Watching ed-tech innovators: How to help students seize the future

Why teachers and students must embrace their strengths as they build relationships.

U.S. schools must complete the shift from teaching students the rote skills needed for the jobs of the past, say ed-tech innovators Mario and Alberto Herraez-Velazquez, the brothers behind the international eTwinz educational consulting firm.

“If I told you 30 years ago that someone was going to get paid to manage a company’s social media, you would’ve laughed,” says Mario Herraez-Velazquez, who, like his twin, spent eight years teaching in a Utah school district. The twins are also featured speakers at FETC© 2023. “There is no way to predict the future but we can predict what skills are going to be needed across many different jobs.”

Developing a student-centered mindset is the key to making this transformation. That means fewer lectures and more inquiry-driven, independent learning anchored by effective use of technology. “Let’s move the spotlight from the teacher to the student,” Mario says. “Instead of having the teacher do a PowerPoint for 45 minutes, do a short lecture and have the teacher guide student through activities to discover knowledge.”

This mindset also applies to assessment, which, Alberto says, too often tests outdated skills such as memorization and rote learning, rather than critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and other modern-day essentials. Self-regulation and time management will also be crucial as employees more often work from home full- or part-time, he adds.

“The classroom also needs to be a tool by replicating the environment where students are going to work,” Alberto says. The modern classroom should be modeled after tech companies, where employees can move between formal and informal workspaces that facilitate collaboration, movement, independence, and comfort, he adds. Educators also must figure out how to create this climate in the virtual world. “The skills have changed, but we keep using the same classroom setting,” Alberto says.

The Herraez twins’ work around the world gives them some perspective on how the U.S. education stacks up. On the one hand, they say, the U.S. spends more on K-12 education than all but a few other counties. For instance, along with government funding, U.S. schools have access to a vast number of grants. “But it can also be hard to find meaningful ways to spend that money,” Alberto says.

FETC 2023

The Future of Education Technology® Conference takes place live and in-person Jan. 23-26, 2023, in New Orleans. Register now!

Their biggest concern about U.S. schools is time swallowed up by preparing for standardized testing and meeting other requirements. These obligations leave teachers with little opportunity to be more creative in the projects they assign to students, Mario says.

“We need assessments and we need tools to know where students are,” he says. “But he problem with standardized testing is that there are so many skills that the tests don’t measure—the kinds of skills that are going to be crucial in the future.”

Ed-tech innovators are embracing their strengths

A lot of kids love Minecraft but the ubiquitous online game can scare some teachers off. Sallee Clark and Jeni Long, the ed-tech partnership behind the #Jenallee Show, have a simple solution for classroom educators.

“We say empower your students to teach you,” says Long, who, like Clark, is an innovation leader at Castleberry ISD near Fort Worth.

This idea jibes with the pair’s focus on having teachers and students embrace their own strengths as they build relationships during the school year. “We track student data and test scores but we may not be tracking students’ interests and strengths and backgrounds,” says Clark, who will join Long as a featured speaker at FETC© 2023. “We encourage teachers to track those as they are preparing and creating lessons and activities. We encourage teachers to know their students.”


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Recognizing these characteristics can help teachers more effectively pair students on group projects to create more productive and streamlined learning environments. The pair further encourages teachers to seek connections outside their school to get ideas from other educators on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and other platforms. “It’s a global community that we cherish and have learned a lot from,” Clark says.

Digital citizenship will drive much of Jenallee’s work in the new school year. After the ups and downs of the pandemic, teachers and students are now getting much more comfortable with many ed-tech tools and have a clearer view of the benefits of technology.

“Students have access at home, access at school, unguided access, access they may be too young for,” Clark says. “Educating parents is going to be a big part of what we do now that they’ve been our education system for three years.”

The pair also intends to work with Castleberry ISD students this school year to launch a podcast on digital citizenship. “We have to teach students and adults how to use technology for good,” Long says. “They have to learn to be positive and supportive online because that is their digital footprint.”

Matt Zalaznick
Matt Zalaznick
Matt Zalaznick is a life-long journalist. Prior to writing for District Administration he worked in daily news all over the country, from the NYC suburbs to the Rocky Mountains, Silicon Valley and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He's also in a band.

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