Digital Empowerment: Sue Thotz of Common Sense Education

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where we explore innovative teaching strategies that are shaping the future of education. Hi, everybody, I'm your host, Adam Todd, and today we're looking at common sense education and some of its amazing resources. They're providing teachers in celebration of computer science week.

The nonprofit organization founded in the early 2000s by a group of educators, parents, and media experts who were concerned about the impacts of media and technology on children is dedicated to helping families and educators navigate the world of media and technology in a responsible and informed way, especially when it comes to children and young people.

Common Sense Education is a branch of common sense media that specifically focuses on providing resources and tools for educators to integrate digital literacy and responsible technology use in the classroom. The best part? Common Sense Education is geared toward teachers and schools, providing lesson plans, curriculum resources, and professional development materials to help educators teach digital literacy, online safety, and responsible technology use to students.

Their aim is simple, to empower students to use digital tools effectively while also becoming responsible digital citizens. Now in honor of computer science week, we'll take a look at how common sense education is providing resources to teachers to help spark amazing opportunities for students worldwide.

And for those of you who may not be aware of what CS week is, computer science education week is an annual event in the United States and around the world that is typically held during the first week of December. The primary goal of CS week is to promote computer science education and increase awareness of the importance of computer science skills in our increasingly technology driven world.

During CS week, various activities and initiatives are organized to encourage students, teachers, and the general public to engage with computer science in coding. Schools, organizations, and individuals often participate in CS week by hosting coding events, workshops, and educational activities to foster an interest in computer science and programming.

Of course, the broader aim of CS week is to address the digital skills gap, promote computer science as a vital part of modern education and inspire the next generation of coders and tech professionals. It's an important effort to ensure that individuals, especially students, have the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in an increasingly technology oriented world.

Today, we're taking a look at common sense media in education and how this amazing organization is supporting teachers with resources to make CS week a standout week of the school year. And coming up next, we'll chat with Sue Thoughts, the director of Outreach and Professional Development at Common Sense Education. Stay tuned, we'll be right back. Calling all educators, are you ready to inspire creativity and engagement in your students? Unlock their full potential with content creation.

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Since 2011, Sue Thoughts has been dedicated to collaborating with educators and parents to foster a technology, savvy environment that encourages thoughtful and respectful technology use among students. Sue has been instrumental in offering educational leadership through her extensive experience in professional development workshops, conference presentations, and consulting with school districts on the West Coast.

And in addition to her role at Common Sense, Sue is a co-founder of Equity in Action, California, where she leads conferences that emphasizes the significance of identity and belonging while striving to amplify marginalized voices within the education technology sector. Our remarkable contributions to the field recently earned her the 2023 Q Making It Happen Award. I'd like to welcome Sue Thoughts to Classroom Dynamics as my special guest today. Thanks so much, Adam. Glad to be here.

This is going to be a lot of fun because what we're going to be talking about today is computer science week and what Common Sense education has for educators. But before we even get into all that fun stuff, for teachers who may not be aware of what Common Sense education is or what it provides for teachers, how would you describe what the nonprofit program is? So we are an organization that has been in existence since 2003.

So when we first started, we were rating and reviewing movies, television shows, and things like that for parents. And we started as a parent's organization to give parents information about the ways that kids are using media and technology. Eventually, as technology evolved, we evolved with it to share more information about the kinds of technology that kids were using. With iPhones and smartphones and with all this access, we also are doing that.

But what educators know us for is we have a full range of digital citizenship resources, and they're all free and available for educators to use. And so that is mostly what folks think of when they think of Common Sense. I'm excited about it because when I teach media arts technology, I'm required by New York State to do at least one digital citizenship less than a year. I do a little bit more than that, especially when things come up along the way just because it naturally happens.

So for me, it's exciting because I've used this before. And I could vouch. It's a great program. I love it. Yeah, thanks. I know we just came on the heels of digital citizenship week last month. And so oftentimes, that's the introduction that a lot of folks have to our content. But we cover more than even just the traditional digital citizenship topics like safety and cyberbullying and all of these things in privacy.

But our content also addresses things like social emotional learning in the digital world, as well as digital well-being. And now AI literacy, right? So it's a lot more about the ways that we are ethically and emotionally engaged in media. Right. So you just mentioned a whole bunch of different curriculum areas and resources that you have. How does it work together with just computer science? How does that all come together with the common sense education?

