Jenn Zanoria, Director of Educational Technology at Windward School, joins the podcast to discuss her journey and the importance of mentorship in educational technology leadership. She shares insights on fostering digital citizenship and AI literacy, detailing how her school thoughtfully integrates technology to prepare students for a rapidly changing future.

• Windward School: https://www.windwardschool.org/
• The AI Infused Classroom by Holly Clark: https://www.hollyclark.org/infusedclassroom
• Claude: https://claude.ai/
• Tinkercad: https://www.tinkercad.com/
• Instructables: https://www.instructables.com/
• Yondr: https://www.overyondr.com/
• The Pyramid Approach: Navigating Collaboration Across Independent School Departments, episode of TTWA with Jim Bologna: https://theatlis.org/page/episode-2

Ed, welcome to Talking technology with Atlas,

the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for

technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.

We'll hear stories from technology directors and other

special guests from the Independent School community,

and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.

And now please welcome your host. Kristina llewellen,

hello everyone, and welcome back to

talking technology with Atlas. I am Kristina llewellen, the

president and CEO of the Association of technology

leaders in independent schools.

And I am Bill Stites, the Director of

Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New

Jersey,

and I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of

Information Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher

school in Richmond, Virginia.

Hello, gentlemen. I am so glad to see

you today, as always for our weekly recording. Sesh, but I

gotta say, Bill, I'm kind of concerned about you. You came in

looking a little rough. You got some wounds. You can't breathe.

Yeah, please tell our audience what happened.

Yeah. So I put this in the category of my first old

man fall. You know, as I'm aging, as I'm getting older,

you're not quite as nimble as you once were, and dog walking

takes on a whole new set of challenges. For those of you on

the pod that don't know I have two dogs. I have 140 pound

William burger named Luna, and Luna is great. She is a gentle

giant. She's six years old. For as big as she is, she is super

chill, easy, relaxed. She is the center of attention when we go

for walks, because people wonder whether it's a bear or a dog or

what it actually is. But then we've just recently adopted

probably about a 1314, months old cockapoo, 35 pounds, just

all puppy.

Now, when we came into this story, I just

want to start by prefacing you outline the sizes of your dog,

what you're about to describe. Hiram's first response was Luna.

But as it turns out,

yeah, so this was not Luna related. This was Brody

related. Brody is the cockapoo down the shore with my wife

going for a walk. We're trying to teach the dog how to do a

walk properly. My wife is handling the cockapoo on a

shorter leash. I have Luna on this long Flexi leash. My wife

is getting pulled all over the place by the smaller dog. And

I'm just like, give me the dog. This is not easy for anyone.

This is difficult to watch. Give me the smaller dog. I'm walking

the smaller dog, and he proceeds to do the same type of pulling.

I shorten up the leash, and I kind of pull it up a little bit,

just to kind of stop him from what he is doing as he's trying

to pull me all over the place. And I realized that the leash is

not connected to his collar around his neck. It is connected

to the harness that my wife put him in, and the dog proceeds to

slip out of the harness as I lift it up, at which point the

dog is a runner. We're on a busy street down the shore. It wasn't

too busy, but busy enough, the dog starts to slip out. I kind

of reached to grab the dog while I'm still holding the dog up, I

reach over and I stumble like a drunkard and fall over, hit the

street, the curb and the sidewalk proceed to bruise my

arm, my thigh. And I believe, though I will deny saying this

if my wife listens to it, because I swear to her that this

wasn't the case. I've either bruised or broken a rib or two,

so it's been a fun start to the week, as I try to move about and

not cause myself a great

deal of pain. So Bill, did you press your life

alert button? No.

But what was interesting and hilarious at the

same point, and this, if you remember all of those

commercials from back in the day, help I've fallen and I

can't get up. You know the Life Alert thing, my Apple Watch

started going off in an alarm saying, it looks like you've

taken a significant fall. Are you okay? And I'm like, What is

this noise? And then I looked down, and it was like, Oh, my

God, you are wearing a Life Alert. I am wearing a Life

Alert. Yep,

it alerted. John, Craig, your dad is falling

Exactly. And they're like, What are you

doing? I thought for sure you were gonna say that that dog got

out of the harness and you got hit by a car, because this

conversation started with broken ribs with us. Thank goodness,

Kristina, I will say much to Hiram and Peter's

chagrin. It was blue bubble to the rescue when this went off. I

don't know whether their green bubble watches would do this for

him, but our blue bubbles would

no I think Hiram green bubble watch would

just let him die on the side of the road.

Well, remember Christina now that bill is

ailing. It's up to me to save you in the zombie apocalypse.

Well, if a zombie gets me, I have a Apple

Watch. So. At least my blue bubble will come to my rescue,

because Bill has tried it out exactly. Well, I'm really sorry

to hear that you got hurt last week. I was out, and I

appreciate that you guys were recording some pods without me.

