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“Teaching is not a static profession. Educators need to constantly challenge themselves to read and try new methods.”

-Dr. Ann Van wig, Assistant Professor Eastern Washington University

When I decided to become a teacher my reasoning was simple: I loved stories and I wanted others to understand the stories I once hated. My first day of school speech included, “I hated English as much if not more than some of you in this room, but my goal is not to make you love the subject like I have learned to do so but to understand the subject a little bit more.” Students began asking questions, but not about the subject I taught. They wanted to know what made me change my mind. Why did I start to love a subject I once hated?

This was all because of Mr. Gunter. He was my dual credit teacher who did not realize he was teaching high school students. He walked into a college class full of high school students and told us, “Your job for the next semester is to prove me wrong. As long as you can find your evidence in the stories we read, and you can explain it, there will be no wrong answers.” I will never forget that first day of school, and that was the day I solidified my plan to be a high school English teacher. I wanted to give my students the spark of interest that Mr. Gunter gave me on the first day of school.

Before Mr. Gunter’s class, I was just another gifted and talented student who was getting the grades to make their parents happy. I didn’t have any aspirations for what I wanted in life. The other kids in the top 3% of the class of almost 600 students were constantly battling, checking their standings every week to ensure that their ranking didn’t drop. Meanwhile, I was just amongst them coasting the last year and a half to graduation wondering how I even made it into the top 3%. Sure I was good at memorizing; I could hear something once or twice and remember it for the test. If the information was interesting enough, I would look for more information about the topic.

However, Mr. Gunter posed an interesting idea that had never been allowed before: challenge the teacher for a grade. The poem I finally stumped him on was Edgar Alan Poe’s The Raven. After we discussed it for about five minutes of me giving him my theories, he of course countering, Mr. Gunter admitted defeat. I will never forget the excitement I felt for the rest of the day and how no one could shut me up. I, the student who wouldn’t open her backpack after school, read a book to prove a teacher wrong.

I wanted to do that for the next generation. I wanted to give at least one student that spark of understanding, of wanting to learn more about something, or at least of finding interest in a topic. Many students have their “why” for learning, but others need someone to help them realize that they want to learn and that they don’t have to learn about what they are told to learn. Every year when I ask my students, “What do YOU like to learn about?” It is shocking how many times I have to explain that they can respond with makeup, cars, psychology even. In their minds, when they think of learning they think of education as subjects like math, science, and social studies. As Joi Ito says in his TedTalk, “Education is done to you while learning is what you do.”

So, all in all, my passion is helping students find the spark for learning.

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Like everything else too much of anything can be a bad thing. As an English teacher, I know that when given an argumentative paper there are two sides to the argument and both sides are equally matched if researched enough.

When I googled technology in the classroom, I was met with many articles about how to implement technology effectively. However when I searched through TedTalks for the answer, out of the first thirty results only one used the word “dangerous” in the title and the other used the word “worst.” Interestingly, one of the biggest aspects we look at and often overlook is how a student’s mindset works and how they look at the world. We see technology as a device or as a tool but Scott Widman describes the way students see technology completely differently.

Scott Widman states that to students, “technology is less of a device that they possess and more of an environment that they inhabit.” He continues on to ask the audience to re-examine the question: is technology helpful or harmful? He says that we realize in doing so that it is the wrong question “When we remember two things as schools and educators it is our job to do what is best for our students, and students have a device in their pockets that is infinitely powerful and infinitely dangerous.” He reasons that it is less of a choice and more of a responsibility to have students use technology in the classroom so they know how to use technology appropriately.

Before watching Scott Widman’s TedTalk, I had not thought of using technology as also teaching students how to use technology the same way we would have taught them how to use a dictionary 10 years ago. Whether or not we want to think about it, we have to see that we are teaching students that are living in a different world than we did while preparing them for a world that does not exist yet. Like Joi Ito said, we have to teach the students “how to use the compass, not the map” because the map will be obsolete in a few years.

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When it comes to advancing technology in the classroom, many of the issues have to do with opposing mindsets. Harapnuik states, “We continue to sort students from their earliest ages according to how they perform on standardized curriculum and tests.” (p. 125) When it comes to the classroom it comes down to what is best for test scores vs. what is best for the students. Which often puts the technology on the back burner, even though technology is not going anywhere anytime soon. 

Many teachers feel the pressure of short class time, so instead of dealing with phones or online games, they would rather spend the short time they have with students on a worksheet. Unfortunately, this does not prepare the students for when they have to leave the classroom to deal with the technology surrounding them on a minute-by-minute basis. Then many of the same teachers are stressed because the homework they assign is on the Chromebooks and many of the students have trouble navigating said Chromebooks.

Those with a fixed mindset will stick to what is known: paper-pencil learning while those with a growth mindset will face the challenge while looking for ways to overcome the challenge. 

Instead of pushing back against technology, we should learn to embrace it and become lifelong learners. Each generation that enters our classroom will be from a different era learning skills that will be applied to a future that may or may not match their education. Eastern Washington University published an article in 2018 called Why Good Educators Are Lifelong Learners in which they list three aspects of what makes a lifelong learner. They are to conquer challenges, innovate to improve learning outcomes and act as a role model for students.

We can apply these three aspects to any challenge we face as educators, but I will use one that many teachers view as a plague: artificial intelligence(AI).