Yeah. So computer science, obviously, it's not the first thing you think of when it comes to digital citizenship. But with a lot of the standards related to computer science, such as around the impacts of computing, and having students understand a lot of those social emotional skills when it comes to being creators. So our students, when we are giving them these computer science skills, they need to not only understand the ways in which they can be coding, right?

It's not just the practice of making stuff, but it's about the impacts of what those types of creations are going to have on the real world. So I have a good friend that I work with here, and a lot of times she focuses on SDG sustainable development goals. And that's her platform by which she has her students create is selecting one of the SDGs.

So when it comes to thinking about other people, taking those perspectives, thinking about deep empathy that you might have for others who are struggling with an issue, how are we teaching our students to not only think about other people, but also to act with compassion and be ethical in those decisions. And so by before you take a big step of making a new project, how do we practice some of those skills and get our students thinking from that perspective?

So that's a lot of the content as it relates to ethics and our use in everyday life that can then be into what we're doing with computer science. You definitely got my attention in that because SEL is so huge everywhere now since the pandemic. So for you to actually be able to weave that into the curriculum, I think is amazing. Number one, but I think it also speaks volumes as to the thumb that you have down on that button on comments and just media and how to use it properly, that proper use.

Yeah, and even starting in kindergarten, when we look at the competencies around SEL, I'm just pulling them up to look at them myself. We talk about self-awareness. We talk about self-management and responsible decision making all of these things we need in our online life. So when it comes to recognizing our own feelings and the ways that technology makes us want to click more or want to behave badly sometimes, right?

So we have to have that inward awareness about what technology makes us feel in the moment and take that moment of reflection. And then also to have that capacity to make a good decision when it comes to deciding what to share or what not to share, or you know, already have decisions that we make online.

So by giving kids scenarios, by giving them activities, all of these activities that we have here are very short 15 minute quick pieces that are directly related to the digital skills that our kids need. And they're starting in kindergarten all the way through high school and get more and more complex as our students age up and develop. You hit on a really great point there, online life. What a phrase, right? Online life versus real life.

And you know, for years, just go, it just take away the last 10 maybe before that, it was real life, right? Teaching our kids how to look both ways before they cross the street, not to get into a car with a stranger, not to talk to strangers, how to answer the phone properly. Now it not only is that real life scenario stuff that they have to use to get through life, but this online life, I love that. Yeah. And to them, you know, there is no difference, right?

We know that there is no difference when they carry these phones in their pockets, you know, all of the things that they are experiencing in this digital world are the things that they're experiencing in the real world. And the line is gone. And so, you know, when we talk about social emotional learning skills in the classroom, oftentimes we're talking about being able to read facial expressions or being able to take perspective, all very important.

How much harder does it get when you're trying to read tone, you know, in the text or how much harder does it get to be able to understand and have a civil discussion with people when you are in an online space and you can't see body language or you can't see tone, right? And so having that awareness of how much more difficult, sometimes technology makes it, you know, to communicate and at the same time, so easy to communicate, right?

And having students really understand those distinctions and the complexities that relate to that. Those are all such great points. I want to go back to, you know, computer science week as we focus on that a little bit because it's timely. So, computer science week is a fantastic opportunity for students to be exposed to coding and other computer science related curriculums. Are there any resources that Common Sense Education offers teachers for this special week specifically?

So housed within the code.org curriculum, they have embedded Common Sense lesson plans to go along with their curriculum. So they've selected many of our lessons and some of our content to put right in there, right? So we have a good partnership together where they know that their students not only need all the coding content, but also a lot of this digital citizenship content.

On our website, some of the things that we do in addition to the digital citizenship curriculum is we also rate and review different types of ed tech tools and platforms. And so if you're looking for content related to computer science or you're just looking for something, you know, that you want to teach and or tools that you want to use in your classroom, we make recommendations and our top picks as it relates to computer science teaching.

And so these are all from an independent perspective and we don't receive any money from any of these developers. I say it's like the consumer reports and Yelp of all classroom tools and technology, right? So we have our reviewers to talk about it from a pedagogical perspective and from an engagement perspective and what kind of support your students get. But then we have real teachers, right? Real teachers coming in and saying, I've used this tool, I love this tool, or this is garbage, right?

This is how I use it, you know, whatever their experience has been.

- So we've had several people on in the past regarding computer science, but why do you think it's so important to have kids get this exposure to computer science and why do you think it's important for common sense education to be a part of that? - I think, man, this computational thinking process, right?

And being able to understand the world using this type of language and skill set is just such an important part of the ways in which our kids are being able to understand the way the world is built, the world that these kids are interacting with is primarily through their phones or through technology. And if they don't understand how it works, we're talking about AI, if we're talking about, how are things trained? Where is the bias introduced, right?

