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From Pixar to the Classroom: Teaching Storytelling w/ Story Xperiential
4 Plays2 months ago
With the help of Teacher-Powered Schools, Socol-Moran Partners, Stimpunks, and What School Could Be, we’ve completed the lineup for our 4th annual virtual Conference to Restore Humanity for July 21-23, focused this year on the Quest for Connection. Tickets are just $50 and you can find out more info at humanrestorationproject.org/conference
We’re excited to have members of the team from Story Xperiential with us for today’s episode, which was recorded way back in 2024. Developed by veterans from Pixar and Khan Academy, Story Xperiential brings the art of professional storytelling into the classroom, giving students the tools to craft and share their own stories using the same creative process as major studios.
The program is structured to fit into school schedules, offering a two-part curriculum: Storytelling Essentials, where students develop a story outline into a story reel, and Mastering Storytelling, where they expand their work into a full narrative. Through self-paced lessons, hands-on projects, and a moderated peer feedback system, students not only learn the technical aspects of storytelling but also gain confidence in their creative abilities.
One unique aspect of Story Xperiential is how it can be integrated into every subject area, aligning with interdisciplinary content standards -- bringing together social studies and ELA, for example, or STEM and fine arts -- while also fostering skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and visual communication.
In this episode, we’ll explore how Story Xperiential is being implemented in schools, hear about the impact it’s having on students, and discuss how storytelling can be a powerful tool for learning and self-expression.
You’re gonna be hearing a few voices in this conversation. HRP director Chris McNutt is hosting this one, who you’re probably used to hearing on this show, and he’ll be talking to a few people on the StoryX team:
Dennis Henderson VP of Education and Strategy
Chief Technical Officer, Tony DeRose
And Chief Learning Officer, Brit Cruise
You can learn more and sign your students up at https://www.storyxperiential.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Conference Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
One of the reasons we started with stories, of course, because of our Pixar heritage.
00:00:03
Speaker
But the other is, I mean, story is what makes us human.
00:00:08
Speaker
It's really about connecting with people emotionally and communicating.
00:00:13
Speaker
And working in teams, you also develop team building skills, giving and receiving feedback.
00:00:20
Speaker
So lots of 21st century transferable skills.
00:00:25
Speaker
Very few people are gonna be story artists at Pixar, but everybody tells stories and everybody has to be an effective communicator.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 165 of the Human Restoration Project podcast.
00:00:40
Speaker
My name is Nick Covington.
00:00:42
Speaker
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this episode is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Dan Carney, Kevin Gannon, and Julia Valenti.
00:00:49
Speaker
Thank you all so much for your ongoing support.
00:00:52
Speaker
And with the help of teacher-powered schools, SoCalMoran partners, SimPunks, and WhatSchoolCouldBe, we've completed the lineup for our fourth annual Virtual Conference to Restore Humanity for July 21st through 23rd, focused this year on the quest for connection.
00:01:08
Speaker
Between now and then, with each episode, we'll briefly spotlight one of our conference keynotes, workshops, and panel discussions, beginning with Building Nourishing Collaborations, Exalting Our Children and Their Caregivers, our two-hour, day-one workshop led by Nawal Karuni, a Jersey City-based educator and author of Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations.
00:01:30
Speaker
Our work as educators requires stepping beyond school-centric one-off events and practices to more deeply embed authentic, engaging collaborations with caregivers that celebrate what families inherently bring to their children's literacy learning.
00:01:45
Speaker
By embracing compassionate care and advocating for talk, choice, and observation, we can reimagine adult-student partnerships.
00:01:53
Speaker
This workshop will address biases, explore personal language stories, and work to validate family practices as we weave them into our work in schools.
00:02:02
Speaker
If that sounds interesting to you, tickets start at just $50, and you can find the full lineup at humanrestorationproject.org slash conference.
Introduction to Story Experiential
00:02:21
Speaker
We're excited to have members of the team from Story Experiential with us for today's episode, which was recorded way back in 2024.
00:02:28
Speaker
Developed by veterans from Pixar and Khan Academy, Story Experiential brings the art of professional storytelling into the classroom, giving students the tools to craft and share their own stories using the same creative process as major studios.
00:02:43
Speaker
The program is structured to fit into school schedules, offering a two-part curriculum.
00:02:48
Speaker
Storytelling Essentials, where students develop a story outline into a story reel, and Mastering Storytelling, where they expand their work into a full narrative.
00:02:58
Speaker
Through self-paced lessons, hands-on projects, and a moderated peer feedback system, students not only learn the technical aspects of storytelling, but also gain confidence in their creative abilities.
00:03:10
Speaker
One unique aspect of Story Experiential is how it can be integrated into every subject area, aligning with interdisciplinary content standards, bringing together social studies and ELA, for example, or STEM and fine arts, while also fostering skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and visual communication.
00:03:30
Speaker
In this episode, we'll explore how story experiential is being implemented in schools, hear about the impact it's having on students, and discuss how storytelling can be a powerful tool for learning and self-expression.
00:03:42
Speaker
Now, you're going to be hearing a few voices in this conversation.
00:03:46
Speaker
HRP director Chris McNutt is hosting this one, who you're probably used to hearing on the show, and he'll be talking to a few people on the StoryX team.
Origins and Development of Story Experiential
00:03:54
Speaker
You'll hear first from Dennis Henderson, VP of Education and Strategy.
00:03:59
Speaker
It would be so amazing to do a project in which kids can emulate working at Pixar.
00:04:03
Speaker
Chief Technical Officer Tony DeRose.
