Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says got to
Speaker 1: get back back back to school again. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Bulk, and I'm Joe McCormack. Did either of
Speaker 1: you recognize where that comes from? I believe that's from Greece.
Speaker 1: Greece to Greece too. That's an opening number from Greece too,
Speaker 1: for bringing the pain. You're You're welcome. I'm a cool writer.
Speaker 1: CEO L R I D E R. We can move
Speaker 1: on to the topic. That's fair. That's fair. So we're
Speaker 1: going to talk today about again more about the future
Speaker 1: of education and UH and the rising trend of distance
Speaker 1: learning and things that are related to that. This idea
Speaker 1: of being able to attend classes virtually, either as someone
Speaker 1: who is actually enrolled in a course but they are
Speaker 1: attending through some sort of computer connection, or someone who
Speaker 1: just wants to further their education and they are looking
Speaker 1: at courses that are available online either for free or
Speaker 1: you know, you're paying money but it's not like it's
Speaker 1: college credit. UM, and what are these various options that
Speaker 1: are out there, and are they actually effective at teaching
Speaker 1: people coursework? This is important stuff because you know, we've
Speaker 1: seen that there's a rising interest in this. People want
Speaker 1: the ability to access the best in education, and uh it,
Speaker 1: I mean it can be pretty tricky. All of us
Speaker 1: went to college in an era where distance learning was
Speaker 1: pretty early on, and right, right, I I had a
Speaker 1: couple like lecture courses that you could attend via video. Nice.
Speaker 1: Did you have anything like that, Joe, No, I didn't
Speaker 1: have anything like that. I all the classes I took
Speaker 1: you had to show up bit class for. But I
Speaker 1: definitely took a lot of classes where there was an
Speaker 1: online component. So say you'd have class meetings, but then
Speaker 1: you'd go home and part of the work you'd do
Speaker 1: outside of class would be online on a discussion board
Speaker 1: or to take a quiz maybe or something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: I went to college before either of you and did
Speaker 1: not have any of that. All of my course work
Speaker 1: was done before they invented the wheelbarrow. Was shortly after
Speaker 1: the wheelbarrow, which was good because he had to carry
Speaker 1: all those taxtbooks or rope. At any rate, it was
Speaker 1: it was before online coursework had become part of the
Speaker 1: University of Georgia. That's where I went. Well as of
Speaker 1: as one study by the Sloan Consortium, which I want
Speaker 1: to say at the top here does promote online education.
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of things to quote from them,
Speaker 1: and so just at the top, they think it's pretty rad.
Speaker 1: So their numbers might be a little bit skewed, but
Speaker 1: not necessarily unbiased. But according to them, they say that
Speaker 1: UM students taking a least one online course as of
Speaker 1: numbered above six point seven million in the u S alone.
Speaker 1: Got you So, I mean this is a number we
Speaker 1: expect to see grow over time. Uh. It's something that
Speaker 1: I'm sure some colleges think is promising to be able
Speaker 1: to offer more of these kind of classes. Some might
Speaker 1: be thinking of it as something of a threat, uh
Speaker 1: to see that people might pursue education online as opposed
Speaker 1: to attending a brick and mortar school. UM. But really,
Speaker 1: whether or not it's good for the university system, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the options that a student has. So there
Speaker 1: are lots of different ones out there. One of the
Speaker 1: most basic ones is just the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: of schools will offer up coursework online for free. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's no college credits. Right yeah, uh m, I T
Speaker 1: does this and uh and so you can go and
Speaker 1: you can It's almost like auditing a class in college
Speaker 1: where you're not getting any credit for it, but you
Speaker 1: get the experience and you get the chance to access
Speaker 1: some of the information that students who are going after
Speaker 1: an actual degree in that school would have. And I've
Speaker 1: used this myself in order to do some research and
Speaker 1: get a basic understanding of concepts that I was really
Speaker 1: rusty on, specifically chemistry. I used my T courses to
Speaker 1: kind of um relearn some principles and chemistry and learned
Speaker 1: some things that were new to me. Obviously not new
Speaker 1: to chemistry, but I had never encountered it because my chemistry,
Speaker 1: uh education only went so far. I was a wheler.
