Well, thanks, Marsha, for joining us on the K-12 Tech Podcast. I think this is episode 31 or 32. If you could just take like a minute and talk about your credentials, and your education, and then kind of what you’ve done in your career in the past and what’s brought you to where you are now.
Okay. Marsha Maxwell, my education starts; I guess I call it kind of backwards now. I have a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and my neuroscience Ph.D. was actually in an area where we were looking at three basic components. So we had a psychophysical component, a machine learning component, and a physiological component, which meant that I was listening to neurons in brains and making kind of a code that would mimic what the neurons were doing. And before that, I have a master’s in biology and a B.S. in physics and chemistry. All the basic science is kind of covered. And then a sum of science that kind of takes all of it together and adds some computational things on top of that.
That’s amazing. So yeah, I guess I want to unpack all of that science and then how that’s kind of affected what you’re doing in education technology. And we did an intro call and you talked a little bit. I love because you kind of had a reverse of a lot of what our tech directors about and their career progression. And you kind of start what happened after college for your career-wise and then how you got to become the tech director in the position right now.
Yeah. So after college, my bachelor’s, like I said, was in physics and chemistry, and I always was very, very interested in human-computer interfaces. And at the time it was more science fiction than science fact, so to speak. So when I went to grad school, I started in that area trying to learn how to kind of build neurons with computation. And so that’s kind of the early days of machine learning, making actual and how to mimic what the brain is doing with code. And my area of specialty was vision.
So visual neuroscience is looking at the areas of the brain that are taking the information from your eyes and then decoding that information into things that the neurons could understand. And I guess my specific area is really kind of funny because I did a whole PhD on an area the size of your thumbnail and it is basically the area that helps you determine whether you are moving or the world around you is moving. And kind of fast-forward to today. That’s how we’re mimicking VR. So basically, you’re in this immersive environment, and you feel it’s you you’re moving around in this environment, but in reality, it’s just code that’s playing tricks on your brain, making you feel that you’re doing things that you’re not actually doing.
So I think it’s kind of funny that, you know, way back then, I had no idea what was going to eventuate in these areas, both with machine learning, training, and into things that we have now, Chat GPT and Generative AI. Usually, the same models are behind them. These are large language models. And also, you know, looking at, you know, the areas of the brain, they’re actually helping us to create these immersive experiences.
What you’ve in previous to college because obviously you’re Ph.D. and you’re and your concentration in the sciences like growing up, was that like a fascination of yours or like what were like the steps that you were like, This is what I want to get into?
I think it was gradual. I think I was always a curious person. So when I was really young, I wanted to be an interpreter, and then I wanted to, you know, work. I always had this feeling of going places and working with people, especially with populations that were disadvantaged. And so that was always something in the back of my mind. And then in seventh grade, I accidentally won the science fair that way, and then kind of my trajectory changed, and people started expecting me to do more with science. I enjoy science.
It wasn’t like a hardship or anything. Yeah, I was fortunate enough to get a fellowship to work with NASA while I was in high school. I started out there doing some material science and got in, getting a chance to work on the launch pads and working with various scientists and engineers I got a scholarship through NASA to go to college and also work with them over the summers and then went to grad school.
So it was something that was nurtured, had a really good science teacher, and he just allowed me to do a really interesting science fair project, and that took on. So was it just, you know, I think I like to do this. And then it turned into a career in the end.
It’s interesting to talk with you about their stories of how there’s like these turning points, like something not to say it was small, but like something about just winning a science fair and how that changed your trajectory and maybe even like, like maybe this is an aptitude of mine that I can go into and how it’s like, this completely changed the next 20, 30 years and how impactful even that science teacher helping you with that could affect thousands and thousands of students if not more people.
Yeah, I love stories like that. So you got your Ph.D., and it was in really early VR, basically, and A.I. and computing and trying to translate what’s going on in the brain and you said and around that start, what was your like first actual career out of like your college Ph.D., or was that kind of all at the same time?
So actually, when I left, I graduated with a Ph.D., and I did a post-doc, and that was on bioinformatics. So again, heavy on data and taking that various data that’s coming out of the biological systems and trying to create models from that. And then I had you know, I left science. They had, you know, just I had gone from kindergarten to doctorate without any breaks or anything, and I wanted to have a break. And so I ended up on Madison Avenue in an advertising company, basically using what I learned about behavior.
