In this Episode:
In our first episode of 2022, OutClassed returns with Mike and Blake in a catch up episode discuss a range of topics including
# How to determine if a tool is meaningful – for example 3D printers
# Can VR teach empathy
# Hyper-Immersion and the benefits to learning
# What are the latest trends in requests for professional development for staff
For more episodes of the Outclassed Podcast go to utb.fyi/outclassed
Podcast Episode Highlights:
4:30 Blake on his school’s move from traditional instruction to innovation
11:50 Curriculum teams planning school transformation alongside the IT team
17:49 How meaningful is a 3D printer?
21:17 The element of waste and throwing student work in the bin
21:38 Printing with purpose; linking tech to the curriculum with a 10 year old’s 3D printed Rubik’s Cube Solving Robot
24:40 Embedding technology tools for engagement
25:51 Building enclosures for bluetooth speakers to explore audio engineering
26:27 How do we develop the capacity for problem solving in students?
27:30 Bringing in accessible technologies and upskilling staff through internal PD
30:09 What assumptions do we make when posing problems?
31:36 Great products are driven by a great vision
32:02 The importance of identity in innovation
35:00 Using VR to experience homelessness
38:00 What PD do schools want to invest in?
41:15 Building empathy during government mandates
43:52 Protocols for effective digital communication
51:35 Using data to correct course and keep up accountability
57:52 Agile frameworks and candid conversations
Resources and links mentioned:
Transcript:
Mike Reading 00:16
Welcome back to OutClassed podcast. It’s great to have Blake with us again, it’s been a whole year, like I looked at the last episode where we recorded it was the 19th of January last year. So it’s the 24th of January 2022 we’re recording this one. So it’s been a whole year. And, yeah, we’ve got a whole new format we’re looking at last year was a bit of a crazy year for many, and that included us Using Technology Better. And you had a lot on we do campus builds, and keen to hear what’s going on with that, but this year, we’ve got I feel like I’ve got a good team in place, the executive team’s running really well. And maybe we can talk about that sort of thing as well, where we’re at. But yeah, so great to have you on Blake and hear what what you’ve got going on. In terms of the podcast where we’re heading to Blake’s gonna take a bit of a backward step for this. And we’ll just have him on, as we see fit maybe once every 3, 4, 5, 6 months or so when something interesting is happening. But always appreciate your perspective and the questioning. So definitely keen to keep that up. So yeah, having said all that, like, what’s what’s happening in your world at the moment?
Blake 01:26
Or what’s happening, why? What’s happening, we’ve got a new campus at the moment. So the new campus builds happening, we’ve got that’s coming online next week, this week. So what’s to do, right in the thick of it, but yeah, we’re sort of feeling good at the moment, we’re on top of most of the big things. So that’s the main thing. Otherwise, yeah, there’s like lots on, you know, do their annual strategy day with the team last week, and just planning ahead for the year and what what’s important than how we how we work remotely, like obviously, we have to have more organization and more systems in place as we have a team that’s distributed now. So most schools, when they go multi campus, they’ll have a hierarchy of, you know, special texts, it’ll roam around, and then they’ll be sort of people based at each school, and it just turns into sort of school, two teams, here, we’re trying to do a little differently, where I really want to have that shared experience, because of the campuses for your right knee nine, I’d like the you know, the, it should be the same, it should be able to roam between campuses not feel any different. And so, you know, they’re connected together by via fiber, which is fantastic. And that’s allowing us to, to maintain one team that’s just going to move around. So someone who’s in charge of, say, printing, or someone who’s in charge of the Wi Fi, they will be at either campus, you know, depending on the week and the roster and the schedule, or what projects are going on. So everyone else is going to get better at sort of picking up that slack. And, you know, not when I don’t have the crutch for that person just being in the office anymore. So. So essentially challenges around the communication, that’s probably my biggest thing I’m working on at the moment. And that how we can streamline that, you know, I always like to, so do less, but do it better. And, you know, try and get rid of some of the legacy and you know, the cruft from the system to keep things running efficiently.
Mike Reading 03:20
Hmm, awesome. So have fun, like in distance are the two campuses.
Blake 03:25
They’re about 2k, for just under 2k. But it’s, you’re across a couple of main roads. So it can take a little bit of time, like to go there and come back, if you could get something, you know, 20 to 30 minute kind of exercise. And even now what I’m doing, I walk in the front doors, and people grab me and I’m trying to get back to the other campus. So you know, there’s always that that side of it as well. You don’t be rude, but you got to you got to get in get out. So
Mike Reading 03:51
Yeah, yeah, you might need to be like, like Google or something and have a couple of really flash push bikes that people can jump on and bike between one and the other and beat the traffic or something.
Blake 04:02
Well think of a tunnel Mike, can you can you set that up?
Mike Reading 04:05
can hold it as a tunnel drains.
Blake 04:08
Every thought about that? drives up? Yeah, let’s go.
Mike Reading 04:13
I just run a big piece of fishing wire between the two campuses, and one of those little gas cylinders that fire something across the zip line. carrier pigeon,
Blake 04:22
You can send some kids across. That’d be good. Yeah,
Mike Reading 04:25
That redefines the whole runner in a school right? Yeah, that’s awesome. So I’m not really keen to know in the previous season, you talked about some of your thinking around where you’re going with this campus and the sort of things you wanted to do. Really keen to hear what they landed on. And this is a coed school, right? So you’ve got boys and girls. Years, seven and eight. Did you say no?
