How AI Is Transforming School Technology Planning ft. Robbie Cobbs | My EdTech Life Ep.342

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 0:13

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another great episode of My Ed Tech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day. And wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world, thank you as always for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for engaging with our content. And this couldn't be done without our show sponsors. So big shout out to Book Creator, Eduaid, and Yellowdig and our newest sponsor, Peelback Education. Thank you so much for all of your support and believing in our mission and the conversations that we bring you here into the education space so we can continue to grow, not only professionally, but personally too as well. And I am excited about today's show because we do have a returning guest. So I am excited because this guest was with us in February. And it's been a couple of months since then. We're now in November of the same year. Mr. Robbie Cobbs is joining us today, but he's joining us today to share some big news because he's got a great project that he has just released and is bringing to our CTO educating educator world in our education landscape. So I'm really excited about that. And I'll wait till he tells you a little bit more about that. But again, let's welcome Robbie to the show. Robbie, how are you doing today?

Robbie Cobbs: 1:35

I'm doing wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. Glad to be back. Um, the last time we saw each other was actually, I think it was ISTE over the summer in San Antonio. And I was just uh it was really cool to see you up there just doing your thing, you know, being a I think you're moderating the panel. You were uh showcasing some different products, and uh I just made sure to give you some hype, some love on my socials, and just said, hey, check them out, my ed tech live fonts, all that stuff, my guy. And uh yeah, it was great catching up you then. But um, we've been busy, we've been very busy, so uh really excited about uh sharing all things uh Tech My School and Tech Plan Genie.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 2:17

Yes, I well, I'm excited about that, and you're right. The last time we saw each other was at ISTE, and thank you so much for sticking around those sessions as I I moderated, and it was a great, great experience. But enough about that because today or tonight is your night, my friend, and I am so happy that you are here because I have seen what you have been able to do for a while now, especially following you on social media. And people don't know until they experience the Tech My School experience, which you are all about, and the schools that you're helping, because for me, it was an eye-opening experience when I got to be part of this wonderful conference and see the schools that you're working with. And I was thinking to myself, oh my gosh, like I I can't believe that that schools like this exist. So it was a shock to me. However, I'm just thankful that there are people like yourself and the rest of the Tech My School team, and of course, all the wonderful people that support you in your endeavor to just bring education to life for the students there in Puerto Rico and all the teachers and the way that you equip them, the way that you treat them. It's just something special to see. So I'm really excited for you to share all of that. So before we dive in, for those of you that didn't get catch uh episode 312, where Robbie was originally on. So uh Robbie, can you give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the education space?