It actually was a mistake because my actual PhD is called behavioral neuroscience. And so when I went out looking for a job, people misunderstood what that meant, and they thought that I understood behavior rather, you know, on a kind of macro level, human behavior, not on a micro level, which is a neuronal level. And so I got a job in advertising and basically with some really ad agency, but working with some really interesting companies like Sony McDonalds and Burger King and different banks and basically how to help people, I guess, liberate people from their money, basically. You know what…
That’s a great way to say it.
How do we plan an ad campaign or how do we create products or market products in ways that will attract different customer bases? So I ended up doing that for a while, but it, just- although I found the work fascinating, there’s a part of me- I call it the airplane test. So you’re on an airplane, and you’re sitting next to somebody, and they say, What do you do for a living? And when I was a scientist, it was I felt kind of like I’m a scientist, and I’m helping to advance humanity. Whereas when I was in advertising, there was nothing wrong with being in advertising. But it had a different feeling to it. I’m like basically making money or helping people make money or that kind of thing.
So after that, I went into startups and going back towards science and mostly engineering, and I worked in Russia and Australia and a couple other countries just helping founders develop products and turning their kind of training their ideas into from the paper onto reality and got a really interesting chance to kind of use a lot of my science and engineering background there. And then along the way I just kept knowing I need to go into more education from my early days, high school, college, and post-grad, I’ve always had some teaching component, whether it’s tutoring or doing summer camps to help kids from underserved communities or even my peers, and especially in grad school, you know, you TA and do different things. I always enjoyed teaching. I always enjoyed helping communities, and doing community projects.
So when I took another break, I was seven, nine, I took another break from the startup world, and I decided to Iet me try going education. So I got into educational technology and stuff. Have been doing this for, I don’t know, since almost 20 years. So a while
That’s incredible. I wanted to ask one question. You said it was an accident that you got that job doing advertising and marketing. Did you like going to those interviews? You’re like, see, you know how to do this? You’re like, Yeah, I do. Or what?
Yeah, it was kind of like they didn’t ask the right questions. I guess they saw that it was behavioral neuroscience, and then they just assumed. So I don’t know what I thought they thought I could do, but I wasn’t going to say no. Right, right. So, you know, I’ve always been a very quick learner. So, you know, ask me; my brother calls me like a MacGyver, you know. They do something. I will figure out how to get it done.
That’s exactly what I heard when you were talking through all these things. Just like helping, like, startups and like inventors like that. You have to be a MacGyver to do that. Like, you need that base-level knowledge to know how to integrate those different tools together. But that’s not simple. You can’t just be a mechanical engineer and do that. You have to know how to solve problems.
I think that’s important, that’s something that we’re trying to teach kids is how to see the connections between subjects. You know, nothing is discrete. You know, it’s not like you’re learning chemistry, and that’s all it is. There are some fundamental things that are that link different subjects together, and there are learnings like you can take from one section to another, and a lot of students have a really hard time seeing the connections and making connections and broadening what they’re doing and instead of just really siloed thinking, so I think being kind of a transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary thinker, I wouldn’t say naturally has gotten me to where I am now. It’s not something I had to learn how to do, but it is something you can learn how to do.
Well, we need more MacGyver and education technology for sure. So 20 years and the topic of this podcast is VR and AI. And then also kind of what are you, MacGyver, in your current district? And what do you try? What issues are you passionate about solving? Yeah, so nineties in the 2000s, you’re in the early sets- what did, like, what were the early predictions of both of those things we can start with either one, and then the question is, do you think, like what things were right, what things were wrong and what things do you think are still coming? Maybe they were early. So I’m kind of curious, what was the conversation around, or was it so far in the past that it was just more conceptualized? Wasn’t it real yet?
I think it was more not so much conceptualized, but I didn’t think that it was going to be as ubiquitous as it is now, especially with machine learning. The whole AI thing. Coming from a very small, not small, but small community of people working on things like vision, neuroscience and computational vision. And to see where it is now back then is and still is.
