In this week’s episode of All Things Marketing and Education, Elana and our guest, Kristina Ishmael, get into the nooks and crannies of the National EdTech Plan.

They discuss the broader role of the Office of EdTech, the specific goals of the National EdTech Plan in 2024, and how you can use it whether you’re an educator, administrator, or EdTech professional. They highlight the inclusivity and collaboration in the plan, as well as the challenges and priorities it addresses. Looking ahead, they consider the future of the plan and the potential challenges and opportunities in education by 2030.

Kristina currently works as an Education Strategic Advisor at her own shop — Ishmael Consulting — but she has formerly served in the classroom, at the state level, and at the national level, and was personally instrumental in the creation of the National EdTech Plan.

Episode show notes.

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The EdTech Marketer's Planner - Extended Edition

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Elana Leoni:

Welcome, everyone, to our podcast, All Things Marketing and Education. I'm Elana Leoni, and I've devoted my entire career to helping education brands build their brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately grow their lead. Every week, my guests who range from educators to EdTech entrepreneurs to experts in the field will all share tips, strategies, and insight in either social media, content marketing, and community building. I'm so excited to be your guide to help transform your marketing efforts into something that's truly authentic and consistently provides value for your audience. Enjoy.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week, I was truly blessed to sit down with Kristina Ishmael. She's now an education strategic advisor of her own shop, Ishmael Consulting. But Kristina has formally served in the classroom, at the state level, and at the national level. Most recently, many of you may know her as the Deputy Director of the Office of EdTech. Given she's been working at the local level, in classrooms, at the state level, at the federal level, she'll get into all the nooks and crannies of who she was, where she served.

It gives her such a unique perspective on so many things. But in this episode, we specifically talk about the National EdTech Plan. Kristina, she will not brag about this, but she was instrumental in creation of the National EdTech Plan. There were certainly, what I call, the X-Men behind the National EdTech Plan, but she was one of the driving forces of gathering all these beautiful experts together. Because of this on the ground experience she had, she was really able to give us the good stuff about the National EdTech Plan. We talk about what it is, we talk about how you can use it, whether you're an educator, an education administrator, or an EdTech professional, and we chat about what's uniquely different about this plan from other previous versions.

Kristina Ishmeal:

I'm so excited to be here.

Elana Leoni:

I would say it's a dream come true. But post or pre-show, I was saying I was scared to talk... I know we're friends, but I know how busy you are, so I appreciate you coming on the show. Today, we're going to be talking about the National EdTech Plan, which I don't say that phrase without thinking of your name and your influence in it, so I couldn't think of a more-

Kristina Ishmeal:

Thank you.

Elana Leoni:

Appropriate guest to talk about it. We're going to talk about what it is, why do we even have it, what's its evolution, what's different, and then how, if you're an EdTech leader, you can use it, and if even you're in EdTech, how do we use this to navigate what's going on in the industry in the field? So, welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yes, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Elana Leoni:

Well, all right. High level, I think sometimes people go, "Gosh, how does our government support public K-12 education and higher ed education?" I think sometimes people go, "Well, I never heard of the Office of EdTech." Do you want to talk on a high level of what the Office of EdTech is and maybe how it relates structurally to the government?

Kristina Ishmeal:

Elana Leoni:

So helpful structurally, because I'm like, "I know y'all." At Edutopia, it was nice to interact and collaborate with the leaders and understand how we can best support them in their efforts, but I felt like you all were like this not as well known, just roll up your sleeves, startup style department, just doing awesome things. So I wanted to start out just people, hey everyone, there is an Office of EdTech.

Kristina Ishmeal:

There is, there is.

Elana Leoni:

They do lots of amazing things, and we're not even talking about the other resources, like your artificial intelligence guide was awesome. We'll put all of these links to the National EdTech plan, the AI. Was it the guide? Are you calling it a toolkit or a guide?

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

We'll put that in the show notes as well and listen to the end of the podcast. We'll drop the URL where you can go. But you talked about the National EdTech Plan, and I want to pause and ask a high level, because you said there's lots of different revisions, and it started... On a high level, what's the magic wand it was trying to do of like, okay, is it get all the districts on the same page? Or put our stamp on what we think is right? Or just surface up research? On a very layman's term, you got me 30 seconds in a bar, what is the National EdTech Plan? Little different than an elevator pitch, right?

