{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Margin of Thought with Priten","title":"Is Using Tech the Same as Understanding It? - Melvin D. Smith II","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2308,"description":"In this episode, Priten speaks with Melvin D. Smith II, a digital learning specialist and computer science teacher at an all-girls school in Maryland where he teaches a required ninth-grade course called Digital Thinking. Smith challenges the assumption that today's youth are automatically tech-savvy and doesn't shy away from restricting access—his school has a no-phone policy—while simultaneously teaching students how to think and communicate with intention in digital spaces. His perspective cuts through both extremes: neither \"let them use everything\" nor \"technology is bad\" but rather \"understand what you're actually doing and why.\"Key Takeaways:Being surrounded by technology is not the same as understanding it. Students who've grown up with devices don't automatically know what cookies are, how algorithms predict behavior, or what happens to their data—the access itself teaches nothing without deliberate instruction on how the systems actually work.Removing phones from the classroom improved student focus, and students embraced the restriction because it came from them. When administration asked students what they thought about a no-phone policy rather than imposing it, students volunteered the idea and enforced it themselves—suggesting that transparency and student agency can matter more than the rule itself.Communication is the foundational skill that makes everything else—including AI use—work. Whether students are writing essays, coding, or prompting AI, the core challenge is knowing how to articulate what they actually want; bad communication produces poor results regardless of the tool.AI should be a sparring partner that pushes back, not a butler that does the work. The distinction between using AI to clarify thinking through dialogue and using it to bypass thinking entirely shapes whether it's a learning tool or a shortcut, and teachers need to model and enforce that distinction explicitly.The \"digital native\" myth obscures what students actually need...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/mIvclI2fK-fQrurJTjPiYoTWWGoNWSdbv1_-Xa6ULdc/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yOTNk/OTcyZTcxOWE5MGIw/ZTY0MjU4ZGNlN2U5/NjM3My5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}