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This post is difficult for me to write because it deeply impacts me and so many incredible people I love back home in Western North Carolina. I feel a deep sense of guilt posting this from the comfort of my home, having just come from a high school football game.. I am very fortunate. But so many people that I love are in pain, dismay, and confusion as Hurricane Helene has destroyed and disrupted their lives. I was blessed to grow up on the county line between Yancey and Mitchell. I also have strong ties to neighboring Avery, McDowell, and Buncombe counties, where I was born. Western North Carolina is more than a place; it’s a spirit—resilient, independent, and collective. It’s a community where we’re stronger together, where survival and thriving depend on our willingness to support one another. These qualities will carry us through this disaster, bringing us back stronger and better. We are a people who have learned to depend on each other. It is precisely these qualities that will bring us back and make us stronger and better. Tonight, we are hurting. Hurricane Helene brought unimaginable devastation, with torrential rains described as biblical. While much of the news focuses on Asheville and Buncombe County, it’s crucial to remember that many other communities in Western North Carolina also need support. We rise together, and we must ensure that no area—no matter its size or population—is overlooked in the rebuilding process. In my home counties, the rivers overflowed, emptying into Northeast Tennessee after record rainfall—up to 30 inches in some places. This water didn’t just damage the land, roads, and homes; it tore at the heart of our community. My heart breaks for those still waiting to hear from family and friends, including some of my own relatives. Buildings that have stood for a lifetime are gone, leaving behind only memories. In time, I hope these memories bring us healing. While the immediate focus is on rescue and recovery, we must remain just as dedicated in the months and years to come. Western North Carolina often flies under the radar, but now is not the time to forget our neighbors. We all have a role to play in this recovery—physically, emotionally, and mentally. No contribution is too small, and together, we can make a lasting impact. We all can play a role in the recovery and no role is too small. While we may never know the true impact that we make, I know that your willingness to reach out and support those in need will make a difference. Consider what ways you can contribute to create a positive impact for Western North Carolina. It can be as simple as a daily prayer or donations. To the people of Western North Carolina: you are seen, you are loved, and you will not be forgotten. The days ahead will be hard, but your spirit is stronger than the challenges you face. The world is watching, and we stand with you. You will rebuild, and you will rise.  {Note - Image created by Adobe Firefly using Generative AI}
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 A child's drawing on a puppy pad created by participants in our ISTE 24 session. It is placed on a dark surface. The drawing features a mountainous landscape with a river flowing through it, labeled "Colorado-ish" at the bottom. On the left side, there's a triangular tent with a campfire in front of it. The river has a small boat with a person paddling. On the right side, there's a sun in the sky, birds flying, and a person standing near a flower. Next to the drawing is the book "Ish" by Peter H. Reynolds, with some craft supplies like beads and string visible at the top. Alt text generated by Chat GPT and edited on June 24, 2024.
Today was the first full day at #ISTE24 in Denver. The temperatures were hot, but the transformative learning and networking at the Colorado Convention Center were even hotter! Day 1 did not disappoint. My day opened with several of my colleagues and myself attending the ISTE Certified Educators Appreciation Meeting. I cannot express my gratitude enough for the amazing work that Carmelita, Daisy, and others did to create a gathering with purpose and meaning. In talking with several other ISTE Certified Educators throughout the day, we all agreed that we felt authentically honored and recognized. Several of us were given our ISTE Certified plaques, and we all received amazing celebration gifts. While all these things were incredible, the intentional thought of creating a space for us to join as one in community was electrifying. This experience will definitely serve as an incredible memory for years to come, and I love that I was able to celebrate it with many amazing North Carolina educators. A big thank you to Dr. Ashley McBride, whose incredible vision of seeing North Carolina become a leader in ISTE Certified Educators is definitely paying dividends for the teachers and students in the Old North State. Later in the morning, I had one of those remarkable experiences that will forever serve as a milestone in my career in public education. My extraordinary colleague, Meredith Ward Hill, and I shared a session called “Transforming Literacy Through STEAM.” In preparation for this session, we carried a suitcase full of children’s literature books and Makerspace materials halfway across the country to Denver. Meredith and I were extremely humbled to share this session but had no idea how it would go. This session was inspired with encouragement from Mrs. Leslie Pope in Craven County Schools, who is an incredible STEM and Literacy connector. Meredith’s background in all things School Libraries and Media Center was critical in connecting the importance of literacy in this session. I was able to bring over 20 years of STEM educator experience to create a session that was plain and