Episode 88 — Shadow Quest Part II

Hosts: Steve & Sophie (00:29)
Hey friends, welcome back to Under the Hat Podcast. Today's episode is 88. I'm Steve Martinez, a former high school social science teacher and ed tech practitioner and forever student of how we can make classrooms work. As always, I'm joined by the lovely Sophie Young, a former middle school math and science teacher, instructional coach, and relentless advocate for universal design for learning. It's fantastic to be here today, Steve.

It is Sophie. I'm really looking forward to where we're going today. We are in the thick of the shadow quest. My tie is on brand. and looking forward to where we're going.

and you know before we dive into the next part of the Shadow Quest, I have a burning question for you. Hmm. In your opinion, when should accommodations and modifications stop? Yeah, so part of this answer for me is never. Right? Like we spend a lot of time in the K through twelve space, you know, teaching kids how to advocate

For themselves, making sure that we're all getting what we need, that the students are getting what they need. and oftentimes like they get out into the workforce, they get out in the colleges, and it's like it stops. Right. And and maybe not so much on the college side, 'cause you know, like five fours like that can transfer over and what that looks like.

But like you and I have done a lot of discussing around like the workforce is not always as accommodating as public education. depending on where you work. So like to me, it's like I think the accommodations and modifications perhaps can stop once all I don't want to say all the needs have been met, but

As an individual, if you feel like you can still thrive and be successful without X amount of accommodations or modifications, then yeah, maybe they should stop. But to me, that's more of like a village conversation than it is like a manager or one sole stakeholder, if that makes sense. What about you, Sophie? Where do you where do you stand on that? I would agree with you 100%, which you're not surprised.

I definitely like when you have an autistic child, you have a child with ADHD, where they don't just grow out of it. They learn how to advocate for themselves, they learn coping mechanisms, they learn tips and tricks and strategies to be more successful, but there are still things that could be barriers for a

adults with autism and adults with ADHD and adults who have both or any other disability where those accommodations and modifications could or are needed still. You you you don't grow out of them, you just

You cope, you mask, you learn how to work with your brain instead of against your brain. and not necessarily that you

ever stop needing supports, it's just it it looks different once you're the one responsible for advocating for yourself. Maybe that's just it though, right? Like that going back to the question at hand, it's more about are the barriers still there? 'Cause barriers change, shift depending like as we get older and have, you know, grow, right? Like if there's a barrier

the system should be flexible enough to have that barrier removed in some way, shape or form for the person to still be successful. Mm-hmm. But it's the rigid systems that

don't hold up to those needs. Wait, we have rigid systems. Maybe that's a different episode. That's a yeah. Is that a real talk? That could be a real talk. Yeah. yeah, well we could have an entire episode on just that. Rigid systems and flexibility. So something that's not rigid right now is our outfits. So let's take a quick minute.

To appreciate that is what it is. Also, some definitions, right? So Sophie, what are what are you right now? I am Vanilla P Von Sweets from Wreck It Ralph and Wreck It Ralph Breaks the Internet. It is the one who's the glitch who turns out to be the princess. So I'm wearing like the little brown skirt and her little like leggings that she has, and I put a TR on because she well, it's under the hat podcast.

But she ends up being the princess. That's spoil alert if you've not seen the movie. she ends up being the princess of the racing game. And so Yeah. Yeah. Wreck it Ralph, that that's peak kid movie. Well, this is a costume I've had for quite a while because Zane, my oldest, was obsessed with Wreck It Ralph when he was younger. And so he went as Wreck It Ralph and I went as Penelope. Mm-hmm.

But like this hoodie is like sweet. I can just wear it It is good whenever I want. And you can wear that any time of year. No one would even know. They would just think I was a little off. Which It's on brand. Yeah. And I Wait, what am I? It appears that you are a Slytherin student at Hogwarts. After hours. Yes, because you've undone your tie. So

Fun fact, Steve and I used to play the Hogwarts video game together. And it's not a multiplayer game, but we would just be playing it at the same time. Steve was always a Slytherin and he w his character always had a hat like that. Yeah, and the hat. Yeah. Yeah. He had a cool accent. And I that video game is what propelled me to get into the Harry Potter. 'Cause he had never read the books or even seen the movies until I got him playing that game.

