What’s your favorite tool for having students create visuals like infographics and diagrams? Bryon Carpenter from Fresh Air At Five joins me to answer that very question. We discuss Adobe Express, Canva, Google Drawings, and Google Slides. Also, I share about Brisk’s new Podcast Generator, a Chromebook monitoring feature coming soon to Google, SchoolAI’s response to some ethical concerns, and a documentary recommendation.
#EduDuctTape Episode 124
0:00:00 INTRO
0:02:09 Today's Guest: Bryon Carpenter
0:06:49 Which of the Following is Less Torturous
0:10:22 Today's #EduDuctTape Question
0:11:58 Adobe Express
https://www.adobe.com/express/
0:12:41 Picking the Right Tool
0:14:11 Google Drawings
drawings.google.com
0:15:54 How Does Google Drawings Relate to Google Slides
0:18:26 Object-Based, Drawing-Based, and Procreate
0:20:17 Shapegrams
https://shapegrams.com/
0:21:04 3. Layers in Adobe Express
0:21:35 Ages for Adobe Express
0:23:18 What Can You Do in Adobe Express?
0:25:58 Adobe Express Pricing
https://www.adobe.com/education/express/
0:28:17 Adobe Creative Cloud
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html
0:36:14 AI in Adobe Express
0:36:12 Adobe Voice to Animate
https://www.adobe.com/express/create/animation
0:38:27 Adobe Text Effects
https://www.adobe.com/express/create/ai/text-effects
Today’s EdTech and Edu News:
0:41:07 Brisk’s New Podcast Generator
briskteaching.com/podcast
0:46:03 Google’s New ‘Class Tools’ for Chromebooks
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/class-tools-chromebook/
0:47:56 SchoolAI Responds to Ethical Concerns
https://schoolai.com/blog/strengthening-ethical-ai-in-classrooms-improvements-to-historical-figure-spaces
0:50:38 The First Class documentary
https://www.thefirstclass.org/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jake (00:00):
What's your favorite tool for having students create visuals
like infographics and diagrams?
My friend Bryon Carpenter fromFresh Air at five joins me today
to answer that very question.
Bryon and I discuss Adobe Express, Canva,Google drawings, and Google Slides.
Also I share about Brisk's new awesomepodcast generator feature, a Chromebook
(00:21):
monitoring feature Coming soon to Google,SchoolAI's response to some ethical
concerns and a documentary recommendation.
Let's get to it.
Welcome.
(00:42):
Welcome in Duct Tapers.
Welcome into a new episode.
I apologize for not coming to you lastweek as I had planned two for last week.
I mentioned it in the last episodethat I was gonna do two in a week.
I should have known better.
I was not able to pulloff two in one week.
You all knew better.
You heard me and you were like,Jake, there's no way you're
doing two episodes in one week.
We know you.
This is gonna come out next week.
So yes, here we are this week with a greatepisode with my friend Bryon Carpenter.
(01:05):
Can't wait for you to hear that.
Um, because I am so unpredictableand it's hard to tell when I
will unleash these episodes.
You wanna make sure you're subscribedin whatever app you're listening
to this in so that you don't missthose episodes when they drop.
Speaking of when new episodesdrop next week, we should.
I can't make any guarantees here folks.
We should have an updates episode witha couple of EdTech and education news
(01:27):
updates and a new soapbox moment that'salready percolating around in my brain.
So I think, I think I've got a goodchance of having that ready in time
'cause I've already got an idea forwhat we're gonna talk about next week.
So, yeah, make sure you're subscribedso you don't miss out on those.
And then make sure you sharewith your friends with educators.
I wanna support as many as I can andshare as much news and information
with them as possible to help them out.
They're all working so hard, uh,especially those of us here in the states
(01:50):
that are winding down our year aboutto reach the end of the school year.
We're in the tough days where it seemslike it'll never end and we, we gotta
get there and get it to summer, andthen we get our big reward with summer.
But I wanna help those educators out asmuch as I can, so make sure you're sharing
so they could hear the wisdom that myguests share and all the news happening
in the education and ed tech space.
All right, without further ado,speaking of amazing guests, let's get to
(02:13):
today's interview with Bryon Carpenter.
All right.
Today's guest is Bryon Carpenter.
Bryon
is in his 17th year of teaching mathand science in an online environment,
as well as blended learning andface-to-face in media design Abbotsford
(02:33):
Virtual School in Abbotsford, BC Canada.
That is British Columbia.
See, I know my stuff Bryon, he said in2013, technology is merely a tool, which
wielded appropriately can enhance thishuman endeavor that we call education.
Sounds pretty educational duct tapey.
So as you could tell, me andBryon are aligned in a lot of
(02:55):
different ways here with our
thoughts about educationand educational technology.
You could find Bryon on Bluesky orTwitter at Bryon, B-R-Y-O-N-C-A-R,
as in Carpenter, BryonCar,.
Um, or find his show at Fresh Airat five on Twitter, or check out
at Fresh Air at five on YouTube.
That will all
(03:16):
be in the show notes,but not in the show notes
actually, here in the podcast isthe one and only Bryon Carpenter.
Welcome in, bryon, how you doing?
Bryon (03:22):
Great, Jake.
Thanks for having me.
It's, exciting to be here on theEducational Duct Tape podcast.
Jake (03:28):
Yeah, you've
Bryon (03:29):
long time listener.
Jake (03:30):
First time caller.
Bryon (03:31):
First time caller.
Yep.
Jake (03:33):
I actually, you've been on the show multiple times,
just never in a live interview.
Bryon (03:38):
an in like this, that's
Jake (03:39):
right!
normally the Bryon appears, so theway it works is I record the episode.
And then it's time shifted likethree weeks before I hear Bryon's
response because I record,
I edit, I publish.
And then the next morning Bryon takeshis now infamous Fresh Air at Five Walk,
um, and listens to some podcasts andrecords his thoughts, which he posts
(04:01):
on social media, and then turns intoa podcast too, which I love the Fresh
Air at five show and then the social media
clips.
And I normally get to hearBryon's thoughts on the podcast.
Three weeks after I recorded it.
But now, now I, um, I, I get to actuallyhave the live back and forth conversation.
I'll have to wait for the response now.
Bryon (04:20):
I know it's it's way, it's like, I don't know the internet
today compared to sending mail
Jake (04:25):
Right.
Bryon (04:26):
Right.
You know?
Jake (04:27):
We've been, we've been pen pals for years, Bryon, and
Bryon (04:30):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yes.
Jake (04:33):
now it's live.
So how well, first of all, I wasgonna say, how many miles have
you walked on fresh air at fivenow, but I'm betting you would say
how many Kilometers as a, as a Canadian,how many kilometers you've walked.
So what do you prefer?
Mile, first of all,miles or, or kilometers.
What are we going with
Bryon (04:49):
kilometers.
makes more sense to me.
Yep.
Jake (04:51):
Okay, so how many do you think we've traveled over the seasons of Fresh Air?
At five.
Bryon (04:55):
you know, that is one thing I haven't actually thought
about is how far I've gone.
But if we, if we say
Jake (05:04):
Okay.
Bryon (05:05):
210 now,
Jake (05:07):
210.
Okay.
Bryon (05:08):
say we're, we're walking three days a week,
maybe
Jake (05:12):
Okay.
Bryon (05:12):
four days a
week,
Jake (05:14):
Okay.
Bryon (05:14):
I'm putting in probably five kilometers.
So five times four is 20
times 200 puts us at 40,000.
a
long
Jake (05:26):
That's all right.
Bryon (05:27):
I haven't done that math yet, so that's
Jake (05:30):
that's pretty cool.
Bryon (05:31):
that's, that's a long ways.
Yeah.
Jake (05:33):
Most podcasts
have their, like, their like 100episode anniversary and 200 episode
anniversary You're gonna have your50,000 kilometer anniversary and
a hundred thousand kilometer anniversary.
That's, gonna be cool.
I, I like that.
Bryon (05:44):
that's pretty good.
Yeah.
But some days I don't walk, if it'sreally gross, like pouring rain
and three degrees Celsius, whichis probably about 37 Fahrenheit.
Uh,
Jake (05:54):
Yeah,
Bryon (05:54):
pretty chilly.
And I,
Jake (05:56):
yeah,
Bryon (05:56):
I decide not to go out in
the
Jake (05:58):
yeah.
I don't blame you.
I
Bryon (05:59):
In the
Jake (06:00):
don't,
Bryon (06:00):
I was a lot
more hardcore,
but,
Jake (06:02):
yeah.
Bryon (06:02):
I'm softening up, I think, I don't know.
Getting older.
Jake (06:05):
It, it's our, it's our old age.
We're both soft now.
Bryon (06:09):
exactly.
Jake (06:11):
Well, I like it.
I love the show.
I hope everybody that doesn't listen.
Hopefully they do listen,I don't know why they're
not listening, but hopefully theydo, uh, follow you on social so
they could they could see those.
Uh, the day you record normally asyou're kind of rounding out your walk,
you record those reflections and theycould subscribe to the podcast or on
YouTube, uh, and check out Fresh Air atfive and hear your thoughts on, on a lot
of different shows, which I I've learnednew your, like sometimes it's like,
(06:32):
oh, that, like I don't normallylisten to that show, but
that episode Bryon reflected
on like, I feel like Ishould listen to that one.
Or sometimes I'm like, I needto listen to that whole show.
So it's kind of a cooldiscovery thing for me.
To
Bryon (06:42):
Yep.
Jake (06:43):
be able to discover new shows, and I love it.
So
thanks for, thanks for doing that.
Thanks for
introducing us to so much.
Bryon (06:47):
You're welcome.
Jake (06:48):
Well, Bryon, as you know, as a listener, uh, we gotta
start off with a game here.
Okay.
Uh, So we're gonna play a game of whichof the following is less torturous,
which as you know, is likeanother game that goes.
By
another name
Bryon (07:03):
Yes.
Jake (07:03):
I'm not legally allowed to say on the show.
Um, so I say the longer term, which iswhich of the following is less torturous.
So you and I are, are men of supremeprestige with our distinguished beards.
Now
Bryon (07:23):
Hmm.
Jake (07:23):
is, yours is Fuller.
And, and as, as like as.
Um, I don't, it has moredistinguishment than mine does,
Bryon (07:30):
Hmm.
Jake (07:31):
we both, we
both have our distinguished beard.
So I've got a beard related question for
Bryon (07:35):
Okay.
Jake (07:35):
question to you is, would you rather your beard glow in
the dark?
Bryon (07:41):
Hmm.
Jake (07:42):
you're in the dark, your beard is glowing or attract birds like a
Disney princess when she sings.
Now your beard doesn't sing.
It just attracts birds that justlike tweet around and sit in it.
Bryon (07:53):
Oh my.
Oh my.
Both are, that's a, this is tough.
This is tough.
I'm gonna go with,
uh, see, 'cause if it glows inthe dark, it's gonna keep, keep
my wife awake when we're sleeping.
'cause it's glowing.
The, I'm gonna go with theDisney Princess Bird thing.
You know?
Disney Prince?
(08:14):
It's the Prince, not the princess.
Okay, good.
Jake (08:17):
prince Bryon.
Bryon (08:18):
Prince Bryon.
Yes.
The, oh, the Tweety Birds, you know?
Jake (08:21):
My, as I've told telling you before we started recording,
my wife and two of my kidsare actually at Disney right
Bryon (08:26):
Yes.
Jake (08:27):
they texted me and they said they saw Prince Bryon
with his beard full of birds
Bryon (08:32):
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a hallucination right there.
Jake (08:37):
Right.
Prince Eric with his beard
Bryon (08:40):
yes, exactly.
Yes.
Jake (08:41):
I've gotta tell you, Bryon, I. When I was trying to come up
with a question to ask today, I havesome old ones and some ones I've
made up before and stuff like that.
I I, was like, we need toask a beard related question
because you've got an impressive beard.
Bryon (08:54):
thank you.
Jake (08:54):
I've got, I've got the JV version, um, the junior VARs.
Is
junior varsity a thing in Canada?
Bryon (09:02):
Well, not really.
Jake (09:03):
So a high school like sports
Bryon (09:05):
you go.
Jake (09:05):
their varsity team knocks down, notch down varsity.
So my beard is jv, we're
Bryon (09:09):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Jake (09:11):
so I went to chat GPT and I said, I need some beard related,
which of the following is less torturous
Bryon (09:18):
There you go.
Jake (09:19):
I was giggling reading all of them.
It was
so hard to pick.
Just one to
Bryon (09:23):
That's hilarious.
You know that game, the name, thegame by the other name, I, I play
that at the beginning of everyclass with my students and I get.
Yeah, Every day I put a pollup in Microsoft Teams and I get
them to answer, and they're like,this is hard, Mr. Carpenter.
I'm like, well, I'll tell you theright answer when you're done.
And they're like, you can't do that.
I'm like, well, I got, that's true.
I can't.
That's true.
(09:43):
I can't.
It's just, you know, it'sjust to engage them in
Jake (09:45):
Yeah.
Bryon (09:46):
a a goofy thing.
Right.
You know?
Yeah.
Jake (09:49):
a lot of stuff like that.
Like either that or like drawing things.
I would do it all in PearDeck back in the day.
Bryon (09:53):
Yeah.
Jake (09:54):
would you rather is what I
Bryon (09:56):
Yes, yes.
Jake (09:58):
class.
You've got educational, like copyrightlaws are okay to use it in the
Bryon (10:02):
Yes.
Yeah, for sure.
for sure.
Good stuff.
Jake (10:06):
about beards though, 'cause none of the
Bryon (10:08):
No, that's right.
if you had a beard.
if you see that, but like,but we don't, I know.
Just work with me.
Work with me.
Jake (10:16):
listen, it's a would your rather question.
You've gotta do some imagining here.
Bryon (10:19):
Exactly.
Exactly.
It's guy.
Yep.
Jake (10:21):
Okay.
All Right.
Let's get into the real reasonyou're here, which is not
to To play, play games and
Bryon (10:26):
Mm-hmm.
