UEN Homeroom is excited to talk with Rick Gaisford, Educational Technology Specialist for the Utah State Board of Education. Rick discusses the changes he's seen in classroom technology over his 30+ years in education and the crew shares their thoughts about the Digital Teaching and Learning Grant, the impact technology has made for schools, and more.
UEN Homeroom is excited to talk with Rick Gaisford, Educational Technology Specialist for the Utah State Board of Education. Rick discusses the changes he's seen in classroom technology over his 30+ years in education and the crew shares their thoughts about the Digital Teaching and Learning Grant, the impact technology has made for schools, and more.
All right, Jared, I heard the bell. But guess what? This is a different Jared. We have a substitute Jared today. How do you feel about being the substitute teacher in the homeroom?
Well, you know, I've done it before. I'm not necessarily OK with being a substitute, but I am happy to be here.
[LAUGHS]
Subs never get treated well, but I was treated well the last time, so I'm happy to be here.
Well, I hope we can do that for you. All right, let's get started.
[INTRO MUSIC]
All right, today, our topic with our substitute Jared-- still Jared, different Jared, we're going to be talking about the changing face of technology for Utah schools. Now, Jared, since you are a guest and you've been on the show before, do you want to tell us just a little bit about you really quickly?
Sure. You know, I started teaching almost 20 years ago, and I have a social studies composite major from The University of Utah, and I taught, basically, grades 7 through 12 in Granite and Davis District.
Awesome. OK, so I have a question for you. What did EdTech look like for you in your first years of teaching?
Well, there wasn't much EdTech, I can tell you that. Like, when I first started, I didn't have a projector in the room. There was like maybe one set of, like, a computer lab in the whole school, like only one. I had one of those transparency overhead projectors.
Oh, my gosh, you taught with an overhead projector.
Yeah, and it wasn't that long ago.
I didn't think you guys were still around.
[INAUDIBLE], we used them. You know, you get a lot of training on things. That's kind of where things started. and then definitely over the last 10 years, there was a big shift.
Yeah. So that's about as long as I've been teaching is about 10 years. So my first year teaching, I had an eMINTS classroom. So I was going through the eMINTS program. So we had one computer for every two kiddos in my class. And then my third year I started doing the iSchool initiative. So we were one to one with iPads. And so I don't know what a chalkboard and a transparency thing-- I don't know how that would be to teach. I think it would be crazy.
Well, you know, it's what we had back then. And now, technology can really elevate what you're doing in the classroom. And there's just so many opportunities with it.
Absolutely. So our guest today has actually helped to get all of the things that we're talking about here into classrooms in Utah. His name is Rick Gaisford. So Rick has had 33 years in education and has been involved with EdTech for 29 years at the classroom, school, district, and state levels. Rick's been an elementary school teacher, a school tech specialist, a district specialist and trainer, a state internet specialist, and a state educational technology specialist.
His current responsibilities are to work with districts on schools on how to effectively integrate technology and resources into teaching and learning. Rick helps to oversee the digital teaching and learning program, DTL, and we're going to talk about that, and that went through the state legislature in 2016 and is still happening. This legislation provided $45 million to implement a comprehensive program to effectively bring tech into all classrooms in Utah. Welcome, Rick.
Well, thank you. And it is a pleasure to be with both of you.
Well, we're so glad to have you here today. We are going to start with the most stressful part of our podcast, for the guests anyway.
I can hardly wait.
You are going to have to answer three questions from our live student studio audience. Do you feel prepared for that task?
I don't feel prepared, but I'll do it nonetheless.
[LAUGHS]
If you're good in front of the state legislature, you'll be OK with the kids.
Yeah, I agree with Jared. I think you're going to be fine. And if they make you cry, I'm sorry. [LAUGHS] OK, our first question--
What is your favorite color?
Favorite color, green.
Any reason why? The color of money? That's why you got in education?
Definitely not for the color of money, but I do like to go to places that are very green.
Yeah, fair enough.
OK, question number two--
What is your favorite dinosaur?
Triceratops.
OK.
That was my favorite, too. Why do you like Triceratops?
I don't know. For somewhere, back from when I was probably in elementary school, I thought the triceratops was cool. And I think I read a book about something, some kind of fiction book, and it had a triceratops in it. Don't ask. It's just-- that's why.
Just respect the answer.
The fact that I came up with a dinosaur is pretty good.
Rick is patting himself on the back right now. All right question, number three--
What is your favorite meal?
