Selecting Impactful EdTech Tools Beyond The Hype: A Conversation with Shawn McCusker

Elana Leoni:

ns, is a recent winner of the: 2022

Shawn, welcome to the podcast. So excited you're here. When I first met you in person at ISTE, I think it was funny to see Don Rescigno's eyes. So, Don is a friend of mine. He runs a teaching channel, and I've worked alongside him, collaborated with him at Edutopia for years. He was one of my first clients and big supporters of me coming out and saying, "I want to do something on my own."

For people that are in the boat, just side note, of trying to do their own thing, I don't thank the people around me and my PLN enough for helping and supporting me. Don was one of those people who said, "I got work for you. Come work." So, I started off with him. He gave me some intros, very big supporter. He brought you to our ISTE party and he's like, "You guys don't know each other?" His eyes just went wide because-

Shawn McCusker:

Yes.

Elana Leoni:

... we know the same people, we've just never physically met.

Shawn McCusker:

A lot of the same people. Right? Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. The same. I looked at our LinkedIn, it was like 200 people in common. Right.

Shawn McCusker:

What's funny about that is Don played the same role for me. I love the line from Mr. Rogers, "When things go bad and when things are hard, remember to look for the helpers. The helpers are always there." So, when I was a young teacher getting started and really getting involved on social media, I became an organizer for Edcamp Chicago. Right? In the early days, when it was hard to get supporters.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah.

Shawn McCusker:

Both Don and EdTechTeacher, where I currently work, were the people who regularly gave me funds to support the teachers and run that conference for years. When few people would, I could always count on them. That's a big thing, and we'll probably come back to this. If you can be someone who helps make people's dreams, and visions of what's better, a reality, put yourself in that spot. I think about that a lot, "How am I helping others to grow and change education?"

Elana Leoni:

Yes. Look for the people and inform your professional learning networks with the "yes, and-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

... not the "yes, but".

Elana Leoni:

Yeah.

Shawn McCusker:

I can't tell you how many naysayers I got going out into my own, and it was so hard. I heard all their critics, "You're not going to do this," and "You're not going to survive." All this, like "Aren't you worried?" Then, I had people like Don in my corner that were like, "No. Let's do this. This is awesome. This is so great. Look, here. Let me help."

So, I think that's why I love our really beautiful place in education and how it intersects with community, and professional learning networks, and unconferences like edcamps.

riented and things [inaudible: 00:07:08

So much of it is proximity. Right? So much of it is placing yourself next to the kind of people who will support you, who are striving in that same way. That's what the Twitter Lightning in a Bottle of early EduTwitter did for me, had all these people who were similarly coming up with ideas that might be unconventional, putting them into place, and then making them real to make real changes in education.

For instance, career changes. I've moved around in education. Sometimes that's not the traditional way to go, but there were always people around saying, "This could be big. This could serve others. This can help people." Those people supported me in making those changes. I've got a really good life and a nice career in education. So, being around those people helps write that story in a way that you can look back on and be proud of.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. So, why don't we dovetail into your journey a little bit. I think your journey as an edtech professional and an educator gives you this unique vantage point in the industry. So, why don't you talk about how you got to where you are now and what do you do now? Then, we're going to get into some fun stuff about what edtech you like, you're excited about-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

That-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah. So, I was a teacher for 25 years in public, private schools, as an administrator. My wife was a work at home mom, so I always taught extra teaching assignments at night. I taught alternative night school, people who were really challenged. I think working with those students, who were non-traditional, influenced me more than anything else.

Because those environments didn't have a lot of resources, from the very beginning of my career, I used to go back to my hometown and garbage pick computers because they didn't have them in the classes where I was teaching. I taught in the second-largest school district in the state of Illinois. So, I would garbage pick these computers, get them up to speed, and I built a computer lab. I built an illegal, underground wireless network. Then, I had it on a switch. I could turn it off with those Christmas tree switches, where you hit a button and it turns the tree on and off. I turned off my network.

