This interview was originally recorded on November 23, 2021, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
Elana:
Hello and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni, and I’ve devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs and the experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing or content marketing, and community building. I’m excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value and ultimately improves the lives of your audience. Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education.
I’m your host Elana and today I have the absolute pleasure to chat with Dr. Sarah Thomas. I met Sarah on Twitter like a lot of the educators you’re going to see a pattern. But I knew of her, I followed her tweets, but I met you Sarah for the first time at a South by Southwest EDU panel. And I was like going through my tweets going gosh, you know how long has it been? And you were talking about inequity and gender issues in education before any of this happened. And it was so inspiring, and I remember coming up to you after the panel. I’m like oh my gosh I get to meet you face to face.
Sarah:
Oh I was so geeked as well [laughter]. I was just like I get to put a name to a face [laughter].
Elana:
Like fast forward, what is that? That was like 2015 so I’ve probably known you informally for over ten years and got to be inspired by you and follow your progress on all social media and what you’ve done. Just to let you all know what Sarah does, so Sarah is a podcaster. Her podcast is called EduMatch Tweet and Talk, and we were just talking before this call about one of my first podcast experiences with Sarah when she was doing live popup kind of podcasting with educators. And it gave me the confidence to do some of this now, like OK maybe I’m not so horrible [laughter] in this, you know? When you hear your voice it’s always a trip to get used to, but I think those moments of seeing people take the courage like you did really helped.
Sarah:
Thank you.
Elana:
And all of you will get to know this and feel this soon enough, but Sarah is a very passionate educator. She’ll talk probably about her passion for mentoring, inspiring others, connecting others especially in education. She founded EduMatch which is an organization that connects educators across the globe to collaborate and combat isolation. We know teaching is such an isolated profession especially in a pandemic, so if she could talk a little bit about that. On top of all that stuff her day job she’s a regional technology coordinator in Maryland. She’s spoken and presented internationally and nationally. She help refresh the 2017 ISTE standards for educators. So ISTE is I-S-T-E so International Society of Technology Educators.
Sarah:
Uh-huh [laughter].
Elana:
And she is a recipient of the ISTE Make It Happen award. And last but not least Sarah, I’m giving you this big accolade because I’ve noticed that educators when they introduce themselves they usually just say one thing. And it’s so important for our listeners to really understand your passion and what you’ve done. So last but not least, Sarah is a co-author of the ISTE Digital Equity series Closing the Gap. And I know within EduMatch you also publish lots of books as well. And I guess we also talk a little bit about that. You guys don’t get to see Sarah’s smiling face, but I do and every time I see this wonderful human she makes me smile. So please help me welcome Ms. Sarah to All Things Marketing and Education.
Sarah:
Oh thank you so much my friend. It is so great to be here with you and I’m super honored that you reached out to have me today. And I’m super honored to chat with you and catch up and chat with your audience as well.
Elana:
Let’s rewind a bit to get started. So a lot of what we do at Leoni Consulting Group is help our clients re-orient back to their why, their passion. Because sometimes that gets lost especially in EdTech where you’ve got all of these things you go to do. But kind of reorienting you back to Sarah circa just starting getting into education, let’s talk about your why a little bit. What initially drew you to the world of education and being a teacher?
Sarah:
When I started in education I actually came from a different field. I came from radio/TV/film background. That was my major for undergrad, and it was funny because right when I started undergrad then my mom started teaching middle school French. And I started going to her classroom and helping her out in terms of working with her students, helping her set up. I saw someone in her school was in an A/V role. I was just like I can totally see myself doing that, but of course by the time I figured all this out then I already had most of my credits done [laughter]. So re-enrolled in grad school immediately afterward and it was like serendipity. One day I came down the stairs.
There was a flyer up. They were recruiting teachers for a nearby district through alternative certification, so I said OK here’s my shot and I applied. They took me on and that’s how I got started. And I’m not going to lie and say it was an easy transition or an easy journey. It took me about maybe five years to really get “good,” not even good, I would say OK. But it took a while for me to find my bearings and really I was able to grow the most once I started being connected and meeting so many awesome people such as yourself, and other members of my PLN and just getting great ideas I was able to use in my classroom. That’s kind of how I got started.
Elana:
I don’t know if this is correct, but it took you about four years to really get connected.