Speaker 1: It was an English literature major. Once we determined that
Speaker 1: you could not turn lead into gold, we moved on. Now.
Speaker 1: Was was this one of the one of their massive
Speaker 1: open online courses? This was not this, This preceded the
Speaker 1: massive open online courses. It was essentially just the basic
Speaker 1: coursework and some some videos, But a massive open on
Speaker 1: line course tends to get a little bit more involved
Speaker 1: so that you can actually not just watch and and
Speaker 1: and uh and and read the course material, but participate
Speaker 1: in a deeper level, even going so far as to
Speaker 1: be part of an online forum where you can discuss
Speaker 1: the work with fellow students. Uh, you can get a
Speaker 1: lot of them. You actually get your work graded, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can either by fellow students or by a computer program. Right. So,
Speaker 1: so in this case you could actually be you know,
Speaker 1: tested on your knowledge that you're supposed to be gaining
Speaker 1: through the course. In my case, it was just truly
Speaker 1: asynchronous learning. And asynchronous of course means that you access
Speaker 1: it whenever you have the time and interest in doing so.
Speaker 1: And that's not new homework is a synchronous Yeah, although uh,
Speaker 1: with the course I was taking through m I T,
Speaker 1: it was so asynchronous as to be you can take
Speaker 1: months between classes, right, And that that was the bent
Speaker 1: of fit for me, was that I could access it
Speaker 1: when it was convenient for me. Uh. With your traditional homework,
Speaker 1: you do eventually have a deadline, So this it's a
Speaker 1: little bit different. It's it's very much um up to
Speaker 1: the student to stay on task and make sure that
Speaker 1: you are still pursuing this as far as you need
Speaker 1: to to get the information you want. And uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's fantastic. When I saw this coming becoming a thing,
Speaker 1: I was really excited. But it's just the tip of
Speaker 1: the iceberg, right. Sure. Sure, I would argue that that
Speaker 1: most online education puts a little bit more of the
Speaker 1: impetus on the student too. I mean, I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: any any course, any kind of education, the student is
Speaker 1: responsible for showing up and actually learning and and doing
Speaker 1: something with that knowledge in a way that makes it
Speaker 1: stick with them. Um. You know, in different different educational
Speaker 1: styles of of of course, the teacher has huge impact
Speaker 1: on that in the way that the information is presented,
Speaker 1: but especially when you get online, it's it's so much
Speaker 1: more dependent that you really have to be more motivated
Speaker 1: to make it stick. One figure that I saw about these,
Speaker 1: about these massive open online courses, is that there moos yes,
Speaker 1: which which is strange because the word mook means a
Speaker 1: foolish and significant or contemptible person I get all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't see what the problem is, go on, vocal
Speaker 1: bumb goodness, migracious um. But that the average pass rate um.
