Streamable Learning

 Streamable Learning is new to me, and something that I'm excited our district is launching this fall.   I would consider it less a digital platform and more of an opportunity to connect with dozens of experts from institutes and museums not just across the United States, but around the globe!

Summed up in an elevator pitch, Streamable Learning gives students an opportunity to take a virtual field trip via two ways: registering for a livestream event, or accessing a voluminous bank of archived webinar videos from the past. 

While access is mainly teacher-centered, some options exist for student access to prior recordings; more on that below.  It should be noted that teachers will need the Zoom program to participate in livestreams, and that Streamable Learning is a paid service.  Licensing is available at the school or district level, and homeschooling options are also offered.

How does it work?

Streamable Learning can whitelist your domain's email address so that staff can self-create accounts, or it will work with Clever integration (which is what we use in Shelby).  Remember, only teachers and staff need accounts.

As mentioned, there is a wide range of content partners working with Streamable Learning.  Once logged in, you can browse them by clicking on the "Content Partners" tab at the top.  You'll see the partners first grouped geographically, then listed alphabetically.   Click on a partner to see more information about them and additional links (for example, to their main website).   You also usually see links to check for upcoming scheduled livestreams and/or archived recordings with that partner.

While many partners exist in the United States, quite a few are in other countries!

Example of information on a partner.

By clicking on the "Livestreams" tab at the top of the page, you can see their scheduled events for the school year via a calendar.  (As of mid-July 2022, you no longer see the 2021-2022 calendar and the 2022-2023 has not been posted yet; it is usually up by early August.) The calendar allows you to find and register for a particular session, and there is no limit to the number of sessions you can choose.  By registering, you will get the Zoom link emailed to you, along with a confirmation of the date and time.  Streamable Learning told me that they usually have an average of a few livestreams scheduled every day Monday through Friday, with 400+ live sessions held over the course of a school year calendar. The sessions themselves are between 30 and 40 minutes.  While the livestream will have some interactive elements such as a chat room and polls, remember that it is the teacher who has the Streamable Learning account and is technically the one logged into the Zoom; therefore, the teacher should be prepared to facilitate their students' discussions in their classroom and will be the one to type in the chatroom or make a poll answer choice on behalf of their students.

By clicking on "Recordings," you can access an archive of past sessions.  (Be advised that some partners choose not to allow their sessions to be recorded and only livestream.)  First, you will see a way to categorically filter for recordings via several checkbox choices, such as grade level and content area; it is also possible to type search terms in the search bar.  One of the strengths of Streamable Learning is that is has surprisingly varied content.   While Science and STEM are clearly popular, there are also Social Studies, Math, ELA, the arts, and even College and Career topics.

Note the numbers in parentheses.  This indicates the number of recordings available for that particular filtered characteristic/category.

Once you find and choose a recording, they are playable on site; there is no need for Zoom for the end user.

An archive recording from an American Civil War Museum webinar.

Many of these recordings also have a standards-aligned document to go with them based on a state of your choice.  However, once opened, some of these alignment documents say "Coming Soon" or there is no link at all because no standards doc has yet been made available.

The standard alignment document for the above recording.

A final feature worth noting is that a URL to a recording can be shared with a student directly.  In order to do so, the student will need your district's "code."  (A teacher can look up the code for their district.) Once a student clicks on the link, they will need to type in the district code or they can't watch the recording.  Again, Zoom is only necessary to participate in a livestream; no Zoom is required to watch a recording.

For a video overview of Streamable Learning, here's a screencast I made (11:00):

How could you use it?

Teachers have always loved bringing in a guest speaker, but that might not always be easy or convenient; similar issues with logistics hamper just jumping on a bus with 30 students and going to a museum.  (Especially if it's in Alaska or Australia!)  Streamable Learning gives a convenient, cost effective, interactive, safe way of bringing outside expertise into your own four walls.  Additionally, it's a great way to show authenticity around the content being learned in your classroom, by seeing more vivid examples of its use, impact and application.

Streamable Learning can also address equity issues and give some students virtual opportunities that they may have little to no chance to do in person.  An affluent suburban district may have parents that can easily afford supplementing the cost for that annual class trip to Washington, D.C. or Chicago, but for high poverty schools or rural districts already far away from their own local cities, this may not be an option.   Streamable Learning can potentially level that playing field.  

The ability to potentially share a recorded webinar with students via your district code opens up other options.   A student may get pushed a certain video that fits their personalized learning needs and passions.  Another may use a recording as a way of vicariously exploring a career path.  Or a group of students might benefit from a video to build schema for the focus of their project-based learning.

Downsides?

I wish that search results for recorded webinars were more logically organized, such as the most recent event at top and then going back in time, or perhaps have a few filtering options (alphabetically by partner, for example).   Also, it would be helpful if the standard alignment documentation was more consistent. While I understand this may possibly be uploaded sometime after the archived video is put online, several that I randomly found were missing this information even months later.  

While the platform costs, the number and variety of content partners and the ability to access previous webinars can make Streamable Learning a valuable instructional resource for students!

Have you used Streamable Learning or another "virtual field trip" platform?  Share in the Comments below.

