EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together
Hosted by Juan Rodriguez, founder and Executive Director of NextGen Classrooms, EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together dives into the power of technology to bridge the digital divide and revolutionize education. Each episode brings insights from guest speakers across the education spectrum, including educators, tech experts, policymakers, and community leaders, who share strategies to empower every student, regardless of background, with access to cutting-edge educational tools. Rooted in NextGen Classrooms’ mission to create globally connected, innovative learning spaces, this podcast covers topics like digital literacy, AI ethics, equitable access, and transformative practices in the classroom. Join us as we explore the latest trends and tools shaping the future of education and empower educators to create impactful, inclusive learning environments for all students.
EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together
Humanizing Online Learning with Technology
Heather Olson, Director of Online Teaching and Learning Experience at Florida SouthWestern State College, discusses her journey into education and her philosophy of fostering inclusivity and confidence in online spaces. She highlights the use of tools like Canvas, Notion, Google Learn, Flexi AI, Harmonize, Packback, and Hypothesis to enhance learning outcomes. Olson emphasizes the importance of self-directed learning, flexible policies, and leveraging AI to personalize education. She shares her strategies for reducing grading fatigue and increasing student engagement, such as using ungrading and providing multiple ways for students to demonstrate their learning. Olson also stresses the importance of accessibility, help-seeking behaviors, and embracing technology to humanize online learning.
EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together is hosted by Juan Rodriguez, founder of NextGen Classrooms. Our mission? To empower every student with access to technology-rich education. Tune in each episode to hear from thought leaders, educators, and tech experts on transformative strategies in education, from digital literacy and AI ethics to building inclusive classrooms.
Let’s bridge the digital divide, together!
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Welcome to EdTech Empowerment Innovating Education Together, the podcast that explores the best practices for integrating technology in education. I'm your host, juan Rodriguez, and today we have an exciting episode all about humanizing online learning. Joining us is Heather Olson, director of Online Teaching and Learning Experience at Florida Southwestern State College. Heather brings over a decade of experience in education and passion for creating inclusive, transformative online environments. We'll discuss how tools like Packback and strategies for self-directed learning can empower students to reduce barriers in education. Let's jump in it, heather. Tell us, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Hey Juan, I'm doing fabulous. How about you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I'm glad that we can finally have you on our episode. We can finally have you on our podcast. It's been a little funky right with the holiday season in the middle of the week trying to book this interview, but we're finally glad that we can finally sit down and talk about education and integrating technology. For sure, one thing that I always do, right when I bring in a guest onto our podcast, it's like I like to talk about philosophies. Right, I like to talk about the teaching philosophies. So can you tell us about your journey in education and what inspired your focus on online teaching and learning?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's funny. When I was growing up, all I wanted to do was ride a horse in the Olympics. That was like my whole entire goal until I was halfway through high school and my grandfather hated it and he always told me, heather, you should be a teacher and I hated school. So there was no chance of me being a teacher. I missed an average of 80, 90 days in high school a year and I just didn't. I got good grades but I just didn't go, I got bored. So way leads on to way and I start working on my associate's degree and once I got into my associate's degree I was like you know, if I won the lottery I would just stay in school forever. Like I just really like going to classes, this is fun.
Speaker 2:So I finished my associates, thought at 21 years old it'd be a really good idea to write a book. So I was living on an island in Maine with my in my uncle's basement and realized I couldn't write a book and I needed money. And the local high school one of the teachers was a customer at the restaurant I worked at and said, hey, we need substitutes. And I was like, oh, I don't want to teach and I don't want to teach, but you know what are you going to do? So I go to this high school on this island in Maine very small school and start teaching and I was there a few weeks and they put me in kind of like an inclusive classroom, which this is, you know, back in the early aughts. So it was pretty much the room for any students who had learning challenges, as well as any students who had behavioral challenges. They all just went into one place and then there were a few teachers there to manage it.
Speaker 2:So a student comes in one day and sits down and I walk over and I say, what are you working on? And he kind of, you know, puts a slime on the table and looks away and, you know, gives the typical high school student attitude. I was like, oh, this is just an essay. I was like it's really easy. And he's like I don't know. And I was like, all right, let's start. Like let's write this, like here's the topic, more sentences about it. And so he did.
