32. Implementing Critical Technology to Protect & Enhance Your Independent School

Tara: Welcome to Mindful School Marketing. I’m Tara Claeys. 

Aubrey: And I’m Aubrey Bursch today. We’re joined by Bob Sager. Bob is the founder and current president of Edu-Tech Academic Solutions. Technology support management, and training solutions, partner of choice for independent schools throughout the Philadelphia region. Bob has been providing consulting and support services in the commercial advertising and K through 12 educational environments for over 30 years. Welcome, Bob. 

Bob: Good morning. Thank you for having me. 

Tara: Thanks for being here. I’m really excited as a fellow techie-type person. I’m really excited to talk about all things technology, but can you start by telling us more about yourself and your background? 

Bob: Sure. Again, my name is Bob Sager. I founded Edu-Tech in 2003, so we are finishing our 20th year this year. And our organization solely focuses on independent schools, provide technology, support management, and training services, and integration for independent schools. My background was actually in education. My undergraduate work was in early childhood development, elementary education. And my graduate work was in technology integration into the classroom when it was first really becoming a thing, if you will, as a degree. When I finished that, I actually started working as an adjunct professor at Arcadia- what’s now Arcadia University at that time, that was Beaver College. Prior to starting, Edu-Tech, I actually formed a company called Advert Tech, which was very similar in nature, but we focused on supporting advertising agencies in the commercial advertising market. I’m originally from central Ohio, grew up farming, so it’s a big change from what I originally did when I was young to where I’m at now. 

Aubrey: I love that journey, how fun, like you were in farming and then, you know, education and then technology and all of the things. So thank you for sharing. That really is exciting to hear more about that. Now I know there are many schools out there that are like, what exactly is Ed-Tech? Like what is it and why is it important? Like, why should I know about this and how is it important to independent schools? Could you kind of shine some light on that and tell us a little bit more about that? 

Bob: Sure. When you think of ed tech, it’s a little bit different than just the technology that’s used within an organization. So all organizations at this point have technology woven into them, whether it’s medical organization or if it’s a law practice. And they use specific tools in order to enhance the type of work that they do. A law practice uses specific tools to show information and to do research, to find information, display it during a trial, whatever it might be. Same thing with a medical practice, they use technology to enhance the way that they teach, but also the way that they perform surgeries or the way that they do things within the general practice field. Education is very similar, if you think of it that way, the ed tech component of it’s not just the day-to-day use of it. It’s the actual blending or injection of technology into the curriculum where it’s most effective and needed. So it’s not just a, it’s not just a blanket term saying we’re going to use technology for everything we do from this point forward. The idea is to use it where it’s most effective and most needed. And that’s part of what we do within our organization. We have a team of technology integration coaches that are all former teachers. So in order to be part of that element of our team, you have to be a teacher. You can’t just be a tech person or somebody that’s really familiar with doing tech support. You have to really understand how the curriculum works and what’s needed to support it.

Tara: That’s really interesting. I never thought about it being so specific and that you actually have educators involved in your company helping schools. That makes a lot of sense because they can identify with the specific challenges there, of course. But technology is in itself, such a deep and broad at the same time, area of expertise that I imagine they must have a very broad knowledge base to cover all of those things. And I know schools have had to become more, a lot more tech-savvy, especially during COVID and all the things that are happening virtually and online. And for teachers, especially, I think that for some of them, that’s probably been a big challenge when they’re used to worksheets and paper and things like that. So I know on one level just transitioning from COVID and getting more tech savvy is probably one thing that you’ve faced. But in general, is it hard to get small schools on board with embracing technology? And because is it, I imagine they are afraid that it’s going to be very expensive. It’s a change in habit. I know for me, when I asked my clients to send me passwords using an encrypted website, they still will send it in an email. Like they just can’t get the concept of, you know, the broadening risks involved in technology and just the ease or, or barriers involved. So I’m asking a very long broad question, but I’ll bring it back to, you know, was it hard to get small schools involved and because of the cost, is the cost high? Is it lower than schools? Think, talk about that a little bit. 

