Naomi Meredith  00:00

One big thing that I know a lot of teachers struggle with is what type of robot they should use in the elementary space. My top recommendation is always Dash by wonder workshop. You're definitely in for a treat! For today's episode, I had the chance to interview Bryan Miller, who is now in his seventh year working at Wonder Workshop, leading Strategic Outreach and educator success. Bryan prides himself on remaining connected to the voice and choice of students and educators. He's an international keynote presenter and speaker and loves working with others in the field of Edtech and, most importantly, supporting computer science. We had such a fun time talking together, and I'm really excited for you to listen to this episode and all of the goodies inside. 

Naomi Meredith  01:21

Thank you so much, Bryan, for being here today. I was so excited when you replied yes to my email right away, which I'm like, “Oh, my gosh, this is gonna be awesome.” I know that our audience is gonna be so excited to hear from you about all things Wonder Workshop. Like I was telling you before we started recording when I was an ambassador for Wonder Workshop a while back, I remember you had video presentations, and you were super energetic and explained things really well. I thought you would be a great guest on the podcast. So I'm really excited to chat with you today. He has a little Dash Robot in the corner, which is so cute to look at. Well, if you wouldn't mind telling us about yourself, your teaching background, and your role at Wonder Workshop, we would love to hear about you.

Bryan Miller  02:15

Yeah, well, first off, thank you so much for this opportunity to join you and have this conversation. I truly love talking with educators and just sharing my experiences, education, and Wonder Workshop. It's always fun to jump on and talk about this stuff. I am a former teacher. That's where I started. You may have read my bio, but can you guess what I taught? Where I started?

Naomi Meredith  02:42

Like your first thing? Like subject or grade. 

Bryan Miller  02:42

Grade. 

Naomi Meredith  02:43

If I were to guess if I didn't know your bio, I would think maybe fifth grade.

Bryan Miller 02:48

I get that a lot. I think it's because I'm a guy, right? I'm a male teacher, but I started as a Kindergarten teacher. So I was a Kindergarten teacher, and I actually taught next to my Kindergarten teacher at the school that I went to for Kindergarten. It was so cool. I learned a lot, and it was just, you know, awesome. I've always loved kids and working with kids. I did it at camps and stuff my entire career, but started in Kindergarten. Then I became a K through Five computer teacher. This was before there was even an EdTech curriculum. So I've been doing this for about 20 years now, even though I look like I'm like 25. I mean, it's really been 20 years that I've been doing this. At the time, it was the type of class where you just sit and type in Word documents, and you do a typing program. That was 100% of what that program was. When I stepped into that role it was a public school outside of Philadelphia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which is where I grew up. I stepped into the role, and I was like, “There's got to be more to this. This is not what kids should be doing.” I mean, yes, typing is an important skill. It's going to change. This was 20 years ago, I was saying that. Everyone's like, “No way, we got to be doing cursive. We got to be doing typing, we got to check those off the list.” And that's it. I came in, and I, fortunately, had a really great principal who trusted what I was doing. Let me really take the curriculum on my own despite what the district wanted me to be doing.

Naomi Meredith  04:38

 A good principal, good! 

Bryan Miller  04:40

Yeah, yeah. I mean, to have that level of administrative support early on in my career was just so so life-changing, honestly. So I did that. I took it and ran with it. I built a website before there was a learning management system with all of my stuff. It was Mr. Miller tech.com which no longer exists. However, there is a Facebook Memorial group for it that my former students created. My former students got to go home and use everything that we were doing in class because I was finding fun websites to use and ways to incorporate what they were doing into the classroom. I really listened to what was happening with the teachers in the classroom to know maybe I should start incorporating presentations and learning some of these important skills into the everyday classroom, which then I no longer had a curriculum, and I would just be having the students come down and use that time to support the learning that they were doing in their classroom, but bringing technology into the mix. I did that for a number of years, and then I, fortunately, got a role in a similar position as a computer teacher in a private school in Florida. I took the leap of faith and did that move down there. Within that first year, our director of Ed Tech, Dr. Joan McGettigan, who is an absolutely incredible Ed Tech leader. So find her on Twitter, and follow her, she's amazing. I was so excited to come down and work and learn from her that I did the move. When I got down there, I found out that she was going to leave that role and move to another school. So being the new guy in a new position, I came up with a lot of new fresh ideas. That first year, I became the Acting Director of Educational Technology. That next year, I became the Director of Educational Technology and did that for about five years. I then started working with Ed Tech startup companies, like Nearpod, which was one of the early ones literally sitting in their garage. Started presenting, keynote speaking, and traveled the world doing all of that stuff. Then I found myself in my role at Wonder Workshop. So that's my background. I literally went from being in the classroom to finding a space that I love, a company that I love that I've had the opportunity to grow with through the years. I've been with wonder workshop for eight years or going on eight years, so I have kind of experienced a whole lot of things. But you know, teachers ask me all the time how did I make that transition. You become friends with companies that you love and enjoy, and magic happens from there. It just happened to happen that way for me. So, yeah, a long-winded answer to your question. But that kind of gave you the rundown, the cliff notes of everything.