Speaker 2:That Student wrote the essay, got up and left and the other two teachers in the room, when I turned around, their jaws just hit the floor. The student was a junior and hadn't written a single thing in years, and they were shocked and I was like huh, really. And I think that was a moment that I knew I needed to be in education, because there's not a single student in a single classroom anywhere who can't do it. There's a lot who won't and there's a lot who don't want to, but there are none that can't. And I think that really describes my philosophy for teaching is what tools, what strategies, what approach? What do we need to do as educators to make sure that every single student does the work? And that started my journey and it just kind of kept on rolling from there.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. I love when educators take, like, the non-traditional approach and jump into education. Right, that just kind of like encourages anyone like you could really jump into this industry and motivate. Right, you can inspire students. You can mentor students and find a way to become an educator. And, most of all, right, what you did like your story is like super inspiring. Every student can shine. Right, you just have to find a way to connect with them. Can you describe your teaching philosophy as fostering inclusivity and confidence in online spaces, and how does technology help you achieve this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, technology is amazing. So I'm one of those people I get bored really easily. I'm like a hobby switcher all the time. I'll do something for six months, I'm all in and like, okay, something new. So at work, everybody knows, if you say the word pilot, I say yes, like I will pilot anything you want. I just I love to try new things.
Speaker 2:So when I first started at the at Florida Southwestern State College, I think I was there. I think it was maybe in my second year there, like 2011 or so a long time ago, and the I was teaching at their collegiate high school on campus. They have this really cool collegiate high school where students go for two years and they switch over to the college. They graduate with a high school diploma and associate's degree. It's an amazing program and it has one of the most innovative educators I've ever worked for as the principal. So he comes to the faculty one day and says, hey, they're trying this new thing called Canvas at the college. Anybody want to play with it? It's something where we can do stuff online and in the class, and at the time I was working on my master's and we were using Angel as our LMS. So I was like, all right, I'm familiar with LMS so it's like I'll jump on in. We're one of the first 10 institutions to sign on with Canvas, so I piloted Canvas before it was even a thing, and with high school students like.
Speaker 2:Part of my teaching philosophy is that students learn by doing, and they learn far more from each other than they will ever learn from me.
Speaker 2:I'm just a talking head in the front of the room.
Speaker 2:So what that gave me was the opportunity to blend education in the high school classroom so that I was using Canvas discussions, canvas activities and modules to complement what we were doing whole class.
Speaker 2:So it gave the opportunity for the more introverted students to really be heard, to have time to process time, to think time, to put things out there, and then the more extroverted students would see that on the Canvas and in class would then draw those students in, and the more extroverted students who didn't like to write could then see the really great writing that some of the more introverted students who that was their dominant learning preference doing, and that would drive them to aspire and to work harder and to persist. So it's just this really awesome way of blending both online and traditional education in one context and watching all the students grow, and I knew it was preparing them for college because they were going to be working with an LMS and they were going to see online classes, so they were getting those technological skills as well as getting a chance to be heard in the ways that worked for them.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that Anytime we could share a story where it's peer-to-peer learning, I think it's like really impactful. I mean, aside from Canvas right, like, what other platforms are you using or technology tools that you use in your course and how do they enhance the learning outcomes?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. So this is the part where my students sometimes get a little frustrated with me, and I know it and it's funny I don't see it on my reviews and I'm like they've got to be annoyed, but it's not in their reviews. So the better question would be like what platforms don't I use in my class? So I was right before this podcast. I was watching a video on perplexity, AI and notebook LM and basically using perplexity to search things and then auto uploading things to notebook LM to do this whole research and I was creating the and then all of a sudden, I looked at the clock and I was like, oh, that's right, I've got to record. So those are two things that I use in my class. So Notebook LM I'm loving this semester. I used it to create a podcast of my syllabus so that I sent that out yesterday. Today's our first day of classes, so my students get this cool podcast that gives them a whole different way to look at the syllabus. I'm also using Google Learn About Flexi AI, both of those for research.
Speaker 2:I'm currently teaching a research capstone course titled Happiness in the Age of AI. So I encourage students to use AI in everything they do. There's nothing that they can't use AI for. I want them to try. I want them to fail. I want them to learn how to do it better, because that's where the world is heading. So if they don't get to have a sandbox and a playground to test it out, they're not going to know how to use it. I also use quite a few LTIs, so I'm currently using Harmonize and Packback are the primary ones that I'm using in my course for discussions Harmonize for video discussions and for social annotation, pack back for written discussions. And then let's see what else am I using this semester. It changes every semester because there's always something new and exciting to try. I've used perusal. Actually, I use hypothesis. I love hypothesis. We use that a little bit more in the staff and faculty world for collaborating asynchronously on things that we're working on and committees and such. Those are some great tools. There's quite a few.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I would love if you could email these to us and we could place them on our website. So, yeah, I hope listeners are actually paying attention and taking notes. These are all great tools and you mentioned what is it? Packback? Yeah, so is this like a transformative tool for your students? Can you like expand on that and how does it encourage critical and creative thinking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really is. So Packback is something we piloted back in, I want to say, 2021. It was right after it might have been yeah, it was 2021. It was right after it might even yeah, it was 2021. It was right after we went online for COVID. And again, same thing. They're like, hey, who wants to pilot this? I said me I'll do it. And the funny part is and I've worked very closely with the Packback folks and met a lot of the well, actually met the founders and the whole nine and been on some of their podcasts as well and webinars but so I've told them this before. I say it here.
