Why EdTech Usage Doesn’t Equal Impact ft. Dr. Paula Cushanick | My EdTech Life 351

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 0:11

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another great episode of My EdTech Live. It is 2026, and I am glad to be behind the mic. I am your host, Dr. Alfonso Mendoza, or you can call me Dr. Fonz. Again, as always, I am excited to be here with you all, bringing you some amazing conversations that will continue to help us grow professionally and personally as well. And I want to give a big shout out to our sponsors, Eduaid, Book Creator, and Peelback Education. Thank you so much for believing in our mission to bring these great conversations into our education space. And I am excited to welcome my very first guest of 2026, Dr. Kishanik, who is joining me this morning. And we are going to have an amazing conversation. And before we get started, I definitely, as of right now, if you are on TikTok, I please urge you to go and on TikTok and search up Dr. C because she shares some amazing, amazing content among um bilingual education or about bilingual education. So again, please follow her. And I am excited to welcome you, Dr. Kishanik. How are you this morning?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 1:27

Everybody. I didn't know I was your first guest for 2026. I'm aware.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 1:32

Yes, exactly. Yes, no, you're very welcome. So I'm excited that you're here because I stumbled upon your content maybe a couple of months back and I started following you. I know I started commenting because your content really resonates with me and my experience as well, not only as an English language learner when I was a lot younger, but also seeing the implementation process within the K-12 space. So for our audience members who are joining us and just learning about you and your work today, can you give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the education space?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 2:11

So yes, I understand that feeling of being an English language learner. Um there, I'm still am. And so I actually had been in the education, public education for about 17, 18 years now. But I just want people to know that I am an idealist at heart. I believe in a world where equity and access, um, it's viable and it's doable for all students, not just EV students. And I bring this up because this is this is why I did my work. This is why I do what I do. So I've been in the education world for about 17 years. I started as a bilingual classroom teacher. I taught many different levels there. And um, later on I worked at the district level where I was a K-12 instructional specialist for the language acquisition department. And I moved on to be a data specialist, and um I did that for a couple of years, but I miss my babies. I miss the classroom. So I'm back in the classroom and I'm currently at um an elementary school and I'm the ESL specialist there.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 3:30

That is awesome. Well, I mean, that kind of leads into our conversation today and talking about, you know, the the bridge between uh digital world and of course language acquisition. And this is where I have been so enlightened by your content because, like I said, it definitely resonates with me in so many ways as a classroom teacher when I first started 19 years ago, then as a digital learning uh director or coordinator, I should say, and then of course as assessment too, because all of that all ties together. So I want to ask you, you know, as far as your research is concerned and that particular topic, uh, maybe I can probably assume and guess, you know, the passion behind it, but kind of walk us through that. What was it that led you to do or follow this area of research?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 4:23

Yes. So um as I worked at the district level for the K-12 instructional specialists, I began seeing some patterns, right? We as a district, we saw there were some concerns because less than half of our students were making English language growth, right? So we acquired this program, it's called SAMA K-12 to address this. But then I began to see some patterns. And I that's what led me to think about okay, what how how is this really working for our students, first of all, right? Is this making an impact? Are they using it correctly? What does that look like? And if so, you know, how can we do it better? Right? That meant that continuous improvement mentality for us and for me, right? So I went ahead and I dig deeper. I never thought as an English learner I could do a doctor because writing it's not my strength. But I jumped in and I let my professors know I'm an English language learner and they were a blessing. They just said, okay, you can you can do this, you got this. And with their help, I was able to complete that recently in February. So I'm a recent doctor. Um, but I know that I this is important to us and this conversation because this is very recent research. And I think even though some districts are not even considered, let's say Summit K-12 as specific digital content or product, but they are considering other digital products. And I think um we can learn a lot about this research so we can better implement that within our school districts and within all our setting, right? Within our needs within the school districts.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 6:13

