Wakelet Wrap Up 2021

me [Music] you [Music] blue [Music] hello everybody and welcome to the wake lut wrap up event as the year comes to a close it's a time for the entire community to reflect on the things that have brought us joy happiness and helped us grow this evening we'll be taking you on a journey through our favorite moments of the year and we'll be hearing from members of the wakelet team and the community as they share their most magical moments of 2021. this year has been an exciting one for the wakelet team the platform has grown in ways that we could never have imagined we've welcomed new members to the team and the community is bigger stronger and more inspiring than ever before and that is all because of you we've got some awesome things ready to show you this evening but first over to jamil to take you through a quick company update and share some things that we thought you'd find interesting hello everyone and what a year it has been at wakelet we've seen some incredible things happen in the last 12 months all of them propelled by the love and support of you the community with your help wake up has grown bigger than ever with more and more educators and students joining the platform and enhancing their teaching and learning every single day time and time again this year you've reminded us that we are truly part of one of the most dedicated and enchanting communities in the world as we've shared during community week this summer we've been expanding our team and bringing in some of the most brightest and talented individuals to join the wakelet family and this year was extra special for us because we've made our first ever international hires we're delighted to welcome tisha pontio mario powell and andrew castle to the wakelet team and we know that they're going to do some awesome things for our community in the united states and beyond as we move forward into 2022 our focus as a team will be on making the waco experience as magical as possible for you and your learners we'll be making improvements and enhancements across the platform that you'll see both across web and mobile whilst prioritizing accessibility performance and usefulness i also want to take this opportunity to thank every single one of you all for the feedback ideas and suggestions that you shared this year we really listen to everything you tell us about the platform and we're always finding ways to improve your voice as a community is what helps us steer the platform in the right direction and we're so grateful for that we're also grateful for all of our partners who like us have felt the love of the educator community this year we're dedicated to helping improve your workflow as an educator regardless of what platforms you used and we've loved working with our friends at microsoft google amazon adobe and cisco as we continue to build powerful integrations and solutions that make a real difference we'd also like to shout out to the amazing teams at flipgrid bonsai ed puzzle genie lee and many more as we work together to make your teaching experience as memorable as possible 2021 has been just as unpredictable and strange as most of us thought it would be but there's still so much for us to be grateful for and this community is a constant reminder of that at wakelet we strive to be a reflection of you and the things that you're feeling and going through when you work alone things can really get hard but when you're surrounded by people who support you and inspire you you always find the energy you need to keep moving that's the community even for the team at wakelet sometimes things can feel overwhelming but all it can take is a tweet from you to raise our spirits and motivate us that is the community and when i think about the future of wakeler and all the things we have planned i'm so much more confident knowing that we have a community of diverse ingenious and passionate minds supporting us and helping us to guide the way and before i go i'd like to share this short video from wakelet impact award winner peter amawabil as he gives us an update on how he's been using his ten thousand dollars prize money to help fund the life-changing work he's doing in his community hello i'm ita amwabil winner of wakelet community impact award 221. i'm also the founder and executive director of rural literacy solutions it's an organization that strengthens child literacy in rural ghana as an educator who has been teaching for the past 11 years i came to realize that most primary school children in ghana cannot read so i started a rural literacy program so as you can see this is one of our mini libraries as you can see children we are currently selecting books to go and read so there's a one of our projects called canvale nuria primary school we also have other libraries and other after school program running in the kumbhanwa districts in all we have about seven seven elected libraries like this so if you want to learn more about our program and how you can support us you can go to global giving website and search for rural literacy solutions there you see our activities our past reports and how you can also donate to support our course [Music] the impact the weekly impact award has really helped us a lot it helped us to get more books for our libraries we're able to buy trend rate books each for the server libraries and also we were able to buy teaching enlightened materials for our after-school literacy support program so we are grateful for wakelets and all our other supporters like participate learning and participate we are so grateful thank you it is so inspiring to see the passion and love peter has for his community he could have used the money he won for the weekly impact award on anything he wanted but he chose to invest it back into his program to improve the lives of the people around him it's a true testament to the spirit and generosity of the educator community and we are so proud to be part of this story thank you all so much for shining your light on everything we do here at wakeler and for