Jake (10:27):
fires And such.
It is.
answer an EducationalDuct Tape question, which
Bryon (10:32):
good.
Mm-hmm.
Jake (10:33):
I'm gonna tell the listeners now, where a question a teacher might ask,
the answer that we're gonna propose
is a technology tool.
Now, technology is not alwaysthe answer, but on this
show we focus in on
times where technology is a tool.
As that quote that I mentioned ofyours earlier, is merely a tool, which
when wielded appropriately can enhancethis human endeavor we call education.
(10:56):
So we're looking for times whentechnology Can be wielded in
a way that enhances education.
So my question for you is, 'causeI know, because I'm thinking about
something else in your bio there.
My question for you is, whattool or strategy would you use
to have students create visuals?
2D not like a, video necessarily,but like a infographic, a diagram,
(11:16):
a a, drawing a representationof something learned in class.
I'm sure as a science teacher, there'sa lot of times that's come up and
certainly in your role in teachingmedia design, this comes up a lot.
So
Bryon (11:26):
Hmm.
Jake (11:27):
what are what what's your go-to?
What are some of yourgo-tos for doing that?
Bryon (11:30):
All Right.
So back two years ago, my districtchanged from being Google to
being a Microsoft district.
So there was a lot of, uh, creativeloss that we have all experienced
because of the transition.
Now I'm two years into Microsoft andI'm gonna say that Microsoft has a lot
of capacity for doing creative things.
So that being said.
(11:51):
my go-to two years ago would've been.
Google drawings or Google Slidesis a, a tool for creative, like
graphic design, Or Adobe Express.
It was Adobe CreativeCloud Express back then.
They have now shortened their name toAdobe Express, and my go-to today is
Adobe Express for creating graphics,creating infographics, creating
(12:15):
posters, creating icons for my, youknow, student profile, my, my teacher
profile on my accounts, creatingvisuals for the screens at school.
you know, I use Adobe Expressa lot, like a lot, a lot.
I personally, in my personal life as well.
you know, the Fresh Air fivelogo was designed in there.
(12:37):
And, um, yeah, so for gettingstudents to do this, I would,
I would suggest Adobe Express.
Okay.
Now that is one tool and, wetalk about choice paralysis, so
I just keep it simple, right?
I keep the tool belt pretty,pretty simple with specific tools.
You and I have talked about tool beltsin the past and having too many tools
(12:59):
and walking into Home Depot going, Ineed to create a hole You know, there's
all kinds of things from sledgehammersto, you know, circular saws, to you
know, there's, I don't know, what else?
Can you make a hole with a bucket?
that's not a great tool forthat, but you could, there's
a hole in the bucket Exactly.
Or a drill.
Right.
And knowing your, knowing your mostefficient means of getting to these
(13:23):
things that I think is importantthat we have that digital literacy
as educators so that we can go the
efficient way to get there isthis, you know, it's kinda like
math, kinda like algebra, right?
Algebra rules say do whatever youwant to one side of the equation, you
have to do it to the other, right?
So students are like, well,I don't know what to do.
(13:44):
I'm like, well, do something.
It doesn't really matter.
Whatever you want you, you'll, you'llbe able to solve it eventually, right?
But the most efficient is torecognize what is being asked at
the outset of the question, right?
So if a teacher asks, you know, howcan I get my students to make visuals?
I say, it depends.
And we talk about theteacher's digital literacy.
(14:06):
We talk about the student'sdigital literacy and the scaffold.
We, we need to get to oneof these tools, right?
Jake (14:14):
Yeah.
Lots of good insights here.
Let's, let's break down a few of those.
so
Bryon (14:17):
Sure.
Jake (14:17):
you talked about how back in the day you would've
used Google drawings or slides,
Bryon (14:22):
Yes.
Jake (14:22):
which I used to use drawings a lot.
I don't use it as much anymore.
Can you tell for the, listenerswho maybe never really dabbled
on using Google drawings or
slides to create like graphicsinstead of just presentations.
What
Bryon (14:35):
Right.
Jake (14:35):
like, what are the powers there?
What, why?
Why is it a good tool for kids to use?
Bryon (14:39):
Okay.
The, because of accessibility,it's easy to access.
If students have a, a districtGoogle account or even their
own personal Gmail account.
Yeah, there's age restrictions andthings like that related to that.
but if they have a Google account, theycan get to a tool called Google Drawing.
Now it is not a drawing tool.
(15:00):
It has a pen in there.
It is not like an art canvas thing.
It's more of an object baseddrawing like creation tool.
I would, I would compare it directlyto Adobe Illustrator, which is
big and heavy and complicated.
As far as an object based graphics toolcompared to taking a photograph, for
(15:22):
example, and like Photoshop and being ableto manipulate properties of that, right?
So it's a very simple tool.
you can put shapes, you can put text,you can put, buttons that link out to
things that if you did have an audiofile that you wanted to attach to a
Google drawing, you could easily do that.
Google drawings are a one page,tool, so there's only one canvas.
(15:47):
There aren't, there aren't multiplelayers of canvases you can put,
but the objects are all layeredon top of each other, up and down.
how is that related to Google Slides?
Google Slides is just a multi-pageGoogle drawing, I think I would call it.
Right?
It's got, it's got a lot of capacityfor doing presentations, but almost
(16:09):
everything you can do in a Googledrawing, you can do in Google Slides.
It's simple to use.
It's easy to access.
You have one account that allowsyou to get to all these lightweight,
agile, oh, and collaborative tools.
We used to make our school newsletter.
I took that project from the office.
(16:31):
For a class of mine for media design,my grade elevens and twelves, and
using Google drawings, I would makean eight and a half by 11 size canvas,
like a portrait canvas, and then welearned about margins and how we need
to stay away from the, I can't printin this area on a printer, right?
Quarter inch margin all the way around.
(16:53):
We would stay outta that space, butwe did all of our newsletters and you
can see those on my school website ifyou're interested, in Google drawings.
So because of the collaborative nature,I could have a class of 13, 18 students
all working on one document on differentpages of that document right now.
And it was fast, it wasagile, it was very, very good.
(17:15):
Right.
And so that, that, that's a go-toif you've got Google accounts.
Jake (17:20):
I agree.
one I talking about the differencebetween drawings and slides, differences
or a couple main differences.
Bryon (17:24):
Yep.
Jake (17:24):
like you said, slides is multi-page
drawings is not, um, drawings, there'sno, unless they've changed it since
I last looked, there's no built-inway to add a video to a drawing
where you can in a Technically.
You could put it in
slides,
Bryon (17:37):
Yes.
Jake (17:38):
copy it
and paste it into thedrawings, and then it
works in the drawing.
hack for doing it,
Bryon (17:42):
Oh, oh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jake (17:44):
but yeah, there's no, there's
no inherent way in there.
And I think the other thing that's
nice in drawings This is kind of twofold.
One
is that you could change thedimensions of the page on the fly.
Like just drag that corner, you know,
Bryon (17:58):
Oh yeah.
Yep.
Right.
Jake (18:00):
you'd have to change the page set up.
And sometimes thatdistorts stuff on the page,
Bryon (18:04):
Yeah.
It kind of blows things up and, yep.
Jake (18:08):
and then the other thing about drawings is you could export them as
PNGs with a transparent background.
I'm
not sure if you could do that in a
Bryon (18:15):
I don't think it's, I don't think you can do it in slides
as a transparent background.
So the transparent backgroundis a drawings thing.
Jake (18:22):
Yeah.
Right.
Bryon (18:22):
Yep.
Jake (18:23):
there's so many tools that could take the background out of
stuff,
Bryon (18:25):
Right?
Jake (18:25):
it's nice to know you could do that in
Bryon (18:27):
Yes.
Jake (18:28):
you mentioned it being object
based in there.
Is that a technical term?
we, could we say that's object based, in
Bryon (18:34):
I
Jake (18:34):
design?
Bryon (18:34):
so.
I would say so.
Yes.
I.
Jake (18:36):
And then what would you
Bryon (18:38):
Because they're distinct objects Like a part of a, A rectangle Yeah.
Or a text, or a curve or a line ormultiple lines can be grouped together and
treated as an object that can move around.
Yeah.
Jake (18:54):
so then if you use the tool, like, um, I forget
what the one art
program on the iPad, uh, it's a drawing
one.
My daughter uses it.
Art classes use it pro.
Bryon (19:04):
Uh oh, procreate.
Jake (19:06):
procreate.
Bryon (19:07):
Procreate.
Yes.
Yes.
Jake (19:08):
if you'd call that something different, right?
If that's not object.
Bryon (19:12):
I, I would call that not object based.
I would call that exactly.
Or stroke based.
And it is more like, painting, right?
You, you have your tooland you can draw with it.
I don't know if you can c select thatwhole object while it was clicked
as an object and deal with it.
maybe I'm not, I'm not familiar with that.
Jake (19:32):
I think you probably
can, but I think it's coming at it fromthe, like it's not made for doing that.
It's made for operating the other way.
Like shading is, is
Bryon (19:39):
Right,
Jake (19:40):
not an, it's not one object or
Bryon (19:41):
right.
Yes, yes, yes.
Jake (19:44):
a new term for it.
I never thought about whatthe term that goes there would
be, and
Bryon (19:47):
All right.
Jake (19:48):
it's got some benefit there.
You mentioned
in layers and a lot of graphic designprograms, more sophisticated graphic
design programs are also in layers.
So I
Bryon (19:58):
Yes.
Jake (19:59):
the benefit of maybe doing Google drawings, say with kids,
elementary schoolers, they'renot using a sophisticated graphic
design tool, but they're startingto interact and things, things are
in front of or behind each other.
They're in layers.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah.
Bryon (20:14):
Yeah.
Jake (20:15):
and so I think there's some benefit there, just as an experience.
Bryon (20:18):
Yes.
Jake (20:19):
That's cool.
Good, good advice Um, actually, I'm gonnathrow in too, if anybody is interested
in having kids do graphic design andslides or drawings, uh, Tony Vincent,
uh, runs a great thing ShapeGrams,
Bryon (20:30):
yes, yes.
Jake (20:31):
in slides,
Bryon (20:34):
Drawings, he does it in drawings, but it's possible to do it in slides,
because they, they're a back and forth.
Right.
but I I have used Shapegrams with ourgrade three to five students, years back.
And you know, when we changedfrom Microsoft, a whole lot of
things changed and I was like,can I do this in PowerPoint?
And I asked Tony, he says, if
you want Bryon, take and
(20:54):
try to put it into PowerPointand see what you can do with it.
Right.
And it's just, it's too cumbersome.
I decided against that.
And there's other ways ofgetting at teaching, layering
objects and things like that.
And, Adobe Express is, my other go-to it.
it does a good job of beingable to show you the layers.
Stack of layers on the side of thescreen as you're building something
(21:17):
so you can see where actually it is.
Right.
You know, and you're like, how come Ican't, how come I can't click on it?
Well, it's because it'sbehind three other things.
And if you click on it on thethe layer stack, then it can, you
can get access to it that way.
Jake (21:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's doing that same thingof teaching them those, those
Bryon (21:36):
Yes.
Jake (21:36):
skills.
So how young of kids doyou use Adobe Express with,
Bryon (21:41):
currently grade six.
There are,
Jake (21:44):
low do you think it could go?
Bryon (21:45):
oh, I think because of the, the busyness of the interface, you know,
as we went from Adobe Voice, whichwas very simple to spark post to Adobe
Express the complexity of the userinterfaces gotten there, but with, some.
Click on the plus, click on acustom sized graphic to make you
(22:06):
graphic and that kind of thing.
I, I could probably work with grade foursand fives on that, you know, because.
I, I don't see that a problem.
it depends on the digitalliteracy of the students, right?
Like if they have come through, you know,the early years of elementary and I've
been working with iPads and with drawingsand having that language of being,
(22:27):
being there, then Yeah, we could get toaccessing these tools much earlier, right?
But.
We, don't do that in my school becauseour students who don't have that digital
literacy background, even though we'rea virtual school, we do have K to grade
five in our building one day a week.
And I do teach themabout digital literacy.
But if I saw them more often, definitelyI could be using Adobe Express.
(22:50):
and those, that simple entry leveltool, you know, as early as probably
grade three with students, you know.
Jake (22:56):
Yeah, I can see that, I haven't, I haven't been in express
much over the last few years, may
Bryon (23:02):
Okay.
Jake (23:02):
maybe even since it was called Spark.
I think I used to make podcastartwork and, and promos and
stuff like that in there.
Bryon (23:09):
Yes.
Jake (23:10):
but haven't been using it a lot.
And
Bryon (23:11):
Right.
Jake (23:12):
we have a, lot of listeners that use that other tool,
Bryon (23:15):
Canva.
Jake (23:16):
that, that starts with a c Yeah, we'll
Bryon (23:17):
Canva.
Jake (23:18):
will, we will talk about that one in a minute.
Bryon (23:19):
Mm-hmm.
Jake (23:20):
how, like, tell us a little bit about Express.
What could, what could we do in there?
Bryon (23:24):
Well in express you can create a static graphic.
You can create a, you know,whatever dimensions of that
graphic is that you need.
everything from square to rectangle andthe, there are some preset sizes there?
but then there's thecustom size graphic, right?
Which is what do you need it to be inorder to fit into, where are you going?
(23:46):
So that is about understanding whereyou're gonna be using this work.
In the future so that you canget a reasonable product out.
And what do you need it to be?
Do you need it an image file as a jpeg?
Do you need it as a PNG, that canhave a transparent background so that
you can put it into something else?
what else?
(24:06):
I'm not sure the, you know, doyou need it as a bookmark size?
You're making a bookmark, right?
So you could, you could actually takeyour ruler, figure out what size you
actually want your bookmark to be.
'cause you have an awesomebookmark you got at the bookstore.
And I was like, I want to makebookmarks with my students that are
this size and make something that size.
(24:27):
And then with some manipulation,you can actually print it
to scale to the right size.
Jake (24:35):
And then you could print, you could
Bryon (24:37):
Yes.