If we're talking about some of these pieces, if all of technology is a mystery to you and you're not taking a peek behind the curtain, what are you missing out on in terms of your understanding of how it influences you, how it's created, where does that information come from, right?

And so the more our students understand the process behind computing, I mean, not even just for itself, like learning the languages and being able to have skills for career and all these, I can probably give you 10 more reasons, right? Why, but just even just knowing more about the world that you live in is of course always beneficial, right? So even just on the surface. - Such the change, right?

Or even over the last two years, I think, has been monumental, just that leap forward has been so big that everything you just said makes complete sense. And I think if we were to have said that answer, if you would have told me that answer maybe two or three years ago, some people would have been a little lost, but that completely makes sense to everybody.

I mean, maybe I'm still a little lost, but I think, I think part of it is, you know, we're asking students about the ways in which their data is being used, right? Why are you giving all your data to these tools and these apps? What is that data being used for? Where is it being stored? Why is it being collected? And what kind of information is being pulled about you?

If they have an understanding of how some of these tools work, maybe they will have more of an awareness of what it is that technology companies are doing with them. And I'm not saying that that all comes necessarily from computer science, but the more you know about why these tools are, you know, are out there and do, and what their purpose is and how people are making money. And, you know, all of this good stuff, right?

I think it's just the world that our kids are living in and they need to know as much about it as possible. And we need to be their teachers about it, even if we don't know. - Those are all really great points in reality, I think, right now as to what's going on. But let's bring it now, everything you just said, let's bring that now into the classroom, right?

I think parents and teachers might view this a little differently, but part of what Common Sense Education provides to teachers is professional development, which is fantastic. But that helps them navigate those digital waters and those waters that have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years.

And if you poll teachers, I think most would say that good, meaningful PD is what they truly want. They just don't want something that fills time. What professional development resources do you have? Do you provide to help them become more proficient in teaching computer science to their kids? Because not everyone is comfortable teaching computer science, because basically it really truly is still relatively new in a classroom.

- So I think, I personally deliver a lot of professional development and what I try to do is figure out what the needs of the audience are. - Right. - So when we're working with the Computer Science Teachers Association, or trying to do a presentation with computer science teachers, I try to figure out, what is it that we have to offer? And how can I deliver it to you in a way that is going to be quick and easy and digestible?

I'm not gonna give you everything we have on our website, which is overwhelming and just too much, right? How can I figure out, based on the Computer Science Teaching Standards, how I can match some of the lessons or some of the content so that you, as a computer science teacher, can fulfill your needs?

And so, whatever I'm doing, some of these presentations is try to make that alignment and then say, you know, how might you be able to fulfill the needs of your student creators by making them more empathetic or by helping them to understand how to design for good, or what kinds of privacy needs should be built into the tools that you are creating in the future, right? So we're looking at it from a consumer standpoint or from a user standpoint.

And even though we at Common Sense are not necessarily delivering, you know, how to create this piece, I think we're giving that foundation of digital citizenship so that you might then go forth and be able to take any of these lessons. I always say, like, none of these lessons need, I don't need to tell you how to use a lesson plan. They are, you're all teachers. You all know how to use a lesson plan.

I'm not gonna waste your time doing that, but what I might do is just do a quick, here are some of the ways in which we, you can use these to match and meet your needs. I think a lot of teachers appreciate that kind of answer because if you really think about it, our podcast really is for teachers worldwide on a worldwide scale, delivering some sort of professional development that they may not receive in the classroom or may not receive it their school district level or even school level.

And so I think teachers appreciate that almost differentiated aspect and angle that you're taking with that just because it's true, not, you know, it's not a one size fits all PD kind of program. - Yeah, and so I think part of this is, like, you know, through your podcast, what are the three resources I might be able to give you that will match up to your needs and you can just go straight there and pull that content and not have to sit through a half day PD.

I mean, when I do PD a lot of time, it's just to demonstrate what a lesson feels like, right? And understanding that your students are not gonna be lectured, understanding that they're not gonna be judged and the way that I want you to deliver some of this content is I want you to be curious about your kids. I want you to lay out a scenario with them and then just ask some questions about why they make decisions and how they make decisions and how they would care for one another.

You know, all I'm doing is doing a quick demonstration. I'm not necessarily teaching you, you know, how to use a lesson plan, but I want you to feel the feeling that I want you to invoke with your own students about, you know, being able to care for one another in the community that you live in.