Then, I had to get rid of all of those computers because the district required a fire extinguisher and wouldn't pay to have it in my room. So, I did a raffle and gave them away. I think that's the beginning of where technology meant something to me, and I wanted to make it possible. I won a couple of teaching awards that allowed me to change jobs.

I ended up at my old high school. When I was there, I was having kids use phones to text questions to their parents, and collecting them, trying to make it transparent. That led to the superintendent coming to visit me and asked me what I was doing with technology. I thought I was in trouble, but that turned into him saying, "What if I bought you iPads? What would you do?"

I want to make it clear, I had no idea. I had a couple of dreamy things that I had in mind. When he did that, I leaned on my PLN on Twitter and came up with a plan, and started just crying. I had a lab space that I was able to do that with. That whole district eventually converted to iPads. I got to be a part of that process. It was super exciting. A key part of my story happens, he asked me, "You have to share what you're doing. Can you create some way to share?" So, I created my first blog. I started publishing everything I was trying, whether it won or it lost. That's really where my career takes a turn.

I published a blog post, Five Unexpected Changes of Going 1:1 in the Classroom. It just kind of went nuts, not for a long time, but for two or three days it was thousands of hits on my blog. People were calling me up. That's the first time EdTechTeacher asked me if I would present at their first iPad summit in Boston, at Harvard University.

So here I am, this suburban teacher, who's just a nobody. I was faking, just trying things out, and I got to start traveling. So, that eventually led, over time, to me getting into leadership, to me becoming an author, and to me getting a full-time job with EdTechTeacher. So, I've been able to work with teachers at like 35 or 36 states at this point, in person, and travel across the country. I look back on it, and I'm really excited about the way that I've been able to work with so many teachers and try to support so many teachers. It's been a great ride.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. I love talking to people like you because you've done the work. You've been in the school. You know how hard and challenging it has been for decades. Then, moving-

Shawn McCusker:

Right.

Elana Leoni:

... school systems.

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

that bigger birds [inaudible: 00:11:41

Shawn McCusker:

Right.

Elana Leoni:

Right.

Shawn McCusker:

st,: 2020

Elana Leoni:

I would say, that what you talked about with your journey is that... We all came from a place, especially educators in the classroom, saying-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... "What I do is not special. My doors are closed. I actually can't compare myself to others. I'm isolated." You were starting to open up a PLN on Twitter, so you're able to collaborate, little bit. Most educators say, "What I'm doing is not special. I don't need to talk about it. Blah, blah, blah."

I can't tell you how many conversations I had with educators on Twitter that I said, "What you're doing is awesome. Can you please blog for it?"

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

They're like, "Really?" But what you said, with the iPad thing, forcing yourself to go out there and be vulnerable and just say, "Hey, this worked. This didn't work. I get to reflect." So, that daily pulse of reflecting really helps. Even now, doing this podcast, or doing anything that you start with, you have to be okay with not talking to a lot of people in the beginning.

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

You're not [inaudible: 00:10

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of the things that we get attention for are things that we could have gotten in trouble for at first. Right? I got called to the principal's office for using phones. I absolutely thought I was in trouble. Then, they put a sign on my door that was like, "Cell phones in use. Pilot program," because they were banned everywhere else.

So, I was lucky that I had a leader who saw, "This is unconventional, but keep doing it." Even my writing. I kind of stumbled into it. I didn't think I was a writer. I didn't think I had the skills to do that, but I've had these great opportunities.

The book that we wrote began as a project where... I had a boss, Tom Daccord, who was the founder and former CEO of EdTechTeacher. Just had a meeting with us and said, listen, "We need to be full of passion. We need to be driven to do things that are creative. So, 20% of your time can be devoted to any project that you want it to be devoted to." So, me and my friend, Tom Driscoll, who's the current CEO of EdTechTeacher, just decided we wanted to work on civics.