You know, when you look at the people who are doing this kind of work, you wouldn’t expect, you know, a housewife in the middle of Iowa or whatever it’s going to be using, you know, a large language model to write a letter or do something. And back then, you had to have a lot of expertise and knowing the code, and it’s a small club. Let’s put it that way. A very small club. And the pathway to entering that club was a lot of schooling, a lot of knowledge, a lot of access to expensive equipment. Whereas now, you know, Chat GPT’s free, Bard is free, and all these things are easy at your fingertips. Anybody anywhere can get at it, and anyone anywhere can actually use these APIs to create things. And I think for me that the biggest stretch back in the day, and it took such a long time to get any type of validation of your model and where it’s now you’re everybody linked. So if I wanted to create anything, even you know, the merge VR and I, you know, I’m using AI to create virtual immersive experiences.
That learning curve has flattened a bit. So now, anyone with a strong desire to create something. And so your only limitation is not so much your knowledge of a language, a coding language, or access to a particular piece of equipment, but rather your limitations are your imagination. I think that’s really incredible on the things that you can have kids in, you know, elementary school would take a small army of PhD students 20 years ago.
Yeah, I think yeah the barrier right, the barrier to entry, and the accessibility is just phenomenal. And you know there’s a lot like I follow in the business world. You know, Microsoft was one of the early investors and in chat GPT, Open AI, but they didn’t really fully, like, associate themselves with. I think that was the concern when we publicized this was what’s going to be the public’s reaction? And I think overall, all the reaction was way more positive, but they initially thought it was going to be. And now you see the CEO that he’s going to Microsoft, which means Microsoft is going to incorporate it. Now into, you know, the dashboard. At least, that’s what I think.
Yeah. I think that, you know, also looking back, I think Microsoft has been in a lot of things I I’m thinking about even back in the day, Xbox, the Xbox Kinect, the camera could do a lot as far as I mean, it was used for something really kind of, you know, mundane and simple. You know, people back, you know, I’d say, 15 years ago, we were kind of saying, wow, this has this, it can do that. They can see what I’m doing and kind of think about how we can use this to create other things, and later they came out with HoloLens and that was an early adopter of that.
And, you know, a lot of what you could do was really amazing. And now we kind of, you know, saw, you know, those were like $3,000. And then Quest came out, which was $99, $200, certainly just democratization of VR and I think is where we’re going to really see it really, really take off. Of course, there’s the devices that are still, in my opinion, too expensive for mass adoption. But I think we’re on that precipice where soon we will be able to step over it and have something that, you know, a mass market like Quest’s QUEST devices can use.
Yeah, I think I think specifically VR was one of the things that I feel and this is my opinion on this. I felt like it was adopted really quickly in a lot of schools, and it was more like a carded program like, Hey, look, we have a hundred of these in each building. And I remember tech directors years and years and years ago saying, we’re going to do field trips with these. And then I’m talking to them about years later. Yeah, you know, you can’t really replace that experience. It’s, and they’re really restrictive.
And through K-12 tech, we do like E-recycling and some other things. And so we’re seeing all of that first wave of VR just end up in these, you know, pallets of stuff that they’re getting rid of. And I think VR without AI is extremely limited and expensive because that software and the expansion of that is just so consuming. But now, with the ability to upload and when they figure out these premium like enterprise-level AIs, someone who is, you know, Oculus and whatever, they can embed their code and so quickly convert video and invert all of these different things into experiences and like open forum like Minecraft, but in reality, you know.
I was kind of curious about your opinion on that and, then how you think that that might change the adoption in education. Maybe it’s a price thing, but I’m kind of curious how you think those two will affect each other.
Yeah, I think that now we’re seeing a lot more realistic VR experiences. I think there’s this, I guess they call it The Uncanny Valley, but there is this feeling where some things are realist, not realistic enough. It’s just weird, right? So it’s not we haven’t gotten to a place where people feel like I don’t want to be a cartoon when I’m in AI. I mean, I would like to be me and interact with people and have and I think they’re various companies that are coming at it in different ways. And maybe in a couple years we’ll get there. I don’t think we’re going to get there very, very soon.
And I think that, like even Apple Vision, I know it’s not out yet, but I’m in a lab, and they have a couple of them, and the reports are really good, but it’s still kind of almost there, but not quite there. And as an educator, it’s finding things we are able to do, and the kids do love it. I mean, I have to say, when I do have experience with the students, they really enjoy it. Sad to say, or funnily enough, some kids are honestly afraid of it. They’re not, and they’re not as into it as you would expect them to be. So I think it’s kind of a, you know, if we had it, maybe I’d say three years ago, there was like a mad rush. And then I think that’s quite quiet. Definitely Last year because AI has kind of taken off, but what I’m hoping will happen is this marriage of the child will help both go forward in a more productive way.
