8 Bits
8 Bits
8 Bits with Dr G!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We chat with Dr. Sarah Guthals, Principal Dev Advocate at Microsoft, about tech, life, and anything in between.
Learn more at https://8bits.tv
answer your question about how
Brandon Minnick:PJ and I were just chatting back and forth. intro music still Three minutes. Three minutes, but now it's two minutes, buddy to another episode of eight bits, your host Brandon Minnick. And with me as always, PJ Metz, PA, how's your week?
Pj Metz:I'm PJ I'm having a great, great, great week. I am currently in the middle of a great internal event at GitLab called contribute where all day long we have talks from people at get lab and team building activities and there's a bunch of video games that I've been playing from GitLab contribute and one of them is like the game breakout Did you ever play like break or Arkanoid for Super Nintendo is
Brandon Minnick:the bar on the bottom and you like hit a ball that
Pj Metz:you got it? That's the exact exact one you're absolutely correct. It is taking up so much of my time because I had the highest score at like nine o'clock this morning. And now I'm in third place and it's driving me crazy. So I have a haircut appointment later today. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have my laptop during my haircut just like trying to get the high score on that. So if I need to send back my MacBook because there's a bunch of tiny hairs in the keyboard. No one say anything. Okay. All right. That's a little secret.
Brandon Minnick:Get that little kid. That compressed air spray. Maybe even the Barbara will forget it.
Pj Metz:Yeah, maybe I put some. Put some talc powder on there too. That's good for the computer, right?
Brandon Minnick:Yeah, this is a straight razor on the keyboard. Okay, yeah, it's
Pj Metz:gotta have clean edges. Gotta have clean edges on there. No, no, no bevels just straight lines. So Brandon, I hate to tell you this, but your your image is frozen for me. But I don't know if that's true for everyone. But please trust me. Brandon's here live. This is not just me cleverly. I assure you he is here we are
Brandon Minnick:doing something special. Today. I am actually in Prague. I just landed a couple out and hosted hosted remotely. We're having all sorts of technical issues getting started. So if it sounds like I'm talking from the moon, and because of audio delays, apologize in advance, but I am here because there's an awesome conference. Francis Ogg Has it developed? It's called Old conference I've spoken at, oh, gosh, I think this will be my fourth year in a row. Last year was remote. For conferences. It's one of the biggest dotnet is actually I think it is the dotnet conference in Central. So there's all sorts of good dotnet goodies coming out. And not in Prague. Even if you're not in Central, you can't swing by and say hi, check out I think in the comments up net, you can find all the talks live stream, make sure you check it out.
Pj Metz:It's what if you are
Brandon Minnick:always been one of my favorite if
Pj Metz:you are in Prague, swing by and say hi, to Brandon. Absolutely. For our our huge variety of listeners are currently in Prague. So Brandon, you got the update conference that you're talking about right now? You've got the dotnet conference from last week. Did you say earlier that that stuff is now available that you can just access the materials from that now?
Brandon Minnick:Yeah, that's right. Done last. Clean timing, we always have it we will be Microsoft. I didn't have anything to do with this. But Microsoft releases Visual Studio, the new version of Visual Studio, new versions of dotnet new versions of C sharp, all those goodies come out at the same time. And that's what dotnet comm all about? Those videos have been in recorded you can check them out at dotnet comp.net.
Pj Metz:Not a confusing URL and all y'all
Unknown:E T.
Pj Metz:C. I'm gonna throw it up on the screen.
Brandon Minnick:I've got a playlist played in the background. Yeah, it's good stuff. If you're like me, like to have just something going on background, a little bit of white noise tests are compiling to look up and catch up. I've grabbed those videos from dotnet. And check them out. Then know about oh, in the update. Conference is all done. And all the video. So I've got plenty of videos just for the upcoming holiday season.
Pj Metz:Fantastic. Listen, we got to have content to get us through those. As I understand it in tech, December's kind of a month where things happen, work happens, but not really kind of and people take time off. And as a teacher, I always do. Okay, I'm getting my two weeks off. I didn't know tech likes to do that, too. So I'm super excited that I still get a winter break. So yeah, like Brandon said, if you're still looking for something, something when you're sitting around and you want to keep those skills sharp or you want to hear about what's coming up, that's new, looking at old conferences, especially dotnet comm dotnet is a great, great resource. Brandon, what? What do we have today? What's What's today's show gonna be? Who are we talking to?