It didn't make sense. There was no market. There's not a real big market for people to do civics. I didn't think there was a big market to write a book on civic education. We found its place. We keep plugging along and it keeps... It's like The Little Engine That could. Right? It reaches people who needed it. I didn't know all the people out there that needed it. I was just passionate about it. I think you find your audience when you do it that way.

I guess the point that we started off with is this, being around people who see value in that passion, being around people who will fuel that fire and they'll protect the flame and not let it blow out when you're young and just getting started, is a gift you can give yourself.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. We talked to other people on this podcast around their career journey. Sometimes it ebbs and flows to being an educator jumping into edtech. Some people come back into the classroom. But what most of them say, as a trend, is, "I just followed my heart and my passion because that helped drive where I wanted to go. I don't have that educator mindset of being just a lifelong learner."

Shawn McCusker:

Right.

Elana Leoni:

"Wherever my deep passion was, it did lead me." Sometimes we have the opportunities and timeliness. Right? But, that is where that beautiful arc of a career journey in education is, and how you can be so many different things in education-

Shawn McCusker:

Right.

Elana Leoni:

... and affect different things.

Shawn McCusker:

My parents always shudder a little bit. I've given up tenure at very good school districts three times. Not because I didn't value it, but because I believe that life is an adventure. You have to say yes to new adventures. When you have an opportunity, I think it's perfectly acceptable to stay in one place and commit yourself to that place, fully. I always had this idea that I wanted to try new, big things. When those things present themselves, I have always pressured myself to say yes, to get those opportunities.

Right now, in my career, especially in writing, I'm trying very hard to provide those opportunities for younger teachers, as well. When I write articles, I try to incorporate other people who are younger in that field, have them write an article with me. The Illinois Digital Educators Association, IDEACon is probably the conference you're all familiar with. I'm on the governing board.

The first thing I raised, at the first meeting I was at, was, "How do we incorporate younger educators who are doing things?" There are a lot of people who get the spotlight. I've been lucky to have enough spotlight and be asked to do keynotes in my career. I want to give that away. It was important to me. I valued it. It made a difference in my life. I want to make a difference in their life by providing that platform. You can put yourself on the stage, you can help put others on the stage. I really want that to be something that marks this last third of my career.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. I'm glad you brought that point up. We have both been in this industry for a while. It just felt like, at a certain point, the connected educators that were forming their PLNs on social media, or becoming more and more connected, getting more and more opportunities because they're blogging, they have more books, they're keynoting, so they become more and more connected. There's this big chasm in-between for the unconnected and connected. I've seen that. I saw that shift at ISTE. I saw great new voices, but it took about three to five years where I saw very unconnected. I'm-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... glad there were people like you thinking about that, at panels and conferences.

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah. I try to focus on promoting my ideas, rather than just promoting myself generically. I think that there's a measure of promotion that we all need to do with the work that we're doing. I think that it's good to have those out there. I try to put, at the core of my story, a new idea or a new cause, or some focus, that way. For me, it helps me to find a balance. I'm an extrovert with introvert tendencies, if that makes sense. I have a limit, and when I get to that limit, I need to power down. It helps me in those cases to focus on the concepts and the work that we're doing, and lifting other people's work up when I'm in the public eye.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. So, let's get into edtech, this wonderful, crazy, up and down world of edtech. Used it in the classroom, at various levels of stakeholders. You've been at Digital Promise, that has divisions that evaluate the efficacy of the products. Now, train edtech across the nation. I mean, there's so much we could talk about, but what are you seeing that's getting you excited, personally, in edtech? Are there things, or types, or categories, of edtech that are resonating more with-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... the educators around the nation, now?

Shawn McCusker:

I feel like it took a long time. I can boil down what the need for edtech is for me, very simply now. I look at all the new tools that come out, all the new platforms that help us do things. I think that the best educational tools help students find their own voice and their own identity most effectively. If it's a tool for teachers, it should help that teacher to find out the truth of that student, where they are and where they need to go, and help them to get there, removing those barriers. So, transparency, that data dashboard, whatever.