Yeah.
And
Jake (24:38):
online,
Bryon (24:39):
You could.
Jake (24:40):
could
interact with it in a lot of
Bryon (24:41):
That's right.
You could embed it on yourwebsite because there is share
online availability with that.
you could download it asa PDF file for printing.
beyond that, we start getting intotaking a static graphic and then
adding animation to that graphic.
So the text moves around and spinscomes in off the side, right?
As soon as you start doing animationthings, your output then becomes.
(25:05):
an MP four file, which is a videoformat file, which opens a whole new
world of all kinds of things, you know,takes me to that Disney song, Right.
Jake (25:17):
Yeah.
Which It's probably exciting foryou in that class to be able to go,
like, we can go, we can always go
further.
Bryon (25:23):
Yes.
Jake (25:23):
We could, take this thing we've been doing with these static
images and now add some animations.
we could
pull 'em out into a video
Bryon (25:29):
Exactly.
'Jake: edit em together into
Yes.
Exactly, exactly.
So there's that capacitywithin Adobe Express.
Canva's got all this capacity as well.
It has, it's another tool that isan entry level graphics design tool
that allows people with not as muchgraphic design capacity to actually
(25:49):
be able to make good looking things.
So I, as much as I'm an Adobe Express guy.
Canva is great.
It's just not the worldthat I spend my time in.
Right.
Jake (26:00):
is, Um, what's The pricing like with using Adobe Express Do
you guys have to have, um, like
the Creative Cloud
Bryon (26:06):
in our district, we had used free versions, which allows you to do
actually quite a lot of things right,and from the outset, looking at your
free versions of what Canva used to be.
This was back a number of years ago.
The free version of Adobe Spark andAdobe Express gave me more capacity
with my students for what's free.
(26:26):
but I don't know if that's, you know,now there's Canva for education.
So the teacher can have anaccount and then it's free pro
accounts for their students.
With a creative cloud account with yourdistrict in the backend, students can
have the pro experience in Adobe Express.
So we are playing, we can play at thepro level in our classrooms because
(26:47):
these tools, these companies have said,we think that, that's important, right?
So.
They want you to start using thesetools before they leave, so then
they're more likely to use thesetools when they leave, even if
there's a cost associated with them.
Right?
Jake (27:00):
Yeah.
was the,
that was the Google, theGoogle plan years ago.
Right.
Bryon (27:05):
Absolutely.
Jake (27:06):
so dominant in the education space
Bryon (27:08):
Yes.
Jake (27:08):
us free access.
In hopes that someday every employee would
be typing their
Bryon (27:14):
That's right.
Exactly, exactly.
And then you know whentheir model changed because.
Well, we can change our model.
It affected, you know, districts likemine because we had, you know, both
types of accounts and our, our districtsaid we're, we're, we've got Microsoft
accounts, so we're gonna work in Microsoftand it's as good as Google they said.
right?
The, the district senior administration.
(27:36):
It's different.
It's not, I'm not saying it's bad.
The change is actually really rough.
You know, when we talk about changein technology and, you know, changing
from one system to another and how,you know, you and I, Jake, we're big
adopters of change, but when we actuallypushed into that box and lid gets
shut on us, we don't like it, do we?
We don't like the fact that, Well.
(27:57):
that we're being forced to change.
Right?
It's the, the forcing to change asopposed to the option to change.
So.
Jake (28:04):
Yeah, I saw a quote the other day that was, humans
aren't resistant to change.
They're resistant to being changed.
Right.
So like, , we're willingto try something new.
We're not willing to beforced to try something new.
That's when we, that's when we push back,is when somebody's pushing it on us.
Right.
Okay, so talking about the pricing thing.
so Adobe Express for Educationis, is free for K to 12.
(28:27):
Um, but then there's also theAdobe Creative Cloud, which
is a step up from that, right?
It's, yes, and that's a paid one, but thatbrings in Photoshop and Illustrator and
Bryon (28:37):
Premier Pro and like all manner of the whole
ability of Adobe creation.
Right.
I think, I think, I don'tknow a hundred percent.
There might be differentlevels of that as well, right?
Jake (28:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bryon (28:50):
And um, you know, in our districts there are some, you know, , media
design teachers that use Photoshopand Illustrator in their classrooms.
I personally have not chosen to do thatbecause I think that I can teach the
techniques of graphic design away from the
technology of graphic design, right?
(29:13):
The strategies and the process, right?
You're more worried about the, thelanguage that we use so that when we
get to a new type of tool, we go, ohyeah, yeah, I need to put this layer.
Is there layers here?
Is there, you know, are there objects?
Is there a library of stockimages that's available?
Do I have to go get them?
Import those things, and having that, thatlanguage, I think that's really important.
Jake (29:37):
Yeah, I saw a quote the other day that was, um, humans
aren't resistant to change.
They're resistant to being changed.
Right.
So like, we're willing, we'rewilling to try something new.
We're not willing to beforced to try something new.
That's when we, that's when we push back,is when somebody's pushing it on us.
Right.
So, okay, so talkingabout the pricing thing.
(29:57):
So when, so Adobe Express forEducation is, is free for K to 12.
Um, but then there's also theAdobe Creative Cloud, which
is a step up from that, right?
It's, yes, and that's a paid one, but thatbrings in Photoshop and Illustrator and
Bryon (30:13):
Premier Pro and like all manner of the whole.
Ability of Adobe creation.
Right.
I think, I think, I don'tknow a hundred percent.
There might be differentlevels of that as well, right?
Jake (30:25):
Yeah.
Bryon (30:25):
Yeah.
And um, you know, in our districtsthere are some, you know, media degra,
media design teachers that use Photoshopand Illustrator in their classrooms.
I personally have not chosento do that because I think that
I can teach the techniques ofgraphic design away from the.
Technology of graphic design, right?
(30:50):
The strategies and the process, right?
You're more worried about the, thelanguage that we use so that when we
get to a new type of tool, we go, ohyeah, yeah, I need to put this layer.
Is there layers here?
Is there, you know, are there objects?
Is there a library of stockimages that's available?
Do I have to go get them?
Import those things, and having that, thatlanguage, I think that's really important.
Jake (31:13):
Yeah.
And I think , you're buildinglearners who are like technologically
ambidextrous, you know?
It doesn't matter what tech tool they use.
Yes.
If they go to a company someday that'susing Canva or is using Illustrator
or is using some tool that hasn'teven been invented yet, or, uh,
Figma or, or some other tool Yep.
They're gonna be ready to rock.
Because, because of theskills you've taught them that
weren't technology focused.
(31:34):
Yes.
It reminds me of the way that likeguys, like you and I reacted when Google
Docs became common in our workplaces.
Like I'd been using Word for so longand before that I'd been using Word
Perfect and when I started using Docs,there was like no, no transition period
for me really, you know, like I just, Ikind of just knew how to do everything.
'cause it really was a verysimilar interface and I knew
(31:55):
I knew how to do things.
Yes.
Bryon (31:57):
The biggest change actually when that happened was me trusting
the fact that cloud storageis where my stuff is gonna be.
Right?
Like.
I just wanna put it on my computer.
What, what do you mean youcan't put it on your computer?
Well, I mean, you can put it on yourcomputer as a Word document, but like,
I, I don't want word, I want GoogleDocs, but I don't, what's this cloud?
Right.
You know, and it looks, it's funnyto look back and go, we have um,
(32:19):
we have our cloud storage and youknow, how do we buy music today?
How do we do all the things that we do?
And we are trusting the cloud.
Yeah.
You know, I look out the window andit's a different shape every day.
Jake (32:30):
How do I, how do I trust my file's still in there if that cloud change.
Exactly.
Bryon (32:32):
Exactly, exactly.
But you know, over time I've, I'vebecome accepting of that and I
don't know, it's the way it is now.
Jake (32:39):
It's cumulonimbus today.
Are my file still in there?
Pretty much.
Bryon (32:42):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So
Jake (32:44):
I know in Canva.
Which is the one that I'musing the most often right now.
, Yeah, there's a lot of templatesand things like that in there.
, Is that the case?
Yes.
With Adobe, are therelots of templates still?
Bryon (32:56):
Many, many templates.
Many
templates, a lot of accessibletemplates for all manner of things.
, I don't teach my studentsto use templates.
, I hardly talk about templates.
They're there, they see them,they know they're there.
Um, but I don't go, okay.
Today we're gonna go find our favoritetemplate and make a, an infographic.
Right?
Right.
I go, how do we change thebackground of the canvas?
(33:16):
How do we put the objects on there?
How do we do all these things?
Oh, you need some inspiration?
Let's go look at some examplesof infographics, and then I
want you to create your own.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Do I know?
No.
If they are using templates or not, Ican tell because templates are Oh, yeah.
Mag magnificent, and they're very welldesigned as opposed to some of the
(33:37):
work my students give me is not that,but others that are getting good at
it, it, it's like, oh, I can stilltell, because there's things about
templates, you know, the way they dotheir seemingly insignificant graphics
up in the corner and the backgrounds andthings like that, you know, but that's,
we can teach our students these things.
Jake (33:56):
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, when I think about the way I use templates.
I never leave them the way they are.
Right.
I always go and mess with stuff in it.
Yes.
but if I didn't know how to do thethings, I wouldn't be able to do that.
Right.
So, so you're also developingkids who can go in and Yeah.
Now they're ready to use thetemplate effectively because
they know how to do the things.
(34:16):
Right.
Bryon (34:17):
That's right.
And, and I think that's related to anothertechnique that we're learning in our
world today about prompt engineering.
Jake (34:23):
Yes.
Bryon (34:24):
Yeah.
Using a menu driven AI system comparedto a like text-based, you gotta put
all the information in system, right?
And the two different things.
One, you can get to magnificentthings as opposed to having to learn
how to write it so that you can getto those same magnificent things.
Yeah.
Jake (34:41):
Yeah.
That's a, that's a really good point.
Yep.
Yeah.
And that's what people worry aboutwith like, the changes, like this is
totally off topic, but with, with howAI is affecting, uh, writing, is that
you or I could use AI to help us withwriting things because we are, we are
experienced writers, you know what I mean?
And so, so we know then what tolook for with the tweak, what
(35:02):
to change, what to ask for.
But if a kid comes up through the schoolyears and doesn't develop that skill first
and just starts using ai, that's right.
It's gonna change things, which isthe same kind of thing there too.
I, I will, I will note,actually, I'll ask a question.
, so you teach the media design, butyou also teach science in science
class if you assign them to do,let's say an infographic, , would you
(35:22):
allow them to use templates there?
Bryon (35:26):
I would, I, I wouldn't have a problem with that because
in our online science class, I amnot teaching them media design.
I am not in front ofthem long enough to go.
We have a three day we're gonnalearn about Adobe Express.
Right.
And now I expect everything to look likesomething was created in Adobe Express.
Right.
I give them choice and say,use a tool to create a product.
(35:49):
Yeah.
And so I go, give me a PowerPoint.
Yeah, you can use Canva, you canuse a tool, whatever you want.
I'm not looking at yourprettiness of your project.
I am looking at the content ofyour project a hundred percent.
So you can have the prettiest projectin the world, but if you don't know what
that word photosynthesis means and can'texplain that to me, it doesn't matter.
Right, right.
(36:09):
Yeah.
You're grading on mastery.
Right?
So it's about what areyou trying to get to?
Are you looking at the product or theprocess and watching those things.
Right.
And so in my media design class, I'mwatching my students in process every day.
Yeah.
They make really nice products,but that's not the point.
Yeah.
It's about how did you get to that?
Right.
And I do sometimes get themto reflect on that process.
(36:30):
I sometimes get them to reflect,why did you choose the colors
you chose for your poster?
Right.
You know, and get them to do a flipstyle video of reflect on what you made
and tell me why you made it that way.
Right.
Yeah.
Jake (36:41):
Versus in science class where you're like, can I look at your
really ugly graphic design and tellthat you understand photosynthesis?
Bryon (36:47):
Right, exactly.
Draw me a diagram on the back ofa napkin with a, with a pen at a
restaurant and it gets your point across.
Right?
Jake (36:54):
Yeah, I agree 100%.
Um, what is AI use like in Adobe Express?
Does it have some AI image generation?
Bryon (37:00):
Yep, it does.
It has, uh, uses the FireflyAdobe Firefly engine.
, Which is integrated into Adobe Express.
There is image from textwhich is really fun.
Mm-hmm.
And for our students, that's an accessibleway of getting to seeing what AI can do.
Jake (37:18):
and can't do,
Bryon (37:18):
it's like and can't do, and it's an immediate response thing, right?
Like I put in a text prompt.
Like, I get something out, I change thattext prompt and I get a new thing out, and
then I put the original text prompt backin and I don't get the original thing out.
Mm-hmm.
It changes.
And so there's the ability to starttalking about AI literacy inside
of Adobe Express with, you know,what do you need for your prompt?
(37:41):
Mm-hmm.
, Which is then.
It's the, the one part of AI whereI'm not having to tell the chat bot
that I want it to generate an imagebecause it's just assumed through
that portal that I'm making an image.
Right.
, So there's that, there is a voiceto animate, which is a cool thing.
It makes a little.
(38:02):
Animated character.
You can't make your own animatedcharacter, but you can use one of probably
150 characters that as it's talking, itwaves, its hands around, the mouth moves.
It's totally in sync withwhat you, the voice gave it.
Yeah.
Right.
So it's a, a different way of allowingstudents to record their voice and
(38:23):
have it on the screen, but not theirface, because a lot of students
are self-conscious about that.
So there's that you can use, um.
AI in there to get to changing thetype of font like bubbles or clouds
and you font effects so it can affectyour fonts, which is pretty new.
Jake (38:41):
Oh, that's cool.
I haven't tried the font effects.
I've tried the voice to animate,which is really so easy to use.
Kids just record their voice.
Yes.
Pick a character.
It does.
It reminds me of, uh,chatterpix back in the day.
Um, absolutely.
But chatterpix you could put in yourown picture and say, this is the mouth.
