What it is: BombBomb is an email service that lets you record and embed video directly in your email. That is a totally oversimplified explanation because BombBomb does SO much more. This is one of those pieces of technology that has been life-saving for me during the pandemic and one that I will continue using forevermore! In addition to easily adding video to your email, you can add images, button-type navigation, build and send forms right in BombBomb, and even create automations. BombBomb shows you who opened your email and what they clicked/engaged/watched while they were there.

How to integrate BombBomb into the classroom: During the pandemic, BombBomb has been an incredible way for us to communicate and keep connected to our students and their families. Each day we were in remote learning, I sent a daily email with a video message for the community, links to all of our teachers daily plans, links to tech-support, and a daily check-in survey so parents could share how remote learning was going in their house. At Anastasis, we start every day with a whole-community meeting. Obviously, 2020 wreaked havoc on that daily tradition. Since we couldnt be together each morning, I recorded a video as if we were together. I invited the kids/families to send me content that would show up in future videos (Mindstamp helped with this as well!). In one email, families had access to all teachers plans for the day as well as a way to share feedback about what was going well or what they were struggling with. As the admin team received feedback about what families were struggling with, we could offer real-time immediate support. Any time a family shared something that was hard, we either adjusted or contacted them to support them. BombBomb made this process seamless for us! Because we could see who was opening and interacting with each portion of the email, we knew we had a high level of engagement and could see what was and wasnt working well even for families who didnt fill out our survey each day.

BombBomb is a great way to provide video feedback for your students while you are remote. You can use the screencast tool to walk them through the work they submitted with your comments and suggestions.

We are currently back to in-person learning, but Im still using BombBomb to send my weekly newsletter. Ive never been one who loves recording video (I wouldnt say I love it nowbut it has gotten SO much easier), I prefer writing, but I have to say families seem to love the video content. Parents who are not inclined to read the weekly newsletter seem more inclined to watch a 2-minute video update. That makes all our lives easier! Ive also noticed that parents seem more connected and likely to interact when they see me on video than a written message alone.

As a teacher in the classroom, BombBomb would be a great way to flip your classroom and send students videos tailored to what they are learning. Because you have a built-in video library, email library, form library, and the ability to automate, you could set this up one year and continue using it year after year! You dont have to record all of your video content, you can also import videos from a link expanding the content available about a million fold. BombBomb also allows you to screencast directly from email making it a great way to send support to students.

If you teach young students or students who dont have their own email, you can still use BombBomb to create video content and related links (seriously, its almost like having the ability to create mini-websites). BombBomb gives you a share link for every email you create so you can share it with students as a link or even create QR codes that link to the email you created. At Anastasis, we individualize for every student every day. A lot of our independent learning is set up as center rotations with one of the centers always being one-on-one with the teacher. With BombBomb you could record yourself explaining the center, and include any other links or information that students may need. You could also create a form that acts as an exit ticket for that center rotation. If you have a mobile device or Chromebook at the center, its almost like having you right there with them. Again, with the email/video/form library you could create this one year and keep using it over and over. The analytics help you see how students are interacting (how many times they viewed the video, what links they clicked on, etc.).

Were an inquiry-based school. This means that the kids are constantly doing research and digging deeper. The research process can be too much for our littles. Using BombBomb, teachers can break down that research process in video and provide guided research links.

BombBomb is also a major upgrade to email you are sending to parents. Imagine sending a quick video of something brilliant that their child did in class. Or, you could record a conferring session between you and their child so they can gain insight into your assessment process and student growth. Youll be able to see which families are opening and interacting with your emails, and those who may need a different approach.

Tips: To help teachers through the pandemic, BombBomb is FREE for educators. You should sign up today, I truly cannot say enough good things about this platform!

Heres an example of an email I sent out in prep for Giving Tuesdaysee you really dont have to be fancy with your videos, just record and share!

Its been a minute (or thousands) since Ive blogged new technology finds. This year has us utilizing technology in new ways and in need of tools that support learning in new ways. I thought Id drop back into the tech-tool blogging world with some of the technology that has kept us sane this year, but are also SO good that well continue to use them even in non-COVID years.