Now that's much harder. It depends on the day, but generally, it would be Italian, either pizza or probably lasagna, or a combination of both is always nice.
Pizza and lasagna. I like cold pizza and cold lasagna. Next-day leftovers are better than the original. I'm sticking to it.
And the flavors are better.
Right?
So do you like the wood-fired pizzas, are those the ones you--
Yes, those are my favorites by far.
All right.
OK, so now that we have the hard questions--
Well, I think I might survive then.
[LAUGHTER]
OK, we're going to get into DTL, but first, I want you to tell us a little bit more about how you got into education and what led you into being kind of the EdTech guru for the state of Utah.
Do we have that much time?
[LAUGHTER]
You can give us the abbreviated version.
As you mentioned in my bio, this is year number 33.
My goodness.
There is a little bit there is a little bit of history here. Actually, I got into education because I really didn't want to go into business. And you might find this humorous, but I really thought that computer science and all of that was quite boring.
[LAUGHS]
And so education seemed to be a good way to go. And so I got a degree here from the University of Utah in Elementary Education. I didn't like older kids that well, so I figured I'd better be best with kids that I thought I might be able to control.
[LAUGHS] And how did that go?
Actually, that part went quite well. Really, I went into education, and I really wanted to teach fifth grade, and that's where I was hired, as a fifth-grade teacher at Pleasant Green Elementary in Magna, Utah in Granite School District and really thought that that's what I would do for 33 years, and that's not been the case.
Technology was not necessarily on my radar. Although, when I was first hired at the school, the principal at the time did happen to show me the computer lab she was very proud of. They had a computer lab. I was somewhat intrigued by the mishmash of machines that I saw because they were all Atari 800s, with televisions and cassette tape drives. And I thought, well, that's interesting. I'm not going to take my kids here. It's far more complicated than I want to get into.
So getting into technology, as you can, was pretty much not on my radar. Although, there were some things about-- in the larger trauma of technology that I was intrigued with, and that was video. Maybe that's because when I was a student, I always liked it when the teacher showed a 16-millimeter movie. And I actually had the opportunity when I was in my teens and that to be in a production of one of those 16-millimeter movies that the state used to be. And so I was always intrigued with movies and that.
But when I started teaching, video was still fairly young. And I thought, you know, it's so much easier to be able to show kids things than to just be able to talk about them. And so that's where I really got my start in technology was with video. And early on, I had gone to a workshop actually sponsored by UEN called the National Teacher Training Institute, which was sponsored by WNET and was so taken with how they were using video and the strategies to use video that I applied to become a presenter for that. And then, I started to do that. As we get into more technology and that-- actually, our school applied for a grant because there was a new video technology out called-- you might chuckle [INAUDIBLE] laser video disk, and--
I am giggling. That is funny. And I was really into laser video disk. Long before I was known for being in EdTech, I was known for what I could do with laser video disk, and presented at a number of workshops, and had done some things nationally with that. And I loved the technology. I loved how it made kids much more interactive and discussion levels that we could have as a class. I guess I could best illustrate that, that I was not one that-- my background is more, like Jared, was more towards social studies.
And so when I had to teach science to my fifth graders, that was not my favorite thing to do, but that was the product that we had-- the software or the laser video program that we had bought was a science program. And I went from being the social studies teacher to the science teacher, and science became my favorite subject to teach. And where the students used to say, oh, Mr. Gaisford, not science. We'll do anything-- they would do anything for me to do science because it was usually an interactive conversation followed by some activities and that. So early introduction into that now.
Now as far as-- we get into computers and that, that was sort of by accident that I probably got more into computers and that only because we had a new computer that it showed up in the office of my school. And I asked the principal, well, what's that there for? I saw it there in the morning when I came in. And she goes, I don't know, but you're gonna go find out. And I said, well, why me? And she goes, oh, because you asked.
Lucky you.
And so that started a new journey. And that new journey then included learning about-- that program, it was a school-based management product. And it was interesting, but I wasn't particularly excited about it. But along the way, I'd also learned about a program at that time called HyperCard and the ability to create a multimedia presentation. That intrigued me. So now, instead of just me creating-- me doing things, the kids could actually create and be able to do and create their own presentations. And to me, that's a way of increasing learning and retention. So I got really into that. And then, of course we graduated to a program called HyperStudio and that.
