Healthy Screen Habits Takeaway

Resources

For more info: EverySchool website

EdTech Triangle: link

Show Transcript

Hillary Wilkinson (00:49):

Okay, true confession time. I almost didn't put this episode together today. And the reason is not because of time management, although I can use that to explain many other happenings in my life. The reason is because I have this problem with hoarding precious things. I was the kid who always ate cupcake frosting last, and I'm the person who still has new socks in my drawer because they're too special to wear. I have many greeting cards that I've purchased, but not yet found the perfect recipient. It's a problem, and I found myself doing that with today's show. As you probably know, if you've listened to any amount of time, my background and passion are in elementary education. So when I started hearing buzz about an organization called Every school.org, my interest was peaked. And concurrently I was hearing something called the Ed tech triangle swirling around the digital wellness arena.

Hillary Wilkinson (01:53):

Well, lo and behold, they're connected. So I might not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but I get there eventually. And this matched perfectly with this season's theme of taking action and getting involved. So today, I'm thrilled to fill in these gaps and introduce the co-founder and executive director of every school.org. She's also the co-author of the Ed Tech Triangle, and we're gonna take a deeper dive into that. She has a background in teaching as well as photography, and she is truly someone who has put plans into action. I'm really very honored to welcome Blythe Winslow.

Blythe Winslow (02:40):

Aw, thank you Hillary. That was a great introduction. I'm so happy to be here and I'm happy to talk about this subject with you.

Hillary Wilkinson (02:46):

Well, thank you. As I admit, uh, almost like, you know, it like took me a while to put this episode out because I only admitted part of the reason the, my first part is, is, um, the hoarding of precious things. But the second part is cause I really like, I feel this episode is so important, I want it to have great impact. And in thinking about the EdTech triangle, I was, I was trying to time it and I'm like almost wondering, oh gosh, should it be shared in the fall when the school year's ramping up or now that it's winding down? But then I kind of like put my teacher hat back on and thought like, okay, no. Like summer is a really good time of reflection for educators. Yes. And my hope is that perhaps this is going to bring about some, like, like some of that like contemplative reflection about teaching in the classroom and tech use in the classroom.

Blythe Winslow (03:43):

I think that's great. And I do, I agree. I agree with you. I think teachers are overloaded and I think so there's so much going on and, and the summer is a great time to, you know, reevaluate what's going on and make, make new plans for the future.

Hillary Wilkinson (03:57):

Yeah. So let's reflect a little bit on how you got to this point. Can you talk about creating every school.org and what were the drivers behind it?

Blythe Winslow (04:10):

Sure. Well, I think like so many things that, um, are positive, I think it really was born from a lot of kind of challenge and strife. So, um, I have two girls. Their age is 10 and 13, and back when they were around six and eight years old, like, keep in mind that my oldest daughter was born in 2009, so that was one year before the iPad was invented, right? And as we all know, and if, if you're kind of in this set of generation of parents, you really know that we're Guinea pigs with kids in tech, and we just, we really don't know what we're doing all the time. We're trying to do our best. But at that time, when my kids were six and eight, I was kind of letting them use my phone to play games, wink, wink, right? Like, and I didn't, they didn't have devices, they didn't have an iPad.

Blythe Winslow (05:02):

And what happened was they really became so compelled, I, I mean, in parentheses, like crazy about my phone. And I thought, it's not that big of a deal because it's my phone. I'm still using it, I'm just giving it to them. But one morning, my youngest daughter, who is six, came into my room at six in the morning. And, you know, her hair was all messy, and she was just like, I just want your phone. Just gimme your phone. And I couldn't take it. I was just like, look, this doesn't feel right. I can't do this. We're gonna go on a summer, like screen break, you know? No, no phone for the, you know, I had let them watch a little bit of tv, but other than that, no phone, no games. And it was a great summer, of course, right? It was the best.

