May 28, 2026 • 55 mins
Episode 266 of the K12 Tech Talk podcast finds Josh, Chris and Mark diving into the summer school circus, national policy, guidance on watching movies in schools, and screen time. This week’s guest is Amy Bennett, Chief of Staff at Lightspeed Systems, who joins to unpack the screen time debate, data-driven monitoring, and what tech leaders should do next.
The main topic is on MOVIES! "Can I watch that movie in my classroom?" The guys discuss copyright, fair use, and the difference between streaming subscriptions and licensed educational services.
Oh, and Josh loves cookies.
Join us July 6th-10th, 2026 – GAMEIS Conference in Savannah, GA
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast,
(00:03):
two major organizations have come out
with recommendations for technologies,
both at schools and at home.
And we break down the most common question
from IT directors this time of year.
What's our policy on movies in school?
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios,
this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 266.
(00:26):
We are in summertime, summer school mode.
My name is Josh.
With you weekly here in mid-Missouri,
down the street from me is Chris.
What's up?
We're both tech directors
at medium-sized schools here in Missouri.
And over on the East Coast,
we have this guy hanging out in a treehouse.
We call him the treehouse guy.
Hello, Mark.
(00:46):
How are you?
So that's a little inside joke.
I guess there's another K-12 podcast
with Chris, Mark, and Josh as hosts.
So yeah, you'll just have to figure that one out.
Chris, you're neck deep in summer school, right?
Yeah, man, we've been doing the summer school.
Yesterday was first day.
(01:09):
We had deployed Chromebooks to classrooms
and libraries and different things.
I told the guys, we have a new technician.
And I said, Alex, you're gonna be told things.
You're gonna be asked for things.
You just say, I'll let Chris know, and we hold the line.
So in less than two hours,
the high school requested 115 additional Chromebooks.
(01:33):
We held the line.
It went to zero.
No more Chromebooks needed.
We waited about another 30, 45 minutes,
and then it went to 35.
And then we had a similar thing today
where there was just these random numbers being said to us.
And that's just, that's it, summer school.
It's the circus.
I say it doesn't bother me.
It still bothers me
(01:55):
because we just throw playbooks out the window,
but it rolls off my back a little bit differently
than what it used to.
Why do you think that is?
Is that because the administrators
are not full-time administrators
and they're kind of green and trying to get their chops?
Is that because teachers are in shorts and flip-flops
and don't think regular school rules apply to them?
(02:18):
What do you think the scenario is there?
Mark, what do you think?
In my experience, when you go from the regular school year
right into summer school,
A, you're right, Josh, that there's a lot of folks
who are, they're kind of cutting their teeth
on summer school and being an administrator.
So this is new to them.
But also, they're busy in the regular school year,
so they don't have the prep time
(02:39):
to get ready for summer school
as opposed to the regular school year
where you've got that summertime
where the buildings are empty, classrooms are empty,
everything resets and you get ready.
So I don't think there's enough time for prep.
I think it's also a lot of people
who are inexperienced in leading.
It depends on the district, obviously.
But yeah, that is the most frustrating week of the year
(03:00):
is the first year of summer school.
Well, so like at our elementary, they take,
so we ended the school year with, I mean, not many tickets.
And then summer school hits and there's just tickets galore.
And it's, they've moved teachers at our school,
they're putting teachers away from their regular room.
(03:22):
To a brand spanking new environment.
So smart board doesn't connect
and just all kinds of things.
But again, some of it, like that makes sense to me.
Some of it doesn't, like we were getting requests
about why isn't this account ready yet?
And the kid had been there 15 minutes.
Regular school year, kids never have accounts in 15 minutes.
(03:42):
So again, like why aren't we,
like it's the same thing as it always is
as far as tech goes with procedures and different things.
But again, it's like this every,
I kept saying like, this isn't bothering me.
I was getting really like worked up in my feelings.
But it doesn't bother me, like I said,
(04:03):
to the point of how we respond
like out in the trenches with it.
We do hold the line within the office
and bad mouth and different things, but.
Did you slip and have an energy drink?
Well, I always still have an energy drink.
I did maintain quantity one.
Oh, okay.
Have you gone through caffeine deprivation yet?
(04:24):
Or withdrawals?
No, I mean, the coffee, the energy drink, it's hitting.
It's hitting okay.
All right, okay.
I do go out, I started buying like a little can
because it's cheaper, like a little can of tobacco.
I roll my own cigarettes now.
Like I do.
Just cause it, I used to work with a guy
(04:47):
that he would go on smoke breaks.
Typically it's at the,
this is when I worked with a consulting company
and he would have like a big can.
So when he would go on a smoke break
and I would go with him,
I didn't smoke, but I would go with him.
It would take a long time
cause he'd like make the cigarette.
I was like, man, smoke breaks are awesome.
(05:08):
We did something similar at the hospital
I used to work at.
We would get mad because they put in like this big gazebo
for the smokers when the weather was bad
so they could sit outside and smoke.
So we start all my, no one in my department smoked
but we had friends in other departments that did smoke.
So they would call and say,
hey, we're going for a smoke break.
Half my department would get up
(05:28):
and go outside and sit in the gazebo
with all the smokers and for 15 minutes.
And yeah, it was great.
Can you now say like, oh, I'll be right back.
I'm going outside for a TikTok break
and just scroll through TikToks for 15, 20 minutes.
I think there should be a thing like that.
Yeah, yeah.
It's an addiction.
You can't get upset with me.
(05:48):
So you guys know this.
We've gone through some things in my district
over the last couple months.
And one of the days, somebody brought in cookies.
So it was bad day, rough day, really, really bad.
So I said, I'm going to take three of these cookies
and go sit in the football stadium
(06:09):
and ponder my life choices.
And I did.
I sat in the bleachers, ate my cookies
and came back into work 15 minutes later.
That camera footage would have been awesome.
Oh yeah, they were all-
Josh with three cookies.
I would have just been submitting
the most ludicrous tickets while he was out there.
Yeah, you would have seen me sitting in the bleachers
(06:30):
all by myself, you know, 3,000 seat stadium.
It's fine though.
Summer school's fine.
It's fine.
Oh, I did.
Hey, hey, random other thing.
Infinite Campus, this is like our second year
turning off extracts and the different things.
So I clicked and I can, I'm not going to say this perfectly,
but I check marked inactive
(06:51):
and it moved our data extracts to inactive.
However, I didn't check mark stop.
So the extracts still ran, even though they were inactive.
That's broken.
That's a little circle logic that doesn't make any sense.
That's bizarre.
So today I had updated our transportation program
to all of the summer school kids
getting, you know, a bunch of inactive kids
(07:12):
and grade levels bumped up in the old school year.
We had to do a restore, whatever.
Everything's fine.
It is fine.
We have probably the longest break
between regular school year and summer school.
This entire week has been, nobody's there.
Like we're prepping for summer school.
And we've been saying for the last couple of years,
we need more than two days.
(07:33):
We have got to have more than two days.
We've got this whole week.
Today, we had to move four Chromebook carts
from the intermediate building over to the high school.
You know, Chromebook cart stacked with 30 Chromebooks.
How much do you think a Chromebook cart weighs
loaded down with power adapters and Chromebooks?
(07:54):
30 of them.
That's a great question.
I'm going to guess 150 pounds minimum.
So my guys were out installing BIOS updates
all over God's country.
So I'm like, well, I'll, I'll.
They're still rolling out on that.
That's like three episodes ago.
Well, it's the, it's the stinking Dell devices.
(08:16):
Cause you have to load stupid.net eight
and then the DCU and my script wasn't working.
Anyway.
So I'm like, well, they're doing that.
I'll go move a couple of these carts.
Now, mind you, it is humid as all get out here today.
Kind of cloudy overcast.
I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to move one,
one of these carts.
So I go to the room, grab the cart.
(08:39):
It's got a janky wheel, you know,
think bad shopping cart wobble.
You know, the stupid thing won't go in a straight line.
It's constantly wanting to go its own direction.
So I nail a couple doors on the way out of the building.
I make it to the sidewalk and I'm like, well,
if I go in the, if I go in the parking lot,
it's going to be easier.
Cause I can use the hill to my advantage and not have to,
(09:00):
you know, I'll just kind of walk with it
and let it use its own gravity to pull it down the hill.
I ended up taking this Chromebook cart 950 feet.
One of a good portion of it is a very steep incline.
Like I am, what's the, what's the Greek
guy that's rolling the rock up the hill.
(09:23):
Like I am pushing this Chromebook cart
with all of my might up this stupid hill.
It starts to sprinkle.
I'm like, man, I didn't do these carts this afternoon.
It was horrible.
How much does a cart weigh, Chris?
I chat GPT that bad boy.
You say 30 carts?
30 Chromebooks.
Yep. 30 Chromebooks charges plus cart
about 350 to 500 pounds.
(09:45):
So it's not 500 pounds.
No.
Anyway, I can skip leg day today.
Cause man, those two carts took it out of me.
I was dripping wet.
Did you go for a cookie break
in the football field afterwards?
He's probably eating cookies while he's pushing the cart.
I can't believe I'm pushing this.
(10:05):
No, but I get done with those.
I thought I'm going to go back.
We'll do the rest tomorrow.
Cause I was going to make my guys do it.
Maintenance director calls me and says, hey
I got a trailer.
If you want to use a trailer on the back of the truck
we can load those suckers up.
I'm like, thanks.
I'm halfway done, but okay.
That's fine.
Work smarter, not harder.
So we, we move Chromebook carts today.
(10:26):
Chris, you want to hit a sponsor
before we get on the news?
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(10:46):
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All right, Mark.
All right.
Well, let's start with a little bit of, of difficult news.
The there's been a, you know
obviously a lot of security and, and changes
and stuff for the last few months
but one of the most devastating changes that has been made
that inundated tech directors with tickets
(11:08):
and calls and emails left and right of the last week.
Teachers lost access to Google drive, calendar, Gmail
all of their Google services after Google updated the icons
and through the entire industry for a loop
because nobody could find out
how to get to their darn calendar.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
No warning.
There's sometimes when there's a post that, you know
(11:29):
somebody puts on, on pro or Reddit
and it just goes viral for hilarious reasons.
This was one of them with a number
of it directors chiming in with their love
or their hatred of the icons, an unofficial poll showing
that almost 50% of people hate the icons
and the rest are just indifferent about it.
Most of the complaints are, were just
(11:49):
around the dramatic changes that caused teachers
to lose things and can't find things.
Chris, Josh, you also couldn't find stuff.
I couldn't find Google admin console.
Mark says it.
That icon did not change.
Well, you guys are poking fun at how I even navigate.