giving us so much energy motivation and purpose this year keep doing your thing stay human and enjoy the rest of the show see you soon as we reach the end of this year the entire team is still astounded by the number of different ways that you've all been using way club every time we think that we've seen it all one of you comes up with a unique ingenious and useful new way to use the platform and for us it never gets old the last 12 months have been no exception to this rule as we've seen you discover some really wild and creative ways to use wakelet yet let's take a look back at a few of your ideas the first idea to spring to mind is brought to you by trevor terry from new brunswick who came up with the incredible idea of using wakelet as a virtual lost and found rather than having kids and parents constantly come and check on the lost and found teachers would instead snap a quick picture and upload it to a way click collection the collection would then be shared with anyone who had lost something and they could browse through the collection on any device and see if it had been handed in it's a perfect example of using wakelet to create seamless improvements to the way things are done in your school and it blew our minds when we first saw it big shout out to terry for making everyone's job that little bit easier now we're always impressed by labors of love here at wakelet and nothing makes us happier than seeing ambitious and innovative projects created on the platform this year selvan rivas one of our ambassadors from el salvador created an entire learning course on wakelet for educators in latin america and the caribbean the innovation in education course offers comprehensive training for 21st century teachers and spans 14 different modules that cover everything from the sustainable development goals to working with the vast range of microsoft tools available it's an incredible feat of both design and passion and we're proud to be hosting it on wakelet now one of the awesome things about working at wakelet is when we get to see some of the work that students do on the platform there are so many different ways that students complete assignments on wakelet and it's always a treat when we get to be a part of them that's why we were really excited to hear from kerryann vandermeer from johannesburg south africa when she told us that she'd be hosting her classes virtual science fair on wakelet aside from being an incredible idea that we hadn't seen before it was such a pleasure to provide feedback on the students who submitted some of the most thoughtful and creative collections as their exhibits a big shout out to carrianne's grade 5 students you all rock sometimes people forget how simple wakelet is as a platform the concept of creating collections is an easy one but from it you can do some pretty remarkable things we wanted to shout out one of the most innovative educators that we know right now agnieszka halika from poland who this year created an awesome lesson library for genially on wakelet it's a huge project with interconnected interactive collections that all work together to provide polish educators with lesson ideas in a clear visual way it's amazing to see something so useful being created on the platform and we anticipate many more libraries like this being made on wakelet in the future as i mentioned before we love seeing ambitious projects take form on wakelet when we stumble upon a profile that takes our breath away we just have to share it and when i found this next profile i was just as excited for what it meant to me as i was for what it meant for the platform as a basketball player myself i was so grateful to discover a treasure chest of basketball drills and tips created by scott fernholz from wisconsin usa or as you may know him coach ferny the profile is a true testament to how awesome it is to bring lots of disconnected pieces of media together to create something much bigger and much more useful the carefully organized profile is shared with students so they can learn and develop new basketball skills all in the same place and it's not just physical drills there's also collections about mindset and attitude and i for one have found the profile to be incredibly useful on a personal level and super inspiring on a platform level now these are just a few of the new ways that people are innovating on the wake club platform and i know that the whole team and the community can't wait to see more as time goes on if you think that you've come up with a unique and new way to use wakelet share it with us on twitter and make our day [Music] moving on it's been a pretty busy year for us here at wakeland one of the busiest actually and our development team have been hard at work building new improvements and features that you've all requested we're going to hear from callum later on in the show so i don't want to steal his thunder but there are a few updates that you as a community have responded to in an especially positive way take the new giphy integration for example this is something that you all wanted for a while so it was really sweet to release it during the summer and see all of the fantastic ways that you were using it we knew that when it comes to creating collections that engage students having things like gifts are a great way to grab their attention and help them lock into a lesson we also released the new column layout this year but if i say too much about that callum will get mad at me so i'll leave that for him to talk about let's just say it's changed the game for so many of you out there who can now collaborate and organize content with your students in a fresh new and effective way lastly i wanted to shout out one of the most significant product releases this year which was of course student accounts and classrooms we wanted to make sure that the experience that you have when it comes to onboarding your students onto wakelet is as seamless and fluid as possible so it's no surprise that you've absolutely loved being able to import and create student