Sarah:
Yeah, yeah it took quite a while and within those first five years I was at four different schools, so definitely moving around was another thing that I did that allowed me to kind of eventually find the school that was perfect for me. It was like a perfect fit, and I stayed there for the next seven years, so it was a lot of learning on the job and a lot of I guess trial and error. But a lot of growing pains at the beginning but eventually just kind of finding my way.
Elana:
I know you ended up moving out of the classroom into the district and eventually getting your PhD. How did that transition come about? Because I think that your journey is very intriguing to many other educators that might be listening.
Sarah:
I feel so lucky that fifth year I would say then I was able to find the role that was a perfect marriage of my skills as an educator as well as my background in radio/TV/film and I started working as a tech teacher in the schools. And through that position then I learned about different opportunities in the county. There was a technology leadership academy where they kind of prepped you and that gave me back so much confidence. Because my confidence was shot after those first four years. That technology leadership academy and the sharing technology with educators program those really helped me get a lot of confidence back and see myself in a different light.
Then I started learning more and more about what other people were doing and started bringing that into my classroom and then into my school and then into my district. We had our very first EdCamp in the district back in 2014. Let me see, I went to EdCamp Philly and just brought that back, wait was it EdCamp Philly? It might’ve been EdCamp New Jersey, I’m sorry. EdCamp New Jersey and just kind of brought that back and you know from there and just doing other things, just trying to connect educators in the district then I already knew my current team that when I was in the classroom had really been mentors to me. And really helped me build my confidence back up.
I knew that that’s a place where I wanted to be. I wanted to join the team so that all that they had poured into me I’d be able to pour into others. When they did have an opening in 2015, then I applied and long story short I started back in November 2015 with the tech team in my district.
Elana:
Nice, and for those that don’t know EdCamps do you mind just doing a quick sidenote about what EdCamps are and how you got involved in them?
Sarah:
They are events that are totally participant driven, totally free. So people come in that day of and then there’s a board. And they can write down anything that they want to share about, anything that they want to learn about. People will come to that room at that time. If you can picture a matrix, so there’s different rooms and different times on a different axes. And so folks will sign up for whatever they want to share about, whatever they want to learn about and then when you get in there then it’s like everyone has a conversation. So it’s not like a presenter, there’re just conversations and lots of great ideas get spread. So huge, huge, huge, I’m a huge fan of EdCamps.
Elana:
Yeah, and in the show notes we’ll put a link to the EdCamp foundation which I believe is now under the realm of digital promise. So we’ll send you a link if you’re interested in exploring EdCamps in your area. But like Sarah said I got very involved in it as well, was a part of a lot of the EdCamps on the California side and was inspired by what you all were doing in EdCamp Philly in the early days. But they were originally inspired by BarCamps over in San Mateo Silicon Valley and those were startup driven. So it’s very much DIY unconferences. You go and you get to figure out what you want to learn, and you talk with people that are just as passionate about you and that’s awesome.
Unfortunately it is a little bit novel in education where educators are kind of told what to learn and how to learn and dictated PD in a lot of senses. So imagine when you can say no I want to learn this, and there’s [unintelligible 00:10:25] and it’s not sitting and get we’re all, like you see, there’s no presenter. We could talk forever about EdCamps [laughter].
Sarah:
They are awesome, yes [laughter], yeah.
Elana:
So tell me a little bit about your current role. I’m more wondering you have a role with a different vantage point where you get to see multiple classrooms and different teachers. And then your work with EduMatch you get to connect with educators all around the nation and the world. What has been your biggest challenge maybe in your role? Or what have you seen the biggest challenge from your vantage point with EduMatch?
Sarah:
There’s so much overlap with what I do 9 to 5 and what I do with EduMatch in terms of just being able to kind of see and hear what kind of challenges folks are having and I mean what kind of growth folks are having as well. You know like I would say that the 2020 school year, 2020 to 2021 I saw as a regional tech coordinator then I saw in my district just so many people growing like educators, students, parents. And I saw just a renewed focus on partnership with parents and just ways to reach out to them and things of that nature. Now in this school 2021 to 22 then I think that a lot of people thought that going back would be like so much easier. But there is just so much going on right now because I mean we’re still in the pandemic.
People have so many mandates. You know there’s this pressure to catch up with learning loss and things like that. I don’t believe in the concept of learning loss, but you know that’s one thing that’s being pushed very heavily right now. I feel like that kind of does a disservice to our kids when we need to be focusing on the whole child. We need to be focusing on their social, emotional because they’ve been through a lot. We’ve been through a lot, you know, as educators. So really I’ve seen some districts that have implemented these days where students can take mental health days like once a quarter or it might be once a semester. My district does that, and I know that a few others do as well.