Yeah.
Whereas voice to animate,you cannot do that.
Right.
Bryon (38:59):
There's a way to do it.
Jake, there's a way.
Oh yeah.
So chatterpix like, yeah.
Um, you can take a picture and thenwhen you go to animate a voice from,
animate a character from your voice,you can go to the mouth selections and
have it give you some big red lips that.
Cartoon wise talk.
Mm-hmm.
Or a flat mouth that opens and closes.
(39:21):
And I, I use that for our, we have asalmon tank project and I take, you
know, a little swimming salmon andI put a little mouth on 'em, like
chatterpix and have, have it talk tothe kids and put it into a bigger video.
Right.
So there's a way of getting it.
Okay.
I like that.
I didn't know
Jake (39:35):
about
Bryon (39:35):
that.
And, you know, I, I don'tknow if Canva can do that.
So that's one thingthat Adobe Express has.
That's just, that's brilliant.
I think.
Yeah.
Jake (39:44):
I kind of feel like I want to, can I take your class now?
Oh, sure.
I'm just gonna join.
I just wanna join, join Bryon's class.
Uh,
Bryon (39:52):
this is Jake.
This is Jake.
I'm not gonna tell you how oldJake is today, but he's joining
us from, uh, way over there.
Yes.
Way over there.
Jake (39:59):
Way over there.
He's.
Jake's a remote learner.
Right?
A remote learner.
Not even remotely in the samecountry as in remote learner.
Exactly, exactly.
I think the text effects oneis one I need to try out.
'cause I've seen that.
Like you could, do you,how does that work?
I um, do you pick, you pick what kindof material to make the font out of?
Bryon (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you basically choose a font style.
Like Arial or Bebas Neu orsomething big and chunky.
Right?
Like a display type one.
Okay.
So not papyrus.
And then you say applied not papyrus.
That's very thin.
No.
Um, and then you say, I wouldlike you to make, you know,
um, make a, a jar of pickles.
(40:41):
Effect.
I'm serious.
This is fun, man.
I couldn't do that.
So yeah, Erika Sandstrom, she didthis at one of her conferences the
way I was at a conference recentlyand talking to her - @GreenScreenGal
- and she was like, watch this.
And she types in jar of picklesand I'm like, that's cool.
Yeah, like it's.
The pickles are in a jar with a shinything with, you know, like, so there's
that, or clouds, or, you know, wavesof the ocean or, and get descriptive
(41:06):
with what you're trying to get to.
And there's differentways that you can work
Jake (41:09):
with that.
That sounds really cool.
I'm gonna, I'm excited to try that out.
Yeah, the art for this episodeshould be Bryon Carpenter,
written in Jar of Pickles font.
Bryon (41:17):
Okay.
Alright.
I'm expecting it bro.
I'm expecting it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For my podcast art, I use Adobe Express.
Uh, text to image for nearlyall my podcast art for my,
the covers for every episode.
So I have it set up.
It just, it takes me momentsto do, type in what I'm trying
to get to and boom, to do that.
So love that.
(41:37):
Very
Jake (41:37):
cool.
Well thanks.
Thanks for sharing somuch Awesome stuff, Bryon.
I appreciate it.
Bryon (41:41):
Oh, you're welcome.
Glad to share.
Like I said, I glad we could talk.
I, we learned some stuff from each other.
Yeah.
So
Jake (41:45):
I, I, uh, like I said, I wish I could be in your class to learn
more about your, your media designexpertise, and I think everybody's gonna
be following you on, on the socials tolearn from you and to tune into fresh
air five to hear your reflections.
What I'm excited for right now,though, Bryon, is for when you listen
to this episode on your morning walk,and then record your thoughts on it.
(42:06):
Oh, it's like inception.
Bryon (42:07):
Yes.
It.
Yes, exactly.
It's a very meta, meta.
Meta.
Jake (42:11):
And then as you finish the one more thing version of your
response, I'm gonna be wondering,does the top stop spinning or not?
Bryon (42:19):
Uhhuh.
Exactly.
Jake (42:22):
All right, Bryon.
Well, thanks for being on Buddy.
It was a pleasure.
Bryon (42:24):
You're very welcome.
Jake (42:27):
Uh, so glad we finally got Brian on the show.
He has so much wisdom to share.
I hope you guys are all gonna go outthere and follow him and continue to learn
from his work and listen to his podcast.
He has a lot of great wisdom andreflections on podcasts to share.
A lot of great opportunitiesto learn from this guy.
He's a good guy too.
so now let's transition over totoday's edition of some EdTech and
education news and updates for you.
(42:48):
First off, we're gonna start off withone that I'm really excited about.
So
have you ever had a colleague tell you,oh, you could do that with this tech
tool, and you're like, no, you can't.
And they're like, yes you can.
And then you realize that youtotally missed a new feature
and they're totally right.
So that happened to me the other day, andwow was I glad that that person was right.
(43:09):
So.
What I discovered was that Brisk, the AItool already known for helping educators
with feedback and differentiationhas introduced a podcast generator.
So this new feature lets you turn asource like a Google Doc, A PDF, A
website, or a YouTube video into ashort form podcast that you can listen
to or send for your kids to listen toyou just click the Brisk It button.
(43:34):
Which as someone who deeplyappreciates good barbecue, I can't
help but think of smoked brisketevery time I see that button.
But anyhow, this new feature is almostas awesome as a brisket sandwich almost.
Uh, but anyhow, if you click Createand Choose podcast, brisk generates
a podcast summarizing your content.
(43:55):
And you can even guide it byspecifying what to focus on.
So if you're using a website thatcovers a range of different topics,
you could say, I'm focusing on thesespecific topics that are on that website.
You could even specify certainacademic standards for it to focus on.
And it creates that podcastbased on that guidance
.Now before you get too excited, a quick reality check here.
(44:15):
The length of the podcast thatyou can have generated depends
on which brisk plan you're on.
So if you're using the freeversion, you can generate podcasts
that are up to two minutes long.
Then the length depends on justwhat the AI chooses, but , the
max will be two minutes.
If you have the pro subscription,those podcasts will go up
to four to five minutes.
(44:36):
So a max of five, they tend tobe in the range of four to five.
And if you have access to the Briskfor Schools and Districts plan, so
if your district or your school paysfor that, then your podcast that it
generates will be up to 10 minutes long.
So since they are short podcasts,it's not really for replacing like
a full lesson plan, uh, but they'regreat for quick recaps or helping
(44:58):
make content more accessible.
Plus, we know the attention spans ofour kids are short, so I think those
lengths are actually just fine with me.
If your content would require moretime, like you'd say you need 20 or 30
minutes, you may find that chunking itand creating shorter ones might be better
anyhow relating to their attention span.
So chunk that information intomultiple of these short podcasts.
(45:21):
Now if you're thinking, wait,doesn't NotebookLM already do this?
You're not wrong.
But Brisk does a few thingsdifferently, and in some cases
better, and in some cases, NotebookLMis the right choice for you.
So first off, brisk gives you a transcriptthat you see as you play the episode.
NotebookLM doesn't do that.
Brisk gives you a shareable link so yougenerate a link, share it out to your
(45:43):
kids in Google Classroom or wherever.
With NotebookLM, you have to download thefile and share it manually, like through
Google Drive or something like that.
Brisk lets you translate podcastsinto over 40 languages, so you
could tell it to generate thepodcast in Spanish if you want.
Huge for English language learners andmultilingual family engagement as well.
NotebookLM doesn't do that.
(46:05):
That said, I do think the AIgenerated voices in brisk sound a
bit less natural than NotebookLM's.
They're not bad, just alittle less human-like.
Like if I listen to a NotebookLM podcast,I sometimes can't tell it wasn't real
humans.
With Brisk I think there'sthat uncanny valley and you
can tell, but still (46:21):
not bad.
Still very usable.
Also, NotebookLM's interactive featurewhere you could talk back to the host.
Really Rad.
Brisk doesn't have that.
And the other thing too,with NotebookLM number one,
the podcast episodes are longer.
And number two, you could put multiplepieces of information in there for
it to generate the podcast from.
Whereas with Brisk, it's just one,but you can maybe finagle it and
(46:44):
combine multiple things into oneGoogle Doc and then would use that too.
And now for the feature in Brisk thatreally got me excited and makes me say
like, oh, this is cooler than NotebookLM
For this reason, that'sthe Boost It button.
So the Boost It button has beenthere in Brisk for a while.
So after you make anything in Brisk,including the podcast, you could
boost it into an interactive activity.
(47:07):
So we're talking exit tickets orpulse checks, or tutor chatbots.
Stuff that not only extends the learningand makes it more engaging, but also gives
you a window into student understanding.
And because Brisk tracks thoseinteractions, it's a built-in formative
assessment tool with a side of oversight.
That is powerful.
So I haven't seen this implementedin a classroom yet, but I've
(47:29):
experimented with it and I'm impressed.
If you've used it, I'd love to hearwhat you thought and how it worked
out in the wild of a real classroom.
So let us know what you think onBluesky or on SpeakPipe #EduDuctTape
or Speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.
Next, a few months ago, Google droppeda little preview of something called
(47:50):
Class Tools, and it could be a bigdeal for classrooms using Chromebooks.
Now, to be clear, I don't thinkthese features are live yet.
They're coming soon, andthey're only coming to managed
Chromebooks, which is most of you.
Your Chromebooks are managed by yourschool district, but only coming
to schools using the GoogleWorkspace for Education plus Plan.
(48:11):
So many of you I know are not on plusplans, so it's definitely not something
every school will have access to.
That said, here's what they say it'llinclude, so you'll be able to remotely
share and pin content to student screens.
You can send stuff rightto the kids screens.
You'll have live screen viewing,so you'll be able to see if they're
off task by looking live at theirscreen, and you could see what
(48:32):
they're working on in real time.
There's also a new live captioningand translation feature where
your voice as the teacher at thefront of the room gets captioned
onto their screens, and individualstudents can choose the language
that they're seeing on their screen.
Sounds pretty amazing.
I'm not sure what exactly this onemeans, but Google says that teachers
(48:52):
can create workbooks and send classcontent to their students' devices.
Now, I'm not sure if this is some specialworkbook feature that's part of it or if
they're just saying, create a workbookin a Google Doc and you can send it
to your kids' screens, I'm not sure.
But we'll have to wait tosee that until it launches.
If this is giving you, , GoGuardian orHapara or Securly vibes, you're not wrong.
(49:13):
It's very much like that.
This feels like Google dippingits toe into that space.
the keyword blog post gives usa few more sneak peeks into what
this will look like, and the coreidea is similar, more visibility.
More accessibility and quicker waysto engage students during instruction.
So have you heard anything about it yet?
Do you maybe have access to a betaof it if you have let us know what
(49:35):
we think on Bluesky or on SpeakPipe.
Now on a more serious note, SchoolAIrecently made a set of changes to its
historical figure spaces, and while it'sa tech update, it's also a story about
accountability and ethics and what weshould expect from EdTech companies.
So, here's the backstory.
Some educators raised very real concernsand very valid concerns about how
(50:00):
school AI's AI avatars were handlingcomplex, sensitive historical topics.
Specifically how figures like AnneFrank were being portrayed, including
disturbing and historically inaccurateresponses about the Holocaust, not okay.
Definitely not okay.
Not even close.
The worry was that students mightencounter simplified or inaccurate
(50:21):
or even harmful portrayals inthese AI generated interactions.
So SchoolAI not too long ago, releaseda statement, a blog post of sorts
responding and announcing that theyhave made some thoughtful updates.
They've now added safeguards toprioritize historical accuracy
to provide fuller context.
And this part is key (50:39):
Make teacher-led moderation a core part of the
experience when using these tools.
So now, instead of students jumpinginto a chat with a quote unquote
historical figure, and just hoping forthe best teachers have more control
and visibility, and school AI hasdone more on the backend to give us
more confidence in the experience.
(51:00):
It's a good step and a necessary one,and it's encouraging to see a company
respond directly to criticism and tofeedback, especially when it comes
to how AI shows up in classrooms.
Now, while it's a good step, somepeople would say it's not far enough.
They'd like them to go furtherthan this and not have these
historical figure spaces at all.
(51:21):
They have a handful of reasons,all of which are valid.
I think, uh, those include theimplications of making technology seem
more human, potential bias that maycreep into these spaces, the risk of
inaccuracy, the weirdness of quoteunquote talking to deceased people, , and
the fact that these figures did notconsent to this usage of their persona,
(51:42):
and also the troubling notion ofpretending to speak to flawed figures
like past presidents who were enslavers.
How do we feel about that?
Right?
So I think there's a lot to thinkabout here and a lot of discussions to
be had, but I wanted to make sure youwere aware of these issues and this
update to SchoolAI, even if we thinkthey maybe should be going further.
I think it's, it's important to beaware of what they have done so far.
(52:05):
So what do you think?
Are these updates enough?
Uh, where should we be speakingup , and encouraging 'em to do more?
Uh, where do we need to be talkingout to these companies in the way
that people did with school ai?
And they responded, , which isexciting and, and good news.
So let us know what you thinkon Blue Sky or SpeakPipe.
And our final one for today.
I just finished watching TheFirst Class, a documentary that
(52:26):
follows the first graduating classof Crosstown High in Memphis.
I thought it was a powerful look at whatcan happen when a school prioritizes
community creativity and real worldlearning over test prep and doing
things the way we've always done them.
The film showcases project-based learning,problem-based learning, interdisciplinary
(52:46):
projects, and a different way ofthinking about school culture.
It's a great conversation starterfor anyone curious about what that
could look like in their context.
I found the stories of the actuallearners that are centered in that
school to be inspirational and moving.
I really enjoyed the movie just asa viewing experience, but I also
thought there was a lot to learn fromand to think about there as well.
(53:06):
And I also wanna give a shoutout to my friend Deion Jordan,
director of Teaching and Learning atKnowledgeWorks because he was one of
the founding educators at CrosstownHigh, and he's featured in the film.
I probably would not have heardabout this work had it not
been for Deion's involvement.
