EdTech Startup Showcase

Joel Backon is the editor-in-chief of Educate AI Magazine, a new platform dedicated to supporting those who seek to enhance learning through artificial intelligence. The Be Podcast Network is collaborating with Educate AI to share podcasts and other content advancing educators’ understanding of AI tools and trends. 

In this bonus episode, you'll hear about:

• How Joel got involved with Educate AI and the publication’s “why”
• Topics covered in the magazine: use cases, opportunities and risks, AI’s evolution
• How educators are discussing their experience with AI
• The value Educate AI seeks to provide
• Opportunities to get involved

About today’s guest

Joel Backon is the editor-in-chief of Educate AI Magazine. Before joining Educate AI, Joel launched and was the founding editor of Intrepid Ed News, an online education publication that grew to almost 100,000 readers. For most of his career, he was an independent school teacher and administrator, teaching history and government while leading the school’s instructional technology effort, running a dormitory, coaching basketball, and chairing several committees. Immediately following college, Joel spent 15 years in the printing and publishing industries.

About today’s host

Ross Romano is a co-founder of the BE Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossromano 

Listen to his other shows:

• The Authority — deep-dive interviews with the leading minds in leadership, management, education, and personal development.
• Sideline Sessions — conversations with successful coaches and performance experts from professional, collegiate, and youth sports. 

Today, we’re discussing the skill-based economy, modern career and technical education, and redefining college and career pathways with CareerViewXR’s Matt Chaussee and Richard Kincaid from the Maryland State Department of Education. 

Hear about:

• Career is the goal. College is one of several ways to get there.” 
• Redefining College and Career Pathways
• How career exploration can help define goals and begin with the end in mind
• Maryland’s apprenticeship efforts 
• Improving the quality of the discourse around “college vs. non-college”
• Compelling reasons/data to evolve CTE programs
• Supporting educators and improving partnerships
• Predictions for the next decade

About today’s guests

Matt Chaussee is co-founder and CEO of award-winning immersive media and virtual reality production studio Be More Colorful, which is revolutionizing career exploration for students with the groundbreaking product, CareerViewXR.

Richard Kincaid is the Senior Executive Director for the Office of College and Career Pathways at the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). In December 2023, he was a finalist for ACTE’s National Career and Technical Education Administrator of the Year. Richard serves on the national Board of Directors for SkillsUSA and is actively involved as an appointed Commissioner on the Apprenticeship 2030 Commission and on the Maryland Technology Development Corporation’s Equitech Growth Fund and Commission. Prior to joining MSDE, Richard was the State Director of Career and Technical Education at the District of Columbia’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education and co-led a $65 million initiative to close equity and opportunity gaps through the development of DC’s first Advanced Technical Center, drawing national attention from the US Department of Education, the National Office of Cybersecurity, and the White House. 

About today’s host

Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn. 

Listen to his other shows:

• The Authority — deep-dive interviews with the leading minds in leadership, management, education, and personal development.
• Sideline Sessions — conversations with successful coaches and performance experts from professional, collegiate, and youth sports. 

Bonny Lorenzo, an instructional specialist with Connected Class, is today’s guest. Bonny has more than 35 years of teaching and leadership experience at the elementary and high school levels. 

• Integrating classroom technology that doesn’t distract from the learning experience
• Tailoring instruction to individual student needs
• Using technology to give teachers choice
• Helping educators balance in-person and virtual learning
• Educators’ most common professional development needs

About today’s host

Barb Flowers is a certified Life Coach and an Elementary Principal with a PhD in K-12 leadership from Kent State University. She is host of the following podcasts:

• The Principal’s Handbook — Lessons on communication, time management, overcoming overwhelm, and more, designed to help school leaders become more confident and well-rounded. 
• The Teacher Burnout Podcast — This show explores the complex issue of teacher burnout and shares practical solutions to support your well-being and reignite your passion for education.

About Connected Class

We build communication between the classroom and home environment through exciting games, strategies, and activities to help students succeed academically. Learn more:

• www.connectedclass.com  
• https://twitter.com/connectedclass_
• https://www.instagram.com/connected_class
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/connected-class 

In this episode, you’ll hear insights on valuable applications of AI for teachers. Find out how to use AI tools to create better assignments, enhance students’ critical thinking skills, save time on various tasks, differentiate instruction, and more. 

About today’s guest

Nina Bamberg is Director of Curriculum and Instruction for Pedagogy.Cloud and Director of Programs at United 4 Social Change. 

About today’s host

Barb Flowers is a certified Life Coach and an Elementary Principal with a PhD in K-12 leadership from Kent State University. She is host of the following podcasts:

• The Principal’s Handbook — Lessons on communication, time management, overcoming overwhelm, and more, designed to help school leaders become more confident and well-rounded. 
• The Teacher Burnout Podcast — This show explores the complex issue of teacher burnout and shares practical solutions to support your well-being and reignite your passion for education.