And I feel like that should be a primary area of focus. Because there’s just so much going on right now. So I would also equally advocate for that support going to educators as well, like [Mandie Fralick]. I will give her a huge shoutout. She does a lot of work around educator mental health. I think that that’s definitely something that we need to be focused on right now.
Elana:
Yeah and if you weren’t going to say it I was going to jump in and say I want to have mandatory days for educators as well for mental health.
Sarah:
Yeah.
Elana:
And I want them to not feel guilty for taking the time off because they don’t have the subs that can substitute their classrooms. It’s so hard and something I’m pretty passionate about too. So we’ll link to Mandy in the show notes as well. I’ve listened to a podcast recently that you were on, and you said that the pandemic put the inequities kind of right in your face as well. Can you talk more about the inequities you were seeing and maybe how, if it has, transformed now thinking about year two in a pandemic?
Sarah:
During the pandemic then whatever inequities that were not at the surface then they very quickly came to the surface when a lot of schools and districts had to transition to emergency remote learning. I know that here were a lot of adjustments that needed to be made and hopefully those adjustments were made so that students could get what they need. I’ve heard from colleagues and peers around the country and around the world that sometimes their schools and districts were able to be responsive to what students needed, but a lot of times they fell short. And this also comes into play when we talk about the preparedness of educators to be able to teach in this style.
So I know that for our district then educators really stepped up to the plate in our district. I was just really, really inspired to see that. We had some bootcamps [laughter] so to speak. During spring break when everything shut down then I remember that we had a week off for the students. The students could just do what they did. We had spring break right before that, so the educator spring break was still there. But when we came back we had an extra week for students and the educators in our districts were attending different sessions on how they could deliver instruction remotely. So you know all of these things that we’ve been advocating for in terms of digital equity for years and years and years then really the need became urgent and critical when the pandemic first began.
And it’s still urgent and critical. One thing that I’m seeing though and that I’m hearing a lot about is that some people are starting to regress to what they consider normal. And to me that’s a bit disheartening because I feel that now we have the capacity to do things, to do authentic learning for our students. And I want to encourage just all educators to continue to build upon their gains so that once you have this capacity then you need to continue to exercise it, so you don’t lose it. And it makes a tremendous difference for our students to be able to have opportunities to apply their learning in a transformational way. So I would definitely say just keep it up.
Elana:
Sarah talk to me about your current role and your experience on the ground when the pandemic hit. I’m super curious of just you got the notice that your district is probably going virtual at the time or not really sure. There’s a lot of uncertainty and you’re at the helm with a lot of initiatives. And then you’re also trying to support other educators nationally and internationally that might be going through similar things. So at that moment I’m sure the challenges were incredible but how have they evolved over time with the pandemic?
Sarah:
Yeah absolutely. I want to definitely salute all of the educators in my district and all of the students, all of the parents who came together to make last school year a success. There was some intensive I would say capacity building [laughter] so to speak. It was necessary capacity building, emergency capacity building but long story short people stepped up in a major way in a short period of time. Not just in my district but around the country, around the world even. I have a friend over in the Philippines who was telling me about her school’s journey and just everything that they’ve had to do in this time as well. So it’s definitely been a challenging school year.
Last year was a challenging school year, but it was one where I would say that a lot of people grew in so many different ways and a lot of connections were strengthened. This year going back, and I think a lot of people thought that it might be easier, but it’s not easier for so many reasons. First we have, I would say nationwide, a teacher shortage and that definitely impacts everyone and not just teachers but just all roles. When it comes to bus drivers that is a huge, I see that on the news all the time about the bus drivers. And in addition to that then there’s this whole concept of learning loss that has been floated out and, you know, there’s this pressure to catch up and I feel that this kind of pressure it’s detrimental.
It’s detrimental in a lot of ways because our students have been through a lot. Our peers and colleagues have been through a lot. Parents have been through a lot, so we really need to focus on just supporting them as well. I would say that that would be the main priority. If I could prioritize what to put in order then definitely that support, but there’s a lot of tress and there’s a lot of anxiety in the air. So that’s kind of the times that we’re in right now and hopefully it’ll get better.
