iLearn Technology – Integrating technology in the classroom

The Vulnerability of Words on Paper

October 22, 2026Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment16 views

“My alma mater was books, a good library…I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” -Malcom X

I love books. To me, they are among the most wonderful communication devices we have. They allow us to learn, in a handful of hours, what might have taken the author decades to learn. They let us peer inside someone else’s experience, and learn the lessons that have taken a lifetime to learn.

I published my first book last week.

It was so much more vulnerable than I expected it to be.

I’ve been writing and sharing ideas publicly for years through thousands of blog posts, reflections, resources, things I’m wondering about, and things I’m still working out. Writing has always helped me make sense of the world and my own thoughts. It helps me connect ideas and notice things that I might otherwise miss.

Which is why I was surprised by how different publishing this book felt.

There’s something about committing words to bound paper that feels different. More comprehensive and permanent than a blog post. Instead of starting a conversation or sharing a partial thought, this is me showcasing decades of trial and error and saying, Here. This is what I have to offer for the last 14 years on this topic.

And then you hope it does what you intended. That somewhere, someone will pick it up and find something useful, that a hard-won lesson might make their journey just a little easier.

This book isn’t one I ever imagined myself writing; I’m not an expert on this particular topic in the traditional sense. I started Anastasis Academy because I had ideas about what learning could look like, what a school community could feel like, and what might happen if we built a school on a different set of assumptions. Fundraising was not part of the original plan.

As it turns out, keeping a dream alive requires more than having a good idea. It requires resources, relationships, and a willingness to ask people to believe in something they may not have experienced themselves.

So I learned, which, if you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know is pretty much my MO.

When I was hired as a computer teacher and found myself in charge of a new Mac lab that I had no business being in charge of, my first stop was the library, where I picked up Macs for Dummies.

A book that I could read in a few hours that encapsulated years and years of experience.

Anastasis was different. When I needed to figure out how to fundraise, I went looking for resources. I found plenty of books about fundraising, nonprofits, and philanthropy. Nothing quite fit our community. I wasn’t just looking for fundraising strategies; I was trying to figure out how to invite people into a vision for a different kind of school. How to build relationships and create opportunities for people to participate in something meaningful. How to raise the money we needed without losing sight of the reason we were doing any of it in the first place.

I wanted to learn from someone who had been there, who understood the particular challenges of a tight-knit community and didn’t want fundraising to feel extractive or gross. I wanted it to feel like us. I was looking for the kind of book that would show me what another community tried, the surprises along the way, what they would do differently. I needed the mentor who had been down this path.

I couldn’t find that book.

Fundraising Was Not on My Bingo Card is the book I wish I’d had when I realized that fundraising was going to be part of keeping our dreams alive. My sincere hope is that it makes someone else’s journey easier and offers a shortcut/cheat code. That someone building a school, leading a small organization, or trying to bring an idea into the world will find a story or strategy that helps them take their next step a little more confidently.

One of the joys I found in writing this book was the remembering. As I revisited each story, I kept remembering the people who showed up for our community, people who said yes when we weren’t entirely sure what we were doing, people who gave their time, creativity, and resources, and people who believed in what we were trying to do.

So many of these stories include some of my favorite people in the world. We were figuring it out and learning together. We were becoming different versions of ourselves along the way. This book is less a collection of fundraising stories and more a collection of moments when people made something possible for one another. It’s a record of how our community showed up. I feel a little protective of these stories; I got to live inside them. I remember the conversations that happened before the moments made it into the book. I remember what we were worried about, what we were hoping for, and what it felt like when something worked that we weren’t sure would. I know what each of these moments means to us. Will someone who wasn’t there feel any of that? Will the story translate? Will someone find what they need in it?

That’s the vulnerability. Blog posts don’t have to be complete ideas; a book asks you to gather the ideas and shape them into something and trust that the result will be useful to someone whose life and story you may never know. You hope you’ve gotten it right. I don’t expect this book to be perfect; none is…but I want it to be right because the people who might need it deserve something honest and useful. They deserve more than a list of top tips and tricks; they deserve to understand the messiness, relationships, missteps, and small moments that changed everything.