About Pedagog.ai:

Pedagog.ai is focused on supporting educators in adapting to the age of artificial intelligence in education. The company offers a variety of professional development options, including books, online courses, webinars, and in-person workshops, to help teachers learn about the latest advancements in AI and education. Their suite of tools is designed with educators in mind, aiming to enhance curriculum development and workflow efficiency through AI technology. They also provide tools tailored for student use, enabling them to engage in assignments that leverage AI capabilities in a classroom setting. Learn more: http://pedagog.ai 

Today we’re excited to welcome a new company to the Showcase, Scholar Education, in this conversation with  Marlee Strawn, the company’s co-founder and Head of Education.

Hear about:

• Vision and goals of Scholar Education
• Who Scholar Education’s solutions are designed to support in schools
• The challenges the company is solving
• Marlee’s career in education
• What educators are sharing about their experience with the tool
• How Marlee got involved with AI

About Scholar Education

Scholar Education is an AI-powered classroom enhancement platform that offers a suite of AI tools designed to deliver a personalized learning environment, with a specific focus on implementing and tracking accommodations for ESE, 504, and ELL students. Learn more at https://www.joinscholar.com or join the teacher waitlist: bit.ly/ScholarWaitlist 

About today’s guest

Marlee Strawn's career started as a high school teacher and reached a significant milestone when she became the founding principal of the top-performing charter high school in the seventh largest district in the nation. Following her successful tenure as principal, Marlee transitioned to a new role in the education technology sector. As the Co-Founder and Head of Education at Scholar Education, Marlee leads the development of an AI-powered classroom enhancement platform designed to eliminate administrative burdens for teachers. She was also recently selected as a 2024 EDSAFE AI Alliance Women in AI Fellow. 

About today’s host

Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn. 

Listen to his other shows:

• The Authority — deep-dive interviews with the leading minds in leadership, management, education, and personal development.
• Sideline Sessions — conversations with successful coaches and performance experts from professional, collegiate, and youth sports. 

Today, we have a great conversation about career-connected learning and career exploration with Matt Chaussee, founder and CEO of Be More Colorful, and middle school principal Hebat Abdelbaki. 

Hear about:

• The future-focused definition of Career & Technical Education
• The in-demand and growing career fields 
• How Hebat engaged her community to find out what careers they wanted to learn about
• Determining short- and long-term success of CTE programs
• Making things relevant to students and educators
• Continuous learning into adulthood
• Meaningful uses of technology

About today’s guests

Matt Chaussee is co-founder and CEO of award-winning immersive media and virtual reality production studio Be More Colorful, which is revolutionizing career exploration for students with the groundbreaking product, CareerViewXR.

Hebat Abdelbaki is the principal of Stout Middle School with the Dearborn Public Schools in Dearborn, Michigan. She is a 2024 Excellence in Equity Award winner through the American Consortium for Equity in Education.

About today’s host

Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn. 

Listen to his other shows:

• The Authority — deep-dive interviews with the leading minds in leadership, management, education, and personal development.
• Sideline Sessions — conversations with successful coaches and performance experts from professional, collegiate, and youth sports. 

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Mat Barnett, Director of TK-12 Programs Beaumont Unified School District (CA). Mat began his career as a teacher in Anaheim, CA, and also held roles including junior high principal and director of education services in the Fullerton School District.

Mat describes his interesting journey to the education field, his approach to coaching and professional development, fostering student ownership of learning, and more. Hear about:

• Professional learning focused on the entire classroom experience
• Helping teachers focus on the things that are most valuable
• How Classroom Mosaic enables data-driven coaching in the district
• Clear communication around the purpose of walkthroughs
• Feedback from administrators and teachers about purposeful shifts in coaching
• Techniques to improve relationships between coaches and teachers
• “You have to have that implementation-level data collecting tool.” Why this is critical for districts and how a tool like Classroom Mosaic supports educators. 

About today’s host

Tanya Sheckley is the Founder and President of UP Academy, a progressive elementary lab school in San Mateo, California. UP Academy is reinventing education by customizing learning for each student, integrating project-based learning throughout its curriculum, and supporting students with disabilities to attend alongside able-bodied students in mixed-age classrooms.

Tanya hosts the Rebel Educator podcast, speaks across the country on the future of education, and leads professional development programs for school administrators and educators. Listen to Rebel Educator here: https://re.bepodcast.network/ 

About Classroom Mosaic:

We help K-12 leaders support, develop, and retain their teachers. For over a decade, we've worked with educators worldwide from districts large (100k students) and small (150 students) to transform instructional practice, guide professional development, and impact student learning.

