February 6, 2026 • 52 mins
Episode 249 of K12 Tech Talk podcast has Josh, Chris, and Mark discussing their Olympic favorites, the latest news in K12, and the Snow Day Message winner:
Option 3: Code Red - Montgomery County Public Schools (MD)
The episode features an interview with Tyler Kingkade, national reporter at NBC News, about his recent reporting on internal Google documents revealed in litigation. Tyler explains how those slide decks describe K12 as a potential “pipeline” of future users and explores tensions around YouTube’s place in classrooms - useful educational content versus algorithmic rabbit holes. The conversation covers school responses like disabling YouTube for minors, embedding workarounds, and the practical tradeoffs districts face when choosing devices and platforms.
Beyond Google and YouTube, the guys discuss major sector developments: Congress’ decision to keep Department of Education funding roughly level at about $79 billion; PowerSchool’s EdTech Pulse report highlighting teacher workload, recruitment and retention challenges, student absenteeism, and the growing role of data and AI in district priorities; and a ransomware case out of Belgium in which attackers targeted parents directly to extract payments tied to stolen student data.
Articles Discussed:
Congress Has Passed an Education Budget. See How Key Programs Are Affected (EdWeek)
2026 K-12 EdTech Pulse (PowerSchool & Project Tomorrow)
Hackers attempt to extort parents after school refuses to pay ransom fee
Connect with Tyler Kingkade:
https://www.nbcnews.com/author/tyler-kingkade-ncpn1116631 Tyler.Kingkade@nbcuni.com
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Sponsored by:
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CALET - Mark will be there! February 18th-20th K12TechPro NEXT in Cape Girardeau, MO F
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, we interview Tyler Kincaid with NBC
(00:07):
News about his recent look at Google's role in education and the tricky positioning of
YouTube in the learning experience.
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 249.
(00:27):
We are all back to school.
My name is Josh.
Here in mid-Missouri, the snow is finally melting, so Chris was able to go back to school
this week.
Hello, Chris.
What's up, man?
Oh, yeah, that's right.
You're back?
Went back Monday.
Wow.
Did you go back Monday?
I couldn't remember if you went back Monday or Tuesday.
Whole week.
Getting ready to do a whole week.
Whoa.
(00:47):
Are you tired?
Actually, I'm taking off tomorrow.
Now that you're saying that, I'm off tomorrow.
That's awesome.
It was too much.
Four days, man.
And we have Mark over on the East Coast.
Hey, Mark.
Hey.
And he makes fun of us because he gets 21 inches of snow in 48 hours, and he walks his
(01:10):
dog the next morning, so he's used to that stuff.
What have you guys been up to?
Anything?
Chris, you're catching mice and having water leaks.
Mark, we really don't have any crisis stories from you.
I'll tell you what I've been up to.
I'm getting ready.
What are you getting ready for?
I'm getting ready for the biggest sporting event of the year.
What is that?
Oh, that's right.
The Patriots are playing.
(01:30):
No, no, no, no, no.
So much better.
Oh.
Oh, the Olympics.
Yes.
What is your, uh, what is your...
My name is Kid.
Oh.
Oh, give me a break.
Mark, what is your sport of choice with the Olympics?
(01:53):
I'm going to go snowboard cross.
Really?
Yeah.
Our neighbor, when I lived in Maine, our neighbor was the first gold medalist in snowboard cross,
so that's been our sport ever since.
No kidding.
Snowboard cross.
It is when basically you have like four or five snowboarders racing down the mountain
all at the same time, and they're racing each other, and they're going around curves and
(02:15):
over jumps and stuff.
Yeah, pretty intense too, right?
Like, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Curling is my sport.
Have I told you guys my curling story?
No, but I know that you've talked about it because I knew that you were going to say
that.
Curling is like one of those sports that...
I feel like, to be honest, it was multiple stories.
No, it was only, I only went to curling once.
(02:35):
It was like, that is a pure beer drinking sport.
I went to a try curling event in St. Louis.
You know, the curling club in St. Louis had a, you know, come try out curling thing.
You tried out?
It was, it's way harder than it looks, number one.
Like, way harder than it looks.
Two, it is a blast.
(02:56):
It is like, it is a blast to do.
If you're, if the town that you live in or major town has a curling club and they have
a come try event, do it.
It is super, super fun.
Super fun.
Mark, you would be, your limber is all get out.
You would be great at curling, Mark.
I'm going to, I will give it a shot.
(03:18):
It is, it's a blast.
It is a lot of fun.
Chris, what is your favorite Olympic sport in the winter?
Um, I don't know.
I used to play cool borders on PlayStation.
That's snowboarding, right?
So, I'd probably say snowboarding.
I was going to take you as an ice dancing guy.
Uh, you know, probably not.
(03:40):
Uh, I'd probably go for the snowboarding.
Huh.
Which, which snowboarding?
Because there are.
Yeah, I didn't know.
I didn't know.
Yeah, clearly, Mark.
Yes.
I don't know.
I don't really think I'm into the winter Olympics.
What?
Like, what else is there?
Snowboarding and curling, that's it?
Snowboarding, curling, ice dancing.
(04:01):
Well, there's a new sport this year.
Have you seen the new one?
Hockey.
What's the new one?
I could go for some hockey.
Uh, what's it called?
Snowmo?
I feel like you're making this up.
No, no, no.
It's, it's, it's uphill skiing.
So there's like four phases and they first have to, they put these like treads on their
skis and they have to go up the hill and then they got to take the skis off and then walk
(04:23):
up even steeper parts of the hill and then they ski down.
Huh.
It's intense.
Yeah.
Downhill skiing, slalom, moguls, ski jump, winter, winter Olympics is fun.
We were talking about it at dinner tonight.
It's 17 days.
Opening ceremonies are this Friday.
Some events are right here.
I'm going to go hockey, by the way.
(04:43):
Hockey, hockey would be awesome.
We just heard you Googling sports in the Olympics and then you picked that up.
I was trying to figure out my bit.
So to our international listeners, no offense, but we hope the USA comes away with the most
medals.
USA!
USA!
It'll be a, it'll be a good match, USA, Canada in the, in the hockey, uh, events.
(05:05):
We'll see what, how that turns out.
So let's, let's, uh, get into the topic of, uh, K-12 technology.
No, no, no, no.
Speaking of snow, let's talk about snow day.
So last week, uh, Mark played these great things for us to vote on, uh, these snow day
messages that school sent out.
We did a voting, uh, we pulled like American Idol bit off.
(05:28):
You emailed us your results.
You could vote more than once if you, if, if, if you wanted to, I counted every single
vote.
It took you hours.
I heard it.
Yeah.
I heard it took hours to do.
It was crazy.
So, uh, Visor, who, who is a sponsor of the podcast, the founder of Visor actually did
a vote.
That's funny.
Yeah.
That is funny.
(05:48):
Uh, and said, quote, what schools they must be to bring in that talent.
And I think he was being serious.
Um, so visor.cloud slash K-12 tech talk, but here are your results.
Are you guys ready?
Yeah.
Do it.
The winner.
Option three, code red Montgomery County public schools.
Yeah, I knew it.
(06:09):
It was a dr.
Dre parody.
Yeah.
I didn't like it.
The video quality put that one over the edge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would, I would agree.
That's it.
That's all I got.
All right.
Should we talk about K-12 technology?
Sure.
We probably should.
Our sponsors want us to, and I think our listeners, yeah, sure.
(06:29):
So jumping into K-12, K-12 technology news, Mark, I know you have spent hours curating
the, but just the best topics and news stories of the week.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
We've had a lot of bad news when it comes to funding and department of education.
We finally have some good news.
So as you know, Congress passed, please Mark, give us the good news, their preliminary budget
(06:51):
or their, their, their kind of partial budget last week.
And the department of education is basically level funded.
They are going to be staying at a funny level of about $79 billion, which is a, uh, almost
identical amount from last year.
The Trump administration had asked to cut the department of education's budget by, by
12 billion.
(07:12):
But they, Congress basically rejected that and said, look, we need more information and
more updates on this merger proposal.
And until that, until then, I'm sorry, until we hear more about what your plans are, we're
going to continue to fund the department of education at the level that it's been funded
at.
So that's very, very good news for schools.
That means that the funding that will kick in on July one will essentially be the same
(07:34):
from last year.
And I think that everybody, every superintendent and budget director can breathe a little bit
of a sigh of relief after that news.
That's a specifically idea funding and services around title funds.
Yes.
That is great news.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now that's, I mean, funding is one thing.
(07:56):
The, the democratic lawmakers did come out and say, look, this is our signal to the Trump
administration that we're not on board with cutting the department of education.
But again, right now we're just seeing a level funding.
We don't necessarily know what Congress's opinion is on the, that pulled the overall
proposal to cut the department of education though.
All right.
Next up power school released a, their annual report called ed tech pulse.
(08:20):
They did this in collaboration with project tomorrow.
So project tomorrow is more of a research, a nonprofit that really looks at the future
of K-12 and does a lot of topics around cybersecurity and ed tech.
They had, there's a whole slew of, of information and facts in the report.
I highly recommend you take a look at it.
We'll put it in the show notes, but five challenges that are facing school districts and organizations.
(08:43):
Number one across the board is teacher workload.
Every single job category, teacher, principal, administrator, district administrator identified
the teacher workload in addition to recruitment and retention of staff.
That was a very, very big issue.
We've talked about that a lot.
Chris, I know you've been going through hires in, in trying to deal with with recruitment
(09:03):
as well.
So.
Yeah, I actually had a moment today.
So we have a new technician that started this week.
He's been doing a great job, but was on our school website looking at staff and looking
at my tech department and just had a little moment in my head of, Oh, how people have
changed.
Literally people like literally names and faces.
(09:24):
And it's, it is this real thing of the retention.
It's not just people getting older and retiring.
It's people have gone on and shipped it around.
Do you hear my dog in the background?
Yeah.
Your dog has dog.
Dog.
Very.
He's worked up.
He hears me.
Yeah.
Well, what's interesting.
