Prompting for Great #EdTech Feedback

Dedicated software developers design and craft new tools, and we teachers beta test and tinker to test out those tools - often in live learning activities with our students. For the software developer seeking critical feedback to find the perfect feature set for a game-changing product, this is the moment when magic could happen!

But often the moment is lost to a basic question: “What worked well, and what didn’t work as well?”  We respond about workflow, user interface, and maybe that we didn’t like the shade of blue (which, as any designer will tell you, is really low on the priority list!). And now the moment has passed, even if we are really excited about the product. How could it have gone better? We’ve heard both edtech entrepreneurs AND edtech-enthusiastic teachers bemoan the challenges product developers face in getting meaningful feedback from potential users. The answer is simple, but challenging to master: ask a better question. You can look to similar professional strategies in the classroom to start.

One thing that makes a great teacher is an ability to ask probing questions to deeply understand students' thinking... Phrasing questions just right to get to the understanding we're looking for takes years of practice and honing. For example, Lindsey knows that asking students to diagram and explain why we cut the ends off cut flowers before placing them in a vase, why plant leaf stomata close on dry days, and why sugar snap pea vines wither from the ground up will all demonstrate their knowledge more clearly than a request to define botanical transpiration. This is part of our "pedagogy," and especially "pedagogical content knowledge" - techniques (in this case, questioning strategies) that work particularly well for specific content.  

How can software developers use these educator skills to elicit the feedback they need to move their tools in directions that will really improve learning outcomes for our students?

You - edtech entrepreneurs seeking our feedback - can take advantage of our years of experience to start to change this paradigm by carefully crafting your prompts and questions to specifically target the feedback you need. Here are a few ideas to make magic happen:



To get deep with understanding how your product could improve learning activities in a classroom: Ask your teacher collaborator to consider a real potential use case in the classroom.  Think of an existing lesson that could be modified using your product. Follow up with questions like:

• What are the learning goals of this use case?
• How would you normally conduct this lesson?
• What would this product allow you and your students to do that your previous style of conducting this lesson would not allow?
• What would this product NOT allow that your previous style of conducting this lesson WOULD?

To probe levels of engagement possible with your product: Ask your teacher collaborator to break down potential use cases for your product according to the SAMR model.  If several teacher collaborators can’t imagine M or R level learning experiences with your product, that may be a red flag! Ask your teacher collaborator “What is one learning activity that you could imagine a teacher developing at the _________ level of technology integration, using this product?”  Those levels are:

• “Substitution,” in which teachers directly replace paper-based activities with computer-based activities, with no change to the activity itself. (An important first step for many teachers!)
• “Augmentation,” in which the technology provides a functional improvement and the activity itself is essentially the same. (The technology may simplify peer editing processes, for example, or forums may support clearer book group discussions.)
• “Modification,” in which the technology affords different and perhaps more engaging individual learning activities than would otherwise be possible, and the greater overall pattern to the learning may be unchanged. (Student work products may include multimedia or interactive elements rather than static posters, but the topic or driving question to the learning is unchanged.)
• “Redefinition,” in which the technology fundamentally changes the learning opportunity in ways that were inconceivable without technology (For example, through a wider network of collaboration, student-driven content creation, and/or the application of concepts towards global problem solving.)

To get suggestions for tweaks and feature improvements that would lead to broad learning improvements: We know that teachers will suggest features left and right that they think would be spiffy, but do those meet a broad need? And are they necessary for the learning goals supported by the product? To narrow your feedback to features that genuinely meet your goals and the learning needs of kids, you again need to narrow your feedback prompts.

• What are two or three specific learning outcomes that this product supports well?
• What are two or three specific learning outcomes that this product *could* support, but currently doesn’t do well?
• What adjustments could be made to support a specific learning outcome? Please describe that learning outcome, and how it could be met through this product?

