Exploring EdTech That Grows Authentic Audiences with The Merrills

Transcript

Kris (00:00)

Welcome everyone to the Learning Loop Podcast, your best source for educational insights and trends. I’m Kris, your host. Today’s special guests are the Merrills. Joe and Kristen are teachers in Florida and they are renowned authors of the amazing book, The Interactive Class. Joe and Kristen, welcome to the show.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (00:24)

Hey, Kris, thanks so much for having us. We’re excited to be here. you.

Kris (00:28)

We are so excited to hear from both of you. You guys are powerhouses out there, and so we are just so elated to hear all your amazing answers around everything technology and classroom practices. We’ll start with kind of a basic question here. How does technology, or specifically a tool like Seesaw, help to increase student engagement and motivation in your classrooms?

Joe & Kristin Merrill (00:51)

I can answer that quickly. Go for it, go for it, take it. So one of the reasons why we love Seesaw is, well there’s many reasons to love Seesaw, but one of the reasons we love it the most is because it loops in that parent involvement. And so when kids are creating within Seesaw, or if they’re uploading projects into Seesaw, it’s giving them this sense of ownership. And so when they have that product and it does send that notification to their families, their families already know what’s happened throughout the day before they even get…

out to dismissal. And so that’s a really powerful tool for educators. And we really appreciate that you guys have that capability. And it’s totally changed our classrooms because now, you know, the kids go home and they have grandparents that are attached to their profiles. They have aunts and uncles. And so the whole family now is a part of the learning process. And that’s a really, really hard thing to accomplish without an app like Seesaw. Yeah, it creates an authentic audience, I think. Right. And so when kids are creating for an authentic audience, it’s much more meaningful.

than just consuming things and creating it in that kind of cycle. I think also technology provides a form of engagement and it brings barriers down when things can be really hard or it kind of provides that bridge for certain students who might tend to shut down on something that historically has been difficult for them. And so when you can add a layer of technology in, whether it’s just pure engagement as like a game or as a creation aspect, you can kind of almost trick them into forgetting what was so hard about it.

Or having that engagement piece that then motivates to push through what’s really hard. And I think that really is beneficial.

Kris (02:26)

Absolutely, you’re reminding me of the times when I would use technology to make things like math facts more fun. There are not very many kids who like to do math facts, and so if you can use technology to make something like that a little bit more fun, that’s a huge win for you as a teacher and to include parents as a part of that too. So there’s that transparent view into how they’re growing, how they’re progressing. I just love how that’s helping you guys too to help out your classrooms as you move forward.

We’ll jump to our second question here. Can you share any specific examples of how Seesaw has just really helped to foster that relationship with your families? I know that you shared the benefits of students, but can you share either some examples or even some ways that you’re really using Seesaw to engage your families? I’d just love to kind of hear that from you.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (03:14)

I had a student two years ago whose father was an active military and was overseas. And so I was not aware to the extent of how long he was gone. But at the end of the year, his mom told me that Seesaw was how his dad saw all of his things at school. So even though he wasn’t home, he was able to see them in real time. He was able to communicate the comments that went through. His son was able to see. And I felt bad that I didn’t understand the magnitude of that.

it was happening in the moment and how grateful she was because it’s very lonely to be away from your family and for him to be able to see those things that he feels like he’s missing throughout the year. I just thought that was a really special way that I definitely didn’t see as my number one reason for using it. It was just kind of like a side effect of just the whole platform in general, but a very personal way that it was used. I think you bring up a really interesting point because when we started using Seesaw, we certainly didn’t start using it with

the thought of this is going to be a parent communication tool. We started using seesaw because the creation aspects in it, we started using it because you could get, you know, almost like a learning management system. So user -friendly, so good friendly. Yeah, and so there were so many components that were great about it. It plays well with other apps, you know, and so we started using it because of that. But what it quickly evolved into is all those things. Plus, now you add on that parent involvement piece, which is so huge that, you know, it kind of like,

finishes the art piece, the canvas, so to speak, of the education lesson, you know? I was thinking of that time when your kids were posting, their first graders were posting videos or projects and then the parents were responding in real time during the day and you had to tell them to stop. So yeah, and that, I mean, Kris, I’m sure you’ve had that happen to you before too, but you know, we had an assignment early in the year where we’re just teaching the basics of seesaw and this was before I had a chance to have my open night where the parents come in and, you know, learn about what the platforms we’re using are.

