Episode 4: Kids Are So Clever!

Being late to virtual meetings is a problem plenty of us can relate to, especially when Zoom calls and Google Meets crowd our calendars. But few of us actually develop an innovative app to solve the problem like Seth Raphael, a San Francisco Bay area high schooler, did. When Seth found himself being late to class as a remote learner, he took matters into his own hands by developing a clever technology solution. Listen in as Seth shares how he helped himself and now others.

Learn more about Seth Raphael, a high school student turned technology CEO: Seth’s LinkedIn profile. And check out Seth’s LinkJoin app at https://linkjoin.xyz/. 

Transcript

Announcer:

You're listening to the Voices in Education podcast powered by Securly, where we hear from new voices and explore new ideas about how we can reimagine education to support whole student success. Education is at an inflection point. As we grapple with complex challenges like funding and enrollment, as well as diversity, equity, and safety, we also have an opportunity. An opportunity to reimagine education. Now more than ever, we know the importance that students' overall wellbeing plays in their success. They need to feel supported, and safe, and connected to be able to engage in their learning and achieve to their full potential. Join your host, Casey Agena, a former teacher turned instructional coach and technologist, as he interviews inspirational educators, school leaders, wellness professionals, and more to amplify their voices. You'll learn about the innovative work they're doing to support student safety, engagement, and overall wellness. And who knows, you may even spark a new idea of your own. Ready to reimagine education? Let's go.

Casey:

Welcome to episode three of the Voices in Education podcast powered by Securly. I'm your host Casey Agena, and in today's episode, we'll be talking with Seth Rafael. He is a student in Walnut Creek, up in Northern California. And we're going to hear a little bit about what he's done to address his own mental health and the challenges he and many students have been facing over the past 24 months. Listen in as Seth and I talk about his solution, what he's done to help himself, and how he's even sharing his solutions with others.

Casey:

I want to welcome Seth Rafael. Seth, let's take a look back at last year. What were those challenges that you faced and how did they heighten themselves for you to say, I need to do something about this?

Seth:

Well, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. The main problem that I was facing last year in virtual school was being late to my classes. So I was in eighth grade. Right now I'm in ninth grade. And I was on virtual school in Zoom. And every single day I would find myself being late to my classes just because I got distracted on the computer. I'd get to my computer five minutes early, be ready to be on time, and then get distracted doing something else. Whether it was checking my email, coding, on social media, it didn't matter. I would become immersed in the computer and not realize what was happening until I was already five minutes late to my class. This happened enough times that it started to become a chronic problem that I really realized I needed a solution for.

Seth:

I'd been dabbling in coding a bit, especially with Python. So I decided to make myself a Python program that would automatically open my class Zoom links at just the right time. So I started using this and it worked really well. I was no longer late for my classes. I would get to every one right on time, no matter what else I was doing. But I started running into another problem, that I couldn't share it with my friends. See they were having the same problem that I was, and I wanted to show them my code so that they could run it themselves and be on time. But I didn't have a way to do that. That's when I decided to turn LinkJoin into a website, which brought it to where it is today.

Casey:

Let's pause there on that solution. And let's really kind of backtrack, I think, to the whole point of you knowing that it was a problem. You had mentioned that you were being late and you were missing some Zoom classes last year in remote learning. At what point, and maybe if you're more than willing to share, when you really knew that it was really getting to be a problem and you needed to do something. What really happened to you that was really hitting it in terms of it needing to be addressed?

Seth:

Yeah. When I really knew that it was a problem was when I had started talking with my friends and realizing that everyone else was having the same issues that I was. At first, I thought it was just me being forgetful, or just not remembering to join because I was lazy, or something like that. But once I realized that it was not just me, that everyone else was having the same problem, that's when I realized that something really needed to be done about this and that something could be done about this.

Casey:

Well, so we have classes and a schedule in terms of remote learning. Why in a remote learning situation, for you as an eighth grader, did that make it more challenging than let's say being a little late when you're in school, like face to face? I'm trying to understand just from your own perspective on why that was even more of a problem. What we talk about in education speak, that social emotional piece of having that anxiety of like missing something where you might not necessarily miss it in a face to face setting.

Seth:

That's a great question. So in actual school we have these bells, right? We have the bell system where your class bell rings and then you move around, you go to your next class. And everyone else moves with you. But in my virtual school, we had these awkward seven minute breaks where our class would end and we'd have seven minutes to do whatever and have just enough time to get distracted without actually getting anything done in between each class. And because there was no group of people moving from place to place, there was no realization of, oh, I'm going to be late to class. You'd just get sidetracked doing something else. And there'd be nothing to pull you back in.

Casey:

So with that, I know that you had mentioned that you were doing a lot of technology work, doing some coding, some computer science work, and really kind of understanding how things work, and ultimately all of that learning led to you thinking about a solution for this. What was the aha moment for you when you said to yourself, I really think I can do something to help address this problem that I have.

