EdTech Startup Showcase

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the EdTech Startup Showcase here on the Bee Podcast Network. Thanks as always for being with us. We love to have you joining us for this series where we get to highlight some of the amazing work happening in the EdTech industry with a variety of companies.

And today should be no different. So I'm Ross Revato. I'm your host today. I'm co founder of the network and host of the authority and sideline sessions. And in this run of episodes, if you've heard the last couple, we're going to be reconnecting with our ed tech founders, engaging in some discussions about some of the big topics that really tie together their work and move the students and educators forward in education.

Today, we're discussing a big one. It's career connected learning and career exploration. How do we give students practical experience with the skills required for careers in their [00:01:00] communities and also give them exposure to the wider world of work? Really giving them relevance in their learning and, and helping our schools continue to really prepare students for successful futures.

So, I'm joined by a couple of great guests for this topic. We have Matt Schoese with us. Matt is the co founder and CEO of the award winning immersive media and virtual reality production studio, Be More Colorful, which is revolutionizing career exploration for students with the groundbreaking product CareerView XR.

Hopefully you've heard about that on the series here. Already, and our other guest is Heba Abdel Bakki. Heba is the principal of Stout Middle School in Dearborn Public Schools in Dearborn, Michigan. And she is a 2024 Excellence in Equity Award winner through the American Consortium for Equity in Education for her amazing work there.

Matt and Heba, welcome to the show.

Hebat: Thank you for having me.

Matt: Thanks Russ. Great to be here.

Ross Romano: So Matt kind of wanted to start with you and get, you know, a [00:02:00] career in technical education, right? Is this of course, faction of education that is the area that It's been around for a while, but I think it's transforming and should be transforming as we're thinking about the opportunities that are available now and what careers are going to look like as we move forward.

I'm wondering from you, you know, if you were to, you know, give us a kind of a future focus definition of career education, right? That's going to help us contextualize it apart from maybe some of the connotations that a lot of people may hear when they think about that. How would you define that? What, what should this education really be focusing on for students

Matt: I, one of the, one of the focuses or ways of focusing that, that I've really enjoyed hearing that, that a lot of schools are taking on is this idea of being choice ready. That's college, career, military, there are lots of amazing paths forward, but we've got [00:03:00] to make sure that a student is able and confident.

to be able to make a choice. So, so I think that that's really the future of it is making sure that there's adequate opportunity for exploration and discovery in that K 12 journey so that by the end of it, it's okay, I'm pretty confident this is the path I want to go down. And, and I, I'm personally very passionate about that because I did not, I was not At that point I did my career exploration in college, six and a half years for my four year degree, and that, that just happened to have worked out for me eventually because I'm, I'm in a path that I love, but there are so many students that go down that path, and they end up saddled with debts, and they, when, when they could have had other opportunities to explore Other avenues that would have then maybe brought them to college eventually, but would have been much more efficient in production for for more, more efficient and productive [00:04:00] for their career engagement earlier on.

Ross Romano: Yeah, in the areas where you're working with CareerViewXR, schools that you're working with, districts, states are there particular career fields that have been the most in demand that people are really looking to learn about?

Matt: Boy, it's really been, it's really been a mix. We're getting you know, a lot of trades, a lot of health care lots of manufacturing, those in demand industries and occupations but we get questions from students all the time for things in the agriculture industry. We're working on building out an agriculture module but then we'll get really obscure, obscure requests from students too.

We've got a We had a request for a paleontology experience, which coincidentally, we're going to be filming in a couple of weeks out in the Badlands area of North and South Dakota. So while, while, yes, you know, we are focusing on those in demand, those high demand areas, we also, within the platform, want to really focus on How do we [00:05:00] encourage excitement about wanting to explore?

We're going to be filming a lobster fishing experience in Maine later this year, and there probably aren't a lot of students that are going to become a paleontologist or become a lobster fisherman, but if we can inspire a love of learning and a love of exploring that helps open up the pathways so that a student doesn't miss out on pursuing their dream job just because they were never exposed to it. (ad here)

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a wonderful example. Particularly, I think with the, the lobster fisherman, right, because that would seem like the type of career that either you grew up in a community where you're, you know, your parents did that, your grandparents, et cetera. And that's really, you know, a key part of that local economy or.

