Why is it important to make time for play, both with students and with educators? Matt Barinholtz, Founder & CEO of FutureMakers, is passionate about creating playful hands-on learning and encourages educators to find ways to play!

FutureMakers' mission is to spark playful hands-on learning focused on educators confidently integrating engineering, tinkering, making, and play in their lessons. In this conversation, Matt describes how he was inspired to found FutureMakers and recognizes that tangible creative experiences, project-based learning, and play are essential tools for learning.

Throughout this conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on effective professional learning, active listening, confronting yourself when you say “I never will…”, and learning to let learners lead. He encourages educators to spend time thinking about why am I doing this in the first place? What’s the joy? And where’s the play that got me involved? When reflecting on the future of EdTech, Matt discusses the role of AI and stresses the importance of critical thinking and focusing on how we’re solving critical thinking problems and helping learners develop their own solutions that work and feel the most natural and human.

“How are we applying our brilliance and our genius and our joy? Make the experience happen. Make it tangible. Make it project-based. They will always remember it. You’re going to be the person that allows them to explore and tinker and play and they’ll remember you and they’ll first and most importantly remember their joy.” - Matt Barinholtz

About Our Guest

Matt is a maker-educator who builds experiences that connect young makers, educators and youth workers to traditional skills, creative technologies, and serious play. For the past 20 years, Matt has sparked playful hands-on learning in community and educational settings, serving employment readiness initiatives and initiating groundbreaking juvenile justice work. In 2012, Matt founded FutureMakers to increase access to hands-on learning in disinvested PK-8 classrooms in greater Washington, DC. Matt is a Chicagoland native and long-time Baltimore resident and believes small hands with big ideas deserve real tools, opportunities to explore, and coaches who care - in their neighborhoods and schools.

Why should we care about equity-centered design in education? What impact does it make? In today’s episode, Sheryl Cababa, Chief Strategy Officer at Substantial, shares her experience and advice on how we can practically and effectively design learning experiences with equity in mind.

Sheryl shares how she became interested in education and design research and discusses her work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation using design thinking and equity-centered design to inform investment strategies. She discusses some of the key principles to follow when practicing equity-centered design. Her book, Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, explores these concepts with examples from her work in education. In conclusion, Sheryl shares her thoughts on how equity-centered design could impact the future of EdTech and her advice for exploring equity-centered design. She encourages involving students in the design and development process, saying

“Engage your students. Empower them to help you design what they’re going to be learning.” 

- Sheryl Cababa

Recommended Resources from the Interview

Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers

About Our Guest

Sheryl Cababa is the Chief Strategy Officer at the Insights, Design + Development Studio, Substantial, and a multi-disciplinary design strategist with more than two decades of experience. Her recent work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation includes leading student voice research to inform the K-12 Balance The Equation Grand Challenge. Her book, Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, was released in early 2023.

What do educators need to battle burnout? How do they feel about AI in the classroom? Francie Alexander, SVP of Research at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, shares key takeaways from HMH’s 9th annual Educator Confidence Report.

Recommended Resources from the Interview

HMH's 2023 Educator Confidence Report

Writable

About Our Guest

Francie Alexander is the SVP of Research at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also known as HMH, where she works closely with districts across the country to lead HMH's efficacy efforts and provide inspirational and informative leadership on topics from early and adolescent learning to brain development and its influence on childhood and teenage learning. Prior to her time at HMH, Francie served as Chief Academic Officer at Scholastic, member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees what’s widely known as "The Nation's Report Card," and in key positions in both state and federal education agencies. Francie's work is grounded in the classroom, having taught students from kindergarten to college.

Do you see yourself in the stories you read? Are your beliefs, culture, and traditions embraced? Do you see heroes that look like you? In this episode, Louisa Kiwana Olafuyi, Co-Founder of Kunda Kids, shares how she practices multifaceted representation and her mission to inspire children around the world with inclusive stories that celebrate diverse cultures - particularly African heritage.