Robbie Cobbs: 3:48

Yeah, so I was an educator for many years and I went uh from teacher to teacher trainer, uh, tech integrator to uh CTO or tech director of schools. And uh I was just kind of going along that path, minding my own business, just living that educator life, watching fonts on the weekends. And I came uh to Puerto Rico on a sabbatical. I wanted to write a book on ed tech. It was a 15-year in the making experience. We're like, we're so excited, we're gonna go to Puerto Rico, we're gonna write this book for one year and then head back. And uh I put my kids in the local schools and I was expecting maybe like Hawaii level education, something like that, because it is America and everyone's an American citizen. But um, I was coming in from Africa and I was like, this is this is Africa, and uh I just started to serve one school and it kind of blew up. One school turned into two, turned into 50. So we've been all over the place. We do a ton of different things, and like Fon said, check out the uh that last episode um to hear more in detail about uh Tech My School and how we serve schools in Puerto Rico and schools serves in this uh serve schools in the states. But uh one thing I want to jump into is this new project we started. Um, so we had a Tech MySool booth at the FATC conference in January. And, you know, I'm there, I'm promoting for my conference. Uh we do this big ed tech, it's like the biggest ed tech conference in the Caribbean, beautiful venue. Please come to the to the show. Fonz will be there, um, and all that stuff. We have George Kurios. Uh, he's gonna be headlining for us this year. But I was promoting for our conference last year's show, trying to get teachers to come, trying to find speakers, trying to find vendors. I'm just anyone I talked with. I'm just trying to network and make it happen for Tech My School. And this gentleman approaches our booth and he goes, uh, just tell me about what you do, tell me your story. And he he had his badge kind of like hidden intentionally. Um, and I would just, you know, just my spiel, hey, we're Tech My School, we help schools in Puerto Rico. They're the, you know, America's most underserved, underprivileged schools. Da-da-da-da-da. We donate computers, we train teachers, we do classroom observations. And then he was like, hmm, I really like what you guys are doing. And I like how you go into schools and do audits and then create these tech plans, and you're kind of like keeping them alive. Can you do that for a thousand schools? And I was like, no, I cannot do that for a thousand schools because our team is limited and we're doing a million other things. Um, he's like, Yeah, because I happen to work with Google. I'm in charge of Google Education Uh, Florida, and I'd love for you guys to come in to and do it at all of our schools. And so I knew right then, I'm like, I better turn this process uh, you know, into a software. And here we are a few months later, and we did. We we turned it into a process. Uh the software is called Tech Plan Genie. As of today, November 6th, 2025. It is a one-of-one. There's no other software like it that I know of that I've heard of. I've looked around. But essentially, this software was built not just because this guy from Google is like, hey, can you do this? But really the process that we developed, you know, with tech uh tech my school and all the experience I had prior to jumping into tech my school. Um, when you work as either the tech director of a school or as the head of school in charge of technology, you're kind of on an island. You're by yourself. People come to you, and your power, your superpower is knowing about tech. And unlike a third grade teacher who you can just kind of buddy with and like, hey, what do we do with this lesson plan or whatever, you can kind of collaborate. When you're the tech director, you really don't have anyone to collaborate with in your school. You usually have to go outside your school, go to forums, watch fonts, whatever, to try to get ideas to answer questions. And I mean, ChatGPT now is available and that's great, but you really are on an island. And so there are a lot of tools for kids. There's a lot of tools out there for, you know, curriculum and all these different things, but there really isn't a tool for us, for us tech guys in schools. And so this tool is one that was built for tech directors by deck directors. And if you're ahead of school and you're in charge of parents and teachers and all these different things, but you also have to tackle technology as well. You throw in AI and all these apps and buying interactive flat panels, and this teacher wants this, and that teacher wants that. You're also on an island and you don't even have the ed tech background to really give you that framework of like, okay, what do I even do? I'm just gonna look at my neighbor's school. What is what are they doing? I guess I'm gonna buy it because they have it, or whatever. So this software kind of strategically walks you through, whether you're an ed tech expert or you're a newbie, it walks you through a process of strategic planning within your school to help you build a technology plan. Is it cool if I show it? Yes, absolutely. Great. So if you come to the uh website, can you see this website? Not yet. I think you just need to click share on your screen. There we go. Tech guy, let's go. Let's see if it's popping up. Yeah, there we go. Okay, tech guy, forgot. All right. Can you see it now? There we go. All right, so it's called Tech Plan Genie. Um Tech My School, our nonprofit, is the Puerto Rican green parrot. That's kind of the national symbol of Puerto Rico. Uh that's why we have this origami kind of pecky looking parrot. Um, this is a genie, but uh the mascot is the cokey frog, which is uh it's a coke frog genie because the cokeie frog is a big symbol of Puerto Rico as well. But, anyways, um you can go to the website techplangenie.com to kind of look at stuff. It's it's a lot to take on because as a tech director, it's kind of hard to explain exactly everything we do within a school. But I'm gonna break it down for you, and hopefully when you watch this, it'll make a lot more sense. Um, so there is an FAQ, FAQ here, which kind of answers the questions of like, who is this software for? It's for tech people in schools, it's for ed tech people, for ed tech enthusiasts, is for heads of schools, um, it's for people who want to build a database plan and then see it through. So uh to get started, uh you rub once to register and rub twice to log in. But I'm just gonna click over here because I've already got one logged in. Um when you log in, you can see there's these different modules here. And each module you're gonna go through to build your genie's power. Um, I have some kids and uh they love Pokemon, so you kind of have this Pokemon effect as you go through it, essentially. Your genie gets uh stronger, I guess you can say in in morphs. Um, but I also wanted to make it a fun kind of a little bit retro Super Nintendo look to it as well, because a lot of really tech, you know, LMS's SIS, it's so boxy. You know what I mean? So I wanted to to make it a little bit more fun and and add this uh tech genie character. But essentially, you go through it by adding in information about your school. Now there's a video with each module that explains what it is, how to do it. So um I'm gonna skip through that. But essentially what you're doing is you're you're aggregating data for your school so it can help you build this great plan. So it's gonna put in your school information, your bio, all that kind of stuff. You're gonna put in your logo, your brand colors, or whatever. And then you click next. Then what you're gonna do is you're gonna build your task force team. So your task force team is essentially um the leaders on your team who the voices that matter, who you want to be part of your team. So it's gonna be your obviously the tech director or head of school, maybe your DTL, your curriculum director, uh, principals. And then I also like to have three types of teachers, kind of like a tech leader, those techie teachers. We want their voice. We want the kind of just like tech familiar teacher, the normie tech teachers. And then we also, which is almost the most important voice, is the tech reluctant teacher or you know, that staycationer, the teacher that I call the breaks. Because we as tech enthusiasts, we're always like, let's do this, and let's do that, and let's do this. And that breaks is going to be like, we're the gas, they're the brakes. They're like, uh, no, right? So you fill it out, you invite your team. Uh, you know, you can choose if you want them to be able to view or edit depending on their role. And then you go forward. As you can see, it starts like this when you start it. You start as this little smoke, and then your smoke gets a little bigger, and then it starts to turn into the genie. But you go through these different modules to ultimately build you this tech plan. Now, there's a couple things within uh leadership teams that tech directors and and tech leaders um struggle with. One of those things is sometimes you'll be in a school where you have a lot of great educators, but these educators all have kind of egos and backgrounds and PhDs and whatever. And so they all have their own initiatives they're trying to run in the school. And you as a tech guy, you're trying to run your initiative in the school, whatever that is. And so you have these competing ideologies, and sometimes they don't align. And sometimes these people can be, I'm not gonna say combative, but competitive within your school. So you feel like they're doing their own thing, they're not really listening to me. I'm trying to push this, but I'm not getting the support I want. And what this plan does, the tech plan