Well, I guess you don't realize what you do.
Like my brain, your brain just does a thing.
(12:10):
I did.
And real talk, Landon over on K-12 tech pro said, you know
they just broke every tutorial I've made with Google stuff.
And that's true.
That's real.
That's real.
Look at this icon, it doesn't exist anymore.
It's funny how the smallest
of changes can just throw your entire day for a loop.
(12:30):
Yeah.
And as IT guys, we like change a lot.
I'm surprised the feedback has been so bad.
Josh, how many cookies did you eat
after the icons were changed?
He's still eating them.
I haven't, I don't think I've had any cookies this week.
I have, I have drank bourbon already this week.
So.
Josh, favorite cookie?
(12:51):
It depends.
It either is going to be a sugar cookie
or a, like a macadamia nut.
Favorite Google icon?
I mean, Gmail.
Shoot.
We knew it was Gmail.
All right.
In more serious news, the American Federation of Teachers
has released their new vision to boost teaching
(13:12):
and learning in the AI era.
The AFT as they're known is one of the largest unions
in the country, representing teachers across all 50 States.
They're proposing a 10 point plan addressing all of this,
all of their concerns around AI and screen time
and technology use.
The first one, number one, being no screens for students
in pre-kindergarten through second grade.
(13:33):
Pretty aggressive approach there,
but that mimics another story we're gonna talk about
in a second coming from the federal government.
No student facing AI in elementary schools.
This is really just to make sure
that students are not using AI LLMs.
I think that's a pretty common one as well.
I don't know of any school that has turned on AI LLMs
in elementary school, although obviously
(13:53):
companion chatbots are a tricky subject.
That AI school in Texas.
Alpha school and they're coming to Boston.
Oh, are they really?
Yep.
And a lot more things around focusing on student wellbeing,
focusing on mental health, solid foundation and literacy.
(14:16):
But the other one, which is just a little bit more
kind of pushing the envelope is a tech tax
on big tech's earnings so that they're starting
to pay their fair share for the adverse
and disruptive consequences that the technology
is having on our children and our families.
So I think it's a pretty novel approach
and I'm interested to see if that idea begins to grow wings.
(14:39):
I do, I like a lot of their other kind of conversations
around early childhood and minimizing the damage
of screen time on early childhood.
This tech tax thing, I'd be very curious to see
if that plays out or if the big tech companies just say,
sure, and then they pass those costs down to consumers.
Or if it just goes to some, you know,
$1.8 billion slush fund that nobody ever knows
(15:02):
where it goes, but anyway.
No politics, no politics.
Mark, who did you say this organization was?
The American Federation of Teachers, AFT.
AFT, I thought, I was confused.
I thought it was America's funniest teachers.
Be a good TV show.
I'd watch it.
They have videos, funny lesson plans.
(15:24):
All right, moving on before Josh goes too far
in the politics.
Health and Human Services has also released their guidance
and their-
Snake on snake on how to catch snakes?
Not that one.
Again, no politics, Josh.
But their basic advisory on children
and teens' excessive screen time.
They are also establishing or recommending
(15:44):
strict benchmarks for screen usage,
stating zero screen time for children under 18 months,
which is insane to hear that,
but yes, that is something that needs to be said.
And then one hour for children under six
and a maximum of two hours for ages six to 18.
So again, differences in the approach from the AFT,
(16:06):
but you know, here we're talking about personal use.
And when you talk about kids at home,
you're talking about, you know,
things like Netflix and YouTube
and those kinds of consumer tools versus the classroom,
which is where the American Federation of Teachers is going.
They're also really setting expectations for families
to discuss these kinds of issues with families,
modeling things around what to do,
(16:27):
healthy habits to promote,
and really pushing around delaying screen time
as long as you possibly can.
This does mimic a lot of communities
which are seeing families saying,
we need to take a community approach
to delaying when kids get cell phones.
So now families are saying, as a community,
let's not have students pressuring each other
to get cell phones.
Let's agree as a family or as a community,
(16:48):
we're gonna have a cell phone ban until a certain age level.
So interesting to see the Health and Human Services
really taking a harder approach to this one,
but stopping short of recommending public policy
or action from Congress.
I just pulled this up and I do see, of course,
(17:08):
at the end, there's a bunch of references.
It has bothered me
and I should probably spend time to dig into it.
I just wanna know more about where the minutes
and the hours, how did we get to two hours?
How did we decide it's two as opposed to three or one?
I wanna know the data behind these things
because you keep hearing 25 minutes or 45 minutes.
(17:30):
So it does look like this has a bunch of references.
I think that would be wise
for us to dig into that at some point.
I wanna know why we're doing what we're doing
with such certainty of an hour or 45 minutes or 25.
Yeah, and a couple of concerns.
Is this just setting up ed tech companies
to sell us another product to monitor these minutes
(17:52):
because you can't monitor it natively in admin console
or anything like that.
So we're gonna have to buy a product
if we don't already own Lightspeed's product,
which you're gonna hear from them in a minute.
So yes, I think it definitely needs to be said,
but I don't know if this fault
(18:13):
or the real root of this is really the school's fault.
Like all of this starts at home.
And Mark, like you said,
when part of the recommendation is under 18 months,
yeah, that's not the school's fault.
And if that habit is being started that early,
by the time they get to school,
(18:34):
it's impossible to break that.
And then there's nothing being done outside of school.
Like the school,
if you're gonna put all these parameters around a school,
25 minutes a day or two hours a day, whatever it is,
the second they get on the bus and start heading home,
all of those limits are out the window.
(18:54):
So I don't know,
if you're not top to bottom implementation wise,
and yes, I know that takes support from parents
and community and schools and all of it,
I don't know how you implement that.
To go back to your question, Chris,
around the timeline or the timing of this
and how long to have students on technology.
I mean, I kind of think of this as a drug, right?
(19:16):
And you've got students who are addicted
to a lot of these websites and services.
These things are designed to addict.
This feels like the 90s Joe Camel situation again,
where we realize that these companies
know how dangerous their products are
and they are intentionally marketing the children.
So I think that we should take a very similar approach
(19:36):
to the tech world that we do
with other addictive substances
like tobacco and alcohol and drugs.
And that is to be very, very cautious
with how we allow youth and children
to have access to these things,
but also making sure that when they're on them,
for me, it's not about timeline,
it's more about what are they actually doing?
(19:57):
There's a huge difference between an hour or two
creating a document, creating a report,
writing something, creating artwork on a computer
versus endlessly scrolling on TikTok.
I would rather have a student spend two hours
writing in a Google doc than spend 10 minutes
on TikTok and YouTube, just getting mindless brain rot.
(20:18):
So I get it though, right?
Without being able to clearly identify that.
And Josh, you just mentioned,
we don't have the tools to be able to monitor this.
The easy path or the easy start for some
is a timeline or a time limit.
Mark, do you think this turns into tools?
You had mentioned before that you were using Brick.
(20:40):
Do you think this turns into a use case
for something like that?
In schools or at home?
Either or, it'd be hard to implement in schools,
but is Brick or a tool like that
a viable solution outside of school?
Here's the thing, I like, if you haven't seen Brick
(21:01):
or if you're not sure what it is,
it's a little physical device that you NFC your phone
and it has an app that limits what you can do.
And yeah, I think it helps me as a subtle reminder
to get off of your phone, get off of this app.
And I like that, I like that subtle reminder,
but it also takes me being in a household of people
(21:21):
who are also not on their cell phones at the same time.
Sure.
So I think when we see cell phone bans in schools
that works when it's the entire school,
when every kid is off
and they're not missing out on something.
Same thing at home, when I'm not missing out on something,
then it works.
Otherwise, you're gonna have people feeling
like they're missing out on something,
(21:42):
they're missing out on the conversation
and these things aren't really gonna work.
So that's the first approach.
I also think too that, and this is just my personal opinion,
these addictive capabilities, and we all know what they are,
the infinite scroll, the likes,
the things that keep you coming back for more,
that we really need to talk about banning for under 18.
(22:03):
Those are those things that we know are,
it's the nicotine of tech,
yet we're okay with it being in applications
and EdTech apps and consumer apps for children.
That's for me what I would tackle first.
I do like, it starts on page 24 of this thing,
what we can do, and it breaks down what a youth can do,
(22:24):
and then it breaks it down what families can do,
like a family media plan, model healthy behavior,
that kind of stuff.
Then it gets into schools, but then it gets into,
well, it gets into healthcare providers either,
but it gets into tech companies.
And I think tech companies will push back on this,
like one of them is to design
for user well-being and not engagement.
(22:44):
Well, that's quite the opposite
of what a tech company goes for with things.
But there's a push in here about adding features
that will let you turn off auto-scroll.
And again, that's something that's not available
in apps today to get in there and turn off things.
It says, create ways for children and caretakers
to view used opt-out of features and control access.
(23:04):
And it lists several things like the infinite scroll.
If we would all do all of those things,
I think we'd be in some good shape,
but to just poke at, hey, schools do this
when families and tech companies aren't doing their side,
it's not gonna fix the problem.
Well, we were out to dinner the other night
and there was a family with three kids
all under the age of five.
(23:25):
And two of the boys were talking
and hanging out with each other.
And the young girl was on an iPad.
The two boys were rambunctious
and yelling and screaming and hooting and hollering.
And you could see that there was this relief
from the parents that the other child was on a screen
and quiet and allowed them to have dinner in peace.
I think that same thing happens in a lot of households.
(23:46):
And it also happens in a lot of classrooms
where teachers see the common effect of technology.
And that's a very, very hard habit to break,
especially when you're able to use that
and capitalize on that quiet and focus
to have the students learning if they're in an ed tech app.
I'm not saying I advocate for that,
(24:07):
but I see the reason why these things
are so popular in classrooms,
because they do keep a little bit of calm
and they can keep kids focused on
or perceived to be focused on a learning ed tech app.
And that's just a manifestation of a habit
that was built at home.
That ability or that getting that fix
(24:31):
from screen time in a classroom
is just a manifestation of what has been reinforced
and built at home.
And like in your scenario, Mark,
where you got a couple of different families together
and you got a kid on an iPad that's being quiet.
Great, give the other ones iPads too.
Well, then that manifests at school.
(24:51):
Well, I'm gonna be loud and rambunctious
until I get screen time.
I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is.
The answer is in this PDF.
Chris, you wanna hit another sponsor real quick
before we get into more screen time?
Sure, syscloud, syscloud.com.
(25:13):
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They can cut down on your archive costs,
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They can help you with legal holds,
all that kind of stuff.
So check out syscloud at syscloud.com.
(25:35):
So we've already talked about student screen time.
Now, maybe one of the hot topics for summer school,
movies being played for classes.