Elana:
Yeah, and if you are a marketer in an education brand listening to this, I think it’s very critical to listen to what Sarah was saying around the word support and not really using those buzz catch phrases like learning loss that can really add to anxiety and are so ambiguous. We could talk about all of the intricacies and the complexities of what learning loss truly is and [unintelligible 00:19:56] and all that does is compound anxiety on a very anxious situation already. Anything else you want to add to that as we talk to marketers that are also trying to gain attention of yours where you’re at the helm a lot with technology and integrating that and also getting attention of educators in the trenches in the classroom every day.
Sarah:
Yeah definitely. So to your audience who may be marketers I would say definitely look for the value adds. This is a time where again a lot of people need support and just seeing where you can help. I saw a lot of companies step up during the pandemic, we’re still in the pandemic, but a lot of companies step up right at the beginning and say hey we see that you’re doing this remote learning, and this is the way that we can help. We can offer you a few months free of X, Y, and Z and I thought that that was great to see, you know? Definitely prioritizing people over profit and I thought that that was very warming and inspiring to see companies that operated in that way.
Elana:
Yeah, and that is a theme so if any of you all listen to the other episodes I talk at nauseam and said a lot of our guests, I don’t tell them to talk this way, but they say value driven. Think about the benefit you can authentically give to educators in their time of need. Please don’t waste their time. Please don’t make the situation worse by creating more anxiety and scare tactics around things that haven’t been defined and are heavily debatable. Let’s just say that.
Sarah:
Yeah totally.
Elana:
We have talked about inequities prior to the pandemic, but I know you are fairly outspoken in inequities because you can see it so clearly and the pandemic, if nothing else, has really shot a spotlight on the actual inequities. We’ve been talking about them forever but all of a sudden we have to go from zero to 100% digital what’s standing in our way? Inequity. So can maybe talk about what your district or maybe your community had to face and how we’re slowly tackling them and maybe what you think the future is. Because I think we were talking earlier about potential regression too.
Sarah:
In our district at the time of the beginning of the pandemic, right before it hit, then our situation we had some one to one schools. Probably for the rest of the district we had maybe two to one on devices, things of that nature. We had some families who had access, some families who did not to high speed internet at home. And we had students that had devices at home, you know dedicated devices and those who did not. So when the pandemic began then our superintendent moved very, very quickly and what she did was, I have to salute her and commend her on this, she was able to implement something to provide a device to each student in the county. So the carts that we had in the schools that were just collecting dust while the schools were closed then she checked out a laptop to each student, not just each family, but each student.
And in addition to that if the students did not have Wi-Fi at home then there was a hotspot program. So they were able to check out hotspots and that would support them in virtual learning. So it was a very, very quick and efficient process. That was one thing that I really did love seeing. And I know that some other districts also responded in a similar manner. Currently now at this point of the school year our district is still one to one and students they’re still taking their devices home in many schools. I can’t say all schools because I don’t know that for sure. But they do have access to their own devices that they can use, so I think that that’s one way that our district was able to hold on to the gains.
Elana:
Reflecting on you, like you’ve got a lot going on. You have a challenging role in a pandemic in education. You’ve got a podcast. You’ve got everything you do with EduMatch. What drives you when you think about it all? So many educators are doing a lot, but when I meet people like you you’re doing things on top of things. What drives you and what keeps you going? What gives you hope because these have been tough times. You have also optimistically shown how educators have risen up and how admins and parents and everyone did rise up, so there’s been great benefit. But not without tough challenging times, right? How do you keep going? What’s driving you through all this?
Sarah:
Yeah totally, and I really appreciate your kind words like that. That just makes me smile so much. But for me personally then I’m inspired by the changes I’ve seen over time and the changes that I hope to continue to see. I hope to be part of the change and one thing that I’ve noticed I’ve been a teacher for 17 years. And in those 17 years and in those 17 years I’ve been connected for about seven or eight of them. I’ve already seen a major shift in our space, in our educational space. Because as you were saying before when we were talking about the EdCamps and a lot of times as educators we were being told this is who you need to listen to. You need to listen to this person because they’re on a stage, they have a microphone, they know what they’re doing.
Listen to this person, and that person may or may not be in the field of education. They may or may not have anything to do with education but because they say X, Y, Z then that’s what you need to follow. And I’ve seen a shift from that to hey let’s listen to one another. The expert that I want to learn from is a person down the hall or the person across town or the person in another state or the person in another country. It's been kind of like a democratization of education and we’re able to see the expertise that each person has in them. And I think that that’s been something that I really, really love to see. With EduMatch then one thing that we really believe in is empowering the expert within and having people share their stories.