Margie, our friend Margie can't a cool playing game. That's a cool game. And yeah. So I do know Harry Potter now. It's fantastic. But yeah. So You'll need to watch the movies that are fantastic beasts and where to find them. Yes. Those are also those are yep.

Good. So we could have an entire episode on Harry Potter, but

today's episode is part two of the Shadow Quest,

A free virtual educators conference brought to you by Learning Genie and Snorkl. Big shout to both of them.

Who are we showcasing today though, Sophie? I'm really excited to see what we got. Today,

We are going to dive into two sessions. one is

From our friend Mantha and she talks about SEL, checking in, digital check-in. Check-ins. Yeah, like checking in with your kids and like how you can maneuver with that. And the other one is our good friends Christy and Dave. So we're in California, Mantha's in Texas, and Christy and Dave are in North Carolina. So you're getting the whole spectrum of the US in this in this episode.

So we are gonna showcase Mantha and Christy and Dave. Christy and Dave are doing the what did they call it? The PD Museum is what they I think they called it. And it's about night. The night of the P D Museum. You're right. It's really good. so their but their little session is about

How do we provide professional development to educators now? As whole humans that are have their own come with us, come to us to learn with their own background knowledge, their own needs, their own wants, their own interests. How should we present pr professional development to them now? like we've always done. Wait. Everyone wrong answers only. Okay. Everyone in the same room.

Learning the exact same thing. At a staff meeting.

Yeah. Or twenty minutes. only twenty? End of the meeting. Sometimes. I'm I mean or an hour. Or my former district and I'm not saying it's like right wrong, like they still do it. I'm sure they get a lot out of it, but like or it's like the whole day. Yeah. Like there's like it's an in service day, and then it's like a lot of info. Info that might be of quality, but it's

There's that too. Yeah. So we're definitely gonna roll with Mantha's session first. So you all can check that out. and then we'll do we'll do a quick chat afterwards. We'll debrief that, yeah. We'll debrief it. Yeah. Are we ready? Yeah, you ready? Manta's so sweet. It's gonna be good. It's good. I she even took extra steps to record at night so that the glowy effect would be on brand for us.

You give Mantha a theme and she'll win. She'll deliver it. She will deliver it. Yeah. Mantha does love themes. Yep. Yep. Yep. okay. All right. All here is Mantha.

All right, friends. So that was Mantha. Fantastic session. and so for me the the the concept of like a digital check-in or check-ins in general. General. In general, right, is making sure that when we do monitor student progress, then it's also like not just the academic side of that, right? Like it is the whole human. How are they doing?

And so I just loved her take her different ideas because I do love that she showed more than one, right? Like you have the Google form, you have the snorkl piece in that. She had like a different resource that was like more visually It was the the paper based one and it was Bay Max. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the That one. Yes. yes. So

In the Bay Max the physical one she did, it was like super cute and on brand Bay Max because it was really popular at that time. Making things like that relevant for your students depending on the age. Baymax might not work so great in high school. Maybe it will be fantastic. You don't know. like Steve falling in love with Harry Potter stuff at the age of thirty-nine. So thirty-eight, maybe. Yeah, how long ago was that? I don't know. I don't know. Anyways.

but I love the idea of like checking in with your kids. And this can even be done physically as well. So like while Mantha had done it with paper, she'd done it with the Google form, which makes it super easy to track that data and compile it. and then she you also have the snorkl in which you can get even insights and things from that without spending all the time checking and reading, and kids can that brings it up a level, right? Of like,

They can pick and choose how they interact, which weighs best for them that day. Maybe one day I'm like, I'm gonna type up a fiend here. And the next day, I didn't get much sleep, so I'm just gonna talk it. So that brings in that level of student choice and autonomy to pick the best way for them. When it's inside snorkl, anyways. But I will say when they're little, sometimes physically moving a little thing. So I remember when my kiddos were in like

pre-K or TK, kindergarten first, they would walk in and the first thing they would do is take their name or their picture and place it where like how they were feeling that day. and there was a barrier there for my kiddos being nonverbal autistic children that are brilliant and capable in every way. They just needed to learn the vocabulary of what all of that meant.

so there for a while Xander was always putting it on that he was angry 'cause he's my villain loving child. So the angry face is the one he loved. Put it on that. Does angry equal good? In his mind. Maybe. Fantastic. When he draws any faces, they're always eyebrows are always like this. Yeah. Angry. Yeah. So but he's my villain loving kiddo. He's

gonna dress up as Bowser, Jafar, all the villains and act them out. can you just say that without a villain, you would not have a movie. So shout out to all of them.