Mark, I know this was a hot topic back
when you were still with your former district.
This became a talking point over on Pro,
(25:56):
and you shared a document that you had written back then
that covered copyright infringement and copyright use
and using the like Prime and Disney Plus
and services like that to stream movies.
We had an incident where a teacher bought an Amazon gift card
to buy a movie to show in the class,
(26:17):
but it ended up she bought it through her Amazon account.
So the district didn't own it,
but the district bought the gift card.
Like that's a whole conversation that had to be had.
So movies in classrooms, guys, where do you stand?
How are you solving it?
Do you allow Disney Plus, Chris?
I block for kids, allow for staff, but we don't support it.
(26:40):
Hmm, okay.
We block everything for everybody,
but we do subscribe to Swank to kind of address the issue
of, you know, indoor recess, it's raining outside,
we gotta be inside or reward day, whatever.
We've been a Swank streaming customer
(27:01):
for probably four years now, four or five years maybe.
And that's gone well.
There's hundreds of movies in there.
They can request more movies be added.
Sometime, yeah, that gets into other discussions.
But Mark, walk us through what your stance was, if you will.
So we blocked streaming video from students,
(27:24):
but did allow it for staff and for a variety of reasons.
But we tried to educate our staff
on the legality of showing movies
and when it was allowed and when it was not.
So I will start with copyright law
and what you're allowed to do in the classroom.
And then I'll get into the caveats.
Teachers, if they are showing a movie
for educational purposes are allowed to use any movie
(27:47):
or show any movie without payment.
This means that if you are showing or teaching a lesson
about the Iliad and the Odyssey,
you're allowed to take your students to that movie.
You're allowed to show the students
that movie in your classroom.
This does not allow you to use that movie
for entertainment purposes.
So that says you're not allowed to use a movie
for family movie night.
(28:08):
You're not allowed to use it for indoor recess
or a rewards program.
It is only if you can directly connect that movie
to your curriculum or what you're teaching.
However, the caveat is when you're talking
about a streaming service like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon,
those have their own separate usage agreements.
And usually those companies have agreements
with the movie studios as to how they can be used.
(28:30):
So just because you have a Netflix account
doesn't give you the right to use Netflix in the classroom,
even though you're allowed to show a movie.
That's where you can buy one-time licenses for the movies.
You can buy subscription services
that allow you to show movies for both educational
and non-educational purposes.
But it's really, really important to say
(28:52):
that teachers have the right under section 110,
title 17 to use copyright material in their curriculum
as long as it is legally obtained.
So do you block streaming services
like Netflix and Hulu and Disney Plus?
I would say on the IT side,
that's not our decision to make.
I would defer to district leadership and curriculum
(29:15):
as to whether or not they want to allow that.
But again, you're allowed to use it for educational purposes.
Did you say title 17?
Mm-hmm.
I thought it was 27.
There's a couple districts by UNI
that they had so many staff streaming.
I don't remember if it was Disney Plus
or Amazon or Prime or Netflix or who it was.
(29:39):
They kept getting denial listed by the provider.
I feel like we've had that a couple of times.
Again, I don't ask what the teacher's
using these things for.
I'm not paying attention.
I'm just allowing that website to be viewed.
I'm turning my eye.
How are you start feeling about that, whatever.
(30:00):
But if we get a ticket, we're like,
hey, Disney Plus isn't working or Netflix isn't working.
I don't do anything.
I say that we don't work on that.
And then like a week or two goes by
and it starts working again.
I have assumed a couple of times
that we were put on a block list or something
for several people using Netflix all at the same time
towards end of year or close to Christmas break
(30:22):
kind of thing.
No, you were just in editing your filter rules.
It is hard though.
Even going back to the Swank conversation some.
And this isn't a plug for Swank at all.
It's just what's brought up.
But Swank has that solution
that gets your licensing ducks in a row.
And it had that streaming platform
where they're listing all the titles
(30:43):
and the teachers can just log into it and get to it.
But I had a superintendent
where I was pitching that pretty hard
because I wanted to block Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu.
And he more said to me, well, what's the alternative?
Well, the alternative is not spending money
on something like Swank and just turning our heads
(31:03):
and telling our teachers what they need to know
and then just kind of crossing fingers
and hoping that they're doing right.
And that saves the, I'm gonna put this in quotation marks,
that saves the district money
when we just turn our heads a little bit.
Tell your DMCA.
Yes.
There are movies on Netflix that have been classified
(31:26):
as allowed to be used in schools.
So even if you have a Netflix subscription,
I should check and see if there's any latest ones,
but there have been some movies
that Netflix has specifically licensed
to be used by teachers in classrooms.
So it is hard to have a blanket statement
or a blanket policy on a service like that.
Well, you get into that gray space where,
(31:49):
okay, Miss Smith opens up her Netflix account
to get to one of those approved movies
or documentaries, Mark,
and in the recommendations is 50 Shades of Gray
because she's watched something
that Netflix thinks she might like that movie.
That's a conversation that I don't know
what administrator would want to have with a parent
(32:11):
if the kid goes home and says,
hey, the teacher pulled up Netflix
and we saw all kinds of things.
That's something else to be prepared for
and willing to have that conversation
if you're gonna allow those types of services
to be accessed by staff.
Well, you should not be opening any streaming service
that has your recommended videos on it
because who knows what the kids are gonna interpret.
(32:32):
Especially Josh's, the cookie videos, cookie monster.
Here's another cookie bourbon recipe, Josh.
Yeah, probably.
Girls got cookies and bourbon.
You can pair those too, yeah.
All right, Chris, do you wanna take us
into this Lightspeed interview?
Yeah, for sure.
(32:52):
A couple events coming up
before we jump into this Lightspeed interview.
We have the Gamus Conference, July 6th through the 10th.
That's in Savannah, Georgia.
All three of us will be there.
That's thanks to Gamus for having us,
but thanks to sponsors like Fortinet,
fortinetpodcasts.fortinet.com and Manage Methods.
They can do your cybersecurity and your student safety.
(33:13):
Check out managemethods.com.
But check out Gamus.
That's not just a conference for Georgians.
It's for the nation.
So go to Gamus, check out Gamus.
We will be there to hang out.
And then we have Midwest Tech Talk also coming up in July.
That's midwesttechtalk.com.
Two Trees is gonna be there.
They talk about tech directors and buying hardware,
(33:33):
sometimes the easy part,
but then rolling it out is where some issues can come in.
They can help you with that.
They can help you with what you have going on.
They wanna be your partner.
I'll put a link to Two Trees.
If you don't know anything about their services,
check them out.
But last but not least here,
I got to interview Amy Bennett.
She's the chief of staff with Lightspeed Systems.
(33:54):
And we had a great conversation about screen time,
not just with Lightspeed, just the big picture,
kind of what we talked about just now,
the great screen time debate.
So this is an interview with Amy Bennett,
chief of staff with Lightspeed Systems.
All right, I am hanging out with Amy Bennett,
the chief of staff with Lightspeed Systems.
(34:15):
Lightspeed, a proud sponsor of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
And you've been with us with Midwest Tech Talk
and K-12 Tech Pro.
Amy, how are you?
I am great.
I'm excited to be here on the podcast
for my first time, Chris.
I would say we do a lot of emails back and forth
or we have over the years.
And then just recently we were doing
(34:36):
a quick little email exchange about screen time stuff.
So excited to see your face, to see you not in person,
but to see you over the air.
I guess summer is busy at Lightspeed?
Really, every time is busy, just for a different reason.
I've been at Lightspeed for like 17 years.
(34:57):
So I've stopped saying, it'll get calmer when X,
because there's always the next thing.
It's back to school,
and then it's the end of the calendar year,
and then it's testing,
and then it's the end of the school year.
It's always something.
I'm sure you know that better than anybody.
Yeah, we always laugh end of year.
Everybody's like, oh, you're gonna enjoy your summer.
And I do enjoy summer.
(35:20):
But that's when the fun stuff happens.
The new budget kicks in.
We get to buy things.
It's usually the more technical things
that we get to do over June, July, into mid-August.
Not so much dealing with printers jamming
and teachers saying that XYZ is not working kind of stuff.
So a change of pace.
(35:41):
It's a good change of pace.
That's right.
All right, so we wanna talk about screen time today.
It's become this major national conversation.
Lots of bills floating around,
and some have been passed into law
about student screen time.
I know Lightspeed has a solution
(36:01):
that can help with monitoring of that,
but we just wanna talk bigger picture
about screen time in general.
So why do you think, Amy,
why is this issue becoming a thing now in 2026?
Yeah, it's really interesting, Chris,
because we've had screen time data
and been a small element of the products for a long time,
(36:23):
but it has reached a fevered pitch this year.
And I think that a lot of it is because
whether we're talking about people working in schools
or we're talking about parents,
you look at students,
and there probably is a screen time
technology overuse problem.
(36:45):
I think that it leads to mental health concerns,
it leads to social media concerns,
all of these things that are really real.
What I think has happened, though,
is we have conflated personal or consumer consumption
with district device and instructional screen time.
(37:07):
And I think that the concerns about screen time
are legitimate.
One of the things that I'm talking about all over
is the gap between those concerns
and some of the realities that we see in school districts.
Yeah, so when a lawmaker talks about screen time,
(37:27):
I guess that's the question.
How do you think they're defining it
and do you think they're defining it correctly?
Yeah, I guess when we're seeing
so much legislation come out about this,
and they are talking about
school district device screen time.
So they're not conflate,
I think the concerns come from personal devices,
(37:47):
but in the legislation, they're not conflating the two.
But what I have seen most legislation really ignore
is this idea that there's different types of screen time.
There is active versus passive,
there's instructional versus recreational,
supervised, unsupervised, creation, consumption.
(38:09):
And those are nuances that are really hard to legislate.
So I think that what we're seeing in bills
across the country is really ignoring that idea
that not all screen exposure has the same impact,
educational or developmental or social.
Yeah, we've had some conversations
(38:31):
about a lot of these things are saying like 25 minutes
for elementary students.
I think I've read some about like 45 minutes.
And some of those questions are around,
where do we get the number 25 from?
How do we come up with 45?
Like what's the data that backs that up?
And then interesting in Missouri,
(38:55):
a lot of our online tests that our state gives us
take more than 25 minutes.
So then there has to be extra sentences written
where they're saying like,
okay, well, in this case,
it makes sense for more than 25 minutes.
And I think that's what you're talking about.
We can't just lump this problem in as one standard thing.
(39:15):
There will be exceptions to the rule.
And then we could banter too.
I can go over to my elementary and say it's 25 minutes.
If I talk to most all my teachers,
they're already doing that without someone telling me
that 25 minutes is the time.
