Integrating CS and Technology with Laurie “Mrs. Geeky” Green
In this interview with Laurie “Mrs. Geeky” Green, we discuss advice for novice and veteran computer science educators who are integrating CS and technology in a variety of subject areas, what an engaging integration experience looks like, the importance of finding platforms and approaches that work for you and the kids you work with, helping administrators and educators understand what computer science is (and how it’s different than computational thinking), suggestions for integrating in online and virtual spaces, and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the CSK8 podcast.
My name is Jared Leary, and this week's episode I am interviewing Laurie, Mrs.
Geeky Green.
In this episode, we discuss advice for novice and veteran computer
science educators who are interested
in integrating science and technology into a variety of subject areas.
We also discuss
what an engaging integration experience looks and sounds like,
the importance of finding different coding languages or platforms and approaches
that work with not only the kids that you work with, but for yourself,
rather than just going with others advice or selling to you.
We also discuss how to help administrators and educators understand
what computer science is and how it's different from computational thinking,
and some suggestions for integrating in online
and virtual spaces, as well as many other topics.
As always, you can find links in the show notes that
expand upon what we're discussing in this particular episode,
and you can find that by clicking the link in the app that you're listening
to this on or by visiting Jared O'Leary Ecom where there's nothing for sale.
With that, we will now begin with an introduction by Laurie.
My name is Laurie Green and I've been in education for nearly 30 years.
I spent most of that time as a tech integration specialist.
I have a bachelor's
from the Ohio State University and a master's from Cleveland State
University in curriculum and foundations with a focus on technology education.
Can you tell me the story of how you became known as Mrs.
Geeky?
It's a funny story.
So I was working in Ohio at an education service center, Summit County, S.C.,
and I was leading a workshop on geo caching,
and we were going to look for a cache at a nearby cemetery.
And one of the teachers fell behind me a little bit.
And at the time, my Mary last name is Hakala,
which was very difficult to remember, let alone spell.
The teacher was trying to get my attention because she had fallen so far behind
and she was getting frustrated and she raises her hand.
She started to shout, I mean, Mrs.
Mrs., Mrs.
Geeky Jessie coming to take a look.
And it just kind of stuck after that.
And then I started.
And of course, like Mrs.
Geeky, it's chic to be gay. So it took
it. It's great.
So how did you go from the origins of Mrs.
Geeky to NGO caching to getting into CS education?
My whole life I worked at Rockwell International
the first five years after graduation from Ohio State.
And it was during that time I was a contract negotiator for spare parts,
and the program manager
who was an engineer said, If you're going to go and negotiate
all these parts, you need to know how they work.
And I was working on early stages of GH.
Ironically, and he took me into the shop and showed me how they programed it
and actually had me do some physical things, physical computing.
And I thought, This is so cool.
Why didn't I know about this before that Fortran that I took in Ohio State?
Everything's making sense now
and a part of me was a little angry too, because I thought,
Why didn't I get more exposure to this when I was younger?
Because I'm older.
So a lot of things that are available now weren't available then,
but I thought in my head then that I wanted to go back to education
and make sure that all students,
especially in the early formative years, K through five,
get exposure to those types of technologies
and the possibilities and the excitement that I felt
when I first started learning a little bit about Rockwell
and took a year off, got my education degree at Cleveland State
When I was teaching in Cleveland, my very first job, Cleveland Public schools,
I had an Apple TV and we were fortunate to be one of the first ones
to to get hooked up with a modem.
And there was this program called Problem of the Day.
And back then, you know, computers didn't have all the video
graphics and bells and whistles and programs that they do.
Now, you simply got this text email, if you will.
It gave my kids a math problem of the day and they had the day to solve it
and send it back.
And they started getting so excited to log on to the computer.
What was that problem?
Can we solve it?
So how do we send it back to the person on the other end,
understands our solution and find out if we got it right.
So more of my kids started wanting to read with a purpose.
More of my kids started to increase their interest in math.
And I thought, Well, here is another tool
to teach, another way to deliver and get them engaged.
Did it get all of them involved? No.
But it got more involved.
So I found another way to get them excited and interested in math and reading.
And that was really when that light bulb came on about how
integrating technology really is another tool for teaching.
And you could say the rest really about history.
So combined with my experience at Rockwell and this, it really fuzed together.
And that's where it started.
And that was, gosh, so long ago.
And from there, you know, integrating technology into the curriculum,
finding fun ways to make it engaging, but not being the sole focus of the lesson
that it was just a way to enhance or increase the lesson experience.
Your story reminds me of one of my professors, James Paul G.
He writes about this in several of his books,
how he got into video games for learning was watching kids
going through video games and realizing just how much reading was involved
and like how that developed, like the specialized understanding
of language and whatnot and situational wise.
So like,
if even playing like a card game, like Pokemon kids are learning
all of these advanced words and whatnot
that they wouldn't learn elsewhere, but they need to know it for that moment.
So they're like super engaged and like, I'm going to learn what this thing is
because I need to know how to play this game better,
whether it's like a video game or a physical game.
Exactly.
The English component,
the language arts component of technology, I think gets overlooked quite a bit.
I had a very interesting lecture by someone who worked on,
I guess, the task force or whatever to bring down the Unabomber.