Kris (05:03)

Yeah.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (05:14)

So it was obviously on my agenda to educate the parents about what it was, but I hadn’t had a chance to do so yet. And so as the kids are submitting work, the parents are then communicating back and forth to them in the moment. And I’m like, OK, guys, I love that you’re so involved in this, but can we pump the brakes? Give me like 15 minutes so they’re off of the device, and then you can go back on. Yeah, who would have thought you would have had too much communication with parents, right? It just speaks volumes for the app.

Kris (05:40)

Love it. Too much family engagement is, that’s honestly one thing that’s probably never happened before, but I absolutely love it. And I think there are some teachers and parents, I guess, will say that are just super excited about having that connection. I think that’s what that’s speaking to is.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (05:46)

Hahaha!

Kris (05:55)

they might not have ever had that before, have that opportunity to see exactly what’s happening in the classroom. I can think of so many moments as a classroom teacher where there was a student playing on the rug with toys and they maybe spelled out a word or something that they had never done before. And for me to be able to just snap a picture that, communicate that with parents, they might not have ever seen that moment that happened. And so I just think that’s such a powerful testament to how…

how much families are yearning for this connection and wanting this ability to be able to see what’s happening in their classroom and be a part of that learning process.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (06:32)

And I think a lot of parents, they don’t realize that they even want that. You know what I mean? I think we have parents that want to be involved. But I think that when you start sending these things home, they’re like, wow, there’s some really amazing things happening in my kid’s education. And so having that open window to the classroom is so, so important. And it’s, like I said before, it’s completely changed our whole delivery of our lessons and how we go about our students’ education.

Kris (07:00)

Amazing, amazing. I have a couple follow -ups on what you just shared there, but I want to just lean into the first one here. You talked about how you love CSOFT for the ability to create and the students to create and just how much that really fosters the students’ imaginations. Can you just share some of the key features or some of the things that you really love to do that really fosters student creativity?

Joe & Kristin Merrill (07:23)

I love, and this worked really well with first grade and like the younger kids, when they just take pictures of things and then they can use the draw tool. So, you know, for example, if you were doing something on the classroom, like let’s identify shapes around the classroom, take a quick photograph of the classroom and then use the draw tool to circle shapes that maybe the kids have found. It’s a great assessment piece right there, right? And so there’s so many different ways that you can use it in ways like that. I love the video now that it’s available. The kids can go on record videos onto there, which is great.

That’s more of their language and so them being able to record a quick video and explain their thinking and explain their work is huge because then it gives me a better insight of their understanding as well. I love the, I don’t know if I have a favorite feature, but I would say I love how so many of the features in the way that you can assign things to kids just allows for that differentiation and it allows for it in a really simple way for teachers because it’s so cumbersome often when you’re trying to meet the needs of all the kids and you also don’t want them to

to stand out and you don’t want them to know it’s no one’s business where everyone is and what they’re working on. And so the ability to assign all the same thing but maybe in a different way or with a different picture and so simply with just a few clicks is also a very efficient way for teachers and it makes the tool very efficient for them to use and for me valuable because it does give you a lot of options on how you give that one thing to all the kids.

Kris (08:48)

and allow them to have exactly what they need to be able to move forward in their learning journey as well. Love it. And I love the simplicity too that you talked about, Joe, of just these simple tools and the ability to layer things on top of them inside of Seesaw really makes them transform from just taking a picture or a video or something into something that is super unique. They can share something and really share it in a super authentic way just with these simple tools that are baked into the canvas.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (09:17)

Yeah, I mean, it makes it so easy, right? And it’s, like I said, it speaks their language. It’s what they want to do. It’s something that they find engaging, and it’s fun for them. So why not do it? It also hits to different learning styles. So whether you’re auditory, whether you’re visual, whether you like to write, you can do all of it. Like, I want you to share your writing planning with me. And what that looks like can be in so many different formats and ways. And the fact that you can let them do it again or revise it, really, to me, the processing as a writing team.

