Aurora Institute Symposium 2023

 Last week, my colleague Kathy House and I went to the Aurora Institute Symposium 2023 (#Aurora23).  It's the first Aurora Institute Symposium I've attended in person since a pre-pandemic one in Nashville several years ago when I was still with Shelby County Public Schools. I was so thankful to go, and it was a great conference. In short, it replenished my well to the brim and beyond!  

One of the most unexpected delights of the Symposium happened in the hallway of the convention center.  I was talking to Eliot Levine, the Research Director of Aurora Institute.  We had emailed and Zoomed over the years but hadn't been face to face for a stretch.  Suddenly, a young man who was walking by had stopped to stare at me.  

"Mr. Watson?" he asked.

I took him in.  There was a beard now, but he looked familiar.  Of course I cheated and looked down at his lanyard.  My mind reeled backwards to my classroom teaching from a decade ago.  This young man was a former student of mine. 

"Clay?" I was gobsmacked.  How on earth could a Kentucky high school graduate (who had never expressed the desire to teach), per his lanyard, move to Utah, become a teacher, and now be standing in front of me in Palm Springs, California?  

Eliot graciously yielded the space, and Clay and I quickly caught up.  Turns out that a few years ago, Clay was feeling burnt out in his then career of finance and his wife suggested he teach instead.  As he shared with me, "At first, I thought of all the reasons that teaching wasn't a great choice.  Then, I thought of some teachers that I really loved, the ones who made a difference for me.  What if I could be one of those teachers?  And Mr. Watson, you were one of those teachers."  A few hops later through a job interview, a move to another state, and an alternative certification pathway, Clay and his colleagues are now preparing to open a new school in Utah in fall 2024.  The Symposium was helping the school's staff get ready for their innovative road ahead.

You might not believe in fate or destiny, but while I was staring at this young man in the middle of California, teary eyed, I had to feel that the Spirit of Life had conspired to make us cross paths, and to send a message.  And that message was one that all of us as educators should heed: If you are unsure that the learning you facilitate and the relationships you develop today make an impact, be patient.  Sometimes, seeds you plant may take years, or even decades, to sprout.  

But they sprout.

So, Clay, if you read this, thank you!

Back to the conference.  I was busy posting on social media and taking lots of pictures and notes, so as I was mulling over how best to share my Symposium journey, I decided to utilize Wakelet and curate a multimedia collection to put on Edtech Elixirs.  You can click here or view it embedded below.  

As I wrap up this entry, THANK YOU to all the presenters and facilitators, particularly the several Kentucky friends you'll see in the Wakelet.  I can't wait to go back to the Symposium next year.  Mark November 4-6, 2024 in New Orleans down on your calendar!

GenCon 2023

When I first began playing tabletop role-playing games in the mid-1980's, I read about GenCon.  It seemed a faraway and magical gathering where attendees played games for hours with their fellow enthusiastic fans, and vendors offered previews of upcoming releases while also giving away swag.  GenCon was officially started in 1968 by Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax and had humble beginnings in legion halls and university campuses; it took several years for it to become a multi-day event that topped 1000 attendees.  By 1985, GenCon made its first move to a Milwaukee convention center and had around 5,000 participate, but that was just the start of its runaway train of growth.  GenCon moved to its current home in Indianapolis in 2003 with a pre-pandemic high watermark record of around 70,000 attendees in 2019.   That's a long winded way of saying that GenCon is a big deal that earns its moniker of "The Best Four Days in Gaming."  But like many things of youth, attending GenCon seemed to be a fever dream that faded over time.  I convinced myself that I needed a practical, pragmatic, or professional reason to go, which seemed unlikely.

Then in early spring of 2022, I heard for the first time about Trade Day. Considering that I had just started KyEdRPG last summer, it felt like fate. 

Trade Day is GenCon's "day zero" on the Wednesday before its official four day launch on Thursday.  It is open only to vendors, educators, and librarians, and includes hourly sessions on the intersection of education and gaming.  (Your Trade Day badge also gives you a pass for the rest of the four day convention.)  Trade Day was my opportunity to fulfill a long-delayed quest, a way to learn from other educators who are using game-based learning, and a unique chance to celebrate KyEdRPG's first year anniversary.  

To say that GenCon filled me with knowledge, ideas and joy would be an understatement.   I wanted to capture here some highlights.

Trade Day Sessions

Like many education conferences, I got some golden nuggets throughout Trade Day, but I wanted to mention three memorable sessions in particular. 

Playful Learning: How Board Game Stores, Schools and Libraries Can Collaborate to Benefit Children

Jamie Mathy -- owner of Red Raccoon Games in Bloomington, IL and married to a fourth grade teacher! -- gave an excellent keynote address.  He is clearly passionate about issues of equity, starting with his belief that "Everyone should have a safe place to play games."   He sees the fastest growing segment of gamers is high school girls playing D & D, which as a father of two daughters, makes me happy! Mathy had many ideas for how a game store can work better with a school, including:

• As educators reach out to a store and need to purchase games for extracurricular clubs or events, have ready some pre-packaged "tiers" of starter sets at various price levels, depending on the school's budget.
• Coordinate with event schedulers as far in advance as possible, especially for public libraries.
• Have small giveaways for students who complete reading programs.  Mathy talked about having an aquarium full of inexpensive polyhedron dice where students are allowed to pull out two.  Costwise, it is a modest investment for him: barely .15 a student.
• Offer staff as volunteers to help run gaming events.
• Create coupons that a school can give away for a percentage off a single item, with a small percentage of the coupon sales going back to the school.  (A variation of this is a percentage of sales on a certain night or weekend going back to the school for those that mention the school's name, similar to how schools use "pizza nights" as fundraisers.)  Of course, this is good promotion for the store as well.
• Have a social media partnership.  A store can repost the gaming events/opportunities at the school to help it spread the word, with the hope that the educators can do the same for the special events of their game store community partner.
• Host in-store opportunities to "teach the teacher" how to play popular and just released games.
• Mathy fairly pointed out that while stores may occasionally be able to donate materials or offer significant discounts, they are still a business and can't give everything away for free all of the time.  It's a reminder that educators need to respectfully consider the type and amount of requests they make, not assume generosity is a blank check that lasts indefinitely, and to honor their side of developing an ongoing relationship with a store in finding ways to pay it forward.
• Try to create legacy programs with schools that deepen and enrich (in both learning and financial ways!) over time.  Having a relationship with a "teacher champion" of game-based learning is likely the key to start, but teachers also can come and go.  Find ways to keep in touch with multiple levels of school leadership and community (the admin, the PTA, etc.) and keep telling the story of your mutually beneficial partnership.

Gaming in Libraries:  Bridging the Gap

Clare O'Tsuji is a public librarian with the Kent District in Michigan.   Her presentation was chock full of statistics and research on the power of game-based learning, particularly on literacy. Firstly, she reminded me about Marc Prensky's work on the positive impact of games and play on learning -- namely, that playing games reduces stress and increase productivity.  O'Tsuji emphasized that effective gaming program in libraries -- and connected learning in general -- need to build relationships (teacher-student as well as peer to peer), incorporate student interests, and provide opportunities where educators can enrich and deepen learning via those interests and relationships.  (One relationship-building tip: sit beside students and learn a new game together.)  Lastly, I loved how O'Tsuji framed key literacy elements as "discussion, joy, and cooperation," all of which gaming naturally integrates. 

Creating a RPG Summer Camp

I admit I have bias when I say that my favorite session came from Tom Gross and Dan Reem, high school educators from Illinois.  (Tom and Dan host the Teachers in the Dungeon podcast of which I was a recent guest, and this GenCon was our first opportunity to meet face to face!)  But Dan and Tom's session on their annual summer roleplaying game camp was full of pragmatic advice, as well as generous resources (including an example day-by-day schedule!) of how to effectively start up and facilitate such a camp at your own school.  Dan and Tom's camp now runs four days long with the number of participants almost doubling every year.  Here are some highlights from what they shared:

• Understand your "why" of having a RPG camp, and create a list of your camp non-negotiables.  Dan and Tom's non-negotiables include using recent alumni and game club members to help facilitate camp attendee groups as their "dungeon masters," giving students time to learn and develop skills as well as play a multi-day continuous story, and introducing students to hobbies and careers adjacent to roleplaying games (such as dice making, comic book art creation, and miniature figure painting).
• Invite other educator colleagues to come by the camp, especially from the school admin and your district central office.  Seeing in person the positive learning culture, the development of literacy, and the students' practicing of durable skills will go a long way to earn support against skeptics who may think roleplaying games are frivolous and non-educational.
• Catch a student "doing good" (for example, being helpful and inclusive to another student) and reward them with a ticket that can be used in drawings for door prizes at the end of each day and/or the whole camp.
• Reach out to community partners early, to better ensure their ability to participate or donate.
• Reciprocate in your partnership with community members, particularly those that donate materials, volunteer time, or offer something at a discount.  Help publicize and celebrate their willingness to help. (This is a great echo of what Jamie Mathy said in his keynote!)
• A student registration fee can help a student put "skin in the game" and be more likely to honor their camp commitment (Dan and Tom ask for $30), as well as help offset your expenses. But don't let fees be a barrier to students who might have a financial hardship.  Offer camp scholarships.
• Reflect on how the camp went as soon as it is over in order to find ways to improve it for next time, as well as celebrate your well-earned success stories -- in particular, capturing anecdotes about students who may have surprised you with how much they matured or rose to leadership levels.  (On that very subject, Dan and Tom published a podcast episode after every day of this year's summer camp; the first episode of the series is here [15:38]).

Among many delights and tips that Dan (right, standing) and Tom (left at podium) shared was a highlight reel of students reflecting on their RPG camp experience.  If there is any doubt in the power of TTRPGs on learning, these student voices would convince you otherwise.

GenCon Vendors

From the Trade Day Demo Night to the massive exhibit hall itself, I marveled at many a game, accessory and piece of art.  For the sake of this blog entry, I'll limit myself to highlighting some items that have educational potential, both as extracurricular and in-classroom opportunities.