That’s one thing that’s really driving me because I love seeing that change. I love seeing that shift. I love hearing and seeing more voices represented when it comes to what being an “expert” looks like.
Elana:
It’s not going to sound cynical but it’s somewhat ironic that this major shift it took a pandemic to really ensue this major shift to say in a profession why don’t we look towards the educators to really be that guiding light, to be that hope, to inspire others. I know I don’t want to discredit all the wonderful organizations that were doing it prior. I was part of one, Edutopia where our entire mantra was to uplift educator voices and to give them the confidence to know what they’re doing is truly amazing and innovative. Because you are in this like little box sometimes. You just don’t know if you’re not connected to other educators. And when Sarah talks about being connected, we’re not talking about being in the mafia [laughter].
I feel like sometimes we say this like we’re connected. It’s intentionally finding your professional learning network, and a lot of the times we use the acronym PLN or PLC when we’re thinking about in schools. But how do you learn? Who do you learn from? Who do you want to be inspired? You know you can curate your own [unintelligible 00:28:31] of people that will share and selflessly give and that’s what I found every day at Edutopia being at the helm of social media. Gosh so many educators like you would go above and beyond and help people you didn’t even know and that’s what inspires me, and it sounds like it’s the same for you too. It’s just like hey no you were awesome. You need to know it and that activates them and then it spreads like wildfire.
Sarah:
Oh yeah, yeah. And thank you for all of that. I remember like back in the day when we first connected, and I was just like this woman is magical just what she does just giving so many people a voice. I absolutely appreciate you and just everything that you’ve done for the field.
Elana:
Thank you. I was just in awe of all of you doing it. I mean it’s so much easier for me to uplift your voice then actually do it and I can’t even imagine what you all have been through within the pandemic. I’ve been seeing it from afar and I guess this brings me to my next question is around educator burnout. Because burnouts always high with educators. It’s a very tough, tough profession. But it’s the worst I’ve ever seen it and I’d love to hear your perspective on just where you think it’s at. We’re also seeing corollary teacher dropout rates now for the first time. There’s that teacher shortage you were talking about from substitutes but also bus drivers and critical staff that help complement the efforts of education.
So things are tough. I’d love to just hear your perspective on it and maybe some advice you’d give to educators that are teetering, you know? So many educators in the community I’m helping build around educators and just helping them thrive. They’re crying almost every day, you know, and that breaks my heart. So how do you talk to that person that just, you know, teetering on the edge every day?
Sarah:
There’s so much going on nowadays. Like there are just things being thrown left and right at folks. That is a huge concern. When I go on Twitter just everything I’m seeing in my timeline is people saying so and so walked out today or I want to quit. Or have you thought about quitting? And I mean it’s a lot. Folks are really going through it so that burnout that you’re talking about is so real. When it comes to the extra that people are having to deal with because of the shortages or because of the “catching up” it’s a lot. It’s a lot and folks are really stressed out. So for those who are still hanging on by a thread there was a great podcast that I listened to, Jennifer Gonzales.
It’s called Pedagogy. She had a great episode about what to do, and one of the things that she ended the episode with is if it’s really bad and you’re about to walk out, then at point maybe just start saying no. Because what do you have to lose, you know if you’re already about to walk out? That’s one thing that she said that really resonated with me. Try that, try that last ditch effort and it doesn’t even have to be a last ditch effort. Just along the way establish boundaries and be transparent. If there’s something that you really truly cannot take on then let that be known. A lot of times we think that other duties as assigned we think that we just have to do it. But I would say that communication piece if you’re drowning then let that be known.
Elana:
Beyond all that you mentioned is that so many things that teachers had are being taken away because there is that shortage so teacher prep periods. And it’s not OK if it’s every once in a while at that point. But it’s definitely not OK if it’s all of the time. And that’s what we’re seeing with educators now. And you’re right one of the things that we are looking at, I see the community every day on social media and other communities just support each other and say it’s OK to say no. Set those boundaries because when you say no you’re saying yes to yourself. You might be saying yes to your kids. And educators are so selfless that it’s really hard and they’re guilty, you know I can’t say no.