Bob: Yeah. There are a lot of challenges to get a school to commit to change, any type of change. And technology is one of them. An independent school that committing to change is very difficult, very challenging. And there are a couple of reasons for that. One is the standards and practices that have been placed for a long time in the way that they perform their activities, the processes, they tend to be very ritual in meaning that the same person has been doing them the same way for a long time and in their mind.

And they. View it works. They’re able to get things accomplished. They get the things done that need to be done. In the classroom, it’s very much the same way. That you talk about teachers in some cases have 10, 15, or even 20 years of lessons, unit plans, all of these things that they’ve developed over time and refined to make them work for their method of instruction. And suddenly when you talk about integrating technology, That completely changes the way in some cases that they’re going to teach those specific lessons and units. Therefore they have to be rewritten, rebuilt and changed, and it becomes more, less of an analog instructional model to a digital instructional model. That’s what our coaches do. They work very closely with the teachers to help them get through that change. And like you mentioned, we have that, that rule for our team of being teachers only because they’re the only ones that teachers will respond to. As soon as they hear, you were a teacher for nine years in eighth grade or fourth grade or fifth grade, you just see it across their face. They change their tone and their desire to be able to be part of what’s happening. And they want to listen to that coach to help them. So going back to your original question, yeah, it is kind of challenging sometimes for a school to look and see what the value is of committing to a significant change. All along the administration, knowing my teachers are going to hate me for doing this. They’re not going to want to do this. They’re not going to want to commit to this kind of change. And then you also have, in the case of independent schools, you have a board that’s going to be making some decisions from a budget perspective. I sit on the board of trustees for a school called Hilltop preparatory school. And I look at this from every vantage point and my son went through an independent school. I look at it from a business and they’re working within the business of schools, I look at it as a trustee. So I look at it from all these vantage points and from the trustee side, the need to remain on budget, stay within our realm of whether our expenses are we’ll make a decision in some cases, even though we may say, that’s the path we should go, but we don’t have the funds to do it. So that’s the challenge. The main challenge we run into. It’s less of a roadblock in terms of the people as it is the funding. The funding, because the technology is expensive. It just, the nature of it because it’s volume. There’s so many people, so many students and everything adds up very quickly. 

Tara: Yeah, I would imagine that that results in some reactive reactionary incentives versus being proactive to avoid things that can be even more expensive, right? Is, is the impetus often reacting to a problem, is that what pushes people over that barrier or, you know, how do you get into a school before those problems happen to avoid them? Is that part of your process of educating schools to adopt what you’re, what you’re offering them?

Bob: Yes, that is definitely a factor for our calls. The school often call us when they’ve reached a point where they’re reacting. So they’re trying to solve something. Some of it’s very urgent. Some of it’s just longer term. They say, we really need to get to this point. Can you help us? And right now, the greater challenge that’s been over the past several years is very similar to the struggle that the independent schools are dealing with with regard to their infrastructure, their physical plant. A lot of deferred maintenance, a lot of things, the money wasn’t there. We’ll have to hold off on that new roof for another year, which becomes another year and then another year to patch it together and they keep it working. So it doesn’t leak. If you think of [00:10:00] that. The analogy for that with regard to technology. It’s the very same thing. We got, I know we need the new version. We don’t have the money to buy the new version of. We need to stick with what we’re at for next year. And then it goes to the next year and the next year, eventually they get to a point where the version they’re using won’t work any longer, or isn’t supported by the vendor, whatever it might be. So they have to make a change. And that’s where they reach out to us. One of the things that we developed to help prevent that and remain more proactive is we created what we call jumpstart audit for our schools. It’s a very low price initial visit for us. And what that allows us to do is go in and evaluate and do an audit of the technology, the physical technology that’s there, the computers, the servers, the network, everything on campus to really understand what they have, but the real value of the audit is what we, what we do when we’re there, we actually book in that review of all the technology with individual interviews, with every single member of the faculty and staff, and they’re totally anonymous. So it allows us to really get a true reading of what’s happening in the school, because we tell everyone nobody’s going to hear what you say. And they then open up because they’re normally the things they say they wouldn’t want to push up to their next level to their supervisor, their head of school, whoever it might be. And it works extremely well and allows us to get information that we then put together. And we use that to see trends on what’s happening within the school and be able to identify that. And then we come back into the school and provide them with a proposal in terms of what they should do. Whether they’re working with us or someone else in a phased approach to get this done based on need and urgency. And we found that to be extremely helpful. And in fact the length of, I provide to you will take you right to videos that will demonstrate from heads of school and business officers, the results of some of those audits that we perform.