So then, I moved onto-- I was enjoying what I was doing with technology at the school level, more as a school technology specialist before I was a school technology specialist. But that's really what I was doing. So then, I moved into-- I applied for a position at the district office to be, basically, a district technology specialist.
At that time, they called us teacher leaders. And I was hired a long time ago to be a teacher leader, mostly because of my background with doing some things with computers, obviously, with multimedia production, and also with the laser video and being able to share that because that technology was still expanding in the district at that time.
All of this said is that, at this time, there was not an internet as we know it today in schools. We were invited or had heard about a training that was going to be on the internet. We didn't know much about it in Granite District. And well, we started to do a little research. We thought, well, this ought to be interesting. So we took a one-week summer workshop called The Internet Academy--
Oh, my gosh.
--and at the Internet Academy, we spent one week with some teachers from Springville High School down in Naval School District. The chemistry teacher there, who just retired a year ago, had been using some things with the internet, with his chemistry students and with his chemistry classes at that school for a number of years for a couple of years and have really learned a lot. And so he'd received a grant from the state office to do these training academies. And so a lot of us went down there, and we spent the entire week learning all sorts of various programs about how to access the internet.
Was the internet still text-based at this time?
Pretty much. We used things like Veronica, and Archie, and the whole-- and Gopher, and some of those early, early programs. And, yes, mostly it was text. Occasionally, then, you could start getting pictures-- line upon line, upon line, but it was pretty intriguing that you could actually get a picture on something that you didn't know about. We started learning about some of the projects that were being created at that time.
We had spent that whole week learning all these different programs. And then right at the end of the week, he said, oh, I got one more thing to show you. This was, like, Friday afternoon. And then he pulled out a floppy disk, it fit on a floppy disk. And it was a program called Mosaic 1.0, which had been created by Marc Andreessen, which was the first web browser. It even preceded Netscape. And we learned that. And I said-- my thought was, we spent the whole week learning all these other things and you knew about this?
[LAUGHTER]
So by the next year, we went back for round two of the training, and we learned about Netscape and the browser. And UEN had made a commitment to really start helping teachers to get onto the internet. They even had a modem dial-up bank. And they gave teachers access and an email account, and away we went. And so that began the journey of bringing the internet into schools, particularly in Granite District.
And then, I began doing-- we did a lot of training with-- we'd bring in teams of teachers from schools. We'd provide them some technology. If they came and they did everything, we would give them some technology to go back into their classrooms and into their schools. And for seven years, I did that. And then, I was, 20 years ago, just about almost to the day now, I was hired by the state office of education to be the internet specialist, which seems like a strange title.
It really does. When I saw that on your bio, I was like, I don't even know what that means.
It was a training physician, and my job was to work with districts and schools around the state and showing them the benefits of the internet, and the things that the internet could do in teaching and learning. And so that began that journey, which has then morphed and changed over the years and grown to include a lot of other technologies, thus becoming the education technology specialist to where I rest today working with the Digital Teaching and Learning program, which is, again, just another part of the process of being able to help classrooms, teachers, and students to be able to take advantage of the powerful tools that technology can provide and the way that it can help to improve teaching and learning.
That's awesome. You basically just took us through the history of EdTech in Utah by sharing your career.
Yeah.
No, it's really true. That's amazing.
So, yes, it's been a bit of a journey--
Yeah.
--along the way. And there's technologies that have come, and there's technologies that have went.
Yeah, do you miss your laser disk? [LAUGHS]
You know, the laser disk was greatly-- was nicely put-- well, I still have a laser disk player.
Does it work?
Yes, it does.
Oh, my gosh. I can't wait to get laser disk training from Rick Gaisford. I'm going to make this happen.
[LAUGHS] It'll be a blast from the past; that's for sure. No, there's been a lot of technologies that have come and gone. And we'll see some that will go away, and we'll see new tools and resources that are coming. That's why the digital teaching learning program, the relationship we have between the State Board of Education and the Utah Education Telehealth Network is so important is to be able to make all of that happen and be able to continue to help teachers to adapt and change as new technologies and resources become available.
Absolutely. I think that's definitely something that is one of the best parts of education and the hardest parts of education is that it's always changing.
Right, and nothing more than technology. And I think we can see that with your own history, starting with, basically, the very beginnings of the internet, and now where we have statewide programs and things like that, and we're trying to use as much technology as we can in the classroom.
The first computer I had in my classroom was a leading edge computer. It had two five and 1/4 floppy drives, no hard drive. I used it to play some games. I had some interactive simulation games I used to have the kids play.
