Protecting Kids, Not Just Powering Devices: A Deep Dive with Don Sturm of Morton CUSD 709

Morton has long been known for its top-tier schools, but have you ever wondered why we stay ahead of the curve—especially when it comes to technology, AI, and student well-being?

Join us on this episode of Morton Muse & News as we sit down with Don Sturm, Morton CUSD 709’s Technology Integration Specialist and a driving force behind how Morton schools adapt, innovate, and protect our kids in a rapidly changing digital world. 📱💡

👨‍🏫 What you'll hear:
 ✅ How Morton uses AI in classrooms (yes, it's happening!)
 ✅ Why Don thinks phones don’t belong in schools
✅ A powerful reflection on tech, kids, and the rise of anxiety
✅ What sets Morton educators apart—and what’s coming next
✅ A few laughs, a story about pumpkins, and… bourbon glasses?

🎙️ Whether you're a parent, educator, or just a proud Mortonite, this episode will make you even prouder of the intentional, thoughtful, and student-centered work being done in our schools.

Let’s celebrate what makes our schools—and our people—so exceptional. 💙🎓
 #MortonPride #MortonMuseAndNews #EducationMatters #AIinClassrooms #ProtectingOurKids

Check out Don's other podcasts at:

CareU >  

Through the Educational Looking Glass >

That's the IDEA >

Transcript

 

welcome to Morton Muon News, where we bring you events, highlight the voices, and celebrate the unique charm of our community from local happenings and business spotlights to heartfelt interviews with people who make Morton special. This is your go-to source for staying connected with all things Morton.

Tune in and let's discover what makes our town truly remarkable. One story at a time.

Oh, it's summertime here in Morton now, and the, the heat's starting to get up there today. I have in the, uh, studio today. It's a beautiful sunny day and I'm so happy to see Don Stern from Morton Community Unit School, district 7 0 9.

Don, welcome to, welcome to Muse. 

Uh, thanks for having me. It's, uh, it's an interesting place to be. Yes. 

Okay. 'cause 

it's interesting to look around and there's a lot of stuff. Yeah. And my, uh. 

Your 

squirrel kind of is like, Ooh, I like that. I like that. Your squirrel brain. But then also to be sitting on this side of the mic is, uh, is nice.

Yes. Don, you have, um, and we'll, we'll get into your podcast. You also are the host of three podcasts that are all aimed inside of the realm of education. Yep. Technology. And you'll have a chance to talk about those later. Right? Okay. Yeah. Okay, 

perfect. 

Pretty cool. Um, are you on the clock today? Is this a work day?

Is this a personal day? Well, it, 

it is a half work day. 

Okay. Yeah. Half work day. So I, I couldn't offer you like a glass of whiskey today. You, I mean, you could not. I could not. I could. But you wouldn't take it, correct? Correct. Okay. You are a fan though, aren't you? I 

am. 

Okay. I am. Yeah. I do remember, uh, something maybe at some point in time we sat down and talked about bourbon or something like that.

Big 

bourbon fan. Well, you actually, you've got an extra set of those roll cups. 

Yeah. 

And offered me. Okay. You were like, Hey, we do, it was bespoke post. Yes. That 

website that sends you stuff every month kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. 

You had gotten two of them. Yeah. Or something like that. And so I love giving those to people that don't know what they are and it's like who?

Yeah. 'cause it's gonna fall over. Fall over. Yeah. It's this glass that's kind of, um, oh, how would you explain it? It has kind of like catch a point, A tip to it. Yeah. But it leans at about a 45 degree and catches itself. Yep. And it is weighed and balanced just right so that it kind of could swivel in place.

And it keeps you honest with your pores. Yes. Yeah. You can't go right the too much and Exactly. You're gonna end up dumping some of your good bourbon out. Yeah, exactly. 

Exactly. 

Well, I really appreciate you coming in. Um, uh, let My last Morton representative was. Miss Defonso from the junior high. Oh yeah.

And, uh, Owen Reedsburg from the junior high after they won first place in the cross country state championship. Oh, okay. Okay. So that was at the, let's see cross country is fall, so that was probably like October, November. Um, and, and one of the goals that I've always had with Morton Mu news is to try and like touch base with all of these important parts of Morton and schools being one of 'em.

I wanna try and get into businesses. I also want to just. I want to pick the brain of some guy who works out of his garage and makes, you know, tinker, tinkering things with like wood and Yeah. You know, furniture or something like that, that idea. So I love getting into, uh, uh, the minds of small business owners and this is our chance to kind of visit with some of the things that, uh, Morton is doing in specifically the realm of technology integration and education.

Right. Can you explain to the listeners who may not know you as personally as I do? 'cause we worked together for a short bit there. Yeah, we did. In the capacity of me being at the junior high school. You being at the district office, I don't think. I guess you were probably still teaching in the classroom When I first arrived in Morton, I was, yes.

Okay. I was for, for quite a bit there and then it was what, 2000 and what that you pushed over? You know what, I knew you were 

gonna ask me that. I want to say it's 2015. 15 was the first 

that you got out of the classroom. Correct. Started working in admin administration? 

No, actually not an administrator.

Okay. Nope. Just a tech integration specialist is my, uh, is my title, 

but it's in the administrative building. It's exactly, that's why I district office. Yep. Okay. So yeah, for, for, I, I guess we've kind of teased a little bit of that information, but go ahead and, um, give us a little bit of bio, how you came to be in Morton and bring us all the way up to maybe that 2015 part where you got out of the classroom and into technology integration.

Yeah. So I am, I grew up in this area. You're at Morton 

Knight? Nope, 

not in Morton, but uh, the antique mall, the Pleasant Hill Antique Mall. Yeah. That was my grade school. So that was a school, well, that was the gym. Really for the school. That was the church. I, I don't know what the name of it is now. 

Yeah. But, 

uh, yeah, so I went there and, um, came to Morton.

This is my 30, I just finished my 34th year in education. Uh, I taught three years in Danville and wanted to get back, you know, we'd had a child at that point and wanted to get back to the area. That you grew up in? Yep. Okay. In East Peoria. Okay. Went to East Peoria High School and then got a job in Morton and history, 

right?

Uh, yes. Yep. I'm a history major. Uh, social studies. I taught social studies in the high school for, would've been 23 years before moving out of the classroom. 

Okay. 

So, and 

that's been 10 years then about 

right? 12 actually. 12. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So, yeah, that's, I mean, that's, 

so you've seen this, you've seen this, this broad picture of starting with Scantrons.

Yeah. Right. Scantron was like the, the leading technology I think in the classroom as far as classroom teachers tools go and, and overhead projectors. Well, 

it, it's funny because I think the first year I came into Morton, like people will ask, well, how did you go from teaching history to getting in as a technology integration specialist?

