Clint Stephens, SEDC's trainer-extraordinaire, join UEN's Homeroom to discuss how technology has helped rural teachers improve student learning.
Clint Stephens, SEDC's trainer-extraordinaire, join UEN's Homeroom to discuss how technology has helped rural teachers improve student learning. We talk about the difference when a teacher is the Science department for the school, what technology tools are helping rural teachers, and how the regional service centers are impacting education in rural Utah.
Hi, I'm Dani Sloan.
And I'm Jared Covili. And we're your homeroom teachers.
Class is in session.
[THEME MUSIC]
All right, this episode, we are going to focus on teaching in rural Utah.
We're excited to welcome Clint Stephens as our guest today. Clint has been working closely with teachers in Southwest Utah for over 12 years to enable and engage them to become masters of classroom technology, or at worst help them to overcome their tech phobia. From Dreamweaver and Kidspiration in 2006 to cloud apps and anytime, anywhere collaboration today, Clint is a go-to guy.
Before Clint became an ed tech specialist, he was a secondary teacher of science for over 12 years, at varied places such as Escalante, St. George, and a Salt Lake charter school. He earned his Bachelor of Science at SUU, and his master in science education from Montana State University. He was awarded the Utah Middle School Science Teacher of the Year by his peers, and also won several technology innovation grants and awards, and has been passionate about integrating technology into his instruction for his entire career. We are pleased to welcome to "UEN Homeroom," Clint Stephens.
Thank you, Jared. I appreciate that.
All right, Clint, we have kind of a baptism by fire we like to do here with some really hard-hitting questions. So are you ready?
I am ready.
OK, here we go.
What is your favorite kind of ice cream?
Ooh, that one's tough. Probably cookies and cream.
OK, we told you they were difficult. Cookies and cream.
Everybody likes Oreo.
[DANI CHUCKLES]
I know. Next up--
What is your favorite Transformer?
My favorite Transformer?
[JARED CHUCKLES]
Obviously.
I'm going to show my age here. I only know, like, Optimus Prime.
Only know the Prime?
I don't know any of them.
Not Bumblebee, huh? All right. We see how you lean. And last but not least--
What is your favorite dinosaur?
Ooh, my favorite dinosaur-- probably the spitting one from Jurassic Park.
The spitting one.
[BOTH HOSTS CHUCKLE]
Any reason there?
I like that one.
Anything that spits on Newman can't be all bad, right?
That's right. (IMITATING JERRY SEINFELD) Newman!
[JARED CHUCKLES]
All right, thanks for playing. Well, Clint, today we're talking about technology in rural Utah, and kind of teaching in rural Utah, and how technology kind of helps level the playing field a little bit. Now, you've had a pretty varied career. You've worked in both an urban school as well as many different stops along the way. And teaching in rural school districts. Maybe just share with our audience just a little bit about some of the different places that you've been. And maybe just describe a little bit about what you're currently doing for our audience.
OK, so like I said, I was a science teacher. I was the entire science department at Escalante High School for 10 years. And that was about 14 years ago. Taught everything from seventh and eighth grade integrated science, biology, chemistry, physics, and taught most of those every day. So having six different preps was a challenge. That's one of the issues that does face real teachers. They have so many hats to wear and so many things to teach that it sometimes can be a certain challenge with that.
I've been back here in rural schools working-- I was in Garfield District as a teacher. I've now worked with Garfield, and Beaver, and Kane, and Iron and Washington, and the north counties down here, working with teachers in their schools. I'm on the road quite a bit. A couple of years ago I put over 17,000 miles on my work car just traveling for work and things like that.
But just being there to help teachers, even with a quick-- you know, they send me a little email that doesn't matter what's little things or big things. And it's just a joy to be of use, and to be helpful to people, and help them make their work lives easier. And we always focus on what's best for the students. And so we usually try to say yes when we can when requests come in.
Now, a question that I would ask-- I mean, a lot of people come to Dani and me. And we're technology trainers. And you kind of have a similar position. But our jobs are dramatically different. How would you say it's different being a technology trainer working with rural teachers as opposed to like how Danny and I probably are working more with urban school teachers?
We don't usually have a lot of teachers in set courses. It's a lot of after-school kind of quick things where we can get in and help where we can, and show-- show a new tool, and help teachers with some new things.