This report did just come out before Congress's budget was passed, but the percentage of educators
(09:48):
administrators concerned about district finances and budget management doubled since last year.
So significant, significant increase on that one.
I'm not surprised.
We've talked about this at length.
And then the other thing they do is they go into different priorities and talk about technology's
potential within district priorities.
So things that we've talked about, the number one priority for a technology to assist would
(10:10):
be student absenteeism.
So they talk about strategies around communication systems, notifications, those kinds of things.
Analysis of data, district wide data patterns and insights.
From there, they talk about AI's influence and then getting into communication with families
as well.
So a lot of circular issues, but they, this report, the called the ed pulse, excuse me,
(10:36):
the ed tech pulse really kind of dives into what are the major categories and streams
of information within K-12 and where can the ed tech and a greater technology leadership
team come into play to help these things out.
One thing I thought was interesting, was completely missing from this report was any
mention of cybersecurity.
(11:00):
So I will let you read between the lines on that one.
I just found it interesting because the last year's report, the ed tech pulse from power
school mentioned cybersecurity multiple times as a priority.
Now for it to be completely removed from this report, got me thinking, I wonder if there
was a need to kind of remove the word cybersecurity from power school.
(11:23):
So disappointed, but I'll say.
From the recruitment and retention standpoint, we're in that phase of interviewing for open
positions that we have, you know, due to retirements or people leaving.
A couple of years ago, it was not uncommon for us to have 200 applicants for an elementary
(11:44):
application or an elementary position, you know, third grade teacher or whatever.
We're going through that process now and they're seeing about 30 applicants per position.
And that that is a dramatic difference of applicant pool for us.
When we're used to seeing a couple hundred weeding through a couple hundred applicants
(12:07):
and now we're weeding through 30 applicants.
So you're telling me I got a chance.
Yeah, exactly.
So, you know, it's we were having a conversation today around what's, you know, universities
still have education programs.
Universities are still graduating students with education degrees and education certificates.
Where where are those students going post-graduation?
(12:30):
Are they are they choosing not to enter public ed or are they going to private ed or are
they going where?
And a trend that I have seen from a number of our educators that that either have retired
from education or just left education.
There is a trend of going to a real world, for lack of a better term, corporate training
(12:52):
services.
And I real business or business world has caught on to this resource of teachers being
really, really good trainers.
Makes sense, right?
So them kind of poaching teach classroom teachers to be corporate trainers and training on applications
(13:12):
or internal education departments for businesses is a real trend.
So I wonder if that's where we're losing a good number of of qualified teachers do now.
Yeah, I've talked about we talk about John every once while maintenance guy, facilities
guy.
And John and I have banter about classified staff quite a bit.
(13:34):
Sure.
And I think it absolutely applies just all across the board in public schools.
In our area, it's not just I'm not talking about my school district, just in our area
and in a lot of areas like if you look at what a custodian makes and compare that to
what the nice lady at Dairy Queen makes, it's comparable and it shouldn't be comparable.
(14:00):
And why can't we keep custodians in place at a school?
It's because they can go work at the restaurant down the road.
It's the corporate restaurant and make better money or the same money.
And man, that's a shame and get ice cream and get free ice cream.
But that that goes all the way up to the teacher and even to the principal and even the superintendent.
(14:23):
These people that absolutely went to college and they got degrees and they want to make
good money, but they had a passion for students and learning and all this good stuff.
Well, the passion's getting burnt out because how society works is you do work and you get
paid.
And if the pay is not there, if the funding from the federal level, the state level is
not there, people are going to leave.
They're going to go to the business sector.
(14:44):
And it's just a bummer because public school, I mean, all three of us would say this, like
we want to help kids learn and succeed in life.
There's great passion in that, but you got to have you have to be able to make a living.
That's my rant.
No, I completely agree.
And I, Chris, we've seen the same trend with districts that have lost I.T. leadership.
(15:11):
You know, they the schools can't either either can't afford to recruit I.T.
leader, qualified I.T. leadership or I yeah, I don't know, find find it easier to hire
a consulting firm to do it and end up paying more in the long run.
I don't I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is.
(15:31):
Well, with all these prices going up, our next article talks about one of the prices
that is going down, and that is the price of ransomware attacks.
Oh, yeah.
More good news from Mark.
Sorry.
There is Josh, you shared this one.
This is an article out of Belgium, actually.
There is a school that was hit with a cyber attack for only about 15000 euros, which is,
(15:56):
you know, 18000 or so dollars, US dollars.
And the school said, no, we're not going to pay that ransom.
And so the attackers shifted and now they are ransoming parents and saying, hey, you
should pressure your child's school into paying this ransom.
Or you can just pay us 50 euros and we'll take your child's data out of the whole mix.
(16:18):
So kind of a like rather than go for the whole big shebang and getting one school to pay,
why not see if I can get a whole bunch of parents pay 50 bucks or 50 euros in this case?
So, interesting case.
I'm curious to see if this happens more.
I'll pose the question.
Would you pay it 50 bucks to not have your kid's IEP released or your kid's discipline
(16:43):
data released?
I am struggling with that because it's one thing to think about how this would, you know,
how I would react.
I can't say this is how other people would.
I do the lifelock stuff.
I do all the, you know, data breach notification stuff and the volume of breach notifications
that I get, it's kind of like, I'm almost to the point where I just say, yeah, I get
(17:05):
it.
You've got my data.
It's out there.
I'm going to do everything I can to protect my social security number, my credit, all
that kind of stuff.
I just think that for me, it's too late.
The data is already out there.
Sure, sure.
But I'm not saying that that's the right approach.
I understand what you're saying.
I think a kid, depending on what data they're threatening to release, that's a different
(17:29):
conversation.
Yes, totally.
Totally.
And I feel like that 50 euros is what, $60 U.S.?
That's a relatively low threshold.
If it prevents a deep, dark secret of a discipline referral getting out that you don't want getting
out, not saying that's a good business model, but...
(17:53):
This is a great business.
Because they've established, they have this reputation that they're going to follow through,
right?
So they're going to collect 50 bucks.
They're legit not going to show the IEP.
They're just trying to find that sweet spot in the price.
This is insanity.
Yes.
The problem, though, is how do they collect the money from parents?
(18:15):
Well, you got to open up a Bitcoin wallet and...
Right.
No, you can do the...
It just...
Call the IT department.
Call the IT department.
They'll help you.
You can use the PowerSchool Parent Portal.
Just add a little item in the store.
A little Bitcoin symbol?
Yeah.
We'll collect this through the sys that we've hacked.
(18:35):
I don't think that's going to happen.
I don't think that'll happen.
I'm going to pay my lunch dues for the week, but then I'm also going to pay the down payment
on my ransomware attack.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm going to put this in your cart.
Oh, my goodness.
It's Calcutta plans.
Wow.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for the good news, Mark.
Maybe...
(18:56):
I don't...
I find it interesting.
And we've seen this before.
That threat of releasing that very highly sensitive student data became a trend, what?
Five years ago with a couple districts in Colorado.
I think this is probably the next logical progression of going after parents.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(19:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay.
Well, and that's them thinking that they're going to get a lot of $60.
(19:42):
Sure.
Right.
Which means they think they're going to have a lot of student data.
Right.
This isn't just a one shot.
All I'm getting is $120 for something.
They think they're going to hit it big.
That means they think they're going to do a great job of stealing the data.
I mean, you figure a large district in St. Louis is what, 14,000 students?
Do the math.
(20:03):
Pretty good money.
Yeah.
It's not honest money, but it's good money.
Well, I mean, we could just take the whole like staff recruitment morale conversation
and like, hey, this is good money ransoming.
Maybe the three of us should go into a different business here.
Yeah.
What do three disgruntled tech guys do?
Well, so I was actually just reading an article.
(20:28):
I was just reading an article that said one of the largest threats right now is disgruntled
employees.
So?
My hacker name is Jojo.
Jojo.
We'll talk about that later.
Yes.
Yes.
Good point.
Yes.
We should probably, Chris, do you have another advertiser you want to hit real quick?
(20:50):
Yes.
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(21:10):
So check out meter.
Okay.
So we did a little pre-work here in a pre-interview, Mark, do you want to introduce this since
you set it up?
Sure.
So a couple of weeks ago there was an article out of NBC news that came out around Google's
business practices and whether or not they're trying to create a pipeline of customers.
(21:30):
The article was written by Tyler Kincaid, which we're going to bring him onto the show
in a few minutes.
But we wanted to first start by giving you an overview of this article, talk about our
perspective on it before we turn it over to Tyler from NBC news.
So this came out of the lawsuits that are going on right now against all the social
media companies around their addictive natures with students and some of the challenges and
(21:52):
hardships that they're causing our youth.
In some of the documents that were released as part of the court case, there were some
slide decks and some documents that showed two things.
First is that Google views Google for education as a pipeline for future customers, meaning
their work in K-12 allows students to be well-versed in Google tools and then will become customers
(22:17):
down the road.
The second part of this article is around YouTube and how it is problematic in schools
and some internal documents debating whether or not this is a strategy or something to
manage from the perspective of Google.
So let's start with the first topic, which is just Google's work in K-12 and whether
(22:38):
or not this is a, and I'm not, the article quote says the pipeline for future customers.
So Josh, Chris, I've talked to a number of people in K-12 about this one.
Everybody within K-12 has said, well, obviously we're using Google products and Microsoft
products and Apple products, knowing full well that these things are lower in price
(23:03):
so that the kids will become future customers when they graduate.
The article itself kind of talks about the court documents in terms of this being a revolution
or a revelation, which I think a lot of people out there did not know that.
But at least everybody I've talked to in K-12 didn't really have much of a response to this
(23:27):
one and said, yeah, we've known this all along.
Chris, Josh, your perspective on this particular issue.
I don't know that I really, that if it really resonates with me because I, the way I see
this is the vast majority of my student population has iPhones and we push student devices as
(23:51):
being Chromebooks and we're in the Google workspace ecosystem.
