EdTech perspectives from a National Teacher of the Year

Hello, my name is Missy Testament and I am the 2024 national teacher of the year. I teach English to students who are learning the language for the first time in a pre-K through eighth grade school in Rogersville, Tennessee. I knew I wanted to be a teacher the very first moment that I walked into my kindergarten classroom as a student. I was five years old, but the moment that I met my teacher, I knew that this was my, the career that I would choose. Her name was Mrs. Brown. She was young and lovely and energetic and she made learning so much fun. Not only was I obsessed with her and with school and our kindergarten classroom, I also became obsessed with the entire teaching and learning process. I was simply amazed that Mrs. Brown could tell our class things and that people would remember it and then they would know it. So for me, I always knew I was going to be a teacher. Again, that was Missy Testament, the 2024 national teacher of the year. And you're listening to the UX of a tech podcast fueled by our design studio that cultivates learning, creativity, and play. And we are your co-host, Alicia Kwan and Sarah Mon Destin. And I'm so excited to have Missy here with us. I'm going to tell folks a little bit more about Missy. Missy is a kindergarten through eighth grade English as a second language or ESL teacher. She serves as a first and second grade teacher in Rogersville, Tennessee. She served there for three decades. Missy currently works as an ESL specialist at Rogersville City School, where she teaches Catholic students who do not speak English as their first language and supports them in all academic areas. Missy lives in a rural appellation community where she builds bridges between families who have been in the area for centuries and newer immigrants through a curriculum focused on a study of Americans from diverse backgrounds. Missy has forged partnerships with East Tennessee State University and the University of Tennessee to encourage pre-service teachers and give authentic feedback to university leaders about their education prep programs. Missy holds a bachelor's of arts and elementary education, a master's of arts and reading education from East Tennessee State University. She added an ESL license to her credentials to ensure that immigrant students and families have an advocate in their rural appellation area, where Missy lives with her husband, David. Thank you so much, Missy, for sharing this story about your kindergarten teacher. It made me think about my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Killebrew, who I still talk to this day and was one of the major reasons by a friend and myself went into education. So we remember those kindergarten teachers. My experience was a little different from yours. I screamed my head off the first day of kindergarten and it was very scary, but I am glad that your kindergarten teacher had an impact on you in that way. It's amazing how we remember those people who were so important in the beginning of our school journey. So I love that you still talk to Mrs. Killebrew. That's awesome. Yes, I do. I just think that's awesome and I'm just trying to picture a little Sarah one or first day. It was scary. I mean, when I say scream my head off, that's the introverts version of crying silently because they're mother left in a room full of children. But I remember my kindergarten experience. And so I think in that vulnerability, then all the more you remember who was that the adult there to comfort you. It's reminding me to of one of our previous speakers earlier in the season, Danielle Rivera. So she's a second grade teacher and she's told the story of her students coming back for high school graduation asking her to be the one like handing the diploma to them. And I'm like, that's amazing the way that people just remember those early years. I love it. So I'm excited to dig in. Definitely. Okay, Missy. So let's start with you as a learner. What kind of student and kid were you growing up? Well, Sarah, I was a pretty decent student, but I have to admit, I did not always try very hard. The first few years of school, things were really easy for me. So I didn't have to try real hard. And I fell into that pattern until fifth grade. When I was in fifth grade, my teacher Mrs. Stuxberry literally pulled me aside and said, you could do so much more than you're doing. And I'm not going to let you just get by in my class. And I'll be honest, it crushed me. It absolutely crushed my feelings because I loved her. I just thought she was wonderful, but it was the best thing to happen to me because I just fallen into that zone where sometimes our really intelligent kids fall into that where they just do enough to get by and they become kind of complacent. And they aren't achieving as well as they could be. So I'll have to be honest. I was at Tom's very lazy student who just I still did well, but I did just enough to get by and do well. I love that you recognize that too. And I kind of want to call in my daughter to listen to this as well. But I think as teachers too, as educators, there's that middle, right? There's that middle group of students here. Okay, they're okay. Let me go do other things with other kids, but I love that you had a teacher that was like you need to step up your game. And that's brilliant. As a kid, was there anything so outside of school setting that you got really into that you feel like you really applied yourself in or you love learning about? Alicia, it's funny. I was a voracious reader. So we would go to the public library and I would check out really odd books about events and history. And that was what I like to learn about. I was very uncoordinated. Sports were not the option. My sister was incredibly coordinated. I think she got all of the coordination genes and I got none. So I really was interested in sports. I loved watching sports, but there were never any sports or anything I played for me. I was just reading and finding out about things. If there had been a kid's jeopardy when I was little, I probably would have been contested because I knew all kinds of useless information that was taking up space in my brain. Oh, and kids love useless information. I'm sure you're able to share all sorts of good facts with them. They must love that. