Phones, Chromebooks, AI, and The Battle for Their Attention (Send Help!) - BNT Team Meeting [S7 EP. 277] (Copy)

Listen to the full episode below:

If your algorithm has also been screaming “screens are ruining humanity!” at you lately, then you’re right at home with us in this week’s team meeting! It feels like everywhere we look - Instagram, YouTube, the news - someone’s ringing the alarm about kids, tech, and the downfall of literacy. 

In this episode, we talk honestly about that doom-scroll feeling, but more importantly, we shift the focus to what we can actually do in our classrooms. With a new term around the corner, we’re leaning hard into reframing, not removing, technology so our students can build the human skills they need just as much (if not more) than tech comfort.

We walk through the big take aways from a recent Education Week article: students may be tech comfortable but not tech fluent. And that gap? It’s all about the human stuff - decision making, problem solving, listening, and the ability to sift through information with a critical lens. 

That’s what led us straight into the heart of this episode: helping students remember how to PLAY. Play isn’t fluff. It’s the foundation of resilience, creativity, risk-taking, and critical thinking. We’re talking improv, pantomime, pretend, making weird shapes with our bodies… all the things that peel back the layers of socialization, hormones, and screen fog so kids can rediscover their curiosity.

By the end, we land on our new favorite idea: a New Year’s Favorite Things Party, a Brave New Teaching team meeting where we share our go-to play-based activities for the classroom. Because if we can get kids to play again, we can help them think again…and that’s the real work.

topics discussed:

  • Why “tech comfort” isn’t the same as actual tech fluency 

  • The difference between using screens as tools vs. crutches, and how to reframe classroom technology

  • Finland’s play-based magic: What we can (and should!) steal for our own teaching

  • How play, improv, and just trying things out can reawaken creativity and critical thinking

  • Plans for a virtual “favorite things” party with activities to jumpstart student engagement in the new term

resources:

check out other bnt episodes:

More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

Tune in on your favorite podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Amanda Cardenasbook recommendations