I was always, and I think you can understand this. Mm-hmm. I was always like that the technology person. 

Yeah. 

In our building. 

Yes. 

And my first year in Morton, they asked me, Jay Isles, my department head, said, Hey, is there anything you want or need before the start of the year? And I was like, I want this new thing called a laser disc player.

Okay. Because, uh, what I can do is get, I taught geography at the time, predominantly geography. I can get 90,000 images 

on one giant, on 

one disc, because those things were huge. Right? Oh yeah. They were huge. And for those of you who don't know, yeah, just think CDs or DVDs and the size of a record at times.

Yeah. Maybe even a little larger than that. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

And I had a, uh, scanner. Oh, and I would just scan, like every image had a Q or not a qr. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Barcode. 

Okay. 

And I would scan it. Boom. It was up on the screen. Huh. And I remember people, like, I would have people visit my classroom like, oh, I want to see this thing.

Yeah. And so what is this magic that you're working with over here? Yes, and I loved it. And so I was always somebody who was intrigued by it. I know you and I now, the name just slipped my mind. Before the Schoology, before, uh oh. We were using that learning management system. You and I, I think were the only two in the district doing it.

I remember there was a tablet called Juno. Yep. That was the tablet. The Kuo Kno. Yep. Kuo. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. 

But it was the way to push out assignments to people before Google Classroom. Yeah. I think of it here, but it had the word school 

in it. I thought, not Schoology, but now I've got that stuck in my head.

Yeah. So I mean, it's just one of those things where I've always been power. No, not power school, interested in that. 

Okay. Okay. So that, that's a little bit of your background. 30 something years, 20 something years in the classroom. Yep. And then another 12 years Yep. Working in this. Yep. So 34 

total. 

Okay.

Okay. 

Just put in my, uh, retirement for three years from now. So I have three more school years. 

How's that feel? 

Uh, weird. Yeah. I mean the act in, 

you still seem pretty young to me 

in theory. Well, thank you. I feel younger. Okay. Um. So it's weird because I really, this should have been my retirement year really, but because I taught three years in a private school and the way TRS works 

Yeah.

They didn't count 

it. And so I'm glad I love what I do. Right. Because this would be the time when you're starting to see people like the Bob Becker's that are retiring. They're like, oh yeah, we started actually the same year. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, the Kim Knoxes. Yeah. You know, it's like, oh, but yeah, you've still got a couple more.

I still like what I'm doing. Yeah. Okay. Three more. 

Is it, is there a possibility or do you have very firm plans of like, in three years I'm gonna move on, I'm gonna do this, or you love what you do, there's possibly maybe even a fourth year, or are you, you've already declared You have, right? You have to I've declared, I have 

to go now.

That's 

how the district office works. Okay. Yep. They're gonna give you stuff in a box and you're like, no, you gotta go Don. 

Yeah, exactly. Yep. There's no, uh, attorney back, but I'm not done yet. It, it is weird to think about, but, um, I, and I'm not one that will just. Retire, you know, I do some curriculum stuff on the side.

Okay. For, for some people, so, 

right. Advisory role, maybe adversial. Yeah. I 

mean, I could see I could even see like consulting with districts. Yeah. Yeah. Whether it be curriculum or technology, but who knows? I mean, my wife and I may say, Nope. We're just ready to completely uh, yeah. 'cause you guys have, you guys, 

you have family, you've got kids around the country, right?

We have two kids that are back at, I mean, they're back home in the area. Oh, 

okay. Okay. Yep. I thought maybe they were, uh, moved away from the state. Nope. Okay. You're also the president of the Illinois Digital Educator Alliance. What's that all about? I've been out of education now for six years, I think.

So I don't know that I recall that entity. 

Yeah, it is, it used to be called ice, the Illinois Computing Educators. Oh, that's what I recognize. Basically what I'll say is we needed to change the name. 

Okay. Oh, for, there we go. A 

few reasons. Yeah. If you're listening 

and you're paying attention to world politics Yes.

You know what's going on. 

Yeah. And that was, uh, five years ago now that we had to do that. Oh. Uh, I mean, we didn't. Have to do that. 

You Yeah, we 

needed, yeah. So, um, it is an organization that is not just technology, even though it says Illinois Digital Educators. We really are an organization that is out there to try to help teachers just navigate education.

And so we, our, our flagstone is the, um. Idea con that we have in February. So it, it draws about 2000 to 2,500 people to a conference. 

Where's that at? 

Up in Schaumburg. 

Okay. 

Yep. So that is, but we also offer just. Free resources, right? Uh, some we do, like if you want to get PDs, we offer ability for a small fee, professional development hours.

Yes. Professional development hours. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's just an organization that I've been involved with when they were ice, I mean, for a number of years. Okay. And, um, it, it just, the opportunity came open. A good friend of mine is the executive director, Stephanie Crawford. So it, uh, it's, it's, it's a great thing.

So I'm on a three year. Presidential cycle. So I'm the president this year. I will move to past president and it's kind of a great system. Okay. Because it's a mentoring kind thing, so. Yep. 

What year are you in your three year cycle right now? Year. I'm in your last year? My second year. Oh, your second year.

Yeah, my 

second year. Okay. 

Um, let's shift over to specifically Morton Schools. 'cause I know some of the listeners are probably most interested in that. Can you tell me like the overall philosophy that Morton Schools. I can say that personally when I was there, there was always a. SA supportive system, a, a pretty intricate network of resources for teachers to show and tell and share the technology that they're using in the classroom.

I don't, I don't wanna steal any of that from you, but maybe in your words, you've been knee deep into it for, you know, quite some time now. What's Morton general philosophy about education and technology? 

I think the general, I, I think it's one of those things that has evolved over time. I think when I was hired to do this job, it was, we've spent a lot of money, we need to help teachers with these devices, 

right?

And so it became a lot of, oh, here are some things you can do with it. Here's how to use the device. To now. It really is. It's combined. Like good teaching is good teaching, okay? If you're a good teacher, you can still be a good teacher with technology. If you are struggling as a teacher, technology is not going to make you, I.

A better teacher. And so we've really kind of brought this together where we have an instructional coaching team now that I'm a part of. Okay. So it's not just, oh, there's Don over in the technology department. Right? It's, let's talk about when do we use technology, when do we not use it? 

And that's intentional.

That's intentional, okay. And we try to intentional. Okay. Um. I think it is with the, i i knee deep in the anxious generation. Yeah. Uh, book we've done. Stephanie Brown and I have done. Book studies with the community, with caregivers, with teachers, and it really has made me think about my role as a tech integration specialist.