Kunda Kids is an award-winning, Black-owned children's publishing, EdTech, and media company whose mission is to expose children to diverse and inclusive stories that make them feel represented and teach them about other people and places. In this conversation, Louisa describes how she was inspired to found Kunda Kids and recognizes that stories open windows to the world's vibrant cultures. In particular, it’s how children learn about things, places, and people outside of their everyday lives.

Storytelling is at the heart of Kunda Kids, which has evolved beyond Kunda Kids Children’s Books to also include the Kunda Kids App and Kunda & Friends Animated Series. Louisa shares the learning that people want to be able to experience stories on the go and at home and at school and also recognizes how important storytelling is in terms of passing down stories about our culture and ourselves. Louisa recalls the impactful message of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the TED talk The danger of a single story | TED. Throughout this conversation, Louisa discusses strategies for expanding representation and shares her advice for increasing multifaceted representation in education and EdTech.

Recommended Resources from the Interview

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story | TED

Kunda Kids

About Our Guest

Louisa Kiwana Olafuyi is an award-winning storyteller and Co-Founder of Kunda Kids, a children's EdTech and Media company on a mission to inspire children around the world with inclusive stories that teach them about African culture and heritage.

What makes a successful unstructured play experience and how can unstructured play impact the future of EdTech? In today’s episode, Tanner Higgin shares how unstructured play can be integrated into education and EdTech.

Play is a powerful force for learning and unstructured play is a type of play that gives players a system of tools that they can use to create their own experiences. Tanner sees play as research and describes some of the key factors that make a successful unstructured play experience including exploration, surprise, and social negotiation. The key aspects of unstructured play are freedom and choice, and more specifically non-trivial choice where the choice a player is given impacts the play in very significant ways and allows for opportunities to restructure the very play experience itself.

Throughout this conversation, Tanner shares examples of unstructured play in EdTech and media platforms, his thoughts on how unstructured play could impact the future of EdTech, and his advice for incorporating unstructured play saying:

“I think that's what we have to strive for when we're doing unstructured play in learning environments is giving students the feeling that they're making a play experience their own, and that it can evolve democratically, right? That there is a freedom of choice that is either determined by yourself alone or with a group of people you're playing with. That to me is really the ultimate essence of it.”

Recommended Resources from the Interview

Metamorphabet

Little Alchemy

TinyBop

Walden, a game

About Our Guest

Tanner Higgin has nearly 20 years of experience in education, first as a teacher and researcher and later as a learning designer and editorial director. At GameDesk, he helped to create the PlayMaker School and its curriculum; at Common Sense Media, he led the editorial team that rated and reviewed over 4,000 EdTech products. He’s now the Principal Consultant at Dune Shift, where he helps EdTech startups and companies make more meaningful and effective content and learning experiences.

Women have been underrepresented in STEM education and STEM careers for as long as STEM has existed. Why do we need more representation and why does that disparity continue to exist? How can we encourage more women to explore STEM careers? In this episode, Naomi Harm, CEO and Founder of Innovative Educator Consulting, discusses her decades long journey in bringing more representation to STEM education.

Naomi describes her excitement about STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, and views STEM as an integrated thematic unit that empowers creativity. She describes how she became passionate about encouraging women in STEM education and STEM careers because of experiences collaborating with a team of strong women leaders from diverse backgrounds. She discusses the qualities that make women strong leaders like being organized, detailed, intuitive, empathetic, and collaborative. She elaborates that everyone leads differently but shares a purpose and vision that’s collaborative. Furthermore, Naomi expresses her thoughts on diversity as a critical component and that celebrating diversity and having a more diversified team unlocks more possibilities for solving the world's global problems.

When discussing the importance of representation in STEM and the impact of having more women in STEM, Naomi shares some strategies for encouraging girls and women to explore STEM subjects and STEM careers. Throughout this conversation, Naomi emphasizes the importance of role models and mentorship, saying

“So more girls need to see that women are strong leaders. But what we as women need to give back is that we need to mentor and offer more role modeling for our younger girls so no one is locked behind. That’s a must.” - Naomi Harm

Recommended Resources from the Interview

Her-Story Global Project

Million Women Mentors

Women in STEM Leadership

Discover the Unique Individual You

About Our Guest

Naomi Harm is a women in leadership STEM strategist, an EdTech influencer, entrepreneur, educator, and published author. She has a passion and drive for instigating playful STEM innovation and future proofing educational leadership into all of her professional learning and technology literacy effective practices with K-20 students and educational leaders worldwide.