I think right now I’m seeing a lot of Ed-tech products that have AI somewhere in it, and it’s just, you know, they’re building they have something that uses Chat GPT underneath or something like that. And people are just running to A.I. solution. I think it has A.I. in the title I’m not really thinking about. Well, do I really need this? How is this different than free, I’m getting already with Google or whatever, and so there’s not a lot. I think with all of these things, there’s not enough thought going into what we can do it. And a lot of people just jumping on bandwagons because they want to be a part of something. We’re also seeing a lot of people trying to do VR school and VR this and AI this. So I mean, I think it’s going to take… we’re still in the early early days. And what I’m hoping is that, especially with AI, I think AI has more potential risks associated with that than VR.
So and not in, you know, doomsday woe is me type thing, you know, you can really from a cybersecurity perspective, there’s a lot of things it’s a lot of damage you can do by putting too much information in systems you don’t own or control. And so there’s that. And then, you know, we don’t know how powerful some of these models are as far as, you know, people not I’m not talking about, you know, kids playing with something in school, but I’m talking about the bigger, bigger companies and what they’re allowing their AI’s to do. And again, not in you know, AI is bad, but what people can do with A.I. can be right.
So really looking at the ethics behind it and looking at this, more governance, I think, would be helpful, and also having a global perspective on that governance and and the ethics would be also good. We all know that AI right now is heavily biased because of not that, no, nothing intentional. I’m building a model. I’m going to put things in that I recognize I think about. Right. So that model is going to represent me or represent people like me, right? So thinking like, who’s building the models? What are they training these models on. I do exercise. I do a lot of speaking about AI, and it is one particular exercise where we ask our panelists, your participants, to use one of these kinds of clear art-generating models. I say create a picture of a black doctor with a white child, and out of maybe 500 times I’ve done this like different people, I’ve done it only with two AI models or AI generated pieces of art depicted that. And that’s bizarre, right? And that’s really weird.
It’s usually, and…the one time it was actually it was a black man with it wasn’t like wearing a doctor outfit, but at least it was a black male, and he was drawing something with a white child. But it was close enough. I counted it, and the other one was like a black witch doctor, like an African witch doctor type thing. And then a child that looked like he was from Lord of the Flies painted. And it was just really weird. But yeah, those are the only two times that it came out with a black male authority figure. And so it’s, it doesn’t compute, right? So the things are not computing with AI, it’s because it doesn’t make sense to it I guess, because maybe the people who are training their models, the only doctors they’re putting in were white male doctors. Yeah. So that it didn’t, it didn’t know how to create an image where… it’s just plain English. It’s not hard. You can imagine it in your head. I can’t couldn’t imagine it. And I’m sure that because this has just been getting better. So maybe if I do it in two weeks time, I will get more people that can generate an image. I want them to generate.
But yeah, so things like, you know, we need to democratize the training models, we need to put more tech in there. And a lot of people love to use Chat GPT, but if you’ve seen enough Chat GPT generated content, it has a style, right? And how to detect the style. So yeah, things like- there is a lot of work, but it has come an awful lot.
Yeah, that’s fascinating because. Because you’re right, it’s like it’s for the people who are designing this like it’s their brainchild. It’s what they’re putting in there. And you don’t even realize what sort of biases that could be in there. Yeah, that’s interesting. And it does seem that it will be like a pendulum, right? Or will be swinging one way, and then they’ll correct, and it’ll swing the other way. And then, hopefully, it will find some sort of neutral ground long term. That’s like a.. that’s a conglomerate of like all these different things.
Yeah. I think more and more you want your AI to be like you. I mean, to me, thinking about my dream 15, 20, 30 years from now is, and I have a computer Martian-like, you know, so if I need to, you can- I like to call it the multiplicity of facts dating me, you know, that movie with Michael Keaton and he kind of kept multiplying himself in the movie. Look it up later. But he just kept creating clones of himself because he was busy, like he was an architect or something. And his wife wanted him to take his kids to school and he couldn’t do that. So he made a clone of himself that would do that. And he made another clone of himself that would do something else.