Like I am not all technology all the time for everything. It's going to, it's here, it's comforting to 

hear you say that because that I think is, I mean, I, I tend to see things on the scale of like a pendulum. Yep. And oftentimes this pendulum in society is moving away, away from some aspect and towards another aspect.

And they're usually. In many capacities, direct opposites of each other. Correct. Um, and as I've seen this pendulum swinging towards technology, I think the, the concern becomes like, how far is that pendulum gonna go? 

Yeah. And what I've really like, I kind of joke when I, I present a lot of different places in conferences and I always joke that as I became more.

More involved in looking at the anxious generation and some of that data that's coming out about the impact of technology on kids. There are times where I sit at home and think, did I, 

did I go too far? Did I go too 

far? And I think it's always good to be reflective, right? And I think I am, I don't know if it's the older I get, I don't know if it's the wiser I get whatever it is.

I think I am a reflective. Person. And so I try to look at and help teachers understand, let's, let's figure out when it is useful. Mm-hmm. And let's use it then, and let's talk about what makes it useful. And I think what I want, one of my goals is to let parents know, caregivers know, principals know that.

When we talk about educational technology, that is very different than some of the conversations we're having around phones. Phones and what they do at school are different things. Like at school, they don't have access to social media. They have a filter through, um, securely that if you're on one of our devices, it is filtered 24 7.

No filter's. Perfect. You know, and I always talk to parents about that, but really the conversations that we see happening about the brain and changing it, that's that phone. Okay. And 

do you have a strong opinion about kids with phones? 

So, I, I need to be clear. Yeah. This is Don talking. Yeah. 

Okay. Let's, let's talk to Don here.

Yeah. Talking to Don, I honestly see no. 

Benefit. Benefit of I see the b in your lips for phones. Yeah. Okay. I, I 

see no benefit for phones in schools. All 

right, dad, at what age do you give your kid then a phone? Um, 

you know, this is one of those where it's easy because my kids are around. Yeah. You, they, 

they, they kind of got there later.

I 

probably, again, don talking. Yeah. I probably would resist. The phone until eighth grade. 

Good call. 

That's probably what I would do. 

And that's the earliest, 

And that would be the earliest. I have the same 

opinion 

now. If you talk social media, I would say it's even later, later than that. Okay.

Alright. And so, and I, I guess that 

they high five from across the table. Yeah. Yeah. Good call. 

And, and it, I can't tell you that I was always there. 

Right. 

And I don't think. That social media is all bad in all cases, but as Jonathan Het talks about in the book, and Stephanie Brown and I talk about it a lot, this is Jonathan 

Het, the author of The Anxious Generation, the Generation, which is like a top 10 book of 2024 New York Times bestseller book.

Oh, yeah. It's, and I've, I 

think I'm on my fourth reading now. We're actually doing a book study for a southern Illinois Regional Office of Education on it. But he, his whole contention is we are maybe overprotective of kids off of technology. Like, you can't ride your bike here, you can't do this by yourself.

You can't do this, but you, and we're not protective enough when 

it comes to the technology, but we give them a phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

It's not protective. So, so they're getting 

knee pads and, and, and kickstands and, and training wheels. Exactly. But they're not getting filters and they're not getting.

Correct education on how to use these things and what harm they can cause. 

Yeah, I mean, that's my belief and, and it's that, like in the one podcast I do, we always talk about the non-judgmental. I, I'm not, I get why parents, it's hard. 

It's hard, especially when there gets that critical mass in class. Where like your kid's coming home and they're like, Hey man, everybody's got a phone.

Exactly. I'm the only, I'm the only kid, or there's only three of us and it's me and that other kid, 

and I don't, you know, I don't want my kid to be an outcast and mm-hmm. And whatever. And so that's where like the educational technology to me is, it is different. It's the difference between watching Beavis and Butthead and.

Sesame Street. 

Okay. 

To me that's the difference. Our devices are not perfect. 

You lost me there with the Beavis and Butthead, 

like both are tv. 

Okay. Gotcha. 

One 

is 

wholesome and tv, but one is better for you Yeah. Than the other. 

Yeah. 



And that's not the Beavis and Butthead. 

That's not the Beavis and Butthead.

Um, I mean it might be funny and it might be like Yeah. Entertainment. Exactly. Yeah. 

It's a good analogy because I mean these, that's what these phones generally tend to lean towards is. For the kids. Mostly like machines of entertainment, correct? Yeah. 

Yeah. And we don't know, like with a filter, while it's not a hundred percent accurate, I can go in and if there's a question from a parent or an admin, I can go in and see this is what this child has been looking at.

Mm-hmm. 

I can't do it with their personal phone. Can't do that. And because we're one-to-one devices, I would especially say I really don't see a reason. Four. So for someone who might not know, 

one-to-one is, 

oh, one-to-one means every one of our students has access to a device during the school day.

Starting at 

what grade? 

Well, and and this is where? Starting at kindergarten, but they don't take them home. Gotcha. So they start taking them home and in fifth grade. 

Got 

it. And so if you were one to two, that means are they still iPads? They are still iPads. Okay. Yep. Still iPads. 

Okay. Okay. Um, we kind of wanna, we kind of spiraled off a little bit.

Yeah. Like there, there's a little bit of, I mean, 'cause it's easy to have a, a pedestal and a, a little bit of a tangent of, you know, these, these strong opinions and feelings because it's, it's all changing so quickly and just by the time you firm up an opinion in your mind, something else comes into picture and you're like, I need to, I need to incorporate that.

Like whether or not I agree with it or disagree with it, that's now part of the picture and I have to change my opinion now to also include this new thing. Correct. 

And I think that's what I mean. I it's exhausting it. Yeah. It, it is for some exhausting, but it, it is what it's, I think that's what I am, this is gonna sound, I hope this doesn't sound pomp pompous or arrogant, but I That's what you're good at.

I think that's what I'm good at. Okay. I think I am open-minded enough to look at things and say, okay, I'm glad. Like I, I pushed for. Uh, when I first took the position, you know what, let's let high school kids have social media on these devices. 

Okay? 

And I was, thankfully this was initially, yes, thankfully outvoted.

Okay. No, not not during school, but like at home. 

Gotcha. 

Let them do it. And it was like, Nope, we're not, that's not what these devices are for. I am so thankful that my view has evolved. 

Okay. 

Not that it's always negative, but you know that social media is always negative, but. That's not something 

you were seeing it as like, hey, this is our chance and opportunity to have these kids like really own this device.

Correct. And they're gonna care for it. They're going to Right. They're gonna be wanting to be around it more often if it has, if they consider it theirs. Exactly. Okay. Yep, exactly. I could see that argument for sure. Let's get into, um, uh, I guess we talked a little bit about the anxious generation. Can you touch on that a little bit more?

