This Guest Educator Panel features two of California’s brightest and best, Scott Spector, Coordinator of Innovation and Academic Events for the Santa Barbara County Education Office and Ellen Palmer, Program Administrator, Educational Technology at the Pomona Unified School District. As per usual, our Guest Educator Panels are no-hold-barred, and this panel discussion is no exception. And also per usual, for every challenge mentioned, there’s a solution that you can take home to your own school or district.
According to Palmer, “Oftentimes, tech companies will make changes to their technology and how they interact with the networks, and it actually creates more barriers for us because we'll work with our SIS admin team and we'll get it all set up, it's running. And then, two months later the school is calling me back because the vendor did something and now it's not working. And, our SIS admin is not one to say, okay, we'll just open up all the ports and in that classroom, the kids can go anywhere and do anything online. You know? So that's probably our biggest challenge right now, but I've been submitting budgets ever since I learned about the new ESSR monies and how it's supposed to be about re-engaging kids into school. I've been submitting my budget for Eports room at every secondary school. And we want to create leagues within, at the elementary, almost like intramurals for the elementary and the middle school kids, a system where they could earn time in that lab after school, if they come to class and do what they're supposed to do.”
Answering Palmer’s challenges, Spector replied, “There's so much more to that. Some companies out there that I've been talking to that are actually creating Esports games around skills like financial literacy and things like that. I mean, can you imagine kids? You know, I get so upset because kids don't learn about the basics of those kinds of skills in school. They don't learn how to balance a checkbook. They don't learn, oh, I could have bought a house. I could have used the equity in this buy. They don't learn about any of that. What if somebody had a game and these kids were actually competing, they had to think on the fly and do that kind of stuff. There are some of these companies out there that really get it.”
As Spector and Palmer share their challenges and solutions, you’re sure to find solutions to many of the challenges you are experiencing. And you’ll enjoy the saucy, in-your-face style of this very entertaining panel discussion.
