We're bringing you another mini episode, part two of Back to School with Tech next week. Don't miss it. Goodbye for now.