To get more detailed feedback on the issues you already know to ask about: You want to find bugs. You want users to hammer on your product, but keep in mind that most teachers are not professional software testers.  Phrase even those simple questions well so that you’ll avoid “Well, I didn’t really like the blue color…”

• As you worked through your example lesson use case, did you encounter any opportunities for improving specific features or aspects of this product?
• How easy or challenging was it to move from one part of the learning process to the next?
• What features did you find useful within the teacher dashboard? What barriers prevented you from accessing the student data or crafting the learning activity from within the teacher dashboard?

Carefully phrasing your feedback prompts can definitely lead to much deeper and more meaningful feedback from your teacher collaborators, and it can also support your own deeper understanding of learning trajectories in the classroom as well as your teacher collaborators’ varying pedagogies. If you ask what each of us likes, that doesn’t give you a strong window into our classrooms or into our individual instructional designs. Why each of us makes instructional decisions can be quite different from why another teacher makes instructional decisions. The best edtech developers will have a heuristic understanding of overarching pedagogy to create the best products that will work for a range of teachers, supporting effective pedagogy and (big finish!) improving learning outcomes for all kids!

*jazz hands!*


- Collaboratively written by me and Stephanie Sandifer
- Thanks to Jay Goyal of ActivelyLearn for critical target-audience feedback on this article!

Myths, Reality, and Relationship-Building in the EdTech Community at #SXSWedu

SXSWedu this year has been incredibly different from last year.  Last year, I presented a workshop, met incredible new colleagues, dove into big new-to-me ideas in education, and visited two fantastic schools in the Austin area.  I also ran into terrible tensions between educators and entrepreneurs, including a habit of belittling and "teasing" teachers.

This year, I've been more focused on reconnecting with my many friends and colleagues from twitter and other conferences, rather than really reaching out to meet many new people.

Most heavily, though, I've been focused on supporting positive growth in the educator/entrepreneur edtech community.  Prior to the conference, Houston teacher Stephanie Sandifer compiled all the community-building sessions at SXSWedu so that we could coordinate and cross-pollinate.

My panel Tuesday morning with Stephanie and two fantastic edtech startup CEOs - Jay Goyal of Actively Learn and Dion Lim of NextLesson - went excellently.  We had outlined a careful sequence of introduction, our view of the state of the community, clearing up some specific myths about both educators and entrepreneurs, and finally giving some specific ideas for how each side can improve our relationships within the community.

My own summary is below, and a collection of the backchannel conversation tweets of the session can be found here.

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Myths:

Myth #1 - Entrepreneurs just make a cute product, then kick back and let the $ roll in.  Teachers work so much harder, and entrepreneurs are livin' easy.

Reality - Entrepreneurs are *stressed!*  They have multiple stakeholders to be responsible to: investors, employees, customers.  They're actually more similar to teachers than not: we're both responsible to a wide variety of stakeholders with different needs, and are trying to satisfy a huge number of constraints.

Myth #2 - Teachers don't want to pay for things.  They want free free free.

Reality - Free is nice, but we're both willing and able to pay for products that meet a real need.  Although the individual teacher doesn't always hold the checkbook, we have the ear of the person who does hold the checkbook, and will advocate purchasing those tools we need!

Myth #3 - Entrepreneurs only care about selling.  Selling is everything... Selling is the only thing!

Reality - EdTech entrepreneurs care about improving outcomes for kids.  If they only cared about selling, they'd just make the hot new Facebook app or timewaster game like Candy Crush.  Everyone who goes into education - teachers or entrepreneurs - cares about kids.  We might not always have the same understanding of the HOW, but we all agree on our ultimate goal: better learning outcomes for kids.

Myth #4 - Teachers don't respond to your requests for beta testing and feedback because they don't care and aren't interested in educational technology.

Reality - We receive dozens of shotgun requests without personal connection.  The signal-to-noise ratio is LOW!  We have professionally-established priorities for meeting our kids' needs, and those often don't match the requests that are thrown at us.