Definition	Application
1. Conquer The Challenge– This is defined as using challenges and failure as a chance to adapt and learn. Instead of being stumped by the challenge, become the student, learn what it takes to overcome the challenge, and create a plan to surpass the failure or challenge. Like Joi Ito states, we need compasses not maps.	When it comes to AI many teachers immediately think of the way students are going to use AI to cheat. But AI has benefits as well. Many students often don’t have someone to peer review and AI can offer this alternative. It can also assist students with creating images when they can not find the perfect free-to-use stock image as I did on this blog post. However, if we never show students the positive applications, they may resort to what they know and that may well be cheating. If we don’t learn about what is out there, how can we teach it?
2. Innovate to Improve Learning Outcomes- In this section, the article goes over the importance of learning outside of professional development and collaborating to bring creative ideas to teaching. When teachers learn outside of what their organization provides then they bring different ideas to the table.	This entire post is about technology, so anyone reading this is already a step ahead of the game. The internet is a plethora of information on any topic imaginable. AI can be used to compile a list of sources to read, questions to ask when looking for sources, and help with follow-up questions to find more sources. While many will say “Won’t this create students who don’t know how to think?” I prefer to believe that we are changing the way students think. Students no longer have to memorize information; students have to know how to find information quicker than their peers. They have to learn how to be efficient learners.
3. Act as a Role Model for Students- This one seems almost obvious, but many adults seem to have trouble letting students know that teachers don’t know everything. Simply put to create lifelong learners we have to show our students that we are lifelong learners.	While working on one of my most recent projects, I realized my students were waving goodbye at the end of the day when they heard a very familiar voice. “Miss is that Snoop Dogg?” As a teacher, student, and mother I will forever be grateful for the creators of Speechify and what they have done with AI. Speechify is an app that works with any computer or phone to have your texts (in almost any format) read out loud to you. I wake up at 04:30 every morning to get my kids and myself ready, teach from 08:00 am to 04:30 pm, and try to listen to some of my textbooks before heading home to pick up my children. My challenge was having my ADHD brain stay focused for ten more minutes after teaching for eight hours. By the end of the day my eyes are too tired to focus and most text-to-speech apps will use a robot voice that I have a hard time paying attention to. With Speechify, I get to show my students how I am still learning and conquering challenges thanks to the innovations AI has given us through Speechify.

Below are a few videos on how educators are using AI.

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When it comes to the organization I am teaching at it is my first and only teaching job in five years. That being said what it is today is not what it was five years ago and I believe that is thanks to technology and those that took that first step.

When I first started, not every class had the technology of any kind; as a matter of fact, those of us who had smartboards often used them as whiteboards or simple projectors. One teacher, however, discovered Noredink. The English department and I advocated for the use of Noredink in the classroom and have used it for five years, as a department for at least three years, and after showing the benefits we have had access to the premium version for the 2023-2024 school year. This has given us some semblance of blended learning as I the English I teacher both use Noredink as our main form of instruction for one day of the week, and our English III teacher uses it in her classroom as well.

When COVID-19 forced our district to go remote, we were all forced to look for different programs to implement in our classrooms. During remote learning and the months after we all used TEAMS, but I learned the ins and outs of Microsoft forms and DMAC solutions. A year later another teacher discovered Gimkit and Blooket.

During one of our campus-wide professional learning community meetings, we sat together and taught each other how each of the programs worked. As the English Department head, my campus director asked if I could put together professional development for the other teachers strictly on Microsoft Forms and the benefits of using it to create worksheets and quizzes. I took this opportunity to use Blooket and Gimkit with the teachers to give them a hands-on demonstration while giving credit to the original teacher who showed me the program. Now I know at least one-third of the teachers at the school use both blooket and gimkit as a form of review, enrichment, or homework in their classroom. Many of the teachers have also replaced traditional worksheets in favor of using Microsoft Forms for homework, tests, or classroom assignments. This is in part because I created an easy-to-follow PowerPoint that I shared with my campus that has step-by-step instructions on how to create and share any form they would like to create. I have linked that PowerPoint below.

Lastly, I am also leading the way for our Esports program on our campus. Esports gives the opportunity and motivation to many students who normally wouldn’t try out for sports but enjoy video games. Esports is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country.

Lastly, I am also leading the way for our Esports program on our campus. Esports gives the opportunity and motivation to many students who normally wouldn’t try out for sports but enjoy video games. Esports is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country.

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“…Learning is an unceasing search for knowledge without any regard to finding the right action or reaching an end. Therefore the process of human development goes on and on till death.”

-Socrates

Recently, my motto has been “The day I stop caring, the day I stop learning, will be the day I stop teaching.” I am a learner first and a teacher second; through discussion, I teach my students. Often in the classroom, they learn through me asking questions especially when it comes to their writing. When I stop listening to what they are telling me but still expect them to listen to me is the day that I am no longer learning.

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Demirci, F., & Megill, A. (2012, September 1). Socrates: The prophet of life-long learning. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042812020174#:~:text=Socrates%20called%20his%20conduct%20as,on%20and%20on%20till%20death.

Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books.

Harapnuik, D., & Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA: Inspire Learning Through Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authentic Experiences (2nd Edition).

Lsanchez. (2021, April 23). Why good educators are lifelong learners. EWU. https://online.ewu.edu/degrees/education/med/adult-education/good-educators-lifelong-learners/

YouTube. (2013, November 27). Seeing the future: Joi Ito at tedxmidwest. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN6Vn-aqgFs

YouTube. (2019, October 21). Technology, the best or worst thing for education | Scott Widman | tedxyouth@bspr. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IbN1LxXevM

YouTube. (2023a, May 28). 11 of the best AI tools for teachers. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG4_CYbVpTo&t=242s

YouTube. (2023b, August 7). AI for education | using AI critically in the classroom. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uriw6oziM_Q