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes they'll ask, how do you know that? I'm like, I've just known it a really long time. Yeah, that's awesome. Did you use any tech or gadgets growing up? What do you think of when you think of that? I grew up in the 70s and 80s. That was the era when teachers were saying, you have to learn how to do these math calculations because it's not like you're going to have a calculator in your pocket. And here we are, everyone went a calculator in their pocket. I would have had far less stress back then if I had realized that I indeed would have a calculator in my pocket. There wasn't a whole lot of ed tech around back then when I think about it. I don't remember a classroom maybe having a computer until I was in eighth grade. And we had one huge computer. It was massive. It took up like the entire table. And I was like the computer. Yes, me. I remember. I think it was actually for all of eighth grade. And our teacher made a schedule where three people, and I'll think of this, three people could get on the computer. And I remember my last name started with W then. So I was at the very end of that list. And I remember being so excited to get over there. And it was a little underwhelming. These were the graphics back in in the eighties. And they're you couldn't really get your hands on a lot with two other people sitting there. But there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity back then. I guess the greatest technology was probably that we had automated film striped projectors that would show it without someone having to turn the dial. Oh yeah. I love it. Was there Oregon Trail? Did I come Oregon Trail? That was my experience. It was late eighties. I think I was in college when Oregon Trail came out. And then later, my son, when he was about five years old, there was a desktop version. You could get the disk and download it and play it. And so that was his screen time. When we first got a home computer, that was his screen time. And one day he came running into the room screaming his hat off. And he was a pretty calm kid. And I was like, what in the world's wrong with you? And he said, we were going through the creek and Caroline died. Caroline was our baby. She was a brand new baby. He had named his little family on Oregon Trail with all the names of our family. So he was emotionally ghosted when they all started dying of dysentery and playing in the creeks. Oh my gosh. I feel like a lot of people have some core memories about Oregon Trail and realizing what is actually happening. And this is probably a good question to ask each guest. Sarah, what was on your classroom computer? Tell us about your classroom computer. I think a lot of people had an experience with that because we had one as well. It didn't quite take a whole like table. But Oregon Trail was again like one of the top requests. And so the way they had it was, which is sad, like looking back. It's like basically the kids that worked the fastest. If you got your work done, you could race over there and get it. And so of course, it's like always the same. Yes. A couple people or a few people. And I just probably killed two people because I just wanted to like, I gotta get to Oregon. Yeah. I finished my math with my power. You probably had a calculator. I love that. Yes. I've killed many a settler on Oregon Trail myself and do remember the computer. But remember the headsets and the tape like that was our thing. Yes. Like I wanted to do the audio books and have the headset. And it's like that was a big deal. I love that. So going through your experience as a student, Missy, when was it? Or like how did you know that you first wanted to become a teacher? For me, it was in kindergarten. That was just going to be that moment that I knew. I never really thought about being anything else. I just always wanted to be a teacher. And I was really lucky. I had so many really good teachers through the years who did nothing but to encourage that. So I am a first generation college graduate. No one in my family had ever been to college before. And I was in second grade. And my teacher made the comment. Her name was Mrs. Romer that I would be an excellent teacher. And so I said, I don't even know how to be a teacher. She said, well, you have to do is to grow up and go to college. I never heard of the word college because no one in my little seven year old world had been to college. And so I thought college is where you went to learn to become a teacher. So you can imagine my surprise a few years later when I realized that you can learn how to be lots of things in college. And where I live, we still have a significant portion of our closest university's graduates every single year who are first generation college graduates. I actually was able to give the commencement at a dress that one of East and Sea State University's graduation ceremonies this year in May. And the university president told me that over 40% of the graduates that day were first generation college students. So out there somewhere, there are teachers like my Mrs. Romer who are telling students, all you have to do is grow up and go to college and planning that seed for the very