Speaker 2:So the first semester I tried Packback. I didn't like it. So I put this discussion platform in my class. I loved the way it looked. It has this really cool kind of social media feel. So it's just super user-friendly, really really nice interface. It's just it's clean, it's clear, it's easy to use. But I put it in and then it was just these long discussion feeds and I started and I was reading them and I just kind of couldn't keep up and I wasn't really sure what was going on. And it was one of those semesters. You know, it was in the first year of COVID and everything's online, offline, and I just was like I'm lost. I was like I don't think this is a tool for me. And then I got my student opinion surveys and my students. One of the questions is like what did you learn from this class? What was the best part about this class? And it was like pack, pack, pack, pack, pack, pack, pack, pack, pack, pack. I'm like, okay, let me revisit my feelings about this tool.
Speaker 2:So I think it has to do. I think there might be a well. I think there's partially a generational thing with it. I think it's also partially just kind of a style and reading and writing and what have you that? For me it didn't jump off the screen for me the first semester that students are really learning, cause I was reading their posts and they were doing great, like they looked good, everything was fine, but I just wasn't getting it. But what the students said in their comments was that Packback made them feel like they could write, and so I teach at an open access institution.
Speaker 2:I am a product of the K-12 system that is now our feeder schools. I could not write when I graduated from high school and I know that I still thank God for Grammarly in my browser. I have a master's degree in English and I use Grammarly in every single thing that I do because I'm like the comma goes where. So my students a lot of them graduate in the same circumstances I do and they lack confidence in writing. They have great ideas, but putting them down in sentences and paragraphs and at a college level it's just not a skill set that we're building in K-12 the way we need to. So when they go into Packback, it has an AI writing coach. So and this again, this is an AI. This is an instructional AI that they were using back in 2021 before everything went haywire. And, as students are writing much like Grammarly, packback is helping them write and it's coachingwire. And as students are writing, much like Grammarly, packback is helping them write and it's coaching them. And so what was happening is it was building my students' confidence because they get this curiosity score once they get things the way they need to be. So they knew when they submitted something because they earned a certain curiosity score, that they had done the best that they could and they loved to read what they wrote. They felt really good about what they were posting because it was grammatically and mechanically correct. The ideas made sense. Packback also pushes them to add images and make things bold, so they're learning a little bit about professional writing as they're doing it and as I started to learn even more about it.
Speaker 2:The entire LTI is built on self-determination theory, so they're using that as a framework, so it really helps to make things relevant. It focuses more on Socratic learning, so students actually ask an open-ended question and then provide a rationale for that question. So it's really pushing them into curiosity where they're asking questions about topics, and it gives that self-directed learning. They get to write about what they're interested in and what they care about, not what I've told them to write about. So I've given them a topic but then they can take it where they want. And so what's really cool about it once I got over my first semester like what is this is the questions they ask and the places they take.
Speaker 2:It are just not what I ever would have imagined.
Speaker 2:They go in all sorts of different directions. They pursue what they're passionate about. They get really opinionated, which is awesome, because they get more opinionated on Packback than they might get in the classroom, because they get to put this whole rationale down. And then, because it's a discussion forum and the way that the platform works, they get to work with each other and comment on each other. And because the title of the post is an open-ended question, what it does for discussions is already give somebody else a place to reply. That builds on the rationale. So, rather than just being a generic discussion board where they're kind of regurgitating what they read or rewording what another student just posted, all of the posts are different. There's just so much diversity in the topics and in the conversations and the directions they go. So I've really enjoyed using it and just I love the company's philosophy. They're about empowering students and that's what Packback does. It empowers them to be great writers and critical thinkers and creative thinkers, and then I just get to sit back and read.