00:04:06
Speaker
I left a tenured position to join this little company that nobody had ever heard of called Pixar.
00:04:11
Speaker
and Chief Learning Officer Britt Cruz.
00:04:13
Speaker
What do the professionals actually do, and how do I do it the way they do, and how can I start that as early as possible?
00:04:21
Speaker
You can learn more about Story Experiential and sign your students up at storyexperiential.com.
00:04:29
Speaker
Let's just start with some basic intros.
00:04:32
Speaker
We'll just start with that.
00:04:33
Speaker
And if you could just do like a quick, you know, 30 to 60 second who you are, what you do.
00:04:37
Speaker
And then from there, just to make it a little more seamless, do any one of you want to tackle the like, what is story experiential question?
00:04:46
Speaker
Go ahead, Dennis.
00:04:46
Speaker
Go for it.
00:04:47
Speaker
It's funny, we all started at the same time, huh?
00:04:50
Speaker
It's very interesting.
00:04:51
Speaker
Just a random event where you happen to be sitting at a table with a group of interesting people and having a conversation with someone.
00:05:00
Speaker
As a teacher at the time, I'm sorry, I was actually an administrator of a school, principal of a school, and had a conversation at a table and had a conversation with the person next to me, which happened to be our founder, Elise.
00:05:12
Speaker
And she was like, what do you do?
00:05:13
Speaker
I'm an educator.
00:05:14
Speaker
What do you do?
00:05:14
Speaker
I work at Pixar.
00:05:15
Speaker
And as someone that's always been intrigued and about doing project based education, especially with people that's doing amazing work that youth may be into, I kind of picture that my dream of it would be so amazing to do a project in which kids can emulate working at Pixar.
00:05:33
Speaker
And she kind of smiled and was like, are you serious?
00:05:35
Speaker
And said, interestingly, we have a small brand.
00:05:37
Speaker
We're working on this little project here, a colleague of mine.
00:05:42
Speaker
And yeah, we're putting this together right now.
00:05:44
Speaker
So that conversation kind of led to this journey in which we did a little camp, Pixar in the Box camp.
00:05:51
Speaker
And Tony can tell more about that.
00:05:54
Speaker
Just to see this coming together of people within the industry that's doing this real work that young people truly recognize.
00:06:02
Speaker
It's a sincere, authentic connection that we know we do some stuff that's amazing that the world don't really have access to.
00:06:08
Speaker
And we would love to show the world how this works.
00:06:11
Speaker
It started from that natural place of just a sincere connection.
00:06:16
Speaker
place of exposing young people to how things work and not just showing them, but allowing them to do it.
00:06:23
Speaker
And that was the spark.
00:06:25
Speaker
And Tony could go into more context as far as the inside Pixar piece, but as an educator, I felt so inspired to meet individuals such as Elise and Tony and Britt that sincerely are passionate about teaching young people how to do real world things.
00:06:43
Speaker
I'm trained as a computer scientist, computer graphics researcher.
00:06:47
Speaker
So I spent 10 years at the University of Washington, built a graphics lab there, and then did the unthinkable as far as my parents were concerned.
00:06:55
Speaker
I left a tenured position to join this little company that nobody had ever heard of called Pixar.
00:07:00
Speaker
That was in 1996.
Contributors' Backgrounds and Contributions
00:07:03
Speaker
Spent most of my time there running the graphics research group there.
00:07:06
Speaker
But, you know, as a professor, I love teaching.
00:07:09
Speaker
And as my kids started, you know, getting into school age, we started doing a lot of, you know, home education, got super interested in the maker movement.
00:07:17
Speaker
So that was kind of my first exposure to, you know, project-based experiential learning.
00:07:22
Speaker
It was like, oh my God, this is amazing.
00:07:24
Speaker
started doing a talk called Math in the Movies, kind of a public lecture that people seem to really respond to, kind of showing the degree to which math and science is used in the production of Pixar films.
00:07:36
Speaker
And people were going, oh my God, I had no idea that all that algebra and stuff I was doing in middle and high school actually got used.
00:07:45
Speaker
So people were asking me to come to their classrooms, but couldn't be everywhere, of course.
00:07:50
Speaker
So Elise and I started scratching our heads
00:07:53
Speaker
to try to figure out, well, how can we tell these kinds of stories in a much broader way?
00:07:58
Speaker
We finally realized we could use a partner in online education and
00:08:03
Speaker
We were an expert in how Pixar makes films and how math and science is used, but we weren't online educators.
00:08:11
Speaker
We eventually found our way to Khan Academy, knocked on their door, and Britt and a few others answered.
00:08:19
Speaker
That led to a project called Pixar in a Box, which was really successful.
00:08:23
Speaker
Maybe Britt can say a little more about that.
00:08:26
Speaker
Then we did Imagineering in a Box after that, telling the story about Disney Imagineers and
00:08:31
Speaker
you know, all the wonderful things that they do.
00:08:34
Speaker
And then in 2019, Elise and I left Pixar.
00:08:38
Speaker
And in 2020, we founded our company X in a box.
00:08:42
Speaker
And then in 2021, we started prototyping Story Experiential.
00:08:48
Speaker
My name is Britt.
00:08:49
Speaker
My background is in engineering and computer science.
00:08:53
Speaker
And when I left school in around 20, sometime around 2009, I started a YouTube channel to kind of teach the history behind a lot of modern fields of study.
00:09:05
Speaker
And kind of as a hobby, but by accident, in that first year I posted a video, Sal Khan and the Khan Academy had started.
00:09:15
Speaker
At the time, it was really just a YouTube channel.