Our folks have already figured out.
(39:37):
They don't need a bill.
They don't need a law.
They don't need someone telling them
because they're already doing what is correct.
Yeah, you're so right, Chris.
And that is the thing when the legislation
or the guidance comes out with these specific quotas.
A, on the one hand, whoa,
(39:58):
there's gonna have to be so many exceptions.
As you mentioned, testing time or students with IEPs
or you're thinking about homework.
And when do you really wanna limit students on that?
Or this is a snow day and students are working from home.
Whatever those different things are,
the exceptions to manage for someone in your role
and all the people like you, that becomes crazy.
(40:21):
But the reality is that the actual amount of screen time
that students are getting on their district devices
in school is really reasonable from everything we see.
Like you just said, what we see is elementary,
the national average 35 minutes.
(40:43):
It peaks in middle school at 57 minutes.
I think that, as I mentioned in the beginning, this gap,
if you ask parents what they think,
they guess four hours out of a school day on screen.
And the reality is just so different than that.
Yeah, so do you think, I guess that's a follow-up then,
(41:04):
of the 30-something minutes or the 50-something minutes,
how much negative stuff is in there
that you think a parent or a lawmaker would be like,
yeah, we should cut that out?
Do you see a lot of that in what Lightspeed's finding?
Well, you know that schools are already doing so much
with content filtering, which is required,
(41:26):
with classroom management, with YouTube controls,
with so many things that bad sites
are really already blocked.
And it comes down to nuances of what is good
versus bad screen time to make that decision.
YouTube is one of the things that comes up a lot,
(41:46):
and it's one of the things that has me
the most fired up here,
because there was an article in the Wall Street Journal
a couple of weeks ago that the headline was,
YouTube has taken over the American classroom.
And it told stories of one student
who watches 700 videos in a month,
or like these edge cases like that.
(42:08):
Yeah.
What our data shows is in elementary school,
the average YouTube consumption is one minute per day.
One minute per day in elementary school,
peaking in high school at 5.7.
So parents are worried about these edge cases.
The media is latching onto these edge cases,
(42:29):
but the reality is really so different than that,
because you're already blocking the distracting
or inappropriate YouTube content
that students would wanna watch 700 of in a row anyway.
Yeah, and I mean, sticking with YouTube too,
even those that consume a lot of YouTube,
(42:50):
a lot of that might be background noise,
some music that they're listening to
while they're doing an assignment.
Some of that's not even completely fair
to have a debate about.
It's not necessarily a kid staring at a YouTube video.
And again, to say that stuff doesn't happen,
I won't say it doesn't happen,
(43:11):
but I think if you take a good look, like you're saying,
it's not the problem that we think it is.
Or if it is, that's not necessarily screen time
as much as that is the content.
We could be having this conversation
just talking about our content filter,
and that's classroom management.
That's a principal talking to a teacher about,
(43:33):
hey, don't let your kids get on YouTube.
That's a tech department putting in better content rules
that restrict YouTube access.
That's turning off YouTube for elementary kids
on your Google admin console.
That has nothing to do with just the screen time debate
as that big picture thing.
So do you think YouTube is probably the biggest thing
(43:53):
that's off with these screen time bills?
I think that the personal cell phone bans,
they probably were the precursor to this.
The social media bans, they're really related to that too.
But I would say most districts are banning social media
on district devices anyway.
(44:15):
They have most of that blocked for various reasons.
So I think that YouTube comes under scrutiny.
I think that you're seeing headlines.
I think you were talking about it on the pod
a couple of weeks ago, certain instructional tools
that it's like students are spending too much time in that.
Some of those come under scrutiny too.
(44:36):
But the way I see it is just like you said,
this becomes part of what districts are doing anyway.
We're looking at the data.
We're looking at app usage.
We're finding out if it's having instructional impact.
We're like measuring those things
and then adjusting policies,
locking down more content filtering
or renewing or not renewing apps because of all of that.
(44:59):
So I think that like YouTube,
it was, I think iReady or something like that
recently was in headlines.
And it's taking a couple of specific instances
and turning them into a national story
or state legislation that fills a little blanket probably.
Yeah.
Yeah, and so I do wanna talk to you
and I'll just, the full transparency is in on this.
(45:21):
You didn't come on here
to talk about Lightspeed products so much.
You asked, we were talking,
you're like, I would just love to talk
about screen time big picture.
But I know that Lightspeed has this good analytics tool.
So would you go ahead and like, let's talk about that,
but let's talk about what analytics a school can look at
that can help them make, to change this conversation some.
(45:44):
Yep.
I think it's so important.
And I've been at so many conferences recently
talking about screen time.
And I think that the way to close that gap
between what people think is happening in schools
and what is actually happening in schools
when it comes to screen time is one thing data,
(46:05):
second thing, more transparency and communication
about all the things that you're doing to vet apps
and look at analytics and filter the environment
and reduce distractions, all of that.
So what it's, our analytics tool is Lightspeed Insight
and it's all of the information
(46:27):
about what apps are being used and who's using them
and how often they're used.
And really it was for the last many years,
the data that helped inform districts
about those decisions and look at their applications
and make sure they're compliant and meeting all the needs.
But it has really hit this new level of interest
because of screen time specifically.
(46:49):
So I think there's an opportunity to take that data
and go into board meetings, go back to communities
and have a statement along the lines of,
we share your concerns about screen time.
That is why we use filtering and classroom management
and YouTube blocking to make sure we're focused
(47:11):
on the right instructional uses of educational technology.
And here, let's look at the data and let's figure out
if this feels right for our community.
Back to your point of is 25 minutes right, is 45?
Let's look at the data and talk about,
use that as the starting point to have a conversation
about what seems right in this environment.
(47:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So I want you to predict the future then.
What do you think in, I don't know, two, three years
from now, what do you think K-12 is gonna look like
with technology, with the screen?
Do you think we're gonna be, I mean,
do you think these laws are gonna pass nationwide
(47:55):
and we're really gonna be restricting
and having a heavy pay attention?
I mean, are we gonna turn off screens
after it hits the 26 minute?
What do you think the world's gonna look like
in a K-12 classroom with screen time in three years?
I mean, I think that, you know, it's hard to predict things
(48:16):
in this environment, but I'm gonna take a shot.
Okay, so Iowa has already passed legislation
with specific quotas for K-5 on their screen time.
But most states, what we are seeing is where I think
the trend will largely go, which is legislation
gets introduced with quotas.
(48:38):
But by the time it passes, it is guidance to look at data,
set reasonable limits, think about what the right balance is
and create guidelines within a school around that.
And I think that's probably the right direction.
I certainly can't look seven years ahead in my work life
(48:59):
and picture it not very, very, very centered
around technology.
So to expect our students to graduate ready for college
and careers and not be immersed in technology
and using it, learning to use it in really balanced ways
and learning to have those self controls
(49:19):
to know when too much screen time is too much screen time.
I think that would be the mistake.
If we let the pendulum swing too far
that we're not preparing students for the world
that they're stepping out of K-12 into.
And AI is a really great example of that too, right?
We need to be teaching them how to use it safely
(49:41):
and how to protect their data and how to judge its accuracy.
We need to be teaching them all those skills
so that they are using it effectively
when they're entering a workforce
that really expects AI skills.
I, this is making me feel old,
but the way back when, way before the year 2020,
(50:05):
I would do this talk with faculty staff
and talk about, you know, to have 2020 vision,
you know, and how our kids in elementary and middle school
that, you know, when they graduate all these jobs
that don't exist yet, that's what they're gonna be in
and to keep your 2020 vision on and that kind of spiel.
Well, obviously we're 2026
and those kids have long graduated.
(50:26):
But that's the interesting spot that we're in.
It's almost like we're,
there's this shift in preparing kids not for the future
because we, you know, you and I can talk for a long time
about what the workforce is looking like
and that AI train that's coming
that's already hitting the workforce.
(50:46):
But then there's this weird resistance thing
and this shift in K-12 and in college
to lessen technology,
which is not what's happening on the other side.
Like when we get to the other side,
that's not what's happening.
So it's almost like we're not wearing our proper glasses
to see what we're supposed to be preparing kids for.
(51:07):
And I, and this is me ranting,
but I think it's gotten like,
it's like cool and trendy to say let's reduce screen time
and technology and technology is bad.
And is that why lawmakers are suddenly
wanting these things to float through?
I'm all for the law, the bill that says
local school district decide,
because that lets the local school district, you know,
(51:28):
use some common sense and do what it needs to do.
Or even at a state level, I can take some of that stuff.
But yeah, we're in interesting times with that.
So I guess-
It really is.
And you see funding and an emphasis on CTE
and AI coming from a federal level.
That is use technology, prepare, prepare.
(51:49):
And then you wanna ban screens
or you wanna severely limit screens.
I think the answer in most things is somewhere in the middle
and it's let's recognize there's a lot of gray area
in good screen time, bad screen time,
appropriate screen time, whatever that is.
(52:09):
Let's look at the data, let's make reasonable decisions
and let's create probably more transparency.
I think that a lot of parents just do not know
how much time their students are on screens in a school day
and what that screen time is comprised of,
all of those things.
So the other thing we're seeing as a legislative trend
(52:30):
is parent visibility.
And that probably makes sense
and it will probably ease some of these concerns.
Yeah, yeah.
If you're a mom or dad or a guardian
and you can literally look easy
and see what your kid is up to in school,
what they're doing with the screen,
(52:50):
yeah, for sure that's gonna ease some of these concerns
that are out there.
So I guess, and this is probably the last question then Amy,
if I'm listening to this,
if I'm in a tech director or CIO spot,
what should I be doing to prepare
for future mandates on screen time?
I would say almost forget about the mandates,
(53:16):
prepare for the conversations that need to happen,
whether there are mandates or not,
just to create more transparency
and more balance in your schools.
So have the data, know what screen time looks like,
make sure that you're doing the appropriate things
in vetting your apps and setting those limits
(53:38):
and then communicate with your communities
and your school boards and your parents about that
so that we're closing that gap
between perception and reality.
And we're recognizing that technology addiction
in our kids is not good, but here's where we're at
and what should we be doing that's different?
So having those conversations that are based on facts
(54:00):
instead of feelings.
Love it.
Amy, thank you so much.
Again, Amy Bennett, Chief of Staff at Lightspeed Systems,
check out LightspeedSystems.com.
You guys have that Signal product,
that's good stuff for tracking devices.
And then this is Insight, correct?
That's right.
And if you go to our website,
you can find a free screen time audit
(54:22):
that will give you this data for 14 days.
So you don't have to buy our product,
you don't have to do any of that,
but you can start having those conversations
based on the facts in your district.