Naomi Meredith  07:39

No, it's great to hear your background because that's really important too. You're not just some random person who's working at Wonder Workshop. Your experience led you to where you are today. I feel like what your experience in Ed Tech was is kind of what is happening with STEM education, where there are just little inklings of things. I feel like a lot of teachers can resonate with what you said. I was in the classroom before as well and also had a very supportive admin in this role. So I think a lot of teachers can connect with you. Also, they probably use Wonder Workshop products in their classroom too. So no, I think it's so great. Your teaching experience can't be taken away from you. I told that to another guest. Like, it's so powerful, and you're still working in education. So you're still a teacher?

Bryan Miller  08:34

Yeah, I mean, I still call myself a teacher. So my role at Wonder Workshop is a fancy long name that is Senior Director of Global Strategic Education Outreach. Well, it's long-winded, but really what it means is I get to work with schools and districts and, you know, lead a team of former educators in our customer success roles to become a partnership manager for Wonder Workshop and work with organizations closely. So I still have very close ties to education and to the classroom. Anytime that I'm invited into a teacher's classroom, I hop, skip and jump over there because I'm so excited to get on the floor, play and see the excitement of computer science and STEM through the eyes of children and learn from them to find out what's working, what's not working. So I'm still very connected to that space and learn a lot from teachers every single day.

Naomi Meredith  09:37

Well, I have to have you come into my classroom and start robotics soon. So I know, I know who to call. I need some help.

Bryan Miller  09:44

You're in Colorado still, right?

Naomi Meredith  09:46

I am. Yeah. 

Bryan Miller  09:48

So I am a huge fan of Colorado, so I will gladly pay a visit.

Naomi Meredith  09:53

Yeah. Perfect. That sounds good to me. We'll chat after this. So for people who haven't heard of Wonder Workshop, what solutions do you guys offer?

Bryan Miller  10:04

Wonder Workshop has evolved through the years. As I mentioned, I've been with it for about eight years, but Wonder Workshop has been around for about 10. From the very beginning, it's all been built around this little guy, Dash robot. We create a robot, a physical robot, that teaches children how to code starting as young as Kindergarten, and curriculum and software that wrap all around it. Through the years, we have built a lot of products. We've built Dash, we've built Dot, which is its companion robot, we've built Q, which is a middle school robot, and we've built accessories. Now we've learned through the years that the importance of the content with what you've created is so needed for educators, especially quality content. So we are still continuing to develop Dash and its capabilities. It's funny because I was having a conversation earlier today with the state of Hawaii. They were telling me that they've had robots for years, Dash robots and that it's the one robot that has not phased out because we keep developing for it. So now, we have not pivoted, we have complemented the work that we're doing with a software product called Class Connect, which brings in a tracking teacher management, Learning Management Console, where teachers are able to assign computer science lessons, activities, puzzles, challenges, all through that Virtual Console Class Connect, and students can interact with it and get feedback for the teachers to see how they're performing. When they want a pair of physical robots, they can do that. Otherwise, every student through that gets a virtual Dash robot that looks and acts the exact same way as physical Dash. So having that physical companion plus the ability to have every student coding at the same time and only pair when you need to have been a total game changer for us. I really feel for the classroom because gone are the days now, if you're using this, students sitting and waiting around to go to that station or be able to interact with the thing that they want to, and now they can do all that stuff ahead of time. Then they can watch it come to life when they're ready to actually see it come to life. So that's what we create. We're also developing a lot more stuff. So it's really an exciting time for the company.