accounts in seconds it's a really important update and it's one which will help you have more visibility and control over the collections that your students are working on so be sure to head to the classrooms area on your wakelet homepage to try it out we also had another pretty iconic thing happen this year that created a real buzz around the community here's adam to tell you all about it this year we were delighted to finally open the doors to our official wakelet swag store we opened the store for two reasons firstly we wanted to give you all instant access to your favorite wakelet gear whenever you want it and secondly we wanted the store to be a place where we can express and reflect the culture and personality of our community right now you'll be able to purchase all your favorite classics but we'll be releasing exclusive drops throughout the new year with a range of new designs and items that will take your breath away head to shop.wakelet.com to have a browse and keep your eye out for exclusive discounts and items in the future see you soon [Music] that's it for the updates and now we're going to head to my favorite part of the show where we'll be looking back at some of the most memorable moments of the year at wake up now i have to say that on a personal level it's an unbelievable privilege to work at wakelet not only for the awesome team which is more like a family now but for the fact that every day i get to communicate and interact with educators from around the world educators just like you people who help me look at the world in a different way people who motivate me and encourage me to do things that i never thought i'd be doing and that's the spirit of educators just like how you energize your students and help them achieve things you have that exact same effect on the entire wakelet team so when i look back at this year i think about the challenges that you've all had to face and how you've overcome them i think about the deep conversations that i've had with so many of you that have changed my perspective on things and i think about the friendships that i've formed with educators from across the world and when i think about those things i'm comforted and i feel like no matter what happens i have a community of people who will always be there to listen to my ideas support me with advice and encourage the things that we're trying to do here at wake club and i know that the rest of the team have some wonderful memories that they want to share tonight so let's hear from them as we look back on 2021 in the wakelet universe okay that's quite a difficult one because there's been lots of amazing things this year i think it's many moments actually and the one thing that's really stood out is the fact that particularly in our community everyone has been so supportive of each other regardless of what the is thrown at them whether that's offering advice offering help chucking a template over to help speed up a lesson and supporting when chaos and shoes and school start closing whatever that might be and i think that just really shows the essence of the community which has been amazing it's very heartwarming great for christmas i think one of my favorite moments was when the community came together to translate the wakelet site in its entirety for the eight different languages that we have right now the moment that stood out to me the most this year had to have been the community impact award when we put it together we knew that incredible educators were going to apply and be nominated we couldn't imagine the amount of impact that so many educators around the world are having on their communities inside and outside the classroom as well and going through the applications was probably one of the most humbling experiences of my life and took everybody by surprise and was super super powerful oh i think one of my favorite moments of the year was the science fair with carry on after being a facilitator of the 12 hour live stream on community week carry on asked me and l to go and be judges at her science fair and just seeing all of the amazing creations that the students had done and all the amazing wake up collections ideas it was just like a really nice fulfilling moment one that stands out the most for me um has ingrained in my mind is when laura alegda one of our ambassadors um invited me to join her and been presented to by um some of her student ambassadors um and it was fantastic from a school i should school in the lebanon and it was wonderful she had her student ambassadors present to me their weight collections and that they put together and i was i was so impressed they were amazing to see they spoke beautifully and presented it really well um and they were all on social issues and it was amazing to see them present them so confidently and clearly and for me it was kind of a proud moment because i saw that that was done on wakelet and they felt so passionate about what they were speaking about and the fact that from the student ambassador program it sort of pushed them to do even more things um outside of that as well they were student ambassadors but they're going to continue using wakelets so that was a moment that really sucked me um it was back in may but yeah it's really stuck with me since [Music] my favorite moment from community week it's really hard to pick because it was just a week of fun and amazing moments again a really tricky one because it was such an amazing week and for me it was my first community week and i'd heard such good things from the year before and of course we always just want to make them bigger and better than ever i think one thing that stands out for me is not like a an event say it's the video at the start with all the people from around the world saying hello and where they're from i think that in a video just shows how far and wide this community reaches and how it brings everyone together as well networking sessions have to be one thing the networking sessions were incredible they were amazing we were able to just connect with