I can’t promise that every story will resonate with every reader (but gosh, I hope they do!). I can promise these stories are real; they come from 14 years of trying, learning, making mistakes, asking questions, and discovering what happens when passionate people decide to build something together

I’m proud of this little book because of the years of learning it represents. It’s a lovely thing to hold something in your hands that, until recently, existed only as a collection of ideas and stories you were trying to make sense of.

The paperback and hardcover editions are now available, alongside the Kindle edition. All the versions are out in the world, which feels like a milestone worth celebrating.

If you’re building something that matters to you and trying to figure out how to fund it, I hope you’ll find something here that makes the road less lonely.

Starting Where Everyone Is: Back-to-School Night

August 20, 2026Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment14243 views

There’s a moment at the beginning of every school year when something almost unheard of happens…everyone shows up.

The families that we spend the rest of the year trying to catch through emails, SignUpGenius links, newsletters, volunteer requests, fundraising appeals, and increasingly desperate reminders are all standing in the same building, eager for the new year.

Back-to-School Night.

Most of us use this night to transfer information: the schedule, where to drop off, everything your child needs, how we’ll communicate, the rules, the calendar, and don’t forget to label the water bottle!

At Anastasis, we discovered that this night held the potential to be so much more. Because the people walking through our doors weren’t just parents and guardians.

They were designers, dentists, business owners, photographers, gardeners, and accountants. They had grandparents, neighbors, friends, and coworkers. They knew people who owned restaurants, printed signs, built things, fixed things, and knew how to get things done.

They had gifts we didn’t know existed, because we hadn’t thought to ask.

We had a full year ahead of us that was going to require a lot of help.

Historically, at our Back-to-School Night, we would have a row of clipboards listing all the volunteer opportunities, waiting for someone to take notice and sign up.

We learned that’s actually a pretty terrible place to start. The clipboards sat largely untouched, with a few faithful volunteers filling in spots here and there.

That changed one year when, feeling a little jaded about how the previous year’s attempt went, we decided to try something different.

Before Back-to-School Night, we made a list of the opportunities we knew were coming that year:

Volunteer roles.
Events that needed leaders.
Projects that needed underwriting.
Things we needed donated.
Places where a particular skill or connection could make something possible.

We had our learners create a poster for each opportunity.

Then, we took photos of every sibling group in the school and printed their faces onto round Avery sticker labels to hand out to families as they arrived at Back-to-School Night.

The posters lined the lobby and hallways that families would pass through that evening. Each poster helped them see what it takes to create a successful school year. Rather than signing their names on a clipboard, we asked families to place their stickers on an opportunity they could support. And as they placed their child’s faces on the opportunity, they were reminded of who we were all there for.

In our first year of doing this, not only did we have every volunteer position filled for the year, but we also raised $35,000 in underwriting and sponsorships to support our needs. Families could see exactly what was needed for the year and put us in touch with their employers for event sponsorship, their network for a connection to a resource we needed, or another family member who LOVED reading to kids.

It’s so easy in education to make the mistake of beginning from a place of lack and scarcity. We need volunteers. We need sponsors. We need $10,000. We need someone to run this event. We need someone to donate that thing.

It’s from the place of lack that we look at our community and wonder who we could get to do this.

At Anastasis, we began addressing these needs from a place of abundance. Who is already in our community (who, by the way, cares about these kids!)? What do they love? What are they unusually good at? Who are they connected to? What could become possible because this particular group of humans happens to be gathered together?

Your community is the asset in the deeply human sense that communities are full of people who know things, make things, love things, have relationships, and genuinely want to matter.

Our job is to make the possibilities for their contribution more visible and invite them in.

Before you add another fundraiser to your calendar, try mapping what already exists. Do you know the builders in your community? The artists, photographers, grandparents, business owners, organizers, people who love throwing parties, or people who know everyone? The person who will happily spend three hours making something beautiful but would rather disappear into the earth than sell wrapping paper to their coworkers?

They’re there already, but you won’t find them on a clipboard labeled VOLUNTEERS NEEDED.

You have to notice them, then build invitations that help people recognize themselves.

I’ve been writing a book called Fundraising Was Not on My BINGO Card: A Small School’s Guide to Community-First Fundraising.