Speaker 1:It sounds like such an amazing tool, right it really is. Would you say like the engagement has increased since you used that tool.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. And I think and this goes into, you know, humanizing online learning it gives students a chance to express themselves in a different way. So when they build that confidence, they build those relationships. And then what ended up happening too, which was really cool.
Speaker 2:So when I first started using this, I was teaching. I was full-time faculty in our academic success department, so I was teaching a first year freshman seminar course, and so students were coming in, you know, underprepared for college. We're an open access institution, that's who we get, and so what I was watching is their other assignments getting better and better and better. They were using Packback on their discussions, but they had five essays required in that course and the quality of the essays just kept rising. So for me I'm going on 20 years in education here I get grading fatigue and I get burnout, and it really reduced my burnout because there weren't so many.
Speaker 2:It's hard when you're reading again as a product of the Florida public school system, even though I don't write perfectly when you're reading essay after essay and these students are in five, six classes and they're churning them out as quickly as they can between the shifts they're working at work in. Some of the quality of the work isn't quite what you'd want it to be. So you're reading and your brain keeps constantly stopping because there's like a sentence repeated or a word that doesn't go there, or a clause that's there and you just can't focus. And so when their writing improved, it made it easier for me to grade and I could really focus on the content, focus on their ideas, offer them more kind of relevant personal feedback. Instead of saying like, go to the writing center and, you know, learn how to use commas and periods and whatever, I could really look at what they were writing instead of just the mechanics of it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. To say that this tool is benefiting students is one thing, but also to say how it's benefiting an educator to decrease that burnout is amazing to hear. So it's benefiting both. I hope educators are listening and are going to embrace this tool if they decide to pick it on. But, heather, you seem like someone that enjoys technology, right, like you're telling me that if you hear the word pilot, you get excited. How do you balance innovation with accessibility when introducing new technology to learners?
Speaker 2:Honestly, help seeking behaviors is probably the biggest thing. And well, and I should say also in accessibility, we have just an amazing accessibility coordinator at our institution. Last night I was in an adjunct faculty meeting at 5.30, and the captions weren't working in the Zoom and there was somebody in the meeting that needed them. So at 5.30 at night I teamed them and I'm like I'm in here, I don't know how to make this because I wasn't hosting the meeting. I was like I don't know how to make this, can you come in? He was there within 30 seconds and on the ball and coming up with another solution and figuring things out. So, having the institutional resources and support for accessibility, anytime we're trying a new tool, he takes it. He runs through every single thing and takes it very, very seriously, and so I know, going in in terms of piloting, I'm not piloting anything in my classes that is not accessible, because we just don't do that at our institution. So, in terms of general accessibility, like everything we use, you know, can be read by screen readers, everything we use is accessible for all students. So it helps knowing on the back end that we have that we also have a wonderful adaptive service office that we can send students to for more support and we can go to for support. But I think accessibility, too, also relates to what students are coming and knowing and their technology comfort and skillset level. And that's where we sometimes run into again somebody like me who uses way too many tech tools in a course where students come in and they're like I don't know. Learning how to take screenshots is a thing not just for students, for faculty too. You'd be amazed how many college professors do not know how to take a screenshot. It's a real deal, and that turns into an accessibility issue, because if you need to submit a screenshot of something and yet don't know how to do that, that's a problem.
Speaker 2:So I think in my classes, what I encourage is a culture that embraces questions and help-seeking behaviors. There are no dumb questions, and part of what I've done is I have a class group me, which is another. It's a great app through Microsoft where students can post questions. You can have chats. I have the whole class. I create a new one for every semester, each class. I have the whole class. I create a new one for every semester, each class.
Speaker 2:So if a student emails me a question, whatever the question is, I just automatically assume if one student has that question, the other students do too. So I go ahead and answer it in the group. So I answer it one time for all students. I'm like a student just emailed this great question. So when they're always seeing me sending out answers, then they know it's okay to ask. And I think that's what really helps with making sure that technology is accessible to students is that if it's not, they're going to tell me first. I don't want them to sit there frustrated at their computer and ready to throw it out a window. I want them to say hey, dr Olson, I can't access this. What's going on? And I'm like oh, that's because I didn't turn the button on. And I regularly tell them that I'm like oh, human error, like all the time, user error, it was me. And that again creates that atmosphere of like it's okay to mess it up, like we're not going to learn anything if we don't mess it up along the way. That's just how it happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, I feel like a lot of educators do not embrace technology because of that right, like they're afraid that they might come across an issue and they might not know how to pivot at the moment. Right, and they feel the pressure. Right, you're in the classroom, you're teaching, you're excited, you introduce this new technology and here comes this issue. Now you have the pressure of the classroom. All the students are staring at you and some teachers don't know how to handle that pressure, but you seem to embrace these tech hiccups as a teachable moment. Can you share a specific challenge you faced and how did you turn it into a positive learning experience? I mean, you shared a couple, but can you tell us about another time?