Blake 04:49
So eight and nine are the new campus, seven are at the main so they’ll go get their sort of induction to the big campus, do the seven and then they’ll break out and we’re seeing that, you know, most schools are seeing that disengagement year, which was traditionally at year nine is kind of coming down a little bit, everything’s happening quicker now, as we know, with technology, accelerating everything. So that disengagement year is sort of happening a year, right? So we’re looking at getting them up here, transitioning them in for the year. And then so year nine can be a really solid year of exploring new things, doing group based projects a lot less structured, a lot less instruction, which is a big move for a school like ours, it’s more of a traditional instruction school. It’s a big move. And it’s, it’s going to create really exciting opportunities for the kids to do stuff that they couldn’t have done in the previous setting, I think having this space is a complete luxury for us. In that we can we can do new things we can really, you know, push the the boundaries of what it is to be in a classroom teaching and learning so. So that’s the exciting stuff. And the last sort of 12 months have been spent with curriculum teams looking at, okay, well, what do we want to do with that, you know, what’s the structure? What are the what are the broad groupings, and what sort of things we want to teach. And then working out once that sort of decided that’s where the tech team came in myself, and my team came in to really crystallize that and say, Okay, let us leverage what we’ve been doing our research, and come together and look at some solutions. And we went and bought some technologies, some cutters and some electronic stuff into robotic stuff, and some 3d printers and that kind of stuff. You know, it’s not the high end stuff, for small, cheapest stuff that we could test within those groups. And so the last year has been spent in those teams as best we could, navigating around lockdowns getting hands on with this stuff, and really playing with it, kind of unpack what it what it looks like, what’s what’s a winner, what’s a dad, and it was pretty quick to say, you know, what, teachers got their hands on things. This isn’t gonna work, you know, some of that just sat in the box, and they just couldn’t figure out how they were going to use it. And other stuff was straight in there. I’ve got 30 things I can think of for this. So. So yeah, we ended up settling on sort of the primary things we said we settled on were sort of 3d printers. So cloth set of 3d printers, we went with the adventure three, which is like a five $500 printer, which is tremendous value, considering the the interdisciplinary nature of it, like there’s so many subjects that can use 3d printing in different ways. And it ties in beautifully with this with the campuses, I guess, focus which is on Steam. So those steam technologies, so they’re looking for kids to really take on a design and engineering perspective, which is new for the school. So the 3d printers will be part of that. We’ve also got laser cutters. So there’s a machinery workshop with sort of chisels and spray booths and that kind of stuff. So they can finish projects and meld things together and screw stuff and nail stuff together. And so there might be a component of 3d printing, there might be a component of laser cutting, there might be a component of hammering it together, or using plywood or cutting or CNC routing and milling those kinds of things. So we’ve got access to a whole lot of stuff in vacuum former. And so some of those things are sort of, we’ll see how we go with them. We’ll see what, what eventuates but a lot of it is already built into the curriculum, which is what I’m passionate about. Is it a systemic improvement? It’s not, you know, holding a finger in the air and hoping the wind blows our way.
Mike Reading 08:36
Yeah, yeah. Right. So then, so like, sounds like a lot of hard materials. Kind of work. Did you also go down any of the robotics drains that path as well. So we
Blake 08:48
did a lot of investigating and robotics is tricky, like you can teach robotics as a subject we have that subject we use the Lego Mindstorms stuff for that and that’s great, but it’s really its own beast, it’s hard to integrate that in a in kind of an easy approachable like accessible way for teachers across the curriculum. So So we found that didn’t that wasn’t a flyer, it wasn’t a winner when we we did our testing. We also had electronics or some embedded electronics with these as ESP boards which like your M five state you can make like little watches and have like little drone things that can drive around or sensors for the ceiling and stuff so it’s sort of our bodies but it’s also just like embedded electronics and it was much simpler. But that again it was like well, okay, we can have a sensor we can test the temperature but really the work isn’t in the sensor it’s in more analyzing the temperature you know, so So I think people got a bit lost with that. There wasn’t a clear and present when, particularly when you’re looking at like what you know, as a covering, unless it was specifically electronics or specific robotics. So we’re doing that. And we’re also have a computer lab with fitted out with 3d cards, which in itself is an achievement in this environment to try and buy a graphics card pried out of the crypto miners hands. So we’ve managed to secure that lab, which isn’t here yet. And hopefully we’ll be here in March, we ordered in October or something. So when that’s when that’s here, we’ll have a full VR Lab, which is that more that, again, it’s not so hard and physical, but it allows people to visualize something they’re going to do in 3d, we can also do game development and game engine work. So with Unity and Unreal Engine, and those those technologies, which again, that has applications across all sorts of things like home designing an architecture to, you know, actual game design, and those kind of more obvious avenues. So, so the VR Lab is a really good one. And we saw a lot of take up like, immediately history for world war two experiences. And there was, you know, art with the 3d creation and 3d art and that kind of stuff. So VR art is, you know, taking off as well. So there’s a lot of application there. But it’s, again, it’s finding that balance, we want to have a good blend of, yes, we’ve got these new cutting edge things, but we don’t want to throw out all the stuff we know is working as well, we want to augment it, you know, if you think about the summer model, we don’t want to just immediately jump to our and redefine everything. I think this is a good way for us to pick out winners, we know these things are going to be embraced by the teachers, which is the first big step. And that sort of helps us crowbar the door open to what comes next.
Mike Reading 11:39
Hmm, that’s awesome. So it sounds like the curriculum teams got together first set the curriculum, and then it came in afterwards. And like okay, so how do we how do we put boots on the ground, so to speak and make this actually work? Is that
Blake 11:52
Yeah, so I’ve been involved from the start. But it wasn’t until there was something concrete there of, hey, you know, here’s how the modules are going to sit, here’s what the timetable is going to do. Here’s how much we can cover. Here’s the existing subjects we want to bring over, and how you know how much space there is for new things and how we’re going to redefine what we’re doing. So once that sort of macro stuff was dealt with, that allowed me to say, Okay, well, looks like we might be able to tack on these things, as they’re starting to develop the actual curriculum. So there’s a few little threads we could pull. And then once we did that, we were able to bring some stuff in and see what the reaction was. Yeah.
Mike Reading 12:31
And did you find there was any like, you know, tell him you’re dreamin, mate kind of moments where they’re saying, Here’s what we want to achieve. And the IT team were like, well, that’s lovely. But there’s no way we’re doing that on the budget we’ve got or, or was it on the opposite? Was it like you’re not dreaming big enough? From an IT point of view?