Sarah:
Right, it’s hard but sometimes it’s necessary. Oh and one more thing that I would say is also know when it’s time to reach out for that extra help, you know that external help. So I’m a huge proponent of if you need to speak with a counselor or some kind of professional because you’re in that place where you need help to get out yourself, recognize those signs. And don’t be afraid to reach out if you do need to get that professional help. There’s absolutely no shame in that.
Elana:
Yeah, one of our recent podcasts was with Nicholas Provenzano and he talked openly and talks openly about educator mental health. And he says you have to model it. You have to be transparent about it and it’s OK if you do need help to reach out. And maybe beyond even mental health too it can go towards reaching out to other educators. Hey, over here, I need help. And maybe that’s a great transition to what you do for EduMatch too. Can you talk a little bit about what that organization is and potentially how other people that are feeling slightly isolated or want to learn more can check it out and benefit from it?
Sarah:
EduMatch is, I don’t know if I can say grass roots anymore, but it started out very grassroots. Just a few folks just kind of getting together on social media, on Twitter, things of that nature. But, you know, over the years we’ve kind of grown and one thing I do want to point out very early is that there are different EduMatches out there. So the one that I’m talking about is EduMatch.org, EduMatchpublishing.com. You’ll see like an Apple heart logo thingy, so that’s the one. I saw today that there’s one in Australia when someone tagged us saying that they had an interview with them and I was just like oh yeah, no that’s not us. And there is another one that does like robocalls, but no.
We are the one with the US trademark [laughter], so EduMatch is a community of educators around the world learning and growing together just for the best interest of our students. And we do a lot of different things. In the past we’ve done EdCamps. We’ve done podcasts. We’ve done Twitter chats. Currently we do a lot of publishing of books. We published about maybe 60, 70 books at this point, kind of lost count. But these books are all by educators, for educators, and let’s see we also do professional learning so we’re a recognized Google for Education Professional Development partner.
And we also have a nonprofit branch that we just started giving out mini grants to educators so we just [unintelligible 00:35:57] round of that we’re about to announce in January I believe. So yeah, that’s EduMatch in a nutshell.
Elana:
That’s exciting. I think one thing that resonated when you were talking about EduMatch prior is that a lot of educators have bucket lists that they feel like they’re never going to achieve. And sometimes you just need that person to say why can’t you do that? And you were talking earlier about your experience where you were just beaten down. You didn’t feel like you had the confidence, but you reached out and created a community of educators that could support you and give you that confidence. So I think it's amazing that all of a sudden you’ve got people writing books that never though they could write books.
Sarah:
Thank you. I really do appreciate that, and I just wanted to be able to create something that I wish I had when I started. But I would say that I can’t take credit for EduMatch. The credit belongs to the community. Everyone who’s joined and brought their ideas and brought their passion and everything to our community. That’s what really built it.
Elana:
If you could say something to those educators that have self-doubt or maybe have that unchecked bucket list idea or this crazy idea in education, do you have anything that you might do for those people that might not have a PLN in, a connected educator network? Is there something that helped you get that confidence? I know it’s probably not one sentence, but –
Sarah:
Right I hear you. I feel like the key is that network and I know that that may sound counterintuitive but it’s so easy to start creating it. Like if you are already using social media for anything, like if you have Facebook that you use with your family then if you look there’s an educator community there. And you can already, you know, start looking for groups and sign up and find other educators that are like minded and just start talking to them. Get to know them beyond the surface level. Start making friends and from there you can see where it’ll take you. Like it blew my mind where it took me. I never expected anything fruitful to even come out of EduMatch when I set up the very first tweet from the account.
I thought that it was going to be a joke and just fall flat, and it didn’t turn out that way thankfully. It actually caught on and became something that’s still going seven years later. I would say go for it, but definitely get your people. Get your people around you.
Elana:
Yeah and I think that can be daunting, so I love how you created some just easy tips of how you created some just easy tips of if you’re on Facebook, find some Facebook groups. If you’re connected to one educator, potentially you can connect to other educators one on one on Facebook. If you’re on Twitter follow some hashtags. Start joining some Twitter chats. There’s a myriad of ways you can join societies like ISTE and membership programs and [unintelligible 00:39:01]. And there’s all sorts of elementary educators. There’s whatever you want there is an area for you and how niche you want to go. So it opens up a whole new world. I’ve seen you grow so much and now you’re a leader of a nonprofit and a big organization and you’re a doctor.