(An audience member also tweeted a myth that we added: Myth #5 - Schools want edtech materials that will "do it all."  We want silver bullet solutions!  The reality is that we DON'T want silver bullets.  I'd prefer a variety of small products that do one thing excellently than one big product that attempts to do everything but really doesn't succeed in any of them.  BUT we don't want dozens of logins!  As another tweeter said: "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY please implement SSO in your product!")

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So what do we DO?

We Build Relationships.  Personal relationships based on mutual professional respect and human connection.  I love to tell the story of how I met Dion Lim, one of my co-panelists.  At SXSWedu last year, several startup entrepreneurs approached me - business card already in hand - to tell me about their product and ask me to beta test.  This is a sharp turn-off.  How do they even know whether their product has any relevance to my classroom needs?  Dion, however, wanted to ask me about a comment I had made in the session we had just been in, and to better understand my needs in my particular classroom.  I didn't even know until several minutes into our classroom that Dion is a startup CEO.

This highlights the importance of relational  interactions rather than transactional interactions.  I don't have time to commit to starting a formal consulting relationship where I'm paid to give feedback, nor to I care to spend hours and hours of time giving feedback on products that have little or no relevance to my classroom.

However, I'll walk through fire to help a friend.  And, through professional conversations and shared learning, Dion Lim and Jay Goyal are my friends.

So how do you make these friends?

- Go into your interactions with teachers as a fellow learner.  Drop in on education twitter chats, and engage in those conversations as a fellow learner.  Ask questions - and NOT question for which your product is the answer. (#sessionbomb) Ask questions about what happens in the classroom, about the organization of learning activities, or about different learning goals.  Take the time to get to know teachers - even in these crowded twitter chats, you will learn so much about education and the state of the classroom, and you will meet and get to know teachers who can be friends and colleagues.

“@sjunkins: 10 Twitter Chats for Educators. #SXSWedu pic.twitter.com/B3V3UHy0Ua” And fabulous #dtk12chat on weds 9pm PST! Design thinking in ed
— Lindsey Own (@LindseyOwn) March 6, 2014

- Once you get to know them, let your teacher colleagues be your advocates.  Support them in fleshing out use-cases, hit the deck with tech support when they're enacting live in their classrooms, and they will be your best advocates!  Their colleagues are far more likely to adopt when this teacher promotes the product than if the principal pushes it down or if you send a shotgun of emails.

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And teachers have their role to play in building this community, too!

Teachers: Just like we support our students, parents, and colleagues in improving all of our learning, we need to be active in supporting the growth of this important community as well.  Educational technology isn't going away, and we can't create the tools that will rocket our students' learning ourselves. (Well... Andrew Stillman can...)

- Be willing to give negative feedback.  If you get an impersonal shot-gun email, send some quick feedback that that email did not meet the sender's goal of finding a new teacher colleague and advocate.  Encourage them to reach out more positively and relational-ly.

- Be willing to ask clarifying questions when giving feedback.  If they ask "What did you like?" help narrow that question down... "What worked well towards some of your specific learning goals for your students?"  "What were the smooth parts of the user interface vs the parts where you/students weren't sure what to do next?"  Professionally, we know how to get AND give feedback.  Use this professional expertise to support this community.

- Be ready in environments where you know you will have short impromptu interactions with entrepreneurs.  SXSWedu and other conferences are perfect examples.  Keep a few "pain points" and anecdotes in your pocket to share when asked, so when you're just thinking of the last awesome session, you'll still be able to give a nugget of support to the asker.

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The EdTech entrepreneur/educator community is incredibly important to me, and should be important to any educator who knows that technology genuinely has the ability to dramatically improve learning outcomes for kids.  Collaboration, global connection, personalization, student-driven content creation... All of these things are afforded by technology, AND we know that children and all people need human connection, social/emotional support, and plenty of offline learning too.  We need to work together to keep aligning goals within the community and supporting positive relationships.

