Episode Transcript
Ixchell Reyes (00:00)
There’s a lot of people pushing back on edtech in the classroom these days. They’ve got good points, but is it possible to support both edtech and accept the critiques? We’re discussing how to be tech-friendly during a tech backlash in this episode of the DIESOL Podcast.
Brent Warner (00:37)
Welcome to the DIESOL podcast where we focus on developing innovation in English as a second or other language. I’m Brent Warner, professor of uh ESL
Ixchell Reyes (00:55)
Hello?
I’m doing great. It’s spring. How are you? You just got back from TESOL!
Brent Warner (01:04)
It is spring.
I did, I did. And speaking of spring in TESOL, there were actually cherry blossoms ⁓ in Salt Lake City around the Capitol building and all this stuff. So it was cool. Yeah, it was cool to see. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (01:14)
You’re so lucky. So how
was it?
Brent Warner (01:19)
Yeah, TESOL was great. ⁓ Of course, people were asking about you. Where’s he show all these things? ⁓ So ⁓ sorry that you couldn’t be there this year, but it was a lot of fun. ⁓ Got to get to some good sessions. My session went well. It was full house. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (01:23)
Aww.
Mm-hmm. I heard about that session.
Brent Warner (01:40)
Yeah, we had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun doing that and I got really good feedback afterwards and everything. So I’m glad that went really well. ⁓ There were other really good sessions too. I was glad to see there was a lot of sessions about advocacy, about supporting students through, you know, like the war situation, of course, right. But, you know, like conversations around things with like, you know.
Ixchell Reyes (01:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brent Warner (02:03)
Local, you know things happening in America were also there as well ⁓ And so it wasn’t you know, I mean there was a lot of tech conversation of course, right is going on I will say one thing I was really bummed about and no one’s fault that I mentioned this before too was like There was no sessions on vibe coding at all ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (02:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Really?
Hmm.
Brent Warner (02:23)
Yeah, nothing. And
I think that’s partly because it started to pick up a little bit of steam after submissions were due. So, you know, I get it, right? ⁓ That’s probably fine. But at the same time, it’s like, my gosh.
Ixchell Reyes (02:29)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (02:37)
I did a tiny bit of it during my session just to kind of show what’s possible. ⁓ But I think next year, if you want to get in, don’t, yeah, everyone will do it if they’re listening to this show and they’re like gonna steal my ⁓ plan for the conversation. So we’ll see what’s going on. But anyways, it was great, great poster sessions, a few people that I think we’re gonna want to talk to in the future for sure. And ⁓ next year we’ll be closer to you. It’ll be in Houston, right? So.
Ixchell Reyes (02:39)
Mm-hmm.
Next year everyone will be…
Yeah,
I might be there if I’m not somewhere else in the world. If I can afford it, no, will be. I hopefully will be there. That’s close. Anyway, you got to see some of our colleagues. that’s cool. Mary. Yeah.
Brent Warner (03:06)
Yeah, you might be the…
Yeah, yeah, I got to see. ⁓
I got to see Mark Machina, I got to see Mary,
yeah I saw lots of people that you know, we knew from yeah, from back in the day, people who give us good ideas. I didn’t get to talk to all the people that I wanted to, some people I saw in passing and they were busy with other, you know, other people and then probably they saw me in passing when I was busy so, you know how these things go. Anyways, it was a good time. I really liked Salt Lake City too, I’ve never been there before and so, or I’ve been there once, only passing three
Ixchell Reyes (03:26)
People that inspire us, yeah.
Brent Warner (03:49)
And so it was kind nice to be able to see a little bit of the city. ⁓ You know, ⁓ it’s really nice and there’s cool things happening all around. You have this image of it being like a very conservative type of town, but it’s actually kind of like a real mix of like all sorts of interesting things going on. So it was ⁓ kind of a nice surprise on that level.
Ixchell Reyes (04:04)
Hmm. Hmm.
very cool.
Brent Warner (04:12)
But we’re here today to talk about a different conversation, is, we’re talking about edtech stuff, right? And there has been a pretty big, well not big, but I don’t know how big it is.
Ixchell Reyes (04:16)
Mm-hmm.
You call that
Brent Warner (04:28)
It’s a trending backlash, right? And I think that’s good,
right? I think we need those pluses and minuses in the conversation all the time. ⁓ And so right now, more and more research ideas are coming out around like, hey, you we should really get rid of all tech in the classroom. Like that’s kind of like the extreme version of it. ⁓ I think it’s really easy to get caught up in that conversation. And there’s a lot of the parts I think you and I both agree with. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about that, ⁓ see what’s kind of going on.
Ixchell Reyes (04:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brent Warner (04:58)
maybe some approaches because to me I’m not like well I’m just gonna throw away all the cool tech stuff that I’m using and I also want to be able to say well you know what places could I make shifts what what places am I maybe just doing this because it’s shiny and flashy versus really productive and useful so yeah and for yeah yeah all those things so let’s dive in
Ixchell Reyes (05:14)
And is it effective? Is it saving time? Or at what cost? Dive right in.
Okay, so I looked at an article from this March, 2026, by UNESCO. And so they recently said that phone bans in schools are spreading worldwide. And so you’ve probably seen the news about several states that are planning to ⁓ implement such bans. And ⁓ what they reported was that there’s about 114 systems that…
Brent Warner (05:49)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (05:55)
educational systems that now have bans. That’s like 58 % of countries. ⁓ They also mentioned that ⁓ banning phones isn’t really the full solution ⁓ because schools are one of the few places where students can actually learn how to use tech properly. And that, of course, boils down to the teacher, boils down to how you’re deploying a device and what kind of protections you have in place, what kind of training you’re giving them.
Brent Warner (06:00)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (06:25)
or giving the teachers and the students, ⁓ basically learning how to use the tech properly, evaluating information, managing the screen time, which I know you’ve been doing for yourself as an adult, and understanding the risks.
Brent Warner (06:36)
Big time Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure
so I think there’s a lot in to all of this right I think we’ve seen Australia or parts of Australia that are banning a lot of tech and these can be different right like so some of them the conversation might be around more things like ⁓ You know
Ixchell Reyes (06:45)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (07:01)
elementary school students up to middle middle school students, things like that, right? There could be ⁓ high school and college. I am seeing the conversation, right? Of course, there are teachers who say no tech in my college classroom, and that’s fine, too. You just kind of have to sort out like so I just want to be careful. It’s really easy to go. OK, well, this is a study that happened for a small group of second graders, and I’m going to apply that to my adult education classroom. Well,
Ixchell Reyes (07:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (07:30)
Okay, and like, let’s recognize that there’s context for all of these different things. ⁓ So, things we want to just pay attention to.
Ixchell Reyes (07:38)
Mm-hmm. And so to that end, UNESCO also, if you want, if you’re out there listening and you want to see what the actual data says, there was a report by the, it’s GEM, which is a Global Education Monitoring Report. And that is actually from 2023. And it’s got a proposal for deploying technology in education. So if you don’t know where to start, or you’re going back to that conversation of what are we doing, are we doing it effectively?
Brent Warner (07:56)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (08:07)
That’s a place that you might want to ⁓ check out. Of course, we’ll have it in the show notes.
⁓ And then I looked at an article ⁓ in the BBC. The article is of Dutch schools, which talks about a ban that happened two years ago. So they banned mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets. And so again, two years ago, and the question is, has banning phones improved performance at Dutch schools? And so we want to take a look to see what’s been happening.
And I think that’s a great example. ⁓ Instead of making a law, they had sort of a national agreement with schools, parents, and teachers, and that actually led to a faster buy-in rather than a lot of political back and forth and political friction. And what’s interesting in that article is that they had several
Brent Warner (08:46)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (09:14)
students talking about how they felt about the ban. And you’ve got different high school students saying like, what up? At first they were angry because they couldn’t check their social media. But then eventually after they got bored, they found something else to focus on. And also this ban was also implemented at school social functions and during the breaks, which meant at lunchtime or at break time, the cell phones had to be in lockers or they
Brent Warner (09:17)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (09:43)
could be, know, they could, I think they either got confiscated or maybe they could get in trouble. didn’t see how that was being managed by the schools, but ⁓ students said ⁓ it helped them to be less worried about possibly being photographed and their pictures being uploaded to social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which again, if our students are worried about ⁓
pictures being manipulated or their images being uploaded ⁓ without their permission, that actually has a big impact on their social emotional development. And if they’re worried, then they’re not gonna focus. So it’s worth a read. And again, it’s a recent one. And I have a feeling we’re gonna be looking at more ⁓ reports, similar reports from children. Of course, there are some that where students are like, well,
We don’t really like it, but they’re not ⁓ infringing on our rights or anything. So they understood. They understood.
Brent Warner (10:45)
Yeah.
Well, we got to give students credit for, you know, like, I mean, it’s so easy to kind of play it off and be like, you don’t, you know, you don’t know what’s best for you. We know what’s best for you. And it’s like, actually, a lot of these students do like, yes, of course, they might make bad decisions. But if you talk to them and if you involve them in the conversation, for sure, there’s a lot of things that can work out really well there. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (11:02)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (11:08)
Yeah, I think we will also see some more of this too with so much of the AI videos being able to be made because because could you imagine like some student who doesn’t like you and they like record you but then they make an AI version of it where it’s like you’re saying slurs in the classroom or something like that right and then you have to go and defend yourself against something that’s totally made up right I could see you know I could see a real fear around that and you never know who might do something like that right like you
Ixchell Reyes (11:12)
Mm-hmm. ⁓ gosh. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (11:38)
So like you just have no control over what’s going on with the way other people do those things so So I could absolutely see that as a problem
Ixchell Reyes (11:40)
Right? Right.