But yeah. Also those redemption arcs. Anyways, back to SEL. you could do it physically as well. It doesn't have to be something that is like takes up a lot of time or space in the day. It's like this is your attendance, them moving their thing to where it is. Yes. But could I also

Just going back to the snorkl piece of it though. Mm-hmm. A thought that I had watching Mantha's session that I don't think I've thought about before. So like I was way into like collecting the data by standard, student achievement data, and then like, you know, moving through all the tiers of instruction and all the whole thing, right? But like I didn't I don't think I felt like I was doing that on the SEL level.

And snorkl helps with that. So like you can you can start tracking patterns on how your kids are doing, like how often because don't we have apps like that even for adults that just like I've got like three on my phone. See, I don't want to say that to the world. But like But you said it, not me. But like so like this the the general like check like kind of seeing patterns of like this student every Monday has a hard time or

couple times a month this student needs X, Y, or Z. A little bit more support. A little bit more. I'm wondering like how in Snorkl, because you do get all those insights, like being able to track social emotional patterns. Snorkl, you better be listening to this. I don't know. I think like product feedback wise, like like what kind of patterns can you get that is beyond just that one day? Or that one task.

Capturing o over time. Cause if I'm doing like a snorkl a week in my math classroom, yeah. Could I get like long like

data come that from all of

that. So what you're describing is something I've been asking for. But that sounds like what you want with like the yes. Yes. I've been asking well I've been asking for that from like even the through the academic lens. like and almost every company looks at me like we we can't we don't know how to do that yet, except for what's the ones that that like the iRady

IXL. IXL. Like those exact path, like any those types of ones are I kind of already built for that. Mm-hmm. what I'm describing here though, like first of all, we need more of that, like through all these companies. And there's one company that I won't share out that I've been asking for this for years. And like it's not good enough to capture the data per standard for the one day anymore. Like you want to see patterns over the course of time.

The whole unit, the whole side. See the learning, the progress towards mastery. When they get to that point, that's when we need to know they have mastered it. Yes. And then on the social and emotional side, like the SEL side, I do like the idea of seeing the full totality of that. And are there any patterns? Are there any dips or swings or things that we could try to

identify barriers with because that's another like this is something that I even thought about when it comes to like AI and I think I wrote about it in a book. You wrote a book? I didn't write a book but I did

That book here. Maybe we'll talk about that later.

We'll talk well we will mention this book soon. I did write a chapter in a book that is now published and we've sort of been really quiet about it. Yeah, why why b because we're building this whole shadow quest thing. Probably. Anyways. Yeah. in that chapter, I was dreaming of what could happen with implementing AI into the classroom in different in a in like outside the box thinking ways. And

This particular case is for children that are being observed and like data is getting gay they're on get gay they're gathered on them about when it comes to like behavior patterns or like meltdown patterns, overstimulation patterns, anything like triggering wise, if you could use a visual audio AI bot to help support the human eye.

As they're doing monitoring and progress reporting and gathering data and marking down every single time this child behaves a certain way in the classroom, like gathering all that data. What if, though, you also had the AI sort of running in the background, helping you out when the child does have a meltdown and you're like, my gosh, what happened? Because you're just sort of

Moving along in your day and everything's going fine and then all of a sudden, child's on the floor, having a meltdown. We don't know what triggered it, we don't know what caused it. It seems to have come out of nowhere. But the AI could say every Wednesday at this time, this happens. And we think it's because the system AC system kicks on and starts making this weird noise.

That the adult in the room might not even hear.

Anyway, but that's like dream.

So this was a good rabbit hole I was that we yes. but yeah, like I I I think like Mantha's certainly onto something, right? Of like this whole They're a whole human the whole human piece, the I don't know, i it it just feels like it was really top of mind around the pandemic. But I just feel like as a it's an everyday. It's an everyday thing and something that we shouldn't lose sight of. and as she was mentioned.

When it's like digital and quick like that, you're gonna be able to have kids do that as soon as they walk in your classroom while you're taking attendance, or maybe it's an exit ticket and you're like wrapping up type of thing. It's super quick and easy for them to do and you're gathering that data. But if you get it beforehand, then you know how to like navigate the day with that kiddo.

