Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:00:00]:
Welcome advocates to another episode of the Eakins Equity podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their scopes. Today's special guest is mister John Claude Broussard. So without further ado, John Claude, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jean-Claude Brizard [00:00:18]:
Sheldon, thanks for having me on your show.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:00:20]:
Oh, pleasure is mine. I'm excited for today's conversation. And the reason why I'm excited for today's conversation is because I haven't covered this before. We're gonna be talking about cultural responsiveness, but from a tech side of things. But before we get into that, I'd love for you to share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:00:35]:
Southern, I mean, you have to is to know about me is my history. I'm an educator. I'm a practitioner. I was a teacher, and my first teaching job was at White Gazette in New York City. So that was a formative set of experiences, but I was a high school principal. I was head of the high school division in New York City. It's 400 high schools. And, of course, became a superintendent of schools in 2 cities, Rochester, New York, and I led Chicago Public Schools back in 2011 and worked for the Gates Foundation for a while.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:01:00]:
But now I run this amazing organization called Digital Promise Global. We're created out of an act congress back in 2008 under George Bush, launched by Obama in 2011. So we're very bipartisan, nonpartisan organization. We run both sides of the aisle. A lot of our work is focused on learning sciences, research, technology innovation, and practice. We bake everything in practice. Our flagship network of practitioners is the League of Innovative School School Districts, about a 160 school districts across the US. We do a ton of work with us in learning sciences and technology.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:01:31]:
We also have a global cities network. We have a bunch of cities from Shanghai to Melbourne to Dallas to Denver who also work with us on technology and learning science innovation.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:01:40]:
Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Global. That's that's what's up.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:01:43]:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:01:44]:
Good. Alright. Well, we're talking about technology, and, specifically, we're getting into cultural responsiveness in technology. Often, we talk about the importance of being responsive, making sure that the content that we're presenting to our students in our schools and things like that is L, and that they can really grasp and they can find important and and relevant and responsive to their needs. And I wanna start with a question to you as far as what does it mean to be culturally responsive on the tech side of things?

Jean Claude Broussard [00:02:14]:
It's it's important in going back to this idea of practice. Right? Technology is a tool. It is not a replacement for anything. So if the foundation is not culturally responsive, if it does not really understand what you're trying to do, who you're trying to serve, then the technology is gonna respond the exact same way. That's really important. We often use the expression intelligence augmentation, our digital promise. So, I mean, we didn't coin the expression, but it's been around for a while. So if you should get it, it's it's the opposite of AI.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:02:40]:
It's IA. So when you think of technology, frankly, it really you think about the idea of who you're serving, what are you trying to do, if it's a bunch of kids who are multilingual learners, if they are neurodiverse, and by the way, all of us are neurodiverse. Right? When you think about special populations, I'm Afro Caribbean. If when I was in school, you have to understand my history, who I am as a as a person, my people, etcetera. Then the tool, the technology tool becomes what we actually use to support the instructional process or the teaching and learning process. That's important. Second, frankly, when you think about who's designing these tech tools, they have to be representative of the of the community in which you're looking to serve. So which means that the technology and the tool itself becomes that kind of a multicultural.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:03:25]:
Well, at least it has that kind of orientation to it. That means you need to have a diverse set of actors, developers, etcetera, doing that. A lot of what we produce guide to developers, guide to practitioners, lean on this idea of inclusive innovation. We don't believe that people should go off in the corner and build a new iPhone. It should be built to respond to the needs of a community. We have a bunch of things we do. 1 is called the center for inclusive innovation. We have a set of design processes that we actually work with developers on, including practitioners, to make sure they understand how to do this.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:03:56]:
Let me give you a specific a couple of few specific examples. We just released an acceptable use policy for AI with the help of the with with the US government. It was done with 2 10 school systems in the US. It wasn't a bunch of policy people with learning science people sitting in the corner designing this policy. We had 10 school districts that were representative of the US, different parts of the US, and they work with our team and our experts in designing this policy. This idea of centering the learner, centering the practitioner is really an important part of our work. We talk about the golden triangle, learning science research, technologist, practitioners sitting together. The practitioners push the question.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:04:35]:
It's not just the researchers. In that way, you actually get this kind of organic view of who we are serving and to make sure that the tool is being designed is responding to the needs of a community versus someone snooping in, dropping in with their latest tech tool as they go. Go ahead and use this. That way you have lasting power, and it's L, frankly, to the community in which you're looking to serve.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:04:56]:
Okay. So is this more than just Internet access, Like, making sure everyone has access to the Internet, or is it more specific to the software that some or platforms that folks are using and bringing that into their classrooms? Like, digging a little bit deeper as far as the specifics there.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:05:15]:
Sure. And it's all the above. So let me start with the hardware, for example. Right? Okay. When you think about someone who may have a physical disability, right, the hardware has to respond to that. At least there should be hardware that that provide that kind of accessibility. Okay. We do a ton of work with cast, c a s t Yeah.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:05:31]:
Who really are in this particular body of work. So it's important to understand that. Yes. It is about the software to make sure that the language being used in the software, that what is being used in the software is really critically important. One tool that we're beginning to work with is called Kibam. They're not yet not in the market, k I b e m. It's a science of reading and AI tool that does not use screens. The the founder is the guy who founded the scribe pen.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:05:54]:
He is awesome. Yeah. But what's good about what what Jim is doing is that he is deliberately making sure that what he's designing is in response, yes, to the science, but also to the community. So he's getting a lot of researchers to help him understand. He is testing this from Oakland to Bronx, right, to New York to making sure that he's getting pulling back on the data to understand that what he's doing is responsive to a community. Yes. It is also about the Internet broadband access. Let me explain to you what that what that might look like.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:06:22]:
We take off whether Verizon, whatever it may be. It's just access to the Internet. By the way, Verizon is one of our biggest partners in this effort. But when you think about a very specific use case so we still last 2 years in New Mexico. When you look at the indigenous populations, right, you you take a look at, frankly, what has or has not been done in terms of the infrastructure to support these kinds of communities, maybe even more parts of the US, that has to be looked at and understood. During the pandemic, a lot of kids on on on Native American communities were giving devices, laptops, and and and and broadband, but there was no infrastructure. These things became paperweights. One of my colleagues in Albuquerque said to us when she was asked, how are you embracing technology? And the question she pushed back was, how is technology embracing us? So that kind of, like, repositioning of a question helps you understand it's not just about Albuquerque.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:07:11]:
It's about rural parts of New Mexico as well and the ways in which you actually respond to to community. So when you look at our digital equity framework, it talks to a lot of this kind of work. So it is all of the above, frankly.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:07:22]:
So what do we do about the infrastructure? Because you're saying that they so they gave them the devices. They had Internet, but it it was used initially as a paperweight. So what changed or what what was done in order to make this have the students be, I guess, more encouraged to to do the to utilize the devices? What changed in that process?