I know that your hearts were broken, but I did some PTO and

one of the places I've never been in my life, just because

I'm a New York girl, and I haven't been out there. I've

never been to Yellowstone. And so I went out to Yellowstone. I

stayed in Big Sky, Montana. It was so gorgeous. And you know,

right, as the hiking season and the summer season is kind of

getting rolling, and I really enjoyed just checking out

trails. I'm not a huge hiker, so I stayed where I knew I was

safe, and I was on my own. So I also didn't want to go too far

afield. But I will say I thought of you guys, because while I was

there, it was recommended that I buy a big old canister of bear

spray, which I was not allowed to bring back with me, because

you can't carry that stuff on a plane. From now on, when you ask

me about my weapon for zombies, I think I'm going to go with

bear spray. I don't know if it'll work or not, but it was I

felt pretty cool carrying it around in a little pouch if

anybody got near me. It's like a little mini fire extinguisher

that shoots mace about 30 feet. So that's a fun weapon, right?

Oh, you guys, God, I tried. Where? We're done. I tried to

have a zombie conversation with you. Fail.

I will tell you I'm very jealous because going to

the National Parks is something that I very much want to do, so

I was very jealous of your trip. Yeah,

it was a great time. I highly recommend

and if you go, I have some great recommendations for you. Love

those national parks, all right, so let's get down to business.

Because we are already far afield today. We're really

excited. We have, thank goodness, a little bit of a

balance of all the testosterone in the room at the moment I'm

bringing to the pod jenoria. Jen is the Director of Educational

Technology and Associate Director of the Center for

Teaching and Learning at Windward school out in Los

Angeles. Jen, welcome to the pod. How are you today?

I am doing really well. Thank you. I'm excited to

be here. Well,

I mean, you'll be excited for a while,

until these guys get going, but I'll try my best to protect you.

I don't have bear spray anymore, but maybe I have virtual bear

spray because I can always mute them if they get a little crazy.

But thank you for being brave and coming on the pod with us. I

know that you have been in the space for about two decades. So

the last 10 years, you've been in these leadership roles at

Windward school. And I would love to talk a little bit about

how you got there, like, did you start as a teacher? Tell me a

little bit about your journey.

Yeah, not to go too far back, but I always

wanted to be a teacher. I always had that calling like I was the

kid that was set up my little stuffies and then play school

and have my mom make copies of all the worksheets I would take

home. So always been a big nerd like that, but when I was trying

to figure out what I wanted to do, I did start studying to

become a teacher. I went down that road and found that I had a

skill for explaining technical concepts and the ways of doing

things around technology to people in a way that felt

accessible to them. And so I started as an aid in a lot of

classrooms, specifically in public schools, and then moved

into the district offices, and was like a data processing clerk

for a while. So I got my hands into that data side, and that's

really where that skill set started to become apparent. And

at that point, I was finishing my bachelor's in education and

looking at doing a credential program, and wasn't quite sure

if the classroom was for me at that point. And then I found

educational technology, and so I started doing a master's in

educational technology leadership, and then found

myself back in the data world. I was working at a charter school

as a data coordinator and also tutoring on the side. And so it

was like this beautiful place where these two loves of mine

connected, and then through a friend, was told about the

Windward opportunity for a student technology

integrationist. And the rest of my career is kind of like

written for me in that way to this point, you know, and I've

been so fortunate to grow and be able to really hone those skills

of in the classroom, teaching and teaching students, teaching

adults, and guiding what teaching and learning, what

technology looks like at Windward, it's really

cool that you had a Really early focus

when you are still working on your own education, to focus on

technology. That's somewhat unusual. We hear a lot about,

you know, I was a teacher for X number of years, and then maybe

did a master's with some kind of tech angle, or learned on the

job, right? And so it's so rare to see someone kind of coming

through. And saying, Well, I like teaching, but I'm really

good at explaining technology, so maybe that combination. Do

you think that's more common among folks that are coming

through the pipeline right now? Do you think that people are

finding the special combination of education Plus technology

earlier, or you just struck it? You struck gold. You're kind of

an unusual situation.

Yeah, honestly, I didn't even know that

educational technology was, like a thing when I was younger and

in college. Like, I had no idea I was exploring master's

programs. So I was gonna go into curriculum design. And then

there was this one little listing at Cal State Long Beach.