Our ultimate goals is excellent learning outcomes for all kids.  Let's do this.  Together.

Seattle Women in EdTech Meetup

Wednesday evening, we had the first Seattle Women in EdTech Meetup at a coffee shop on Capitol Hill here in Seattle.  We gathered a great crew of 17 women from many different realms of EdTech, including classroom teachers, higher-ed lecturers and professors, classroom-teachers-turned-entrepreneurs, e-learning designers, and many many others!  We rooted our conversations in starting to determine WHAT our group goals might be, and what support we need from each other. Here are a few of our findings...

My small group's notes from our discussion

You can find all of the small groups' notes in a scanned PDF here.  (Yeah, I'm a teacher... big sheets of paper and markers for group note-taking!)

After discussing in small groups, we got back together to see what common desires we all had.  Most commonly cited desires included:

- group problem solving
- satisfying genuine curiosity about what we're all up to
- connecting entrepreneurs and educators
- identify "trendy" edtech vs that with potential for real change
- share resources, knowledge, skills

You can find my notes trying to track all the different ideas here.

Some of the most exciting and innovative ideas for future meeting topics included:
- developing venues for continued communication.  You can join our new LinkedIn Group - Seattle Women In EdTech #EdTechXX #LeanInEDU here! And also follow our new hashtag: #EdTechXX
- defining what *is* EdTech, and brainstorming ways to reach out to those who need the group but either might not be able to find it or might not realize that their needs fall under our umbrella.

We wrapped up with just open time for connecting and chatting!  Our event was supposed to end at 8pm, but - when I left at 8:30pm - the party was still rolling!  I don't know when everyone finally trickled out of the back room of that coffee shop, but I know we have a LOT of enthusiasm moving forward!

Our next meetup - at an as-yet-undetermined-date-and-place - will be a mini-presentations event at which all participants will share their own view of the Seattle edtech landscape, so that we can begin to put together a big-picture view incorporating all of our perspectives.  A central part of those presentations should be:

What do YOU see as "trendy" or "flash in the pan" and what do YOU see as offering real and lasting improvements in education?

You can also join the Seattle EdTech Meetup to be kept up-to-date on EdTech happenings in the Seattle area, including Women In EdTech events and events for the broader community!

#SXSWedu PanelPicker is live!

Today, Monday, August 19 - The #SXSWedu 2014 PanelPicker is live!  There are 711 proposals for sessions highlighting innovative work happening at the intersections of education and technology, workshops playing with new products and techniques in education, and conversations around major problems that need solving in improving educational outcomes for ALL kids!

As an Advisory Board member, I'm going to be working my butt off for the next few weeks, evaluating session proposals to help select the best, most innovative, and most important to furthering positive conversations in education space for the 2014 SXSWedu.

As a SXSWedu participant educator (and 2013 alum), I'm also looking for sessions I personally want to participate in and promoting the bejeezus out of the sessions I hope to help lead!  (I know that any individual can only formally speak in one session, so if more than 1 of my current 4 sessions is chosen, I'll be looking for awesome colleagues to take my place on some of them!)

Please visit and up-vote my proposed sessions!

Probing Needs & Prototyping Solutions: DT4EdTech
with Jennifer Chan, Stephanie Cerda, and Adam Taylor

In The Trenches with K12 design thinking
with Trey Boden, Dan Ryder, and Jennifer Chan

Lean In EDU Circles
with Alyssa Gallagher, Kami Thodarson, and Mary Cantwell

Win-Win! Strategies for EdTech/Educator Engagement
with Stephanie Sandifer, Dion Lim, and Jay Goyal

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Also check out these other awesome educators and their sessions, and up-vote them!