You would never really know it was much of a thing until much later in life when you learn, oh, people do that. And so, you know, the, the ability to get exposure to those types of opportunities again, [00:06:00] not necessarily that it's something that everybody decides they want to go into, but getting a broader understanding of where, number one, where economic opportunity is present, right?

And that it's not, you know, necessarily confined to certain, you know, sectors of the economy that are traditionally considered to be, you know, high growth or lucrative careers. And also that that is continuing to change and shift. And and I think even just having a different mindset and mentality toward if you find something that you can do well, that you love doing, and that you commit to, like, there is.

an opportunity to turn that into a good career, a good life. And it doesn't have to fit into this bucket of white collar versus blue collar college versus no college, et cetera. Heba, you're also doing some, some great things [00:07:00] in your school. And and a big part of that was the, you know, the family and community engagement piece and, and really talking to the community there.

Once you took over the school to learn about what. Where are they interested in, in this regard and what types of programs should you be doing and giving students experience with them? Can you tell us more about that, what your approach was and how you went about ascertaining what your student body and their families were interested in so that you could build programs to, to meet those needs?

Hebat: Yeah. So, first off, I'm gonna agree wholeheartedly with what Matt said. It's all about exploring the different careers. So, because a lot of kids don't know what they don't know and the parents don't know what they don't know. So providing them the background on the different careers has been just exciting in itself.

So I can just focus in on something we're just talking to today with we tend [00:08:00] to, I think, focus in on our mainstream gen ed students. But oftentimes I think schools overlook the center based students, the special needs students, because they're, they can be completely productive in society given the opportunity.

And, and and the building of skills. So just today I was talking to a parent who is an advocate at the district level and the state level for special needs students. We survey our students through giving their parents a form to tell us what are the interest level of your students at home? What are the things that they like to do?

Do they like to help make a bed? Do they like help set the table or put away the dishes? Because what we are able to do is hone in on those experiences and the executive functioning and give them the opportunities they could possibly explore a career in hospitality or in the hotel industry or in animal care.

So we, we hone in on the, on the interests and the in the strengths. And then provide [00:09:00] the opportunities around that. And that's specifically for center based students. And then strengthening their skills in the area. On our Gen Ed we do, our counselors send out a survey, and they do cc the parents on it.

And they ask the students to give us their feedback on what are some potential careers they'd like to explore. And we make sure that we follow it very diligently, so we get students who are interested in car detailing. You know, being a mechanic. No, that's not something that's always celebrated in school, right?

Since things tend to be toward geared toward college ready positions. So we did find people in the community one of the, one of our custodial staff members, actually a building engineer we took those students who, who signed up for career detailing and just explained how to change oil a car, how to change a tire, that type of thing.

Um. People are interested in law enforcement. We got the Dearborn Police local [00:10:00] Dearborn Police dispatcher and our own school resource officer to talk to those students about the careers. So we try to make sure A, we do get their interest level, but B, through our STEM science and career integration, they get exposed to a lot of other careers as well.

And then they can, we connect it to our curriculum itself so that way the students understand the behind why they got to learn the math and science, etc, to help them build their, their skills to go into that field. Coming from the high school, when I was a high school principal, it's great that they do things like that there, but sometimes I feel it's a little bit too late.

I mean, I know Matt was talking about going to college and finding out after you're like way in debt, but even at the high school level, sometimes it's a little bit too late. So we're running it, bringing it down to the middle school, I thought was a nice Head Start to get our students thinking in this direction, and it's been very fruitful for us here at Stout.

Ross Romano: Yeah, you mentioned that, that why piece and that [00:11:00] relevance of it gives those opportunities to connect the things that students are learning in various subject areas to how they might apply it. Um, do you think that also. provides, I guess, a helpful guidance and context for, for educators to be able to make the learning relevant.

