Technology Integration in Education: Making Schools More Responsive

Technology integration models that make teaching easier in schools with limited resources

Long before Echo360 existed, Waibel was faced with the need for technology in teaching and learning to achieve academic goals in the classroom with limited resources. He created the technology integration in the classroom that was exactly what the curriculum called for and he has been using his computer skills to design e-tech content ever since. With Echo360, he has designed effective technology integration for classrooms that deliver interactivity using all the features offered by Echo360’s tools. Rather than just use a handful of the available tech, he shows teachers how to improve their classrooms by using each tool to its greatest effect, making education more effective. Continue reading to see what Bill had to say in his interview with Echo360’s Jeff Peterson. 

Jeff Peterson: Welcome to EchoCast and welcome Mr. Bill Waibel. Bill is the Founding Principal and President of A+ STEM Labs, which serves thousands of K-12 schools in New York City and the surrounding areas, and through his work, has inspired others to consider the role and impact that engaged learning technologies can play in improving student outcomes. It was Bill’s vision long ago, long before we were all on the STEM/STEAM bandwagon to combine state-of-the-art hands-on teaching tools along with integrated AV equipment to provide educators with the technology and resources that they needed to more effectively teach and manage the classroom. He’s been a long-time partner of Echo360, particularly with our PointSolutions, an audience response product, which I‘m sure we’ll talk about today. Outside of education, Bill has also delivered technology-based solutions in industries such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, transportation, and the public sector. He is a very busy guy and a very strong advocate for unleashing the power of technology to inspire learning everywhere. So warm welcome to Mr. Bill Waibel. Hey, Bill.

William Waibel: Hi. How are you?

Jeff: Great. Thanks for being on EchoCast. We’ll just jump right in here. You’ve got a long history in education and as I mentioned, you’re really on the early edge of all the STEM movement and so you’re really out there in the front of it. Let’s start with a little of the history of how A+ STEM came about and where the idea came from.

Bill: Sure. A little bit of my history. I’ve been in the technology business since I was 12. Before there were computers. When I started, computers were building size. Today my watch has more technology than some of the computers we had in the old days. But changing careers brought me into the education space. We are a technology integration company. That’s how we started, as a technology integration company. We were approached by the Bronx Borough President’s office back in 2002 to help them. In New York City, they have capital grants given by the politicians. Every politician in New York City has a small piece of the capital budget to dole out amongst the residents of the borough, for example, in a borough president’s case, and they can give it to the hospitals or libraries or parks, or any city-owned property, including education. The Bronx Borough President at the time, New York City Schools and the high school district were creating these new, small learning communities, which a lot of bigger districts have done. They’re taking a building that had 5,000 students and five floors and they’re taking one floor and putting 400 students on it and creating a small school with its own administration and all those things. The challenge they had was that, even though they were these small schools, they still needed to teach English, math, science, and social studies, and the students needed to pass the state tests. And these state tests, they required lab time. Lab time requires students to be in a lab. If the school was on the fourth floor of a five-story building and the science labs were on the third floor and they wanted the kids to stay on the floor that they were on, they needed access to science labs. So they went to the borough president for this capital money and said, we need science labs. He said, okay. They went to the organization that does that. They said, how much for a science lab. Anywhere from half a million to a million and a half dollars. It wasn’t really the bang for the buck they were looking for. So they commissioned us to create the A+ Mobile Science Cart and it was a technology-based cart based on hand-held palm pilot-type devices back in the day, and they were actually Windows PCs, or pocket PCs as they were called at the time. And it was really innovative and ahead of its time. Teachers were not ready for the level of technology in the classroom that we were providing back then. We always said we get three kinds of teachers. The ones, let me at it and I’ll learn it. I know this stuff. I’ll get it done. And they usually do. Then you get the ones, if you help me and coach me and work with me, I know how important it is. I’ll get there. And then you get the ones, can I get through the next two years without ever opening it? And we learned over the years that it was really all about helping the teacher. We’ve evolved. Our solutions have evolved away from pocket PCs and more into a laptop-based solutions. And our solution as it stands today is an intelligent laptop cart. Think of you as the teacher. There’s one of you, 25-35 kids in the class, and the internet. And you have 40 minutes to cover what you need to cover, the topic that’s on the internet. How much time do teachers take chasing kids off of websites or making sure that everyone gets to a website? Our solution gives the teacher total visibility and control of what the students are doing with the technology. They can blank their screens. They can launch applications, launch websites, and launch exams. They can limit their internet access. Today you can only go on this website or only go on that website. That’s the major focus of our solution, but we also have STEM/ STEAM programs in robotics and hands-on science and coding. And all of them, we have integrated the assessment piece with the Echo360 Point clickers. What we did was we took all of the New York State exams—we started with science. We have probably the last 12 years of science exams in the clicker system so that the teachers can create practice quizzes based on past tests. We’ve since moved on to do all of the math and all of the ELA, the English language learning, and tests, and we’re constantly adding as they go forward. So we’ve got hundreds of tests out there that the teachers can use. And they love it. Some of the teachers say, no, this technology is, we’ve moved onto other technology. But the majority of the teachers love this because it’s easy to use and pretty straightforward. Some of the newer stuff is not that easy to use.