genie, as you go through the modules, you're inviting people to the process. So all those different people, those siloed groups, they're part of your task force team. So they're gonna be building the plan. Their input matters, it's gonna determine what the plan looks like. Also, um, you're going to them and you're saying, hey, you what you're doing is super important to the school. It's important to me. And I want to make sure my tech plan reflects what you're doing. So we have um this module, my learning path. And so my learning path is all about connecting with the professional uh development team, your strategic planning team, your director of teaching and learning, and asking them and just interviewing them, like, hey, you know, how do you how do we define success within professional learning? And you start really digging into these questions about the ethos of the school and how it all works. And ultimately it's going to build into your tech plan so that way you have a great tech plan for your school. Um, another really cool thing about this is the checklist. So um within AI, we're trying to build this plan. And you can go to ChatGPT and write in, make me a tech plan, and it'll make you something, right? But the power of AI really is asking the right questions and getting the right data. And that's what this is. It's like the power isn't the AI part. Most of this isn't AI. Most of it is your team having great conversations that are guided through these frameworks. So you're really digging in to get really excellent data. So as you go through this, we look at uh schools through three lenses educational systems, building capacity, and student empowerment. And so through those three lenses, we're aggregating data and we're looking like, okay, do you have a professional email? Yes or no, present or opportunity, is it a priority? And you can write in notes about like, we have this thing, but we want to upgrade it and possibly, or we don't have this, or whatever. So you're gonna go through and just write in all the things about your school, about what you have, what you don't have. Another really important thing is you don't know what you don't know. We've gone through the vetting process of schools, of like a hundred schools. So we know so many things to look for within a school. Plus, I've like interviewed 50 tech directors from around the world to just make sure this list, which continues to grow, is gonna have everything that could be in a in a tech plan within a school. And so you're gonna come across things and you're just like, oh, what is the the intranet? What is that? And when you click on this, it'll explain what it is. And you're like, oh, that's so cool. We don't have that. We should probably have that. Or we do have that. I didn't know that was the name of it. So it's a professional development in yourself in itself, going through this process, not only with your team, but you as a tech professional, because you're gonna see a lot of things on here. And then anytime something's missing, they're gonna email me and be like, hey, you forgot this. And then we'll just add it in. And it just kind of grows to this aggregate of different uh data points that go into your school's tech plan. So eventually you go through the rubrics, which is a really fun experience. Uh, your team has to decide where your school fits, you know, on this lens of, you know, behind aspiring, emerging, proficient leading, you know, where do you fit on this rubric? And then uh with those three lenses, and then as you're going through it, you're writing in plus delta, justifying why you're a three or a four or whatever. And all this data just gets uh bunched up into finally your tech plan. So once you've gone through this process, you've asked all these questions, you've aggregated all this data, you're ready to do the tech plan. You go through it and you just put in pictures of kids doing stuff. So pictures of students working with tech, pictures of the campus, and you go through it. You put in a bunch of pictures. Then you click next, and then you click generate plan. Well, I click regenerate plan, and it's gonna go through and it's gonna take all your data, and then it's going to build you this tech plan that you can then edit or modify based off that. I kind of wish I didn't do that. Okay, because it takes a little bit for it to aggregate the data. Ah, it's already started. Um, so it goes through and it builds you this tech plan that you can then uh I mean, it's gonna give you suggestions based off what you're what you've inputted, but you ultimately are going to determine, you know, what is uh what is what what you want and what you don't want based off your for your school. Once your tech plan is created, uh you click on my roadmap. So this tech plan is for one school year, but every year you used to be re you know, recalibrating your school, reassessing where are you at, and you know, putting yourself on this roadmap. So there's this roadmap module, and it tells you which mod like which stage you're on. And then there's different elements of like, you know, what's in the stage, what are your big focuses, where are schools in this process, and then what do you need to do to get to the next stage, right? And if you want to peek and see what these stages are, it kind of gives you a sense of where that is. And then um one of the things too with with tech plans in general is making a tech plan is great. It's a fun process. You're with your team or you're by yourself, you you make this beautiful document, you share it with your share, your your uh you know, your your constituents, and then it kind of just sits in like a drive. And then like six months later, you're like, oh yeah, we have that tech plan. Let me look at that thing real quick. And you're like, oh yeah. And I okay, yeah, we're good. And then maybe you take it like two years later, like, oh yeah, the tech plan. Remember that? With tech plan genie, what it gives you is it's actually a project management tool. And so uh when you click my progress, you're gonna go in each month and you're gonna write in all the things you did for system improvements, for capacity building, for student empowerment, or financial investments. So you can be like, okay, uh, you know, we uh added a new uh AP in the library because it was it was getting funky over there. Um we gave an all-staff training about our sponsor, uh book creator. Um, you know, we did the uh an esports for the kids, and we bought Tech 19. And then you do a little recap of this is what we did this month, blah blah blah. And you do it for each month. You'll get a little email saying, hey, what'd you do this month? What'd you do this month? So you go through and do all of your project management throughout the throughout the uh the year, and you can see I can't access these months because this hasn't happened yet. And then uh at the end of the year, it's the same thing where you add pictures, and then once you add the pictures, you're gonna generate a plan, and then it's gonna populate all the things that you've done. There's nothing in here because I didn't I don't have any pictures, but I haven't done anything according to this because I've I didn't put it in. But uh it's gonna make this beautiful, downloadable, edible PD, and you can share this work with your constituents, your your board members, your parents, whoever, because a lot of times we get a bad rap as tech people. Like we're working so hard, we're working with teachers, we're working with kids, and then all the the kind of general sentiment is okay, the internet's working. Like, what else do you do all day? You're just in that office all day, right? Like, what are you even doing? And so it's like by having this NVIDIA report that gets automatically generated from all the work you've been inputting, it's just such a great capstone to your year. And that gives you such qualitative and quantitative data that you can share year after year after year as you're going through your roadmap. Um, so yeah, and then the last part of it is called Tech Plan Genie. Uh, we have the genie itself. So your genie is gonna know your plan. And so you can say, uh, you know, the science teacher just came to me and she really wants me to um build in FET, you know, those FET simulations. When would be the best time to do that? What month should I do that? So, like what month should we focus on a science app like FET this year? And then the genie is going to uh give you an answer based on your technology roadmap. The most appropriate time to focus on the science app is during the fall. Da da da da. So it knows your spool intimately because it knows your plan. Well, build it. It has all these different cool data points that ChatGPT is never gonna get because you're never gonna put those answers in. You're never gonna ask those questions. And now you have a little buddy where when someone comes to you and says, hey, you know, what about XYZ? You can talk to your genie about it. And yes, I know there's also ChatGPT or Cloud or Groc, but it's like this one knows your plan. It knows how it knows how it fits in your school. And so it just gives you that little bit of a boost uh when you're working uh in your job. So again, this is a tech guide tool for tech people. Um, no one else has done anything like this that I can think of. And I'm really hoping that people like it because uh tech my school is uh you know a life's calling for me. I'm working with these schools, I'm helping these, the poor schools in America, and I'm you know building relationships with all these teachers. But, you know, if we don't raise enough money, I have to say goodbye to them. And part of the proceeds of what uh Tech Plan Genie is gonna do is another income stream for us so that we we can keep serving schools and we can keep uh fulfilling our mission. So that is that uh I'm gonna stop sharing and then uh uh one of the things I want to do is I want to regenerate that plan uh that way you guys can see it. Because it's pretty cool. There's like uh Gantt charts in there and uh oh here we go. Okay, it's it's on air. Let's see. Just so just so the people can see, okay. Uh uh. All right, so when you have your your plan here, uh it's got your pictures and all that stuff, your school colors, um, you know, all this, like you're about us, that was written in uh that intro. Blah, blah, blah. It's built out for you. Um, then it talks about financials. Um, with financials and all the data, because some people asked about that. They're like, what about the data? Where is it hosted? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we have AWS servers that it's hosted on, but we also created it so each account is its own, it's in its own walled garden. So that way none of the data is getting trained on the whatever the LLM that we're using. And so it's just within your pocket. So you can ask it questions and it'll be like, I don't know, because it doesn't reach out to that LLM. Um, and also you don't have to put in all the data. Like you can be selective in terms of what you want to share or don't share. But, anyways, it'll come through and say, okay, based off improving your systems, you've got your area of focus here. It says standardized and deploy a robust learning management system across all grade levels. I must have put that we don't have one. So I can be like, you know, we do have one of those. So I can change this and be like, we want uh, I'm gonna say, improve our LMS based on research, blah, blah, blah. Right? So we can go in and type in whatever we want. Uh, it takes these areas of focus, these are like the big ideas for systems improvements, and then breaks it down into 10 like strategic objectives with the most important at the top, right? So we put LMS as the top because if your school doesn't have an LMS, you probably should have one. Or upgrading the network for dead zones of whatever. Then it comes down here and it gives you your Gantt chart. So this is kind of like your scope and sequence for the year. Um, and you can say, okay, audit current map. You can be like, you know what, maybe we don't want to do that. We want to change that. You can type in whatever you want. Um, then we look at um building capacity. So how does adult learning look like? Same thing. And then it gives you a recommended professional development schedule. So it's gonna break down, like, okay, here's what you should be teaching based off your tech plan, based off each month. And so you can be like, okay, October, we're looking at SAMR in action, transforming lessons in SAMR, blah, blah, blah. You're like, you know what? Maybe we should push SAMR to November and switch it or whatever, but at least it gives you something. Like you may not want any of these, but at least it gives you an idea of like, well, I really like this one. Let's push this, let's move this around a little bit. And again, all these leaders are a part of this tech plan. It's not your plan, it's the school's plan. Whether the a new leader comes or goes, it's all based off your school's data, what you're feeling, what you're thinking. We incorporate Robert Dilt's work in terms of the Mostov's hierarchy of needs for how schools are feeling, rather than just being it strictly, you know, do you have computers, do you not have computers, that kind of thing. Um, not so binary. And so it incorporates everyone and it's going to, again, tap into what does the curriculum director care about? They care about this. Well, my plan's based off what they care about. So we're teaching it in a way that fits everyone's kind of needs. And then at the end, uh we have the Gantt chart for all three facets. We've got a little tech roadmap here, and uh, you can see which stage you're on. And then if what you can do is at the top, you can download it and just pass it out once you're done. Again, saving you a bunch of time. Or you could let's say you're like, I like the plan, but I think something's missing. Some of the data we put in there, I'm not really seeing it in the output. I just feel like we should have more. But I'm at a place where I don't have a real tech specialist, you know, on my team. What you can do is you can click ask for human eye. And then by doing that, we can come to your team and we can we can work with you. So there's three different ways of doing this. There's like you build the tech plan yourself, you're a tech guy, you're smart, knock yourself out. And that's great. The second thing is we will build it with you. So you can say, hey, we want to run it, but we just want you to check on stuff. Or we're stuck on this module. Can you just help us through this one module? Great. Or you can do a whole white glove where we just come to your school or we work with you remotely and build the plan for you with you with your team. So you have those three options with it. Um, and yeah, we try to price it at uh a price point that is any school can um any school can buy this. Because again, we're thinking equitably about many schools. I know, I know the the kind of Alex Hermosy way of doing business is sell to the rich and just attack these wealthy schools, and then eventually once you made all this money, you can start to serve the the poor people. And uh being a nonprofit, I'm like, no, I want it to be something where you know uh anyone can uh have a chance at this. So I'm I'm hoping this works here. I don't remember the password. Got it. Let's put it here. Did it work? No. Oh, I already created it. So I'm trying to I'm trying to register. The only thing is when you register, it's gonna ask to look at your email, blah, blah, blah. And it's gonna go into the price of it. The price of this product, and I put it in a way where as soon as you see it, you can just buy it. You don't have to call a sales team and like they look at your school's demographics and how many students you have or whatever. I just put it at like 83 bucks a month or a thousand a year. So that way it's like, you know, it's not like one of these LMS systems that cost you 30,000, 80,000, 50,000, whatever. For a wealthy school, I want it to be like the tech directors is just like, this is like buying coffee. I don't even have to get a PO sign off on this. Like my budget I had at my first, my last school in Africa was actually a million dollars just for the tech department. So I was managing a million. I was, you know, I can buy that. I wouldn't even write a PO for it. I was put on the credit card. But for another school that's kind of like a St. Catharine's Catholic school with, you know, one principal, 10 teachers, and they're just trying to figure it out. A thousand isn't. Nothing, it's something, but it's not gonna like kill them. They're still gonna be able to afford it. It's not gonna be like 10,000 or 20,000 or whatever. Um, but if they want more, we can price it and base it based off that school's demographic. Um, so yeah, and I also did this. You don't know this, but I I made a code. Uh, so if you type in fonts, uh, you get a discount. There you go. F-O-N-Z. Um, so yeah, that's that's Tech Plan Genie in a nutshell. Oh my god. It's a lot to say. I can't say that in like a sentence. You know what I mean? I'm having trouble with the marketing of it. It's like you kind of have to see it and then experience it and also be in administration to be like, oh my gosh, that would save me so much time. That would be so awesome. Um, not to say it's it's it's a beta product. It's it's it's uh it was just released um this month. So um it's gonna only get better from here. And as more users use it, um, they're going to you know put in suggestions and we're gonna make it better. We're gonna keep investing into it. So um if you love to support uh great technology, buy technology, teachers for teachers, all that kind of stuff. And obviously, for you know, helping our nonprofit, we'd love for you guys to support us or even at the very least, take a look at it when you buy it. It's uh the first seven days are free. So, I mean, if you really wanted to hack it, you could go through it real quick and then do the tech plan and or whatever. Uh, but I think the the power of it is really doing it with your team and having those conversations, and it takes a little bit, a little bit of time to kind of plan that all out. Um, I also didn't mention there's downloadables and there's some other stuff in there as well. So, yeah, that's tech plangenie in a nutshell. I'm hoping it does well. If it doesn't do well, it's still going to be used because all the schools that are with Tech My School are gonna be using Tech Plan Genie. And um, we already have schools that are using it. We have schools that uh have a colleague of of mine, uh Kyle Summerow, a phenomenal tech uh director and educator. Um, he was at Episcopal High School in Texas and then now works with us at Tech My School. Um, he and I went to uh Istanbul. So we were at Nisa um in two weeks ago, something like that. And so we we had a booth and we were talking about Tech My School, we're talking about Tech Plangini, and um people really didn't get it. They didn't get it. They liked the logo, they're like, oh, the logo is cute. But then when we presented, we actually presented at a at the at the conference. We had uh about 12 people in the room, so it wasn't a huge one, but uh we had 12 people in the room and all 12 were just like wow, we need this, we want this, and then they they they took it on. So it's very easy to sell if someone like watches this and sees the process and does all that, still kind of working the kinks on the marketing because it is a mouthful.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 34:36