people and meet people and it was just so much fun being able to meet people and have even just like a quick conversation with with different people from all over the world i mean those networking events within 30 minutes i spoke to someone from india someone from the state someone from somewhere in europe and just to just to connect with them and have a conversation and just kind of get to know who they are as people was definitely really meaningful yeah i really enjoyed that and i think a lot of us sort of in the office here we kind of grouped together and went on the networking sessions all together so when we were meeting people they were meeting like more than just one of us i don't know i thought it was really really cool like that atmosphere was really nice regardless of the fact it was virtual we were bringing people together to sort of speak to each other and meet each other in the community which was really lovely and me for me personally being able to meet people from right across the world that were using weight club hearing about the wonderful things they were doing i really enjoyed doing wakelet live i think it was such a big event for us and i don't know i think we've really put everything into it and of course the dance that we did at the end the pandemic has made everyone feel so distant from each other but it felt like everyone came together just to enjoy the week together so it was really nice seeing how all of the teachers around the globe use wakelet for so many different purposes and to really see the impact we have in the classroom the fact that kids are making their portfolios on wakelet and will use those same portfolios to apply for a job it was amazing well i really enjoyed euriz's session on culturally responsive teaching i think it was just a really important session it's something that teachers all around the world need to really ask questions like that check the classrooms and make sure that every student has an equal opportunity to learn and as a second thing if i can add a second thing the biggest highlight for me was the 12-hour live stream the 12-hour live stream the live stream that was amazing was the first time anybody's ever done it so that was great to be part of and we literally traveled the world from one corner to the next um right the way through that 12-hour stream and that was great fun like when we were thinking about it as a project we realized how ambitious and crazy it was the reception it also got from the rest of the community is amazing and a part of that process in putting the 12-hour livestream together is that i actually got to have calls ahead of it just to you know say hello make sure every everyone was sort of in the know about what would be happening you know a bit of planning and things like that so for me i got to speak to a lot of the ambassadors i hadn't got to speak to yet so the whole experience leading up to it and the planning things was the highlight of my community week and it's all down to how talented and passionate all the people that we got to speak on the actual 12-hour live stream was like that was yeah that was next level like the the buzz around the office during the 12-hour live stream was just phenomenal [Music] i think it has to be giffy i really really enjoyed the giffy launch of course that was part of community week i know it might be small but i just think that when i look at the collections that are being created after the giphy integration they're so much more full of life and i think educators in our community have just taken that and run with it and doing some amazing things with the columns for sure i think that has added a level of dynamism to the way that people can use weight clutter is definitely affected the way i use wakelet i've been able to create a recipe by course so my mom's asked me to create christmas dinner i've done a course well almost seven courses and you use columns to do that and i think just the way that people are collaborating and seeing the way people are collaborating with columns is just it's just amazing as well columns columns columns columns it's been so good and people have used it in such amazing ways i've absolutely loved seeing what people have done with it already and i can't wait to see what's going to come next that's an easy one for me it's the classrooms i think that's been a total game changer for lots of people around the world being able to create spaces for students to come in and use weight clothes in a safe way and it got really great feedback we've been working on that for a long time so it's great to see that um land and so many people using it i think the classroom speech really unlocked a lot for us and unlocked a lot for a wake look in terms of students being able to access the magic of the platform so i was really excited for that one and it was really powerful to see it go down so well and seeing so many students around the world using it i think my favorite feature release was the adobe spock integration that we developed inside of a weightlift collection which allows adobe spark users to add their spark content straight inside of awakened collection and the reaction from the community was very very empowering and uplifting for i think everyone on the team so it was great to see the best part in new features coming out in general is just again seeing how the community are going to use them with every new release with every new feature we see on wakelet you just see more ideas coming out of that and of course the feedback for us to make that feature even better [Music] so my personal highlight would be we started a podcast as a team and i was able to get the opportunity to throw myself into the deep end with the podcast and doing a mini series all about professional development and we had some guests come into the office to sit down and just have a a casual conversation and we recorded it and that was something i've never done before and to be sat on a couch but a ceo of a company or someone that had achieved all these amazing things and