I don't, personally, I don't feel like the fact that the school district has that functionality,
I don't feel like that predisposes my kids upon graduation to opening up a Gmail account
(24:12):
and then end up paying for storage in Google Drive in their personal account.
To me, I don't see that as a direct correlation.
I know this is probably a little bit further conversation, the whole YouTube conversation,
and I think I even said it during the interview with Tyler, was name a bigger video hosting
(24:37):
source besides YouTube.
I mean, yes, there is Vimeo and there are other tools out there, but to me, if you say
you're going to go watch a video online or stream a video online, it's likely coming
from YouTube.
And that's not because the schools have YouTube available to them in school.
(25:00):
That's because YouTube is just ubiquitous.
It's everywhere.
It's on every iPhone.
It's on every Android device.
It's on every iPad.
It's everywhere.
It's omnipresent.
If you were a Microsoft school, you would still be using YouTube.
If you were a wacky town, all Linux box school, you would still be using YouTube.
(25:22):
Agree.
Do it yourself or new company, a K12 only OS comes out and they swear they're not going
to sell outside of K12.
YouTube's probably going to be an option of an app in their app store.
Like YouTube hits me different than the rest of this conversation.
I think there's a little bit of conversation around, you know, you are exposing the students
(25:47):
to the Google workspace ecosystem.
They are comfortable with docs, the slides, sheets.
Okay.
There's some comfort there, but again, I don't, I don't know.
I don't, I don't know that I really buy that, that they're, that they're banking on that
being a revenue stream post-graduation because there are other options.
(26:09):
Our Google is free until you hit a certain storage limit.
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know that I'm bought into that idea.
Every consumer account, even if you're using the free version, is a revenue generating
source because of advertising.
I think though, when I looked in the documents themselves and there was a whole lot redacted.
(26:30):
So we honestly don't know the intent.
We don't know what was redacted.
We don't know what, if these slide decks were even put together by an intern or by
a high level executive at Google.
But you know, one thing that you do see in these documents is, hey, there is, there is
evidence that when a student uses a Google account in school, they do open up a personal
Google account later on, but the hardware is a different subject and they're still seeing
(26:53):
evidence.
Now, this was a few years ago.
I don't know if this has changed, but students are not by and large buying a Chromebook when
they leave high school.
Yeah.
I think we're teaching kids to not like Chromebooks.
I was going to say, I think there's an interesting thing here that we are actually teaching students
to that, that the Chromebook is strictly a school device and not a personal device.
(27:16):
And that there are some documents within Google stuff.
Anyways, fascinating conversation, fascinating issue.
It's something we've heard about or we've expected from Google and from Microsoft and
Apple.
I think now we're expecting this from these AI companies, open AI, getting into K-12.
I think everybody understands that the purpose of going into K-12 is not 100% philanthropic,
(27:39):
that there is a desire to create future customers.
But as I'm thinking about all of this, it snowballs and you get into, well, what happens
when sports teams come in and start wanting to do free events and free giveaways for students
in schools?
We know full well that they're doing that so that the kids will become future fans or
(28:01):
current and future fans of those sports teams.
So it's a really tricky dilemma, as Tyler will talk about.
Google's scale is bigger though.
We talked about this when we were bantering about it earlier in the week.
Previous school district I was at, they had Fred Bird, a St. Louis Cardinal.
He comes in and he dances for the kids at the elementary school.
(28:25):
I think there's some kind of bit about don't do drugs or whatever.
Does the Cardinals organization not want kids to do drugs?
Yes.
I don't question that.
But did they come to the elementary school to hype up the St. Louis Cardinals organization
so that kids like baseball and kids go to Cardinals games?
Yes.
But it doesn't mean we kick out the Cardinals and don't let them come into the school because
(28:47):
they're trying to instill some fans.
That's what some of that banter is about.
Do we just want tech companies to swear they will only do school stuff and they will not
try to make any money outside of school?
Is that what we want?
It's not reasonable.
(29:08):
It's not reasonable.
Well, and as Tyler talks about, and as you'll see in this interview in a few minutes, it's
different for Google because they are significantly larger and more prominent within K-12.
I think that is the underlying conversation, as you're about to hear, is that it's, yes,
this is ubiquitous.
This is important for us to understand, but at the same time, some companies get to a
(29:29):
point where you're too big to fail.
That's the concern right now with some folks with Google.
I was just going to say, here you go, interview with Tyler Kincaid from NBC News.
All right, we're here with Tyler Kincaid.
Tyler wrote an article about Google's influence on K-12 education and some of the underlying
(29:50):
motivations that people are hearing.
Tyler, welcome to the podcast.
Hey, guys.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
I'm Tyler Kincaid.
I'm a national reporter at NBC News.
I've covered education off and on throughout my career for the past 15 years in some form
or another.
(30:11):
Lately, I've been diving a bit more into the technology in schools.
This was something that came out of recent court filings in the ongoing social media
addiction lawsuits.
Those are massive.
A lot of them going to trial will predominantly talk about the addictive nature of social
(30:32):
media platforms with children.
As far as this, what was unearthed is these internal slides that show, within Google,
for the past decade or so, they had been talking about reasons that they'd want their products
and their platforms, including YouTube, in K-12 schools.
(30:55):
Part of that is to, in the words on these slide decks, to, quote, build a pipeline of
users, and that if you get them early, you have them for life.
Even if students go on and buy iPhones, they will still use Google products, is what one
slide denoted.
(31:15):
At the same time, they were also considering research that showed some of the addictive
nature of YouTube and how people blame YouTube, in particular, for some of their problems.
It all kind of ties together because what the documents show is they were trying to
work through, there is a demand for Google and YouTube in schools.
(31:37):
We want to be in schools for future customers.
How do they make that all make sense?
Google wasn't really open to us explaining the full context of each of these slide decks.
It does show this was on their radar.
A lot of people took from this as confirming a suspicion that they had that Google wants
(32:02):
to be present in schools to make future customers.
That is, I guess, what do you do with that?
That's for podcasts like this to discuss.
Just first question here, and not necessarily a pushback, but just an observation of YouTube,
(32:24):
to me, seems to be the ever omnipresent streaming platform on the web.
Yeah, there's Vimeo and Rumble and other services out there, but when people think of a video
platform, YouTube is what comes to the top of the list.
(32:46):
I don't necessarily see that because of use in schools.
It strikes me as interesting that that's what the slide deck was pointing to, or am
I misunderstanding that, Tyler?
With YouTube, it's something that cuts both ways.
It is something that everyone knows.
(33:08):
It's a consumer product.
It's a mass audience product.
It is not designed specifically for educators.
Agreed, completely, yes, completely agree there.
There's some talk in the documents about how to maybe tweak things so that it can be
embedded or used if YouTube is blocked.
(33:29):
Can it be used by an educator in a presentation within Google Workspace or something else
where they just pick the one video?
I think that's the eternal problem that is reflected in these documents, is because YouTube
has so much out there and they debated how much effort should we put into making basically
(33:51):
a new platform or getting close to it, at least from what I read.
That's costly.
That's a lot of work too.
Google insisted they were just responding to demand from educators, that there are good
videos out there, but then they would also test it.
You look at linear equations and within four videos, the algorithm is pushing Will Ferrell
(34:16):
hilarious speech.
That's the problem that I'm hearing from a lot of parents that are questioning what's
going on with Google and YouTube in schools.
It's not so much that there's nothing on there that's redeemable, but it's so easy to lead
you into a rabbit hole of a bunch of nonsense that's fun.
(34:38):
Yeah, and I would agree completely with those statements.
However, and this is just from my perspective, being a practitioner in my district and we
did make the decision, I think it was last spring, Google put out the updated terms of
service for their additional services and YouTube is considered one of those non-core
(35:03):
additional services and it was deemed 18 years and older unless you had parent consent.
So we actually turned it off.
We turned off the YouTube app for a number of our students and the fear was that they
wouldn't be able to get to those content, those applicable videos, like you said, linear
(35:24):
equations or whatever.
But we found there are way more distracting videos than there are valid videos.
Music videos, game walkthroughs, even live gaming videos.
And that's something we still struggle with at the grade levels that we have the YouTube
app turned on as a way to try and filter out that stuff.
(35:48):
But yeah, no, I agree with most of those points, but I think there are workarounds to kind
of protect the kids if you want to take those steps.
Do you feel that in the documents there's a concerted effort by Google to push YouTube
into schools or is it more of a, hey, this horse is out of the cage and we've got to
somehow wrangle this one in and give schools controls to manage this thing?
(36:11):
It's hard for me to tell because this is not every presentation that they ever gave internally.
And so at what point does it, you know, is it emanating from Google saying, let's design
it so that it's attractive to educators versus educators saying, you know, this is useful
and them saying, oh, well, let's make it better for you.
(36:33):
Because there is some talk in the documents about how it makes sense to also help their
partners and their content creators, that there are content creators making stuff targeted
for educators or for use in schools.
And they would like to help them, which again, makes sense from a business standpoint.
I mean, some of this is just like a business being a business.
(36:53):
But like YouTube insisted to me, or they're, you know, the Google comms people I talked
to that like they're responding to demand.
And I think like that is also sort of natural because YouTube is such a dominant player.
Again, you were mentioning, you know, the other things that are out there that are distracting,
Josh, but like the, I mean, I'm based here in LA and so just by osmosis, I get a lot
(37:17):
of, you know, talk from the Hollywood industry and, you know, YouTube is increasingly just
becoming TV.
And so it's like, it's one of those things where like, it works well, you can kind of
integrate it with what you might use on your own later and what's on your phone.
And I think like, that's one of the difficulties is it's not a closed system.
(37:39):
So it's not like in my day, as a, you know, elder millennial that like, it was the teacher
really, you know, rolling out the cart with the TV on it.
And that's one thing you're going to watch and then you're done and then you walk away
from it.
Even when I, as a kid and YouTube came out in 05, I graduated high school in 06.
(38:00):
In high school, we did look up silly videos when we were done in class.
And some schools permit that for students on their Chromebooks.
But then the bell rings and you leave.