Naomi Meredith  12:38

I'm so excited. I love Dash. I am not just saying that because I'm talking to you. But Dash is my favorite robot. I've used it even when I taught third grade. It's true, if it doesn't phase out, it's still relevant. It's multi-use and multi-grade. If there's any robot that people are like, “Oh, what should I buy?” I suggest Dash because you can use it for everything, which is great. So I definitely recommend it from a teacher's perspective, not sponsored to say this, but I love Dash, and he's great. Like, I think your guys' stuff is awesome. I love the option of Class Connect because I know a lot of teachers when they were remote, they were really dependent on that, especially a lot of STEM teachers who needed to teach online. You don't have enough Dash robots to send home. We wish we had unlimited money to send them home with the kids. Class Connect is a great option for sending Dash home with the kids. But even since COVID, it's still relevant. Kids can be excited since they can practice at home if they want to. I love seeing that they're excited to learn coding. They're seeing the thing come to life, and they know who Dash is and that it's on my computer, but it's also in my classroom. So I really liked how you guys added that option for classrooms.

Bryan Miller  13:46

It was a move that we were actually planning to make before COVID. We actually had already been developing it for almost a year. Then March 2020 came around, and the world shut down. Right. We weren't planning to release Class Connect until ISTE that year. We had not even gone through beta testing with it at that time. We said we joined in with all the other companies that were out there, you know, graciously donating services to teachers that needed it at that time. We said you know what, what better way to beta test it than with the entire world. So we're going to open it up. It's going to be live for anyone to use for free during that time, and we'll learn as we go and listen to what the users have to say. So we can then go back and develop it even further. So we released it that April before we even planned to publicly release the announcement. We announced that at our STEAM summit, so it was really neat to be able to give something back to the community that they had never seen before and get their first reaction right in the field, which really was crazy to think about happening. It has continued to grow and get better and better as we listen to the feedback of the teachers and the students. We continue to develop new features, we have a lot of new features that we'll be announcing soon, so it's really cool.

Naomi Meredith  15:18

I appreciate companies that are really focused on the students and teachers and take feedback like that really just shows that you are doing this for the right reasons, that you guys are here to support us, and you care what we have to say in our feedback. I'm sure you got a lot of interesting things. But that's true. Like, why not? Let's see, let's see what happens. What's the worst that can happen?

Bryan Miller  15:42

You're right. I mean, I think as a company, Wonder Workshop, we say that we support our teachers, but we actually do it and show it and give evidence of it, which is really important. This podcast is for teachers that are moving into the STEM world and not sure how to start. I started using these products, Ozobots, Sphero, LEGO Mindstorms, NXT's, and Dash when it first released. I really looked at not only the product, because they were just coming out at that time, but also like how they felt about teachers in their community because all of those products, except for LEGO, were not originally focused to sell to the school market. Ozobots were only sold at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I was one of the first teachers to even implement them in a school. Sphero was only sold at Brookstone stores like that was the only place to buy them, there were no coding capabilities with them. Then they evolved into these teacher exciting, awesome tools. I have a love for all of the products that are out there because they're doing great things for the space. But for Wonder Workshop, the mission from the very beginning has been, you know, for kids, teaching them how to code that was the original idea. I fell in love with that mission. So if you're a teacher looking for products, really pay attention to the company and how they talk about educators, how they respond to educators, not only through email, but through social media, and look to see what kind of resources they've already thought about for educators. There's a lot of stuff that's coming out on the market right now. Some of them are really great, but they don't have the support for teachers in place. Teachers are at a spot now where they're being thrown into these STEM roles in some cases, and they don't know what to spend their money on or to buy, and they look at the new shiny thing. But that new shiny thing doesn't always have the wraparound support that you need as a teacher. So to find companies, like I've mentioned, that do all of those things is really important during that vetting process.

Naomi Meredith  18:04

Definitely thinking about who they hire. Obviously, they prioritize teachers because your experience is so helpful. You are a teacher, and I'm sure you work with other people who are teachers, and you have that perspective. So that's important, especially thinking of the support you guys have the International STEAM Summit coming up. So tell us a bit more about that. I will be presenting there about video and audio production in the STEM or STEAM space. But tell us about that, because I was really excited that you guys started. These summits are really fun.