Jean Claude Broussard [00:07:41]:
Well, the the problem is not over. It is still a work in progress, but I can tell you what the this administration, the Biden administration has done. The Biden Harris administration is if you look at the infrastructure bill that was passed a couple years ago, the purpose of which was to make sure we begin to help governors and state chiefs of education understand what to do in terms of building that. NPR had a had a series a couple weeks ago that looked at how they were putting broadband access in remote parts of the US. Yes. Some of it are rural white communities, some are rural Native American communities, some are rural black communities. Right? Joke the guy gave was really wasn't a joke. He said they had mules pulling up poles in up the mountains to to layer fiber access because I I get the the contradiction here with mills pulling for the bill fiber.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:08:26]:
But that's the way in which we do this. He was talking about the parts of Kentucky. And the fact is that and so if you use your L phone for navigation, you're gonna get lost because there is no Internet access in somebody's remote parts of of of the US. But that work continues in earnest in terms of making sure there's access. There's a partner we work with in South America, in a country in Uruguay. Uruguay closed the achievement gap, and they closed the digital access gap across the entire country. They made a decision that when you combine for profit, nonprofit, and government together, you could actually do this. They're a small country, but for us, it's an example of what can happen when there is will and determination to close that.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:09:03]:
I can tell you in the US, we've not done that both in terms of urban areas, parts of Newark, parts of Seattle, parts of New York City. And there's also tremendous challenges in rural parts of the US that we still do. In in the more urban areas, what you tend to get is more sort of under access. Meaning, you may have access to the Internet, but the data is not showing enough to serve, for example, 3 or 4 children and 2 adults who are at home or one of the adults at home. That's part of the challenge we also need to solve, not just access, but full access to powerful devices and powerful broadband.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:09:37]:
Okay. Thank you. So I guess my next question is because I'm thinking about my listeners. Right? So the the folks that are listening right now, probably educators, either k L, and we have some higher ed representatives and they're all could be paraprofessionals, could be teachers, principals, whoever. What kind of suggestions could you give to schools that are looking to be more responsive on their technology? Because I'm hearing a lot of things here as far as, like, maybe there's some areas that are rural and maybe it's a matter of Internet access or not just Internet access, but at least a strength that's long enough that can sustain a a household of 4 to 5 people, multiple devices going at once. But are there some things maybe that multiple devices going at once. But are there some things maybe that schools can do if it's maybe some education that needs to be done or some other maybe partnering up with various com companies? Like, what kind of suggestion do you have on that it on that end?