Awesome.
Thank you, Amy.
Thank you, Chris.
♪ We might not be the same ♪
♪ But you feel the same pain that I do ♪
(54:46):
The views and opinions expressed
on the K12 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.
Material and information presented here
is for general information and entertainment purposes only.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.
♪ We were buying words about the praise of the faith ♪
(55:08):
♪ And selling songs just to stand the cue ♪
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast,
(00:03):
two major organizations have come out
with recommendations for technologies,
both at schools and at home.
And we break down the most common question
from IT directors this time of year.
What's our policy on movies in school?
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios,
this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 266.
(00:26):
We are in summertime, summer school mode.
My name is Josh.
With you weekly here in mid-Missouri,
down the street from me is Chris.
What's up?
We're both tech directors
at medium-sized schools here in Missouri.
And over on the East Coast,
we have this guy hanging out in a treehouse.
We call him the treehouse guy.
Hello, Mark.
(00:46):
How are you?
So that's a little inside joke.
I guess there's another K-12 podcast
with Chris, Mark, and Josh as hosts.
So yeah, you'll just have to figure that one out.
Chris, you're neck deep in summer school, right?
Yeah, man, we've been doing the summer school.
Yesterday was first day.
(01:09):
We had deployed Chromebooks to classrooms
and libraries and different things.
I told the guys, we have a new technician.
And I said, Alex, you're gonna be told things.
You're gonna be asked for things.
You just say, I'll let Chris know, and we hold the line.
So in less than two hours,
the high school requested 115 additional Chromebooks.
(01:33):
We held the line.
It went to zero.
No more Chromebooks needed.
We waited about another 30, 45 minutes,
and then it went to 35.
And then we had a similar thing today
where there was just these random numbers being said to us.
And that's just, that's it, summer school.
It's the circus.
I say it doesn't bother me.
It still bothers me
(01:55):
because we just throw playbooks out the window,
but it rolls off my back a little bit differently
than what it used to.
Why do you think that is?
Is that because the administrators
are not full-time administrators
and they're kind of green and trying to get their chops?
Is that because teachers are in shorts and flip-flops
and don't think regular school rules apply to them?
(02:18):
What do you think the scenario is there?
Mark, what do you think?
In my experience, when you go from the regular school year
right into summer school,
A, you're right, Josh, that there's a lot of folks
who are, they're kind of cutting their teeth
on summer school and being an administrator.
So this is new to them.
But also, they're busy in the regular school year,
so they don't have the prep time
(02:39):
to get ready for summer school
as opposed to the regular school year
where you've got that summertime
where the buildings are empty, classrooms are empty,
everything resets and you get ready.
So I don't think there's enough time for prep.
I think it's also a lot of people
who are inexperienced in leading.
It depends on the district, obviously.
But yeah, that is the most frustrating week of the year
(03:00):
is the first year of summer school.
Well, so like at our elementary, they take,
so we ended the school year with, I mean, not many tickets.
And then summer school hits and there's just tickets galore.
And it's, they've moved teachers at our school,
they're putting teachers away from their regular room.
(03:22):
To a brand spanking new environment.
So smart board doesn't connect
and just all kinds of things.
But again, some of it, like that makes sense to me.
Some of it doesn't, like we were getting requests
about why isn't this account ready yet?
And the kid had been there 15 minutes.
Regular school year, kids never have accounts in 15 minutes.
(03:42):
So again, like why aren't we,
like it's the same thing as it always is
as far as tech goes with procedures and different things.
But again, it's like this every,
I kept saying like, this isn't bothering me.
I was getting really like worked up in my feelings.
But it doesn't bother me, like I said,
(04:03):
to the point of how we respond
like out in the trenches with it.
We do hold the line within the office
and bad mouth and different things, but.
Did you slip and have an energy drink?
Well, I always still have an energy drink.
I did maintain quantity one.
Oh, okay.
Have you gone through caffeine deprivation yet?
(04:24):
Or withdrawals?
No, I mean, the coffee, the energy drink, it's hitting.
It's hitting okay.
All right, okay.
I do go out, I started buying like a little can
because it's cheaper, like a little can of tobacco.
I roll my own cigarettes now.
Like I do.
Just cause it, I used to work with a guy
(04:47):
that he would go on smoke breaks.
Typically it's at the,
this is when I worked with a consulting company
and he would have like a big can.
So when he would go on a smoke break
and I would go with him,
I didn't smoke, but I would go with him.
It would take a long time
cause he'd like make the cigarette.
I was like, man, smoke breaks are awesome.
(05:08):
We did something similar at the hospital
I used to work at.
We would get mad because they put in like this big gazebo
for the smokers when the weather was bad
so they could sit outside and smoke.
So we start all my, no one in my department smoked
but we had friends in other departments that did smoke.
So they would call and say,
hey, we're going for a smoke break.
Half my department would get up
(05:28):
and go outside and sit in the gazebo
with all the smokers and for 15 minutes.
And yeah, it was great.
Can you now say like, oh, I'll be right back.
I'm going outside for a TikTok break
and just scroll through TikToks for 15, 20 minutes.
I think there should be a thing like that.
Yeah, yeah.
It's an addiction.
You can't get upset with me.
(05:48):
So you guys know this.
We've gone through some things in my district
over the last couple months.
And one of the days, somebody brought in cookies.
So it was bad day, rough day, really, really bad.
So I said, I'm going to take three of these cookies
and go sit in the football stadium
(06:09):
and ponder my life choices.
And I did.
I sat in the bleachers, ate my cookies
and came back into work 15 minutes later.
That camera footage would have been awesome.
Oh yeah, they were all-
Josh with three cookies.
I would have just been submitting
the most ludicrous tickets while he was out there.
Yeah, you would have seen me sitting in the bleachers
(06:30):
all by myself, you know, 3,000 seat stadium.
It's fine though.
Summer school's fine.
It's fine.
Oh, I did.
Hey, hey, random other thing.
Infinite Campus, this is like our second year
turning off extracts and the different things.
So I clicked and I can, I'm not going to say this perfectly,
but I check marked inactive
(06:51):
and it moved our data extracts to inactive.
However, I didn't check mark stop.
So the extracts still ran, even though they were inactive.
That's broken.
That's a little circle logic that doesn't make any sense.
That's bizarre.
So today I had updated our transportation program
to all of the summer school kids
getting, you know, a bunch of inactive kids
(07:12):
and grade levels bumped up in the old school year.
We had to do a restore, whatever.
Everything's fine.
It is fine.
We have probably the longest break
between regular school year and summer school.
This entire week has been, nobody's there.
Like we're prepping for summer school.
And we've been saying for the last couple of years,
we need more than two days.
(07:33):
We have got to have more than two days.
We've got this whole week.
Today, we had to move four Chromebook carts
from the intermediate building over to the high school.
You know, Chromebook cart stacked with 30 Chromebooks.
How much do you think a Chromebook cart weighs
loaded down with power adapters and Chromebooks?
(07:54):
30 of them.
That's a great question.
I'm going to guess 150 pounds minimum.
So my guys were out installing BIOS updates
all over God's country.
So I'm like, well, I'll, I'll.
They're still rolling out on that.
That's like three episodes ago.
Well, it's the, it's the stinking Dell devices.
(08:16):
Cause you have to load stupid.net eight
and then the DCU and my script wasn't working.
Anyway.
So I'm like, well, they're doing that.
I'll go move a couple of these carts.
Now, mind you, it is humid as all get out here today.
Kind of cloudy overcast.
I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to move one,
one of these carts.
So I go to the room, grab the cart.
(08:39):
It's got a janky wheel, you know,
think bad shopping cart wobble.
You know, the stupid thing won't go in a straight line.
It's constantly wanting to go its own direction.
So I nail a couple doors on the way out of the building.
I make it to the sidewalk and I'm like, well,
if I go in the, if I go in the parking lot,
it's going to be easier.
Cause I can use the hill to my advantage and not have to,
(09:00):
you know, I'll just kind of walk with it
and let it use its own gravity to pull it down the hill.
I ended up taking this Chromebook cart 950 feet.
One of a good portion of it is a very steep incline.
Like I am, what's the, what's the Greek
guy that's rolling the rock up the hill.
(09:23):
Like I am pushing this Chromebook cart
with all of my might up this stupid hill.
It starts to sprinkle.
I'm like, man, I didn't do these carts this afternoon.
It was horrible.
How much does a cart weigh, Chris?
I chat GPT that bad boy.
You say 30 carts?
30 Chromebooks.
Yep. 30 Chromebooks charges plus cart
about 350 to 500 pounds.
(09:45):
So it's not 500 pounds.
No.
Anyway, I can skip leg day today.
Cause man, those two carts took it out of me.
I was dripping wet.
Did you go for a cookie break
in the football field afterwards?
He's probably eating cookies while he's pushing the cart.
I can't believe I'm pushing this.
(10:05):
No, but I get done with those.
I thought I'm going to go back.
We'll do the rest tomorrow.
Cause I was going to make my guys do it.
Maintenance director calls me and says, hey
I got a trailer.
If you want to use a trailer on the back of the truck
we can load those suckers up.
I'm like, thanks.
I'm halfway done, but okay.
That's fine.
Work smarter, not harder.
So we, we move Chromebook carts today.
(10:26):
Chris, you want to hit a sponsor
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(10:46):
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All right, Mark.
All right.
Well, let's start with a little bit of, of difficult news.
The there's been a, you know
obviously a lot of security and, and changes
and stuff for the last few months
but one of the most devastating changes that has been made
that inundated tech directors with tickets
(11:08):
and calls and emails left and right of the last week.
Teachers lost access to Google drive, calendar, Gmail
all of their Google services after Google updated the icons
and through the entire industry for a loop
because nobody could find out
how to get to their darn calendar.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
No warning.
There's sometimes when there's a post that, you know
(11:29):
somebody puts on, on pro or Reddit
and it just goes viral for hilarious reasons.
This was one of them with a number
of it directors chiming in with their love
or their hatred of the icons, an unofficial poll showing
that almost 50% of people hate the icons
and the rest are just indifferent about it.
Most of the complaints are, were just
(11:49):
around the dramatic changes that caused teachers
to lose things and can't find things.
Chris, Josh, you also couldn't find stuff.
I couldn't find Google admin console.
Mark says it.
That icon did not change.
Well, you guys are poking fun at how I even navigate.
Well, I guess you don't realize what you do.
Like my brain, your brain just does a thing.
(12:10):
I did.
And real talk, Landon over on K-12 tech pro said, you know
they just broke every tutorial I've made with Google stuff.
And that's true.
That's real.
That's real.
