Autumn Adventures: FableVision's 2022 Back-to-School Guide

After a sunny and spectacular summer vacation, returning to school or starting school for the first time can be scary. Whether your family traveled, relaxed, spent time outdoors, or simply had a different schedule, it takes time to shift back to your school and fall routines. To help your children combat the “school scaries” and enjoy the fall, we’ve compiled a list of resources to ensure that they have a fantastic year full of educational and engaging learning. 

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International Dot Day

Empower kids to make their marks by celebrating International Dot Day on September 15-ish. Based on FableVision’s Co-Founder and New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot, International Dot Day encourages kids to connect and collaborate as they re-discover the power and potential of creativity in all they do. This year, join Peter at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City or watch the livestream of the event. September 15 doesn’t work for you? Here’s a little secret: you can celebrate Dot Day whenever you want! 

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UCAR’s SkySci for Kids

As we gradually add sweaters, scarves, and fuzzy hats to our wardrobe, check out UCAR’s SkySci for Kids to learn about weather, climate, and sky science. With humor, bright colors, and a clear breakdown of topics, FableVision-made animated videos and minigames featuring Yolanda the palm tree, Jeff the yeti, and Snacks the dog will teach kids about tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves, and more. Visit the website to encourage your child to fight climate change.

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Cyber Fashion Challenge

Another great way to fight climate change – upcycling! Based on Cyberchase’s season 13 episode “Sustainable By Design,” born-accessible Cyber Fashion Challenge, created in partnership with FableVision, The WNET Group, PBS KIDS, and Bridge Multimedia, teaches 6-8-year-olds about avoiding fast fashion and encouraging the creative reuse of materials. Practice counting and shape identification by creating a sustainable fashion line for Fabio DeZine.

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Museum of Science “EiE Families” Website

Spark your child’s interest in engineering and computer science by checking out the Museum of Science “EiE Families” microsite, built by FableVision, with interactive features to support STEM learning at-home and on-the-go. Play Bye Bye Bug and create a way to lead a ladybug to safety, or explore the other activities, in both English and Spanish. Bonus: if you’re in Boston, take a field trip to the Museum of Science to see science in action.

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“Our State and the Nation: A Georgia Studies Course”

History fanatics – we have a treat for you. FableVision created a host site for Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB)’s online textbook, developing an online experience for eighth-grade students. In the revamped George history course, students can examine images, define vocabulary words, watch videos, and go on virtual field trips from the classroom or the comfort of their homes. 

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Pinna Original Yes No Audio Adventures

One of the best parts of fall? Halloween! Immerse yourself in spooky season by answering yes or no to questions in Escape the Haunted House, a Pinna Original Yes No Audio adventure, produced by FableVision’s audiyo-yo. Listeners are the main characters as they interact with the show and create their own story. If your kids aren’t fans of haunted houses, they can listen to Escape the Marshmallow Dream Forest or Escape the Sinking Ship. The 5-minute, voice-activated audio adventures provide a perfect, creative outlet during car rides, before bedtime, and more.

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Boston vs. Bullies Academy for Internet Champions

Join Bobby the Badger and his friends Ivy, Jordan, and Felix to score a touchdown, make a basket, and hit a home run with The Sports Museum’s bullying-prevention game. As kids continue to use the internet at younger ages and run into in-person and online bullying, Boston vs. Bullies Academy for Internet Champions, created by FableVision, helps kids navigate tricky situations, make smart choices online, and combat bullying. Learn how to stay safe by checking out the free game.

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“Friendlets” Animated Shorts

Besides stopping bullying, children should also see the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships to avoid abuse, love better, and find true friends. Created in partnership with One Love Foundation, “Friendlets” animated shorts showcase familiar, humorous scenarios to help elementary-aged kids understand the importance of communication and appropriate responses in healthy friendships. Visit One Love’s Education Center for the shorts and associated resources.