It’s the book I wish I’d had when I started a school and discovered that, apparently, school founder also meant fundraiser.

I’m also building a companion journal full of the experiments, prompts, ridiculous ideas, lessons learned, and tools I wish we’d had.

And now that schools are back in session, I pulled out the Back-to-School Night section to share. It’s seven pages designed to help you look at that first gathering differently, including our Sticker Wall plan, a Community Asset Map, Community Activation BINGO, and prompts for designing your own experiment.

It’s free because before I invite you to purchase a book about community-first fundraising, it seems only right to start with generosity.

GET THE FREE BACK-TO-SCHOOL COMMUNITY ACTIVATION KIT

How does your community approach Back-to-School Night? What have you found wild success from that someone else could learn from in the comments? If you try the Sticker Wall, or create something even better, I’d love to hear about it.

Happy back-to-school season!!

|Kelly Tenkely|

It’s Alive!

May 28, 2026Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment28972 views

Hi Friends!

If you’re still following iLearn Technology, first, an apology for being MIA for so long! Starting a school comes with a strange gravity that pulls you into its orbit and makes all other projects take a back seat.

Second, thanks for still inviting me to your RSS feed or inbox!

I’ve been working on some new projects that might be of interest, including publishing a few books, launching some technology of my own, and learner-centered ecosystem work.

I have all my working projects on my digital common place book: KT’s Place

A teaser for some of what you’ll find there:

CultivatEd Ops Hub– Technology I’m getting ready to pilot. It’s a complete back-office operating system and SIS for small schools.

Fundraising Was Not On My Bingo Card: A Small School’s Guide to Community-First Fundrasing- My new book, join the waitlist here.

Colorado Learning Stories– A place to collect learning stories across Colorado and map community assets.

The Learning Genome Project– After 16 years, it is about ready to share with the world in it’s fully-realized form!

You all have had such a tremendous impact on this work; it only feels right that you see it!

With deep gratitude,

Kelly

P.S. I plan to start dropping in here from time to time to share the cool tech I still find and use with kids!

Tress Learning

January 28, 2026January 28, 2026Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment52416 views

Your content and communication partner

What it is: Tress Learning is a content and communications partner built specifically for schools. Instead of adding another platform or tool, Tress works within the channels your community already uses, including email, Instagram, Facebook, blogs, websites, print materials, etc.

Tress is medium‑agnostic by design. Their work begins with getting to know your school: your values, culture, differentiators, voice, and communication goals. From there, they repurpose existing assets (photos, stories, newsletters, announcements, events, classroom moments) into cohesive, strategic communication that feels aligned and intentional.

The result is consistent, thoughtful parent communication that keeps families actively engaged, strengthens your school’s presence in the local community, and encourages organic parent referrals without requiring your educators or administrators to become content marketers.

Maybe my favorite thing about Tress Learning is that there is no new platform to learn. Everything happens through email collaboration with the Tress team, making it super easy to implement and sustainable even for very small schools.

How Tress Learning can be implemented in your school: Tress amplifies the work you’re already doing by freeing up your team from the constant pressure of “we should be posting more” or “we need to send another email.” It ensures your families hear a clear, aligned story across platforms rather than disconnected messages depending on who had time that week. (I may be speaking from experience here…)

Whether your community prefers email, social media, or print, Tress helps you communicate in the places that already matter to your families. At Anastasis, one of the things I learned is that ongoing school communication isn’t just about announcements; it’s a way to nurture trust, clarity, and connection. With Tress, even small schools like Anastasis can show up with polish, strategy, and consistency without needing to hire a full communications team (as if we ever had the budget for that-ha!)

I’m genuinely impressed with the Tress team and the personalized way they approach school communication. I wish they existed for Anastasis, it would have been a game changer for me to have this kind of communications support!

Check out a video to see Tress in action.

Tips: Interested in getting started? Mention iLearn Tech to receive a partner discount!

Bad News- The Game

March 18, 2025Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment79248 views

What it is: This is part research project, part game where students take on the role of a fake news monger who drops all ethics to build a media empire. This game is intended to help students better identify the tricks used to manipulate thinking. In the game, players earn badges corresponding to the tactics used in the production of fake news, like polarization, conspiracy theories, discrediting, trolling, and invoking strong emotion. Through taking on the persona of someone building a fake news empire, students learn how to spot the manipulation tactics. The game is built around the psychological concept of inoculation theory, where exposure to weakened doses of fake news tactics helps create resistance or psychological immunity against fake news.