just had the conversation was um was cool you know it was definitely you know pushed me to try something new and i definitely see a lot of value in that i run all the swagging all the the merchandise so releasing the shop and getting getting that up and running for me was quite a a big personal achievement so it was it took longer than i expected but there was a lot of obstacles in the way and we finally overcame them and it's out and up and running so yeah that's been that's been a great opportunity and achievement for myself this year when when i see people put it all over twitter instagram and the happy faces and just them enjoying our swag it just it makes me feel like it's a brilliant opportunity for me to be able to send them everything and make and put a smile on their faces so yeah it's good my personal highlight 100 was being a part of the children's parliament to be a part of a project that was supported by the prime minister um you know his team and the speaker of the house of commons was a great moment i think for all of us involved including marcus who i'm speaking to right now the fact that you know we got to affect so many kids lives and they had a voice and it was hurt i think that'll probably be the highlight of my time at wakefield there's lots more to come i mean i it was amazing i mean to truly empower the student boys was uh very very powerful i think the whole year's been a massive highlight for me really because i've never been involved in something like this and so i can't really pinpoint one specific time because it's all kind of felt like a blur it's been so it's been just manic but also super enjoyable so i say the whole year as a whole has been a highlight for me working at wakelit this year i can't be so much more on that because that's pretty much been it i think it's seeing people in the flesh so i think so i joined wakelet uh over a year ago now but until this year i hadn't met quite a lot of the team in person so that was really lovely when we moved to the new offices and people i saw people for the first time in the flesh after speaking on video call for a period of time and then of course um yeah just meeting actual humans was great after such a long time so yeah my personal highlight would be recently having been in person at um ietc and nicegate and actually see people out there and speak about wakelet in person it was amazing to meet our ambassadors we got to meet so many of our ambassadors in person those people i've been speaking to over email and the odd call and things like that it was just so great to be able to actually be in person with them and socialize and actually just be on the ground speaking about wakelet and the great thing to come of that also is speaking to people who didn't know much about wakelet that has got to be my highlight of the year because um again without wakelet i wouldn't have that opportunity to meet these incredible people but yeah there's nothing quite like it the great thing is everyone learns from each other so i can honestly say every day it's a school day i'm learning something new every single day because of the community that we're in so that's my my personal highlight yeah just sort of making everyone feel as though we are connected in a time that makes us feel quite alone by its nature wakelet is a platform that is built on creativity we simply give you the tools to work with but you're the ones that really go to town on it and take it to the next level over this last year you've shared some collections with us that really got our attention you've also assisted in creating things for wakelet that have had a huge impact on our growth and a massive influence on the community let's speak with the team and find out which of your creations have impressed us the most [Music] we get to see so many and there are so many that we do just think like wow we haven't seen weight club being used in this way before one of our beloved community members valerie um has an amazing weekly collection on stamps that he's collected and i'd never thought that anyone could create a stamp collection in wake look but it's been dawn and it's absolutely incredible i personally love all of the templates that the community make so obviously we've got our templates page which is great it kind of helps people get started on the platform but what i love about that profile on wakelet is that we've got the community section and we do get tweeted so many different template ideas and just again inspiring ways that the community can use the platform gabriella makes so many templates and they're always fantastic sharing what you really enjoy and being able to put that into the community i think is really nice as well so yeah we're very lucky to be able to see everything a collection templates that diane wilson created it was how counselors can use wakelet i think that's a case study that we haven't seen that much of so when diane shared really cool ideas about how counselors can use wakelet to stay connected is something that really struck me and was really really cool i think to see so that's definitely one that stood out somebody had put a collection together with all of the resources that they could share with other teachers so it was in columns and each column had a different meaning so one column was accessibility so all the tools you should use for accessibility one was all the tools that you should use in the classroom for videos there's a whole collection like a toolbox for educators to use so i thought it was really cool we made a few collections that help kids submit their opinions on certain topics during the actual children's parliament and to see that hosted inside of a wakelet collection i think that's such a great use of wakelet you know empowering a social cause and yeah that's probably my favorite use case i love our internal birthday collections those are really fun um everyone is creating uh their own sort of bespoke way of saying happy birthday to to say to individuals here in the office also seeing the way that people