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In this Episode:
In this week’s OutClassed Podcast, Mike and Blake Speak with Karla Sanders from Sticks’N’Stones about the digital citizenship program developed in New Zealand.
In this episode we discuss a range of topics including:
* The 3 essential elements your digital citizenship program MUST have
* How a student designed and lead program actually works and the results Karla and the Sticks’N’Stones team are seeing across New Zealand
* What are the trends Karla is seeing with issues related to young people
* The research about gaming and the way the brain experiences this environment
To see all the OutClassed episodes go to utb.fyi/outclassed
[buzzsprout episode=’4143545′ player=’true’]
Podcast Episode Highlights:
1:50 an introduction to Karla and Sanders and the not for profit Sticks‘N’Stones and how is it so different to every other anti bullying program
5:20 How does Karla define Digital Citizenship?
10:20 How does the program work in practice?
14:25 Can you really trust students to develop the solution? Aren’t they the problem?
16:40 How does the work you do impact the wider family?
19:40 What is the data you measure, and what data do you receive?
26:10 What are the trends you are seeing?
31:45 Is there a place for anonymous pseudonyms online and what is the outcome
38:45 The research about gaming and the way the brain experiences this environment
42:30 What is the best practice for expectations for how kids should manage screen time and device use
46:10 How to involve students in co-constructing the curriculum
52:45 The 3 elements your digital citizenship program must have
54:00 Wins and Fails Mike has a new ASUS Chromebook and really likes it
(make sure you have your orders in for 2021. Stocks are low.
Assassins creed origins discovery edu mode
Using Technology Better rolled out a new type of PD for students – challenged based with teachers and students learning together
Fail – terrible webcams in the devices coming into schools
Fail iPads that weren’t managed correctly and the headache to fix this
Resources mentioned:
Assassins Creed Educational discovery mode
Transcript:
Mike Reading 00:05
A all right, excellent. Welcome back to the outclassed podcast I am really looking forward to hanging out with you for a little bit today and we’re digging into the realm of digital citizenship. Today we’ve got a special guest with us. Karla Sanders, Kayla is from New Zealand. A bit of a disclaimer she does some work for using technology better but she also runs a nonprofit called sticks and stones that do a lot of this work with students in the digital space has got quite a different take on how digital citizenship should happen in a school so really looking forward to digging in and learning from you not sure color if you got the memo, but tonight’s red wine night and ice red wine I’ve got some nice French cheese and I’m ready to sit back and learn what’s for me We’ve also got Blake on the call today. Blake how are you going tonight? did I get you the memo around the red wine?
Blake 01:05
No, I didn’t get the memo. I’m sitting here with my glass of water and no cheese so extremely disappointed. It’s payback.
Mike Reading 01:12
it’s payback for me not being able to book money for a couple of weeks.
Blake 01:17
Yeah, bit the board today got my hair cut. So apparently the stores are getting a bit more busy now a bit more steady the hairdresser was saying today, so we’ll see where it goes. But obviously, you know, we’re recording here and 19th of May. So when you hear this, it’s probably will be in a very different place. Hmm, that’s good.
Mike Reading 01:35
and schools went back in New Zealand yesterday. So the ministry reported yesterday that over 80% of students were back in class on day one, which gives you a bit of an indication of where things are at, which is awesome, but as I mentioned, we’ve got Karla with us today. Kayla runs, sticks and stones. Now I’d love you to tell us a little bit about sticks and stones, how it sticks and stones how you got it going does a little bit about your backstory and a bit about who you are and what you Do
Carla 02:00
totally so it’s quite embarrassing, which is awesome. So that’s a really good chance for people to get to know me as much. So I had this epically amazing idea that I was going to go into schools and change hearts and minds with all of my passion for student leadership. And I put together an idea about going in and running workshops. And then I sat down with some students that I had taught who were at high school now, and said, Hey, this is my idea. And I’m really keen on your feedback. And they said, it was a really shitty idea. And I asked them why they see because you’re just going to be another grown up, coming and standing in an endless line of grown ups telling us what not to do. And you have got no idea what it’s like being a young person today. So with my fragile ego antennas, I asked them, What would you do? And the question was, Why are decisions always made about us without us? Why are we not involved from the beginning? And Isn’t it about time that our ideas, our expertise, issues, were going to be part of creating something a little bit different. So we rewrote the funding application and that the government had provided some seed funding for. And we said very specifically that we will get students, those students will create something new. And we don’t know what it is. But we know it’ll have a website. And we know we’ll run events. And we know we’ll create things. But apart from that, we don’t know what it’s going to be. So that was back in 2012. And in 2013, we had 30 teenagers from five different schools, who volunteered to be part of something very different when they had no idea what it would be. And together we created sticks and stones and that’s everything from the name to aims and goals and what we wanted to achieve. And adults find the name really hard. I really challenged by it. They asked whether it’s ironic. I’m not like the alarm. Alana Morrissett song if you’ve got to explain why something then could be ironic, but I guess it’s not. But the whole reason was a 17 year old who said, we don’t want anything about bullying in our name. We want to be something that other young people can connect to. And we all know the rhyme. And we all know that words do hurt and unsaid about time that we flipped it on its head and created something that took different types. So that was how we got involved. I’d been home from a big overseas adventure for over eight years, and didn’t want to go back to a mainstream classroom. So this was this was another adventure to undertake, rather than going back to, to full time teaching.
Mike Reading 04:37
Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s been great to watch it evolve on the sidelines. I think we probably met when you reckon that would have been 2015? Yeah,
Carla 04:45
I was looking at that. I think we made like 2014 2015, which is when this kind of crazy idea that we thought would last for about a year was just starting to get some real traction and take shape in a way that we never could have imagined that it would have.
Mike Reading 04:59
Yes. It’s been quite a testament to see like, you’ve had Google get on board, you’ve had Facebook, come on board, you’ve obviously had ministry of education funding. So you’ve had some big people who believe in your vision, and help you roll that out around schools around New Zealand. So I really, keen to learn a little bit from you. One of the questions we get asked all the time is, well, I guess maybe we should start what just define digital citizenship? And is it just digital that you’re working? Or is it like an offline component to it?
Carla 05:26
Yeah, I think that that’s one of the things that’s huge for us. So when we talk about digital citizenship, that’s not restricted to using technology or our time online. And we’ve seen to talk about digital citizenship without putting a descriptor to it. Like you can be a really crappy digital citizen. So what is it that we’re hoping for, as a passport that you get from spending a certain amount of time online? So we need to think about what kind of digital citizen that we want to build. And for us the key difference between having a positive digital experience and being a positive contributing digital citizen Compared to focusing on cyber safety, as it’s not only about minimizing risk and staying safe because of that all we want, then what we allow to happen is an online space where we’re not free to be ourselves without trolling and without harassment and without intense negativity that allow that sort of moves away from what we want to achieve. So for us, digital citizenship transcends that online and offline. Young people do not make a distinction between online and offline. There is none of those awesome binary sounds that are old people are used to that would occur when we go online. And they seamlessly move between the two and digital citizenship needs to seamlessly move between the two as well.