So a lot of times following up is difficult. And that's something that I try to work on all the time, to make sure that teachers feel comfortable and can have somewhere to go if they have questions or problems after.
We are doing more and more courses-- thanks to you guys sharing your ed tech endorsement-- courses in some of the Canvas courses that you guys have. And then we're getting more and more teachers involved with that to provide some more in-depth, long-term, ongoing professional development instead of those hour-long quick hit kind of things that aren't always super successful.
Maybe just the only difference might be just traveling. I just have to-- I drove for 4 and 1/2 hours to do an hour and a half long training in Delta this week-- or last week. It's Monday. I forget. That was last week. But you know, just that time on the road, it can be a challenge.
Thanks, Clint. Is there a specific strategy or tool that's tech-powered that you have seen that's kind of changed the way that your teachers in rural schools have been able to teach?
There's a couple. And they're all kind of due to UEN. We really couldn't run school without you guys. IVC and Canvas-- IVC is the Interactive Video Conferencing system that we have in place in many of our schools. And that's a way that we have in the past been able to offer more than just the basics as far as universities broadcasting courses to kids out in the rural schools, [INAUDIBLE] way for them to take language classes like Chinese or things like that that wouldn't be able to be offered in a rural school.
But we're also using that system to bridge classes within districts. Actually at Escalante High School they had a math teacher leave. And they weren't in a position-- they couldn't really find anyone to fill that position well enough. So they ramped up the IVC, and got Canvas working for a teacher at another high school, a really good teacher in Bryce Valley. And so she's going to teach her kids and teach the kids at Escalante at the same time using that conferencing system and using Canvas to make assignments and to collect work and things like that.
Isn't that a mind-blowing?
[INAUDIBLE]
I mean, I hate to interrupt you there, Clint.
[INAUDIBLE] without the network that UEN provides.
Isn't that just amazing to think, that a school who just really is stuck still has options.
Yeah. Yeah, and it happens with Lake Powell School. Lake Powell School is a tiny, tiny school. There's about 12 students. And it's a K through 12, four-building whole school. But there's only about 12 kids. There is one person out there who is the principal and the teacher. And the secretary is the secretary, and the bus driver, and the cook.
But they're getting courses broadcast to them through the district and through universities and things like that to provide those opportunities where you just can't get anybody down there. It's a school that's in Bullfrog, Utah. It is just a tiny, tiny spot up there. They're in our region. And when we go out to work with them, it's a five-hour drive and an overnight trip. But we love doing it.
That's really cool to hear. It's cool to hear the students all across the state of Utah are getting the same access to education no matter where they're living.
Now you mentioned Canvas. Clint. Tell us a little bit about how it's impacting your students in your region.
We're slowly adopting it. More and more teachers are starting to use it. One of the biggest kind of cool things and something that's interesting that's going on down here is that we've got-- three of our smallest districts, Kane, Garfield, and Beaver, are all one-to-one with Chromebooks. So every student has a device that they can have with them 24/7. And so with that access, our regional service center can help integrate some Wi-Fi on buses so kids have access when they're on the activity bus going to and from games or things like that, where normally it would just be, educationally, dead time. Kids can be working on their stuff in Canvas with their Chromebook and Wi-Fi on the bus.
And then we've also worked out, within our region, kind of a secret Chromebook wireless network that's the same authentication within all of the different school districts. So kids can go, when they're just hitting in the gym during the JV game, waiting for varsity, or vice versa, they can be working on schoolwork and doing things.
But normally, if Escalante ever went to state, and we'd send half of our-- you know, half the students would be on the team. We couldn't really run the school. But now, with Canvas, it makes that educational-- it stretches out that educational time. And we can actually get something done during athletics.
You know, that's amazing to think about here. Because a lot of times we think about the rural districts and the smaller districts as kind of having less resources and less availability for things like that. But what I'm hearing you say is that, in some ways, there are some advantages because you have a little bit more flexibility to try some things.
Yeah.
Maybe it's out of necessity--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
--small enough to where they can afford using some textbook money or other things that they can provide a device for every kid. Where in a lot of bigger districts, urban areas, they just can't afford it.