When it comes to tools, the tools that inspire me most are creation tools that capture student learning in their own voice. That's this. I am a suburban, White guy, and I will always be a suburban, White guy. If I want my class to be diverse, I need to stop talking and allow others to speak the truth of their learning in their own voice. If I do that, and if I give that to these people... We have these categories of who people are, but those lines are blurred. If I can provide the student who is half Asian, half Black with the opportunity to tell the story about their historical journey and tell how they learned, in their own voice, then other people have a better understanding of that person, of the diversity of the world. I think that tools that let you create videos, create media, and share your story in ways that are consumable, put that out there.

You can Google some work that my students did, and it's going to show up. Right? I have a student who did a video, 14 years ago, that's still like the number one or number two video on Marxism if you go to YouTube. I'm so proud of that. That kid was an introvert who did not speak in class. Beautiful human who just didn't do busy, crazy environments and would never present in class. You put her on video, and instead of doing a Venn diagram, she did a 12-minute video on Adam Smith versus Karl Marx.

Giving them the space to do that, to go outside of that, and the leeway, and the tools, make that happen. That's what I want. So when it comes to edtech, in summary, it's the tools that allow students to find and share their voice and allow teachers to see the truth of who that kid is so that they can help them grow in their own unique way.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. You got some giant head nods for me, and I got some goosebumps going because I'm like, "Yes, yes." When we get a little bit scared in edtech about plagiarism and the introduction of AI, everything you're talking about comes directly from creation. AI becomes, "Okay." Maybe, they use it to prep, or become more efficient. But, if you're doing it right, it actually is a moot point. We shouldn't-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... be worried about that if we're talking about critical thinking-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... and creators, and then displaying their work in real life fashion.

Shawn McCusker:

One cool niche in the work that I do is that I have a niche for schools that tried a program. It went horribly off, or lost its way, and they will ask me to come in to work with them to reset and focus. I feel like oftentimes, the places that are struggling, you can only fix what you're willing to face. So, when fear of something like AI presents itself, you can run away and you can avoid it, but you will ultimately have to face it. So, helping people to run into those fears, to make sense of them, to find where they're comfortable and where they can do work, that's another big part of edtech.

The plagiarism issues just with the internet, there were schools who just said, "Just turn the internet off." If you remember that. Right? Like, "We're just not going to have it." Well, that's not really a viable solution, right now. I think the same is true of AI. One, I think we overhype AI, in a way. It is a big deal like people say. There's a lot of fear and energy there. You can either let that energy fester into something negative, or turn that energy into something that's going to grow kids and help. I think we need to understand it enough to make sense of the world as it's changing and really help people define their values with how they want to use it. We can't run away from it.

I know for a fact that there are people that will ask me to do work for them saying, "We're not there, yet. Please, don't mention this." I think that's fair in the beginning, but I think we have to get past it, ultimately.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. At ISTE, the conversations around AI were more diverse than I expected, which I-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... liked. I had conversations with educators that were scared. I had educators that were like, "Yes. We're scared, but let's approach it with the learner mindset." Then, I had educators going, "It's going to change the world, and I'm writing a book about it." Right? If we can just approach it with curiosity and not have that gut-wrenching reaction of, "I'm going to ban it-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... like with ChatGPT being banned. Then, "Okay. We're not banning it."

Shawn McCusker:

And then, how do you do that? Because every tool I know of is adding it. It's in Google. All of the platforms that I work with with schools have some form of AI that's slowly growing within them. I think that that's a trend that we're not empowered to stop. So, let's prepare them for the realities of what's happening. It's like this, I don't want it to rain on my kids when they go to the bus stop, but I provide them with what to do if it does. That's kind of what we need to do with these things. AI is an incredibly powerful tool. At some point, it's going to do some stuff that's gross, or not good. So, let's help them understand like, "If that happens, what do you do?"