July FableFriday: Bill Tally, PhD, Senior Researcher and Designer, Education Development Center (EDC)

For over 30 years, Bill Tally, Senior Researcher and Designer at the Education Development Center (EDC), has been using his expertise in education, interdisciplinary learning, and formative research to advance the role of digital tools in education. With a PhD in sociology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as well as an extensive history of collaboration with institutions and esteemed educators such as the Library of Congress, National Geographic, The New York Times, MIT, and the Smithsonian, Bill is no stranger to the world of digital storytelling and has helped steer the merger of technology and academia on many projects. 

Bill is currently collaborating with Fablevision Studios and Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) to create a revolutionary literacy game that transcends former digital boundaries in its incorporation of Augmented Reality (AR). The Phase I project will investigate how an AR/gaming approach can combat the summer slide and impact engagement for low-income third and fourth graders, and serves as a testament to the innovative, forward-thinking team behind it. 

“At a time when kids casually carry the equivalent of a supercomputer around in their pocket and can do their homework in the Cloud, there’s no magic bullet when it comes to deepening learning for all kids,” shares Bill. “Deploying tech tools in ways that actually make a difference for learners and teachers still requires the collaborative work of great curriculum designers, creative storytellers, artists, programmers, and cognitive and developmental researchers.” 

Get a behind-the-scenes look at Bill, the extraordinary team he works with, and his passion for pairing education with technology! 

Tell us a little bit about your role at Education Development Center (EDC) / the Center for Children and Technology (CCT) and the work you do. 
EDC is a not-for-profit R&D firm dedicated to improving education and health across the country and the globe. I’m part of a group of researchers, educators, and media designers in our New York City office. The Center for Children and Technology works to understand how digital media can play positive roles in kids’ lives and learning, both within and outside of the classroom. 

Seymour Papert with LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Kit
Photo credit: MIT Media Lab

You’ve spent your career studying how digital tools and media can improve learning experiences. What initially drew you to this field, and how has it changed over the years?
What drew me to educational media research — way back in 1983! — was the chance to join a remarkable group of developmental psychologists, teachers, and media designers who had assembled at Bank Street College, a progressive school of education in NYC and home to one of the first ever educational media R&D labs. This group not only focused on the computer’s potential to improve learning and schooling, but they were innovatively asking how education can change computing — how the developmental needs of children and the needs of educators can shape the new technologies being developed. It was an exciting place to land. In my first week, I was showing fifth graders rough cuts of a science adventure show to see how they grasped the storyline and concepts, and sitting in on game design sessions with scientists and programmers. 

What I’ve noticed is that in 1983, the Apple II’s blocky green pixel resolution was the cutting edge of educational innovation; yet at the same time, Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms was getting teachers across the country excited about teaching youngsters to program computers in an intuitive, playful way. Today, our games, simulations, and teaching tools have far greater verisimilitude, responsiveness, and power (hail VR and AR!), but the project of helping kids become computational thinkers hasn’t advanced very far; it’s still an exciting frontier. 

What makes game-based learning media unique, and why do you think it is so effective at engaging with young people?
There are many kinds of games, and they work as learning media in different ways, but there are some common elements across them. At their best, games are patient, generous teachers. You can try over and over and they will not get bored or frustrated with you. They put you and your actions at the center — things only happen based on choices you make. They give you feedback that you can use to get better. In addition, many of the most engaging games are narrative structures that invite you to imaginatively enter a world of “as if” and “what if," which our narratively-wired brains find deeply compelling. And of course, games are deeply social, so we love using them to relate to, and compare ourselves to, our peers and friends. 