00:09:18
Speaker
And I was lucky to kind of meet Sal Khan through YouTube commenting.
00:09:24
Speaker
And I joined and he said, why don't you come work for us?
00:09:27
Speaker
So I dropped what I was doing and joined Khan Academy in their first year and was really focused on engagement and what we could do to make content more engaging just in many different ways.
00:09:39
Speaker
And while, of course, while I was there, I bounced around a lot.
00:09:44
Speaker
And so I was in charge of partnerships for a time.
00:09:47
Speaker
And again, when Pixar knocked on the door, I definitely pushed my way up to be one of the
Learning Processes and Peer Feedback
00:09:52
Speaker
ones that answered it.
00:09:53
Speaker
And that is how we met.
00:09:56
Speaker
And kind of what came out of that work was a desire to share with young people, as Dennis said, what do the professionals actually do and how do I do it the way they do?
00:10:06
Speaker
And how can I start that as early as possible?
00:10:09
Speaker
We that was kind of the initial guiding principle behind why we did it.
00:10:15
Speaker
And as Tony mentioned, when we started our company, maybe I'll just mention two things that kind of evolved out of those initial projects, which were very much Pixar in a box and Imagineering in a box is a really great video series that breaks down how theme parks are designed and breaks down how films are made.
00:10:34
Speaker
And it defines deliverables.
00:10:37
Speaker
But that's kind of it.
00:10:38
Speaker
And so what we did when we started our company was, well, what can we do to take it to the next level?
00:10:44
Speaker
And what's missing there is literally actually just going through the creative process.
00:10:49
Speaker
And kind of what I learned by studying what they did at Pixar is,
00:10:54
Speaker
The creative process really comes down to getting good at sharing work and progress many, many, many, many times along the journey, both your own work, but also being able to look at unfinished work of others and give substantive feedback.
00:11:08
Speaker
And that's really it.
00:11:09
Speaker
And that applies in every domain.
00:11:11
Speaker
So we had this idea of experiential, the learning platform.
00:11:15
Speaker
as a platform that would enable this because we recognized at the time every learning platform was similar where you can drop in videos and then a test and then sometimes there's like a message board at the bottom basically that is every learning platform in many different ways
00:11:31
Speaker
And we thought, well, what if we started by realizing if the goal of this learning process is getting good at peer feedback and iteration, what if we built starting with that mechanism, which was always missing, which to us took the form of what we call a gallery, where we imagined a platform where you would upload your work at multiple steps and engage with the community of creators around you to give and receive feedback on your work.
00:11:58
Speaker
and end with an industry recognizable prototype.
00:12:04
Speaker
And so that was the idea for experiential.
00:12:06
Speaker
So whether you're wanting to develop a concept album and music, a story, a video game, whatever it is, we wanted you to go through industry recognizable deliverables
00:12:19
Speaker
and build a mental model for how work gets done in the real world.
00:12:23
Speaker
And it just so happens that because we had Pixar in a box kind of ideated, story experiential became the first offering that we have live where you basically go through the work of what they do at Pixar to come up with an original short.
00:12:37
Speaker
And now today we're working on our second experiential focused around entrepreneurship.
00:12:42
Speaker
In a similar way, you go through the actual process.
00:12:44
Speaker
And in this case, you come out with a pitch for a business.
00:12:48
Speaker
But in story experiential, you come out with a concept for your own short story.
00:12:52
Speaker
And so that's kind of the journey to experiential.
00:12:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's something to be said, and I really respect the fact that our organization goes to a lot of education technology conferences, spaces where teachers are gathered to listen and learn and find the new latest and greatest thing, right?
00:13:11
Speaker
And sadly, you're kind of inundated with a lot of, I would say, surveillance technology or tracking technology, or here's how you put the numbers in, or here's a better way of
00:13:22
Speaker
seeing if students are using AI or here's how AI can assist you in writing your lesson plans, et cetera, as opposed to actual deliverable content experiences that are rich with learning.
00:13:33
Speaker
And Human Restoration Project is really focused on design thinking, project-based learning, having kids do
00:13:40
Speaker
the thing, have them emulate what it's like in the real world with people in the real world.
00:13:45
Speaker
And something that you all are doing, which is really fascinating, is you're not only giving teachers a platform to work within that space, you're also equipping them with the outside experts.
00:13:56
Speaker
So it's kind of an all-in-one package to help answer that common question around PBL, which is, how do I get started?
00:14:02
Speaker
What is the first step of doing that?
00:14:04
Speaker
Well, you could just go through this eight-step process, and there's a starting point that could make you more comfortable with PBL.
Student Experience and Storytelling Skills
00:14:11
Speaker
I'd like to build a little bit on the kind of the model of PBL learning that we've developed.
00:14:17
Speaker
You know, PBL is, you know, project-based learning is fantastic in the
00:14:24
Speaker
Because that's how people learn, right?
00:14:25
Speaker
They learn by doing, not by listening, typically.
00:14:29
Speaker
And most of the really successful project-based learning contexts have learners and a mentor there that kind of coaches them through the actual practice of whatever the domain they're working in is.
00:14:46
Speaker
And that's fantastic when you can find really good mentors.
00:14:51
Speaker
But we were wondering, how do we do that at scale?
00:14:54
Speaker
Instead of 20 kids in a classroom with a really good mentor, how do we have 100,000 students in a classroom at the same time, an online experience?
00:15:07
Speaker
And you just can't find, you know, 5,000, you know, good mentors to, you know, to coach that many students.
00:15:16
Speaker
And even if you could, you'd have to pay them so much, nobody could afford to take the class.