Yeah.

Robbie Cobbs: 34:36

No, but you know what?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 34:38

Like I am just blown away. Yeah, and you're absolutely right. This would have been very hard to just simply describe in words. So I'm glad that you shared. But I want to get back to like what I mentioned earlier prior to even starting the chat. I have never seen anything like this on the market. One of one, and what I like the best is like I mentioned to you, everybody is creating for students, student-facing, teacher facing. But now we have a tech director from Tech My School, former tech director at various schools globally, worldwide, with that experience, now building for tech directors pretty much essentially everywhere. Or if you are part of a school that may not have somebody that may be as tech savvy or at least hold that role, this is something where you can bring your community within the school. Like you said, you've got, I call them your uh speedboats, tugboats, and anchors. You know, you've got that's that's a lot. Yeah, because you've got the brakes, and and I get it. Those are my tugboats, those are the ones that you're kind of like, okay, let's let's kind of get you going and everything. But I love the inclusion of all of those facets, all of those people that are involved, because now everybody feels seen, everybody feels heard, everybody's got different ideas, but you're working towards that one goal, and this is something that can help all those multiple ideas that people popcorn around, but kind of really bring it together for one big vision to come to fruition. I didn't mean it to rhyme like that, but it just came around that one-pin vision to come to fruition to build something for a school that is specifically made for that campus, or it could be specifically made specifically made for a district because this is something that's wonderful. Like I can see myself being in a role as a CTO and saying, okay, I've got 14 schools, I've got eight elementaries, not every elementary is the same, but I can create a specific tech plan for them depending on funding, depending on what we've got. Then I've got my junior highs, then I've got my high schools, and we can each work towards that goal of providing for them what they need, but at the same pace that they're at with the teachers they have, and so on. And now we can focus our energies on those specific campuses that may need more teacher training, or those specific campuses that may need more network infrastructure or more devices and things of that sort. So, and for the price, oh my goodness.

Robbie Cobbs: 37:12

I'm still making that price, but I was just thinking like I want everyone to have an opportunity to use it.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 37:18

Yes, yes. And I think that this is something fantastic, Robbie, that you're you're on to. And I remember being over there in Puerto Rico with you. And I know that the you're like, oh, I've got a meeting with these guys, we're coming up with something. But just to see that your work come to life and being out there now in the world to help uh, you know, CTOs and to help, you know, tech guys like ourselves and uh or non-techy people to help them develop a plan. And more than anything, going at it step by step, it shows you, it walks you through, it gives you, sends you emails, and at the end, you have something that is tangible. And what I liked about this is the way that you can put pictures in there, those artifacts for your campus or those artifacts for your district, where at the end you have a nice report to give to your stakeholders, to show to your board members, to show to parents and show them the work that you have done and that is ongoing to be transparent. And this is something that I think is a great tool, not only for just developing that tech plan, but also in being able to be transparent with our learning community, our parents, and say, hey, this is this is where the funds are going and this is what we're developing, because oftentimes they don't see what is happening within the institution, within the school. It's just really what they hear about, and that can affect the school in a great way because this is marketing for the school, also as well, and showing what we have done and what we intend to do and how we've changed things and evolved. And I think that this is fantastic. So I'm really excited about this. And aside from that, the ease of use, the the user experience and uh the user interface. I mean, to be able to go in like you did and then just say, okay, I've got this editable document here that, well, I maybe I want to change this number one to something else, and you can just change it right there on the spot before you print it out and you don't have to print it out and then go to another app to edit it. But man, Robbie, this is something that is great and that I know that this is going to be something that is useful and beneficial for, I mean, schools everywhere that just need a plan.