On the one computer.
On the one computer. When I got the laser video disk and was doing some things with that, the assistant superintendent of Granite liked what I was doing. He actually gave me a projector for my room. So I had a wall-sized screen, as long as I closed all the blinds and turned the lights out.
Right, right. All right, well let's switch gears just a little bit. You've already mentioned digital teaching and learning, but what's been the impact of digital teaching and learning? We're, what, two, three years in?
We're just concluding already our third year of the digital teaching and learning program. I think that the impact is something that I guess I'm a little-- I'm surprised it's happened as fast as it's happening. The way the conversation has changed-- when we started the Digital Teaching and Learning Program, it was ready to have a comprehensive program and a funding streamed to be able to help districts move forward with technology and education in that.
So as we put that program together, which included a state master plan and then getting that master plan approved by the State Board of Education, we then had to take it to the legislature to get it funded. And when you mentioned that $45 million, that's $45 million up to this point. This next year, there'll be an additional $20 million that will go into the program.
And all of that is to help with infrastructure, professional learning, and technical support, and resource. When we say "infrastructure," we obviously mean not just the wires and the wireless, but it's the devices, and the software, and the hardware, and that. So that was the purpose of the program in that. And so when we first started the program, my colleague, Sarah Young at the State Board of Education, and I, we had-- I think we had 76 districts or charter schools that were involved in the program at the time.
And we decided it was time that we go and visit all of them. It was about six months after we had put out the initial funding, and they were working. They had their plans in place. And they were just barely getting started. And we decided that we would go out and visit every one of them on site. And so we went out and visited them. And our conversations at that time, as I remember, were very much focused on the early-- setting the foundation.
So a lot of it was focused on professional learning of teachers, but also we've got to get the infrastructure. We've got to get the wireless networks taken care of. We gotta buy devices. So it was a lot of things and a lot of-- and getting teachers prepared to be able to do this.
So fast forward to last fall, we decided that it was time once again, 18 months later, to go out and visit all the schools again. So we went out and visited a little over 80 LEAs. Of course, now, we have two additional staff members to help do those type visits with us.
But to me, the fascinating part was-- because I thought we would be talking about, well, we've done this, and we've added this many devices-- it was not that at all. The conversation was all about how it was transforming teaching. And we started talking about teaching techniques. And we started talking about how technology was being leveraged to help teachers have better data about what students were doing, how we were better engaging students. It was all of these things that are results of all of that other work.
But the conversation was really focused on teaching and learning. And we'd go out and watch-- I'd go out and watch teachers and see the way that they had restructured class time and that. So it wasn't just the teacher in front of the class doing a-- she may be working with one group of students and another-- she knew what they were doing with this software, and some other kids were doing some other things and other projects that they had. And it was this transformation that's beginning to occur. That's what struck me the most in this short span of time is that the conversations are really changing.
Yeah, 18 months. So do you feel like LEAs were just ready for it? Like, they were just, like, so ready to move forward and then having that infusion of funding and a structure, is just, like, what they needed?
Yeah, I think you're exactly right. They really were moving forward. Some districts have been moving forward and others have been watching them. They just needed that little bit more to get going. And that's been, I think, the one hallmark of the digital teaching and learning program is that it is ongoing funding in that.
Right.
And although it's not enough to meet every need and every school in this state, when you couple those funds with local funds, and you work on implementing it over time-- we're not going to hit everybody, but not everybody is ready at the same time, either. All they needed was that ability to know that I can plan for next year, and the year after, and the year after that. And once you have that capacity, you can start making big changes.
Absolutely. I really like, too, that each of the districts or charter schools were able to use the money how they wanted to, how it fit into their plan as long as they had that plan that was approved.
Yeah, when we went-- the history of the DTL program in and of itself was interesting because it really started out to be with a bill that was very top down. Basically, there would be one of three or four ways to do it, and you would have to figure out which one you wanted to fit into.
And that bill didn't pass, but we learned a lot along the way. And the legislature wanted to study it some more, and we've decided to show them-- to demonstrate to them that there's a lot of great things already happening with technology in Utah schools. And so we took them to school. Jared, you might remember this particular event. It was in July. I'd been given two weeks notice that we needed to have X number of presenters, and I'd better be good or it would be the end of my job, basically.
By about $45 million.