Brandon Minnick:A cool guest. Spider through G. So, Mike, the smart add on the show we've ever had a PhD on the show before. Microsoft will call the developer relations development gussied. Let's welcome to the show. Dr. Bethells today. Hi.
Sarah Guthals:Thank you, thank you for having me. Speaking of like December time off, I'm kind of excited nervous. I'm getting served through December 7. But I'm like, oh, downtime. I'm just gonna be like, you know, a couple of weeks while I'm drugged up on painkillers, probably just watching things on shutter. But then I can like just having the random stuff is gonna be awesome.
Pj Metz:That downtime to actually like do stuff and like, like, like, I've got downtime. And it's funny because like, there used to be a very negative way of looking at that. Like, I remember when I was going to a job that I was frustrated with or having a hard time with. I'd be like, Man, what happened if like my car just kind of hit this concrete barrier. I would have so much time to just do whatever I wanted and like like
Sarah Guthals:I used to think that so often like Oh, but you know just like a little coma where I can just sleep. Just Just for a little while, like, you know,
Pj Metz:nothing serious. And I don't mean. Yeah, but luckily like, you know, like when you find a job that you like a little better, that's nice. But listen, the downtime you said surgery is this. Is this a serious surgery or is it like elected like, are you okay?
Sarah Guthals:You kind of it's kind of huge i I'm getting knee surgery, it's essentially like a knee reconstruction. So I found that Reese, I've got no cartilage, like, left in my knee. So really cool surgery there. They took a biopsy of the little tiny bit of cartilage that's left and they regrew me cartilage. Um, so yeah, I'm going to be getting cartilage in my right knee. They're going to be doing something with my tibia and something with my patella. I don't know, there's like three major procedures happening. And then once I'm covered enough, my partner should be getting a donor meniscus because that'd take his time. And once he's recovered enough, we'll look at my left knee because you know, we just don't like leaving this family.
Pj Metz:Man, that's terrifying. Oh,
Sarah Guthals:yeah. Yeah, but you know
Brandon Minnick:like the million dollar, man.
Sarah Guthals:It'll be yes. It's gonna be
Pj Metz:I wish I had that sound ready to go that doo doo doo doo doo. So I feel like we did a doc, Dr. Gotthold. I feel like, we'd love to have you tell us about yourself and your history and why you are the way you are get as deep as you need to. But tell us all about
Sarah Guthals:1988. Actually, yesterday was my birthday. So you know, mid 30s Over here. But yeah, I mean, I am someone who is passionate about education, how people learn and technology, particularly about technology. Because, you know, when I was in college, I realized this is the way to access a lot of people. And with just a little bit of understanding or knowledge or skill. Folks can use this tool, technology being kind of a general tool to improve their lives, even if it's not at their building or their industry, if they understand how to use it, or how it's being used. Hopefully understand how it impacts their life and kind of improve that. So yeah, I come from a single mother who is from South America, what do I wish a little country to Argentina, and was when I was two, she started college. She hadn't gotten to college yet. And so my entire upbringing was centered around the importance of education. And she ended up becoming a school teacher. She just retired last year when I was able to move her up to live with us so I'm excited about that. And yeah, education learning as it was was my special interest I would pretend teach that was my
Pj Metz:and I still wasn't getting good reviews
Sarah Guthals:Yeah, and so I I loved it but I I always wanted to be a medical doctor big reason is I have asthma and I would participate as a guinea pig in asthma for medications. So sir tech being over the counter partially because I let them give me sir tech
Pj Metz:that sounds like you should be saying like I'm part of the research that broad search act to the general public in your LinkedIn
Sarah Guthals:Yeah, Intertek over the counter and prescription even I was like, wow, this is so cool. So I, I love the idea of, of, of just, you know, Science and Learning and, and, and research and all of that. And so, I wanted to be a medical doctor, and then I college where I was working three jobs to pay for it. And I failed my math and my chemistry class. And so I called my mom and I was like, Mom, no, like, any college where I can explore not so steep price and find some things because what I really love the research, but I didn't love the memorization and a lot of medicine is just knowing things, and I don't care to memorize. And so she was like before, please, please, like this university was was always your dream just for the year. So I did, and lucky, my very first computer science teacher, which I had no clue what computer science was, was this woman, Beth Simon, who not only was a woman, not only like, he was invested in teaching, but her research in computer science was how people learn computer science. So the most magical Introduction to Computer Science, which is me being in the lab, having my programs fail supportively that even the tutors would have the solution open next to it on the computer and couldn't figure out why mine wasn't working so great about it is that the computer would tell you when something went wrong, you know, and, and, and if something did go wrong, no one was dying. I mean, you can get into tech work where people could die. And I'm not in that part of because I can handle that. But, but there was it was a it was a logic game, it was fine to figure things out. And and it was just fun. It felt like a puzzle every day. And so I switched majors, I was able to say I felt more comfortable taking out loans and quitting my jobs because I felt like I could get a job after graduating, not going to started doing research in how people learn. Computers ended up staying for Masters and PhD at that same It's Beth. She became my advisor along with with Bill GridWorld. And one of my best friends ended up like renting her house from her and she moved.