The video, the computer doesn't follow with you to the hallway, to the lunchroom, whatever
it is.
And that's part of the thing here that's getting this kind of tied up with the larger conversation
(38:22):
around social media addiction is you might start with like, good intent of getting the
news on, you know, Blue Sky, Twitter, whatever your choice is, but then inevitably something
else pops up in the feed.
And I think like, that's one thing that they're really struggling with how to work and how
much to invest on something, again, that's meant for a mass audience, not specifically
(38:45):
for educators.
Well, you buried the funniest part of your article, which was that YouTube recommendation
of Will Ferrell hilarious acceptance speech was actually from user Cock and Balls123.
That is true.
And I somehow got past my copy editors.
So you know, and standards and legal.
(39:05):
But yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things that sort of illustrates the hilarity
of it in a way, but it was also I can understand, I don't even know what the algorithm would
have been doing on the back end to suggest that but it was a speech he gave, I believe
at like a commencement address or something of that nature.
So you can also understand how it doesn't even have to be searching for something in
(39:28):
your history or whatever, that like leads you into like something, quote, unquote, naughty,
or whatever.
But like, the stuff is going to pick up, you know, college, university, students is going
to be picked up in the transcript, and then it's going to think that might be related
and overlook that there's, you know, again, a naughty word in the user handle.
(39:50):
Well, and they have YouTube restricted mode, it doesn't help a whole lot to prevent those
trash videos or the non sequitur Will Ferrell commencement address videos from from sneaking
in the feed either.
That is, from our from my perspective, anyway, a very big frustration.
Well, if I could jump off of that, because you also mentioned like some of the ways that
(40:14):
you could embed it and try to like hide it from like the larger YouTube library I've
heard just since this story ran just in the past couple days of reporting for my my next
story, talking to people mentioning how there's ways that within Google Slides, like you embed
something and students can figure out how to, you know, with a few clicks, get access
(40:35):
within slides to search the rest of the YouTube library.
And again, like, I'd have to dive in deeper to see what the larger universe of that particular,
you know, Wi-Fi network or, or Chromebook in particular, whatever they have to understand
how that's happening.
But it just kind of goes to show that, like, even with filtering, and again, Google emphasize,
(40:59):
like, you know, administrators are in control of, you know, whether we're there to begin
with and all this other stuff.
What I also hear a lot from parents and from some teachers is, you know, students are clever
and they're going to find ways around it.
Yeah, 90%.
Well, I shouldn't say 90%, I'll say 50% of my day for the last three weeks has been addressing
(41:21):
issues of kids attempting to get around filter rules and device rules and stuff like that.
So yeah, where there's a will, there's a way with any of that.
Let's talk about the pipeline of future users comment.
And this idea that, you know, Google's intention within K-12 education is to create a pipeline
of future customers.
(41:42):
What's been some of the reaction from the community around that?
And, you know, is, is this a concern that we should be taking to other technology providers
as well?
Yeah.
And I mean, that's the history, right?
It's like, it is, there have been different players that are dominant in different decades.
It's just currently right now, it's Google, it's Chromebooks, it is, you know, and that
(42:04):
is, at least at the moment feels pretty stable, although I hear a lot about lower grades using
iPads.
This also makes sense to me about why people kind of gravitate towards it.
I mean, even me personally, like I would prefer to use Google Docs to take notes and write
article drafts than, than other programs, I'll say, I don't want to bash anyone, but
(42:29):
like it is, like they work, they're easy.
And I think it's so ubiquitous in our world, for better or worse, that that is one of the
appeals for why I think people like to gravitate towards it already.
So in a way they want future users, but because they already have so many users, it kind of
reinforces people say, let's just do that because people don't like to learn new systems.
(42:52):
I mean, even again, like I'll just internally here at NBC, like when we are told you need
to switch from this platform to that platform for whatever it might be, audio transcriptions,
notes, file sharing.
The future users is something that like it's reinforced by already having so many users.
And I think the fact that they want that, I think that's something that is probably
(43:17):
worth considering.
I'm not a school administrator and I don't want to tell anyone how to do their job, but
I do hear from a lot of parents who say that's what they've suspected.
And they feel like that's the only reason why schools are on Google workspace for education
or other Google platforms, or even just using Chromebooks.
(43:38):
And maybe it's not all built around Google, but like there's a suspicion among some parents
out there that like, this is all just a big tech company trying to make money.
And I think it's worth at least considering what are the trade-offs.
Well and that's, you know, that idea of, hey, this is a big conspiracy behind the scenes
(43:59):
versus no, this is actually by design because it is ingrained in K-12 that we have to prepare
kids for life after college.
And knowing that the industry, that the working industry is using Google Docs, is using Microsoft
Office, it is in our best interest to make sure that our kids are prepared for that.
And so I think there's this push pull with how do we balance the capitalistic needs of
(44:22):
companies to make sure that their products become, you know, their consumers become customers
versus us preparing kids for the working world, for college and career.
And I think that's where schools are kind of stuck with saying, I get it.
I'm concerned, but at the same time, don't I have a duty to make sure that kids are ready
to work at NBC and to be able to write in a Google Doc and to be a professional writer.
(44:47):
So that's, I think that's the challenge that a lot of folks within K-12 have come out from
your article is saying, well, I don't know how to respond.
I don't know what that balance is.
Yeah.
Well, I like to go off of that, like an education professor I was just talking to before joining
you guys is, you know, these are also really easy to understand products though.
(45:08):
Like no, people will take years to master Excel, but that doesn't tend to happen the
same way with Google Sheets.
And that's a compliment to Google for designing something that's pretty intuitive, but it
also sort of, there's a lot of people who criticize that and say, see, that's why you
don't need to train them early.
Like there's no reason a kid needs to learn in sixth grade how to manipulate every Google
(45:32):
product if the plan is for what they do when they get out into the working world.
If that were the case, I mean, you know, like it's sort of the difference.
Like I think like Pro Tools is an audio, it's a sophisticated audio editing app.
Like that is something that people will take years to master sometimes.
That I can understand, but that's not going to be like, you know, all day, every day.
(45:56):
And so that is also some of the pushback I hear from some people saying, you just don't
need to go that far with all of these products.
Yeah.
I would agree.
And I, you know, the, your point about the parents having the concern about is Google
doing this to try and hook future users in.
I had a, an assistant superintendent who is gone now that when Google was free before
(46:21):
they had the tiered layers of licensing for, for schools, he, he even then was a super
big naysayer of, it's not going to be free.
Like this is a hook they're going to get us and then they're going to charge us for something
that we have to have and it's going to be expensive.
And early on, yes, everything was free.
And then now over the last probably 10 years, we've seen that licensing structure change.
(46:44):
And then most recently that significant pricing increase in structure change.
You know, whether, you know, Google will come out and say that, you know, we're not, we're
not making money off of any of this.
It's a cost recovery effort.
You know, they can say that maybe it's true, maybe it's not.
I think early on so many schools adopted Chromebooks because they were the cheaper alternative
(47:06):
to the iPad at the time.
You know, at the time, shoot, I think I was paying $220 a Chromebook where an iPad was
costing me $400.
Yeah.
When I've got to buy a thousand of these devices for a building, yeah, I'm going to go the
cheaper route.
And then at the same, at the same time, the driver for that decision was our state assessment
(47:27):
that we have to take in the spring was moving from paper to electronic version.
So we had to do something.
We had to be able to test 3,500 kids or at that time, probably 2,800 kids within a span
of two weeks.
And unless we had enough devices to go around and make sure those assessments were taken
during that two week testing period, we would have been in trouble.
(47:52):
So there were, there were outside forces driving some of those decisions.
And now it may not be the most economical way.
I think it would be a tighter race between the cost of Chromebooks, especially with the
cost of memory and processors going up.
But man, that would be a heavy lift to change that all, you know, your entire compute infrastructure
(48:15):
for students over cost on a whim year over year.
So I think there's some, there's some external forces there driving that too.
Well, in like the testing is a good example of one of the things I hear a lot from parents
who are critical of how much technology is used in classes.
(48:36):
They're not opposed to it if it makes sense.
Like they don't, I don't encounter many parents even who are, you know, writing letters or
speaking at school board meetings about this stuff who are like, get all computers out.
You know, they would, they would send their kid off to like some, you know, learn in a
hut if they were really committed to it.
But they, they're, they're like, no, I get it.
(48:56):
I'm not a Luddite.
Like, why do they have to, why does a test have to be taken digitally?
Can it be taken on paper?
If so, why don't we do that?
If it's reading a book or an article, there's a lot of research about how there's better
reading comprehension when it's on paper.
So that's the kind of stuff I hear a lot about that, you know, parents, like that's kind
(49:18):
of the core of their concern.
It's not so much that they're just marching against Google, but then that this is their
suspicion when they don't understand why things are done on screens.
This kind of stuff is what they point to and say, see, this is all conspiracy.
This is, this isn't about making my kid do better in school.
(49:42):
I think, you know, we're, we're still five, six years, we're actually in the sixth year
anniversary of COVID this month.
And I think we're all just trying to reel back from this overindulgence of technology
and, and find balance.
I don't think there's anybody in education who would say that we need more technology.
I think we have reached that point where we've realized that there is too much and we do
(50:04):
need to pull back and touch grass a little bit.
But I think we're all just trying to find our way through this ugly forest of both productive
and disruptive technologies in K-12.
So thank you so much for your article and, and hopefully you'll, you'll be able to continue
to write about this topic in, in the years and months to come.
(50:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm, I'm very interested in it and people want to get in touch, please do so, but I'm
glad to hang out with you guys for a little bit.
Thank you.
All right.
Thanks guys.
Hey, we are hitting the road for the next few months and I want to give some information
about that.
And that is thanks to you that listen as well as thanks to our sponsors.
(50:46):
Next week, we're going to do an interview with Rise Vision.
So check out risevision.com.
Thanks to NTP.
You can email davidwrenn at dwrenn at ntp-inc.com for your sock, for your antivirus, your email
monitoring, all that good stuff.
Fortinet, a proud sponsor of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
You can email fortinetpodcast at fortinet.com.
