Bringing Magical Learning Experiences to the Classroom

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 guest is Tamara. She is a technology coach in Virginia. Tamara is a published author and a long time Seesaw advocate who we are so excited to learn from today. Tamara, welcome to the show.

Tamara Letter (00:26)

Thank you so much, Kris. so excited to be part of your show today.

Kris (00:30)

For sure, we’re so excited you’re here. We’ll start with a really basic question. What inspired you to become an educator?

Tamara Letter (00:38)

that’s such a great question to start off. Everyone in education has an origin story of what got you excited about helping students and brought you into this world of education. I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was in elementary school, and I always had that dream kind of in the back of my head, but I was busy trying to find my path like everyone else and trying to do other things. And it probably wasn’t until I got to applying to colleges that I was like, wow, what should I do?

Where should I go? And I chose a university that was specialized in education and I knew I loved kids that were younger. So I knew I was going to go for elementary education and I went through college and got my degree and I was so excited to get started. And then I got married and moved to another state. And years ago we didn’t have the reciprocity agreements that we have now. So moving to another state put quite a few bumps in the road and I had a delayed start.

actually getting into education simply because I was in a state where I had not received my degree. But those three years before I could jump into education taught me some valuable lessons working outside in different civilian jobs and and doing different things. Whether I was working in a construction job as a manager of the main office or if it was working in retail management. I definitely got to figure out wow how passionate and

I really about working with kids in education? And it was those three years that pretty much sealed the deep deal for me Kris because it made me realize I would do anything to simply have the opportunity to work with kids in an educational setting and I think when you go through hard times, especially in the start of your career, it makes you value that journey so much more and it makes you appreciate the hurdles you have to go through so that way when you do finally get that position that you want,

you’re more inclined to stick with it and to persevere and to keep holding on to those things that are so dear because you’ve worked so hard to get there. So I started my career in Las Vegas, Nevada, because at the time my husband was in the military, we moved all around. And from there, I’ve had the privilege of having a 28 year long career in education. I’ve worked in several different states, including Nevada and Tennessee and Virginia. I’ve come full circle. I’m actually teaching now and working in the school district that

Tamara Letter (03:07)

attended as a child. So it’s been such an exciting journey to be able to see that come all the way around to put me right back where I started.

Kris (03:16)

Yeah, that’s amazing. I absolutely love that. And I love how you said we always come back to that. As a teacher and having that educator heart, I think that’s a continual draw throughout your whole life is just being there, being impactful, being around kids and being fulfilled by them. That’s so amazing. I love how you said too, you knew that you wanted to be a teacher from a very young age. I’m curious and I wanna lean into that a little bit. Like what?

What really drew you to that? Even at a young age, you kinda knew you wanted to be a teacher. Was it something you experienced as a student? Maybe the way that you were taught as a child that made you kinda say, this is awesome, I really wanna be a teacher too. I’d love to just hear a little more about that.

Tamara Letter (04:01)

Absolutely. Well, in my story, it all started in sixth grade with my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Dalton. I’m sure many educators have a story similar where they can think of a person that was influential for them. But in my story, Mrs. Dalton was my sixth grade language arts teacher. And at the time, sixth grade was part of elementary school. So we still were in the same school we’d been in for years and years. But we were finally graduating to the point where we could change classes and and have kind of a content

centered, focused, middle school experience, but in a elementary school setting. And immediately after walking into Ms. Dalton’s room, mean, day one, I was like, I, that’s, this is it. This is who I want to be. I want to be her. I want her job. Cause when you walked into her classroom, she transformed education and transformed her learning and instruction to be something that is written about in magical

stories. You walked in, she had a plastic bubble in the back of her room that she had created out of like plastic tarp and duct tape and a fan. I’m not even sure if legally we could do these types of things now in 2024, but she had this huge bubble and it was inflated with a fan on the side. And she told us as our language arts teacher that every single person in our classroom had the ability to learn and grow.

and teach other people. She empowered within me my love for writing, my love for storytelling, my love for teaching. She would reward us. She would say, hey, you know what, if you finish doing all your work, you can go into the bubble, but you have to read or write. That’s the only thing you can do in the bubble. You can’t just be back there sleeping or hanging out. You’ve got to be reading or writing. And I worked so hard on all my assignments to always be the one. They got to go back in the bubble.

And it was through her experience, not just in that, it was through her creative writing lessons where she would start a story, just oral storytelling and stop it and tell us to pull out our journals and finish the story. And the next day she would grab one of our journal journals and read what we had written and continue telling a story. And it just was magic. mean, just absolutely magic. And I’ve held these little pieces and parts of her class in my soul for all these years because that’s what I want.