Yeah, nowadays you have like the current backlash with Ray-Ban meta glasses because… So the thing is that you don’t really know when they’re recording. And so they actually look like glasses. would never, unless you are familiar with the type of frame and the way they look, wouldn’t, maybe someone wouldn’t know that they’re recording. And essentially you could be live recording everything and uploading to the cloud right away. I do have a colleague who has them.
Brent Warner (11:51)
Yeah, tell me a bit about that.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (12:13)
and ⁓ he uses them to listen to music because you can listen to music while you’re using them. I think that’s, know, nobody knows that he’s listening to music, but it’s a little bit creepy that I don’t know when it’s recording or that I could suddenly start acting differently if I feel like it’s recording. And to have that, you’re surveilled.
Brent Warner (12:23)
Mm-hmm.
Well, yeah, I mean, and let’s be honest. mean,
Meta is absolutely a surveillance company, right? Like they’re just spying on you all the time. like, so in theory they could just decide, well, I just want these to be on and I want passive data to be just trickling up on.
Ixchell Reyes (12:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
and that’s the thing.
just reminded me, I think there was an article out there where the people looking at the, I don’t want to get this wrong, the people looking, the people that are managing the data to learn from what people are uploading have seen ⁓ images when the glasses were not being worn, the camera, yep, and you know where that could go. So that was, you know, some of the just.
Brent Warner (13:07)
Oof.
Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (13:16)
creepy stuff around it. Google Glass got rid of all Google Glass. I don’t know what’s going to happen because other other little, you know, cheapy versions are out there now. And and that’s just
Brent Warner (13:18)
Yeah, yeah.
hahahaha
Yeah, I mean,
this tech is so easy to so much easier to do now than it was when Google Glass came out. And of course, I mean, you had that is shell. I I gave you a little bit of a hard time back then, but like you’re playing with it. And of course, exploring the tech and like. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (13:32)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, my students were recording, yeah. And I was letting them
use it. I wanted to see what kind of exchange, like English exchange, would happen. And it didn’t. It was interesting. Yeah, it wasn’t, I mean, it wasn’t like glasses. You can obviously see, and it’s, you can see when it’s recording. So that’s different. But the other thing ⁓ I was going to say also in going back to the meta glasses.
Brent Warner (13:48)
but it was interesting. ⁓ okay. Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (14:04)
A student was accused, believe, of cheating with them. The person on the other end could hear the questions or could see the questions, one of those two, and was feeding ⁓ responses. Something like that, yeah. But again,
Brent Warner (14:18)
Yeah. Yeah. mean, for sure.
Of course, like that’s going to happen. Right. So yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (14:25)
goes the same thing with Bluetooth speakers, in the ear speakers. There were cases.
Brent Warner (14:31)
There are cases,
there are things, just from keep in mind these things can easily happen. ⁓ but then my hard part about that is with those glasses is like it could be prescription glasses, right? So it’s like, hey, these are my only glasses. So you can’t ban me from wearing these in class either, right? Whole other part of the conversation, right? think today, like it’s just interesting to kind of recognize the part, many parts of the tech kind of overlap. And even though it’s not the same thing, it’s easy to say, well, I just want no tech in my classroom.
Ixchell Reyes (14:36)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:01)
Right. And so like, don’t want any of this stuff. I just don’t want to have to deal with it. And so let’s get rid of it all. Right. And then there was an article also in the Times, the New York Times, called The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education. That came out back in
Ixchell Reyes (15:01)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:19)
November of last year, right? And so I thought it was really interesting. ⁓ colleague of mine shared it with me. There was some really interesting points inside of there. Just kind of worth looking at and recognizing that, you know,
Ixchell Reyes (15:22)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:34)
there are real problems with a lot of these things. we’ll cover a couple of them. ⁓ I think one of the points that said that there was like 300,000 fourth and eighth grade students, a study of these students, right, found that the students who spent more time using digital devices in language arts classes. Now that’s not, I don’t under…
Ixchell Reyes (15:43)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:53)
My understanding that means English, right? Not ⁓ English language acquisition or language courses, but language arts classes performed worse on reading tests. So.
Ixchell Reyes (15:55)
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Mm hmm. And that’s like the predictor
for a lot of things, right? Performance, it’s reading.
Brent Warner (16:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. All sorts
of things, right? So like, what are your reading skills, et cetera, right? And then there was a, and think you’ll like this one. Inside of that article too, they said that there’s a meta analysis that found that reading on paper compared with reading digitally led to significantly better comprehension among students from elementary school to college. So what do you think about that?
Ixchell Reyes (16:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
absolutely. mean, I don’t like digital books and I’ve always felt very strongly that you need to be able to feel that page in your hand and you need to be able to flip back and forth to compare things. And especially when you’re a language learner, which ⁓ even younger students are learning the language too, you need to be able to process information differently. even back in our USC days, I want to say
Brent Warner (16:46)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (17:00)
2014-ish, there was some, and I’m sure this has been quoted or we’ve talked about it someplace, where college students who were taking notes digitally versus the ones who were taking notes physically, ⁓ they didn’t retain more or did better on the test. They actually did worse. And so it’s kind of, you I think those two go hand in hand.
Brent Warner (17:22)
Mmm.
Yeah, that study is kind of involved in here. Again, we’ll give the links to the article so you can find the information about it. And we’ll talk more about the handwriting thing ⁓ in the second half of the show. ⁓ But again, absolutely worth paying attention to and looking at, right? And saying, is the digital version of this really the best choice? For me, the tactile…
Ixchell Reyes (17:31)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (17:49)
We talked about this, think, in the past too. If you remember when you were younger and you’re reading books, or even now, you’re like, where was this? And you have a sense of how much you pinched the book, how many pages in you were. That is gone with a digital version. You’re like, I just have to keep swiping through and looking for it, or searching for keywords, I guess. But there’s something to it being like, ⁓ I have a physical connection to this reading. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (17:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (18:19)
looking at worth paying attention to. then the last little bit from that article is they mentioned that in countries like Japan where students spend less than half an hour on devices for leisure during the school day, academic performance has remained fairly steady, especially in math and science. So.
Ixchell Reyes (18:35)
Yeah.
Brent Warner (18:36)
Mm-hmm, know something to pay attention to right?
Ixchell Reyes (18:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Brent Warner (18:39)
And so there’s a lot to look at here and we’re kind of talking about the what the studies are saying and kind of the negative points but we’ll poke a few holes in it and deal with that in the second half of the show.
Ixchell Reyes (18:50)
Excellent.
Brent Warner (18:55)
Alright, so, Ishell, are you coming to Japan this summer with me?
Ixchell Reyes (19:01)
I will be there in
spirit, but you are going to be in Japan just in a couple months at JALT.
Brent Warner (19:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah at JALT CALL. ⁓
So 2026, ⁓ Friday, June 12th to Sunday the 14th. Yeah, it should be cool. I’m really looking forward to it. You know, I spend most of my time in Japan in Kobe and this is in…
Ixchell Reyes (19:14)
I wanna be there!
or where are you gonna be this
time?
Brent Warner (19:28)
So it’s the same area. it’s Nishinomiya, which is right, you know, halfway between Kobe and Osaka. And the theme is prevail or fail, which is good kind of connecting to this conversation today. Right. Yeah. And so, right, right, right. And so today’s conversation kind of matches up with a little bit of that. But ⁓ I am looking forward I want to invite everybody listening to join us as well.
Ixchell Reyes (19:30)
Mm. Mm.
Sink or swim? Survive or die?
So if you’re in Japan, you can go there. You’re going to have a blast. ⁓ Brent, you’re also going to be interviewed.
Brent Warner (20:04)
I already was interviewed. Yeah. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (20:06)
UGH!
Brent Warner (20:07)
So for the JALT CALL podcast, got a, you know, they did an interview with me. Um, we had a conversation about it. So it’s kind of preparation, um, for it, uh, uh, for, for, for the conversation, you know, that we’re doing. so if you’re interested in hearing that a little bit more, um, you know, uh, you know, some of the things we cover on this show, but a little bit more. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It’s like, Hey, listen to more of my voice. Right. Um, but anyways, it’s, it’s great. Uh, so.
Ixchell Reyes (20:12)
Go!
Mm-hmm.
If you’re not tired of Brent. If you miss Brent at TESOL.
Brent Warner (20:37)
So thank you ⁓ to everybody over at JALT CALL and ⁓ if you want to hear that interview, I thought it was a good conversation, and we were able to talk about some kind of little customized focus around Japan and some of my experiences with those bits, ⁓ so there’s a lot of fun stuff going on there, and please check it out.
Ixchell Reyes (20:50)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, and we’ll have the links in the show notes.
Brent Warner (21:06)
All right, last bit, last bit. So Ixchell ⁓ here We looked at some of the problems. We looked at some of the research that are focusing on some of the problems. And I really do think it’s a good thing to get on board, look at them. But it’s also worthwhile to be aware of the temptation to take it to the extreme, right? Because. Yeah, I mean, it’s like.
Ixchell Reyes (21:07)
So.