And I was like, You know what? Let's look into that. And asked

a mentor of mine about it, in terms of, like, younger people

and figuring out the place where those two worlds meet. Like, I'm

not sure. I kind of think that at this point, the young people

that I work with, it just fades into the background. And that's

kind of the goal, right? Is that technology fades into the

background and becomes a tool for them to further or to

progress their learning, to be able to make things happen for

them. So I'm not sure. Maybe I am a unique case. Yeah, we can

go with that, but I don't know, because, like, now there's like,

a huge field with that, yeah, but I was also like the kid that

there's always one person in the family, right? That is like, the

person to call when the remotes not working, or the cell phones

not working, or the printer is not working, and I'm the tech

support for So

now tell us a little bit about when you came

to windward. You started in as a tech integrationist. You were

working with teachers. What has that decade of your life looked

like? It seems like you've changed roles a few times,

it was amazing. So when I first started, my focus

was really on building technology literacy and fluency

with students. So I was collaborating, or part of a team

that would collaborate with faculty and thinking about and

this is like back in like 2014 2015 and we were a couple of

years into one to one iPads, so really focusing and working with

faculty and thinking about, where are the natural ways that

you can bring technology into the learning space, so that it

didn't feel like you were using technology for technology's

sake, that it didn't feel like you were just trying to do

something that was like new and shiny just because, but it

really was going to lead to students having a deeper

understanding of communication. How is it going to serve the

learning goals? So really trying to bridge those two worlds. So I

was in the classroom quite a bit, supporting students, doing

troubleshooting, helping them think about like, what's the

best method to communicate their understanding or demonstrate

their knowledge, and so that was a really cool place to be, and I

was in that realm for quite a few years, and still serve in

that capacity today, especially as technology has evolved and

changed, and my LinkedIn, I have like the tools are for today,

but the skills last forever, and that was something that came out

of this, right? Because the tools that you have available to

you, and like Google Docs, is gonna it transcends Google Docs,

right? Like, how do you do word processing? So, yeah, I was

working with faculty in classrooms, with students and

helping them, and that, like, then translated into teaching a

making class. I lead seminars where we talk about digital

citizenship and digital fluency, and initially working really

closely with the middle school and have parlayed that across

all six of our grade levels were seven through 12 at Windward.

That's really

cool. And I know the guys will be wanting to

jump in here in a second, but given that you have some

flexibility in terms of how you help. Like you say, find these

natural ways to integrate technology. What's a good day?

Look like for you. Walk us through it. What do you do? Oh,

my God.

Now thinking about like, you know, that was like so

far ago, and like between then and now, like taking over

different morsels of the program, of the Educational

Technology program at Windward, and helping to further the

development. Now it's, there's so many plates, you know, it's

like the learning management system. There's the one to one

device program thinking about constantly doing evaluations on

like so well, is this program doing? What tools should we be

adopting? How do we assess those tools? How do we assess the

success of our programs and whatever it is that we might be

doing? So day to day, two days are never really alike. The team

that I'm on, we really focus with collaboration across the

constituencies. So with teachers and staff, we're running a lot

of workshops right now around AI and thinking about, how does

that show up in this space, bouncing around in our day to

teach classes, teach different kinds of classes, trying to

research things. Find the time to read through emails, read

through all the newsletters, as well as. Just like I'm in the

library, our team's in the library, so also being a part of

the community and how to support students like those are all like

the various things throughout the day that like we find

ourselves in having conversation with kids about what books

they're reading, what books are we reading for pleasure, for

work, the learning management system piece disappears into the

background, but comes back at the beginning and the end of the

year, which is where we are right now. And AI, those are

really like the primary things right now.

So Jen, your enthusiasm is obviously

infectious. And I'm curious this past year, what was your

favorite lesson to see come from an idea and then developed into

something truly transformative for your students.

That is such a great question. Thinking about

my students, I'm going to zoom in a little bit more, rather

than thinking about the student body as a whole, and think about

like my own class. So I teach a making and learning class, and

we're always struggling with, how do we we have 70 minute

blocks like, how do we like, keep them moving, keep them

engaged and on task. And it's seventh graders, and they're so

excited to just be with each other, you know. And even though

they all have, like, a desk and a seat, they still want to,

like, sit on top of each other, relatively speaking. So thinking

about the whole year teaching them these skills that they are.

