Steph Sukow

I started my career at Cary Grove High School 17 years ago, and I'm still there today teaching full-time as a high school English teacher and speech coach. I've always been really ed tech curious - I love trying new tools and trying new strategies with students. In 2011, when our school started to adopt one-to-one devices for students and began using Google, I was part of a pilot program where my classroom used Chromebooks one-to-one before the rest of the district adopted it, and that really started my ed tech journey. I've done a lot of extracurricular activities working with students, and as I've progressed, I've also worked as an instructional technology coach. I'm a Google Innovator, which is essentially like a year-long internship with Google where we work with other innovators in the program - there's approximately 2,000 that have gone through that program over the course of 20 years. My focus is on amplifying student voice and empowering students to not only be able to use their voice in education, but use their voice beyond the high school walls. I created essentially a storytelling system that teachers could use across disciplines, challenging teachers to leverage video technology to have students think about their learning before, during, and after that process to make it more reflective, to include the science of learning, to include deeper thinking and more critical thinking into their classroom. I've been able to speak at approximately 13 different conferences last summer, talking a lot about the pairing of educational technology with the science of learning and thinking about student engagement and using their voices for good. I work a lot with programs like WeVideo and Magic School, integrating that into my classroom and sharing that with other educators, both at my school and my district, but also presenting at conferences like ISTE. It's just been really neat to be able to use all of my passions to not only help my students and help my school, but also to work with other educators to collaborate and share really great ways to engage students and prepare them for the world beyond our school.