Kris (09:27)

Yeah.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (09:47)

teacher, allowing kids to formulate thoughts, then think upon them, then write on them, then speak to them, then come back and be able to have that anytime I want to come back and look at it, add to it, I think is powerful.

Kris (10:01)

and that’s best practice for all students, whether they’re students who are, you know, you’re gifted and talented children or ones who might need some more support, that’s just best practice. Provide them tools that they can use to be able to share what they understand. We’re gonna…

Joe & Kristin Merrill (10:03)

Mm -hmm.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (10:14)

And that’s the sign of a good app.

Kris (10:16)

Exactly. We’re going to jump back to what you shared a little bit about, and I want to lean into that. You talked about how Seesaw has really helped to transform your entire teaching day, whether it’s designing, engaging instruction, interactive lesson planning, classroom management. Can you just share a little bit about some of the impacts and the positive impacts that you really had now that you have Seesaw part of your classroom?

Joe & Kristin Merrill (10:41)

I think for us, it’s not hard to sell Seesaw to our students. Once they see its capabilities, they’re hooked on it. And so it’s not really hard for us to say, hey, let’s do this on Seesaw, or let’s add this to Seesaw. And so once the kids get into it, and they start to play with it, and they learn more about it, they’re all in. Do you have any favorite activities you’d like to share? I don’t know if I have any favorite activities, but it’s one of those things, the more you use it, the more you start

thinking like, I could have done that in seesaw, my gosh I could have done that in seesaw, right? And so you may not necessarily when we first started used it for everything, right? We might have used it for one saw, one focus, and then when you start playing with the more it can do, you can kind of gradually release. I like being able to go back and see what I did. I like being able to have that tangible kind of record of where my kids are and what they’re doing and it’s powerful for parents to see, you know, especially for kids that maybe,

aren’t where they’re supposed to be at the end of the year quite yet. But to see how far they’ve come?

and to be able to have that and to see that. And I think it’s also really important for kids because of the accountability. There’s so much accountability built into the way that C -cell works, and there’s an ownership, and those are the things that we’re trying to get out of our kids when they work at school. Yes, grades are important, and learning information’s important, but if it’s not authentic to them, if they don’t have an accountability and a pride in what they’re doing, if they don’t have a way to go and see and be a part of that process, that responsive, interactive relationship back and forth Earth.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (12:16)

Are they coming to their teachers classroom or is it their space? It just makes it more personable and I think it makes them feel more part of what’s going on regardless of what the activity is. I really appreciate how there’s so much attention to detail with the actual app itself. Kristin had mentioned it’s great for all ages and that certainly is true when it comes to the younger kids. Even something as simple as recording a

back to the student, right? Rather than typing it out and maybe they can read half of it, you can hit the record button and leave that audio recording and then they can listen back to it. I think that’s so powerful. The emojis being in there, right? That’s just a very subtle little detail, but like if the kid sees the star eyes emoji, they know they crushed it, right? And so it’s just the attention to detail that you guys have put in there. It really has helped to shape how we go about like delivering these lessons. And it’s efficient. It’s time to

saving right like you’re doing all of these things in one place you’re not having to like create this fun lesson then figure out a way to get to the parents then figure out a way for the students to be able to see each other like it’s all there and it’s all in one place and so rather than having to learn a whole bunch of different apps you can you can sit within this space especially the video recording and things now and really just get good at one thing and not have to feel like you’re spinning your wheels learning a bunch of new things and it’s a good thing to get to know because it rubs in the parent involvement.

