Latest / Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast / Conversation from the Educators AI Summit | Jon Laven of Snorkl

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Conversation from the Educators AI Summit | Jon Laven of Snorkl · Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome to the integrate this ed tech podcast.
• 0:05
  I'm Jeremy Micla and I am joined today by former
• 0:08
  guest John Lavin from snorkel We had John on
• 0:12
  the podcast probably about a little over a year
• 0:15
  ago And then David and I traveled to the educator
• 0:18
  AI summit at st Mary's University in Minnesota
• 0:21
  and we crossed paths with John again so we wanted
• 0:24
  to kind of just do a little catch -up and Find
• 0:27
  out what John has been up to and and what new
• 0:30
  things are are taking place here in snorkel,
• 0:32
  but I think I think before we get to that, John,
• 0:34
  in addition to being a sponsor here of the event,
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  I know you were also in the session room leading
• 0:40
  different sessions, so what sort of sessions
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  did you present on today? Yeah, it was a lot
• 0:46
  of fun. Got to share just some updates around
• 0:49
  Snorkel and really show people how Snorkel works,
• 0:51
  because I think for a lot of people... They don't
• 0:53
  know snorkel at all yet. And so we should show
• 0:55
  them some of the basics about how we get students
• 0:58
  sharing their thinking and explaining their thinking.
• 1:01
  I think a big theme today was how do we make
• 1:04
  sure that there's not cognitive offloading, we're
• 1:06
  not just letting the AI do the thinking. And
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  so shared a little bit about how we approach
• 1:10
  that snorkel too. people that are watching or
• 1:14
  listening and didn't see the original episode
• 1:16
  that we had with John, can you give us the elevator
• 1:19
  pitch? What does Snorkel, what does it do? Yeah,
• 1:21
  real quick, Snorkel's a tool for students to
• 1:23
  record and explain their thinking, and we give
• 1:25
  them immediate personal feedback. And so they
• 1:28
  can talk through how they're solving a math question,
• 1:30
  how they're interpreting a reading passage, but
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  really core to it is they are submitting their
• 1:35
  work, and then only after they submit it do they
• 1:38
  get that AI feedback. So it's not a chat conversation,
• 1:41
  it's not a... back and forth, it's them sharing.
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  And because they're explaining, we get kids talking
• 1:47
  about their learning. You walk into a classroom
• 1:50
  where kids are using snorkel, and you get to
• 1:52
  hear 30 kids talking about their thinking, which
• 1:54
  I think is really special. Just gets them thinking
• 1:58
  more, gets them using their academic language
• 2:00
  and vocabulary, and then they get feedback too.
• 2:03
  Right, and you know being at a conference like
• 2:05
  this and being at many different events that
• 2:08
  I know you travel to, what's some of the feedback
• 2:11
  that you're getting from teachers that you have
• 2:13
  then used and turned around to make changes in
• 2:16
  the product over the last year? Yeah we've gotten
• 2:18
  to connect with so many educators both at conferences
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  and then we do a lot of school visits too and
• 2:22
  go into classrooms and we've just heard so many
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  so much great feedback that really helps sort
• 2:27
  of drive our product roadmap. So some of the
• 2:30
  things that we've recently released and have
• 2:33
  been working on, one is like feedback quality
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  we know is really, really important. And so we're
• 2:37
  always testing the latest models to make sure
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  that our feedback is as high quality as possible
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  and really aligned to the teacher's goals and
• 2:44
  learning standards. We get a lot of requests
• 2:48
  around teachers wanting to connect to multiple
• 2:50
  snorkel activities together. And so we just released
• 2:53
  this last week, a feature called activity sets
• 2:55
  where teachers can connect multiple snorkel activities.
• 2:57
  We are working on integration with FET. So for
• 3:01
  any science teachers out there, if you're familiar
• 3:03
  with FET, this allows for science simulations,
• 3:06
  you know, have students move around the mass
• 3:08
  blocks or the molecules or whatever it is. The
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  integration is going to allow teachers to assign
• 3:13
  a FET scenario and attach a prompt and students
• 3:17
  will get to record and show their thinking in
• 3:20
  the FET simulation and then get that AFP back
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  on their explanation. So one of the things that
• 3:26
  it's able to do, in the feedback that you've
• 3:28
  gathered, is that you're able to visually see
• 3:32
  and hear the student describe their learning
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  in a way that you can't fake with AI. Right.
• 3:40
  Yeah, I think there's something really special
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  about it. It's capturing students' voice, and
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  they have a digital whiteboard where they can
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  draw or they can upload an image of their work.