Blythe Winslow (05:45):

And I also read a book called Glow Kids by Nicholas Cards at that time. And I do have a background in, in teaching. I used to teach English at the University of Cincinnati. And, um, at that time, I, but I was a family photographer, so I'm kind of artsy too. And I do know a lot about technology, so I have this interest in technology, and I just kept reading more and more about the impact of technology on kids. And it was scary to me. And so I decided to kind of slow my role right on integrating tech in my own family. And then came August to my third grade, my, my third grade daughter's, like parent information night, and they were rolling out these iPads and they had been rolled out for a while because I'm lucky enough to live in a district that does have funds.

Blythe Winslow (06:37):

And they had been one-to-one, I think since 2012, if you can believe that. That was a very early, like, um, adoption of technology. That's not really, yeah. So yeah, so the, the focus of the night seemed to be the iPad. And I was really concerned because I thought, oh my gosh, like I just got the center control on my own Hyatt house. I didn't even want my kids to really have devices yet, but my daughter seemed super excited about using the iPad, like all the time in school. So I decided to go on this just investigation, like, what's really going on? Maybe it's not so bad. Like, I didn't wanna, I don't, no one wants to like judge their teacher. Teachers are already judged enough. And I, I didn't wanna be that parent who was just alarmed for no reason. So I started talking to other parents, you know, I talked to administrators and what I found out was administrators are in a similar position to parents right now, and that here's this thing called technology.

Blythe Winslow (07:34):

It feels really exciting and fun and it feels like a solution to so many things, but there wasn't really a plan for how to adopt it in an effective way. And there definitely wasn't a research-based framework for best practices. It was just kind of like, maybe we'll use this app, maybe we'll use that app. And in fact, a lot of the time the kids were getting to choose when to use it. Like, um, maybe there would be stations in my third graders class. So you can rotate in one of the stations was an iPad and you could do this game, you know, this learning game or that learning game. So it just, it seemed really haphazard. So actually a group of parents got concerned. We were concerned about certain other types of tech use, like using an iPad at recess time. If it was, if it was raining outside, the kids could stay in inside and just play games on the, on the iPad instead of kind of interacting or doing other things inside.

Blythe Winslow (08:36):

So I think a lot of parents got concerned, and that's where the challenges arose. And so there became a local group pretty much headed by, you know, head up, headed up by me, um, to change the way technology was used in our school district, or at least start a conversation about what we kind of wanted based on the things that we were reading about, because we really did do like a deep, deep research dive. So, so that, that was kind of the local, the local movement in my school district in 2018. And we made some changes. Um, you know, we were able to kind of remove iPad recess time, remove the iPad as a reward if you finished your work. Sometimes kindergartners were given the option to like, do this worksheet and then if you finish, you can play the iPad, which felt problematic. So, and then we also helped our district cr create a district tech plan because they didn't have a plan for how they were gonna use technology.

Blythe Winslow (09:38):

So all that was good, but it kind of ended, it felt like a negative cycle because again, it's hard to tell teachers, um, and to not necessarily what to do, but it's hard to say, Hey, I don't feel like this feels right. Can we talk about it? Right? And so that's when, um, my business partner and I, Amy Tyson, who knows a lot about child development, she's a child and adolescent therapist. She was for 10 years before she, um, had kids and started every school with me. But she said, you know what? Let's, let's do this. Let's start every school. And it began really with the EdTech triangle.

Hillary Wilkinson (10:18):

Okay.

Blythe Winslow (10:18):

This concept, which is a, a model that really, um, synthesizes a bunch of EdTech research about what types of technology work

Hillary Wilkinson (10:28):

And what, yeah. Hang on. Blythe, before we get into the EdTech triangle, can we take just a minute to define what is EdTech and like, what are the pros and cons?

Blythe Winslow (10:40):

So EdTech really is, um, any type of tool or practice that furthers learning in the classroom that involves technology. That might be something like computational thinking, which is an underpinning of coding that might be something like using a digital image to show a child a picture of a different country or what's happening in a different part of the world. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, or that might be something like using an electronic text, uh, instead of a printed text. But basically what we mainly think about when we think about educational technology is this use of a screen. So yes, um, EdTech does include things like robotics, which might not include a screen, or it might include a screen, but most of the way that we see ed tech in our kids' schools is through an iPad or a computer.

