Episode 334: Short Answer

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 0:30

Hello everybody and welcome to another great episode of my EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day and, wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world, thank you, as always, for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing our content and interacting with our content, and we love your comments. I love to just get some feedback from you. So thank you so much for all of your support, and I definitely want to give a big shout out to our show sponsors. Thank you so much, book Creator. Thank you so much, eduaid. Thank you so much, yellowdig. It is because of you that this show just we continue to bring some amazing guests and have some amazing conversations, and for anybody out there who might be interested in possibly being a sponsor, please make sure you hit us up. We would love to collaborate and work with you and get your name out there. So thank you as always. And today, ladies and gentlemen, I your name out there. So thank you as always.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 1:25

And today, ladies and gentlemen, I have a wonderful show and, of course, I say that all the time, but the guests that I have today are people that I go way back with, and if you are looking right now at the video, you see Adam Sparks, and he's been on the show before and he's also been on an AI panel show that I've done, and now we're joined by his wife, also Alexis Sparks, and I am really excited to talk about the amazing work that they are doing. If you're not familiar with their work yet, I promise you after today you will enjoy what they are doing through their amazing platform called Short Answer, and so today we're going to have a great conversation of just pedagogy questions AI. We're going to talk about Short Answer. We're going to talk about a great partnership with Short Answer, and I won't give it, I won't spill it, but Short Answer has partnered up with some amazing people and you know I'm just excited for today's chat. So, adam, alexa, thank you so much for joining me today. Adam, how are you doing?

Adam Sparks: 2:26

Doing well. Thanks for having us, fonz, it's good to be back, and congratulations again. I know we're talking before this started, but now that we're officially on the record, congratulations to you, for, since we last spoke, you just finished your doctorate, which is like incredible.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 2:37

Yes, thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it and again, you know, because of work, having you on the show and people like you on the show, it was just great to be able to document all of that and put that into my research and my study. I mean, I never thought that the podcast would turn into a research study, so that has been phenomenal. And, alexa, thank you so much for joining us this first time. I know that Adam has spoken so highly of you and the work that you were doing. I know that Adam has spoken so highly of you and the work that you were doing and you know, I know you were studying in Stanford, so maybe you didn't have a lot of time, you know, to be on, but I am thankful that I got to meet you at ISTE. We got to talk. You connected me with some wonderful people too as well through LinkedIn and how are you doing today?

Alexa Sparks: 3:21

Doing? Great Thanks for having me on this podcast.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 3:24

Excellent.

Alexa Sparks: 3:24

Definitely nice to have some time to do this.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 3:27

This is actually my first podcast, so I'm nervous, but I'm excited, all right, no you're going to be great, and I think actually, you guys are my second couple that has been on here. Big shout out to Maury Beasley, who was on the show with her husband too, and so I think, yeah, you are definitely the second couple on and it's great just to see just a wonderful EdTech couple doing some great work and, you know, it's great to just catch up. So, but before we get started and we dive in, I definitely want to get a little brief introduction and what your context is within the education space, and so we'll go ahead and start with you, adam. Give us a little bit about your, tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you're doing.

Adam Sparks: 4:11

Yeah, so my name is Adam Sparks. I was a classroom teacher for seven years. I taught middle and high school social studies and English and loved it and fell in love with ed tech during that prep you know, during my time in the classroom and wanted to build it, and so I applied for master's programs and went and got my master's in learning, design and technology, where I built what became Short Answer. So it was just supposed to be my master's project but we got some grant funding and launched it about two years ago and I've been building it since. It's a K-12 writing platform that just embeds short form gamified writing practice across the curriculum. So I'm happy to share more about it and I'm honored to be building it with my wife, alexa. So, alexa, if you want to introduce yourself and your context, yeah, sure.

Alexa Sparks: 4:52

Hey everyone, I'm Alexa. My background with education is a little bit windy. Adam and I taught English in China for a year and while I felt that was a really hard year and it taught me that you know teaching is very hard classroom management especially is very difficult Adam told me that that was like the easiest job he'd had, compared to like teaching in the US. So I gained a lot of empathy that year. I gained a lot of interest in just like ed tech and how much it was helping Adam during his teaching year in the classroom. But my background really is more in the software engineering side. I've worked at different kind of ed tech startups, in the Midwest mainly, but then I also just recently went to Stanford to study education data science. So that was where I really took my like technical expertise and combined it with the data science piece and learn more about education, research and diving into the learning sciences and things like that.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 5:50

Excellent. Well, that's great, and what I love about this is like, just like you said, you know, coming at it from different perspectives, you've got both the education experience, but then you know Adam and working through Short Answer, now, both of you working on this and just getting to do this together. I think that's something that's fantastic. Number one it's just great that you get to work with each other as a couple, but also just the amazing work that you're doing, and I know that the last time that we caught up was at.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 6:17