Kristina Ishmeal:

Oh, goodness. So it is the flagship publication that comes out of the Office of EdTech, and it really did start as, what you mentioned, servicing the existing research and the research for the past couple of years as well as this. What is happening in classrooms? What are some of those bright spots that we're seeing that you could help uplift that? Then let folks know how other school districts are integrating technology to really impact teaching and learning. That's how it started.

Again, there have been five versions so far. This is the sixth version. This one feels a little bit different already. There has been that focus, I think, more on the research and more on the hypotheticals. This one feels much more actionable, if you ask me, with that call to action, and then being able to actually take it and then implement it in your respective districts or states, for that matter.

Elana Leoni:

For those of you going, "Okay, I've heard of this plan," know that it is free, it's accessible. We'll put it in the show notes, or you can just Google it. The idea is to surface up the research, the trends, really look critically on what are our biggest challenges in K-12? I know I'm going to foreshadow what's different and you're going to get into it even more, but I love how it makes it a lot more inclusive this time.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Oh, I love that you noticed that.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, because I talked to a lot of the UDL folks. One of the things, Kristina, you haven't mentioned is that, gosh, I would think I was talking to Julia and she was saying that... She listed all the partners and experts that went into this. So this is not just the EdTech creating this. I was like, you truly gathered the X-Men of education and anyone who was an expert in anything you brought in and all they weigh in on it.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yes, they did.

Elana Leoni:

So I want to know how much effort and expertise went into this?

Kristina Ishmeal:

I am still hearing stories about this, and that makes me incredibly nervous because we know that we can do good things with technology, and so it is a little bit different as far as the call to action and calling out specific divides. The team that helps write this, I mean, this has been a project well over 18 months since it really started. It started with the research. Zac Chase at the Office of EdTech was the one that was leading all of this work and still continues to lead this work. He spent hours and hours just reading, trying to boost up his background knowledge and his schema for the things that had changed since the last time he'd actually been in the office and helped write the previous version. Consultations with experts like you mentioned, there is a formal technical working group that gets together with representation from higher education from K 12, from research, from practitioners, a wide, wide variety.

It's also very gender inclusive, as well as racially representative. It covered all of the bases, but also recognizing there is deep expertise in the field and that they could contribute their expertise to this flagship publication. There were plenty of listening sessions, there were surveys that went out. So when you talk about building policy, in general, there's always that little bullet point that was include all of your stakeholders. That was a huge part of this for us. It's harder on a national level when there are 14,000 public school districts, 50 plus state agencies plus the territories and all of that, to make sure that there is representation. But this one feels like it really does represent the country. So the current challenges that we're facing, the efforts and the action that can be taken to reach every single learner.

Elana Leoni:

And so just special kudos for you for really taking that check mark of include the stakeholders and actually doing it in a comprehensive way because in education, I think sometimes we get used to people not including each other and just saying, "Here. No, this is the way we approach it." People might have that idea of the government of like, oh no, this is the way they want to tell us. That's the exact opposite what this plan was. You had so many stakeholders come in and just look at your... Is it a contribution area on the page?

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yeah, the acknowledgement. Yes, so many people.

Elana Leoni:

Lots of experts went into this. Let's talk about a high level. What do you love about this plan and what do you think is critically different about this plan?

Kristina Ishmeal:

This was obviously a hot point at the beginning of the pandemic because we didn't have the most accurate data to tell us how many households actually had access to reliable high-speed internet. So of the X amount of households, there was an estimate most often that we use between 16 and 17 million households with K 12 students that didn't have reliable high speed internet. That's significant. And then we also know that not every school district with one-to-one with any sort of devices.

We know the research shows in a lot of these cases, we put kids on a computer or an intervention or for remediation, and they're sitting there passively consuming that information. They're on X tool for X amount of minutes, and then they rotate through or whatever the case may be. So we wanted to figure out how we get from talking about this digital access divide, we know that there needs to be an increase there, to get to the point where there is this increase in digital use divide, this active use of technology. So what was missing in the middle? Digital design divide. It is talking about giving time and professional learning and ongoing coaching. It's not a one-stop PD to teachers and educators to help them understand what is universal design for learning? What do these types of unique learning opportunities look like so that you can create that active use of technology?