Look at this icon, it doesn't exist anymore.
It's funny how the smallest
of changes can just throw your entire day for a loop.
(12:30):
Yeah.
And as IT guys, we like change a lot.
I'm surprised the feedback has been so bad.
Josh, how many cookies did you eat
after the icons were changed?
He's still eating them.
I haven't, I don't think I've had any cookies this week.
I have, I have drank bourbon already this week.
So.
Josh, favorite cookie?
(12:51):
It depends.
It either is going to be a sugar cookie
or a, like a macadamia nut.
Favorite Google icon?
I mean, Gmail.
Shoot.
We knew it was Gmail.
All right.
In more serious news, the American Federation of Teachers
has released their new vision to boost teaching
(13:12):
and learning in the AI era.
The AFT as they're known is one of the largest unions
in the country, representing teachers across all 50 States.
They're proposing a 10 point plan addressing all of this,
all of their concerns around AI and screen time
and technology use.
The first one, number one, being no screens for students
in pre-kindergarten through second grade.
(13:33):
Pretty aggressive approach there,
but that mimics another story we're gonna talk about
in a second coming from the federal government.
No student facing AI in elementary schools.
This is really just to make sure
that students are not using AI LLMs.
I think that's a pretty common one as well.
I don't know of any school that has turned on AI LLMs
in elementary school, although obviously
(13:53):
companion chatbots are a tricky subject.
That AI school in Texas.
Alpha school and they're coming to Boston.
Oh, are they really?
Yep.
And a lot more things around focusing on student wellbeing,
focusing on mental health, solid foundation and literacy.
(14:16):
But the other one, which is just a little bit more
kind of pushing the envelope is a tech tax
on big tech's earnings so that they're starting
to pay their fair share for the adverse
and disruptive consequences that the technology
is having on our children and our families.
So I think it's a pretty novel approach
and I'm interested to see if that idea begins to grow wings.
(14:39):
I do, I like a lot of their other kind of conversations
around early childhood and minimizing the damage
of screen time on early childhood.
This tech tax thing, I'd be very curious to see
if that plays out or if the big tech companies just say,
sure, and then they pass those costs down to consumers.
Or if it just goes to some, you know,
$1.8 billion slush fund that nobody ever knows
(15:02):
where it goes, but anyway.
No politics, no politics.
Mark, who did you say this organization was?
The American Federation of Teachers, AFT.
AFT, I thought, I was confused.
I thought it was America's funniest teachers.
Be a good TV show.
I'd watch it.
They have videos, funny lesson plans.
(15:24):
All right, moving on before Josh goes too far
in the politics.
Health and Human Services has also released their guidance
and their-
Snake on snake on how to catch snakes?
Not that one.
Again, no politics, Josh.
But their basic advisory on children
and teens' excessive screen time.
They are also establishing or recommending
(15:44):
strict benchmarks for screen usage,
stating zero screen time for children under 18 months,
which is insane to hear that,
but yes, that is something that needs to be said.
And then one hour for children under six
and a maximum of two hours for ages six to 18.
So again, differences in the approach from the AFT,
(16:06):
but you know, here we're talking about personal use.
And when you talk about kids at home,
you're talking about, you know,
things like Netflix and YouTube
and those kinds of consumer tools versus the classroom,
which is where the American Federation of Teachers is going.
They're also really setting expectations for families
to discuss these kinds of issues with families,
modeling things around what to do,
(16:27):
healthy habits to promote,
and really pushing around delaying screen time
as long as you possibly can.
This does mimic a lot of communities
which are seeing families saying,
we need to take a community approach
to delaying when kids get cell phones.
So now families are saying, as a community,
let's not have students pressuring each other
to get cell phones.
Let's agree as a family or as a community,
(16:48):
we're gonna have a cell phone ban until a certain age level.
So interesting to see the Health and Human Services
really taking a harder approach to this one,
but stopping short of recommending public policy
or action from Congress.
I just pulled this up and I do see, of course,
(17:08):
at the end, there's a bunch of references.
It has bothered me
and I should probably spend time to dig into it.
I just wanna know more about where the minutes
and the hours, how did we get to two hours?
How did we decide it's two as opposed to three or one?
I wanna know the data behind these things
because you keep hearing 25 minutes or 45 minutes.
(17:30):
So it does look like this has a bunch of references.
I think that would be wise
for us to dig into that at some point.
I wanna know why we're doing what we're doing
with such certainty of an hour or 45 minutes or 25.
Yeah, and a couple of concerns.
Is this just setting up ed tech companies
to sell us another product to monitor these minutes
(17:52):
because you can't monitor it natively in admin console
or anything like that.
So we're gonna have to buy a product
if we don't already own Lightspeed's product,
which you're gonna hear from them in a minute.
So yes, I think it definitely needs to be said,
but I don't know if this fault
(18:13):
or the real root of this is really the school's fault.
Like all of this starts at home.
And Mark, like you said,
when part of the recommendation is under 18 months,
yeah, that's not the school's fault.
And if that habit is being started that early,
by the time they get to school,
(18:34):
it's impossible to break that.
And then there's nothing being done outside of school.
Like the school,
if you're gonna put all these parameters around a school,
25 minutes a day or two hours a day, whatever it is,
the second they get on the bus and start heading home,
all of those limits are out the window.
(18:54):
So I don't know,
if you're not top to bottom implementation wise,
and yes, I know that takes support from parents
and community and schools and all of it,
I don't know how you implement that.
To go back to your question, Chris,
around the timeline or the timing of this
and how long to have students on technology.
I mean, I kind of think of this as a drug, right?
(19:16):
And you've got students who are addicted
to a lot of these websites and services.
These things are designed to addict.
This feels like the 90s Joe Camel situation again,
where we realize that these companies
know how dangerous their products are
and they are intentionally marketing the children.
So I think that we should take a very similar approach
(19:36):
to the tech world that we do
with other addictive substances
like tobacco and alcohol and drugs.
And that is to be very, very cautious
with how we allow youth and children
to have access to these things,
but also making sure that when they're on them,
for me, it's not about timeline,
it's more about what are they actually doing?
(19:57):
There's a huge difference between an hour or two
creating a document, creating a report,
writing something, creating artwork on a computer
versus endlessly scrolling on TikTok.
I would rather have a student spend two hours
writing in a Google doc than spend 10 minutes
on TikTok and YouTube, just getting mindless brain rot.
(20:18):
So I get it though, right?
Without being able to clearly identify that.
And Josh, you just mentioned,
we don't have the tools to be able to monitor this.
The easy path or the easy start for some
is a timeline or a time limit.
Mark, do you think this turns into tools?
You had mentioned before that you were using Brick.
(20:40):
Do you think this turns into a use case
for something like that?
In schools or at home?
Either or, it'd be hard to implement in schools,
but is Brick or a tool like that
a viable solution outside of school?
Here's the thing, I like, if you haven't seen Brick
(21:01):
or if you're not sure what it is,
it's a little physical device that you NFC your phone
and it has an app that limits what you can do.
And yeah, I think it helps me as a subtle reminder
to get off of your phone, get off of this app.
And I like that, I like that subtle reminder,
but it also takes me being in a household of people
(21:21):
who are also not on their cell phones at the same time.
Sure.
So I think when we see cell phone bans in schools
that works when it's the entire school,
when every kid is off
and they're not missing out on something.
Same thing at home, when I'm not missing out on something,
then it works.
Otherwise, you're gonna have people feeling
like they're missing out on something,
(21:42):
they're missing out on the conversation
and these things aren't really gonna work.
So that's the first approach.
I also think too that, and this is just my personal opinion,
these addictive capabilities, and we all know what they are,
the infinite scroll, the likes,
the things that keep you coming back for more,
that we really need to talk about banning for under 18.
(22:03):
Those are those things that we know are,
it's the nicotine of tech,
yet we're okay with it being in applications
and EdTech apps and consumer apps for children.
That's for me what I would tackle first.
I do like, it starts on page 24 of this thing,
what we can do, and it breaks down what a youth can do,
(22:24):
and then it breaks it down what families can do,
like a family media plan, model healthy behavior,
that kind of stuff.
Then it gets into schools, but then it gets into,
well, it gets into healthcare providers either,
but it gets into tech companies.
And I think tech companies will push back on this,
like one of them is to design
for user well-being and not engagement.
(22:44):
Well, that's quite the opposite
of what a tech company goes for with things.
But there's a push in here about adding features
that will let you turn off auto-scroll.
And again, that's something that's not available
in apps today to get in there and turn off things.
It says, create ways for children and caretakers
to view used opt-out of features and control access.
(23:04):
And it lists several things like the infinite scroll.
If we would all do all of those things,
I think we'd be in some good shape,
but to just poke at, hey, schools do this
when families and tech companies aren't doing their side,
it's not gonna fix the problem.
Well, we were out to dinner the other night
and there was a family with three kids
all under the age of five.
(23:25):
And two of the boys were talking
and hanging out with each other.
And the young girl was on an iPad.
The two boys were rambunctious
and yelling and screaming and hooting and hollering.
And you could see that there was this relief
from the parents that the other child was on a screen
and quiet and allowed them to have dinner in peace.
I think that same thing happens in a lot of households.
(23:46):
And it also happens in a lot of classrooms
where teachers see the common effect of technology.
And that's a very, very hard habit to break,
especially when you're able to use that
and capitalize on that quiet and focus
to have the students learning if they're in an ed tech app.
I'm not saying I advocate for that,
(24:07):
but I see the reason why these things
are so popular in classrooms,
because they do keep a little bit of calm
and they can keep kids focused on
or perceived to be focused on a learning ed tech app.
And that's just a manifestation of a habit
that was built at home.
That ability or that getting that fix
(24:31):
from screen time in a classroom
is just a manifestation of what has been reinforced
and built at home.
And like in your scenario, Mark,
where you got a couple of different families together
and you got a kid on an iPad that's being quiet.
Great, give the other ones iPads too.
Well, then that manifests at school.
(24:51):
Well, I'm gonna be loud and rambunctious
until I get screen time.
I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is.
The answer is in this PDF.
Chris, you wanna hit another sponsor real quick
before we get into more screen time?
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(25:13):
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(25:35):
So we've already talked about student screen time.
Now, maybe one of the hot topics for summer school,
movies being played for classes.
Mark, I know this was a hot topic back
when you were still with your former district.
This became a talking point over on Pro,
(25:56):
and you shared a document that you had written back then
that covered copyright infringement and copyright use
and using the like Prime and Disney Plus
and services like that to stream movies.
We had an incident where a teacher bought an Amazon gift card
to buy a movie to show in the class,
(26:17):
but it ended up she bought it through her Amazon account.