ISTE, and that was definitely a couple of weeks back, and but I mean just to hear and see the amazing work that you all are doing and where you've been, I mean nonstop go, go, go. It has been wonderful to see just the growth since the first time that Adam was on the show and just sharing a short answer here on the podcast, and now you know the miles that you've traveled, the work that you've put in and the countless teachers and students that you have affected in such a positive way because of your platform. So we'll definitely get into that before, but before actually, I want to touch on something that you know a little bit of serious talk here about you know the ed tech space and so on, and I know one of the things that I do appreciate about Adam is that he has always been up for discourse and up for discussion and always been able to just go back and forth and share and learn and it's just been something phenomenal. And I know when I ran into you at ISTE, adam, I said you know what I would love to do a podcast and talk a little bit about this Substack article that you posted way back when, on June 27th, that I was like whoa, like this is something that's great, and I think it's something that a lot of people need to hear, and you know the title of the Substack and we'll pop it in the show notes too it's EdTech Needs More Dialectical Thinking, and so, adam, I want to ask you right now, and start off with you as far as dialectical thinking Can you tell us a little bit about number one, what inspired this post?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 7:49

Because there's so much in here that I definitely want to unpack. So tell me a little bit about you know, after short answer comes out, ai is go, go, go, move fast, break things or just kind of move fast and just go everywhere. What happened? What were your thoughts now when you wrote this sub stack?

Alexa Sparks: 8:09

Yeah, well, this is for first for context.

Adam Sparks: 8:17

The dialectical thinking is just maybe a pretentious way of saying just engaging with viewpoints that are different from your own. So just intentionally engaging with people that have different worldviews from you, that are different from your own. So just intentionally engaging with people that have different worldviews from you? And what inspired the post was what's funny. It was interacting with people unintentionally that had very different viewpoints from me and getting into a situation that I didn't expect.

Adam Sparks: 8:36

Alexa and I co-presented at a research ed conference in Delaware this past fall Because, as we have talked about on this podcast in the past, we take efficacy and growing out of our research base very seriously, in short answer, and we think it's something that, generally speaking, the H1BED tech market could do a better job of. That's a whole other conversation. So, anyway, as a part of that work, we wanted to present at a research conference, and so we were really the only ed tech folks at the conference. It was our first time attending a research ed conference. It's an organization that I've long been aware of, just as a. It's an organization built to sort of bridge research-based best practice with just daily classroom pedagogy and making research applicable to classroom contexts, so I've long relied on it for, just like guidance on best practices in teaching and learning. But this is our first time presenting at it, and we arrived there and quickly found out that K-12 ed tech is viewed as in a very negative light, I would say, and that was expressed in different ways over the course of the conference, but most clearly in the closing keynote that was recorded as a podcast and shared out, in which they essentially bashed on ed tech for an hour, and I thought that it was unproductive in a lot of different ways.

Adam Sparks: 9:49

But it was also interesting in that, like it was the I think, maybe the first time that I'd been to a conference to share our work at short answer and I actually walked away with, like my beliefs being challenged and like me thinking critically about things in a completely different light, that kind of burst, the bubble I was living in and helped me realize how much of a bubble EdTech is, and so I wrote that article in the lead up to ISTE, because ISTE might be the biggest bubble of them all. You know it's like the biggest celebration of EdTech in the world. To my knowledge, I think it's the biggest K-12 ed tech oriented conference in the world. Um, and it's a celebration of ed tech, as it should be, and I and I was excited to go down to and celebrate ed tech with other people that, like me, believe that ed tech has tremendous potential to improve learning outcomes for kids and and improve teachers lives and improve schools and blah, blah, blah, um. So I don't want to pretend like I like I'm not an ed tech hater by any means.

Adam Sparks: 10:45

I just think I learned so much from engaging from that conference and engaging with folks that had different beliefs than me, and I think, generally speaking, especially at ed tech conferences, but just in ed tech in general, we could do a much better job and we'd be much better off if we were more deliberate about engaging with people that have different beliefs from us, especially as we head into the age of AI, where there's a lot of skepticism and worry I think rightfully so around what AI means for teaching, but especially what it means for learning, and so, yeah, so I wrote the blog post just as a, hopefully as a way of kicking off conversation, and I was actually pleasantly surprised with what I experienced at ISTE.

Adam Sparks: 11:22

It wasn't, you know, the bubble, that I don't get me wrong. It is definitely a celebration of ed tech and there's a lot of, I think, blinders on for a lot of folks there. But at the same time, for example, I was really impressed that they had a research track that was just for researchers to get up and present, which Alexa did an excellent job of. Alexa presented with May Tan, one of her research collaborators at Stanford, on some of the research that they did on AI and its ability to provide feedback on student writing, so I wasn't even aware that ISTE did something like that. I thought that was a good step in the right direction, but I think, just in general as a whole, the K-12 ed tech market has a long ways to go in terms of more deliberately engaging with folks that have different worldviews, that don't necessarily believe in ed tech.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 12:04

Yeah, Alexa and I want to ask you what has been your experience. I know you know Adam's kind of been, you know, at the forefront and kind of like the face of short answer, and I know that you were involved in your studies and so on. But now that you're at these conferences and you're meeting people, talking to them and of course you know, as Adam shared his experience, like whoa, like you know, just all of a sudden, what you might have thought was that you were doing or going in the right direction. All of a sudden, like there's somebody that says, well, wait a minute, like no, what were your thoughts? What was going on through your mind?