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And what you you're doing is... I feel like because you have so many people looking at this critically and looking at the last plan and looking at the trends that affect the plans, you can look at a high level and say, what are the biggest things truly affecting education?

You shouldn't just be myopic and look at one, right? It's like we're moving all of this together and what did we learn from the pandemic, right? There's a lot of haters out there that say, "Gosh, we got everyone one-to-one and then we just rolled back." There was a lot of learning that happened. And yes, have we fallen back a little bit? Sure. But you are able to say, "Here are the priorities. Here's how you can keep them a priority," and move them all in lockstep. That's something I think as a school leader or an EdTech person, we wouldn't have the time to really identify the trends, on a high level, give you the research. And then there's some actionable things and resources that you can use. So when you're talking, I'm like, oh yeah, that bubble just got bigger because of families now. We were just so focused on schools for a while.

Kristina Ishmeal:

I know.

Elana Leoni:

It gave me a little acid reflux talking about it. I'm like, oh gosh, it got bigger and it's harder.

Kristina Ishmeal:

It is harder. And then you look at terrain and geography and who has access and who doesn't have access. That also kind of goes back to the digital equity work that the office did as well. Digital redlining, that's also a thing that no one was really talking about before all of this where we were hearing from districts in urban cities and urban locations where one side of the street, their students had access to some form of high-speed internet, and then across the street, there's nothing. Just for a full block, there was just a blank, no coverage whatsoever. Knowing that that's a reality for a lot of households is terrifying, just knowing that that even exists, and then how do you really start to think about addressing that from a school district perspective?

I'm not saying that the illness is completely on the school district by any means, but even being able to identify that is the first step, and then how do we bring all of that forward?

Elana Leoni:

I think just on a personal note, I would say that I'm so proud of having people like you being able to have such a significant part in a plan like this because I know you champion for that. I know that you critically and passionately care about equity issues, about who's not showing up, who doesn't have that access, and sometimes I feel like we have stereotypes of the government going, "Oh, maybe that's the majority. It's the easiest way path, let's move forward." But what I knew from you personally and I see in the plan is every single person matters and let's design a plan, even if it's harder to understand sometimes, and there's another thing you have to be worried about. I just applaud you personally for always being that champion. So thank you.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Thank you, thank you. I've learned a lot from my time in state government as well as federal government and colleagues, that this really matters. So to be able to even be that champion, it means a lot to me.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. Well, we've talked about the plan, what's different in the plan. Of you are a school leader listening, if you are an education advocate of any kind, if you're a teacher that's just super interested in this, how would you ideally like them to read and just say, "Okay, here's how I can implement it or learn from it?" Are there specific things that you'd like to point out in the plan that they can take advantage of?

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the most proud pieces of this whole thing is that there is an example from every single state, as well as every single territory. That again goes back to inclusion and representation because we know that it means a lot for folks to see their state in a national publication. So to look for those examples, they're all in the appendices, so it's not like you even have to read through the actual document itself. Of course, that is encouraged. But to go in there and look for your state example, I think, is even just one way to start. There's also an executive summary, so if you just want to scratch the surface with it, the executive summary certainly helps with that.

Then digging in from there, being able to talk about the three divides is the first step, and then being able to share that with others because when I talk about the divides, especially with classroom teachers, they're like, "Oh yeah, we see this every day." I'm like, "Yeah, I know. District leaders don't always see this, so are you telling your district leaders this?" So being able to advocate for that is actually really important as well.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, I see this almost as a checklist, like accountability gut check too of like, are we thinking and talking about these things critically? When we're having school board meetings, are these things coming up? So that's really helpful. If you're an educator listening, know that if you see your own district or something that's similar state level, like Kristina's talking about, be that advocate and reach out and let's have that conversation to make sure that these are the high level issues that will not necessarily make or break us. We need to learn forward. We need to fail forward through them.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yes, fail forward, a hundred percent. If-

Elana Leoni:

And if we're not talking about them-

Kristina Ishmeal:

Go ahead, yeah.