Yeah. And I think that you mentioned something that I want to hit on and kind of just pull the string a little bit, you know, especially with the data and the patterns and usage. So for your in your role as you were serving and you were seeing these patterns, I know it resonates with what I had been doing, you know, the last eight years and seeing the patterns, the usage, the acquisition, and the growth. And I think uh a lot of people uh and the the for the in mass, you know, a lot of people just, oh, ed tech and the technology is what's hurting the learning, and the technology is what's really um not helping our students continue to grow. But then there's the intentional use of technology, and then of course, there is the kind of just sloppy use of technology where it's just you know brain rot and you're just going through um, you know, YouTube videos and things of that sort. Uh going back in my experience, I just wanted to share too taught the importance of language acquisition and of course developing that language is very near and dear to me, and especially with a story that I know I've mentioned many times on the show, but I do want because it does tie to this, I want to help our listeners learn this that the one of the last years that I was teaching in fifth grade, I we had a set of twins in our fifth grade pod. So I was in a pod of three, the other pod was a pod of two. I was the teacher that always took the risk, and we only had two Chromebook carts in our whole school at the time. That was back in 2016, around there. And I was the one teacher that had that thing checked out every single day, and it basically lived in my classroom. So we had two sets of twins. One twin was with in my pod, the other twin was in the other pod. I was the hands-on tech, you know, I need you to do a screen recording, I need you to speak, you know, I need you to present, I need you to practice the language. And so it was a lot of language acquisition in a very immersive way through creating PowerPoint slides, through presentations, through screencastifies, um, you know, and things of that sort. The other pod was more worksheet-based, kind of sit-down, wrote learning and things of that sort, which, you know, I'm saying it there is some effectiveness to it in some sense, but the discourse is so important because if you don't speak, you don't talk, you don't practice the language. So what happened is at the end of the year, my twin, uh, my student was able to exit the bilingual program while the sister stayed behind and she had made leaps and bounds. And the great thing is that everything that we did was saved in a digital portfolio through Google Drive. So if there was evidence of beginning, middle, and end of year. So even the principals and the teachers and the parents were just like amazed at the growth. But yes, there was a lot of hands-on technology use, but the intention behind it was also there. So I want to talk to you about that because now with your experience that you've seen and through your research, and I know you've mentioned some at K-12, and there is a plethora of platforms that are out there. You know, how how can or what what is the best advice that you can give at the district level as far as intentionality of a product, and then at a classroom level, also for that intentional use?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 9:41

Absolutely. I actually that's a perfect example of what we saw in the data, right? I studied about 2,200 emergent bilingual students. There were grades two to 12. Those were the students that were using the platform. And most people would assume that higher usage includes higher growth. The more I use the tool, the more minutes I put in, the more times I log in, that baby's gonna grow. Unfortunately, that's not what we saw. The data reflected that there was no correlation or not equal, usage did not equal impact. Usage did not equal growth, right? So then the key inside of my research was number one, usage does not equal impact. And I'm gonna tell you, one data point that stood out right away was a student who logged in for 3,070 minutes. I was like, great, he's gonna be a rock star. Let's see this. No, absolutely no growth. And we're looking at the English language proficiency growth. And I went on a removed, right? So we could really look at growth. I went ahead and removed previous language scores. So we're just looking at growth, and this maybe not not a decimal point of growth. Okay. So then that led me to believe, okay, then what what is happening? Because they're overall as a Justrick, we were growing, but usage was not the impact, right? So it's like you said, how intentionally our teachers are implementing that technology within the classroom, that then we're able to see growth. That's number one. Then number two is if we would have been better at implementation, right? Because now I'm seeing there's an implementation opportunity here. If we would have been better at implementation, we could have gains, our gains been higher. And I and I told you about being an idealist at heart because of this. This is my way of thinking. If we could have done it just a little bit better, if we could have worked on the implementation part of it better, could we have seen better results? And mind you, Dr. Fonz, we are seeing good results. It's just not because of usage. Does that make sense?