Aubrey: That sounds like such a comprehensive process. I’m assuming that’s that, that allows people to understand more about what you’re doing and why, and why you’re recommending it. And the, the longterm impacts short and long-term impacts that your work together could allow for the school. So I’m, I’m curious. So we were talking about being proactive, right? So if I’m a school right now, And I’m thinking, maybe I should start being more proactive? Could you kind of talk a little bit about like, what’s coming up, like what’s coming up, what sort of ed-tech trends should schools be aware of, you know, moving into next year or even the next three years? And maybe how schools can, you know, proactively think about something like that? 

Bob: Sure. And it’s, it’s sometimes, oftentimes very difficult to, to really formulate what’s coming next. If you were to told me in late 2019 that a product called zoom was going to be the most widely used product in the independent school market or the education market or the world for that matter. I would’ve said I’ve never even used that product. Well, what are you talking about? So there are the challenges there, there are outside influences that impact the technology. That’s going to become what we use on a daily basis. So back in the day, we used to create three to five-year tech plans and we’d lay everything out. We’d have a budget for three to five years. We’d have all these different things that we’re planning. And after probably, I would say around 2002, we just stopped doing that because it was impossible. Everything changed so rapidly. There was no way to even do a two to three-year plan. We ended up just doing a one to two year, and then oftentimes that had to be [00:14:00] refined a lot in order to meet with what the demands were or the changes in the technology, because it’s gone, it’s gone through so much. As far as what’s in the near future, one of the things, and there’s a couple of different things. One of them is, uh, the way that the schools, in the case of independent schools, especially the way that they teach is going to be impacted from now on. Not saying that there’s going to be a hybrid environment, meaning that there’s going to be some kids at home and some at school, but the way the methodology that they use in the classroom has changed and will continue to change as a direct result of the COVID impact, and being home for a period of time. The types of technology that were used during COVID, for example, projection or using cameras using digital file storage versus the printed materials, all the things we were trying to do long before COVID, but COVID just suddenly said, guess what? [00:15:00] You’re doing it now. You’re not going to have a trial period for six months running parallel with what you’re doing the same thing. Start now and hope for most of the schools, the ones that have done it right, they continued that they didn’t let it fall back. They didn’t go back to buying a printer for every classroom and all these other things that they’d been doing for so long. So that’s, that’s been probably the biggest change and will continue to happen. The other greatest impact is, is something that we, you mentioned a moment ago when we first started. Tara, I think you mentioned about sending information in an email to someone and the risks and things. There’s no greater concern in my mind, and for many others in this industry and any industry as there is for cybersecurity right now. It is incredibly important. And I don’t know if you saw the article in the last two days about Lincoln college in Illinois, who went through challenges with COVID, even though they were starting to have a really significant enrollment increase in late 2019, COVID struck them just like everyone else. However, then they were hit with a ransomware attack. And essentially that ransomware locked down every bit of database information they had – their finances, their enrollment, their registrar, their development, everything was locked down and they couldn’t get to it. Long story short, they’re closing tomorrow. They announced it on Monday that they are closing tomorrow. This is a school that’s been around since 1850. I believe. That’s going to start happening more and more. There’s no way that the schools and small organizations that think they’re not vulnerable because they’re just a little company or a little school. Why, who would want that information? The people that are doing this, or the systems that are doing this in some case, the bots, they don’t care. If you can’t pay, they just walk away. They don’t care that you have 75, a hundred students, and you’re really struggling and you want to keep working, it doesn’t matter to them. So that’s the biggest concern I have. And I think the biggest challenge that everybody’s going to be facing. 