What are your top tips for practical ways that media developers can incorporate research into their tools and products?
Many developers do the things that are most important — they playtest prototypes with kids to understand what is and isn’t working, and team up with teachers or parents to pilot test a game or product to see how it does or doesn’t fit in the classroom or home. But good research helps in other ways. In the planning phase, we often: 

Photo credit: Zoom In!, EDC

• Help developers zero in on the most important content to aim at by interviewing kids and teachers and scanning assessment data. In this way, we can determine the concepts and skills that kids struggle most to learn and teachers struggle most to teach. 
• Also useful is creating a logic model, a sketch that makes the team’s hypotheses about learning clear at the outset — for example, how this particular game mechanic should support the acquisition of this particular skill or concept, and why. 
• During development, it’s important to test prototypes with a range of users — not just upper middle class kids who like school— and to look beyond appeal and usability to effectiveness: What are the cognitive moves users are making as they use the different parts of the prototype? Which features are helping them build a better understanding, and which are getting in the way? What tweaks are needed? 
• Finally, it’s important for stakeholders to know if the tool or product actually works to “move the needle” of learning.

Zoom In! is a free educator resource provided by EDC

EDC has worked with the likes of Library of Congress, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The New York Times, National Geographic, and WNET, among many others. What are some universal truths you’ve observed while working with these big movers and shakers? 
An old story comes to mind: an educational guru touring a school asks each teacher she meets what he teaches, and the answer comes back, variously: “I teach history,” “I teach biology,” “I teach statistics.” “No, you don’t,” comes the reply, “You teach children.” 

While a little smug, this observation has an undeniable truth: it’s not all about the content. Each of the amazing organizations you mention began with an abundance of incredibly rich educational content — archives of primary source documents, decades of news stories and images, thousands of beautifully made television programs, games, and interactives — but has had to work hard to figure out how to configure this content for kids and teachers in ways that support effective teaching and learning. Often, this means investing in training and professional development for parents and teachers so they learn how to play, teach, and talk with kids differently through media. It turns out that digitizing and indexing rich content, streaming it to desktop and mobile devices, etc., is the easy part; helping adult teachers and caregivers use rich media to enhance kids’ learning and growth — that’s where the action is. 

After successfully completing Phase I and receiving the Phase II SBIR grant for Cyberchase Fractions Quest game, how has the prototype shown promise for improving student learning of fractions? 

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Fractions Quest lets eight and nine-year-olds play with mathematical concepts in a game world populated by Cyberchase characters and storylines they like. Our early studies have shown that the game mechanics help them grasp concepts that kids and teachers find particularly challenging— like fractions on the number line. 

What excites you the most about working with Augmented Reality technology for the upcoming Mix Libris literacy game developed by FableVision and Reading Is Fundamental?
AR, like VR, is a largely unexplored medium when it comes to education. What’s exciting to me is the chance to build and test an educational application for struggling readers in the company of some of the most creative designers, artists, programmers, and child literacy advocates in the field. 

How can schools do more to incorporate digital tools into the classroom?
The most important thing schools can do is give teachers the time and support they need to try out new tools, practice weaving them into teaching, and evaluate the results. Lots of worthwhile learning tools never get much traction in schools because teachers are not supported in running meaningful classroom pilots to discover their potential. 

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More About Bill: 

Favorite podcast: A Very Fatal Murder, Onion Public Radio
A good read: The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
Best digital learning tool: Zoom In, a free US history and writing platform for middle and high schoolers that we made! 
Nostalgic piece of children’s media: Alistair Sim’s “awakening” as Scrooge
Passion: Playing jazz piano and crooning tunes from the American Songbook
The best library to do work: Whatever local library I’m near. (Thank you, Andrew Carnegie!)

May FableFriday: Jonathan Raymond, President of the Stuart Foundation

The age-old saying “education is power” is the driving force behind everything that Stuart Foundation President Jonathan Raymond does. Through curiosity and care, Jonathan has worked to transform the way we perceive learners and the learning environment. By taking on challenges while providing a reliable safety net of support, Jonathan’s educational philosophy allows kids to develop resilience, respect, and a drive for self-improvement.