first time. Wow. I love that. And it sounds like you've had a lot of opportunities to share your story and speak at different places this year. So I want to jump into that soon and a little bit what it's like being serving. And notice the term serving comes up a lot in the website as national teacher of the year. I really like that. Can you, before we get there, can you take us back to that first year as a teacher? What was that year like? I know I loved it. But looking back if the may of today could go back and watch I would probably be absolutely horrified because I was just flying by the sea of my pants like a lot of our first year teachers are. You can't really learn how to do anything until you were actually doing that thing by yourself. And I had an incredible mentor. Her name was was Mary Jo. There was also a pair professional who I worked with named Carol who had been there for 10 years. And there were times that Carol would just take over because I was just lost mainly in how to keep kids focused and how to handle discipline, top issues. But I feel like I tried really hard. I remember like staying at school to really late. I remember carrying two huge tote bags home full of stuff and actually doing it. Now sometimes I carry stuff home, but it does not do itself via osmosis. So it's a little different. But back then I actually did lots and lots of work. So I had a lot to learn. I did learn a lot. I had adults around me who supported me and invested time in helping me become not just a teacher, but also a leader in our school as well. And I'm really thankful for that. But I would probably shudder if I could go back and see myself. I think of the poor children that I taught my first year. I'm like, I hope those guys are okay. Yeah, I definitely, my car was known in the parking lot for being there. You were like really, earlier, really late. And they actually, the people that were like walking up, they named a gate after me. Oh, the gate by me. It was curious. Yeah, it's like, oh, man, that's funny. So I understand a little bit of that that resonates for sure. My first year of teaching, they had me be the principal to of a tiny, adorable school in California. They were like, it's your first year. We also want you to be the principal. Oh, my. The Nana's. Can you imagine a two-room schoolhouse? It was very little house with a prairie, but like in seaside, beautiful, Monterey, California, but they were like, you're also the principal. Good luck. That's probably great at handling personal issues. So yeah. I would have students like get in trouble and they'd be like, are you gonna send me to the principal's office? And I'd be like, I am. And they had no idea. Yes, love that. Okay, you're teaching. You're going through your first year. You're dealing with all the ups and downs of first year. When did you start to notice that tech tools were something to be used for learning in your classroom? Probably actually that first year. So I mentioned my mentor teacher and one thing that she was really into at that time were tech options. And we didn't have a lot. The year I started teaching was probably the worst educational budgeting year in Tennessee. There were numerous cuts. I was just really lucky to get a job truthfully, but she had written a grant that allowed each of our first grade classrooms. They were three of us to all get two computers. So now the computer just took up half a table. So you could have one table to computers. We were able to get a printer and some activities that, you know, you could do on the computer. We were also able to get this huge 32 inch TV. The big ones like go all the way to the back for a three feet and a cart to put all of like the games and those things on and that was like really technologically advanced. We were the only ones in the whole school who had computers in our classroom. We had computer labs that you could schedule your class to go to. But we were the only classrooms that had computers inside our classrooms because she had written that grant. And so one thing that I realized real quickly was that was really helpful when it came to student writing because if they were able to write things and then you looked at it and you helped them edit it and then you allowed them to go back there and top it out and even add a picture. Remember the grayscale pictures that had all the lines through them. It was supposed to be a cat and then you print it out and you're like, is that a cat? But the kids loved doing that. And that was a real incentive back then to to be able to have that capability rot in your classroom. Now the paper was that kind of paper that had the sprocket holes. Oh yeah. And you had to feed it on there and heaven forbid if it started separating itself from the rest of the paper then you are like taking apart. So there was a lot of printer non-1/1 going on a lot. That was a huge motivation to to encourage students to to be writing. Yeah. It was like the times when the computer was like a reward and then don't forget to save your work or else you have a lot of crying children in the past. The printers still have issues. I'm like, we ever, we ever, we ever solved a pretty serious issue. The printer problems. Yeah. And sometimes it would be quicker just to rot it out on a piece of paper and let it go. But I think most of us are like me. You'll spend 25 minutes trying to take the printer apart. Oh yeah. I was trying to slip a paper that's clogging it up and stuff when you could have already done whatever it was and moved on. But yeah. You said something about how it helped them with their writing. And it made me think, wow, are we able to say that today, the leading technology that's coming out. Does it help render with writing? And I'm wanting to fast forward and