Love that.

Okay, so Snorkl has decided that they are going to, as you know, sponsor this event, Shadow Quest. And so Mantha mentioned them and her presentation as a place that you could totally do these digital check-ins with. But Snorkl can do so much more than digital check-ins.

If you go to snorkel.app and you go in and like sign up for an educator account, you can even play around in some of their free activities that they have. because they already have like a whole library of really cool stuff that you can do just to explore and see and like try out. One of my favorites, and we mentioned it recently, I believe, is the macaroni spoon or fork.

Spoon or fork. Do you eat macaroni with a spoon or a fork? That's one of my favorites. It's a super like great low hanging, like low fruit. Low hanging fruit, but that's not really what I was trying to say. Low floor. High I understand that's how the saying goes. Low floor, high ceiling activity that everyone can answer. and they have their own experience to build out a great activity. a great response.

So are we gonna go to the library? Yes. So I just created a class. So what you can do in snorkl is when you go to your classes, you can just create class. Boom. So good. I created a shadow quest class. when you assign activity, what I do love is you can create something new. You can save stuff as you go and put it in your own library and then

You have from your school and district. Yeah, they can create like their own library as well. And then but from Snorkl Library. Yes, Snorkl Library has more than just smart starts. They have by content. By content, by grade level, and it's good. And they have edu protocols. Yes. Built right in here. I am math practice. I don't know what that means. Illustrative mathematics.

I get it now. You get it, yeah. Yeah. digital citizenship, seasonal. Ooh, what are they having there for Halloween? I do not know. snap, batter owl. Halloween candy measures of spinter. Fall tradition. So we have to one of these. Yes, we're gonna do one of these. what is fall traditions. I love all the fall traditions. Book character parade.

That's fantastic.

Which one do you want?

What's the bat challenge? Well, that's a great question. Come on, try it. Let's do it. Bat challenge. So when you click in one of these, the cool thing is that you can try as a student before you assign it. Which I highly suggest that you do because it gives you a little bit of a at least one of them. This is what they expect. The instructions could be read back to them.

Aww. Yeah. And then so when you here's the response. The bat needs a home. The bat is lost. Draw a cave for the bat, tell why your cave is a good home. So are we gonna draw a cave with like

Bed?

That's some cave.

That's the bed. Are you gonna have a pillow? Or is that the bat? I'm labeling. You could have used the text box. I could have. You could have.

Look, you could type on there. Bed.

then you record eraser. Yes. You can highlight, you can insert pictures, you have shapes. Take a photo.

And then what is cool about the snorkl is kids don't actually have to show their face unless they want to, but but they're gonna record their response and then snorkel's going to give them feedback based on their response. Now go up to the instructions. Let's see what exactly we need to like okay, so it doesn't okay. So we have to draw a cave for the bat and explain why your cave has a is a good home.

Those are the two must do's in this thing. Okay. Are you doing that? I guess I can.

So we're recording. Okay. we drew a cave. That's what this little rectangulary thing is. And then we put a bed in the cave for the bat. So he can snuggle down if he wants to not hang upside down. So we drew a cave and it's a good home for a bat because the cave will be dark during the day.

And it has a bed. What are those? I'm making it darker. what's darker in the cave? Because they're nocturnal. They're nocturnal animals and they sleep during the day, and so they need a really dark place to sleep. And they will wake up at night and then be able to leave. They're also sort of blind and use echolocation.

To find things. Yeah. Now I think we're getting Okay. All right. And then you submit. You submit it. And it will go through and then generate the feedback. And what's really cool about where they generate the feedback is they put little dots on your recording as to where that feedback specifically applies. Which I'm like, yes. so it's timely because it just takes a few seconds for it to.

Generate. It is specific. We got four out of four. Holy cow. You ever gotten a four out of four first first time? First time? No, never. You show this to your principal. and so yes, so we read the rubric. Well, we read the like the instructions. Instructions, right? Which by the way, you can upload your own rubric in the snorkl. Yes. When you create your own or you want to tweak this assignment, you can

Upload your own rubric, put in your own assign like directions, everything. look, this is like great thinking about the bat wanting to snuggle down in a bed. nice job explaining why you made the day the cave darker. That detail really shows you understand bats and you explain nocturnal animals so well. But see the points, the little dots, point out the dots, please. They tell you what that's like meaning. So

Both of these pieces of feedback are in that same spot and then that one was up there. You explained nocturnal animals so well. So this is really good for a student like me who could just talk forever. Cause you can see like, like you could have just really all this stuff you didn't really get rewarded for in terms of talk time. Mm-hmm.