Seth:

So I've been dabbling in Python, really my whole life, or coding in general. Because when I was young, I'd be taking computer science camps really with just like block coding, drag and drop, making little games, things like that. But it wasn't until the pandemic that I really got interested in it because there were so many problems to solve. So I'd originally began programming for a small, not a small app, for a messaging platform called Discord, where I made a small bot that would accomplish tasks for people. And I really built up my expertise doing that.

Seth:

And then eventually when I did come up with this problem of my own, I thought, why not at least try to solve it? So I put myself to work. I used the knowledge that I already had. And then I used Google to supplement what knowledge I lacked. And it just built up over itself. I ended up learning a lot in the process, but that moment of determination, thinking I can do it, just came from the fact that I thought that it could be better. There had to be some solution for what I was going through and if it didn't exist, I was going to be the one to make it.

Casey:

Let's take a short break to hear a word from our sponsor.

Announcer:

The Voices in Education podcast is brought to you by Securly. Pioneering the student safety movement in 2013, Securly continues to lead the charge in innovative education technology. As the only whole student success platform for K-12 education, Securly helps schools ensure student safety, increase student and family engagement, proactively support student wellness, and optimize student device and technology initiatives. More than 15,000 schools worldwide choose Securly to help them keep students safe, engaged, and well. To learn how Securly can support your school visit www.securly.com. 

Casey:

And now back to the interview. So let's fast forward a bit here where you now have an application that you've created and ultimately it was for yourself. You were really trying to solve a problem that you had. Which ultimately, after doing some exploring, your friends had the same challenges and your classmates, and even broadly within your grade level. I'm wondering about you have your way of, one, understanding the challenges, the anxiety, the stressors that you have in these particular times of remote learning and hybrid, and now kind of face to face learning. What do you know about your friends, your peers? And are those challenges that you were feeling and those stressors and those social emotional pressures that either you were putting on yourself or your parents or whatnot, are others within your school and your peers feeling those same challenges?

Seth:

So, because I have ADHD and I often have trouble focusing on things, it was actually really validating to hear from my friends that they too were experiencing these problems of being late, things like that. Because it really made me feel like I wasn't stupid in this, and that it wasn't just a me problem, that this was a larger thing that was going on. So yeah, a lot of other people at my school had been experiencing this where they were late chronically and LinkJoin was a help to at least the ones that I could show it to.

Casey:

Fast forwarding that to now, why don't you know, as we're kind of moving back into face to face learning, we're having different models in terms of what it was when we were all remote. Where are we at now with your solution, which is called LinkJoin, and we'll share those resources with everyone who's joining us today. Where are we at now with LinkJoin and tell us about what's next for your solution.

Seth:

So now that I am back in person school, and so are a bunch of my peers, most of the K-12 students in California, we're all back in person. So it's not as applicable for virtual school as it once was, at least in my area. But what it definitely is applicable for is just every virtual meeting. For this podcast that I'm on right now, I used LinkJoin to remind myself to get on it because I totally would've forgotten. And I use it for all of my meetings. I do some online tutoring. I use LinkJoin for that. And I've really been trying to get it out there for people to be using it for everything. So that's really what's next for it. Getting it out there so that it can be used more widely, not just in education, but for every virtual meeting. I'm, in the future, going to be working on a Google calendar integration. And maybe even with virtual meeting softwares or learning management systems. LinkJoin will be coming to all those things and working together to make it useful and applicable for everyone that could be using it.

Casey:

I want to highlight a couple of pieces here as we close out today. Ultimately it's really refreshing, I think, to be able to look at many of us who are listening in, our education leaders, and parents with students and children that we support. And we know that we're here in terms of not only their physical and mental health, but digital health. And we've talked a lot with our other guests in terms of social emotional learning. And this is a really interesting piece where Seth was really able to identify the challenges and the stressors that he was having through a really unique school year, coming up with a solution based on the skills that he had, and really taking that idea of digital health into digital solutions, not only for himself, but being able to share that with others.

Casey:

And I think that is really an awesome piece to take away from this and really look at the capacity that the students that we work with have, in terms of not only identifying problems, but really amplifying solutions. So I want to thank Seth for the time that he's spent here with us. And I want to thank all of you for joining another episode of Voices in Education.

Announcer:

Thanks for tuning in to the Voices in Education podcast, powered by Securly, where we hear from new voices and explore new ideas about how we can reimagine education to support whole student success. If you enjoy today's episode, we hope you'll consider subscribing to the podcast and sharing it with others who would benefit from listening. Even a small act of support helps us reach more people and make a bigger impact. For the resources from today's episode, and additional details about the podcast, please visit www.securly.com/podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.