something that came to mind just even with our earlier chats about the gadgets or the tech they use growing up is something that we're seeing now just in life as parents are choosing and even like teenagers are choosing to just go like retro. Like flip phones, for example, is one that's coming out. I just read this article. A really good one. I think it was in the Atlantic. A recent one about a group of parents decided to put landlines back in. And they have an accorded phone. And the daughter and then all of her friends, like they got one. And so that's how they call and they chat. They talk to each other on the phone. And so it's not texting. And it's actually helping them. They've noticed parents help notice that it's helped them with their articulation and just even like their vocabulary and just hearing them storytelling and all of that. And just a total resurgence of what we had growing up. And actually my phone was even it was cordless. But I just I see that. So you had a cordless phone? Our family phone. But I remember the corded ones like my mom saved them. And so they were just like laying around the house and they were like toys and stuff. But and so I think I'll get on with this in a second. But I think the mom in this article, she like took a picture of her girl like laying on the floor, like holding the phone and twirling the core and stuff. And she's like, come on. Don't you want to do this? Because she that's like Jonathan Hyde's book. Now one of the the big issues is it's a community effort. If it's just one person doing it, then you're just isolated. And that's part of the hurdle. And so getting a whole community or a whole school or whatever might be your network to do it, then it feels a little bit better. So I'm just thinking, I wonder if there'll be a resurgence of old ed tech, some of the stuff that we're talking about, like, cool now. It's back in the classroom. But phones are expensive now. It's back. Or an Oregon trail, guys. It's still alive. It's still alive. I think you could get it on the switch. I'm going to send it to you. I was talking to you guys completely. Anyone ever make it to Oregon? I don't know. I don't have strong memories of making it, yeah. But so fast forwarding to your most recent year teaching, Missy, can you compare it to your first, at least in terms of your approach and what you saw? Oh, sure. In terms of my approach, now I'm teaching language, teach English to students who are learning it as an additional language. And Tennessee, we use the term ESL for English as a second language, but I actually have students who know three, four, five languages. So that's a little bit of a misnomer. And so I probably am the least ed techiest teacher for that reason, because my students need to practice the language. They need to practice reading, writing, and they need to practice speaking and interacting and just all of the pragmatics that are involved in being an English speaker. But there's so much more out there available that's useful for students and also useful for teachers. When I first took this role, I had 21 students on my caseload, and that's not a huge caseload in terms of what ESL teachers around the country have. But my issue is that there's only one of me. I do all of the paperwork, I do all of the instruction, and I had kids spread out across non-grade levels. So it was a scheduling, not mere. But whenever I started looking at data, and part of the reason that we still had so many kids on the caseload, this is coming out of COVID, was because they were not scoring well on the federally required English language proficiency exam. In speaking, our school students could read, they could write well, they did well with listening, but when it came to speaking, their scores were low. And so I was really shocked by that, because all of these kids that I'm referring to had speaking skills, they could talk for days. What they weren't adapted doing was using academic vocabulary during that portion of the test. So they don't just give you a picture of an apple and say what is this, and you say apple, they give you a graph, and they want you to do things like compare the data in this graph to that graph. So the kids have to use some academic vocabulary. So that was what I focused on that year. And one of the probably the least techiest things that I did was that I would hook up my students, hook there, they had these headphones that had the Britney Spears like microphone headpiece exactly. So we had to let them do that because they were all practicing like they worked at McDonald's or they were all the on say for a while. But then I would put them on just a Google doc and I would have them answer questions and it would do talk to text. And so they could see what the computer thought they were saying and compare that to what they were actually saying. And it was really hilarious. And I thought it was so funny at some of the combinations of words. But what it let them do though was to slow down when they were speaking in those contexts so that their words were enunciated more clearly. And their meaning was coming across in that first year. I had six kids who tested out because they were only being held back by speaking. Speaking was the only thing still keeping them in need of services. But there's a lot more available out there to be used as a tool. There's a really fun line. I feel like an education between using it as a useful tool and using Edtech as a replacement for face to face instruction. And I'll always say this to anyone face to face instruction will always be the most pivotal thing that we can do to help students with their achievement. If nothing else, COVID should have proven that for us. But there are a lot of things that are available that can make teachers' lives