Blake 12:54
I think the opposite I think, I think quite honestly, maybe this is just me, because I’m always thinking ahead. But yeah, I think it was hard for teachers to get out of there. Well, hang on, this is what we’re so we’re bringing this across, and we need to redefine it. They just kind of want to bring the same thing across. I think that’s that’s what you know, and understand. And I think it’s hard. It was hard for me even in those sessions to really nail out like, what, what does, you know, 3d printing look like? How does it integrate to subjects if I had no idea, and the teachers had no idea, and until we sort of gave them some catalyst? You know, there was no excitement around or no engagement around it. So it is a really hard thing to do, because he’s sort of creating something from nothing. You know, like, there’s no, there’s nothing there before. There’s no 3d printing in the curriculum. And normally, it would sort of integrate slowly over time, you’d have a teacher that’s excited that pass on their skills to a few other teachers. And that that would sort of self develop, which is ironically, how happens how innovation typically happens rather than a top down approach as you and I know, that doesn’t really work where one person decides this is the best thing for everyone. So yeah, so I’d say it was a bit of the opposite is sort of pushing people to say, you know, forget about anything you’ve done before, forget about what you currently do forget about, you know, if we could afford anything, what would you want to be doing? And it was hard. And, you know, there were there were great, interesting ideas like hydroponic setup for the kids. And as they discussed that they’d realize, okay, so what do we do with the stuff that’s finished from that group? And then who’s responsible for maintaining it? And then, you know, filters have to be changed. And, and then, you know, as you actually go into it, you realize that there’s a dead end there. Because we don’t have the support for that, you know, we all it’s not guaranteed that there’s going to be people to actually maintain that sort of a system. So we have to find something else. Yeah. And so we sort of work through slowly and, and look, we sort of pitched in the middle with 3d printing and VR and those technologies there. It’s really just 3d Printing, laser cutting, and VR the new things we still have with like Mac labs coming in with musical keyboards from music to composition, and we still have aren’t using iPads and those kinds of technologies. For drawing. There’s, you know, ideation tools, but really the new stuff is, yeah, VR and 3d. And, and, and we’ve got some other experiential things. So we have a library here, but it’s not a traditional library. It’s more focused on resources. So like, what can we give kids that they don’t currently have, that could propel them to a new level to help them create something that’s a bit beyond what they normally capable of so. So a couple of things like that we have a podcasting studio, we’re setting up, I’d love to be in that right now, that would be a good place to do this, this, this call but so there’s a podcasting studio. So kids can go in there and do an interview for something or they can just read off straight, you know, their, their oral presentation and recorded as a podcast format or something like that. To extend themselves, there’s a kind of extension things like, hey, I want to do this project. But I’ve decided to go podcast, so I can just go use that resource, not a thing of the whole class is going to do it. So that that’s where we have VR. And there’s other things, but this is more, there’s little things that develop over the years, we have, you know, resources, if you like thinking about a resource center more than just kind of loaning out cameras, but actually, what can we put in as infrastructure that the kids can can leverage. So you know, podcast studio is one, we also have a YouTube studios pre set up with the lights, the cameras ready to go, you can just face to camera, and do a YouTube video straight up. So you could do a dramatic, you know, creative story delivery up there, or you can have it as a roll while you have a role in an explainer video. So it’s just creating that ease, ease of access for them that otherwise how would a kid go about booking a space and setting up lighting and, you know, there has to be immediate student, whereas this is just like in the in the course of their schooling. So, so there’s two examples. And the third example is, you know, every library has the pot of computers, we thought, what can we do with that pod? Rather than putting five computers in there, and again, we went down the the 3d route, so kids can do their 3d stuff on there after hours, but we thought, let’s make it an Esports facility, where there’s five machines, and they can train and they can compete with other schools and, and run a sports stuff, you know, even multicampus, one main campus, one of these campus so. So we’re really trying to think outside the box of not just putting in what everyone expects, but actually putting in things that are like part of the infrastructure, part of the school that can extend what what kids are doing, and, you know, help kids go go that extra mile,
Mike Reading 17:47
huh? Yeah, that’s really good. That’s good. Just listening to you talk about that sustainability part. That’s something that I hadn’t necessarily really considered until last year. So we were talking to a school about doing some cross curricular work. And we’re talking about bringing into electronics and science and agriculture and, you know, doing some of that stuff with measuring the soil moisture, and sustainability and things like that. And one of the teachers actually said, we’re talking all about the sustainability module and solar electricity and all of this, but the whole project in itself is not at all sustainable. Because once you’re done with it, and you’ve cycled that six or seven times through the school, you got all this stuff. And then what are you going to do next with that? So? Yeah, it’s made me rethink that whole sustainability part. And in a sense of, like, can you pull this apart and then go from scratch again, or you get a whole lot of materials that are just sitting there in waste? And I think one of the worst cases of that we’ve seen in the past is like 3d printers, where everyone prints their own little name tag or a little on a soccer ball or something, and then they’re done with that lesson or that particular part. So I’m interested to hear like around that. 3d, like, it sounds like it’s a, what are your pillars? Like? How’s that being integrated into curriculum in a way that’s not just tokenistic in a sense of a sort of plotted that out yet, or that still early days?
Blake 19:15
Is so I mean, part of it is like, teaching in a classroom has constraints, right? So you’ve got, you’ve got limited time, you’ve got 28 Kids, so you can’t have one on one time with people and hold everyone’s hand. So there’s, you know, a series of constraints and you have to be able to do it in a way that the teacher can actually come in deliver, and leave and go to the next thing and not have to pack up a whole hydroponic setup every every time, you know, obviously unwieldly. So, so when you think about those constraints, we have to think, Okay, what’s something that can be turnkey? And that’s the biggest thing with 3d printing is it’s not turnkey. So you come in, there’s these constraints on you have I’ve got 45 minutes, press print, and the thing says five hours remaining, you know, I’m stuck. So That’s why it was critical for us not to have one or two 3d printers, which is what we see most schools do. Where how does the class realistically use that? What happens is a couple of kids do it who are interested in then they go, Well, that was kind of a fun add on, not really baked into the learning more of a, something that can be more of an engagement topic. And then right, let’s get back to the, to the book work and do some instruction, you know, whereas we were looking for things that would embed properly into the curriculum where any teacher could come in, you know, an extra could come in and read off their lesson plan, and it would run smoothly. So that requires some support. And one of our Tech’s here has a clot has a role called them steam tech, that’s their role. And their job is to make sure that you know, filaments are filled, that 3d printers are, you know, the nozzles are clean, and that they’re printing properly. If they’re not that they’re fixed, and they’ll be there to kick off those classes, and be there to also put some of that stuff back into storage or move some of the prints that are finished if they need to be moved and those kinds of logistical challenges. So that’s one part of it. Now, the second part is you’re kind of alluding to, which is sort of the the environmental impact. Is that Is that where you’re
Mike Reading 21:11
sort of? So it’s kind of Yeah, environmental waste? Yeah.