We want to move faster. We want to move faster. And getting to a

place where the last like, seven weeks of school, we were

building lanterns, actually, and so like, having them decide,

like, how are they going to build these lanterns? And one

thing really quick to go back, we had asked them at the end of

the previous project, what do you need? Like, what kind of

support did they need? And they needed time management support

and scaffolding support. So we took this bigger project and

totally broke it apart into benchmarking and really, like,

smaller bite size assignments with the help of AI. Totally

love Claude, and Claude helped me so much figuring out how to

break that down. But watching them, like, put together all the

skills that they had been, like, almost begrudgingly at certain

points, been practicing and learning, but like, really

utilizing right like, how did they design a mock up and tinker

cad to give them the visual that they were going to need even

before that, researching and looking at different lantern

styles of DIY and Instructables and Pinterest and things like I

said, Tinkercad mock ups, and then translating that into

Illustrator, and all on the iPad too, right then building it out

and like, what is their file going to look like? And then

getting to the laser cutter and prototyping and cardboard and

assembling it. And then some of them got to even wood, and how

are they going to make that work? Where is light going to

fit? Like, what kind of lights are they choosing? And so

really, like, watching their growth over the year was just so

amazing. And at the end, like, we just had our last class last

week, and we have, like, a 10 Minute catch up on Friday, they

actually had something tangible that they're really proud of to

take home and show off. So that was really like an idea that we

were trying to think my co teacher and I like what is like

a final product that will span all of their skills. And we were

really excited with what they were able to produce. I

love how you said that they almost begrudgingly

like with doing this, because it's just one of those things

where it's like, you know, you're teaching something,

you're instructing on something, and you see sometimes the looks

and they might not seem like they're engaged, or it's like,

lackluster just, you know, having off days, or whatever it

may be, and then seeing them actually be able to do all of

those things, I think is great, because it shows how much they

actually were able to take in, how much you were actually able

to impart upon them, and the fact that they were able to put

it all together in that way. I thought it was great how you

talked a lot about the process steps that ended up with the

product that I think that's so impactful, being able to

identify those process steps and how they played off. Yeah, thank

you. One of the things I was very curious about, and I'm very

jealous of, I will be honest, is you get to work with one of my

favorite people in the world, our good friend, Jim bologna.

Wait, I thought you were gonna say me.

I thought he was gonna say me. Okay, I tell you.

No, no,

fine. I mean, if there's gonna be a

ranking and someone's above Christina Lewellen and maybe

your wife, I will allow for Jim. Jim Bologna,

wow. She totally threw me under the bus there.

Well, exactly. Yeah,

it's Jim, then Brooke stop, then me, then

Hiram, wow. That's how it goes. Peters at the bottom.

This is not about the two of you, and it's not

about me, which I know it normally is. This is about Jim

and Jen. And what I'm really curious about is when you think

about thought leadership, when you think about people that are

really helping empower schools grow and develop. The two of

you, being in one place is a win win for the school. And I just

want to be someone who reiterates that. Fact, for

anyone from your school who may be listening, oh, thank you. But

what is that like? What is that working relationship like, where

you've got two really high flyers? What does that look

like, from a collaborative sense,

I am who I am today, much in part to his

leadership and mentorship, like I am so grateful to Jim for

having, like, the trust and believing in me, and he's been

at Windward for quite a long time, and a lot of the

innovation and a lot of the forward movement, I think, is a

lot in part to him, and being able to work with him and throw

ideas around for several years, right? Like he's been my

supervisor and mentor the entire time that I've been there, and

really, like early on, be able to demonstrate my interest and

my dedication to the field, I think was really helpful along

the way. He was really instrumental in finding ways to

bring me into projects and even still, and so when he moved into

his more leadership role, I think passing on the program as

a whole, like, to me, was like, such an honor. You know, I still

go to him for a lot of questions. I'm always like,

chasing after him, like, no, let me just ask you one more

question. Like, I just want to run this off by you. He's having

the validation too is really helpful, because he just knows

what he's doing all the time, you know. And I feel like

there's a lot of points where I'm still trying to figure that

out, but we've made some huge strides at Windward over the

last several years, and just kind of where we're at right

now, with adopting AI and thinking about how that's going

to impact us as a school is a huge Collaboration for the both

of us and how we have thought about and being intentional and

how to go about it, and in part that is Jim's leadership. That's

also the school's culture and the leadership and being really

thoughtful and kind of, like, slow at certain points to adopt

things. Jim is somebody who's, like, constantly slowing you

down. Like, hold on, let's think about this and reminding me to

think about, like, all of the angles before we dive into

something. So with AI, it's like, let's read about it. How?

What are other schools doing? Always using the community too,

especially the Atlas community. It's been so

instrumental. What's really great about that

Jen is that having Jim with this natural inclination to be a

mentor, you know, we talk a lot about succession planning and

the next generation of tech leaders, and it sounds like you

struck gold, and we all know that Jim is incredible to have

somebody there who's shepherding you and making sure that you

have somebody to go To. You know, I think that sometimes

it's hard if a tech leader is either a lone ranger or doesn't

have support around and above them, that can be really hard.

So it's really great that you have that experience of somebody

who is supporting you as you go and not feeling threatened or

siloing you into a bucket. It sounds like it's a real team

effort.

Yeah, definitely a team effort. And it's

interesting too, because the way that things are structured at

Windward, it's like we have, like, our ed tech team, and we

are pushing a lot of that stuff forward. We have an ed tech

specialist as well, Norman God has shout out. She's amazing.

And so the three of us like being able to really push a lot

of these ideas forward. Get in there and, like, lead workshops,

have conversations, lead professional development, get

into the classrooms. And like, really support teachers in their

integration of technology and digital literacy is really

instrumental. And then there's also the Center for Teaching and

Learning aspect of it, which Jim is also a part of where that

really focuses on student support, the library as a part

of that reading and research. We work really closely with our

librarians, and so he helped start that the Center for

Teaching and Learning with David boxer, also, who is also a

member of Atlas at the Blake school, and the culture that

they set up is what really like created the structures to allow

our programs to flourish and the teamwork to flourish as well.

One of the tenets of Windward is a dynamic education and

nurturing environment, and not only do we embody that with our

students, but I think, also with the adults on campus as well.

And so the support that comes to communication and collaboration

is what really makes things happen.