Launch of my new website!

A short announcement today!

I've just launched my professional educator website...created with Google Sites, of course!  It's linked to a domain I've owned for years: adamwatson.org.

I now have a job-agnostic site that has the following:

• My educational biography.
• Publications (things that I have written).
• A "press room" (educational articles, podcasts and other examples where I've been interviewed, featured or mentioned, going back to 2006**).
• Years ago, I was inspired by Stella Pollard.  When she leads a session at a conference, she has on her own site a page that houses her presentation materials.   It's a great one stop shop that's easy to find.  I now finally have the same, starting with a KET Summer PD session I just led last week.  
• A clean, clear list of links to my main social media accounts.

There may be more than a few of you smirking that launching a website is so 2005 of me, and you'd be right.  Better late than never, I suppose. I ask for grace, and more importantly, for you to give the site a visit!

**Update 7/19/22: After discovering and uploading two articles from 2006 where I was interviewed -- my first year of teaching! -- I updated my website and edited this blog entry from the original "back to 2009."

ISTE 2022

 My first trip to an ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference was to San Diego a decade ago.   I was still a classroom teacher at the time, hungry for digital tools and strategies; to put the trip in historical edtech context, iPads were only two years old when I went to that first ISTE!  Unfortunately, I haven’t been to an ISTE conference since then…so I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to go (along with some SCPS teachers, and 14,000 others!) to this year’s ISTE conference in New Orleans.  It did not disappoint!  

Briefly, here are some of my personal highlights.

EEEASE into an “Explore Board”

Holly Clark may promise a lot with a session name like “The Perfect Blended Lesson,” but if anyone can come close to that ideal, it’s likely her.  One aspect I found particularly illuminating was her distinction between a “Choice Board” and what she felt was a better branded “Explore Board.”  An Explore Board is a hyperdoc carefully constructed with a pedagogical purpose, infusing digital tools; a Choice Board is often only a “tic tac toe”-style worksheet that asks the student to complete tasks that are digital or analog.  (The presentation Slides linked above have some templates and examples of Explore Boards.)

After the session, I reflected on Clark’s defined features of an Explore Board along with what I already knew about effective digital pedagogy.  I then made an acronym (because we all agree that education needs another one!):  EEEASE.  While this list of key characteristics certainly can specifically apply to essential aspects of an Explore Board, they could also apply to a well made blended learning lesson in general:

• Engage the audience (the “hook”).
• The students should Explore the topic to build schema, within a digital resource framework of “bumper rails” provided by the teacher. 
• Explain what you want the students to do: the directions and step-by-step of the task(s), the desired outcomes, and possibly a rubric.
• Students should Apply what they have learned or what they can do.  Optimally, the type of final product that demonstrates the learning is the choice of the student.
• Students should digitally Share or publish their work (outside of the classroom when possible) or reflect/self-assess on what they have done; ideally, they will do both!
• Offer a way to meaningfully Extend the learning for those that need more help or complete the work early.

STLP Gets a Shoutout! 

On the second day’s opening session, a panel of students shared their insights….and Luke from Trimble County was one of them!   He particularly praised Kentucky’s STLP Program as a crucial learning opportunity that he personally enjoyed and benefited from.  

LeVar Burton

Whether you know him from Roots or Star Trek: The Next Generation or Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton has been at the forefront of culture and education for decades.  Recently, he’s joined forces with BYJU'S (the parent company of Osmo) as their new Chief Reading Officer in order to create a new literacy app that’s about to launch, so ISTE became an opportunity to talk edtech and his life journey in an hour-long interview conducted by Donnie Piercey.   To sit in the front row of Burton’s talk will be a wonderful lifelong memory for me.

Learning and Practicing SEL in Virtual Reality

I found out about Project VOISS, a combination VR platform and lesson resource site where students can interact in a virtual school, practicing their choice of responses in various social emotional learning scenarios and seeing the consequences of those choices.  I’ve been intrigued by virtual reality learning for years, but admittedly the hardware requirements can sometimes be limiting (for example, the need for headsets); I was impressed that VOISS will work on Chromebooks.  They are currently seeking district and school partners to expand its platform usage. 

New Book

As a fan of PBL, I was excited to pick up a copy of Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss’s Reinventing Project-Based Learning (Third Edition) at ISTE’s onsite conference store.  It already looks promising to provide some insights for my district leadership in the coming school year.

Thank you to ISTE for facilitating such an inspiring and learning-packed conference!

Torches in the Night

On July 3, 2022, I led a service at All Peoples, my Unitarian Universalist church in Louisville.   Based on the date, I had to negotiate riding the fence of a sermon that was both timeless and timely -- recognizing eternal values while also addressing the week that was.  

And it's been a tumultuous couple of weeks in America.

While I usually keep within the educational lanes for Edtech Elixirs, I do occasionally stretch the focus when I feel particularly passionate about circumstances, and this is one of those times.  I was very flattered that my sermon, titled "Torches in the Night," were well received to those attending in person and on Zoom, and several people asked for a copy of my text, so I thought it best to share it here. If it provides any comfort or insight to others, I'm grateful.