Bryan Miller  18:39

Yeah. So again, this summit came back to the need for educators to have a space during COVID. So like I said, COVID, we all know, happened in March. We were planning at that time to go to CUE, which was canceled. Then ISTE, which had announced was canceled at the end of March. I've done a lot of stuff with virtual presentations and building out virtual meetings and summits. I had a platform that did that. So I said to the company, I said, “Listen like we're at a point right now where teachers are at home. They don't know what to do because that transition from students getting devices one to one device had not happened yet during this March to April timeframe. I said, “I think I can reach out to our community of users, our ambassadors, and my friends who are in the EdTech space, and I think I can pull together a virtual summit.” I said, “But here's my criteria. One, it has to be completely free. I don't want any teachers paying for it. This is something that we should be giving back to the education community and furthering the conversation of STEM education in the school space.” So they agreed to that, and they said to go ahead and build it out, and within less than three weeks, I had a little over two weeks' worth of sessions. That was when we were running this summit for, like, a long period of time. They were all pretty much live at that point as well, too. So I was emceeing everything for two weeks straight in the evenings. It was a lot, but it was incredible. We pulled it off. I mean, that first year, we had almost, I think it was almost 8000 attendees from across the world joined because that was the only thing that was happening like there was nothing else. So we've done it every fall and every spring since. We've learned a lot through the years. We've made the sessions replayable all throughout the year, we have previously recorded sessions, we go live once a night, and we've shortened it from 10 days to three days, but it's three days of very high-quality content. Naomi, you've done a bunch with us over the years, and we thank you for sharing your expertise and knowledge in this space. It's just a lot of fun to hear from new people. So this year, we have Andrew Arevalo, who is going to be the closing keynote speaker. His Twitter handle is @GameboyDrew. He is going to be a featured speaker at CUE this year. He's a new voice in this space, and really excited to give him an opportunity to share his voice. This is the first keynote that he's doing. We're so excited that we get to be the ones to do that with. We've had Kantis Simmons in the past, who is a former rocket scientist. We've had Kevin Honeycutt, who has done it in the past for us. I've done the closing keynote, and I'm the opening keynote this year. So it's just a lot of fun over the three days, and it's completely free. You can register at Fall.internationalSTEAMsummit.com. It's free, and it's available, and you get continuing education certificates for it for joining. So there's really no reason not to at this point.

Naomi Meredith  22:02

Oh, yeah, it's so great. If people don't have time, just play it in your car like a podcast. I do this sometimes. I'll just play it that way so I can catch up. So you don't have to just sit there. I mean, you can sit there if you want. But there are other options when you're walking your dog. That's a great way to engage. So definitely worth your time. We'll link that in the show notes. I know everyone listening will go. You're listening to this, go listen to the summit.

Bryan Miller  22:28

Exactly. It's fun, and we have a good time. We do giveaways during the live sessions at night, and we go live each night at seven o'clock pm Eastern Time. Then the rest of the day is all previously recorded and released on the hour. So even if you don't catch it while it's being released, it's available three minutes after it's gone live for you to watch it back at any point in time. 

Naomi Meredith  22:49

That's so perfect. That's what we teachers need. We need that, we need the replay. So you have this summit coming up, is there anything else you guys have coming out? I'm sure you're gonna announce some stuff at the summit. So you don't have to give away all the secrets, but anything you're allowed to talk about.

Bryan Miller  23:06

So there will be some new capabilities coming soon for Dash that will unlock the software, which is actually really cool. So the firmware team and hardware team have done a lot around that, which is going to be something that we'll continue to have students learn the next steps after Blockly, I'll say. So it's going to be able to do a lot more stuff, which is really cool. Then, of course, we have our Wonderly robotics competition that officially goes live on November 3, the last day of our summit. This year's theme is space exploration. So all of these missions are about space and Dash trying to make his way through space. It's all story-based. So if you're looking for a way to engage your kids with competition and win prizes, it's a really fun couple of months of missions that your teams would go through and experience, so that's what I can share for now. You'll have to catch the other stuff at the opening keynote, which will share some more details.