Alexa Sparks: 13:25

Yeah, I think that's a good question. I guess for starters it is very like palpable the difference between going to like an ed tech focused conference and working especially at the vendor booth and having conversation. People are generally more like excited to hear about what you're doing and open to what the product does and they've accepted ed tech is like a good thing. So I think research ed was just very eye opening because it was like we're starting from. Ed tech isn't default good, we actually here think ed tech is kind of default bad, proved to us how your product isn't just like more of the same thing that we're criticizing in the ed tech space and so but I was proud coming out of it because you know not to toot our own. So I, but I was proud coming out of it because you know not to toot our own horns.

Alexa Sparks: 14:13

But, short answer, did grow out of like a research base and we are being very intentional about like how we think it should be incorporated in the classroom. We don't want to be and like we use like, for example, things, likeification, like we use gamified tactics that we're not like playing just games in the classroom to like entice kids. I think just to answer your question leaving research ed. It was jarring. I was a little bit shocked at the ending keynote, but I think overall it was good because I like to come from a like a centrist view on things in general and I think research had just kind of reminded us that we have to be in the middle, like it's not all good, it's not all bad, it's just yeah, there's both, you know exactly and and that's something that's great and right now that you mentioned that, it's something that I know through the podcast and relatively early I know that that I was like, oh my gosh, november 2022.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 15:12

And I was like, oh my gosh, let's go all in until March 2023 when I was doing some research for one of my doctoral studies and they're like, oh yeah, you know, write about something that's going on in ed tech right now. And I was like, okay, ai. And then I got into obviously, the privacy, the you know terms of service data and all of that. And then that was like what caused like just to kind of really pump the brakes on you know, just really moving forward and just do a lot more research. And and I always give credit to Dr Nika McGee, who that's the first person that I ever heard say cautious advocate, and I just kind of adopted that.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 15:47

Where you know it's, I find myself in the middle too, and that's why I love having these conversations and especially bringing people on like you who are at the front of, you know, using a platform, developing a platform and bringing that into the classroom, and just to hear you kind of say like, wow, you know, this kind of caused us to kind of take a step back. So I kind of want to ask you, as far as that kind of hearing that message, what were some of the shifts? And I'll start with you, alexa, if you don't mind sharing, and then Adam can add to it but what were some of the shifts that you've made or decided to make after you know that conference that y'all went to, as far as the platform or AI in general?

Alexa Sparks: 16:37

That's a good question. I feel like Adam would actually be good to tackle this, just because he usually the way our workflow works is that he'll start with like from with design and ideation, and then, after he gets that initial idea out on Figma, then it comes to me and it's like let's talk about like technical feasibility. So I think he'd be better suited to answer this question just because he was the person doing the initial designs. Sounds good, adam.

Adam Sparks: 17:07

No, it's a straightforward answer. It's just lead with the research. And when I say lead with the research, I don't mean your users are going to give you feedback on what they want in your product and what you should design, but it means balancing what they want with what research says is best practice, which is actually sometimes harder than may seem on the surface. And so, for example, we've read a lot of the research and Alexa has done original research that is really cool and she should talk about on AI and its ability to provide feedback on students' writing, and so there has been some research that came out recently. Maybe we can link in the show notes on that.

Adam Sparks: 17:41

Ai is effective at providing low-stakes, daily formative writing on kids' feedback and it's pretty good at scoring writing. Just in terms of relative to how humans score it with a rubric and relative to how AI scores it with a rubric, it's not statistically significantly different from one another. So that was what initially gave us the confidence to build out our first AI feedback activity, in short answer, which is called Quick Write, which is just kids get proficiency scores based on different success criteria set by the teacher. They're working together as a group to try to hit a class score goal together. So that's the game, and so it's a cooperative game where they're reflecting and getting AI feedback, getting AI feedback and then reflecting on it together. That grew directly out of research that we read, partly as a result of going to a conference like ResearchEd, where they're, of course, advocating for leading with research-based best practice in teaching and learning. And then I also think, just because of that worldview of wanting to encourage more skepticism towards ai and not just take it at face value and not just take the outputs as true because, as we know, ai often hallucinates we also designed out a new activity in short answer called pen pals um, and in pen pals um we've created these like spicy personality ai characters that the class can pick and then those characters essentially have arguments about the kids writing, and then the class can pick and then those characters essentially have arguments about the kids' writing, and then the class discuss those arguments and vote for the AI pinpile that they agree more with.

Adam Sparks: 19:09

So, of course, the primary goal there is to improve learning outcomes by getting the kids to think about the different success criteria, but the secondary goal is to encourage kids to challenge AI's outputs and not just accept them on face value and debate them, and it's almost like using AI as like a foil in the classroom. It's like we have the teacher, we have the students, then we have this AI thing that we can argue with and debate with. But again, don't just take it as face value and like the AI, feedback is the end, all be all. Let's question it and challenge it, discuss it and make it a way to make the class more social. And I would say, in some ways, all that grew directly out of our experience at ResearchEd and being encouraged to lead with ResearchFirst. So as challenging as that conference was for me and as frankly frustrating as it was for me, I do think we got better as a result and I think our product got better as a result. And that's again going back to like why I was promoting dialectical thinking in that post.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 20:01

Yeah, no, I do think oh sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.