Bop It…Twist It…Pull It! From the 90s and beyond, these sounds have been an integral part of many people's childhood. In today’s episode, Dan Klitsner, multi-award winning Toy Inventor and creator of Bop It, joins us to discuss leveraging tactile technology to transform play experiences. 

How did the idea for Bop It evolve? As is the case with many inventions, success can come from failure. It all began when Dan pitched the idea for a new type of interactive tv remote for kids. When other ideas were pursued instead, Dan explored turning it into a game and behold - the Bop It…Twist It…Pull It phenomenon was created! When discussing his journey as an inventor and entrepreneur, Dan shares his thoughts that an idea won't succeed until everything is RITE, that is, the four pillars relationship, innovation, timing, and execution are all equally strong.

Bop It‘s unique popularity and accessibility is due to its tactile design - the twist knob looks and feels like a twist knob. The pull knob looks and feels like a pull knob. The bop it…you want to bop it! With tactile design, the product's job is to animate the user. The tactile design of Bop It enables it to be an inclusive game and led to a partnership between Bop It For Good and LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Players who are blind or have low vision can rely on sound and their sense of touch to succeed in the game and play equally with others. When two people are playing Bop It, you can’t tell who’s blind. Throughout this conversation, Dan shares his thoughts on how we can use tactile products in the world of education and his advice for those interested in invention, saying

“Really learn to listen when someone throws an idea out there because later, I was like, maybe it isn't a remote…maybe it's a game. And that's eventually, you know, what turned into Bop It.” - Dan Klitsner

Recommended Resources from the Interview

KublaCon Game Convention

LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Bop It For Good

About Our Guest

Dan Klitsner is an award winning Industrial Designer specializing in concept ideation focused primarily on toy invention. He has created and licensed hundreds of concepts including the mega-hits Bop It, Perplexus and Simon Air. Before specializing in toys, Dan designed many well known bottles such as Woodford Reserve, Hornitos Tequila, and the Clorox Toilet Cleaner bottle. Recently Dan and his wife Alicia have founded Bop It For Good to support organizations that can benefit the most from Bop It‘s unique popularity and accessibility.

This episode was recorded in April 2023.

In this episode, two very special guests from CodeCombat’s Live Online Classes, Ami and Luka, share their coding adventures together as instructor and student. These two have been coding together for years and have an inspiring teacher-student relationship.

Luka describes his early experiences in coding and shares his thoughts on the most challenging parts of learning how to code. He reflects on how he’s seen himself grow in his coding skills and Ami chimes in with her thoughts on Luka’s growth in coding. She then discusses bringing creativity to coding and the need for persistence from both the student and the teacher.

When sharing advice, Luka mentions accepting that failure is part of the process and that coding is all about failing and learning from your mistakes. Ami shares her advice for becoming a coding instructor and contributing to CS education and discusses how a student-centered learning approach is possible with online learning. It’s clear from the conversation that Ami and Luka inspire each other and have enjoyed embarking on coding adventures together.

Recommended Resources

Schedule a Free Live Online Class: https://codecombat.com/parents

Play In The CodeCombat AI League: https://codecombat.com/league

About Our Guests

Luka Korbelin is 12 years old and resides in Malibu California. Luka attends Malibu Middle school grade 7. He plays AA Hockey on a traveling team and is a leading hitter on his Major’s baseball team. He’s a black diamond skier and enjoys swimming and diving. He loves math and science and hopes to be a particle scientist when he grows up. He also plays the trumpet and is learning to play the saxophone. He loves to play chess and backgammon and is a self-professed Marvel and Star Wars geek.