We believe every student deserves a great education. And a great education starts with great teachers supported by great leaders. Learn more: 

• classroommosaic.com
• twitter.com/ClassroomMosaic 
• linkedin.com/company/classroommosaic/
  
  

In this exciting and idea-packed episode, we catch up with Priten Shah and Aatash Parikh, two of our edtech founders who are also innovative thinkers on artificial intelligence and its potential for schools. 

Hear about:

• How do we understand what technologies are truly “AI?”
• What we’re still waiting to learn about what AI technologies can and will become
• What it means to become “AI literate”
• Helping to solve persistent problems in education
• Appropriately embracing new technologies in schools
• How are students responding to new AI tools in their classrooms?
• The most important advances schools should make with their use of AI in the next year

About today’s guests

Aatash Parikh, founder of Inkwire, is an educator and an engineer. Aatash has worked as a software engineer at companies like Google & Khan Academy and as a middle school teacher in Oakland Unified School District. Connect on Twitter or LinkedIn. 

Priten Shah is the CEO of Pedagogy.Cloud, which provides innovative technology solutions to help educators navigate global challenges in a rapidly evolving world. He is also the author of Wiley’s Jossey-Bass publication, AI & The Future of Education: Teaching in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. He and his team are currently focused on helping educational organizations adapt to the ever growing capabilities of AI. Connect with Priten on Twitter or LinkedIn. 

About today’s host

Ross Romano is a co-founder of the BE Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossromano 

Listen to his other shows:

• The Authority — deep-dive interviews with the leading minds in leadership, management, education, and personal development.
• Sideline Sessions — conversations with successful coaches and performance experts from professional, collegiate, and youth sports. 

Christel Reaves, founder and CEO of Connected Class, returns to the show to talk us through strategies for summer learning success. 

Hear about:

• The significant challenges posed by the “Summer Slide”
• Why math and reading are the most critical subject areas for summer learning
• How the opportunity cost of time spent re-learning material holds the whole class back
• Summer learning resources offered by Connected Class that make learning fun for families (Learn more: https://bit.ly/3QSDbyE) 
• How parents support summer learning
• What schools can do to prioritize better summer learning 

About today’s guest

Christel Reaves, founder and CEO of Connected Class, is an enthusiastic educator dedicated to improving learning and equipping educators to succeed.  Her passion for ensuring family engagement throughout the learning process is evident and at the core of every product and service provided by Connected Class. She oversees a team of Instructional Specialists to support schools, focusing on helping educators analyze data, develop action plans, implement instructional strategies, and enhance family engagement for improved student achievement. 

Before Christel was the founder of Connected Class, she was a classroom teacher, county resource educator and district administrator. She worked closely with the state to remove low-performing Title I schools from Intervene status. Over the past 25 years, she has helped many schools improve their student performance and engage families. Learn more: www.connectedclass.com

About today’s host

Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossromano 

Listen to his other shows:

• The Authority — deep-dive interviews with the leading minds in leadership, management, education, and personal development.
• Sideline Sessions — conversations with successful coaches and performance experts from professional, collegiate, and youth sports. 

In this episode, we’re joined by special guest Wayde Sick, State Director of the North Dakota Department of Career and Technical Education. Wayde was previously Director of Workforce Development for the ND Dept. of Commerce and also worked as a school director. 

Hear about:

• Using innovative technology to enhance career exploration
• Exploring in-demand occupations in rural areas
• Virtual reality to provide tangible experiences
• How North Dakota began using CareerView XR statewide. 
• What happens when students are introduced to careers they didn’t know existed
• Getting employers involved

About today’s host

Tanya Sheckley is the Founder and President of UP Academy, a progressive elementary lab school in San Mateo, California. UP Academy is reinventing education by customizing learning for each student, integrating project-based learning throughout its curriculum, and supporting students with disabilities to attend alongside able-bodied students in mixed-age classrooms.

Tanya hosts the Rebel Educator podcast, speaks across the country on the future of education, and leads professional development programs for school administrators and educators. Listen to Rebel Educator here: https://re.bepodcast.network/ 

About Be More Colorful

Be More Colorful, based in Fargo, North Dakota specializes in immersive technology solutions for solving workforce development problems. Co-founded by husband-and-wife team Matt and Katie Chaussee, the company has been at the forefront of creating immersive media solutions that help people make better decisions about where they choose to live, learn, work and play. Learn more:

• https://www.bemorecolorful.com 
• https://www.facebook.com/careerviewxr  
• https://www.facebook.com/bemorecolorful  
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/careerviewxr  
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/be-more-colorful  
• https://www.instagram.com/bemorecolorful 
• https://twitter.com/bemorecolorful  
• https://www.tiktok.com/@bemorecolorful