Jean Claude Broussard [00:10:29]:
There's so much here. So first of all, in a couple of weeks, we're taking about 75 school superintendents to Lindsay, California. It's a rural part of the state in Central Valley where they have closed the digital access. And and if you go to Lindsay, what they'll tell you though is that they started out with a premise that they and this is paraphrasing the late Richard L out of Harvard who said the most important relationship in education is between students, teachers, and content. What Lindsay will tell you, what many of us learned during the pandemic, it's students, teachers, parents or families, and content. It's a 4 legged stool. And what they're doing in Lindsay is making sure that the technology provides, continuous access to pedagogy, to continuous access to curricula. So it's a 4 legged stool.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:11:14]:
The parent is in is is a big part of this. So when you think about what to do, first of all, think about the idea of, again, teaching and learning, 247 access to technology and into the content, which requires a set of actions. 1, to make make sure that the one to one technology is critical, which means and this is what the Watson Wessel, the the FCC chairman talks about, the idea of the homework gap, she calls it, which is that you can have technology in school, but the the kids have to access technology at home, which is where one to 1 becomes critically important. The kids who are going up middle, upper income communities have access 247 to tech. And the tech is a tool again. So access to technology, powerful technology, making sure that you have a refresh rate that is in play in your school district or your school, which is if you give if you give a child a a Chromebook or or or a Mac, you can't have them have it for 4, 5 years. I mean, everything becomes obsolete. Right? So that's really important.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:12:10]:
Powerful access to broadband. And there are companies like Verizon and, again, big partner of ours who do this kind of work, and the other ones do it as well too, where you can bridge that kind of support to make sure it's sufficient access to broadband. And 3rd, really important, is making sure the educator, the classroom teacher, understand how to use technology in the classroom as a tool, not as a replacement, as a tool to support what they're trying to do. So what our superintendents is, what is your EdTech plan? Because very often, that is relegated to the chief technology officer or chief information officer. And what I would push was anyone who's leading a school district or a CMO here sitting, listening, is make sure your technology people are sitting with your academic people, and they're planning together on how to make sure it actually supports the technology process. And and and there's so much more, but I'll give you one last one, which is really, really important. So many of us buy technology through the social network. We call our friends, what are you using? EdTech efficacy.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:13:06]:
And I'm talking about privacy, I'm talking about data is a mistake many of us are are making by not looking to see what is evidence based and make sure that the tool is doing what it claims to do. If you have special needs kids, neurodiverse kids, making sure that the tool is supporting those kids. If it claims it's gonna move your math achievement, does it? And and we so digital promise is the cost and a bunch of us just publish on the web a a a a a need for us to collaborate to provide a kind of certification process for both developers and for practitioners. But the way to control the market is for procurement, for the practitioner to demand certain things. I tell Soups, if you're asked what you're not gonna get. It's a supply and demand challenge, but there are mechanisms. The ad search product index is a great place to start. It's we're going we we try to get funding to actually make it better.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:13:54]:
It's a place to go filter. Because I'll give you one last example, Sheldon. There are 2 major language apps in the market right now that claims to teach you how to speak a different language. One is evidence based, one is not. The one with the greater market share has no evidence behind it. Yet it Do they have

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:14:09]:
more souls are they spending more money on marketing then? Is is

Jean Claude Broussard [00:14:11]:
that possible? They're they're a machine in marketing, but it doesn't it doesn't really work. There's no evidence behind it. So my my portion, my bag because we've done the landscaping analysis. Most the school districts are not even asking for certification, or they they lean on data privacy and maybe interoperability, but not the other stuff that really matter teaching and learning. Again, as such product index, it's not perfect yet. We're gonna make it better. It's a good place to actually start.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:14:36]:
Okay. So speaking of starting place, what I'm hearing is if we're not doing this already, we need to be doing some sort of digital access survey, something like that for our parents, incoming families, things like that. Is is that what I'm hearing?