simple - SYNERGISTIC! This synergy, though, was created not just by Meredith and me, but by those who attended our session. In over 25 years of public education, I have never seen a more robust group of educators come together and collaborate to solve a problem from a children’s literature book. Meredith and I were blown away by the mutual cooperation, sharing of ideas and resources, and transformational learning that our participants demonstrated. We had well over 80 educators from all over the world who were eager to learn, share, and grow. My teacher heart has NEVER been so proud to help facilitate a professional learning experience as this. I learned so much from those in attendance. I am pretty certain that this group, if given time and resources, could solve many of the world’s problems. The way that these educators exhibited critical and creative thinking even blew my mind. Many of them used the limited Makerspace materials in new and innovative ways that I would never have imagined. One group used a puppy pad to create a “COLORADO-ISH” painting to show their “ISH” based on the book by Peter Reynolds. Other groups designed traps to capture Unicorns, Leprechauns, and Yetis. As I reflect on both of these experiences, I am forever changed, much like the Grinch whose heart grew three sizes. I am always amazed at the power of educators to create experiences that transform others. Later in the day, I met two educators who work in Southern California with a nonprofit where they provide support to educators in Orange and Los Angeles counties. This group works on creating a community at select schools led by experienced mentors who coordinate small groups of fellows. They receive high-quality professional development throughout the year and provide ongoing coaching to ensure that these educators make a difference in their students' lives. There is definitely nothing more noble than this. Day 1 of ISTE definitely did not disappoint. I am inspired and reminded why education is one of the best professions ever. I found so much joy in today’s experience, and I cannot express my gratitude enough to North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction and our Office of Digital Teaching and Learning for supporting educators with high-quality professional learning experiences. Many of the ISTE attendees that I spoke with about what we are doing in North Carolina were really impressed by the support that DPI provides to our educators. One attendee shared, “I wish my state would do this. It would be nice to have these experiences so we could grow and help our students like North Carolina does.”
Check out the creations on our Padlet that our participants shared from the session.  Image generated using Chat GPT using the prompt "Create a diverse classroom where students and educators are learning about AI" by Brian Whitson Over the past year and a half, significant attention and efforts have been placed on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education. Having delivered several professional learning opportunities to educators across North Carolina, I've gained several insights into how and why educators are engaging with AI. Here are some of those insights:
1. The Pioneers and Early Adopters Many educators are uncertain about how to use AI and are eager to become more knowledgeable about its application in their work. Among the groups I’ve trained, there are often early pioneers of AI usage. These early adopters are mainly self-taught and typically find small enclaves of fellow educators to support their learning. These circles, though small, are highly collaborative and willing to share their knowledge when approached by others. 2. The Larger Group with Uncertainties There is a larger group of educators who are uncertain about using AI due to a lack of experience or fear. Many of these educators are waiting for someone to give them permission or guidance to navigate the vast ocean of AI. I've seen many educators significantly improve their comfort levels and willingness to engage with AI within an hour when provided with a safe environment to learn and explore. AI tools, when used intentionally, can dramatically reduce workloads, such as grading, offering effective feedback, and creating lesson plans. 3. Building Confidence and Competence In my experience, I’ve witnessed educators transition from reluctance to active engagement with AI tools. They begin to see the benefits and advantages, developing confidence and a rationale for teaching students how to use these tools appropriately and ethically. By ensuring all educators have access to quality professional learning on AI, we can better guide students in using AI tools effectively. 4. Focusing on Professional Learning Moving forward, developing professional learning opportunities for educators must be a central focus. We need to propel our educators beyond introductory use of AI tools, supporting continued growth in effective use. Additionally, educators must be equipped to design opportunities for students to learn to use AI appropriately, ethically, and morally. These practices will ensure our students benefit from AI as a tool for critical thinking and innovation. 5. Engaging Parents and the Community We also need to provide additional information sessions and support for parents and the community to better understand AI, especially Generative AI tools. The media often highlights worst-case scenarios about AI, creating uncertainty and fear. In my work with educators developing policies, I encourage including outreach components to external stakeholders and the broader community. By educating our community, we can ensure a balanced view of AI and help stakeholders understand its advantages and challenges. 