- So with professional development and all the resources that Common Sense Education provides, what ways are you keeping resources and information up to date given the ever-evolving nature of technology and media, such as even artificial intelligence, like you just mentioned a minute ago. - Yeah, so that is the trick, right?

I mentioned I was in a session, I was delivering a professional development yesterday and one of the things that I said was, this was about family engagement, the one that I was doing yesterday. And I said, "Did any of you ever have this like cooler cousin, older cousin, right, or an older brother or sister who brought you all the good music?" (laughs) I lived in rural Illinois and I did not necessarily have the best access to, you know, what was on the radio was all I got, right?

But I had an older brother and I had a good friend who lived in the city and they fed me the good stuff, right? And I said, "For those of you who are looking for what is the latest, what is some technology trends that you need to understand?" I feel like, I hope that's what we do at Common Sense is we have our finger on this and then are able to develop the content related to that.

So that takes a whole team of people that are out there, you know, our content team, that are out there creating all the time and part of my job is to make sure that that gets, you know, delivered to all of you. So we have new AI literacy lessons that are focusing on, very much on like, how is AI built, what is it?

Looking at AI bias and its impact on our lives and then just in a very simple way trying to break this down and deliver this to our students and then give them some of those ethical dilemmas that they face every day and understand that AI is already part of our lives. How is it shaping us when it comes to our own identity and what we're seeing in our feeds, right? Currently, you know, not let alone what it's gonna be, you know, doing in our future.

How to deep-fake impact our democracy and so on, right? So it's just getting, it's shining a light on some of these ethical dilemmas and giving students a chance to weigh in on that. So yeah, it takes the whole team, not me. - And that is the tricky part, right? If you really think about it, like how tricky is that?

It's relatively new, although artificial intelligence has been around for a little while, but it's relatively new in terms of really getting into technology and all aspects and all corners of that online world that you were talking about before. So how, like, keeping up, that has to be such a, almost like you feel like you're going through the mud, you know, you're not really making progress, but you are, you know, because it's coming at you so fast and changing so quickly.

- Well, I think about teachers like you who are so busy all day long interacting with students, right? How is a teacher supposed to be keeping up on top of their job of teaching students or an administrator? How are they supposed to be keeping up and creating content and creating all these, you know, these situations or these dilemmas, or thinking deeply about the pedagogical aspects of delivering some of this content to their students, right? That is why curriculum companies exist.

That is why nonprofits exist, right? There are amazing ones out there who, this is all we do is just think about how do we best support our teachers in ways that are going to be most meaningful and have impact on their students, right? Because we're not the lucky ones who are able to see directly what that impact is on those students. We rely upon teachers like you to be able to sell us, like, what are, what are the things that you are in need of? Right?

What are the, what are the things that are working? What is not working? And how might we better support you? - That's a fantastic answer. I appreciate that from a teacher coming from you. So I'm sure a new one who's listening is appreciating that answer as well. Before we finish up here, we only have a couple more minutes left. What is the easiest way teacher can get started with common sense education? Easiest straightforward way. - So to go to common sense, the OMMOMSE.org, right?

That is where our website lives. And when you go there, you'll see that there's, you know, there's a place for a parent, there's a place for an educator, and then you'll see the rest of our work. Because we do not only work for parents, and not only work for teachers, but we do a lot of advocacy. We do a lot of research.

We are all focused on the way that kids are living in a world with media and technology, and how do we best support the parents, and the educators, and the families, and the communities that are surrounding them?

And how do we give you best practices and ideas for the guidance that they will need to grow up in a world with their health, and their well-being intact, when there are so many companies, there are so many other folks out there who don't necessarily have their well-being in mind, right? And so how do we help prepare these kids for that future that they are facing?

So if you go to common sense.org, that is a good place to start, and put in some of my favorite things that we've talked about today, and give you whatever I can to get folks started.

- That'd be awesome. Now that we've talked about all the serious stuff, let's have a little bit of fun before we end. I like to play a game I like to call input output, and what I'm gonna do is ask you a question, just give me the first thing, no, no, you'll be fine. Give me the first thing that comes to your mind. First thing that comes to your mind, you ready to go? - Mm-hmm, great. - Okay. What's one app on your phone that you just can't live without? - Merlin.

- It's a bird watching app that identifies birds. - I did not know that. - I love it, and it keeps me from lugging around. I mean, I think everything else of all my tech went away, I still love to watch birds, so yes, that's my number one right now. Okay. - I thought you were going on down a magic tricks kind of road there. - I would be much cooler if I was a magician than if I was a bird watcher, I'll say that. - That's awesome. Best piece of advice anyone has ever given you?