Now, Jen, one of the major reasons that I

wanted to have you on the pod, and one of the main topics we

wanted to talk to you about, is in this realm of digital

citizenship right now. So I think that for a while we had

all kind of as an industry, come to a place where we understood

what digital citizenship meant and what that investment would

be if we trained our kids to help them be discerning

consumers, or consider how they are projecting themselves on

social media, et cetera. So for a while we had kind of been in

the status quo of like, yeah. Here's our digital citizenship

program. This is how we think about these things, and this is

how we view our school's obligation to provide students

with this education. Now, in this age of AI, things have been

kind of turned on their head, I guess so I would love to hear

given that you are at Windward your team, there is such a model

that a lot of schools emulate. Can you take us down the path of

understanding a little bit about how you all view digital

citizenship, now that things have been disrupted, it

is such a big topic, and we're still wrapping

our minds around it, and like also thinking about, like, where

could these lessons live within our schedule? Schedules are

always a thing at schools that are constantly being discussed

and how to make it better. So we've had to, we, meaning ed

tech, has had to, like, really fight for whatever time that we

get to discuss digital citizenship. I feel like early

on around the status quo era that you were talking about

Kristina like, we were able to, like push into classes and bring

it in naturally through our project collaborations with

faculty, but we have dedicated time with seventh and eighth

grade that we discuss digital citizenship. What does that look

like currently? But also like to bring in conversations around

like, what is AI? What does it look like? How is it trained?

We're starting to have those conversations even in 11th and

12th. Also, we don't have it like I mentioned. We don't have

a dedicated place for all that lives outside of seminar, which

is where we see in middle school. We see the kids once

every six weeks because they're on a rotation schedule. So that

hurdle makes it kind of hard to get any sort of momentum going

around any kinds of conversations. But this year,

we've been really intentional about having conversations with

students, specifically about what is AI, how is it trained?

What is bias in AI talking about hallucinations. We also

partnered with psychology this year and last year, I think, to

talk about algorithms. And it was really interesting to talk

to them about how algorithms in AI will show up in research. And

the conversations that came out of that were really, really eye

opening. Like the students, they've heard about algorithms,

they've heard about AI, they've used chat GPT, but to have them

think about like, how might it impact their research in the

digital realm outside of books and things, was really

interesting. In fact, at the end of those conversations, they

asked if we were going to be having those conversations with

the younger students, even. And so now we've started that

conversation, but thinking about like so do you talk to these

teenagers who spend so much time on social media and online and

about deep fakes and about mis and disinformation. One of my

goals for next year is to really partner with our history

classes, to really talk about like, how do you discern what is

real that you see online? How do you know that whatever post

you're looking at is real? So trying to really think about

like, what are these big topics. So there's like, mis and

disinformation, there's like, deep fakes, which I have so many

concerns about, and how do we talk to kids about it? Where is

the right place to have these conversations? So for us, I've

been looking at who are the teachers that are currently

using AI to support different projects and like, what are the

AI literacy, digital literacy? Because it's tied together at

this point too, right, where it's like a natural partnership

to have those conversations in class that then also relates to

whatever project or whatever curriculum they're exploring at

that moment, with the hopes, right, that they transfer those

skills and those thoughts to their personal lives also. And

so when I have the chance to talk to the young folks at our

school, especially the 11th and 12th graders, I try to talk to

them about thinking of like themselves in the future. And so

like, Who do you want to be known as? What are you curating?