What it is: Mindstamp is one of my favorite finds this year. This interactive video creation platform is a major upgrade to remote learning, but weve come up with about a hundred ways that it is equally valuable as a learning tool regardless of whether we are in-person or remote. Mindstamp makes it easy to quickly create interactive video experiences that include buttons, questions, hotspots, branching. You can ask questions directly in the video that are free-response, multiple-choice, audio response, video response, or drawn response. The editor is intuitive and easy to usethis is not one of those tools that you will have to spend a significant amount of time learning. When your videos are played, you get a full report showing exactly what the viewer did. You can see how long the video was viewed, how it was interacted with, and see responses to any questions.

How to integrate Mindstamp into the classroom: Mindstamp is an obvious choice for creating learning experiences that can be viewed and interacted with asynchronously. During our remote learning, we used Mindstamp for daily community messages that encouraged students to be part of the conversation. Our goal was to keep our community connected even though our school-wide morning meetings looked very different. We loved the ability for students to respond to question prompts in a variety of ways and for everyone else in the community to see their contribution. We also used Mindstamp to debut our recorded performance of our theater production. We set up the performance as if it were a live telethon and invited our viewers to interact with the video in a variety of ways (text-to-give, leave a message for our performers, etc.). Though we couldnt be in an auditorium enjoying the performance live, the interactive video gave us the feel of something that our whole community to be involved in.

Mindstamp is a fantastic platform any time you want to flip your classroom. Give students the opportunity to ask questions about the content that you can address live during class, or just check for understanding throughout the video. Youll be able to see exactly what pieces of new learning may be hindering your learners. Mindstamp lets you record your own video or import video from other platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. We have greatly appreciated the ability to import learning content from YouTube and then pausing the video and inserting additional links, photos, videos, or audio that supports the learning just like we would do if we were in a classroom watching it together.

At Anastasis, we individualize learning for each learner based on who they are and where they are in the standards. As a result, we set up our independent learning time as center rotations with one of those rotations being the teacher. Mindstamp could be used to make the teacher available at every rotation with a video message that explains the center and opportunities for students to record their process and leave it as a question response.

Mindstamp isnt just for teacher-created content. Students can create their own interactive video content. Students could record themselves completing a science experiment and adding supporting research they used in the form of links throughout the video, drawings or photos that support their findings, and ask for feedback from other students or teachers in the form of questions throughout their video.

Mindstamp would be a FANTASTIC platform to create choose-your-own-adventure type videos. It could be interesting for students to explore a historical or current event through video and then explore different outcomes based on the response. It could also be a great way for students to explore different points of view on the same topic. The main video could introduce the topic, and they could use branching, links, photos, and videos to explore the topic through multiple perspectives.

Truly, once you get into Mindstamp, you are going to think of hundreds of ways it could be used to enhance remote and in-person learning. We keep coming up with new ways to support our students through videos. Weve loved the data dashboard for accountability and support purposes.

Tips: One of the things we learned is that students cannot respond to a question as a video response from an iPad or iPhone. They will need to use a computer for video responses so keep that in mind as you are building interactive content.

Mindstamp is offering iLearn technology readers a 50% discount of any tier. Use the code ILEARN between now and March 15, 2021, for 50% off!

Do youwant to form an alliancewith me?

It was January 3, 2010, that I first created a blog post of this title. It was initially inspired by a blog post that I came across on Problogger titled, Let Me Show You Inside a Secret Blogging Alliance. Of course, any time I heard the word alliance, this moment from The Office immediately came to mind (clearly a blog title too good to ignore).

I had no idea that those words, penned a decade ago, would absolutely and forever change me and the trajectory of my life. It was in 2010 that I invited educational bloggers to form an alliance with me (no need for secrecy). This Alliance was a group of edubloggers who were committed to working together for the mutual benefit of all members of the Alliance. The goals were pretty humble in hindsight:

That was it. Humble beginnings. The edublogger Alliance irrevocably changed my life in all of the best ways possible. I was introduced to incredible educators and bloggers who challenged my thinking, encouraged me, inspired me, and mentored me. They became friends and the voices I still seek out before any others on all matters of education.