Tamara Letter (06:30)

when I work with students and now as a technology coach working with teachers, I want to empower everyone to see how education can be so magical and so transformative for students, for teachers, for everyone that’s involved in it. And so now, like as I transition out of the classroom and into this role technology coach, it’s helping teachers to be able to think, hmm, what kind of technology tools can we

use in the classroom that can reinvigorate our learning and our experiences with students. You know, what is it going to be that captures the creativity and the ingenuity of a child? You know, what kind of tools can I use to empower my students to share their stories with other people and have an authentic audience for their own learning and to kind of capture that for a wider audience? And so, you know, I use tools like Seesaw.

all the time with my teachers because it is such a fantastic tool to allow students to be creators but then also allow them to be storytellers and also allow them to you know reflect on their learning and to create to create things that didn’t exist before and to explain things and to just make their learning so much more visible and just exuberant for other people.

Kris (07:57)

Love it. What an amazing story. Every teacher, like you said, has that backend memory of the teacher who inspired them to not only be a better student, but then potentially to be a better teacher as they continue to grow. And I love how that’s your driving force. Continue to make that magic happen. Make something new and exciting for your students and for the teachers that you’re working with. And I’m gonna lean into this next part too of this question of how has Seesaw been that anchor for you?

I know you talked about creativity and inspiration. Can you share a little more about how Seesaw is being your go-to tool when you’re talking to teachers about how to bring more magic into your classrooms?

Tamara Letter (08:41)

Well, first and foremost, Seesaw is literally the most interactive tool that I have ever used in my 18 years as an instructional technology coach. We’ve had tools come and go through the years and lots of them have great things about them. But when we’re looking to capture…

a multitude of elements in that learning experience. I’ve yet to find one tool that does as much as Seesaw does. So with Seesaw, I’ve been a Seesaw advocate ever since it started, since I heard, what is this, a Seesaw? Like that’s something on a playground, you know, back in the day, like, what is this? And it’s been so exciting for me to see and to be a partner with Seesaw in a way to see how it’s evolved based off of teachers

Kris (09:19)

You soon have.

Tamara Letter (09:32)

suggestions and recommendations, right? So when Seesaw first started, you know, it had this grand view of like, hey, we want to make learning accessible for all students, and we want to be able to have students who engage in digital tools, but in a way that shares their learning with others, in a way that helps them process their learning, in a way that helps them make that learning more real for them, right? And so it’s not even just like, this is like a digital

worksheet. my gosh, nothing like that at all because students can layer so many different things on an activity that they complete and it’s instantaneous access for the teacher, for families. I mean, it has been great to pull people together to provide feedback for students. you got the seesaw program has so many great tools, whether it’s teaching kids how to use the microphone tool as they draw and as they type and write.

It captures that voice and so so students get to hear their own voice they get to see value in what they’re sharing with other people and being able to Explain their learning, know thinking thinking aloud and that visible learning It’s it’s kind of hard sometimes to get kids to understand quite what that means But you ask them to say hey, why don’t you just like talk while you work out this problem? Or just you know, or maybe why don’t you tap on that little microphone first and why don’t you?

you become a little YouTube creator that you want to be when you grow up, but do it here in Seesaw and you share with us how we can do this or do that. Another thing that I love about Seesaw that’s made it transformative for me is the ease of use, not only on the student end for student access point, entry point, getting into the program, using the tools, turning in activities to the teacher, but also from the content creation standpoint as an educator because many times when I’m working with

teachers. You know, we’re looking at where do we want the kids to go? You know, like working backwards, right? Backwards design. This is where we want the kids to be. These are the things that they have to learn and scaffold to get to that point. And so what am I going to do in each of these steps? And there’s many times that you know what we’re doing in our own district is just tweaked a little bit from what someone else might do in a different district. You know, we’re still taking our state standards, but we know our kids best and we know how to differentiate for them. And sometimes

Tamara Letter (12:02)

We just need something that’s just so close to what I need, but I need a little bit more like this or I need some extra practice on this one little tiny skill or I need these numbers changed a little bit. You know, we just need to adapt things. my goodness, seesaw wow. How could it be any easier to take something that somebody else created and have full rights and ownership to take that and change everything? I can change the title. I can change description. I could put my own voice on it. I can change, you know the.

anything within that activity, you know, all the different things, I need a different tool, need a different color, I need to explain this differently, I need more pages, less pages, it’s just endless. So many different things. And I just, it’s so easy, it’s so easy to use and so easy to create for me, for my students. And to me, that’s what opens that door and empowers those students to then see that they too can be just as creative and just as impactful with their learning.