'cause that's a fantastic book. 

Yeah, it is. I mean, there. Okay. How, how long do we have here? Um, we 

got about 35, 40 minutes. Uh, 

it, what Jonathan, he tries to show is that starting in the year 2012, things changed. We went from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood. 

Okay. 

And was 

there something that came out in 12 that, that.

Instigate that it's really when 

you start talking about the prevalence of the Of phones. Phones, okay. And he even gets into things like the, the cameras and when they added the front facing camera, how that changed things. How that changes. Interesting. And he was criticized and I, I was one of them criticizing, he wrote a book called The Coddling of the American Mind.

Okay. 

And he was criticized for providing. What, what seemed to be a legitimate argument about how we're being soft on kids and we're just not challenging them. But he show, he didn't show a lot of causation and people criticized him and said, yeah, it sounds good, but we don't know that it's, there's enough proof there.

He now wrote this book saying it's hard to not look at the evidence. Now he has. There are some since 2012. Yeah, there's some data causation here and. It's just a, it's a fascinating book because, and the way I look at it is even if his statistics are not a hundred percent on point, or we find that those are not, you know, like this study shows this, this study shows this.

It's compelling. 

Hmm. 

And I don't think it's bad to look at some of those things like, what is social media doing? Two kids. Mm-hmm. And I think we, it's one of those things where we look at it, we know it in our gut. 

Mm-hmm. 

And when you see some of the statistics we just did our. Uh, for that book study, we had our first session of four with this, I, I think 160 teachers signed up.

Really? For this book read? 

For this book read. Wow. Just in the southern part of Illinois. 

Oh, okay. Oh, this is part of the, um, Illinois educators. Digital or digital? Well, no, 

this is actually Stephanie and I just getting, oh, this is just Morton contacted. Yep. Okay. Stephanie and I getting contacted to do this book study for the regional Office of education.

We've done now, I think this is our third one, and so this is just 160 in, in. One of the three Yeah. That we've done, and the first chapter is us having them look at these statistics and these graphs. 

I be, I bet it gets people fired up 

it. It does. And we even use a continuum like, okay, you've read up to this point.

Yeah. Do you feel on this continuum, are you discouraged or encouraged? And on the first one it, it's all over the place. 

Okay. 

And then the next one, it will be almost all discouraged. Like I just know I've done it enough. Okay. It'll be almost all discouraged. And then the way he writes the book, then it starts moving toward.

Encouraged, 

encouraged all. 'cause he does give some, here are the kinds of things we can do. Kind 

of reminds me of my opinion of the military. Like bootcamp, they take you there, they beat you down. Yeah. You know, they break you down morally, they break you down physically and then they build you up. 

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. No, that's a great, uh, I dunno 

if that's an accurate opinion, but, well, 

and I have no idea if he did that purpose intentionally on purpose. 

You'd like to think so. I, I would think so. It just seems like a natural story arc. Yeah. Like first you have to burn the building down. Exactly. And then you gotta rebuild it.

Yep. Okay. All right. Yeah, that makes sense. What are some of the specific tools that Morton's currently working with implementing? Maybe they're unloading, you said Schoology, that's kind of a backbone. Is that still? Yeah. 

School. We u we went to Schoology during the, uh, pandemic. 

And that's getting away from Google Classroom.

Right? 

It is getting away from Google Classroom and I would say that is predominantly used fifth through 12th. It is a whole district kind of thing. Yeah. But we also have Seesaw. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I'm not. It's a 

wait, I think I am, 

I don't wanna say it's a learning management system.

It really is a way to capture Yeah. For parents. What it's like a show and tell 

kind of feature. Right. Exactly. That's, 

I think that's what a lot of people use it for. But you can do all kinds of things with it. You can Right. Assign things to kids. Right. It is, uh, it's just a way to capture learning. Okay. So that is predominantly like a pre-K to get maybe fourth grade.

Okay. Third grade. In terms of, and are you thinking of things students use directly? 

I mean, we can talk on both sides of that. 'Cause we've got the students to consider, the teachers to consider. I'm not sure if there's anything like administratively, but we'll talk about that AI stuff later, which I imagine is probably okay.

And that's what 

I was wondering. Yeah, because we, we are we do use a service called Magic School with ai, but we can wait and talk about that. Uh, there are some apps that students use and teachers use both, like notability is a big one. Mm-hmm. Um, a way to capture digital notes and recordings and things like that.

Right. What are some of 

your favorites? 

Probably, I mean, notability is really good. What I would love to see is more of the creative kind of apps. Okay. Being an audio person. Yeah. Something as simple on the iPad as voice memo. 

Okay. 

And then using AI with a transcript from that voice memo to be able to do some things with that.

IMovie is really popular and there are some things where, again, on a phone like cap cut. 

Yeah. 

We can't put that on our school devices. Oh, and because there are some 

social components, 

there are some social components, there are some, what's the. What's the terminology? Templates. 

Okay. 

That are just not 

okay.

Real appropriate. Okay. And so sometimes the students come in and they complain, I wanna do 

this. Yeah, I wanna 

do this. And it's like, I, we, we can't put that on devices. So I would like to see more of those creative kinds of things. We are, Canva now offers completely free to schools. 

Awesome. 

It's, I would honestly say that is probably the most used.

Future component. Canva. Right now. Canva. And I think a number of students, once they realize what they can do with it, they're on it too. They're, yeah. So, 

okay. Okay. We teased a little bit about that ai, and that's a big topic. I'd like to have room for that one to breathe. I know it's something that I'm really curious about.

Where are we at with Morton 7 0 9 and with, uh, AI and. And it's, it's recent up uprising. Oh, no, that's probably not a good word to use with ai, is it? Yeah. Well, I, I don't know. 

Some would maybe say that. Yeah. It's 

recent. A adaptation and growth. Yeah. Yeah, take it away. What do you got? Um, what's Morton doing?

Honestly, I am, I'm really kind of proud of where we're at and I honestly, a little bit surprised because the community being a bit more conservative. I was kind of worried that there was gonna be this hard and fast. Nope. Yeah. We don't want anything to do with it. 

And then we'd eventually be late adopters.

Correct? Yeah. Correct. 

And so, Courtney Edelman and I, she is an instructional coach for the high school, taught at the, in the English department for years. We saw right away. That this is going to be big. Yeah. This is going to be groundbreaking. This is going to be concerning, uh, after the article in December of 2023 that said the AI is the end of the college essay.

Mm-hmm. Her being an ELA, we sat down and started looking at, okay, how are we gonna help teachers navigate this? Right. And so we talked about it more from a restricting. 