So, in the end, there were like ten of him or something. So I think these generative AIs are ways that we can multiply ourselves. You know, I need to do this, write a letter to here, I can do this for there. And so you want something that can understand your voice, understand your need, how you learn, especially for students, how does a student learn, and how I can create a lesson plan that’s going to really be personalized for this particular student. And I kind of know how to, you know, shift and chop and change to help him or her learn better and present the right cues, present the right interest for that person. And then for you, we’re in the same class, but they know that I like marshmallows and you like cherries. And those just really need personalization for both of us. And if you have a class of 30/40 in some places they have large classrooms, a teacher can differentiate better using AI. That to me would be fantastic. Yeah.
Yeah. I think the capability that AI will be able to curtail lesson plans specifically to students and maybe aptitudes and things that they’re interested in. You know, that was one thing. Like I wasn’t a traditional student where I was a good test taker, but, I can memorize and critically think through things I’m interested in. Like, I can remember it like it locks in my brain and my background is in economics and future stuff like in futures and stuff like that. So this job is fascinating for me, and one thing I wanted to delve into, you said, Apple Vision.
I watched Marques Brownlee. I don’t know if you follow his channel on YouTube. He’s, I think, the best tech reviewer. His first video he did on Apple Vision, and it was the first time I watched a is the first time I watched that kind of artist. Not artificial VR can’t where I was like, I would use this in like a normal basis, but I have a bunch of questions because you’ve got your hands on it and I can’t talk to Marcus, so it’s talking to you. Is it heavy? I’ve heard it…
I don’t have my hands on it, but my lab mate had their hands on it. I’m not really allowed to touch it. But yes, they love it. They really love it. I mean, we have been working with HoloLens one and two, and now this one. And I think the thing with all of them is that I think they all are heavy. I was at full stop. I mean, I think, I feel they’re all heavier. You feel the weight of it on your head. Whereas if you have a Google Glass or yet you don’t feel that it’s just of course, you’re not getting the same thing. I think that has something that will be something that will have to change. However, the benefits of the headset outweigh the negatives of the heaviness. And plus, I have a feeling that this one is going to be slightly heavier than your quest when you’re a pro because the materials they are making it with sound really heavy to me. And so, I’ll give you an update around the 1st of February.
Yeah, I know that they launched the preorders, and when they’re going to come out, I think it was so smart of them, and this is how capitalistic Apple is that you can access your other Apple devices just by looking at them. And I was thinking like if you create this thing where you don’t need an iPhone, you don’t need a MacBook anymore, people aren’t just going to buy it, but that’s how you get around it. It’s just like, you have them. You can access them through your headset. And I was like, I have like I’m on a MacBook Pro right now, and I’m sure I’ll switch back to iPhone eventually one of these days.
But it’s just like that was so smart to me to have it where you can interact, where you don’t have to be on those devices. And I think that was the first time I saw that. And then the other one, I don’t know if you saw the interview with Meta CEO, Mark and then Lex Friedman. Did you see that whole thing with Meta? And them doing that interview. I don’t think they’ve said when their VR is going to launch.
Yeah, they, Meta has… they have their Quest Quest Pro right. And I have both the pro and the regular one. I think.. I don’t think that anything is going to give you a life-changing experience I’m going to put out there. And I also don’t think that I just think that the price point is a killer. I know that Apple is very popular. People, you know, Apple Watch and whatever. $3500 is a bit too far. I think you’re going to have people who buy like you had the $10,000 Apple Watch or that. And so there will be some people who buy these and early adopters, and I’m a proud early adopter. So I think I’m going to stay in that category. But just thinking about mass uptick or mass uptake, and they have to do something about that price point, they’ve got to get it well.. I mean, it’s not like your phone, right? I mean, you can do an Apple Pro or whatever it shows up on…
Like $1,200 bucks.
Yeah, but you’re using that literally every day, all day. This headset- you’re not going to be using that every day you’d go Blind. I mean, you have to, you’re going to use it often, but you’re buying something that is three times the cost of your phone of the highest. You know, iPhone.