They say that you become a compilation of the six people you surround yourself with, choose wisely. The stars had to be aligned in 2010 because overnight, 50 of the most exceptional educators surrounded me sharing their voice, their gifts, and their inspiration regularly.

The person I am today is a direct result of these beautiful souls who decided to jump with both feet into a crazy idea thrown out there in blog form.

Without the 2010 blog alliance, I wouldnt have started a school (it was their mentoring and inspiration that had me believing impossible things). Without the Alliance, I wouldnt still be running a school (it was their encouragement that kept me going). Without them, I wouldnt have conceived of The Learning Genome Project. The conversations, playful curiosity, challenging discussions, and camaraderie have meant so much to me. To my original alliance members: I cannot thank you enough for answering the call and shaping me so profoundly! Im forever grateful to you!

With the dawn of a new decade, I thought that it might be time to launch a new sort of education alliance — this one with a slight twist. Before we get to that, a little background on where I find myself in 2020 (friends who have been with me the last ten years, please feel free to scroll):

2010 was a big year for me personally and professionally. I started hanging question marks on all those things I had taken for granted in education. I started asking questions and challenging my own thinking. It was also the year that I had to leave the classroom for health reasons. In that year of questioning and reflection, I created The Learning Genome Project. If I couldnt change education from within the classroom because of my health, perhaps this would be the way!

The Learning Genome Project was an idea that came to me while talking with some of my edublog alliance members over a Twitter chat. I was listening to Pandora (remember when it felt so magical to have technology create a playlist based on one song and get it right?!), and I was having a real geek-out moment about this phenomenon. I kept thinking if technology can predict something that feels as personal as a song and gets it right, why couldnt we use technology to create customized learning playlists for kids? Why were we still stuck in a system of the boxed, one-size-fits-all curriculum? I couldnt let the idea go. I started digging into the back end of Pandora and discovered it was called The Music Genome Project, based on the Human Genome Project (the one that maps DNA). The Music Genome Project took a similar approach to music, mapping it based on 400+ attributes of music and then having music experts tag each piece of music with its attributes.

*Cue my light bulb moment!*

Learning has attributes, what if we could tag curriculum (not the boxed stuff but real learning experiences and resources) with those attributes? If we knew who a student was, we could create customized learning opportunities for every student. I went to work building out a wireframe of this technology, talking with schools and investors about the possibilities. After a few months, I faced down a painful truth: we do not have an education system designed to see students as individuals. No matter how incredible I made this technology unless we change the model of education, it just wouldnt work.

I started blogging ideas of what this model could look like on my other blog, Dreams of Education. One day the family of a student who I used to teach called me out of the blue with the words, I heard you are starting a school! I had joked often with my edublog alliance friends that we should start a school, with our collective intelligence, it would be incredible! But no, I had zero plans for actually starting a schoolbecause that is terrifying!! Also, who am I to do such a thing?

Famous last words.

In August of 2011, I opened Anastasis Academy with five teachers (one of whom I had met because of the original alliance!) and 54 students.

It became evident pretty quickly that we were on to something with this new model that we were innovating as we went. By year 3 of Anastasis, we had hundreds of educators visiting us each year to see what we were up to. In 2014 we decided that we needed a better way to share and started the 5Sigma Education Conference. Our goal was to share what was happening at Anastasis, to give people a behind the scenes view of our process. More than that, we wanted to expose others to those who have inspired us along the way. To share the people who have been so instrumental in our thinking.

5Sigma is in its 6th year this year. Which brings me back to an invitation for you: Do youwant to form an alliancewith me (us)?

We want to expand 5Sigma beyond a conference. Into an alliance, a consortium if you will.