Right. 

How do you do things like, how do you force them to use Google Docs so that you can see what they're capture or what they're writing?

Right? In real time if you want to. Right. And then we took the next step of saying, okay, what we start realizing is the more you know about AI and what it can do, the better you're able to use it and understand what the students are having to navigate. Okay. So then we got the teachers. Comfortable with it.

Then we went with a service called Magic School that allows us, and you heard this presentation at rotary? Yes. Magic School is nice because it is education based. Former principal who is the CEO of the company. It allows teachers to have these tools. 'cause if you've ever used. Chat, GPT, there's a lot of white space.

Mm-hmm. And it's kind of intimidating. You don't even know what to do. Yeah. But in magic school, it will help a teacher say, oh, do you want to write a lesson plan? 

Mm-hmm. You 

click on it and it's kind of a fill in the blank, like, what do you wanna write? Yeah. What, what grade level are you? But the student component we felt was really important.

So this magic school has both tools for teachers and for students. Correct. And the 

students cannot use it unless the teacher has made it active. For a particular, uh, they basically, it's like rooms. We call it a walled garden. Yes. So, a teacher can just use it for themselves. But we're starting to encourage, like, experiment with making a chat bot that, you know, kids are having a hard time with this particular topic, biology, math, whatever it might be.

I'm gonna help you write a chat bot through Magic school, and then you assign that to students. So that now they're at home. Mm-hmm. And you are not accessible. Right. But they can start interacting with that chat bot. 

What's the, what's the general opinion of the teachers who are now kind of, and they're, they're given another tool and sometimes tools are good.

Sometimes tools are good and there's just another, and it's a tool that. It gets on top of their plate and their plate's already full. 

Right. So, so I mean, what are we, were worried about that. 

Yeah. 

And I, they, I can see this being 

a big tool. This is a piece of machinery here. 

Oh, yeah. And I would say overall the teachers do like it.

Okay. We, the district has never pushed it on teachers. There might be some disagreement, like, well wait, PDs are on that, but I mean in terms of you must use this, right? District hasn't, and I don't ever see it's more or less 

incentivized. Not required. Yeah. So 

a teacher uses it. They start realizing, holy smokes, I can do something that I've always wanted to do, but there's just no way I can have the time for it.

For example, I would love in my elementary classroom. To have a story that plays out over the whole year. Mm-hmm. With characters that they get to know. And I would love to write those with the dialogue. And we talk about friendship and, oh, what are we talking about this week? Well, there's no way I have time for that.

It's almost like making your own episodes on like PBS. Yep. We have 

teachers. We have teachers that are doing that right now. Oh, that's cool. And they're able to, and it's their 

own classroom characters. Yep. 

Say it's a little 

alligator and a little patriot. And it's a little lion. 

Yep. And you can say, that's what it should be.

Say they get to know the characters. They get to know and, and you know, there will be people saying, well, but you're, it's taking away your creativity. It takes away your creativity. If you let it, 

it just shifts your creativity. I mean, it's a tool. They're still creating it. They have to create the commands.

Yep. And so we talk a lot about prompt engineering. Like how do you get something good? Because it's kind of like, and I was never a computer programmer, but the saying junk in, you don't need to be anymore. No. Yeah. Junk in, junk out. Yeah. So if you just say, gimme a lesson plan for 11th grade geography, I.

John it. Yeah. Yeah. But if you say, Hey, I want to engage students, I wanna make this relevant to them I want to pretend that we are in this country and we're doing this, ah, give me this scenario. So, 

so part of what your job is, is helping these teachers come up with this command language. Is, this is, am I wrong in, in assuming that, or is 

No, not at all.

Okay. I mean, I think that is, I, I do view that as my role. Okay. Um, I think my role also is to, uh, challenge teachers to think about just because you can do something, does that mean you should do something? So this is 

going back to something you said earlier on, like when to use it and when not to use it.

Yep. Okay. When's a good time not to use it? Or you were about to say something. Sorry, go ahead. 

Well, I, it's funny, I, I am assuming you've seen Jurassic Park, 

uh, the first one. Yeah, the first one. Yeah. Michael Creon and, 

uh, Malcolm. 

Is this the guy, the Jeff Goldblum character. 

Okay. Yes. Who basically says something to the effect of why do, just because we could create these dinosaurs mm-hmm.

Does that mean that we Right. Should, should, yeah. And I'm always trying to get teachers to think about that. Like there's a. There's a tool on magic school that says worksheet generator. 

Mm. 

I I'm not a big fan of that. 

Okay. 

Just because you can have it create a worksheet in 20 seconds doesn't mean that that worksheet is right any good.

So how do we use it? Okay. For something you've always wanted to do, but haven't had the 

time, time to do it. Okay. 

I am not a huge fan right now. I think that's what you were gonna ask. The things that. Are intriguing for teachers are what if it could grade things? 

Yeah. 'cause that's a lot of time. 

It it is a lot of time.

I am not a huge fan of that right now, the way it sits. Because the way you say 

that suggests that you think it might get better. It could get better. I, 

oh yeah, it could. And I always tell, I mean, this is, I don't know whether it's scary or not, but this is today. It's as bad as it's gonna get. 

Ah, 

it's as bad as it can get as far as that technology is concerned 

That point, that part of the AI is as far as grading goes, correct?

It's, or AI in general? I guess 

what I tend to, the use I like is a teacher is working on a paper over a period of time. And I remember grading papers, the kids would say, I don't really wanna do a rough draft. Okay, well you, you, there's a benefit of doing a rough draft. Mm-hmm. So then the kids would turn it into me and I found out by the end, I'm like, I've read this paper 

Yeah.

Twice, twice, or three times. Yeah. 

And it's just, I don't have the time to do that. It's not that I don't want to do it. Right. So we help teachers build a chatbot 

that will help them through the draft, 

through the draft. And we, and like I said, my philosophy is, alright, we tell it. Here's what you, here's what this chat bot should do and shouldn't do.

I recommend, and most teachers do, do not ever rewrite something student for the student. If a student says, yeah, okay, you don't like my introduction, rewrite it. Rewrite it for me, that it will say, nope. It'll prompt them with questions. It'll say, Nope, Don said no. Exactly. And it will say no. Mr. Stern said, yeah, you can tell it if it says that.

Remember Mr says no. Yeah. And. For the kids to get that feedback throughout the process. And okay, as a teacher, I want you to use this chat bot By Friday, we're gonna have work time in class. And now the kid comes up to your desk and you can say, okay, let's talk about what kind of feedback you've gotten.

Are there things that you don't understand? So it's not like the teacher just says Here, I'm not doing anything with this. Right. And we've had students when we've interviewed 'em for the podcast who have said things like, I love it because I've never had that amount of feedback in the process. And we know in education 

feedback is 

capital feedback in the process.