What was interesting about that is they were studying the patterns
of his English language of how he wrote, and they were looking for patterns
and they started highlighting in different colors, certain uses of words.
Mm hmm.
And right there you're creating.
That's a great example of computational thinking.
You're taking something, you're deconstructing.
You are now creating.
What's the algorithm of how he wrote.
So yeah, it sounds like corpus linguistics.
Part of my method for my dissertation utilizes corpus linguistics techniques
to do a discourse analysis to find patterns
among like 11 million words of data
and try and figure out what are these patterns mean
and how do they relate to making music and with technology and whatnot.
So yeah, it's a fascinating area of study and if you want to get nerdy,
any listeners who are listening to this,
just check out the method portion of my dissertation, chapter three.
So one of the things that I love about talking to the educators
is they always have a lot of stories
about like moments that just kind of like stick with you, like moments of impact.
So I'm wondering,
can you tell an experience in education that continues to impact you today?
Absolutely.
When I was getting my teaching certificate, I did what they call
field work at Rozelle, who was Rozelle Elementary in East Cleveland.
And I worked with a teacher named Joy Comp, and she had these second
graders doing Punnett squares, which I don't think I did till sixth grade.
And they weren't just doing them remotely.
They understood them and they could explain it to you and so forth.
I was just blown away.
And I said, How did you get them to learn this?
And she looked at me perplexed,
put her hands on her hips and said, Well, I never told them they couldn't.
And that stuck with me.
To this day.
I tell them they can't.
I don't look at this.
This is for grades second through third or whatever.
I look at the situation,
I look at my learners and where can I take them?
Yeah, I've definitely found that in multiple subject areas,
like whether it's teaching music classes or teaching coding classes and whatnot,
there were things that some of the second graders
could do in scratch that were on par with multiple grade levels above them.
And same thing with with like making music and whatnot.
It's it's funny when kids are really interested
in something and are willing to learn things.
If you don't tell them that like there's a ceiling, then
they can go really far with it usually.
Absolutely. And I've seen that time and time again.
I think that
more difficult part for teachers is being comfortable with that scenario.
So what about something that you believed when you first started
in education that you no longer believe?
My answer to that is the definition of technology
Integration is not what it was when I started,
and I've been disappointed by that because I go to schools now
and they'll say, Oh, we're 1 to 1, we're integrating technology.
We have Chromebooks, right?
Well, okay, a Chromebook is a really nice web browser and typewriter
and kids do need to learn how to do word processing.
They do need to learn some of the other functions that that brings.
But I don't equate that with technology integration.
My vision of technology integration, maybe using that spreadsheet to solve
another problem that you're analyzing over in science class or using probes
and getting the data and downloading it and then looking at the data from that.
But that definition back when I started tech integration was really just
that was integrating technology within the lesson.
You might do it a lot one day, you might not do it the next week.
It's when it was appropriate when an enhanced the lesson.
Now, tech integration, as we all have to have 1 to 1 computers.
Are you familiar with the same model?
A little bit, yeah.
The same stands for and this is related to like technology integration,
but it stands for as a substitution, A as augmentation.
M as modification in an R as redefinition.
So like a substitution for using a Chromebook to type up an essay is okay.
You could have written that out by hand or an augmentation might be okay.
You're going to type out that essay, but you're going to like change the colors
and make it like different fonts for different voices in the text.
Like that's going to make it do something a little bit better and like,
you keep going up and up.
But the goal is to eventually get to redefinition
and make it so that you can actually like do something you couldn't have previously
done, like transform it using that technology.
I'm totally in agreement with you.
Like, I can't stand it when people are just doing that base level substitution.
It's just like, okay, you could have done that with any devices.
You could have done that with a pencil and paper, which is much cheaper.
Yeah.
So speaking of
integration, I'm curious about CSS integration.
So if you were to kind of walk into an ideal classroom that's integrating
computer science in some way, what would somebody like see or hear?
Yeah, So when you walk into my classroom, I think it would illustrate
what Seema Papa taught us, that the role of the teacher
is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide readymade knowledge.
If you were to walk into my class and see the integration,
you would see maybe some computers out, maybe some robotics,
maybe some household items out creating something paper and pencil.
But it would not be
the only thing you would see in the tech would not be the single driving.
So when it comes to the CSS integration, are there any classes that you would
recommend integrating more than others or less than others?
You know, I would say no.
I think it all depends on what you're teaching and what the situation is
and what technology enhance or enrich their learning situation.
And I'll give you an example.
A few years ago, when I was working in the district,
I met with the music teacher and we were looking at ways to integrate technology.
What we wound up doing is the students spent mallets out of the Lego robotics
and then we put xylophones in front of them
and they programed them to play the xylophone.
We took it a step further and they came up with their own designs,
even something that had a triangle, something that did a drum.
And it was the 50th anniversary of the Sound of Music.
So the students programed.
I mean, I think we had eight or nine xylophones in a row,
and then we had some kids
with some of their other inventions and they did Do-Re-Mi.
But to make it even better, the teacher included
that in her winter music program in the evening.
Awesome.
And so we said this was the world's first robotic orchestra.
It was so cool.
All the kids did this press play and stand back
and you can hear a pin drop in the audience.