Blake 21:16
Well, I think I think the first part is that, you know, there, there is an element of waste in everything we do, obviously, you know, we can’t just not breathe the air and do those kinds of things. But and, you know, I’m, I’m quite Pro, being environmentally sustainable. And we’ve done a lot of work around solar and such, but But I think, I think the big challenge is getting the outcome to meet the, you know, the cost. So our, the name tags being printed off really that great, probably not. And that’s the sort of thing we want to want to avoid is putting this in and of being a oh, do an engagement lesson you guys get take something funny home and then show your parents and they’ll think the schools great, and then we’ll throw out the beam. That’s my biggest fear. I don’t I don’t want that to happen. So. So what what we looked for is where I can cross over the curriculum, I’ll give you an example of this is PE, we’re doing a plan your neighborhood. So plan out? What a what a sort of like a little bit of City Planning and a little bit of physical education and that so right, where’s the ovals going to go? Where the gym is going to go? Where’s the food going to go? How do people get from place to place where the bike paths where the. So rather than just drawing that or doing you know, a diorama or something, they’re actually going to 3d model it with shapes in a rudimentary way. And then printed off as a little block, if you like, town square block, that they can look at and analyze and working groups and give critical feedback and those kinds of things. So there’s actually a, you know, an outcome that is, okay, it’s upskilling you on what 3d printing is, if you put a block in midair and try and print it, it’s not going to work. So you’re getting some tacit skills in there and seeing that your prints fail, and that you have to work through and actually problem solve, which is the skills we’re trying to teach. And it’s exposing you to these technologies. And then the beauty of that is when you have those major projects, there’s things that are demanding of you, you’ve got tools at your disposal that you know how to use. So you have a 3d printing lab and you think, Oh, I 3d printed last year, maybe I could print this, or maybe I should cut this and maybe I should just model it in 3d and use VR as an experience and blow it right up to you know, the size of a skyscraper. So there’s, they can choose that and be critical about what the best tool is for their for their particular need. Which in itself, I think is a is an important life skill that we want to impart. Yeah, I
Mike Reading 23:50
think I think purpose is a big part of that. So if you can print something that’s got a purpose, or it’s got some value, then it doesn’t just become like this Neff kind of thing that you’ve done, and you tick the box. And you’ve used a 3d printer, I was just looking at something Stu Lowe out of Hong Kong did with one of his students a while ago, and I put it up on Twitter with a 3d printed a robot, a Rubik’s Cube solver. I’ve dropped the links in the show notes. It’s it’s insane to watch this thing go. But I think he said like 50 hours of 3d printing in there and a whole bunch of wires and bits and pieces, but it sits there and it analyzes the Rubik’s Cube and looks at where all the pieces are and puts it into a into an algorithm and then it’s sorted and then start spinning it so that it solves a puzzle. It’s a really cool little tweak to have a look at and I was like well, there’s something that was the fair level of expense and time and, and sound like it’s something that’s cool. Like you’re not going to just use that once and throw it out or show mom or dad and be like done with it.
Blake 24:55
It has some utility, right? There’s a balance so And there is going to be that thing of when they come in at year eight, they have to just learn how to use them. So there probably will be those tokenistic things of hey, you just need to get your hands on it. Yeah, we need to do something that’s contained and can work in a period and get you exposed. But I guess the the vision of the goal is that these technologies become embedded in the same way, using a Google Docs embedded or online collaborative Doc is, you can simply open one up, share it with your friends, you’re not thinking, Oh, we should use one of these fancy collaborative docs, that’d be good engagement for the lesson. Let’s sort of know that’s what we need to use, because it makes sense. In the same way that, you know, we’re designing, I don’t know, a new type of engine, well, let’s actually print it, see if it works, or differential access or doing some engineering tasks. And let’s see what happens. And I think, like even one project we looked into was setting up a Bluetooth speaker, where the kids would actually print their own enclosures and try and optimize the sound profile. So you know, like they’ve got the speaker, but how can they make it sound deeper or more echoey and more basic, or high trebles, or, you know, the shape of the enclosure. So learn a little bit about, you know, audio engineering, and whilst also thinking about the aesthetics and logistics of trying to create it and print it, you can’t print anything you can think of, it has to sort of be able to sit on a print bed and be built up. So with those challenges and constraints. And I think, if you think about the type of work we all do in the workplace, that’s what it is, right? It’s not really, hey, here’s all the answers. Now we’re going to do a test to make sure you remember the answers. It’s, it’s more about, we don’t know what the answers are, there’s a number of ways to solve problems. Go find one that works. And if you know, when it all comes back together, and everyone’s gone out and found those solutions, you’re going to notice ones that are better ones that are worse, or ones that were more thought through particular ways, ones that look better, more aesthetic, you know, those kinds of things. So I think that helps you develop that that soft skill, if you like, of, of problem solving a bit better than that. That’s what I was going back to what I said before, that’s the holy grail we want to get to is that people can choose and decide and figure out what tools best suit their needs. At the moment, they need it. Now the reach for it, and it’s there, rather than I’d like to 3d print, but that’s like a six month kind of deal to print a 50 out print and you know, mess with that. So yeah, that’s where we want to head.
Mike Reading 27:30
Yeah. And how did you go about upskilling? Your staff? I’d imagine you’ve got what 3040 teachers across to you levels, and school your sides?
Blake 27:42
Yeah, so the staffing part is probably the biggest part, it always is. And we have this to two ways we approach that the first is making sure that the technology is as accessible as possible. So one of the constraints we face when we’re trying to bring tech into the classroom with teachers is and what and seeing them trial, it is like how easy they pick it up. So we have a number of cricket cutters who have purchased a lot of those as another reach for tool if I need some stickers cut for something or I need to cut some vinyl or something like that. Or even draw on something like CNC drawing so the pen can actually move around and draw perfectly. So those technologies, the teachers were able to get that up and running within five minutes. So that to us was like a little lightbulb saying, Okay, well that that was accessible. So making sure that whatever we’re putting is accessible is the first step in that. And then the second step is following up in our PD Plan. So making sure that there is time in in faculty groups to assemble and look at what things they’re using to share information internally. But also for us to come in and provide a little more color around, you know, here’s a 3d printing session you can come to so
Mike Reading 28:57
yeah. And do you want all staff to know all tools? Are you building little pockets of expertise?
Blake 29:02
Now? I don’t think I don’t think it’s realistic for all staff starts about all tools, because the tools are always changing. So yeah, I can we have 3d printers, but then the way we get the model on there might be using Tinkercad and another staff member might use sketch up and you know, so we want teachers to find their own ways down the mountain. But we’ll support them with sort of this is what we think the best ways or the way we’ve seen works the best Not, not from our perspective. And it’s important to you know, put yourself in the shoes and have that empathy around what it’s like for classroom teachers got a million other priorities. It doesn’t want to sit down and first principles learn about 3d printing, they just want to know, how do I run my lesson? And what you know, what’s the easiest way to get the kids to using the example that city block to put blocks on a page and have them printed? You know, they don’t really need to understand, you know, thermodynamics and all these other things and you know, hardcore sort of engineering stuff yet that might be somewhere that go. But I think it’s just about making it accessible and understanding most of it, I think it’s important.