A good example of that. Do you remember in the early days of one-to-one programs, people were like, "Well, what if my kid goes to something they shouldn't see?" I'm like, "Well, let's talk about it. What do you do if you see something you don't see?" I always told the kids, "Close your device immediately. Come and talk to me. Tell me what happened so that when the technology says, 'This site was accessed,' you told me. We addressed it. I can talk to your parents. Everyone can see what's going on and be transparent, and we're good."

I think that a similar thing works for AI. "When AI happens, if something doesn't feel comfortable or you are not sure, let's have a conversation about it." Let's bring the parties in. Let's be transparent. Let's not try to hide it, or be afraid.

Cultures of fear hide things. Cultures that are facing those fears bring them to the surface and they start creating solutions. So, in my edtech experience, you've got to be that. You've got to be raising the challenges to the surface so that at least you've talked about them, Then, the solutions will present themselves.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. You're making me reminisce a little bit because back in my early Edutopia days, I got to know Vicki Davis, that's an educator. We'll put her link in the show notes. But Vicki Davis, the tech-savvy educator, back in the day, she was really focused on digital citizenship. Instead of being scared, she said, "Well, gosh. How can I use this as a benefit?" What she ended up doing is not only becoming digital citizenship centered, and having all the tools and really embracing it, she made it into a mentorship program with older kids. They got badges for being digital, and they taught little kids. It was this really cool thing that when kids are teaching other kids, it becomes part of the culture.

Shawn McCusker:

Yup.

Elana Leoni:

It's just a way to work within the fear and make it awesome.

Shawn McCusker:

Teach the crisis. Right? Things present crisis, teach the crisis. That's always the better solution. I'm a social studies teacher, teaching the crisis is in my blood. Anybody who's listening as a social studies teacher, how many times have you gone to school, watched the news, thrown all your lessons away, and lived in a crisis for a day?

Vicki Davis is a perfect example of that. The number of times that I brought a resource that she shared on social media to school, to help ease the fears of others, I probably couldn't count that.

Elana Leoni:

technology around [inaudible: 00:28:01

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

We got to not be the sage on the stage. We're shifting.

Shawn McCusker:

I can remember the moment that I realized that. I was well-known as a teacher, in my schools, for putting on a show. I did backflips. I taught on rollerblades. I tried to pour positive energy in. I wanted to own the dinner table. The way that I was doing that is, I loved to tell a story. I can tell a good story. I realized, at some point, that I loved it so much that you have to give what you love away.

I have to put them in a position where they're telling the story. I have to stop talking and let them enjoy the love of storytelling that otherwise steals all the air from the room. When I made that shift, that went from me feeling like I was a good teacher to feeling like I was serving people well. I was serving people in a way that was changing people's lives, and I love that energy. It meant I had to step back and do less, which is counterintuitive. I feel like it's something that we, as teachers, need to be able to do.

Elana Leoni:

And, doing less is actually more difficult.

Shawn McCusker:

Oh, yes.

Both:

[inaudible: 00:29:15

Shawn McCusker:

... of knowledge. Right? Thirty years into teaching, try to be a teacher who's been teaching for 30 years, sitting in a room with five or six teachers who've been teaching for less than five years, silence yourself, and listen to what they're saying. They have perspective that you need, that will connect you to a generation of kids that you won't be able to access unless you trust in the fact that they have something to offer you. I think that's true for any classroom, too. Any teacher who goes into a class and doesn't feel like they have something to learn from the 30 15-year-olds that they're working with, you're not in the right head space. You need to try and get there.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. Okay. Let's drill into a little bit more edtech. We got some tools, right now, in the world of edtech. Generally, you have not one tool that does one thing. You might have 20 tools that do similar things.

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

For someone who teaches and recommends tech to other educators, helps different school districts implement tech, on the Digital Promise side you evaluated the efficacy of the edtech, or the division-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... Digital Promise, how do you begin to pick? I got two, maybe three, finalists. Even just thinking about school communication in general.

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

Like hundreds of-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

Right? But, what are the top three to five things that you look at that this product must have-

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah. One, I want a product that allows for a student to present what they learn in creative ways. If they can't operate in text and written word, then does it allow them to share an audio video like multiple platforms for creation, or sharing? Right? To capture their voice. That's really big for me.