Mike Reading 06:44
that’s super interesting thing. That whole blurring of the lines is definitely where it’s at. We see that a lot with students where it’s not necessarily do you feel more connected online or less connected? It’s just connected, right? So yeah, we’re definitely saying that we schools going to remote learning and our schools coming Going back and students catching up and all of that that works in there. So, like I’m interested in, there’s so many digital citizenship programs out there, from all the, you know, different companies and so on. Like, how do you how is your approach apart from working with students? But like, Can you maybe run through some of the elements that make it a little bit different to maybe what a school would think about in terms of here’s a policy, let’s get the parents to sign off on a deployment piece of paper, we’ve done our digital citizenship don’t look upon that, you know, I don’t believe and we’ll just block the hell out of everything like we have. What’s your approach, like in terms of where people usually sit in that scheme?
Carla 07:39
I think the biggest difference is that we think it evolves. And so the moment that you put a set of lesson plans on paper, or the moment that you polish off and print off a policy, it’s changed. So we really think about digital citizenship as an evolving based, one of a better word. And I think the other thing for us, that’s critical as the Role of social and emotional skills and confidence. So if we’re asking people to be positive contributors into an online environment, but we’re not giving them opportunities to take on perspectives of different people and to understand empathy, and to be able to practice assertive responses when someone challenges them about something that they believe in or something about themselves, then we’re not doing digital citizenship at all. So for us the key difference between potentially traditional digital citizenship programs or lesson plans where it’s, you know, choose a strong password, keep away from petrifies, make sure that you log out after a session. And remember that there’s no such thing as a tree octopus, the end for us, we’re really breaking down a lot of those social and emotional skills and thinking about how do you represent yourself? How do you see yourself and how are you sharing that? How do you disagree with someone without personally attacking them? How do you look at someone else’s point of view and understand they have a right to that Without you tearing them down. And then how am I critical of information? How am I evaluating whether or not it’s reliable? How am I been keeping myself safe in a way that suits my needs? And that I understand my students to be able to make choices before things go wrong that expecting them to?
Blake 09:18
That’s awesome. Hi. Blake here, I have one question, what is a tree octopus?
Carla 09:26
So you’re an Aussie, so you might know the drop there. So the Pacific Northwest tree octopus is this fantastic resource teachers use to teach about reliability of information online. So it’s a page where like, save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, and there’s all this information about it and sort of photoshopped photos. And the students look at it, you’re like, what can we do you know, how can we how can we save this octopus? And there’s very few students who will challenge you and say, a tree, an octopus, like how does that Even work like this doesn’t appear to be reliable. The other version is the drop here and it’s gold because apparently this this ferocious koala be is it don’t like people who don’t have an Australian accent. And when you walk in the bush, they will drop from a tree and attack you
Blake 10:15
through. I’ve seen them. That’s awesome. So just on the program, it sounds like really what you’re doing is going that next step is to say, well, we’re not just going to use policy we’re actually going to look at the educational problems and try and address those which are really social problems the way I see it, like if I think about digital citizenship in one of the struggles that we have in that a lot of schools have it is around the kind of policy side of it the you know, don’t do this, don’t do that and us telling you and when we talk to kids, we hear the same things the same things are echoed in our school of we don’t need another guy with gray hair telling us how to be safe online. Like you know, I think we I think we know better is the other thing as well. And I think there’s a bit of Given type there, and that we have the benefit of have a bit of wisdom in the space a little bit, but they have the benefit of the context and understanding what you know what tools are being used and how things are being communicated with. So I’m interested in how this kind of impulse manifests in the school like, is this something you you’d run in a session with students over 13 weeks? Is it something that the students do like a peer support thing where they kind of do it together? What’s the role of the teacher like, how does that fit together?
Carla 11:34
So it’s a great question, because we kind of grappled with all of this right from the start. So the first thing that we wanted to do was that we didn’t want to come on come in and do a one off workshop. So what we noticed here in New Zealand is that we had schools that really wanted to support these students but didn’t know how. And so what they did is they paid really good money to have someone come in to an assembly and whether that was someone who would scare them like you know, x detectives. Whoever that was someone who had a puppet, lots of puppets, or whether that was someone that was, you know, hugely entertaining and that speak in the assembly, and people would be inspired or afraid or they’d be talking. But if I asked them three to four weeks later what the presentation was about, they couldn’t tell me if it was about drugs, or if it was about cyber safety, or if it was about safe relationships. So our approach said we didn’t want to be a one off. So our programs are every two weeks for a year. And then delivered by a community facilitator that works in partnership with the teacher. But it’s very much the year to be another port of call for those students, someone they can confide in someone who is not seen as a teacher, someone that might drop the occasional slang word. Now F bombs, I promise, but you know, we talk about not being a dick, and what does that actually mean? And we talk about things that other young people have shared with us. So it’s real when it’s relevant. With seriously uncool, so we’re not those really good entertainment people that come in and rap. And you know, pop and rock and people think it’s amazing. But when you can straddle that relationship, which is very different. So we’ve got programs for you five and six students, which focus on kindness, friendship and empathy. And then we have a Steven and a program, which then builds into resilience, perspective, taking a set of communication, standing up for yourself and others, and then also understanding your place in the world and who you are. And then when we get to high school, rather than having a fixed program, the young people identify what it is they want to learn and what they can look like. And this year, and last year, working with Facebook, we launched an augmented approach where we go in and do a four day workshop with students and then we support them with an online opt in program afterwards. So that’s the way that that we’ve chosen to do it. Yeah.
Mike Reading 13:54
Yeah, that’s a really good model. I think. My daughter Kelsey went with you on a trip and did a couple of those seminars and really enjoyed it and came back buzzing saying very different approach to have done. I mean, it’s one thing to talk about it, it’s another thing to be immersed in it. And to see it and I think it’s really interesting this, you’ve obviously taken a risk putting the power in students hands in a sense, because I guess one of my questions would be, can you really trust these students like at the end of the day, they have a problem. And at the same time, you’re also asking them to be the solution. So what does that look like?
