73: Two Ed Tech Gurus "Walk" Into a Zoom Room..., An Innovative Conversation with Leena Marie Saleh, Design Educator at Canva and THE Ed Tech Guru

 Hello my name is Holly Owens and welcome to Ed Up Ed Tech, the podcast that keeps you in the know about all the latest Ed Tech happenings. We interview guests from around the globe to give you deeper insights into the Ed Tech industry, the field of instructional design and more. We're proudly a part of America's leading podcast network, the Ed Up experience. It's time to sit back and enjoy the latest episode of "Edit Up Ed Tech." Here's what's coming up on this episode. I made a decision to leave the classroom. I was just ready for something new. My principal had actually told me that I was too innovative. But I had seen kids as like, yeah, too innovative. That is not a phrase you want to say to teachers. I love talking ed tech and transitioning teachers and getting into the space and instructional design, and just all the things. I think the future of ed tech, it just isn't going away. I need to be embraced. It's a challenge to keep lesson plans fresh find new ways to engage students from kindergarten to undergrad. Changing up at a learning experience can change everything. Goose Chase is the original interactive experience platform to create dynamic learning experiences. Get creative, boost collaboration and bring learning to life as your students earn points and have fun just for showing what they know. Visit GooseChace.com to learn how schools across the globe are using Goose Chase. It's free to sign up and start building your first experience. Hello everyone and welcome to another fantastic episode of Ed Up Ed Tech. My name is Holly Owens and I'm your host and today I am very excited to have a fellow Ed Tech nerd on the show with me. I have Lena Marie Sale and she's a design educator at Canva and she's also known as the Ed Tech Guru. Lena, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. I am too, because we're going to get in all kinds of conversations about Ed Tech and Nerd Out on Ed Tech. I love it. My friend LeCops and we love the Nerd Out and instructional design, but you and I, we're going to Nerd Out on Ed Tech. I love it. I'm so excited. So before we jump into all the things that you're doing at Canva and being this Ed Tech guru, why don't you tell the audience about yourself and how you journeyed into the Ed Tech space? - All right, sure. So I taught in the classroom for about 10 years. My first like real bout into that classroom. I remember walking into my student teaching and the kids were like in rows and they were just doing worksheet after worksheet after worksheet and I thought to myself, wow, this looks exactly how I learned when I was in the classroom. And so I made this like note to myself, like this is not what I'm going to do. He was a great educator and he did really great things, but it just wasn't what I wanted to do. So right around like my second or third year teaching, I actually started teaching at a STEM school. And just I started going to like anything that I could tech wise to like bring it into my classroom. And so that's kind of how my journey into a tech kind of began. And then throughout the years kind of peppered in some of that tech presented a conferences and started sharing my love of the tech in the education space. And then about almost five years ago now, I can't believe it's been that long, I made a decision to leave the classroom. I was just ready for something new. My principal had actually told me that I was too innovative. But I had seen kids as like-- - Excuse me. - Yeah. I had Maker's space and I had seen kids do all kinds of stuff like in the fab lab. And so I had actually moved into like the traditional classroom when I moved, I originally from Denver. And so when I moved from Denver to Austin, Texas, I started teaching in like a traditional school and that's where the teacher told me that. I mean, my principal told me that. I was like, okay, I'm done finding this battle. - Yes. - Yeah, that's a very uphill battle. I know, it's like, okay, I'm not gonna do this. So then I started looking into Edtech and I actually was a meetup organizer of a group called Edtech Austin at the time and we had like 2,500 active participants kind of married the partnership between Edtech and education. So I knew there was a space for teachers in the space and so then I started working at a company called CodeMonkey and so I designed their professional development and did a lot of trainings. And then about a year ago, I found myself at Canva. So that's kind of my journey to get. - Yeah. I love that we have a lot in common. You know, I've stalked your LinkedIn obviously. But we have a lot in common like I started as a teacher and the principal was like, "You're gonna be that tech person." I'm like, "Okay." And falling in love with it from there. But really, that's a great journey. I can't believe your principal said that. Who said that? I bet she bites herself now. Yeah, definitely, definitely. At least I hope so. Too innovative. That is not a phrase you want to say to teachers. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Do you have being in the space for as long as you have been? Do you have a favorite education related quote that you wanna share with the audience? - Sure, yeah. So I actually chose the quote by Malcolm X, which is education is the passport to the future for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. So I'm just a really big advocate of preparing students for workforce readiness, which I think is what EdTech actually does. It actually gives us the tools to think critically and communicate and all of those types of things for a world that doesn't exist right now. Yeah, we're twins there. Absolutely. EdTech is the foray into the future of things. And so being is it that you believe those things, how would you personally define educational technology? This is one of my favorite questions of the episode. Such a good question. So to personally define education technology, I think a lot of times teachers get a tech a bit wrong. It is a tool meant to enhance the learning that you're already doing. So instead of doing monotonous grades, monotonous pounds of paper and grading that way can actually enhance the learning that you're already doing in the classroom. And I think it takes away a lot of the workload and can be really leveraged to really help enhance your classroom, to make students more engaged. And that's what I think about education technology. I don't think about it as them going to play a video game or something like that. I think about it that it's enriching all of the things that you're doing in the classroom and that's just really how I define education technology. I like that definition and I remember being in the classroom this set of clickers doesn't exist anymore. It was called CPS clickers and when somebody at the board of Ed trained me and showed me that with between class periods I could give my students a paper test but they were answering on the clickers. And then I could transfer the grades in five minutes to the grade book. My life was forever changed. Right? How cool is that? How much time does that save you? And I also think about it is when you start actually doing-- like I started flipping my classroom like years ago. And when I started doing that, I was like, oh my gosh. This is so much easier to plan for the next school. You're going to have as much stress as much anxiety, because everything's already there for you and ready to go. And you just have to change and modify based on data and trends and those types of things. but yes, and it just the manualness of it all just fades to the background, which I really love. But on the other side of that, like the students are having fun and you're having fun and to me, that equals learning. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So we know you're an edtech guru. We have all the experience, you know, all the things, but I want to know your work at Canva. So tell us for those people who've living under a rock. What is Canva? What products or services does Canva offer and helping institutions and organizations in education? Yeah. So Canva actually has a Canva for Education product, which a lot of people tend to think I still see teachers say the same thing, but Canva for Education is actually free for all educators in the Canva space. We have it individually for teachers and then also as a whole district product and offering. So everyone in the entire school site, you're talking to your custodial staff, front office staff, your students, every single person in that building can actually have access to Canva and it's all of the pro features, which is so amazing. If you don't know what Canva is, we call it a visual communication tool. So it used to just be, you think of it as going there to design, but we like to think of it as a tool that you can, you can utilize in your classroom all day every day. Students can create, you can collaborate, you can communicate with one another and just enhancing those like workforce, 21st century timeless skills. And then what I do at Canva and what my team does is we basically curate and create the resources for teachers. So for me specifically, I create the resources that our CLCs, our Canva learning consultants will go to the schools and deliver trainings on how to use Canva in the classroom. So it could be how to capture the student learning journey. It could be building collaboration and whiteboards. So those different pieces in part and that's what we do. So if anyone's ever interested, just no Canva for Education is free, you don't need to pay for it and you get all of the pro features, which is so amazing. It is. So I love that Canva does that. It really speaks a lot about the company and how much they value educators and the whole learning space, absolutely. Yeah. And the founders are actually, they come from like a family of educators and they actually taught in the higher ed space. One of them was a history professor and then Mel, she actually taught at the college level. So they're just really, really passionate about education. Yeah, educators are everywhere. You know, we're invading the space in a good way and tech instructional design, instructional technology, and I love it because we bring so much to the table. So you work at Canva. So there's so many different questions I want to ask you and get into This could probably be a much longer podcast. But what do you enjoy most about creating these training or learning experiences for educators? And what kind of feedback have you gone from those educators about how they're using Canva in the classroom? It's a challenge to keep lesson plans fresh and find new ways to engage students from kindergarten to undergrad. Changing up their learning experience can change everything. Goose Chase is the original interactive experience platform to create dynamic learning experiences. Create your experience in just a few clicks. Build your own mission or choose from an ever-expanding library of experiences created by educators just like you. You can even reuse experiences for every class every year. Then it's GooseTime. Students participate solo or in teams as they complete missions in an easy-to-use app while you track live results and engagement. Get creative, boost collaboration, and bring learning to life as your students earn points and have fun just for showing what they know. Goose