So the district didn't own it,
but the district bought the gift card.
Like that's a whole conversation that had to be had.
So movies in classrooms, guys, where do you stand?
How are you solving it?
Do you allow Disney Plus, Chris?
I block for kids, allow for staff, but we don't support it.
(26:40):
Hmm, okay.
We block everything for everybody,
but we do subscribe to Swank to kind of address the issue
of, you know, indoor recess, it's raining outside,
we gotta be inside or reward day, whatever.
We've been a Swank streaming customer
(27:01):
for probably four years now, four or five years maybe.
And that's gone well.
There's hundreds of movies in there.
They can request more movies be added.
Sometime, yeah, that gets into other discussions.
But Mark, walk us through what your stance was, if you will.
So we blocked streaming video from students,
(27:24):
but did allow it for staff and for a variety of reasons.
But we tried to educate our staff
on the legality of showing movies
and when it was allowed and when it was not.
So I will start with copyright law
and what you're allowed to do in the classroom.
And then I'll get into the caveats.
Teachers, if they are showing a movie
for educational purposes are allowed to use any movie
(27:47):
or show any movie without payment.
This means that if you are showing or teaching a lesson
about the Iliad and the Odyssey,
you're allowed to take your students to that movie.
You're allowed to show the students
that movie in your classroom.
This does not allow you to use that movie
for entertainment purposes.
So that says you're not allowed to use a movie
for family movie night.
(28:08):
You're not allowed to use it for indoor recess
or a rewards program.
It is only if you can directly connect that movie
to your curriculum or what you're teaching.
However, the caveat is when you're talking
about a streaming service like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon,
those have their own separate usage agreements.
And usually those companies have agreements
with the movie studios as to how they can be used.
(28:30):
So just because you have a Netflix account
doesn't give you the right to use Netflix in the classroom,
even though you're allowed to show a movie.
That's where you can buy one-time licenses for the movies.
You can buy subscription services
that allow you to show movies for both educational
and non-educational purposes.
But it's really, really important to say
(28:52):
that teachers have the right under section 110,
title 17 to use copyright material in their curriculum
as long as it is legally obtained.
So do you block streaming services
like Netflix and Hulu and Disney Plus?
I would say on the IT side,
that's not our decision to make.
I would defer to district leadership and curriculum
(29:15):
as to whether or not they want to allow that.
But again, you're allowed to use it for educational purposes.
Did you say title 17?
Mm-hmm.
I thought it was 27.
There's a couple districts by UNI
that they had so many staff streaming.
I don't remember if it was Disney Plus
or Amazon or Prime or Netflix or who it was.
(29:39):
They kept getting denial listed by the provider.
I feel like we've had that a couple of times.
Again, I don't ask what the teacher's
using these things for.
I'm not paying attention.
I'm just allowing that website to be viewed.
I'm turning my eye.
How are you start feeling about that, whatever.
(30:00):
But if we get a ticket, we're like,
hey, Disney Plus isn't working or Netflix isn't working.
I don't do anything.
I say that we don't work on that.
And then like a week or two goes by
and it starts working again.
I have assumed a couple of times
that we were put on a block list or something
for several people using Netflix all at the same time
towards end of year or close to Christmas break
(30:22):
kind of thing.
No, you were just in editing your filter rules.
It is hard though.
Even going back to the Swank conversation some.
And this isn't a plug for Swank at all.
It's just what's brought up.
But Swank has that solution
that gets your licensing ducks in a row.
And it had that streaming platform
where they're listing all the titles
(30:43):
and the teachers can just log into it and get to it.
But I had a superintendent
where I was pitching that pretty hard
because I wanted to block Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu.
And he more said to me, well, what's the alternative?
Well, the alternative is not spending money
on something like Swank and just turning our heads
(31:03):
and telling our teachers what they need to know
and then just kind of crossing fingers
and hoping that they're doing right.
And that saves the, I'm gonna put this in quotation marks,
that saves the district money
when we just turn our heads a little bit.
Tell your DMCA.
Yes.
There are movies on Netflix that have been classified
(31:26):
as allowed to be used in schools.
So even if you have a Netflix subscription,
I should check and see if there's any latest ones,
but there have been some movies
that Netflix has specifically licensed
to be used by teachers in classrooms.
So it is hard to have a blanket statement
or a blanket policy on a service like that.
Well, you get into that gray space where,
(31:49):
okay, Miss Smith opens up her Netflix account
to get to one of those approved movies
or documentaries, Mark,
and in the recommendations is 50 Shades of Gray
because she's watched something
that Netflix thinks she might like that movie.
That's a conversation that I don't know
what administrator would want to have with a parent
(32:11):
if the kid goes home and says,
hey, the teacher pulled up Netflix
and we saw all kinds of things.
That's something else to be prepared for
and willing to have that conversation
if you're gonna allow those types of services
to be accessed by staff.
Well, you should not be opening any streaming service
that has your recommended videos on it
because who knows what the kids are gonna interpret.
(32:32):
Especially Josh's, the cookie videos, cookie monster.
Here's another cookie bourbon recipe, Josh.
Yeah, probably.
Girls got cookies and bourbon.
You can pair those too, yeah.
All right, Chris, do you wanna take us
into this Lightspeed interview?
Yeah, for sure.
(32:52):
A couple events coming up
before we jump into this Lightspeed interview.
We have the Gamus Conference, July 6th through the 10th.
That's in Savannah, Georgia.
All three of us will be there.
That's thanks to Gamus for having us,
but thanks to sponsors like Fortinet,
fortinetpodcasts.fortinet.com and Manage Methods.
They can do your cybersecurity and your student safety.
(33:13):
Check out managemethods.com.
But check out Gamus.
That's not just a conference for Georgians.
It's for the nation.
So go to Gamus, check out Gamus.
We will be there to hang out.
And then we have Midwest Tech Talk also coming up in July.
That's midwesttechtalk.com.
Two Trees is gonna be there.
They talk about tech directors and buying hardware,
(33:33):
sometimes the easy part,
but then rolling it out is where some issues can come in.
They can help you with that.
They can help you with what you have going on.
They wanna be your partner.
I'll put a link to Two Trees.
If you don't know anything about their services,
check them out.
But last but not least here,
I got to interview Amy Bennett.
She's the chief of staff with Lightspeed Systems.
(33:54):
And we had a great conversation about screen time,
not just with Lightspeed, just the big picture,
kind of what we talked about just now,
the great screen time debate.
So this is an interview with Amy Bennett,
chief of staff with Lightspeed Systems.
All right, I am hanging out with Amy Bennett,
the chief of staff with Lightspeed Systems.
(34:15):
Lightspeed, a proud sponsor of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
And you've been with us with Midwest Tech Talk
and K-12 Tech Pro.
Amy, how are you?
I am great.
I'm excited to be here on the podcast
for my first time, Chris.
I would say we do a lot of emails back and forth
or we have over the years.
And then just recently we were doing
(34:36):
a quick little email exchange about screen time stuff.
So excited to see your face, to see you not in person,
but to see you over the air.
I guess summer is busy at Lightspeed?
Really, every time is busy, just for a different reason.
I've been at Lightspeed for like 17 years.
(34:57):
So I've stopped saying, it'll get calmer when X,
because there's always the next thing.
It's back to school,
and then it's the end of the calendar year,
and then it's testing,
and then it's the end of the school year.
It's always something.
I'm sure you know that better than anybody.
Yeah, we always laugh end of year.
Everybody's like, oh, you're gonna enjoy your summer.
And I do enjoy summer.
(35:20):
But that's when the fun stuff happens.
The new budget kicks in.
We get to buy things.
It's usually the more technical things
that we get to do over June, July, into mid-August.
Not so much dealing with printers jamming
and teachers saying that XYZ is not working kind of stuff.
So a change of pace.
(35:41):
It's a good change of pace.
That's right.
All right, so we wanna talk about screen time today.
It's become this major national conversation.
Lots of bills floating around,
and some have been passed into law
about student screen time.
I know Lightspeed has a solution
(36:01):
that can help with monitoring of that,
but we just wanna talk bigger picture
about screen time in general.
So why do you think, Amy,
why is this issue becoming a thing now in 2026?
Yeah, it's really interesting, Chris,
because we've had screen time data
and been a small element of the products for a long time,
(36:23):
but it has reached a fevered pitch this year.
And I think that a lot of it is because
whether we're talking about people working in schools
or we're talking about parents,
you look at students,
and there probably is a screen time
technology overuse problem.
(36:45):
I think that it leads to mental health concerns,
it leads to social media concerns,
all of these things that are really real.
What I think has happened, though,
is we have conflated personal or consumer consumption
with district device and instructional screen time.
(37:07):
And I think that the concerns about screen time
are legitimate.
One of the things that I'm talking about all over
is the gap between those concerns
and some of the realities that we see in school districts.
Yeah, so when a lawmaker talks about screen time,
(37:27):
I guess that's the question.
How do you think they're defining it
and do you think they're defining it correctly?
Yeah, I guess when we're seeing
so much legislation come out about this,
and they are talking about
school district device screen time.
So they're not conflate,
I think the concerns come from personal devices,
(37:47):
but in the legislation, they're not conflating the two.
But what I have seen most legislation really ignore
is this idea that there's different types of screen time.
There is active versus passive,
there's instructional versus recreational,
supervised, unsupervised, creation, consumption.
(38:09):
And those are nuances that are really hard to legislate.
So I think that what we're seeing in bills
across the country is really ignoring that idea
that not all screen exposure has the same impact,
educational or developmental or social.
Yeah, we've had some conversations
(38:31):
about a lot of these things are saying like 25 minutes
for elementary students.
I think I've read some about like 45 minutes.
And some of those questions are around,
where do we get the number 25 from?
How do we come up with 45?
Like what's the data that backs that up?
And then interesting in Missouri,
(38:55):
a lot of our online tests that our state gives us
take more than 25 minutes.
So then there has to be extra sentences written
where they're saying like,
okay, well, in this case,
it makes sense for more than 25 minutes.
And I think that's what you're talking about.
We can't just lump this problem in as one standard thing.
(39:15):
There will be exceptions to the rule.
And then we could banter too.
I can go over to my elementary and say it's 25 minutes.
If I talk to most all my teachers,
they're already doing that without someone telling me
that 25 minutes is the time.
Our folks have already figured out.
(39:37):
They don't need a bill.
They don't need a law.
They don't need someone telling them
because they're already doing what is correct.
Yeah, you're so right, Chris.
And that is the thing when the legislation
or the guidance comes out with these specific quotas.
A, on the one hand, whoa,
(39:58):
there's gonna have to be so many exceptions.
As you mentioned, testing time or students with IEPs
or you're thinking about homework.