And I mean, I'm looking at this shop and you, whether you know it or not, you are getting that feedback all the time. Oh, that didn't go together the way that I thought it was going to. Mm-hmm. What we tend to do in education, and I'm putting myself in there, it was. This paper's due on that date five weeks from now.

Yeah. And I'll see it then. 

Yeah. And then I don't ever do that paper again. 

Yeah. I'll stand up in front of you for, for three weeks and tell you what these things are supposed to look like. Exactly. But I'll never really actually see yours until the end. 

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that is a great use of it.

I think just getting from teachers' perspectives, just getting creative ideas like, Hey, this is how I've taught this. I can upload this pdf. Mm-hmm. Here's my lesson plan. Help me. I'm a you are a 12-year-old kid. How does this land with you? 

Let me be an instigator here for a second. 'cause I'm, as you, I don't like that.

As you're going through this. Yeah. 'cause I'm, I'm gonna be the devil's advocate on this one and, and ask like, so, and you know, I, I taught language arts and so I'm, I'm a big fan of the draft process and, but I'm, I'm trying to see this through the eyes of the kids and they're asked to make these drafts and they've got this bot that kind of gives them feedback that's.

Steered by the teacher about what to give and what not to give back. Mm-hmm. Feedback on why is this important? Because when they get out of Morton schools and they get into even the university level or corporate, you know, let's just call it corporate America or some other, and they don't have these bots, they're just gonna likely go to some sort of a website and just be like, Hey, I need this assignment done, and it's gonna do it, it's gonna write it for 'em.

So like what, what's the value in, in learning it here? That's a tough one. 

It, it is a tough one and I don't, I, I know exactly how I feel about it, whether I can verbalize that or not. Right. So our goal is to teach the student that's in front of us. 

Mm-hmm. Not the one that's 10 years away. Yeah. 

Not the one that's 10 years away.

And I know some people will be like, well, wait a second, but I don't know what that student's gonna be doing 10 years from now. 

Yeah. 

So let's show them. I mean, honestly, if you're, if. Just the easy way of saying it is I want kids to have confidence that they can, if they want to, that they can do this, they can write and you nailed it.

I mean, that, to me, that's the right answer, is what we're trying to get them to do and to get them to see. You can write better than some of the AI stuff that's being put out there. Mm-hmm. Let's talk about, okay. When you get into college. I mean, yeah. Yeah. There's no question you're gonna be able to have 

Yeah.

Chat GPT in front of you where you say, write a paper and then you can mm-hmm. Put it into all these different programs. Mm-hmm. Write like a human. No, that sounds too ai. 

Mm-hmm. 

But that's, you're giving away your humanity then. Mm-hmm. And so we talk a lot about, I know Courtney and I, when I present, oh, is there an 

ethics component to it?

Like, are you talking to the kids and the teachers about the ethics behind? Oh, 

absolutely. All right. And we, we, um. Talk with teachers about it. We always talk about the continuum. Like what if somebody does this? Mm-hmm. Where's that fall on the continuum? 

Mm-hmm. 

And try and get people to understand that it's it.

It is not a hard and fast rule. So I write on Substack. If you looked at my process, I use an app called Audio Pin. That I just record. 

Oh, 

and then, and it 

transcribes. 

Yep. And it will, because there's an AI component, I can say, right? Like me. So I've uploaded a number of your samples, a number of my samples of things I've written, and it will do that.

I usually don't even do that. I download the transcript. And then I, you 

ask it to clean it up. 

Well, and I'm guessing sometimes it's, okay, here were my rambling thoughts. Oh, can you help me organize this? Ah, so then it will organize it for me. Then I go to Google Docs. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, I like that. And then I'll, so it's becoming 

part of the draft process now?

Exactly. Okay. 

And there would be some people that would say, Nope. I don't want anything to do with ai. Mm-hmm. That's fine. Mm-hmm. But to me, ideas, 

well, you also have other kids on the other side of the spectrum saying like, I just want AI to do it all. 

Exactly. 

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, that's still gonna be the, I mean the, the natural human experience, right?

I mean, they're, they're faced with some sort of a challenge. And it depends on the person. If the person's, the kind of person who says, no, I want this to be part of me. I want this to be my ideas, my thoughts. And then there'll be also some kids who are gonna be like, no. I don't wanna do any of this. 

Yeah.

And I, it's about an 

attitude or a mindset. It's 

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And so we try to help them frame that, frame that, and even with teachers, I'm like, if you use ai, I would recommend saying, I used ai. I used ai. Now it's different. I, here's my draft, and then I'm gonna, I wanna make sure with a parent, okay, help me with this draft email.

I don't want to sound rude, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I don't know that I would say this was with ai. Yeah. But if I came up with a lesson plan. I would be like, Hey, we're trying this, this, and I would even show them the prompt. 

Yeah. 

Here's what I put in. This is what I got out. Oh, that's cool. This is what I did.

Transparency. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think we could go, I, I could probably have you back at some point in time in a year and talk more about AI for full length, full hour. Um, 

yeah, you could probably have me in 10 years. 

I want 

talk about that and still keep going. 

Yeah. Um, well, I gotta get you within three because, or two, right?

Yeah. Two or three years. I wanna move on to your podcast, give you a chance to go and talk about those. If any listeners want to kind of transition from hearing what you have to say about AI and classroom management and digital resources in schools. Tell us a little bit about the three podcasts that you, uh, you host.

All three. Yeah. Co-host. Co-host. Okay. All three. So tell me about who else, who, who else is involved in that and what are they about? 

So the first two, I just want to give a shout out. The district has allowed us to do this, and when I say allowed, I mean like it. We do it as part of our job. Oh, you get paid to do yours in?

Yeah, I mean, I can use work time to do it. Pretty cool. They bought podcasting equipment. Oh, right. So they, they've been very supportive of that. The one is called through the Educational Looking Glass. I host that with Courtney Edelman and we've gotten into where, 

because that, that's Alice in Wonderland and Correct.

Like down the rabbit hole kind of thing? Yep. Okay. 

Trying to look at things differently. All right. And what we do is we take 

one pause. Did Courtney come up with that title? I I feel she would. Uh, she did. Okay. She did. I'm 

not a title person. 

No, no. She's, she's an English teacher, so Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

She did come up with that. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. 

Oh, no, no, no. Um, and so what we do in the nutshell is we take a topic, so for instance, AI and we divide into four. One way we look at it is from just the background, like what do you need to understand about this lexicon, teaching strategy, this concept, whatever it might be.