• 9th Level Games has a "Polymorph" TTRPG (tabletop roleplaying game) system that is significantly simplified and socially inclusive. This, combined with their various thin pocket rulebooks, makes for compelling game options for younger students.  For example, The Excellents is a princess-themed RPG that could work well with upper elementary and middle school students.
• Alexandria RPG Library is based in Seattle and is a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization.  They have amassed a collection of thousands of RPG rulebooks and boxsets going back decades, which they often curate and exhibit around the country.  Their online database may serve as a resource for teachers or students researching the history of tabletop roleplaying games, but their website may also be the start of some inquiry-based learning: What can the history of role-playing games tell us about a culture over time?  How do various gaming systems create mathematical balance to ensure fair playability?  In what ways are RPGs inclusive and exclusive (lack of translated materials, accessibility concerns, cultural insensitivities, etc.), and how can we make RPGs more inclusive?  How can a roleplaying game charity positively impact a local or global community, and how can we help increase that impact?
• Columbia Games has (among other historical options) The Last Spike, a board game about the expansion of railroads across the United States in the 1800's.   Even more helpful is their teacher resources to go with the game.
• Metal Weave Games probably deserves a shoutout just for their adorable Owlbear plushes, but for educational purposes, I want to highlight their Baby Bestiary Companion Rules supplement.  The book uses D&D fifth edition rules, and shows how to incorporate a character rescuing and raising a newborn fantasy monster.  This could be a way to bring in younger players into a roleplaying game experience that doesn't necessarily involve fighting and battles.
• Nations & Cannons is a newer TTRPG that would be perfect for a secondary social studies class.  Using the D&D fifth edition rules, players can create characters set during the American Revolutionary War.  From a local standpoint, I was particularly excited to hear they are working on a supplement that includes Kentucky's Fort Boonesborough!  There's plenty of game material to peruse on their website, as well as some educator opportunities to explore.  
• Oddfish Games has some items that are just plain fun, including a guidebook on How to RPG with Your Cat.  But they also have products that could inspire some educational integration.  Their line of Adventure Scents could not only add to the ambiance of a roleplaying game journey, but could also increase the immersive experiences during a readaloud of a story, be the kickoff (whiff-off??) of a descriptive writing piece, or amplify a "you are there" moment of history.  Oddfish also publishes Cooking with Dice: The Acid Test, which could gamify a culinary arts unit or even the entire course.
• Rowan, Rook and Decard, who describe their company as "strange games for curious people," have made dozens of one page RPGs.  These games obviously have very light rulesets which make them extremely playable when you have limited time or need something that won't overwhelm students with too much complexity, factors that are often the case in school settings.  While some of their RPGs lean toward darker themes with adult language, they do have a collection of ten one-page roleplaying games for younger players.
• Treasure Falls Games is about to release The Quest Kids: Giant Adventure.  In their words, it is a "life-sized fantasy game experience" with a simplified rule set geared toward students kindergarten age and up.  Large durable tiles are placed on the ground, and students are to choose a pathway from one tile to the next while overcoming challenges and collecting tokens along the way.  There is a kinesthetic aspect about the game I find intriguing!  This might be a good alternative activity for an elementary PE class, or even as a way to do a creative indoor recess.

In closing, I have to compliment the camaraderie I experienced at GenCon, which was truly moving.  From nearly every attendee and vendor I met or literally bumped shoulders with, I encountered endless permutations of kindness and generosity.  If by chance some of those new friends read this entry, thank you for your willingness to welcome me as a new member of the GenCon community.   I certainly hope to return!

Figjam

While I didn't attend ISTE 2023 in person last month, I watched the social media about it from afar.  One tool that came up repeatedly was Figjam.  The enthusiasm I read about it encouraged me to try it out for myself.  The result was endless grinning and multiple Keanu Reeves-like "Whoa's" as I played around with it.  Figjam is basically a browser-based collaborative whiteboard tool, but considering the possibilities and the joy it sparked for me, that somehow feels reductive.  My hope today is to convey that joy of possibilities to you.

First, a clarification.  Figjam is technically a program that has emerged fairly recently, but it's actually part of Figma, a popular industry-standard design tool that's been around for years and used by the world's top corporations and designers.  In order to use Figjam, you must create a Figma account, and that ends up giving you access to both tools.  Figma is a powerful program with some features that overlap with Figjam.  Figma is certainly worthy of its own blog entry -- and there are teachers and students who are definitely using it! -- but in my limited time of playing with it, I found the learning curve to be a bit steeper, and its application seems limited to product-oriented projects that may require designing and prototyping.  On the other hand, Figjam feels user-friendly right out of the box, and has the potential to be used by educators and students for learning on a much more frequent basis.

Strap yourselves in, because I'm about to make a new Edtech Elixirs world record for most screenshots in a single blog entry!

How does it work?

As you sign up (using your Google account is my recommended option), there is a process where you verify your educator status.  This takes a minute, but totally worth it, as you will get the full enterprise edition of Figjam (and Figma!) for free.  Let me repeat that: even if you were willing to pay something, there are no other premium features, because as a teacher or student you get the whole ball of wax at no charge.  A round of well-deserved applause for Figma's patronage to education!

Once you are logged in, your home screen will present you with several options, including opening up a previous Figjam board, making a board from scratch, or starting with a template.

This is what your home screen looks like if you're looking at your "Recent" files (see the upper left).

Let's jump right away to discussing Figjam's templates.  The bench is deep on this one.  In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a web tool that has so many useful pre-made models.  Within sixty seconds you could conceivably launch a learning activity with students.  While there is a whole template category "for the classroom," the other categories give you an idea of how versatile Figjam can be for brainstorming, having a meeting, planning a project, and more.

You will likely find value in using a Figjam by yourself, but why be lonely?  It really comes alive when collaborating with others.  While you could create Teams with students or colleagues for ongoing work on particular Figjam boards, I love how you can also open up a board to anyone for 24 hours and they don't even need a Figma account.  If you can give someone the URL, they can join you and work on the board in real time.  (Here's a timecoded link to a video showing how sharing works; it's at the 17:25 mark.)

By simply hitting "Start" and "Copy link," your students, colleagues or PD attendees could be seconds away from joining you in a "jam session." Note that similar to Google Docs, you can also limit a board's viewing or editing to specific people.

The interactivity of Figjam is user-friendly and straightforward, mainly centered around its toolbar at the bottom of the screen.  You can participate in multiple ways, such as drawing, inserting shapes or sticky notes, making line connectors between elements, using stamps and emotes, and more.  There are also some clever "widgets" available to use.  You are even able to have an audio chat with others in the Figjam board, which can make it an alternative teleconference-style meeting.

An annotated Figjam toolbar, slightly edited from the original found in the "Figjam 101 Overview for Education" Template...yet another aspect of Figjam that I appreciate, which is how many Templates they have that also function as tutorials.