Hillary Wilkinson (11:33):

Okay. So we have to take a quick break, but when we come back, let's talk more about the ed tech triangle as well as the parent groups that are every school's amplifiers and how to get involved. 

Ad Break:  Special thanks to the doctors Petty Laura Hoffman and Danielle Waters for their financial support of healthy screen habits. It allows us to continue our mission of educating and empowering families to create their healthiest screen habits. 

Hillary Wilkinson:

The mission of every school.org is to have happier, healthier, smarter school communities through digital wellness. And the beauty of this mission statement is that it's so understandable and it's, I so impressive to me that it is. So it's easy to be understood when I know that one of the founding tenements of the organization is that all information is backed by research. So this translation of research talk to everyday words is really impressive, <laugh>, because that's not an easy task always. And before the break, we talked about EdTech. Let's dive into the EdTech triangle. Blythe, can you describe this amazing tool?

Blythe Winslow (12:58):

Yes. So the EdTech triangle is, it's supposed to be simple, and I believe it is, but it's an inverted triangle. And it's basically a model that is a synthesis of a bunch of research on what EdTech tools are transformative for learning and wellbeing in the classroom, and what EdTech tools or practices can be restrictive or disruptive. Because what we really know when we look at the bulk of EdTech research is that we can see that technology in the classroom is not a neutral learning tool. Some tech types or tech amounts, um, can restrict learning or disrupt it. And while other types can actually fuel learning or be transformative for the student. So that's, and I think we all feel that in our own lives, right? Hillary, whether it's with ed tech in the classroom or technology in our homes, just certain types feel really helpful and useful and transformative and other types just don't.

Hillary Wilkinson (14:01):

Yeah, it's like cotton candy or, yes.

Blythe Winslow (14:05):

And so what, what teachers really haven't had yet, I don't think, is they haven't had a guide to figure out like, what does this research on ed tech show? Because they're busy with other things, right? They're not ed tech researchers. And when I say ed tech research, I'm talking about research from the fields of psychology, um, child development pedagogy, which is teaching and learning. So it's a lot of different things and even, um, research on physical health, right? So teachers honestly do not have the time, nor should they be, um, required to take all of that research and figure out, okay, what app am I gonna use or what, um, what platform should I use today? They, I believe that, um, you know, they can figure out in their, from their classroom what feels right, but it might actually not be what the research is showing works. So if you give teachers this model, I believe it can help, it can help them figure out what tech to integrate and what tech to trash.

Hillary Wilkinson (15:10):

Okay. So it's just kind of, um, when I saw the EdTech triangle, like you said, it's an inverted triangle. So I think everybody kind of goes to like food pyramid type stuff. Yes. It's a And so it's a little bit analog IOUs, would you say?

Blythe Winslow (15:28):

It is. It is. It's just like that. And it's similar to this idea of nutrition, right? What types of technology kind of work and are good for you and what types don't?

Hillary Wilkinson (15:39):

Yeah, there's

Blythe Winslow (15:39):

Four categories. Um, the top category is the, the best, which is transformative. And that's any type of technology that produces a unique outcome or develops a high level skill, which is important when you think about it, right? It's like, technology is really neat and it is super cool. And if we give it, and what the research tells us is if we use it in that high way, if it, we use it to teach robotics or coding, computer animation, website design, which are all tech types under that category, it can, it truly can transform the learning process. So in other words, if we treat tech as its own subject, the research shows it can be really powerful, especially for kids with special needs. There are amazing, uh, uses of technology in the classroom for, for those kids. But when we look, um, at the other categories, which the next category is supportive, that's any type of, um, technology that supports learning in helpful ways.