Robbie Cobbs: 39:33

You think about it. I mean, how many schools have like an IT guy, like the network guy who, like, okay, network guy, you're now the ed tech coordinator of the school, and they've never been a teacher before. They've never worked in the classroom and they're being asked to make teacher type decisions, like what software should be we, what should we be using for our kids? And they're like, I know networks, I know internet, but I'm not an educator. Do you have tech plan genie now? So you can just aggregate with your team all that information, and then it's going to come up with this tech plan. And then you also want to talk about job security. So, again, thinking about what is that IT guy even doing? Well, let me show you. I would love to show you what I've been doing this year. Here's the monthly progression. The here's the project management every single month, and then the end of your report, and then year after year. I mean, how many years have you worked where you had a yearbook of just your work as an ed tech director or as an integrator? You know what I mean? Like all that work just compiled in a nice, you know, polished PDF that you can say, here's this year, and here's this year, and here's this year. So those are the kind of things that I think are pretty much a no-brainer for schools when thinking about the product, because again, a lot of these ed tech products that get made, they get made by companies. They get made by investors and they're making investor decisions because they want to make money and they're like, this is the best way to make money. And and it's always about that bottom line. But then you take on the tool and you think, like, who made this? Like, who is this for? Like some weird IT guy, or you know what, you know what I mean? It it's not made by an educator for an educator. And the reason is because most educators don't have a programming background, they don't have the funds to finance something, they don't have the time. And so uh yeah, I really hope this product can can help schools and yeah, just help school districts and uh, you know, work across the world. We're we're implementing an app, so any language, so anywhere across the world with HeyGen, any language for the tutorial videos and all that kind of stuff.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 41:32

Oh, that's fantastic. And I think it's a huge benefit. And like you said, I mean, it really takes uh somebody that is not familiar, like you mentioned, with the the teacher day-to-day to be able to work with the teachers and working on planning those day-to-days and working on that that plan, but also, like you mentioned, seeing that growth and actually having a documented process and again being able to check that periodically and going from year to year because teams may change. You may have new teachers on the team, you may have, you know, some growth and things of that sort, and all of that is documented in this wonderful artifact that you can show all of your stakeholders. But more than anything, too, Robbie, I want to I want to talk to you a little bit about this too, as well, because uh you mentioned, you know, the the price, but this is to really help that vision of tech my school. So I want to give you a little bit of time, you know. I know you told us a little bit briefly, uh, you know, what Tech My School is doing, but I know that I've seen a lot of great things. You're working with a lot more schools now, and you're really bringing, you know, these plans to fruition and helping schools grow. So talk to me a little bit, just uh expand a little bit on what I got to see when you took me to the specific school, and I saw four of those pods that fit about eight students in there, and that was a full-on classroom. And what is it that you're doing to help education? Because many people, if you can give us some background, may think, well, you know, Puerto Rico is a US territory, so they think, well, it's part of the United States. The education system should be the same. But tell us a little bit about really the way that education is set up there in Puerto Rico.