6. Highlighting Employment Trends One of the most effective ways to demonstrate the advantages of AI is by sharing employment and hiring trends. Many recent surveys indicate that employers seek employees with AI knowledge and skills. Consequently, we must ensure our educators are equipped with the knowledge and experiences to build AI capacity in our students, teaching them to use AI ethically, purposefully, and productively.  Participants in today's Computational Thinking workshop. They are working collaboratively in groups on an unplugged activity at a table. Earlier today, my colleague Lauren Boucher and I presented a session titled “Solving the Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together Via Computational Thinking” at TCEA in Austin. TCEA is designed to support educators in Texas and beyond in implementing digital tools and instructional technology to support and transform student learning. Those attending definitely gave us a warm “Lone Star State” welcome and blew us away with their interest in our session and collaboration with others. Computational Thinking provides our students with the opportunity to develop strategies and processes to solve problems in an efficient manner that yields results.
This session is rooted in the Office of Digital Teaching & Learning commitment to provide resources to North Carolina educators to meet the state’s new computer science education graduation requirement. As an educator who has dabbled in various aspects of computer science, I realize that many educators often lack exposure and experience in Computational Thinking which is the foundation that leads into a successful Computer Science experience. We were delighted to debut this session to our Texas friends at this year’s TCEA Convention and Exposition. Computational Thinking involves “using special thinking patterns and processes to pose and solve problems” (taken from the book “Computational Thinking { and Coding } for Every Student” by Jane Krauss and Kiki Prottsman). Based on my experience, many educators often do not realize how much Computational Thinking that they use in their classrooms, especially in the K-5 classroom. During this session, we provided relevant connections to the work that teachers do in their classroom that actually represent Computational Thinking. One of key learnings involved focusing on the four pillars of Computational Thinking:
Lauren and I wanted to ensure that those attending the session understood what these pillars are and could recognize when they applied them during several of the activities in the session. Throughout the presentation, we asked participants to recognize and share when they used one of the four pillars in the session. We equated algorithms to a set of directions that would be followed for a recipe. We wanted to ensure that we taught the vocabulary in a relevant and contextual way that connected in an authentic manner to the lives of our students. The reality is that elements of their four pillars and Computational Thinking are embedded in the world of our students. Decomposition, the breaking down into smaller parts, is often used by our students to solve problems that they experience. Imagine that a child tosses a ball onto the roof of her/his home and the ball gets stuck in the gutter (a common experience at my house). The child wants to retrieve the ball but the gutter is too far away from the child. The child may find that trying to solve this problem is daunting and overwhelming at first. But when the child thinks about breaking the problem into simpler parts, then a solution becomes more plausible. The child may realize that he/she needs to figure out how to get up to the level of the gutter, perhaps by carefully and quietly moving a ladder, unbeknownst to the child’s parent, to the gutter. The student may also realize that they have to do this quickly and quietly or else, the problem may be discovered by her/his parents. The child may also realize that he/she needs to figure out where in the gutter the ball is located and how to get it out of the gutter. By breaking this problem down into small steps through utilizing decomposition, the child is able to solve the problem in a more efficient and effective manner without the parents ever knowing (provided the ladder is put back in its original position and condition). During today’s session, we completed an unplugged activity from Code.org in which participants were asked to add up all the numbers between 1 and 200 in 30 seconds. As one may imagine, this could and is challenging to complete compounded by the short duration of time. As we shared the solution, I heard a classroom teacher who was seated near me share the following: “Would this approach work for a set of numbers that were odd instead of even?” This demonstrates the idea that Computational Thinking also involves posing problems as well as finding solutions. This quote clearly demonstrates the curiosity of the educator and her wonders about if the pattern that we showed to solve the problem works for all seats of numbers. Computational Thinking exists in the world all around us. We must work to ensure that our educators connect Computational Thinking and its related elements to the world in which our students live. By helping students see the relevance of Computational Thinking, we can ensure that we build the necessary skills and provide the needed experiences for our students to be ready to complete North Carolina’s Computer Science requirement as well as equipping them with the experiences needed to prepare them for their future and demonstrating and expanding their skills required for North Carolina’s Portrait of a Graduate. We created a document for those wishing to explore additional resources for Computational Thinking and invite you to review this and add any additional resources to our padlet in column 5.
