Join Shoshanna Shumka, Executive Director of the Independent School Experiential Education Network (ISEEN), as she discusses experiential education, the Kolb learning cycle, and the importance of human connection in learning. Discover how ISEEN supports educators and fosters impactful, real-world experiences for students.

• Independent Schools Experiential Education Network (ISEEN)
• ISEEN Programs
• What is Experiential Education?
• ISEEN Catalyst Institute
• Kolb’s experiential learning cycle
• Inside Dawson’s Innovation Center, four-minute video introducing the Alexander Dawson School’s experiential learning building
• Contact Shoshanna on LinkedIn

Nick welcome to Talking technology with Atlas,

the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for

technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens,

we'll hear stories from technology directors and other

special guests from the Independent School community and

provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.

Hello, everyone. So you'll notice today I am not

Kristina Lewellen. This is Ashley Cross. I'm the Senior

Director of Education and content here at Atlas, and I'm

very excited to fill in for Kristina. Today, we're going to

welcome a special guest in just a few minutes, Shoshana sunka,

who is the Executive Director of the Independent School

Experiential Education Network, I see, but before we do that,

we'd like to just catch you up on what's happening. So we just

got through with Memorial Day weekend. Bill Hiram, how did it

go? What you guys do this Memorial Day? Good

morning, Ashley. It's good to be here for those

who don't know, I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of

Information Systems at St Christopher school in Richmond,

Virginia. So we had a wonderful time at our home. We had all the

children come on over for a nice cookout. And we actually live

right around the corner from a neighborhood pool, so there's

all sorts of excitement going on in that vicinity. So we can hear

all the laughter and all the patriotic music being played and

the celebrations going on. So it was kind of a nice way to kind

of have some fellowship at home and some good food and family

time. That's awesome.

I am Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at

Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair New Jersey, but at

this stage, after the weekend that I have, I feel like I am

the New Jersey Parkway traveler. Normally on this weekend, I am

down the Jersey Shore in Margate with my mother spending time on

the beach. But as many of you know, my oldest has just

graduated college. He has landed his first job, which put him out

on Staten Island, scenic Staten Island, he was out there on

Saturday starting his new job, and proceeded to have a car

breakdown. So I spent my weekend driving down to the shore,

driving back up home, dealing with that, and then driving back

to the shore, and then driving back home yet again. So I think

this is now the first time where it feels like my back end is not

moving, is not doing between 70 miles an hour and 35 miles an

hour, which, if you've ever traveled in New Jersey on any

type of holiday weekend in the summer, you know you're either

moving very fast or you're not moving at all. So I experienced

all of that this past weekend, and I'm happy to be actually

back at work, which is not something I normally say after a

long weekend. I usually wanna still be on the beach, but I'm

happy to be back and at it

Well, Bill, I'm kind of on the opposite end of

the parenting spectrum right now. My kids just got out of

school. My son finished kindergarten. My daughter

finished preschool. So we had the little blow up pool in the

backyard. It's really nice, very hot down here in southern

Alabama. So let's turn and start talking about our guest.

Shoshana. Is a longtime leader in global learning and

experiential pedagogy, so y'all She's really cool. I'm so

excited to have her on the pod today. She's got over two

decades of experience spanning university programs, k 12

independent schools and national networks from keto to Sidwell

Friends and now to her work at Isee, she has dedicated her

career to building inclusive, Justice centered learning

experiences that spark real world impact. Shoshana, welcome

to the pod and tell us too, would you do

this Memorial Day? Oh my gosh. Thank you so

much for having me here today. It's really exciting to be here.

I went camping. I guess that's you know what experiential

educators do. But we went to a really family friendly also have

a fourth grader, so closer to that end of the parenting

spectrum. But we went camping at the little Bennett campground

here in Maryland, and we had a great time. We have beautiful

weather. The sun was shining. It was freezing at night, so we

kind of snuggled in our sleeping bags, but it was a great time.

