This week’s episode featuring Trevor Goertzen from SchoolAI kicks off a series of upcoming episodes previewing sessions at this year’s Future Ready Nebraska Conference. Trevor is joined by Eileen Heller of ESU 3 and Dr. Nicholas Ziegler of ESU 5 for a conversation highlighting the “spaces” feature within SchoolAI where educators can create a safe and student-friendly AI chatbot interaction for learners. In this episode, Trevor explains the power and potential impact of SchoolAI spaces, and Eileen and Nick share their experiences and examples in leveraging this tool in support of UDL, distance learning, and more.
This week, K.K. Neimann, National Director of District & Strategic Initiatives at World Savvy, joins us for an episode on education innovation and how World Savvy utilizes multi-year partnerships with schools and educators to help them create inclusive, adaptive, and future-ready learning environments. On the pod, we discuss global competencies, ideas for fostering teacher empowerment, and how to enhance our support of students as they develop the skills and dispositions they need to thrive in their community and careers.
In this episode, Dani Potter (B-FIT Coordinator) and Cassie Houser (Behavior Specialist) of ESU 4 join us to share their commitment and work in support of students with behavior needs. Our conversation illustrates how Cassie and Dani’s roles differ but work in tandem to ensure that not only the student but also those supporting the student(s) have the strategies, communication, and input needed to have a positive impact.
This episode picks up the conversation from a previous episode that told the backstory behind the purchase and distribution of robotics solutions across K-12 schools in Nebraska. On the pod, Dr. Josh Snyder and Mr. Erik Emerson of Wahoo Public Schools share the story of the devices their district received and how they are introducing products such as Bee-Bots, Tello EDU drones, and the Tetrix Prime robot to students in Wahoo schools. We are also joined once again by Pitsco’s regional representative, Preston Fraizer, whose outstanding support both in-person and online has ensured easy onboarding for educators and implementation success statewide.
Dr. Paul Darvasi is back for his annual episode on all things serious play and learning! In this episode, Paul explains his new role as the Executive Director of the Serious Play Conference and how innovation so often comes from utilizing ideas and techniques from one domain in a new or different context. We also delve into educators as learning experience designers, and how viewing an educator’s work from that lens has been transformative to his work with teachers and with his company, Gold Bug Interactive.
In this episode, Superintendent Brian Rottinghaus, 4th Grade teacher Aeden Ghyra, and 5th Grade teacher Hadley Sejkora share Pawnee City School’s transformative approach to math education. Together with Tara Gossman of ESU 4, this great collection of educators detail the implementation and impact of Eureka Math, highlighting how it has not only accelerated learning but also enhanced students’ understanding and retention of math concepts. This group, with the support of NDE and Instruction Partners, illustrates how coherence led to a new standard for educational excellence in math in Pawnee City.
This week, we are joined by Bridget Peterkin and Grace Clausen, the co-founders of Dyslexico. Dyslexico is a Nebraska-based AI tech company that provides spelling and grammar correction tools designed specifically for those with dyslexia. Listeners will learn the origin story of this effort and how it has been built out through the support of the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska. The pod also discusses current efforts to pilot these supports in schools, and both Bridget and Grace encourage anyone interested in utilizing this technology to reach out to learn more.
In this episode, Dr. Mike Dulaney and Kyle McGowan of the Nebraska Council of School Administrators and Dr. John Skretta, Administrator of ESU 6, discuss several education-related bills that will be heard during this year’s legislative session in Nebraska. Together, these leaders and education advocates provide context and details that are sure to support anyone interested in learning more about the prominent topics and themes in education in our state.
This episode highlights the shift to inquiry for social studies instruction. On the pod, John Lee of C3 Teachers conveys the details of their national efforts with the C3 Inquiry Design Model that Nebraska ESUs utilized in their collaborative efforts to develop inquiry units of study for grades 4-8. Mark Brady of ESU 7 also joins us to share the history of this effort in Nebraska that has produced 60+ inquiry units developed by Nebraska teachers for Nebraska teachers (that are aligned to the Nebraska State Standards).
If you are a Nebraska teacher who would like more information about joining the 2024 Summer Inquiry Project, reach out to your local ESU for more details or visit our website page: Social Studies Project – ESU CC
The Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium, hosted by the Nebraska Educational Service Units (ESUs), was held in person for the first time since 2019 on October 16. Students and their teachers joined at five ESUs across the state. The five sites connected virtually through Zoom. You can also see the participating school districts by viewing 2023 Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium Participants.
Twenty-two school districts with approximately one hundred sixty participants heard from national speaker and digital citizenship advocate Marialice Curran. Her message focused on being a digital impactor by being alert, balanced, engaged, informed and inclusive. Essentially the theme for the day was promoting the use of technology for good. More information on this topic can be found at her Digital Citizen Institute’s (DCI) website: DCI – Digital Citizenship Institute (digcitinstitute.com).
The teams also were privileged to hear from Heather Callihan, a technology integrationist at Northwest Public Schools. Heather presented information on how she has social media and content creation teams of students who work together to tell their district’s story.
After hearing from Marialice and Heather, the school teams had time to build on the inspiration by creating a school vision, plan, and/or call to action. Each team worked on this plan and then shared their ideas with the other teams. But the vision didn’t stop that day, as the teams will be working on this throughout the school year, documenting their progress, and coming back together on Zoom in April to celebrate with their fellow Nebraska teams, AND with others across the globe during the second annual Global Student Showcase.
The collaboration and learning will also continue in a unique and fun way, as a plush toy named Mundo will travel to all of the participating schools this year! The goal is to have Mundo learn about the different Nebraska communities it visits! Marialice’s team created an AI assistant for education and named it Mundo. She encourages the teams to use the AI assistance to learn more about Nebraska communities, and then share with others across the state, and eventually the world.
“Mundo means earth in Spanish and at the DCI, we model how to learn about the world, with the world to create safe spaces for ourselves and others, to solve problems, and ultimately to be a force for good both on and offline.” Marialice Curran