Earlier today, I learned that I successfully completed the requirements to be named an ISTE certified educator. ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, is the premiere organization supporting educators in using technology and digital learning to transform education. With strong roots in curriculum, instruction, and pedagogy, ISTE forms a global network of educators who seek to make learning more relevant, accessible, and purposeful for students.
The opening keynote at the Adobe Education Summit was delivered by Dr. Byron McClure. Byron is a school psychologist, an author, and founder of Lessons for SEL. Byron shared about the importance of erasing deficit thinking in his address. He shared a personal story where he was told that he was accepted to graduate school but would need to be make at least all “B”s since he had some deficits in his academic backgrounds. He shared how this impacted him and how this deficit thinking is often the process that many students experience. He encouraged us to “shift from this deficit thinking to being innovative.” He asked us to really explore if the training and practices that we use with students is geared toward identifying the best or worse in our students. This really challenged me to think about the training that I have previously received and makes me reconsider the approach that I will take as I support students going forward. The lens with which we approach our work is important since our work is with students. Too often in education, we are directed to accountability measures that as Byron indicated that reduce our students to numbers and statistics. But our students are much more than just a data point. I would argue that this type of thinking, deficit type thinking, often limits our students and many of our beliefs about what they are capable of achieving. We must work extraordinarily hard to counter this type of thinking so our students are not limited in their success. Byron shared “we must shift from what’s wrong to what is strong.” By shifting our thinking, we shed our beliefs about the limits of what our students can achieve; we move to a world full of potential and possibilities that is limitless to what our students can do, be, and achieve. When we believe in our students and limitless possibilities, we empower them. Byron included four key elements to a strengths based approach to supporting students: 1) Focus on identifying and understanding strengths, 2) human-centered (needs of people first), 3) growth and goal oriented, and 4) social support, capital, and resources matter. Each of these elements provide the necessary environment in which our students are able to utilize their strengths and talents to create something far greater when properly cultivated. By attending to our students and helping them recognize and identify their strengths, we can change their trajectories in life. Many of our students often do not recognize many of their strengths. I know that when I worked in a middle school, our students were just beginning to become more aware of themselves and often needed a supportive and encouraging adult to help them realize and recognize their own strengths. I had many conversations with students where I assisted them in identifying their own strengths. For many of these students, this self awareness of their strengths brought them a sense of confidence and assurance. They realized that they were good at something (or many things). As we return to the classroom this fall, I would encourage all educators to focus on a strengths based approach to supporting our students and ourselves. He shared several questions for reflection that I think that we, as educators, need to think deeply about and explore - “What has given you the most energy in your life?” He followed up by asking “Who were you before the world told you who to be?” Finally, he shared “When, if ever, have your strengths done dark? Why?” By considering these questions and our own responses, I think that we can begin to identify and focus on our strengths. In doing so, we can also model this process for our students. I would also maintain that in focusing on a strengths based approach in our work with students and in our own lives, we can create opportunities that bring tremendous joy and value. We can shift from living within limitations to a world full of opportunities. It is precisely these moments that can really transform life for the better. I found Bryon’s keynote to be energizing and encouraging. His words were impactful and empowering. When we shift our paradigms, we create the conditions in which each of us can flourish. We must emulate this both with our students and ourselves. Bryon shared this quote from Socrates: “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building on the new.” Let us work towards building a new and better version of not only ourselves but of our students as well. I encourage you to use your strengths in both your professional and personal lives and to also help students recognize and use their strengths as well in the coming year.  Today, I was able to be part of the Adobe Education Summit for 2022. Due to a challenging schedule, I was only able to catch the opening and closing keynotes but they, alone, were worth the price of admission. I want to thank Adobe for creating and supporting this free virtual conference for educators around the world. I appreciate the planning and intentionality of creating an extraordinary space that is safe, accessible, and empowering of educators from around the world.