Aubrey: I’m so curious about this. Well, terrified and curious. So as a school, how do you stop something like that from happening? 

Bob: Yeah. I mean, it’s very difficult. Most schools have infrastructure in place in terms of their firewalls, their software that’s usually for endpoint security software. You may have heard of things like Sophos or other products that are like similar to, but not really the same as back in the day when you had a virus software installed on your McAfee and things like that. It’s still up on your local machine. This is why network-based that protects the idea is that it’s going to protect everyone and everything in the system. The greatest challenge, however, is people. The bots that used to be out there tapping on networks, looking for a little entry point, like a little IP address that was opened, something that got left open, and they could sneak in and start to mine data from the network. Those are still happening, but not nearly as much as the ones that are fishing based. That send you an email that looks like it’s from someone else. And seems like it’s them, but in reality, it’s somebody else. And if you don’t look at email closely, identify it and you click on a link. You’ve just created a tunnel for them to get in. So that’s where really strong professional development and a commitment from everyone in the organization to say, yes, we need to make this work. We need to do this the right way. One of those is just simply telling everybody you cannot use your school email address, in this case for us working in schools, or if you’re in a business, you can’t use your school email address for anything but work. You can’t sign up for Pinterest. You can’t sign up on in your private banking account or Facebook or anything else. Absolutely cannot use your email address for that. Otherwise you’re putting the school at risk. Everyone’s at risk and keep in mind that it’s not just the school. Once something like this gets in personal data’s now vulnerable. The people that are in the development database, your own personal information. If you’re one of the ones that goes on looking at banking information and your bank, your personal information is now potentially threatened. So it’s really important that everybody looks at this from a, not a, okay, what do we need to do for the organization? What do we need to do for everyone and follow the guidance. 

Tara: Yeah, it’s so important. And yet I think so many people think it’s not going to happen to me. And that’s why, I mean, we all have grown accustomed to using email very casually. And I know because I’m a techie as well, that it is very important to be wise and how you use your email and to report spam and do all the things that you can do to try to, to mitigate those risks. I mean, I think what you’re describing has just an incredible need for training. If you have a school with, you know, with faculty and staff of 50 to 100 people, even a couple of those people aren’t paying attention or aren’t participating in the information that you’re sharing and the guidelines that are required, you know, the whole system kind of falls apart because of that. So how do you approach that training with the staff? Because it’s not just selling or purchasing technological solutions, right? It’s not just purchasing these products and licenses and software and hardware. Uh, a lot of it has got, gotta be a lot of your time must be spent in ongoing training. And then do you follow up and check to see how the faculty and staff are adhearing to those guidelines? How does that work? Did you like spying on them? Are they getting in trouble or getting graded? How does that work? I’m really curious. 