Elana Leoni:

But it's interesting that you said sharing because I have had a couple of presentations recently. Most recently, I was thinking of the University of Florida. I was there for a policy summit, so it was the Future of Florida Summit. This was two weekends ago. They asked me, "How do you first get started in education policy?" And I was like, "Well, I have a very unique path," and having to talk more about that. But then the classroom teacher to any sort of person in our community, go to school board meetings. They matter. They are public meetings. They matter because they're the ones that are making the decisions about what is happening in the classrooms. A lot of folks still don't understand that. We elect these positions. We elect these people to sit in these places and make the decisions that will then impact our children in classes. So it starts at that community level and this local school board level, but then my experience also at the state level was like, oh, guess what?

There's a state board of education. That's also a public meeting, and that is where a lot of people need to also be there to share in public comment, to share through testimony. They hear the great things that are happening because what is happening in most of those meetings is all the bad stuff. It's all the negative stuff. It's very partisan. We had folks that would show up with anti-common core badges. It's a very real thing, and they were most likely in a place where they were retired and had more of the flexibility to be able to do that rather than a classroom teacher. But it's so important that we're making sure that there's representation at these meetings as well. We need sane people at these meetings, and that would be very helpful.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yes. I think when you talk about school board meetings in particular, and all of these meetings, they are public record. If you are an EdTech company and you're like, "Gosh, I want to get into so-and-so district," I wonder what they care about most?

Elana Leoni:

Guess what? You can find those meeting notes. From a strategic perspective, you want to make sure EdTech is being as value as possible and really listening and doing your homework on your perspective schools and districts. And shout out, I'll put a resource in our show notes to Burbio from the EdTech scene, but they provide a lot of data around school board meetings. The data nerd in me, they can even tag percentage of conversations nationally and school boards are happening around XR technology, for example. So I think it's-

Kristina Ishmeal:

That's awesome. That's super helpful, yeah.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, because then you can kind of understand how do you, as EdTech, become a partner in helping with these major challenges that the EdTech plan has surfaced up too. We're not just vendors here.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Absolutely.

Elana Leoni:

We're trying to figure out how to navigate the system.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yes. Yes. You can also, I mean, because of the public records, you can also look at the procurement side of this. I know that that is the least sexy thing to talk about is procurement, but you can also see how people are investing the money that they do have at the district level and at the state level for that matter. But at the district level, what are they investing in? Again, back to your, what are the priorities? What do they care about? Because if they're investing X amount of dollars for a remediation program, does that mean that there are other ways that would also meet the needs of these types of learners that may cost less or we may have a better EdTech solution for X? And so that is super helpful as well.

Elana Leoni:

Yes, and those of you listening, pause, rewind and repeat what Kristina just said, super important because it's not sexy procurement, but that is the number way and not even a dotted line. It's a solid line to your revenue success and your sustainability as an EdTech company. So speaking of EdTech, if I'm an EdTech company and I'm reading this plan, how would you ideally like me to use this resource and put it hopefully into action?

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it goes back to looking at the three divides, seeing if your tool or your EdTech company helps with one of those problems, honestly. Can it provide a solution to the access divide, to the design divide or to the use divide? I mean, if you can't answer yes to any of those, that's a problem, but hopefully there's a yes to one of those. But just seeing how it aligns to the plan itself and then how can you take advantage of that? Going out and having conversations and leading with, "Hey, have you read the National EdTech plan?"

It's a theory of change. If you can go in and say, "Hey, we believe that using our EdTech tool will help X," then that level of evidence or that tier, you can also go into the same conversations and say, "Hey, we also meet as a tier four with our EdTech tool, and so we would love to talk about partnering with you to help increase overall achievement or growth in your school district." So it's bringing both of those together. We know that we need to pick tools that are actually research-based and are showing their effectiveness and their efficacy by looking at the three divides from the national EdTech.

Elana Leoni:

Yes, and I love how you kind of said, "Let's start out with, hey, we meet two out of the three of the challenges within the plan. By the way, we also are aligned with what your school board cares about and what your strategic plan says are your priorities for the district," boom, boom and here's-

Kristina Ishmeal:

And then maybe there's practices around a district that looks and feels like you, right? So there's your recipe, but really approaching it as a thought partner and someone who truly cares and listens into the challenges. We have deep-rooted challenges that aren't going to go away any time soon in EdTech, but it's helpful to listen as much as possible and really come from, there's some really great resources like the National EdTech Plan that we can leverage and help inform how we position our messaging going forward.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So we talked about how school leaders can use it. We've talked about how Ed tech can jump in and use it, and those are really tactical, inspirational. I'll try to summarize that in the show notes for all of you that are jogging or walking your dog right now as well. And when you were talking about logic models, theories of change, you are speaking my love language there. We've had three guests on our show, so I will put them in the show notes for anyone that says, "What's a theory of change, what's a logic model?"