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 12:27

Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, that is something that was the biggest struggle for me in the last eight years, where we would get a platform and it's like, well, what's the usage? And and it was always usage, and it was always usage, and it was always based on usage. But like you said, we never saw and dove deep into is it making an impact? And especially, you know, there's a platform out there that we did use in the district. And again, I'm no longer at that district, but it is a very well-known uh platform that was for our major content. And so the students were all said, like, okay, you got to do 30 minutes per week per subject was the minimum. Um, and then of course, I don't know, in your experience, there were times where the students were logging in thousands of minutes and thousands of questions, but then the impact was not there. And so one of the things, too, that I would mention is that sometimes maybe at the district level, we think that what is being purchased is going to be that solution, that one thing that, okay, this is the one thing that is gonna set us apart and put us over the top as long as they use it. Because when they sell, it's like, well, as long as you use it for this much time, they're bound to grow and they're bound to do this. But they don't talk about all the other variables there, you know, as far as you know, the proper implementation, which you mentioned, what I which I think it is key. And proper implementation cannot be just one PD session per school at the beginning of the year, and that's it, you're done. It has to be something that is continuous, something that uh, you know, goes on beginning of year, middle of the year, end of year, and then try and help those teachers that might be struggling to see how they might be able to implement it into their curriculum and the time that they have, and also for the students to be able to use it correctly. Because as we know, like you mentioned, the one student, they logged in, you said, like what, 3,000 something hours. But sometimes you can just log in and that's it. You're not doing anything, or you're just clicking through the questions and you're not really getting anything from it. So there has to be also that accountability to for a teacher to be able to look at the data on their end and then see is the student progressing? Are they not progressing? So, in your experience, you know, can you tell us a little bit about, or either through the research, that implementation component we know is so important. What would be some of the best advice that you might give a district level leader as far as proper implementation of a product?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 15:37

So I would challenge um how are we measuring implementation, right? So think as a district, I understand why we are measuring implementation through logs in logins and minutes. That's easy. It's easy to measure logs in, right? I can pull a report quickly and the product will tell me how many logins each student has. I can pull a report for usage, how many minutes the student or how many lessons. So I would challenge district leaders to think about how are we measuring the effectiveness because equity doesn't mean accessibility. It has to be accessibility and effectiveness. It has to go together. Okay. So we need to ask as district leaders, we need to ask, is it being used? And number two, is it effective? And if we don't answer yes to both questions, we're not providing equity to our students. So as district leaders, I get it. We we can do the easy. Easy is pulling the report, but we're gonna have to step back and think about how are we measuring that product's effectiveness? How are we measuring usage?

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 16:59

That is powerful. Like right now, that you just summed everything up for me, like in my thought process, because oftentimes what might happen to uh as district leaders, the decisions are made, but sometimes I'll be honest with you, the correct people aren't in the room when a lot of those decisions are made. So, for example, if there's a math platform that is going to be, or or you're looking at um purchasing, sometimes the math coordinators aren't involved. And then at the end, they're like, well, we didn't know this was happening, or now I've got to work with this and seeing how I can tie this in. And it may not fall in line, maybe even with the curriculum that you have available. So I would add to that that it's important too, that not only based on usage, but on that growth, but also prior those decision-making uh meetings, need to have the proper people in the room that are out there looking at the classroom, seeing what the needs are for the students so that way you can make the best decision to get the most effective platform. And I think that that goes and ties well with that implementation. But I think that you hit the nail on the head, usually it's it's all about the ROI return on investment. So we just spent, like, for example, I'm a district, I just spent, you know, $300,000 on this platform. I just want to see usage. Is it being used so that way I can justify my purchase? But but the like you mentioned, the usage does not show if there is that growth. You need to go in deeper than that. And that's where I think we often miss out on a lot of things because then it's like, well, this that we've got the usage up, but we're not growing. So now let's dump that. Let's get another product and oh, this is the one. But then it turns out to be just another band-aid on top of another band-aid. And that could be very dangerous for our students too, as well, because they're not getting the proper support that they need.