Yeah, I think it’s far away. Like it. Yeah. I think the bulkiness of it as well if they can get the weight down. I know the battery is an issue. I saw you basically have to carry it in your pocket while you’re walking around. It’s like a two-hour lifespan, which isn’t a problem because you can use them while you’re plugged into the wall. Yeah, but the idea of that for me, I was like, I can lay down on my couch and work, you know, and not have to like, turn my neck and all these other things I could just see, especially on the enterprise world and the corporate world, that being incorporated for meetings. And I love the idea of you being able to Facetime with it. And it’s based on a 3D scan of your body, which was like a whole. It’s just incredible how they’re solving some of these issues today. I do have a question when it comes to VR and overstimulation of younger students. I wonder if there is going to be some guidance out of federal guidelines after this after it’s actually incorporated with AI. I think it’s become more popular maybe with homeschooling kids having a classroom experience at home.
I wonder if there are going to be some federal guidelines when it comes to publicly used assets working around how realistic it could be because I know one of the concerns of the public I’m not saying it’s true, but I can understand how they reason this way is if that’s if it feels like it is reality or it is better than reality, will there be an issue with uptake and depression and some other things and students because they’re not like, I would rather experience this artificial reality rather than my current life. So I’m curious if that’s at all conversations even that were done in the past to now?
Like the Ready Player One experience. I don’t know. I don’t think it was a positive movie. I have no idea why people think it’s such a positive movie and it’s not. It is like got trailer park, and you’re in VR all day. But I think that one of the things I’ve been looking at since COVID is whether or not my research question is whether or not we can use VR as a way to combat social and emotional problems and combat feelings of loneliness and isolation and things like that.
And especially when you don’t have a community, right it be a member of can you just like all these gaming communities, can you become, you know, can you, I forget, simulate or replicate the feeling of community using virtual worlds. But as far as causing depression, I think it could possibly have people to further withdraw, right? I mean, if you aren’t so happy in your in the real world and you have created this kind of alternate, you know, Holodeck Star Trek, Holodeck world where things happen, how you want them to happen, you can interact with who you want to interact with, and I think is something we should think about. And I think it’s something people are thinking about, and whether or not it will happen, I don’t know. For some people, I’m almost sure that it will because we already know that people have become addicted to video games and video communities and things like that.
So if it’s something realistic or more and more realistic with VR, yeah, it will. If it becomes more adopted. Right now, not as adopted. Well, the government or some government agency put restrictions, especially for public use, like in schools. I think I’m more worried about the physiological things like eye strain or brain development, things like that. So when I use it with students, I personally don’t let them stay in very long. My sessions are short, in for a short time, and then you’re in the real world again. Don’t. Yeah, because I don’t think many of the headsets are rated for younger, younger users. Maybe they are. But when I last looked at it, it was like, you know, 13 and above. Not for very young students. And again, I can’t imagine being in a VR experience for longer than for me, 30 minutes due to, I would say, 15 minutes or something like that, and then taking a break and doing something else, but these longer and longer sessions which are becoming more and more popular, I can’t say I had any scientific proof that they’re good or bad, but it just doesn’t feel right to me right now and spilling out how I feel if I’m in it for too long.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s something that I would encourage at the moment. What Apple has done or what the later New Quest 3 or Magic Leap, they’re all working on different things, and those are just the big names there other there are a lot of other people in the space. Maybe they’re working on making it better for your eyes and things like that.
I think that’s good feedback, and I think it was something that still, I would say, has been micro-tested. It hasn’t been at the macro level there. It probably isn’t good data yet because, really, I mean, it could get to the point where there could be vision inspections and auditory. How are those ability to hear? I think what I think more than ever how quickly technology has come into education. And we just don’t have the 10, or 15 years of data yet. At a macro level. And I think that’s to come.
I think it’s to come. But also, I think another thing in battling this duality of the time that we’re living in, we’re living at a time where things are happening at literally warp speed every day. There are some massive advancements, and I don’t think we have enough time to actually process everything. So by the time we figure out what’s happening with our vision, we’re on, you know, this 20th duration, right? We haven’t, and I’m not sure where we can do all the due diligence that should be involved that we used to do the way we used to do it. We might need to develop more robust, faster systems to quality assure and test and do some, you know, some kind of physiological testing. How in ways we’re not really familiar with now, I can’t give any I certainly do that.
But I think we need to speed up how we do things. Otherwise, we’re going to be left behind. Either we’re left behind in the progress of, you know, technology, or we’re going to be left behind. We’re going to lag behind in figuring out if anything bad is happening to our bodies as we go out through this.