Two, I want tools that are going to provide teachers with the real time data to know what's going on behind the scenes. I love the tool Formative, right now. I cooperate with them quite a bit. When that tool first came out, it was just a quizzing tool. Now, it has a backend of data that you can share with different groups. Whoever needs to have it, can have it.

There's one school I was working with. They found a way to take all of their Formative assessments that their students were doing and make their counselors and special education teachers have full access to it. So, when a student with learning difficulties goes down to their special education teacher, they can look across all their classes and see, "Where are the learning objectives where they're most challenged?," without having to have a meeting with the teachers, without having that round table where all the teachers are like, "Well, here's what I'm seeing, right now." We have these measurable ways. So, I think a good tool clears away all the smoke and mirrors, and gets down to brass tacks. "What's the skill they need. What's in the way of getting it? And, simplifies that process?" If we do that, it makes the world of differentiation real because we know exactly where we're trying to aim.

Differentiation was something that I was known for in the classroom. I always worked in co-taught special ed, full inclusion classes, teaching social studies. It's hard to make all of the different opportunities and provide all of the different accommodations. So, I try to make universal accommodations, but also use tools that would make it very clear to me who needed what, and where I should put my work.

You only have so much time. Anybody who doesn't understand our dysfunctional relationship, in education, with time, really doesn't get us at all. Right? We could do anything you want, if we had enough time. I think Newsela is another one that'll show you exactly where kids are struggling with reading.

There's another tool that's kind of obscure. Nobody really knows about it. It's called Kialo. Kialo is a conversation tool for civics. It structures conversations to make sure that kids can share concepts and ideas, and they can communicate with each other in a controlled, safe way that doesn't make them feel like they're being attacked. It creates civil discourse. It just simplifies that process and levels the playing field for shy kids and kids with learning disabilities.

I think that creating that equity is another piece that I want. So share their voices, give teachers what they need to really hyper-focus on what the students need, and create an environment of equity where people can stand as equals, despite where they might be starting in their learning process.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. I like how, for that second point, you broadened it to say, "It's not only for educators to have that insight, but administrators can look at a real-time view of where their kids as a whole are struggling."

Shawn McCusker:

Yup.

Elana Leoni:

Maybe, it's an opportunity to engage parents as learning partners, as well. Not in a, "I got you. This person's struggling mode," but really in an analytical, "Hey, let's get ahead of this."

Shawn McCusker:

Ultimately, the transparency is so good for us. It can be hard because you have to face things that we see. When you have a parent who's aware of what's going on at any moment, when you have that data available to people, it makes it a lot easier for us to have a conversation and say, "What we really need to do is face this challenge." That's really where educational technology delivered on its promises.

Elana Leoni:

be free. Have gone [inaudible: 00:34:47

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... pare down the technology?" How do you, maybe, give some advice to some edtech vendors on, "How can they navigate this coming school year?" Is there any tips or tricks, or advice, or... I know that's a broad question, but you have such great knowledge that you can take it wherever you want to-

Shawn McCusker:

Oh, yeah.

Elana Leoni:

... like, "Hey, make sure you're all accessible." I don't care what advice you give them.

Shawn McCusker:

Right. Well, when you go to ISTE and you walk through their vendor room, there's so many things that are niche. Like, "This is this product. It's probably a great product, but it's not a need that I'm trying to address." So, you kind of walk past it. I always go through looking for some of the tools that could really make an impact. I think it's always hard for people who are creating tools to market them, and understand what will make them readily accessible to schools.

There's two that I really liked at ISTE. I want to see them succeed. One of them is zSpace. zSpace is VR technology with no headset. You just look at the computer, and it tracks your eyes. It creates a 3D representation. I think that as soon as you create a device that can do that, and you can make it economical, you could put VR into every classroom in that way.

