Beyond the Brave Podcast - Chris Percival

Beyond the Brave - Chris Percival

Tune in to the Beyond the Brave podcast hosted by Superintendent Craig Jernagan, as he interviews Director of Technology Chris Percival!

Show Transcript

welcome to beyond the brave a mechanical School Corporation podcast where we sit down with people who are making a difference in our students our schools and our community I'm Craig Jernigan superintendent of mechanical School Corporation your host each episode will have a conversations with teachers students staff and Community Partners about what's happening across mechanical what's working what we're learning and where we're headed next today I'm excited to welcome Chris puhl Tech director at mechanical School Corporation to talk a little bit about technology welcome Chris thank you thank you I'm excited to be on here good stuff well you know I I gave you a bank of a few questions we're probably gonna use that to kind of start but uh go go kind of here and there from from uh learn a little bit more about yourself so tell us about how long you've been at mechanical and when you started where you got your start yeah so I've actually been at mechanical for a total of 14 years now I've been the tech director a little over 9 years um did the it corporate world for a little bit and then I realized I wanted to get into some edtech and once I got in there I just have not looked back so overall I actually graduated from aonic 1 in 2005 so if you added up all the years together be about 27 years 27 years long time to be at makanik well it must good place it sure is so what in technology interests you I really enjoy coming along teachers and students and and providing them you know the latest and greatest types opportunities that they can use in the classroom um I mean it was 1 of those things where you had to figure out your career path and Technology was kind of up and coming at that point it was the the Google bust and all those big websites were coming around and you know of course you want to find a career where you can make some money Port you know yourself and your family so got into it got into technology I really didn't love programming but I I fell in love with networking and project management and all those types of things so yeah quite a few projects uh and your tenure here uh you've seen us uh introduce 1 to 1 compute when you first started uh how has that changed over time uh you know each each kid having their own device versus a a computer lab and and all that yeah so actually I was it on here at Monaco because um we purchased a bunch of iPads at that time and Mrs off the tech director that was there called me up and said hey what do you know about iPads and I said not a lot but I can learn so yeah it was cool to see kind of the iPad um 1 to 1 initiative is the e-learning um and since then we've moved to you know more managed Chromebooks and uh we've tried to make things more simple um you know for easier management and and things like that but we have seen it a long way um and it's just been exciting to see these kids come with a device and they learn these these things that's going to propel them in the future so you mentioned something there early on um when you said hey I don't know a lot about iPads but I can learn something that you brought to the to the Tech Community here is a is a can do attitude can you talk a little bit about that yeah so I mean sometimes it people get a wrap that they don't you know come alongside or they instantly say hey I can't help you out um that's 1 thing that I've made sure uh to do is not come with that approach we want to come with hey what we can look into it may not know right away but if you give me some time and and some um research first time I can I can usually come up with a solution and we also have a lot of really great vendors that we work with all over Indiana that we can send them a an idea or a problem and they'll be like hey what do you think about this so no it's it's all about coming alongside and not just you know dismissing them right away you know that the common phrase among tech people is uh have you restarted your computer have you ever used that Oh Yes actually I use that this morning you know we had a student getting uh to things they shouldn't be on their 1:1 Chromebook and uh we put a new policy in place probably 30 minutes ago and uh when they came in I said restart your Chromebook and as soon as they did it was blocked so yeah that's a common common saying that we use yeah you know kind of locking those kids down uh I I know we we spend a lot of money on filters and and hardware and software uh what would you say you know aside from the purchasing and and and and that communication what would you say you're most proud of in what you do here at mechanical uh I mean like I said we've done a lot of great things a lot of 1 to 1 E learning we've done you know moved to Chromebooks um there's so many cool projects we've we've put in place we've at the scale we've you know we got crowd strike backing up and looking at our daily operations with Ave and 247 monitoring and we just want to provide a secure environment for our students and really I I don't want have to know hey you know the internet's down or the the reliability piece is something we've really prided ourselves on um in bringing a reliable solution and with that we've moved to you know Google and Gmail and uh we're recently just moved to Google Gemini with our administrators and we're seeing a lot of really great things coming from that and then eventually that will come to our staff and who knows maybe students down the line so you hit a little bit up on AI how is AI going to trans for what you do probably in what our students do in the future no I I do think it's something we need to try to get involved with in expose these students to because in the real world you're going to need um those types of things to kind of help save yourself some time like yesterday I could have wrote up uh you know it take me 30 to 40 minutes to write up this how-to I wrote typed into Google Gemini I said hey if I'm a fasta student how do I create a free you know email account and how would I sign up and right then like the steps were more