Blythe Winslow (16:41):

And then there's a restrictive category, which certain types of technology can restrict learning outcomes. And then the bottom category is the disruptive category, which, uh, disrupts learning or breeds habitual use. So those are the types of technology that we wanna avoid using in the classroom. And that would include things like any platform that exposes students to bullying or inappropriate content, or even unrestricted access to cell phones during school hours. So research shows that there really is a big impact on kids' academic success, uh, and emotional wellbeing when there're just allowed to use their cell phones in school in any way at any time, which does happen in some schools. Yeah. Um, so, so those are the few, few tech types. But, um, ultimately it's just really a filter. It's a way for teachers to quickly see, okay, this is what the research sh says, um, is gonna work for me in my classroom, and this is what the research says might not,

Hillary Wilkinson (17:45):

Right? And as a teacher, you're given so much to cover every day, such a compressed time zone, which only gets, I mean, increasingly more compressed as you go up in grade. You know, you start in your elementary school years and you've got the whole day, and then, I mean, it gets broken up, but by the time you're hitting the high school years, you've got, you know, 50 minutes that you've gotta get through this. So I think teachers are very aware that they need to make each minute count. So I think this is That's true. Awesome. Yeah.

Blythe Winslow (18:19):

Yeah, that is true. I mean, we don't really wanna be, um, we also really don't wanna send the wrong message about using an iPad or a computer in school. We don't want it to be filler, right? It should be treated as, um, kind of the complex tool that it is.

Hillary Wilkinson (18:35):

Right? 

Blythe Winslow (18:35):

For example, one of the, one of the most, um, passionate things I'm about, uh, I'm excited about on the EdTech triangle and I really care about is if we look at, um, the restrictive category, because I was an English major and I love reading, and when we look at electronic texts versus printed texts, we can see that's one kind of like area that I wanna kind of pop out of the triangle. And we can see that the research is so overwhelming that if you take, for example, like a fourth grader and you have them read a text, um, on an iPad, and then you have them read a text and print, the outcomes will be so much better with the printed text. They will retain more, they will comprehend more, they will even enjoy reading more, and they will test higher. Um, and then they, they can also write more in an essay about what they read. So it's just, it's wild to see just that one small twist. So if you can't, if a teacher knows about that research, they can say, okay, since we have printed texts, we can use them when we have them. Maybe if there's a special text that's only, um, digital, then we can use that then. But, um, oftentimes I do see, uh, in K through 12 education that teachers are giving students the option to read a text either digitally or in print, or maybe they're just only assigning digital texts and that's gonna have negative learning outcomes.

Hillary Wilkinson (20:02):

Hmm. I think that, that information is so important, particularly as we move into summer months. I mean, this is something, so you go, you go, oh, okay, it's the ed tech triangle. Oh, this is all about classroom use. But actually it's not because I mean, every day in childhood is a learning opportunity, right. And, um, I think that's

Blythe Winslow (20:25):

The scary part. <laugh>,

Hillary Wilkinson (20:27):

I know. No pressure, no pressure parents. Yes. Um, but I think also when people are traveling, the tendency is to go, oh, this is so great. We can just take the Kindle or we can just take the iPad instead of, you know, stopping by the library and getting a bag of books. But, but you're making the point that the bag of books is actually like going to mentally feed them more.

Blythe Winslow (20:54):

It does. And then, and we don't really know why the research is interesting. We kind of know why. And, and basically it has to do with our ability to touch the pages and turn the pages and have our brains kind of think mm-hmm. <affirmative> and our brains kind of think and remember sometimes in a linear way mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So when we can touch things, we, it helps us remember things and it helps us connect to them a little bit. But I will say the good news is, is that the research on audiobooks is pretty positive. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So there are similar, um, positive outcomes with an audiobook as with a printed book. So if you're, if you wanna, you know, use an audiobook on vacation for a road trip, I think that's a great use of technology.

Hillary Wilkinson (21:38):

Yeah. Yeah. And even almost better if you listen to it all together in the car, because then it becomes a shared experience. Yes.