Yeah, I just did a podcast with Lana, and she said that her district in California is a conglomerate of different districts. Every state is so different. They have an AI director now at the district level to help collect all the information of everything that’s changing and then compile it as guidance to go down to each individual school. I think that’s something that hasn’t even existed before or that will exist probably it’ll probably be at the federal level, state level, and then the bigger conglomerate of schools. And I think when I look at states like Indiana and the Midwestern states that like micro districts, you know, I graduated from a public school that had 50 in our graduating class. That’s how small I was. I think we’re going to see a huge consolidation around those because technology is changing so fast, and at a small level of a school, you’re just not going to have the capabilities to stay on top of it.
No, I think that even at large, I think there, you know, you have difficulties on both sides, right? You’re so large. You have to convince a lot of people. So that’s going to be slow, or you’re so small that things are happening so quickly that you can’t. So I think this should usher in an era of collaboration. That would be nice. Where I’m leading this group right now, we’re looking at AI policies, and it’s kind of a global group, different countries, different schools, looking at how to create an AI policy for your school or district or whatever. And that’s bespoke because everybody doesn’t have the same problems, right? But we’re doing it together in that we’re bouncing ideas off one another. We’ll be able to come up with some ethical, I guess, strands that are going to be throughout each policy, but it’s going to be for my school or for your school. It’s not going to be some kind of blanket thing.
But also going through and listening to different perspectives, I think is very important. And sometimes I worry that people who are involved in this are either two sides of a camp. Either they’re pro, pro, pro, or they are against, you know, there’s very little like measured thinking in the middle and listening and seeing what we can do to create pause, and it’s kind of like when Chat GPT came out, and everybody wanted to shut it down. We can’t have classes on computers anymore. We have to do it. You know, kind of went from 0 to 100 really, really quickly. And instead of thinking, okay, take a step back. But what’s good here? What’s dangerous here, what’s helpful here, and making solutions based on that. So level heads, I think, are needed. Yeah, just level head, this is the world isn’t going to end tomorrow, hopefully with, you know I, but at the same time in level head and with some, you know, ability to think and act quickly.
Yeah, you get you guys should create your own GPT, put all the information in there and then have it tell you what to do. Yeah. Yeah I think, you know, just, just a double blind. Let it just decide it for you. What should we do? So this is awesome. Like I feel like, you know, one of the first times we’re having on the page, us having a super high level conversation about what’s going on with VR. I feel like that’s kind of been like not some of it’s been talked about, but what AI and these things, I think it’s going to become a bigger player. So you’re a tech director, you’re involved in all these different initiatives. What’s your goal? Like what gets you up in the morning and then what thing are you just passionate about that you’re really looking like, in ten years, this is what I’m looking to accomplish. What is that for you?
Yeah, So we’ve just acquired a new school. Well, a new facility. And so what I’ve been spending most of my time thinking about is how do we realize certain visions that we have as far as education. And I know that for a few years now, more than a few years, have been kind of critical of traditional schools, you know, and there’s been a lot of talk about what the future of school should look like. So kind of getting an opportunity to kind of mix all those things and think about what school should look like in, you know, 20 24, 2030, 2050, and how is it best how can we create a school or create a system of education that can best help today’s students and also grow and change and evolve as needed? And so being able to kind of think about those kinds of thoughts, especially now that we do have workable VI and workable AI and or manageable, I should say, and we do have global reach as far as you know, I can call a colleague and in China or a colleague in, you know, Africa, a colleague in Europe, and just try and we can kind of collaborate.
Our students can collaborate. We have a world that’s very polarized. So it’s really, really important to make sure that people engineer conversation and dialogues across differences. It’s very important that we evened out the inequitable distribution of tech. And I keep going back to that because although, you know, you or I could probably go and buy an Apple Vision, I really worry that most people cannot. Right. And so our schools can, you know, throw away headsets because they’re no longer, you know, whenever for us. But there are large swaths of people around the world who have never seen even a Google cardboard. Right.
So that worries me because that’s going to eventually widen this digital divide that we have and we’re going to really be a world of haves, have nots from the data perspective. We talked about AI and how AI is biased, and these, you know, billions of people, literally billions people will not have a voice in the AI, which is something we’ve been, you know, we got to a point where people can be educated, people, you know, know other peoples exist. But then to kind of a race and from this part of our human development, I think is a misstep. So before we go so much further, let’s try to bring more people along with us.