(51:07):
And last but not least, Lightspeed, lightspeedsystems.com for your content filter.
Their signal product is awesome and more.
So the events coming up, Mark is going to be in Calais at the Calais Conference in Colorado.
That's February 18th through the 20th.
We're going to do the K-12 Tech Pro Next conference on February 20th.
(51:27):
And then February 24th through the 26th is the K-12 Six Conference.
That's all the podcast will be there in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
So check out those events.
We'll put links to those things in the podcast description.
See you next time.
(51:50):
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions
of Josh, Chris, and Mark, and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other
organizations that we're affiliated with.
The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment
purposes only.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, we interview Tyler Kincaid with NBC
(00:07):
News about his recent look at Google's role in education and the tricky positioning of
YouTube in the learning experience.
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 249.
(00:27):
We are all back to school.
My name is Josh.
Here in mid-Missouri, the snow is finally melting, so Chris was able to go back to school
this week.
Hello, Chris.
What's up, man?
Oh, yeah, that's right.
You're back?
Went back Monday.
Wow.
Did you go back Monday?
I couldn't remember if you went back Monday or Tuesday.
Whole week.
Getting ready to do a whole week.
Whoa.
(00:47):
Are you tired?
Actually, I'm taking off tomorrow.
Now that you're saying that, I'm off tomorrow.
That's awesome.
It was too much.
Four days, man.
And we have Mark over on the East Coast.
Hey, Mark.
Hey.
And he makes fun of us because he gets 21 inches of snow in 48 hours, and he walks his
(01:10):
dog the next morning, so he's used to that stuff.
What have you guys been up to?
Anything?
Chris, you're catching mice and having water leaks.
Mark, we really don't have any crisis stories from you.
I'll tell you what I've been up to.
I'm getting ready.
What are you getting ready for?
I'm getting ready for the biggest sporting event of the year.
What is that?
Oh, that's right.
The Patriots are playing.
(01:30):
No, no, no, no, no.
So much better.
Oh.
Oh, the Olympics.
Yes.
What is your, uh, what is your...
My name is Kid.
Oh.
Oh, give me a break.
Mark, what is your sport of choice with the Olympics?
(01:53):
I'm going to go snowboard cross.
Really?
Yeah.
Our neighbor, when I lived in Maine, our neighbor was the first gold medalist in snowboard cross,
so that's been our sport ever since.
No kidding.
Snowboard cross.
It is when basically you have like four or five snowboarders racing down the mountain
all at the same time, and they're racing each other, and they're going around curves and
(02:15):
over jumps and stuff.
Yeah, pretty intense too, right?
Like, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Curling is my sport.
Have I told you guys my curling story?
No, but I know that you've talked about it because I knew that you were going to say
that.
Curling is like one of those sports that...
I feel like, to be honest, it was multiple stories.
No, it was only, I only went to curling once.
(02:35):
It was like, that is a pure beer drinking sport.
I went to a try curling event in St. Louis.
You know, the curling club in St. Louis had a, you know, come try out curling thing.
You tried out?
It was, it's way harder than it looks, number one.
Like, way harder than it looks.
Two, it is a blast.
(02:56):
It is like, it is a blast to do.
If you're, if the town that you live in or major town has a curling club and they have
a come try event, do it.
It is super, super fun.
Super fun.
Mark, you would be, your limber is all get out.
You would be great at curling, Mark.
I'm going to, I will give it a shot.
(03:18):
It is, it's a blast.
It is a lot of fun.
Chris, what is your favorite Olympic sport in the winter?
Um, I don't know.
I used to play cool borders on PlayStation.
That's snowboarding, right?
So, I'd probably say snowboarding.
I was going to take you as an ice dancing guy.
Uh, you know, probably not.
(03:40):
Uh, I'd probably go for the snowboarding.
Huh.
Which, which snowboarding?
Because there are.
Yeah, I didn't know.
I didn't know.
Yeah, clearly, Mark.
Yes.
I don't know.
I don't really think I'm into the winter Olympics.
What?
Like, what else is there?
Snowboarding and curling, that's it?
Snowboarding, curling, ice dancing.
(04:01):
Well, there's a new sport this year.
Have you seen the new one?
Hockey.
What's the new one?
I could go for some hockey.
Uh, what's it called?
Snowmo?
I feel like you're making this up.
No, no, no.
It's, it's, it's uphill skiing.
So there's like four phases and they first have to, they put these like treads on their
skis and they have to go up the hill and then they got to take the skis off and then walk
(04:23):
up even steeper parts of the hill and then they ski down.
Huh.
It's intense.
Yeah.
Downhill skiing, slalom, moguls, ski jump, winter, winter Olympics is fun.
We were talking about it at dinner tonight.
It's 17 days.
Opening ceremonies are this Friday.
Some events are right here.
I'm going to go hockey, by the way.
(04:43):
Hockey, hockey would be awesome.
We just heard you Googling sports in the Olympics and then you picked that up.
I was trying to figure out my bit.
So to our international listeners, no offense, but we hope the USA comes away with the most
medals.
USA!
USA!
It'll be a, it'll be a good match, USA, Canada in the, in the hockey, uh, events.
(05:05):
We'll see what, how that turns out.
So let's, let's, uh, get into the topic of, uh, K-12 technology.
No, no, no, no.
Speaking of snow, let's talk about snow day.
So last week, uh, Mark played these great things for us to vote on, uh, these snow day
messages that school sent out.
We did a voting, uh, we pulled like American Idol bit off.
(05:28):
You emailed us your results.
You could vote more than once if you, if, if, if you wanted to, I counted every single
vote.
It took you hours.
I heard it.
Yeah.
I heard it took hours to do.
It was crazy.
So, uh, Visor, who, who is a sponsor of the podcast, the founder of Visor actually did
a vote.
That's funny.
Yeah.
That is funny.
(05:48):
Uh, and said, quote, what schools they must be to bring in that talent.
And I think he was being serious.
Um, so visor.cloud slash K-12 tech talk, but here are your results.
Are you guys ready?
Yeah.
Do it.
The winner.
Option three, code red Montgomery County public schools.
Yeah, I knew it.
(06:09):
It was a dr.
Dre parody.
Yeah.
I didn't like it.
The video quality put that one over the edge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would, I would agree.
That's it.
That's all I got.
All right.
Should we talk about K-12 technology?
Sure.
We probably should.
Our sponsors want us to, and I think our listeners, yeah, sure.
(06:29):
So jumping into K-12, K-12 technology news, Mark, I know you have spent hours curating
the, but just the best topics and news stories of the week.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
We've had a lot of bad news when it comes to funding and department of education.
We finally have some good news.
So as you know, Congress passed, please Mark, give us the good news, their preliminary budget
(06:51):
or their, their, their kind of partial budget last week.
And the department of education is basically level funded.
They are going to be staying at a funny level of about $79 billion, which is a, uh, almost
identical amount from last year.
The Trump administration had asked to cut the department of education's budget by, by
12 billion.
(07:12):
But they, Congress basically rejected that and said, look, we need more information and
more updates on this merger proposal.
And until that, until then, I'm sorry, until we hear more about what your plans are, we're
going to continue to fund the department of education at the level that it's been funded
at.
So that's very, very good news for schools.
That means that the funding that will kick in on July one will essentially be the same
(07:34):
from last year.
And I think that everybody, every superintendent and budget director can breathe a little bit
of a sigh of relief after that news.
That's a specifically idea funding and services around title funds.
Yes.
That is great news.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now that's, I mean, funding is one thing.
(07:56):
The, the democratic lawmakers did come out and say, look, this is our signal to the Trump
administration that we're not on board with cutting the department of education.
But again, right now we're just seeing a level funding.
We don't necessarily know what Congress's opinion is on the, that pulled the overall
proposal to cut the department of education though.
All right.
Next up power school released a, their annual report called ed tech pulse.
(08:20):
They did this in collaboration with project tomorrow.
So project tomorrow is more of a research, a nonprofit that really looks at the future
of K-12 and does a lot of topics around cybersecurity and ed tech.
They had, there's a whole slew of, of information and facts in the report.
I highly recommend you take a look at it.
We'll put it in the show notes, but five challenges that are facing school districts and organizations.
(08:43):
Number one across the board is teacher workload.
Every single job category, teacher, principal, administrator, district administrator identified
the teacher workload in addition to recruitment and retention of staff.
That was a very, very big issue.
We've talked about that a lot.
Chris, I know you've been going through hires in, in trying to deal with with recruitment
(09:03):
as well.
So.
Yeah, I actually had a moment today.
So we have a new technician that started this week.
He's been doing a great job, but was on our school website looking at staff and looking
at my tech department and just had a little moment in my head of, Oh, how people have
changed.
Literally people like literally names and faces.
(09:24):
And it's, it is this real thing of the retention.
It's not just people getting older and retiring.
It's people have gone on and shipped it around.
Do you hear my dog in the background?
Yeah.
Your dog has dog.
Dog.
Very.
He's worked up.
He hears me.
Yeah.
Well, what's interesting.
This report did just come out before Congress's budget was passed, but the percentage of educators
(09:48):
administrators concerned about district finances and budget management doubled since last year.
So significant, significant increase on that one.
I'm not surprised.
We've talked about this at length.
And then the other thing they do is they go into different priorities and talk about technology's
potential within district priorities.
So things that we've talked about, the number one priority for a technology to assist would
(10:10):
be student absenteeism.
So they talk about strategies around communication systems, notifications, those kinds of things.
Analysis of data, district wide data patterns and insights.
From there, they talk about AI's influence and then getting into communication with families
as well.
So a lot of circular issues, but they, this report, the called the ed pulse, excuse me,
(10:36):
the ed tech pulse really kind of dives into what are the major categories and streams
of information within K-12 and where can the ed tech and a greater technology leadership
team come into play to help these things out.
One thing I thought was interesting, was completely missing from this report was any
mention of cybersecurity.
(11:00):
So I will let you read between the lines on that one.