Shoshana, I have to tell you, my kindergartener

Bennett, came home with a flyer for Cub Scouts at the beginning

of the year, and it was like camping, and I was not a camping

person at all. We've gotten into it this year with my family, and

it has been such a lovely family experience for us. We've had a

really, really good year. So that's cool that you guys do

that as well. Yeah, it's really

fun. You're like, in nature, you're like, No

devices, you're just running around.

Yep, I actually

went camping for our honeymoon with my bride two

weeks. We can't we hit a bunch of national parks, and we

figured out this marriage was going to last if we could hang

out in a two person tent for two weeks.

Wow. Hiram,

that is very adventurous. I'm impressed. 31

years later, we're still together.

You might want to have done that prior to getting

married, but that's a different story. But yes, that's the 10.

To do prior to actually putting the ring on the finger, my

friend. So

Shawna, we're talking a lot about experiential

education today. I love that you kicked us off with camping. Can

you tell us a little bit about just a personal experience, kind

of outside the classroom that's helped how you shape the world?

Well, this is a bit unusual, but when I was a

senior in high school, my entire family moved to Nairobi, Kenya

in East Africa. This was for my dad's job, and as you can

imagine, it totally shifted the entire way that I see the world.

So attending high school in Kenya, I went to school with

people from all over the world who spoke dozens of different

languages, the entire landscape of the East African savannah was

different than where I grew up, in Silver Spring Maryland, and I

learned about the importance of relationships across difference

and how we learn from each other and just build understanding of

People who are different than you. So that transformational

experience, for me, sparked a desire to continue learning and

traveling around the world. That's what kicked

it off. That's impressive. Spending that amount

of time going abroad like that. You don't often hear of that

type of high school experience, and that probably provided you

an incredible overview and insight to how you can benefit

from this type of travel, this type of work, getting out in the

field, doing the things that you're doing. But before we kind

of get into it, I would love for you to define for us, when we're

talking about experiential education, what does that mean

for you, and how does that differ from what we might be

doing in schools that we might be calling project based

learning or any other type of umbrella you want to put over

that type of learning? What does that mean to you to set the

context for the conversation for our listeners?

I really appreciate that question, Bill,

and also you might not know, but your school is an Isee member.

Oh, I know, yes, I know. Yes, not. I do know your

school is doing it. And different people

think about experiential education in different ways, but

one shorthand way of talking about it is learning by doing.

But it's so much more to that when I talk about experiential

education, I'm thinking about a learning cycle where both

children and adults, we all learn through reflecting on

experiences. It's pretty simple when you think about it that

way, and we broaden that to think of experiential education,

or the way that I talk about it is as a pedagogy or even a

mindset shift that incorporates the whole person. So it's

looking at head, heart, hands, so emotional, cognitive and

physical learning that has a holistic, interdisciplinary

focus. So it brings in a lot of academic subjects that is

applicable to the real world. And you know what you said?

Bill, yes, project based learning, place based learning,

outdoor education, are all under the umbrella. There's a big tent

of experiential education. So all of those things are

considered experiential education.

So Shauna, if we were to take a quick overview of

your journey starting, obviously, it seemed like high

school was one of those life experiences that probably is a

punctuated moment in your life that has led you to the

direction that you're in today. But what brought you to actually

lead Isee,

I love working with educators, so that's number

one. And going backwards, you know, I grew up in a family that

instilled Jewish social justice values and with the idea that we

should leave the world a better place than we found it. And so I

was engaged in environmental work. After we left Kenya, I did

a gap year in Israel, Palestine, I studied abroad in Indonesia,

and then after college, I wanted to save the rain forest. You

know, like any young idealist, and lived in South America and

Ecuador for eight years, working with environmental organizations

in the rain forest, I had this light bulb moment when I

realized that my gifts and my strengths was working with

students, and that if I could bring students to the Amazon, to

the rain forest, that they would see that education is a powerful

tool for social change. That's what brought me here, and I have

been working in student Global Social Justice educational

programming for the last 20 or so years, and what I found the

most helpful for me in my career, as I was working with

students doing these immersive project based travel programs,

was Ken. Connecting with other educators like you all to learn

best practices and get that support to do this work, because

sometimes it can feel really lonely as an educator doing

something a little bit different. And when I worked in

higher ed and when I was at Sidwell, connecting with other

educators was the way that helped me grow in my career and

my profession, and I wanted to be able to give that back

through I seen the Independent Schools, experiential education

network and help other educators Connect. I'm a connector. I like

connecting people. How

much of an influence did your degree in

anthropology play in this journey anthropology gave

me the framework to think about

different cultures and how people connect across

difference. And so understanding that the way culture is

developed in Kenya or the way that culture is developed in the

United States just gave me a framework for thinking about

cross cultural communication and so that inclusive and openness

in Isee, and I think is grounded in my background in

anthropology.