We don’t want to be one or the other.
Brent Warner (21:31)
So many people, like they see this stuff and they’re just like, all out, right? Let’s get rid of all our things. Let’s, you know, let’s get rid of everything and we’re just going to go back to the old paper and pencil version of things. It’s like, okay, but let’s be more thoughtful than that, right? Because it’s the same problem with going all in, right? Like, hey, we don’t just want to be doing this pendulum swing all the time. We want to be doing what’s best for our students. And yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (21:37)
Hmm.
And research-based, data-driven.
We need to look at what actually what the research says and then figure out where our balance is.
Brent Warner (22:03)
That’s right. That’s right. so there are we have some reasons, some things to think about and some some ideas. So you show what what are some of things you’ve been thinking about?
Ixchell Reyes (22:07)
Mm-hmm.
Well,
I think you and I go back and forth all the time on this because we’re definitely advocates for innovation with technology and education. But oftentimes we forget that tech is the only way that some students get access to information. And if you have a student with special learning needs, blind, for example, assistive technology is a huge, huge boost to supporting them in developing autonomy in their learning. ⁓ Otherwise, you’re going to need an assistant all the time, which is an expense that
Brent Warner (22:19)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm. That’s right.
Ixchell Reyes (22:40)
many people can’t afford or districts can’t afford, right? So ⁓ you can’t just get rid of everything. You’ll be leaving out a huge ⁓ number of the population, of our student population.
Brent Warner (22:44)
Yeah.
And it’s also worth pointing out that
like…
English language learners are way less likely to self identify as needing help. And so so this is a struggle we’re dealing with on our campus because currently the laws come into actually the federal laws coming into place that everything needs to be made accessible. Right. And so we’ve got these teachers that are kind of pushing back on it and saying well we don’t you know this is blah blah blah whatever. And it’s like because I don’t think I have any of those students in my class and I’ve said the same thing for sure. So I want to be careful like I’m not like blaming people for thinking that way because it’s like I
Ixchell Reyes (22:58)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely, yeah.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (23:26)
and feel that I’m like, am I really going to spend all this extra time for an imaginary student that’s not really there? Well, guess what? They’re probably not imaginary. very likely to be in your classes and not identifying or telling you about it. And with an attitude like that, then they’re less likely to identify. Right. And so so you want to recognize that. And so one, you can say, hey, even things just like screen readers and technology can be a huge support for everybody. But I also would connect it to things like open educational resources.
Ixchell Reyes (23:36)
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Brent Warner (23:56)
resources,
Ixchell Reyes (23:57)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (23:57)
right? ⁓ Because you a lot of schools can afford to say like, hey, we’ve got a laptop loan program. Not every school. I totally understand that, right? And it really does depend. But you know, maybe hey, a student can’t afford it, but we can find a way for them to get something. ⁓ if you’re doing an open educational resource that’s, digital in there and a student has a laptop or some sort of digital device, they can now get access to your texts for free. That’s, you know, part of the whole game of it.
Ixchell Reyes (24:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (24:26)
everything and it’s accessible for different readers needs or different accessibility needs as well. And a lot of students, they just can’t afford the traditional textbooks. So if you’re in college, university, whatever else it is, even in high school, I hope OER is moving more towards high school as well. But you don’t need those traditional textbooks. That can cost you hundreds of dollars every semester.
Ixchell Reyes (24:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Even renting
them, even renting them is expensive.
Brent Warner (24:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, ⁓ so, you know, it’s like, let’s take a look at that thing. And if we’re saying, hey, this is actually a place where technology can really help people, maybe we want to look at that, right? ⁓ And so I would just be be not so quick to say that like, hey, we’re just going to get rid of everything because think about who you’re leaving out when you when you make that decision as well, right?
Ixchell Reyes (24:59)
Mm-hmm.
And then Brent, you had mentioned a post by Matt Miller.
Brent Warner (25:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
just today, ⁓ I think this actually came from today or yesterday as we were preparing our notes, I’m like, Matt wrote about this exact topic on LinkedIn. I’m sure you shared about it elsewhere, but he had a few different things and he talked about our conversation from earlier about the backlash of taking notes digitally versus on paper. ⁓ So really interesting. ⁓ He had a really thoughtful, Matt’s always thoughtful about how he presents his information. ⁓ And he kind of said, well,
Ixchell Reyes (25:27)
Hmm. Yeah.
Brent Warner (25:48)
let’s
look at this. said, yes, absolutely, this is a real problem. The distractions are real problem, but also like the note taking thing, like the hand taking notes versus typing notes, right? He said most of the research about the hand taking notes is about. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (25:52)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (26:04)
lecture classes in higher education, right? And so like that’s where that’s where the research often comes from. And it’s like, cool. And you know, many times that will be valuable, but you can’t necessarily just extrapolate that to say every learning situation is going to be better in this way than in that way, right? And so he said, just wanted to be careful about it. And I also appreciate that, ⁓ you know,
Ixchell Reyes (26:05)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Brent Warner (26:26)
in the notes inside of there. Ken Shelton, who also does some cool stuff, ⁓ he ⁓ did lots of cool stuff. He followed up by pointing out there’s also issues like, well, do we know what the instructional design was it intentional and helpful for the students or are these just kind of traditional, you know, lecture classes that maybe weren’t the best designed anyways to begin with? Right. So, you know, it’s just like, yeah, let’s push, let’s push back on the all tech for any sake.
but let’s not push back on any tech for whatever sake, right? ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (26:58)
No tag, yeah. Yeah.
Brent Warner (27:01)
So just to be a little bit careful about that.
Ixchell Reyes (27:04)
Yeah, and I think, you know, as a teacher trainer, ⁓ from with teacher trainees from ⁓ different places around the world, I have to, number one, always consider who my audience is for that cohort of teachers and what they’re going to have available in their own institution. So if I’m teaching them everything that I’m doing with, I don’t know, notebook, Ellen, for example, they may not even have access to that.
Brent Warner (27:24)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (27:33)
So why would I be showing them all these things and dangling it in their face when they can’t actually go back and apply it? Like for personal use, great, but I want them to be effective teachers, right? And creative, and I want to boost their innovation and creativity. So I have to recognize which students are going to benefit from the different strategies I’m going to demonstrate. And if my students come from a…
Brent Warner (27:33)
Right.
Ixchell Reyes (28:00)
place where they’re supported and they’ve got technology available for them and accessible, then of course I’m going to encourage that. So I always have to figure out, okay, my group’s going to be mixed. I’m not going to have just the people using tech and the people not using tech or with no tech available. I always have to balance it out and I make sure to tell them, ⁓ think about how we’re going to substitute this when you’re in a low tech to no tech environment because the only tech you might have is Post-it notes. Okay.
Brent Warner (28:16)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Ixchell Reyes (28:30)
Well, you don’t need to use Miro. You don’t need to use any digital slides ⁓ without a projector. All you need is Post-its. And so again, I’m encouraging that also for the teachers that do have tech, because if they’re working with students who learn by manipulating things, then they have to get out of just sticking to the projector and just sticking to the smart board, because that alone…
Brent Warner (28:33)
Hehehehehe
Ixchell Reyes (28:57)
it’s not ⁓ necessarily effective for every learner. We’re trying to reach as many learner styles as possible.
Brent Warner (29:04)
Right.
Yeah. So like I saw ⁓ some recent presentations and I saw some some teachers showing things and it was like, OK, I’ve got my ⁓ Google slides up here and I’m moving through the slides with the information. And then they’re like, OK, well, now I want to shift it over to ⁓ a, you know, like a like, yeah, padlet or a mentimeter or whatever else it is. Right. And it’s like, OK, but like.
Ixchell Reyes (29:10)
Hmm.
Yeah
Brent Warner (29:30)
when you move it over there, you’re still only showing information, right? You’re not using it in a way that is unique to that platform. You’re still just showing slides. So for example, maybe someone has like a word cloud that they had built previously on Mentimeter and it’s like, well, do you need to go to Mentimeter to show that? Or can you just screenshot it and put it into your slide deck, right?
Ixchell Reyes (29:34)
Yeah.
Hmm. Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was gonna say, screenshot it.
Brent Warner (29:54)
Yeah, like, you know, and little things like that. And they’re like, here’s the code. And then I have to log in and do all the it’s like, well, think carefully about your processes and like, what are you actually trying to get going here? Because that could also lead to burnout where students are like, okay, wait, what’s going on here? What’s moving? What’s happening with this next piece? Right. And so I want to be a little bit careful about that. But then also, you know, I
I several years ago, I pushed for getting 360 whiteboards in almost all of our classes in the ESL department and our campus. ⁓ And it’s gone really well, right? Like I, you know, I’ve seen other teachers using them when I walk by some of them really effectively. And then like, but it’s like, hey, let’s step away from the tech. Let’s recognize that an analog world offers really excellent things. And you don’t have to purposely point it out. It just becomes integrated into
the learning environment that you’re in, right? So a lot of these things are things we wanna think about. ⁓ And then I didn’t…
plan this part, I also want to say like online learning is a huge thing and it offers so many benefits to so many students who can’t get access to information otherwise. Every single thing you’re going to do in an online learning environment by default is going to be some sort of digital thing, right? So you, you know, some of us are privileged to be able to say, well, I’m just going to go back to pen and paper. But it’s like, well, yeah, but like, look at all the students who miss out on an education because you choose to say that they can’t come to your class. They have to come to your class.