I mean, not, you know, the programs themselves, there's maybe a direct relevance to students, but I think also you know, it's not always necessarily natural because it's not, you know, necessarily within the lived experience, right, of most teachers to be able to, to understand from their own experience all these different career paths because they're in one career, right?

So, even though they know that, What they're trying to do is prepare students for the future and all the various things students might want to do. It's not things that they had hands on experience [00:12:00] with, and so sometimes there are those difficulties of explaining, okay, here's how you may apply it. So, you know, I'm wondering from, from maybe the, the feedback that you're getting from the teachers in your building, are there ways that they're seeing, okay, this is, this is giving me different ways to illustrate to my students why we're learning this, right?

That it's not necessarily about that they didn't think about that before, didn't want to do it, but they didn't have those natural connection points that they knew would be things that their students could relate to. Until now.

Hebat: So that's a an outstanding point, and it's very valid. So, it's not that teachers like you said, don't want to do it. It's often they just don't know how to do it. The curriculum's not set up that way. So, I think it's really incumbent on the building principal and the leaders. to bring the resources.

So, for example, in my case, I have my math instructional coach working with my STEM teacher, who what is [00:13:00] really, when you look at it, is a Tuckett teacher, right? It's the woodshop class that we grew up with. Working with that teacher, we converted it into a STEM class, and she was actually teaching geometry while she's teaching that is the bio focus of the biomedical and manufacture for eighth graders class in the woodshop class.

And she taught a whole unit of geometry as they were creating their they made shoes for, for patients with cerebral palsy and they did a lot of geometry. So it wasn't that they didn't want to do it. It's just, we needed assistance from a math coach to see how getting the, this information.

Attaching it to the essential standards in math. How could we package this to make sense to what we are, what we want to teach in this unit? So we're doing a lot of that. And once you get that ball going everybody's productive juices start flowing, ideas start flowing, and there's a natural excitement that comes with.

There's a reason why we're teaching this. We're connecting it for the [00:14:00] students. We're sharing that information with the parents and it comes full circle. And then once you get that going, you have a curriculum that you can build on for the following year. The first year, which was this year, that was kind of hard because we were thinking outside of the box and it wasn't readily available.

But once we know what the essential standards are and figuring out how we can tie this into our units to make it career exploration and integrate the engineering design process, it's It became a fun challenge and we're going to continue to build on it. Well,

Ross Romano: Yeah, Matt, what have you heard or observed regarding the relevance piece of, right, when a student gets exposure to a particular career and they decide that's something I'm really interested in, it gives their school an opportunity to say, okay, if that's something you want to pursue, you really need to have great skills in this area and this area.

So let's get you focused and engaged in those subjects, right? I think it does provide where it's not just about understanding that. [00:15:00] Okay, the reason why we're in school right now is so that we can presumably do something in the future, but these are the specific things that are really important for you to know, so, you know, it can provide that motivation, I would think, to students once they have that exposure.

Matt: Yeah, providing that motivation and answering the why is so critical. And, and I love how about your your geometry story. I've got one also where, where student was lamenting about why do I need to Learn geometry and the career counselor shows them the why do I need to learn geometry?

I'm just going to be in construction. So the career counselor shows them the iron workers experience that we got where everything is very neat precise right angles and and geometry is very important for the structure of buildings and working safely, right? Do you want to be with an ironworker that doesn't understand the importance of right angles?

I mean, there, there's so many opportunities like that [00:16:00] when, when you can get some exposure to the real world, whether that's, you know, hands on, physical, you know, Doing like, like the example that habit shared or whether that's just observing and, and seeing a real world work environments and then understanding the application o of those concepts.

Wanna jump back a little bit to the, the, what was mentioned earlier, the, the involvements or, or the, the awareness of of teachers and, and even parents on what these career pathways are that's, that's so important a career counselor's pathway was typically that they went, went to college, did their student teaching, worked as a teacher for, for a few years and Oh, position came open as a counselor or they moved into administrator role or their administrator and they're also having to serve as counselor.