I’m so proud of everybody around that have just flourished and I don’t know if we would’ve gotten through the pandemic without people like you at the helm. I didn’t even talk to all of you because I’m like they are busy [laughter]. They are busy.
Sarah:
Oh my goodness, I appreciate you so much. And you too, I mean just everything that you do. I can’t say it enough. I know I said it already this episode, but I just cannot say enough just everything that you do and how thankful I am for you.
Elana:
Thank you. Well I think to end this podcast one of the questions we always ask people is inspiration. And we talked a little bit about what drives you but is there anything that you’ve done that you do repeatedly as a habit, that you’ve read, that you’ve watched, that you’ve heard, something that has inspired you that you could leave and again we’ll put all these resources in our show notes too, so don’t worry. But is there something that comes to mind or maybe many things that inspire or have inspired you?
Sarah:
Oh man I know I sound like a broken record yet again, but it’s the people. The people are constantly inspiring me. The people that I meet in my PLN through Twitter, through [Voxer], through Facebook and just their ideas. I would say like speaking of these different tools then Voxer has really been my go to over the years. I kind of stepped away during the pandemic but I’m starting to find my way back to it. But just the voice connections that you’re able to have with so many people. So I’m going to cheat and say going on Voxer has been an inspiration to me. And just like listening to so many different groups and seeing what everyone’s up to.
Elana:
And if you don’t know how to get on Voxer and find educators is there a guide or tips on that? Because I know that that is a little bit nebulous when I first got on Voxer. It’s like what groups do I want to be a part of?
Sarah:
Yeah, definitely, yes. So for Voxer it is hard because there’s no searchable database or anything like that. A few friends and I came up with one a few years ago and I think that that is still probably pretty comprehensive. I’m sure more groups have popped up since then. But there’s about maybe 50 or 60 groups if you go to theedsquad.org/Voxer then there’s about 50 groups and some of them might be dormant. But sometimes it just takes like one message from someone to just wake those groups up.
Elana:
Great, well I appreciate you so much Sarah. This has been really enlightening and I just selfishly love connecting with people that I haven’t bene able to in so, so long. So thank you for everything you’ve done, and it sounds like your district has done a ton. So we will give them a shout out in the show notes as well. Sarah is there anything else you’d like to add, anything that you just need to get out there to educators or marketers listening to this podcast?
Sarah:
I would just say that I would love to connect with anyone who’s listening right now. So you can find me online at sarahdateechur. So I love to talk shop, I love to just connect with folks and see what they’re doing, what they’re learning, what they’re sharing. So definitely reach out and I’d love to connect with you.
Elana:
And EduMatch at EduMatch.org? Is that it?
Sarah:
Yeah, EduMatch.org and that links out to everything. So we have our publishing site, our professional learning site, our nonprofit site and I think that those are the ones. I’m trying to keep track of all of them [laughter].
Elana:
Awesome, well again thank you so much for sitting down with us today Sarah and sharing your passion with so many people. And to all of our listeners thank you for joining us. We hope that you find these conversations beneficial whether you’re a marketer or an educator. If you’re a marketer I want you to understand what’s the day in the life of an educator like from a different variety of educators from all around the nation. How do you talk to them? What do they care about? From an educator standpoint I want you to be intrigued by these awesome people, get inspired by what they do in their journey. So please let us know if there’s anything else we can ask these guests.
You can access these show notes at leoniconsultinggroup.com, so our website leoniconsultinggroup.com/7. So we’ll do detailed notes. Anything that we have mentioned will be on there and we will also summarize the key findings, give you some pretty images, the whole thing. So make sure to check out those show notes and we will see you all next time on the next episode of All Things Marketing and Education. Thanks everyone.
Elana:
Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode. If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper you can visit leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcasts for all show notes, links, and freebies mentioned in each episode. And we always love friends so please connect with us on Twitter at Leoni Group. If you enjoyed today’s show go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We’ll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.
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Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Sarah Thomas, PhD, Guest
Dr. Sarah Thomas is a Regional Technology Coordinator in a large district in Maryland, and the founder of EduMatch, an organization that empowers educators to make global connections across common areas of interest. She has spoken and presented internationally, participated in the Technical Working Group to refresh the 2017 ISTE Standards for Educators, and is a recipient of the ISTE Making IT Happen award. Sarah is a co-author of the ISTE Digital equity series, Closing the Gap.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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