I was an anthropology minor, so I

couldn't resist asking the question, great

love anthropology.

So for a number of years here at MKA, for well over

a decade, I ran an Irish studies program with our Upper School.

At the time our Upper School head of the department, and we

spent an entire semester working with them and teaching with

them, and led into this two week study around the country. We

spent two weeks traveling abroad. We met with Ivan Cooper,

who was head of the Bloody Sunday March up in Derry. We

studied and worked with people in their various migration

centers, so on and so forth. And one of the things that we did in

part of that, the reason I was there, was we traveled around

with laptops, digital video cameras, digital cameras, and we

documented things. We recorded things. We recorded interviews.

We did a lot of work, both in collecting resources as well as

developing resources to, again, as you're saying, to share,

connect, to get the word out. And that was probably in the

early 2000s that we were doing that, given we're a technology

based podcast here, what does the use of technology look like

now within the context of the work that you're doing with the

organization there. As

you mentioned, Bill, it's so important to

document that work, to demonstrate student learning,

and there's some great partners that we work with. Un ruler is

one of them. They are a platform where it's an online journal

where students can document their learning, can share

photographs and reflect on some of the learning, whether it's a

travel program in Ireland or, you know, program in New York

City, students document their learning. I have to say that,

going back to the old school, notebook is still a piece of

technology, right? Like a pen and paper is technology, and

sometimes it's also really powerful to step away from

digital technology and use analog technology and have

students write in a journal reflect using longhand so

there's different ways, depending on the situation.

I'm a huge proponent of journaling. I

really do love seeing what students can produce in recent

years, because we talk about post COVID frequently on the

pod. Have you noticed a decline in the ability for students to

be able to journal in the way that they used to do pre COVID

as a result of them being so involved with digital

technologies that it makes it more difficult to actually

capture what they're thinking about. I think

students, when given the opportunity to write

and journal and given a designated space and time away

from a device, they're just fine at journaling. I think it's

really about making the time and space to allow them that time to

journal and to sit with their thoughts and to reflect. So I

think they can still do it if we provide that opportunity for

them.

So Shoshana Isee runs a couple of really

interesting programs. I kind of shift us for just a minute and

talk about your winter and summer institutes. So first of

all, can you give us an overview of those and tell us a little

bit about what makes those special? And then I'd like to

tell the listeners about my connection

with that. So we run Deep Learning Institutes.

We run a summer institute for classroom

teachers and a winter Institute for program directors. And I

love Ashley that you were with us in Colorado at the Dawson

School last summer. And what's unique. Think about them is that

we learn about experiential education by doing experiential

education. So it's less talking, less sage on a stage, and more

guide on the side, and we are engaged in practicing the Kolb

experiential learning cycle, reflecting on it, building

relationships, building community, and getting out in

the place, wherever we are at the institute, either in

Boulder, Colorado, where we'll be in June, and Baltimore,

Maryland, where we'll be next January, we experience

experiential education in action by being in the student's shoes

and getting to experience what a student might experience. That a

student might experience.