are using it to raise awareness raise funds um for good causes um and and typically just using weight clutter as a day-to-day platform to to bet themselves and to better the community on weight club it's just really nice to see my favorite use case has got to be portfolios i think i've seen some really really good examples of portfolios over the last year students showing their progress but also teachers showing their progress from a pd perspective extracurricular activities outside of the classroom all that kind of thing i think that's a great use case on wakelet and it's something that can grow with you it happened at community week um but i got to speak to agnes a little ahead of that and she had put together i would call it a microsite but it's on it's a full-blown website and she did that for um the um poached ambassadors um for jean lee that she works closely with as well not only does it look amazing and it looks clear and it looks um beautiful and creative it's very interactive as well she's played on um all of the features that we have with collaboration and she's made it so actually viewers can interact with it and join collections put their feedback in reach out to their team and things like that so that's been one of the most impressive ones i've seen wake up malaysian community i've seen a lot of amazing things from themselves making their own community it's unbelievable i've never never seen it before like working here for weight loss so to see that and to see what they've done and what they've achieved and what they've created is just it's just amazing every time i see something on twitter facebook everything it just they think wow they're actually really loving weight club so yeah it's good i really liked the philippines community week that was really really cool that the users sort of created a whole week for all the people in the philippines that was amazing the waking schools program we introduced this year the wakes that showcase school programs so i will have to shout out the wakeless showcase school program which is coming at all of you january 2022. uh the showcase school program will aim to represent and showcase uh some of the best schools in the wakelet schools program at the moment yeah and we can't wait to see all the schools that you know are really empowering not just learning communities within their ecosystem but also in their local district ecosystems and regional ecosystems so yeah really looking forward to that we did a cultural exchange project with two schools that was just to kind of test the waters to see how we could unlock collaboration between schools that were operating within the wake of the schools program which essentially brought a school in london and a school in the city in the north of india to jump on a call and to share cultural elements of their country and students chimed in with different cultural elements whether it's the cuisine of the local area dress music just general cultural components and then just presented to one another and then shared feedback on all housed within a way click collection which i think was really powerful to sit there and just see students from different parts of the world connecting and sharing their cultures was definitely really meaningful and yeah i don't think i ever forget that experience it was really powerful programs and courses so the main one that sticks out is the certified course which we launched recently that's been brilliant so many people have engaged with that already and kind of really great way to get to grips with the basics of wakelet and become certified it's been something that christine's been speaking to us about and we're so glad that we could work with her to push this out to the community and it's gone down so well again we wanted to have a course in place that made it easier for our community when sharing our weight clip with theirs so it really encompasses weight loss and gives you that step by step and it just turned out better than we expected it's just a really great example of like come up with an idea and you can really make a difference to people with it i think the other one that stands out to me is the student ambassador program it's not a new one necessarily but we've seen huge numbers of students from across the world use that programme and even schools work together which is really lovely and having people put their own spin on it we sometimes get new challenges that we haven't seen before which is really cool and educators just kind of pushing the boundaries a little bit and encouraging their students to do more and more and of course seeing how each student approaches that is what is really really cool so although we kind of have one task for each of the six c's sometimes you see something again that you just haven't thought of before or a new kind of perspective or angle so this year we were really fortunate to be able to partner with the climate action project creating a digital reading list hosted on wakelet so there were these amazing members of the community who hand-picked some of the most awesome books about climate change uh organized them into age groups and then you know put it all onto wakelet being a part of that project was was phenomenal because i know what impact that's going to have on classrooms all over the world so seeing that project come together seeing it become you know a kind of collaboration between educators from around the world was was mind-blowing stormy daniels has been amazing bringing her whole school together and getting them on weekly and getting them to use wicklot in so many different ways was so inspiring to see and also jen williams as well who did one of our one of the um sessions at community week um kind of about like climate change and sustainability and what you can do to do your bit um sort of seeing them use wakelet in the way that they have again it was just so inspiring and so different and something we haven't necessarily seen before both the philippines and the malaysian communities have run their very own