How are you curating yourself, especially as they think about

going into the workforce, having internships, knowledge, all of

that stuff. And so it's a really, really big topic, and

it's having, like, real world impacts, and so do we navigate

that as a society, as individuals, as a community. So

it's something that I'm seriously grappling with and

trying to figure out myself, and just trying to read everything

that I can possibly get my hands on. So if you've got resources,

send them on over. John,

I've got a question. I want to dig in on a

little bit of that I loved hearing about, how you involve

the librarians? You were talking about how you were able to hit

specific grade levels. You know, our middle school ed tech

person, Jackie Chung, she does a great job with our fourth and

fifth grade. We have a program called Tech Bytes that they go

through and they do all of this work. But, you know, one of the

things we keep circling back to is, as you're outlining all of

these things that are, like, really, really important, you

know, I think back to when in the early years of my career,

you would have a tech class, and that class was, you know, a

scheduled class. And there were some pros to that, in that there

was a dedicated time where you were going to go in and you were

going to focus on this, but it was often out of context, and it

wasn't within what was actually happening. And you didn't have

all of the buy in that you have, and it happening from within,

what's actually going on in the classroom. So given these issues

that we now have, and the number of these types of issues, would

you ever want to see, and I don't know how it would be

structured, I'm curious as to what you might see it looking

like. Would you ever want to go back to a more formalized tech

class that is either required for part of the year in every

grade. Or, you know, how would you want to do that? If you had

the ability to control the schedule, if you had the ability

to use everything at your disposal to kind of build that

out, would you want to go to that? And what would it look

like, and if not, how might it look if you had a blank

canvas? Well, it's like you're looking into my

crystal ball and my dreams, honestly. Because, like, I love

that. It is something that I talked about. I loved tech class

too in high school, like, I think that's also where I, like,

fell in love with what I do. And I'm like, I was the kid that

finished early, and was like, let me show you how to do this,

right? I would love to have some sort of, maybe not a full year,

but like a boot camp situation, where every kid goes through a

week of and it's like age appropriate, skill appropriate,

where you get to get the skills, have conversations, discussions

around some of the concerns, and especially around ethics of

things and best habits, best practices, around social media

and digital citizenship and cybersecurity and AI and all of

these topics that otherwise we have trouble finding homes for

in orientation at the beginning of the year or just before

school starts. Bill, we also have these sessions where, like,

you said, they're out of context, you know, like, how do

you use Canvas? How do you turn in an assignment? Like, there's

no real world context for that, for a seventh grader who has

never used it before and hasn't even been in a class before. So

that is something that we truly struggle with, to the point that

with seminar, I started coupling digital citizenship and fluency

lessons with Google Docs or Canva or something like that,

like create, like a troubleshooting poster that

walks people through, like a hard restart, or something like

that. I've also been kicking around the idea, I know other

schools have done this too, having a class dedicated to

exploring and researching, like aI ethics and concerns, where

you can just dive in and you have the time and the space to

have the conversations. How wonderful would that be,

especially for our older students. I think that would be

really helpful, maybe even for the ninth and 10th graders too,

because I feel like they really could use a lot of that. Maybe

theirs is more about, like, social media and like, how do

you navigate this new world where so much of your social

life exists in a digital space?

So Jen, we started this by you actually referencing

a crystal ball. It's funny, you mentioned that because I

actually had something in the chat that says a crystal ball

about concerns with AI. So my question to you, when you're

talking about that tech class per se is, what do you see as

perhaps one of the and this could be for nines and 10s and

then elevens and 12, since you seem to have broken it up, what

do you think are the primary or the most important skills for a

student today to have as AI is becoming so sophisticated,

that's a really

big question. The thing that comes to mind first

and foremost is, like, the ability to discern accuracy of

information. Be able to, like, verify information, right? Like,

how do you know that what you're reading, whether it's put out by

a chat bot or that you're seeing it online? How do you know that

that is accurate? Do you have the pathways to think about

where should you go and verify that information, like, how many

sources do you need to go check that? You know, I also like one

thing that I'm noticing a lot with students today is the grit

and resilience that has to do with troubleshooting, like, can

they figure out how to solve a problem? Like, can they sit in

the discomfort of, like, their device not working? And how do

you navigate that when it comes to AI, yeah, also, like, the

skill of not just critical thinking, which we. Hear a lot

about but knowing when you might reach out, like, when and during

your process, will you utilize a tool like AI? How would you

utilize a tool like AI? Why? Why would you use that the skills of

like, realizing like, when you should step in and take

ownership versus like, when you should offload something to a

machine or to a software. I think those are a lot of things

that a we're grappling with as educators. But two, I think the

students, we need to figure out how to really impart those

skills on them, and it's going to be tricky, especially as we

hear about a lot of students in universities and colleges that

are taking the easy way out and just using AI and chat GPT to

like, write their papers, and it seems like there's no real back

and forth. There's no like, thumb print on their work. And

so I think the skills of knowing when to utilize support systems,

when to ask for help, when to reach out to another person

versus an emerging technology, and then also knowing like when

to disengage from tech, when should you step away from your

device, setting up structures that will help you navigate tech

addiction. You know, I know that I get sucked into my social

media feeds and end up Doom scrolling, and I struggle, as a

middle aged woman, like I struggle with Doom scrolling. So

like, I can't imagine, like, there's some of our young folks,

especially like that live so much of their lives online, sort

of dope hobbies that might be analog, I don't know.

Yeah, no, 100% I was just having a

conversation with our producer, Peter about this, and I spent

this time out in Yellowstone with my bear spray. And what was

actually kind of peaceful about it is that there are huge chunks

of the national park that have zero reception like SOS you are

not getting a signal. You're just hoping that your Google

Maps Hang in there, they hand you an old school map, and here

are the little wooden signs that you can barely see on the side

of the road. And, you know, you just kind of figure it out. And

it was a peaceful experience because I noticed that. I

noticed more, yeah, like, I just was like, aware of the color of

the trees and the miles didn't just kind of blur by not that

I'd be sitting there on my phone, but it puts you in a

different state of mind when you are looking for a sign or you

are following a map, versus having your head in the phone

all the time. Yeah,

the idea of, like, get off your screen. I go to a

lot of concerts and, like, one of the things that I truly miss

about my youth is being able to watch the show with my eyeballs

and not through other people's screens from the audience.

You're not going to go back and watch that video of the band

playing on your little phone. You want them to

hold your cigarette lighter up. Yeah. I

miss that. I miss that just being aware. And I

think too, you know, like the last two years, we've done this,

begin with belonging, two week period where we put phones away.