Yeah, that's really cool to hear the innovative ways that you guys are using technology to really stretch the educational time in your different school districts.
Well, and you think about, like you mentioned, Clint, the amount of instructional time that could be lost during activity time like athletics, or drama, or band, or some of these things that, when you have to travel hundreds of miles, is lost.
Yep. I lived through it.
[CHUCKLES]
I was teaching them without Canvas and without-- we had the IVC classes at that time. And I was a coach. So I was on the bus with them. And so I couldn't teach if we were gone for things, and students couldn't learn.
And now you could be on the bus getting your grading done.
I know.
Life-changing.
So Clint, one of the questions that I always have-- you mentioned earlier how you kind of talked about your current position, and a lot of what you do is a little bit more one-on-one time with teachers, or you working with small groups. Tell me a little bit about the role that relationships play and your kind of interactions with the teachers. It seems like it's really important for you to have those real positive relationships with the teachers so they trust you to come into their classrooms. Because a lot of the times, like I say, you're working with them more individually than I do.
Right. And it takes time to build those relationships. Yeah, it is really important to get to know those people. I have an issue. I'm really good with faces, but I'm terrible with names. And I need to work on it more. And when I see people outside of the place where I'm supposed to see them, like when I see them at Walmart here instead of at their school, you know, a county or two away, I recognize them but I can't put a place to them. I'm like, ah. I just have to kind of struggle a little bit and--
(FACETIOUSLY) That never happens to any of the rest of us, Clint. I don't know--
Yeah, that never happens to you. And on the reverse of that, we have teachers that email me and say, hey, can you come and work with my fourth-period class on Tuesday. And I'm like, sure, tell me what school you're at and what time fourth period is.
[CHUCKLES]
[INAUDIBLE]
But I just think that's something that's such a difference when you're working in those rural communities, is that you really are part of that community when you go out there. I mean, like you're saying, they really feel like you're part of them, even though they only see you sporadically. But still, once you're in there and you go and spend your time and work with them kind of on that one-on-one basis, that just changes that relationship I think.
Yeah, it takes time to do that. But I go out and go to every school that we have every year as best I can, talk with the principals, try to figure out a technology integration training plan for that school for the year, and schedule things out. And then, like you say, we're back working with those teachers once, hopefully twice or three times a year. And then time to build those relationships and be that support when it doesn't work like it did for Clint during the training. That's a big thing.
So Clint, we know that for the past year you've been working with administration down in Washington County School District, working with leadership and blended and digital learning. Tell us a little bit about what that's been like to work with school principals, and kind of helping them see the vision of using technology within their schools.
Hugely valuable. We need to get all of our administrators through that program. Because that's really a population and schools that are underserved. We go in and work with students all the time, work with teachers constantly. But when it comes to the administrators, normally they invite me to come and then they say, hey, Clint's here, and then he takes off. We don't really have any curriculum or any offerings for-- traditionally, or in the past we haven't-- for this blended leadership and blended and digital learning. It takes principals through what blended learning is, what it looks like, its effects on the classroom. If you're doing it right, it doesn't look like a traditional classroom.
And then ways to-- giving those principals opportunities to have conversations with their stakeholders, and build a roll-out plan that works for them. It's just been a really great process to be able to work closely with those administrators and give them those tools and background knowledge to be good leaders in their schools in this regard.
Yeah, I know it's something that we're really excited to be part of as well. You know, it's something that we're not just ruling out in your region. But we've been working with teachers and principals across the state of Utah. Something that we're really excited to see growing as it's kind of rolled out for the first time last year. And it's only going to get bigger this year.
So Clint, maybe one final question-- we mentioned that you're from a regional service center. But I don't know if a lot of teachers out there know what the regional service centers do. Some of them have heard the acronyms-- SECD, SESC, Qs, but maybe they don't totally know what those service centers do. Can you maybe just give us a sense of what your regional service center does, and maybe the role and the impact that you feel like you're having on the teachers in your part of the state?
Good question, Jared. It's something we battle with constantly. We show up at schools, and they're like, you're with who and what? What is SEDC? We're kind of in a weird gray area that no one-- not a lot of people know about. I won't say no one, but not a lot of people. Thankfully our superintendents know what we do.
That's important.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
--and went to bat for us to keep us around a few years ago.