Alexa Sparks: 20:05

I was just thinking, like now that he said that, going back to leaving research, that I do think we did double down and we still continue to double down let students connect with each other, because one of the criticisms of research at research ed was very much, like you know, technology kind of individualizes the learning process and that's not necessarily what we want.

Alexa Sparks: 20:28

So, like I think we did kind of have leave with some kind of reinforced core principles, like focusing on the peer-to-peer element, and for me and a lot of my research at Stanford, I think I left Stanford more skeptical of AI than I entered in my two-year master's degree. So definitely for me personally, it's very important because of the hallucination, because of yeah, you know the very real flaws of AI to not have AI be this like prescriptive entity within our app where it's like students have the final, you know opportunity to say whether or not they agree with the feedback or like have a discussion with the class about why, or why, like, the output isn't good or is good um, yeah, so just kind of piggybacking off what Adam said, just kind of that idea of just like pushing it, and then all of a sudden, now, even within our circle because for the most part it's the same kind of group or you know people and so on and all of a sudden, like I've seen, many that have kind of also started pumping the brakes on this.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 21:51

But one of the things that I love that you mentioned is, although your platform does have that AI component, like you mentioned, it's you have the student, the teacher and that AI component, but you're really, you know, allowing the students to have that discourse, that discussion, that going back and forth and still being able to make the classroom interactive. And it's not like really, although the tech is there, it to me it doesn't seem and the way that I've seen it, it's not like really just the platform is the center of the activity. You've got a lot of things that are going on there too as well, and that's one of the things that I do enjoy, that, as we've, you know, through the years and the months that have gone by, as we talk about personalized learning and personalized learning bites, we talk about personalized learning and personalized learning, and to me it just seems like you just kind of you're putting the kids on this computer but they're not getting to do a lot of the discourse or having that talk. It's almost like I forget who the guest was that said, you know, I just get on the chat bot and just put IDK, idk, idk, and it's just going to give me the answer and there really isn't anything that I'm going to learn from it. It has no context, it doesn't know anything about me, but yet we want to put them on these devices and or, you know, with the platforms.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 23:11

But a platform like yours, like you said, it's for writing. You've got feedback, you've got discussion, you've got the teacher. You know, within the activity too as well. I think that's something that is great and really like good practice, as opposed to just letting the AI take care of everything, and so I think that's something that I really do enjoy, and you know the work that you are doing, and I know that I've seen a lot of great feedback on your platform from a lot of people on all social media. So I mean, I think that the fact that you're taking the time to continually listen and learn and kind of take things back a little bit and say, hey, maybe let's do it this way or do it that way. I think that's something that's very important to be able to improvise, adapt and overcome based on the situation and what's happening. So I think that you guys are doing a fantastic job with that and that shows, really, with the growth and that you guys are everywhere too. I mean, there was a point in time where you were like at every conference, like week by week, which has been great just to see that growth too as well.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 24:13

But going a little bit back into that conference mode, I know one of the things that we often talk about is and you mentioned it it's just kind of like, you know, the AI kind of bubble, like we're kind of in a little bubble. We're kind of like within our own little echo chambers, chambers where maybe we see a lot of focus on the tool and just really tool heavy and not, you know, responsible or responsive pedagogy. That is solid and good. So I just want to get your idea, alexa, that you know, starting with you maybe now that you've gotten to present at a conference, and seeing what is out there, what are your thoughts on that? You know, as far as seeing maybe a lot of conferences just be at first, and then you know, pedagogy second yeah, I never see it as like a practical reality, like something born out of practical practicality.

Alexa Sparks: 26:11

like I think you know, up until two years ago has it been three years now the chat, gpt became very popular in the mainstream. There weren't tools that like made lesson planning extremely quick or like that could actually like save teachers like a meaningful amount of time. So I guess I just see when I think about like why are there so many just like tool focused presentations at conferences? I just think it was like born of necessity. It was like you know, you don't have a lot of time, we want to give you the most bang for your buck right here. Ok, here's a list of tools. I've kind of pre-vetted these for you.

Alexa Sparks: 26:44

Whoever I am and you know usually it's teachers telling other teachers, so they're like this is what's worked for me. I want to share that with my colleagues or other teachers across the nation, and so I'm just going to put this presentation together with tools that worked for me. Um, so I don't really, you know, and unfortunate you know that's unfortunate because you don't get into like the meaty pedagogy or things but I do kind of see it as something that was just really born out of, like just the practical, like it just seems like a natural response to a profession that had you know, had a lot of time-related burdens. How about you, adam?

Adam Sparks: 27:21

yeah, no, I think that's. I think you're right, alexa. It's like, um, at a conference you're given like a 45 minute session and that short amount of time it's it's hard to cover. And I feel this a lot when I present. It's like because we always want to lead with pedagogy. You certainly don't want to make it so theoretical that the teachers walk away feeling like you just talked at a 10,000 foot level about theory and they didn't get anything practical. So it's because you have such a time constrained environment, it kind of lends itself to like yeah, let me just quickly just hit you with a fire hose of tools, tools, tools and ways that you can tools, tools, tools, and that's like teachers like that, frankly, like a lot of teachers like that, because they're like like I'm here to find to kind of put tools in my tool belt, um, and unfortunately, taken to the extreme though, it does just result in presentations that are just sort of vendor sessions, especially where we're just we're just hawking different products without really talking about the problems that they're solving, and we're kind of putting the cart before the horse in that sense. And um, and I think, yeah, I think it's been unproductive, um, but, but I also think, moving forward, I I do see this getting slowly better.

