Evergreen’s Approach to Technology
Santosh Zachariah, Educational Technology Coordinator

To be a teacher here in the Seattle area—in the vicinity of Lake Washington and the Puget Sound, with tech companies seemingly everywhere—is to repeatedly grapple with questions like, “What is the world going to be like for our learners?" "How will technology shape it?" "How do we prepare them to thrive in it?” And every headspinning headline about Artificial Intelligence (AI) reinforces one main question: “Do we have the right fundamentals in place for our graduates to lead with curiosity, compassion, and courage 10-15 years from now?”

Learning to Use Technology with Confidence
At Evergreen, the approach we take is to continually provide learners with opportunities to build competence and confidence in working with a new technology. When we do this right, our students leave Evergreen as enthusiastic lifelong learners of these tools, confidently curious about how new technologies can be used to solve problems and contribute to communities.

As we choose which technologies to introduce and use in each grade, the primary questions we ask are:

• How will this tool build students' self-confidence in learning new technologies?
• Where in the school day will students have opportunities to use these tools in ways that affirm their competence?

The confidence students build from succeeding at increasingly difficult learning cycles will set them up to embrace and stay abreast of every technology that enters their lives in the future.

Technology from K-8: A Measured Introduction
We implement this approach through a 1:1 program where every student has a dedicated device from kindergarten onward, and at least one dedicated technology class each week. We build slowly: our kindergarten curriculum implements technology sparingly, while by the end of 6th grade, devices are used in every core class continuing through middle school. Subject teachers leverage the skills learned in technology class to give students wider opportunities to engage with the curriculum and to demonstrate their understanding.

By all accounts, this approach has served our graduates very well, starting with the middle school students who had their first 1:1 “Netbook” laptop back in 2008. Consistent with this approach, we don’t try to guess what sort of AI literacy today will best serve our graduates when they embark on their careers one to two decades hence. Rather, we keep abreast of generative AI in the same way we have other technologies as they emerged. When we see an opportunity to introduce it in a way that supports engagement and demonstration of understanding, we will try that with our 8th graders, and then gradually apply the lessons learned in the younger grades bit by bit until a new tool becomes an integral part of the curriculum.

What About AI?
At present, we do not see a place for student use of generative AI in the classroom and in assignments. That, of course, will change over time, as use of AI tools bleeds from faculty/staff-only use to increasing use with students. This reminds me of the days when Microsoft Word was growing in popularity and people regularly emailed attachments back and forth. Back then, we introduced typing in 4th grade in the computer lab, but by the time the students reached 8th grade systems had already evolved—students could submit essays directly to our shared network drives and receive teacher feedback as markup within Word. Today, we don’t teach “word processing” and 3rd graders are already submitting their first Google Docs.

A Thoughtful Approach
As the technology world continues to evolve at a rapid pace, Evergreen embraces these technologies in age-appropriate and informed ways, to ensure we are teaching our students based on the latest professional best practices. The foundation of this starts with faculty and staff training and building self-confidence, which then translates into classroom conversations about these very same things. Teachers in Evergreen classrooms demonstrate lifelong learning to our students in many ways, and the thorough research and understanding of how to implement new technologies is just one example of how we live out our mission.
 

As Evergreen’s Educational Technology Coordinator, Santosh Zachariah supports the adoption of technology in the instructional program. He has also taught technology in our Upper Division (4th-8th grade) for every one of the last 15 years. His two Evergreen alums (2014 and 2017) are now working in the Bay Area and New York City.