And what was really nice was after the concert was over,
you know, most of the time folks are ready to go home.
People stayed for almost 40 minutes afterwards, came up and talked to the kids
like they were rock stars.
How did you and how did you do that?
And they were such great ambassadors.
So everything from start to finish.
And the point of the story is that was music.
But through music, they learned math,
they learned about history, they learned to work together.
It was fabulous.
They created their own designs.
To answer your question, I don't think there is one subject
where you would use it more necessarily.
Yeah, if I were to go back into the classroom
from a music perspective, I totally do in a ton of CSS in those classes
and like when I was in the CAC
class was doing a ton of music in the classes and arts and other things.
So what about like in integration experience?
What comes to mind when you think of an engaging way of integrating?
I think the most engaging ways to integrate one,
if it's going to bring some life to your teaching
objective to what you're doing, an engaging way to integrate too,
is to take from things that are going on in the real world and corporate
that into how you're integrating the technology.
Recently, we had the first private shuttle
go up to the space station and you could watch it live on TV.
You can go on to the national Web website and study what experiments they're doing.
You could research online the astronauts and how they got to where they were.
One is significant now about NASA's partnering with a private company.
And you can subscribe to NASA's it's spot, the space station
put in your zip code and you will get an automated email
every time the space station is going overhead.
You can see it perfectly with the naked eye.
So it's neat as I would have students log the dates that we can see it, the time
it appears, the time it sets, where it's a rising on the horizon,
like northeast, whatever, where it sets, it gives you the coordinates.
So there was so much math and science and things that we could relate to
all those things.
I'm sure in some learning objectives they're measurement,
distance, study of space and science.
So we kept a spreadsheet so we could see if there's a pattern of how many times
the space station would go overhead in the evening if we could predict
when it was going to happen again.
And if you're listening
and you do sign up for spot the space station, when you look for it,
you can tell it from everything else because it doesn't blink and blink.
But when the space station goes over, it's really surreal.
It's it goes very slowly, crosses
the R sometimes literally 6 minutes depending.
That's a good question for kids. Why?
Sometimes when I spot it is at 6 minutes. Why?
Sometimes we only see it for maybe three or four.
And who's on that space station
as it's going over right now and what are they studying?
So I'm curious, like the origins of people's understanding of education.
Like every educational experience or educator that I've worked
with has kind of informed me positively or negatively and been like, Oh,
I want to make sure I do that in the classroom
or I want to make sure I do the exact opposite of that in the classroom.
So I'm curious, how have your experiences in education
kind of informed that answer that you just gave?
At least for me, I know I learn much better when I'm excited about
something and I want to know about it and I can actually see it happening.
It's it's relevant.
So I think that's why and I do go back to my experience at Rockwell,
because when I went to high school, there is no way I was pegged to be Mrs.
Geeky.
And my friends, they are like surprised.
But I think because I was able to hands
on, thanks to that program manager at Rockwell, I was able to go in and hands
on, apply my and do something that was real world.
It just opened up everything for me.
And I felt a little joke that I didn't discover it until then.
It was really, really cool.
And then even fast forward, when I was coaching the first Lego League
for several years
and I really got into Robo Lab and then I found out
you could get into Lab you if you have a lab.
And my ex-husband at the time was an engineer, said one day he was watching me
stay up to like two in the morning to figure out something in the lab know.
And he said, you know, I think this is unleash the secret engineering. You.
He was right.
I think had I had a lot of those experiences in high school,
maybe more of them in college,
I probably would have majored in engineering or some related field.
Yeah, it's interesting how those, like one off classes can have
the potential to have such a huge impact on you down the road,
whether it's a positive experience or a negative experience.
Like I really like computer science and programing,
but I took programing in high school and was bored with it.
Had I had an awesome class, I probably would have gone into
like game design and whatnot.
And, and I think that too is where physical computing is important.
The younger kids K through eight,
they want to see something happen as soon as they program it.
So it really gets the excitement going.
Yeah.
And that multi perspectival approach, you've kind of like hinted at it
but like coming at a problem or a, a question from like multiple angles
kind of gets more kids involved with it like, oh, we are interested in sports.
Here's a way that you can incorporate that into this.
Oh, you're interested in music. Here's a way to incorporate that.
Absolutely.
And in fact, that same music teacher we talk unit
that the kids, the music teacher that I did, the robotics with,
the language arts teachers were studying famous explorers.
They took that famous explorer, wrote a storyboard of what they're like,
famous for it, said Columbus Stepping Foot on the Bahamas or wherever
that was down in the Caribbean.
Re first landed, and then they had to do a stop
action motion movie based on their storyboard.
Then in music, they wrote a piece of music to go with it that was representative
of that time period film festival the last day of school.
So we incorporated language arts, music history.
So let's say a teacher like, okay, this is really cool.
I like the idea of not just integrating technology but also computer science
and like other domains that we're not into the classroom.
What kind of advice would you give for educators who are new to integrating
different subject areas like see us into their class, Take baby steps?
Don't worry if the teacher down the hall is doing
all these like they're on this website and that website and they're using stereos
and they're using make you make these blinders on.
Do what you're comfortable with.