Adam Sparks: 28:31

Um, I was encouraged when ascd and isty, two very large, influential organizations, merged. Um, asccd is the kind of big curriculum instruction professional development organization in the United States, iste, of course, the big ed tech one, and the merging of those two things I think is a good thing and sort of symbolic and something that I'm seeing in school districts across the country, which is that there used to be silos and there still are silos of like the ed tech coaches are over here and then, like the teaching and learning curriculum instruction folks are over here and there's certainly a lot of overlap, but they're separate spheres and I'm increasingly seeing that there's not, we're not doing separate spheres anymore. It's like you're just an instructional coach, technology is like an assumed part of what you do, and so we're going to leave with best practice in teaching and learning and we'll talk about tech. But we're going to talk about tech as a means to actualize best practices in teaching and learning, not as this separate thing. That is an end in and of itself.

Adam Sparks: 29:29

And I think if I have one major criticism of K-12 ed tech conferences it would be that it's oftentimes you go into presentations and you walk away feeling like ed tech is an end in and of itself. It's not. It's not a tool, it's not a means to an end of learning. It's like, no, no, no, just use the ed tech and then we will have been successful. And it's like well, I think we've lost the thread here a little bit, but you know that's a criticism, but I also don't want to be too negative because I do think it's getting better for all the reasons I just said.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 29:59

Yeah, no, and you know one thing that I do agree with you on that you know just the fact that you know, ascd and ISTE came together and I had the opportunity to be there and actually moderate a panel and be and being able to see district leaders there. You know, before it's, you know you go to a presentation, it's only the ed tech people because it, but now it's, you get a nice mix of people that are, you know, those curriculum and instruction departments coming year. That's what it's. We're moving more towards where our amazing, you know content coordinators now, before they used to always, you know, just focus on the how, you know how to teach things, that pedagogy. Well, now, you know, we're, we're slowly like rounding them out and now they're going to be doing some of the ad tech as well. But, like you said, it's, we're going to show you the how to teach it, the pedagogy, and then the tech that will supplement, you know, that learning, and I think that's something that's great and fantastic that I'm really looking forward to.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 31:20

And, like you said, you know, things change. You know we are seeing a lot of those conferences where it's tech first and or tool driven, and now I think we will start seeing that shift. So it's really exciting just to have been able to see everything that's been happening since, you know, november 2022 and till now, and how it's still just continually evolving and moving forward. So I want to ask you now you know, because I did see and for our audience members maybe that don't follow you on social media, please make sure that you follow Short Answer on social media as well and make sure you follow Adam and Alexa. You just, you know, go to their website, get on their socials, because they share so many great things. But I know one of the big things that I wanted to talk to you about is your new partnership, so can you tell us a little bit about that and how that came about?

Adam Sparks: 32:11

Yeah, yeah. We just formed a partnership with Edger Protocols, which is this amazing kind of thing I don't want to describe them incorrectly it's multi-acid, but it's multi-acid. But it's essentially an organization that promotes high quality pedagogy across K-12 through what are essentially like lesson frames, and I could go into more detail of all of them, but the first lesson frame that we have embedded in Short Answer as a part of this partnership is called Random Emoji Power Paragraph, which is one of their more popular edge of protocols. And so in Random Emoji Power Paragraph, which is one of their more popular edge of protocols, and so in Random Emoji Power Paragraph, there's a random emoji generator, as it sounds like from the title, and so we've embedded that in short answer.

Adam Sparks: 32:56

And the challenge for the kids becomes no matter what, you can cover any content with this. So we do it in history do science, math, like this, whatever, but whatever content. You do science math electives, whatever, but whatever content you're teaching, you're going to be challenged to write one paragraph, five sentences, and for each sentence we're going to generate a random emoji and you have to connect your learning in some way to that random emoji. So one for each. So there's five emojis. You've got five sentences. You're going to connect each sentence to each emoji and as you're doing that, you're having to find how to fit that together into a coherent paragraph. That doesn't sound like total gibberish, which is fun for the kids because it's really hard, but it's also challenging kids to think analogically, making analogies to different things and challenging with the writing structure in the process. So it's perfect for us, given our focus on writing and their focus and and uh, its approach and how fun it is right, because we want to be a sort of gamified fun writing platform.

Adam Sparks: 33:52

So uh yeah, so we just built rep sorry, random emoji paragraph short for the short version that is called rep uh into short answer. Um, as our first of hopefully several more edge protocols that will be embedded right into short answer. This all came about, um, through our. Actually I connected with a teacher in California. His name's Robert Mayfield. He teaches at Ripon High School. He's an incredible social studies teacher. He was using short answer quite a bit and he also does a lot with edgy protocols and he was presenting at Spring Q. Q is California's big epic ed tech conference in Palm Springs every spring and he asked me to co-present with him on how he uses short answer and I was going to help him with that, but then also on how they use short answer to actualize edge protocols. And that was kind of my first foray into this world.