That's very cool. So now Shoshana had invited

Atlas to help facilitate one of these, and so they have one on

maker spaces, and so I was there as the CO facilitator, and it

was my first experience with Isee, and I was really excited

to be there. Jeff and I had spent all year kind of prepping

for it and planning we had touch base, but I have to tell you,

Shoshana, when we got there, one of the first things that we did

was we went outside, which I loved. It was a beautiful

morning at Dawson, and we got in a circle, and Jeff was standing

next to me, and he took his shoes off, and I kind of looked

at him, and I was not quite prepared for this, exactly what

I was getting into. And then I looked around, and Jeff was not

the only one that took his shoes off. Everybody took their shoes

off, and they had their feet in the grass. And so I was like,

Okay, I'm in. I'm doing this. And so it was just a lovely

experience. It was a really reflective way to start the

morning. Literally ground it in the grass. It was a beautiful

place. We had a wonderful cohort that went through that

experience with us. But then the other thing, in addition to our

learning in the small group in the maker space, with this very

hands on, we came together as a larger group, and we did again,

more about the cold learning cycle and more about

experiential learning and how they could take it back to their

schools. But then we also had the opportunity to explore the

area, and that was really fascinating, too. Through this

process, you guys took us up into, you know, the mountain

area we were talking about conservation, we did a hike, and

we actually went with a local expert who led us through. And

it was very powerful. So I appreciate the opportunity to

get involved in that. It was something that I really enjoyed.

Can you tell us a little bit more for our listeners that

maybe aren't familiar with this? I think this is a great

takeaway, more about that colds learning cycle. What is that?

Why is that so central to the institutes?

Yeah, thanks, actually, and I love that you

were there, creating the inaugural Makerspace pedagogy

cohort, and going back just reflecting what you said. I

mean, the institutes are soulful experiences where we invite

vulnerability, and yes, we invited everyone to take their

shoes off and feel nature, and we do circle up in the morning

to model what you might do with your students. How do you ground

your students in nature and in place? So I love that you were

able to experience that. At iseem, we draw on the Kolb

experiential learning cycle, which was developed by a couple,

David and Alice Kolb, who were psychologists, and they

researched and observed how people learn, what is their

cognitive process as they're learning, and what they realize

is that people learn through experience, and that this

learning is not linear, it's cyclical. And so they describe

the cold experiential learning cycle, which consists of direct

experience. There's an experience that you have, like

standing in the graph that could be an experience, you reflect on

that experience, you analyze it, and then experiment, you apply

it to future learning. And I think that is really the

essential piece, is taking your newly learned knowledge and

applying it to real world situations, so that reinforces

your understanding. So I'm sure, as technology educators, you do

this all the time, right? Students learn and then they

apply it to another situation. How might this work in a

different application? So there are many models. It's not just

the Cole of experiential learning cycle. We find it

useful, but you might find that there are other similar models

that explain how people learn, the scientific method, the

writing process, the design thinking process. There are lots

of ways to describe these processes, but we've stuck to

the cold cycle. And I actually have a funny story one of our

schools, one of our member schools in Texas, who we did

some consulting work with for a full year, and we did a lot of

programs and workshops and professional learning with their

faculty. They have embraced David and Alice's cold

experiential learning cycle, and they've turned it into a verb.

So they say, Are you Cole being. Like, are you holding that in

your classroom? And I love how they're constantly thinking,

Okay, have we included the entire learning cycle in our

lesson planning? Because doing one without the other, you don't

get the complete learning if you reflect, but you haven't had an

experience, there's really nothing to reflect on. But if

you try to do the abstract conceptualization, or the

knowledge building piece, without the students have any

experience of it, it's hard for them to really absorb that and

really understand what the lesson is about.

Most of the programs, I believe, as I've

read, are partnering with teachers. Is there a student

component as well? Do you have a blended environment as well.

We are full professional development,

working with teachers. Yep, we work with teachers, educators,

administrators, heads of school, academic deans, directors of

global learning, outdoor education. We are a professional

network. But I will say a caveat to that is in that networking.