Speaker 1: I think this was according to the Chronicle of Online Education,
Speaker 1: perhaps was only seven point five percent of students who
Speaker 1: began a given course. Yeah, UM, just just mostly meaning that,
Speaker 1: um that most people dropped out after a certain period
Speaker 1: of time or didn't take the final exam. Of course,
Speaker 1: there could be a self selection issue going on there
Speaker 1: in that people who are going to be taking online
Speaker 1: courses are probably more likely people who have like scheduling
Speaker 1: conflicts and stuff like that that would make it difficult
Speaker 1: to finish a course anyway, Absolutely, does that make sense,
Speaker 1: Like if you're if you're taking this, it's probably more
Speaker 1: likely that you're somebody who's also working a full time
Speaker 1: job and it's trying, and that's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that would make it harder to finish your course. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: the benefits here are are pretty easy to grasp. The
Speaker 1: idea that you could learn without having to relocate to
Speaker 1: a college if you were able to take all your
Speaker 1: coursework this way. Clearly, if you had to show up
Speaker 1: in person for some classes, that wouldn't necessarily be the case,
Speaker 1: but it would also free up your schedule so that
Speaker 1: you could be a much more flexible on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. You wouldn't have to set aside specific
Speaker 1: time unless there was that interactive element to the course
Speaker 1: where you were expected to participate in some sort of
Speaker 1: online chat about the subject matter. Um, so it gives
Speaker 1: a lot more flexibility on both the side of the
Speaker 1: student and on the teacher, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: But then you get into questions like does this is
Speaker 1: this something that can can give a student the same
Speaker 1: sort of experience, the same sort of uh ability to
Speaker 1: grasp the coursework as they would if they were to
Speaker 1: attend a face to face kind of interaction. Well, part
Speaker 1: of it depends on what the educators are putting into
Speaker 1: the coursework to begin with. Um that that survey there
Speaker 1: was this big service the Chronicle of Online Education did
Speaker 1: with basically every mook educator that's terrible, every every massive
Speaker 1: open online course educator that they could find who existed
Speaker 1: on the planet. And they said that typically these professors
Speaker 1: spent over a hundred hours on the coursework before it
Speaker 1: even started, um, gathering their material together and preparing everything,
Speaker 1: and then would spend an additional eight to ten hours
Speaker 1: per week on upkeep. So that's still great. Imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, almost unimaginable amount of work to put into
Speaker 1: something that you're not so experimental right now. Well, and
Speaker 1: and it's so young in its in its life. Assuming
Speaker 1: that this proves to be an effect of and efficient
Speaker 1: means of of teaching people, Uh, I would imagine that
Speaker 1: we would get better at that so that the amount
Speaker 1: of time spent decreases a little. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: ever going to decrease so much as to be said
Speaker 1: to like this is effortless. That's never gonna happen. But
Speaker 1: still it's still education, and that's still an incredibly impressive job,
Speaker 1: right right, I mean, you know, and and it's again
Speaker 1: still fairly experimental at this stage. I will say that
Speaker 1: I've read some interesting studies. There's one called learning style
Speaker 1: and Effectiveness of Online Face to Face Instruction and online
Speaker 1: and face to face instruction, I should say, um, and
Speaker 1: this was a study that was published in the American
Speaker 1: Journal of Distance Education, So take that into consideration. But
Speaker 1: part of the findings were and I quote, the results
Speaker 1: revealed no significant differences in test scores, assignments, participation grades,
Speaker 1: and final grades, although the online group's averages were slightly higher.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of interesting, and that the people
Speaker 1: who are taking the course that essincely they looked at
Speaker 1: the courses that were available online as well. As in
Speaker 1: face to face, tried to limit the variables as much
Speaker 1: as possible, which is really hard. We've talked about this
Speaker 1: before in social sciences. It's really hard to to isolate
Speaker 1: the things that you specifically want to look at, right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to say that, well, maybe the
Speaker 1: students who took the online course were just already very
Speaker 1: familiar with the subject matter, or they just had a
Speaker 1: natural affinity for it. It's hard. You can't really eliminate that.
Speaker 1: But it was interesting that they scored slightly higher on average,
Speaker 1: which at least might suggest that online is around the
Speaker 1: same level of effective comparable effectiveness. You can't necessarily say
Speaker 1: it's better, but it doesn't look like it's worse. Uh Still,
Speaker 1: I mean again, when you're looking at something like this,
Speaker 1: that it's you can't you can't say for sure right
Speaker 1: down the middle, because people's as people's. I wonder if
Speaker 1: there are certain subjects or levels of education coursework that
Speaker 1: are more suited to online education than others. Um And
Speaker 1: one reason this occurs to me is that there are
Speaker 1: a few things that obviously cannot be entirely online. You know,
Speaker 1: One really obvious example would be like physical education. Like
Speaker 1: if you were, you know, training doing sports something like that.