Adam Sparks: 34:39

I'd always heard about edge protocols. My cousin, michael Krambeck, who teaches social studies here in Nebraska, was always a huge advocate and was always trying to get me to use it when I was teaching. But I just never did and the more I learned about it the more I believed in it both. Just like the pedagogy is actualizing how much teachers raved about it and how much teachers love edger protocols. That was the biggest swing thing for me. It was just like being in those rooms at Q and talking to all these teachers that use edger protocols every day and how much time it saves them and how effective it is for their kids.

Adam Sparks: 35:06

And I actually wrote about edge protocols in the um in the blog post we referenced earlier the dialectical thinking one, because something I love about edge protocols is they always lead with results. It's not just research they're leading with. Like here are my kids prior to using these and here are where my kids are at after using them and like you can see the growth, growth. So I loved everything about it and so we were super excited to form that partnership with John Carripo, who's the head of edge protocols, and Marlena Hepburn, who helps John out quite a bit. And yeah, I'm happy to get into any more detail with that if you want, but super excited to. We announced that a couple of weeks ago to kick off the new school year.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 35:42

No, and that's something that's fantastic. The new school year? No, and that's something that's fantastic. John's been on the show before and, boy, I don't know where he gets that much energy from, and.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 35:50

I mean seriously that guy is everywhere and I really love what they do through edu protocols and, like you said, being able to see that growth from activity to activity and just seeing where the students were to where they are now in just a matter of you know, just a couple of lessons within a couple of tries and, like you said, it's just highly engaging the students.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 36:14

Yes, they are using the tech, but the students are, and that's what I like. That differentiates, that is that engagement component, because there could be that engagement, but is it really solid in the learning? And you're putting all this together. So I really love that you guys were able to meet and get this started, because I think this is like just the first of many edu protocols within short answer, but just a great partnership and just building on student writing and student activities, and I think that's something that is fantastic and I know that's something that I'm looking forward to as well. So, alexa, what are your thoughts now? You know, seeing what you all have been doing through Short Answer in this, I don't want to say a long period of time, but through this short span and now you know this great opportunity to continue to grow, I mean, how do you feel as a founder, as you know, in being part of this.

Alexa Sparks: 37:10

I'm excited. I mean, of course, I'm excited about the partnership, especially. I mean the people that the teachers and other educators we've met through the EduProtocols community have all been just like very wonderful, wonderful people, and they I mean I haven't been in the classrooms like Adam has, but they seem to be great teachers too, so that's always a plus, um, yeah, so I'm just really excited, I think. I think about like founding a company, though there's it's like ups and down, you know, like the partnership really high, high. There's also lows, you know, but I'm excited. Yeah, the partnership is definitely very exciting. That's wonderful and that's great. But I'm excited, yeah, the partnership is definitely very exciting, that's wonderful, and that's great.

Alexa Sparks: 37:48

Well.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 37:49

I'm really excited about that. And, as far as short answer is concerned, what might be something? Well, if you, if there are some things that you may share, especially here on the podcast, you know, maybe some things on the roadmap or things that maybe some teachers might be able to expect. You know, I know the school year has already started in many areas, but maybe within the next couple of months or, you know, as through within this next school year, is there anything that you guys might be able to share that maybe teachers will be, you know, seen within the platform soon.

Adam Sparks: 38:23

Yeah Well, first of all, K-12 EdTech, and Short Answer especially, is a lot like teaching, in that you're building the plane while you're flying it, so we're always adding new stuff, we're always changing stuff, so you can expect updates from us pretty consistently, regardless of what time of year it is. So I already mentioned a couple. So we launched QuickWrite, our first AI-powered activity, last spring. We got a ton of feedback from educators as a part of some beta testing. We're going to be launching updates to QuickWrite based on that feedback within the next. Ooh, this is where I can't put a date on it Never give a date.

Adam Sparks: 38:59

Because Alexa will get angry at me because she's the one that has to make that new weapon, because she's the one that's building it. But the designs are all good and I would say we're probably a couple of weeks away from launching those updates and I'm excited about that. So students are going to be able to and I'll just spill the beans here we can break news on my tech lab these students are going to be able to revise and resubmit their writing after they get AI feedback. And what I'm excited about that for is because right now, so they submit the writing, they get a score, they reflect on that feedback and they see as a class, do we hit the goal or not? And that's kind of it they can talk about, reflect on the results, but that's kind of it. And what teachers told us they wanted was no, no, no. Now that they've got the feedback, they should revise what they wrote and resubmit it one they submitted or if they can hit it, even though they didn't hit it the first time, or whatever. So they're going to have that ability for the first time. We're excited about that. They're also going to have the ability the teachers I mean to pair kids up and like literally pick up your computer, go sit next to your classmate and talk to each other about the feedback that was provided to of like not student to screen, student to student type of instruction in QuickWrite, which I'm super excited about. So that's just the QuickWrite stuff. We've also got some PenPals updates coming, so PenPals was the one Activity already just described where it's like we're having these bots argue about the students' writing. We're excited to take PenPals out of beta testing and launch it to the public in the next few weeks and that will also include some major updates that I won't go into detail here but will be live soon.