Mike Reading 30:11
It’s super interesting just to try and spark some ideas around that we’re working with a project, just ideation stage at the moment with HP around posing like a problem that students have to solve in the real world, that they’re going to use Minecraft or 3d modeling to come up with a solution to that and then have the students vote on what they think best addresses the issue and then 3d print it and test it. So again, when I hit some of those innovations, sustainable, problem based sometimes you don’t even know what the question is, let alone the answer. So, yeah, trying to tease that out just a little bit.
Blake 30:49
Yeah. And if you want, I mean, you want to retain things, you really need to try and solve them yourself, don’t you? And I think it’s really a great way to learn is to try and solve a problem, and then come back together and see how everyone else tried to solve the same problem. I think that can help you, you know, get your mind or organize your mind, I think a little bit more clearly. So. Yeah. Yeah, super interesting.
Mike Reading 31:12
Yeah. So what assumptions did you make? And What questions did you ask, I think is like two really good questions to be asking as part of that, it’s because everyone comes with a different set of assumptions or a different worldview, or ask different questions or take you down a different kind of path. So we don’t want to give the assumptions. We don’t want to give the questions, we want to just see what organically arises out of that in those conversations.
Blake 31:36
Yeah, it’s like with great product design, you know, from my business background, it has to be driven, I believe, this is not how all companies work at Amazon don’t work like this, they worship at the altar of the customer, whatever the customer wants, but I think, truly great products are driven by a strong vision. So you can either people are either going to subscribe to that vision and think it’s also a great idea, or they’re not. And so I think it’s important for kids to kind of have that opportunity to try something back themselves and think, Well, my point of view over here is that this is the best solution. And this is the best way to solve it. And someone over here is got a different way, in the same way Apple, you know, solve something one way in Google solve something one way and Microsoft sold something another way, we’re sort of, you know, we want them to develop their own identity. It’s almost, it’s always part of your identity, isn’t it like, you know, I’m going to go down the road of extreme engineering, I’m going to get on the road of extreme aesthetics, I’m going to go the route of making it really easy to use, or whatever it may be. Yeah, that’s really part of the kids self expression. And they love that as well. They love having self expression. So I think that’s important to foster, particularly in a schooling, schooling environment that does tend to beat that out of you at the senior years, to have had that experience when you’re younger. And look, for us, it came down to as well, we thought, well, 3d printing, if you’re in a small firm, that has anything to do with physical technologies, or physical, physical anything, you’re probably going to have a 3d printer somewhere tucked away to rapid prototype things to build a bracket to mount things with to print off a part for something, I think that is honestly going to be part of the future. It’s it to some degree. In the same way VR is and you know, we were schooled by the kids who were coming in and telling us about I’ve heard there’s gonna be a VR lab, like I have VR at home. And every every other kid that I spoke to had a VR headset, and I was like, you know, I don’t think teachers knew that. And it’s sort of it’s sort of, again, that progression from black and white textbooks to the color ones and you went, well, you’d never go back. And then we went to, you know, video. And now we’ve gone to YouTubers like world based video where you have the very best presentation of that thing, not the crappy, old VHS tape that was built by a production company. Now you’ve got like the thing that literally rose to the top to teach you about a certain subject. And I think VR is that extension again, okay, hyper immersion, when you need it. It doesn’t replace the textbook in the same way video doesn’t replace the textbook, but it does allow for that. Next level of hyper immersion, you can trademark that hyper immersion, write that down. Yeah.
Mike Reading 34:22
Yeah, that’s, um, that’s so true. They like we’re building a house. So just talking to architects and so on, I give you the plan. And I’m not a great visual person at the best of times. Wife’s good at it, but I’m terrible. And I’m like, I just can’t visualize this thing. He’s like, I just give me a couple of minutes and he spins up this 3d model for me and I’ve been x and then the next thing you know, you’re like, you’re literally walking down the corridors and you’re turning into the kitchen and you’re like, Okay, now, now I get it. So, like that. That’s just built into so much of what we consume now as well. To be on that creation side of it. I think it’s that’s super important.
Blake 35:00
I think it’s stuff you don’t, it’s not obvious, like there was one experience on the VR experience is one of the free ones that put you in the position of a homeless person. And it’s a really interesting like way just to build some empathy on, you know, you really feel like, you have no power in the situation, and you have to beg for speak. Like, it’s just a very, like, it’s a really interesting way to build up empathy, which would have previously been it wouldn’t be happening till you leave school and go travel. You know, that’s typically how we’d learn about other cultures and things like that. So I think there’s a lot of these experiences that we’re looking at now aren’t going to be the destination, they’re going to be the stop gap. And we’re going to find in the next sort of three to five years, those really powerful experiences that can transform classroom.
Mike Reading 35:51
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. And I happen to know what that’s called there.
Blake 35:54
No, but I can I can get it. You know, I thought put something in the notes. Yeah, took
Mike Reading 35:58
it to us later. I think anybody that builds empathy at the moment in an online, disconnected world, is going to be super important. That’s something that we’re doing a lot of thinking around at the moment, obviously, being a 100% remote company. Yeah. Like, we’ve always worked hard at getting the team together. But we’ve got staff members that have been working with us for must be four or five months, who live in the same city until just the other day had never met each other. Just because of lockdowns, ovarian, and all of that sort of thing that that was like, that’s crazy. Like, at least when we onboard a new team member, they shadow someone for a week, and they get around the schools, and they see how we do things and the way they interact. And they just, you know, two of them joined the team last year, and went straight into lockdown that week, and never never had an opportunity to be physically in a school to see how we present or to be able to meet their other teammates. So we’ve been thinking a lot about how do you how do you do things like this add distance, but create that connection? At the same time?
Blake 37:06
I think you have that force perspective, because you are a distributed company. And I worry schools are going to all too quickly slip back into back on site, everyone’s here. And, you know, we’ll forget about all that that experience we had of working more flexibly and putting some stuff online, some stuff offline. So you know, I think that there was a lot of learning that went on in that time, but I’m not sure it’s going to see through the the drum of a school that needs things done at this 45 minute period, you don’t have the time and you know, you’ve got to get kids instructed in front of a whiteboard. So I think that, you know, though a lot of that stuff’s at risk of being lost, but at the same time. At the same time, yeah, I think I think practice has been increased and improved in terms of digital, and you would see that with teacher upskilling. That’s happened overnight, particularly with tools like video capture and video calling. But I wonder from your perspective, like, what are the what are the things that are priorities now like versus a year ago that that schools want to invest in? And do you think they’re going in the right place? Or are you sort of more giving them, you know, a dose of what they need rather than what they want?