Naomi Meredith  24:19

Perfect. That's so good. I highly recommend doing the Wonderly robotics competition. I've done that ever since I started teaching STEM, and it's my fifth year in STEM. It's a great after-school option, and everything is laid out so nicely. So I know it's a lot when you're teaching all day. You're like, I don't want to do a club. No, this is like the funnest club. It's great. It's so much fun. I love how it's all laid out, and it's different every year. It's just another way to get those kids who are even like who are really interested in coding just to practice in a different way, but they really have to collaborate, so there's a lot of collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. It's not an individualized activity, it is a team thing and you can do competitions or not. If you're thinking about what I should do for my spring clubs or winter going into spring, definitely, you should do that.

Bryan Miller  25:15

Yeah, and at this point, we're going into year eight of the competition. So far, over the years, we have had around almost 87,000 kids from 96 countries throughout the world participate. 48% are girls that are a part of this competition, which we are the only competition for coding that's out there that has that almost equal number of 50/50. There have been more girls that have won the competition over the years than the boys have here. I think that's extremely important. Because you know, a lot of competitions are engineering based, where you have to construct, build, solve, where there's a lot of creative storytelling, art design, you know, things that might interest other students beyond just the traditional computer science driven students to join this and be on a team. Because without those people that have that level of creativity, you won't be able to score as highly as teams that don't have that. So it really does encourage a wide variety of skill sets to become a part of it that other competitions typically don't involve. 

Naomi Meredith  26:26

Oh, I agree. When I did, I actually did a girls' team. I had one girl who was super creative. She reminds me of the kind of person who should be working as a Disney Imagineer, just that level of creativity and design. She just has that different way of thinking and like, I'm going to tell you about this job doesn't mean you have to do it, but you just have that thing. So it's just so cool. Like how the competition just brings it all together. It's just code this, code that is just more engaging and interactive, and the themes each year really fun.

Bryan Miller  27:10

It's wonderful to hear year after year. Coaches have come back in the surveys and have said that even though they didn't make it to the next round, they're proud of the work that they did. They're proud of the community that they built through the competition, you know, getting kids together that may not typically have worked together previously. That for them has been a win for the teachers because they're able to get them to learn these social skills that are so important. They need to understand and know how to communicate, collaborate, and problem-solve together as a team. Year after year, we hear the same things from those coaches that this was the best part of all of it, you know, aside from the chance to win a prize for them. The kids just get so excited to be able to submit their video and be proud of something and show what they've just spent the last two months engineering and set designing. For them, that's the level of excitement of turning it in, knowing that they hit the deadline. So, yeah, it's great. I'm glad that you guys are gonna be joining again too.

Naomi Meredith  28:28

Oh, yeah, I'm so excited about it. So with all of these amazing resources, is there anything else you want to share? Or how can people connect with you? We'll definitely link everything in the show notes.

Bryan Miller  28:42

Visit the Wonder Workshop website, makewonder.com. We do have, as I mentioned, Class Connect. Check it out, you can try it for free. We have a free trial period at makewonder.com. So play with it. Then, if you have any questions, you can reach out to me at bryan@makewonder.com. You can follow me on Twitter at Bryan L. Miller. As I said, I love to connect with educators. So if you have any questions, just reach out, and I can point you in the right direction or connect you with other educators on our team who can answer additional questions for you.

Naomi Meredith  29:18

Perfect. So I know people will definitely be reaching out to you, joining, and seeing you speak at the summit and join my session.

Bryan Miller  29:27

Yes, join Naomi's session. 

Naomi Meredith  29:28

Absolutely. Not live, but it'll make you feel like it's live.

Bryan Miller  29:34

We'll have to get you on live for the next one. For sure.

Bryan Miller  29:37

I will. Yeah. Well, I'll take a day off, and I'll go.

Bryan Miller  29:41

It's in the evening. You don't have to worry.

Naomi Meredith  29:44

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time. There are so many goodies in this episode. Thank you so much and perfect timing for the summit coming out this week. I know everyone's going to be excited about everything that you shared. So thank you again!

Bryan Miller  30:00

Thank you, it was a pleasure chatting, and good luck, everyone. I mean, this is such a fun space to be in, enjoy every minute of it and learn from as many people as you can.

Naomi Meredith  30:11

Great words of wisdom. Thank you so much