Speaker 1: Another one though that occurs to me, would be lab
Speaker 1: work in the physical sciences. You don't have lab conditions
Speaker 1: at home. You need to you know, be able to gopment,
Speaker 1: go out and try to bring home some of the
Speaker 1: chemicals that you wouldn't want anything that would excellently generate
Speaker 1: like chlorine gas in your own home obviously and kill
Speaker 1: everybody who's in there. Um And you really you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing microbiology at home. I mean, it's all these
Speaker 1: are things where you need stuff that you need the facilities,
Speaker 1: facilities beyond what would be available to you. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: some courses you can easily imagine being done out of
Speaker 1: the home, like things like its electronics, where one of
Speaker 1: the things that everyone has to get is a basic breadboard,
Speaker 1: which is easily available in in at least in the
Speaker 1: United storts more or less non hazardous. But then you know,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, something more complex, something that's in
Speaker 1: the organic chemistry, then you know you've heard of the
Speaker 1: reason why people have been going to universities to begin with,
Speaker 1: I mean, to to have access to that wonderful equipment
Speaker 1: that they get well, right, I mean think about that
Speaker 1: university is really for a long time, we're just they
Speaker 1: were centers of learning because that's where the knowledge was held, right,
Speaker 1: It wasn't just where the experts were. That's where all
Speaker 1: the books were too, and if you wanted to get
Speaker 1: access to that learning, you had to go there. But
Speaker 1: now we've got this distributed network that's out that allows
Speaker 1: at least some of the information to be available on
Speaker 1: a much more global scale. And it's and now we're
Speaker 1: we're you know, it's a couple of decades after that's
Speaker 1: taken effect, we're starting to see some pretty significant disruption
Speaker 1: in that in that industry. Yeah, that that taps into
Speaker 1: a broader interesting issue that we touched on a little
Speaker 1: bit in the video. But that taps into a broader issue,
Speaker 1: which is that I think information is just simply less
Speaker 1: rare than it used to be. Um. The issue now
Speaker 1: is that there there's so much we can learn and
Speaker 1: we really can get at it. Like if you are
Speaker 1: a person who has a laptop with access to the Internet,
Speaker 1: there's information that you can get that would not have
Speaker 1: been available had you lived, you know, in the same
Speaker 1: place a few dred years ago, like sure, or even
Speaker 1: a few decades ago. Honestly, um and so, but there's
Speaker 1: obviously still just as much need for education. And that's
Speaker 1: interesting to me. It says that in education is more
Speaker 1: than just the bank where you go withdraw information, because
Speaker 1: now that bank is your computer. Yet school is no
Speaker 1: less useful. Well, and I would argue, it seems to
Speaker 1: me is not less. I would argue school's role is
Speaker 1: really the most important thing is teaching people how to think.
Speaker 1: Teaching people how how to think and how to learn,
Speaker 1: because uh, like, just just take a casual interaction between
Speaker 1: people these days, where Lauren and I have a conversation
Speaker 1: and she mentions a movie that we've both seen, and
Speaker 1: then she says, oh, it's got that that person in it,
Speaker 1: that's so and so, And then you just quickly type
Speaker 1: in something online that pulls up the information you have it,
Speaker 1: and then you continue your conversation. Now casually, that's as
Speaker 1: if I had remembered the name of the actor. But
Speaker 1: in fact I haven't. I just used the computer. I've
Speaker 1: offloaded that to the computer, and while I have access
Speaker 1: to the information, I don't really I can't say that
Speaker 1: I know it. I might have actually committed it to
Speaker 1: memory after I've looked it up because that's refreshed it.
Speaker 1: But you know, on a on a small scale, that's
Speaker 1: kind of what we're talking about that you could apply
Speaker 1: across the board. You could give someone access to all
Speaker 1: the world's information. It does not mean that person is
Speaker 1: going to understand it and make it meaningful in any way.