Carla 14:27
Well, I mean, I have to be really honest. And I’m, you know, I am an old person, and I get it. But I think we’re more of the problem than young people are, you know, you only have to spend five minutes in the comments section of a major news website to know that they’re not 14 15 16 year old’s or 10 year olds making those comments. So from the start, I think we have more of the problem that young people are. The other thing I think, young people always rise to expectations. So if we expect them to need us to write the passwords down and put it on a lanyard and glue it to the forehead, then they’ll do that. expect them to come up with a way to remember their password and how they’re going to engage when someone on Roblox sends them a mean comment, they find offensive, they’ll rise to that. And I think what’s huge is that we work in a small group environment where those quieter voices have a chance to share ideas. When we think about digital citizenship from a whole class context, you’re going to continue to hear the voices of those kids that have the confidence and you’re never going to hear the voices of the kids who don’t. So by putting the power in the hands of young people to work in small groups, and that they know that their experience is valued. I have been asked, you know, they’re not totally polished presenters, you know, keynote and event like, Do you not have a script? Should these young people not all follow a script and grasses know you know that authenticity is key. You know, your daughter, Kelsey, sitting there and sharing a story about a really dumb thing that one of inmates did online and how they had to pick up the pieces of it. was going to be far more memorable and far more relevant to students that she’s working with. And one of those wonderful p essays that come out in the States, I hate you. You’re so dumb. And people think that that’ll never happen to me. So yeah, we’ve got a really high trust model. And we’ve never been laid down. We’ve been let down by adults, we’ve been let down by adults that ask us to be part of things and then want our young people to leave so that the grown ups can talk and find it quite challenging when we say that’s not how we work. But we’ve never been looked down by young people.
Blake 16:37
Not surprised by that at all. But just on the community side, it strikes me that this is a very, like social problem. And a lot of social problems in schools tend to have a heavy relationship or correlation with the parents. So how does this program kind of, you know, like, if they’re learning all these new skills at school, and they’re with it appears and everything, then they go home, jump online and then parents are there and they kind of does that to kind of separate their experience at all did I feel like when I go home, I’m going to act differently? Like how do you kind of transcend that that barrier as well?
Carla 17:14
We have a lot of conversations about a bit steep one and that’s not a curve away from your question. But what’s interesting is we have eight year old say, My mum is always on her phone, always. And if I want any attention, I have to physically get the phone and remove it for her to pay attention to me. So we have young people being more aware of, of not only their own habits, but the appearance habits and asking questions like, Can I have your full attention, something happened and I really want to talk to you about it. We had one of our high school girls who said she had to put her mom’s phone in a lockbox, run her a bath, pour her a glass of wine and banished her to the bathroom so that she could have some downtime and take a step back from what was happening online. So we really encourage our students to go home and take their activity books home and say to mom and dad, hey, we were talking about self talk today. And the voice in my head when things going completely, to plan C is your failure. What is your self talk, say? and opening up those discussions? The other thing that we do to answer your question more properly, is that our young people run workshops for parents, and they choose the activities that are found the most helpful, and they set the parents down in small groups, and they take them through those activities. And that has been one of the most profound changes that we’ve seen. When you’ve got an 11 year old, sitting there with five or six parents and saying, Do you know the difference between something that’s bullying, something that’s rude and something that’s mean? Can you give me examples because when you don’t understand you make it harder for us.
Blake 18:55
I feel like those parents are probably the ones volunteering to go to a seminar. Probably not the problem though. That’s, that’s the struggle with this.
Carla 19:03
it’s funny that you say that, like, we always have food, which is obviously a real draw card. And because the young people are running the workshops, then they’re saying you have to come because that I’m running a group. And I’ve worked hard. And I’ve planned this activity, and you need to come rather than come and listen to Dr. blablabla talk on a stage so we do get a higher attendance right then at typical events. Yeah.
Blake 19:30
Oh, that’s really clever. Just on the my data driven brain is kind of trying to process this a little bit. How you know, you’ve had great success with Google and you just mentioned working with Facebook there as well in in it kind of sinking in with the wider community, not just the educational but the corporate world as well. What’s the outcome that you kind of see, like what is it that you’re able to kind of measure in this in when you run these seminars? What’s the outcome? What’s the thing that you can come with Why within sort of point two, like that’s going to get to convince people to get on board with this kind of a program?
Carla 20:06
Totally. So we measure two things, we measure an increase in skills and an increase in confidence. And for us, those two things are critical to creating change with one and not the other been changes as least likely to occur. So if we do a one day event we save you know, do you feel more confident to understand what bullying is and the part that you play and reducing at some impact? And do you feel you have more skills to do that? So for us successes, have they got increased skills and have they got increased confidence Now the difference between a one day, you know, six hour event compared to a full year program as fast, but the feedback that we receive is, is strikingly similar, which is interesting. We’ve got, you know, 10 year old to say, I felt really bad about myself. And so I tried to feel better by making other people feel small. And being involved in this program has changed the way I look at who I am and it’s changed the way I treat other people. We’ve got young people who are like, I get what bullying is. We had one, nine year old, it was hilarious and appearance evil, I will not have you been bullied. And the kid goes, can’t really call it bullying man because it’s a one off. And it’s not really a power imbalance because, you know, we’re in the same year and same size and like, I’m not feeling like I can’t stop this on my own. So we can’t really call it a bullying it’s all about Your Language and mum goes, you know, okay. And so those kinds of things are definitely changing. We evaluation is really important to us. We do research with over 1500 young people every two years to identify trends, issues and opportunities, as well as norms and we’re also doing some external evaluation this year to find out you know, are we achieving the impacts we want to achieve? If so, what are they? If not, why not? And how do we need to pivot? So, I have a very data driven answer for you. by the end of the year.
Blake 21:58
sounds great. I mean, some some kind of long term I’m just thinking like a revisiting in 12 18 24 months of you really interesting to see what happens because no one’s doing that. Like that’s one of my gripes with all this digital citizenship stuff even if it is well intentioned and when we’re looking at, you know, the correct language and following up with kids now and then going back in two, three years and saying, what are your behaviors now? What do you what do you accept as normal? What do you do when someone you know, harasses you online or you have a difference of opinion? I don’t think that’s happening at all. It’s sort of this one step deliverance, do it, tick the box move on, which is unfortunate, but it’s also you know, part of the fabric of schools. That’s how schools operate, isn’t it? We, we booked the sessions, put people in the in the theater and then we move on. So it’d be great. Great to hear about that. Maybe we have to revisit it in 12 months or something and see, see where you’re at.