Robbie Cobbs: 43:15

Yeah, no, thank you for that uh intro. I'm gonna share screen again just because uh I think pictures do a better job than just words. Um so if you come to our website, you can find us and find all of our information, techmyschool.org and how we serve. Uh, as the story goes, I was uh, like I said, coming to Puerto Rico to write a book on ed tech. Um saw how bad the schools were. I looked at the PISA scores. We're the worst in the world, worse than every European country, worse in Mexico, worse in Cambodia, everything. We're just the worst of the worst. We're about five grade levels below uh, you know, the US standard. And so um, yeah, we we got to work serving one school and then it's turned into other schools. Um, if you go to our Instagram page, you can follow us and you'll see we're in schools every single day, constantly working. Um, I hope if I play this, it doesn't go crazy. We have a mix of different schools. So, like here's a video. Uh, hopefully the sound's not gonna kill you. Okay, so I can narrate this. So uh this was a school. Uh I call it the jail school. Uh they're a great school. It's just there's a lot of bars. There's just like it just looks kind of like a prison. But, anyways, they didn't have uh they had a computer lab, but it wasn't a real computer lab. So we went in, we uh were able to partner with some great partners to help us procure uh some uh MacBooks and uh iMacs for the kids, and uh then uh just set up the lab. But really the expense isn't necessarily the iMacs, it's all the software you're buying. So we're buying a ton of software and then also training. So we're training every single month the teachers on how to do this because it's hearts and minds. Anyone can grab computers and give them to someone, but the real kind of value is is the uh, you know, getting these teachers who may or may not be qualified and getting them to buy into what we're doing. I mean, I don't think I've even seen this one. Okay, so here's a school, I don't know, there's a public school. Um, our team going in, training the teachers about different things. So we go through, we create their tech plan. From their tech plan, we then fulfill it. So every month we're in schools, training them on different um professional development and all those different kinds of things. Um, we also do a bunch of uh exploratory work. So we do after school coding, we go into schools and we buy all the equipment and then we give kids these opportunities to try out VR headsets, uh, Lego Spike, KaiBot, like all these great products that we've all seen or experienced or um know. Uh we've been able to do that, and that's that's been awesome uh doing that for them. So there's the donation part. Um, there is the training part, uh, the planning part with the leadership, um, the partnership part, one of one of your buddies, snorkel, we love snorkel. So we we get a partner with some great uh tools where they love our mission and they're helping us push uh you know the their tool into schools in Puerto Rico and those kinds of things. Um so yeah, it's it's it's a really great experience. I also the last thing I want to share here, it's been a a while since the spring, but because we do have esports and all that kind of stuff. Um, esports is there not just because it's tech, but um, they don't do sports the way we do in the states where you're playing the schools aren't playing 50 sports, you know, Jefferson High School this week and we're playing Valhalla the next week. Um they they do sports, they don't have the money for it or the the logistics for it. So they don't travel it really anywhere. They do like once a month tournaments. So I create esports opportunities for them to play against each other just so that they can know each other's names. But I wanted to share a couple of things about the conference. So one of the things we do is uh something we call the tech disruptor. So the tech disruptor within our conferences uh when uh an educ any educator can apply to showcase what they've been doing in their school, and our panelists choose uh the winners, and then we donate a thousand dollars and give them a trophy and then give them a platform to share that cool thing they did. And we we have five different categories uh for that. Uh, you know, we have innovative educator, we've got entrepreneur, we have one for art. Um, so lots of cool stuff. And they've come up with some excellent projects. Um, Fonz, you were part of the uh you were part of the judging panel last year. We also do just raffles anytime we can just uh give give away uh technology. We do, you know, directors of the year within uh uh Puerto Rico. And uh yeah, we we just do a really great show. Um last year we had, I mean, we do the the cultural thing. So we've got the dancers, the plana. Uh this was during lunch, so they the dancers came out and you you get that Puerto Rican culture. Uh it's a really fun uh fun experience. We've got the panelists here going. Um hope to see you there again uh next year. Um, and then we have a bunch of breakout sessions and stuff like that. So um we're hoping this year we can hit uh last year we had 350. We're hoping um this year we can uh hit uh either 500. It's either gonna be 500 or 1,000 because there's a a group here, a group of international uh private schools that love what we're doing and they're just like, you know, we want to be a part of this. We want to uh, you know, you guys do the best conference in Puerto Rico, so we've got to go. And they've got a lot of teachers. They've got like 500 teachers, so that would, you know, double our impact there. But this conference is bilingual, so it's English and Spanish, but you get to choose uh, you know, who you want to see speak and in which language. So this year we've got George Kiros, really excited about him headlining for us. If you watch a little video here, you can see it's a beautiful conference. Okay, let's turn this off. It's got uh it's at the Wyndham Rio Mar, so it's literally right on the water. As soon as you walk outside, you're on the beach. Um, but uh it's a a great venue and uh kind of looks like the White House a little bit. But yeah, it's it's awesome, uh, great food, all that kind of stuff. And then if you look at the agenda from the year before, uh, this was last year's, you can see our speakers and um the way we structured it. So we have our keynotes here, and then uh there's this guy. And then uh when we have our breakout sessions, you can see like if it's a red circle, it's in English. If it's green, it's in Spanish. And so uh if you're a speaker and you want to come to our conference and help America's most underserved, underprivileged conferen uh students, please come because these teachers could never afford to attend a conference like this. Uh, we put up about $100,000 to host this event. And for our teachers that we the that are in our umbrella, it's free for them. So uh the idea of this was simply prior to this, I had gone to conference as a speaker and I was thinking, oh, it'd be nice if I spoke and talked about tech my school. But then I thought a little deeper about it and I was like, you know what? Like these teachers here don't have a conference that's like awesome, that they can experience that the that conference experience that I love. And because they can never afford it, the teachers here are making between $1,500 to $1,800 a month. And it's still, you know, America. So milk's still gonna cost you seven, eight bucks, especially being on an island. So it's like you have these really high prices with really low wages, and everyone's American. So they can go to Florida or Texas or wherever to go teach, especially if they're bilingual, and most do. So the people who we have here teaching are either in love with Puerto Rico and they care about their community or they're just emerging teachers, let's call them. And so they need all the training they can get, uh, they need all the the support they can have. So if you're listening to this and you're a great speaker, you you have a uh a company, or uh you're just a a principal or something like that, or a tech director, we'd love to have you. We want this to, we want to put Puerto Rico on the map in a positive way and just make it world class. I think it's pretty good. Um, when our staff, we took them to ISTE, no offense to ISTE, but they were kind of like, they're like, Robbie, why is this conference not as good as ours? Like, why why is why is our conference like almost as better than this conference? Not in size, but just in the quality of speakers and the food and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, well, that's I take that as a compliment. But um, we want to make it awesome and we want people to come and and add to the culture here because this this is your fellow citizens and they're they are getting completely ripped off. It is it's grossly ribbed off. And so it's it's it's so bad that I stopped my 15-year planned sabbatical to just work nonstop to serve. So it's it's one of those types of situations. And yeah, we love to have you. And then also for vendors, we've we were able to get bring in uh magic school. So we pushed magic school to all of our teachers and showed them this new tool, how to work with AI in a fun way. And then we got magic school to come to Puerto Rico, and the teachers were so jazzed because we're like, oh my gosh, no one ever comes to Puerto Rico because it's poor and no one cares. And so they were just like ecstatic to meet the team at Magic School, get the swag. Like, and that's why for our vendors, we don't charge the way ISTE charges. Like, if you try to get a booth at ISTY, if you try to get a booth at FETC, if you try to get a booth at bet, you know, it's $10,000, $20,000, $50,000. For me, I'm like, we'll give you the booth, just pay for your own food. So what do we get before or that? Or if you're gonna give away a giveaway to the teachers like free licenses, we'll pay for you. Just because we want these teachers to experience what what they could never experience if we weren't there.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 53:04