Speaker 1: So obviously education is more than just of them access
Speaker 1: to the data. You have to teach people how to
Speaker 1: think right. And I think that that's why a lot
Speaker 1: of the the huge important Ivy League kind of universities
Speaker 1: have started jumping on this massive online thing, you know
Speaker 1: at M M, I, T and Harvard and all all,
Speaker 1: like thirty three of the biggest names in post secondary
Speaker 1: education have signed up for for for these for these
Speaker 1: massive online things, and uh, and they've got and they've
Speaker 1: been they've been earning a lot of venture capital towards
Speaker 1: them and pouring a lot of their own funds into
Speaker 1: it and spending a lot of time and effort developing
Speaker 1: it because you know, because they had started putting out
Speaker 1: this terrific information, like like Jonathan was saying his chemistry class,
Speaker 1: but it's not it's just information at that point, it's
Speaker 1: not someone guiding you on a learning course, right, I can.
Speaker 1: I can watch the videos, but I can't go and
Speaker 1: ask the teacher a question. If I don't understand something
Speaker 1: that came up in the lecture. You might be able
Speaker 1: to dig up his email and drop him a note,
Speaker 1: but where or not here to reply. I mean, that
Speaker 1: guy's got his own stuff to deal with. He's got
Speaker 1: all these actual students who are really in that lecture
Speaker 1: hall and not just watching online. Uh. Yeah. One of
Speaker 1: the schools that's doing this is the rival to my
Speaker 1: my school, Georgia Tech, right down the road. So guys,
Speaker 1: if you ever want, and I say this guy's as
Speaker 1: to Lauren and Joe, we just do a little field
Speaker 1: trip down to Georgia Tech talk to some people about
Speaker 1: Mook sometime. That might be kind of fun. We should. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a date because we didn't think about it
Speaker 1: until just now. But no, there there are instructors there
Speaker 1: that are working on putting together these online courses so
Speaker 1: that they are able to to meet the needs of students.
Speaker 1: And uh, this is really exciting stuff for me because
Speaker 1: it means that I, you know, I don't know about
Speaker 1: either of you. Both of you may have been exemplary
Speaker 1: students who really appreciated the whole student experience when you
Speaker 1: were going to school were shaking your heads. I wish
Speaker 1: I could go back and do it again to like
Speaker 1: I feel like I wasted my time there. I just
Speaker 1: just grinding through it rather than actually taking advantage of it,
Speaker 1: like what was wrong with my brain? Were immature? All
Speaker 1: three of us, of course, now work for a company
Speaker 1: where curiosity is the principle that we all are are
Speaker 1: looking at that that's that's that's what we that's that's
Speaker 1: the guiding light of discovery. Right, It's all about curiosity,
Speaker 1: and our jobs are to learn things and then talk
Speaker 1: about them. So we all obviously professionally have this need
Speaker 1: to do it, but I think we all also share
Speaker 1: that just as a personality trade at this point that
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you you just you
Speaker 1: want to learn more because the more you learn, the
Speaker 1: more you realize how amazing the universe is. And it's
Speaker 1: it's something that I know I possessed a small amount
Speaker 1: of that when I was a student, but not nearly
Speaker 1: enough to appreciate it while it was happening. And I
Speaker 1: really wish it had been otherwise, because who knows what
Speaker 1: more I could have picked up during my college years,
Speaker 1: besides the fact that I could skip four days out
Speaker 1: of five and statists are symbolic logic and still pass
Speaker 1: with an A. It's the only thing I really learned.
Speaker 1: Nice humble bragg there. Yeah, it's the only class I
Speaker 1: took that was at all related to math that completely
Speaker 1: made sense to me. Everything else I had to work
Speaker 1: hard at to understand. So of course I'm gonna humble
Speaker 1: brag about it that I learned some important life skills
Speaker 1: about how to talk my way out of assignments. I
Speaker 1: learned exactly how much water I could add to raman
Speaker 1: so that it would be tasty. I learned how shamefully
Speaker 1: lazy and stupid I was. Yeah, so valuable lessons, however,
Speaker 1: we probably could have learned more. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's why these sort of things really interest me, is
Speaker 1: that it gives people like us the opportunity to continue
Speaker 1: learning once we've really developed that appreciation for what learning is.