Ixchell Reyes (31:09)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (31:24)
person, you know, all these different things, right? And so I, and by the way, I have in-person classes, I have the benefit of saying that easily, right? So, so, you know, it’s just things to consider ⁓ and things that I want people to pay attention to.
Ixchell Reyes (31:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
You know, that reminds me, you’re talking about the 360 whiteboard. And I recently was doing a demonstration on the board on how to ⁓ use a visual strategy to teach superlatives and comparatives to language learners for my teachers. And I had this beautiful like drawing on the board and someone came in and said, can I take a picture? ⁓ You have beautiful notes. And just thought that it’s just so simple, but
Brent Warner (31:40)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Hahaha
Ixchell Reyes (32:03)
but we’re so used to the smart board. And I’ve even had people say, can you do it on the smart board? Like, no, I know I have to rewrite it and redo it, but there’s a purpose and there’s a reason why I’m using the regular whiteboard. I want you to see as I’m drawing, how I’m constructing and what the self-talk is, because I want you to mimic that. I don’t want you to just snap a picture of a slide.
Brent Warner (32:18)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Hahaha
Ixchell Reyes (32:32)
So
I’ve got, and I have to go back to my teachers and tell them there is a reason why I want the students to go to the board and not just, you know, the smart board. If you have a piece of paper, I want them to physically do something and I want to hear the talk. I want to hear, we look for the verb, we circle the whatever. And again, I want them to internalize that.
Brent Warner (32:57)
Yeah, yeah. Rant over.
Ixchell Reyes (32:57)
Anyway, that’s the end of that rant. And all that to say
that tech can do a lot of things that you can’t do otherwise. Recording voices and videos on the fly, you know, free or no cost, developing games and activities that respond to or respond to you whenever you use them. It can do a lot of that. So
Brent Warner (33:21)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (33:22)
I mean, I’m telling you, I still use Vokaru and it still does the one thing. So, yeah, we should. No, we want people to donate to them. ⁓
Brent Warner (33:25)
Yeah, love Vokaru. We should start sending, we should get Vokaru to be our sponsor. And with the zero cents they make and the zero cents we make, we’ll just
send love over their direction. ⁓ But yeah, a hundred percent. this is a big deal, right? Is like part of the joy of tech is to really explore the things that you can’t do otherwise, right? And you know, so it’s like,
Ixchell Reyes (33:50)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (33:52)
So many of these ed tech companies have just kind of replaced, know, like when we’re talking about the, you know, the old Sammer model and things like that, it’s just like all replacement. It’s like, well, why, but let’s talk about not replacing. Let’s talk about, you know, transformation and really making things that are really interesting and couldn’t be done in another world. And I think a lot of people lost sight of that, especially with COVID and just trying to get through, right. And, um,
Ixchell Reyes (34:03)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And then just like
tons of cloned tools that are just… boring.
Brent Warner (34:20)
Mm-hmm Boring, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah for sure and so like use a little creativity You can figure out some cool ways to use many of them So but like if you’re just using them in the flat way that they’re presented and you’re like, okay Well, you know and then students go okay yet another Kahoot right another Kahoot filled with tons of I mean that we were talking about this pre-show but like what is going on with that Kahoot?
Ixchell Reyes (34:30)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Every time I open that teacher page,
Brent Warner (34:50)
Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (34:50)
like, no, I can’t say what I want to say.
Brent Warner (34:52)
You
Well, I think you can say what you want to say, right? I mean, it’s like…
Ixchell Reyes (34:58)
It’s like
someone just barfed out icons. They’re everywhere. There’s no organization to it.
Brent Warner (35:01)
Yeah, I mean… Like, okay…
Let me share this here just for anybody who’s watching. If you haven’t seen
Kahoot’s homepage in a while, if you’re just going straight into your work, like this is what it looks like, right? I mean, it’s like massive and it’s just covered with tons of junk and it’s really hard to get through. And that’s not even the logged in page. Like if I log in and try to go and see what’s actually happening with this, let’s see if I can get in real quick here. I know this makes for thrilling podcasting. ⁓ but ⁓ like if you go in and look at that Kahoot page, you can see like it’s
Ixchell Reyes (35:21)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (35:34)
just loaded up with tons of gunk and like what is this for what am I trying to do with all of this yeah
Ixchell Reyes (35:40)
things on the side, things at the top, things in the center,
whatever, all these dashboards, do you really need them? Simplicity goes a long way. So I just tend, I don’t even make Kahoots because it gives me a headache to try to figure out where to go, what to click. Do I really need this? Do I want this?
Brent Warner (35:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, like look at all this
stuff, right? And then all these platforms are moving. It’s like, we’re adding new features, we’re adding new features. It’s like, okay. And I’m a little worried about Padlet to tell the truth, right? Like, cause it’s like, cause they’re adding more and some of them are cool, but some of them I’m like, okay, like are we getting into the same thing where it’s like we just provide all things for all purposes. And I think that’s not as valuable as focused work. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (36:09)
Please no, Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, just do the one thing you do well and
and don’t add all the bells and whistles because they’re not bells or whistles.
Brent Warner (36:28)
Don’t overdo it. All
right, so lots to think about, again, recognize the backlash is real and there are really good reasons not to use tech in many situations, but also there are really good reasons to use tech in other situations and be thoughtful with it, right? Think about your students, what they’re gonna learn, what they’re gonna get out of it, not just, know, here’s a shiny toy, let’s play with it for no purpose at all.
Ixchell Reyes (37:01)
All right, it is time for our fun finds. And today I have ⁓ an article of clothing. So if you’re listening, you’ll have to go to YouTube to see my beautiful red and gold Egyptian scarf that came all the way from Egypt. So to the person who made this possible, Shukran. And it’s got these cool, you can’t see them if you’re listening, but it’s got a
Brent Warner (37:04)
Hey!
Mmm.
You
Woo!
So.
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (37:30)
famous hieroglyphs in gold and it’s beautiful. Everybody knows my favorite color is red and black and this is gorgeous scarf. So what do you have? Yeah. Aren’t you jealous? Ha ha ha.
Brent Warner (37:40)
Really beautiful, yeah. I am jealous. ⁓ So I
also then have something that goes over your shoulders, ⁓ which is a backpack. ⁓ So, I’m sure I talked about this on the show back then, but last year my backpack got stolen, my computer got stolen when I was at a conference, ⁓ and I bought this backpack, the Jester backpack from the North Face. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (37:50)
⁓
Yes!
Brent Warner (38:06)
And that’s the one that got stolen and I had gone back to try and buy it again At rei, I think and it wasn’t there and I thought it was I thought it was discontinued So anyways for the conference, I was like, I still needed like a little travel backpack Not my heavy big one, you know, I need something that I can kind of do for day carries I went back to rei and they had it again in stock. And so I bought it again
Ixchell Reyes (38:10)
Ooh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (38:31)
It is the perfect size for me. It’s like it’s not too small. It’s not too big It holds my big old water bottle, but also, you know a fair amount of things inside without getting too heavy or weighed down So yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Well all the stickers I had to bring ⁓ So anyways Yeah, it’s just a nice backpack, you know I know everybody has their own personal needs for what they’re looking for and all those things but ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (38:33)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
All the gadgets, all the dongles, all the stickers and patches.
Brent Warner (38:58)
It’s kind of a good combination between, you know, you go around the city commute, you could do light hiking with it. It’s got the bungee cords on the back, so like, you can strap your shoes or your sweatshirt into outside without like having to carry that around. So anyways, really nice backpack.
Ixchell Reyes (39:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. But hey, the price point
is good from what I see right here. For a backpack. Mm-hmm. He did get the orange one. I was going to ask that. Did you get the diesel orange? Yes.
Brent Warner (39:16)
Yeah, yeah this this this one that I got the the kind of orange ish one 75 bucks they have a Yeah, yeah, that’s what I did. I got it. I got to put the patch on it next but but anyways
Yeah, good backpack ⁓ and really great for conferences and things like that So if that is your jam check it out try it on first before you buy it Don’t just go buy it on my recommendation make sure it’s a fit for you But ⁓ but I like that one the jester backpack from the north face
Ixchell Reyes (39:37)
Hmm. Yeah.
Cool.
For the show notes and other episodes, check out diesel.org slash 135. You can find us on YouTube. You can watch us on YouTube. Find us on Facebook sometimes, and you can definitely find us on Instagram @ DIESOL Pod on most platforms. You can find Brent still, I think.
Brent Warner (40:07)
That’s right.
Yep,
sometimes, yeah, at Brent G. Warner, definitely on LinkedIn at Brent G. Warner, sometimes on Instagram.
Ixchell Reyes (40:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brent Warner (40:28)
Alright, so
thanks everybody. hope this episode has helped you out a little bit giving you some food for thought a little I don’t think it’s a challenge to the put the flat, you know, I think it’s just kind of like let’s keep a rounded conversation on everything so Balance is key. So thank you so much for listening to the diesel podcast and we will see you in the next episode Bye
There’s a lot of people pushing back on edtech in the classroom these days. They’ve got good points, but is it possible to support both edtech and accept the critiques? We’re discussing how to be tech-friendly during a tech backlash in this episode of the DIESOL Podcast.
Brent Warner (00:37)
Welcome to the DIESOL podcast where we focus on developing innovation in English as a second or other language. I’m Brent Warner, professor of uh ESL
Ixchell Reyes (00:55)
Hello?