The opening session jumped immediately into points that resonated with me. Scott Belsky from Adobe shared “creativity will be the new productivity.” Scott’s point resonated so much with what I have been thinking about for the past several months and trying to articulate. For students, their creativity will be a valuable commodity for changing their life’s trajectory. In many cases, it will be an economic commodity that they will use to support themselves and others. Too often though, we are not affording enough of our students the opportunity to explore, expand, and practice their creativity. Many of our students’ classrooms are void of these opportunities due to curricular and accountability demands. However, I would argue that our classrooms, especially coming out of the covid shut down, must actively and intentionally integrate in creativity and creation opportunities for our students. If we fail to allow our students to explore, expand, and practice their creativity, then we fail to adequately prepare them for their futures. Additionally, it is precisely these practices and opportunities in creativity that will engage and connect our students to deeper levels of learning. Ben Forta continued sharing additional insights that really connected with me personally in my crusade for creativity and creative thinking in the classroom. He shared that many individuals are concerned about screen time use by our students. However, he challenged this concern and indicated that often we fail to consider whether our students are being passive consumers or active content creators. We must delve deeper into looking at how our students are using technology and their role. Students who are simply consumers - meaning that they only watch videos, listen to music, or simply perform repetitive, mundane tasks such as clicking- often fail to be very engaged. This results in a passive and very non-engaging role for our students. I used to refer to this as watching “mindless TV.’ Ben encouraged us rather to rethink screen time and push our students to engage in content creation where they are actively engaged in creating and publishing content digitally. This may include students creating and directing their own videos about a topic such as disease transmission or gauging what issues really matter to potential voters in upcoming reactions. In content creation, our students have to learn to manage a process, create various tasks to be completed, and be accountable for completing assigned roles. Additionally, students who are creating content have to learn how to gather accurate information, work with others to communicate that information, and present it in an engaging way. All of these duties require creativity among other necessary skills. Ben shared that “there is real joy in content creation” and that research indicates that students who are encouraged to think and act “more creatively are curious about the world.” Ben reminded us that creativity “gives our students the will, skill, and thrill to learn.” All these amazing insights occurred within just the first few minutes of the opening session, Our main speaker for the opening was Byron McClure. I share more about his incredible message in an upcoming blog post as he was on fire as well. If you were unable to join today’s Adobe Education Summit, you can sign up for the final day here. Additionally, replays will be available starting in August and running through next April. As educators prepare to return to the classroom this fall though, we must ensure that all students have the access and ability to experience engaging lessons that promote and encourage their creativity with practice and support. Let us always remember that our higher duty as educators is to ensure that our students have the necessary skills, knowledge, and experiences to lead a productive, empowering, and incredible life. Over 100 public school students made their way to Raleigh this past weekend for the first face to face North Carolina Teacher Cadet Conference in over three years. The North Carolina Teacher Cadet is a class that high school students in public high schools can take to learn more about teaching as a profession. Additionally, the program supports the development of leadership and citizenship as secondary components of the program. The course has a heavy focus on critical thinking, reflection, writing, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, and communication. The Teacher Cadet program has been around for several decades but with the challenges of putting a highly trained, quality teacher in every classroom, programs such as the North Carolina Teacher Cadet may be a solution to responding to the Human Capital needs in our public schools. For schools to offer the North Carolina Teacher Cadet course, the instructors must attend a two day training to learn about both the program and curriculum. In full disclosure, I also serve on the Teacher Cadet Cadre, the group responsible for creating and delivering the training.
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Brian's Blog
The ideas shared here are my own and do not necessarily represent my employers, associations, or organizations. These thoughts are entirely my own. Archives
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