Carla 22:52
I think the other thing that really shows us the impact of our work is that young people stay involved for years and years. in our program. So when we think about those original 30 young people that sit up sticks and stones, and 2013, over half of them are still involved now. And they have finished university and that and the workforce, and they’re still on our Facebook page and offering suggestions and voting on merchandise and choosing slogans and key messages. So when we think about the impact of truly being part of something they made, it’s not a fly by night, a minute for a year. See you later. You know, these young people are still involved in their 20s. And for us that that shows us that it’s making an impact as well when I’m at the supermarket. Now we’re in level two, with the supermarket buying fruit and young person who was involved in our programs two years ago, says, Hey, Carla, how you doing what’s happening with sticks and stones. I still remember when we did x, and when we have young people who come to us when things do go wrong, because they know they can and that we will help them through then that shows the impact as well. So yes, we want to be out of here. I want to measure it. But at the same time, anecdotally, we know that those relationships matter. And they matter when some pretty terrible and horrific things happen that we’ve supported young people through. And we also know that we keep them involved for a really long period of time, which is very different to a lot of us based organizations.
Mike Reading 24:17
I think it’s important I don’t want to, I don’t want people to miss. Because I mean, I’ve spent a fair bit of time trying to get my head around how these runs because it is different, let’s be honest. And when you say like, they’re voting on merchandise and slogans, like this really is student driven, right? And not just student driven. This is student designed from the ground up. It’s not bringing in a cohort of students and getting them to take off on a whole bunch of work that the adults have done. And then we put a you know, slap a label on it and say, student centered or student involved like you, you really do let them design from the ground up, right?
Carla 24:52
Yeah, we do and it takes a really long time and it’s incredibly messy, and loud and disorganize And you will always hit the wall when you think there is no way we’re ever going to do this. We co designed a online support tool for young people. And that took two years from the original idea to the launch of the web app. And they were points where you’re just like, there’s just no way we can even make this happen. And not only did it happen, but the simplicity intuitiveness. and ease of this app is something that no adult could ever have done. And the same way not to say they couldn’t have done a great job. Of course they could, but and the way that that was done and the way that young people have engaged with it, and you know, it’s one award and young people are into it, and the decisions that they made is so important and yeah, it’d be a lot easier to get a group of adults in the room and decisions roll it out and put it to a brains trust and get them to put the okay on it, but it would never, it would never get what we’ve got
Mike Reading 26:00
So interesting. Where do you see this going? I mean, you attend a lot of digital citizenship conferences, anti bullying, conferences, events, run by government organizations, all of that sort of stuff. Do you see a trend into 21 22? Like, what are you seeing on the horizon of things schools maybe need to start thinking about planning for, and so on.
Carla 26:22
I think the key trends that we’ve noticed that probably started kicking off at the end of 2018, was a move away from student consultation to an expectation of student involvement. Now that hasn’t reached the student agency goal that a lot of education departments are talking about and really pushing, but we’re moving far more in that direction. We’ve got the Children’s Commissioner here in New Zealand that saying, you know, there shouldn’t be programs run on schools without the voice of young people being a part of it. But the race relations Commissioner saying the same thing. You’ve got organizations around the world moving away from one off workshop models to a more ongoing approach. And we’ve definitely moved away from the fear based model to a more education and skills based development, which I think is really important. So really positive trends. The negative side of it is there internationally, these programs typically have been centrally funded by government. And when they’re not, they stop. So there’s definitely some friction between governments wanting to put a program in place that will change the way that young people experience being able to be themselves free from bullying, harassment, and any kind of racism, homophobia or any other issues that come through there. But when government funding is removed, so the most evidence based bullying prevention, online or offline, and the world is out of Finland, when it was centrally funded in Finland, it was an over 85% of schools and the government pulled the funding that have so the trains more student engagement and wanting more long term, but a move away from centrally government funded programs. So what does that look like to be able to survive?
Blake 28:08
That’s super, super interesting how that tied in yes centrally as well. I wonder what do you say to people who sort of look at this from a broader lens and say, Well, okay, well, these aren’t, these aren’t new problems. They’re just existing, you know, social emotional problems that people have always had. It’s just now being manifested online. So, you know, we never used to do anything Why do something now? Like what? What’s the incentive for school to actually do this? Obviously, it’s going to, you know, protect people to a degree but rather than just letting them figure it out themselves, why do this program at all? Why do digital citizenship in any form, if it isn’t just, you know, to reduce the risk on the organization?
Carla 28:48
I think because the impact of any kind of harassment or bullying in an online or offline space has a second only to family violence in terms of negative mental health and impacts. So You’re talking about the crisis that we have internationally with the mental health of our young people that is carried into adulthood. we’re hoping young people will sorted out themselves then what we have as young people taking that baggage into their adult lives, and continuing those trends and norms. And then it just becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So, there’s the Michael laughs You know, Brenda Brown says, We either a team to fears and feelings now and by you having a reasonable amount of time to do it, or we commit all of our time later to dealing with the mass and the fallout of not doing it. And that’s completely true of this. If we’re saying, Oh, you know, when are we going to fit this in? We’ve got a crowded curriculum, what does this look like? Surely, they’re just jumping on whatever platform they’re doing and we’re asking them to do it well, and we’ve got filtering in place and, you know, we’ve got their, you know, their awesome online program we do for three lessons. Is that enough? But what we’re doing is we’re setting up the habit and norms for a lifetime, and we only have to look at the world now to understand the impact that that has. And not only on our mental health, but on our sense of community, on our connection, there are ways to interact and engage with one another. So if we’re saying, hey, let’s hope they sorted out for themselves, then what we’re setting up as yesterday, a road to getting what we’ve always got.
Blake 30:26
Yeah. And that ties into like, as well in the more short term in terms of people coping with stress and anxiety at school around, you know, taking exams and all those kind of day to day things as well. And I think there’s a Peter Drucker has a similar quote around, you know, one hour of planning saves 10 hours of headaches later. It’s sort of that same idea, isn’t it? We want to lay foundations now that can be built upon, you know, building built on the shoulders of giants rather than having to, you know, slowly figure all this out into adulthood and I know that’s how most of us have probably had to do it. You’re out should Coming into adulthood and you know, and it’s extremely difficult when you’re old and you set in your ways. But I think kids are, you know, they obviously naturally able to be more resilient than, you know, make change in their life a little easier than perhaps weekend.
Carla 31:17
And I transfer those skills to Blake, which is super cool. So I had a 17 year old side of me today, you know, I hit this random guy on the tictoc, and he made a comment about my dancing. That was just, you know, no. Okay. So it just made me go back into my settings and work out how did I want to follow me on tech talk? And how did I want to take control of this? So you’re transferring skills from one platform to another, and not waiting until crisis point say, hey, this happened and made me a little bit uncomfortable. What are the steps I can take rather than waiting for everything to go wrong?