So thanks to Deion and congratson that work that he was a part of
there, , and to this great, , projectthat , this, , documentary film became.
(53:28):
, So I highly recommend this film.
You could watch it for free on theirsite, and if you do, let us know what
you think on Bluesky or SpeakPipe.
As always, Bluesky with #EduDuctTapeor speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.
Well, that does it for today.
Thanks for being here with us.
I hope you enjoyed the show.
I hope your May is going wonderfully.
(53:49):
I hope you've got somegreat spring weather.
Uh, if you're in the continentsthat are having spring right now,
I hope your school years wrap up
well, uh, if you're in thatsame situation, thank you
for all you do for learners.
Thank you for tuning inand have a great day.
(54:50):
Bryon is in his 17th year of teaching mathand science in an online environment, as
well as blended learning and face-to-facein media design at the Abbotts Ab.
Abba.
Abba.
Abba.
Abba, Abba, Abba.
That's gonna, there'san outtake right there
What's your favorite tool for having students create visuals
like infographics and diagrams?
My friend Bryon Carpenter fromFresh Air at five joins me today
to answer that very question.
Bryon and I discuss Adobe Express, Canva,Google drawings, and Google Slides.
Also I share about Brisk's new awesomepodcast generator feature, a Chromebook
(00:21):
monitoring feature Coming soon to Google,SchoolAI's response to some ethical
concerns and a documentary recommendation.
Let's get to it.
Welcome.
(00:42):
Welcome in Duct Tapers.
Welcome into a new episode.
I apologize for not coming to you lastweek as I had planned two for last week.
I mentioned it in the last episodethat I was gonna do two in a week.
I should have known better.
I was not able to pulloff two in one week.
You all knew better.
You heard me and you were like,Jake, there's no way you're
doing two episodes in one week.
We know you.
This is gonna come out next week.
So yes, here we are this week with a greatepisode with my friend Bryon Carpenter.
(01:05):
Can't wait for you to hear that.
Um, because I am so unpredictableand it's hard to tell when I
will unleash these episodes.
You wanna make sure you're subscribedin whatever app you're listening
to this in so that you don't missthose episodes when they drop.
Speaking of when new episodesdrop next week, we should.
I can't make any guarantees here folks.
We should have an updates episode witha couple of EdTech and education news
(01:27):
updates and a new soapbox moment that'salready percolating around in my brain.
So I think, I think I've got a goodchance of having that ready in time
'cause I've already got an idea forwhat we're gonna talk about next week.
So, yeah, make sure you're subscribedso you don't miss out on those.
And then make sure you sharewith your friends with educators.
I wanna support as many as I can andshare as much news and information
with them as possible to help them out.
They're all working so hard, uh,especially those of us here in the states
(01:50):
that are winding down our year aboutto reach the end of the school year.
We're in the tough days where it seemslike it'll never end and we, we gotta
get there and get it to summer, andthen we get our big reward with summer.
But I wanna help those educators out asmuch as I can, so make sure you're sharing
so they could hear the wisdom that myguests share and all the news happening
in the education and ed tech space.
All right, without further ado,speaking of amazing guests, let's get to
(02:13):
today's interview with Bryon Carpenter.
All right.
Today's guest is Bryon Carpenter.
Bryon
is in his 17th year of teaching mathand science in an online environment,
as well as blended learning andface-to-face in media design Abbotsford
(02:33):
Virtual School in Abbotsford, BC Canada.
That is British Columbia.
See, I know my stuff Bryon, he said in2013, technology is merely a tool, which
wielded appropriately can enhance thishuman endeavor that we call education.
Sounds pretty educational duct tapey.
So as you could tell, me andBryon are aligned in a lot of
(02:55):
different ways here with our
thoughts about educationand educational technology.
You could find Bryon on Bluesky orTwitter at Bryon, B-R-Y-O-N-C-A-R,
as in Carpenter, BryonCar,.
Um, or find his show at Fresh Airat five on Twitter, or check out
at Fresh Air at five on YouTube.
That will all
(03:16):
be in the show notes,but not in the show notes
actually, here in the podcast isthe one and only Bryon Carpenter.
Welcome in, bryon, how you doing?
Bryon (03:22):
Great, Jake.
Thanks for having me.
It's, exciting to be here on theEducational Duct Tape podcast.
Jake (03:28):
Yeah, you've
Bryon (03:29):
long time listener.
Jake (03:30):
First time caller.
Bryon (03:31):
First time caller.
Yep.
Jake (03:33):
I actually, you've been on the show multiple times,
just never in a live interview.
Bryon (03:38):
an in like this, that's
Jake (03:39):
right!
normally the Bryon appears, so theway it works is I record the episode.
And then it's time shifted likethree weeks before I hear Bryon's
response because I record,
I edit, I publish.
And then the next morning Bryon takeshis now infamous Fresh Air at Five Walk,
um, and listens to some podcasts andrecords his thoughts, which he posts
(04:01):
on social media, and then turns intoa podcast too, which I love the Fresh
Air at five show and then the social media
clips.
And I normally get to hearBryon's thoughts on the podcast.
Three weeks after I recorded it.
But now, now I, um, I, I get to actuallyhave the live back and forth conversation.
I'll have to wait for the response now.
Bryon (04:20):
I know it's it's way, it's like, I don't know the internet
today compared to sending mail
Jake (04:25):
Right.
Bryon (04:26):
Right.
You know?
Jake (04:27):
We've been, we've been pen pals for years, Bryon, and
Bryon (04:30):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yes.
Jake (04:33):
now it's live.
So how well, first of all, I wasgonna say, how many miles have
you walked on fresh air at fivenow, but I'm betting you would say
how many Kilometers as a, as a Canadian,how many kilometers you've walked.
So what do you prefer?
Mile, first of all,miles or, or kilometers.
What are we going with
Bryon (04:49):
kilometers.
makes more sense to me.
Yep.
Jake (04:51):
Okay, so how many do you think we've traveled over the seasons of Fresh Air?
At five.
Bryon (04:55):
you know, that is one thing I haven't actually thought
about is how far I've gone.
But if we, if we say
Jake (05:04):
Okay.
Bryon (05:05):
210 now,
Jake (05:07):
210.
Okay.
Bryon (05:08):
say we're, we're walking three days a week,
maybe
Jake (05:12):
Okay.
Bryon (05:12):
four days a
week,
Jake (05:14):
Okay.
Bryon (05:14):
I'm putting in probably five kilometers.
So five times four is 20
times 200 puts us at 40,000.
a
long
Jake (05:26):
That's all right.
Bryon (05:27):
I haven't done that math yet, so that's
Jake (05:30):
that's pretty cool.
Bryon (05:31):
that's, that's a long ways.
Yeah.
Jake (05:33):
Most podcasts
have their, like, their like 100episode anniversary and 200 episode
anniversary You're gonna have your50,000 kilometer anniversary and
a hundred thousand kilometer anniversary.
That's, gonna be cool.
I, I like that.
Bryon (05:44):
that's pretty good.
Yeah.
But some days I don't walk, if it'sreally gross, like pouring rain
and three degrees Celsius, whichis probably about 37 Fahrenheit.
Uh,
Jake (05:54):
Yeah,
Bryon (05:54):
pretty chilly.
And I,
Jake (05:56):
yeah,
Bryon (05:56):
I decide not to go out in
the
Jake (05:58):
yeah.
I don't blame you.
I
Bryon (05:59):
In the
Jake (06:00):
don't,
Bryon (06:00):
I was a lot
more hardcore,
but,
Jake (06:02):
yeah.
Bryon (06:02):
I'm softening up, I think, I don't know.
Getting older.
Jake (06:05):
It, it's our, it's our old age.
We're both soft now.
Bryon (06:09):
exactly.
Jake (06:11):
Well, I like it.
I love the show.
I hope everybody that doesn't listen.
Hopefully they do listen,I don't know why they're
not listening, but hopefully theydo, uh, follow you on social so
they could they could see those.
Uh, the day you record normally asyou're kind of rounding out your walk,
you record those reflections and theycould subscribe to the podcast or on
YouTube, uh, and check out Fresh Air atfive and hear your thoughts on, on a lot
of different shows, which I I've learnednew your, like sometimes it's like,
(06:32):
oh, that, like I don't normallylisten to that show, but
that episode Bryon reflected
on like, I feel like Ishould listen to that one.
Or sometimes I'm like, I needto listen to that whole show.
So it's kind of a cooldiscovery thing for me.
To
Bryon (06:42):
Yep.
Jake (06:43):
be able to discover new shows, and I love it.
So
thanks for, thanks for doing that.
Thanks for
introducing us to so much.
Bryon (06:47):
You're welcome.
Jake (06:48):
Well, Bryon, as you know, as a listener, uh, we gotta
start off with a game here.
Okay.
Uh, So we're gonna play a game of whichof the following is less torturous,
which as you know, is likeanother game that goes.
By
another name
Bryon (07:03):
Yes.
Jake (07:03):
I'm not legally allowed to say on the show.
Um, so I say the longer term, which iswhich of the following is less torturous.
So you and I are, are men of supremeprestige with our distinguished beards.
Now
Bryon (07:23):
Hmm.
Jake (07:23):
is, yours is Fuller.
And, and as, as like as.
Um, I don't, it has moredistinguishment than mine does,
Bryon (07:30):
Hmm.
Jake (07:31):
we both, we
both have our distinguished beard.
So I've got a beard related question for
Bryon (07:35):
Okay.
Jake (07:35):
question to you is, would you rather your beard glow in
the dark?
Bryon (07:41):
Hmm.
Jake (07:42):
you're in the dark, your beard is glowing or attract birds like a
Disney princess when she sings.
Now your beard doesn't sing.
It just attracts birds that justlike tweet around and sit in it.
Bryon (07:53):
Oh my.
Oh my.
Both are, that's a, this is tough.
This is tough.
I'm gonna go with,
uh, see, 'cause if it glows inthe dark, it's gonna keep, keep
my wife awake when we're sleeping.
'cause it's glowing.
The, I'm gonna go with theDisney Princess Bird thing.
You know?
Disney Prince?
(08:14):
It's the Prince, not the princess.
Okay, good.
Jake (08:17):
prince Bryon.
Bryon (08:18):
Prince Bryon.
Yes.
The, oh, the Tweety Birds, you know?
Jake (08:21):
My, as I've told telling you before we started recording,
my wife and two of my kidsare actually at Disney right
Bryon (08:26):
Yes.
Jake (08:27):
they texted me and they said they saw Prince Bryon
with his beard full of birds
Bryon (08:32):
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a hallucination right there.
Jake (08:37):
Right.
Prince Eric with his beard
Bryon (08:40):
yes, exactly.
Yes.
Jake (08:41):
I've gotta tell you, Bryon, I. When I was trying to come up
with a question to ask today, I havesome old ones and some ones I've
made up before and stuff like that.
I I, was like, we need toask a beard related question
because you've got an impressive beard.
Bryon (08:54):
thank you.
Jake (08:54):
I've got, I've got the JV version, um, the junior VARs.
Is
junior varsity a thing in Canada?
Bryon (09:02):
Well, not really.
Jake (09:03):
So a high school like sports
Bryon (09:05):
you go.
Jake (09:05):
their varsity team knocks down, notch down varsity.
So my beard is jv, we're
Bryon (09:09):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Jake (09:11):
so I went to chat GPT and I said, I need some beard related,
which of the following is less torturous
Bryon (09:18):
There you go.
Jake (09:19):
I was giggling reading all of them.
It was
so hard to pick.
Just one to
Bryon (09:23):
That's hilarious.
You know that game, the name, thegame by the other name, I, I play
that at the beginning of everyclass with my students and I get.
Yeah, Every day I put a pollup in Microsoft Teams and I get
them to answer, and they're like,this is hard, Mr. Carpenter.
I'm like, well, I'll tell you theright answer when you're done.
And they're like, you can't do that.
I'm like, well, I got, that's true.
I can't.
That's true.
(09:43):
I can't.
It's just, you know, it'sjust to engage them in
Jake (09:45):
Yeah.
Bryon (09:46):
a a goofy thing.
Right.
You know?
Yeah.
Jake (09:49):
a lot of stuff like that.
Like either that or like drawing things.
I would do it all in PearDeck back in the day.
Bryon (09:53):
Yeah.
Jake (09:54):
would you rather is what I
Bryon (09:56):
Yes, yes.
Jake (09:58):
class.
You've got educational, like copyrightlaws are okay to use it in the
Bryon (10:02):
Yes.
Yeah, for sure.
for sure.
Good stuff.
Jake (10:06):
about beards though, 'cause none of the
Bryon (10:08):
No, that's right.
if you had a beard.
if you see that, but like,but we don't, I know.
Just work with me.
Work with me.
Jake (10:16):
listen, it's a would your rather question.
You've gotta do some imagining here.
Bryon (10:19):
Exactly.
Exactly.
It's guy.
Yep.
Jake (10:21):
Okay.
All Right.
Let's get into the real reasonyou're here, which is not
to To play, play games and
Bryon (10:26):
Mm-hmm.
Jake (10:27):
fires And such.
It is.
answer an EducationalDuct Tape question, which
Bryon (10:32):
good.
Mm-hmm.
Jake (10:33):
I'm gonna tell the listeners now, where a question a teacher might ask,
the answer that we're gonna propose
is a technology tool.
Now, technology is not alwaysthe answer, but on this
show we focus in on
times where technology is a tool.
As that quote that I mentioned ofyours earlier, is merely a tool, which
when wielded appropriately can enhancethis human endeavor we call education.
(10:56):
So we're looking for times whentechnology Can be wielded in
a way that enhances education.
So my question for you is, 'causeI know, because I'm thinking about
something else in your bio there.
My question for you is, whattool or strategy would you use
to have students create visuals?
2D not like a, video necessarily,but like a infographic, a diagram,
(11:16):
a a, drawing a representationof something learned in class.
I'm sure as a science teacher, there'sa lot of times that's come up and
certainly in your role in teachingmedia design, this comes up a lot.