I love AR, VR technology. A lot of times, when you talk about it, a vendor comes and tries to sell you $30,000 worth of a lab. I think the tools we use every day, that are sitting in the classroom, are the ones that are really going to impact kids. So, I think zSpace is one of those possibilities that could be really important. What's hard is just trying to get them to see that a really, really expensive single unit isn't going to fly. "How do I put one of those everywhere, or somewhere else?" I think that if we want quality technology in our classrooms, we have to work with those vendors to talk about what would make it viable. Right?

Elana Leoni:

Mm-hmm.

Shawn McCusker:

That's hard because it's expensive when new technology comes out. Right?

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. I thought a lot of that. Then, that was really well put. I saw exciting technology. I did stop by zSpace, and they blew my mind.

Shawn McCusker:

Yeah. Right?

Elana Leoni:

Hanging out at the Meta booth, and played around with the Oculus headset, Meta Quest. I always go into logistics of, "How do we deploy this, and how do we have equal access? Are we at that point?" Technology aside, has been advancing, we were having that conversation 10 years ago at ISTE. It's wild.

Shawn McCusker:

Always. Right?

Elana Leoni:

Yeah.

Shawn McCusker:

So, a good example. That's the Apple Vision Pro, their new headset.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah.

Shawn McCusker:

It's $3,500. Very few schools can scale that up. You might have one of them as a demo piece of technology. It's not really viable in large scale, right now. But over time, as that technology develops and becomes cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, I could absolutely see that transforming things. Imagine a headset, that for a student who can't process text is going to provide them with a heads-up display of supports for reading, visualization, a student who has hearing difficulties. I'm slowly losing my hearing, and I think about this all the time. For students in the class who've had this problem, if you could have a heads-up display that just automatically put subtitles on their day, imagine the ability for you to fit in and just be part of what's going on, and not have to have something special, or odd, following you around, or some different experience that sets you apart.

I really think that the Apple Vision Pro is something that can be very powerful when it scales to a point where it's viable for the classroom, for students, for the average person doing their job. I really think that that's going to be part of the world of work, VR headsets.

I saw an example of a nuclear power plant that used VR headsets to annotate all of their systems in the nuclear power point. I was blown away. It'll tell you when any single part was changed in the entire building, just by walking through and clicking on it. That's crazy.

There's another one called LEC Tech. They build kits that help kids build scooters and skateboards that are motorized. You have to do all the wiring and all the building. I think that's so super cool. How do you incorporate that in a viable way so that 35 kids in a class get that experience? Or, every kid at that school is going to get that experience? I hope they find it out because I saw the excitement of educators standing by that booth, building. Tell a kid you're going to build them a skateboard. Man, that kid's in. They're going to learn about electricity and everything else. Voltage, whatever you need. So, that's the kind of stuff I look for and kind of dream of becoming ubiquitous in our schools.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. Well, awesome. Thank you so much for your time around edtech. I'm sure this is the beginning of many conversations around edtech because it is ebbing and flowing all of the time. Our educator needs and our school needs are changing alongside it, too. So, I appreciate your thoughts, especially because you have this unique vantage point of, "Gosh, does this work?" "No. I trained this in schools." "No. I've been in school." So, I appreciate you so much.

Thanks everyone for listening to this week's episode. If you love what you heard, if you are intrigued about learning more, you can get Shawn's book. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. Or, if you'd like to get in touch with Shawn, Shawn is available on social media at Shawn, S-H-W-N, McCusker, M-C-C-U-S-K-E-R, on Twitter and all of the socials. We'll put his email and everything else for his contact information in the show notes. The show notes this time are located at leoniconsultinggroup.com\56, 56. So go there, listen to the audio. You can get the transcript. You can figure out ways to buy the book, dive deeper into the subject matter. I really hope that this opened your eyes on what civics is and what it can be, and how it can translate to other disciplines and subjects. It was so fascinating for me. I am still reeling from this conversation. I hope you continue the conversation with him, and reach out to us if it's changed your practice.

We will see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care, everyone.