Steve Burton and Aaron Yeiser, co-chief information officers for Davis County Public Schools, spent two days at the Google campus in California last week participating in North America’s first Google for Education Leaders Series, an event designed to explore ways to improve the future of education technology.
Yeiser, whose work focuses on implementing educational technology within the district, spoke about planned use of screen time.
“Measuring total minutes of screen time is a valid consideration,” he says. “There's a lot of neuroscience research that shows there are drawbacks to too much screen time. Similarly, the younger a child is, the more important screen time becomes. But the more important discussion for schools is about the value-add of screen time. If every minute counts, opportunity costs need to be considered. If we know there are computer-based practices that are beneficial to students in preparing them for post-high school, how can we maximize these activities within the measured time?”
Yeiser highlighted the local impact of his visits to Mountain View and San Jose, as he had the opportunity to advise Google product engineers and executives on which improvements should be prioritized in the company's hardware and software roadmap.
Burton leads the district's operational technology team.
“The planned interactions with peer districts across the continent were valuable in discussing cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing, but the casual interactions with senior executives over meals were equally valuable,” he said.
Burton said his conversation with Google's Global Vice President of Chrome OS and Education, who was in town from Malaysia for the conference, provided him with great information about the acquisition and future products, and the opportunity to network with members of Google's senior leadership team and other tech educators allowed him to discuss current growing pains and future solutions.
Google for Education is a division of Google that provides solutions and services to students and teachers around the world.
DCPS Superintendent Charles Broughton said Barton and Yeiser's visit to Google headquarters will benefit students and faculty.
“We have a rich history of being at the forefront of these discussions, so it's no surprise to us that Google has asked DCPS technology leaders to bring together issues of instruction, innovation and student security,” Broughton said.