Education conferences are wonderful; they are inspiring; they connect you to a network of learners; they promote change and innovation. 5Sigma has had no shortage of all of these moments. There is only one problem (and its glaring): they are fleeting. Those incredible conversations, the idea synergy, the innovation tend to end with the conference. Back in the classroom, the daily demands creep back in, and it all ends up on the back burner of someday.

Like you, I want learning to be better. More meaningful. More creative. More intentional. More fun. 5Sigma was born with the desire to bring together educators with world-changing thinkers and innovators (not unlike my original Alliance) and start conversations that would transform the educational landscape.

The 5Sigma Consortium will be a network of educational change makers. In addition to our February conference, the 5Sigma Consortium will offer access to year-round inspiration, conversations, studio sessions, and the tools that promote change and innovation in real-time. The Consortium will be limited to the first 50 applicants (not because we wouldnt love for EVERYONE to be involved, but because I have to be realistic about my own bandwidth to take this on!).

So, what does this Consortium/Alliance look like? We are envisioning three levels of participation options.

A ticket to the 5Sigma Education Conference- included in every level is one ticket to attend the 5Sigma Education Conference held in February (this year is February 21-22).

Access to the 5Sigma Consortium Facebook Group- Conferences are a great time to meet other world changers and start transformational conversations. We want to keep those important conversations going all year long in this closed Facebook group for those in our Alliance. Each month, well share a new topic to keep the ideas flowing and reflection going all year long.

25% discount on any Learning Genome Project Products- Although the full technology of the Learning Genome Project got moved to the back burner as I started Anastasis, it lives on in a series of products that are crucial to the Anastasis model. The product line increases every year.

Learning Genome Genius Hub Sites- Inside access to the ever-growing Learning Genome Genius hub sites where we share the resources we are using for learning at Anastasis, easily searched, and implemented.

5Sigma Studio Sessions- Quarterly studio sessions where we will gather in-person to learn, discuss, and innovate together throughout the year.

Book of Choice- Choose from our library of books from the authors that keep our curiosity alive!

So, the next iteration of the Alliance is born. The question stands, do you want to form an alliance with me? This is a first-come, first-serve situation for the first 50. If you are in, raise your hand by filling out this form.

Lets join together, making our voices louder through a shared vision and mission; lets make this year a year of radical change for learners everywhere!

In the last eight years, my posting habits have become pretty sparse, to say the least. Starting and running a school…its a lot. It keeps me busy and thoroughly exhausted. I miss it. I miss the cadence of posting regularly and interacting with my education friends virtually. I miss swapping ideas and being thoroughly steeped in what is happening in ed tech.

Not being in the classroom impacts this as well. When I was in the classroom, my posts had an immediate purpose; they were things that I was doing or dreaming of doing, with my students the next day.

As I was considering the best way to jump back into blogging, I couldnt see going back to the way Ive posted in the past. Its not that there was anything wrong with the way I posted, but it isnt where I am today. It doesnt feel as natural and genuine. I also am unwilling to retire iLearn Technology all together. For one, I still come back here regularly to find a resource that I used with students to make recommendations to teachers. Secondly, I still have so much to share! It just may look a little different than it has in the past.

For all of my education friends who have been with me since 2007, I cant tell you how enormously grateful I am for all of you. You have shaped me as an educator and a human more than you could possibly know. For those who have joined somewhere along my journey, Im grateful for you as well! I hope that youll continue to find reasons to come to iLearn Technology.

These days, rather than merely sharing a technology tool that Ive found useful, I want to do so within a broader context. At Anastasis, we are a school powered by questions. We love the way that questions open opportunities for exploration, discovery, and new connections within learning. Within our inquiry blocks, we use technology as a tool that helps us dive deeper, capture our learning, think critically, and make connections. My intent is to share our learning through the inquiry, introduce you to new (and old) technology tools that have supported our inquiry, and hopefully inspire you to use technology in new ways.

This will likely lead to longer posts that are packed full of ideas and links, the posts wont be daily as they were for so many years, but (hopefully) they will be rich. Id love your thoughts and input as I try out this new format! Thank you for sticking with me even as my posts have come to a crawl.

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