Kris (13:49)

Absolutely, absolutely. I just want to hit on one piece you just said there, Kristen, of the more apps you’re using. I always think when I put on my old technology integration hat right here, it’s like the more tools that I see classrooms use, the more time is taken away from classroom instruction potentially. I think that having a tool that teachers feel empowered that can do so many things that really helps them to trust in a tool and allows them to save those minutes for what really matters.

differentiating instruction, that’s teaching kids in a small group, that’s sitting down one -on -one, that’s correcting misconceptions, that’s really doing the teaching part of it versus trying to learn a new technology tool or implement something different as far as a structure. I just love that you guys are finding power in that and that it’s also expanding beyond the walls of one specific part of your teaching day.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (14:43)

Yeah, well, you know, speaking of putting on your old hat, Kris, I got to say, like, your activities from way back in the day, like, when you used to share out those libraries on Google Drive, man, that was before the seesaw library. Those things were gold, dude, gold. Everybody was using those.

Kris (15:01)

That’s a throwback right there. I love that. And it is true.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (15:03)

I would be like, look at Kris’s dude. And like the mystery, remember what it was that, what did you do? It’s like the mystery with like, it looked like it was all blacked out and you like the magnifying the, and he was like, I’m doing this with my first graders. I’m like, okay. And then he come back and be like, they did it. It was awesome. They were able to do it. It was so good. Yeah.

Kris (15:11)

Yeah.

Kris (15:22)

So fun. Yeah, I remember that too. And it was, those were just wonderful glory days when seesaw was still growing and the discovery of what it can actually do was also growing too. And so it was, it was a magical time. So I’m glad that you guys found that to be powerful and magical as well.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (15:37)

I’m pretty sure those lessons are still floating around out there. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Kris (15:39)

They are, they are. Yeah, I check up on them every once in a while.

Amazing. We just got a couple questions here left. I want to lean into one more piece. I know you talked a little bit about this, Jill, about adding comments to pieces. Can you just share a little bit about how you use Seesaw to provide feedback to students just to really help them to understand where you want them to go and how they can continue their growth?

Joe & Kristin Merrill (16:05)

Yeah, you know, one of the things that I really appreciate too is the ability to send drafts back and forth. And so when the students submit something, I always tell them, I say, you know, listen, if I send this back to you and we want to change it a little bit, it’s not a big deal. That’s kind of what that’s what it’s supposed to be like, right? I’m coaching you along here. And so using those comments to to get them hyped up on maybe like a piece of writing that they’re working on is really, really important, right? Or if they take a let’s say they just take a picture and hold up the

their writing work and then I say, hey, let’s go back and let’s focus on this part right here and I highlight it, right, or I underline it. That’s a really great way for the kids to get the feedback and then to have them understand what exactly we’re referring to. So there’s so many different aspects that you can use to provide that feedback. But also, like I said, adding the emojis and things on there, it speaks to kids’ language. They get it. They know it. And it’s a fun way. And plus, then parents see it and then they know what’s up.

Kris (17:05)

Awesome, awesome. We have two questions left and I’m gonna go into our loopy question next. This is just a silly question we ask everybody who’s on our podcast. As married educators, I know you’re super busy presenting and all these conferences and things all summer, but what is one thing that you like to do during your time off?

Joe & Kristin Merrill (17:26)

She wants to talk about Taylor Swift, I know right now. stop. No, I don’t. No, I don’t. We like to watch kind of silly TV shows. Like, we’ll watch, like,

Kris (17:36)

Sure.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (17:38)

Some yeah, like we like big brother or like the mysterious guys who work in the mind that they think is haunted like just like kind of silly mindless TV shows like sometimes we’ll just sit and like laugh at some of the stuff that’s on there if it’s not like a like you know be sports and stuff but like sometimes we just find some like funny TV shows or things to kind of just Decompress with we listen to a lot of music. I was joking I mean she listens to other things besides Taylor Swift, but she loves Taylor Swift But we have a huge music collection and so as a former

musician that’s really good. He has a huge music collection. I get like one little cubby. She’s got a lot of Taylor Swift records. I do. But we have a huge vinyl record collection, too. And so we go back to those quite frequently and we listen to a lot of that. We’ll throw a record on while there’s some downtime. So it’s kind of nice to have in the background.

Kris (18:26)

That’s amazing. It’s a great way to also think of yourself. I think that’s always important as educators is recharge yourself so that you can pour into your students the next day. I think sometimes that can be overlooked with the rush of everything that’s going on. And so I’m glad to hear that you guys are finding time to designate to that as well. Last question here is we kind of are closing up our time. I know that you’ve shared a ton of insights into CISA, how you use it, how you really get started.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (18:39)

Good show.