Stop.Collaborate&Listen: Teachers&Edtech Team Up by Stephanie Cerda and Ben Stern

Developing a 1:1 Culture in Schools by Martin Moran

Empower Your Students Thru 1:1 ACCESS by Jason Markey

SAMR SLAMR: Maximizing Learning Potential in App by Gabriella Meyers, Julie Garcia, Josh Mika

Innovation+Social Media in the classroom= NOW! by Don Wettrick

Primary Source Research and Narrative Presentation by Julie Wilcott and Richard Perry
Bridging the Digital Divide with BYOD Equity by Michael Mills, Tim Clark, Jessica Herring, and Sandy Kendell



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If you're a classroom teacher and want me to help promote your session as well, let me know and I'll add it!

An Educator's Top 4 Tips for SXSWedu PanelPicker Success

Checking out the SXSWedu 2014 blog today, I saw a new post entitled "5 Great Tips for PanelPicker Success".  It certainly gives some useful tips, like to actually fill out the whole proposal form, but I think it leaves much to be desired... As an educator who attended SXSWedu in 2013 and is on the advisory board for 2014, here are MY top 4 tips for non-educators for PanelPicker Success (with a bonus tip for educators at the end):

1.) Propose an active, collaborative effort between the presenters and the audience.  Real education doesn't work via lecture, and neither does professional development or the development of new educational innovations.  Offer questions for your audience to consider together, mini-activities to think through problems and solutions, or at least a backchannel for discussion.  (#SXSWedu gets awful crowded... over a sub hashtag for your session!)

2.) Include the teacher voice in your session. There are dozens of teachers who can contribute to a session on any topics.  MOOCs, 1-to-1 initiatives, even reaching schools with your marketing strategies or considering the implications of big data!  If you want educators to come to your session, the educators want to know that their voice is being represented.  Reach out.  Some teachers have started listing themselves as available for collaborations here, and you can troll twitter... we're out there!  (And if you don't already have teachers with whom you're collaborating... think about the implications of that for a minute.)

3.) Focus on the interaction between teachers, students, and technology. I don't speak for all educators, but I don't know a single educator who wants to "save time" and "be more efficient" by handing all teaching, assessing, and student connection over to the computer.  Your personalized adaptive math education platform might be cool, but nothing can replace the direct connections I have with my students.  How will your product support or enhance that connection?  What ideas do you have towards using technology to encourage positive relationships, deeper thinking, and interaction.

4.) Think about how your ideas and words sound to those of us in the trenches. If your proposal - like some from 2013 - refers to EdTech entrepreneurs with no classroom experience as "the real saviors of education," how excited do you think that will make those of us who work day-in and day-out trying to improve the lives and futures of children? And when you respond - like some did from 2013 - that those of us educators at SXSWedu are outliers and "if only all teachers had your enthusiasm!," consider what a slap in the face that is to the majority of my colleagues who are also awesome, and love children, and aren't at the conference.  If you want to work with teachers to improve educational outcomes for kids, consider your words and whether you are inviting teachers to work with you.

(And if working with teachers is not your priority... then we probably won't see eye-to-eye.)

I am looking forward to a kick-ass SXSWedu in 2014, as are many of my teacher colleagues around the country and around the world!  As an advisory board member, I'm encouraging my friends in learning sciences research - especially those in applications of technology to education - to propose sessions to bring more quantitative understanding of learning to the conference.  I'm also encouraging my teacher friends to propose sessions about their incredible successes with technology in the classroom, as well as their challenges and needs...

In that vein, one final tip for educators making SXSWedu proposals:

We teachers need to take every opportunity we can to bring our needs to the edtech entrepreneurs!  They're enthusiastic; they want to improve learning for kids.  They often have little classroom experience.  Educator-driven sessions need to provide opportunities for educators and edtech entrepreneurs to work together to hammer on common needs in education that can potentially be helped or straight-up solved with technology!

Innovating solutions for better outcomes for kids!  That's basically the mission for SXSWedu, right??  Go forth, and PROPOSE!