Blake 31:51
So from a policy point of view, like do you think that this whole anonymous internet you know that we started with where no one everyone had a handle you know, everyone had a pseudonym rather than the real name, we move more towards now, people’s Facebook accounts relating to them directly. Do you? Are you a proponent for everyone being themselves online? Or do you still think that there’s a place for that anonymity and you know, being able to have a sandbox where you can experiment,
Carla 32:18
I think if there’s anonymity, then there needs to be a shared protocol for how you behave. So we’ve got young people who are part of some really incredible forums and online communities where they use handles, and that might be in relation to their sexuality or gender, it might be in relation to the interests at what the culture, but there are the protocols and the way they behave in those environments agreed on and everyone in the air is singing from the same hymn sheet, but one of the children, so there’s a place for the anonymity so long as you’ve got some expectations around how you’re behaving and to interact with one another. Because sometimes that is where young people can be their truest selves. You know, under the cloak of redridinghood86 they can explore who they are and have a sense of community. That said, when we talk to young people around how they behave when they are using their real name compared to when they’re using a handle, they say it’s vastly different. So we’ve gone through three major anonymous social networking sites since 2013. And each one of those has folded under pressure related to cyber bullying and online harassment and harm. So yes, I think there’s a place for it so long as your expectations and your protocols exist to keep people safe. But at the same time, our young people are very honest about if my name is associated with it. I’m more thoughtful about what I say.
Blake 33:44
When I come up guys to play competitive gaming. And the game that I thought it was called Counter Strike, and it’s actually got a reputation for being one of the most toxic environments online because you will get put into what they call a server Five versus five. And your five people on your team often are randomly selected, but you can, you can join, you know, five people you know and go into a server, that’s great. But for those people who are isolated, maybe don’t have many friends that are already, you know, potentially more at risk going into these games on their own. And then you go in with four other people, sometimes those four people know each other and ganging up on you. Sometimes they just criticize you the entire game and bring you right down. And I know, I remember feeling terrible off the game, sometimes feeling like I’d let the team down, things like that. And you can see how that can become an extremely toxic environment. But and you don’t know who any of these people are. They didn’t really know who you are. But I wonder, you know how that’s going to change in the future. Do you see a trend with that? I mean, it’d be hard to sort of have a game full of 14 15 year olds with their real names as well, that would be a problem as well.
Carla 34:52
Yeah. And I think that one of the things we hear from teenagers particularly, is that they’re not given the opportunity to practice them. before they’re in an environment where it’s for real, and I know that’s a weird way to explain gaming, but it’s we haven’t had the conversations we haven’t really practiced what this looks like. And then, you know, when we want to impress, you know, we want to fit in there’s not true belonging in a gaming environments that don’t actually know who we are. And so how do we do that we try and find commonalities, or we try to find, you know, who are we against, and the Let’s share that and the most toxic possible way. The other thing that we hear from gaming girl gamers, is that it’s a really misogynistic environment as well you know, if they find out that you are a female in that environment, then things turn pretty quickly and some of the things that are stated are pretty horrific, but that comes back down to you know, what are our expectations and you know, what are the other people say that they join and you know, what do you say when you say that, is that somewhere you want to be, you know, weighing up all of those things. My son is eight. He’s just started playing Roblox and he told me today mum, you know that person who told you they were really mean people in Roblox who said mean things to one another. They were totally lying. Everyone’s super nice. And I’m like, okay, have you been playing Roblox with my friend Max? And my friend Blake, I said, excellent. Why? Why do you think your friend Max and your friend Blake, nice to you? Because they’re nice to me in person. Yeah, so we start to break that break that down and have that conversation but for so many of these teenagers, they’re getting into this gaming environments hyper competitive, you know, like, you don’t want to die and have to re spawn and not be able to succeed in your mission and have the 11 year old and Taiwan on the heat state start cursing at you for failing your team. We need to be able to think about what our expectations are and have those conversations and it’s really hard when a lot of parents have got no idea what it involves at all and cannot share your grief about not being able to find your precious materials. in Minecraft, or someone coming in and messing with your agent, if they move your parents like, whatever eat your chicken, how are they working it through? And how are they able to be able to learn what to do next time,
Blake 37:14
because it is real, it is real for them. And I know myself, you’ve been playing a game and you’re the last one left. And you know those four other people are watching what you’re doing, you know, and, and going to be critical of you. And then the stress level can go up. And it’s easy to think, Oh, it’s just a game. It’s just a game. It’s easy. You know, we don’t need to, you don’t need to worry about that. Just get over it. Let’s come to dinner, eat your food. So, you know, I think that there is a disconnect. And I think parents would be horrified if they heard the way that particularly like you’ve mentioned females get treated in these games. You know, they get threatened with rape and all sorts of things. You know why that is? not joking. It’s very cutthroat and aggressive. And I don’t think that the people who are saying that I don’t think that makes them necessarily bad people. I think they just feel that As though this is a sandbox environment where my words have no impact, they’re not going to hurt. They just mean spouting off things, trying stuff, bouncing ideas, like that little sandbox where they can try out what it’s like to be a bit of a prick.
Carla 38:13
So I think that are established the, you know, like this. And if you think about comparing a press conference in the US to press conferences in other parts of the world are the norms that have been established about how the politicians speak to the reporters and how the reporters face the politicians, the gaming environment is the same, you know, what are the norms that are there, if you’ve got a norm that someone you know, makes a joke about violent, and then other people kind of laugh or just let it go, and then that’s going to be continuing. But if you’ve got the norm where that happens, and people are like, you know, like, out you go, then that’s going to change as well. There’s some really interesting research done about three years ago as well, about the hyper focus of gaming and how when you ask a child to stop playing, even if you’ve given them that awesome five minutes former’s you know, whatever you’re doing, the brain experiences trauma, the same kind of trauma that they would experience from being physically hurt. There’s no difference and the trauma that the brain experiences by being asked to leave again. So the advice was that you sit beside your child, yeah. Okay, tell me what’s happening, who’s that guy with me with it? You know what’s happening there, and open up that environment that you expect to be able to sit down with your child and say, Hey, what’s happening here? Who’s that? What’s the mission? What’s going on, and get them out of that state of hyper focus, they’re least likely to experience trauma, they’re more likely to get off the device and away without the kinds of huge tantrums which I know I’ve experienced, because it’s such a traumatic shift away from that focus with the rewards and the instant gratification, that as parents, we’re putting in those kinds of strategies. If your child’s expecting that mom or dad would sit down and be interested in what you’re playing, then we’re kind of moving away from you having a normal you might be like, you know, I’m going to do X or you’re at this change. The way that it looks.
Blake 40:00
So it sounds to me like you’re advocating for us to annoy our children. Is that what you’re saying?