easier, can give students an opportunity to practice in a context they're familiar with because these kids are digital natives. They don't know any other laugh other than having tech in front of them. And so we have to afford them those opportunities as well. Yeah, and I really like like what you're saying, you looked at the data and you saw what the need was and then you found something that met that specific need. And once they got past all the Burger King Beyonce funness with it, they were like, oh wait, like this is helpful. It's useful and it helped them grow. That's really neat. I tend to be pretty low tech at home. I homeschool my daughter and we're paper pencil family all the way. Alicia and I talk about this all the time. And so we too find things that may be useful, but we'll go weeks without going on the computer or do anything like that. Are there any other bits of tech today that you use in relation to your classroom or your work as a teacher that you found helpful? I haven't used as much as I've seen other teachers use. A lot of teachers are using AI programs to write learning plans for students. So if you teach special education or are you teaching, which is a second language, one of the things that each of those students have is an individualized learning plan. And it's literally like an 11 page document that lays out all of the support that this student needs according to their testing data. And that's monitored several times a year. And that's been a very burdensome task on those teachers. When you hear of teachers drowning in paperwork, that's an example. And there are programs out there that now allow teachers to use the data to put that in and then to come up with a workable plan according to what that student needs. That doesn't require that the teacher spends five or six hours on each one of those plans. I see a lot of things like that being used. And that's an improvement, especially in a system. There's some of our systems who have learners like that. And no have 10,000. So those are 10,000 plans that have to be written and expecting your teachers to spend all that time writing plans and still teaching is just asking almost the impossible. Yeah. Can you give us a glimpse into your litmus test for deciding what tech you would use or not for the classroom? You alluded to it a little bit already. And I really resonate with what you said about literal face-to-face teaching, face time. Sure. So in my opinion, literal face-to-face teaching is the best way for students to learn. And I'm of the opinion if you teach it first and let them practice it later, they're going to have fewer errors. And I know that's controversial topic now. Some areas of education where it works to let them self-explore and do that. But with the students I work with, who need that really explicit face-to-face teaching, I found they're more successful when I do things like pre-teach vocabulary words. Before we talk about volcanoes, I show photographs and I show videos and things that explain it so they understand what we're talking about. But the litmus test for me is always going to be, is this useful and will it benefit the student? Because if I'm just putting the student on it because I'm wrapped out and they're on my nerves, it's not going to meet its purpose. Number one, these kids are so smart they will figure out a way to subvert around anything. So you may think that they're on an appropriate program and as the adult who is in and out of classrooms all day long, I'll walk in and a kid's back there building a monster car. And it has nothing to do with what he's supposed to be doing. Now he's figured out a way to pull that up secretly because his teacher has a screen showing what his computer screen is supposed to be on. But these kids are so smart they're going to figure out a way to work around that. So if it's something they're doing, particularly during the school day, it needs to have a purpose and academic purpose. If it's going to increase their achievement, great. If it's just to kind of keep them busy, then I'm probably a no to be honest. That used to worry me. I used to think, oh no, like we're so low tech that my daughter is not going to know how to use the computer later. There's, she figures out she knows the password to all of our things. She knows how to get online and they've made things so easy for kids to use now that it's not an issue at all. She'll be fine. Absolutely. I can remember being in the church nursery probably 10 years ago and my phone was down there and I didn't even have a passcode on my phone in this little baby. She was a toddler. She's probably 18 months old. Picked up my phone and the first thing that she did was start tapping like in pattern all over the screen because she was used to watching her mom put in a passcode and it was really funny to watch but she knew how to pull up my photos and she was like really disappointed scrolling through because I did not have anything that looked like most super fun and this is like an 18 month old and so you can look at that. Wow, she's really advanced or you can also look at it like wow, she's spending a lot of time on that phone if she's remembering those things. So kids in this day and age, they will figure it out. I would not worry about being low tech. Actually, I've told my son and his girlfriend that if I'm not around, I mean, I plan to be but if I'm not around when you have kids, I feel like I've cracked the code and the code is to make sure that their little brains develop before they have access to all these rapid-fire graphics and things that are literally rewiring kids' brains. And so I tell him all the time, language is where it is. Talk to your babies, read to your babies, interact with your babies, talk out situations