Jean Claude Broussard [00:14:50]:
Without without question. Making sure your community what your community needs. By the way, again, we have the digital equity framework on our website. It's a good tool to use. We actually designed a tool for elected officials, for state superintendents, for superintendents, but they can set the conditions. And we also see, by the way, because of the funding that's winding down or wound down, people are cutting programs and tools that are in heavy use by teachers and students, but don't have the engagement data in their district. I give you one one small example. BrainPOP is an example where I've seen some district cutting BrainPOP.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:15:22]:
It's cheap. It's good, but they don't understand the engagement. Yet, it's being used by a lot of teachers and and and and and families. So we beg people, please look at your engagement data before you go to the low hanging fruit because we're not assessing what is being done. So, for example, BrainPOP is not trying to educate districts. This is what's being used. 90% of your teachers are using this product. Please don't cut it.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:15:44]:
So we we tend to not listen to our folks in our classrooms, and they hold the key to the solutions. Okay.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:15:49]:
And you say you have some resources online that are available for those. Because I'm a principal now. You got me thinking, like, okay. Maybe I need to survey some of my students and their families that are coming in because we do a lot of work that we offer is online. Now we talk to them about, listen, It is a requirement. You you gotta have Internet access because you're gonna take a lot of classes online in addition to maybe some stuff that's independent study. But we we have that question, but I don't know if we how deep we need to go into those questions. Like, should we ask more? Like, how many people are in your household, or is your Internet fast enough, or is is your how current is your laptop that you have? So you do have a laptop, but is it within 5 years, or you have Internet at but is it high speed? Or is it so are those questions that we should be asking in addition to the basics? Like, how deep should we go into these these getting that assessment, getting that data that we need to know to kinda know where to go from there.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:16:46]:
Well, first of all, they get the the resources on the website. But second, I would go back to what is it you try to accomplish.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:16:52]:
Okay.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:16:52]:
If you require substantial use of technology, you wanna make sure that the tech side is sufficient and adequate to do what you wanna get done in school, or what you may have in the classroom is powerful. What you may need at home may be slightly less powerful. So make sure you're doing that. The last thing I would say to you on this is our Verizon Innovative Learning Schools program, which is funded by Verizon to the tune of 35, 40,000,000 a year supports 7,000,000 kids across the US as a demonstration project. And I would say go on our website, look at these those districts, see who they are. If they are in proximity, reach out to them because they have a ton of the solutions and tools that can easily they can go visit, for example, and see and sit with the principal, sit with the super superintendent or teachers of how are you using this in your classroom. That's one way of doing that as well too. But, yes, the the resources are on our website.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:17:38]:
Okay. Alright. Sounds good. One of the things that you mentioned early in our conversation was regarding who is designing those apps that we're utilizing in our classrooms and, again, as a resource not to replace. And I I'm just curious what what is how familiar are you on the landscape of representation of the innovators that are doing these apps that are there? Because typically, there's all kind of stereotypes when it comes to the representation of of apps. So I what are you seeing on your end?

Jean Claude Broussard [00:18:10]:
So so it's it's inadequate, for sure, in terms of representation. That's important to to understand. Mhmm. But there's a there's an easy way for buyers or consumers, again, to to see. When you look at these certifications on on the ad search product index or even just on our website, some are culturally relevant certifications is the product. And by the way, these folks have to go through hoops. It's a competency based assessment to make sure that they under if they want the certification to demonstrate that the product is doing that. If you're looking at the kids who have special needs, look at the cast.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:18:43]:
And, by the way, this is where why I keep pushing edge search product index. It's managed by ST, I s t e, but all of us contribute to the to the platform, and we're gonna make it even even better. One of the one of the certifications is research based design. So you you may not know the product well, but if you see the acorn on the product, you can be certain that the folks who are building it would, have a research ally a learning science research orientation and very likely is aligned to the sciences, an important piece. So, again, go to the certification. It's a great proxy to look at, but I can tell you that the developer community is not yet fully representative of the of the broader US community. There are folks who are pushing this in, like, ASU GSV, Debrocazo at at GSV. They're pushing on this very hard.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:19:26]:
They're investors in that tech. I can tell you if you go to an ASU GSB conference in San Diego, you can see the the liquid effort and purpose to make sure that what is being done is representative, but I can tell you right now it is

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:19:38]:
Not there yet.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:19:39]:
No. No way.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:19:40]:
Well, John Cole, I've learned a lot in this conversation. It sounds like there's a lot of work that we need to be doing, but there is work that is happening.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:19:47]:
Yes. I

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:19:48]:
don't know how recent it is, but it it does seem like there is some progress that's being made. But, of course, there's always room for growth. Again, just considering our our listening listeners, for our educators out there, what final word of advice could you provide to our listeners there?

Jean Claude Broussard [00:20:03]:
I would say it's the what I often refer to is the coherent instructional cycle. Make sure that's in play and try to figure out how you can augment the intelligence of the process. And don't forget that there is a forklift in the stool. It's not just your your your educators, your your content, and your students. Your families and parents need to be centered in your discussion and conversation. And L last thing I'll say is the AI, some call it a revolution. AI has been around since 1975. It's making this conversation, this topic even much more urgent that we make sure that we have the kind of AI literacy, tech literacy, to make sure that we are teaching our young people what they need to know to survive present and in the future.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:20:40]:
Absolutely. Alright. Well, Jean Claude, if we have some folks that wanna connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Jean Claude Broussard [00:20:46]:
Best way is LinkedIn. If not, send me an email. It's [email protected]. Just find me. I'll go to our website and just sign up.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:20:53]:
Alright. We'll leave all the links in the show notes, folks. Once again, I have Jean Claude here with me. Thank you so much for your time.

Jean Claude Broussard [00:20:59]:
Thanks, Sheldon. Great to see you.

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