But there was no, there was no portion in that journey that was focused on exploring careers. So, if you've not had that opportunity you How can you [00:17:00] effectively guide students on, on what those experiences are? I mean, I, I, they're doing the best that they can, but that's where we, we view the content that we're producing as something that can be a really critical professional development tool as well.

And we're actually working on developing a PD course, a PD for credit course that would leverage the CareerVue library of content. To help make career counselors more aware of all of the different avenues that are out there and also being able to align those real world careers with curriculum.

Ross Romano: Right. Yeah. And, and I, and, and that speaks to a reality around the practicality of what the approach and the solution that you're providing enables, right? Like my, my experience in high school, the only thing that was really about a career and particularly what career I might be interested in, I think there was some kind of, career assessment that you could take, you know, you fill out, Oh, what am I [00:18:00] interested in?

Blah, blah, blah. I don't remember what it's called. It's probably something that's still in use today. And it spit out a couple of things. Oh, these, you might be interested in this. And it had a paragraph about what they were, and that's not. You know, the reality is that nationwide in every state, the student to counselor ratio is unmanageable, right?

And so for the capacity and bandwidth that counseling departments have, they have to focus on what's most urgent. Which is areas, you know, where students are at risk of dropping out of school or, or their safety, et cetera, right? There's not, there's just not time. And, and even if there was expertise, there's not time to dedicate to any type of personalized career counseling.

And even once I got that sheet. It's not like there was somebody I could talk to who really knew what those careers [00:19:00] were or, and certainly I didn't have hands on experience, right? And so I think the ability for students to access it and to make their own decisions about this is something I'm interested in.

I'm not. There's other information that's easier to look up, right? If a student decides, have a, I'm interested in, you know, working on the assembly line at the Ford plant, they could then look up relatively easily, how much money might I make doing that, right? But if you just told them, And they said, I'd like to make that amount of money, but I, I have no idea what that job is like right before.

And that's kind of, that's what you really need through exposure and experience. And and also, you know, it, it enables the ability to, I think, just have a broad range of ideas and to make those decisions. at times when, [00:20:00] when they can, they can plan accordingly and not necessarily either decide, you know, just as, as a decision absent context, am I going to college or not?

But thinking about, okay, well, if I decide that I want to, what am I wanting to do with that education? If I decide that I'm not, that's because I have this other goal. And, and I think that moves us beyond an old fashioned. view of career and technical education as this is for the kids who are not going to college.

And the reason they're not going is because we just don't think they're good students or whatever, not because there's something they have an interest in or a skill set to do which, you know, is, is not really the case anymore. And Matt, one of the things I wanted to also highlight is like the adult learning.

And I mean, in today's economy, I did a poll a while back because I was curious on LinkedIn cause I had been talking to a lot of people and coaching a lot of people who are mid career and we're looking to totally [00:21:00] change. And so I, I put out, okay, based on whatever you're doing now for work, is it what you always knew you wanted to do?

Is it something that at some point you made a specific change? The most common answer was. I didn't even know this was a thing until I found it and started doing it, right? That, you know, my, my guess, my best guess about what work is going to look like in 10 years, 20 years, is that everybody's going to do more than one thing.

You know, every career changes are going to become more common. Having your own side business in addition to your day job is going to be much more prevalent. The lines between, you know, blue collar, white collar, full time work, entrepreneurship are going to be much less delineated. And that requires.

Number one, you know, a broader range of experience to know what are the things you're [00:22:00] interested in, but two, the, the opportunity to learn about different careers in a way where you can really make a strategic decision. This is what I want to do, not just say, well, I'm unhappy with my career, so I guess I might as well go back to school and see what happens, right?

But how do you see, you know, the connection that. In my view, like the adult learning piece and the student learning piece are, they're not these two separate things, like maybe in the past we might have thought of them, but Matt, you tell, you tell me what you're, you know, seeing and trying to focus on with CareerViewXR.