with your babies. In my opinion, that's 100% how we grow student's brains. That will make them better readers, better writers, better communicators and it's going to create these little brains that are able to absorb all this information that we need them to absorb. Yes, that's a good reminder. And yeah, and I used to say, don't get babies the phones. Everyone's got their situations. I see moms with a ton of kids. I'm like, girl, you got to do what you got to do, but you're right. Like babies know their way around a phone. They know what they're doing. Sir Bob, it's just, it's my day. It was Barney. That was how I picked Cook's pepper. I put Barney on in my son. He was probably like, kind of loves dogs and sort of feeling hungry when Barney came on because that was the only way I could get anything done because he wanted to be right in there with me helping. And sometimes the help is good. But sometimes you just need to watch Barney. Yeah, watch Barney's dancing. It was Barney. And then it was Teletubbies and then other weird things. I don't know what it is now. But okay, so we saw you for the first time at South by Southwest at EDU in Austin. And you had this like long line of fans who wanted to talk to you. I was like, I'm going to go talk to her. I'm going to go to Oh, no, wait. It's not time. But we were talking. We didn't get to talk to you then. But I know we all heard some really neat things about new products and ed tech startups doing amazing things on the scene. So as you've traveled nationally as teacher of the year, are there any trends in ed tech that are exciting you? I think anything that lessons the amount of non instructional tasks that teachers have to do is exciting. As a teacher, I know there are times where you have to have kids do things just basically to keep them busy because you have other obligations to fulfill. So any of those products that are going to take those task off teachers play so that teachers have more time to interact with students are always going to be exciting for me. We saw several really exciting things at South by Southwest. I sat there as someone. It's 2025. We're no longer supposed to say I'm not a math person. I'll just say that I was maybe a tier three math person. I was definitely an incredible reader, pretty decent writer, but math was a challenge. We saw some products where you can take a photo of a math equation and it will work that equation out. And I was thinking if my student, if my kids, small and personal kids at home had ever struggled that would have been so useful because of the math, I don't want to say it changes the way that we problem solve, changes to what you and I, how we learn, I guarantee I've learned differently than the two of you just because of the age difference. And then you will have learned differently than your own children learn because we figure out things about how the brain works because we have all these neuroscience knowledge that we didn't have before. That would have been just incredibly useful to me as a parent if you had students who were struggling to see the steps worked out. That would have been amazing for me in high school who cried over many a math problem. I grew up in the era when, and it may be an error instead of an error. When we were so laser focused on the process and not the end result, it's like I could figure out the answer. And a lot of times I did guess and test. I'll just be honest. I just threw out 17. Then I would start working it backwards and figuring out how close I was. But if I didn't have those steps correct, I had points. And now we understand kids have different ways and it really shouldn't matter as long as they can explain to you what they did to get the answer. If that foundational knowledge is what we're really worried about, it shouldn't matter that you and Alicia not have three different ways of solving it, it should just matter that we know how to solve it. And we could stuck like Miss Seila taught me in high school. You have to have all the three or four lines of algebra to get down to the answer. You circle the answer, but if you don't do the problem, you get points off and all of that. Meanwhile, my daughter's the answer is six, mom. I'm like, let's move on. Yes, I can remember, even as a student thinking, if I ever had a job doing, well, number one, I was not going to look for a job where I had to do anything like that. But if I had a job like that, when my boss really cared if I'd done all the steps or when he just cared that I knew the answer was six. And I feel like in this day, with all of the AI technologies, do we really, if there's a way to solve it and a way to figure it out as long as students still have that foundational knowledge, I think we're going to be, we're going to be okay. Yeah, let's talk about that. What's top of mind for you when it comes to AI and its impact on students in the classroom? And I know you've been traveling. You've seen a lot of different things, been to conferences. Really, we're really curious about this topic because everyone is and we're asking every guest about it. So yeah, what's top of mind for you when it comes to AI? Top of mind is that it's here to stay. We are not going to be able to block students from using it, because like I said, kids are smart. They'll figure out a way to get around absolutely anything. So we have to figure out a way to allow students to use it. But we also have to ensure that students actually know how to do the processes that it's doing so that they don't automatically trust everything that it says, because even the people who developed all of these algorithms say, oh yeah, they're errors. They're going to be errors and errors. And I heard a really good quote just last week, I was at a conference in my