I just found it interesting because the last year's report, the ed tech pulse from power
school mentioned cybersecurity multiple times as a priority.
Now for it to be completely removed from this report, got me thinking, I wonder if there
was a need to kind of remove the word cybersecurity from power school.
(11:23):
So disappointed, but I'll say.
From the recruitment and retention standpoint, we're in that phase of interviewing for open
positions that we have, you know, due to retirements or people leaving.
A couple of years ago, it was not uncommon for us to have 200 applicants for an elementary
(11:44):
application or an elementary position, you know, third grade teacher or whatever.
We're going through that process now and they're seeing about 30 applicants per position.
And that that is a dramatic difference of applicant pool for us.
When we're used to seeing a couple hundred weeding through a couple hundred applicants
(12:07):
and now we're weeding through 30 applicants.
So you're telling me I got a chance.
Yeah, exactly.
So, you know, it's we were having a conversation today around what's, you know, universities
still have education programs.
Universities are still graduating students with education degrees and education certificates.
Where where are those students going post-graduation?
(12:30):
Are they are they choosing not to enter public ed or are they going to private ed or are
they going where?
And a trend that I have seen from a number of our educators that that either have retired
from education or just left education.
There is a trend of going to a real world, for lack of a better term, corporate training
(12:52):
services.
And I real business or business world has caught on to this resource of teachers being
really, really good trainers.
Makes sense, right?
So them kind of poaching teach classroom teachers to be corporate trainers and training on applications
(13:12):
or internal education departments for businesses is a real trend.
So I wonder if that's where we're losing a good number of of qualified teachers do now.
Yeah, I've talked about we talk about John every once while maintenance guy, facilities
guy.
And John and I have banter about classified staff quite a bit.
(13:34):
Sure.
And I think it absolutely applies just all across the board in public schools.
In our area, it's not just I'm not talking about my school district, just in our area
and in a lot of areas like if you look at what a custodian makes and compare that to
what the nice lady at Dairy Queen makes, it's comparable and it shouldn't be comparable.
(14:00):
And why can't we keep custodians in place at a school?
It's because they can go work at the restaurant down the road.
It's the corporate restaurant and make better money or the same money.
And man, that's a shame and get ice cream and get free ice cream.
But that that goes all the way up to the teacher and even to the principal and even the superintendent.
(14:23):
These people that absolutely went to college and they got degrees and they want to make
good money, but they had a passion for students and learning and all this good stuff.
Well, the passion's getting burnt out because how society works is you do work and you get
paid.
And if the pay is not there, if the funding from the federal level, the state level is
not there, people are going to leave.
They're going to go to the business sector.
(14:44):
And it's just a bummer because public school, I mean, all three of us would say this, like
we want to help kids learn and succeed in life.
There's great passion in that, but you got to have you have to be able to make a living.
That's my rant.
No, I completely agree.
And I, Chris, we've seen the same trend with districts that have lost I.T. leadership.
(15:11):
You know, they the schools can't either either can't afford to recruit I.T.
leader, qualified I.T. leadership or I yeah, I don't know, find find it easier to hire
a consulting firm to do it and end up paying more in the long run.
I don't I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is.
(15:31):
Well, with all these prices going up, our next article talks about one of the prices
that is going down, and that is the price of ransomware attacks.
Oh, yeah.
More good news from Mark.
Sorry.
There is Josh, you shared this one.
This is an article out of Belgium, actually.
There is a school that was hit with a cyber attack for only about 15000 euros, which is,
(15:56):
you know, 18000 or so dollars, US dollars.
And the school said, no, we're not going to pay that ransom.
And so the attackers shifted and now they are ransoming parents and saying, hey, you
should pressure your child's school into paying this ransom.
Or you can just pay us 50 euros and we'll take your child's data out of the whole mix.
(16:18):
So kind of a like rather than go for the whole big shebang and getting one school to pay,
why not see if I can get a whole bunch of parents pay 50 bucks or 50 euros in this case?
So, interesting case.
I'm curious to see if this happens more.
I'll pose the question.
Would you pay it 50 bucks to not have your kid's IEP released or your kid's discipline
(16:43):
data released?
I am struggling with that because it's one thing to think about how this would, you know,
how I would react.
I can't say this is how other people would.
I do the lifelock stuff.
I do all the, you know, data breach notification stuff and the volume of breach notifications
that I get, it's kind of like, I'm almost to the point where I just say, yeah, I get
(17:05):
it.
You've got my data.
It's out there.
I'm going to do everything I can to protect my social security number, my credit, all
that kind of stuff.
I just think that for me, it's too late.
The data is already out there.
Sure, sure.
But I'm not saying that that's the right approach.
I understand what you're saying.
I think a kid, depending on what data they're threatening to release, that's a different
(17:29):
conversation.
Yes, totally.
Totally.
And I feel like that 50 euros is what, $60 U.S.?
That's a relatively low threshold.
If it prevents a deep, dark secret of a discipline referral getting out that you don't want getting
out, not saying that's a good business model, but...
(17:53):
This is a great business.
Because they've established, they have this reputation that they're going to follow through,
right?
So they're going to collect 50 bucks.
They're legit not going to show the IEP.
They're just trying to find that sweet spot in the price.
This is insanity.
Yes.
The problem, though, is how do they collect the money from parents?
(18:15):
Well, you got to open up a Bitcoin wallet and...
Right.
No, you can do the...
It just...
Call the IT department.
Call the IT department.
They'll help you.
You can use the PowerSchool Parent Portal.
Just add a little item in the store.
A little Bitcoin symbol?
Yeah.
We'll collect this through the sys that we've hacked.
(18:35):
I don't think that's going to happen.
I don't think that'll happen.
I'm going to pay my lunch dues for the week, but then I'm also going to pay the down payment
on my ransomware attack.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm going to put this in your cart.
Oh, my goodness.
It's Calcutta plans.
Wow.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for the good news, Mark.
Maybe...
(18:56):
I don't...
I find it interesting.
And we've seen this before.
That threat of releasing that very highly sensitive student data became a trend, what?
Five years ago with a couple districts in Colorado.
I think this is probably the next logical progression of going after parents.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(19:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay.
Well, and that's them thinking that they're going to get a lot of $60.
(19:42):
Sure.
Right.
Which means they think they're going to have a lot of student data.
Right.
This isn't just a one shot.
All I'm getting is $120 for something.
They think they're going to hit it big.
That means they think they're going to do a great job of stealing the data.
I mean, you figure a large district in St. Louis is what, 14,000 students?
Do the math.
(20:03):
Pretty good money.
Yeah.
It's not honest money, but it's good money.
Well, I mean, we could just take the whole like staff recruitment morale conversation
and like, hey, this is good money ransoming.
Maybe the three of us should go into a different business here.
Yeah.
What do three disgruntled tech guys do?
Well, so I was actually just reading an article.
(20:28):
I was just reading an article that said one of the largest threats right now is disgruntled
employees.
So?
My hacker name is Jojo.
Jojo.
We'll talk about that later.
Yes.
Yes.
Good point.
Yes.
We should probably, Chris, do you have another advertiser you want to hit real quick?
(20:50):
Yes.
Check out meter.
Meter.com slash K-12 tech talk.
Meter.com slash K-12 tech talk.
Visit that website.
You can book a demo with them.
They will do your network infrastructure.
They are for you for the school.
They are a, they'll do your full stack.
So your internet, your wired, your wifi, your cellular.
You can think of them as kind of like subscription based networking.
(21:10):
So check out meter.
Okay.
So we did a little pre-work here in a pre-interview, Mark, do you want to introduce this since
you set it up?
Sure.
So a couple of weeks ago there was an article out of NBC news that came out around Google's
business practices and whether or not they're trying to create a pipeline of customers.
(21:30):
The article was written by Tyler Kincaid, which we're going to bring him onto the show
in a few minutes.
But we wanted to first start by giving you an overview of this article, talk about our
perspective on it before we turn it over to Tyler from NBC news.
So this came out of the lawsuits that are going on right now against all the social
media companies around their addictive natures with students and some of the challenges and
(21:52):
hardships that they're causing our youth.
In some of the documents that were released as part of the court case, there were some
slide decks and some documents that showed two things.
First is that Google views Google for education as a pipeline for future customers, meaning
their work in K-12 allows students to be well-versed in Google tools and then will become customers
(22:17):
down the road.
The second part of this article is around YouTube and how it is problematic in schools
and some internal documents debating whether or not this is a strategy or something to
manage from the perspective of Google.
So let's start with the first topic, which is just Google's work in K-12 and whether
(22:38):
or not this is a, and I'm not, the article quote says the pipeline for future customers.
So Josh, Chris, I've talked to a number of people in K-12 about this one.
Everybody within K-12 has said, well, obviously we're using Google products and Microsoft
products and Apple products, knowing full well that these things are lower in price
(23:03):
so that the kids will become future customers when they graduate.
The article itself kind of talks about the court documents in terms of this being a revolution
or a revelation, which I think a lot of people out there did not know that.
But at least everybody I've talked to in K-12 didn't really have much of a response to this
(23:27):
one and said, yeah, we've known this all along.
Chris, Josh, your perspective on this particular issue.
I don't know that I really, that if it really resonates with me because I, the way I see
this is the vast majority of my student population has iPhones and we push student devices as
(23:51):
being Chromebooks and we're in the Google workspace ecosystem.
I don't, personally, I don't feel like the fact that the school district has that functionality,
I don't feel like that predisposes my kids upon graduation to opening up a Gmail account
(24:12):
and then end up paying for storage in Google Drive in their personal account.
To me, I don't see that as a direct correlation.
I know this is probably a little bit further conversation, the whole YouTube conversation,
and I think I even said it during the interview with Tyler, was name a bigger video hosting
(24:37):
source besides YouTube.
I mean, yes, there is Vimeo and there are other tools out there, but to me, if you say
you're going to go watch a video online or stream a video online, it's likely coming
from YouTube.
And that's not because the schools have YouTube available to them in school.
(25:00):
That's because YouTube is just ubiquitous.
It's everywhere.
It's on every iPhone.