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 18:58

Absolutely. And and and I would I would challenge furthermore. I would say my teachers, you know, teachers they have different stages of development within technology, right? So I'm getting used to this product, and then all of a sudden you give me another product. Now I have to relearn a whole platform. So I'm having to do a few things. I'm having to relearn a whole new platform, I'm having to play with it, experiment if if I'm if I'm excited enough, right? And then furthermore, if I don't feel comfortable with the platform, am I able to innovate with it? Right? And that's where I was, yes, I'm going back to the classroom because I know exactly what I need to do with this new platform. Yes, I could see how it can better our students, but it needs to be very intentionally placed within my instruction. And unfortunately, not all teachers feel these um comfortability. Is that even a word? I don't know. Um, to integrate technology within the instruction, right? The teacher is the one responsible for what when learning is happening. What technology does, it helps amplify what is happening in the classroom, right? So if I don't feel comfortable using that tool, I'm not Able to innovate, I'm gonna be stuck at the log in, be silent, do the busy work, let tech be the babysitter, right? Because district says, and they know better than me because they're the experts, right? That this is what works for my students. But if we allow teachers to play with it, be trained, do ongoing professional development, not at the just at the beginning of the year, not a Canvas course that we just click, click, click and submit, right? So if we support teachers through that implementation process, then I believe I really believe that teachers are more willing to take it to the next step in technology, which is using technology to innovate instruction.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 21:24

Wow. That is powerful because that that's often sometimes that you don't really hear too much. Because, like you mentioned, uh my experience, you know, I I was the risk taker. I didn't mind using the technology. I just said, hey, you know what? If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But it took time to to do that. And and sometimes you have to be a lot of patience. There's a lot of failure that goes into it. Sometimes things don't go according to plan, but it's all about adapting, improvising, overcoming. And I just never gave up on that. And for a lot of teachers, because it is so busy and it's so inundated with you know, curriculum. I've got to be at this point by this time, I've got to do this and this. Sometimes they just feel very overwhelmed and they're a little scared. And then, of course, it makes it difficult for them to add the technology piece to it and then feel comfortable enough to where now they're taking it and augmenting the lesson in a way or augmenting the instruction in a way that is going to be helpful to the student. So I kind of want to turn this around a little bit and just to see through your experience now that I want to see the other side, like maybe the student side too, because you have that experience in working with students and in looking at that data and looking at that growth. What are the consequences of poor implementation and support in the classroom? What is it that we would be seeing in a student as a red flag? And maybe this can serve uh as a message to our district leaders and our teachers to see what are the look for and how might we correct that?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 23:06

Absolutely. Some of the look for not effective implementation is silence. Silence. And I think you did it beautifully with one of the twins is how much language output are they experiencing in the classroom, right? Are we reading? Great, right? But how much are we producing that's outside of that technology? Or that's right, I get my kids to start talking. We practice with each other. We do a model lesson. It's like gradual, let's go back to the old school gradual release model, right? And but it works, it works. I model that lesson first. This is what you're gonna see in your technology here in a minute. But let's look, let's practice all together. Then they go and they practice together, right? They have that collaborative. Oh, yeah, that was good. Yes, you added a lot of details of that. Oh no, it's not is, it is our. Remember because it's two people, right? So we have those conversations, then we bring that and put it into technology. And one of the things that I actually love is that technology gives us immediate feedback. As before, it didn't, right? We had to wait for this beautiful report to come. Now with AI, we get immediate feedback. So as soon as my students uh finish that lesson and produce that language output, they're able to say, Oh, and I'm gonna tell you this is what's happening right now in my classroom. I'm gonna be vulnerable here for a minute, but um, we have to work on more uh vocabulary, including more new words, more descriptive words, right? Overall, and we're seeing, oh yeah, I needed to include more details, but they're getting that feedback immediately as they're producing. A teacher, I can give you feedback to one or two students, all of my students are getting that immediate feedback due to technology. So going when you walk into the classroom and it's silenced and it's being used as the second pod of my baby tween over here, where yes, it was worksheet, right? And there's a time and a place, like you said, for that too. That's has its effectiveness as well. But I do worry when my emergent bilingual students are not producing the language output.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 25:32