involved and more precise than I could even come up with I mean did I tweak them after and then throw some screenshots in there yes but at the same time that saved me 30 minutes 40 minutes out of my busy day which is just a game for for a lot of people so have you used AI to generate a quick email response to maybe somebody that you were a little bit uh fed up with oh yeah actually you say that it it saved me many times so sometimes I mean with tech and you're dealing with a lot of devices I mean almost 3,000 you get a little testy at times just you know so I will throw my emails at maybe a little testy into Google Gemini and they will remove like that harsh not harsh language but you know just a little snippy that I don't want to come off as and I don't mean to come up off as but it has yeah saved me there definitely a good use I think I think everybody who has used AI uses it in that capacity at least some to to try and take some of the edge off of of email and and help polish some of what we say so that's that's good stuff for sure and I I appreciate you also leading to something we're probably gonna have to embrace uh you know way back in the day people said hey we we can't use calculators you won't ever have a you know you won't always have a calculator in your hand well now we have an iPhone that has a calculator and I see people all the time using a calculator uh this is 1 of those new things that's scary uh but how do we embrace it and and make make it best for um our kids and our staff moving forward and I I appreciate you uh be willing to do that for sure so a few other things some people may or may not know this but you work on a joint contract uh with us and Peru Uh something's been going on for what 6 or 8 months yeah um and an opportunity that I brought to you after having some conversations with the Peru superintendent uh and initially what was your response to that initially I was like no way that being a tech director for 1 school is enough adding to there's there's no way so that was my initial response who who convinced you that maybe it was a better idea than You Know It it's a family decision so going home and talking to the wife and the kids and who knows we kind of came up with the joint decision um that maybe hey I need to be challenged a little bit more and get out and and do some more things there so well I think that was a wise voice on on your wife and your your kids part maybe more so your wife and your kids but but something I knew you had capacity um something I think that you you brought a lot to the table for Peru uh help them along the way um and we've not lost uh a ton here because we have some good people in our Tech uh tech department who picked up some of those loose ends so appreciate that as well um and and ultimately as superintendent it was a little bit of a cost savings uh for us and it all around you were happy on your end I think yeah for sure uh and and we've been happy with the services we've gotten so definitely appreciate that so we're going to go through a little bit of a speed round here and I I hope that I know the answer to some of these questions and if not I may harass you a little bit here and there so whatever comes to mind first Let's Hear It Mac or PC PC oh iPhone or Android iPhone iPhone all right we got that 1 Google or Microsoft Google laptop or desktop hmm laptop but I run a desktop at mechanical Peru I am on a laptop okay text or email text most definitely your text yes and likes to call me a lot I I do call you I'm still old school early bird or night owl night owl what's your favorite app my favorite app oh Gmail Gmail I love Gmail especially with Gemini now most overrated piece of technology a good 1 I would say the iPad the iPad the iPad for sure I thought you were gonna say swivl camera since we had those oh goodness those swivels yep I forgot about the swivels yeah uh AI exciting or terrifying I'm excited about it worst technology phrase um man saying the internet's down I hate that I hate when people tell me that I I think it's hey have you tried restarting your computer I love that 1 I know you do most common technology problem use your air or actual technology problem user yeah I'd say that's probably right I know if you weren't working at technology what would you be doing I'd actually be probably at a golf course as a golf pro yeah this golf or or round ball I know I've I've picked up disc golf but probably real golf real golf I like that yeah describe the tech mechanical technology department and 3 words works very hard I really would say that works I got a great team when you think of our mission to on power students to succeed what role does technology play in that I think it's a behind the scenes it's 1 of those things that you just hopefully take your for granted for that you know it's working and we're providing these tools for these students I mean I have 3 daughters that have gone through mechanical 1 just graduated and I'm seeing her online doing College work you know it's seamless for her she's just graduated moved into ivytech and then eventually iuke and I want them to be just ready for the real world and if say they don't go to college but they're you know working at you know the battery plan or Chrysler they're just automatically hitting the ground with technology and they don't even realize that it's been such a part of their life since they were you know 5 year olds so when they graduated 18 definitely integrated into into who we are here at em for sure well Chris thank you for joining us today and sharing with us uh your respective on technology yeah thank you for having me this has been fun and everyone else listening thank you for joining us for another episode of beyond the brave at mechanical there are great things happening every day in our classrooms across our campuses and throughout our community this podcast gives us an opportunity to share those stories and introduce you to people who make them possible I'm Craig turn again superintendent McConnell School Corporation thank you for listening until next time keep working together to empower our students to succeed

Listen to Superintendent Craig Jernagan's brand new podcast as he interviews Director of Technology Chris Percival.