Greetings and Welcome to another Potentially Useful episode of the TCAPSLoop Podcast. After several rather stress inducing weeks at TCAPSLoop towers we decided to keep this episode light by focusing on some great tech tools to get you through the stretch run of the school year. So let’s start the calming process by inhaling this weeks TCAPS Loop Moment of Zen:

Canva for podcasting

1. 1. How To Create a Podcast in Canva
   2. Free and customizable podcast templates

Google Classroom Practice Sets

1. 1. 1. Practice sets - Google for Education
      2. Uses AI to help find and attach supplemental study material
      3. Uses AI to deliver insights about assignment/class

AI Test Kitchen from Google

Comic Sans Criminal

Additional Inspiration:

• Dr. Nagler Named COSN EmpowerED Superintendent of the Year
• Too much screen time? U-M pioneers digital wellness program for youths | University of Michigan News
• In the legislature now: The American Privacy Rights Act of 2024

Bluey. Just watch it.

• Watch - Bluey Official Website
• NPR Bluey Podcast

Please rate and review the podcast on your app of choice and leave us a comment on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram

Thank you so much for listening and inspiring!

Hosts: Danelle Brostrom, Larry Burden

Um and Ramble Editing: Larry Burden

Cover art created with help from Adobe Firefly.

Greetings and Welcome to another Potentially Useful episode of the TCAPSLoop Podcast. This episode dives into the world of AI prompts with guest Pete Milne, REMC Director! We explore best practices for crafting effective prompts, ensuring responsible AI use, and leveraging Pete's expertise to elevate your ed-tech game. Buckle up and get ready to unlock the appropriate use of AI in your practice!

Crafting Powerful Prompts: Pete shares key tips for creating clear, concise, and effective prompts that guide AI tools towards your desired outcome.

Reliable Sources & Verification: Learn the importance of including reputable sources in your prompts and double-checking information for accuracy.

Responsible AI Use: We discuss crucial considerations like avoiding PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and verifying sources to ensure ethical and responsible AI integration.

Practice Makes Perfect: Pete emphasizes the importance of practice when crafting prompts. Explore scenarios like those offered by Common Sense Education (https://www.commonsense.org/education/collections/ai-literacy-lessons-for-grades-6-12)) to hone your skills.

AI as Your Partner: AI is best used as an assistant or thought partner, not a replacement for our expertise.

REMC 2Central

• REMC Association of Michigan
• REMC SAVE
• Control Alt Achieve: Super Prompt - An AI Prompt to Create AI Prompts
• The Prepare Framework – AI Pioneers
• Doc for Getting Started with Prompts
• Enhancing Efficiency & Effectiveness While Providing Accommodations for All - April (asynchronous)
• Sketchnoting - April 17th (noon - 3:30)
• PSTL in a Box - May (asynchronous)

Please rate and review the podcast on your app of choice and leave us a comment on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram

Thank you so much for listening and inspiring!

Hosts: Danelle Brostrom, Larry Burden

Um and Ramble Editing: Larry Burden

Cover art created with help from Adobe Firefly.

Greetings and Welcome to another Potentially Useful episode of the TCAPSLoop Podcast. Danelle's leveled up after her successful quest through MACUL 2024 and will guide us into the exciting realm of Developmentally Appropriate AI in Education. We know our youngest learners must develop the necessary critical thinking skills to navigate a landscape where AI will be ubiquitous. So, gear-up, fellow ed-tech explorers, as we embark on a journey through bytes, and building blocks.

Thoughts on Access vs. Exposure in regards to AI in schools

Generative AI has potential benefits for education and risks that must be thoughtfully managed.

Early Elementary - Bite sized digital citizenship, scaffolding to big ideas

• AI is not a human
• “Peek under the hood” to see how these things work
• Critical Thinking
  • AI hallucinations
  • AI created images
• Slow down and self reflect AND Seek facts and evidence (5 core dispositions of digital citizenship)
• Not directly on AI systems - under 13

Later Elementary

• Problem solvers, if we aren’t careful, they will learn to rely on this kind of tech rather than solving their own problems
• Ask ChatGPT questions, but the teacher is always in the drivers seat.
• Spend a LOT of time thinking critically about the answers
• Not directly on AI systems - under 13

Middle School

• CAUTION! “Over 13? Let’s get them on AI!” Developmentally what do we know about middle school brains? They lack impulse control. Set guardrails and limits.
• Exercises in which students ask a generative AI chatbot to answer a question or write an essay and then critique it—looking for factual errors, etc.
• “It should be used as a tool to complement and challenge the critical-thinking skills that come online at this age,”

High School

• High school students are fast becoming sophisticated users of programs like ChatGPT.
• Teachers may feel their main duty at this stage is to police students and make sure they’re not using ChatGPT, Photomath, and similar technologies to do their assignments. But experts say that educators have a more important role to play: primarily, to teach students the limitations of the technology. The text and images created by generative AI programs, for example, can be plagued with biases, stereotypes, and inaccuracies.
• “Exercise your natural suspicions. Doubt the machine. Don’t take answers at face value”
• AI is an important component of their education, but it still needs boundaries and guidance.
• AI Literacy Lessons for Grades 6–12 | Common Sense Education

AI Literacy Lessons for Grades 6–12 | Common Sense Education

Rate, Review and Subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcast, Podbean, Castbox, Overcast, Bullhorn, or wherever else you get your ear candy.

Please rate and review the podcast on your app of choice and leave us a comment on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram

Thank you so much for listening and inspiring!

Hosts: Danelle Brostrom, Larry Burden

Um and Ramble Editing: Larry Burden

Cover art created with help from Adobe Firefly.