If it's one lesson you do or one somatic unit, one
unit you do this year where you're like, I know that this will really
be a way to enhance this lesson,
focus on that, to get comfortable the next year at another one.
Yeah, yeah.
Because if you try and do it all at once, it can be overwhelming.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, So don't worry that someone down the hall
maybe they've been doing it for 15 years, you know, maybe they're just like,
that's what they do.
But do what you're comfortable with.
You'll have a great experience and then you'll have more confidence to do more.
Yet whenever, like an A prospective or new CSE
educator will come in to my coding classes,
they would honestly be overwhelmed because there would be several
programing languages going on simultaneously.
And like I'd be walking from computer code computer
and just like now I'm helping a kid with Swift,
now I'm helping K with JavaScript, now I'm helping a kid with Ruby like, etc..
So it just, it kept changing and they would freak out going, Oh,
I have to learn all of these things. It's like, No, no, no.
Like every semester
I just added like one more thing and just expanded our repertoire.
It wasn't like day one.
I'm like,
Okay, now, class, we're going to all learn like five programing languages at once.
And, you know, you you raised a very good point.
Jared and I get asked this a lot What language should I teach the children?
What are some of the good physical computing devices?
We should purchase it,
especially when it comes to what language should we teach them?
Teach them one and teach it Well, Those skills are transferable.
I learned for Mac in the day and that made it extremely easy for me
then to learn Python and other languages.
There isn't one golden ticket in terms of the program.
What you're trying to teach them is logic.
If then else erase loops and so forth and
any of the languages but choose
one that you're comfortable with that you can teach the students.
And I can't say enough to learn it deeply.
One of the things I see in a lot of schools that I have visited
is all we're doing scratch here, but we're doing this language over here.
We're doing zero here.
And we that's about over here,
you know, great.
All the kids might learn one or two simple things from that.
Some top level activity is but
allow them the opportunity to learn one really well
over a long period of time, and you'll be surprised
how much that empowers them to do some very sophisticated things.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Even though there were several options for languages,
I encourage kids to find one that kind of aligned with the thing
that they wanted to create, like Ruby and was used for Sonic Pi.
So that was to make music.
Whereas JavaScript was used to make like art and animation and whatnot.
And then Swift was used to make apps.
So like each language kind of had his own focus or theme that you could go with.
And I just encourage kids to stick with that one rather than like,
okay, every week you're going to learn conditionals in a new language.
Like you don't need to do that.
How about you actually dive deep into it and learn
like how to use nested conditionals
for different scenarios and whatnot, and then you can have that transfer.
Exactly.
And a lot of tertiary devices compile multiple languages.
So what about advice for like a veteran educator
or just a veteran educator who's been doing a lot of integration
and is interested in diving deeper?
While for me,
I wind up in my little makerspace out in the garage
just doing more and more projects that I'm not doing in the classroom,
but I just keep picking up on them and challenging myself.
And then every
then I do come across an opportunity where I can share that with students,
just depending where they are.
But I continue to build and create.
Yeah, I like that.
Some of the external projects that I did like I learned app development.
I ended up incorporating that into the classroom for like fourth graders
and above.
Like they could create apps for their iPad or iPhone or whatever.
But some of the stuff, like I learned Java to propose to my wife and use the clips,
the idea and like I never use that in the classroom, neither
the language or the software, but I learned a lot from it
and those understandings carried over into what I did in the classroom.
And you know what I found out too much to that point is when you're tinkering
and doing more and more on your own, every now and then, I'll do something.
You know,
I think this would be too hard for the kids
if I broke this down into the sequence, introduced it,
and next thing you know, they're doing something
that you never thought a fourth grader can do.
So it really benefits in two ways for your own self
to keep interested in the field.
But then, like you were saying,
it can flow back and matriculate into your teaching.
Do you have any recommendations or cautions
for anyone who's thinking about particular grade levels or grade bands?
Or would you just say, just try it?
I guess my recommendation is this is first of all, ask yourself, what are my goals?
What is it that I want to do?
Make a list.
Maybe I want the kids to learn logic.
Maybe I want the kids to see how a spreadsheet can help me
analyze numbers, whatever that end goal is.
Maybe I want them to study the space station, make a list, look for that,
something that you can check off and say, Yes, it does this, this and this.
But earplugs in because Suzy's going to tell you
this is great working in her classroom
and John is going to say, That's great working in his classroom, but
you need to find what's going to work well for you that you're comfortable with.
And there are also a lot of companies that.
And I've been in this field
like I said, almost 30 years, and I've been to over 20 conferences.
I can count probably on two hands how many companies that I saw
that first year are still at SD.
And the reason I mention this is there are educational movements
that come along and vendors pop up more.
Suddenly.
The experts on that educational movement,
the educational theories that we're subscribing to right now.
So look at how long they've been in business, who created the device,
how much is based in the educational field,
Because a lot of these companies are here and gone in five years
and that the
bottom line is look at what works for you
and what works for you may not work for somebody in another school.
The other thing I would look at, you mentioned grade bands.
I don't look at recommended for grades such and such.
Back to my earlier reference
to what Joy Come taught me is that I never told them they couldn't.
You students first and so disregard the age range.
If it's a physical computing device or a program, look at what it does
think about your learners.
And if this is a good fit.