Speaker 2:You know, last night was the best one I've faced in a long time and it made me so happy and so grateful, because it wasn't my meeting. It was an adjunct meeting for the school that I teach for, but when the captions wouldn't work in Zoom and somebody needed them, they're like hey.
Speaker 2:Heather, help us out with this, and I'm like it looks like they weren't set up and I was like, but I work in academic affairs, not in IT. I don't want to make IT look bad, because that's not my skill set, not what I do. Don't get it twisted, folks. But what ended up happening is there were three Zoom pages of people so 75 adjunct faculty members in this meeting and captions were needed and they were not available, and the vast majority of our adjuncts, and probably our faculty too, don't think about it. And yet students, if you think away this, if you watch, you know a millennial or an iGen or whichever the other generations are right now. If you watch, them watch anything on YouTube, tiktok, whatever they have captions on. They watch everything at one and a half to two and a half times speed and they watch everything with captions. So that's how they take in information. So if we're having Zoom meetings without captions, not only are we doing a disservice to our students who have hearing challenges, but we're doing a disservice to all of our students who are just used to hearing and reading at the same time, and that's how they learn.
Speaker 2:And so it was such a cool opportunity for all of us to look and troubleshoot it together and say, hey, this is what's going on right now. We're going to go ahead and record this, we'll caption it, we'll send it out to the folks who need it at the end. But meanwhile, everyone here are the links and here are the instructions Go into your Zoom accounts, turn on your captions now and then, if you have students coming in, like most of our professors, their office hours are on Zoom. So if a student comes into office hours and there's no captions, that's a problem. If we're sending out videos as announcements or videos in micro lectures, like they need to have captions.
Speaker 2:So it was just a great opportunity for you know, it was terrible that it affected a faculty member, but it was a wonderful opportunity for 75 faculty members to see this is what happens if you don't turn on your captions in Zoom. So get it right for your students. And you think of how many students that'll impact if each faculty member is teaching between one and four sections. That's like thousands of students impacted by that one tech hiccup. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:And we have to humanize ourselves, right? Sometimes we just have to be humble and just let the students know like, hey, this is a teachable moment, right? We all mess up. There's a time where it's going to mess up. Let's learn from this. But what strategies? Let's talk about the students, right? What strategies do you use to help students become comfortable with self-directed learning in a digital environment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I like to provide a lot of autonomy, as much autonomy as possible. So one of the things I've moved towards doing is trying to provide choice in assignments. So instead of having a read this and then write a reflection, I get so okay. So part of this too. So there's lots of steps. So I like to provide choices, but I also want students to recognize what they've done.
Speaker 2:So in my current class, students start in week two building a website and I have them turn in. Almost every assignment that they do is some type of deliverable that gets added to their website. So at the end of the semester, not only have they learned how to build a website in Canva which everybody should know how to do but they can see what they've done throughout the whole semester and they can see that they've learned and it's awesome. So part of that is in creating content for the website and they've become content creators is that in most of the assignments they have an option they can either write a reflection as a blog post, they can do a video post like a blog post of themselves talking about it, or they can create an infographic. So it gives them to work, it gives them an opportunity to work and their kind of dominant learning preference. So they build confidence. So when they're looking at the content, they don't have to just spit it back at me the way that I've told them to. They get to stop and think okay, which way can I best showcase what I've learned here, what do I want to do? And then they get to see that on their website when they're done. So I really like offering as much choice as possible for students. I think that builds their confidence. And then I also focus more when I get and I give tons of feedback.
Speaker 2:So the other thing I'm doing which frustrates students greatly in the first month of the semester but by the end of the semester they think it's amazing is I'm doing my own version of ungrading, where everything they do in my class is a complete or an incomplete. So if they do a set of assignment and they don't meet the satisfactory requirements on a rubric, they get a lovely note from me telling me that, telling them that the assignment is incomplete and that they need to redo this portion of it and add that and then they get a full grade. So every assignment is 100 points or zero points. It's one or the other and there's some assignments for some students that they have to do three or four times to get that 100 points, which can get a little frustrating. Three or four times to get that 100 points, which can get a little frustrating but they do it and it builds their confidence because once they've done it, they know they've done it and after the first month of the semester very few assignments have to be done more than once. Once they get it they're like oh, if I read the directions and look at the rubric and do all of these things, I only have to do this one time instead of three times. This is great. So that helps.