Chase experiences are easy to run and the ultimate way to live and up your lesson plan. Visit GooseChace.com to learn how schools across the globe are using Goose Chase. It's free to sign up and start building your first experience. Hmm, such a good question. Oh, I did that on the spot. I love it. I love the spot questions are usually the best ones. So what I love about what I do is that this past year alone, we actually launched this program when I came on and we serviced about 21,000 teachers already in this space. Did you say 21,000? Yeah. People who have like attended a camp of training and so I just find that to be so impactful. I think about me being in the walls of the classroom and just my students and just servicing only my district and now I'm servicing teachers all across the country. So I think that's the thing that I love the most. I've been a long time user of Canva for years and years before Canva had the education product. And I told all my friends about it. I've used it for my YouTube. I've used it my husband and his consultant business. He uses it and it's just something I've been like an advocate of for a long time. So it's funny that I ironically found myself here now. But it's just so cool to be able to see that you're designing something. And other people are using it. You're seeing the implications throughout Twitter in Facebook community groups and people just getting so excited about it. The feedback, as always, Kav has a lot. How do we dial it down that is going to meet the teachers' needs and how can they see it? But once they see it, they start using it, start experiencing it. It's just so amazing. We just did a webinar the other day, and there was 700 people in the webinar, which is probably one of the largest I've done, like for just education itself. And people were actively staying on the whole time. It was two hours, and people were so excited. Yes. So engage and like interacting. Oh, I can't believe it does this and I can't believe it does this and oh, this is so amazing I can't wait to save so much time. Oh, I don't have to use this tool anymore And so I just think that that's feedback that we love to hear and just knowing that and kind of knowing where teachers are We're always listening so I think you as an instructional designer and myself designing this sort of content We do a lot of listening. I call it almost like voyeurist Yeah, yeah. Keeping on pages to like listen what teachers are saying because it's what they're not saying or the questions that they're asking, not knowing that we're in these groups, listening to them. That's just so insightful. And I think those are the biggest like feedbacks you can get from like a webinar or attending a workshop and sitting in the back and just listening to people. That's the best way to kind of get your authentic feedback. Yes. I think they feel like when they're filling out a survey and because we already know you're such a good trainer and I'm sure a team is a, you know, great trainers. like they're gonna give you all the five stars. But when you really listen in and you're like seeing how they're actively using it and the features and the tools like you're saying that they're using within Canva and you get those specific examples is what I really love. - Yep, me too. - And I think it's great education, I think since the pandemic, and I know this was happening before, but the amount of teachers that are sharing what they're creating and sharing, and just like sharing like a canvalling and be like, hey, you can borrow this. You can use this to your classroom. I just find that to be so moving. - Yeah. - And I wish that had existed when I was in the classroom. - Me too. I feel like they were just trying to build some stuff before the canvas of the world came out to make people share across, like repositories and databases. You know, like the LMS would build, you know, some things like canvas has the commons and then you can pull stuff in from that. But they didn't really feel like there was a space for everyone to go like what you're saying about Can is it's, although you have this education space for K through 12 educators, it spans across sectors really. - Mm-hmm. - And I love that about the tool. Like I can be in my education mindset or I can be in my corporate mindset or I can be in my entrepreneur mindset and I'm using Canva for all the things. - Exactly, and I think that also translates to the students. What I love about Canva and other tools like that are that it empowers you to use it exactly what you're saying. Like students can see it, they can be like, Oh, I want to start like a lemonade stand. So I'm going to make a fire or I want to show someone how they could build a website. I just think what you're saying for like what teachers can use it for is also the same on the flip side for students. And I think that's also really powerful piece. Yes. And it's not just like, oh, there's another ed tech tool to try. You know, this really serves a purpose. And it's going to be something that can span across what people are going to be using in the workforce. It's here. It's going to stay and it's going to continue to evolve to what's happening out there with all the different jobs. Yep, exactly. Yeah. So is there anything you can share about things that you're doing within your department or within Canva as a whole that's for the upcoming year? Don't violate any NDA agreements. Also, when the edtech Google side, what are some things you have going on? That you can share-- OK, so for the Canvas side, we have a lot of really great things coming. A lot of things I can't really share with you right now. But we will be having Canva create in March. and last year we did our first ever like live event where we announced like all the new features and tools and things and I think teachers and just regular users are gonna be so excited about some of the things that were coming, some really cool stuff coming. If you haven't already done so, we did release Canva Docks this year and we will be releasing Magic Right, which I don't know if anyone knows that, but basically what you know it now. (laughs) - It is so cool. - It is right and it's basically like chat GPT, it's basically the same sort of functionality, same like open source software, whatever, I don't know, what would you call that? Open AI, open source AI in a situation. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I'll try that again. I mean, there's so many different words we use as a tool and I was supposed to use it. Oh, this makes sense if we use these together. Yeah. So the open source AI is actually in there. So we will be soon releasing magic right to users who's just trying to figure out the best way to do that. And so teachers also feel safe in this space. But if you haven't already checked that out, I definitely recommend it is available for a pro and all the other ones just kind of turned off for education right now, but it's amazing. It's so cool. It is so cool. I love it so much. So at Taguru area, what are you doing? What are you working on or some projects and things you have going on there? So we are going to myself. I'm going to continue. I've done some like teacher transition expert series this year about how teachers can transition out of the space and talk with industry experts and actually Holly is going to be a guest start as well. So look out for that soon. And then also just talking a little bit and going to turn more of the tech side on. I haven't done much with like diving into like the tech part, but a lot of like focusing on like how you can use Canva and how you can do different pieces and parts of that this year. So I'm really excited about that. And what's kind of on the phone. work for that. It's gonna be fun and there's gonna be so many people there that we get to connect with and I can't wait. I love talking ed tech and transitioning teachers and getting into the space and instructional design and just all the things. It's it's so much fun and it's such a good time. People that I talked to, they're like really intimidated by this space. I'm like, oh no, like you are welcome here and you're going to excel in this space 100%. Yeah and I think just once you take I like to say like a no thank you taste of like exploring the world of edtech. The skills that you learn in one program, they kind of change but they are transferable. So I guess that's the important thing to remember. Absolutely. All right, so we're coming up on the end of the episode here and I know you're going to have to come back because we need to talk more of Canva and edtech stuff. Is there anything else that you'd like to share before we conclude? And then I want to know from you being the EdTech guru. And this is a lot of pressure. What does the future of EdTech look like? Anything that we miss, you want to share? And what does the future look like? As far as anything we miss, I don't really think so. I think we've covered quite a bit of different things. I guess I've mentioned this before, but just always, always, always try to take a note. Thank you, Tasev EdTech. I think if you don't like one tool, then try another and whenever you do find one just hone in on that one and get really good at it. Like don't try to do 10 ATTACK tools all at once. I agree. I agree. Because that career overwhelming. Uh-huh. Yeah. And you just won't do it. So I think it's important to just take one breath and go through it. Yeah. And then for your question about what does the future of ATTACK look like? I think we're going to start to see AI really start to play a really big pivotal role in ed tech and whether that's on the front side or whether that's more so in the back side. We already have a lot of the AI integrated already on the back side of things. I think it's going to play a bigger role on the front side, but I think the future of ed tech, it just isn't going away. It needs to be embraced. So I think we've seen bits and pieces of people kind of making a little bit of change positive pandemic. But I'm hoping that the future A.K.A this next year people really start to embrace it a bit more and bring it into their classrooms and not think of it as another thing but think about it as the place for delivery and the thing that's going to make your life easier. And it's way easier to personalize students learning by using and leveraging these ed tech tools. Yes, I love what you said and I know where you're going that because there's so much resistance out there still even post-pandemic like people wanting to go back to like old ways of doing things that aren't necessarily effective based on research. I love the direction in which a lot more people because the pandemic happened are embracing a tech which it's about time. Long overdue, right? Absolutely 100%. Melina, I can't thank you enough for taking the time and coming on the show and speaking to our audience about all the wonderful things you're doing at Canva, being at Tech Guru, sharing all that information, everything in the show notes about Lena is going to be there, including Canva, where to find her on LinkedIn. So make sure you go there and things are coming on. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed you and can't wait to share this with your audience. Me too. You've just experienced and another amazing episode of "Ed Up Ed Tech." Be sure to visit our website at edupedtech.com to get all the updates on the latest Edtech happenings. See you next time! [MUSIC] [Music]