Blythe Winslow (21:46):

Shared experiences do make a difference.

Hillary Wilkinson (21:48):

Yes. And it can be something that you refer to and it's, uh, yeah. I think that anytime you can share experiences on tech mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that, that is important as well.

Blythe Winslow (22:01):

Definitely.

Hillary Wilkinson (22:02):

Yeah. And one of the strengths, so getting a, taking away from the, uh, or stepping away, I should say, from the ed tech triangle, one of the strengths of every school, um, if I'm correct in understanding, is the use of parent groups. And can you explain what these are?

Blythe Winslow (22:21):

Yes. So, so every school really began focus on educational technology and kind of gi getting this message about the ed tech triangle to administrators and teachers. However, parents are really such a large part of, of course, like school culture, and they can influence their kids so much when it comes to technology. And so many of them really don't know, um, what to do with, uh, parenting their kids the digital age. They're just, they're confused about when to get their kids a cell phone or how much screen time they, they should get. So we created this, um, this thing called parents of Every School Groups last year in 2022. And what, what we do at every school is we give parents a really simple framework for creating, um, a school centered group. It's really a support group that helps parents just connect about what's going on with technology in their homes and crowdsource solutions to common problems.

Blythe Winslow (23:24):

So, and I think administrators and teachers would love this because the idea is that you're kind of raising awareness about tech issues and raising the bar about like, like how well you can kind of perform. You can perform so much better as a parent when you crowdsource and you talk to other parents mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I think so many teachers and administrators are really like flustered with home tech use. There might be something that happens at home, maybe it's, uh, a text thread or some bullying on a social media site that kind of bleeds into the school day, and administrators are tired of that. So if we can kind of, um, let parents embrace digital wellness through a group like this, I think it's gonna make the entire school culture healthier.

Hillary Wilkinson (24:10):

Yeah. And just can you talk about how it's set up so that people, I mean, if I, if I heard that, even though like, this is my shtick, I might feel a little overwhelmed and thinking, oh gosh, do I have to come up with like a monthly curriculum or do I have to come up with discussion points? So can you talk about that a little bit?

Blythe Winslow (24:29):

Sure. So it's super easy. So if you are interested in this topic of, um, kind of starting a support group around this digital wellness in your school community, you can go to every school.org and we just, we kind of lay out a very simple plan for how to do that and a meeting structure as well. So the meeting structure is really simple. It's just, um, sharing problems around a theme and then sharing solutions around a theme. And it's supposed to be very non-judgmental, so the leader of the group isn't pushing a certain, um, plan about how to use technology in everyone's homes. Um, it's just sharing and learning through that sharing. And some of the themes are very simple. Like, um, one theme will be social media and we provide discussion questions on social media, or another theme might be cell phones. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, one of my favorite themes is sleepovers and play dates, because parents are sometimes really concerned about, okay, what's gonna happen, uh, on, you know, on an iPad at a, when of my kids at a sleepover, I don't know what's going on with that iPad. I don't know if it's protected. How do I bring that up? Or should I bring that up with the parents? So it's really hard to figure out how to navigate tech in our own homes. It's even even harder to figure out how to talk to other parents about what goes on in their home when you're a child. Is there

Hillary Wilkinson (25:54):

Absolutely. Yeah. No, I love this. And I think it's really, um, putting the roots in the grassroots, you know, you're really creating a foundation for a school community to grow in their own tech awareness and health and digital balance. So a very, very, um, healthy screen habit indeed. <laugh>.

Blythe Winslow (26:16):

Yes, I'm excited. Yeah. We have 22 groups so far in about 19 different states, and the group leaders seem super excited and engaged. So I would, I would love for there to be in 2023, it used at least 50 or more groups and then, um, it's just, it's amazing to see what can happen when parents, um, kind of come together around this issue of digital wellness.