Then we look at it from the teacher perspective, so it might be interviewing them, it might be having somebody on who is a teacher to talk about it. My favorite part is the student perspective. And so we've gotten a chance to interview students mm-hmm. About things. And then we put that into an episode, and then we do a crossover with the other podcast I'll talk about, which is directed at caregivers.

Okay. 

So from a caregiver perspective, what does ai, what, what are the components of ai? What do you need to understand about what Morton is doing? Okay, so we will start next year, our fifth. Season. Season. Oh, good job of that. And then the other one is Care You. I do, uh, co-host that one with Stephanie Brown.

Okay. 

And it is directed at caregivers and we chose that. You know, I think sometimes we, I. It's easy to say, oh, it's directed at parents. Mm-hmm. It's not always parents. It's not always parents. Yeah. So caregivers and, and that's such a 

medical term. It's, it sounds like, you know, like, uh, somebody in an assisted 

and that's where people are like, oh, is that for like, right.

I'm helping my old, older mom, or Right. It's like, no, you're 

trying to broaden the definition of the term. Yeah. I understand. That's hard to do. 

And so we just do topics that we think are relevant to caregivers. And it's, I mean, we've, we just finished our third season of that. Okay. 

I, here, I, I got a word for you.

Parenting. Ooh. 

Parenting. Maybe 

it's like parenting. Ooh, I like that. Maybe you could fit that in the, into the I'll to reframe. I'll love to tell Stephanie that. Yeah. It'll bring the parent word back into, into frame. Yeah, 

exactly. And because one of my. And I know Stephanie is passionate about it. It's We education is here and you can't see what I'm doing, but there's this 

Yeah.

Compartmentalize it. There's education, there's the building, there's the school, and then there's the parent. Yeah. And never shall they cross unless it's a negative thing. 

Ah. Like, oh, well elementary school does a really good job. 

Oh yeah. And, and again, I think we have definitely, yeah. Changed. But it's like there are caregivers that I.

They just want help. 

Mm-hmm. 

And they may not know where to go for help, and so we just try to say, Hey, all kinds of people are grappling with this. Yeah. Whatever this might be. I mean, we've talked about socialization of kids, we've talked about free range parenting, we've talked about, just to give people some help.

'cause it is, as we say in our opening. It is the toughest job that you'll probably have 

parenting. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

And it can be the most rewarding. Yeah. Or it can be the most just, 

yeah. 

Tear you down. Yeah. So at the same time. Yep. And then the other one that is just started is that's the idea. And I do that with my, with Stephanie Crawford.

My, it's called the 

idea. 

That's the idea. Oh, that's the idea. And it plays on the. Idea. That's for Idea Illinois. Mm-hmm. It's the official podcast for that. Okay. Illinois Digital Educators Alliance. And with that one, i, I co-host with my good friend and executive director. And in that case, we're just talking to people that are within that education realm.

Right. Not all teachers we've interviewed common Sense Media. We, ah, so those are the kind of things that we try to do. Yeah. These are the 

players in the game. Correct. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I'd like to. How many episodes do you have on that? 

Uh, that one we have four as of right now. Okay. Uh, we will record in a couple of weeks.

Our, our fifth one. 

I like the sound of all of 'em, but that last one I think has a lot of meat on the bone. Yeah. Uh, there's a, there's a lot there to work with. 

Yeah, I, I love the, I I could podcast for a living. 

Could you? 

Oh, I love it. 

Cool. Yeah. 'cause every time I see you're recording something. Yeah. I love the audio stuff.

I saw you at, at Rotary a couple months ago, and you had like a lapel pen and you're like, I'm just recording this for me. 

Yeah. Well, I record it and then I put it into ai. 

Do you? 

And I say, okay, what happened? Here Are the audience members, what are they getting from this? Okay, okay. What do I need to do differently the next time if I want this to stand out?

Did it stand out? 

Right? Oh, such good feedback. 

Yeah. 

Love it. Yeah. Let's start wrapping things up here. I wanted to do a little bit of a look ahead and then, uh, have a chance to ask some maybe fun questions to end on a little bit of a lighter note. Looking ahead, we talked a little bit about you are kind of aiming towards retirement here in your next three years.

Do you know what's down the pipeline for Morton 7 0 9? Or is it just so fluidly? Changing all of the time that you guys are ready for the next big thing. 'cause I, I mean, I would say not being in Morton schools, my son's going to Morton next year, he'll be a freshman. Okay. So, um, I feel like, uh, pretty confident.

I feel like this is a pretty good position that the school is in as far as adopting that ai. Is there anything down the pipeline coming in or that you guys know of? 

It not anything that I would say I know of. I, it will be interesting to see what happens. I. When I am not there. And I don't mean that like what happens with I'm when, when I leave.

Yeah. But will they keep the position the way that it is? You know, those types of things. But in terms of That's, that's the thing with technology, it's, yeah. And you just don't know. Yeah. I think what I could be tomorrow, what I'm confident of is that not changing. Good teaching is good teaching. Yeah. And we need to stress that.

How, if you're gonna inter integrate technology, how does that, how does that help kids meet standards? Those types of things. Mm-hmm. So I don't see that changing in our district. 

Do you know of any educator classes that are, uh, either at the college level or post-professional development stuff that is aimed towards some of this?

I mean, you, you're, you, you've got to Right. The IDEA. Uh, Illinois. Oh, 

you mean in terms of like the technology? 

I was thinking about Ben Wellen writer. Yeah. You know, he's, he's at the university. Yep. He's at Illinois State University and he is teaching history, education. Um, and I've long time been outta that university kind of curriculum, but are there classes at the university level that are teaching these teachers how to recognize how to utilize and, and, and, and make good use of these kinds of tools, these AI tools?

That you know of? 

Well, I Okay. On a continuum. Okay. I don't wanna say no and I don't wanna say yes. Yeah, I think it varies. Okay. We have, uh, and when I say we, not just Morton, but I had the opportunity to present at Eureka College with Lindsey Pierce who teaches in Morton on AI and what we were doing to pre-service teachers.

Okay. 

And in that situation there, there is not a whole lot. Okay. I mean, they were like. Oh, I didn't know you could use that. Now the 

question sparked me because when you said Good teaching is good teaching, and I'm thinking like, okay, well how do we make that happen early? You know, how do we help the good teachers become good teachers?

Yeah. And I I, is it an 

inherent thing or is it just maybe, could it be learned? 

Oh, I think it absolutely can be learned. Okay. I mean, I think there's an element of, you just maybe have that personality. I wanna be careful. About, I, I think we've always struggled with how do you take college level 

Yeah.