community weeks as well as hundreds of webinars events competitions um all sorts of community activities that they've done within their own sort of micro communities across the world which is just so cool when it comes to activities for me my mind always goes to our international ambassadors and the movements that they've created in their home countries and seeing activities that they do and seeing how much passion they have and so much energy they have has been incredible like poland croatia the philippines malaysia indonesia india so on so forth middle east you know wherever it is in the globe that there are people that love wakelet that love what we're doing and that have taken upon themselves to to create these global communities um the activities that they do range from like full-on community weeks to um uh webinars and and everything in between so i've loved seeing their passion i've loved seeing that energy and their dedication so yeah big big shout out to all of our international ambassadors for doing amazing things around the world again i know this is my answer to everything but there's so many and it's really hard to narrow it down um so i love seeing all the creations shared on twitter shared on the community inbox i absolutely love it but um one person i always look out for especially when there's events coming up or activities or times of year and things like that is helen trumkova's creations her collections that she puts together are amazing um she does great things for her students they're always so active and fun i remember her halloween activities and things that she released recently and lots of others i always think that if i was a student in her class i would have so much fun and she's in russia and i believe she's doing a christmas card exchange at the moment as well which is great to see because i think that just embodies the the global nature of our community so she really encompasses that in the activities that she does great with that sort of collaboration side and um yeah she's just super creative and yeah i'd love to see all of the ones that she brings out i look forward to it if there's a sort of a time of year coming up that i know she's going to create something special the community activity i think that really stands out was everyone getting involved with the google showcase challenge that we did alongside our partner google people jumped in to showcase how they can use our various integrations and just generally use wakelet to optimize how they teach and how they connect with their colleagues and students so seeing the creativity just like blossom on social media across the space of i don't know that three or four weeks um that was great and i always love when people get involved and the community are always so up for new challenges and new new ideas so that one was really exciting to be a part of it was right at the start of the year i think so it was a great way to start the year for sure [Music] we can all acknowledge that as this year comes to a close it's not been an easy one despite things looking up there have been insurmountable challenges that we've all faced and i always like to say that the educator community in particular is one that faces challenges in a really dignified and convincing way despite the issues that you've had to navigate through you still somehow find a way to give back to your communities and share things that make us all smile we wanted to take this chance away from the wake up platform to recognize the moments that you've shared this year that remind us that there truly is no other community like the educator community [Music] i think we should cast our minds back to wake up live and remember the amazing people that were nominated for the community impact award each one of them were incredible educators and human beings in their own rights and i think it's nice to look back at that and just really honor and respect the work that they do every day absolutely i think some of the stories that we've heard this year and especially since the beginning of the pandemic the the challenges that have faced educators around the world have been really striking and um hearing the stories has been it's clearly been tough and there's you know been a lot of challenges faced so i've spoken to a few educators that have really gone the extra mile to help teachers or colleagues and help their students access their learning and make sure that they were okay and through very difficult periods so i think this year it's hard to choose one so i just have to say a number of different stories where educators really have gone the extra mile to make sure that their students can stay connected and stay engaged with their learning i think one person that stands out is mike folson obviously he's really tried to help educators around the world join the pandemic and he's now got a million tick-tock followers which is crazy but i think what he's doing is amazing i'm really plugging this here but i think the person that probably stood out the most in regards to children's parliament we had peter mcrae who hosted the children's parliament as a speaker and peter did a lot of work behind the scenes to make that possible he really really worked hard to make sure that each and every child had their voice heard and could you know really represent their local communities in their opinions of you know what impacts the climate and what changes need to be made he made a big impact in my opinion all those kids that had their voices heard um will grow up knowing that you know you can have an opinion on an important subject and have it heard and you know you probably won't be neglected just because you're a kid which is truly powerful because for future generations to come it's important that they believe they can make a change it's only then that things will change so i think we made a big step that day obviously what peter did in ghana was amazing to see but also to see the way that educators are so focused on the personal development of their students you'll