40:05
Totally. And how is that? Why don’t you build what’s happening there? What happens if I press this button? You
Blake 40:11
know, for that, that sounds like a good strategy. I mean, I say to my kids who are, you know, only three and four years old, and they’re just two and four years old, I should say, but they just get transfixed by TV, you know, by TV watching. And if they’re on their iPad, where they have control over the YouTube, it’s even worse, they get that instant hit, I want, I want that one, boom, they click on it, and they get that video straightaway. It’s like a very small form of gaming, and we find dragging away from the iPad, almost every time was causing, causing huge tantrums. So we just stopped with the iPad, which is could they couldn’t handle it, though. The TV was a lot better and able, you know, and I noticed if we sit and watch and ask questions about the show and stuff, they’re far more sociable and they’ll move around the room and walk jump on and play with their toys and stuff. Whereas if they’re left to their own device, which has Sometimes you have to do, and then you try and drag them away. It’s very, very difficult.
Carla 41:04
And I think we get a lot of parents saying things like, you know, I can’t get my child off my desk off the device, you know, they’re spending eight hours a day gaming. You know, it’s about setting up those habits early. And I totally agree. My daughter was four when she told me to comment below and hit subscribe. Just something that was happening at the dinner table. And, you know, coming into that expectation, you know, we’ve seen the kids have you devices for learning during the week, you can have devices for playing in the weekend, because they needed that clarity, they needed to know when they could do either. And without it, it just became Yeah, a whole lot of really negative. But I’ll go with negotiation, and it became really hard. Whereas when we sit there and like I say, you know, you’re allowed it for this time, and this is what we can do and you sit down beside and you draw them out. That is incredibly important and the modeling that we do, it’s just massive, you know, we’re saying to kids, you know, no, no iPads or no devices for us. Anything other than learning during the week, and then we’re playing Angry Birds or want to know Words with Friends or whatever it is that we’re playing. The while they’re not allowed to use it say I’m modeling is massively important. And so many of us as parents are hyper connected, and yet expecting our children to not be.
Blake 42:19
Yeah. And that ties into them setting their own limits as well. Now, I guess that’s where your program would be so scary for people is that our experiences as parents is that kids can’t self moderate, especially younger kids, like think as they get into their high teens like they can self moderate whether they want to or not, if this is another question, but we certainly see it at year seven, when students first come into the school, they have no like that The doors are open in the hospital and suddenly have all these freedoms in high school. And like there’s no concept of self moderation, they’ve never had to exercise it. And I think it is a little different in New Zealand schools from what Mike’s been saying where there is a bit more self direction and they have to have time management skills and things like that. I think in Traditional schooling if we call it traditional schooling, you don’t have to do time management. There’s a bell that goes every period, there’s a teacher that tells you Okay, we’re closing our books, we’re moving on to this next thing. I think that’s changing. I certainly see it changing even in my childcare and Kindle programs where they’re saying, you guys have to manage your own time, you can have your own little project works to do and, and they’re starting to build those skills in at a very small level, really young, but I suppose that’s the concern you can see from the outside is that parents are going to think, Well, my kids can’t moderate. So how much should I moderate? Like, I’m interested to hear thoughts on that, especially as it as a teenage level with where, where it gets really real for them? What is the moderation level you would advocate for, you know, should you be taking them off certain things or weekdays weeknights an hour on their off? What do you think is the best practice?
Carla 43:48
I think that one of the things that comes to us is that we tend to operate the same expectations for a 13 year old that we do for a 17 year old so it’s okay that it changes with age. That’s the first thing. So we often hear things about no phones in the bedroom. And that would totally work for a 13 year old. But if you’re talking about a 17 year old that may or may not be in your house the following year, and will need to self manage there and a university or work setting, then you need to give them the chance to practice there. And then the other thing and I know there’s going to be parents who hate me, but having a conversation that says, what do you think is fear? Let’s actually negotiate this, when you’ve got a five year old, an eight year old and say, hey, these are my rules. And this is why like, I still say to my kids, this is why we asked you to only have the iPad for learning during the week, because we’ve noticed that all of these arguments, your moods, were getting really hard to manage you getting angry and upset. And then we were finding we were just not having great conversations with you because we were shouting and you were upset. So this is why we’ve changed this role. If you if you want to talk to us about negotiating a different role, then yeah, we’re up for it. But this is why we’ve made that decision. So from that young age is being really clear about why you make those decisions and choices is really important. And then being open to have the conversation. son was gutted to go back to school this week, because he could do all of his schoolwork in an hour when we were in lockdown. And then he does not understand what he has to do and the other four hours of school. So we talked about that self direction, he was able to look at his program for the week, and say, today, I’m doing my week’s worth of math. Boom, don’t for an hour, my math is done tomorrow, that writing thing looks hard. mum, I’m going to need you. We’re going to need you at nine. So we can do the writing together. So it’s finished. We need to provide opportunities for them to make choices, the same way that my five year old and her play vice classroom has to choose between the provocations but of the year, because she’s got to if she leaves that she has to tidy it up and have it ready for the next child to come and engage with what are the choices that they’re making and what are the expectations we’re putting in place. Because so many teachers found during lockdown, everything was directed by them. The control was paramount. locked down, change that. And it was them that found it harder to cope than the kids.
Mike Reading 46:06
That’s a really interesting observation. Hey, that was them who started with the most. And I think we’re starting to see that in some emails that are coming in and around. Okay, so schools are starting to think about coming back. How do we keep that student choice? In our programs? What does that look like moving forward? Maybe we could get you back because I know Kelly, you got some great ideas around that and running student boot camps and technology use and digging into numeracy and literacy. It’s not just the sticks and stones stuff that you do. And maybe we could talk around how do you actually co construct a curriculum with some students and I’ve done some work with some schools around that, where it’s not the teacher saying, here’s the program and here’s the curriculum, and you’ll do this today and this tomorrow, but what does that look like for the students to have a say in that and not just giving them a what they think is a say so that you’ve pat him on the head and say, there you go, I gave you a voice, but actually letting them choose and The risks and rewards of that are that would make another great podcast in the future.
Carla 47:04
Totally and letting them take their learning beyond you as the teacher, you know, who else has the expertise and knowledge that you don’t have? And how do you engage them with those people? You know, really, we keep talking about beyond the four walls of our classroom. But we desperately want the kids to stay within those four walls because it’s easier. So what does it look like to push up on this?
Mike Reading 47:25
Yeah, we got a voicemail from a Maori immersion school. I might save that for next week. We were going to play it this week, but just looking at the time but they they’re saying exactly that students are coming back, but we’re looking at how do we give those elements of choice to the students and not have us direct everything and take the best of both worlds? Really, I think there’s a massive opportunity to do that, not just in our curriculum, but like what you’ve been talking around digital citizenship, you know, online safety and just being a good citizen, regardless of the digital part. This This definitely skills for life in that Interestingly, listening to Blake drill you because I’ve had the pleasure of being able to do that, it’s just been nice to sit back and clean and start to come.
