from Khan Academy.

Thanks so much for joining us in a long running series

of Remote Learning 101.

It's gone on a little longer than we expected

at the beginning back in March, but we're happy to serve you

with whatever is most of interest.

We've heard from a lot of teachers across the country.

They say Yeah, technology is hard

and academics are hard right now.

But motivation and engagement, sparking

that fundamental curiosity and passion for learning

is really the toughest thing to summon

when everyone's feeling a little down.

And so into that void, has stepped

this amazing Khan Academy Ambassador, Laura gas,

who is an incredible sixth grade teacher

in Southern California, and who even before

this crisis started, highly motivating her students

with a very special part of Khan Academy that was built

in collaboration with Pixar, which is called Pixar in a box.

Basically, an online curriculum that's not about calculus,

or algebra or AP U.S. History,

but about how do you tell really amazing stories

using both human ingenuity and technology.

And so, I would love for you to learn

from Laura about her experience and her recommendations.

And I wanna give you a little bit of an extra bonus today.

In the spirit of Pixar and innovation,

we're gonna try a new way of asking questions

for these webinars.

So instead of just asking questions in the question box,

and then waiting to see if your question will be answered,

we're actually gonna use a new tool,

which you gonna find @khan.co/pixarKhan.

I will chat that into the chat area right now.

And what you will find when you get there, is a list

of questions coming in from teachers across the country

that you can not only add to, but you can also upvote.

So if you see question that you're really excited about,

just go ahead and give it a thumbs up,

and those will rise to the top.

And those are the ones that will turn to Laura first

to make sure they get priority answers.

So that being said, Laura, we're so excited

to have you here today.

- Thank you - Thank you again

for sharing your expertise in the midst

of everything else going on.

Take a moment to tell us about

your own educational adventure

and how you got to this moment.

- Well, I'm a teacher here in Southern California.

I've been teaching about 20 years now.

And I teach in Victor Elementary School District,

at a school called Galileo Academy.

And I've been there teaching, I taught third grade

then sixth grade, is what I'm currently teaching right now.

- That's awesome, and tell us how things are going,

like how is the remote learning going for you?

What are you learning along the way?

- Well, I've become much more technological (laughing).

We've been really doing a lot of zoom classes

and it's been really great.

I'm able to see the kids still, and the kids are able

to see me and I'm still able to give them some,

a lot of different lessons.

Today We even took a virtual tour

of the Great Wall of China.

So, it was pretty neat.

Yeah.

- That's awesome.

Well clearly I can tell that you're really focused on

that engagement and motivation piece,

as well as the technology piece.

So, why don't you tell us a little bit more

about Pixar in a Box?

Like, what is it?

And why did you use it in your classroom in the first place?

- Well, one of the reasons why I started using it,

I actually started out as an elective.

We were able to choose, each one of us were able to choose

an elective, something that we really enjoyed doing,

and not something that I really enjoyed doing.

I really think that Pixar in a Box is,

the art of storytelling by storytellers.

Which is pretty fantastic.

And so the last couple of years, I thought,

this is such a fantastic, just these lessons

are just amazing that I'm gonna actually use them

in my writing block

rather than just using them as an elective.

And the kids, absolutely into it.

They really have blossomed as writers

and they really enjoy the process too.

- That's awesome.

And so tell us how you typically use it with your students.

Like how do you roll it out?

How do you get them excited about it?

- Well, we usually do lessons per day but, say for example,

the very first lessons.

So we'll go to the art of storytelling.

And in the art of storytelling,

it's just so fantastic, all of those different lessons

are just all about the storytelling.

So the first thing that I like to do,

is I'd like to show a Pixar short.

What's amazing is Pixar has so many fantastic shorts

and they are short and it's so great for the kids

to be able to tell back the story and they'll be able

to use those to help tell their stories.

So we start with, we are storytellers.

I don't think that the kids realize

what great storytellers they truly are.

They just don't know how to tell that story.

Or, you know, and they learn how to do it in a Pixar way.