So what we do is we work hard to make sure that rural teachers have access to-- and the knowledge to the same tools and resources that other teachers do. We have specialists here for districts that have, like, maybe five people in their district offices, and cannot afford to have their own technology trainer, and can't afford to have a media specialist, and an autism specialist, and a network engineer, and a systems specialist. So we work closely-- a lot of the stuff we do is technology-based. So we work really closely with each district's technology director.
And we try to provide some economies of scale. So when we do purchases, Garfield can't really get great prices on things. But when we bring in Iron and Washington, then suddenly we have a lot more buying power. We can get better prices on apps, and resources, and hardware, and things like that our individual rural districts couldn't get by themselves.
We ensure the network is running, and make sure that everyone has the needed capacity and bandwidth. [INAUDIBLE] but we're kind of satellite UEN employees, at least Scott, our systems engineer, and I. We're dealing with the professional development. And so we keep in touch with people at the state, with you guys, so that we know the latest and greatest in what's going on, and we can share that out with out teachers.
But at the end, we always try to answer the question, what's best for the students? Because sometimes politics and personal things can get in the way of student achievement and success. So we really do try to focus everything that we do to help the students with their education.
Thanks, Clint. I think that's a really great explanation for the regional service centers that a lot of teachers will be glad to know what they are finally.
[CHUCKLES]
Yeah, and Clint--
And we're free.
[CHUCKLES]
You know, they pay us a small little membership fee. But then everything else we do, training, or network work, or whatever we do with each district that we work with is free to them. So it's a good deal.
That's the best part.
I think, as we kind of wrap up this episode, Clint, one of the best things that we've kind of seen through this last few minutes that we've been talking is technology is really helping us to bring our students together, whether it's the technology that the kids can use to do their homework, but it's also our state's been really proactive about finding ways that we can branch out and provide resources for the kids.
Absolutely.
Whether it's your service center and the things that you do, or the tools that we're providing for the schools. It's just really neat to see how the playing field is more level now than I think it's been a long time. I agree with that.
And we all cooperate, which is amazing. You talk to people from other states, and they A, don't know or don't have service centers, and B, each district is struggling and fighting with each other for resources. But everyone in this state is just amazing to collaborative and work together for the benefit of education. It's fun.
Awesome. Thank you, Clint. As always, it is lovely speaking with you.
Thanks, Clint. Appreciate your time.
This is lovely. Thank you, Jared. Thank you, Dani. Appreciate you guys.
All right, bye bye.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So Dani, do you want to give our audience a tech tip today?
I mean, do we have to?
Well, I mean, this is a podcast kind of about technology.
I'm tired. Do you have a tech tip for today.
I mean, I guess if I have to, I can come up with one.
I mean--
All right, well, I think Clint is going to help us with our final segment of the day.
I think he is too.
Now normally, Clint, this is where Dani and I share our lazy teachers tech tip. But we've heard that you may just have a tech tip for that lazy teacher out there.
I hope I'm not feeling one from you. But I just, today, have been researching and looking for stuff for this episode. I dug into the new BYU independent study courses that have all been added in to Canvas through the Canvas Commons. And so if you're not familiar with those, they used to be in a different learning management system, but they're now all being moved over into Canvas.
But if you just go down to the Canvas Commons, and if your district has it installed, we've got it in for all of our districts. If it's not, ask your Canvas administrator to get this going for you. But right now, there's almost 80 courses-- and I think there's plans to add more-- on chemistry, and biology, and all kinds of fitness courses, and language courses, Japanese, and Chinese, and things like that. And they're all kind of independent study sort of courses.
And so huge time-saver for teachers. If you're just getting started with Canvas or need resources, you can go in and pull from those, and have a course built for you instantly that you can then customize and modify to your heart's content.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Well, that wraps up our second episode of "UEN Homeroom." What do you think of our interview with Clint, Dani?
You know, it's always great to hear from Clint, but it was especially great to have him on the show today.
So Dani, do you have any teases for our listening audience? What's coming up next?
Well, listening audience, I think you'll be excited to know that we are going to be chatting about maker spaces in our very near future.
Put it on your calendars.
All right, thanks for joining us in the homeroom. Get out of my class.
[THEME MUSIC]