Adam Sparks: 40:31

And then the larger building project that I'm just going to tease and not get into specifics about that we're working on is right now, I think short answer is a really incredible writing practice platform. I think we do a great job of being a good place to embed writing practice across the curriculum Um. But in moving forward, we also want to have the writing instruction portion um which we have in the in the you know the short answer like slots in nicely with any writing curriculum that you might use. So it's not to say that we don't work with writing instruction, but we actually want to have that supplemental instructional piece within short answer. Um, so that's kind of our very, very large building project that we don't work with writing instruction but we actually want to have that supplemental instructional piece within Schwab Answer. So that's kind of our very, very large building project that will be slowly rolling out over the course of the next 12 months and very, very excited for what that holds for us and for our students and for our teachers and schools.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 41:20

That's fantastic and that's such great news and, like I said, it's just been so great from the last time or the first time I should say that you were on the show and we're talking about. You know short answer to how far you've come and you just continuing to grow and just really, you know, boots on the ground and taking feedback and doing research and, like you said, leading with research first and good pedagogy. I think that's something that's great and fantastic, as opposed to, you know, many other apps that are out there that it's just like, hey, like we're just the tool, we're just pushing the tool but not really trying to. You know what is it that you're trying to solve with that tool? And here, yes, writing is something that I know here in Texas. That is something that for sure, we definitely need our practice on and, you know, just to have a great platform where the students would be able to practice. But, like you mentioned all the great things, to be able to have those discussions and be able to give that feedback and build on that feedback, I think that's something that's great. And then now the implementation of that writing instruction also to help supplement, you know, our educators with another just great tool to have.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 42:31

I think that's something that's great and that's fantastic. So I'm just really excited about the work that you're currently doing right now, and the work that you know will be seen in the future. And you know, it's just great to see great people and great friends just succeed and I think that's what it's all about and just having that community and just building something that's great. So thank you guys for the work that you guys are doing. This is fantastic and it's great. So I want to ask you now you know now where are you headed next? Like, let us know what conferences you have coming up next. You know right now I know you've been a little quiet cause it's been the summer and so on, but is there any conferences that you've got coming up next that maybe our listeners will be like oh, you know, maybe I'm nearby, maybe you know and come and check you guys out.

Adam Sparks: 43:16

Uh well, first of all, this has been I'm not exaggerating when I say this this has been the longest stretch that I've been home uh, for I don't even remember how many months and when I say longest stretch, I mean I've been home for more than seven days straight. It's been very nice. So I haven't, frankly, been thinking about what's next. But what's next for us? I can pull up my calendar.

Alexa Sparks: 43:38

I'll be at GATC. You'll be somewhere in. Sacramento yeah.

Adam Sparks: 43:41

Yeah, I'm going to be at Sacramento at the Vibe Shift Conference. That's in November. Alexa is going to be at GATC, which is in Georgia, I think that's in November as well. I'm going to be keynoting with Learning Forward Kansas, which is an amazing instructional organization. We're going to be doing our AI writing workshop with those folks Well, kind of an adjusted version of it in Kansas. My goodness. We're going to be at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference in Denver, and I think that's also in November. That's going to be a big one for us. I'm super excited about that. We're going to be at the Iowa Council of Teachers of English in Des Moines here in a couple weeks A couple, I think about a week.

Adam Sparks: 44:25

See notice that I don't have the dates because my mind is on like finally can breathe mode, so I haven't exactly been counting down the days to this. But but I am very, very excited for all of those and more. You know we're also going to be able to. For context, after Alexa graduated from Stanford in June, we moved back to Nebraska, so we're now based in Nebraska again, and so I'm so excited to connect with more local educators here in the state. You know we've got all sorts of partner teachers that are local that I'm excited to go sit in the back of their classroom and be a fly on the wall and learn about what's going well and what's not going well with short answer here in eastern Nebraska, but also in western Iowa with some schools. So that's on the docket as well, alexa. What am I missing? Is that all the stuff?

Alexa Sparks: 45:12

It's all the stuff in the near future.

Adam Sparks: 45:15

That's all the stuff in the next two months.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 45:19

But I love it. I love it Like you guys definitely deserve all of this and the continued success, because the work that you're doing and just thank you so much. I do want to add I think I really appreciate your authenticity, your genuineness and just really just your humility in that you speak with everybody. I mean seeing you guys at ISTE and in action and getting to know you. I think that's something that's great, that you are there, you're present, you know people come to the booth, you talk to them, you engage with them, you listen and I think that's something that's so important that, regardless of you know, obviously, a lot of platforms that are out there. I think that speaks volumes. You know, it doesn't matter how shiny their booths are and whatnot but.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 46:03

I think just that authenticity and genuineness really sets you all apart and I want to thank you for that and I just wish you the best and continued success in everything that you do, guys. And, as always, you're always welcome back to the show at any time, any updates and all that. You know that this is your platform and you're always welcome here. So thank you so much for being here with me today. Get you know, giving us some updates, talking to us, and I'm just really excited about you know the future.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 46:30

But before we wrap up, as you know, I always love to end the show with these last three questions and, um, I know that this is Alexa's first time here, so I'm not sure, alexa, you know, did you get to? You know, kind of think about these questions and everything you know. I want to make sure that we're all good. I know Adam, this is this third time with these questions and I'm curious to hear from him, but I'll go ahead and start the first one with you, alexa, you being the first time guest here. So, as we know, every superhero has a pain point or a weakness. For Superman, that kryptonite was, uh, his weakness. So I want to ask you, alexa, in the current state of ed tech or education in general, what would you say would be your current edu kryptonite?

