Exploring “Tech With Heart” With Stacey Roshan

Inspiring new book helps educators discover ways in which technology can help to humanize the classroom and empower student success

Stacey Roshan is Director of Innovation and Educational Technology at Bullis School, an independent K-12 school in Potomac, Maryland. Stacey assumed this position after a number of years teaching and she continues to teach math classes. Stacey has long been a frequent contributor to the online edtech world through Twitter (@buddyxo), her blog (techiemusings.com), and other endeavors .

This year is a very exciting year for Stacey because she has published a wonderful book, Tech With Heart! I was delighted with this book from the moment I started reading it. Stacey brings a lot of heart to her role. Notice the subheading on the book's cover: leveraging technology to empower student voice, ease anxiety, and create compassionate classrooms. I believe that where technology truly shines in our schools is when it enables teachers to be caring and to strive to understand and help the students sitting in their classrooms looking to them for guidance and to learn. Stacey is a wonderful example of that kind of thinking.

I hope you will watch and enjoy the interview as we discuss the book and Stacey's experiences. Stacey makes a point of clarifying that she is writing about what worked well for her and while she hopes these ideas can help other teachers find some ideas that can work for them, she knows that not all of these ideas will resonate with everyone.

Here are just a few of the things we talked about, which are explored further in her book:

• Tech tools that can draw students out and let every student have a voice without being put on the spot or worrying about responding quickly.
• The anxiety that Stacey experienced as a student and how that informed her approach to the classroom.
• How and why recording videos in place of lecturing changed the classroom dynamic (“more than I could have ever anticipated”).
• How requiring students to provide feedback after watching an instructional video can position you to make the better use of class time.
• Opportunities to fail and make mistakes are essential and important. Students need to know they do not need to be perfect and right every time.
• “Pedagogy > Tech” – the pedagogy always comes first, the technology is just a tool, and the pedagogical technique is more important than the tool that enables it.
• Meta-cognition – how can we help students learn how to learn and reflect on their learning?

Much thanks to Stacey for taking the time to talk with me and share with everyone. I highly recommend her book, available here on Amazon (lengthy preview available here). Also, here are the great resources Stacey has made available to help educators get a jump start on some of the tools and techniques she gets into in her book.

Please do drop a comment if you read the book and want to let others know what you thought of it. Thanks!