I’m doing great. It’s spring. How are you? You just got back from TESOL!
Brent Warner (01:04)
It is spring.
I did, I did. And speaking of spring in TESOL, there were actually cherry blossoms ⁓ in Salt Lake City around the Capitol building and all this stuff. So it was cool. Yeah, it was cool to see. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (01:14)
You’re so lucky. So how
was it?
Brent Warner (01:19)
Yeah, TESOL was great. ⁓ Of course, people were asking about you. Where’s he show all these things? ⁓ So ⁓ sorry that you couldn’t be there this year, but it was a lot of fun. ⁓ Got to get to some good sessions. My session went well. It was full house. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (01:23)
Aww.
Mm-hmm. I heard about that session.
Brent Warner (01:40)
Yeah, we had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun doing that and I got really good feedback afterwards and everything. So I’m glad that went really well. ⁓ There were other really good sessions too. I was glad to see there was a lot of sessions about advocacy, about supporting students through, you know, like the war situation, of course, right. But, you know, like conversations around things with like, you know.
Ixchell Reyes (01:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brent Warner (02:03)
Local, you know things happening in America were also there as well ⁓ And so it wasn’t you know, I mean there was a lot of tech conversation of course, right is going on I will say one thing I was really bummed about and no one’s fault that I mentioned this before too was like There was no sessions on vibe coding at all ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (02:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Really?
Hmm.
Brent Warner (02:23)
Yeah, nothing. And
I think that’s partly because it started to pick up a little bit of steam after submissions were due. So, you know, I get it, right? ⁓ That’s probably fine. But at the same time, it’s like, my gosh.
Ixchell Reyes (02:29)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (02:37)
I did a tiny bit of it during my session just to kind of show what’s possible. ⁓ But I think next year, if you want to get in, don’t, yeah, everyone will do it if they’re listening to this show and they’re like gonna steal my ⁓ plan for the conversation. So we’ll see what’s going on. But anyways, it was great, great poster sessions, a few people that I think we’re gonna want to talk to in the future for sure. And ⁓ next year we’ll be closer to you. It’ll be in Houston, right? So.
Ixchell Reyes (02:39)
Mm-hmm.
Next year everyone will be…
Yeah,
I might be there if I’m not somewhere else in the world. If I can afford it, no, will be. I hopefully will be there. That’s close. Anyway, you got to see some of our colleagues. that’s cool. Mary. Yeah.
Brent Warner (03:06)
Yeah, you might be the…
Yeah, yeah, I got to see. ⁓
I got to see Mark Machina, I got to see Mary,
yeah I saw lots of people that you know, we knew from yeah, from back in the day, people who give us good ideas. I didn’t get to talk to all the people that I wanted to, some people I saw in passing and they were busy with other, you know, other people and then probably they saw me in passing when I was busy so, you know how these things go. Anyways, it was a good time. I really liked Salt Lake City too, I’ve never been there before and so, or I’ve been there once, only passing three
Ixchell Reyes (03:26)
People that inspire us, yeah.
Brent Warner (03:49)
And so it was kind nice to be able to see a little bit of the city. ⁓ You know, ⁓ it’s really nice and there’s cool things happening all around. You have this image of it being like a very conservative type of town, but it’s actually kind of like a real mix of like all sorts of interesting things going on. So it was ⁓ kind of a nice surprise on that level.
Ixchell Reyes (04:04)
Hmm. Hmm.
very cool.
Brent Warner (04:12)
But we’re here today to talk about a different conversation, is, we’re talking about edtech stuff, right? And there has been a pretty big, well not big, but I don’t know how big it is.
Ixchell Reyes (04:16)
Mm-hmm.
You call that
Brent Warner (04:28)
It’s a trending backlash, right? And I think that’s good,
right? I think we need those pluses and minuses in the conversation all the time. ⁓ And so right now, more and more research ideas are coming out around like, hey, you we should really get rid of all tech in the classroom. Like that’s kind of like the extreme version of it. ⁓ I think it’s really easy to get caught up in that conversation. And there’s a lot of the parts I think you and I both agree with. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about that, ⁓ see what’s kind of going on.
Ixchell Reyes (04:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brent Warner (04:58)
maybe some approaches because to me I’m not like well I’m just gonna throw away all the cool tech stuff that I’m using and I also want to be able to say well you know what places could I make shifts what what places am I maybe just doing this because it’s shiny and flashy versus really productive and useful so yeah and for yeah yeah all those things so let’s dive in
Ixchell Reyes (05:14)
And is it effective? Is it saving time? Or at what cost? Dive right in.
Okay, so I looked at an article from this March, 2026, by UNESCO. And so they recently said that phone bans in schools are spreading worldwide. And so you’ve probably seen the news about several states that are planning to ⁓ implement such bans. And ⁓ what they reported was that there’s about 114 systems that…
Brent Warner (05:49)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (05:55)
educational systems that now have bans. That’s like 58 % of countries. ⁓ They also mentioned that ⁓ banning phones isn’t really the full solution ⁓ because schools are one of the few places where students can actually learn how to use tech properly. And that, of course, boils down to the teacher, boils down to how you’re deploying a device and what kind of protections you have in place, what kind of training you’re giving them.
Brent Warner (06:00)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (06:25)
or giving the teachers and the students, ⁓ basically learning how to use the tech properly, evaluating information, managing the screen time, which I know you’ve been doing for yourself as an adult, and understanding the risks.
Brent Warner (06:36)
Big time Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure
so I think there’s a lot in to all of this right I think we’ve seen Australia or parts of Australia that are banning a lot of tech and these can be different right like so some of them the conversation might be around more things like ⁓ You know
Ixchell Reyes (06:45)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (07:01)
elementary school students up to middle middle school students, things like that, right? There could be ⁓ high school and college. I am seeing the conversation, right? Of course, there are teachers who say no tech in my college classroom, and that’s fine, too. You just kind of have to sort out like so I just want to be careful. It’s really easy to go. OK, well, this is a study that happened for a small group of second graders, and I’m going to apply that to my adult education classroom. Well,
Ixchell Reyes (07:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (07:30)
Okay, and like, let’s recognize that there’s context for all of these different things. ⁓ So, things we want to just pay attention to.
Ixchell Reyes (07:38)
Mm-hmm. And so to that end, UNESCO also, if you want, if you’re out there listening and you want to see what the actual data says, there was a report by the, it’s GEM, which is a Global Education Monitoring Report. And that is actually from 2023. And it’s got a proposal for deploying technology in education. So if you don’t know where to start, or you’re going back to that conversation of what are we doing, are we doing it effectively?
Brent Warner (07:56)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (08:07)
That’s a place that you might want to ⁓ check out. Of course, we’ll have it in the show notes.
⁓ And then I looked at an article ⁓ in the BBC. The article is of Dutch schools, which talks about a ban that happened two years ago. So they banned mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets. And so again, two years ago, and the question is, has banning phones improved performance at Dutch schools? And so we want to take a look to see what’s been happening.
And I think that’s a great example. ⁓ Instead of making a law, they had sort of a national agreement with schools, parents, and teachers, and that actually led to a faster buy-in rather than a lot of political back and forth and political friction. And what’s interesting in that article is that they had several
Brent Warner (08:46)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (09:14)
students talking about how they felt about the ban. And you’ve got different high school students saying like, what up? At first they were angry because they couldn’t check their social media. But then eventually after they got bored, they found something else to focus on. And also this ban was also implemented at school social functions and during the breaks, which meant at lunchtime or at break time, the cell phones had to be in lockers or they
Brent Warner (09:17)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (09:43)
could be, know, they could, I think they either got confiscated or maybe they could get in trouble. didn’t see how that was being managed by the schools, but ⁓ students said ⁓ it helped them to be less worried about possibly being photographed and their pictures being uploaded to social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which again, if our students are worried about ⁓
pictures being manipulated or their images being uploaded ⁓ without their permission, that actually has a big impact on their social emotional development. And if they’re worried, then they’re not gonna focus. So it’s worth a read. And again, it’s a recent one. And I have a feeling we’re gonna be looking at more ⁓ reports, similar reports from children. Of course, there are some that where students are like, well,
We don’t really like it, but they’re not ⁓ infringing on our rights or anything. So they understood. They understood.
Brent Warner (10:45)
Yeah.
Well, we got to give students credit for, you know, like, I mean, it’s so easy to kind of play it off and be like, you don’t, you know, you don’t know what’s best for you. We know what’s best for you. And it’s like, actually, a lot of these students do like, yes, of course, they might make bad decisions. But if you talk to them and if you involve them in the conversation, for sure, there’s a lot of things that can work out really well there. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (11:02)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (11:08)
Yeah, I think we will also see some more of this too with so much of the AI videos being able to be made because because could you imagine like some student who doesn’t like you and they like record you but then they make an AI version of it where it’s like you’re saying slurs in the classroom or something like that right and then you have to go and defend yourself against something that’s totally made up right I could see you know I could see a real fear around that and you never know who might do something like that right like you
Ixchell Reyes (11:12)
Mm-hmm. ⁓ gosh. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (11:38)
So like you just have no control over what’s going on with the way other people do those things so So I could absolutely see that as a problem
Ixchell Reyes (11:40)
Right? Right.