Blake 48:11
I just I just thought wouldn’t mind just throw a word of caution around coming back and asking the kids what they would want in terms of self direction, because one of the things that we’ve noticed is we’ve, we train kids, especially in the seniors like 10 11 and 12. I’ve been trying for 10 years or, you know, nine years on not to have work, you know, delivered to them. And I think one of the things we’ve done is we’ve actually done similar surveying and focus groups with kids around, you know, how did you find this immersion program? So II nine, where, where there’s much more freedom and they can pick modules and they work on their own. They do a bit of inquiry, learning and things like that. And the biggest feedback we get is this is an E nine is that there wasn’t enough structure. There wasn’t I wasn’t being told what to do. And the first thing a teacher says is, oh, that’s something I can help with. Let’s scaffold Now let’s scaffold. And so I think you’ve got to be a little careful because I’m definitely in the camp for, for more self direction, and giving kids the big, you know, rather than managing students informing them, giving them opportunities to extend themselves to go to that next level or to catch up and work in their own timeframes. But I think we’ve got to be careful about asking kids that have been indoctrinated for 10 years to make a decision about would you like more structure or less before you’re used to the structure, of course, you’re going to want what the structure so
Carla 49:30
and I think it also comes back to the feedback that we give. I taught gifted learners for six years. And the one thing that my job was to train them out of was the same color as the skirt. And I’d say, I don’t know, as a and that have to explain to me whether or not that meet the expectations. You know what they were doing. You’re totally right. There are skills that young people need before they can move in that direction. And we need to enable that to happen. So if all they want is affirmation and validation And whether it’s a gorgeous bitmoji sticker, or it’s a pat on the back of what they’re seeking, and what they want from us as their validation, then how can they either give it to themselves. And if we’re not supporting them to develop those skills, then of course, they want the structure. And of course, they want to be scaffolded. Because it’s easier. And when you’ve got things that are consistently had in your life, especially as an adolescent a twin or attain, then you desperately want things that are easy some of the time.
Blake 50:31
And my kids see this on a larger scale way. I’m sure you’d love hearing, schools will say we’re student driven, you know, we have student voice and they tell us what we want and we implement it. And usually they’re telling you what you want to hear and you implement it. And I think there’s a there’s a bit of work to be done there to actually unpick things properly and not just do a survey and look at some, you know, word clouds and say, Okay, well that everyone seems to want this and we’re going with that is to unpick, really okay, what’s the motivating factor behind decisions And behind, you know, the way the way in which you’re operating at school, whether it’s, you know, how you use your devices in the classroom or whether it’s like, how periods are structured in the school. I think if you know, if you ask students, what would they prefer with only no structing, six periods a day, that’s what they’re going to give you. So, definitely say I’ve seen that in a lot of the consulting work I’ve done, where people would love to tell me how everything’s driven by students, students, students, students come first and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But really, it’s just surface level surveying, just to reaffirm the norms that have already been set. And so that always makes change harder, I think, when you’re coming up against them.
Carla 51:36
And the one crazy thing that you might not believe is true, but is actually true is that teenagers are the kindest survey takers on the planet. They will look at the question and they will say what is the my teacher want me to say what is how am I going to get through this? And they will select that response. So you’re so right, those surface level surveys will get you what you want, because those teenagers And Twain’s you know, their students, they add shown to what you want them to say. And they will say it
Blake 52:06
just another test to pass, isn’t it?
Mike Reading 52:07
Yeah. And it becomes a chicken and egg scenario to write teachers. So you can’t give students true agency because they don’t know what to do with it. And they don’t even know what it is. And then the students are saying, well, don’t give it to me. Because, like, we don’t actually get it. So, you know, we haven’t been trained in it. So like, yeah, I think we definitely should get your back. However, we should dig into some of these principles, because I know we have these conversations about Okay, so let’s go beyond the theory and the nice keynote speeches and talk about how does this actually work in a classroom up front when it’s messy at the coalface I’d love to dig into some of those things. In terms of just wrapping up maybe some of the digital citizenship discussions. Is there any like do you have a five point plan or a three things that you must consider or if it’s okay, we want to revamp our digital citizenship program. Where do we start? Where do you appoint people to
Carla 52:59
again First thing, it can’t be a one off. And please don’t bring in a guest speaker, check that box. And thank you done because you know, young people, yeah, overwhelmingly in agreement that it doesn’t change anything. The second thing is, is that your digital citizenship policy should be a living document that should be done with your students. And, you know, we talked about the fact that most teachers don’t even know that they’ve got one little own what’s in it, or they’re able to read it. So you can’t put a list together and ask a five year old and a parent to sign up when they start school and expect it to still be relevant when they’re in year eight. So it’s a living document, it changes and evolves and young people should be involved in the design and construction of it. And the third thing is digital citizenship isn’t a list of don’ts. And it’s not only about being online. It’s about the skills, confidence in behaviors that are going to support you to have positive relationships, and to be communicating in a way that is thoughtful and considerate.
Mike Reading 53:55
That’s a great place to start it.
Blake 53:57
Yeah. It’s great. Fantastic, shall we Move on to some wins and fails. Now, Mike, I think we need to wrap up in a minute. So what’s been going on in the in the news cycle or around the web for you? what’s the wins and fails?
Mike Reading 54:09
Yeah, feel free to join into Carla if you want. Yeah, I’ve got a new a Asus got delivered by Google. This week, a Chromebook. And quite a nice device. I’ve got a heat map that you can see it on the podcast, but it’s quite good. It’s quite fast. It’s got an eight gigabyte processor in it and handles it lights fast. It’s got a nice feel to it, not like a cheap plasticky Chromebook feel. And I’m actually enjoying getting on it and giving it a whirl so that for me has been a win in the Chromebook world is to have something a little bit more higher spec. and nice to touch
Blake 54:42
that eight gigabyte processor like I don’t think that exists.
54:47
A gig of ram particularly I’m just
Blake 54:50
I’m going to get Ville follow that guy. I’m going to get destroyed on Twitter. So yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, there’s that there’s a whole raft of them coming out. Now for the stock The US semester. So this is kind of prime time for new CPUs, new, new Chromebooks, new PCs, new everything. So you know, you’re ramping up your interview stuff in the next couple of months is the time to get some demo devices for next year’s. Next year’s BYOD to whatever it is you’re on at your schools. So yeah, we’re looking at that at the moment. And that’s another thing speaking to our supplies. If you are looking at BYD for 2021, you know, purchasing late this year, early next year, you want to start doing that now. All the indications are that Coronavirus has slowed everything in terms of the Chinese supply chain. So making sure you’re getting on that now getting those demo devices in the next couple of months and making a decision by August so you’ve got time to order, you know, wait the 10 weeks from China and get your devices in the country. So that’s a little tip I heard from our supplier. So hopefully that helps some of us. It’s not
Mike Reading 55:54
a sales tactic either like we got the last stock and we work with resellers across the Australia, New Zealand will search in high and low for some decent devices and we got like the last seven that are available.