How to use Bad News in the classroom: Bad News is an interesting approach to helping students understand fake news, influence, and manipulation. By actually taking on the persona of someone spreading misinformation and using these tactics, students become more keenly aware of how these subtle moves are used to manipulate people’s perceptions. This would be a great provocation for junior high and high school students to engage in before a deep-dive conversation on fake news, spotting manipulative media tactics and the ethics associated. It’s also a great discussion starter about social media followers, likes, and engagement. When students can identify how tactics are used to grow an audience or gain credibility, suddenly, some of those “stars” with gobs of followers stop being so impressive. Bad News is an interesting way to let students see “the man behind the curtain” and understand the mechanics of what is really at play in the spread of fake news. Media literacy is one of those areas that needs to be prioritized in schools with the flood of content that students engage in every day, it’s essential that we cultivate citizens who can critically think about what they are consuming.

Students can play Bad News solo, with partners, or in small groups. It is heavy on reading and responding to prompts, so keep that in mind as you decide how to pair students. The game itself takes about 20 minutes to complete. After playing, bring students together for a Socratic discussion about the experience. How was it easiest to deceive? What were the moments where you felt a moral or ethical dilemma? Where do you notice these tactics being used? If you were going to design a technology or system to combat fake news, where would you start? How do you see disinformation influencing public opinion? Which badge was the easiest to earn and why?

Tips: This game was designed in partnership with DROG and the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab at Cambridge University. They have done a great job of sharing the science behind the game on the About Page. More information for using the game in the classroom can be found here.

Citizen University

March 17, 2025March 17, 2025Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment77981 views

What it is: Citizen University is an experiential approach to cultivating civic identity. What I love about Citizen University is they immediately address the challenges and barriers faced when addressing civic education in the classroom; there can be cultural and codified barriers, making it feel charged, insufficient, or impossible to do. Building citizenship is about more than where we come from or knowing the tenants of our country; it’s about our everyday choices, mindsets, and how we see ourselves as contributing members of society implicated in caring about the problems around us. Our communities are depending on us to engage and live like a citizen. Citizen University uses the Power + Character = Citizenship approach to help students understand themselves as citizens.

How to integrate Citizen University in the classroom: The Citizen University curriculum is meant for students ages 14-24. The curriculum provides modular, adaptable, and experiential content designed to increase students’ literacy in power flows in civic life and how it can be used to improve communities, deepen their sense of moral discernment and critical thinking, and foster the belief that practicing citizenship matters. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of curriculum. This is meant to be tailored to your place and the people in your community. It’s a way for each student to share why their community matters to them and what they commit to as a responsible citizen. This isn’t your typical download-and-implement curriculum. The folks at Citizen University are deeply committed to walking alongside the educators doing this important work. You convene a network, and they have a team of facilitators that will help your community adopt and adapt the curriculum.

It can feel overwhelming to consider the complexity of meeting this present moment in the United States…so many of us are wondering how to best use our voice and effort to make change. I’m a big believer that education is transformative. When we teach students how to be in a community with each other well and when we develop responsive citizens, real change is possible. We need more active participants in our communities to make them places where everyone has a voice and experiences belonging.

Tips: If you are interested in bringing Citizen University to your community, contact their program director (contact information is under the “Convene your network” section.)

Short Answer- Build better k12 writers through social, engaging writing activities

September 5, 2024September 5, 2024Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment81525 views

I love technology built by teachers—it’s just different. You can feel the truth and passion behind it. It has features that you know were intentionally considered by someone who has been in the classroom. Short Answer is a fantastic writing tool that was obviously built by teachers solving real problems for real students. The best! With so many tech companies racing to put AI into classrooms in ways that don’t center learners, it’s nice to see companies like Short Answer who are starting with students. (Big congratulations to the Short Answer team, who was just named as a YASS Prize semi-finalist!)