Voice Memo (allowing you to record your voice for up to 30 seconds) and Photo Booth (which uses your webcam to take a selfie) are two particularly useful (and fun!) widgets to put on a board.

As a facilitator of the board, you'll enjoy the built-in timer in the upper left of the screen, as well as the opportunity to play some ambient music.  This can be particularly useful when participants have some work time for a portion of your live session before coming back as a whole group.

Here are some helpful shortcuts and tips that participants can use inside Figjam:

• E for Emotes/Stamps.  
• Tip: While in the Emotes/Stamp wheel, click once on a stamp choice so you can stamp with it multiple times.  You can also hold down you mouse to grow the stamp bigger and bigger until you release it on the whiteboard.
• S for a sticky note.
• X for connectors, and drag cursor to where you want arrow to stop.
• / to open a cursor chat for live interaction (not to be confused with making a more permanent text comment).
• Tip: be mindful when you are in "pointer mode" (which means you can select and move elements around on your board -- perhaps unintentionally!) and when you are in "hand" mode, which allows you to move the entire board around in order to navigate.  Until you get used to this, you may be using Edit>Undo a lot.
• Hold H and move cursor for waving your hand at other participants.  Then they can give you a high five!
• Tip: Copy and paste a URL into a Figjam to create an embedded website or YouTube link.  (This works for Google Docs too!)
• Tip: If logged into the platform on your browser, go to figjam.new in a new tab to quickly make a brand new board with some simple template options on the left side.

The landing page when you go to figjam.new. Note the quick template options on your left.

What if you want to share your board with others outside the platform, or want to save a "snapshot" of the Figjam for archiving your current progress?  You can export the board as a PNG, JPG, or a PDF, either in its entirety or just a selected portion.

Another excerpt from the "Figjam 101 Overview for Education" Template.

Here's a short overview video of some of the basic collaborative features of a Figjam board (2:48):

How could you use it?

I've threaded some examples of use throughout the narrative above; if you're stuck for ideas, check out the massive list of different templates available!  But I'll add a few more.  Figjam can be a powerful way of making thinking visible for learners, as well as providing a wonderful digital space for collaboration and planning.  Additionally, a person could use Figjam as an alternative presentation tool, either in person or as a shared screen in a teleconference -- you could set up its sections in advance and zoom in, out and move as appropriate to highlight the next part, as well as explore an image, play a video, or visit a website.  Lastly, because of its export feature, both teachers and students might use Figjam as a designer tool for handouts, logos, and other graphics. 

Downsides?

You know you're struggling to find fault when the worst thing you can come up with as a downside is the number of questions you have to answer when signing up in order to validate that you are an educator. It's really remarkable how much Figjam can do, and all at the cost of zero point zero zero dollars.

I hope that you try out Figjam with your students soon.   If you do, leave your story on how you used it in the Comments below.  Now go out there and get Figjamming!

I've joined Threads!

It's not every day that a new social media explodes into the mainstream -- but here we are, and I have just joined Threads, part of the Meta family (Instagram, Facebook, etc.).  In fact, in your app store, you'll see Threads labeled as "an Instagram app," which gives it some great advantages while also creating some nagging issues to overcome; more on that in a moment.

https://www.threads.net/@watsonedtech

Over the last year, In the wake of some turbulence in the land of the bluebird app, I have briefly flirted with some other social media tools.  But Threads is by far the only one that I have liked right out of the gate. The user interface is clean and intuitive, and signing up takes seconds (assuming you have an Instagram account). There's a lot of potential in the tool and I can understand why it's gotten so popular within just a few days of its launch -- over 70 million subscribers and counting! There seems to be a lot of positive energy in Threads, especially among educators. Another bonus in a new social media like Threads is the chance to clear your feed -- things look a lot different when following dozens of people as opposed to thousands. You might use Threads to follow key individuals and friends instead of all the companies and celebrities you may have accumulated over the years on other platforms.

Besides the typical Like, Comment and Repost buttons, Share has a few features including....Tweeting your post.  Threads, you have swagger. 

Here are some of my quick observations about Threads. (Fair warning: such a new app is likely beta testing new features as we speak, so it's highly likely it will look different even a month from now.)

• You need an Instagram account to sign up.  There's no way to get Threads without one. I find that strange, since you could conceivably, say, make a Facebook account without an Instagram account. From Meta's perspective, I suppose this is a shrewd way to keep you deeper in its family.
• The New York Times reported on Threads in their 7/9/23 morning email newsletter, and among other things, pointed out that you cannot delete your Threads account without deleting your connected Instagram account. I did see where you can "deactivate profile" in the app's settings, but NYT is correct about true account deletion.
• Once you create a Threads account, your Instagram profile will show a "button" allowing you to go to the person's Threads account. (Your Threads profile also has a button that leads back to your IG.) That is both convenient and likely some savvy tool cross-promotion. Interestingly, this button indicates what number subscriber you are -- I signed up as Threads apparently crossed the 73 million mark.
• If you want multiple Threads accounts, you'll need multiple IG accounts, which is a bit trickier than it sounds. The Threads app currently has no way to easily switch between accounts, like you can on Instagram, nor can you see that you may have notifications on one account while logged in as another.  However, on Threads, you can sign out of your current profile and sign in as another one.  (After creating my initial Threads profile, signing out/signing in is also how I created a second Threads profile, but this assumes you are logged into your device's Instagram app with two or more IG accounts.)
• While you can look at a Threads profile online (such as my link above shows), you can only view the person's posts. You can't log into your own account or post via a browser or see any notifications -- you can only do those things via your mobile app.
• You can Like a post, but as of yet there is no way to look at all the posts you Liked or make a Bookmark list like you can on Twitter. To be fair, however, this is similar to how Instagram currently works.
• You can attach a picture from your device's photo gallery to your post, but there is no other media functions built into Threads. Apparently if a video is in your gallery you could conceivably post it, although I haven't yet tried nor have I seen others do so yet. The only way to insert something like an animated GIF is through your device's keyboard.
• There is no (hash)tagging system in Threads, or any other structure that allows you to only follow or look up certain topics. My gut tells me this will be the next big upgrade for Threads, but for now, you are basically stuck just watching your feed based on who you follow, with your only search ability in looking up other people's accounts.
• I need to know the verbs. Are we Threading on Threads? Do I post a Thread on Threads? Is it a repost or a Rethread? If I tweet on Twitter, do I Threed on Threads?