Bob: A very challenging area because there are a couple of aspects of it. And you just mentioned one, that’s important to keep in mind too. The privacy aspect, you may remember a few years back and Lower Merion school district there was a issue with students that their cameras had a security software that allowed them the technical staff to be able to turn on the camera, to identify where the computer is and if somebody stole it. And that became a very significant legal issue. Same thing that keeps that type of thing stays in everyone’s mind when you start talking about, okay, well, we need you to adhere to these rules regarding the use of your computer. And there is software that can be installed to manage it and to watch over it and do things, but you have to do it in a way that does not encroach upon that aspect of it, the personal aspect of it. The training part of it is crucial. So we have a package program that we’ve developed that actually is tied into each of the schools and many businesses now have paid for our acquired cybersecurity insurance. So it’s a, basically a liability insurance. If something were to happen, they’d have insurance to help cover them to get through a time like what Lincoln college just went through that, you know, we need money to do the, to remediate, to solve this problem, to buy new software, whatever it is. So these insurance companies have a form, and on that form, there are a lot of questions that nobody has answers to, except somebody that knows the technology. And most independent schools don’t have a technology person full-time on staff. There’s nobody there, the science teachers, the tech coordinator or whatever it might be. So we help them by put this package together that provides them with the audit to review their network and see where they’re at from the technology they have and make recommendations to improve them, to meet the guidelines for the security insurance. And then we also go over the software. That would be used to protect them, to make sure that they have something in place because that’s going to be required. And then third going over the processes. When I talked about the audit before I mentioned about how some people got into this groove, where they just did the same thing all the time and they felt well, this is how we’ve always done it. This is how we should do it. Our audits when we do those interviews and things are not as much focused on the technology as it is on the processes. How do they do the work that they do to get their job completed? Whether it’s a teacher, an administrator, whoever it might be, and those processes impact the way that people learn and the way that you protect them. So that’s part of this package too, as we go over the processes of how they work and make sure that they’re trained in a way they understand, if you do it the way that you’ve been doing it this way, you’re going to open up the door for potential cyber security risks. And then we go through training to help them understand the better ways and the way that we help to reinforce that or through tests. So we’ll throw it. We have partners that we work and develop similar to when you send out a survey monkey or something like that, you may have used that product before, where you get results. You can see who clicked on it, who opened it, who read the letter, all those types of things. We have a software solution that we partnered with an organization that allows us to create a fake fishing letter. So we send that email out to everyone and we see who bites and that allows us to get a full report of what happened. And then we go back and again, we do some remediation training and say, listen, you guys all clicked on this. We need you to go through it and watch these videos and understand what’s happening and why we need you to not do that anymore. So it’s all automated, allows them to be able to do it on their own time and be able to look at it and say, okay, now I see why I shouldn’t have clicked on that. That’s really the only way we found to be able to effectively work this in and make it happen. 

Aubrey: I really love what you just said because it’s it’s, it was like, you know, learning by doing, right? You’re like throwing this fishing letter at them, email at them and, and seeing if they open it and if they open it, they’re like, oh, now I get it because you tell them, okay, look, you need to go watch these four videos cause you just jeopardize the entire organization and it’s going downhill now. Something like that, but I really appreciate that method because I think a lot of people would respond and it would be very effective. So thank you for sharing. Now I’d like to switch gears a little bit through the lens of our podcast. We talk about mindfulness and how it applies to school professionals and marketing and such. I’m curious, like how do you see mindfulness applied in the ed tech space? 

Bob: So mindfulness is actually a very important component of the independent school world, if you will. It’s grown significantly over the past few years, but it’s always been a part of it, especially in schools. Many of our schools are Quaker schools, so their friends schools. Being here in Philadelphia there’s a large number of independent quaker schools. And so mindfulness has been a component of their model and their curriculum and instruction for, you know, eons, literally. And so taking what we’ve learned from them, we’ve tried to develop some ways to, to insert mindfulness, into ed-tech. And part of that is trying to slow down, step back, and look at it with a very deliberate approach because technology has a tendency to force people into hyper mode. Everything has to be done quickly. You know, I have this, I can, I I’m able to do this so much faster than I used to. So I’m going to do that. And what we’ve had to do is during these discussions, for example, when doing the audits, when we’re talking about the processes, sometimes it kind of turns into a counseling session, quite frankly, and we start to share these ideas and get back from them. You know, what they’ve been doing and share some ideas, and some of it has to do with mindfulness. Again, about stepping back, stopping for a moment, and thinking about the process and learning from that as it’s happening versus this constant, get it done, get it done, get it done, get it done. That’s difficult to do when you’re in a situation where your everything else, certain other things are dependent upon what you do. So you feel as if you have to keep moving at this continual steady pace. So working that in is difficult and we understand that and we try to help them to guide them as best we can.