So
Bryon (11:26):
Hmm.
Jake (11:27):
what are what what's your go-to?
What are some of yourgo-tos for doing that?
Bryon (11:30):
All Right.
So back two years ago, my districtchanged from being Google to
being a Microsoft district.
So there was a lot of, uh, creativeloss that we have all experienced
because of the transition.
Now I'm two years into Microsoft andI'm gonna say that Microsoft has a lot
of capacity for doing creative things.
So that being said.
(11:51):
my go-to two years ago would've been.
Google drawings or Google Slidesis a, a tool for creative, like
graphic design, Or Adobe Express.
It was Adobe CreativeCloud Express back then.
They have now shortened their name toAdobe Express, and my go-to today is
Adobe Express for creating graphics,creating infographics, creating
(12:15):
posters, creating icons for my, youknow, student profile, my, my teacher
profile on my accounts, creatingvisuals for the screens at school.
you know, I use Adobe Expressa lot, like a lot, a lot.
I personally, in my personal life as well.
you know, the Fresh Air fivelogo was designed in there.
(12:37):
And, um, yeah, so for gettingstudents to do this, I would,
I would suggest Adobe Express.
Okay.
Now that is one tool and, wetalk about choice paralysis, so
I just keep it simple, right?
I keep the tool belt pretty,pretty simple with specific tools.
You and I have talked about tool beltsin the past and having too many tools
(12:59):
and walking into Home Depot going, Ineed to create a hole You know, there's
all kinds of things from sledgehammersto, you know, circular saws, to you
know, there's, I don't know, what else?
Can you make a hole with a bucket?
that's not a great tool forthat, but you could, there's
a hole in the bucket Exactly.
Or a drill.
Right.
And knowing your, knowing your mostefficient means of getting to these
(13:23):
things that I think is importantthat we have that digital literacy
as educators so that we can go the
efficient way to get there isthis, you know, it's kinda like
math, kinda like algebra, right?
Algebra rules say do whatever youwant to one side of the equation, you
have to do it to the other, right?
So students are like, well,I don't know what to do.
(13:44):
I'm like, well, do something.
It doesn't really matter.
Whatever you want you, you'll, you'llbe able to solve it eventually, right?
But the most efficient is torecognize what is being asked at
the outset of the question, right?
So if a teacher asks, you know, howcan I get my students to make visuals?
I say, it depends.
And we talk about theteacher's digital literacy.
(14:06):
We talk about the student'sdigital literacy and the scaffold.
We, we need to get to oneof these tools, right?
Jake (14:14):
Yeah.
Lots of good insights here.
Let's, let's break down a few of those.
so
Bryon (14:17):
Sure.
Jake (14:17):
you talked about how back in the day you would've
used Google drawings or slides,
Bryon (14:22):
Yes.
Jake (14:22):
which I used to use drawings a lot.
I don't use it as much anymore.
Can you tell for the, listenerswho maybe never really dabbled
on using Google drawings or
slides to create like graphicsinstead of just presentations.
What
Bryon (14:35):
Right.
Jake (14:35):
like, what are the powers there?
What, why?
Why is it a good tool for kids to use?
Bryon (14:39):
Okay.
The, because of accessibility,it's easy to access.
If students have a, a districtGoogle account or even their
own personal Gmail account.
Yeah, there's age restrictions andthings like that related to that.
but if they have a Google account, theycan get to a tool called Google Drawing.
Now it is not a drawing tool.
(15:00):
It has a pen in there.
It is not like an art canvas thing.
It's more of an object baseddrawing like creation tool.
I would, I would compare it directlyto Adobe Illustrator, which is
big and heavy and complicated.
As far as an object based graphics toolcompared to taking a photograph, for
(15:22):
example, and like Photoshop and being ableto manipulate properties of that, right?
So it's a very simple tool.
you can put shapes, you can put text,you can put, buttons that link out to
things that if you did have an audiofile that you wanted to attach to a
Google drawing, you could easily do that.
Google drawings are a one page,tool, so there's only one canvas.
(15:47):
There aren't, there aren't multiplelayers of canvases you can put,
but the objects are all layeredon top of each other, up and down.
how is that related to Google Slides?
Google Slides is just a multi-pageGoogle drawing, I think I would call it.
Right?
It's got, it's got a lot of capacityfor doing presentations, but almost
(16:09):
everything you can do in a Googledrawing, you can do in Google Slides.
It's simple to use.
It's easy to access.
You have one account that allowsyou to get to all these lightweight,
agile, oh, and collaborative tools.
We used to make our school newsletter.
I took that project from the office.
(16:31):
For a class of mine for media design,my grade elevens and twelves, and
using Google drawings, I would makean eight and a half by 11 size canvas,
like a portrait canvas, and then welearned about margins and how we need
to stay away from the, I can't printin this area on a printer, right?
Quarter inch margin all the way around.
(16:53):
We would stay outta that space, butwe did all of our newsletters and you
can see those on my school website ifyou're interested, in Google drawings.
So because of the collaborative nature,I could have a class of 13, 18 students
all working on one document on differentpages of that document right now.
And it was fast, it wasagile, it was very, very good.
(17:15):
Right.
And so that, that, that's a go-toif you've got Google accounts.
Jake (17:20):
I agree.
one I talking about the differencebetween drawings and slides, differences
or a couple main differences.
Bryon (17:24):
Yep.
Jake (17:24):
like you said, slides is multi-page
drawings is not, um, drawings, there'sno, unless they've changed it since
I last looked, there's no built-inway to add a video to a drawing
where you can in a Technically.
You could put it in
slides,
Bryon (17:37):
Yes.
Jake (17:38):
copy it
and paste it into thedrawings, and then it
works in the drawing.
hack for doing it,
Bryon (17:42):
Oh, oh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jake (17:44):
but yeah, there's no, there's
no inherent way in there.
And I think the other thing that's
nice in drawings This is kind of twofold.
One
is that you could change thedimensions of the page on the fly.
Like just drag that corner, you know,
Bryon (17:58):
Oh yeah.
Yep.
Right.
Jake (18:00):
you'd have to change the page set up.
And sometimes thatdistorts stuff on the page,
Bryon (18:04):
Yeah.
It kind of blows things up and, yep.
Jake (18:08):
and then the other thing about drawings is you could export them as
PNGs with a transparent background.
I'm
not sure if you could do that in a
Bryon (18:15):
I don't think it's, I don't think you can do it in slides
as a transparent background.
So the transparent backgroundis a drawings thing.
Jake (18:22):
Yeah.
Right.
Bryon (18:22):
Yep.
Jake (18:23):
there's so many tools that could take the background out of
stuff,
Bryon (18:25):
Right?
Jake (18:25):
it's nice to know you could do that in
Bryon (18:27):
Yes.
Jake (18:28):
you mentioned it being object
based in there.
Is that a technical term?
we, could we say that's object based, in
Bryon (18:34):
I
Jake (18:34):
design?
Bryon (18:34):
so.
I would say so.
Yes.
I.
Jake (18:36):
And then what would you
Bryon (18:38):
Because they're distinct objects Like a part of a, A rectangle Yeah.
Or a text, or a curve or a line ormultiple lines can be grouped together and
treated as an object that can move around.
Yeah.
Jake (18:54):
so then if you use the tool, like, um, I forget
what the one art
program on the iPad, uh, it's a drawing
one.
My daughter uses it.
Art classes use it pro.
Bryon (19:04):
Uh oh, procreate.
Jake (19:06):
procreate.
Bryon (19:07):
Procreate.
Yes.
Yes.
Jake (19:08):
if you'd call that something different, right?
If that's not object.
Bryon (19:12):
I, I would call that not object based.
I would call that exactly.
Or stroke based.
And it is more like, painting, right?
You, you have your tooland you can draw with it.
I don't know if you can c select thatwhole object while it was clicked
as an object and deal with it.
maybe I'm not, I'm not familiar with that.
Jake (19:32):
I think you probably
can, but I think it's coming at it fromthe, like it's not made for doing that.
It's made for operating the other way.
Like shading is, is
Bryon (19:39):
Right,
Jake (19:40):
not an, it's not one object or
Bryon (19:41):
right.
Yes, yes, yes.
Jake (19:44):
a new term for it.
I never thought about whatthe term that goes there would
be, and
Bryon (19:47):
All right.
Jake (19:48):
it's got some benefit there.
You mentioned
in layers and a lot of graphic designprograms, more sophisticated graphic
design programs are also in layers.
So I
Bryon (19:58):
Yes.
Jake (19:59):
the benefit of maybe doing Google drawings, say with kids,
elementary schoolers, they'renot using a sophisticated graphic
design tool, but they're startingto interact and things, things are
in front of or behind each other.
They're in layers.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah.
Bryon (20:14):
Yeah.
Jake (20:15):
and so I think there's some benefit there, just as an experience.
Bryon (20:18):
Yes.
Jake (20:19):
That's cool.
Good, good advice Um, actually, I'm gonnathrow in too, if anybody is interested
in having kids do graphic design andslides or drawings, uh, Tony Vincent,
uh, runs a great thing ShapeGrams,
Bryon (20:30):
yes, yes.
Jake (20:31):
in slides,
Bryon (20:34):
Drawings, he does it in drawings, but it's possible to do it in slides,
because they, they're a back and forth.
Right.
but I I have used Shapegrams with ourgrade three to five students, years back.
And you know, when we changedfrom Microsoft, a whole lot of
things changed and I was like,can I do this in PowerPoint?
And I asked Tony, he says, if
you want Bryon, take and
(20:54):
try to put it into PowerPointand see what you can do with it.
Right.
And it's just, it's too cumbersome.
I decided against that.
And there's other ways ofgetting at teaching, layering
objects and things like that.
And, Adobe Express is, my other go-to it.
it does a good job of beingable to show you the layers.
Stack of layers on the side of thescreen as you're building something
(21:17):
so you can see where actually it is.
Right.
You know, and you're like, how come Ican't, how come I can't click on it?
Well, it's because it'sbehind three other things.
And if you click on it on thethe layer stack, then it can, you
can get access to it that way.
Jake (21:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's doing that same thingof teaching them those, those
Bryon (21:36):
Yes.
Jake (21:36):
skills.
So how young of kids doyou use Adobe Express with,
Bryon (21:41):
currently grade six.
There are,
Jake (21:44):
low do you think it could go?
Bryon (21:45):
oh, I think because of the, the busyness of the interface, you know,
as we went from Adobe Voice, whichwas very simple to spark post to Adobe
Express the complexity of the userinterfaces gotten there, but with, some.
Click on the plus, click on acustom sized graphic to make you
(22:06):
graphic and that kind of thing.
I, I could probably work with grade foursand fives on that, you know, because.
I, I don't see that a problem.
it depends on the digitalliteracy of the students, right?
Like if they have come through, you know,the early years of elementary and I've
been working with iPads and with drawingsand having that language of being,
(22:27):
being there, then Yeah, we could get toaccessing these tools much earlier, right?
But.
We, don't do that in my school becauseour students who don't have that digital
literacy background, even though we'rea virtual school, we do have K to grade
five in our building one day a week.
And I do teach themabout digital literacy.
But if I saw them more often, definitelyI could be using Adobe Express.
(22:50):
and those, that simple entry leveltool, you know, as early as probably
grade three with students, you know.
Jake (22:56):
Yeah, I can see that, I haven't, I haven't been in express
much over the last few years, may
Bryon (23:02):
Okay.
Jake (23:02):
maybe even since it was called Spark.
I think I used to make podcastartwork and, and promos and
stuff like that in there.
Bryon (23:09):
Yes.
Jake (23:10):
but haven't been using it a lot.
And
Bryon (23:11):
Right.
Jake (23:12):
we have a, lot of listeners that use that other tool,
Bryon (23:15):
Canva.
Jake (23:16):
that, that starts with a c Yeah, we'll
Bryon (23:17):
Canva.
Jake (23:18):
will, we will talk about that one in a minute.
Bryon (23:19):
Mm-hmm.
Jake (23:20):
how, like, tell us a little bit about Express.
What could, what could we do in there?
Bryon (23:24):
Well in express you can create a static graphic.
You can create a, you know,whatever dimensions of that
graphic is that you need.
everything from square to rectangle andthe, there are some preset sizes there?
but then there's thecustom size graphic, right?
Which is what do you need it to be inorder to fit into, where are you going?
(23:46):
So that is about understanding whereyou're gonna be using this work.
In the future so that you canget a reasonable product out.
And what do you need it to be?
Do you need it an image file as a jpeg?
Do you need it as a PNG, that canhave a transparent background so that
you can put it into something else?
what else?
(24:06):
I'm not sure the, you know, doyou need it as a bookmark size?
You're making a bookmark, right?
So you could, you could actually takeyour ruler, figure out what size you
actually want your bookmark to be.
'cause you have an awesomebookmark you got at the bookstore.
And I was like, I want to makebookmarks with my students that are
this size and make something that size.
(24:27):
And then with some manipulation,you can actually print it
to scale to the right size.
Jake (24:35):
And then you could print, you could
Bryon (24:37):
Yes.
Yeah.
And
Jake (24:38):
online,
Bryon (24:39):
You could.
Jake (24:40):
could
interact with it in a lot of
Bryon (24:41):
That's right.
You could embed it on yourwebsite because there is share
online availability with that.
you could download it asa PDF file for printing.
beyond that, we start getting intotaking a static graphic and then
adding animation to that graphic.
So the text moves around and spinscomes in off the side, right?
As soon as you start doing animationthings, your output then becomes.
(25:05):
an MP four file, which is a videoformat file, which opens a whole new
world of all kinds of things, you know,takes me to that Disney song, Right.
Jake (25:17):
Yeah.
Which It's probably exciting foryou in that class to be able to go,
like, we can go, we can always go
further.
Bryon (25:23):
Yes.
Jake (25:23):
We could, take this thing we've been doing with these static
images and now add some animations.
we could
pull 'em out into a video
Bryon (25:29):
Exactly.
'Jake: edit em together into
Yes.