Ami Dave-Patel is a founding educator for online classes at CodeCombat and serves as the Online Instruction Manager overseeing online classes including hiring and training instructors. Ami is a mom, wife, and entrepreneur. She is originally from India and has called America her home for the past 22 years. Ami is also a south asian community leader who is connecting youth with ancient cultures and encourages learning through human connection and various languages, arts, and yoga. She holds Masters in business administration along with sustainability and computer science. Ami has worked in various industries including: Health Care, Advertising and Marketing, Information Technology, and EdTech over the course of the past two decades.

Digital learning refers to the use of digital technologies to facilitate and enhance the educational process and is becoming increasingly popular given the advancement of technology and widespread reach of the internet. In this episode, Joel Kupperstein, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at Learning A-Z, discusses creating digital learning content that empowers educators with effective resources and provides students with the impactful instruction they need to thrive.

Digital learning includes a wide range of educational resources and activities and offers advantages like increased convenience and flexibility as well as the opportunity for personalized learning. Joel describes his role at Learning A-Z as the goal to deliver technology that makes teaching easier and sets educators up for success. Joel shares his advice to those interested in exploring the world of product development and Edtech along with his thoughts on ways to employ technology to help teachers, saying

“Whether it's a mechanic or a carpenter or a doctor, everybody's got tools that enable them to be more successful at the job they do. And you know, I'm proud to be a person who's tried to provide those tools for teachers for quite a long time now.” - Joel Kupperstein

About Our Guest

Joel Kupperstein is the Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at Learning A-Z, a company delivering digital learning resources to teachers and students across the globe. Prior to Learning A-Z, Joel was Senior Vice President of Curriculum at ABCmouse and Director of Product Management for McGraw-Hill School Education Group.

“EdTech has this great potential if we design for inclusion of mind, if we involve users of diverse backgrounds in what we develop to create more equitable learning experiences.” - Christine Reich

An important part of data equity is making sure that you have the data that you need to make equity-based decisions and to think about the design of the learning experience from a universal design standpoint at the very beginning of a project. Furthermore, formative evaluation and the inclusion of diverse audiences during development is essential. In this episode, Christine Reich discusses the evaluation strategies she’s used and how they’ve helped her bring more equity to data science.

Christine shares strategies and learnings from years of developing universally designed exhibits. One of her recent projects while at the Museum of Science was “Mission: Mars,” a Roblox gaming experience based on real NASA data that tasks students with designing and building a rover to explore and survive on Mars. The development team wanted the game to be inclusive of people with disabilities and partnered with AbleGamers for expert feedback on ways to make the game better for gamers with disabilities. Christine also discusses how formative evaluation and the inclusion of diverse audiences in development is essential in order to achieve end results like greater participation in STEM. Furthermore, she shares the importance of culturally responsive evaluation practices around data equity and recommends resources like those from the American Evaluation Association.

Today, Christine serves as Chief Executive Officer and Senior Research Officer at Knology, a non-profit research organization whose mission is to produce practical social science for a better world. She also teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she leads a course in which students evaluate real-world projects and collaborate with for-profit and non-profit organizations to improve educational programs and products.

“It's not just about who's included in the data set but how we actually think about the collection of data and making sure that those practices are ones that are honoring and respecting the diversity of lived experiences that exist in our society.” - Christine Reich

Recommended Resources from the Interview

Museum of Science

Mission: Mars

AbleGamers

American Evaluation Association

Knology

About Our Guest

Christine Reich is an educator, social science researcher, and former museum executive who has moved fluidly between research and practice throughout her career. As Knology’s CEO and Senior Research Officer, she is responsible for directing the organization’s research agenda and the transdisciplinary team of researchers who work collaboratively to develop new insights into the complex social challenges of our times. Prior to Knology, Christine worked at the Boston Museum of Science for over 25 years, serving in a variety of leadership positions, including the Founding Director of the Museum’s Research and Evaluation department (one of the largest of its kind in the world), and most recently, as the Jane and Payson Swaffield Chief Learning Officer. In addition, Dr. Reich is an Adjunct Lecturer for Education in the learning design, innovation, and technology program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.