be hard-pressed to find a community on any platform that is as engaged and as socially aware of the impact that they have on their students as much as the community we have in wake club librarians i think they are very sometimes misunderstood or forgotten about in in their school and communities but they do so so much they're obviously the librarian but they're also kind of teaching that's the support system for their school they're also kind of the tech coach as well they're implementing new technologies and stuff so um i'd say librarians are pretty special in what they they do and create each day there was one that really stood out to me and actually it was a lady called rachel i've forgotten her last name unfortunately she teaches in a school in kenya it really struck me that she wasn't just teaching the children she was also making sure they got fed every day and had breakfast and that she was visiting children in the evening and in their homes to make sure that they could do their homework had electric to read by all those kind of bits and pieces and really help support the families outside of the community to give them the best possible chance of learning and i just thought that was so inspirational so and there were many many other stories just like that um within the community impact awards that just really highlighted some of them which puts everything in perspective really doesn't it so yeah sometimes it's easy to forget that the thing that brings this community together in the end is the wake up platform with your help we've created a place where you your students and your families can achieve some really inspiring things as a community you've played the biggest part in the forming of this platform and all of its features and we still have so much planned for you let's take a quick look at what's happening with the wake up platform in the next year hey everyone carl from the product team here we've had such a great year this year at wakelet and it's largely down to you as we look forward to 2022 we want to remind you that everything that we build on the platform has in some way come from the community and we're so grateful for the feedback and ideas that you share with us firstly we wanted to save you time when creating collections so we decided to merge the viewing edit pages we heard lots of feedback from you that you found it a little bit difficult when switching between the two we'll continue to make improvements on the collections experience going into next year so keep feedback coming we want to hear it we know accessibility is one of the most important elements of teaching and learning for you and your students we've already started to make improvements to accessibility and we'll continue to put it at the forefront of everything that we do this year we introduce classrooms and in 2022 we'll also be focusing improving the classrooms experience we're going to do this by bringing in more permission levels tools and enhancements that allow you to engage and communicate with your students on a platform like never before you've made some amazing collections so be improving how you search for this content on wakelet making it quicker and easier to find both your own creations and discover amazing things created by others we've had lots of requests to make wakelet adoption across schools and districts easier so we'll be offering some new services and features that will help schools and districts quickly upload and onboard students in a safe secure and efficient way the platform is getting bigger and better with every iteration so there'll be a big focus in the next few months on improving the overall look feel and speed of wakelet on desktop and mobile to make wakeless streamlined and intuitive as possible wakelet belongs to you and we want to ensure that we're always improving your experience each day that's all from me and on behalf of the whole product team thank you for continuing to inspire us every day see you soon [Music] much has been made this year about the persistence and resilience of educators and we ourselves we've celebrated your profession in a number of different ways but at wakelet we've always been about being real staying human and saying things how they are we can try to empower you and amplify the amazing things that you do but the truth is your job is tough it's one of the toughest jobs out there and it's not tough in the same way as being a firefighter or a brain surgeon is tough it's tough because you create the firefighters and the brain surgeons it's tough because you probably spend more time with your students than they do with their parents it's because you represent such an important part of a child's development and it's impossible to try and shake off or ignore that level of responsibility you guys have been through so much in the past few years and you've still managed to do an unbelievable job under the craziest of circumstances another year is coming to a close and whether you're in your first year of teaching or your 20th our message to you is still the same every small moment that you've had with a student this year every message of encouragement every piece of advice every single problem that you've sold for them has had more of an impact on that person than you could ever imagine one of the bittersweet things about being a student is that by the time you realize just how important your teachers are you're no longer in contact with them so as an educator you rarely get told how big of an impact you've had so on behalf of every single person who's ever been to school thank you for helping us find our way from the whole team at wakelet we love you we appreciate you and we couldn't do it without you and as we look to a new year it's nice to remember that there is still so much to look forward to see you soon [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] you

Channel: Wakelet

Views: 1,189

Keywords: wakelet, #WakeletWave

Id: AoOrretmmoo

Length: 49min 5sec (2945 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 15 2021