00:15:21
Speaker
And so kind of an aha moment for us was, well, let's look at, you know, industry professionals, you know, potential mentors and, you
00:15:29
Speaker
and break what they do into two pieces.
00:15:33
Speaker
One piece they do is the teaching, you know, here's how I do my job, here's an example, here are the concepts behind it, here's how I apply those concepts.
00:15:45
Speaker
And that scales really well with video these days.
00:15:48
Speaker
So we have the professionals for the teaching.
00:15:51
Speaker
And then the coaching part, we replace mentors with peer-to-peer learning.
00:15:57
Speaker
And so Britt mentioned these uploads, these deliverables.
00:16:01
Speaker
At each step, you upload your work to the gallery.
00:16:04
Speaker
And then peer-to-peer learning kicks in.
00:16:06
Speaker
We've got some mechanisms to ensure that everybody gets feedback from others in the community.
00:16:13
Speaker
And so those peers are getting good at providing solid feedback, listening to feedback, taking those notes and making their process better.
00:16:24
Speaker
And after almost two years now, we've really demonstrated that this peer-to-peer learning actually works really well.
00:16:33
Speaker
And we know that from everyday experience as well, right?
00:16:35
Speaker
Kids learn best from kids.
00:16:38
Speaker
you know, adults live best from each other.
00:16:40
Speaker
And we've just built this platform that enables that kind of rich peer-to-peer interaction.
00:16:46
Speaker
And so that's the model that, you know, we feel like allows us to, you know, deliver project-based learning at scale and affordably.
00:16:57
Speaker
The bigger the course gets, the better the peer-to-peer feedback gets.
00:17:02
Speaker
For sure.
00:17:02
Speaker
And it perhaps will help the audience a little bit as well to just dive a little bit into what does a quote unquote successful final product look like?
00:17:12
Speaker
What is the goal of this work?
00:17:14
Speaker
What are you hoping to see at the end of the process?
00:17:17
Speaker
Looks like you're muted, Dennis.
00:17:19
Speaker
Every time I say the best stuff in the world, I'm muted.
00:17:21
Speaker
Right.
00:17:23
Speaker
So as Britt has stated, that final product is going to be an industry recognized prototype.
00:17:29
Speaker
And in this case, it is a story reel.
00:17:32
Speaker
It could be two to three minute story reel.
00:17:34
Speaker
And when you see the final product, especially from the very first to the last and how it's developed, not just the educators, but the students themselves see how
00:17:46
Speaker
much how rich the product gets with that feedback.
00:17:50
Speaker
So, you know, it's this learning experience in which they're really giving each other this feedback.
00:17:56
Speaker
And, you know, a teacher pulls teeth sometimes when they give a student back and say, hey, I need you to redo this.
00:18:00
Speaker
Whereas this iteration that's pushed by the peers that's really looking at your work, students are inspired to go back and redo.
00:18:09
Speaker
But when they're done, they have an industry-recognized
00:18:11
Speaker
three-minute story reel that they can use for colleges, for Upwork, for jobs.
00:18:17
Speaker
So it's quite amazing to watch them go through this process.
00:18:21
Speaker
And again, to them, it's a process, a fun process, engaging process.
00:18:25
Speaker
But when they're done, it is an industry-recognized portfolio piece that they can use.
00:18:31
Speaker
I'll add, because I was surprised by this, our program's not about animation.
00:18:37
Speaker
And so when Pixar and any studio mocks up an animated film, it is done with hand-drawn images generally, sequenced together with, you know, one drawing every few seconds.
00:18:52
Speaker
bare minimum needed to tell the story and feel the story and see if it resonates.
00:18:57
Speaker
So students in our program can just use pencil and paper, very simple images that they chain together.
00:19:03
Speaker
And we don't actually focus on animation.
00:19:07
Speaker
And before we dive into some of the goals of this work, to be sure, the way that this gallery system works is that every single phase from conceptual to story to final product, students are submitting into this gallery.
00:19:21
Speaker
They're able to see each other's work across the entire cohort, not just their class, and offer feedback on each one of those steps, right?
00:19:28
Speaker
That's correct.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah, every step along the way.
00:19:34
Speaker
And the beauty is, again,
00:19:36
Speaker
as they get this feedback along the way, the way the platform is set up, there's actually space for them to follow each other.
00:19:42
Speaker
So they become kind of fans of one another.
00:19:45
Speaker
There's dialogue in which they can, you know, give feedback and, you know, be more specific on what they appreciate about what they're sharing.
00:19:52
Speaker
So again, it really builds a community, which makes it more than just this kind of a generic feedback, but it really becomes this community of supporters amongst themselves.
Support for Teachers and Curriculum Integration
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:04
Speaker
And something that I appreciate, and this is kind of yes and something that you said earlier, Tony, is that it offers the ability for teachers who are moderate to like pure experts, I suppose, on project based learning, which is recognizing that PBL takes a lot of work, requires a lot of planning, it takes a lot of extra steps.
00:20:23
Speaker
But if you have a foundation present that has things like videos and online sessions and a platform there for you, you can do things like just focus on playing the really cool field trip where they go to, let's say a comic con and let's do that.
00:20:36
Speaker
And that'll be really cool.
00:20:37
Speaker
And we'll build that into this X or a story experiential process.
00:20:41
Speaker
Maybe it's, you know, we'll have students go out in their local community and interview people and that's how we generate the initial stories that we'll tell.
00:20:49
Speaker
Maybe you partner with a local museum.
00:20:51
Speaker
For example, in Michigan, there's an indigenous history museum and they're doing mythology and folklore that could tie into the story process.