Hillary Wilkinson (26:41):

Yeah. So as, like I said, as we're going into these summer months, it's a good time for maybe parents to be thinking about what do I want next school year to look like? What can, and what's the impact that I can have on my community? Because definitely you're really setting up the basis, even in the elementary school years, you're setting the basis of the path forward of your child's digital health with, with learning with that.

Blythe Winslow (27:06):

Definitely. I feel like elementary school is the perfect place to start this, because sometimes as I'm a parent of a junior high student, and I can already feel myself getting more jaded around this issue. Right. And it's better to get ahead of an issue like digital wellness and figure out what your plan is and kind of even just know what other parents in your community think about it, because sometimes we don't even know what's going on in, in, uh, in other people's homes, so we don't even know what the problems could be.

Hillary Wilkinson (27:36):

Exactly. Exactly. And I, the other thing I, like, I, I did look in, I cheated a little bit. Spoiler alert, I cheated and looked at your parent groups, and you do offer this kind of like online community for support as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? So I, we do have

Blythe Winslow (27:51):

A fa yeah, we do have a Facebook group and it's, I wouldn't say it's super active, um, not ironically because a lot of the people who are interested in starting a group on digital wellness, um,

Hillary Wilkinson (28:02):

Not big Facebook <laugh>. Yeah,

Blythe Winslow (28:03):

That's not big Facebook fan. But, you know, we do have a very active email chain so that whenever a leader has a question about how to lead their group, uh, he or she will email that, um, that chain and then everybody can crowdsource through that. So that's private, but it's very useful. Um, and I'm happy to say that we do have one male leader, which is nice. I say he or she, because we just had our first, um, our first man sign up to lead a group in Florida. So that's kind of neat cuz oftentimes this is like led by women.

Hillary Wilkinson (28:37):

Yeah. Yeah. No, i, I am well aware in trying to, um, connect with guests for podcast. I mm-hmm. 

<affirmative>.

Blythe Winslow (28:46):

That's an interesting, yeah, it's an interesting thing.

Hillary Wilkinson (28:48):

Yeah, exactly. So all of this is so well designed and thought out, and when we come back, I can't wait to hear Blythe's Healthy Screen Habit. 

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Hillary Wilkinson:

My guest today is Blythe Winslow, the co-founder of Every school.org. I mentioned earlier Blythe has a background in education and photography, so now I have to ask, where's your favorite place to take pictures?

Blythe Winslow (30:13):

Oh, my favorite place. I think it's just in my home with, of my kids, of course. And my, my pets. I have a cat and a dog and my husband. So I just like capturing those everyday moments.

Hillary Wilkinson (30:23):

Yeah. Yeah. Well that's neat. That's neat. And it's neat that you have the talent and the ability to do so.

Blythe Winslow (30:29):

Oh, thank you.

Hillary Wilkinson (30:30):

Oh, so Blythe, now is the time I ask you for a healthy screen habit. And this is a tip or takeaway that our listeners can put into practice in their own homes. Do you have a healthy screen habit you can share with us?

Blythe Winslow (30:45):

I do. And it's not specific, so I apologize, but I, I truly believe that so many people are unsure or unclear about how they feel about technology, and they need to really reflect and trust their gut. So, um, every school does a workshop called the Happy Digital Parent, and in that workshop we ask parents to write one sentence about what your gut is telling you about the tech culture in your family. So I would say write that sentence and then from that sentence, which is a great instinct, um, you can create a better plan for how to move forward because it's really different for everyone, and that's something that we should accept.

Hillary Wilkinson (31:26):

Yeah, no, I think that's great. And it's interesting because the whole, um, trusting your gut is what led you to even create this whole organization. Yes,

Blythe Winslow (31:36):

Definitely. Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (31:38):

So a link to every school.org as well as a complete transcript of this conversation can be found in today's episode. Show notes. You get there by going to healthy screen habits.org, click on the podcast button at the top of the page and scroll down to find this episode. Blythe, this has been great. Thank you so much for all you do, for every school and every family. Your actions are really making a difference.

Blythe Winslow (32:04):

Thanks, Hillary. I really appreciate it.