Jeff: Actually, I wanted to ask about that, because you’ve been a long-time partner with Echo360, which is now Echo360, so if you could talk to me just a little bit about, you’ve got this great initiative, the mobile lab, which is brilliant, so already you’re delivering a lot of technology solutions just by the mobility of the setup. What was it, back in the day, that brought you, then, to Echo360 at the time, to add the PointSolutions technology to that?

Bill: I’ll tell you, Echo360 wasn’t the first one we used. We used a different product in the beginning. And it was cumbersome. I tell this to teachers all the time, and principals, whoever we’re trying to get to embrace our solutions. I’m an integrator. I can put anyone’s anything on here, but for me, it’s all about ease of use. And the fact that this is PowerPoint-based, most teachers coming out of school today know PowerPoint. They use it in school. I often tell stories. I can use anyone’s anything, and I’ll to go a presentation by your sales rep or some of the other sales reps out there, and you come out of a presentation going, wow. It does all of that? And then you get back to the classroom and you never use all of that. And usually the more of all of that there is, the harder it is to use. The harder it is to use, the less likely they’re going to use it. So for us, it’s all about getting the teachers to use the technology, and that’s probably the industry standard in the educational technology space. Everyone struggles with how do you get them to use it. My feeling is, the easier it is to use, the more likely they’ll use it.

Jeff: That’s a great point, because we were saying before we started, the merits of technology should be based on how much is being used. It doesn’t matter if you have X, Y, or Z bell and whistle if it’s not being used. Beyond ease of use, what else have you seen, being in ed tech for so long now and seeing how it’s really evolved, and now technology’s just like electricity. It’s everywhere. What are some other, aside from the ease of use, are there any other big trends that you’ve noticed over the years that are really bringing teachers and administrators together around technology?

Bill: I think it’s really the evolution of the teacher. The teachers are, and I say this all the time also. The teachers that I’m teaching, I personally still do a lot of the training. I mean, I have a staff of people that train, but I enjoy training teachers, just to look on their faces when they realize the power they have with our solutions. But one of the biggest things I’ve seen is the evolution of the teacher and the fact that many of these teachers don’t know a world without the internet. It’s not a matter of do you do it? It used to be, should you do it, why would you do it? Now it’s not should you, or why, it’s how. How do you do it? And really, the challenges that we see are in helping the teachers learn. That again goes back to the ease of use thing. Teachers have a lot on their plate today, especially now after what we just went through in the education space and the world. They have a lot on their plate and trying to embrace new technology is a challenge. The fact that they have to spend time learning. What I’ve seen happen is the willingness to put in the time necessary to use the technology. Technology’s great, but whatever you do, most things don’t just come out of the box and work. You have to put in the effort. I always go back to my 7 Habits, I don’t know if you know Steven Covey. Sharpen the saw. Every minute you spend learning this is going to make that tree come down faster. You sharpen that saw and you’re going to be more successful.

Jeff: I mentioned in the intro that you’ve also done quite a bit of work outside of the education sphere. What kind of similarities or differences do you see between working with teachers, getting them trained up, and embracing technology—

Bill: It’s a whole different world. In my past careers, I’ve worked in financial services, with the government, with the private sector, all in the technology space. It’s a whole different world. There’s a whole different, sometimes you think complacency. You think about it, if something doesn’t work in a technology environment for whatever reason, whether it’s user error or whatever, in the business world, you need to fix it tomorrow. In education, they seem to have this complacency. Oh, okay, well, that laptop is bad. The deal we said they were going to get it back to me within three weeks. Three weeks? Coming from the business world, you don’t see that complacency. But it’s getting a lot better. Especially some of the benefits, if there were any, of this pandemic is the acceptance of what we’re doing now. This Zoom call and all the things that they do now to do remote learning. That’s another thing we did with our solution was we added additional capabilities to enable remote learning. So we added cameras. This camera that I’m looking at is on top of my lab. That wasn’t there in the past. Now we added this camera. We added a pan, tilt, and zoom camera on a tripod that’s meant to go in the classroom and give the students that are remote the same perspective the students in the class have, as well as a wireless microphone for the teacher to put on. Because what we found is the teachers were strapped to their laptops. They could only teach as far as that laptop camera could see and that microphone could hear. We gave them the flexibility so that if some of the kids are remote and some of them are in the class, the teacher could teach the way they would normally teach, and the kids would get it. We also gave them the ability to monitor their guide and control the students even when they were home. So they can limit their internet access, and launch applications on them even when they’re home. So we’ve tried to address all of the things.

Jeff: And as you say, one thing that the whole pandemic did is, those things that you employed and put in place for education, they did extend out. As the students then move on and now get into the workplace, those are experiences that they carry with them. We’re definitely seeing those technologies get outside of education and into the workplace, into government, and things like that.