Blake 56:06
So it’s like 10 plus weeks wide at the moment and just keeps going up and up. So I’m not sure what will happen there. But we will soon see, it doesn’t my when we have discovered this thing in in a computer game of all things after talking about how toxic computer games are Assassin’s Creed. I don’t know if you guys know that that title you probably seen it around is a kind of historic computer game in a way where you’ll go back to like, I think one of them was set in Venice, one of theme’s in Egypt. And they’re running educational tours, like a tour mode in there where you go into the game and it’s actually historically somewhat accurate. So things are in the places they’re meant to be in and they’ll show you, you know, the pyramids and the Sphinx. Go around and it’s all you know, super high def, top of the line graphics and everything. And I think because all these travel bans, it’s become a real thing for you know, people actually wanting to go on field trips with their kids. Go to the German exchange anymore. So you know, this is the next best thing. So definitely check that out of Assassin’s Creed origins discovery to educational mode, if you Google that, you’ll find it and I think you can sign up and dial in or something. And then I’ll take you through a video called style think through the experience. So very cool and a great way to, you know, virtually get out of the house and travel overseas because I don’t think any of us will be doing it for a while.
Carla 57:26
I can echo that. Like my, my husband had that experience firsthand. We were standing and read square and Russia. And he said, I’ve been here before to which I responded, dude, No, you haven’t. And then he pointed out everything in the square from one of the Assassin’s Creed games, and it was so accurate. He knew exactly where to go where the underground walls were the public bathrooms where, where linen stone was all the entrances and exits from that game. So they’re pretty spot on.
Blake 57:53
Well, they are and you know, the learning happens everywhere. I remember turning up to Monte Carlo. And I’ve played a lot of play a lot of racing. games as a kid in those monte-carlo race tracks on you exactly where we were, I could have directed the bus around, which is quite funny. But yeah, I just, it’s just funny. I just you wouldn’t have thought about it, but then you put it together in the place. And it’s just last little boost. So definitely check that out. All right, any fails for you, Mike.
Mike Reading 58:19
Not even didn’t really have any fails this week. I did have another win. We took a bit of a risk last week. And we rolled out a new type of professional development and encoding. And we’ve been talking about this all night, right, including students in the PD. And so we rolled out with one of our resellers in New Zealand Microsoft training and goes for five weeks and the teachers and the students come together and they learn together online and then they have to implement what they learn in a challenge. And we had like over 100 schools register, there’s well over 100 teachers and then probably 500 students are involved. And the last two weeks it’s been running actually and it’s just gone off without a hitch. So many Really interesting to see a new form of PD where we’re inviting the students into that PD, and having the teachers and the students learn together and play together and challenge together. So we were like, oh, man, this could go either way. And it seems like it’s falling in the right direction. So pretty stoked. We’re going to we’re actually developing a Google version of it right now. We’ll be rolling that out soon say, it’s been a real win for us this week.
Blake 59:24
Awesome. Well, my only fail was just around these devices. Again, we’re seeing all these new devices come out. And again, with terrible cameras in them. I don’t know what it is with Chromebooks and even cheaper PCs, but the webcams are awful. And you think about a classroom environment. The one thing we want to do is to be able to take photos and do video and these kind of, you know, we always talk about creating rich media and how that never really caught on no one’s actually doing it because I think the technology we have in the classroom, whilst it’s really powerful, often the camera and the microphone things like that are letting us down. So I just wish some of them There’s a step up and put a really nice camera in one of these devices a worldview camera, you can walk around, take photos, you know, do all those art things. We have to still have digital cameras around. I don’t know why in this in this age, smartphones and things we can’t put a good camera in a laptop. So yeah, that’s my file for the week.
Mike Reading 60:17
Yeah, I’m just thinking Surely it’s not that expensive to do right.
Blake 60:21
Now, I mean, they’re in they’re in smartphones and cheap smartphones. If you bought $200 smartphone, it has a really good camera. But no one’s doing it not even apple. I think Apple have to take the plunge so that all the sheep will follow. And then we’ll see it so yeah,
Mike Reading 60:35
yeah, that’s awesome. Any wins or fails from you while you hear Carla, putting you on the spot, are muted.
Carla 60:41
The biggest fail today was in working with a school that had 20 iPads, each with a separate apple ID and password and we’re trying to manage all 20 iPads, be able to push apps out to the students. So that was one of those awesome factory receipt 12 iPads and start fresh to try and work out how they can use them more effectively move away from 20 apps for 20 different purposes and using them as the tool that they are. So it’s kind of a fail wrapped up and some possibilities for when afterwards.
Mike Reading 61:15
Awesome. Very good. Sorry, a lot of them chat messages going backwards and forwards about in DMS and all sorts of things today. So that was interesting. Yeah, that’s awesome. Hey, we really appreciate you having on Carla I want to just thank you for taking time out and sharing what you do if people want to find out more about sticks and stones or to reach out and contact you. What’s the best way for them to do it?
Carla 61:38
So sound without website so it’s dub dub dub dub sticks in stones co.nz and then check us out on Twitter. We’re sticks and stones nz and sticks and stones nz on Instagram as well. And yeah, we’ve got a student action pet coming out that we have been co designing with our young people for bullying free New Zealand’s in partnership with the Ministry of Education. And now you would love to If you change it out with literally how colorful and bright and awesome got some super practical and fun ideas in there, but yeah, get in contact, we’d love to hear from you. And we’re really responsive. So check us out.
Mike Reading 62:11
Yeah, that’s awesome bike and I would love to hear from you as well. There’s lots of different ways you can get in contact with us, you can go back and grab the other episodes and easiest way to do that just go to utb.fyi/outclassed and you’ll see all the different episodes we’ve got there. You’ll also see there’s a button to leave us a voicemail, we’re stoked that this week somebody stepped out of their comfort zone and they left us a voicemail, we might play that next week, if we have time. And then also use the hashtag out class podcast and we’ll pick that up and be able to see it and be able to interact with you there. So lots of different ways to stay in touch. We’d love to hear your questions, as well as your comments and your feedback. And we’d love to be you know, maybe even featured on a podcast down the track. So again, thanks for listening. Kyle, thanks for being with us. Like always good to catch up.
Blake 62:58
Always. Thank you Mike and Thank you, Carla. Fantastic. Thank you.
63:03
Thanks for listening. For more episodes and show notes visit utb.fyi/outclassed