Sometimes schools connect and have their students work

together, right? So, if they're in New Jersey, and they find

other schools that are doing sustainability, and they have an

Earth Day conference, you know, a student led Climate Change

Conference, then the students will come together. And

oftentimes they make those connections through Isee, one

of the things I'm actually curious about, just to

hear a little bit more about, because, to be completely frank,

I don't know anything about, is the work that Atlas did with

you, when you were talking about about that inaugural work around

the makerspace and those areas, what did that look like within

the context of the work that you're doing? Ashley,

do you want to do that one sure I can start. So

I think this began with a conversation between

Kristina and Shoshana, and my work for my dissertation was

actually an exploratory study on maker spaces, and so they looped

me into the conversation. So I spent, like I said, about a year

planning with Jeff, who runs the makerspace there at the Dawson

school. And again, we were looking at, what does this

experience look like when we bring people together? So it was

really interesting, because there's not a whole lot of

programming for people who run maker spaces. There have been

events like constructing modern knowledge in the past that have

been really addressed that constructivism approach to

making in schools. But this was a really cool thing that focused

a lot on the logistics too. You know, we have all of these

projects. How are you going to organize these even solving,

like, issues of, how are you going to store all of these

student projects that happen in the space? So a lot of the

conversations that was bringing these people together that are

much like tech leaders, very isolated in their own roles at

their school, and bringing them together and giving them space

to connect, to talk about really innovative projects and work

that they're doing, again, community partnerships and

incorporating more of professional development for

them. How can they bring in this reflective Cole cycle, things

like that? So we really set the stage for what that could look

like in future years of the institute. It kind of set up a

framework bill, I would say, for what participation looks like

for a makerspace cohort within the icing Summer Institute. What

I loved about it was framing Makerspace as a

pedagogy, and connecting that learning to the cold,

experiential learning cycle, so that the reflective practice, so

that tying it to, you know, students existing knowledge, or

how can they apply it to real world situations, maybe the

maker space is connected to a community based organization

that's looking for a solution for something, and so doing

something in the classroom that can then be used in the real

world. I really love that connection. And the other thing

that I loved about the makerspace educators cohort is

that it's also part of the holistic Summer Institute for

experiential education, you know, pedagogy and practice in

the classroom. And so there were math teachers, science teachers,

English teachers, global languages, history, etc. And so

while there's some time spent in your specific discipline group,

there's also time for interacting with everyone. And

so there's spaces for someone who's in the maker space to

connect with the English teacher and see, you know, how could you

do English and makerspace, or how could you connect history

and Makerspace pedagogy? So I really loved that it had that

interdisciplinary component, as well as time to revise a lesson

to think about, you know, how you might connect this to your

curriculum? And I saw the educators playing, building

things and feeling what it feels like to be in a student's shoes

to what it's like to be a student to then bring that

feeling back into RE, energized and inspired teaching.

What's interesting is on this pod, we often talk

about AI, and I'm curious. Do you see this pedagogical

approach facilitating AI use in a practical sense for our

schools that is experiential? I

think that AI can be really useful in a lot of

different settings at schools. I'm all for it. If schools want

to create AI policies and teachers can use it to come up

with the rubric and help lesson plan designing. And I also see

experiential education as a bit of an antidote to full AI

reliance. And so when I'm talking about analog, when I'm

talking about going outside the classroom, I'm talking about

human relationships. I want us to also embrace the human

aspects and help students learn how to talk to people who are

different than they are, or work collaboratively in teams to

build their leadership skills. And this is what experiential

education does when done well, it really emphasizes the human

parts of learning. So AI is fine, and let's also make sure

that we get students out into the world and that we're more

human.

So the pedagogy

is really a giant pause button to really make sure

that we get the kids outside and doing things. I love it.

Absolutely

love it. I think that'll be interesting to see

how these tools continue to evolve over time. So my husband,

he's one that has all the latest shiny things. He's got the meta

Ray Ban glasses, and so last week, he keeps playing around

with it, and he's like, Oh, look, in real time, it will

translate in my ears, if someone is speaking to me in Spanish,

and it will tell me what they're saying. And it does this for

multiple languages. So, you know, maybe there's tools like

this that can help break down language barriers and help us

really have more human connections, where the device

kind of disappears a little bit into the background. But I'm

with Russell, you know, it's all got to be done in a very

intentional way. Shoshana, I wanted to ask you, too, for our

listeners, if they're thinking about practical takeaways from

this podcast, and they're saying, Wow, okay, this all

sounds really interesting, how might we bring some of this to

our school, maybe at a small scale? Do you have any advice

for our listeners how they can start taking advantage of maybe

some local community partners.