Which I like that. Well, and the stuff all at the end, and then it's like, can you think of one more reason a dark cave helps keep the bat safe? It's teaching the kids like the concept of iteration. And you can come up here try again and respond again. Yeah. and when you go to respond again, you can start off with a blank slate or start off with the same slate, the previous whiteboard, but you have to do the verbal part all over again. That's that's

Talkie talk. The reiteration of it all. 'cause what's it that Jon Corippo says about

The reps. Yes. Reps. The reps. so yes actually Hattie actually. What Hattie's research says about the reps? It's the yes. Yeah. It's the Anyway. So Hattie will Hattie's research is like there there's a there's a pretty good effect size on homework. But is it the homework or is it the reps that are involved in the homework? And is it going to be more effective is if it's not at home?

If it's in in class, as a someone that's into like the flipped model, getting the reps in with me in the room. With the immediate feedback. Yeah. Because if you're repping and it's wrong, and you rep it wrong fifteen times. At home. At home. You're just reinforcing the wrongness. The wrong the wrong thing. Yeah. So this is so this is all of like

Okay. How and then as a teacher you get to see, this is what like the back end sort of sees like as the teacher, not this part, but the part that was right before this.

You can see the number of times a student has responded. You can see and have it be like, you only want to see the best scoring one. You want to see the latest one that they put in there. You can sort it that way. And then as your students are bringing things in, it can tell you what is a common misconception within all of your students because it's analyzing and doing all of the feedback for you. So you don't have to watch every single one of these.

Snorkl can give you the cliff notes version. Megan's I believe Megan's session does that very well. She shows that the insights, how it kind of groups. And we I believe we talked about this in the last episode where it sets stuff up where you can very quickly identify, ooh, where do I go with tier two? Yeah. And with what subgroups. Because yeah, it helps sort your groups out. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. So yeah. Love that. That's snorkl.

if you were to we can just assign right here, put it in whatever class that we want, which in this case is the Shadow Quest class. I'm not on premium at the moment. There is a snorkl snorkl coach. Which is like having a little AI tutor next to your kiddos. Yeah. Limited attempts. The collaboration piece is like the kids can then see each other's responses to give feedback, which I've used. It's pretty good.

Guest login or not.

Yeah, then assign it. And then you just quickly just copy a link, give it to them when they open the link, right? Like

I don't think I'm sharing that at the moment. Not that window now. Not that window. but yeah. And then if I were to go to the activity here. You would be able to see the I'd see the insights, the responses. You see all the responses. Click edit.

Because this is what it looks like in the activity when you make the assignment. So you are prompting This one's already done for you because it's in the library. It's in the library. But like this is the prompt slash question, and then this is like the answer criteria that you want your kids to be graded upon. This is what's fantastic about it. You're telling the AI exactly what you're looking for.

exactly which standard and how well and everything. This is where you can like paste in your rubric, or there's even more options where you can talk to it and it helps you generate the criteria and the prompt. Also like even more like on a skill set standpoint, like claim evidence, reason. Mm-hmm. Give give it even in the prompt, almost give it an exemplar of what quality is.

It's good. under the more options, kinda have this what the default language is. Correctness check, scoring check. So if you didn't want them to actually see their if it's correct or not, or if you didn't want the rating of their answer. Yeah, because it's not like right or wrong. It's just you want the prompt. You want them to answer it. Yep. Which goes back to Mantha's session.

Generate from question so that's where you can like have Snorkl help you.

fill basically fill all this in. Yeah. Yep. and that's one usual honestly, that's where I start and then I edit what it creates. Yeah. If I'm starting from scratch anyways. And it's not a thing where

High effect size here. Not a whole lot of planning. And it's not something you need to do for every single assignment. No. It's like I kinda I I kinda sandwich this stuff. So I do a thing at at the college, I teach a a social science pedagogy course. And we do the whole build that I have with DBQ, document based question, with respect to writing the full essay and analyzing primary source.