It's on every Android device.
It's on every iPad.
It's everywhere.
It's omnipresent.
If you were a Microsoft school, you would still be using YouTube.
If you were a wacky town, all Linux box school, you would still be using YouTube.
(25:22):
Agree.
Do it yourself or new company, a K12 only OS comes out and they swear they're not going
to sell outside of K12.
YouTube's probably going to be an option of an app in their app store.
Like YouTube hits me different than the rest of this conversation.
I think there's a little bit of conversation around, you know, you are exposing the students
(25:47):
to the Google workspace ecosystem.
They are comfortable with docs, the slides, sheets.
Okay.
There's some comfort there, but again, I don't, I don't know.
I don't, I don't know that I really buy that, that they're, that they're banking on that
being a revenue stream post-graduation because there are other options.
(26:09):
Our Google is free until you hit a certain storage limit.
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know that I'm bought into that idea.
Every consumer account, even if you're using the free version, is a revenue generating
source because of advertising.
I think though, when I looked in the documents themselves and there was a whole lot redacted.
(26:30):
So we honestly don't know the intent.
We don't know what was redacted.
We don't know what, if these slide decks were even put together by an intern or by
a high level executive at Google.
But you know, one thing that you do see in these documents is, hey, there is, there is
evidence that when a student uses a Google account in school, they do open up a personal
Google account later on, but the hardware is a different subject and they're still seeing
(26:53):
evidence.
Now, this was a few years ago.
I don't know if this has changed, but students are not by and large buying a Chromebook when
they leave high school.
Yeah.
I think we're teaching kids to not like Chromebooks.
I was going to say, I think there's an interesting thing here that we are actually teaching students
to that, that the Chromebook is strictly a school device and not a personal device.
(27:16):
And that there are some documents within Google stuff.
Anyways, fascinating conversation, fascinating issue.
It's something we've heard about or we've expected from Google and from Microsoft and
Apple.
I think now we're expecting this from these AI companies, open AI, getting into K-12.
I think everybody understands that the purpose of going into K-12 is not 100% philanthropic,
(27:39):
that there is a desire to create future customers.
But as I'm thinking about all of this, it snowballs and you get into, well, what happens
when sports teams come in and start wanting to do free events and free giveaways for students
in schools?
We know full well that they're doing that so that the kids will become future fans or
(28:01):
current and future fans of those sports teams.
So it's a really tricky dilemma, as Tyler will talk about.
Google's scale is bigger though.
We talked about this when we were bantering about it earlier in the week.
Previous school district I was at, they had Fred Bird, a St. Louis Cardinal.
He comes in and he dances for the kids at the elementary school.
(28:25):
I think there's some kind of bit about don't do drugs or whatever.
Does the Cardinals organization not want kids to do drugs?
Yes.
I don't question that.
But did they come to the elementary school to hype up the St. Louis Cardinals organization
so that kids like baseball and kids go to Cardinals games?
Yes.
But it doesn't mean we kick out the Cardinals and don't let them come into the school because
(28:47):
they're trying to instill some fans.
That's what some of that banter is about.
Do we just want tech companies to swear they will only do school stuff and they will not
try to make any money outside of school?
Is that what we want?
It's not reasonable.
(29:08):
It's not reasonable.
Well, and as Tyler talks about, and as you'll see in this interview in a few minutes, it's
different for Google because they are significantly larger and more prominent within K-12.
I think that is the underlying conversation, as you're about to hear, is that it's, yes,
this is ubiquitous.
This is important for us to understand, but at the same time, some companies get to a
(29:29):
point where you're too big to fail.
That's the concern right now with some folks with Google.
I was just going to say, here you go, interview with Tyler Kincaid from NBC News.
All right, we're here with Tyler Kincaid.
Tyler wrote an article about Google's influence on K-12 education and some of the underlying
(29:50):
motivations that people are hearing.
Tyler, welcome to the podcast.
Hey, guys.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
I'm Tyler Kincaid.
I'm a national reporter at NBC News.
I've covered education off and on throughout my career for the past 15 years in some form
or another.
(30:11):
Lately, I've been diving a bit more into the technology in schools.
This was something that came out of recent court filings in the ongoing social media
addiction lawsuits.
Those are massive.
A lot of them going to trial will predominantly talk about the addictive nature of social
(30:32):
media platforms with children.
As far as this, what was unearthed is these internal slides that show, within Google,
for the past decade or so, they had been talking about reasons that they'd want their products
and their platforms, including YouTube, in K-12 schools.
(30:55):
Part of that is to, in the words on these slide decks, to, quote, build a pipeline of
users, and that if you get them early, you have them for life.
Even if students go on and buy iPhones, they will still use Google products, is what one
slide denoted.
(31:15):
At the same time, they were also considering research that showed some of the addictive
nature of YouTube and how people blame YouTube, in particular, for some of their problems.
It all kind of ties together because what the documents show is they were trying to
work through, there is a demand for Google and YouTube in schools.
(31:37):
We want to be in schools for future customers.
How do they make that all make sense?
Google wasn't really open to us explaining the full context of each of these slide decks.
It does show this was on their radar.
A lot of people took from this as confirming a suspicion that they had that Google wants
(32:02):
to be present in schools to make future customers.
That is, I guess, what do you do with that?
That's for podcasts like this to discuss.
Just first question here, and not necessarily a pushback, but just an observation of YouTube,
(32:24):
to me, seems to be the ever omnipresent streaming platform on the web.
Yeah, there's Vimeo and Rumble and other services out there, but when people think of a video
platform, YouTube is what comes to the top of the list.
(32:46):
I don't necessarily see that because of use in schools.
It strikes me as interesting that that's what the slide deck was pointing to, or am
I misunderstanding that, Tyler?
With YouTube, it's something that cuts both ways.
It is something that everyone knows.
(33:08):
It's a consumer product.
It's a mass audience product.
It is not designed specifically for educators.
Agreed, completely, yes, completely agree there.
There's some talk in the documents about how to maybe tweak things so that it can be
embedded or used if YouTube is blocked.
(33:29):
Can it be used by an educator in a presentation within Google Workspace or something else
where they just pick the one video?
I think that's the eternal problem that is reflected in these documents, is because YouTube
has so much out there and they debated how much effort should we put into making basically
(33:51):
a new platform or getting close to it, at least from what I read.
That's costly.
That's a lot of work too.
Google insisted they were just responding to demand from educators, that there are good
videos out there, but then they would also test it.
You look at linear equations and within four videos, the algorithm is pushing Will Ferrell
(34:16):
hilarious speech.
That's the problem that I'm hearing from a lot of parents that are questioning what's
going on with Google and YouTube in schools.
It's not so much that there's nothing on there that's redeemable, but it's so easy to lead
you into a rabbit hole of a bunch of nonsense that's fun.
(34:38):
Yeah, and I would agree completely with those statements.
However, and this is just from my perspective, being a practitioner in my district and we
did make the decision, I think it was last spring, Google put out the updated terms of
service for their additional services and YouTube is considered one of those non-core
(35:03):
additional services and it was deemed 18 years and older unless you had parent consent.
So we actually turned it off.
We turned off the YouTube app for a number of our students and the fear was that they
wouldn't be able to get to those content, those applicable videos, like you said, linear
(35:24):
equations or whatever.
But we found there are way more distracting videos than there are valid videos.
Music videos, game walkthroughs, even live gaming videos.
And that's something we still struggle with at the grade levels that we have the YouTube
app turned on as a way to try and filter out that stuff.
(35:48):
But yeah, no, I agree with most of those points, but I think there are workarounds to kind
of protect the kids if you want to take those steps.
Do you feel that in the documents there's a concerted effort by Google to push YouTube
into schools or is it more of a, hey, this horse is out of the cage and we've got to
somehow wrangle this one in and give schools controls to manage this thing?
(36:11):
It's hard for me to tell because this is not every presentation that they ever gave internally.
And so at what point does it, you know, is it emanating from Google saying, let's design
it so that it's attractive to educators versus educators saying, you know, this is useful
and them saying, oh, well, let's make it better for you.
(36:33):
Because there is some talk in the documents about how it makes sense to also help their
partners and their content creators, that there are content creators making stuff targeted
for educators or for use in schools.
And they would like to help them, which again, makes sense from a business standpoint.
I mean, some of this is just like a business being a business.
(36:53):
But like YouTube insisted to me, or they're, you know, the Google comms people I talked
to that like they're responding to demand.
And I think like that is also sort of natural because YouTube is such a dominant player.
Again, you were mentioning, you know, the other things that are out there that are distracting,
Josh, but like the, I mean, I'm based here in LA and so just by osmosis, I get a lot
(37:17):
of, you know, talk from the Hollywood industry and, you know, YouTube is increasingly just
becoming TV.
And so it's like, it's one of those things where like, it works well, you can kind of
integrate it with what you might use on your own later and what's on your phone.
And I think like, that's one of the difficulties is it's not a closed system.
(37:39):
So it's not like in my day, as a, you know, elder millennial that like, it was the teacher
really, you know, rolling out the cart with the TV on it.
And that's one thing you're going to watch and then you're done and then you walk away
from it.
Even when I, as a kid and YouTube came out in 05, I graduated high school in 06.
(38:00):
In high school, we did look up silly videos when we were done in class.
And some schools permit that for students on their Chromebooks.
But then the bell rings and you leave.
The video, the computer doesn't follow with you to the hallway, to the lunchroom, whatever
it is.
And that's part of the thing here that's getting this kind of tied up with the larger conversation
(38:22):
around social media addiction is you might start with like, good intent of getting the
news on, you know, Blue Sky, Twitter, whatever your choice is, but then inevitably something
else pops up in the feed.
And I think like, that's one thing that they're really struggling with how to work and how
much to invest on something, again, that's meant for a mass audience, not specifically
(38:45):
for educators.
Well, you buried the funniest part of your article, which was that YouTube recommendation
of Will Ferrell hilarious acceptance speech was actually from user Cock and Balls123.
That is true.
And I somehow got past my copy editors.