Do you think initiatives like StarLink and some other like satellite-based connectivity, do you think that is the way to do it? Because the concern is how do you connect people who are in such remote areas? So like AI, one thing that people don’t know, and like Europe is way more connected wifi-wise than we are, they’re not as good on the cellular side, but they know how to set up wifi everywhere. I mean, it was incredible. I was in the middle of nowhere in Slovakia when I was in the army and this was back in 2016, 2017. We had a wife in this little pop-up base, you know. But yeah, like, like do you feel like something like StarLink? Satellite connectivity is how that’s going to be done and how people are going to be brought in?
I actually think we need to have people we’re trying to serve in on the conversation. So if it is like StarLink, it shouldn’t be like, you know, Marsha sitting in Atlanta deciding, you know what, I’m going to help the people of Botswana by creating a satellite link for them. It should be Marsha sitting with the people in Botswana to say, okay, what do you need or how do you want to interact? What do you want to do? Can we somehow collaborate to create something? And I think that’s what’s missing. This joint collaboration that’s taking the sovereignty and the agency of peoples who currently don’t have a voice and giving them that seat at the table.
Can you be a part of the conversation and be a part of the solution? Not giving them something either. We are deciding this is the best for you, or we’ve decided that we don’t want this anymore. And so it’s your turn to use it. I think that’s kind of, for me, the most important work that I hopefully will be doing in the next part of my career.
Yeah, I got to be a part of that a little bit. We partnered with a non-for-profit, and we were able to like do I think it was about a thousand Chromebooks into this town in Mexico that’s never had a didn’t have devices before helping them. It wasn’t like we were going to send you the devices because it’s not that simple. They need to be able to charge them. They need to know they need to be able to fix them. They need to be able to maintain them, and then they need a voice. And it was like it was a lot of work because we had to work with the city council and the governor or mayor. I don’t really know who I was actually talking to. It’s different there.
But I think that’s going to become a part of it is like, how can we help them get back to it? But they have to be the ones leading that initiative because we could tell them, Hey, no, no problem, a thousand Chromebooks are coming your way. Like, we don’t know how to use these.
That happens a lot. You would be surprised at how often that happens. You know people, and it’s like a photo op I’m going to pick on Microsoft. I love Microsoft. Microsoft, if you are listening, I love you. But it’s like, okay, we have all these, you know, let’s pick on Quest. Quest headsets, and here’s a hundred of them. But, you know, they don’t have WIFI. They don’t have connectivity. How are they going to use it? So it sits in the box. You get the photo op, you know, a nice, smiling child with the headset, and then it’s going to go on a shelf somewhere. When you go back and say, look at what we did. We have a picture, but it didn’t help anybody because they can’t use it.
Yeah. You know, and I think I think there has to be some sort of templated initiative where it’s like, how do we partner with these communities where they have that voice to do that? And then what are some small steps? Maybe not. You know, they call it like drinking out of a firehose, right? Like, how do we start small and then have like a multi-year plan. Rather than let’s try to like, you know, flex tape it, let’s try to flex tape it. You know, let’s actually take some time to think through that. I love that. And there’s a long road ahead, I think, in there. But like you said, technology is changing so quickly. We have to be ready to solve these problems quickly as well.
Well, Marsha, this is incredible. Thank you so much for your time and your expertise, and thank you for what you’ve done in education technology. And I’m excited. I hope we do another episode in the next six months to a year because I’m very curious to see how the VR, and these A.I. things change as you are on the forefront of that.
Yeah, I’m excited. I live in a state of excitement. So I’m happy. For me it’s the best time to be alive, so.
Awesome. Thanks, Marsha.
Thank you.
In Episode 33, Hope Davis, MA, CHC takes us on a journey from personal challenges to leading educational innovation at Teach Tech U. Discover how her experiences fueled a passion for transformative technology in education, shaping the future with Project LEAR. An inspiring conversation for anyone intrigued by the power of tech to change lives. […]
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In this engaging episode of The K12 Tech Podcast, host Zachary Marvel is joined by Lana Nguyen, Director of EdTech at Capistrano Unified in Orange County. Lana shares her inspiring journey and deep dive into professional learning, highlighting how it’s revolutionizing teacher development and student engagement in today’s tech-driven classrooms. From her experiences in integrating […]
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