I'll tell them I was like squeeze in snorkl, like get them in the primary source, answer the questions. But then on the synthesize part of like, okay, cool. Like how how would you answer the big DBQ? How would you answer that based on what you read in this document? Put that in snorkl, give it the criteria, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then take the AI feedback and then put it back into the DBQ packet. So it's like,

You can yeah. So there's stuff to be done there. and I would use it as an introductory activity to see like what they know if they're exploring something in math or science. We could do like that. So it's see what the prior knowledge is and see what their problem solving is already there, what they already know, what they've already been taught, what they're already gonna try, see how their critical thinking, the problem solving is going. and then I could also see it being used as

Formative assessment during like their guided practice or independent practice. And also it could be an assessment. It could be an assessment. It's not technically made to be an assessment because it's very formative. Give them feedback, try again, like gamify it. It's okay to get it wrong. You could try again, you could try again. But it could be the the assessment. They take that feedback, they apply it because it's not necessarily about.

what they started out knowing, it's can they do it? Do they know it? And if they need a little bit of prompting to do that, then they still figure it out. They still do it. And I think there's some companies that are figuring this out.

The future of education, in my opinion. The more feedback is capturing

The verbal conversation. Capturing the verbal conversation. It's capturing that feedback loop and it co being like a constant thing. The the more feedback you provide your students, the less reteach you need to do. There's research on that somewhere. I read it and it's just stuck with me. Well, it's like that well that that th doesn't that go back to like Yes, we need to address tier two, tier three. Mm-hmm. But until we have stronger tier one.

If your tier two and tier three is continuously growing and it's not shrinking, then you need to think about your tier one. Yeah. All right. We digress. We digress. All right. So we're we're here about to show you all. that at the PD Museum with David Christie. Yes. Super excited. Hope you enjoy it. And we'll we'll we'll do a debriefing. I just want to say I did sneak a peek. Christy's wearing like a spider hat.

Nice. Love that. What's what's Dave wearing? I think it's just like at the boggin. nice. But not as good. Not as good. No. Okay. All right. Here we go. Dave and Chrissy.

I want to point out before we get into the real deep in the weeds here, this night at the PD Museum, they called this shadow.

Like good. they they did. Yeah, they did. They were like, this event covers like all but maybe one of the androgyny things. because he was like, 15 minutes is not enough for like a hands on thing. And we could we can improve on that for sure. We could definitely improve on that and the way that we present, but we also have a little bit of the hands on in the competitors.

competition. The the audience competition. Maybe like what he's talking about is like embedded embedded inside of the session in the sessions. Like if we facilitated something that was more hands on. Yeah. But so

I feel like you have a lot of thoughts here as an instructional coach. As an instructional coach, personalized learning, not just for adults, but as kids too. so you've got the androgyny, you've got your pedagogy, and what we're learning more and more about because I did do when I was doing my doctoral studies before I moved out to California, we were doing a lot of learning about adult theory.

adult learning theory and then also like comparing it to pedagogy, which is basically K twelve learning theory. and like how different they are, but then also how as the research continues to grow with students, how it is starting to bleed and they're becoming more like one. there there's a lot of things like kids want things that are more relevant to them. Adults need to know

When are they gonna use this? Why are they gonna use this? And is this actually going to help them solve a problem for them right now? Miss Youngs, Miss Youngs. What do you I now that I like almost exclusively teaching have adults that that my students are adults? Yes. I find myself all the time all the time thinking like, wait, they are almost identical to my high school students.

They are more closely related to your high school students because your high school students are almost adults. Almost adults, right? So I so maybe like 'cause I also have hired instructors, adjunct staff that like they come from like the elementary space and then they're like, Whoa, this is wow, this is way different. Yeah, like like I have one instructor in particular that like I remember when you hired her. She's amazing, but she's an amazing first grade teacher. And what she has to offer to our pre service candidates, like

It's good. It's really good. But it's like it's our first time being like, they're all big. Yes. The bodies of first graders are a lot teeny tinier than the bodies of grown adults. Yeah. but I will honestly say that some of the best professional development I have been in has been facilitated by elementary teachers because they're used to this hands-on. They're used to engage higher engagement, they're used to trying to win over their kiddos. So we're like,

Woo, into it. Like elementary P D in my experience as a secondary coach, also like in in the process of learning so much about elementary because that just wasn't my world until now. I mean I as a parent it was my world, but as an instructional coach, that just wasn't my niche. It wasn't my world. It's everything that I am learning about elementary educators and how

They're different and the same. It's really fascinating how some strategies, and adults don't want to hear this. Some of the strategies you use on your kids work just as well as they do on adults. If you want hands-on learning and inquiry-based learning in classrooms, that's also the kind of learning that educators want. They want hands-on, purposeful, inquiry-based where they're solving problems that they want to solve.