Yeah, those are all very valuable things to consider.
I've brought it up multiple times on the podcast that there are a lot of sex
education companies is in particular that are well intentioned
but just have really good like back end web developers and really good
salespeople, but have like zero educators who have actually worked on the project
to actually assist with designing lessons and whatnot.
And I just think that's problematic at SD or even some of the other conferences
when I walk the vendor, the it's to your point,
when you listen to the sales people,
they can grab all those buzzwords and very well in their pitch.
But when you start to peel back the layers and really look at the product,
look at its history, look at canopy scaffold
at across many great bands, can we start in first grade and build upon it
so you can really get deep into that product
and use it well and look at the devices that are out there, the programs
and can you scope and sequence, Can you scaffold and build upon it each year?
That's another thing to look for.
So one of the things that I've noticed for some CSE programs, it's a top down thing
in terms of the state is mandating here are the standards
that you have to be taught, whether it's quotas or some variant of that.
And so then administrators are going, okay, now I need to incorporate,
see us into the classroom.
Ideally, I want to integrate it because like we don't have enough time to add yet
another subject area to our schedule, but they don't really know what that means.
Like, what is CPS in particular?
Like, I've literally had some people conflate it with just using a Chromebook.
They thought that that meant, Oh, kids are engaging in computer science,
so how do you help teachers or administrators
kind of like navigate that to figure out what does this actually look like?
So they're not just being sold by the salesmen like these buzzwords
and are going, okay, this must be great because they can talk the talk.
So, yes, computer science is
a big priority for a lot of districts, for a lot of states.
So let's ask ourselves, why is it a priority?
Because it doesn't just teach computer science.
It doesn't just teach programing, it teaches logic, It teaches
ways to organize, to look at a problem and how to problem solve.
And I think I can articulate that the best by giving you an experience
I had several years ago.
So I mentioned earlier I had coached for Lego League for several years
and this was at a private girls school.
And I think was about the fifth year or so.
Some of the girls who had moved on, who had been on the first team,
they were now in high school and they came to a practice.
They actually approached me and said, we'd like to volunteer and help.
So they came to our practice one day to help the younger girls.
And as they were leaving,
I said to them, What made you decide to want to come volunteer?
You're in high school, you've got tons of homework.
Sports are so busy.
Oh well, we just really had a good experience and I said, Oh great.
I'm like, Do you want to, like, go into engineering or programing now?
And almost simultaneously, the two girls said, Oh, no.
I said, Well, well, what did you take away from it?
And one girl said, I look at anything I get now English or whatever,
and I need to accomplish a task and I take some of those skills
that I use from being on that robotics team and I have a client.
It helped me to organize and helps me to think about things.
And she's I can't remember verbatim everything she said,
but that just made my whole year, if not more, because that's what you want.
When we think of computer science, we're not trying to make
all of our young people become programmers.
When we look at computer science, we look at a skill
they should have at least, you know, a baseline of skill.
But we also know that that experience will transfer to everything they do.
And I think that's kind of the invisible benefits that we don't know about.
But that scenario, that young girl articulated
how she benefited from being in robotics, in programing.
Selfishly, my youngest daughter, I was just having a conversation with her
the other day
and she actually wanted to see if you recall her and get an audio clip from her.
She told me almost the exact same thing.
She said, No, I,
I may not want to go into programing, but now she's getting a master's in gifts.
But she said it gave her so many skills
that she across all academic subjects.
So if I were to be cornered by an administrator in an elevator
and they were to ask me to kind of distill that down right before
they're about to leave the elevator, would it be like as advice, Hey,
rather than focusing on the individual standards,
focus on applications of the broader concepts and practices outside of just CSE
itself, Is that an accurate kind of distillation of it?
Yes. You're a yes. Good summary
of things.
You know, in fact, take the word computer science out because it's so scary.
People. Oh my gosh, I can't teach programing. Right, Right.
And you get this vision of somebody sitting behind a computer typing away
and it's anything but that.
And so maybe we even need to rephrase or give it a new term.
Again, forget the word computer science and let's look at the bigger picture
of what this will do for our students.
Yeah, it's such a broad term, covers so many things
from software and hardware aside, it's a scary term because of the vision we get.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Especially because a lot of
people in education, like administrators and teachers, just don't have experience
with computer science like learning and whatnot.
So it's like this nebulous, I don't know what this will look like and, and whatnot.
So speaking of like nebulous terms, so there's also
this conflation between like computer science and computational thinking.
So how would you help administrators and other educators understand
what the differences between integrating us versus integrating
So computational thinking we've been doing since the beginning of education?
And I know when I read, I think it was Jeanette Lange's article,
I almost insulted by it because I said, Wait, we've been teaching kids
how to recognize patterns for years.
We've been teaching how to deconstruct and how to look at the important things
of a problem
to focus on for solving and applying it in the next experience we have.
Computational thinking is something that occurs naturally when we're learning.
I think what's maybe the focus now has to be is finding new ways to show
students how to use some of those skills as they get older.
And by teaching computer science or teaching coding, you're
automatically going to hit those computational thinking concepts.
So I feel it occurs naturally.
I think
we're just giving those steps names now and maybe we just need to be more mindful
of them as kids get older, that this is the process we go through each time.