Matt: boy. So I mean the focus with CareerVXR is, is, really just broadening horizons, making sure that they're, we call it closing the career awareness gap, that you can't choose a pathway if you don't know that pathway exists. And, and it's, it's. Really, really important to make sure that a student is aware of all of those [00:23:00] environments and all of the industries and opportunities that could be out there for them.

And we love to be able to provide that earlier and more diverse opportunity for exploration to make sure that they can be inspired early on. that we're not missing that opportunity for them to See, you know, go on a field trip and, and say, okay, yep, I can see myself being a diesel mechanic or get on top of a wind turbine and say, Nope, this isn't for me.

I mean, really reducing that that awareness barrier, closing that awareness gap is, is the most critical thing that we're doing through the CareerView platform.

Ross Romano: As far as determining, like, the success of the, of your efforts and programs, I'm sure there's a short term element of feedback you're receiving, right, of the participation that students are [00:24:00] having, and, and what people are thinking, and then, you know, are there, in addition to that, and, and what you've heard in those aspects, are there other Things you're looking at that would be more long term in nature to determine, okay, what types of outcomes are students eventually having now that they're having more exposure?

Hebat: I think that connecting a purpose for their, for their learning has been something that has been tangible. When I say that it's I see excitement in the students. They have purpose to come to school when we tell them that you're learning about in seventh grade engineering and transportation and we are going to take you to the Ford F 150 plant.

To see how that is put together and they see these engineers coming in from Ford with the robots and they talk about the robotics that they're talking about in a robotics club, etc. There's an excitement that is tangible. They're no longer talking about TikTok. They're no longer at [00:25:00] lunchtime talking about what's going on on Snapchat.

They're talking about what they're doing in this class where they get to do things with their hands and, and learn these really cool things that their peers may not be doing in their in the middle schools and the district, you know. So, There is an audible and visible excitement that I think will be carried with them when they go on to high school.

They do have a background in different fields and in different careers. So when the counselors at the high school do talk to them about careers and bring in all these different, whether they're the universities or the colleges or the skilled trade group that come in and talk to students, I think They have a background of experience that's going to help them.

I, I really truly feel that they're going to be pushed forward because they're coming from an area of knowledge versus just hearing it for the first time fresh in high school. To me, that is my my biggest reason of, of, of doing this in the school. Yes, it's promoting a double dose [00:26:00] of ELE and math and science and technology, but I think the bigger picture and why it's becoming so productive in the school is because there's an excitement that is genuine.

And, and I don't know how else I would have built that level of excitement if we didn't do what we were doing with this real world career integration in the building. (ad here)

Ross Romano: Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. It's making me think about a conversation I had earlier this week where someone shared, you know, when they ask their students what they want to be when they grow up. Right. Everybody says YouTube star, TikTok star, but the reality is, right? Like that's something that kids are exposed to.

And as you said, like, they're no longer really talking about those things that much, and it's not that that's not a potential thing they could do, but it's, it's giving them exposure to many more things that they usually might not see. [00:27:00] The same as when. A four year old says they want to be a fireman or a policeman, you know, because that's, those are things they've seen in the world and they're aware of that.

And, and there's all these other layers to, to all of these businesses that even the ones that have more exposure. I did a handful of years ago a couple of career interviews in the sports industry, right? Okay. high school kids, middle school kids, they've seen athletes and they probably understand that there's coaches, but there's all these other positions.

These are whole big businesses, right? There's accountants, there's lawyers there, there's front office executives, there's scouts, there's, you know, analytics people using their math skills. There's all these different, there's sales, there's marketing, there's an entire like, If you know this is something I'm really interested in, and I have the skills in this area, you can apply it to [00:28:00] that, but you might not even realize that those things exist until much later on.

And it might, you know, just make it a little bit harder to plan accordingly, particularly students getting that kind of exposure at the middle school level, you know, which is uncommon in my experience to, again, like, not that we're trying to make them decide exactly what they want to be, but that they're starting to think in that way and to be observant.

about what's around them and consider what might be good options for them. Have you, like, found, I mean, was that something, Heather, that you, I guess, did you always think that, middle school students were going to respond in a, in a highly engaged way to career exposure, or have you learned something different about that as you've gone about it?