So you know, and standards and legal.
(39:05):
But yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things that sort of illustrates the hilarity
of it in a way, but it was also I can understand, I don't even know what the algorithm would
have been doing on the back end to suggest that but it was a speech he gave, I believe
at like a commencement address or something of that nature.
So you can also understand how it doesn't even have to be searching for something in
(39:28):
your history or whatever, that like leads you into like something, quote, unquote, naughty,
or whatever.
But like, the stuff is going to pick up, you know, college, university, students is going
to be picked up in the transcript, and then it's going to think that might be related
and overlook that there's, you know, again, a naughty word in the user handle.
(39:50):
Well, and they have YouTube restricted mode, it doesn't help a whole lot to prevent those
trash videos or the non sequitur Will Ferrell commencement address videos from from sneaking
in the feed either.
That is, from our from my perspective, anyway, a very big frustration.
Well, if I could jump off of that, because you also mentioned like some of the ways that
(40:14):
you could embed it and try to like hide it from like the larger YouTube library I've
heard just since this story ran just in the past couple days of reporting for my my next
story, talking to people mentioning how there's ways that within Google Slides, like you embed
something and students can figure out how to, you know, with a few clicks, get access
(40:35):
within slides to search the rest of the YouTube library.
And again, like, I'd have to dive in deeper to see what the larger universe of that particular,
you know, Wi-Fi network or, or Chromebook in particular, whatever they have to understand
how that's happening.
But it just kind of goes to show that, like, even with filtering, and again, Google emphasize,
(40:59):
like, you know, administrators are in control of, you know, whether we're there to begin
with and all this other stuff.
What I also hear a lot from parents and from some teachers is, you know, students are clever
and they're going to find ways around it.
Yeah, 90%.
Well, I shouldn't say 90%, I'll say 50% of my day for the last three weeks has been addressing
(41:21):
issues of kids attempting to get around filter rules and device rules and stuff like that.
So yeah, where there's a will, there's a way with any of that.
Let's talk about the pipeline of future users comment.
And this idea that, you know, Google's intention within K-12 education is to create a pipeline
of future customers.
(41:42):
What's been some of the reaction from the community around that?
And, you know, is, is this a concern that we should be taking to other technology providers
as well?
Yeah.
And I mean, that's the history, right?
It's like, it is, there have been different players that are dominant in different decades.
It's just currently right now, it's Google, it's Chromebooks, it is, you know, and that
(42:04):
is, at least at the moment feels pretty stable, although I hear a lot about lower grades using
iPads.
This also makes sense to me about why people kind of gravitate towards it.
I mean, even me personally, like I would prefer to use Google Docs to take notes and write
article drafts than, than other programs, I'll say, I don't want to bash anyone, but
(42:29):
like it is, like they work, they're easy.
And I think it's so ubiquitous in our world, for better or worse, that that is one of the
appeals for why I think people like to gravitate towards it already.
So in a way they want future users, but because they already have so many users, it kind of
reinforces people say, let's just do that because people don't like to learn new systems.
(42:52):
I mean, even again, like I'll just internally here at NBC, like when we are told you need
to switch from this platform to that platform for whatever it might be, audio transcriptions,
notes, file sharing.
The future users is something that like it's reinforced by already having so many users.
And I think the fact that they want that, I think that's something that is probably
(43:17):
worth considering.
I'm not a school administrator and I don't want to tell anyone how to do their job, but
I do hear from a lot of parents who say that's what they've suspected.
And they feel like that's the only reason why schools are on Google workspace for education
or other Google platforms, or even just using Chromebooks.
(43:38):
And maybe it's not all built around Google, but like there's a suspicion among some parents
out there that like, this is all just a big tech company trying to make money.
And I think it's worth at least considering what are the trade-offs.
Well and that's, you know, that idea of, hey, this is a big conspiracy behind the scenes
(43:59):
versus no, this is actually by design because it is ingrained in K-12 that we have to prepare
kids for life after college.
And knowing that the industry, that the working industry is using Google Docs, is using Microsoft
Office, it is in our best interest to make sure that our kids are prepared for that.
And so I think there's this push pull with how do we balance the capitalistic needs of
(44:22):
companies to make sure that their products become, you know, their consumers become customers
versus us preparing kids for the working world, for college and career.
And I think that's where schools are kind of stuck with saying, I get it.
I'm concerned, but at the same time, don't I have a duty to make sure that kids are ready
to work at NBC and to be able to write in a Google Doc and to be a professional writer.
(44:47):
So that's, I think that's the challenge that a lot of folks within K-12 have come out from
your article is saying, well, I don't know how to respond.
I don't know what that balance is.
Yeah.
Well, I like to go off of that, like an education professor I was just talking to before joining
you guys is, you know, these are also really easy to understand products though.
(45:08):
Like no, people will take years to master Excel, but that doesn't tend to happen the
same way with Google Sheets.
And that's a compliment to Google for designing something that's pretty intuitive, but it
also sort of, there's a lot of people who criticize that and say, see, that's why you
don't need to train them early.
Like there's no reason a kid needs to learn in sixth grade how to manipulate every Google
(45:32):
product if the plan is for what they do when they get out into the working world.
If that were the case, I mean, you know, like it's sort of the difference.
Like I think like Pro Tools is an audio, it's a sophisticated audio editing app.
Like that is something that people will take years to master sometimes.
That I can understand, but that's not going to be like, you know, all day, every day.
(45:56):
And so that is also some of the pushback I hear from some people saying, you just don't
need to go that far with all of these products.
Yeah.
I would agree.
And I, you know, the, your point about the parents having the concern about is Google
doing this to try and hook future users in.
I had a, an assistant superintendent who is gone now that when Google was free before
(46:21):
they had the tiered layers of licensing for, for schools, he, he even then was a super
big naysayer of, it's not going to be free.
Like this is a hook they're going to get us and then they're going to charge us for something
that we have to have and it's going to be expensive.
And early on, yes, everything was free.
And then now over the last probably 10 years, we've seen that licensing structure change.
(46:44):
And then most recently that significant pricing increase in structure change.
You know, whether, you know, Google will come out and say that, you know, we're not, we're
not making money off of any of this.
It's a cost recovery effort.
You know, they can say that maybe it's true, maybe it's not.
I think early on so many schools adopted Chromebooks because they were the cheaper alternative
(47:06):
to the iPad at the time.
You know, at the time, shoot, I think I was paying $220 a Chromebook where an iPad was
costing me $400.
Yeah.
When I've got to buy a thousand of these devices for a building, yeah, I'm going to go the
cheaper route.
And then at the same, at the same time, the driver for that decision was our state assessment
(47:27):
that we have to take in the spring was moving from paper to electronic version.
So we had to do something.
We had to be able to test 3,500 kids or at that time, probably 2,800 kids within a span
of two weeks.
And unless we had enough devices to go around and make sure those assessments were taken
during that two week testing period, we would have been in trouble.
(47:52):
So there were, there were outside forces driving some of those decisions.
And now it may not be the most economical way.
I think it would be a tighter race between the cost of Chromebooks, especially with the
cost of memory and processors going up.
But man, that would be a heavy lift to change that all, you know, your entire compute infrastructure
(48:15):
for students over cost on a whim year over year.
So I think there's some, there's some external forces there driving that too.
Well, in like the testing is a good example of one of the things I hear a lot from parents
who are critical of how much technology is used in classes.
(48:36):
They're not opposed to it if it makes sense.
Like they don't, I don't encounter many parents even who are, you know, writing letters or
speaking at school board meetings about this stuff who are like, get all computers out.
You know, they would, they would send their kid off to like some, you know, learn in a
hut if they were really committed to it.
But they, they're, they're like, no, I get it.
(48:56):
I'm not a Luddite.
Like, why do they have to, why does a test have to be taken digitally?
Can it be taken on paper?
If so, why don't we do that?
If it's reading a book or an article, there's a lot of research about how there's better
reading comprehension when it's on paper.
So that's the kind of stuff I hear a lot about that, you know, parents, like that's kind
(49:18):
of the core of their concern.
It's not so much that they're just marching against Google, but then that this is their
suspicion when they don't understand why things are done on screens.
This kind of stuff is what they point to and say, see, this is all conspiracy.
This is, this isn't about making my kid do better in school.
(49:42):
I think, you know, we're, we're still five, six years, we're actually in the sixth year
anniversary of COVID this month.
And I think we're all just trying to reel back from this overindulgence of technology
and, and find balance.
I don't think there's anybody in education who would say that we need more technology.
I think we have reached that point where we've realized that there is too much and we do
(50:04):
need to pull back and touch grass a little bit.
But I think we're all just trying to find our way through this ugly forest of both productive
and disruptive technologies in K-12.
So thank you so much for your article and, and hopefully you'll, you'll be able to continue
to write about this topic in, in the years and months to come.
(50:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm, I'm very interested in it and people want to get in touch, please do so, but I'm
glad to hang out with you guys for a little bit.
Thank you.
All right.
Thanks guys.
Hey, we are hitting the road for the next few months and I want to give some information
about that.
And that is thanks to you that listen as well as thanks to our sponsors.
(50:46):
Next week, we're going to do an interview with Rise Vision.
So check out risevision.com.
Thanks to NTP.
You can email davidwrenn at dwrenn at ntp-inc.com for your sock, for your antivirus, your email
monitoring, all that good stuff.
Fortinet, a proud sponsor of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
You can email fortinetpodcast at fortinet.com.
(51:07):
And last but not least, Lightspeed, lightspeedsystems.com for your content filter.
Their signal product is awesome and more.
So the events coming up, Mark is going to be in Calais at the Calais Conference in Colorado.
That's February 18th through the 20th.
We're going to do the K-12 Tech Pro Next conference on February 20th.
(51:27):
And then February 24th through the 26th is the K-12 Six Conference.
That's all the podcast will be there in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
So check out those events.
We'll put links to those things in the podcast description.
See you next time.
(51:50):
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions
of Josh, Chris, and Mark, and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other
organizations that we're affiliated with.
The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment
purposes only.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.
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