Yeah, I working on standards for a state I had to engage in a conversation
with a state board member who confused that too, and didn't realize
that computer science was an entire field of study.
While computational thinking was just a way of thinking. Yes.
And so this person was asking, well, why do we need all these standards
if it's just a way of thinking was like, no, no, no, this is different than
computational thinking.
I know not everyone
will agree with what I just said, but that's my perspective on it.
I think it occurs naturally and you've been teaching it.
I think this movement maybe helps us to get
a little more awareness of the steps, especially as
things get more difficult as kids get older with the curriculum.
Yeah, it's a useful framework, but it is certainly just putting a label
on something that has been done for a long time. Yes.
So what about teaching online or in virtual spaces?
So with the vagueness of a lot of districts
not even having a plan for what is going to happen
because of COVID like over the next year or longer,
do you have advice for educators who are trying to figure out how
to integrate technology or computer science
or coding or whatever in an online or virtual space?
Let's start at a general level.
First, there was this assumption that it would be so easy to teach online.
I think a good friend of mine who's in Chicago called me one day crying.
She goes, It's not even the kids don't know.
It's the parents don't know,
and they're freaked out and they can't help their kids.
And the point is that kids know a lot of social technology.
I don't think they know a lot of tech problem solving.
Here's the thing.
When you're teaching brick and mortar versus teaching online,
there are different methods for keeping kids engaged.
Pacing environment of assignments and so forth.
There are a lot of legal things
you have to think about in terms of the American Disabilities Act.
There's a lot to think about visually when you present things on a screen,
and I think there was this false sense of, Oh, it'll just be so easy.
And I guess we've all found it's not.
And the other bigger issue is,
and I don't know the perfect answer about the digital divide.
I think schools were shocked
how many do not have Internet access,
and it's not as easy as just parking a bus and giving free Wi-Fi.
If that's something your district can do to that neighborhood.
There are so many other issues go into that.
What if I had four kids at home?
They all needed to be on the internet to do their stuff.
And I'm lucky they each have their own computer.
But what if they don't? They have to fight for time on the computer.
We have computers on the network.
There are a lot of things we have to think about.
Quality Matters is an excellent nonprofit that provides training on those topics.
They have a variety of different classes over how to keep kids engaged.
If you're teaching online, the short story is you have to look at the differences
between teaching brick and mortar and online methods of delivery
expectations, types of assignments, awareness of digital divide,
awareness of the legal requirements through the American Disabilities Act.
Yeah, there's a ton to consider, and I don't think people realize
how difficult it is as a systemic issue
in terms of the lack of devices at home, the lack of understanding of how
to use the devices at home, and then even from the teacher
side of things like how do I do this thing online?
Like, I know a lot of music educators right now
are freaking out trying to figure out how do I do what was supposed
to be a large ensemble with like 120 kids in an online setting.
Like, what do I do instead of that?
There's no right or wrong answer, just a lot of questions, right?
And there's a learning curve with that, too.
So I would recommend to districts, and I know summer's already started,
but to check out quality matters, see some of the courses that they offer,
I think they're very helpful.
They're nonprofit.
I'm sure there's other organizations too.
So you've kind of already mentioned that you're constantly learning like what
the quality matters, saying like, I know you just renewed or completed
certification with that, but how do you continue to like, iterate
and develop your abilities as an educator over the last couple of decades?
Two things I do in terms of the iteration is
I will find something new or something I want to make and go out
to my little maker workshop and kind of lose myself as an escape.
And I enjoyed that trial and error and finally getting it to work.
I'm sure my neighbors have heard me say, Oh, I got it, you know, So
we're going all afternoon in the garage.
And sometimes, to be very honest, Jared, I walk away for a few weeks and I just
I just have to reset.
I'm always listening to podcasts and online.
The one our little webinars, I go to Esty, I go to other conferences,
I like to hear what new schools are doing, and I'm fortunate
I get to go and observe different schools and that always
refreshes me If I don't observe at a different school
and I see something they're doing that I didn't even think about
because it gives you a fresh perspective and fresh ideas like, Oh, that's so cool.
You know, it always recharges me.
So what about your tenure in education?
A lot of people think it's like over
in the first five years.
How do you prevent that kind of burnout if you don't have those opportunities
to go see other classrooms
or maybe you don't have the money to go to those kind of experiences
to prevent the burnout, I would develop my own little cohort of teachers
not formally, but find that group that you can lean on a little bit.
Yeah, and it was I tell kids when I'm teaching, you have a shoulder, buddy.
Have that group of friends that you can ask questions to.
Colleagues don't have coffee with every other week
or even if it's one class and exchange ideas and vent
with the challenges, especially those first few years of teaching
are very difficult and I can see why the burnout happens.
But I think if you have a little
cohort of friends that you make a point to get together with and learn from
and try different things and get support for each other, that will help.
You know, the other thing
I would do, Jared, is I would recommend to those new teachers is to join
if it's only one one organization, you start getting their magazines
or their research journals and so forth and get immersed.
If it's the engineering society as it's the iSti,
if you're state has an organization you can join.
Most states have a tech, Ohio has a Etsy,
join it and get involved with it and stay.
It's starting to get chapters in most states,
so you'll have some local as well as the national one as well.