Tara: Yeah, I appreciate that. One of the things I love about doing this podcast is that it reminds me to think about being mindful and when it comes to technology, you know, when, when your thing you’re clicking on isn’t working and when it’s not getting you to the page that you want, you know, you just, it’s very hard to just find calm when you want to throw the thing against the wall. Like, I totally can relate to that. So it’s, you know, it’s hard to apply it in some ways to technology. I’m going to move on to our questions that we ask all of our guests. And the first one is what are the most important things that you do to grow professionally and personally? 

Bob: One of the things that I’ve, I made many changes as I’ve become older and wiser, so to speak. And one of those is related to mindfulness is doing what I call a, take a step back approach. Prior, you know, I was working 70, 80 hours a week for years and years and years, and it was successful, but that success came across in that I didn’t know what the value was of everything that I was working on and doing [00:29:00] both personally and in business. And also the challenge was it put blinders on. So I didn’t look at all the other opportunities that were existing and things that are around that I could have done possibly to, uh, a little bit differently in order to improve both personal and business for life. So what I’ve done is, again, I take that step back approach, look at everything a little bit more closely, and most importantly, ask questions because in the business world, some people might think, and there’s a tendency to think that if you’re asking questions, you don’t know, you shouldn’t even be doing business. If you’re the owner and you’re the person running the business, why would you have to ask questions? You should know it, everything. And the successful business owners and successful in my mind, successful successful students and people are the ones that ask the questions. That understand that they don’t know all of it. That’s a critical component in teaching. And there are wonderful teachers out there that oftentimes get caught up in that. What we used to call Sage on the stage out front. I know the answers, I’m imparting my wisdom to all of you. The ones that really get it are the ones that look at it and say, I understand a certain amount of this. You have access to the world’s data now, like I never had in the past, let’s talk it through and tell me what you know, and let’s, let’s learn together. So that’s one of the things I’ve done in that step-back approach. 

Aubrey: That’s really great. I love it. It’s like the beginner’s mindset, right. You know, you’re always looking to grow and learn and the learning is never complete. So I’d like to transition us to what we call the rapid fire questions section of our show. It’s not as bad as it seems. It’s really fun.So I’m gonna kick us off with the first rapid fire question. If you could put one book as mandatory reading in the high school curriculum, or what would it be? 

Bob: I thought about this, that’s, that’s a lot of questions. That’s a loaded question because there’s so many books. One that comes to my mind is a book called To Sell is Human, Daniel Pink. I mean, there’s a lot of Pink books that could be on this list too, but in reality, when you think about it, the, the way that we really learn from one another is through selling. You’re selling yourself, you’re selling an idea you’re selling whatever it might be in order to succeed. And when you think of the term selling, not just being a sales person on a lot somewhere or something, that’s just selling an idea or concept. Things that allow you to become an entrepreneur in many ways, even if you don’t own a business and when we’re looking for staff, that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for entrepreneurs that are going to be working for us, even though they’re not going to own a business, they have the entrepreneur mindset. And that’s where a book like this kind of builds that. 

Tara: Yeah. I love that. I just saw him speak. He has a new book out, I think The Power of Regret. He’s he’s a great author. Okay. What is one app that you couldn’t live without? 

Bob: That’s another challenging one, I got to say though, it’s not just a app, but this, this has changed my world significantly. 

Tara: People can’t see, what is that? 