FableVision Studios is currently collaborating with the Stuart Foundation and The Forum for Youth Investment to put the spotlight on Jonathan’s new book, Wildflowers: A School Superintendent’s Challenge to America. Building on foundational efforts by groups such as  ASCD, CASEL, the Aspen Institute National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, and others, Jonathan’s book features his experiences as a school superintendent as he put Whole Child into action.  As he shares, while implementing the Whole Child approach presented its share of challenges, he is proud about the transformative impact it had on education in the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD), one of the top 1% of largest school districts in the country and one of the most impoverished and ethnically diverse.  By cultivating a much wider,  more inclusive, and synergistic learning climate, Jonathan showed how an entire community can work toward uniting around education’s # 1, driving priority: fulfilling each child’s unique requirements to grow educationally, emotionally, and socially into the most powerful version of themselves.

Pushing kids to find their inner drive is at the heart of the Stuart Foundation’s “North Star” mission. Jonathan knows that the first step in helping students unlock their endless potential is by believing that it’s possible. He explains that, “we need to start expecting more from our kids and believing they are capable, competent, and responsible.” By creating adult-student relationships that are free of hierarchy and full of support, Jonathan helps students reach their greatest potential.

From a kid hungry for knowledge, to Sacramento Superintendent, and now President of the Stuart Foundation, Jonathan’s had an exciting array of experiences in the education world. Read on to find out the origins of Jonathan’s passion for education, his guiding values for education reform, and a few of his favorite children’s books!  

The Stuart Foundation focuses on district education systems and statewide policies. Tell us a little more about the values this foundation upholds.
We have several values at the Foundation and the two that stand out most for me are being bold and persevering. E.A. Stuart, the founder of the Carnation Company, was a risk taker. He also failed at earlier business ventures before Carnation. Through it all, he believed in the importance of education, helping those least able to help themselves, and good old fashioned hard work and “stick-to-it-ness.” Today, we make sure to keep these values alive in all we do. 

You have a deep history of working to enact change in the education space – tell us a bit about your journey to where you are now!
I’m fortunate that I had two parents who believed in the importance of education and giving back to the community – particularly my mother. This all became very real for me in the 6th grade when my parents received a call from the principal in my school explaining that “young Jonny wasn’t reading at grade level, perhaps he had a learning disability, and we want to send him back to 5th grade.” Thank goodness my mother was skeptical and decided to have me tested by an expert. After two days of testing – the two best learning days of my life – he shared “there’s nothing wrong with this kid except that’s he’s bored. He needs to be challenged and pushed.” Sound familiar?

Luckily for me I moved to a new school where I met my first great teacher, Mr. Harry Boyadjian, who turned the “light bulb of learning” on for me.  I’ve never looked back since then. I’m grateful that I’ve found my calling as an educator. Being impatient and loving a challenge, reimagining public education is the perfect place for me to give back. 

How has your past experience informed how you approach your role as President of the Stuart Foundation?
One of the best things I bring to my role at the Stuart Foundation is my practical experience running a complex urban school district. I’m a bit of a novelty (some might say maverick) in the philanthropy world. I like to think this helps to keep the work of the Foundation grounded in the realities and urgencies facing children in public education. 

One of your goals as President of the Stuart Foundation is to hold schools to a higher standard, and you’ve had real results! How do you come up with and implement innovative programs to help better the schools you work with?  
It all starts with children. When you put children at the center of the work and think about what is best for them, and engage and empower and hold them to high expectations, lots of solutions and natural partnerships begin to emerge. Sometimes we have to be patient, but it all starts with having an unyielding belief in the unlimited potential of all children. In other words, you have to believe it BEFORE you see it. 

Your collaboration with FableVision on Wildflowers has been multifaceted, from an animated trailer, to a website, to customized marketing collateral – what has the process of working with the FableVision and The Forum for Youth Investment teams been like?
We all just clicked. It’s like we had this special connection that drew us together around the urgency of finding a better way to educate children. We trusted each other and our ideas. We started with a vision of what this partnership could be and from there we gathered energy and momentum.  I know I sound like a broken record, but it’s true. It starts with belief.  Like Michelangelo said, “I saw an angel in the rock and craved to set it free.” From Paul and Peter and Karen and our respective teams, we are all connected and united around creating a better way to educate children. When you have something that grounds your work – that is so foundational and fundamental – you feel anchored. Whole Child. Whole Family. Whole Community. What could be more timely and important? 