Speaker 2:And then when I give feedback too for the students who are redoing things, they're getting the validation of knowing that I didn't have it all the first time, but I did this and I got it the second time. So that's intrinsically building that confidence as they go. For the students who get it the first time every time because we have those in college I still like to boost their confidence too and make sure they're reading my submission comments. So I leave them open ended questions and I say please answer this question and then I'll update your grade and I put the zero in there until they answer my question.
Speaker 2:So they're forced to engage with submission comments and engage with me, and they know that I care about their work, they know that I'm reading their work and they know that their work is at a college level so they're not questioning. It's not like they're just turning it in and then it's gone. And did the professor even look at that? And I think that's one of the really important things for students and confidence is they want feedback and that's the biggest comment I'm getting on my student opinion surveys since I started the ungrading is how much they love the feedback. They're like this professor gives really, really great feedback. Same feedback I've always been given. The difference is now they get a zero if they don't read.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now they really have to pay attention to the instructions. Yeah, I mean, you talked about several different technologies. You mentioned introducing your syllabus through a technologies. You mentioned introducing a syllabus through a podcast. You mentioned improving students' writing through tools like Packback. You mentioned several different tools and it's really exciting, but it's really important in education to make sure you have that human connection. How can technology be used to humanize online education and reduce barriers for student success?
Speaker 2:So I just use and now I can't think of what it's called. I've got it in a video here someplace. So I just did a really fun thing where I created a GPT that I was able to embed in the homepage of my Canvas course for the syllabus. So it just has the GPT box and says ask questions. Then it has sample questions like what's the late policy in this class, what have you? So they listen to the podcast of the syllabus, but then if they have questions, they have this GPT, and what they don't know is on the back end of the GPT I put in the custom instructions that responses should be optimistic, uplifting and encourage help-seeking behaviors, and so it's great because when they ask questions, it basically thanks them for asking the question and then offers all these solutions and then also encourages them to go find another resource.
Speaker 2:So I think one of the really big things that I do focus on in these online spaces is help seeking behaviors. It's so hard. As humans, we don't want to ask for help. We want to survive in the jungle on our own. Asking for help is just this horrible thing that creates all this angst inside, and so that's something I really, really push in my classes for students is this ability to to make sure that they know, and it's not just me.
Speaker 2:I constantly remind them that we have 24-7 free tutoring. I show them that we have tutoring on campuses. I have a research librarian who also works in the class with us. I encourage them to reach out to her. So it's really making sure students have all, and I'm so, so lucky to work at an institution that just has endless resources for students and making sure that they know that resources for students and making sure that they know that, like our students need to know that they can check out a laptop anytime we give any student who wants one. They have a laptop they can check out for the whole semester and take home and have it as their very own. So, when it comes to making sure things are accessible, making sure students have the tools that they need, you know it takes the whole institution and we have that. So it's just my job to make sure the students know what's available for them to help them succeed and helping them to get over any fear in accessing those tools and those resources.
Speaker 1:That's cool. That's cool. You created a GPT with your personality flared into it. That's amazing. So much fun. I mean I hope you could put up a YouTube video, perhaps like teaching other educators.
Speaker 2:Actually, I got it from a YouTube video.
Speaker 1:So I'll look for it. I need to read it.
Speaker 2:I'll write a note to look for it after the podcast and send it to you, because the video is great. It made it so easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure there's some instructors out there, some educators out there, that are probably thinking this is far fetched. Right To create a GPT? Yeah, um cause, imagine creating GPTs for any topic in your classroom, right? Whether it be a syllabus or the rubric or anything related or specific content that's being taught in the classroom. Um, uh, we talked about that in one of our episodes, so I hope that more educators are starting to embrace AI and create their own GPTs for their classrooms.
Speaker 2:There's actually the GPT for the classroom. One of the people that I'm following now, who I just saw present at a conference, is Tim Mousley, and he uses Poe in really cool ways and actually has students create their own Poe bot to do all sorts of different things in the classroom. And then this GPT that I used for the syllabus I actually got from my friend, anna Haney-Withrow, who's also on LinkedIn. Follow these folks and basically anything good that I do with AI guaranteed. I learned it from Anna, so there's nothing I find on my own. It always comes to me through Anna, so she's awesome.