No, yeah, that is huge, you know, and that's something that is has been kind of the story these past probably six plus years, that as going through classrooms, it's really just teacher-centered teachers are the experts, and now the students are just consuming. They're consuming, but they're not creating, like you mentioned, and have that ability to have discourse in the classroom and have discussions and communication. And I think that that really is an effective way to acquire uh language and to learn. And like you mentioned, you know, the story with the pod. You know, that that to me, that's why this is I'm so passionate about the bilingual education, because that's the way that I learned growing up. I mean, I had to participate. There was, you know, just kind of like, hey, you're thrown in, and here I am watching, you know, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, pinwheel. I'm yeah, I'm aging myself here, but then it doesn't matter. And and immersing myself in that, but also in school, but it's all also with the practice, and that's a huge component of it. So it's like I agree with you, that the technology has a place, but it's also important to have that feedback. And like you said, many of these platforms that are out there now do provide that immediate feedback. But aside from that, having the opportunity for the teachers to give the students the ability to explain your thought process. Tell me what you thought that was, tell me why, you know, you think that that's the correct answer, or explain that answer to me. I always loved doing that because it allowed me some insight into their thought process. And then it allowed me as a teacher to adjust for my presentation that when I presented something and it was still a teacher-led little mini lesson, I knew how to present it and do it three different ways for my three different types of uh thinkers. I would call them thinkers. So I had three different types of thinkers that I would have in my classroom. So now I would present it in such a way. And I think that many times we might make our jobs a little bit harder on ourselves because yes, we're giving the content, but at the same time, I think that if we allow our students to give us that content and what they're learning, we can adjust and we just kind of become like a referee and you know, allow being able to give that feedback immediately too, because they're speaking to you, they're they're sharing with you.

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 28:11

Yeah, and I and I would add, uh furthermore, I would say, you know, that gives you the time to be able to correct any misconceptions. Yes, right. So that immediate, and then and here's the beautiful thing. My students get excited to go into their Chromebooks or their or their iPads or the desktops because they are ready, right? So because we practiced, we did it, we corrected, we talked about it. So once they once they get into the uh Chromebook or computer or the technology piece, they are confident, they are ready to rock and roll. So now it's just a matter of tweaking. So when they get that feedback, they say, Oh, you needed to add more details. Oh, I, you know, from that AI feedback that they're getting, they're like, Oh, I'll work on it, and next time I got this, right? So I and for all students, I think, and I and again, I'm biased. I had to listen, I had a listen heart coming out. I think confidence in what they know, it's have the battle. Yes. And and and that resonates as a teacher. Confidence that I'm doing the right thing for my students, that it's okay if I didn't meet those usage minutes because I'm doing what's right for my students, right? It's hard, it's a battle. I've gotten those emails where they say uh so-and-so hasn't gotten this many minutes, and I'm like, oh, but he's doing we're just being more intentional about it. He really doesn't need that quite yet. We're getting there, we're getting there, right? And I get it, it's hard, it's hard, but I think we need to provide that and be able to support the confidence and the that our students are amazing learners and they can do it. And our teachers, our experts, we need to support that, right? And not hinder that, provide opportunities through the professional development. Yes, we start with language, then we go into instruction, then tech, then the data, and like you said, adjust and start the cycle again, right? So I I I understand Miss Dr. Mendelza. I get it. And I'm seeing it in the classroom, and I hope that as district leaders, we can do better, we can do better for them.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 30:36

Excellent. All right. So I want to kind of ask you a different question now, too, as well, you know, pertaining still to emergent bilinguals and and emergent bilingual education altogether. But in the years that you have been working in the classroom at, you know, at service center or central office, and then, you know, coming back into the classroom, what might be the biggest misconception about emergent bilingual learners that you're constantly trying to correct?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 31:08

And that gets me a little emotional because I've struggled with it myself, that they can't do it, that they're not capable. And we go back to are we providing that equity? Are we providing that access? Are we looking at effectiveness of our own instruction? Are we having that self-reflection? When I was going through my doctorate process, my professor didn't say, Oh, she can't do it. Writing is not for her. Granted, we have to write. How many pages was your dissertation?

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 31:44

Right? Yes.