How do you think we can build schools that are capable of giving kids the kind of cultures and climates that support their voice, presence, and learning interests?
This isn’t so complicated. Start by believing in children and giving them a voice and presence. Start asking them what they are interested in and genuinely listen. Start expecting more from our kids and believing they are capable, competent, and responsible. We get great things from kids when we push and pull. It’s amazing what’s possible when we begin forging trusting relationships between adults and children.  

What are your hopes for the future of the American education system?Imagine what might happen if we developed more empathy? That we start every public conversation about education with the traditional Maasai Warrior greeting of “how are the children?” We then move to a recognition that they are all our children. As a community of educators, policy makers, community and civic leaders, parents and concerned citizens, we must put aside the “I’m right and you’re wrong,” “my way or the highway,” the either/or rhetoric, and realize that preparing our children to thrive in college, career and community requires a both/and approach. It’s only by working together and making education the priority it needs to be in terms of leadership, resources, and attention that we can hope to achieve the answer to the traditional Maasai Warrior greeting: “All the children are well.” 

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Jonathan’s Favorites

Boston sports team: The SOX!
Place to eat in San Francisco: The House. A tiny Asian/Fusion spot, nestled among Italian eateries off of Columbus Ave, in North Beach. Yummy good!
School subject: Byzantine History (loved my professor!)
Fictional school: North Star Academy
Book to read with your kids: Goodnight Moon
Peter H. Reynolds book: The Dot – here’s to making your mark!

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Stay tuned for Jonathan's upcoming book,
Wildflowers: A School Superintendent's Challenge to America

Wildflowers exemplifies the importance of tending each child’s unique needs. This book was written to spark conversations and inspire thoughts and ideas on how to educate and develop our children in ways that return them to the center of the learning process, with unwavering belief in and expectations for their success, and an unyielding commitment to give each child what he or she needs. 

Coming soon in spring 2018! 

October FableFriday: Chris Jackson, Chief Communications Officer, Big Picture Learning

When it comes to putting the “big,” in Big Picture Learning, Chief Communications Officer Chris Jackson believes that the message speaks for itself: “sometimes it can be as easy as pointing a camera and hearing our students tell the story of their own experience.”

For over 20 years, Big Picture Learning (BPL) has worked to reimagine the way students learn. Through BPL design elements, students are encouraged to create their own learning path, collaborating in small advisor-led learning communities and working with mentors at community-based internships. The yield is an inspired approach to learning that drives students towards achieving their own vision of success.

“Take Taliq, who recently spoke at the Business Innovation Factory’s annual storytelling summit. Or Rhianna, who tells her Big Picture story not through words, but through music,” Chris muses. “Take any Big Picture student and one will quickly see how an individualized approach to teaching and learning not only helps learners thrive, but also makes my job as a Communications Officer as easy as giving these students a platform to inspire.”

One of BPL’s biggest advocates, Chris embodies its mission of curiosity, vision, and drive. We caught up with him to learn more about his journey towards innovative education, his contagious love of learning, and his must-read list!

Big Picture Learning was established in 1995 with the sole mission of putting students directly at the center of their own learning. Tell us more about how BPL seeks to accomplish this goal.
It’s simpler than you might expect: ask students what they’re interested in learning about, then teach them that. Students aren’t used to being asked what they want to learn – or having their own personal interests and ambitions embraced by educators – so there’s a level of trust building that is necessary at the beginning. But once students realize that they are surrounded by peers, advisors, and a community that loves and supports them, their world opens up. They see that learning can happen anywhere, at any place, at any time. They find that they can more truly navigate their own path, not only through school but through life.