Mike Reading 38:23
To be honest, it’s a bit of both. So like, one of the things that we do at UDP is take a Ryan as mindset to the work we do. So you know, if we came in and you’re like, Hey, Mike, come in and begin in Secondary College. And here’s what we want for professional development, we’d start asking you questions as to why you want that and better, hopefully understand your pain points, and then say, well, you know, it makes sense that you would ask for that, but maybe this would serve you a bit better. So. So it is a little bit of that. But one of the trends we’re seeing definitely at the moment, in a lot of the calls, we’re having a lot of organization calls, obviously, especially for schools in the diocese, and so on that we have a bit more of a longer term engagement with so it’s not coming for a day or do a session and, and leave. But one of the threads we’re definitely seeing is that the leadership and are realizing that presentation skills and being able to present either in person, or online is super important to have like, how do we hold that engagement? What can we do to do that? And I think one of the things we saw like we’ve worked really hard last year, especially probably 90% of our training delivery was done online. And we doubled how much we delivered in a year as well. So to put that in perspective, like we had to really rethink how we were delivering our professional development in the schools and businesses. So we’re doing twice as much in terms of volume, but then 90% of it rather than 10% of it was actually delivered online. So looking at how do you use chat really well on jam board? And how do you use? You know, Google Docs and slides differently? And how do you use Microsoft tools in a different way? To not only convey information, but then how do you hold that attention? But how do you get collaborative in that in that space in real time, add distance and build empathy, and give people a voice and, and all that sort of thing. And I think a lot of the learning people who went through that process were like me, and we had no idea that you could actually present in this way and make it engaging, like the way that you guys have done it. So it seems like a lot of the professional development we’re going to do in term one, for schools, in particular coming back is on that presentation skills. So how do you use your very Google score? How to use Slides and Jamboard and Google Docs? And how do you mash those together in a way that makes sense and is quite collaborative, in the Microsoft space, obviously, using whiteboard and teams, and so on, and now the different tools in PowerPoint to do that. So it’s not just sit and look at a screen and maybe share your screen. But what do we do around that? So it’s definitely one of the one of the trends we’re seeing at the moment.
Blake 41:14
Yeah, okay. That’s interesting. I know, you mentioned, you know, around that empathy point, anything that can build empathy at the moment, what’s what do you think’s driving that? Is that just purely pandemic? Or do you think there’s other underlying factors?
Mike Reading 41:29
In terms of needing to build that empathy? Or, yeah, like experiences
Blake 41:33
that can build empathy in schools or build greater understanding and perspective, those kinds of things? Is that something you seeing as a growth area or?
Mike Reading 41:41
Yeah, 100%, I think, as a result of the pandemic, like you’ve seen societies, families polarized due to government requirements, or mandates and different people, especially in the education sector, teachers losing their jobs, because the choices they’re making around vaccines and so on, the position that that’s put principals under particularly is like horrendous. And I think if you go through that there’s a tension and a potential for you to to get a little bit hard on that. Because it’s emotionally damaging to so you sort of start to see people a little less human, and you start to see more than the toll on the fingers on the numbers. And so I think it’s definitely a trend of how do you bring people out of that isolation? I guess, a little bit? And how do you get them trying to see other people’s opinions? And what what’s it like, for, we’re hearing a lot more of behavior issues with students, obviously, as they come in back to school, and they’re acting out a little bit more than maybe they would have done in the past. But trying to, obviously, that affects your lessons and how you feel as a teacher and how things are going. But then trying to see behind that what’s happening at home, what’s happening in that social network, that construct. So even for us as our own team, just trying to understand, what’s it like to be someone, to remember we’re dealing with humans, not teammates, in a sense, like, just go in that next step, to try and understand what that’s like, when someone’s having an emotional day to understand that there could be 10 things going on behind the scenes that you had no idea about, and how that could be impacting them. So yes, I think that is something I’m talking to my team at the moment about how we carry ourselves is very important. I think it’s incredibly important for teachers, how they present themselves and how they carry themselves is going to be super important this year, I think, in terms of meeting with parents in front of students, the way you conduct yourself. I think we’re, we need to just be better at that and take it up a notch, I think.
Blake 43:52
Yeah, I think on the tech side, like how that how that links in on the tech platforms, one of the things that I’ve been thinking a lot about is protocols, like, you know, we have chat, and we have email, we have these tools. But if there’s not a protocol around it, it can easily get lost in information, like you think I can’t need my team to know this, do I? Do I push it in all channels? Do I send you know? Or do we just have a process where people have to react with an emoji sign or they’ve got it or you know, those kinds of things? So, you know, it’s about figuring that out. And it’s about that line as well between autonomy and trust as well. You know, I’m big on big advocate for giving people ownership. I know you got that owners mindset thing in your background there. That’s a huge pillar of, of how I run my team around giving people these roles and saying, you know, they’re yours, like, I’m going to help you. I’m going to be here as a coach and a guide and a veto if necessary, if you’re going to make big mistakes, but you know, I’m probably really secondary to them actually driving that role. I’m not saying here’s the next project you go Fix it. Yeah, I’m flying to the mall, let’s have a look at the landscape, what do you think’s next? They come up without themselves really own into it, which is fantastic for motivation and for them building their skill sets and feeling that purpose and that drive to, to improve it. But the bad side of that is how do we manage it? Right? How do we communicate changes? How do that if they’re just off in their world making changes? How am I getting information, how’s the rest of the team get that information. And I think that’s a big challenge for us this year. And one of the problems we need that I need to solve is that communication point and then the other piece I want to look at solving and you can hear your thoughts on this, Mike is how how we can better communicate what we do, and what services are available to staff when they come to the school because software and in technologies eating the world. You know, everything is underpinned by it now, everything you know, has an element of IT related to it. So, you know, just like, it’s sort of almost laughable, you know, think about how we’ve been here 14 years, and there was a, you know, 1 projector room. And in one computer level two, I think the server room was like couple of computers on a desk. And now it’s like, you know, if the Wi Fi goes off for 10 minutes it’s mayhem so, you know, how we how we still facilitating as an IT team, and this is particular to you know, my vent, which is that sort of IT administration side, but how can we remain as a facilitator, but not take over everything you should you know, what I mean? Because, you know, like the bell system used to not used to be, you know, out of our remet, now it’s sort of like world’s got programming in there, you got to upload things, probably society’s job, now, then you can just got keys that are that are programmable, and whilst we aren’t going to program them day to day, if that machine stops working, they going to come to us, we have to be an expert on it. So so this, you know, the cloud continues to engulf everything and we, we have to sort of keep up and race to keep up but obviously, it’s unsustainable. So at a certain point, because, you know, what was previously delivered through a handout that we had nothing to do with is now online classes are synced to it, we have to keep the syncs going this user accounts that are there, people don’t get access to sharing permission problems, or that lands in the IT’s bucket. Rather than, you know, the traditional, the teacher would figure it out bucket because it doesn’t require an IT intervention. So I think, you know, keeping an eye on that is really important, because it is, you know, we talked about all these social issues now in IT, because IT is the way people are socializing. So it’s, it’s taking over sort of welfare and wellbeing and stuff as well. So how we balance that, I think, is going to be the big question for schools in the next five years, because it’s everywhere. If it isn’t already everywhere, it’s going to be in your school. And what sort of tech team do you have there to support it? And how, how involved are they at at high level discussions? And you know, those those important conversations need to be had, I think with with IT teams in schools, but also the conversations about remet and about who’s looking after widen. Yeah, a simple thing, like who pays for for technology in a school hasn’t been sorted. There’s not a consensus on that.