And what we put together here in the shadow quest is a your own cool your own quest. You're building your own quest. When you decide to register and gain access to all fourteen presentations, you can watch them all or only some of them when you're ready to watch them and if they make sense for you to watch them. Which is what Dave and Christy were talking about in their PD museum of not rigid.

It's not a rigid it doesn't need to be a rigid system. I see what you did there. It doesn't need to be It was a full circle. It I Okay.

Nah, really, Steve? Was that really what you did there? That was so bad that it her TR just flew right off.

But yeah, so the I love their museum analogy with like you only get to see the Mona Lisa or you get to see a Van Gogh too, if that's what you're more interested in. so yeah, so I really like that analogy. I like the idea of them opening it up to not just their district, but like people outside their district.

and that's something that we were very adamant about here. We wanted to one of the reasons why none of this is live is because our audience, a lot of our audience, is not in the same time zone that we're in.

and so yeah, really love that. I I I just think that like there needs to be more work for with all of us, right? On how do we make professional learning relevant, engaging engaging, timely, purposeful for the learner.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean there are things we have to do training on, like the mandated reporting and now bloodborne pathogens and not now. That's always been a thing. Has it always been a thing? I don't remember doing training on blood borne pathogens. In California it's always been a thing. I don't know. I've been taking that for years. Should have a PhD in it by now.

Not if it's the same thing over and over again. It's the reinforcement. You're not learning anything new. True. I hate you sometimes. I should have a PhD in that now.

There are things that you need to be trained on that have to be done a certain way in order to be tracked, blah blah blah, to prove that the district trained you on it. But there are other things like if your district has a tool such as snorkl, a one

Box training isn't gonna work for everybody because the way they use it in a PE classroom is gonna be completely different than the way they use it in a music classroom, which is completely different than the way they use it in a math classroom. And so on and so forth. So that's where it gets tricky for the person providing the professional development to try and make a session worthy of everybody if the one

Time is all you have.

It's imp Also Possible. Could we 'cause we were talk so at the top of this, we were talking about rigid Yes. Right? We were talking about how long should accommodations and modifications. I've and I'm not gonna call out any district or anything like that, but like I just feel like I see it enough where it is the whole

PD experience can be really rigid, almost to where the the teachers in the buildings are not treated with the respect. And so then it's the whole vibe of the PD that is like down the toilet. Well, this is just a compliance thing. This is just a compliance thing. We're contractually have to be here. I've seen in some districts where like one PD session is like three hours a pop.

Shoo. For no, that's that happens places. Yes. And so that's a long time. I mean, I've done three hour sessions, virtually even. But you gotta build in various things. And but the thing is, is like we we spend a lot of thought behind like cognitive overload. Yes. With our with our students, like our K through twelve students.

But let's not apply that for the adults. Like to me that makes I do, but but like but if that's what in general if that's what the expectation is, it's like again going back to like there's like black or white. We're like we're rather all all the PD three hours of pop go or don't provide it because we're not providing like async accommodating type of type of learning.

Dave and Christy, they work in two different districts. I'm pretty sure. Kind of doing similar things though, right? Dave's at more the district level and Christy was an instructional coach like me at like a at like a school. I do think that Christy just got a promotion. I think she just got a new role. my gosh. Do we know what that is? okay. But I think it's like something to do with the social sciences. Mm.

I know.

Love that. Which is like Christy's fave. So the it's cool stuff. Anyways. But yeah, no, Dave is like the tech director or something. They introduce themselves. they also do Crave Adventures, which is Christy and Dave Crave, if you didn't get it, 'cause I didn't. Ed Ventures instead of Adventures, Ed Ventures. and they

Do a lot of like if something isn't working right and it's not doing what you want it to do and you want it to do this, then just make it yourself. They do a whole lot of vibe coding and they have they they're fantastic and they're funny. You should follow Yes.