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There are over 65 Big Picture network schools in the United States and around the world. What is the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center (“The Met”) and how is it unique?
The Met was the first Big Picture Learning school, before there was a Big Picture Learning! Over 20 years ago, the state of Rhode Island tasked Elliot Washor and Dennis Littky with coming up with a bold new school design that, in its very existence, would require a reexamining of the education system. From that work, the Met was born. The Met is a campus of six high schools across the state of Rhode Island, though most of them are in a central location in Providence. Known as much for its open architecture as it is for its innovative approach to learning (for instance, students spend two days of each week not at school but at internships in the community) it’s hard to truly describe the Met in words! That’s why we welcome visitors to the Met several times a year to see the school for themselves. Readers of this blog are welcome to attend!

How did BPL come to cross paths with FableVision Studios?
We’ve been fans of Peter and Paul Reynolds’ for some time. I actually first saw Paul speak at a conference when I was working for Reading Is Fundamental and regularly read Peter’s books to my children during nighttime storytelling. But it was one of our founders, Elliot Washor, who struck up a friendship with Peter and Paul not too long ago. FableVision’s work speaks for itself, but for Big Picture Learning, relationships matter most. The FableVision team took the time to get to know us (even visited the Met and met with students and advisors!). When it was clear that FableVision’s team shared our values when it comes to creativity and education, the rest was essentially a no-brainer.

How does BPL provide students with structure in such a highly personalized environment?
There’s a common misconception that letting students direct their own learning leads away from structure and toward chaos. Student-centered learning can’t proceed without a path. It’s just that in our schools, students design that path with guidance from their advisors, their parents, and their peers. By creating and directing their own paths – via a personalized learning plan – students have ownership in the learning process, and are much more able to learn from failures and champion their own successes. There are boundaries, for sure, but they’re not the artificial kind like, say, a school bell or homeroom period.

Tell us about how ImBlaze helps educators and administers enable the place-based learning from internships that BPL so believes in.
Big Picture Learning knows the importance of getting students out into the community to learn from mentors and experts. During our two decades of existence, technology has advanced in such a way creating those connections is much easier. Imagine a time in, say, 1997, when BPL advisors had to track internship opportunities through post-it notes stuck to their computer screens. Ten years later they’d moved to excel spreadsheets. We now have ImBlaze, a mobile app created by Big Picture Learning, that helps students and advisors intuitively search for internships in their local communities. And, as with other initiatives, we have FableVision to thank for helping bring the story of ImBlaze to life through animation!

BPL recently announced the new Harbor Freight Fellows Initiative (HFFI) in an effort to broaden our collective understanding of what it takes to properly invest in skilled trades education. What’s the genesis story of this new program?
The genesis goes right back to student interests. The presumed track for many high school students post-gradation is that they’ll proceed right onto college, most of them in pursuit of a liberal arts or business degree. That’s a valued extension of learning, and was the path I myself followed. But it’s not necessarily the path all students long for.

The focus of the Harbor Freight Fellows Initiative is to raise up the trades path as a lofty educational aspiration, one which is perfectly in-line with the interests and passions of many students, not just Big Picture students. We want to ensure that students who pursue trades-based paths following high school have the resources and relationships that will inspire them to continue following their passions. We’ve produced an animation with FableVision, Navigating Our Way, that eloquently explains this through the story of two lifelong friends, Sylvie and Seymour, who follow separate paths (college and the trades). Watch the video here.  

Students from BPL meeting with Sir Ken Robinson

BPL hosts a Leadership Conference and the Big Bang Conference every year. What is special about these conferences?
We design our conferences to mimic our educational practices. Attendees participate in our convenings as part of an advisory – a group that they return to multiple times throughout the conference to reframe and expand upon their learning. Further, a core component of our conferences is that attendees “leave to learn.” In our network schools, you’ll find that much of the learning happens outside of the walls of the classroom.  To mirror this, an entire day of our conferences is spent in the community, learning from organizations within the host city.  Of course, most important for us is that students are at the center of our conferences; not just in theory, but in practice. For us, it is essential that students themselves play a key role; not just as attendees, but as designers, presenters, and leaders. Over the last two years close to 100 students from across the Big Picture network have been present at Big Bang – our international conference on student-centered learning.

