MHS graduate honored as Digital Innovator

     A Monticello High School graduate was recently named Iowa’s only PBS Digital Innovator for 2017.

     Cathi (Seeley) Miller, a 1984 graduate of MHS, was presented with the honor in June during an all-expense-paid trip to San Antonio, Texas. This was the site of the 2017 PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) Digital Innovator Summit.

     Miller, who lives in Des Moines, is in her 28^th year of teaching. She is a humanities teacher.

     “It does not seem possible,” she said.

     She’s been with the Des Moines Public School system for all of her years in teaching, working at Central Academy.

     PBS notes that their digital innovators “set the bar for thoughtful tech integration in the classrooms.” Educators from across the country, from every state, from preK-12 are honored for their innovative work in helping to educate students.

     In her biography on IPTV (Iowa Public Television), Miller was quoted as saying, “Kids are naturally curious. When we as educators become facilitators for learning; when we know our students and their learning styles; when we are experts in our own curriculum; when we are risk-takers and able to be vulnerable in front of our students, the magic happens. The kids become their own teachers.”

     Miller said this recognition is quite humbling.

     “So many people do amazing things,” she said. “I had to ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’”

     Miller is the second educator from her school to be named a PBS Digital Innovator. She said it was always in the back of her mind to apply for the award. But it wasn’t until she actually made the commitment and hit the “send” button on her online application at 11:57 a.m. (The deadline was noon.)

     “I just thought I had to go for it,” she said. “What was stopping me?”

     Miller proposed the question: What is a digital innovator?

     “It doesn’t mean you have to be a digital ninja,” she explained. It seems kids always know more about technology than adults, and Miller uses that to her and her students’ advantage.

     “Technology allows us to communicate with our students in a different way,” explained Miller.

     For example, she posts her audio/video lectures online so her students have access, and can come to class the next day having viewed the material ahead of time, ready to engage in discussions. This also requires less classroom lecture on her part.

     “We also need to remain current,” urged Miller. “We can help students learn how to use technology to be effective communicators, while also staying relevant to what doing as well.”

     Miller said that mentality of pushing her students to utilize technology to their advantage and wanting to remain up-to-date herself as an educator perhaps played a role in the Digital Innovator acknowledgement.

     In her composition class, for a lesson on visual rhetoric, Miller used memes to keep her students engaged.

     She said in other countries around the world, they are ahead of the United States when it comes to the use of technology in the classrooms.

     “In Great Britain,” she said, “they’re using coding devices in elementary schools. Here, it’s a novelty.”

     Many schools, especially middle and high-school levels, don’t allow smart phones inside the classrooms. Miller said if used appropriately, without distractions, cell phones could be tools.

     “It’s a way for kids to access information differently,” she said. “And the ways in which we need to let them access that information is different. The ways in which parents connect to the classrooms is different.”

     Miller has her students use Twitter when presenting projects in the classroom to get other students pumped up for the class.

     “It’s about interacting differently and collaborating,” she said. “Social media has changed how we communicate. We need to reinvent things.”

     Technology has certainly changed the typical classroom setting. Miller said she when she first started teaching for the DMPS, they had one computer for every 50 teachers. Then they moved to providing one computer for every one teacher. Now, each student has access to a computer while at school for the day.

     Prior to this honor, Miller said she was exposed to the wealth of services PBS/IPTV offers educators, many of those services free of charge. Now that has been named a Digital Innovator, her access to those resources has expanded.

     “PBS has worked to tear down the barriers of students,” she said. “Students in Monticello may not have the same opportunities as those in Des Moines.”

     This is where PBS comes in to supplement educational materials/programming. “We’re not limiting individuals anymore,” added Miller, “especially in the rural areas.”

     She said teachers/administrators need to be “forward thinking.

     “The younger teachers in the profession can see that change,” she said of grasping technology in the classroom. “We need to have that balance as older educators being willing to change. Strong educators with strong skills need to unite with other strong educators.” She said her age, she’s not afraid to embrace technology.

     Miller said funding has also changed education.

     “We don’t put money into teaching like we do other fields,” she said. “We need to treat teachers like the professionals they are.”

     Miller said after attending the Innovator Summit in Texas, she was reminded of why she loves her profession.

     “Being a teacher is incredible,” she said. “I’m blessed to be teaching every day, working with amazing kids every year. It’s so rewarding and important to keep education a priority.”

     Miller encourages other educators to contact her as a resource into all that PBS-IPTV has to offer. She said it’s too bad that politics has to be the reason PBS looses out on its funding.

     “PBS is a valuable tool,” she praised. “It’s a cohesive part of our upbringing.”

     Above all, she said innovation could happen in many different ways.

     “We need to think about how we can collaborate in different ways,” she said, “in different towns and schools. It’s not about having bricks and mortar limit educational access.”

     Miller can be reached at cathi.miller@dmschools.org or on Twitter as “Catie Seeley Miller” @CatieMiller29.