I'm not giving up on Twitter yet, but I definitely will keep playing around on Threads and hope to bump into you over there!

Edit 7/9/23: A whole whirlwind of findings meant I needed to already update this post. I added new info about your options for deactivating or deleting your Threads account, what it takes to switch or add additional Threads profiles, the current limit of looking up your Liked posts, and a better understanding of posting videos.

A republished blog entry with Aurora Institute, and a podcast appearance!

Today will be a short blog entry just to highlight some recent multimedia appearances.

Back in January 2022, I wrote "From Good to Great, Initial to Ideal: A Way to Improve Exhibitions and Other Performance Assessments."  CompetencyWorks (the blogging arm of Aurora Institute) felt my piece fit thematically with some other current work in the field of innovative education and in blog entries they have been recently writing, and therefore republished it on May 15.  Special thanks to Laurie Gagnon, the CompetencyWorks Director, for thinking of me and sharing my writing!

This school year, I've spent some time and Edtech Elixirs space on the intersection of tabletop role-playing games and education, starting with my launch of Kentucky Educators for Role Playing Games in August 2022.  I've been humbled, flattered, and honored for opportunities to talk about KyEdRPG in Kentucky Teacher, a television episode of Kentucky Edition, and an article for Next Generation Learning Challenges.   The latest adventure involves Tom Gross and Dan Reem's podcast Teachers in the Dungeon, where they had me on as a guest for their May 16 episode.

I had a lot of fun talking with Dan and Tom, and special thanks to both of them for having me on. I hope you give the episode a listen (42 minutes, if you need to plan accordingly!), and while you're at it, subscribe to their excellent series, available on multiple podcast platforms.  

As the school year wraps up, my fervent wish for all the educators out there is to have a chance to catch their breath, spend time with family and friends, and recharge their batteries.  Enjoy a much needed rest!

A shoutout for yellkey

Have you ever been in a situation where you need to share files or folders or websites and you don't have the time or the shared virtual space (like a Google Classroom) to easily do so?  The challenge is compounded when using Google Docs and their very complicated and long URLs.  There are, of course, custom URL shorteners available.  To take a popular example, bit.ly allows you to customize the shortened link to more "natural language."  The effort of making a bit.ly is worth it if you plan to use that shortcut often, or at least more than just the one day and the one session.  By creating an account with bit.ly, you can also find shortcuts you made in the past, if you need to revisit them.  

Here's a helpful tip: putting the bit.ly at the bottom of every slide in a presentation helps answer the eventual “What’s the bit.ly again??” question that you’ll face repeatedly while facilitating a PD or leading instruction.  

However, bit.ly and other shortener tools can be cumbersome.  You usually have to create an account and log in, it takes several clicks to make and customize a link, and the effort may seem more than what it's worth for a "just in time" sharing situation or for a temporary learning context. 

Several years ago, I found out about yellkey.com and it changed my facilitation life!  (Note that all lower case is how the tool presents itself.) The fact that I still don't see many others using it or knowing about it seems a shame, and that's what led to today's blog entry.

Here are some key reasons why I'm yelling about yellkey:

• It's free!
• It’s perfect for what I’d call “disposable shortcuts” in front of a live audience.  It’s when you need a shortened link to something that matters for the session at the moment, but no one will urgently need to access later today or tomorrow.
• It is super user friendly.  You can make one in a few seconds without any account creation.  I’ve made one on the fly before in the middle of a PD. Simply paste the URL from your original site, choose the time frame (see the last bullet), and click the site button to generate the yellkey shortcut.
• The yellkey shortcut is in natural language with a single common word after the yellkey.com/ forward slash – so you'll have none of the typo-causing “make sure you capitalize the second letter” or similar user error issues.
• The common word is autogenerated, so it's a time saver in two ways over other URL shorteners - you won't have to creatively come up with something, nor will you have to deal with your initial choices being rejected as "already taken."
• It has a built-in expiration that you set…as little as 5 minutes, as long as 1 day.   Perfect for, say, a sign-in Google Form at the start of a PD that no one should or would be completing later.

The only downside:  the shortcuts eventually get recycled after they expire.  So it’s highly likely that the same yellkey shortcut you use today will point to somewhere else in the near future.  When I've inserted a yellkey in a Slide for a live presentation, I usually go back and remove it afterward, lest anyone see it a week later and try to use it or share it with others.

"What about QR codes?" you might ask.  I'm a fan, and they can definitely be another way to quickly get participants to an online place.  However, there are two complications about QR codes worth mentioning.  The first is that a phone is the quick and obvious way most people read a QR code, but if you can depend on the participants having laptops, you may be providing a shortcut on the wrong device for the work at hand; consider what you are asking the person to do once they arrive to the URL.  (Watching a video or signing in for a PD may be easy on my phone, but I prefer typing up long survey answers or interacting with Google Docs on my laptop.)  The second is that people often forget that the density and complexity of the blocky imagery of a QR code is directly related to the length of the URL.  That's why something like a Google Doc produces a QR Code that participants often struggle to get their phone to read.  You could app smash and use a shortener for the URL and then create a QR code from the shortened URL, but you're increasing your steps. Of course, there is a "yes, and" approach - you could display both a QR code and a URL shortener like yellkey.