I think that would be helpful.
What about recommendations for like improving equity and inclusion in schools?
My first recommendation on equity and inclusion
is going to be controversial, but don't ever assign homework
that requires the internet at home variety of reasons.
I think it's extremely unfair because everybody has a different level of access
if they have access to the Internet and right away there's inequity.
And so that would be my number one recommendation.
Number two, do not have robotics or coding or any of those tech classes,
an afterschool club, unless you're already integrating it during the day.
So every child had same experience.
Stop making robotics and coding for the gifted classes.
I don't understand where we've got
gifted equals programing or gifted equals physical computing
or robotics, and I can do
where
I would have students I'd be working with, I'm just not sure yet.
You know, how they learn.
I'm not not sure what their their interest is or
why it or I haven't quite figured them out yet.
And boom, we get into like with robo lab years ago
that were icons that you tried together and it didn't require a lot of reading.
Well, you know,
I'll tell my son that a couple of kids that I just was scratching my head about,
they were writing more sophisticated programs
than some of my ones that were doing much better in class.
The next thing you know, they were the leaders.
You will discover
so much about your students when you integrate it into the curriculum.
And it's not fair to only keep it after school or for the gifted
and talented because you really miss a lot of kids then.
So those three things I wouldn't recommend.
Yeah, that definitely resonates.
While I'm a fan of like providing the extra curricular opportunities
and whatnot, it creates an equity issue because I like
I knew a lot of people in high school who really wanted to do all these extra
curricular things
but could not because they had to work a job to support their family.
And this these were like 16 year olds.
The situation is after school.
Maybe they can't get rides home afterwards, not listen.
If you have a robotics that competes, you may have to meet after school,
but don't start doing that at your school until you have made sure
that you are giving all the students during the day the same exposure.
What kind of research do you wish there was more of that could inform
what you have done in the classrooms or what you do now?
Working with teachers, I definitely want to see efficacy
and the K through five, and I'd like to see attitude surveys
completed by the students that show, especially for girls,
their attitudes towards technology and how that changes over those five years.
Because as we know, once they hit middle school, things change
for a variety of reasons and girls may not necessarily be drawn to that field,
but I found in K through five those biases or those opinions
they had of coding or robotics or physical computing don't exist.
And they really growing in confidence.
But we need more statistical data to back up my anecdote also.
But any concern about differences in science
and math time and time again, we see that they score fairly equally.
Boys and girls K through five and then it kind of
changes in middle school, but not for the reasons we think.
I think more of a I'm good at that or I'm not.
But if we get kids down at K through five boys and girls
more confident in those areas and I like to see attitude surveys.
Yeah, the self efficacy surveys and like attitudinal surveys
they're usually like these one off
looking at one year, maybe two years.
But it's not this longitudinal that's track from kindergarten
all the way through fifth, sixth, 12th grade or whatever.
Like I would love to see stuff like that or so same kids, same group,
and let's see how they change over time rather than just these one off things.
Do you have any questions for myself or to the field at large?
How did you get interested in the combination of music and technology?
Like I mentioned in high school, I took a programing course
and the reason why I did it is because I was just looking at jobs
and was like, okay, well, I like technology.
And this one pays well. Let's let's see what this does.
They're starting it this year and I was bored with it.
But the thing that kept me going, literally kept me alive, was making music.
And so I wanted to help others with that.
So I followed music education and did that for many years.
And it wasn't until my thing was like my last year or last semester
of coursework when I took a music class that's just called electronic studio,
and all we did was create music software using a graphical programing
language called Max MSP.
And going through that class, I was like, Well, when was this a music experience?
When was this a coding experience and when was it the two inseparable?
And I didn't really have an answer to that.
And it was just it was a fascinating set of questions.
So when I went back into the classroom after finishing all my coursework,
I was applying for jobs
and got offered a bunch of music ones and just saw this one technology position.
And I was like,
All right,
I'm just going to go in and promote like, Hey, let's do arts based coding.
And rather than doing like Microsoft Office and things like that.
And it just so happened
to be starting a coding program and they loved what I was saying
and they're like, Yeah, let's see what you can do.
Even though all three of your degrees are music education.
And so went in and just started with scratch
and then built from there and just kept adding more languages
and diving deeper into CSS and have just kind of loved it.
Music was great because kids were really interested in it
and wanted to engage with it outside of school.
Like, I love that about that subject area, but with coding you can engage in music,
but you can also engage in video games, engage in animation.
You can get engage in
like all these other subject areas, just inherently it's interdisciplinary.
And so I loved that and have just kind of been running with
it for several years now.
That's great.
Your Mind me off of something I often think of or share with with audiences
is that I know when someone's integrating technology or a teacher,
when I ask them, When do you teach programing or coding?
And they say, Oh, I don't have time to do it,
And then I turn around and walk in their classroom,
they're using scratch to do something, or they're using it to program something
or another language and don't realize, yeah, you're teaching coding,
but you really integrated it so well that you don't realize that's
what you're doing.
Yeah, we recently did a stakeholder meeting with the district
and that was one of the things that we realized in our survey.
We need to distinguish between teaching, coding or integrating coding
or teaching computational thinking or integrating computational thinking
and like how teachers kind of conceive of those as all different.