Blake 48:30
If you want to buy a computer lab, and you’re in the art team, you say, you know, we need a Mac lab? Well, how’s that decision actually made? How is that weighed against the needs of the school from a technology point of view? And said, yeah, that that is actually a worthy investment or not, is not a worthy investment. And then who actually pays for it? Okay, we may pay for that centrally, but then the next thing might be some iPads. Does that does art pay for those? Why? What qualifies each of those decisions? Because otherwise, IT just pays for almost everything, every resource because everything’s going digital. So you know, it’s extremely nuanced.
Mike Reading 49:06
Yeah. And then who pays for the maintenance of it? And then the refurbishment of it and then the replacement of it and so yeah, quite often that’s
Blake 49:14
why that’s why IT ends up doing it is yes, something big gets installed something exciting. And then it breaks and then IT has to fix it and like by the way in four years when there’s no more software updates, we need a new one. Yeah. So you guys have to put that on your list of things to do and part of your job now even though they were never involved in the decision office. You’d see how how that can become a really toxic and that and you know why a lot of IT departments struggle in schools is because they’re not involved in that in that discussion.
Mike Reading 49:45
Then and again it comes back to owners mindset right you don’t have a you don’t have ownership of it. So why would you have to worry about it?
Blake 49:52
I’m just gonna kick it over are you tell me and then literally, I hear you know, whenever we used to do consulting Mike and we’d go into these rooms we hear over and over I’ll do whatever you want. I’m not invested. You just tell me what you want. Like, I’m here to facilitate whatever you want. And of course, the outcome of that is going to be garbage. Yeah, it’s gonna be garbage because then I don’t care if it doesn’t work with the whiteboard or the projector also, well, I don’t care. It works on the Chromebook, that’s all you needed. I don’t care about the compatibility. I don’t care about the flexibility.
Mike Reading 50:23
Yeah, that’s a it’s definitely a challenge and you’re right it’s not going away.
Blake 50:26
It’s changing the world.
Mike Reading 50:32
No easy answers to that one, unfortunately. But I think doing a good audit every year is so valuable, like, how much uses this got? How many logins? And we’ve got, how, how are people using it? Would they notice if it was disappeared? How much we paid for it? What’s the outcome we want from it? And just asking those tough questions is super important.
Blake 50:53
But yeah, the sheer volume Mike for school our size. I have to admit, we have to hire IT analysts to do that. Yeah, I’m not sure that’s again, you know, talking about realistic in the budget. Not the best best use of the money when it could be on actual teaching and learning. And so there’s, there’s, yeah, there’s pros and cons of everything. But I think at a high level, you have to do some kind of determination of are these things being used here, whether that’s backed by hard evidence and hard data? You probably luxuriously can do that in some in some ways. But I think a lot of it has to come down to your experience, talking to teachers and being you know, as a person having your finger on the pulse.
Mike Reading 51:35
Yeah, yeah, I think that on the pulse is the key. So like, that’s one of the big things we realized last year is that data really does matter. So we really stepped up for us internally, trying to get transparent data from people write down to how they’re feeling. Because you might see something in a week, and it might just be a blip. But if you can see some trends starting to form, then you’re able to sort of get ahead of that even if it’s a gut feeling on that, I think that’s really, really the goal that we really intended for that thing. And with that the frequency matters.
Blake 52:11
That’s the key thing Mike is that when, when I originally started thinking about data, when we first met, you know, sort of looking for those hard metrics, like, if I’m gonna measure the effectiveness of the Apple fleet, I want to know hard logins per class per timetable class, and suddenly, it’s getting like extremely complicated to calculate. Yeah. And it was a too onerous for us to maintain. But then I realized, you know, you could do self evaluations that would give you at least some data points really easily. And that’s what we do now with a rolls is we asked each of the people, roll reviews, a new thing I’m doing this year where each person is in charge of a roll, just as a quick self evaluation says like, are you happy with where it’s at? Basically, like, do you think we’re meeting the goals of the school? Do you think it’s secure enough? Are there security problems? Is it backed up in a way that you think is satisfactory? Is it you know, accessible and easy to use, or you think there’s more work to be done there. And so we go through all the elements of what I use as the confidence framework, you know, that access, experience and skills, those three things like, there’s this sort of subcategories under each of those. And we ask all those questions around accessing around experience and reliability, and then around skills and communication and how we were presenting that. And I think that gut feeling is 99% of the time enough to then have a meeting about it. And then you can bring in some data, then you can bring it in, say, let’s look at the financials, you know, you say that you’re worried about spending, but if I’m looking here, you’re actually under spending or whatever. So I think there’s there’s then good quality constructive discussions that can be had out of it.
Mike Reading 53:48
Yeah, yeah, I think for me, the realization last year was frequency is key. Because if you get a data point, at one point, you don’t know if that’s a trend, if it’s just the way it is. So we really pushed on trying to find some metrics every week. And bring that into our data dashboard. So we started pulling stuff in a results BI and seeing what we can do with that as a platform, develops interfaces, where we can just pull sliders and see numbers change and see if we can spot
Blake 54:20
What is the outcome of that what are you trying to achieve by having a dashboard?