Yeah, nowadays you have like the current backlash with Ray-Ban meta glasses because… So the thing is that you don’t really know when they’re recording. And so they actually look like glasses. would never, unless you are familiar with the type of frame and the way they look, wouldn’t, maybe someone wouldn’t know that they’re recording. And essentially you could be live recording everything and uploading to the cloud right away. I do have a colleague who has them.
Brent Warner (11:51)
Yeah, tell me a bit about that.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (12:13)
and ⁓ he uses them to listen to music because you can listen to music while you’re using them. I think that’s, know, nobody knows that he’s listening to music, but it’s a little bit creepy that I don’t know when it’s recording or that I could suddenly start acting differently if I feel like it’s recording. And to have that, you’re surveilled.
Brent Warner (12:23)
Mm-hmm.
Well, yeah, I mean, and let’s be honest. mean,
Meta is absolutely a surveillance company, right? Like they’re just spying on you all the time. like, so in theory they could just decide, well, I just want these to be on and I want passive data to be just trickling up on.
Ixchell Reyes (12:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
and that’s the thing.
just reminded me, I think there was an article out there where the people looking at the, I don’t want to get this wrong, the people looking, the people that are managing the data to learn from what people are uploading have seen ⁓ images when the glasses were not being worn, the camera, yep, and you know where that could go. So that was, you know, some of the just.
Brent Warner (13:07)
Oof.
Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (13:16)
creepy stuff around it. Google Glass got rid of all Google Glass. I don’t know what’s going to happen because other other little, you know, cheapy versions are out there now. And and that’s just
Brent Warner (13:18)
Yeah, yeah.
hahahaha
Yeah, I mean,
this tech is so easy to so much easier to do now than it was when Google Glass came out. And of course, I mean, you had that is shell. I I gave you a little bit of a hard time back then, but like you’re playing with it. And of course, exploring the tech and like. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (13:32)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, my students were recording, yeah. And I was letting them
use it. I wanted to see what kind of exchange, like English exchange, would happen. And it didn’t. It was interesting. Yeah, it wasn’t, I mean, it wasn’t like glasses. You can obviously see, and it’s, you can see when it’s recording. So that’s different. But the other thing ⁓ I was going to say also in going back to the meta glasses.
Brent Warner (13:48)
but it was interesting. ⁓ okay. Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (14:04)
A student was accused, believe, of cheating with them. The person on the other end could hear the questions or could see the questions, one of those two, and was feeding ⁓ responses. Something like that, yeah. But again,
Brent Warner (14:18)
Yeah. Yeah. mean, for sure.
Of course, like that’s going to happen. Right. So yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (14:25)
goes the same thing with Bluetooth speakers, in the ear speakers. There were cases.
Brent Warner (14:31)
There are cases,
there are things, just from keep in mind these things can easily happen. ⁓ but then my hard part about that is with those glasses is like it could be prescription glasses, right? So it’s like, hey, these are my only glasses. So you can’t ban me from wearing these in class either, right? Whole other part of the conversation, right? think today, like it’s just interesting to kind of recognize the part, many parts of the tech kind of overlap. And even though it’s not the same thing, it’s easy to say, well, I just want no tech in my classroom.
Ixchell Reyes (14:36)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:01)
Right. And so like, don’t want any of this stuff. I just don’t want to have to deal with it. And so let’s get rid of it all. Right. And then there was an article also in the Times, the New York Times, called The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education. That came out back in
Ixchell Reyes (15:01)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:19)
November of last year, right? And so I thought it was really interesting. ⁓ colleague of mine shared it with me. There was some really interesting points inside of there. Just kind of worth looking at and recognizing that, you know,
Ixchell Reyes (15:22)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:34)
there are real problems with a lot of these things. we’ll cover a couple of them. ⁓ I think one of the points that said that there was like 300,000 fourth and eighth grade students, a study of these students, right, found that the students who spent more time using digital devices in language arts classes. Now that’s not, I don’t under…
Ixchell Reyes (15:43)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (15:53)
My understanding that means English, right? Not ⁓ English language acquisition or language courses, but language arts classes performed worse on reading tests. So.
Ixchell Reyes (15:55)
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Mm hmm. And that’s like the predictor
for a lot of things, right? Performance, it’s reading.
Brent Warner (16:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. All sorts
of things, right? So like, what are your reading skills, et cetera, right? And then there was a, and think you’ll like this one. Inside of that article too, they said that there’s a meta analysis that found that reading on paper compared with reading digitally led to significantly better comprehension among students from elementary school to college. So what do you think about that?
Ixchell Reyes (16:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
absolutely. mean, I don’t like digital books and I’ve always felt very strongly that you need to be able to feel that page in your hand and you need to be able to flip back and forth to compare things. And especially when you’re a language learner, which ⁓ even younger students are learning the language too, you need to be able to process information differently. even back in our USC days, I want to say
Brent Warner (16:46)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (17:00)
2014-ish, there was some, and I’m sure this has been quoted or we’ve talked about it someplace, where college students who were taking notes digitally versus the ones who were taking notes physically, ⁓ they didn’t retain more or did better on the test. They actually did worse. And so it’s kind of, you I think those two go hand in hand.
Brent Warner (17:22)
Mmm.
Yeah, that study is kind of involved in here. Again, we’ll give the links to the article so you can find the information about it. And we’ll talk more about the handwriting thing ⁓ in the second half of the show. ⁓ But again, absolutely worth paying attention to and looking at, right? And saying, is the digital version of this really the best choice? For me, the tactile…
Ixchell Reyes (17:31)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (17:49)
We talked about this, think, in the past too. If you remember when you were younger and you’re reading books, or even now, you’re like, where was this? And you have a sense of how much you pinched the book, how many pages in you were. That is gone with a digital version. You’re like, I just have to keep swiping through and looking for it, or searching for keywords, I guess. But there’s something to it being like, ⁓ I have a physical connection to this reading. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (17:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (18:19)
looking at worth paying attention to. then the last little bit from that article is they mentioned that in countries like Japan where students spend less than half an hour on devices for leisure during the school day, academic performance has remained fairly steady, especially in math and science. So.
Ixchell Reyes (18:35)
Yeah.
Brent Warner (18:36)
Mm-hmm, know something to pay attention to right?
Ixchell Reyes (18:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Brent Warner (18:39)
And so there’s a lot to look at here and we’re kind of talking about the what the studies are saying and kind of the negative points but we’ll poke a few holes in it and deal with that in the second half of the show.
Ixchell Reyes (18:50)
Excellent.
Brent Warner (18:55)
Alright, so, Ishell, are you coming to Japan this summer with me?
Ixchell Reyes (19:01)
I will be there in
spirit, but you are going to be in Japan just in a couple months at JALT.
Brent Warner (19:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah at JALT CALL. ⁓
So 2026, ⁓ Friday, June 12th to Sunday the 14th. Yeah, it should be cool. I’m really looking forward to it. You know, I spend most of my time in Japan in Kobe and this is in…
Ixchell Reyes (19:14)
I wanna be there!
or where are you gonna be this
time?
Brent Warner (19:28)
So it’s the same area. it’s Nishinomiya, which is right, you know, halfway between Kobe and Osaka. And the theme is prevail or fail, which is good kind of connecting to this conversation today. Right. Yeah. And so, right, right, right. And so today’s conversation kind of matches up with a little bit of that. But ⁓ I am looking forward I want to invite everybody listening to join us as well.
Ixchell Reyes (19:30)
Mm. Mm.
Sink or swim? Survive or die?
So if you’re in Japan, you can go there. You’re going to have a blast. ⁓ Brent, you’re also going to be interviewed.
Brent Warner (20:04)
I already was interviewed. Yeah. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (20:06)
UGH!
Brent Warner (20:07)
So for the JALT CALL podcast, got a, you know, they did an interview with me. Um, we had a conversation about it. So it’s kind of preparation, um, for it, uh, uh, for, for, for the conversation, you know, that we’re doing. so if you’re interested in hearing that a little bit more, um, you know, uh, you know, some of the things we cover on this show, but a little bit more. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It’s like, Hey, listen to more of my voice. Right. Um, but anyways, it’s, it’s great. Uh, so.
Ixchell Reyes (20:12)
Go!
Mm-hmm.
If you’re not tired of Brent. If you miss Brent at TESOL.
Brent Warner (20:37)
So thank you ⁓ to everybody over at JALT CALL and ⁓ if you want to hear that interview, I thought it was a good conversation, and we were able to talk about some kind of little customized focus around Japan and some of my experiences with those bits, ⁓ so there’s a lot of fun stuff going on there, and please check it out.
Ixchell Reyes (20:50)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, and we’ll have the links in the show notes.
Brent Warner (21:06)
All right, last bit, last bit. So Ixchell ⁓ here We looked at some of the problems. We looked at some of the research that are focusing on some of the problems. And I really do think it’s a good thing to get on board, look at them. But it’s also worthwhile to be aware of the temptation to take it to the extreme, right? Because. Yeah, I mean, it’s like.
Ixchell Reyes (21:07)
So.
We don’t want to be one or the other.
Brent Warner (21:31)
So many people, like they see this stuff and they’re just like, all out, right? Let’s get rid of all our things. Let’s, you know, let’s get rid of everything and we’re just going to go back to the old paper and pencil version of things. It’s like, okay, but let’s be more thoughtful than that, right? Because it’s the same problem with going all in, right? Like, hey, we don’t just want to be doing this pendulum swing all the time. We want to be doing what’s best for our students. And yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (21:37)
Hmm.