What it is: Short Answer is a k-12 formative assessment and writing instruction tool that capitalizes on the learning potential of adaptive comparative judgment. It makes writing feedback more social, engaging, and effective for students. Watch the video above to see exactly how it works! With Short Answer, teachers can monitor written student responses and lead discussions to create a shared understanding. The tool encourages students to be central to constructing and participating in the learning process through discussion and debate of peer-constructed responses. Every student gets immediate, actional feedback through comments and class discussion. Students become active participators and evaluators of learning by giving feedback to others. I love the way that reflection is built right into Short Classroom…I’m a big believer that the bulk of learning actually happens in the reflection.

How to Use Short Answer in the Classroom: Short Answer makes it easy to get started as a teacher. You can quickly sign up for their Basics package, which is free and includes unlimited question launches and the All-In, Pair-It, and Battle Royale activities. The Basics package has some limits on how many questions can be saved, how many feedback criteria can be added, and there is no open feedback option for students. However, the Basics is the perfect way to dip your toe in and start using Short Answer in your classroom. The other packages are SUPER reasonably priced for what this tool adds to your writing classroom.

Short Answer has done a phenomenal job of creating interactive product walk-throughs to help you start using it effectively with your class immediately (again, clearly designed by a teacher!). There are also phenomenal standards-aligned subject guides to think about how Short Answer might be used in your classroom or a specific area of study. They’ve thought about it’s use in algebra, biology, business, calculus, careers, chemistry, computer science, earth science, economics, English, ethics, FCS, foreign language, geometry, neuroscience, physics, pre-algebra, psychology, SEL, social studies, statistics, trigonometry, US history, world history, and, of course, writing. No matter what subject matter you are teaching, Short Answer can be used to enhance and involve students in more nuanced and impactful writing activities. My favorite use is for inquiry-based learning since that is how we approach all learning at Anastasis. To see Short Answer in an inquiry-based setting, see the video above.

I love how this tool truly puts the learner in the center of the writing classroom by giving them authentic writing tasks, authentic audience and feedback, and competency-based instruction. It is brilliant. I know that a lot of teachers are feeling concerned about the ways that AI is impacting the writing classroom specifically. Short Answer is a tool that encourages authentic writing and feedback, which is made better because of its social aspect.

Tips: Short Answer has an incredible resource library for teachers. Don’t miss the classroom posters, which help promote a healthy culture of feedback between students.

BombBomb is hands down the best way to upgrade your email game

January 11, 2021January 11, 2021Kelly Tenkely1 Comment198289 views

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 teacher’s 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 couldn’t 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 teacher’s 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 wasn’t working well even for families who didn’t 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 I’m still using BombBomb to send my weekly newsletter. I’ve never been one who loves recording video (I wouldn’t say I love it now…but 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! I’ve 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 don’t 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 don’t have their own email, you can still use BombBomb to create video content and related links (seriously, it’s 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, it’s 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.).

We’re 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. You’ll 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!

Here’s an example of an email I sent out in prep for Giving Tuesday…see you really don’t have to be fancy with your videos, just record and share!

Mindstamp: Easily create dynamic interactive videos

January 8, 2021January 11, 2021Kelly Tenkely2 Comments224465 views

It’s been a minute (or thousands) since I’ve 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 I’d 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 we’ll continue to use them even in non-COVID years.

Mindstamp- Create interactive videos for your classroom

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 we’ve 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 use…this 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 couldn’t 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. You’ll 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 isn’t 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. We’ve 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 you want to form an alliance with me? (Version 3.0)

January 5, 2020January 5, 2020Kelly Tenkely1 Comment284075 views

“Do you…want to form an alliance…with 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:

To encourage educators in their blogging endeavors, whether they be new, established, or otherwise.
To create a united network of educators working toward a larger goal of being heard by those not in education. I wanted the general public to know us for the highly qualified professionals that we are.

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 wouldn’t have started a school (it was their mentoring and inspiration that had me believing impossible things). Without the Alliance, I wouldn’t still be running a school (it was their encouragement that kept me going). Without them, I wouldn’t 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! I’m 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 couldn’t 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 couldn’t 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 couldn’t 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 wouldn’t 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 school…because 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 you…want to form an alliance…with 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 it’s 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 wouldn’t 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, we’ll 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.

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