Speaker 1: And and also hopefully in the future, they're going to
Speaker 1: be refining these and working on them and uh incorporating
Speaker 1: them into the the official educational system and start, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to give people credit towards credit for like
Speaker 1: an actual degree. Yeah, yeah, they're the As far as
Speaker 1: offering up credit for things like these massive open online courses,
Speaker 1: that's just in its infancy. The courses have been around
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, but but they were always
Speaker 1: kind of divorced from the concept of college credit. It
Speaker 1: was more like, if you want to continue your education,
Speaker 1: here are some opportunities to do that. And some of
Speaker 1: them are even though they are open online courses, meaning
Speaker 1: that they are open to anyone, they do cost money
Speaker 1: to attend. Some of them are free, some of them aren't.
Speaker 1: So um. Something else to keep in mind. I'm curious
Speaker 1: if these things will still be viable if we discover
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying we will, but if we discovered
Speaker 1: that there is a really important part of education that
Speaker 1: comes from physical presence, like being in a room with people.
Speaker 1: Do that. I think it does matter. I think that
Speaker 1: a student can get a good grasp on a subject
Speaker 1: without that element. I do think that that's possible that
Speaker 1: if you have a well designed online course, a student
Speaker 1: can have uh what would be considered a passing grade,
Speaker 1: you know, even even an exemplary grade. But you might
Speaker 1: not have the full appreciation of it that you would
Speaker 1: if you were in a class of like minded individuals
Speaker 1: and could have conversations about this stuff. Uh, anecdotally, I
Speaker 1: can give you an example of this. In high school,
Speaker 1: I went to classes. I was in, uh lots of
Speaker 1: different courses with the same people year after year, and
Speaker 1: in general it was it felt like it was, you know,
Speaker 1: a place where you sat down and you would learn
Speaker 1: a few things, but you know you're really not giving
Speaker 1: it your full attention. You weren't. I never felt fully
Speaker 1: engaged with in most of my classes. Um, which speaks
Speaker 1: a lot about my own character. I don't mean to
Speaker 1: say that this is anyone else's fault. So I was
Speaker 1: giving the opportunity to go to a special summer course
Speaker 1: called Governor's Honors Program. It was like six hundred students
Speaker 1: that are picked to go to this thing, and you
Speaker 1: had to really be interested in whatever the subject matter
Speaker 1: was that you were nominated in, because it meant you
Speaker 1: were giving up your summer for six weeks to go
Speaker 1: and be in classes with other students. But that meant
Speaker 1: that I was in classes with people who were really,
Speaker 1: really interested in the same stuff I was interested in.
Speaker 1: And it turned the classes into these incredible discussions where
Speaker 1: we didn't just learn about whatever the subject was, we
Speaker 1: really explored it and came up with new ideas and
Speaker 1: gained a real appreciation for it, which is something you
Speaker 1: can't necessarily replicate with an online course, even with forums
Speaker 1: and chat rooms and things of that nature. That being said, UH,
Speaker 1: as soon as that program was over, and I that
Speaker 1: was when I was a rising senior. Rising juniors and
Speaker 1: seniors are the only ones allowed to go to this program,
Speaker 1: which meant that I had my senior year to go
Speaker 1: through in high school. I come back to high school
Speaker 1: senior year, and day one, back in that classroom, I'm
Speaker 1: right back to where I was before I went to
Speaker 1: this special program. So, even if you do have the
Speaker 1: face to face interaction, there's no guarantee that you're going
Speaker 1: to have that fantastic environment where it's really conducive to
Speaker 1: not just learning, but appreciation and real comprehension of what
Speaker 1: the subject matter is about. However, it at least gives
Speaker 1: you that opportunity. Well a component some of these, but
Speaker 1: some of these massive online courses, some of the people
Speaker 1: taking them have taken it upon themselves to get together
Speaker 1: in study groups. Uh, locally right, Yeah, which is good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that's an element that's very
Speaker 1: important in education. Uh So, I wonder if we do
Speaker 1: find out that that face to face time or sort
Speaker 1: of gathering in a room is really important to the
Speaker 1: educational experience. I wonder if that can be simulated at
Speaker 1: a distance, well, just by something like virtual environments, which
Speaker 1: is not that hard to do. That's certainly a possibility.