Alexa Sparks: 47:16

okay, I don't know if this counts, but when I read that question I just thought of time just for myself in terms of like we have such ambitious goals with short answer and like have such a vision of what the tool can be and I just find myself kind of fighting time every day because you know it's Adam and I and Adam doesn't codes. We have a contractor but it's like two two people coding and I can help, but it only takes you so far and so just just time right now, Not enough time.

Adam Sparks: 47:47

Time is my kryptonite. That sounds like a song lyric or something.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 47:50

Yeah, that is a great answer. That is a great answer. Thank you All right, adam. How about yourself? What would you say is your current edu, kryptonite? Hold on real quick.

Adam Sparks: 48:01

Well, you know what, in the spirit of the conversation we've had, I would just say the ed tech bubble, you new world of AI, where I think rightfully, there's a lot of skepticism and fear around what AI means for learning, and so I think we need to be more open to dialogue around that skepticism. So that would be my AI kryptonite in the spirit of this conversation.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 48:40

All right, Great answer. All right, Adam. Question number two. We'll start off with you. If you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

Adam Sparks: 48:49

You're not going to like your suit of cloth, but it would be right better together. Go to myshortanswercom and use short answer because we are. There's a new term. I didn't even know we were this, but we are seed strapped, so essentially bootstrapped. We do not have venture capital funding in the way that a lot of big ed tech startups do, so our marketing budget's pretty limited, so if you're going to give me a free billboard, I'm putting short answer on there. And we're marketing.

Alexa Sparks: 49:23

Short answer to whoever's driving by that billboard for better or for worse. Perfect Adam, I laugh because we did not talk about this beforehand and I had the same exact thought I was like, right, better together with a qr.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 49:34

Yes, I was just about to mention the qr code you have to have the qr code there.

Adam Sparks: 49:40

Hold on hold on a qr code is not safe little billboard, because then you're on their phone trying to scan a qr code. That that sounds like that's true, but that was wet pot.

Alexa Sparks: 49:51

But I also thought like, oh, we don't have money for marketing, it's great yeah, it's a free billboard.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 49:59

Write better together, I love it. Oh, that's a great, I love it. So, alexa, I'm assuming that would that was your answer too, right, you said?

Alexa Sparks: 50:06

yeah, no, and that's funny because I did not talk to him beforehand.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 50:10

But that's great. You guys are definitely in sync, so that's wonderful, all right. So, alexa, last question for you is if you could trade places with anyone, any single person, for a day, who would that be, and why?

Alexa Sparks: 50:25

Okay, I teetered between two people, but I think it would be honestly right now, just because of the buzz, sam Altman, because I'd want to be in the room and have those conversations Like what are people who are, like, at the forefront of this technology really saying about it behind the scenes? Like do they actually believe AGI is possible with the current architecture? Or like what do they know that I don't know? I would be very curious about this.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 50:53

All right, great answer. All right, adam. How about yourself?

Adam Sparks: 50:58

That's a great response. I said this last time, but I think I'll say it again. This is just the social studies teacher in me. I would want to be the president for a day, just to experience all the things you just said, except at an international political level, like what's going on behind the scenes. I mean that for any administration, not just the current one, but just like what's actually going on behind the scenes. What's it like to be behind the desk of the Oval Office? What's all the secrets that I could learn in a day as the president? Yeah, that would be me. I would be fascinated. I would just love to spend a day in the White House.

Alexa Sparks: 51:34

That's a good answer, Adam. My other one was Taylor Swift.

Adam Sparks: 51:39

Of course.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 51:40

Of course no, and that's great. I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, Adam, Alexa, thank you so much just for being an amazing guest and, again, sincerely, I wish you guys the most success possible, because you guys are great and you guys are passionate about what you do and I definitely love your research. First approach to you, know what you're building and that's wonderful and that's great. So, thank you guys for being amazing guests and being on the show and, like I mentioned, this is your platform. Anytime that you want to come back, If you have any updates, whether it be three months, six months or a year from now, whenever you're always more than welcome to come back on the show and share all the great news and all the great work that you're doing.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 52:21

So thank you so much and, for our audience members, please make sure you visit our website at myedtechlife, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 333 wonderful episodes that we have for you, where I promise you will find a little something that you can sprinkle onto what you are already doing. Great. And again, big shout out to our sponsors EduAid, Book Creator and Yellowdig. Thank you so much for believing in our mission so that we may be able to bring amazing conversations such as this to everyone. So thank you so much for your support and again until next time. My friends, don't forget, stay techie.