Speaker 1:Shout out, shout out to you, said Anna.
Speaker 2:Yes, anna Haney Withrow, she's the best.
Speaker 1:Awesome Shout out to Anna.
Speaker 2:She has all the student-centered tools.
Speaker 1:Okay cool, so I hope she could be a guest on our episode soon. Oh yeah, so what advice would you have for educators looking to integrate new tools while maintaining a strong student relationship?
Speaker 2:Don't be afraid to fail. That's the biggest thing and, honestly, it's wonderful for students to see us screw up. It is the best thing because it gives them the permission to do the same. If we do something and then say, oh, that didn't work out, let me try something again. That's modeling the behavior that students need to have to persist in higher education, and I think that's one of the big faults of higher education and education in general is we have these weird social norms around adversarial relationships between educators and students. And that's not it. We're all here together and I think it goes back when I first started teaching high school.
Speaker 2:I remember getting my first classroom and going to the teacher's lounge for lunch and I was, like all of you know, 25 and thought I was just such a big deal and I sat down in the teacher's lounge on the first day and I never went back because all I heard was complaints about students. Then I went back to my classroom and I opened my door. I said any student who doesn't want to deal with the cafeteria, my room's open for lunch and for the rest of my high school teaching career, I ate lunch with students and it was a much more pleasant environment. It was also great for my classroom management, because when you break bread with people, they don't mess with you, and then they also police each other in wonderful ways, so it was really nice. Somebody does something dumb in class and I don't have to correct it because another student's like what are you doing? Like, come on, this isn't as awesome.
Speaker 2:And so I think that goes to educators now, like students, we're not here to set students up for failure. We're not here to show them what they can't do. We're here to support them, either in the ways that we were supported or in the ways that we wished we were supported. But it needs to be a team effort and learning and therefore, as a team effort, you know, I love it when I fail, because it's such a great example for my students of like I just totally screwed up and it's okay.
Speaker 2:Like you know, this is I'm not a I'm not a brain surgeon. I can screw up any day of the week and it's really not going to hurt anybody. I'm in higher education, it's going to be fine, I'm going to learn something from it and I'm going to do better tomorrow. And I think that's a way that approach to students and to technology like it's okay to look bad, it's okay to not know what you're doing, because our students are going to graduate and go into the work world brand new and they're not going to know what they're doing. And so making that a norm in itself of, like you know, ignorance is something to really just be grateful for, because it means the only place you can go is up. I think it's probably the most important thing for educators to remember, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:And the future of ed tech. Right, let's talk about this, Like where do you see the future of ed tech heading in higher education, especially for adult learners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, skills-based learning, micro-credentials I've really been talking about it a lot and pushing it, even as an adult learner myself. I did a great certificate last year. I was able to get a whole certificate in positive psychology from UPenn. It's like my dream to go to UPenn and to be able to go to Coursera and do the certificate and sit in video-wise on lectures with people like Martin Seligman. It's just mind-boggling that I could do that, that I could be with these people whose books I've read, and it's like, oh my gosh. There's Angela Duckworth. I listened to her podcast and here she is in this lecture teaching this class that I'm now taking online. This is really cool for a whopping $70 a month, and so I think for adult learners, we really need to focus on tech and education that is flexible.
Speaker 2:We live in a very different world with very different responsibilities than we did five years ago or 10 years ago or 50 years ago, expecting students to come to a campus and sit in a room for 90 minutes or 120 minutes for five days a week and three times a day. It's just not the world we live in, and especially for adults who are trying to work and pay the bills and take care of their kids, and so even now this isn't a tech so much as just policies, but one of the things I've done that's really reduced my burnout and saved me so much stress is I changed my late work policy to. I have a due date in my class, but students can turn assignments in up to seven days after that due date with no questions asked and no late penalties. I get so many fewer emails about car accidents, sick kids, dead ants. The compassion fatigue of students emailing me and telling me all the things that are going wrong and why they can't turn in an assignment. I can't do it Like.
Speaker 2:That was one of the hardest parts about teaching. For me was worrying about what was happening in my students' personal lives. So simply giving them a little extra room on the deadline so they could figure their stuff out, get the help and the support they need and then get assignments in, made all the difference in the world and, I think, for adult learners, because they have so many things going on in their life outside of school. Having those flexible policies, having more of a Coursera model where students can work through at their own pace, is going to be key in education in the future. Having the technology to personalize learning better, using the GPTs, using the bots, letting people get the support they need how they need it, when they need it, is what's going to keep everybody learning and getting just thinking more critically and more creatively every day.