Bob: The iWatch, the apple iWatch. I don’t carry cash anymore at all. I don’t carry half the stuff that I used to carry in my wallet. And the resources that are available through this, in connection with my phone or even on its own. When I take a walk, when I do all these things, when I exercise it tracks, it records, it puts it into my system and I can get a gauge of what I’m doing and how to, it’s just tremendous, how much stuff has just on one [00:33:00] of these little tiny devices and the capabilities of it. In a year that, this year is the 15th anniversary of the iPhone in about a month. 15 years, the changes or 

Tara: Hard to imagine life without it. Yeah. 

Bob: Think of the changes I’ve taken places since then are just phenomenal. Yeah. 

Aubrey: That’s fun. I do love my little iWatch as well. It tells me when I’m not walking enough. 

Bob: Tells me when to stand. It tells me all these things. Cause that’s something I especially working from home. When we were doing that, I had a tendency to sit there for 3, 4, 5 hours sometimes and not move because I just kept going. And it was the mindfulness. It helped to play a part. That’s what that’s all about. It’s the mindfulness reminding me and saying, listen, stop, take a breath. Stand. 

Aubrey: Absolutely. I, my life was changed when I got one. So I’m curious, what are you reading right now? 

Bob: I’m actually personally reading a book called, Storyteller, which was written by Dave Grohl. If you’re familiar with Dave Grohl the musician, which is basically a story of his life. And it’s his reminiscing of everything that happened to him over the, since he was born. A great book. I think he’s a very interesting person, a great guy. And to hear his stories are actually pretty good. In a way other than just in his music lyrics, he’s talking about him, so. 

Tara: Awesome. Thanks. Okay. Last question. What is one great piece of advice that you’d like to leave us with today?

Bob: Really that when you, I think the important thing is that when you’re looking at everything related, and this is related to ed-tech, specifically when you’re looking at everything related to ed tech and the way that it works, think of it as just a, a part of what’s happening in the education with the education. It’s not everything.So many people think about ed-tech as being this all-encompassing- you step into a capsule and you’re in ed tech and everything revolves around it. The goal is not to have it that way, it’s the opposite. To inject the technology and use the technology where it’s appropriate, but still utilize those analog methods that have been around for a very long time. And that are very successful. We have great teachers out there and they’ve done a lot to develop these lessons and units to make things work and teach and help kids get through and understand so much. Now the technology is at everyone’s fingertips. So rather than trying to just impose all that information and test it, you know, like we’ve done in the past with dates and all of these other things, do it in a way that allows the students to, there’s a phrase that allows the students to learn by not just hearing and taking the information in, but sharing that information and becoming a teacher themselves. That’s I think it’s something important in technology and education that needs to be reconsidered and remembered as we continue to move forward.

Aubrey: Thank you. That was a great piece of advice to leave us with. Now, Bob, thank you so much for being on this program. Can you tell us where audiences can find you?

Bob: They can find me directly on LinkedIn. That’s one place that I usually recommend to reach out to me directly. They could also get a sense of what we do and our organization as a whole, by going to our website, which is edu-tech.com and that’s EDU dash T E C H.com. And if you go to that website, it will take you to the homepage and you’d be able to access all the information about us. There’s also on that same site, there’s a video page that I mentioned before, which one of my former students who, you know, Joe Monza developed and completed a number of testimonial videos for us from the schools, with parents, with board members, from a number of our schools and did a phenomenal job. It just, the stuff is great. And he’s a great, great person. 

Tara: Yes. We love Joe. 

Bob: I got to watch Joe grow from sixth grade on. That’s how old he was at and one of our schools when I was working with him. So yeah, so, definitely reach out to us on the website and you’ll be able to find all the information you need and we’d be happy to help anybody that needs, you know, consulting and talk about where they’re at and what they need to do to move forward.

Tara: Thank you so much, really you’ve shared so much important information. It’s very valuable and I’m sure that our listeners will really learn a lot from you. Thanks so much for joining us. Have a great day. 

Bob: Great, thank you! Bye.