Speaker 1: I mean the there I can talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about some real work that's been done in virtual environments,
Speaker 1: not in an educational setting, but in a way that
Speaker 1: demonstrates that being in a virtual environment can be immersive
Speaker 1: enough so that it gives you the same effect as
Speaker 1: if you were in the real environment. Neurologically convincing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it really only takes a few minutes of getting
Speaker 1: acclimated to the virtual environment for this to actually take effect.
Speaker 1: And the way I've seen it in action is through
Speaker 1: the treatment of social anxiety disorders and phobias. So, for example,
Speaker 1: let's say that you have a fear of heights, and
Speaker 1: you use a virtual environment, use a a a head
Speaker 1: mold display, and uh it tracks your head motion so
Speaker 1: that your perspective changes within the virtual environment based upon
Speaker 1: how you look around, and they create, uh, an environment
Speaker 1: that simulates being at the top of a building, or
Speaker 1: or not even at the top of the building, just
Speaker 1: in a hotel room that's like twenty stories up or something.
Speaker 1: They've actually discovered that the patients were starting to have
Speaker 1: physiological responses, stress responses, just as if they would if
Speaker 1: they were in a physical environment that was in that
Speaker 1: same set of circumstances. Yeah, so, uh, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a kind of therapy where they can get it's exposed
Speaker 1: to the stimuli that normally caused them their their disorder,
Speaker 1: their their anxiety rather uh and get more acclimated to it.
Speaker 1: And it's to build up to the point where they
Speaker 1: can actually uh confront this in a real life setting.
Speaker 1: And I've also seen it used not just in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a height sort of thing, but also for
Speaker 1: someone knows if you're flying, and they can go and
Speaker 1: have a virtual trip to an airport, not even getting
Speaker 1: on a plane yet, just to introduce them to this
Speaker 1: experience the things that would set off their their anxiety triggers.
Speaker 1: And to do this enough times knowing ultimately that they
Speaker 1: are in a safe environment, you know, they are never
Speaker 1: to what there's never at a point where they think
Speaker 1: I'm really in an airport. It's just convincing enough where
Speaker 1: they get that physiological response, but they know ultimately they're
Speaker 1: in a safe place and they can work toward actually
Speaker 1: conquering that phobia, managing it to a point where they can, uh,
Speaker 1: they can do these these things without being completely overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by their anxiety. So if it's convincing for that, then
Speaker 1: it could easily be convincing I think for yeah, I
Speaker 1: can imagine. I can imagine, like think about think about
Speaker 1: the We have the tools already, right, We've got all
Speaker 1: the pieces that we would need to be able to
Speaker 1: do this. We could use a combination of things like
Speaker 1: webcams or even devices like the Xbox Connect to get
Speaker 1: the footage of the student. You've got a monitor where
Speaker 1: you could watch the teacher, or if you want to
Speaker 1: get really fancy, you get something like the Oculus Rift.
Speaker 1: This is this head mounted display that has a screen
Speaker 1: for each eye and it sets it up so it's
Speaker 1: a three dimensional view for the person who's wearing it,
Speaker 1: and it can be wired directly to a platform so
Speaker 1: that when you look around, you see what you would
Speaker 1: see if you were in that physical location. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you're in a virtual classroom with twenty nine other students,
Speaker 1: and so you look around, you see where everyone else
Speaker 1: is sitting. It might be some sort of avatar representation
Speaker 1: of that person, probably without the oculus rift on top
Speaker 1: of their heads, because otherwise just all looking at sideboards
Speaker 1: of each other. But it would be an interesting way
Speaker 1: to try and have a telepresence in a classroom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so moving moving towards something something like in snow crash
Speaker 1: um One note, I do think that if I had
Speaker 1: an oculus rift, my first choice would not be a
Speaker 1: KEM lab to visit. But that's fair. But but but
Speaker 1: also on the flip side, if you're if you're working
Speaker 1: towards a virtual reality helmets, or even even if you're
Speaker 1: just on a laptop with a regular old webcam on.