You know, I think most of our schools have

in our mission public service or being good stewards and good

members of our community. So community engagement, service

learning, this is one of the strong pillars of experiential

education, and there are often nonprofit partners that are

serving in the community, that schools can partner with really

easily. We want to make sure that it is a mutually beneficial

partnership, that there's equitable exchange of knowledge

and resources. But there are many, many nonprofits out there

who are willing and able to partner with schools and

students can contribute their time or unique skills at that

organization. So, for example, students might be able to help

with marketing or web design, you know, using their computer

programming skills or social media marketing to support an

organization that might be serving in the community and

support their mission. That way, that's great.

So kind of shifting again, you guys have

launched something brand new. So can you tell us a little bit

about the capitalist Institute? What that is, how it came about.

What are you guys working on right now? This is our first

new institute that we've developed in 10

years. So it's really exciting, and so grateful to the EE Ford

Foundation for giving us the seed money to develop this new

institute. What we heard from our member schools is that they

wanted more support in bringing change to their institutions.

Change is hard, and we also know that this kind of learning, this

place based, whole student, environmental, focused, world

focused, global learning, focused education, is really

impactful, and that is what our students need to thrive in this

world today, and it's really hard to make those changes in

traditional schools. So our members asked us for an

institute like this, the catalyst, which is a spark, a

bringing a new idea to a school with a leadership team equipped

with the skills and ability to implement these changes. So it's

not only going to be talking about deep learning, like a deep

learning intimate retreat, about experiential education. Pete.

Aggie, we're bringing it into the classroom, right? So we're

talking about assessment. How do you assess the learning? How do

you build faculty buy in? And we are going to have a whole unit

on leadership development, and you're developing your

leadership skills. And how do you as a leadership team, bring

everyone on board. Everyone's happy about this. Everyone is

excited and willing to do something a little bit

different. So one of the main differences at the catalyst

Institute, not only is it smaller and we bring in outside

expertise on these issues, we have a year long coaching cohort

to support the school leaders in implementing their action plan

that they come up with during the catalyst.

What are some of the things that you look for in

schools, or you talk to about schools to making this

relationship between you and them successful? Like, what does

a school need to do to set themselves up for success in the

work and what you're doing.

We're looking for schools

that are open minded and committed to doing

things a little bit differently. You know, experiential education

can be messy. I mean, you see this in the maker space. So

being open to the messiness and also having your school culture,

having the people both at the top, the upper level

administration, and everyone who's actually doing the

learning on the ground, the teachers that everyone is

everyone is a strong word. Let's say that there is a mass of

people who are willing to try something new, and so that

openness and willingness to try something new,

I think that's really, really fascinating,

because we see the same thing here at Atlas a lot of people,

even when they go back and they get, like, advanced degrees,

let's say that they've gone back and they have a master's degree.

A lot of times they actually don't have leadership training.

A lot of these things talk about theory, but when you get down to

people, it's a lot messier. And so having cohorts like that and

groups that can kind of guide them where they can have

conversations, it's really, really important. We do that

here at Atlas a lot, too, through the Leadership

Institute, but also just through our content and programming we

try to provide. So I definitely see that need as well. I'm

really glad you guys are doing that. Can you tell us a little

bit more about what you're excited about for this upcoming

year? We've kind of just almost wrapped it an academic school

year, and we're looking ahead at your programming, your different

things for icing, and it doesn't even have to be in the short

term. But Shoshana, what are you most excited about for I seen s

future?

Well, I love this time when we come up to the

end of the academic year and we try to practice what we preach.

So we'll take the time over the summer to reflect, reflect on

what went well, reflect on what we might do differently next

year. And so we look at the survey feedback from our

attendees, and we do take some time over the summer to think

about what we might do. I am so excited about the catalyst

institute that is number one, launching this in October, and

I'm very excited to see where that goes and to see the

transformation that that will inspire in schools, and I am

really excited about the possibility of venturing beyond

independent schools. I come from the higher ed world, and I know

that experiential education is a pedagogy that works well for all

students, and someday, I really hope that we're able to build

our network and expand and bring schools in Beyond The

Independent School world, so that all students have the

opportunity to participate in these transformative

experiences.