While this blog entry mainly contextualizes yellkey around its usefulness to a PD facilitator, it has classroom implications as well.  For example, a teacher might find it easier to share a site or Doc with students using yellkey than all the steps necessary to share something via a LMS platform message. Compare the steps necessary for a student to quickly share something with a classmate with yellkey versus the process of making an email, sending it, the receiver getting to their inbox, etc.

Yellkey is not a dramatic or complex tool, but it excels in making the sharing of URLs faster and easier!

 

NGLC Article and Interview for KET Kentucky Edition on Role-Playing Games in Education

Last weekend my youngest daughter, my nephew, and I watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves at the theater.  We thoroughly enjoyed it -- it was fun on its own terms, but it also rewarded you if you are knowledgable of D&D lore.

And with the timing of the movie's release, I've been grateful for the multiple opportunities to talk about role-playing games in education.  As I previewed in my last entry,  here are two examples that went online this week:

• I was interviewed as part of KET's Kentucky Edition, which aired "Learning by Role-Playing: How Tabletop RPGs are Changing Education" as part of its March 31 episode.  For a timecoded link that leads straight to the segment (21 min, 12 seconds into the show), click here.  The segment also includes Justin Gadd and his students at Marnel C. Moorman (Shelby County Public Schools).
• I wrote "Dungeons, Dragons, and Durable Skills: How Tabletop Role-Playing Games Make SEL and Academics into an Adventure for Students" for Next Generation Learning Challenges.  The article has resources, examples, and stories from Kentucky teachers.

Special thanks to Sarah Helton at KET and Kristen Vogt at NGLC for helping to make the above happen!

For more on RPGs integrated into schools and classrooms, be sure to check out Kentucky Education for Role-Playing Games (#kyedrpg). 

Role-Playing Games in a Southern Indiana Elementary School

Today's blog entry is a combination of things related to role-playing games.   Firstly, if you're a Dungeons & Dragons fan, we need to celebrate the new movie that premieres today (I plan on seeing D&D: Honor Among Thieves with my youngest daughter this weekend)!  There's also some upcoming adventures on the KyEdRPG front:

• Tonight (3/31) at 630 pm EST on KET's Kentucky Edition, I was interviewed for a segment discussing how role-playing games positively impact education.  Justin Gadd and his D&D club students will also be featured.  
• Next week, Next Generation Learning Challenges will publish an original article I wrote on the same topic!

I'll do an Edtech Elixirs entry next week with links to the episode and the article once they go live online. 

Meanwhile, in today's entry, I'm happy to share an interview with teacher David Bennett.  As you'll see, he brings several perspectives that I haven't yet discussed here or over at KyEdRPG: he's a Kentuckiana elementary teacher integrating role-playing games with his students, he's using a game other than D&D, and he's doing so in a short time frame during the instructional day.  Without further ado, let's get to the interview (slightly edited for clarity)!

David, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Tell us about yourself.

I started at Borden Elementary School in southern Indiana last November as a 5th grade teacher. I’m new to teaching after just leaving a career in marketing that I had for the last 5 years, with a company I’d been at for 10 years. I made the switch because I had always felt teaching was a calling, and during Covid I had begun to wonder about my future. I truly loved the job I had but felt it wasn’t really what I should be doing, so I started in the "Transition to Teaching" program at IUS.

You shared with me that you play a fantasy role-playing game called Pathfinder with your students during recess, which is definitely unique!  However, before we get more into that story -- can you tell us about Pathfinder and how it is different than D&D?

When I first decided to run a game with my students during recess, my original plan was to run Dungeons and Dragons. Character creation was easy with D&D Beyond, and there are plenty of ready made materials to use. However, our first session of combat was taking too long, and it was a lot to keep track of during a 30 minute recess. So I thought about other systems I’d played in the past and remembered Savage Worlds, which is a system that is slightly less detailed than D&D, with the idea being that you tailor make the system to fit your needs. However, I still wanted to do fantasy, so I looked at the fantasy options for Savage Worlds. It turns out that just around a year ago, Pathfinder and Savage Worlds got together and there was a port of Pathfinder for Savage Worlds made. Going just a bit deeper into the weeds here, Pathfinder was made as a continuation of the 3.5 system of D&D, using the old 3.5 rules, but creating their own world for the lore. The benefits to Savage Worlds is there are less skills and weapons, as well as less feats. Combat is simplified in that most monsters the players fight only have 1 hit point, while major villains have 3. Heroes also only have 3 hit points as well, before they fall unconscious. This keeps combat flowing because most of the time if the characters hit an opponent a simple roll will say if the opponent is still in the game or not. That means less time keeping track of hit points for monsters, When it comes to skill checks all skills start at needing a 4 or better on a roll, but unlike D&D skills are based on die types. So a starting skill is d4, while the highest you can get in a skill is d12. 

The shorter answer is, I chose Pathfinder for Savage Worlds due to the streamlining of skills and combat. Due to the short amount of time I have to play with the students, and the number of students who usually play, I need a system where I don’t have to keep track of 4-8 different monsters' hit points, or worry about what an appropriate skill check needs to be. The setting has enough lore that I have a good jumping off point, and there are premade characters that I can let my students look through to decide what they want to play. This makes character creation a breeze as well, as almost all needed information can fit on a half sheet of paper. Also, if you are just starting to roleplay with students and want a cheaper alternative to D&D with less rules, there are plenty of other options as well. The truth is, the system you choose isn’t nearly as important as how you play the game. Give your students the chance to make their own decisions and feel like they are impacting the world you created, and the game will be enjoyable to everyone, no matter what rules you are using.