area. And the theme for the day was AI, edtech and STEM. And the presenter said something like the generation who is in high school now is using it because, and these are her words, not my words, and a student had said it to her. You kids are using it now because they're lazy, but they're trying to find a way to get around the work. But if we're not careful, the next generation will use it because they don't know how to do the work. And that one is actually scarier for me. If you know how to do it, but you're just trying to find an easier way, hey, that's just calling, called being resourceful. If you don't know how to do it and you don't understand the foundations behind it, that's a little bit scarier. So we're going to have to, a way to have policies that allow kids to use it in a way that it's a resource. One thing that I've noticed is that states are just now getting into the weeds on, do we have an a policy? Are we going to have an a policy? And are we going to develop a state policy? Are we going to have a district policy? So the next couple of years, I feel, are going to be really interesting to see what tops of policies that states and also universities and colleges and in the workplace are going to develop to deal with AI. That's a really good point. It's been a little bit of an AI Wild West right now where we're just like, here's all the things. And now we're backtracking, okay, how do we do this? And I think as teachers, as educators, as parents, we understand how to teach young people how to do these things. So hold their hand through the process to work on it with them instead of just go for it. And we did this when all sorts of new tech tools came out, including computers, when it was a big deal of what's going on with the internet. And are we going to let our kids use these? It's just this hand holding process in my household and my classroom of let's learn this thing and learn this process. And now here's another tool that helps us with this process. And then pull that tool back and continue with the process. So I like that idea of understanding like the root of processes and then the tools that can help you with that need. All right, so let's think of a dream ed tech tool. If you could pitch your own dream ed tech tool to designers, what would it be? For sure. It would be one that frees up teachers from the things that we're still doing double duty on. And I'll use, for example, the most states, most districts for probably 20 years, maybe 25, have had programs where we input attendance every single day. Are we input grades? And those have made our lives easier because then at the end of the term, the non-weeks, the semester, whatever, it calculates those grades. That's saved teachers a lot of time. What hasn't saved teachers a lot of time is having dual recording systems. We're using those platforms, but teachers still must keep a hard copy of attendance. They must still keep a hard copy in the attendance book and in the grade book. If you look at it that way, we've asked teachers to do two things. We didn't take anything away. So anything that we use that is going to be useful for teachers. And I'm looking at it from that lens has to be something that is not just something added more to the plate, but it's something that actually removes something else from teachers' plates. Because a lot of times teachers get slammed with that. They add something new, but no one takes anything away. And pretty soon you're that uncle at the picnic whose plate is caving in the middle because it's too full of things to carry back to the table. I like that enough. I know. I'm thinking of my uncle. I had one of those uncles that we used. We continued to use those cheap Styrofoam plates. And finally when I was old enough, I was like, you know what? We're going to buy like those really good hard plastic plates. The fancy plates. Yes, the fancy plates. And then my grandmother wanted to wash them, but he did it every single time. This wasn't a once in a lifetime. It became when he would get his food. We'd all be looking at each other. Yeah, like waiting for it. You got to eat fast. That's a good point though. Like we're constantly bombarding educators with these amazing new tools that we built. Look at this cool thing. It's going to save you time. And then the school adopts it. And then the teacher has to do two things now instead of the one. And then three things instead of the one. And then four things. And then it just becomes too much and it topples over. So you would create a tool that would save time for them. Where they can actually devote more time to instructional, their instructional classroom. But not have it be something where they have to do double duty. Yeah, the latest thing that I see are that particularly if a state purchases a program. So they purchase the sought lessons and every school in the state has access to it. Teachers are now having to create calendars to show that they are using that tool. So if we're adding more and more on like that. And then pretty soon everything becomes so scripted with program after program. I feel like we're going to lose number one. Some effectiveness. We're also going to lose teachers who are just overwhelmed and choose to leave the field. So it's my hope that we can take things off teachers plate so that we keep our best and broadest in our classrooms where they're able to instruct our students. Yeah, I think I've had three different conversations. I'm thinking of in the last week and a half or so of this is on like the product side where the problem is yeah, showing effectiveness basically and usefulness of the product. And so the problem is how are we showing usage data? And I think that's a common theme and a common thread that product teams are trying to