00:20:59
Speaker
So it enables teachers who, one, maybe have no experience with PBL as like their first time ever experiencing this.
00:21:06
Speaker
They have that mentorship model.
00:21:07
Speaker
They're able to rely on this resource all the way up to folks who are very comfortable with doing design thinking, but need just help because all teachers need help with the work that they're doing.
00:21:18
Speaker
Exactly.
00:21:19
Speaker
And, you know, even the best, you know, PBL teachers, you know, haven't been inside Pixar for 20 years and don't, you know, aren't domain experts in how stories are crafted.
00:21:30
Speaker
And so we wanted to package that knowledge in a way that would be easy for teachers to deliver, freeing them up from having to think about all the scaffolding so that they can do those things like plan field trips and make sure that the team dynamics are working out and that students are really digging deep for stories that are personally meaningful to them.
00:21:54
Speaker
In Story Experiential, the prompt is very simple.
00:21:56
Speaker
It's, you know, tell a story that's important to you.
00:22:00
Speaker
And, you know, the belief there is if it's important to you, there's some universal truth and other people are going to find it impactful as well.
00:22:10
Speaker
And one of the reasons we started with a story is, of course, because of our Pixar heritage.
00:22:15
Speaker
But the other is, I mean, story is what makes us human.
00:22:19
Speaker
It's really about connecting with people emotionally and communicating.
00:22:24
Speaker
And working in teams, you also develop team building skills, giving and receiving feedback.
00:22:31
Speaker
So lots of 21st century transferable skills.
00:22:36
Speaker
Very few people are going to be story artists at Pixar, but everybody tells stories and everybody has to be an effective communicator.
00:22:43
Speaker
Right.
Feedback and Success Stories
00:22:44
Speaker
I love that focus on collaboration, both at the micro level within the classroom to build the story, but then the focus on collaboration within the platform with folks really around the world that are engaged in this cohort.
00:22:57
Speaker
What does that feedback process look like?
00:22:59
Speaker
What are your goals for students as they're working through each one of these steps in that community?
00:23:03
Speaker
I just want to add to Chris, the point you made of like the ideal world, this is what a teacher would do.
00:23:09
Speaker
And we just had a lot of great stories.
00:23:11
Speaker
I'll just give you one.
00:23:12
Speaker
For example, Alex Campbell from Elizabethan High for their world history class.
00:23:19
Speaker
They worked with they wanted to cover the theme of addiction and recovery and worked with a local recovery program and actually had people from that recovery program come into the classroom to see stories.
00:23:32
Speaker
And that was just an incredible example of this inaction where, again, they were freed up to do that, which is bring the projects to the next level.
00:23:40
Speaker
So I just wanted to add that.
00:23:42
Speaker
And in terms of so that's about that in-person collaboration.
00:23:46
Speaker
But in terms of the online collaboration and what we built specifically, it started with a simple idea, which is if you see my background, it's a snapshot of the gallery.
00:23:56
Speaker
It looks kind of like YouTube with a whole bunch of thumbnails.
00:24:00
Speaker
And the problem with YouTube and online things generally is there's a big
00:24:05
Speaker
there's like an uneven distribution of attention where one person gets 99% of it and most people are ignored, at least at the beginning, which is the worst time to be ignored on your first upload.
00:24:16
Speaker
And so our idea was, what if we just even the distribution in a flat line basically, and basically force the attention to be equalized amongst all projects?
00:24:25
Speaker
And the first way we did that in our very first version was,
00:24:29
Speaker
Before you could go into the gallery, we created a gallery lock mechanism, which basically presented to you with three or four random projects, asked you to provide feedback there with some feedback assistance.
00:24:43
Speaker
And until you did those three or four required feedbacks,
00:24:47
Speaker
then the gallery would unlock, allowing you to go comment on a lot more.
00:24:52
Speaker
But that simple lock mechanism ensured we'd have the bare minimum needed to cover.
00:24:59
Speaker
And we find that once you get a bare minimum number, you kind of ignite the community because everybody's being heard and then it can kind of spiral on from there.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's such an important, I think, aspect of this is that that's where that learning is happening.
00:25:16
Speaker
And because you're ostensibly forced to go through each one of those steps, it requires the design thinking process to work or else the process doesn't make any sense.
00:25:26
Speaker
I know that in order to move on to the next step, you quite literally have to upload and provide feedback or else you're just not able to access that.
00:25:34
Speaker
And within each one of those steps, this will be my last like what question, I suppose, like what is the thing?
00:25:41
Speaker
What are kids literally doing?
00:25:43
Speaker
Like what is one of those steps look like?
00:25:46
Speaker
I'll depend.
00:25:47
Speaker
So each step has a very similar pattern to it.
00:25:51
Speaker
So at the beginning, there's a kickoff video that clearly explains what the deliverable is for the step and shows some examples of previous work.
00:26:02
Speaker
Then there are some additional examples of previous work so that students both have a clear idea of what they need to do in this step and some of the range of possibilities.
00:26:14
Speaker
Some of them on the simpler end, some of them on the much more ambitious end.
00:26:19
Speaker
And then there's a series of videos that introduce the concepts necessary for that deliverable and deepen the understanding of those concepts a bit.
00:26:30
Speaker
And then most importantly, at the bottom, there's a
00:26:33
Speaker
Upload your work.
00:26:34
Speaker
So this is where, so after they go through these exercises, they're all optional.
00:26:40
Speaker
Some people just jump to the bottom.
00:26:41
Speaker
They already know exactly what they need to do for the deliverable.
00:26:45
Speaker
Some people need a little bit more scaffolding.