What inspired you to start playing Pathfinder with your elementary students? 

To be honest, when I first started teaching, I didn’t really have any intention of starting a fantasy RPG group. I assumed that students today would be much like the elementary students from when I was a kid, and games like D&D wouldn’t really be on their radar. However, Stranger Things has really changed that, and when I started teaching I kept over hearing students talking about D&D. So I talked to Ms. Hurst, the principal at Borden Elementary, and asked if I would be able to run a group during recess. I wasn’t sure what the rules were for things like that. She recommended I make up a permission slip and students who wanted to try just had to get the okay. At first I had about 10 students sign up.  So really my students showed their interest and I just went about seeing what I needed to do to make it happen. 

When it comes to how many students play my numbers can fluctuate, especially when the weather has been too cold or rainy, and our session might be one of the nicest days in a week. I always let students know that I completely understand when they choose to go outside and play versus staying in and playing Pathfinder. I do this for two main reasons. The first is that unlike regular sports where being on a team is a commitment and the team will suffer if you aren’t there, tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) are collaborative storytelling and I can alter the events of the story to make up for a student not being able to make it so that the students who are there aren’t going up against a challenge they have no hope of overcoming. The other reason is, playing with someone who doesn’t want to be there isn’t fun for that person, or the other players. With only 30 minutes of playtime, students want to feel like they got to spend their time on something worthwhile.

What are the challenges of playing a TTRPG with elementary students, or playing for only 30 minutes?

My biggest challenge is giving each student a chance to shine in a 30 minute session. With some sessions getting up to 7 players, that’s less than 5 minutes of real action per player. Luckily for me, I have a bit of time I can spare right before the students have recess, so I usually have everything set up before they get up to play. The only other challenge is helping students to understand that their in-game actions can have in-game consequences. I had a student get bored in one of our sessions and grab a civilian and jump into a pit holding the civilian. I explained that now the town guards were going to be looking into this to figure out why he did that. Other than that, most sessions go as smooth as any other TTRPG I’ve run before.

Students learning natural consequences from bad actions in a safe game environment sounds like an awesome reason for using a TTRPG in a classroom! What other positive effects on your classroom culture and learning have you noticed? 

I honestly believe that for me the best effect is it helps me get to know some of my students who aren’t very outgoing during class normally. I’ve gotten to see sides of some of my students that I doubt I would have ever seen in the classroom setting alone. I also feel like the game promotes problem solving, and team work in a way that you can’t feasibly do in real life. I also think it's nice the types of students who play. At least for my grade level I’ve got kids in band, kids in sports, kids who are high achievers, and some who struggle. The mix creates an interesting dynamic in our sessions.

What advice would you have for an educator wanting to incorporate a role-playing game into an elementary classroom?

That’s tough.  While I certainly see positives in my game sessions, I also know that it’s successful because the students want to do it. I would never try to use role-playing games with students who didn’t show an interest. However, like any thing we do in life, you get out of it what you put into it. If you want to use it as just a fun activity where students roll dice and fight monsters, that’s fine. If you want to help them work on social skills like empathy, you have to put those situations in the game. You want them to learn to solve problems together as a team, you have to create a problem that they can’t solve with one person doing all the work. I’m not saying I’m a pro at this. I just think that TTRPGs can be a tool to help work on these issues, but only if you create those opportunities.

Reflecting on what you've done and looking ahead, what's next?

If I’m being totally honest, I don’t know that I’d recommend a recess session for everyone. I started it because I wasn’t sure how popular it would be, and I had no idea at the time of how to start an afternoon type organization. 30 minutes goes by so fast, and if you don’t have time to set up beforehand, and take down as well, you’re going to lose a lot of your time. That being said, I’m going to be working on an afterschool program for next year due to how much interest there has been.

Thanks again to David for sharing his wisdom!

EduCon 2023

Last weekend, my teammate Rachel Albright and I went to Philadelphia for a three day event called EduCon.  This annual conference mainly took place at Science Leadership Academy (SLA) High School at Center City. SLA opened around 2006, with EduCon starting a few years later.  SLA has become well known for its focus on PBL and internships, and has led to other Philadelphia schools following its model; most recently they have opened a new middle school (SLAMS).

I've been feeling like attending EduCon specifically, and visiting SLA in general, was being nudged to me by Fate.  I first heard about SLA/EduCon when reading Reinventing Project-Based Learning last fall, and then read about SLA again a few months later as one of four schools highlighted in Running with Robots.  

On the first day of the conference, we were led by a senior student through a tour of the flagship high school.  Besides being impressed with her obvious enthusiasm and knowledge for what SLA has to offer, I was also appreciative that such innovative instructional practice happened in an older facility with few shiny frills, minus some new machinery and equipment.  SLA proves the point that while PBL, passion-based projects, and deeper learning may benefit from a school renovation or a new build, it certainly doesn't require it!

For the rest of the entry, I will highlight three EduCon breakout sessions I attended that personally stood out for me.

"The Case for Dreaming in Public"

This session easily won for best titled, and was facilitated by Timothy Boyle (founding principal of SLAMS) and David Jakes (veteran school designer and author of The Design Thinking Classroom). 

The session mainly consisted of "dreaming big" on what a new school might be and sharing those ideas with tablemates, which was intellectually stimulating.  But Jakes also shared anecdotes from previous school renovation/new build projects.  For example, he recommended having all stakeholders (educators and community members) meet for a "Salon Dinner."  At the dinner, he would pose two provocative questions: What would it take to get it right?  What would it mean if we did?  Jakes also shared an example when the answers to those questions led not to a school that could double as a community center, but instead to a community center that just so happened to be a school during the weekdays.  Such a realization factored heavily into its design choices, and of course the kind of instruction and student interaction such a building would have. 

