Episode #245: Destiny Wagner & Kris Thurston

Destiny Wagner (edtechnerds.com) Chief Education Nerd @ edtechnerds Destiny is an educator with over 20 years experience as both a classroom teacher (physics) and an instructional technology coach. With a proven record of creating and delivering professional development, presenting at numerous national conferences, and focusing on staff wellness, her goal is to leverage her expertise to help educators succeed in achieving their objectives while maintaining an effective work-life balance and to overcome the struggle with burnout that has become all too common in recent years. She is also developing a workshop series around addressing educator burnout with school administrations towards her 500 hr. yoga teacher training.

Kristofer Thurston is the Chief Technology Nerd Technology Director, Fixer of the Broke, Herder of Cats, Untangler of Wires, Semi-pro Yoga Model. After 22 years in Education Technology, he’s learned that CHANGE is the soul of the game. Starting with computer labs, moving through 1:1, into BYOD and beyond, change is the only thing that remains constant. I believe that change is now taking us back to the concept of 1:1, but this time, it means something completely different. Through the purposeful use of the right technologies, teachers can focus on building relationships, meeting each and every student where they’re at, driving engagement and empowering life-long learners, with a goal of every student feeling like they have a 1:1 student to teacher ratio in every class. Recently completed a 3 year term as the Technology Chair on the Prince of Peace Catholic School Advisory Committee. Currently serving as the Director of Technology at John Paul II High School.

Trenches story: stepped away from the classroom, felt like her needs weren’t meant. She was in CR teaching AP physics and tech coach. Stepped away. Missed working with teachers. Doesn’t want teachers to feel that way. Kris: his whole career. Has done tech support for other districts. It’s all about getting buy-in from t’s to make the changes to learn & grow. Some days are good, some are bad. Loves teachers seeing brilliant ideas.

Ed Tech nerds: Started in Nov. 22. It’s just her & Chris. He’s the tech director at the school she was at. They’d presented together @ conferences. He brings the IT side. Their primary focus is the front line, the teachers in classrooms. They finish each other’s sentences. fill in when presenting on the fly. Get past feeling of 1 more thing. From website: “Everything we do is to improve the lives of those who deliver the goods day after day. When the picked the pillars for the company they wanted mindfulness to be at the center. Mindfully choose to present your lessons. Creativity into the community. But, we don’t stop there. Teachers can’t do it all on their own. So we’re also here to help support staff, coaches, administrators, and school and district leadership so they can stay aligned to your mission, providing better support for the classroom.”

Do you work mostly with schools in certain states? right now it’s TX and anything within driving distance. ½ day’s drive of DFW area. Is building a workshop series around addressing educator burnout with school administrations towards her 500 hr. yoga teacher training. Wants to do this in person. Skills course with TCEA “cultivating calm”. Will start with workshop series in June, will be available in Aug. for schools. Does Webinars otherwise.

Webinars? working on summer cooldown series. Starts June 26- early July. Starting with Wakelet. Doing Screencast O’Matic. Also blended learning, agile lesson planning. differentiation, cultivating calm, formative assessments. Presenting with Pizazz-avoiding the “slidedeck death”.

Has an online course from TCEA, Kris is doing one on Google Workspace Admin. Created teacher mindfulness planner, that’s being beta tested by teachers. She took a deep dive into personal development with reading Brene Brown, etc. Wants to take ideas of skills learned from corporate development. Bulit a daily mindfulness planner with assessments. 2 months worth of training days. 10-20 teachers beta testing it. Will be paper-based & digital.

Talk about your blog: new to them. Hope to publish every 2 wks, alternate w/ mindfulness tech & trips. Wants to write around 5 pillars they’ve created at Edtech Nerds. Most important is mindfulness. Other pillars: efficiency- don’t get bogged down in minitia. Efficacy- make sure what you’re doing is working. Creativity & community. They work on relationships w/ st’s, we want to make sure they’re observing & learning what we want them to learn. Each blog post will highlight pillars.

Upcoming conferences, such as ISTE (didn’t apply)? Session topics? They always present together. They banter back and forth. Destiny was at the Learning Forward TX conf. June 20-21st as a featured speaker. Will do 2 more 90 m presentations. Also spoke at TCEA elementary teacher conf. Kris- they’re pretty regular w/ TCEA events. TCCA Aldine ISD (NW side of Houston 1 day conference)-Sat. in OCT. Top 10 ways to make a splash with Wakelet June 26 at 11 CST (register here) Simply click on the title(s) of the webinar(s) you wish to attend. All webinars will be held on Mondays at 11:00am CST.