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 31:45

No, they said we can do it. We're gonna get research hours, we're you're gonna jump into office hours, we're gonna give you the the templates, we're gonna give you those sentence temps. I'm gonna look for those specific in EV uh language mistakes, you know, those typical ones with the our tenses, right? So you you are the expert, you know your content. I'm just gonna support you where you need it, right? So I believe that not only for students, but also teachers, understanding, knowing our students, knowing our teachers, they can do it. Just because we speak a different language, it doesn't mean we're not capable. Actually, I think it it is a superpower. We're able to connect with more people, we're able to empathize, right? We're able to understand those struggles. So when I see a dyslexic student, I don't see dyslexia. I see a student that needs to be supported in a different way. And that's okay. I roll up my sleeves, let's go. What do you need so you can get there? Because you're gonna get there, right? Our students are gonna get there. We just need to understand what exactly do they need and how can I better my craft to support them.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 33:05

Oh, that is fantastic. That is awesome. So I want to ask you now too, and as can we kind of wrap up the show already, this has been an amazing conversation in just time flies when we're having fun, right? Time flies when we're having fun. But I think one thing that I do love that you said is is that oftentimes, you know, even within a school district, you have either your north side, south side, or your west side, east side, depending on the makeup and demographics. And it's always like, oh, well, it's okay. It's they're the they're the north side kids, you know, that's what's expected. And it's almost like we lower the bar because we say, well, they're not gonna be able to do it. And and that's something that's contagious because it shouldn't be that way. It's like our expectations should remain as high as those expectations maybe of the other, you know, side of the school district. And because it is that they can, they may not, for example, be have the same demographic look per se, or socioeconomic look that you expect, but that does not mean that they can't. And oftentimes it's always like, well, it's okay, we expect it from them. As long as they get us, you know, like a 78% meets, we're gonna be okay. I was like, but why are you lowering the bar? And then to me, that seems like you're just telling the teachers, hey, I all I have to do is just do the bare minimum, and then the student does not continue to grow. And so those are some of the things that I battled with. And I was like, why are we lowering the bar? I if I can do it, and yes, it's gonna take a little bit longer, it might be a little bit more work or a different way of teaching, but like you said, every student deserves that opportunity, but I feel that many times not every student is given that opportunity, and so that like you and me, I I could get really emotional about this too as well. Yes, for sure. All right. So I want to ask you. So looking ahead, let's say for you, if you had a magic wand and that you can wave that magic wand right now, what would be one way that you would wave that magic wand and help support emergent bilingual learners through that data and the technology use?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 36:11

Ooh. That had a magic wand. I would definitely look at implementation. I would definitely look at implementation and not leave the word to the teacher. The teacher's already doing the work, right? Let's collaborate with them. You mentioned earlier about having those key decision makers in the room as we're making the decisions, right? They're gonna be the ones that we need to we need to create a safe environment where teachers feel okay to raise their hand and say, uh, have you thought about and have you, and how does that look like? Can you tell me more, right? You have to provide that safe environment where teachers can ask those questions and so that we can discuss and then make a intentional plan on how we're gonna implement that instruction because technology is here and I love it. I'm here for it, yes, but we need to be intentional about how we're implementing that. And I truly believe that it does not fall on the teacher, it falls on district leaders, making sure that we are creating a plan where teachers feel adequate to then go get that plan and then innovate from there.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 37:31

Excellent. I love it. Great, great answer. All right. Well, it has been an amazing conversation. This has been phenomenal. And I can definitely see us doing, you know, a follow-up in a couple of months, too, as well, because I mean, we would still have so much to talk about. And of course, you going back to the classroom and your experience with that, your research. So it's almost like you're you're taking your research and now you're practicing everything that you found and being able to bring that. I think that's such a tremendous asset for your students as well. And I think that is just a wonderful experience that you're bringing to them. But before we wrap up, I always love to end the show with these last three questions, and I shared them with you. So hopefully, um, you know, you got a little chance to look at them, and then we can definitely get some great answers from you. So here we go. Question number one as we know, every superhero has a pain point or a weakness. So for Superman, kryptonite just weakened him. So I want to ask you, Dr. C, in the current state of education, what is your pain point? What is your edu kryptonite?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 38:43