We've

been talking about looking ahead a little bit, but

just a second ago, we talked about management, and actually,

let's kind of look back. If you could give advice to your

younger self or a new leader just starting out again, we

mentioned there's many of those out there, not only in the tech

world, like here at Atlas, but also across divisions at

independent schools. What advice do you have for somebody that's

getting started

as I mentioned the beginning, the thing that's

helped me the most in my leadership is to find other

people in my profession who do similar work, so people that I

can build community with and share my struggles and my

challenges and also share wins and successes with that for me

is so important in my career, and seeking out professional

learning opportunities, going to the institutes, going to the

conferences, connecting with folks. I found some of my best

friends through going to some of these networks. And I even co

authored a book with someone from, you know, a different

school that we had met through these professional networks. But

I would say, advice. Thanks to future leaders, is remembering

that there are so many different ways to be a leader, leading

with my heart is the way that I lead. And I think the world

needs more leaders who lead with their heart.

So Shauna, in the spirit of creating these

relationships, is there a network specifically that

someone who may not be a member of ice scene who wants to get

connected. So for technology people, it has been Twitter for

many, many years. It's now moved on to ised, and now there are

all sorts of different venues for us to communicate with one

another. Is there a specific one that someone could get started,

so that they get the exposure, and then they can perhaps get in

contact with the icing community.

I think the irony here is that we're not

always the techie folks. The biggest platform I see

experiential educators on is LinkedIn and connecting on

LinkedIn and sharing ideas. What have you seen that works in your

programming on LinkedIn? And I seen we have a Google group, and

that's one of the ways that our members communicate, is we just

say, Hey, what are you doing for this? And then 10 people will

respond and say, Oh, well, we use this, and it's pretty low

tech, but it's a great way for our members to connect. So look

for other experiential educators on LinkedIn, and maybe think

about joining Essie.

So would that Google group be available to non

members as well? It's

only for members. Okay, thank you. I mean, I think

you shared a lot, and for a school that's just starting its

journey on experiential education. You kind of talked a

little bit about where they can find some of those people. Any

other first steps that you'd recommend for them? Let's

just talk to

another school about this. And they were

saying, Yeah, we'd like to do more experiential education. I

said, Well, how do you define experiential education? And they

were like, oh, yeah, we just talk about it, but we never

really define it. So I think a first step would be as a school

community, to define experiential education on for

yourself. What do you mean when you say experiential education?

And it can even be a collaborative process where

people come up with that definition together. You can

pull from many different ones. We, I see and had spent some

time coming up with our own definition of experiential

education, but that could be a fun first step. When I imagine

these kinds of group processes, I picture flip charts and

markers or writing on the whiteboard and doing a

collaborative process. But looking at those resources,

looking at I seen resources, there's a lot of other

organizations dedicated to specific strands of experiential

learning, so global learning, or community based learning,

service learning. There's different organizations. There's

some just dedicated to outdoor education. So I would check out

different organizations and see what's the best fit for your

school. Shoshana.

This has been a really, really fun conversation.

I hope people have learned a lot about experiential education,

maybe what it is, how they can bring it to their school, a

little bit more about the cold cycle. And again, another just

really fantastic organization that serves the space icing. So

where can people go to learn more about icing or to connect

with you? You can go

to our website. It's I seen info.com

you can email our general staff email for general information

staff. At, I seen info.com or you can email me. My direct

email is Shoshana. That's two n's. At, I seen info.com I feel

funny having a.com URL because I seen as a 501, c3, nonprofit

organization. And I don't know, 20 years ago when the founders

created the art.com domain. I just, you know, when I started

seven years ago, I just didn't been too busy building is seen

to change the URL over to a.org but we are a nonprofit

organization. It's

interesting to call that out, because I looked at it

as well and I thought the same thing. I was like, that's

interesting. I know one of these

days I'll change it. Well, we will be sure

to include all of those things in our show notes.

Shoshana, thank you so much for coming on with us today and for

sharing with the Atlas community. We appreciate you.

Thank you

so much for having me. Really an honor.

This has been talking technology with Atlas,

produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in

Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and

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