Greetings and Welcome to another Potentially Useful, From the Desk of the Director, episode of the TCAPSLoop Podcast. Evan O’branovic is already back up for a second helping at the Edtech Buffett. In todays episode, we'll talk trends and tips to leverage technology for enhancing student engagement, streamlining administrative tasks, and fostering a collaborative learning environment while attempting to avoid rambling incoherently for 20 minutes.

“We shape clay into a pot, but it’s the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want - Tao Te Ching

• What's the difference between an Learning Management System (LMS) and a Classroom Management System (CMS)?
• What questions are you asking when looking at these solutions?
• What outcomes are you hoping for? How are you planning to measure success?
• What’s next?

• Please rate and review the podcast on your app of choice and leave us a comment on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram

  Thank you so much for listening and inspiring!

  Hosts: Evan Obranovic, Larry Burden

  Um and Ramble Editing: Larry Burden

  Cover art created with help from Adobe Firefly.

Greetings and Welcome to another "Potentially Useful" episode of the TCAPSLoop Podcast. We are excited to be joined by Amber Wade, Wayne RESA’s Assistive Technology Consultant to follow up on our NETP conversations concerning Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Accessibility and provide some potentially useful tips for educators attempting to implement UDL in their practice.

Key Goals of the Podcast:

1. Increase understanding of UDL
2. Increase depth of understanding around accessibility
3. Offer practical tips for educators regarding UDL/Accessibility

Audience for the Podcast:

• K-12 educators

• Administrators

General Accessibility Questions:

1. For educators unfamiliar with accessibility, what's the simplest way to explain its importance in education?
2. What are some common accessibility barriers educators might be overlooking?
3. Are there free or low-cost resources educators can use to make their classrooms more accessible?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Questions:

1. Can you explain the core principles of UDL in a way that educators can easily understand?
2. How can UDL benefit all learners, not just those with disabilities?
3. What practical strategies can educators use to implement UDL in their classrooms?
4. How can UDL be used to promote a more inclusive and equitable learning environment?

Implementation and Challenge Questions:

1. What are some of the biggest challenges educators face when implementing UDL?
2. What advice would you give educators who are just starting to explore UDL?
3. Looking towards the future, what are your predictions for the role of accessibility and UDL in education?

Alt+Shift: Every Learner Has Special Needs. Learners do not need to be “ready” to be included. Programs need to be ready to support all learners.

Digital Promise Edtech Pilot Framework: The Edtech Pilot Framework provides a step-by-step process to help education leaders and technology developers run successful educational technology (edtech) pilots.

Rate, Review and Subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcast, Podbean, Castbox, Overcast, Bullhorn, or wherever else you get your ear candy.

Thanks for listening and inspiring!

Please rate and review the podcast on your app of choice and leave us a comment on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram

Thank you so much for listening and inspiring!

Hosts: Danelle Brostrom, Larry Burden

Special Guest: Amber Wade

Um and Ramble Editing: Larry Burden

Cover art created with help from Adobe Firefly.

Greetings and Welcome to another Potentially Useful episode of the TCAPSLoop Podcast. Today, we embark on an ambitious mission to bridge the Digital Design Divide. Part 2 of our NETP series aims to dismantle barriers and explore the implications and envisioning a future where every educator, regardless of circumstance, has equitable access to the tools and resources they need to embody this weeks TCAPS Loop Moment of Zen:

Follow along by downloading the National EdTech Plan (NETP): A Call to Action for Closing the Digital Access, Design, and Use Divides

Some Key Points:

• What is the Digital Design Divide and why is Danelle the solution?
• Importance of the Profile of an Educator as well as connecting it to the Portrait of a Graduate
• Incorporate the Design Process: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Deliver, and Test

NETP Recommendations for Closing the Design Divide

1. Develop a “Portrait of an Educator” outlining the cognitive, personal, and interpersonal competencies educators should have to design learning experiences that help students develop the skills and attributes outlined in the profile of a graduate. (States, Districts)
2. Design and sustain systems that support ongoing learning for new and veteran teachers and administrators, providing them with the time and space needed to design learning opportunities aligned with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Framework. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)
3. Implement feedback mechanisms that empower educators to become leaders and codesigners of professional learning experiences. (Districts, Building-Level Administrators)
4. Provide educators and administrators with professional learning that supports the development of digital literacy skills so that they can model these skills for students and the broader school community. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)
5. Develop processes for evaluating the potential effectiveness of digital tools before purchase, including the use of research and evidence. (State, District, Building-Level Administrators)
6. Foster an inclusive technology ecosystem that solicits input from diverse stakeholders to collaborate on decision-making for technology purchases, learning space design, and curriculum planning. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)
7. Support and facilitate a systemic culture that builds trust and empowers educators to enhance and grow their professional practice to meet the needs of each student. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)
8. Regularly solicit educator feedback and evaluate professional learning efforts to ensure alignment with the Portrait of an Educator. (District, Building-Level Administrators)

Professional Learning on the go. You likely know this if you are a listener of ours… podcasts are a great place to get digestible chunks of professional development.

One of my recent favorites is:

AEM Center: The Accessible Learning Experience Podcast

Rate, Review and Subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcast, Podbean, Castbox, Overcast, Bullhorn, or wherever else you get your ear candy.

Thanks for listening and inspiring!

Please rate and review the podcast on your app of choice and leave us a comment on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram

Thank you so much for listening and inspiring!

Hosts: Danelle Brostrom, Larry Burden

Um and Ramble Editing: Larry Burden

Cover art created with help from Adobe Firefly.