Kris (18:53)

What advice would you give to somebody who’s maybe a new teacher, new to seesaw? What advice would you give them just to get them started? If they want to try to become a Joe or a Kristen in the world, what would you tell them to get started with so that they can kick off in the right direction?

Joe & Kristin Merrill (19:09)

I think we would both answer this the same way. I don’t know if we would. You think so? You go first. Mine is parent introduction. What do you mean?

Yeah, so my advice would be whenever you’re trying something new, you’ve got to give yourself the grace to learn it. It’s not going to be learned overnight. And so with Cecil’s capability of alerting parents, something we would both do is we would get our kids started on Cecil like day one, like day one, whether it’s making their profile picture, whatever it is, but we wouldn’t tell parents about it. And we would be like sometimes he would be brave and usually do it like meet the teacher like a week or two later. I some years didn’t even tell him until quarter one was over and I gave myself plenty of

of time to just learn it and let the kids learn it and things be in it and make sure I really liked it and used it because once you share it with the parents they are going to have expectations that things show up there and so I didn’t want to share it with them as I was still learning it and then feel frustrated by that because then those frustrations tend to lead to us like leaving something behind so my advice would be learn it use it use it with your kids but don’t feel the need to tell the parents about the very first week get a feel into it and then when you introduce them to it there’s stuff there and you’ve

kind of got that hook of like, yeah, I’m staying. I want to check this all the time because look at all this cool stuff. For the record, that is exactly what I was thinking. No, I wasn’t. So but I will just add that, you know, I think that the benefit of doing that too, obviously for the teacher themselves to make sure that their comfort level is right, is also then that gives you the time to teach the kids that they can be the ones responsible for uploading content, right? Like they can be the ones that take pictures and say like, I’m proud of this. Or, you know, maybe it’s something that they need to take a picture of that they’re a little bit.

more reluctance, but you want that message to go home. And so, you know, having them build up that confidence and be able to do it on their own is also going to happen over time. And so I feel like by slowing down a little bit and just letting the parents, you know, know eventually, like, hey, this is something that we’ve been playing with for a little bit behind the scenes, but I think you’re going to like what you see. Yeah, there’s nothing better than a kid coming up and saying, can I put this on my seesaw? And that’s ultimately the goal that you want is those kids is for them to take that ownership. Right.

Kris (21:18)

And regardless of any age too, I think. That’s part of the beauty of Seesaw is that you can have kindergartners, first graders who are like, can I take a picture of the tower I built or of this thing that I wrote or this story that I got to just really, really enjoy today during reading? That’s part of the beauty of it. And so I love, love that advice of just, I’m going to say kind of holding back parents a little bit, but making sure that, you know, when they come on, they’re all in and they’re super excited to be there. They’re super excited to come back.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (21:43)

Mm -hmm.

Kris (21:47.092)

I think that’s really, really powerful advice for somebody who’s, even if they’re wanting to refresh their use of seaside, I think that’s a great technique just to implement. So, amazing.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (21:55)

Yeah, I think if you’re looking to refresh too, we did parent homework one time and that was really fun. Like activities that you send home with the intention that the parents respond to it with their kids and it’s like a thing that they get to do together. That’s always fun too if you’re looking to just like refresh it.

Kris (21:58)

Hmm. Yeah.

Kris (22:10)

Love it, love it. Well, we are at time. I just want to make sure that you guys had an awesome opportunity here to listen to these powerful educators, everybody who’s here tuning in. We want to say thank you so much, Joe and Kristen, for being here. Thank you for sharing your amazing insight. Thank you for being powerful educational voices out there as well. We super value everything that you do every single day for kids.

Joe & Kristin Merrill (22:31)

Well, Kris, it’s been an absolute honor to sit with the Seesaw OG. Thanks for hanging out with us for a little while.

Kris (22:39)

Absolutely, of course. We will talk soon. Enjoy the rest of your evening and thank you for being here. See ya!

Joe & Kristin Merrill (22:43)

Thanks, Kris. Thank you0