We had a number of legislators, I think about 40 plus legislators at-- because it was a part of an interim study, we took them to school. We sent them to an English class, a math class, a social studies class, and a science class. And I just remember how, Jared, how you completely wowed them with the video and the interaction that you had had with the gentleman from Israel in that, and they got it. They really understood what the power was.
So then, it was just being able to come up with the program in that. And to your point-- coming back to your point, Danny, was that that was the hallmark. When I met with all of the tech people and some of the leadership of districts and that, they said, what one district does is not the way we may need to do it here. We need to be able to have an approach where we can meet our needs. And so how do you structure that?
And so working with the task force, which was made up of legislators and educators and that, we came up with a program that stayed true to that, but still had accountability built into to it. But the LEAs, or districts, or charter schools would have the opportunity to choose how they wanted to implement them. And so we have just over 80 LEAs now in the program, which represents about 95% of the students in the state that potentially could be impacted by it, but there's no two that are alike. It's very much local based, which is great.
Yeah, it is, because, like I always say when I'm teaching teachers, you know your students best. So however you adapt this for your classroom and that's the same with districts and charters, they know what they need. Some districts, they know they need professional development for their teachers. Others need to use it for infrastructure like you were talking about. I think it's great that we've been able to kind of see that you've taken us through kind of a history tour of what's going on in the state of Utah with technology.
And as we move forward, what do you see as the future here with technology use, and the DTL, and all this?
That's a good question. I wish I could tell you that I could tell you what's going to come down the line. But you know, we've all been, over the years, been blindsided completely by a new technology that has been very disruptive. To that point, I used I used to be a part of a project called "Project Inkwell."
And at the time, it was a national group, and it was made up of business people, technology companies, educators from around the country. And what it was was to try to set some specifications for devices that would be really good for schools and to get them at a price point that schools could do them. And so we sort of came up with some specs of a device that would be about the size of a piece of paper. And we'd be able to do all of this, and it could cost more than $500.
And I can specifically remember some of the tech companies says, in your dreams will you ever see anything like that. That's just not going to happen. And then, the iPod came out, slightly higher price point, but it had all the specs and far more than we had ever put into it. That was a disruption. For years and years, I heard, you'll never see a device below $500-- never, ever, ever. And then, the Chromebook came out, and it was $200.
And the Chromebook is mobile.
Exactly.
You can take it wherever you want, and you don't have to have that traditional computer lab that's in one place in the building. Now, you can have these mobile labs and take them out to the portables or wherever you need to in the school.
Or out into the field or out wherever you need to have it. So when you look at those disruptions, what could be coming, I think what you will be seeing is technologies that are focused around collaboration and being able to be anywhere any time. Those are the kinds of things that you're going to be seeing, that learning does not have to take place in a single location, that learning can take place in multiple locations, even in multiple dimensions all at the same time.
And not in a specific time.
And I saw a little bit of that at the USEC conference last week. I attended a session by Google, and they were showing their new jam board. It's not the idea that a board is anything new. We've seen boards. We've seen whiteboards and interactive whiteboards and interactive televisions. It was 30, 40 people from their devices, whether they were in that room or someplace else in the world, all collaborating together in a single spot. There are some disruption there that we have to look at.
Yeah, absolutely. It's so cool to think about what's going to be happening next, and what we're going to be seeing for our students, and how it's going to change their lives and their learning.
What I don't see is that technology won't be going away. It will get better. It'll be more improved. It'll be more personal. And learning will be happen in multiple ways all the time.
This is always a question I get. Are educators going to go away then? Is the teacher going to go away?
No.
[LAUGHS] Never.
Teachers don't need to-- they don't need to fear. Teachers that don't want to use technology, they might need to fear a little bit. No, I really believe that teachers are essential. You need someone to guide, and to facilitate, and to help, and to lead.
Yeah, absolutely. And that's what teachers will be called upon to do is to lead, lead learning.
And like you're saying, to be the lead learner, but also to build the relationships with those students. The teacher is always going to be an important part of a student's life, even if they're, like you've said, even if they're not in the same room, there are still ways to build connections and build those relationships to help each other out and work together. And those are the skills that are most needed right now, that ability to problem solve, creatively problem solve, to be creative, to collaborate, to communicate. And that takes another adult, and it takes a teacher or someone who can help show how that's done.
Absolutely. Yeah, and you just kind of named off the four C's right there.
They're always on my mind.