Exactly, exactly.
So there's that capacitywithin Adobe Express.
Canva's got all this capacity as well.
It has, it's another tool that isan entry level graphics design tool
that allows people with not as muchgraphic design capacity to actually
(25:49):
be able to make good looking things.
So I, as much as I'm an Adobe Express guy.
Canva is great.
It's just not the worldthat I spend my time in.
Right.
Jake (26:00):
is, Um, what's The pricing like with using Adobe Express Do
you guys have to have, um, like
the Creative Cloud
Bryon (26:06):
in our district, we had used free versions, which allows you to do
actually quite a lot of things right,and from the outset, looking at your
free versions of what Canva used to be.
This was back a number of years ago.
The free version of Adobe Spark andAdobe Express gave me more capacity
with my students for what's free.
(26:26):
but I don't know if that's, you know,now there's Canva for education.
So the teacher can have anaccount and then it's free pro
accounts for their students.
With a creative cloud account with yourdistrict in the backend, students can
have the pro experience in Adobe Express.
So we are playing, we can play at thepro level in our classrooms because
(26:47):
these tools, these companies have said,we think that, that's important, right?
So.
They want you to start using thesetools before they leave, so then
they're more likely to use thesetools when they leave, even if
there's a cost associated with them.
Right?
Jake (27:00):
Yeah.
was the,
that was the Google, theGoogle plan years ago.
Right.
Bryon (27:05):
Absolutely.
Jake (27:06):
so dominant in the education space
Bryon (27:08):
Yes.
Jake (27:08):
us free access.
In hopes that someday every employee would
be typing their
Bryon (27:14):
That's right.
Exactly, exactly.
And then you know whentheir model changed because.
Well, we can change our model.
It affected, you know, districts likemine because we had, you know, both
types of accounts and our, our districtsaid we're, we're, we've got Microsoft
accounts, so we're gonna work in Microsoftand it's as good as Google they said.
right?
The, the district senior administration.
(27:36):
It's different.
It's not, I'm not saying it's bad.
The change is actually really rough.
You know, when we talk about changein technology and, you know, changing
from one system to another and how,you know, you and I, Jake, we're big
adopters of change, but when we actuallypushed into that box and lid gets
shut on us, we don't like it, do we?
We don't like the fact that, Well.
(27:57):
that we're being forced to change.
Right?
It's the, the forcing to change asopposed to the option to change.
So.
Jake (28:04):
Yeah, I saw a quote the other day that was, humans
aren't resistant to change.
They're resistant to being changed.
Right.
So like, , we're willingto try something new.
We're not willing to beforced to try something new.
That's when we, that's when we push back,is when somebody's pushing it on us.
Right.
Okay, so talking about the pricing thing.
so Adobe Express for Educationis, is free for K to 12.
(28:27):
Um, but then there's also theAdobe Creative Cloud, which
is a step up from that, right?
It's, yes, and that's a paid one, but thatbrings in Photoshop and Illustrator and
Bryon (28:37):
Premier Pro and like all manner of the whole
ability of Adobe creation.
Right.
I think, I think, I don'tknow a hundred percent.
There might be differentlevels of that as well, right?
Jake (28:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bryon (28:50):
And um, you know, in our districts there are some, you know, , media
design teachers that use Photoshopand Illustrator in their classrooms.
I personally have not chosen to do thatbecause I think that I can teach the
techniques of graphic design away from the
technology of graphic design, right?
(29:13):
The strategies and the process, right?
You're more worried about the, thelanguage that we use so that when we
get to a new type of tool, we go, ohyeah, yeah, I need to put this layer.
Is there layers here?
Is there, you know, are there objects?
Is there a library of stockimages that's available?
Do I have to go get them?
Import those things, and having that, thatlanguage, I think that's really important.
Jake (29:37):
Yeah, I saw a quote the other day that was, um, humans
aren't resistant to change.
They're resistant to being changed.
Right.
So like, we're willing, we'rewilling to try something new.
We're not willing to beforced to try something new.
That's when we, that's when we push back,is when somebody's pushing it on us.
Right.
So, okay, so talkingabout the pricing thing.
(29:57):
So when, so Adobe Express forEducation is, is free for K to 12.
Um, but then there's also theAdobe Creative Cloud, which
is a step up from that, right?
It's, yes, and that's a paid one, but thatbrings in Photoshop and Illustrator and
Bryon (30:13):
Premier Pro and like all manner of the whole.
Ability of Adobe creation.
Right.
I think, I think, I don'tknow a hundred percent.
There might be differentlevels of that as well, right?
Jake (30:25):
Yeah.
Bryon (30:25):
Yeah.
And um, you know, in our districtsthere are some, you know, media degra,
media design teachers that use Photoshopand Illustrator in their classrooms.
I personally have not chosento do that because I think that
I can teach the techniques ofgraphic design away from the.
Technology of graphic design, right?
(30:50):
The strategies and the process, right?
You're more worried about the, thelanguage that we use so that when we
get to a new type of tool, we go, ohyeah, yeah, I need to put this layer.
Is there layers here?
Is there, you know, are there objects?
Is there a library of stockimages that's available?
Do I have to go get them?
Import those things, and having that, thatlanguage, I think that's really important.
Jake (31:13):
Yeah.
And I think , you're buildinglearners who are like technologically
ambidextrous, you know?
It doesn't matter what tech tool they use.
Yes.
If they go to a company someday that'susing Canva or is using Illustrator
or is using some tool that hasn'teven been invented yet, or, uh,
Figma or, or some other tool Yep.
They're gonna be ready to rock.
Because, because of theskills you've taught them that
weren't technology focused.
(31:34):
Yes.
It reminds me of the way that likeguys, like you and I reacted when Google
Docs became common in our workplaces.
Like I'd been using Word for so longand before that I'd been using Word
Perfect and when I started using Docs,there was like no, no transition period
for me really, you know, like I just, Ikind of just knew how to do everything.
'cause it really was a verysimilar interface and I knew
(31:55):
I knew how to do things.
Yes.
Bryon (31:57):
The biggest change actually when that happened was me trusting
the fact that cloud storageis where my stuff is gonna be.
Right?
Like.
I just wanna put it on my computer.
What, what do you mean youcan't put it on your computer?
Well, I mean, you can put it on yourcomputer as a Word document, but like,
I, I don't want word, I want GoogleDocs, but I don't, what's this cloud?
Right.
You know, and it looks, it's funnyto look back and go, we have um,
(32:19):
we have our cloud storage and youknow, how do we buy music today?
How do we do all the things that we do?
And we are trusting the cloud.
Yeah.
You know, I look out the window andit's a different shape every day.
Jake (32:30):
How do I, how do I trust my file's still in there if that cloud change.
Exactly.
Bryon (32:32):
Exactly, exactly.
But you know, over time I've, I'vebecome accepting of that and I
don't know, it's the way it is now.
Jake (32:39):
It's cumulonimbus today.
Are my file still in there?
Pretty much.
Bryon (32:42):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So
Jake (32:44):
I know in Canva.
Which is the one that I'musing the most often right now.
, Yeah, there's a lot of templatesand things like that in there.
, Is that the case?
Yes.
With Adobe, are therelots of templates still?
Bryon (32:56):
Many, many templates.
Many
templates, a lot of accessibletemplates for all manner of things.
, I don't teach my studentsto use templates.
, I hardly talk about templates.
They're there, they see them,they know they're there.
Um, but I don't go, okay.
Today we're gonna go find our favoritetemplate and make a, an infographic.
Right?
Right.
I go, how do we change thebackground of the canvas?
(33:16):
How do we put the objects on there?
How do we do all these things?
Oh, you need some inspiration?
Let's go look at some examplesof infographics, and then I
want you to create your own.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Do I know?
No.
If they are using templates or not, Ican tell because templates are Oh, yeah.
Mag magnificent, and they're very welldesigned as opposed to some of the
(33:37):
work my students give me is not that,but others that are getting good at
it, it, it's like, oh, I can stilltell, because there's things about
templates, you know, the way they dotheir seemingly insignificant graphics
up in the corner and the backgrounds andthings like that, you know, but that's,
we can teach our students these things.
Jake (33:56):
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, when I think about the way I use templates.
I never leave them the way they are.
Right.
I always go and mess with stuff in it.
Yes.
but if I didn't know how to do thethings, I wouldn't be able to do that.
Right.
So, so you're also developingkids who can go in and Yeah.
Now they're ready to use thetemplate effectively because
they know how to do the things.
(34:16):
Right.
Bryon (34:17):
That's right.
And, and I think that's related to anothertechnique that we're learning in our
world today about prompt engineering.
Jake (34:23):
Yes.
Bryon (34:24):
Yeah.
Using a menu driven AI system comparedto a like text-based, you gotta put
all the information in system, right?
And the two different things.
One, you can get to magnificentthings as opposed to having to learn
how to write it so that you can getto those same magnificent things.
Yeah.
Jake (34:41):
Yeah.
That's a, that's a really good point.
Yep.
Yeah.
And that's what people worry aboutwith like, the changes, like this is
totally off topic, but with, with howAI is affecting, uh, writing, is that
you or I could use AI to help us withwriting things because we are, we are
experienced writers, you know what I mean?
And so, so we know then what tolook for with the tweak, what
(35:02):
to change, what to ask for.
But if a kid comes up through the schoolyears and doesn't develop that skill first
and just starts using ai, that's right.
It's gonna change things, which isthe same kind of thing there too.
I, I will, I will note,actually, I'll ask a question.
, so you teach the media design, butyou also teach science in science
class if you assign them to do,let's say an infographic, , would you
(35:22):
allow them to use templates there?
Bryon (35:26):
I would, I, I wouldn't have a problem with that because
in our online science class, I amnot teaching them media design.
I am not in front ofthem long enough to go.
We have a three day we're gonnalearn about Adobe Express.
Right.
And now I expect everything to look likesomething was created in Adobe Express.
Right.
I give them choice and say,use a tool to create a product.
(35:49):
Yeah.
And so I go, give me a PowerPoint.
Yeah, you can use Canva, you canuse a tool, whatever you want.
I'm not looking at yourprettiness of your project.
I am looking at the content ofyour project a hundred percent.
So you can have the prettiest projectin the world, but if you don't know what
that word photosynthesis means and can'texplain that to me, it doesn't matter.
Right, right.
(36:09):
Yeah.
You're grading on mastery.
Right?
So it's about what areyou trying to get to?
Are you looking at the product or theprocess and watching those things.
Right.
And so in my media design class, I'mwatching my students in process every day.
Yeah.
They make really nice products,but that's not the point.
Yeah.
It's about how did you get to that?
Right.
And I do sometimes get themto reflect on that process.
(36:30):
I sometimes get them to reflect,why did you choose the colors
you chose for your poster?
Right.
You know, and get them to do a flipstyle video of reflect on what you made
and tell me why you made it that way.
Right.
Yeah.
Jake (36:41):
Versus in science class where you're like, can I look at your
really ugly graphic design and tellthat you understand photosynthesis?
Bryon (36:47):
Right, exactly.
Draw me a diagram on the back ofa napkin with a, with a pen at a
restaurant and it gets your point across.
Right?
Jake (36:54):
Yeah, I agree 100%.
Um, what is AI use like in Adobe Express?
Does it have some AI image generation?
Bryon (37:00):
Yep, it does.
It has, uh, uses the FireflyAdobe Firefly engine.
, Which is integrated into Adobe Express.
There is image from textwhich is really fun.
Mm-hmm.
And for our students, that's an accessibleway of getting to seeing what AI can do.
Jake (37:18):
and can't do,
Bryon (37:18):
it's like and can't do, and it's an immediate response thing, right?
Like I put in a text prompt.
Like, I get something out, I change thattext prompt and I get a new thing out, and
then I put the original text prompt backin and I don't get the original thing out.
Mm-hmm.
It changes.
And so there's the ability to starttalking about AI literacy inside
of Adobe Express with, you know,what do you need for your prompt?
(37:41):
Mm-hmm.
, Which is then.
It's the, the one part of AI whereI'm not having to tell the chat bot
that I want it to generate an imagebecause it's just assumed through
that portal that I'm making an image.
Right.
, So there's that, there is a voiceto animate, which is a cool thing.
It makes a little.
(38:02):
Animated character.
You can't make your own animatedcharacter, but you can use one of probably
150 characters that as it's talking, itwaves, its hands around, the mouth moves.
It's totally in sync withwhat you, the voice gave it.
Yeah.
Right.
So it's a, a different way of allowingstudents to record their voice and
(38:23):
have it on the screen, but not theirface, because a lot of students
are self-conscious about that.
So there's that you can use, um.
AI in there to get to changing thetype of font like bubbles or clouds
and you font effects so it can affectyour fonts, which is pretty new.
Jake (38:41):
Oh, that's cool.
I haven't tried the font effects.
I've tried the voice to animate,which is really so easy to use.
Kids just record their voice.
Yes.
Pick a character.
It does.
It reminds me of, uh,chatterpix back in the day.
Um, absolutely.
But chatterpix you could put in yourown picture and say, this is the mouth.
Yeah.
Whereas voice to animate,you cannot do that.
Right.
Bryon (38:59):
There's a way to do it.
Jake, there's a way.
Oh yeah.
So chatterpix like, yeah.
Um, you can take a picture and thenwhen you go to animate a voice from,
animate a character from your voice,you can go to the mouth selections and
have it give you some big red lips that.
Cartoon wise talk.
Mm-hmm.
Or a flat mouth that opens and closes.
(39:21):
And I, I use that for our, we have asalmon tank project and I take, you
know, a little swimming salmon andI put a little mouth on 'em, like
chatterpix and have, have it talk tothe kids and put it into a bigger video.
Right.
So there's a way of getting it.
Okay.
I like that.
I didn't know
Jake (39:35):
about
Bryon (39:35):
that.
And, you know, I, I don'tknow if Canva can do that.
So that's one thingthat Adobe Express has.
That's just, that's brilliant.
I think.
Yeah.