Well, friends, that is all the time we have for today's episode. A massive thank you to Snorkl Learning Genie and all of our presenters who made the shadow quest possible. Absolutely, Steve. It was fantastic having conversations on SEL check-ins, feedback loops with Snorkl, supporting all learners and thinking out of the box with professional learning.

Yeah. And Sophie, what was your most frivolous AI use case this week? Okay, so I did a

few things frivolously this week. I started out by like probing the AI's memory of me to create a video that was all about me. It sucked. So then I went on to something else. And I actually asked it what are some frivolous use cases to using you? And it gave me some ideas and one of them was to generate costume ideas.

no. For You didn't upload my photo too, did you? No, I didn't. Okay. I didn't give consent, so so it started creating like these costume creative costume things that would be like my greatest fear.

What did I say specifically? I said, What's a frivolous way to use you? And then I'm like, okay, so what about making a graphic? Something like, put me in a Halloween costume that expresses my innermost demons.

that is way too figurative. Let's do something else. so then I ended up finding other costumes as well that lean into other fears and I'm not ready to share those fears with y'all. So there are some pretty cool

deep dark secret. Deep dark secret fears of that speak to Sophie. and then I also Y'all don't want you don't want to know. You're not ready. I also took a picture of my tattoo and was like, hey, what does this mean? And it like broke it down of what it thought my tattoo meant, which was pretty spot on. So that was my frivolous use of AI. They're all Star Wars. I wanna know the meaning still.

You sound like the high school English teacher that's like, What's the meaning behind this phrase? When I'm like, How do you know what the author wanted to do? He's been dead for a hundred years. Dude, sanitized tests for English is wild. Cause it's a bunch of that. Yes, it's like, how do you know that's what they actually meant? but yeah, anyways. Yeah. I don't know if I have a frivolous AI use. AI use?

You've been playing around in Notion a whole lot. Dude, so okay, y'all. Notion. I'm starting to really win my heart over. Again. G dude. Yeah. So okay. Notion, I recently realized, learned, that as long as you're doing it under we're I'm using this strictly just on the pod side. I'm not using this like at my

at my college or or anything. So you should definitely check in with your IT and like make sure that it's all vetted that way. So we're using it just here at under the hat. But like you can set up a database, like project management stuff, and it will automatically there's AI agents in the background that will automatically like integrate into your and we're only using like one pod calendar of like like hey we

We need to get this done at this date, at this time, and it'll automatically show up in our pod calendar, like our Google calendar. and so like that whole workflow has been blown my mind a little bit. It's we're just starting to set it up. So we'll let you know how it goes. Yeah. And but s see, but then I do get concerned about like the more that we start in because AI agents are different.

than just having like a bot to just talk with. AI agents are like doing things almost on your behalf. So there's a little bit of vulnerability there by letting it have access to your calendars. I I'm not even gonna start with having it access my email or like 'cause that's a different Yeah, because you can actually have these agents.

Send emails on your behalf, reply to email. I'm not ready for They can send you reminders. They can create your grocery shopping list and put that order in for you, which would then act Well meta Meta has a new one that's like So does a lot. Do baby steps. We're just letting it see our calendar and put things in our calendar to remind us because this girl, if it's not in the calendar, both of us, if it's not in the calendar, it's not happening.

And like I'm not things going on. I'm not willing to do that with like a personal calendar, a work calendar. But the pod. The pod there's nothing in that calendar anyway, other than like we have to build stuff like for art events or what what have you, right? and it doesn't even have access to like that calendar doesn't have access to like our guest or or anything like that. but it's more of a play.

But yeah, that's not again, but yeah, not frivolous, just like it's We're hoping that it's gonna help us keep track of things. Yeah.

Which is what I need. What we all need. What we all need. Well, big thanks to Learning Genie and Snorkl for sponsoring and supporting ShadowQuest and under the Hat Podcast. be sure to check out Learning Genie at learning dash genie dot com

Snorkl dot app. It's S N O R K L snorkl. Yeah. You spell it any other way. You'll probably go somewhere. There is snorkl AI with an E. It's a different company. It's a different company. It's AI for scuba divers.

Nothing? Okay, cool. because I don't know if you're serious or not.

curious.