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  And it adds, I think, a level of authenticity
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  there. You can't just copy and paste from Chatchabee
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  Tea onto that whiteboard, but you're really trying
• 3:59
  to get students talking and explaining. Just
• 4:02
  before we started recording, you were telling
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  me a little bit about screen time. Are you concerned,
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  or do you hear a lot of concerns from teachers
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  about screen time and using a product like Snorkel,
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  which invites? the screen, does that seem to
• 4:16
  have some sort of conflict that teachers are
• 4:19
  experiencing, or what's your take on that? It's
• 4:21
  a great question. I could talk about this for
• 4:23
  a long time, but I'll try to give you a short
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  version. One is, I was a teacher for 10 years,
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  and I think the conversation about screen time
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  is really valuable. I do think we should be critical
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  about what tools we are putting in front of our
• 4:35
  students and what is happening with that class
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  time that's so valuable. Snorkel is allowing
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  students to record record and explain and personalize
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  feedback. And so I guess the contrast I would
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  draw compared to some other tools is it's not
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  putting their answer in a box and pressing enter.
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  It's not passively watching something. We're
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  inviting students to create, to participate,
• 5:01
  to deeply get engaged. And I think that's really
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  special. We are also not the whole curriculum.
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  We are a supplemental tool. And so most teachers
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  who are using Snorkel regularly, they will tell
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  you they're using snorkel maybe two, three times
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  a week for 10, 15 minutes each time. So it's
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  not like we're this whole lesson. We're trying
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  to give teachers these powerful insights and
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  students instant feedback on this really particular
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  snapshot moment. And then one last thing I'll
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  say, the piece of scores came out maybe a month
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  or two ago. And there's a lot of concern. Obviously,
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  the US is not doing well internationally on those
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  tests. But who does really well on those tests
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  is Singapore. Our number one customer outside
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  of the United States is Singapore. So, you know,
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  it's not EdTech as a whole that's necessarily,
• 5:48
  you know, responsible for the gaps. Certainly
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  we should take a critical view and lens towards
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  it. But I think it can also be used really powerfully
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  and really well, and there's so many educators
• 6:00
  who are. And I think if you get to the purpose
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  behind what is the goal, what is, and then allow
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  students the ability to be able to demonstrate
• 6:09
  that learning makes it much more impactful to
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  them in the long run. And I think that is key,
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  and I think that's... Part of what's missing
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  in some of that conversation is we're confusing
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  all screen time as being exactly the same thing,
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  smartphones, social media, entertainment, but
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  here we're actually demonstrating the learning
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  that takes place in the mind of a student. Yeah,
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  yeah, there's that old adage, like if you could.
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  teach someone something to someone you probably
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  understand it really well. So snorkel essentially
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  is allowing students to show that they can teach
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  it to someone they have to give an in -depth
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  explanation of their thinking and I think there's
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  just a ton of benefits for that. Yeah well John
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  I don't want to take up too much more of your
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  time but you know if you could share one new
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  thing about snorkel that you would wish all educators
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  would know about what would you say? Oh, gosh.
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  I just think it's really powerful. There's different
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  ways you can have students respond and snorkel.
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  There's four different activity types. Whiteboard
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  recording, where they get a whiteboard and speak,
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  just the audio, just the whiteboard, just the
• 7:15
  visual response and writing activities. And one
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  of the things I always encourage teachers is
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  if you haven't tried the whiteboard recording
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  activity, start there. It is so... powerful and
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  cool to walk into a classroom where 30 kids are
• 7:27
  talking about their thinking and not just silent.
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  And we get questions all the time, like can you
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  actually do that in a room full of students?
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  And the answer is yes. the microphones and the
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  AI does a really good job of picking up those
• 7:40
  individual student voices and so more often it's
• 7:43
  just a teacher mindset thing like are you willing
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  to give it a shot and so it really invites you
• 7:48
  if you haven't tried it try that out let us know
• 7:50
  if we can help and we're always happy to support.
• 7:52
  Perfect. Finally any big events that you have
• 7:56
  coming up that you want to plug or you know getting
• 7:59
  into contact with you or just finding snorkel
• 8:01
  online? Yeah so our website is snorkel .app We've
• 8:08
  got a ton of stuff on our YouTube. We do a webinar
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  almost every other week where we showcase that
• 8:13
  educator who's using Snorkel and how they're
• 8:15
  using it in their classroom. All those are also
• 8:17
  saved on our YouTube channel so people can check
• 8:20
  them out later. We're going to a whole lot of
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  conferences this year. I think the next one I'm
• 8:24
  headed to is... Mass Q out in Boston, and then
• 8:28
  NCTM in Denver, and then we're going to NSSA
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  in the Indiana Science One. So we'll be all.
• 8:33
  That's pretty good. You don't even have your
• 8:35
  calendar out just to make sure of those. And
• 8:37
  I'm missing a bunch of them, too. But yeah, please
• 8:40
  reach out if we can help at all. But I hope to
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  see you out on the road if we don't. And yeah,
• 8:46
  here for you. All right. Hey, thanks, Sean. Yeah,
• 8:47
  thank you. Great to see you again. Great to see
• 8:48
  you. Yeah.