Azadeh Jamalian, Ph.D.’s Post

View profile for Azadeh Jamalian, Ph.D., graphic

Founder of The GIANT Room

For years at GIANT, I witnessed kids creating half-broken, barely-held-together prototypes of their ideas— ideas that were magical, personal, and full of intention and emotion. These ideas had rich stories behind them... They’d grab a single craft stick, put a glob of glue on it, and stick as many pom-poms as they could, and would call it a portal for koalas in danger, rescuing them from natural fires and transporting them to a safe planet without climate change issues. Why a stick with pom-poms? Because koalas are known as tree huggers and sleep 18-22 hours a day! The portal had to be a stick with lots of pillows for them to feel safe while being transported. And, for years, I noticed parents picking up their kids in a rush to get home before a certain hour to prepare dinner. They’d ask their child, 'What did you make today?' and the child would hold up a stick dripping with glue and falling pom-poms. So many stories never made their way home. So at GIANT, we started capturing these stories and helping kids to publish them in books they can share with their grownups at home. We then extended this program to schools - helping hundreds of students to share their stories as they learn new things in class. Soon the demand was so high that we needed tech to scale. And that’s how The GIANT Remix came about - a powerful AI-tool to support family-school connections. Spoiler alert: AI won’t be a magic wand to tell an elaborated story based on two word input by kids. Why AI and how kids would like to use it as a tool in the process? That’s what we are planning to discuss during our panel at SXSWEdu - and we need your vote!! I’ll be joined by Elizabeth Chu from Center for Public Research and Leadership, Nicole Reid Christopher Ed.D. from NYC Public Schools, and Laina Vlasnik Yip from Robin Hood to discuss edtech designed to strengthen family-school connections. To do that, we need your vote! It’s super easy and takes less than 30 seconds: https://lnkd.in/eSQu_zun

Strengthening Family-School Connections with EdTech

Strengthening Family-School Connections with EdTech

panelpicker.sxsw.com

A GIANT thanks to Jill Grossman for supporting us prepare this proposal 🙌

Yadana Nath Desmond

Executive Director at STEMteachersNYC.

2mo

Voted! This is such a critical gap in connecting learning AND building community. Incredible tool - really would love to learn more!

Jill Faherty Lloyd

Financial Advisor within UBS Private Wealth Management

2mo

This is awesome, Azi!!!

See more comments

To view or add a comment, sign in

Explore topics