00:26:47
Speaker
Once they go through the learning, then they typically will start drawing and writing whatever their deliverable is for that stage, and then recording some voiceover.
00:27:00
Speaker
So an example is an early stage is called what if, and the deliverable is come up with three what if questions for what stories might be.
00:27:12
Speaker
So for example, what if toys came to life when humans left the room, right?
00:27:17
Speaker
So very simple, high concept, but really, really fun.
00:27:21
Speaker
And the deliverable there is come up with three what if ideas
00:27:27
Speaker
a sentence or two about each one and maybe a drawing to go along with each one, make a little video in that form and upload it and get your feedback.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:27:37
Speaker
I mean, I think that conceptually, and I should add too, to clarify, is your overall goal with the platform to have students be moving through each one of these steps kind of at their own pace within a classroom environment, or does it matter in how students are progressing?
00:27:55
Speaker
We tried to make this very flexible where it's really to the discretion of the educator in the room.
00:28:00
Speaker
You know, we put it out there where, you know, you can walk through this by yourself.
00:28:05
Speaker
But then we're also very intentional of providing resources and suggestions of how a teacher can roll this out within the classroom setting and lockstep.
00:28:14
Speaker
So, yeah, it's stated.
00:28:15
Speaker
In short, we tried both.
00:28:17
Speaker
And we do have deadlines, which we know are important.
00:28:20
Speaker
So we have exhibitions you can work towards.
00:28:23
Speaker
Our next one is coming up in December.
00:28:26
Speaker
And if you aren't ready, you can submit to the one followed.
00:28:30
Speaker
Right, right.
00:28:31
Speaker
And I just love that idea of having students be able to focus on purposeful work.
00:28:36
Speaker
At least I would love if it were me teaching the class, having those checkpoints enabled, but also letting kids be flexible with how they reach those checkpoints.
00:28:45
Speaker
so that kids can work at their own pace to the best of their ability.
00:28:48
Speaker
And it delivers that quote unquote, and it's kind of cheesy, but like just in time learning, which is the holy grail for a lot of educators, especially if we're talking about moving beyond worksheets towards something that's real that kids are working on.
00:29:03
Speaker
And I was wondering if you actually had more of those success stories, because to me, it gives me chills to think about what that means to have kids partner with local community members or tie it to a really interesting curricular thing or tie it to their local community.
00:29:18
Speaker
What are folks using the platform for?
00:29:20
Speaker
I'll give one more example and so Tony and Dennis can think of one I'll do very quickly.
00:29:25
Speaker
One was an unexpected use case where a father and daughter did the program together.
00:29:31
Speaker
And it was such a bonding experience for them that the father who was works in the police force near in Ontario.
00:29:43
Speaker
said, you know what, what we're trying to do all this youth outreach and it's always in sports.
00:29:48
Speaker
Why don't we use story experiential as a youth outreach through the actual police station?
00:29:55
Speaker
And so they they set up a room in the police station, offered it to youth all over the community that they had engaged with.
00:30:02
Speaker
as a fun place that could come every week to work through work on original stories.
00:30:07
Speaker
And they, you know, like you said, because the program's well-designed, they did things like provide snack and pizza and put up cool posters and made the environment really nice.
00:30:16
Speaker
And so a group, I don't exactly know the number, but it was probably around at least 20 young people who
00:30:24
Speaker
Went through that went through that program together just recently and came out with a lot of amazing stories again, because we push people to tell personal stories.
00:30:33
Speaker
That's the way this works best or stories that are personal to you.
00:30:37
Speaker
And so we had this father daughter relationship grow into the father, bringing it to his work into.
00:30:42
Speaker
Again, we never expected this to be being used by the police.
00:30:45
Speaker
We assumed it was for school, but we're surprised by these unexpected use cases.
00:30:50
Speaker
And that was one of my favorites.
00:30:54
Speaker
One of my favorites was participants vote on each other's work and we have recognition awards three times a year.
00:31:04
Speaker
And then we do a kind of an Oscar ceremony where we announce the winners and talk a little bit about each winner.
00:31:12
Speaker
And for one exhibition, there was a winning story about a slice of pizza who had...
00:31:21
Speaker
dietary issues and couldn't eat various foods and was trying to figure out how to navigate his way through life.
00:31:31
Speaker
And as the story went on, there were more and more medical facts that were introduced that were very oddly specific.
00:31:38
Speaker
And it was like, huh, I wonder, is this a personal story?
00:31:42
Speaker
And it turned out it was.
00:31:44
Speaker
The student who created that story, Mason,
00:31:48
Speaker
was hospitalized and he was creating this story from his hospital room where he was suffering from really severe digestive issues.
00:31:56
Speaker
And the doctors just weren't sure how to treat him.
00:32:02
Speaker
And so this was a form of therapy for him.
00:32:05
Speaker
He's doing much better now, fortunately.
00:32:07
Speaker
And he's been recognized in all sorts of other places for this story.
00:32:14
Speaker
He and his mother created a children's book out of it.
00:32:18
Speaker
So it was obviously something that was really important to
Community and Public Engagement
00:32:22
Speaker
him.
00:32:22
Speaker
And by telling his story, other people could connect with what he was going through to, I think, an extent that they might not have been able to otherwise.
00:32:34
Speaker
When it hit the one that always, that's the one that brought tears to my eyes.
00:32:38
Speaker
I'm not too manly to admit that.
00:32:41
Speaker
So that one always resonates.
