#400 – Outsmarted: The Changing Face of Learning in the Era of Smartphones and Technology, with Lisa Green

In this episode of Unpacking Education, we dive into the realities of teaching in a tech-saturated world with educator and author Lisa Green. Drawing from her book, Outsmarted: The Changing Face of Learning in the Era of Smartphones and Technology, Lisa explores how smartphones, social media, and technology are transforming the way that students learn, socialize, and engage in the classroom.

Lisa shares practical classroom strategies that blend structure, coaching, and empathy—from using visual timers and sticky-note checklists to fostering digital self-awareness. “They need to learn to manage this piece on their own,” she says of students and their phones. Join us as we unpack how educators can guide students toward healthy tech habits while positively leveraging digital tools.

Call it the ‘Introvert Economy’ or the ‘Attention Economy’; all signs point to the fact that smartphones, social media, and technology have us interacting with screens more and with one another less.

Lisa Green, in her book, Outsmarted: The Changing Face of Learning in the Era of Smartphones and Technology

Resources

The following resources are available from AVID and on AVID Open Access to explore related topics in more depth:

• Empower Students With Digital Study Skills (article collection)
• Foster Student Collaboration in a Tech-Empowered Classroom (article collection)
• Help Students Take Ownership of Their Digital Lives (article collection)
• Human-Centered Learning Design (article collection)
• Media and News Literacy (article collection)
• AI in the K–12 Classroom (article collection)
• Video Timers (ed tip)

Developing Skills

From task management to digital self-control, Lisa’s approach centers on teaching students not just what to learn but how to learn. She asks, “Are they mastering the phone, or is the phone mastering them?”—a question that underscores the urgency of helping students develop skills for focus, reflection, and self-regulation in a world of constant digital distractions.

Her use of technology isn’t about avoidance or restriction—it’s about intentionality. By scaffolding tech use, modeling executive functioning, and encouraging meaningful collaboration, Lisa equips students with the habits and mindsets they need to navigate both digital and real-world challenges with confidence and integrity. By building skillsets that students can carry beyond the classroom, she equips them with the tools needed to learn and also thrive.

• About Our Guest: Lisa Green is a high school English and Spanish teacher in Victoria, British Columbia. She is also the author of the book Outsmarted: The Changing Face of Learning in the Era of Smartphones and Technology. She has spent years coaching basketball and says, “I think my teaching is rooted in a coaching background.” Lisa has a master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a dual focus in Education and Work, Organization, and Leadership.
• Impact of Cell Phones: Lisa says, “I think that the biggest change is how they [students] learn . . . how they acquire information, how they retain that information, and how they’re delivering that information.”
• Managing Distractions: British Columbia has a province-wide restriction on cell phone use in the classroom. Still, management of that “falls on teachers, as it always does,” says Lisa. She tries to have open dialogue about it with her students, telling them, “It shouldn’t be about me having to police you and having to manage your phone. It should be about me teaching you how to manage your phone.” She adds, “I actually think we need to build it into the curriculum.”
• Using Checklists: One of the strategies that has worked well for Lisa is to have students use checklists as a to-do list for class projects. One of the changes that she has seen in student learning is in regard to their ability to manage large projects. She observes them getting overwhelmed quite easily. To help them manage that, Lisa has them use checklists. “I tell them, ‘Step back. Let’s do a little to-do list today. You have 55 minutes, and I want you to break down what we’re going to get done in that 55 minutes.’”
• Urgency and Dopamine: Checklists have several benefits, Lisa says. “The checklist has not only created a sense of urgency for the students because they have this time frame for the classroom that they want to get this done, but it gives them the sense of accomplishment when they get a chance to see it checked off. And that is tapping into that dopamine center of the brain that the phones have already heightened.”
• Benefits of Technology: Lisa points out, “Technology has opened up accessibility for so many students.” It also gives her gateways into differentiation by facilitating more options for students to both access information and show their understanding.
• Tram Example: Lisa uses an analogy with her students to explain the impacts of technology use. She tells them, “If you think about learning as like a mountain or like a journey . . . and you think about taking a tram up that mountain—that’s the ChatGPT tram—you’re just going to take that straight to the top. And sure, you’re going to get there a lot faster than everybody else, but the person who’s done the hike, who’s taken the journey along the way, when you think about all the things they’ve learned and earned to get to that top, it’s very different when I get to the top, and I’ve done the work. . . . I got there faster, but I’m kind of cheating my skillsets if I take it this way.”
• AI as a Scaffold: Lisa encourages students to use AI as a coach when she’s not readily available for support. She teaches them tips for how to best prompt the AI to improve results. For instance, she suggests asking, “Can you explain this to me at a Grade 5 level? Can you break it down to a level where maybe I’d understand it?” Many times, students haven’t previously considered these approaches, and they find them helpful.
• Appropriate AI Choices: Much of appropriate AI use depends on where students are at in their learning progression. For instance, Lisa explains that different stages of the writing process might call for different uses of AI. Rather than having AI write the paper for students, it can be used to help brainstorm a topic, draft an outline, or perhaps edit a draft of writing.
• Assessments: Lisa likes to bookend her courses with assessments. This allows both her and her students to see the growth that takes place during the semester. She might accomplish this by having students write from a picture prompt at the beginning and again at the end of a course, so the writing samples can be compared to each other. She says, “In the end, if they’re showcasing that growth, they’re so proud of themselves. I’m proud of them, too.”
• Skill Development: The saturation of technology in students’ lives has brought out the need for new skill development. Lisa is seeing a need “for teaching them how to engage with tech and use it responsibly,” while also needing to “teach them how to interact and socialize.” She adds, “School has become a place where that socialization piece is crucial. It might be the only place students are doing it now.” In fact, schools find themselves teaching different life skills because of technology. Lisa says that we need to ask ourselves, “How has tech changed the landscape when it comes to everything we do, and how are we now teaching the students to be in that world with tech?”
• Portfolios: Lisa says, “I have my students build a portfolio, and their portfolio for learning is a website.” Using Google Sites, they highlight their learning throughout the course. Using shared links, they can review each other’s work, and parents can also see their portfolio. This allows for a merging of online and offline interactions.
• Gamification: Lisa also likes to blend digital and analog when it comes to gaming and gamification. She integrates digital games, like Kahoot! and Quizizz, as well as traditional card and board games. She says, “The students are eating up the old-school games because they don’t do this as much anymore.”
• Teaching About Social Media: Lisa says, “I think the biggest struggle right now is how we fit the understanding of social media, of algorithms, of our phones . . . into school.” This becomes a challenge because the curriculum is already jam-packed. She adds, “I think it’s crucially important that we’re learning about these things. But where?”
• Lisa’s Toolkit: Lisa is a proponent of using timers in class. They can be projected up on the big screen to help students pace their work. She says, “That timer going down triggers a sense of urgency for students when they see it. . . . I think they’re going to work a little bit harder to get to the end.”
• Generation Gap: Students are growing up in a time that’s quite different from most teachers’ childhoods, and technology is a big part of this difference. Lisa says, “This gap is bigger than it’s ever been before because technology has pushed it.” She also says that it’s important for teachers to recognize this and be open to adapting and saying, “I know it’s just different for you.”