Speaker 2:It's really, I think, going to make education more accessible to learners of all ages and all abilities is to have this technology that goes in and says, hey, here's the best way for you to learn, let's do it this way, and that, too, even looking at something as simple I was reading an article last night that was you know the seven signs you have ADHD. I'm like, oh, this girl right here, right here. I should not read these articles. It was so bad. I was like do I need medication?
Speaker 1:You went down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:You know, there we go. But looking at students in learning, like when we start, looking at ed tech, like how can we use tech to change the way a class is laid out, to personalize it for students and their specific attention spans, to get them to their max attention span but then force them to take a break when they need to? I think it's one of my biggest challenges with students is, you know, cramming and studying. They think studying for five, six hours straight is a good idea. It's a terrible idea. You're not going to retain anything after the first 20 minutes. Why are you doing that to yourself? And so, understanding neuroscience, understanding learning and development and how the brain works, I think there's ways that technology can then go in and personalize education even more so that students are getting exactly what they need to move forward. And I think a great example of this in ed tech in the future, what we should all be looking towards, is Khan Academy.
Speaker 2:Sal Khan has done it so well and when I was doing my, I did my doctorate in psychology with a bachelor's and master's in English, which was a really stupid thing to do because I had no prior knowledge and I'd never you know, I'd never taken a statistics class in my life, like I took math for liberal arts majors. Come on now. So I get into doctoral stats as an adult and I was like all right, khan Academy, and I've been telling my students to use it for my high school students, use it for math for years. And then I jumped right in and thank you, south Khan. I passed all of my doctoral stats classes with an A and all of my foundational knowledge came from Khan Academy. But it's gamified, self-paced learning and it's awesome. And so I think, looking at that, it's not that we're dumbing down education, but we're changing it and personalizing it and making it better so that it's more appealing to individuals.
Speaker 2:Like why should we do something that's boring, that we hate to learn? Like learning, learning should be fun. I learn new things all the time. That's what I do, I love it. So what are we doing in the world that we're saying learning shouldn't be fun and we're chasing students away from higher education? And how can we use ed tech and all the technology that's coming in to make learning something that students really feel a sense of accomplishment and confidence and engagement? And they're like hey, I just did this, I just made a website. That's my favorite part about my class right now is I know they might not remember anything else, but my students leave my class. They can make a website. That's huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Learning should be fun and learning education should evolve right. It shouldn't be stuck in the same times, as you said, in the same ways they were 5, 10, 15 years ago and we should start embracing these different technologies. I love everything that you said, Heather. You were a great guest. You mentioned some great tools. What's really exciting is that you talked about your experience and you shared some knowledge for K-12 educators, even in higher ed. So, Heather, it's been really great having you here. Any last words that you want to share with educators, with students or with our listeners before you go?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing is just trust in student agency. They want to learn. They wouldn't be here if they didn't want to learn. And if you look at students and look at what they're learning in other ways, look at what they're learning on YouTube, look at what they're learning on TikTok, look at the you know students.
Speaker 2:I think this generation, more than any generation, is the generation of learners Like, remember, you know like when students come in and they're talking about, you know, doing things to their cars or their the best was watching a student pack for college and watching all these TikTok videos and learning how to like pack in the most efficient way.
Speaker 2:They're thinking critically. They're watching multiple videos and multiple influencers and finding the best way to do things all day, every day, whether it's doing their hair or packing a suitcase or fixing a car. These are the students who, more than any other students, are so capable of learning, and I think it's just important for educators to recognize all the ways students are learning all the time and figure out how to meet them where they are. They don't. For those of us who are getting a little bit up there in the age range, they don't need to learn the way we learned it wasn't just because we did it that way. It doesn't mean it's the right way. It actually probably means it's the wrong way because it's the way they've been doing things for 200 years and things should probably change at this point in time. And so I think that's the biggest thing is just trust in your students, find out where they are, meet them where they are and give them something new and exciting. To challenge them, because they're there to be challenged, not to be bored.
Speaker 1:Boom, mic drop. There you go. Awesome, heather. Hey, thank you for tuning in today's episode of EdTech Empowerment Innovating Education Together. A huge thank you to Heather Olson for sharing her insights on leveraging technology to humanize online education to create meaningful learning experiences. So don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow educators. To learn more about our work at Next Gen Classrooms, visit nextgenclassroomsorg. Forward slash podcast. Until next time, keep innovating and empowering through education technology.