And this year we instituted a cell phone the yonder bags for

grades seven through nine. Next year will be seven through 10.

And with the period of beginning with belonging, students and

faculty were encouraged to have their devices away, particularly

during the common period. So like, nutrition and lunch and

things. And can I tell you that the kids were nicer. People were

nicer. They were just talking to each other. And so, Hiram, you

were asking about, like, the skills, like, honestly, like

being able to connect face to face, I think is like a huge

thing that we kind of need to find again as a society, because

it just helps us be more empathetic and feel more

connected. Because the idea of, like, alone together, it makes

me so sad. There's a time and a place for that, I guess is the

thing that I'm trying to say. I

was just thinking that Christina, I want to give

her a practical suggestion for the next time she's out like

that. Offline Maps. That way you don't get lost. You don't need

the signal.

Oh yes, I definitely, because I had

anxiety about it. I was offline mapping for the first day or

two, and then I was like, Okay, I got this. There are signs. I

know how to read a map. One of the funniest videos I ever took

of my now 23 year old daughter was she was probably around 21

or 22 we were in line at the Starbucks, and she was in the

back seat of my mom's car, and she pulled from the pocket of

the back seat a map. And I said, open that up. And I asked her to

start reading the map. And it was a map of upstate New York

where we grew up. And she was like, What are these blue

things? I'm like, those are the Finger Lakes. Like, I don't she

had no idea how to read a map. I'm like, okay, somewhere we

have failed you. It was the funniest video I have ever

taken. It's kind of like, also when you have a kid pick up a

phone and know how to dial, kind of an old school phone at a

hotel or whatever, and they're like, where's the send button?

In no Send button.

Well, just think of that statement. There is no dial

on the phone anymore. You know, it's all buttons. So just that

phrase alone, dial the number. I mean, no one. Where does that

come from?

Yeah, I mean, and here's the thing, we

can lament for the way it was with us. But at the end of the

day, the kids are in this environment. This is their

world. So whether you're they're going to be designing custom

gpts For everyday things that they do, or if it evolves far,

far beyond what we can even begin to imagine. Now with

agentic AI, I think that rather than longing for the past, what

I love about the work that you guys do is we can make our jokes

about being the 90s babies or whatever going through our

heyday, that we're definitely helping these kids define what

their generation looks like and what this all means to them. And

that's a tough thing to wrestle when it's something that we

didn't come up

with. Yeah, one of the things that I've been

grappling with it was a thought that came up in the AI infused

classroom by Holly Clark, was thinking about the year that our

students will retire. It's 2070, 2080, that these students will

retire, what's the world gonna look like then I have no idea.

Like I have wishes for crystal ball, but like I don't, it

doesn't go that far into the future, right? And so trying to

grapple with what are the skills that we need to impart on our

students that will serve them past the university level, past

their entry to working and far into their future, but being

flexible and nimble and having a love of learning is, I think,

some of those skills that they're going to need to have

too.

So that's all very heady to think about

where this is all going. And I know that none of us really have

that crystal ball, but one of the things, Jen, that we should

talk about before we run out of time is that you have been

recently elected to the Atlas board of directors. Yes, yes.

And while I certainly don't think we're going to be

unpacking what happens in 2080 we are certainly kind of looking

ahead to what this all means for our industry, for the

professionals that affiliate and associate with us, and so it's

such a pleasure to have you onboarding. You're in great

company, including my co host here, Hiram. So welcome to the

Atlas board. And while I'm on that topic, we have an

interesting little governance evolution, and that is that

because of some complex IRS rules that is not worth going

into. Now, when we established a certification program, the T

list program, we also stood up a 501, c6, that is a affiliate

organization, a very deeply connected organization, with

Atlas, and that's called the Atlas certification council. So

not only on this podcast, am I speaking today with a current

board member, that's Hiram, but I'm also welcoming as new board

members, Jen, you are going to be sitting on the Atlas board.

The kind of Og board and Bill is the first non Atlas board member

that we have elected to the Atlas certification Council

board. So these two organizations are obviously

deeply entwined, you know, like this is the Atlas umbrella. We

just happen to have a c3 and a c6 and each of you is now

joining the board. So it's cool that I have all of you on this

call. I promise I'm not going to go into board orientation right

now. That's for next week, but congratulations and welcome, I

guess, for both Bill and Jen, I would love to hear, why did you

decide to do this? Why did you decide to run for the Atlas

board? And are you excited or scared, or yes,

I'm really excited. I was always curious

about the board, and, like, what boards do, and being a member of

Atlas for so long, and going to the conferences, being a part

of, like, the organization on so many different levels. Like, I

was a part of ECat. I've been a mentor. I was part of the AI

task force when it opened and you were able to self nominate.