Kristina Ishmeal:

Great.

Elana Leoni:

Question to wrap this all up, because you've given so much helpful information about something that... I think when people think about the National EdTech Plan, they're like, "Oh, I just don't know where to start," and you've really demystified it. But if you were tasked with updating this in the future because it came out and as soon as it came out, it's already expired, right? There's certain things that-

Kristina Ishmeal:

I know. I know.

Elana Leoni:

That's the thing in the world of social media too. I was just looking at something, I'm like, yeah, TikTok is no longer serving up 110% of their... Things like that is.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Yeah, of course. Everything changes, of course.

Elana Leoni:

What are some things that gut-wise, you're like, I think the future of the plan maybe at this point in time should also include X or Y?

Kristina Ishmeal:

That's a really great question.

Elana Leoni:

It's a hard one, yeah.

Kristina Ishmeal:

So there are still a lot of households that don't have that access. So if we can continue working on that, you also see through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, I have literally driven across the country in the past month or so, and so I have seen signs in multiple states now that have infrastructure things through President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. So we know that fiber and actual pipes and wires are being worked on across the country. Of course, we want to make sure that tribal land is also included in that and making sure that the companies see the incentive to go work on tribal lands to make sure that they're also connected. But I would really like to see that that has advanced for the next version so that we can do a hat tip to it and say, "Hey, we continue to think about this," but it's not nearly as a big priority as it has been in the past.

So I would love to think about that. I would also love to see more, I think the digital design in particular, providing more ongoing professional learning and making sure that school leaders are really actually using their dollars to support teachers. I know it seemed like such a novel concept, but whether they are in-service teachers or even working with ed prep programs and making sure that pre-service teachers are also coming in ready to teach with technology and actively engaging students. So I would like to think that there may not be three divides. Maybe there will be two. Maybe things are just going to progress in some way that we don't even need to talk about it's divides. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have my crystal ball, but I would really like to think that things are just going to overall improve. That's also optimistic.

Elana Leoni:

Kristina Ishmeal:

A hundred percent.

Elana Leoni:

There has to be, at some point, some intervention on a nationally recognized level of how do we build in supports throughout, that truly work? How do we bring in an effective conversation around social and emotional learning without weaponizing it, to be frank?

Kristina Ishmeal:

Exactly, exactly.

Elana Leoni:

How do we meet students where they are learning-wise and acknowledge and try to activate their prior knowledge of wherever they come from? So for me, that's where my head is, especially as we start automating things with AI and all of this stuff.

Kristina Ishmeal:

100%.

Elana Leoni:

Kristina Ishmeal:

I know. I know. So wild to think about.

Elana Leoni:

Oh, well, Kristina, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time with-

Kristina Ishmeal:

Thank you.

Elana Leoni:

I would say little old me, because I have this small little podcast.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Oh, stop it. Stop it.

Elana Leoni:

I just feel really blessed to have you as a friend over these decades, and I'm so proud of everything you're doing.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Thank you.

Elana Leoni:

So thank you for coming on the show.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Oh my gosh, thank you.

Elana Leoni:

For anyone that wants to keep up with Kristina, I'll put all of her contact details in the show notes. But really quickly, Kristina, what's the one place you'd love people to reach out to you at?

Kristina Ishmeal:

You know, I have officially deleted X/Twitter, so that feels like a loss in my life, but I have moved over to LinkedIn and so that is really one of the best ways to engage and stay connected there.

Elana Leoni:

Perfect. All right, well thank you Kristina. Take care.

Kristina Ishmeal:

Thank you.

Elana Leoni:

Thanks again for listening to All Things Marketing and Education. If you like what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can find more episodes at leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast. You can also continue the conversation with us on Twitter at Leoni Group or on LinkedIn. And don't forget, if you enjoy today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We're so appreciative of every single subscriber and review we get, and it helps us reach even more people that need help. So we'll see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.