If you could do it over and be a BPL student, how would you structure your education?
I think less about what I would be like as a BPL student as I do about what it would be like to be a teacher in a BPL school. I have a teaching degree that I’ve never used because my student-teaching experience was uninspiring. As a result, I’ve followed other paths through life. But if I had known that schools like those in the Big Picture Learning network had existed, I suspect I would have remained in the teaching profession. I must say, I’m grateful that my path through life has still wound its way back toward progressive, inspiring, and imaginative schools. I regret that I don’t have the opportunity to work with students every day, but I am pleased that I’m part of a national conversation about what education can and should look like moving forward.

It’s no secret that you’re a big fan of books and stories, can you share any reads that we should catch up on?
What a terrific question! Let’s start way back and move up to the present:

• My all time favorite book is In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. Many people think of Where the Wild Things Are when they think of Sendak, but I remember being struck by the absurdity of In the Night Kitchen at an early age. It’s a book so important to me that I have a print commemorating it on my office wall!
• For fiction, the book I could never put down was The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
• I’m a sucker for American historical nonfiction and have been plodding my way through the biographies of each United States president. I’m currently up to Martin Van Buren (so naturally, I’m taking a break!).
• I love a good graphic novel. Check out Unflattening by Nick Sousanis for an academic deconstruction of graphic novels told, naturally, in graphic novel form!
• Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t strongly recommend The Big Picture and Leaving to Learn from my education idols and Big Picture Learning founders Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor!

FableVision’s Digital Backpack!

New clothes, crisp notebook pages waiting to be written in, the smell of freshly sharpened pencils. There’s nothing quite like the excitement of going back to school. The start of school promises a fresh set of opportunities to either keep on track or think about ways to do things differently.

Here at FableVision, we’re gearing up for the back-to-school season with our own list of must-have tools for new-year success. From the top techie to the new old schoolers, this list has something for everyone! What’s on your must-have list this fall?

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For the Task Keepers

Unabashedly into organizing information, you need just the right digital tools
and management systems to keep you on-track from deadline to deliverable.

Trello
Mitul Daiyan, Marketing Coordinator
Trello is a project management tool that helps me track the various projects on my plate. This is just the right app for people like me who prefer to have a digital checklist of their tasks that they can access from anywhere. I use it at FableVision for events I’m managing and for my personal life with boards for meals I’m prepping for the week! I can add due dates and team members to different cards for collaborative work. I can't cheer about Trello enough, I use it in tandem with Gmail Tasks and I’m ready to tackle every week.

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Wunderlist
Brian Grossman, Technical Director
Everything I have in my life, I owe to my task list. Without it, I wouldn’t get anything done. I have a surprisingly bad memory and as a result, I have trained myself to write everything down in a task list — everything. I am currently using an app called Wunderlist as my task list. It allows me to keep multiple lists, assign due dates, and synchronize them between my computer and phone. I find it to be just the right amount of functionality for my needs. What about spontaneity? How about doing something fun that’s not on the list? I couldn’t agree more… I guess that why I never finish everything on my list.

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For the Nifty DIY-ers

There’s nothing more satisfying than using something you made with your own hands.

DIY Pencil Case
Jordan Bach, Senior Developer
Making your own pencil case is the perfect way to counter the end-of-summer blues. Hand make a little pouch using your favorite fabrics and add a matching or non-matching zipper. Use it to carry around your pencils, colored pencils, markers, and maybe even a little notepad or an iPad Pencil. When life gets hectic, you can write or sketch it out. And you'll have a pleasing reminder of your creative side. Here are some ideas to help you get started!

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For the Pro-gamers and Programmers

Gaming is serious business and you can’t wait to help others gamify their projects to get their noggins ticking!

Game Design Toolkit
Peter Stidwill, Senior Producer
FableVision Studios and Learning Games Network (LGN) partnered to create the Game Design Tool Kit (GDTK), a free online resource designed to help teachers incorporate game design strategies in their curriculum. This comprehensive handbook is offered at no cost for educators and includes a lesson plan guide, research and design prompts, step-by-step instructions, and discussion guides.