It's such a good framework for teachers to construct and build lessons and figure out the best way to effectively use technology so that it does leverage what they're doing in the classroom, it does transform them.
And it has to be something that they can do, and they can be able to work together on that. I was at a meeting a while back and the leader of the meeting asked the companies, what job can't you fill? And they all named some technology jobs-- database administrators, and data analysts, and all of that. But it was it was a comment by a business leader, she says-- when she said, it's not that I can't find people with the skills. I can find them, but they can't work with the team. So it's both. The skill set is important, but it's also those other things, those soft skills.
Yep, absolutely. All right, Rick, it has been excellent having you on UEN homeroom. Thank you so much for coming.
It has been my pleasure to be with you. Thank you for doing this. I think it's a great service and a great thing that you're doing. for schools around the state.
Yeah, we're having a lot of fun with it. We're having a good time.
But then again, I'm one of UEN's biggest cheerleader.
[LAUGHS] We appreciate that.
I think you did a great job painting the picture of the beginning of technology in the state now and where it's going to go.
Thank you.
All right, thank you.
[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, Jared, you've been here before so you know that we have to do a lazy teacher tech tip. Can you do it? I'm feeling lazy.
Well, I don't know.
Well, I feel like since you are on this show, this is something that you have signed up for. So you are doing the lazy teacher tech tip.
OK, I guess. I'm trying to do my best impersonation of you.
[LAUGHS] Womp-womp!
Yeah, so I've come across these apps that-- and they work either for Android or for iOS, and, really, the thing that they do is it's with mindfulness, and there's some good ones. But the one that I really like is called Headspace. Have you ever heard of Headspace?
I have heard of Headspace.
Do you use it?
I have not used Headspace. I have a different one that I use.
What do you use?
It's called Oak. But go ahead, and explain Headspace.
So one of the things I like about Headspace is it is a subscription base, but they have a lot of free stuff on there, too. And I don't pay for the subscription. I just use the free stuff, and that works good enough for me. But, really, just kind of helps you wind down. And it goes through, like, some breathing exercises with you and just get you to-- you can use the word "meditation" or you can just use the word or the idea that you're just kind of at peace with yourself, and just forgetting everything going on in the world--
Which is hard.
Which is hard. And maybe there's a lot going on. And I just think it's a great way to wind down.
Absolutely. So the one I was talking about has some of the guided meditations like Headspace has, but it also has really short breathing exercises. So whether you're trying to wind down, or focus, or just be awake, it gives you different breath structures. One other thing that's worth mentioning is the Calm app. That is another one like this, and it's subscription based, and it's pretty expensive if I remember.
But if you go to calm.com/education, they have free subscriptions for teachers because they want teachers to be using this in classrooms to teach every student how to be mindful. And so it gives you a free subscription. So I've recently downloaded Calm as well, and they gave me an educator subscription.
Ah, fantastic. So there you go. You got three of them. You got Headspace, Oak, and Calm.
Yep. I think that's a great tech tip.
Try them out and see what works for you.
It's almost like using tech to unplug.
Exactly
I love that.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right, Jared, that was pretty crazy, that he could tell the story of EdTech in Utah just by talking about his career.
Yeah, I mean what a sensational career, starting out with laser disks and didn't really mean to end up where he did, but here he is, and really leading now.
I love when he said computer science is boring. Like, he thought that was boring, and then now, like, that would be the furthest thing from his mind.
And now, we have Computer Science For All coming here in Utah.
Yes, yes, we're so lucky for that opportunity. October, right?
Yes.
All right, and he mentioned you as part of his story the DTL bill that you had to present to the legislature. What was that like?
Yeah, that was pretty nerve-racking because he says he got, like, two weeks notice. I got, like, two days notice.
[LAUGHS]
In July. In July, and then they told me, like, hey, you're going to be presenting. This is a really big deal. We need you to do a really good job. And they didn't really give me a lot of direction. So I mean, it was pretty open-ended for me, but that made me a little bit nervous because this was kind of just my own idea as to--
Right, like, am I giving them what they want, what they need?
And luckily, it sounds like I did.
[LAUGHS] Congratulations. You still have a job.
But I will say that was the most nerve-racking lesson that I've ever given.
All right, that was awesome. So who knows what the future holds for EdTech in Utah, but I think we're going to be ready for it. I think districts are ready for it.
Yeah, and I think the idea now isn't so much like the device, it's, what are my learning objectives? And how can this device or software, whatever it is, help me get there?
Absolutely.
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