Yep, that's new. That was like, the huge turning point, because

I was always, like, secretly hoping somebody would nominate

me. The self application was really a game changer for me,

and I was looking to have more of an impact and be able to give

back to not just the organization, but the community,

in a way. And so I threw my hat in the ring. I really didn't

think that I would be elected. I have a huge case of imposter

syndrome, and so it is really exciting. I'm just really,

really excited to not only be here having this conversation

with you all, but also to be a part of the bigger conversation

with Atlas, especially as we think about what the future

looks like in this huge moment where things are changing and

changing rapidly, like, how do we grapple with some of these

big questions, and how can we help support educators and tech

leaders in this work?

So there were two main reasons. One was to hang

out more with Hiram, and two. So was because I knew somebody

needed to keep Peter Frank in line in the work that he was

doing on T list, and that was something that was going to

require a lot of work and a really strong hand, and I think

that's where I decided to come in. But honestly, I think the

main reason for me was karma. I've taken so much from Atlas

over the years, I think that I've leaned on the organization.

I've beg, borrowed and stolen different things over the years,

and really feel like I've gotten so much from it that I wanted an

opportunity to give back and give back at a level that the

board would provide, and in a way that hopefully volunteering

for that work, volunteering time, giving that up and giving

that to the organization I thought was the least I could

do, given everything I've taken from it over the years. I'm

excited. I'm excited to work with everyone, to spend time

with everyone, to learn more, to steal more, but to give back as

much as I can to the organization that's given so

much.

And Jen, you're not alone in terms of that

imposter syndrome. 100% everybody that I've spoken to

who's been on the board has said, I feel like I am not the

smartest person in the room. There's a lot of humility on the

board. But when we are together as an aggregate, we truly are

representing one of Atlas main edicts, which is that we are the

expert. Collectively, we are the expert and we do what's best for

all of our members.

Yeah, what's really incredible about any

board service? Because I've definitely done many stints

where I walked into a board service leadership role and felt

that kind of feeling of, oh, man, how did I get picked? I'm

the youngest, or I'm the newest, or whatever, right? I think that

what's incredible about the Atlas board is that you guys

will both learn and now the Atlas certification Council

board is that there's a lot of collegiality and support, but

also you have an incredible staff that does the stuff. So

what's really awesome is it's this big shift for technology

leaders. You guys come into the room and you think you need to

fix stuff, but that's actually my job and my team's job. So

what's crazy is that you'll come into the room and you give us

good ideas, you give us directions. So I always use the

analogy Hiram hears it so many times, is that you guys tell us,

hey, we want to go to California, and then we figure

out whether we should take a train, plane or automobile, and

when to stop and get snacks. It's a mental shift. But I'm so

glad that you mentioned the self nomination process, because that

was very intentional to be more representative across our

community. We got some incredible applications this

year. Our NomCom had a very difficult process to go through,

and so I'm just really glad to be able to welcome both of you,

and I'll take you through all the details at your upcoming

board orientation.

I'm really excited. I can't wait. Actually,

you'll get to see Kristina staff do her, as she

likes to say, chugga, chugga. The Chugga, chugga. They really

get going.

They're pretty good at it. Well, look

before we wrap up, Jen, I just want to thank you, of course,

for your time and for coming in. These conversations are always a

little bit well. They're certainly unscripted, and we

don't provide a lot of background and questions ahead

of time, because we love these conversations as they unfold,

and I am thrilled with how this one went. So I do want to thank

you for joining us. And since I am trying to bring some non

zombie energy into the space, we sometimes kind of wrap up with

things like, what coffee do you drink? Or, you know, the guys

always want to know what weapon you'd use to kill a zombie. So

instead of that, we started where Bill took us thanks to the

tiny dog, not the big dog. Do you happen to be a pet owner?

I'm not okay, so if you had to do like the dog or cat thing,

and then my second question is whether you would go small

animal or large animal?

Oh, I'm a cat person, through and through.

Yeah, I don't think you're gonna break any ribs if you have a

cat. I If you have a cat. I identify with cats. It's like, I

need my alone time. Don't bother me. And it's like, when I want

to hang out, I'll hang out and

I get you so Bill, I think maybe the moral of

the story is, in time, a cat won't break your

ribs. I have one cat now. I've had up to three at

any one point. So yes, they are by far, a lot easier and

definitely less stressful, and you're less likely to injure

yourself with them. For sure,

I have a rule where it's like you can't have

more pets than people in the house either.

That's pretty good

rule. It's good rule. You don't want to be

overrun. You know

that's true. Well, Bill, we wish you Happy

healing. And Jen, I hope that you have a fantastic and

productive summer. I know summers are always busy. I've

actually visited windward during the summer, and it was a massive

construction zone A couple years back, so I know you probably

have a very full summer ahead, but we wish you a productive and

happy and healthy summer. And thank you again for joining. Us.

Thank you for having

me. This has been talking technology with Atlas,

produced by the Association of technology leaders in

independent schools. For more information about Atlas and

Atlas membership, please visit theatlas.org if you enjoyed this

discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this

podcast with your colleagues in the independent school

community. Thank you for listening. You.