Wanderly is now deployed in 11 K-3 classrooms, and parents are signing up! I’m exhilarated! I’ve been pushing non-stop towards these classroom pilots for 4+ months – the feedback has been extremely positive so far, and the software works! Details below.
How you can help: I’m still working on explaining Wanderly to parents. I’d love to interview some parents to see how these classroom pilots might help build trust and to explore various value proposition statements and onboarding. If you’re a parent, can I interview you for 30 minutes? Just hit reply or sign up here.
After my last post, Wanderly classroom pilots kicked off, and I started training teachers before the school year began. At first, I was all nerves: My first training was a video conference with teachers I’d never met before. So was my second. My only in-person training was 10 minutes squeezed into an existing teacher meeting. But I began to realize that the nerves were just in my head. The teachers I trained in person gave a collective cheer when I explained the communication tools in the teacher portal (teachers put a lot of effort into their newsletters to parents, and it’s been a joy to see them react to places where I can save them time). A week later, one of the teachers I had trained remotely sent a note saying she felt both confident and excited to use Wanderly.
The following week, I prepared for deploying in classrooms. I made final touches to the flyers to be sent home in backpacks. I started preparing the tablets that teachers would use in the classrooms (I had the idea that, since Wanderly was an app and most teachers had projectors or Chromecasts, I could give teachers Android tablets to project the stories on the screen). And then, I realized I’d been so focused on the software, I hadn’t pressure-tested how teachers were actually going to use Wanderly in the classroom!
Then began a flurry of uncertainty: Would the schools’ WiFi networks allow the Wanderly app to work? How were the tablets actually going to connect to the screen? I found out that some teachers had Promethean boards, which had their own way to connect. At each step, I realized that any friction for the teachers would put this pilot at risk, and I cursed myself for not thinking through this step sooner.
Thankfully, all the teachers in the pilot were extremely kind. Amid all the chaos of the first week of school, they took the time to test Wanderly on their Wi-Fi, contact school IT, and let me come into their classrooms to test cables and casting. I thought I was ready.
In the third week of August, I started to deploy Wanderly in classrooms at my local school. That meant going with tablets, stuffies, emotion charts, and flyers, and then filling in the rest of the training that my initial 10-minute overview didn’t cover. Teachers were curious and engaged. One teacher said, “If we’re this excited about it, the kids are going to love it!” A couple of teachers even indicated they might want to read more than one story a week. And I got to immediately have a use case for the story bank (access to additional Wanderly stories that aren’t directly in a class’s curriculum): A new kid had joined a classroom and was struggling with introducing themselves to their classmates, and I got to tell the teacher, “I have a story about introductions called The First Mile, and you can send it home to their family; so they can practice scripts that might help with making new friends.”
And while all the teachers were incredibly patient with all the tablets and casting, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it felt wrong. I asked myself, “Does this really need to be on a tablet?”, and over the course of a weekend, I resurrected my old desktop app as a teacher-only version that could be cast directly from their laptops… the laptops that were already connected to their projector. It felt like an immediate win. I walked over to my local school after rolling it out, and the teachers were immediately appreciative. Some even handed the tablets back to me. Over the years, I have had mixed feelings about starting my journey on web instead of a mobile app; at this moment, I am incredibly thankful for the circuitous path that has brought me here.
Last week, I made my last stop: Driving 6 hours to my second school for another round of onboarding. This time, I brought the tablets as a backup, but left them in the car.
Walking onto a new campus, stuffies in hand, gave me flashbacks to first-day-of-school nerves: Where is the office? The classrooms? Will the teachers like me? But my concerns immediately lifted: The staff was kind and friendly, and kids of all ages looked at the stuffie versions of Rory and Rose, and I heard audible “oooooh!!”s and “those are so cute!”
All my teacher trainings went smoothly this time, confirmation that acting on my gut to toss the tablet strategy was a win. But the affirmation I got from this stop has really buoyed my optimism.
While at my second school, I met with a school administrator. My friend had suggested we meet in the weeks leading up to my trip, and even though I was apprehensive about the risk that a bad impression with an administrator might risk the whole pilot, I knew it was the right thing to do long term.
I could tell she was skeptical; her two biggest concerns were protecting her teacher’s time (rightly so! They already have so much on their plates) and cost (specifically, what was I getting out of this if it was free?). My ready answer for the first was “fits into the storytime slot your teachers already have” and “the story is the lesson”. For the second, I answered it honestly: “I’d love to make money eventually, but if I’m going to do this, I need people to start using it and giving me feedback. I’m bootstrapping this; I have no investors. The cost is to me, but Wanderly is something I’m passionate about, and I’m willing to front the cost if it means that I’ll be successful later.” Something about the conversation landed, since by the end of the conversation she was telling me about conferences I should attend to get more admins interested in paying. Later in the afternoon, during a teacher training, she walked in and said, “Isn’t this cool?!” and began talking with the teachers about Wanderly.
Standing quietly while three strangers talked excitedly about their favorite things about something I built was a new highlight: “I love how all I need to do is just open the story. It’s so easy”, “These stuffies just feel good to squeeze”, “We’ve always just read stories to the kids, and there wasn’t a lot of structure. I love how this sequence really has a lot of intention behind it, and I know what to read next to the kids.” 🥰
When I returned home that night, after a long 6-hour drive, I hugged my husband and did a few rounds of dancing.
And then, over the last few days, I’ve seen evidence that flyers and links are being sent home, and parents are starting to sign up! I’ve seen about equal response rates from School #1 and School #2, and given how different the demographics are between the schools, that’s very encouraging. And given what I’m seeing, I’m optimistic that repeated invitations from teachers to read Wanderly stories with their kids will get even more parent adoption.
I know there’s still so much to prove out, but I’m feeling this incredible mix of optimism and nervousness. Nervous because of all the “what ifs” and unknown questions that need answering. But optimistic because it finally feels like something is clicking. And I feel like all the teachers and admins are on my team, rooting for me and wanting Wanderly to succeed, because if I can deliver on the promise, I will have sincerely met their needs.
For now, I’m turning my attention to improving the experience and extending the curriculum. I’ve built out the first 2 months of stories, so now I’m looking at November stories about gratitude and friendship skills. And for improving the experience, this pilot has been made possible by a lot of digital duct tape and ruthless prioritization, and I’m looking forward to smoothing the edges.
If you’re still reading and want to help, if you are a parent or know a parent who likes to do user interviews, please hit reply. I’d love 30 minutes to talk about parenting needs for social-emotional learning and workshop some ideas.
Thanks for your continued interest and support! 😀