Mike Reading 54:24
Yeah, so it’s, it’s two things for us. As a business I want to see like productivity, I want to see energy levels, how people are feeling, that sort of thing. And part of that was like I wanted to in a fairly emotionally charged environment, around what the world’s going through. Like I wanted to see if I could spot trends before they started to happen in terms of people’s emotions, energy levels, that sort of thing. But also just some accountability around results as well. So we say we want to do this but we actually getting to it and we doing it what’s the roadblocks in between?
Blake 55:03
So is that is that a tool for them to reflect? Or is that a tool for you to intervene and encourage, like, what’s the outcome? If they’re not meeting their goals, which, you know, most of us probably put goals down we’re not going to meet. And we might get 90% of the way they are like, are you satisfied with that? Like, how are you, are you using that from a management point of view or a leadership point of view?
Mike Reading 55:25
Yeah, so we’re really running it from an executive leadership all the way down. So there’s levels of accountability through that, but it’s not me holding you accountable. It’s you holding yourself accountable. So we’re trying to, like, if you’re on my team, I would look at your, your particular number and say, right, like, you’re really missing out, and this is going to jeopardize your job, that’s more for you to go, well, I said that I wanted to be here. We’re not going to get there. And this is the reasons why. And that could be overwhelm. It could be there’s too many other opportunities. It’s, for one of us, it was like we keep saying yes to stuff. But we’re not saying no to some things. So we’re not going to get to what we said we’re going to get to, so it allows you to have those conversations around what do you actually value? What what do we need to do in this situation?
Blake 56:13
And do you feel it’s then your responsibility to to assess like, if people aren’t good at saying no? Is that something you’ll work on with them? Or is that something you leave to them to kind of okay, you’ve identified it now go fix it.
Mike Reading 56:28
It’s a little bit of both. It’s more, not me fixing it, but me empowering them to actually say it’s okay to fix it. Yeah, if we have to say no to something that looks good, to say yes to something that’s going to be great. Like, they could be saying, Mike might get angry, because I said no to this amazing opportunity. Whereas I’m empowering them to own it. So at the end of the day, we need to hit our goals. So when they did we need to see progress, we need to see the growth that we want to see. So it’s got to happen. So but it’s the same, same process. When I was teaching, you set these goals for students, and you kind of test them at the end of a end of a subject and you’re like, Oh, crap, that didn’t go so well. Or you send home a report card to the parent, the parent looks at their report card six months into the year, and says, Oh, I think we might have a problem here. So even when I was teaching, I was trying to find ways to get real time data and spot trends and do early interventions rather than big course corrections. Even in my teaching learning, like not letting the students get to a certain point where they’re almost rioting, and you got to rake them all the way back. But how can you just do little cost corrections with no emotion, no energy, just keeping them on track, rather than let them go? Let them go? Let them go. So taking that same philosophy, and trying to turn and bring that to the team, I guess,
Blake 57:52
It’s sort of that agile framework of release often, like you want to do small steps a lot and have a high frequency rather than trying to do this one big software launch once a year and get exhausted and fall in a heap. Yeah. Whereas we can just slowly run the marathon at a speed maintain. Yeah, yeah, I think that’s that’s the hard thing about we talked about accountability. And most people think, well, that means if you don’t do it, you know, you’re gonna you’re out, you know, like you’re accountable. But I think what biggest the bigger pressure than, than us, as leaders or as managers is peoples’, you know, perspective of themselves. If they failing what they said they wanted to do, that they’re by self identified them, you know, they’re going to look for help, they’re going to want guidance on how to how do I fix that? Like, I’m not good at this. I know, I’m not good at this. I need to get better at it. But I can’t I’m struggling. If you’ve got ideas that can help. I think that that’s a good place to have that conversation, isn’t it?
Mike Reading 58:52
Yeah, yeah. And I’ve been trying to get to that point. So one of the the interesting things we learned last year was that in order for this to work really well, you’ve got to be quite good at having candid conversations. So it’s not like you can sort of just Bumble along and keep things hidden a little bit. So trends start to emerge, you start to spot things, you start to get a gut feeling about how someone’s going, and you just need to wade into that. I found that just going gently, sometimes trying to be kind is not being kind. So just having like straight up conversations, and I think the team you know, we’d learn all these, these accelerate things, but the team’s learning better to have those conversations early and often rather than leaving it at swords. Again, a big issue and they’ve got a whole team many of the train correct actions or attitudes or something like that. So again, interesting things that we wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with if we were out on the road and busy and interacting and so on. But when you’re at a computer working 100% remote spending a lot of time in team trying to figure this thing out. Yeah, it’s interesting the journey it takes you on in terms of that efficiency, productivity, connection, that sort of thing.
Blake 1:00:13
Definitely. Well, it’s always a pleasure, Mike. I’m always learning stuff talking to you. It’s a shame it’s been almost a year since we last spoke.
Mike Reading 1:00:21
Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s um, yeah, it’s good to hear that. Yeah. Your campus is off the ground and things are down. I’m keen to be able to finally get back over to Melbourne and see it in person.
Blake 1:00:31
Yeah, one day in lockdown at the moment over there in New Zealand.
Mike Reading 1:00:36
Yeah. So they just, I think they had a case, like one case, or a couple of cases of the new Omnicron variant. And so they’ve seen it fit to put us in what they call a red light system was it just reduces numbers and a few things like that. So not a full lockdown. But yeah, certainly staying pretty connected with family back in Australia was out and running in different parts of the world, obviously, keeping an eye on what’s going on.
Blake 1:01:06
Well, we’ll see how we’ll have to do it again soon Mike, I’m going to be flat out I think, for the next few weeks, but catch up soon. And hopefully, we can do more bit more with this podcast. I’d love to hear some other people on here and hear their perspectives and what’s working out there in the world. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Trying to find that best practice?
Mike Reading 1:01:28
Yeah, very excited. We’re going to just not talk to people not that that’s framed wrong. We’re not going to just talk to like people who got a little bit of noteriety around what they’re doing. For instance, we want to just talk to teachers who are in the trenches, getting it done trying new things failing and succeeding, and just trying to find out a little bit behind their success. They’re thinking, the questioning their reasoning, and the sort of tech that they’re using or not using to help make that happen. So yeah, pretty, pretty excited for this year and just taking it on a little bit of a new direction. So we’ll see where we go. Awesome. Yeah, all right mate, always a pleasure.
Blake 1:02:07
You too, Mike. Thanks. Bye.
Blake 1:02:11
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