Speaker 1: On the flip side, teachers can start using the feedback
Speaker 1: from that technology to hone their lessons, to to figure
Speaker 1: out where your visual attention is and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what's what's working for you and what isn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's all enough group, why not something like Google
Speaker 1: Google Hangout. Yeah, you can do something along those lines.
Speaker 1: Or or design a tool that is similar to that,
Speaker 1: and then I mean, if nothing else, you can have
Speaker 1: class discussions that are in something like that where who
Speaker 1: whomever is speaking first, our loudest is taking center stage,
Speaker 1: and then everyone else just sits there and watches. You
Speaker 1: just click or raise your hand button. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would always be front and center on that. You know,
Speaker 1: you're both giving me the look of Jonathan would never
Speaker 1: stop talking, he would not seed, I refuse to give
Speaker 1: over the chair. Um. But yeah, I mean it's we're
Speaker 1: already seeing this in some forms, implemented in various ways.
Speaker 1: I'm I'll be I'm sure we're going to see this
Speaker 1: developed further. I'm encouraged that the studies so far seemed
Speaker 1: to suggest that it's as effective as going to uh
Speaker 1: an actual class. But I also I am encouraged that
Speaker 1: there are students out there who recognize is the value
Speaker 1: in having these discussions in person and going beyond just
Speaker 1: consuming information and making sure you have some sort of
Speaker 1: level of understanding and retention, because, like we've said, learning
Speaker 1: is more than just that. Well at core, I would
Speaker 1: say learning has a lot to do with socialization. It's
Speaker 1: not just getting information, and it's not even just learning
Speaker 1: how to use that information in a smart way, but
Speaker 1: it's being part of an intellectual community and knowing how
Speaker 1: to interact with that community and knowing how to submit
Speaker 1: ideas and to receive them and receive feedback on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that that that process is really at the
Speaker 1: core of academic learning. It sums yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: I'm really interested to see the progression, right, I'm really
Speaker 1: interested see, like, in ten years, where are we going
Speaker 1: to be with this sort of trend. Well, we eventually
Speaker 1: get to a point where the physical schools become sort
Speaker 1: of uh an afterthought. Uh. Part of me, the nostalgic
Speaker 1: part of me, says, I hope that never happens. Uh,
Speaker 1: And then another part of me is thinking, well, how
Speaker 1: exciting would the future be, you know in that case? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one of the most important parts
Speaker 1: of having stuff like in class discussions and things like
Speaker 1: this is it's one of the main ways I think
Speaker 1: kids interact with ideas they're not used to. You know,
Speaker 1: you're going to be you may grow up with people
Speaker 1: who think the same way about as you do about
Speaker 1: most issues or something, but suddenly you go to college
Speaker 1: and somebody raises their hand in class and says something
Speaker 1: you've never heard before, and you don't have the algorithm
Speaker 1: on Facebook hiding that information from you because you don't
Speaker 1: like it so much. Right right where You've insulated yourself
Speaker 1: so that the only people that you ever hear from
Speaker 1: are the ones who do you agree with. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: a wonderful development that is. H I'm guilty of it.
Speaker 1: I have set up those filters. I have not, so
Speaker 1: I'll show you how after the podcast. All right, So
Speaker 1: that wraps up this discussion about about distance learning and
Speaker 1: moos and uh guys, if you have any suggestions or
Speaker 1: future topics that we can tackle, please let us know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email our addresses f W
Speaker 1: Thinking at discovery dot com or go to fw thinking
Speaker 1: dot com. It's a fantastic website. You can read our blogs,
Speaker 1: you can watch the videos, you can listen to the podcasts,
Speaker 1: and we also have links to our social media there
Speaker 1: so you can interact with us on Facebook, on Twitter,
Speaker 1: on Google Plus. We look forward to hearing from you
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you again really soon. For
Speaker 1: more on this topic and the future of technology, visit
Speaker 1: forward thinking dot com. Brought to you by Toyota. Let's
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