- Oh, you know, the piece that I never listened to was my kids are now old. My son is a senior in high school, and my daughter is now in college, and everybody said, "Oh, pay attention and see where this "because they're gonna grow up so fast." It's all true, and I couldn't have listened to it enough. - I have a 23 year old, and I have an almost 16 year old. So yes, it has gone pretty fast. - Right, why didn't we listen to that one? - I don't know.

I think that's one of those, you know, Monday morning, quarterback kind of like, situations where you just go back and say, "Yeah, I should have, I didn't, I listened, I didn't listen." Well, what's your best piece of advice that you can give teachers and parents to help their kids develop healthy digital media happens in a 21st century classroom? - To me, find a way to have the conversations about what they love, give them that opportunity to show you.

It is an all about fear, it is about finding a way to connect with them. - That's great. You can go back in time and give your 10 year old self a piece of technology from today's world. What would it be and why? - Spotify and heartbeat. As I mentioned, I lived in, in the middle of nowhere, and did not have exposure to all of this music that I just love, and I, you know, everything was so expensive, and it started to reach and hard to discover, and I definitely would have been a much cooler kid.

I did okay, but I think I would have been the coolest by far forever if I would have had access to culture and music and, you know, all of this from all around the world in the palm of my hand and such easy access. - And now you can listen to podcasts like classroom dynamics on Spotify as well, how cool is that? You don't have that? - They're in, you know, at the time either. - Imagine when I could only-- - Imagine when I could only-- - I had a little shameless plug, right?

Finally, if you could challenge teachers to make one small change in their classrooms today, what would it be? - Oh my, actually, can I change that not just teachers? Well, maybe it is teachers. I was at the session, as I mentioned, for family educators yesterday, and everything was about getting those families to come to them, right? They're complaining about these parents who never show up and never show up and saying like, "Oh, you know, we can't get family engagements."

And to me, I am saying, go out to your families, right? Use your students to represent all the good stuff that you're doing, and share that with your greater community. So bring the learnings and the exciting and wonderful things that you're doing out to your community in a way that you don't make people have to come inside your space, but you're meeting them where they're at. And it gives your students, you know, hopefully a sense of pride, and it gives them an understanding.

It gives them skills around communication. I mean, I know this is what you do all day long, but it's not common. It seems so rare for students to be able to share that voice and the things that they're learning and creating and using, and it just makes parents so happy. I mean, when I see my community school doing something amazing in the voice of those students, is there anything that would ever make me prouder, right?

Then seeing the good things that our students are doing by way of their teachers, I wish there was more of that, and I wish teachers would have the time in their day to be able to foster that with their kids. What an inspirational ending. We're gonna end there on that note. That was fantastic. We had a great conversation today. I think teachers really did learn a lot.

I learned a lot, and you really do explain things in a very easy to listen, understanding kind of way, and I think teachers do appreciate that, because I don't think they get this kind of information all the time. So thank you for your time, and thank you for your insight and your thoughts on everything that you talked about today with us. Thank you Adam. It was a pleasure, such fun. Awesome. We'll have you on again. Of course, anytime.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Classroom Dynamics. I hope you found today's discussion insightful and uplifting. As always, my aim is to provide practical strategies and powerful insights to fuel your motivation as an educator. Remember, it's never too late to strengthen your craft, and it's always a good idea to embrace new ways to bring technology into your classroom. I'm Adam Todd, and you've been listening to Classroom Dynamics, a teacher podcast.

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Stay tuned for more captivating conversations and inspiring stories. Keep igniting that spark in your classroom and believe in the incredible impact you have as an educator. You're more powerful and inspirational than you think. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my conversation with the incredible work of some of Promethean's educational consultants, and their unwavering commitment to shaping the future of education through the active panel.

We'll discuss the active panel's apps like the popular spinner and infinite whiteboard, and how these features are creating engaging ways to learn in the classroom. So whether you're an educator seeking inspiration, or simply curious about the future of EdTech, this episode offers valuable insights into the impactful work being done by Promethean's passionate team of educational experts. The poster paper, the charts, and all, they're still hanging in the classroom.

Kids don't have access to those when they get home, right? Like I mean, now a kid can get their phone out, take a picture, but if we're doing more digitally, then we're not just engaging them there. We're engaging with home because we can easily share that. (upbeat music)