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Scratch
Margarita Dekoli, Senior Developer
Scratch is a free programming language and online community where kids can create their own interactive stories, games, and animations. Learners are able to explore, tinker, or play with different parameters and permutations. By allowing kids to write their own code, you allow them to explore what they are building and to refine their thinking over time through experimentation and tweaks. Plus it’s really accessible and fun!

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For the Top Techie

You get misty eyed thinking about your old Trapper Keeper
and you’re big on new gadgets with that old-school cool.

iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Moleskine App
Leigh Hallisey, Creative Director
There are few thing in life that make me happier than new school supplies. I loved them as a child, and I’m so happy that having a kid gives me an excuse to enjoy the start of the year at least nine more times. My favorite BTS bundle this year is an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Moleskine App. The Moleskine App allows me to choose from multiple styles of paper notes, sketches, and storyboarding. I use my Apple Pencil for digital notetaking and sketches. I love having all of my stuff in one place. (Not Lisa Frank folders and smencils love, but close.)

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Wacom Cintiq/Companion Portable Tablet
Keith Zulawnik, Lead Artist
One thing that has been super beneficial to my work has been using a Wacom Cintiq Companion. I've been using an Intuos for years and wanted to switch over to a Cintiq but always felt they were a bit unwieldy on the desk. Wacom released the mobile version a few years ago (the Companion) and I've been hooked ever since! You can't beat being able to work anywhere; it makes drawing digitally feel more natural, like a sketchbook. I get to work on the train, and most importantly, not be locked down to my desk all the time. The past month I actually switched over to their newest model, which has been rebranded from the Companion to the Mobile Studio Pro. It's really an amazing machine. If you’re looking for an alternative then the Apple iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil or the Microsoft Surface Pro are great options. Keep in mind that the iPad does not offer full versions of some software including Photoshop, but you can download an app called Procreate which is an excellent alternative.

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For the New Old Schoolers

You favor the analog way of documenting and make no apologies for
your love of physical lists, notebooks, and shiny office supplies!

Bullet Journaling
Sarah Ditkoff, Marketing and Client Services Manager
I've always used a combination of my digital work calendar and written lists to stay organized. Bullet journaling is a customizable analog system that's gotten pretty trendy over the last couple years. I recently started using a simplified version of the logging system in a grid-style Moleskine. On the left page, I map out my week to help prioritize tasks: meetings, important deadlines, and larger announcements or deliverables. On the right, I "bucket" my tasks into categories that change depending on what I'm working on. Right now, I'm organizing on-ramping tasks for our new marketing interns and planning workflows for upcoming events this fall. Brightly colored sticky-notes let me add informal reminders for myself.

David Welsh, Marketing Intern
I like to keep organized in a notebook, so I’ve adopted some ideas from bullet journaling. I like the Moleskine Professional notebooks because each page is segmented into three areas. I keep the current day’s tasks at top, future tasks along the side, and use the body for lengthier notes and thoughts. With the start of the new semester, I need notebooks for writing, schoolwork, and my internship here at FableVision. I found a budget spiral bound notebook at Target (a medium Miquelrius Hemisphere) that is separated into four color-coded sections. I use blue for my calendar, red for FableVision, gray for school, and green for everything else. There is no substitute for dependable pen and paper.

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MUJI, Tea, and Totes
Samantha Bissonnette, Producer
Although most of my work is digital, my physical tools are just as important in keeping me organized! Like Sarah and David, I love my trusty Moleskine notebook. I also love the notebooks and stationery at MUJI — they have tons of classic lightweight notebooks and fun stamps too! In addition to my notebooks, I like to have one trusty bag that’s large enough for me to carry everything I need, but small enough that it won’t weigh me down when I ride my bike or take the T. This leather bag is the perfect fit! And although my little tea infuser shown here broke, I love loose leaf tea, so a fun tea infuser will be the best addition to my work space.