Hebat: So I [00:29:00] knew a few years ago that we needed to do something different. I could tell coming back from COVID there is a huge difference in the maturity level of the kids and I figured we need to do something. We need to do something fast. Did I think it was going to take off and be as successful?

I don't know if I did. I mean, I have sixth graders creating, and I don't know if it's Roblox or Minecraft, but they're creating the four twin towers and sending it to me. So they're actually creating images that they know we're, we're kind of exploring and celebrating. using what they're familiar with and actually sending it to me.

So I actually printed it out because I thought it was cool that you took this much time. And I don't know too much about gaming, but I showed the image to my college age son who said this took a lot of time for that kid to put, make that image of Ford Motors headquarters out of, I think it was Minecraft.

I think it was, it's called. And, and to, to do that, that was [00:30:00] important to them. Do I think he would have done it, this student given the fact that we, if we did not do this, I don't think so. So, again, it's, it's become more productive and exciting than I originally imagined. I knew it was going to go somewhere because it was relevant and it was real world, but did not know that it would be this exciting or interesting to our students.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Matt, Matt, what, going back to that question that I had, that I asked, have earlier about determining the success of what you're doing and what are, you know, How are schools determining the success of the exploration that their students are having? And kind of, you know, what outcomes, I guess, are they looking to achieve?

Matt: Yeah, so the typical outcomes are things like did a student consider something that they never considered before? Do they feel more confident about the particular career path, whether that's yes, I'm interested or no, I'm not, right? Those are equally desirable outcomes. A big part of what you [00:31:00] need to do in career exploration is determine what's not a good fit.

And that can be as influential on, on finding the right path as. Aligning with the things that you, that you do like and, and kind of going back to your question of what do I want to be what we're finding is that the most successful schools that, that are, that are implementing career exploration, whether it's our stuff or whether it's, it's you know, other programming, it, it's reframing that question instead of what do I want to be, what do I want to explore, because when you ask a student, what do I want to be, they're going to name one thing they know, right?

When you ask them, what do I want to explore? They're going to name off all sorts of things they've heard about, but they have no clue what they are. So reframing the question around that, what do I want to explore? That's what's going to get the best outcomes from, from schools, and then enabling the students to be able to do that.

I, I love the example of, of Minecraft. I mean that I, I watched my kids create my, [00:32:00] my daughter created a Walmart in Minecraft and it different sections within the store and cash registers and, and why? Well, because she wanted to design a retail store and she's, she was six at the time. So don't don't pigeonhole kids into, into forcing them to answer the question, what do you want to be? Expand the options for them by asking them, what do you want to seek?

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the, I would imagine that One of the, it's the purposeful use of technology is kind of what I, how I wanted to wrap up the conversation and that one of those areas is around the ability to adapt, right, and to be able to stay on trend this, you know, because this already happens and I think it's going to continue to only happen [00:33:00] more rapidly, the cycles of what types of careers are, you know, having a lot of opportunity in the account and the ability to give students exposure to those when that opportunity exists so they can take advantage.

You know, I'm thinking about something like coding skills, how for a long time it was a niche specialization, then it became something that You know, most students were told they should have at least some proficiency in it, and now, you know, in the near future, it might completely transition to kind of AI prompting is the skills you need to have versus being able to do the coding by hand, right?

And all of that happens, like, relatively quickly. where it goes from, okay, you really need to know this to actually now you need to know something different. And, and, and that happens, [00:34:00] you know, in other careers, but, but the technologies that exist now are going to transform different types of careers in different sectors of the economy more, I would almost say like more.

Equitably, right? In the past when technology meant physical machines, it, you know, its impact was always, was on manual labor, right? And now technology is going to touch all different types of jobs and, and just, so just assuming that the thing that I know how to do now will always be the thing clearly is wrong.