And research-based, data-driven.
We need to look at what actually what the research says and then figure out where our balance is.
Brent Warner (22:03)
That’s right. That’s right. so there are we have some reasons, some things to think about and some some ideas. So you show what what are some of things you’ve been thinking about?
Ixchell Reyes (22:07)
Mm-hmm.
Well,
I think you and I go back and forth all the time on this because we’re definitely advocates for innovation with technology and education. But oftentimes we forget that tech is the only way that some students get access to information. And if you have a student with special learning needs, blind, for example, assistive technology is a huge, huge boost to supporting them in developing autonomy in their learning. ⁓ Otherwise, you’re going to need an assistant all the time, which is an expense that
Brent Warner (22:19)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm. That’s right.
Ixchell Reyes (22:40)
many people can’t afford or districts can’t afford, right? So ⁓ you can’t just get rid of everything. You’ll be leaving out a huge ⁓ number of the population, of our student population.
Brent Warner (22:44)
Yeah.
And it’s also worth pointing out that
like…
English language learners are way less likely to self identify as needing help. And so so this is a struggle we’re dealing with on our campus because currently the laws come into actually the federal laws coming into place that everything needs to be made accessible. Right. And so we’ve got these teachers that are kind of pushing back on it and saying well we don’t you know this is blah blah blah whatever. And it’s like because I don’t think I have any of those students in my class and I’ve said the same thing for sure. So I want to be careful like I’m not like blaming people for thinking that way because it’s like I
Ixchell Reyes (22:58)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely, yeah.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (23:26)
and feel that I’m like, am I really going to spend all this extra time for an imaginary student that’s not really there? Well, guess what? They’re probably not imaginary. very likely to be in your classes and not identifying or telling you about it. And with an attitude like that, then they’re less likely to identify. Right. And so so you want to recognize that. And so one, you can say, hey, even things just like screen readers and technology can be a huge support for everybody. But I also would connect it to things like open educational resources.
Ixchell Reyes (23:36)
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Brent Warner (23:56)
resources,
Ixchell Reyes (23:57)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (23:57)
right? ⁓ Because you a lot of schools can afford to say like, hey, we’ve got a laptop loan program. Not every school. I totally understand that, right? And it really does depend. But you know, maybe hey, a student can’t afford it, but we can find a way for them to get something. ⁓ if you’re doing an open educational resource that’s, digital in there and a student has a laptop or some sort of digital device, they can now get access to your texts for free. That’s, you know, part of the whole game of it.
Ixchell Reyes (24:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (24:26)
everything and it’s accessible for different readers needs or different accessibility needs as well. And a lot of students, they just can’t afford the traditional textbooks. So if you’re in college, university, whatever else it is, even in high school, I hope OER is moving more towards high school as well. But you don’t need those traditional textbooks. That can cost you hundreds of dollars every semester.
Ixchell Reyes (24:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Even renting
them, even renting them is expensive.
Brent Warner (24:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, ⁓ so, you know, it’s like, let’s take a look at that thing. And if we’re saying, hey, this is actually a place where technology can really help people, maybe we want to look at that, right? ⁓ And so I would just be be not so quick to say that like, hey, we’re just going to get rid of everything because think about who you’re leaving out when you when you make that decision as well, right?
Ixchell Reyes (24:59)
Mm-hmm.
And then Brent, you had mentioned a post by Matt Miller.
Brent Warner (25:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
just today, ⁓ I think this actually came from today or yesterday as we were preparing our notes, I’m like, Matt wrote about this exact topic on LinkedIn. I’m sure you shared about it elsewhere, but he had a few different things and he talked about our conversation from earlier about the backlash of taking notes digitally versus on paper. ⁓ So really interesting. ⁓ He had a really thoughtful, Matt’s always thoughtful about how he presents his information. ⁓ And he kind of said, well,
Ixchell Reyes (25:27)
Hmm. Yeah.
Brent Warner (25:48)
let’s
look at this. said, yes, absolutely, this is a real problem. The distractions are real problem, but also like the note taking thing, like the hand taking notes versus typing notes, right? He said most of the research about the hand taking notes is about. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (25:52)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (26:04)
lecture classes in higher education, right? And so like that’s where that’s where the research often comes from. And it’s like, cool. And you know, many times that will be valuable, but you can’t necessarily just extrapolate that to say every learning situation is going to be better in this way than in that way, right? And so he said, just wanted to be careful about it. And I also appreciate that, ⁓ you know,
Ixchell Reyes (26:05)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Brent Warner (26:26)
in the notes inside of there. Ken Shelton, who also does some cool stuff, ⁓ he ⁓ did lots of cool stuff. He followed up by pointing out there’s also issues like, well, do we know what the instructional design was it intentional and helpful for the students or are these just kind of traditional, you know, lecture classes that maybe weren’t the best designed anyways to begin with? Right. So, you know, it’s just like, yeah, let’s push, let’s push back on the all tech for any sake.
but let’s not push back on any tech for whatever sake, right? ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (26:58)
No tag, yeah. Yeah.
Brent Warner (27:01)
So just to be a little bit careful about that.
Ixchell Reyes (27:04)
Yeah, and I think, you know, as a teacher trainer, ⁓ from with teacher trainees from ⁓ different places around the world, I have to, number one, always consider who my audience is for that cohort of teachers and what they’re going to have available in their own institution. So if I’m teaching them everything that I’m doing with, I don’t know, notebook, Ellen, for example, they may not even have access to that.
Brent Warner (27:24)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (27:33)
So why would I be showing them all these things and dangling it in their face when they can’t actually go back and apply it? Like for personal use, great, but I want them to be effective teachers, right? And creative, and I want to boost their innovation and creativity. So I have to recognize which students are going to benefit from the different strategies I’m going to demonstrate. And if my students come from a…
Brent Warner (27:33)
Right.
Ixchell Reyes (28:00)
place where they’re supported and they’ve got technology available for them and accessible, then of course I’m going to encourage that. So I always have to figure out, okay, my group’s going to be mixed. I’m not going to have just the people using tech and the people not using tech or with no tech available. I always have to balance it out and I make sure to tell them, ⁓ think about how we’re going to substitute this when you’re in a low tech to no tech environment because the only tech you might have is Post-it notes. Okay.
Brent Warner (28:16)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Ixchell Reyes (28:30)
Well, you don’t need to use Miro. You don’t need to use any digital slides ⁓ without a projector. All you need is Post-its. And so again, I’m encouraging that also for the teachers that do have tech, because if they’re working with students who learn by manipulating things, then they have to get out of just sticking to the projector and just sticking to the smart board, because that alone…
Brent Warner (28:33)
Hehehehehe
Ixchell Reyes (28:57)
it’s not ⁓ necessarily effective for every learner. We’re trying to reach as many learner styles as possible.
Brent Warner (29:04)
Right.
Yeah. So like I saw ⁓ some recent presentations and I saw some some teachers showing things and it was like, OK, I’ve got my ⁓ Google slides up here and I’m moving through the slides with the information. And then they’re like, OK, well, now I want to shift it over to ⁓ a, you know, like a like, yeah, padlet or a mentimeter or whatever else it is. Right. And it’s like, OK, but like.
Ixchell Reyes (29:10)
Hmm.
Yeah
Brent Warner (29:30)
when you move it over there, you’re still only showing information, right? You’re not using it in a way that is unique to that platform. You’re still just showing slides. So for example, maybe someone has like a word cloud that they had built previously on Mentimeter and it’s like, well, do you need to go to Mentimeter to show that? Or can you just screenshot it and put it into your slide deck, right?
Ixchell Reyes (29:34)
Yeah.
Hmm. Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was gonna say, screenshot it.
Brent Warner (29:54)
Yeah, like, you know, and little things like that. And they’re like, here’s the code. And then I have to log in and do all the it’s like, well, think carefully about your processes and like, what are you actually trying to get going here? Because that could also lead to burnout where students are like, okay, wait, what’s going on here? What’s moving? What’s happening with this next piece? Right. And so I want to be a little bit careful about that. But then also, you know, I
I several years ago, I pushed for getting 360 whiteboards in almost all of our classes in the ESL department and our campus. ⁓ And it’s gone really well, right? Like I, you know, I’ve seen other teachers using them when I walk by some of them really effectively. And then like, but it’s like, hey, let’s step away from the tech. Let’s recognize that an analog world offers really excellent things. And you don’t have to purposely point it out. It just becomes integrated into
the learning environment that you’re in, right? So a lot of these things are things we wanna think about. ⁓ And then I didn’t…
plan this part, I also want to say like online learning is a huge thing and it offers so many benefits to so many students who can’t get access to information otherwise. Every single thing you’re going to do in an online learning environment by default is going to be some sort of digital thing, right? So you, you know, some of us are privileged to be able to say, well, I’m just going to go back to pen and paper. But it’s like, well, yeah, but like, look at all the students who miss out on an education because you choose to say that they can’t come to your class. They have to come to your class.
Ixchell Reyes (31:09)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (31:24)
person, you know, all these different things, right? And so I, and by the way, I have in-person classes, I have the benefit of saying that easily, right? So, so, you know, it’s just things to consider ⁓ and things that I want people to pay attention to.