And this one's I get passionate about it. Systems that do not allow us to be part of the creative process. Right? So systems that don't allow teachers to be in the rooms while decision makers are making the crucial decisions that directly affect us, right? So I think um we need to be able to come back and be part of the conversations. We need to be part of the systems that there's in place. I love public education, but we need to layer back and add our teachers, not at as an afterthought, but as a they're the first ones in the room. There they should be the first ones in the room because they're the the ones in the battlefield, like I say, right? So yeah, include and making sure that those systems are including our teachers.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 39:49

Excellent. Great, great response. I definitely agree. It's like you always have to have the right people in the room and just all stakeholders in the room, just to make sure you hear them out. All right, question number two, Dr. C. If you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 40:06

It would say usage does not equal impact. Just because we're using the technology, it does not mean it's effective. Okay, so please, please, please, if you're a district leader or you're a teacher, bring this to your district leaders. Just because your students are logging in, just because your students are using it, it does not mean it's effective. It might be, it might be, but we really need to look at it and truly see to both. Look at both, right?

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 40:42

Love it. That's a great billboard. That that'll definitely spark some conversation for sure. All right. And my last question for you is if you could trade places with one person for a single day, and it could be, it doesn't have to be somebody that is, you know, it could be maybe somebody that's already been in the past, a historical figure, or anybody, who would you trade places with and why?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 41:07

I I'm a teacher first, and I hope that you, you know, they see that through my TikTok videos. So I Would truly, truly would love to go back and switch places with a first year teacher and really understand their point of view. What are their struggles? What is happening? Because we always have to keep in mind as we're um integrating technology and adding all this to their plate. What does that plate look like for a first-year teacher? Keeping them always in mind. And um, it's hard. It's hard when you go to the district level to empathize and really understand what is what are the teachers, what are their real struggles? We think we know, but we need to live in their shoes for a day to really understand.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 41:57

That is a wonderful answer. I think that is probably the first time that anybody says that, you know, going back to what it's like to be a first-year teacher. Because yeah, me being a first-year teacher is very different than what it was for somebody now being a first-year teacher. And I think that is fantastic, just seeing things through their eyes and their perspectives. Because obviously, you know, when you are out of that classroom or out of that role for a while, it and every year that goes by, you're far removed and you don't remember what that's like. And sometimes not remembering what that's like, those decisions that are made are based on what you think you needed and not what teachers need now. And so that, yeah, that is a fantastic answer, Dr. C. Look at you, guys. This has been an amazing conversation. And for our all our audience members, please, like I told you in the very beginning, if you are on TikTok, please make sure you look up Dr. C on TikTok and follow her. Drop comments in there, just say, Hey, I just saw you on my ed tech life. Please drop a comment, connect with her because her content is fantastic. So please make sure you follow. Yes. Yes. And Dr. C, is there anywhere else that our my audience might be able to connect with you as far as social media is concerned?

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 43:17

I I am in Facebook, Instagram, X, you name it.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 43:23

Perfect.

Dr. Paula Cushanick: 43:23

I think I I yeah, so follow me in any of the social platforms.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 43:27

Excellent. And we'll definitely make sure we drop those links there in the episode notes, also as well, so you can go ahead and connect with her. But again, Dr. C, thank you so much for the honor of being here on the show. It's always fantastic that when I get to just I guess through the algorithm, just brought you into my feed and just hear your passion. Yes, hear your passion, hear your content and the way that it resonates. I feel that this will also be something that would be very useful to all our audience members, not just for teachers that work with emergent bilingual students, but just, you know, with the technology implementation aspect as well and your great points that you brought. So thank you so much for sharing all of that. And for our audience members, as always, thank you for all of your support. We are here. It is 2026, and I promise you we're gonna keep going, bringing you some amazing, amazing educators, creators, and amazing shows that are continue to help feed into our education community so that way we can continue to grow. And our mission and mission is always to make those connections. So thank you and a big, again, big shout out to our sponsors, Edu8 Book Creator, and Peelback Education, for believing in our mission. And please make sure you visit our website where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 350 episodes of My Ed Tech Life, where I promise you will find some knowledge nuggets that you can sprinkle on to what you are already doing. Great. And as always, my friends, don't forget, until next time, stay techy.