Jake (39:44):
I kind of feel like I want to, can I take your class now?
Oh, sure.
I'm just gonna join.
I just wanna join, join Bryon's class.
Uh,
Bryon (39:52):
this is Jake.
This is Jake.
I'm not gonna tell you how oldJake is today, but he's joining
us from, uh, way over there.
Yes.
Way over there.
Jake (39:59):
Way over there.
He's.
Jake's a remote learner.
Right?
A remote learner.
Not even remotely in the samecountry as in remote learner.
Exactly, exactly.
I think the text effects oneis one I need to try out.
'cause I've seen that.
Like you could, do you,how does that work?
I um, do you pick, you pick what kindof material to make the font out of?
Bryon (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you basically choose a font style.
Like Arial or Bebas Neu orsomething big and chunky.
Right?
Like a display type one.
Okay.
So not papyrus.
And then you say applied not papyrus.
That's very thin.
No.
Um, and then you say, I wouldlike you to make, you know,
um, make a, a jar of pickles.
(40:41):
Effect.
I'm serious.
This is fun, man.
I couldn't do that.
So yeah, Erika Sandstrom, she didthis at one of her conferences the
way I was at a conference recentlyand talking to her - @GreenScreenGal
- and she was like, watch this.
And she types in jar of picklesand I'm like, that's cool.
Yeah, like it's.
The pickles are in a jar with a shinything with, you know, like, so there's
that, or clouds, or, you know, wavesof the ocean or, and get descriptive
(41:06):
with what you're trying to get to.
And there's differentways that you can work
Jake (41:09):
with that.
That sounds really cool.
I'm gonna, I'm excited to try that out.
Yeah, the art for this episodeshould be Bryon Carpenter,
written in Jar of Pickles font.
Bryon (41:17):
Okay.
Alright.
I'm expecting it bro.
I'm expecting it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For my podcast art, I use Adobe Express.
Uh, text to image for nearlyall my podcast art for my,
the covers for every episode.
So I have it set up.
It just, it takes me momentsto do, type in what I'm trying
to get to and boom, to do that.
So love that.
(41:37):
Very
Jake (41:37):
cool.
Well thanks.
Thanks for sharing somuch Awesome stuff, Bryon.
I appreciate it.
Bryon (41:41):
Oh, you're welcome.
Glad to share.
Like I said, I glad we could talk.
I, we learned some stuff from each other.
Yeah.
So
Jake (41:45):
I, I, uh, like I said, I wish I could be in your class to learn
more about your, your media designexpertise, and I think everybody's gonna
be following you on, on the socials tolearn from you and to tune into fresh
air five to hear your reflections.
What I'm excited for right now,though, Bryon, is for when you listen
to this episode on your morning walk,and then record your thoughts on it.
(42:06):
Oh, it's like inception.
Bryon (42:07):
Yes.
It.
Yes, exactly.
It's a very meta, meta.
Meta.
Jake (42:11):
And then as you finish the one more thing version of your
response, I'm gonna be wondering,does the top stop spinning or not?
Bryon (42:19):
Uhhuh.
Exactly.
Jake (42:22):
All right, Bryon.
Well, thanks for being on Buddy.
It was a pleasure.
Bryon (42:24):
You're very welcome.
Jake (42:27):
Uh, so glad we finally got Brian on the show.
He has so much wisdom to share.
I hope you guys are all gonna go outthere and follow him and continue to learn
from his work and listen to his podcast.
He has a lot of great wisdom andreflections on podcasts to share.
A lot of great opportunitiesto learn from this guy.
He's a good guy too.
so now let's transition over totoday's edition of some EdTech and
education news and updates for you.
(42:48):
First off, we're gonna start off withone that I'm really excited about.
So
have you ever had a colleague tell you,oh, you could do that with this tech
tool, and you're like, no, you can't.
And they're like, yes you can.
And then you realize that youtotally missed a new feature
and they're totally right.
So that happened to me the other day, andwow was I glad that that person was right.
(43:09):
So.
What I discovered was that Brisk, the AItool already known for helping educators
with feedback and differentiationhas introduced a podcast generator.
So this new feature lets you turn asource like a Google Doc, A PDF, A
website, or a YouTube video into ashort form podcast that you can listen
to or send for your kids to listen toyou just click the Brisk It button.
(43:34):
Which as someone who deeplyappreciates good barbecue, I can't
help but think of smoked brisketevery time I see that button.
But anyhow, this new feature is almostas awesome as a brisket sandwich almost.
Uh, but anyhow, if you click Createand Choose podcast, brisk generates
a podcast summarizing your content.
(43:55):
And you can even guide it byspecifying what to focus on.
So if you're using a website thatcovers a range of different topics,
you could say, I'm focusing on thesespecific topics that are on that website.
You could even specify certainacademic standards for it to focus on.
And it creates that podcastbased on that guidance
.Now before you get too excited, a quick reality check here.
(44:15):
The length of the podcast thatyou can have generated depends
on which brisk plan you're on.
So if you're using the freeversion, you can generate podcasts
that are up to two minutes long.
Then the length depends on justwhat the AI chooses, but , the
max will be two minutes.
If you have the pro subscription,those podcasts will go up
to four to five minutes.
(44:36):
So a max of five, they tend tobe in the range of four to five.
And if you have access to the Briskfor Schools and Districts plan, so
if your district or your school paysfor that, then your podcast that it
generates will be up to 10 minutes long.
So since they are short podcasts,it's not really for replacing like
a full lesson plan, uh, but they'regreat for quick recaps or helping
(44:58):
make content more accessible.
Plus, we know the attention spans ofour kids are short, so I think those
lengths are actually just fine with me.
If your content would require moretime, like you'd say you need 20 or 30
minutes, you may find that chunking itand creating shorter ones might be better
anyhow relating to their attention span.
So chunk that information intomultiple of these short podcasts.
(45:21):
Now if you're thinking, wait,doesn't NotebookLM already do this?
You're not wrong.
But Brisk does a few thingsdifferently, and in some cases
better, and in some cases, NotebookLMis the right choice for you.
So first off, brisk gives you a transcriptthat you see as you play the episode.
NotebookLM doesn't do that.
Brisk gives you a shareable link so yougenerate a link, share it out to your
(45:43):
kids in Google Classroom or wherever.
With NotebookLM, you have to download thefile and share it manually, like through
Google Drive or something like that.
Brisk lets you translate podcastsinto over 40 languages, so you
could tell it to generate thepodcast in Spanish if you want.
Huge for English language learners andmultilingual family engagement as well.
NotebookLM doesn't do that.
(46:05):
That said, I do think the AIgenerated voices in brisk sound a
bit less natural than NotebookLM's.
They're not bad, just alittle less human-like.
Like if I listen to a NotebookLM podcast,I sometimes can't tell it wasn't real
humans.
With Brisk I think there'sthat uncanny valley and you
can tell, but still (46:21):
not bad.
Still very usable.
Also, NotebookLM's interactive featurewhere you could talk back to the host.
Really Rad.
Brisk doesn't have that.
And the other thing too,with NotebookLM number one,
the podcast episodes are longer.
And number two, you could put multiplepieces of information in there for
it to generate the podcast from.
Whereas with Brisk, it's just one,but you can maybe finagle it and
(46:44):
combine multiple things into oneGoogle Doc and then would use that too.
And now for the feature in Brisk thatreally got me excited and makes me say
like, oh, this is cooler than NotebookLM
For this reason, that'sthe Boost It button.
So the Boost It button has beenthere in Brisk for a while.
So after you make anything in Brisk,including the podcast, you could
boost it into an interactive activity.
(47:07):
So we're talking exit tickets orpulse checks, or tutor chatbots.
Stuff that not only extends the learningand makes it more engaging, but also gives
you a window into student understanding.
And because Brisk tracks thoseinteractions, it's a built-in formative
assessment tool with a side of oversight.
That is powerful.
So I haven't seen this implementedin a classroom yet, but I've
(47:29):
experimented with it and I'm impressed.
If you've used it, I'd love to hearwhat you thought and how it worked
out in the wild of a real classroom.
So let us know what you think onBluesky or on SpeakPipe #EduDuctTape
or Speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.
Next, a few months ago, Google droppeda little preview of something called
(47:50):
Class Tools, and it could be a bigdeal for classrooms using Chromebooks.
Now, to be clear, I don't thinkthese features are live yet.
They're coming soon, andthey're only coming to managed
Chromebooks, which is most of you.
Your Chromebooks are managed by yourschool district, but only coming
to schools using the GoogleWorkspace for Education plus Plan.
(48:11):
So many of you I know are not on plusplans, so it's definitely not something
every school will have access to.
That said, here's what they say it'llinclude, so you'll be able to remotely
share and pin content to student screens.
You can send stuff rightto the kids screens.
You'll have live screen viewing,so you'll be able to see if they're
off task by looking live at theirscreen, and you could see what
(48:32):
they're working on in real time.
There's also a new live captioningand translation feature where
your voice as the teacher at thefront of the room gets captioned
onto their screens, and individualstudents can choose the language
that they're seeing on their screen.
Sounds pretty amazing.
I'm not sure what exactly this onemeans, but Google says that teachers
(48:52):
can create workbooks and send classcontent to their students' devices.
Now, I'm not sure if this is some specialworkbook feature that's part of it or if
they're just saying, create a workbookin a Google Doc and you can send it
to your kids' screens, I'm not sure.
But we'll have to wait tosee that until it launches.
If this is giving you, , GoGuardian orHapara or Securly vibes, you're not wrong.
(49:13):
It's very much like that.
This feels like Google dippingits toe into that space.
the keyword blog post gives usa few more sneak peeks into what
this will look like, and the coreidea is similar, more visibility.
More accessibility and quicker waysto engage students during instruction.
So have you heard anything about it yet?
Do you maybe have access to a betaof it if you have let us know what
(49:35):
we think on Bluesky or on SpeakPipe.
Now on a more serious note, SchoolAIrecently made a set of changes to its
historical figure spaces, and while it'sa tech update, it's also a story about
accountability and ethics and what weshould expect from EdTech companies.
So, here's the backstory.
Some educators raised very real concernsand very valid concerns about how
(50:00):
school AI's AI avatars were handlingcomplex, sensitive historical topics.
Specifically how figures like AnneFrank were being portrayed, including
disturbing and historically inaccurateresponses about the Holocaust, not okay.
Definitely not okay.
Not even close.
The worry was that students mightencounter simplified or inaccurate
(50:21):
or even harmful portrayals inthese AI generated interactions.
So SchoolAI not too long ago, releaseda statement, a blog post of sorts
responding and announcing that theyhave made some thoughtful updates.
They've now added safeguards toprioritize historical accuracy
to provide fuller context.
And this part is key (50:39):
Make teacher-led moderation a core part of the
experience when using these tools.
So now, instead of students jumpinginto a chat with a quote unquote
historical figure, and just hoping forthe best teachers have more control
and visibility, and school AI hasdone more on the backend to give us
more confidence in the experience.
(51:00):
It's a good step and a necessary one,and it's encouraging to see a company
respond directly to criticism and tofeedback, especially when it comes
to how AI shows up in classrooms.
Now, while it's a good step, somepeople would say it's not far enough.
They'd like them to go furtherthan this and not have these
historical figure spaces at all.
(51:21):
They have a handful of reasons,all of which are valid.
I think, uh, those include theimplications of making technology seem
more human, potential bias that maycreep into these spaces, the risk of
inaccuracy, the weirdness of quoteunquote talking to deceased people, , and
the fact that these figures did notconsent to this usage of their persona,
(51:42):
and also the troubling notion ofpretending to speak to flawed figures
like past presidents who were enslavers.
How do we feel about that?
Right?
So I think there's a lot to thinkabout here and a lot of discussions to
be had, but I wanted to make sure youwere aware of these issues and this
update to SchoolAI, even if we thinkthey maybe should be going further.
I think it's, it's important to beaware of what they have done so far.
(52:05):
So what do you think?
Are these updates enough?
Uh, where should we be speakingup , and encouraging 'em to do more?
Uh, where do we need to be talkingout to these companies in the way
that people did with school ai?
And they responded, , which isexciting and, and good news.
So let us know what you thinkon Blue Sky or SpeakPipe.
And our final one for today.
I just finished watching TheFirst Class, a documentary that
(52:26):
follows the first graduating classof Crosstown High in Memphis.
I thought it was a powerful look at whatcan happen when a school prioritizes
community creativity and real worldlearning over test prep and doing
things the way we've always done them.
The film showcases project-based learning,problem-based learning, interdisciplinary
(52:46):
projects, and a different way ofthinking about school culture.
It's a great conversation starterfor anyone curious about what that
could look like in their context.
I found the stories of the actuallearners that are centered in that
school to be inspirational and moving.
I really enjoyed the movie just asa viewing experience, but I also
thought there was a lot to learn fromand to think about there as well.
(53:06):
And I also wanna give a shoutout to my friend Deion Jordan,
director of Teaching and Learning atKnowledgeWorks because he was one of
the founding educators at CrosstownHigh, and he's featured in the film.
I probably would not have heardabout this work had it not
been for Deion's involvement.
So thanks to Deion and congratson that work that he was a part of
there, , and to this great, , projectthat , this, , documentary film became.
(53:28):
, So I highly recommend this film.
You could watch it for free on theirsite, and if you do, let us know what
you think on Bluesky or SpeakPipe.
As always, Bluesky with #EduDuctTapeor speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.
Well, that does it for today.
Thanks for being here with us.
I hope you enjoyed the show.
I hope your May is going wonderfully.
(53:49):
I hope you've got somegreat spring weather.
Uh, if you're in the continentsthat are having spring right now,
I hope your school years wrap up
well, uh, if you're in thatsame situation, thank you
for all you do for learners.
Thank you for tuning inand have a great day.
(54:50):
Bryon is in his 17th year of teaching mathand science in an online environment, as
well as blended learning and face-to-facein media design at the Abbotts Ab.
Abba.
Abba.
Abba.
Abba, Abba, Abba.
That's gonna, there'san outtake right there
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