So, first they learn what amazing storytellers they are.

In the first lesson, it talks about the characters

and the unique perspective of characters.

And what we do is, it's so relatable

to the kids because once we watch the videos,

because that's another really important piece,

there's always a video on there and Pixar

has allowed us to see a lot of the different stories

that come from people who actually work at Pixar

that they are able to share their stories about

how they became storytellers.

So, then when it asks the student to do is then allows

the student to self Reflect.

But what's great is most of these kids have already seen

these Pixar movies.

So, they'll ask you, pick your three favorite, Okay.

Now let's apply what we've learned.

So, if there are like, for example, in the first activity

it's about, you know, the emotions

and it's about really starting to try to express a memory

that they have.

So, they'll take it and they'll put it in the same concept

as that memory is a story that I can expand on.

So that's what it asks the kids to actually draw

on their own experiences to be able to

tell those stories, which they soon find out

that they are now storytellers.

And then we work into just the structure

of the story or that I've loved the what if activities.

In one of them, the what if this happened or that happened.

And what's fantastic is you can take,

say, "The Incredibles", and then I'll ask the kids,

well, who asked what if?

What is that What if they asked?

And they'll be able to tell me exactly

what if there were superheroes

that couldn't be superheroes anymore?

Well, so there's your story.

And that's how you can start it.

And then after that, we'll work into character.

The kids will start creating their characters

which is really fantastic because once they really get

their character developed, because we spend

a lot of time on developing that one character.

So once they get the character developed using

that internal and external characteristics,

they have to draw the character, they have to tell me

who is this?

Do they have a list?

Do they limp?

You know, and so they have to really define

their characters really well.

And so once they can define that character,

they can then put the character into a world.

So then we talk about setting, Okay.

Let's go ahead

and we'll talk about, what kind

of world do you want to live in.

And I love that one piece where it talks about

the wants versus needs.

Because it's an amazing way to start the story.

They can, what does your character want?

And what do they need to do to be able to go

and get what they want?

And then after we get our character,

we wanna know, you know, What's happening to the character?

Where are their stakes?

You know, those kinds of things.

Then we start looking into the story structure,

which is where the kids really start to develop

their story itself.

The one thing that's absolutely amazing is this story spine.

This story's spine is just something

that gets their juices really flowing.

The once upon a time, every day until one day

and then because of that, because of that,

because of that, until finally.

And it's a great way to start the story.

Sometimes what we'll do in class is, I'll put up

the story spine and I say, "Okay kids, tell me

"once upon a time."

And we'll do it in a group and then the kids

will tell me once upon, and then I said,

"Okay now, every day what did they do?"

And then somebody will tell me, this thought

or the other thing.

And then we'll have a class story that we can repeat

and we Just have a really good time with that,

because sometimes they turn out pretty funny.

- You could even do that over Zoom this days,

have that sort of like, class wide story building.

- And then after we work through the story spine,

I love that, the spine then turns into three different acts.

So then we have act one.

And then we have the three, there's act one,

beginning, middle and end.

Act one is the once upon a time, every day, until one day.

So then we work through act one.

And then we go on to act two, which is the because of,

because of, because of,

and we've worked through that and they get

their middle meat part of the story.

And then finally, we'll go on to act three,

and that's until finally and then ever since then.

And then they have a story, which is really fantastic.

And then after that, what we do

is then we'll start storyboarding our story.

So we'll work through that and they can see

what their story is gonna look like.

And then once they have their story, we were talking

a little bit earlier about, then they have,

then they really get excited about writing

their story into a script.

So what we then do is we go to, there's an extension

in Chrome, that is youMeScript.

And the kids can download this into their Chromebooks

and they can actually write a script.

So, they end up having a complete story's full script.

And sometimes we talk about, we're doing this

and we're gonna go from beginning script to screen and,

so sometimes, if we end up being able to have

a little bit more time, we can maybe recorded it

or do a live action or sometimes they can do claymation

and do a stop motion.

And so they get a complete story.

But the other wonderful thing about this, we've been talking