And when do you really wanna limit students on that?
Or this is a snow day and students are working from home.
Whatever those different things are,
the exceptions to manage for someone in your role
and all the people like you, that becomes crazy.
(40:21):
But the reality is that the actual amount of screen time
that students are getting on their district devices
in school is really reasonable from everything we see.
Like you just said, what we see is elementary,
the national average 35 minutes.
(40:43):
It peaks in middle school at 57 minutes.
I think that, as I mentioned in the beginning, this gap,
if you ask parents what they think,
they guess four hours out of a school day on screen.
And the reality is just so different than that.
Yeah, so do you think, I guess that's a follow-up then,
(41:04):
of the 30-something minutes or the 50-something minutes,
how much negative stuff is in there
that you think a parent or a lawmaker would be like,
yeah, we should cut that out?
Do you see a lot of that in what Lightspeed's finding?
Well, you know that schools are already doing so much
with content filtering, which is required,
(41:26):
with classroom management, with YouTube controls,
with so many things that bad sites
are really already blocked.
And it comes down to nuances of what is good
versus bad screen time to make that decision.
YouTube is one of the things that comes up a lot,
(41:46):
and it's one of the things that has me
the most fired up here,
because there was an article in the Wall Street Journal
a couple of weeks ago that the headline was,
YouTube has taken over the American classroom.
And it told stories of one student
who watches 700 videos in a month,
or like these edge cases like that.
(42:08):
Yeah.
What our data shows is in elementary school,
the average YouTube consumption is one minute per day.
One minute per day in elementary school,
peaking in high school at 5.7.
So parents are worried about these edge cases.
The media is latching onto these edge cases,
(42:29):
but the reality is really so different than that,
because you're already blocking the distracting
or inappropriate YouTube content
that students would wanna watch 700 of in a row anyway.
Yeah, and I mean, sticking with YouTube too,
even those that consume a lot of YouTube,
(42:50):
a lot of that might be background noise,
some music that they're listening to
while they're doing an assignment.
Some of that's not even completely fair
to have a debate about.
It's not necessarily a kid staring at a YouTube video.
And again, to say that stuff doesn't happen,
I won't say it doesn't happen,
(43:11):
but I think if you take a good look, like you're saying,
it's not the problem that we think it is.
Or if it is, that's not necessarily screen time
as much as that is the content.
We could be having this conversation
just talking about our content filter,
and that's classroom management.
That's a principal talking to a teacher about,
(43:33):
hey, don't let your kids get on YouTube.
That's a tech department putting in better content rules
that restrict YouTube access.
That's turning off YouTube for elementary kids
on your Google admin console.
That has nothing to do with just the screen time debate
as that big picture thing.
So do you think YouTube is probably the biggest thing
(43:53):
that's off with these screen time bills?
I think that the personal cell phone bans,
they probably were the precursor to this.
The social media bans, they're really related to that too.
But I would say most districts are banning social media
on district devices anyway.
(44:15):
They have most of that blocked for various reasons.
So I think that YouTube comes under scrutiny.
I think that you're seeing headlines.
I think you were talking about it on the pod
a couple of weeks ago, certain instructional tools
that it's like students are spending too much time in that.
Some of those come under scrutiny too.
(44:36):
But the way I see it is just like you said,
this becomes part of what districts are doing anyway.
We're looking at the data.
We're looking at app usage.
We're finding out if it's having instructional impact.
We're like measuring those things
and then adjusting policies,
locking down more content filtering
or renewing or not renewing apps because of all of that.
(44:59):
So I think that like YouTube,
it was, I think iReady or something like that
recently was in headlines.
And it's taking a couple of specific instances
and turning them into a national story
or state legislation that fills a little blanket probably.
Yeah.
Yeah, and so I do wanna talk to you
and I'll just, the full transparency is in on this.
(45:21):
You didn't come on here
to talk about Lightspeed products so much.
You asked, we were talking,
you're like, I would just love to talk
about screen time big picture.
But I know that Lightspeed has this good analytics tool.
So would you go ahead and like, let's talk about that,
but let's talk about what analytics a school can look at
that can help them make, to change this conversation some.
(45:44):
Yep.
I think it's so important.
And I've been at so many conferences recently
talking about screen time.
And I think that the way to close that gap
between what people think is happening in schools
and what is actually happening in schools
when it comes to screen time is one thing data,
(46:05):
second thing, more transparency and communication
about all the things that you're doing to vet apps
and look at analytics and filter the environment
and reduce distractions, all of that.
So what it's, our analytics tool is Lightspeed Insight
and it's all of the information
(46:27):
about what apps are being used and who's using them
and how often they're used.
And really it was for the last many years,
the data that helped inform districts
about those decisions and look at their applications
and make sure they're compliant and meeting all the needs.
But it has really hit this new level of interest
because of screen time specifically.
(46:49):
So I think there's an opportunity to take that data
and go into board meetings, go back to communities
and have a statement along the lines of,
we share your concerns about screen time.
That is why we use filtering and classroom management
and YouTube blocking to make sure we're focused
(47:11):
on the right instructional uses of educational technology.
And here, let's look at the data and let's figure out
if this feels right for our community.
Back to your point of is 25 minutes right, is 45?
Let's look at the data and talk about,
use that as the starting point to have a conversation
about what seems right in this environment.
(47:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So I want you to predict the future then.
What do you think in, I don't know, two, three years
from now, what do you think K-12 is gonna look like
with technology, with the screen?
Do you think we're gonna be, I mean,
do you think these laws are gonna pass nationwide
(47:55):
and we're really gonna be restricting
and having a heavy pay attention?
I mean, are we gonna turn off screens
after it hits the 26 minute?
What do you think the world's gonna look like
in a K-12 classroom with screen time in three years?
I mean, I think that, you know, it's hard to predict things
(48:16):
in this environment, but I'm gonna take a shot.
Okay, so Iowa has already passed legislation
with specific quotas for K-5 on their screen time.
But most states, what we are seeing is where I think
the trend will largely go, which is legislation
gets introduced with quotas.
(48:38):
But by the time it passes, it is guidance to look at data,
set reasonable limits, think about what the right balance is
and create guidelines within a school around that.
And I think that's probably the right direction.
I certainly can't look seven years ahead in my work life
(48:59):
and picture it not very, very, very centered
around technology.
So to expect our students to graduate ready for college
and careers and not be immersed in technology
and using it, learning to use it in really balanced ways
and learning to have those self controls
(49:19):
to know when too much screen time is too much screen time.
I think that would be the mistake.
If we let the pendulum swing too far
that we're not preparing students for the world
that they're stepping out of K-12 into.
And AI is a really great example of that too, right?
We need to be teaching them how to use it safely
(49:41):
and how to protect their data and how to judge its accuracy.
We need to be teaching them all those skills
so that they are using it effectively
when they're entering a workforce
that really expects AI skills.
I, this is making me feel old,
but the way back when, way before the year 2020,
(50:05):
I would do this talk with faculty staff
and talk about, you know, to have 2020 vision,
you know, and how our kids in elementary and middle school
that, you know, when they graduate all these jobs
that don't exist yet, that's what they're gonna be in
and to keep your 2020 vision on and that kind of spiel.
Well, obviously we're 2026
and those kids have long graduated.
(50:26):
But that's the interesting spot that we're in.
It's almost like we're,
there's this shift in preparing kids not for the future
because we, you know, you and I can talk for a long time
about what the workforce is looking like
and that AI train that's coming
that's already hitting the workforce.
(50:46):
But then there's this weird resistance thing
and this shift in K-12 and in college
to lessen technology,
which is not what's happening on the other side.
Like when we get to the other side,
that's not what's happening.
So it's almost like we're not wearing our proper glasses
to see what we're supposed to be preparing kids for.
(51:07):
And I, and this is me ranting,
but I think it's gotten like,
it's like cool and trendy to say let's reduce screen time
and technology and technology is bad.
And is that why lawmakers are suddenly
wanting these things to float through?
I'm all for the law, the bill that says
local school district decide,
because that lets the local school district, you know,
(51:28):
use some common sense and do what it needs to do.
Or even at a state level, I can take some of that stuff.
But yeah, we're in interesting times with that.
So I guess-
It really is.
And you see funding and an emphasis on CTE
and AI coming from a federal level.
That is use technology, prepare, prepare.
(51:49):
And then you wanna ban screens
or you wanna severely limit screens.
I think the answer in most things is somewhere in the middle
and it's let's recognize there's a lot of gray area
in good screen time, bad screen time,
appropriate screen time, whatever that is.
(52:09):
Let's look at the data, let's make reasonable decisions
and let's create probably more transparency.
I think that a lot of parents just do not know
how much time their students are on screens in a school day
and what that screen time is comprised of,
all of those things.
So the other thing we're seeing as a legislative trend
(52:30):
is parent visibility.
And that probably makes sense
and it will probably ease some of these concerns.
Yeah, yeah.
If you're a mom or dad or a guardian
and you can literally look easy
and see what your kid is up to in school,
what they're doing with the screen,
(52:50):
yeah, for sure that's gonna ease some of these concerns
that are out there.
So I guess, and this is probably the last question then Amy,
if I'm listening to this,
if I'm in a tech director or CIO spot,
what should I be doing to prepare
for future mandates on screen time?
I would say almost forget about the mandates,
(53:16):
prepare for the conversations that need to happen,
whether there are mandates or not,
just to create more transparency
and more balance in your schools.
So have the data, know what screen time looks like,
make sure that you're doing the appropriate things
in vetting your apps and setting those limits
(53:38):
and then communicate with your communities
and your school boards and your parents about that
so that we're closing that gap
between perception and reality.
And we're recognizing that technology addiction
in our kids is not good, but here's where we're at
and what should we be doing that's different?
So having those conversations that are based on facts
(54:00):
instead of feelings.
Love it.
Amy, thank you so much.
Again, Amy Bennett, Chief of Staff at Lightspeed Systems,
check out LightspeedSystems.com.
You guys have that Signal product,
that's good stuff for tracking devices.
And then this is Insight, correct?
That's right.
And if you go to our website,
you can find a free screen time audit
(54:22):
that will give you this data for 14 days.
So you don't have to buy our product,
you don't have to do any of that,
but you can start having those conversations
based on the facts in your district.
Awesome.
Thank you, Amy.
Thank you, Chris.
♪ We might not be the same ♪
♪ But you feel the same pain that I do ♪
(54:46):
The views and opinions expressed
on the K12 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.
Material and information presented here
is for general information and entertainment purposes only.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.
♪ We were buying words about the praise of the faith ♪
(55:08):
♪ And selling songs just to stand the cue ♪
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