solve. And that's a great way of flipping it around so that it's it's not it's shouldn't become a burden for someone for a teacher to have to show their usage of it. Hopefully that's very seamless and built in for whoever whichever administrator has to oversee that. And because they're trying to be good stewards of their funds helpful. But yeah, I'm just underlining your point that yeah, we don't want to add anything on top. And I'm going to add one more question here that I got curious about as we were talking because Missy you mentioned your son a lot. Do you have any tips or advice or thoughts about navigating your work and motherhood? Oh wow. Tell us everything. All the secrets. Listen, I so I wish if I did and I had it figured out I would have written a book and I would be relaxing on the beaches of Hawaii today. Working moms are the most amazing people on earth and all of the days and all the tasks get get wrapped together so quickly and it feels like that you're working 35 hours a day because it never ends and you're always on duty. But the reality is I promise you that the years go so fast. They go so fast and you know your work will be there no matter what job you do your work will be there your kids will not always be young. So my kids are now 29 and 23 and I'm telling you their lives went in front of our eyes at lightning speed. I would love to blink back for a day. I'm not sure I would stay because it was really hard. But I like to go back just for a day when you might go back and have a baby day where you're back with your little six month old again. And on a few years go back to when you had a Kindergartener and then go back to when you had a fourth grader. I'm not sure I'd go back to like six or seventh grade. I'm not just fast forward through. Throw those thumbs but it just go fast. You have to take care of yourself too because it's hard to take care of other human beings. If you are not taking care of yourself and it's the most important job you're ever going to have the pay as ridiculous the hours are a little bit absurd. But it is honestly the best job you'll ever have. So just enjoy those times. Always choose the baby. Always choose the little one. If you have work to do it can wait. Always choose the little one because there will come a day that they're not asking you to do that anymore. They won't want to crawl up. They won't want you to hold them. So my kids don't ask me if they can sit in my lap or if I can read them a book anymore. So enjoy that time. Enjoy it. I love that. It's really good. That's really good. Thank you. Just as you were talking, I was like, I wonder what her thoughts are on this. Oh, I wish. Yeah. This is what you need to do. I heard it's this amazing journey of just elevating through life having no idea of what you're doing. Yeah. But we all we survive it in some form or fashion. I was reading an article a while back and it was about the phrase that you said that's commonly said when folks are on the other side about it goes by so fast and enjoy it. You mentioned the reverse of that is also you're like, I don't know that I'd want to go back and stay because it was so hard. It's acknowledging both. And the author was basically saying, figuring out a way to while you're in it. And it is very intense and very hard to figure out a way to collect your gems that you can enjoy later as well. So you're enjoying it in the moment. And also whether that's pictures, video, audio bits, there's this journal that I started in January. I got this idea from somebody else. And it's like one of those five year ones. And so each page is like a little section, five sections really. And so the you write in the year. And somehow by some kind of miracle still going like, you're still doing it. Yeah. Still doing it. I'm like, oh, I'm like halfway through the year now. Yeah. And I'm like, this thing is going to age like fine wine. So I just put family memories in there. And next year, I'll see what I wrote previous year when I get to that page. And when I'm like, older or grandma, I'm just going to be probably crying over my books. Grab a cry. Yeah. The weird thing is there were so many times. And I was not nearly as proficient as you are about doing them. First kid pretty well. Second kid comes along as suddenly we must have started living in a cave because it all stopped. But exactly. I love to look back at those things and horse laugh at the things that you've written that they've done the little story. So that's so awesome that you're doing that because it's impossible to remember everything without having something to trigger your mind. Oh, yeah. You should see me when I miss a few days. I'm trying to go back. I'm like, what happened? That thing is gone. Like, it's just gone. So I rely on the camera roll a lot too. But this has been so fun and lightning enriching. I think anyone will feel full if they've listened through this conversation. There's just a lot to chew on here. So thank you, Missy. Where can people learn more about you and follow your work? Sure. So I am on LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram. I have a website. It's missytesterman.com. I appreciate the two of you having me on it. It was a beautiful conversation. I appreciate your contribution to the field and keeping parents grounded in what's important and keeping teachers at the forefront of that as well. So I appreciate both of you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. For our listeners, the best way to follow us is through our newsletter and on LinkedIn. This is the UX Vedtech podcast fueled by our design studio that cultivates learning, creativity, and play. And we are your hosts, Alicia Kwan and Sarah Mondestin. Thanks for listening and we look forward to learning with you next time.