But, you know, if, if schools take a decade to adapt By the time they are teaching students about a certain career, then that career is, is on its way out, or those skills are shifting. So, I want to get both of your thoughts on this. We'll start with you, Matt, about, I guess, how this, [00:35:00] this pursuit of, you know, high quality career connected learning is a good idea.

Thank you. opportunity and illustration of the purposeful use of technology and really, you know, being able to find tools that, that enable us to do this meaningfully.

Matt: Yeah, thank you for that. So I, I think that the best way to do that is, is leveraging technology to take an individualized approach with, with students and, and not slotting folks into a box or, or category broad, broadly defined categories. I mean, I, I remember when, when I was in school, there was, The special needs class that was completely separate and a lot of those students, right?

Very, very capable of, of being able to perform all of the academic work that the, the, General education population was, was doing as well. But being viewed as, as different and, and they're not being that [00:36:00] individualized and not tools not being available. And then understanding, not, not being around to how do we, how do we adapt for this individual's needs?

And I think that's maybe the, looking at special ed, that's maybe the extreme case, but every student is, is. Also requires that individualized approach and has individual needs and, and interests. And the more we can leverage technology to, to align education with what a student is getting really passionate about and what, what leverages their, their abilities.

That's what's going to really allow learning to, to, to accelerate and, and be much more impactful for all students.

Ross Romano: Yeah, yeah, I'll give you the final word here and, you know, would love your perspective on what it means in schools and the things schools should be looking at and asking around, making sure that their uses of technology are purposeful toward enabling [00:37:00] better opportunities and better outcomes for students, not just Doing school differently, but you know, but kind of the same.

Hebat: That, that's a key point. So, one of the major things we talk about is technology in our building, at least it should be used just for lesson enhancement and not for convenience of grading an assignment. We're very purposeful on that. So, teaching students to just be proficient, believe it or not, just because they're on a Chromebook or whatever all day long doesn't mean that they're proficient at Google Word.

Or know how to send a an email accurately and, you know, so working on what, what I consider executive functioning and the soft skills of technology, making that purposeful in our classes using programs like, for example, the coding programs and there's interior design programs that they use in the sixth grade architecture STEM classes making sure they're connecting that and understanding and writing.

why it is that we're doing, what are we doing [00:38:00] with this technology? What are we doing with this program? How is it helpful to this career? So the students are reflecting on what it is that they're using. I also have the staff talk to the students about the use of AI. I don't shy away from that because it's there.

The kids are using it. But explaining the limitations, the AI using sites like Chat, GPT, and Gemini, and all that, when you're using that, how is it actually helping you, and how is it limiting you, and, and what are the, some of the discussions we have to have around this and what could it potentially, what kind of trouble can it potentially get you into if you continue to use this in this setting, or in this college course, or etc.?

So we can't be shy also to talk about the tools that are out there to make people's lives easier. We need to be able to have an open, honest discussion, talk about what advantages does it bring to us, what consequences can come out of using them as well. So we have to be [00:39:00] open and honest, but again, like you said, purposeful, and making sure that it's not doing the opposite of what we're intending it's used to be in schools.

Ross Romano: Awesome. Well, thank you both. This is a topic that is worthy of much more discussion, but luckily we got into a good amount of it today and you know, and there's a variety of ways to go about this, but ultimately I think if schools continue to think about and explore. new ways of really giving students insight and exposure to career opportunities and ways that they would use their knowledge and skills to create the futures that they want for themselves and then also for the world, right?

It's only going to increase It's the esteem, hopefully, that the population has for our schools and the understanding of the relevance of, of what they are doing every day and, and and also give learners much better [00:40:00] outcomes. So, thank you both, please, listeners if you're not already, subscribe to the EdTech Startup Showcase.

to hear more conversations like this on a variety of topics. You heard A. I. mentioned there at the end. That certainly will be a focus of discussion and career connected learning and teacher evaluation, student assessment, much more. There's so much more to come, so please check that out. Matt and Heba, thanks again for being here.

Hebat: Thank you guys. Thank you for having us.

Matt: Thank you.