Bill: Oh, absolutely. And just to circle back a little bit. And this is another thing I always tell them. The students are not the issue. The students get this stuff. It’s how does the teacher harness it. And that’s what we do is try to teach and help the teachers harness the technology so they get the best bang for the buck. And like I said, we’ve had some great success, and coming out of the pandemic has just pushed their technology awareness forward.

Jeff: Speaking of bang for the buck, the last question that we like to ask all of our guests here on EchoCast is something that we call Inspiration Point. It’s about the biggest lesson, the biggest bang for the buck, that you’ve learned along the way throughout this great career in ed tech and technology solutions, what would be the biggest either lesson or piece of advice that you would give someone if they’re genuinely interested in getting students to learn and embrace the learning experience, what’s one big piece of advice that you’d give?

Bill: I say this to the principals and the teachers. Make the investment. Make the investment to examine the tools and play with the tools. Our solutions technically come free to the schools because they’re grants from the politicians. And I say, oh, it’s free. The only investment you need to make is to give the teachers the time to play with the technology so that they can become proficient. I’ve had many a teacher tell me, oh, if it’s not packaged and canned, I’m not doing it. And that’s not what you want in a classroom. You want some innovation. And once the teachers become familiar with and comfortable with the technology, the results are limitless. They can get a lot out of it. So that’s my biggest advice is to give your teachers the time to play with the technology and take the appropriate PDs. You could take all the PD you want, but if you don’t touch it for a week, you lose 10%. If you don’t touch it for two weeks, you lose 40%. You go three weeks, you might as well have never taken the PD. So it’s not just giving them PD time. They have to have some playtime with it. 

Jeff: Sharpen the saw. Exactly. Thank you, Bill Waibel, for joining us here on EchoCast and sharing what you’re doing for the great teachers and learners there in New York. We’re going to let Bill go, but everybody else stick around for a quick demonstration now for some of the applications that were referenced in this episode of EchoCast and you can also go to Echo360.com for more episodes and more resources to create your own inspired learning experiences.

Announcer: Here’s a quick demonstration of an Echo360 solution related to this episode of EchoCast. Reach out to us at Echo360.com to learn more.

Announcer: Echo360 Point allows for you to build presentations where your audience will see the results in real time. To begin, go into your presentation, open the Echo360 Point software, and sign into your account. Next, click on start now within PowerPoint. This will now open up PowerPoint with the Echo360 Point software enabled. You will now go ahead and open up an existing presentation or build one from scratch. When you are ready to insert an interactive slide, select the Echo360 Point tab, select new, and then choose the question type that you would like to go ahead and ask. For example, we’re going to select multiple choice. This will now insert a new slide within your presentation, which will match your PowerPoint theme. Your next step is to insert the question, put in your possible answer choices, and then click outside the answer text box to format your graph. Adjust the font and layout of your slide just like you would within PowerPoint. The right-hand side allows you to customize even further. You can choose to hide results, assign point totals, and even mark correct answers. When you’re all done building your entire presentation, select save or save as and save it just as you would any other PowerPoint. When you are ready to run your presentation, open Echo360 Point and sign into your accounts. If your audience is going to be using hardware clickers, be sure to plug in your receiver. If they’re going to be using mobile devices, click on enable mobile devices in the upper right hand side, set your session ID, and then start the session. From here, you are now ready to go ahead and open up PowerPoint polling. Once you click on start now, this will launch PowerPoint with the Echo360 Point add-in. Select the Echo360 Point ribbon and reset the session. Resetting the session will ensure that all of your slides are ready to pick up responses from the audience. Enter the presentation just like you normally would in slideshow mode. When you’re in presentation mode, advance through the presentation just like normal using your space bar, enter key arrows, or even wireless remote. When you arrive at a Echo360 Point slide, polling will automatically open and the show bar will appear. When you’re ready to close polling, simply advance through the presentation using that same space bar, enter key arrows, or your wireless remote. Polling will close and the graph will display. Continue through the presentation until you are all done. Once finished, select the Echo360 Point ribbon and the save button. This will now save the session, which will be your results.

Echo360 Point provides you the ability to generate reports on both the group and individual level. To generate reports from your facilitated session, open Echo360 Point and sign into your account. Next, select the manage tab, and then left click on your session file to highlight it. Now go ahead and click on the reports button on the right hand side. The first report that will be generated is a results-by-question report. The results-by-question report will give you an overview of how your entire group responded to every question within the presentation. To change to a different report type, use the dropdown in the upper right hand side. Another popular report is results-by-participant. This particular report will allow you to see precisely how each individual responded to every question within the presentation. Feel free to choose from various report types and explore the other options.

Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to EchoCast. For more information on these and other inspired learning solutions, visit us at Echo360.com.

Technology integration that involves teachers as they integrate technology for their students’ improvement

Bill’s story is just one of many success stories that show what the Echosystem does for organizations of all types around the world. Whether it’s bringing students together through education technology or bringing teachers together to collaborate on curriculum, Echo360 solutions take your ideas for tech integration to a whole new level. Ask for a live demo to learn more.