So, no, and it is a great conference. Like I said, I attended uh this year, and it was fantastic. And again, uh Robbie and the team, you know, have done a fantastic job and they continue to grow. And it's just really exciting, just how this kind of you know took off, and it's just been an amazing experience to see the growth and how you give back to the community. And it's fantastic. So thank you, Robbie, for everything you and the rest of the Tech My School team are doing. And I'm so excited about your new project. And I definitely will be pushing that because there are many schools that need this. And even if you think you you're okay, this is a great way for you to just say, hey, are we on the right track? Just something that can keep you in check and continue to grow. Because one of the things you said, you we can all make plans, but then later on they just fall by the wayside and then you forget about those things. So this is something that can help you with uh your projects that you've got coming up and everything. So I'm just really excited about that. So, Robbie, we will definitely make sure we tag all the information for tag my uh for tech my school. We'll make sure we put it in the show notes. We'll make sure that we put in your profile on LinkedIn too as well, and on all socials, and we'll definitely put in that discount code F O N Z Fonds, so you can get a discount on your plan as well. And so I'm really excited about that. So thank you, Robbie, for joining us this evening and the work that you continue to do. But before we wrap up, Robbie, I always love to end the show with the last three questions. And I know you've been on the show before, so you kind of know the format, but I know that some things might have changed from then till now because we're never the same, you know, after a couple of months and so on. So I want to ask you right now, as we know, every superhero has a pain point or a weakness, and for Superman, kryptonite was his weakness. So, Robbie, in your case and in your experience and everything that you've seen from the last time you were on the show till now, what would you say would be your current edu kryptonite?

Robbie Cobbs: 55:06

Marketing my product. Uh in schools, it's it's uh it always starts at the top. It's leadership. So it's uh ensuring that because we're we're givers, so we'll donate $50,000 to $80,000 per school on average. And we want that that money, that those resources, those those goods to to be stretched out and to go. And um depending on the leader, that's what's gonna determine the success of the program. And it doesn't matter how wealthy a school is, how established they are, whether they're the most reputable school or a brand new school that just started this year, the mindset of that leader is gonna determine everything. So I really, really care about kids, and that's what I'm doing all this for is to help these kids. And so when working with directors who are kind of like, oh, that's free. We want free stuff, but I'm not gonna do the follow-through. I have to like push through, work with these directors to make sure that they're maximizing tech my school and all of our software that we provide and the the the technology as well, because I know I'm serving kids. So I'm not I'm not sure if that's a kryptonite or not, but it's still it's it's a hurdle or a challenge. Um but I but I but I've continue to push through because um it's it's I know at the end of the day we're serving kids and that's the most important thing.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 56:27

Excellent. Great answer, Robbie. All right. Next uh question is if you could have a billboard, you know, and you it could have anything on that billboard, what would your billboard say or have on it?

Robbie Cobbs: 56:42

Um it's a great question. Uh if I think deeply about it, I'd probably give you a different answer. But for today's sake, I'm gonna say check out Tech Plan Genie. Uh and I challenge you to uh it's it's not a good billboard, it's it's a big text, a lot of text in this billboard. I challenge you uh to take on tech plan genie to see if our tech plan uh is better than yours, or uh if it's worth having. Or if you're going through accreditation, see how good I'm at marketing.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 57:17

Yeah. I was gonna say tech tech plan genie, bring your vision to fruition. Thank you. Hey, I told you marketing is my real kryptonite. Hey, that my I'm a marketing major's. There you go. Okay, and last question, Robbie, is if you could trade places with anyone in the world for a single day, who would that be and why?

Robbie Cobbs: 57:39

Hmm. I know who I said last time. So I'm gonna skip that. If you want to know who I said last time, I gotta watch last last time's episode. Um, if I could change uh with anyone, I'm gonna say uh my son. And here's why. I would change places with my son because I would like to know what it's like from the students' eyes, what it's like to go to school in Puerto Rico, uh, what their experience on their end, because I I can see it from my end, my vision, my view, my experiences, but I would love to see what his experience would be like. And then also, what's it like having me as a dad? And how do I make him feel? Because I'm trying to be the best that I can be. I'm trying to like be there for him and be supportive and be helpful and do all those things that like I took all those parenting classes and you know, psych psych classes I took, you know, in college and being an educator for all these years. But is it really landing? You know what I mean? Is it really landing? How am I really making him feel? Does he really feel supported? Does he really feel loved? Does he really feel like um I understand him and uh, you know, and that he's he's happy, you know, he's happy in his life and those kinds of things. I asked him that all the time, but he says, Yeah, dad, I'm I'm good. But you don't know for sure until you're unless you're that person. So I guess this time there'll be another one next time I'm on the show, but this time I'm gonna go with my son because last time I said someone a lot more famous.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 59:15

Hey, well, that's a great answer. Thank you, Robbie, for that moment of vulnerability and sharing that parent side of you. I mean, I know that tech is is what we do, but it's not who we are, and for yourself, and I know for a fact, you know, just see meeting you and your lovely wife, you are great parents, and I see you that you guys do so much for your kids too, as well. And not only for that, but I mean just for the youth in Puerto Rico, also with all the work that you're doing with Tech My School. So thank you and the rest of the Tech My School team that are fantastic, like John that I got to meet, and everybody else, and the flock continues to grow, and so really excited about that. So I'm looking forward to seeing you back on my show maybe in a couple of months when the next big project shows up and the next big thing. And so I'm really excited about that, Robbie. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, thank you for watching. Yes, and everybody make sure you visit our website, myatech.life, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 341 episodes, where I promise you you will find a little knowledge nugget uh and that you can sprinkle on to what you are already doing great. And again, big shout out to our sponsors, Book Creator, Edu8, Yellow Aid, Peel Back Education. And if you're interested in being a sponsor, please reach out to me. We can definitely make that happen. We would love for you to be part of our mission so we can continue to bring these wonderful conversations into our education space to continue to grow. So until next time, my friends, don't forget, stay techie.