Ixchell Reyes (31:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
You know, that reminds me, you’re talking about the 360 whiteboard. And I recently was doing a demonstration on the board on how to ⁓ use a visual strategy to teach superlatives and comparatives to language learners for my teachers. And I had this beautiful like drawing on the board and someone came in and said, can I take a picture? ⁓ You have beautiful notes. And just thought that it’s just so simple, but
Brent Warner (31:40)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Hahaha
Ixchell Reyes (32:03)
but we’re so used to the smart board. And I’ve even had people say, can you do it on the smart board? Like, no, I know I have to rewrite it and redo it, but there’s a purpose and there’s a reason why I’m using the regular whiteboard. I want you to see as I’m drawing, how I’m constructing and what the self-talk is, because I want you to mimic that. I don’t want you to just snap a picture of a slide.
Brent Warner (32:18)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Hahaha
Ixchell Reyes (32:32)
So
I’ve got, and I have to go back to my teachers and tell them there is a reason why I want the students to go to the board and not just, you know, the smart board. If you have a piece of paper, I want them to physically do something and I want to hear the talk. I want to hear, we look for the verb, we circle the whatever. And again, I want them to internalize that.
Brent Warner (32:57)
Yeah, yeah. Rant over.
Ixchell Reyes (32:57)
Anyway, that’s the end of that rant. And all that to say
that tech can do a lot of things that you can’t do otherwise. Recording voices and videos on the fly, you know, free or no cost, developing games and activities that respond to or respond to you whenever you use them. It can do a lot of that. So
Brent Warner (33:21)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (33:22)
I mean, I’m telling you, I still use Vokaru and it still does the one thing. So, yeah, we should. No, we want people to donate to them. ⁓
Brent Warner (33:25)
Yeah, love Vokaru. We should start sending, we should get Vokaru to be our sponsor. And with the zero cents they make and the zero cents we make, we’ll just
send love over their direction. ⁓ But yeah, a hundred percent. this is a big deal, right? Is like part of the joy of tech is to really explore the things that you can’t do otherwise, right? And you know, so it’s like,
Ixchell Reyes (33:50)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (33:52)
So many of these ed tech companies have just kind of replaced, know, like when we’re talking about the, you know, the old Sammer model and things like that, it’s just like all replacement. It’s like, well, why, but let’s talk about not replacing. Let’s talk about, you know, transformation and really making things that are really interesting and couldn’t be done in another world. And I think a lot of people lost sight of that, especially with COVID and just trying to get through, right. And, um,
Ixchell Reyes (34:03)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And then just like
tons of cloned tools that are just… boring.
Brent Warner (34:20)
Mm-hmm Boring, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah for sure and so like use a little creativity You can figure out some cool ways to use many of them So but like if you’re just using them in the flat way that they’re presented and you’re like, okay Well, you know and then students go okay yet another Kahoot right another Kahoot filled with tons of I mean that we were talking about this pre-show but like what is going on with that Kahoot?
Ixchell Reyes (34:30)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Every time I open that teacher page,
Brent Warner (34:50)
Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (34:50)
like, no, I can’t say what I want to say.
Brent Warner (34:52)
You
Well, I think you can say what you want to say, right? I mean, it’s like…
Ixchell Reyes (34:58)
It’s like
someone just barfed out icons. They’re everywhere. There’s no organization to it.
Brent Warner (35:01)
Yeah, I mean… Like, okay…
Let me share this here just for anybody who’s watching. If you haven’t seen
Kahoot’s homepage in a while, if you’re just going straight into your work, like this is what it looks like, right? I mean, it’s like massive and it’s just covered with tons of junk and it’s really hard to get through. And that’s not even the logged in page. Like if I log in and try to go and see what’s actually happening with this, let’s see if I can get in real quick here. I know this makes for thrilling podcasting. ⁓ but ⁓ like if you go in and look at that Kahoot page, you can see like it’s
Ixchell Reyes (35:21)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (35:34)
just loaded up with tons of gunk and like what is this for what am I trying to do with all of this yeah
Ixchell Reyes (35:40)
things on the side, things at the top, things in the center,
whatever, all these dashboards, do you really need them? Simplicity goes a long way. So I just tend, I don’t even make Kahoots because it gives me a headache to try to figure out where to go, what to click. Do I really need this? Do I want this?
Brent Warner (35:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, like look at all this
stuff, right? And then all these platforms are moving. It’s like, we’re adding new features, we’re adding new features. It’s like, okay. And I’m a little worried about Padlet to tell the truth, right? Like, cause it’s like, cause they’re adding more and some of them are cool, but some of them I’m like, okay, like are we getting into the same thing where it’s like we just provide all things for all purposes. And I think that’s not as valuable as focused work. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (36:09)
Please no, Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, just do the one thing you do well and
and don’t add all the bells and whistles because they’re not bells or whistles.
Brent Warner (36:28)
Don’t overdo it. All
right, so lots to think about, again, recognize the backlash is real and there are really good reasons not to use tech in many situations, but also there are really good reasons to use tech in other situations and be thoughtful with it, right? Think about your students, what they’re gonna learn, what they’re gonna get out of it, not just, know, here’s a shiny toy, let’s play with it for no purpose at all.
Ixchell Reyes (37:01)
All right, it is time for our fun finds. And today I have ⁓ an article of clothing. So if you’re listening, you’ll have to go to YouTube to see my beautiful red and gold Egyptian scarf that came all the way from Egypt. So to the person who made this possible, Shukran. And it’s got these cool, you can’t see them if you’re listening, but it’s got a
Brent Warner (37:04)
Hey!
Mmm.
You
Woo!
So.
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (37:30)
famous hieroglyphs in gold and it’s beautiful. Everybody knows my favorite color is red and black and this is gorgeous scarf. So what do you have? Yeah. Aren’t you jealous? Ha ha ha.
Brent Warner (37:40)
Really beautiful, yeah. I am jealous. ⁓ So I
also then have something that goes over your shoulders, ⁓ which is a backpack. ⁓ So, I’m sure I talked about this on the show back then, but last year my backpack got stolen, my computer got stolen when I was at a conference, ⁓ and I bought this backpack, the Jester backpack from the North Face. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (37:50)
⁓
Yes!
Brent Warner (38:06)
And that’s the one that got stolen and I had gone back to try and buy it again At rei, I think and it wasn’t there and I thought it was I thought it was discontinued So anyways for the conference, I was like, I still needed like a little travel backpack Not my heavy big one, you know, I need something that I can kind of do for day carries I went back to rei and they had it again in stock. And so I bought it again
Ixchell Reyes (38:10)
Ooh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (38:31)
It is the perfect size for me. It’s like it’s not too small. It’s not too big It holds my big old water bottle, but also, you know a fair amount of things inside without getting too heavy or weighed down So yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Well all the stickers I had to bring ⁓ So anyways Yeah, it’s just a nice backpack, you know I know everybody has their own personal needs for what they’re looking for and all those things but ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (38:33)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
All the gadgets, all the dongles, all the stickers and patches.
Brent Warner (38:58)
It’s kind of a good combination between, you know, you go around the city commute, you could do light hiking with it. It’s got the bungee cords on the back, so like, you can strap your shoes or your sweatshirt into outside without like having to carry that around. So anyways, really nice backpack.
Ixchell Reyes (39:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. But hey, the price point
is good from what I see right here. For a backpack. Mm-hmm. He did get the orange one. I was going to ask that. Did you get the diesel orange? Yes.
Brent Warner (39:16)
Yeah, yeah this this this one that I got the the kind of orange ish one 75 bucks they have a Yeah, yeah, that’s what I did. I got it. I got to put the patch on it next but but anyways
Yeah, good backpack ⁓ and really great for conferences and things like that So if that is your jam check it out try it on first before you buy it Don’t just go buy it on my recommendation make sure it’s a fit for you But ⁓ but I like that one the jester backpack from the north face
Ixchell Reyes (39:37)
Hmm. Yeah.
Cool.
For the show notes and other episodes, check out diesel.org slash 135. You can find us on YouTube. You can watch us on YouTube. Find us on Facebook sometimes, and you can definitely find us on Instagram @ DIESOL Pod on most platforms. You can find Brent still, I think.
Brent Warner (40:07)
That’s right.
Yep,
sometimes, yeah, at Brent G. Warner, definitely on LinkedIn at Brent G. Warner, sometimes on Instagram.
Ixchell Reyes (40:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brent Warner (40:28)
Alright, so
thanks everybody. hope this episode has helped you out a little bit giving you some food for thought a little I don’t think it’s a challenge to the put the flat, you know, I think it’s just kind of like let’s keep a rounded conversation on everything so Balance is key. So thank you so much for listening to the diesel podcast and we will see you in the next episode Bye
We’re seeing many reports of schools banning the use of mobile devices during school hours. There are multiple articles sharing the impact that the use of mobile devices has on student academic achievement scores. Is the backlash against classroom tech justified, or are we missing something important? In this episode, Brent and Ixchell dig into the growing global movement to ban phones and devices from schools, and discuss ways for more thoughtful approach to EdTech without compromising student achievement.
Articles & Research
- “Phone bans in schools are spreading worldwide as the policy debate rages on” March 2026 UNESCO
- “2023 GEM Report out today calls for appropriate use of technology in education” (Global Education Monitoring)
- “Has banning phones improved performance at Dutch schools?” BBC Article by Anna Holligan (March 2026)
- The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education (Nov 2025) Opinion Article, NY Times
Fun Finds
- Ixchell – Red Egyptian Scarf
- Brent – North Face Jester Backpack