00:32:43
Speaker
And just overall, one of the things that I love that comes out of every one of them, every time we come to the conclusion and we have our exhibition,
00:32:53
Speaker
Just the empathy that you see from young people that have connected from all across the country, different parts of the country, and they're really celebrating each other's stories.
00:33:04
Speaker
They don't know who's who.
00:33:05
Speaker
They don't know everybody's background, who they are, what they look like, and that stuff.
00:33:08
Speaker
But there's this empathy and the celebration of one another's stories.
00:33:11
Speaker
So it's always just beautiful to see that, you know,
00:33:15
Speaker
To see a classroom of kids just all getting along and supporting each other, but to see this on a major scale, it's just, it's just a, it's always refreshing every time we come to the conclusion of an exhibition.
00:33:27
Speaker
I love the fact that too, I believe anyone can go in and see those exhibitions at the end.
00:33:32
Speaker
Like I can just go on the website and check it out and see for myself what, what folks are up to.
00:33:36
Speaker
And I was browsing a few of them before we got on the podcast.
00:33:38
Speaker
And I was just really struck by one, how emotional a lot of those stories are, but two, um, how like silly and playful and kid like they are because they're designed by children.
00:33:49
Speaker
So they have that vibe that I just, I don't know, it reminds me of when I was a teacher and just comes across as hyper authentic in ways that a lot of platforms perhaps do not.
00:34:01
Speaker
But I am curious about, you know, you mentioned that the platform's hyper flexible, that a lot of folks could use it.
00:34:07
Speaker
And I totally get that.
00:34:08
Speaker
But I'm curious about
00:34:10
Speaker
What are the common issues that educators and students run into?
00:34:14
Speaker
Do you anticipate challenges?
00:34:15
Speaker
Do you see the tool managed in ways perhaps that you didn't want it to be or that you would reframe in ways that you would prefer it to be used?
00:34:25
Speaker
Who is this for?
00:34:26
Speaker
How can we troubleshoot those issues?
00:34:29
Speaker
Things that and this is coming to put my educator hat on.
00:34:32
Speaker
One of the things that I found to be.
00:34:35
Speaker
a challenge more so because for me, I could see this and I just automatically connected to how I could apply this in different content areas.
00:34:45
Speaker
And we did see that, you know, there are some people, as Tony had mentioned or Britt had mentioned, they just put in the box, oh, this is Pixar.
00:34:52
Speaker
It must be art.
00:34:53
Speaker
But for me as an educator, as a social studies teacher, I see this like, oh, this is an authentic way to really assess the student's understanding of a concept
00:35:02
Speaker
And all right, I might take some of the liberties of creating whatever story you want, but what if you lived in Mesopotamia during this era and really now letting those students start creating this world within the subject area?
Interdisciplinary Learning and Challenges
00:35:15
Speaker
As a science teacher, what if copper didn't exist?
00:35:18
Speaker
A lot of times, again, you'll find, I kind of found it a little challenge to see that teachers were missing how this applies beyond
00:35:28
Speaker
just one content area.
00:35:30
Speaker
And really, as Tony mentioned, it's storytelling.
00:35:33
Speaker
So getting kids to be able to articulate a story in any content area using a process that brings together collaboration, in-depth thinking, student-driven, it really enriches this learning.
00:35:46
Speaker
So trying to make sure that every teacher exceeds the opportunity
00:35:52
Speaker
That we learned that to be a bit more challenging than we anticipated.
00:35:55
Speaker
Now, we have been making great progress in that.
00:35:58
Speaker
But that that was one for me as an educator and even as a principal, I should have known this, that every teacher doesn't think through that project based lens.
00:36:07
Speaker
But, you know, again, that was one of the bigger challenges that I could say that personally I felt.
00:36:12
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:13
Speaker
I was just struck by how interesting that question is just on like on its face, like the idea of what if the world did not have copper?
00:36:20
Speaker
Like those are questions I think would be really interesting for adults to explore, getting to some speculative fiction stuff.
00:36:25
Speaker
But no, I totally see that because that's a reaction that we've received as an organization presenting the tool.
00:36:32
Speaker
Is that like, this sounds great, but I'm not an art teacher.
00:36:34
Speaker
It's like, well, they don't need to be good at art.
00:36:37
Speaker
Are there anything else or is there anything else that you would add to that?
00:36:41
Speaker
I think related to the, you know, how many disciplines is this applied to, you know, lifting up a level, you know, we want all of our courses, stories, startup, music, science, whatever, to be really authentic, you know, to how things are done in the real world.
00:36:59
Speaker
And because they're authentic, they're naturally multidisciplinary.
00:37:02
Speaker
So in the case of story, you know, it's not just digital media.
00:37:07
Speaker
It's not just writing.
00:37:08
Speaker
It's not just art.
00:37:09
Speaker
It's not just using digital tools.
00:37:13
Speaker
It's multidisciplinary, you know, as the world is.
00:37:16
Speaker
And most schools aren't set up for...
00:37:20
Speaker
Mark Schlissel, M.D.: Multi disciplinary learning right so we're we're constantly hearing well how does this fit into my English class or how does this fit into my math class and it certainly does but it's more than that and.
00:37:31
Speaker
Mark Schlissel, M.D.: Trying to you know get past some of those structural barriers, I think, is you know, something that we're going to be working to solve for a long time.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the overall goal would be that the pedagogy and content come together, that folks would adapt to you to make their courses more interdisciplinary, and you would adapt to them to ensure that it's broad enough that folks can use it in whatever way that they want to, because that's
00:37:57
Speaker
That is an issue that a lot of progressive education, human-centered education, whatever you want to call it, runs into is that they want to do all these interesting novel things, but they feel like the way that their classes are set up structurally just don't allow them to because there aren't interesting questions to be had.