Kris (13:00)

It’s so clear to hear from you about how SeesawW has been impactful for you, but the inspiration it’s given you too to really push your students moving forward, push the teachers around you to continue to strive for that academic excellence. And I love that SeesawW is your driving force with that as it continues to go. I heard you share a lot of things that you might have expected using SeesawW that were benefits to you as a teacher and to your classrooms and your students.

Was there anything that you experienced using SeesawW that was like an unexpected benefit of like, whoa, I didn’t know that this would be something that I gained from this using this tool and having this be a part of my routine? Can you share anything about an unexpected benefit that you just kind of came across using SeesawW?

Tamara Letter (13:46)

Well, I think one of the most unexpected benefits was the ease of leaving feedback for students and for them to hear my voice in that feedback. You know, I got to a point where I could push out the activities, assign them. In our district, we have like a paid version so we can schedule activities and things. But I hadn’t explored the ability to provide that live, instant, quick feedback for students as part

of that activity. And that was a game changer for me. It was a game changer for me because I could see right away the impact it had on students when they realized, one, they weren’t just doing this random activity in a station to be sitting in a turn in box. was real. Somebody was really looking at it, know, giving students the feedback to make it better. And for students to receive that real time lesson of nobody’s perfect, we’re all

to learn and grow. There’s always adjustments we can make to be better. Why don’t you strive for that? What can you do to make it even better? And then, you know, being able to push students to that next level without it feeling scary, without them feeling like they didn’t master the task, you know, it was just, it’s conversational. It’s not a red letter grade on a piece of paper. We’re always here to improve, and this is one thing you can do if you want to improve it and send it back to me. So it’s really easy sending things back and forth, but that feedback

from the teacher and being able to leave that per assignment I thought was very impactful as well as the immediate access point that families have with student work. So when you enable that feature within Seesaw and you send home the paper so the parents can connect, wow.

huge game changer because when the student turns in an activity, their parent gets it right there on their phone and the parent can also leave feedback depending on how you have your settings set up. And so, you know, even if a student can’t read, they can get feedback. They’re listening to the audio feedback that their parent is giving them or that you, the teacher, giving them. And there’s just a connectivity with that, with the learning and the reviewing of it and the response.

Tamara Letter (16:05)

there’s just that connectivity that is inspiring and empowering and makes kids want to do more.

Kris (16:12)

Absolutely, I love that. I love the unexpected benefits that you found there and those are such powerful best practices for teachers too and that you can use SeesawW to be that routine in your classroom. You can use that for feedback loops. You can use that to connect your families too. And I think, you your testimonies of how useful SeesawW is in so many different ways really have helped to mold it in a way that have helped you to drive learning forward for yourself and for your teachers all around you.

Tamara Letter (16:40)

Absolutely.

Kris (16:41)

We have time for just one more quick question here, and I want this to kind of be an inspirational question for you. I’d love if you kind of pretended you had a little magic wand here and you could wave it. What would be the change that Seesaw makes in your classrooms that would just bring you the most joy moving forward? What change could happen? What do you wish Seesaw would do for your teachers and your students that would just help them to move forward in such tremendous ways? What would be that magic wand wish?

Tamara Letter (17:11)

my goodness, look at me being a dreamer. I love it. If I had a magic wand wish for a seesaw, I would love to see a way that seesaw could break down global barriers in the sense that students could share their work with other students around the world in a real time manner.

Whether it is joining together, you know, there’s programs out there where kids can communicate real time, but be able to be able to share their stories or to share their work or to, you know, have a student be able to create a math board problem and then send it out. And then someone in India or someone in Africa can complete it and then share it back. And having that kind of sharing of learning together

but in a global fashion, that would be phenomenal. And I feel like many school districts in their master planning and their thinking of, you know, their goals as a district where they want their kids to go and the skills we want to empower students with anything that can have a global interaction because the world isn’t small. I mean, the world has always been the same size, but our interactivity and the students interactivity with the world around them

is enlarging with each year that they go through school. So having some kind of global sharing component would be my magic wish for Seesaw.

Kris (18:49)

I it. I love that connectedness and how you’re really inspiring students to think beyond where they are and really make that change in a way that’s going to be the global impact that we want all students to have and to be thinking about as they continue to grow as an educational student themselves.

Tamara, we’re at time. I just wanna say thank you so much for being here. Thank you for just sharing such amazing insight into how you’ve grown as an educator and how Seesaw has been your partner through this whole time and helped to change you, the teachers and the students that you are around all every day. Super appreciate it.

Tamara Letter (19:26)

Thank you so much for having me here. It was such a joy to be able to share a little bit about my background and my joy for education.

Kris (19:30)

Thank you so much, Tamara. Have a great afternoon. Bye-bye.