"Challenging Traditional School Leader Pathways and PD"

This session was facilitated by three leaders of the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), one of the top 10 largest in the nation: Katie Culver, Brandon Cummings, and Rosie Tarnowski.  

A few years ago, SDP did a re-org that included changes in PD development.  Among other changes, they decided to prioritize support for principals -- not only because of the need for hiring, internally growing, and retaining such important personnel, but because philosophically, SDP believes principals are the most powerful change agent of their school building as well as their surrounding community.   This led to creating a new Leadership Pathway Framework (LPF) which articulates criteria for the assistant superintendents, principals, assistant principals, teacher leaders, and central office leaders.   In the session, they concentrated on one strand of LPF, Equity Centered Leadership.   These leadership competencies are nothing if not ambitious.  Consider this example, from the substrand "Trusting Relationships" in the Principal competency "Facilitates and Builds Trusting Relationships":

The SPD presenters noted that similar frameworks for teachers and students were in the works, and acknowledged that while such leadership competencies were meant to drive growth, raise expectations and determine PD needs of principals and others, they were not yet used evaluatively -- and there was internal debate whether they ever should be.

Additionally, SDP had recently launched leadership affinity groups.   To take one group example, black male educational leaders now have meetings and a safe space to share and speak about their unique experiences.  These affinity groups (as well as the leadership PD in general) have been highly successful -- see photo below for data --- but this has led to areas for future consideration.  For example, for educators that identified as another gender, or gay, should they form new and separate affinity groups? Participate in the larger one? Both?

Overall, it was exciting and inspiring to see such a large school district acknowledge the complex needs of its educational leadership and find ambitious ways to serve and grow them, particularly in the area of equity.

Let's Design a School!

While somewhat similar in tone to "The Case for Dreaming in Public," the major difference was the inclusion of a student panel facilitated by Mary Beth Hertz.  Four students from SLA's middle and high schools had some great insights about education.  Here are some paraphrased quotes.

• Answering the question "I go to school and enjoy..."
  • spending time with my friends and teachers I like.
  • extracurriculars (to allow students to think about what they want to do with their future).
  • classes with connections, teamwork, community.
  • how each class is unique, and teachers that try to make things fun.
• Answering the question "What is school?" For what I want to do, some of my classes are beneficial, but some classes are hard to take seriously because it feels like kinda the same thing over and over since I was 4.  It doesn't meet everyone's needs.
• Answering the question "What do you think the purpose of education is? How is 'school' and 'education' different?"
• Being educated is different for different people.  Some people like to educate themselves. Education is about learning about your own identity, and being mindful.
• School feels like a competition.  School turns education into a hierarchy.  Awards ceremony can make us feel bad, because who wins feels more subjective than objective.  But sometimes competition can be motivating too.  More than an award, I appreciate a teacher checking in with me with "Are you ok?" Or give me a compliment.
• I don't want scores and grades to define me.
• Sometimes you need to be a teacher, and sometimes you need to be a person.  (This quote hit me hard!)

After the Q & A panel, we joined like-minded participants in groups to brainstorm what "our" new school might look like.  The students from the panel even walked around to give feedback and advice!  Although we had limited time, it got some great conversation going and had us questioning aspects of school we always take for granted.

Intriguingly, Hertz also shared that SDP is potentially piloting Walkabout Philly for high school students, hopefully in the 2024-2025 school year.  This would be the first Walkabout school outside of their original location in New York.  Walkabout Education centers around five "Challenge Areas": Wilderness Experience (a leadership building exercise for students before the start of school that involves actual camping), Service Learning, Applied Academics, Career Internship, and Presentation (similar to a Defense of Learning).  A ten minute video that explains each of these Areas is here and embedded below.  I'm definitely interested in following Philadelphia's journey in launching this school!

Walkabout School Model Overview from Walkabout Education on Vimeo.

Rachel and I definitely got some nuggets of gold from the three day conference, and were grateful to the EduCon educators and students who took the time to share their wisdom.

Guest Blogging on Deeper Learning at Aurora Institute's CompetencyWorks

Another short Edtech Elixirs entry with a publishing announcement!

I have written a two part series for Aurora Institute's CompetencyWorks blog.  I discuss the deeper learning work currently going on in Kentucky, from my perspective as a member of OVEC's newly launched Deeper Learning Team (one of eight such teams throughout the state).

While CompetencyWorks has highlighted me in past entries, or republished something I previously wrote in Edtech Elixirs, this is the first time I've actually guest blogged for them. I'm proud to discuss the work of our team, and it's a great one -- working with Carmen Coleman, Lacey Eckels and Rachel Albright is fantastic.

Please give the series a read, and special thanks to Aurora Institute for the opportunity!

Part One (1/19/23)

Part Two (1/25/23)

KyEdRPG in Kentucky Teacher

 

Back in September 2022, I wrote a series of three blog entries for the launch of my new site, Kentucky Educators for Role Playing Games.  I also interviewed Justin Gadd (Shelby County Public Schools) about his afterschool D & D club, and shared how Patrick La Mar (Oldham County Public Schools) integrated an Oregon Trail-style roleplaying game into a social studies lesson. 

Last week, Kentucky Teacher published an article highlighting all of the above: "The power of role-playing games for deeper learning experiences."  It's a great title and one that I whole-heartedly agree; game-based learning in general, and RPGs in particular, certainly have a lot of potential for deepening learning!

Special thanks to Audrie Lamb for writing the article, Justin and Patrick for taking the time to get interviewed, and Kentucky Teacher for featuring the #KyEdRPG site.