00:38:15
Speaker
Now, you could do some creative noncompliance slash creatively look at the standards and probably make that work, but it requires you to be trained in that or have experience with that type of thinking.
00:38:28
Speaker
Another barrier we've seen is this, which is too bad, is this gallery system itself, which if you buy into it, you see it's
Future Projects and Educator Involvement
00:38:38
Speaker
amazing.
00:38:38
Speaker
It can't really be, you can't really, I would say you can't improve on a system that is a whole bunch of students being inspired and learning by each other.
00:38:49
Speaker
There is no better than that.
00:38:50
Speaker
That is the best.
00:38:52
Speaker
But in order to get there, you have to let go a little bit and trust the system of a whole bunch of students talking to each other, even though it's fully moderated.
00:39:01
Speaker
There's no private messaging.
00:39:02
Speaker
We've made it as safe as can be.
00:39:04
Speaker
But on its surface, when people hear student feedback across schools, a flag will go up for certain people.
00:39:11
Speaker
And as Tony mentioned, I don't think that problem ever goes away.
00:39:14
Speaker
At best, you could chip away at it.
00:39:16
Speaker
And so we've had situations where schools are maybe just want their students
00:39:21
Speaker
Chris Gabbard, Like a walled garden around their students only as one kind of a fix but we've all we've always tried to push for just.
00:39:28
Speaker
Chris Gabbard, Keep it one big open Community, because the more people in the Community, the better it works, but, but that is that's a different thing and it's kind of a square peg round hole for many schools.
00:39:40
Speaker
Right.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah, I totally get that from like a privacy data security fear perspective.
00:39:45
Speaker
But at the exact same time, if the goal is to create an authentic learning experience, that's school's probably going to be the only place where you would ever turn away outside communities and restrict them beyond everything else that you do in your daily life.
00:39:59
Speaker
So I totally get that.
00:40:01
Speaker
I did want to tackle while we're on this discussion.
00:40:04
Speaker
You had mentioned that you have an entrepreneurship curriculum coming up.
00:40:08
Speaker
I think it was alluded to also some video game concept things.
00:40:11
Speaker
What are the other projects that you're working on beyond just Story Experiential?
00:40:15
Speaker
I'll jump on one, which is entrepreneurship is, we believe, our next offering that we want to pilot actually very soon in January 2025.
00:40:26
Speaker
And it fits our model very nicely because the output, the industry recognizable prototype in this case is a pitch deck that the students talk over approximately three to four minutes.
00:40:37
Speaker
And so that's just an incredible artifact for anyone to create.
00:40:41
Speaker
And our system is designed that, you know, as you go through the program, you gradually flesh out your pitch deck one step at a time.
00:40:48
Speaker
And at the end, you've pitched it so many times that, you know, you're very comfortable with the idea and the community has a chance to shape it.
00:40:56
Speaker
And so that's one.
00:40:58
Speaker
That's what's coming up next.
00:41:00
Speaker
And yeah, I'll throw it to the others because we have some other fun ideas.
00:41:05
Speaker
We mentioned video game design and we've got a pretty well worked out curriculum flow.
00:41:11
Speaker
So we're scheduled to start production on that early next year.
00:41:16
Speaker
And then beyond that, we've been brainstorming about
00:41:20
Speaker
lots of other possibilities, music.
00:41:24
Speaker
And one of the things we try to do in these experientials is, you know, demonstrate that, you know, in the music industry, you know, not everybody is a vocalist.
00:41:34
Speaker
Not everybody is an instrumentalist.
00:41:37
Speaker
There are lots of other jobs.
00:41:39
Speaker
There's promotion, there's advertising, there's PR, there's production, there's sound mixing, there's all sorts of other jobs that people don't generally think of.
00:41:48
Speaker
And that's part of what we try to do.
00:41:50
Speaker
So as we look ahead, we'd like to have offerings in basically every domain that covers every kind of career you can imagine.
00:42:00
Speaker
So if folks want to learn more, they want to get involved, they want to partner with you, where would they start?
00:42:06
Speaker
Well, they can send mail to us, info at story experiential dot com.
00:42:12
Speaker
Partnerships are really interesting.
00:42:13
Speaker
Let's make sure they spell experiential with an X, no E at the beginning.
00:42:18
Speaker
OK, I was going to say we have a pretty interesting project that's out right now.
00:42:22
Speaker
We did in partnership with Array 101 and Ava DuVernay that, you know, would be great to share with the educational community based off the film Origin that she released.
00:42:33
Speaker
And there is a great opportunity to really dive into that film and unpack it a lot deeper and actually give students their experiences, tell their origin stories or share their origin stories, which is focused about the cast system on a global level.
00:42:50
Speaker
So again, very, very exciting project with Array 101 that we worked on with them.
00:42:57
Speaker
That sounds amazing.
00:42:57
Speaker
And Story Experiential is always open for registration.
00:43:00
Speaker
If someone wants to check it out at any time, we kind of have rolling admissions.
00:43:04
Speaker
So check out storyexperiential.com for that.
00:43:07
Speaker
I know it's just kind of a basic 101, but thank you so much.
00:43:11
Speaker
I appreciate it, Britt, Tony, and Dennis.
00:43:13
Speaker
Awesome.
00:43:13
Speaker
This was really great.
00:43:14
Speaker
Well done.
00:43:19
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
00:43:23
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change.
00:43:26
Speaker
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00:43:31
Speaker
Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free on our website, humanrestorationproject.org.
00:43:37
Speaker
Thank you.