The joys of designing research, especially surveys and whatnot.
Are there any questions that I have not asked that you want to discuss?
And one of these things I'm going to write a book
called Everything I Needed to Know About Teaching.
I learned from and there's like six people.
Each one will be in chapter one to be with joy,
because she taught me a lot of other things too.
And the other is my mom.
She one time said because I was getting frustrated
early in my teaching career and she said, You know, Laurie,
every child has their own blueprint of learning
and you are the builder that's helping to construct that blueprint.
And that has stayed with me my whole life as well.
Yeah, like that, Yeah.
Especially just the the idea of
you have to get at the individual when working in a group setting.
That's something that I've constantly emphasized with pre-service and in-service
educators is you can't just teach at a group of kids.
You have to find a way to work with them one on one.
And it's not easy.
I know.
I don't know if I could be back in the classroom now.
I mean, there's just so many more demands even than when I was a classroom teacher.
I think it's a very difficult time.
Yeah, especially now with that just there's just so much going on.
Where might people go to connect with you and the organizations that you work with?
All I work for Boot up pre and you can email me at Laurie ELA,
You are IEEE at Boot Up Talk, and I also have a site, Mrs.
Geeky Morris G.
K Why There is a form there where you can email me as well
and I have some resources there too, which I probably need to update either at Mrs.
geeky dot com or Dawg and Up.
And that concludes this week's episode of the CSK podcast.
I hope you enjoyed this interview with Larry.
She has been wonderful coworker to work with.
Friendly reminder you can find links to many of the topics
we discussed in the show notes
by clicking the link in the description or visiting Jared earlier.
AECOM and the only thing I want to ask from you
as a favor is to simply share this episode with somebody else who might benefit
from listening
to the suggestions for integrating CSR and technology in the classroom.
Stay tuned next week for another unpacking
scholarship episode and two weeks for another interview.
I hope you're all staying safe and are doing well
and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Guest Bio
Laurie Green has been an educator for nearly 30 years, with a majority of that career as a technology integration specialist/coordinator in both the public and private school settings. During her career, Laurie has been dedicated to sharing the benefits of programming across the K-12 curriculum and educator professional development. Throughout her career, Laurie has maintained a passion and dedication to understanding how girls learn and applying those concepts to encourage interest and confidence in Coding and STEM-related careers.
A recognized speaker, curriculum consultant, and workshop leader, Laurie’s experiences have included serving on the keynote panel for Learning 2.0 in Shanghai, China, a Keynote speaker for the Maths and Science conference in Queensland, Australia, and presenting at various conferences throughout the United States, including ISTE and OETC. She is a Certified LEGO Robotics Instructor, Quality Matters Certified, Makey Makey Certified trainer, and Raspberry Pi Certified Educator.
Laurie holds a Bachelors in Business from The Ohio State University, a Masters Degree from Cleveland State University in Curriculum and Foundations with a focus on Technology Education, and a post-grad certificate in Computational Thinking from The University of Pennsylvania.
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcasts that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
A Revaluation of Computational Thinking in K–12 Education: Moving Toward Computational Literacies
In this episode I unpack Kafai and Proctor’s (2021) publication titled “A revaluation of computational thinking in K–12 education: Moving toward computational literacies,” which summarizes three key framings of computational thinking and proposes computational literacies in place of computational thinking.
Computer Science in Music (CSTA Wyoming interview)
In this episode I'm a guest on CSTA Wyoming's podcast for computer science educators and I answer some questions about the intersections of music and computer science.
Emergency Remote Teaching: Challenges & Possible Solutions
In this episode I read and comment on Jackie Corricelli’s article titled “Emergency Remote Teaching: Challenges & Possible Solutions,” which provides suggestions for CS educators facing challenges with teaching in online environments. The original article can be found on CSTA’s website.
How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
Intersections of Popular Musicianship and Computer Science Practices
In this episode I unpack my (2020) publication titled “Intersections of popular musicianship and computer science practices,” which discusses potential implications of hardware and software practices that blur the boundaries between music making and computer science.
Music Making in Scratch: High Floors, Low Ceilings, and Narrow Walls?
In this episode I unpack Payne and Ruthmann’s (2019) publication titled “Music making in Scratch: High floors, low ceilings, and narrow walls,” which problematizes the limitations of making music with Scratch.
Reconceptualizing “Music Making:” Music Technology and Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism
In this episode I unpack Benedict and O’Leary’s (2019) publication titled “Reconceptualizing “music making:” Music technology and freedom in the age of Neoliberalism,” which explores the use of computer science practices to counter neoliberal influence on education.
In this episode I unpack Shehzad et al.’s (2023) publication titled “Rethinking integrated computer science instruction: A cross-context and expansive approach in elementary classrooms,” which compared perceptions of teaching and learning the intersections of computer science and geometry in integrated and cross-context approaches.
In this episode I unpack Bresler’s (1995) publication titled “The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their implications for the arts,” which “examines the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what, and the toward what” (p. 33).
Read more publications by James Paul Gee
If you want to get nerdy with corpus linguistics and corpus assisted discourse analysis, check out chapter three of my dissertation
Learn more about how to teach/facilitate online through Quality Matters
Connect with Laurie
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
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