And keep professors like when you are removed from the classroom so long, making sure that teaching strategies get new and stay new. Um, I know a friend of mine through Idea, uh, Philip Pulley teaches Dr. Philip Pulley, teaches at ISU, and he had me come in and talk to his classes. He invites people to his education classes who are, Hey, here's a person that works for Adobe, and yeah, they do.

This is this creative stuff. Here's. Don, who his district is using ai. And so I think there are those professors who are trying to do that. Yeah. But I think there are probably still some that they've locked. They've locked in a long time ago. Correct? Correct. Yeah, sure. Okay. You said that, not me. 

Yeah. I'm not in education anymore, so I can, yeah.

Um, I mean that's the risk at probably any professional realm, right? I mean, you have the people who get really good at what they're, what they're good at, and then they. I don't wanna stay complacent 'cause it sounds like it's a disservice, but they stay there. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Um, and too many things are changing too quickly nowadays to just stay Exactly.

And yeah. And still have it be meaningful and effective. I agree. Alright, just for fun, personal story time. I. Can you share a favorite story that you have of, of Morton? I know you and your family live here in town. You've had kids. Have you, did your kids go through this? No, we, 

Nope, actually we live in normal.

Oh, do you? Okay. Yeah. 

Yeah. We live in normal. I've never, uh, have not lived in Morton. Okay. But I feel like a community member. 

Well, I mean, you've been here for a quite a while now. Yeah. For quite a while. You know, so many kids and. Professionals and Yeah, and I don't know a favorite story, a good one or something just pops off the top of your head.

You're telling somebody who's coming into town visiting you in normal and they're, I, yeah, I work in Morton. 

What's more, I mean, they always, I like it's, it's funny the, you know, obviously the pumpkins. Yeah, yeah. They always, yeah. The number of times I have brought that up, maybe that's the story. Yeah. The number of times that I've brought that up.

When we're traveling, we travel quite a bit. And like if anybody mentions the word pumpkin or gourd or whatever, I'm like, well, actually, did you know I work in the pumpkin capital of the world? And they're like, what? And then I throw out the statistic and I need to check and make sure, but 80% of all Libby, you know, do that.

I, I will say along those lines, I was, it's such an anomaly 

of a thing. Oh, you know, like. Of all things to be the capital of 

well and gored. So, uh, I say a friend of mine, I've met her a few times in person, but through social media, which is where social media can be good. She was teaching in Canada and I saw on a Twitter post at the time, this has been years ago, I am getting ready to anybody have any resources on pumpkins.

And I thought she, and I was like, well. Yeah. What? And so I got in my car, took a couple of iPads, went out to the fields. Yeah. Recorded. This is what this like, these pumpkins are not like the Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pumpkins that you think of. These are. Showed them. Oh, the lift? Yep, the lift and put that all together into a presentation.

Yeah. And then met with the class. Could you send her some 

smell of vision? 

I did not. Oh man. But I did tell them 

bottle up some of that baby diaper. I 

did tell the students, I was like, what? I cannot, it's funny that you say that. 'cause I said, what? I cannot capture something else here I can't 

share with you.

Yeah. 

The stench that happens, man. So 

you know though, some people smell it affectionately. I know when I first came to town, I was like, oh man, what's that smell? And people were like, what smell? Ooh, what are you talking about? I don't know that I could, oh, the pumpkins, they're just starting to, to harvest the pumpkins.

They are boiling them right now. That's the smell of boiled. And I'm like, oh, I thought it was maybe like a manure field or something. Yeah. And they're like, oh no, it smells good. I don't know that I could get used to that. Let's see. Um, if you had to explain your job to a kindergartner, one sentence. Hi, my name's Don.

I 

get to come in here. I. And teach you all how to have some fun, but in an educational way and fun. 

Fun and learn at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Fun and learn at 

the same time. 

Okay. Um, if you could help every parent or student understand one key idea about your job, so shifting away from the, the kid, kindergarten kid in the classroom, but the parents, what do the parents need to know?

I am passionate about. Protecting your kids. 

Oh, that's a good one. 

I mean it, yeah, it doesn't always seem like that. Mm-hmm. And it's, you know, trying to balance giving them some responsibility. Yeah. But also the number of times that I know there are decisions that I'm gonna say I make, but I actually recommend them and then they're made and.

People don't like it, and it's like there's, there's, there's a reason for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's kinda 

like parenting. Your kids are sometimes like, but why? You just want 'em to say like, 'cause I told you. Yeah, exactly. Because I said so, so I, I have my reasons that I 

really do care about protecting your kids.

I love it. Good answer. All right, well we're, we're wrapping up. Don. Any questions for me or any last kinds of comments about your podcast that you wanna. No, I mean, just for, just 

by all means. Give it a listen. Give 

them 

a listen. Uh, this is drop those, drop 

those names one more time. Your three podcasts 

through the educational looking glass.

Got it. Care u. Care U, just C-A-R-E-U. And the, and that's the idea. 

That's the idea. That's the idea. Yep. All right. All on, 

all on. Any of all on Spotify platform? On Oh, all. Yeah, 

they're all on Spotify, but Apple as well. I'm a Spotify listener too. Are you a pen fan? I am a pen fan. I have, um. For the longest time.

My favorite pen was the, uh, pilot, you know, the ball point? Oh yeah, yeah. Kind of pilot pen. And then I went to the uh, G twos. Those are really good pens. And then I found, um, I have a gift for you today and you can choose between blue and gold. Oh, okay. Uh, this is a company called, uh, rasa zebra. Oh. And so you can choose between gold and there's this cool, like cobalt blue.

Well, I think I'll do the blue. Okay. Lemme slide it to you. I love that. Boom. Well, thank you. You're welcome. And, uh, you can get the, uh, inquiry fills on Amazon too, so Well, 

and did you catch that? I am a technology person that likes pen, that likes pens. I have started to do much more writing in a journal. Oh.

Rather than, because I started I bet you're 

enjoying 

that. Well, I am and I started thinking about this is when you get older, like my kids. There. They, I wouldn't be leaving them anything of like, ah, what, how I write like 

digital memoirs. Yeah. I mean, they're gonna 

have all those journals that I've done on digital, but it's not, yeah.

Yeah. It isn't the same. Yeah. So 

there's something personal about a person's handwriting. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Very cool. Well, Don, I wanna say, I wanna say thank you very much. It's, it's always good to see you, and I'm thankful that you were able to come in and share some of this information about what the school district is doing with technology.

Appreciate it. So, yeah, it's wonderful. Thanks 

for having me. 

Awesome. Hey, this is Ben. Thanks for listening to this episode of Morton Muon News. I'm excited to share more stories with you, but I need your help to keep the content growing and engaging. If you know someone in our community with an interesting story to tell, or who's making a difference, we'd love to hear from you.

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