Unknown:That's awesome. You know, and just
Sarah Guthals:I stayed and you know, there was like a holdings I started a company while I was doing my code. We taught teach, how to teach kids how to code builds a Minecraft modding soft browser prior to Microsoft's acquisition of Minecraft. wrote some books, I contracted with various company names, including git where I built like a GitHub for kids under 13, which was fun. I then was eight months pregnant, and we decided to stop that contracting project. And quickly got a full time job. You know, and yeah, I was lucky enough to work with the incredible Phil hack, as my manager. And I led a team of 10 in the world, building the GitHub integrations into Visual Studio, code unity. And then moved over to Microsoft to basically be a dev advocate. And working on data science machine learning, I got the opportunity to like tie in Netflix movies and Warner Brothers movies, the narratives have been learning and partner with on teaching people about data science as it applies to, like landing on the moon. It's just want to fund right. So yeah, I'm learning.
Pj Metz:I got to echo what Brandon said at the beginning of the show that like you are prolifically intelligent and like you've done so much and like I like it's intimidating to hear how how wide a spectrum of amazing things you've done. And I'm just so glad to be like, like to be sitting here with you. Because this is such a I just feel blessed and lucky to be around you. So don't let anyone ever tell you you're not amazing, cuz you're totally amazing. Holy moly, Sarah.
Sarah Guthals:I mean, I definitely appreciate that. I I feel like though, you know, like 15 years ago when I would hear these people say, Oh, I always knew what I was meant to do. And I was like, that's not possible. How could you know that? I realized now that I've been very lucky. And I believe I believe that everything that has happened has been a combination of luck. And being prepared to take advantage of that luck, right? Like if love presents itself to you and you're not ready to just take advantage that you're not lucky, right? I mean, PJ you I think it would be kind of similar to you, right? Like, you met some folks you met Brandon. You met Chloe and then you took him You have that and you were prepared to do that. Right? So, yes. Was it lucky that you knew people? Yes. But also, you were ready to grab that and take it. And, and that's honestly what it's been, it's been kind of prepping for that lately knowing what I care about and what it is I'm passionate about and just taking chances. Yeah.
Brandon Minnick:So I'd love to jump back to back back into the education side, because a lot of the go don't the traditional computer science, let alone the master's degree? The D in it. What I'm curious what what opportunities opened up progressed? Because you're working on your master's? Does that like, why isn't your move on HD? What big focus to pass?
Sarah Guthals:Yeah. First, I want to say and I actually made a tick tock about this, because there was some rhetoric happening on Twitter about needing to have a degree from MIT be able to get in to me as someone with a PhD in computer science, who might my my dissertation was about designing learning experiences for novices in tech, you do not need to have that degree. You could go watch my tech talk about it. But so I want to say that first and foremost, and honestly, what kind of interesting about my journey in particular, there is, for example, I told you kind of like the history of where I came from, and I supplied that engineering position at GitHub. I had a recruiter tell me that I wasn't qualified to be an engineering manager. And luckily, I was eight months pregnant, and my mama bear came out, and I pull back. And I said, No, no, I think I am. Um, I mean, I ran a startup all the way through main dollar revenue. Before I left, I ran research labs, like I think I am. And luckily, she pushed my resume over to Phil and Phil was like, yes, definitely, she's qualified, I definitely want to interview her. Um, but, but what's interesting about kind of each of the progressive degrees or our position had is that a gave me an opportunity to explore the parts of the industry that aren't just the technical parts. So for when you're when you're going through your master's degree, it's basically like, undergrad courses, but hyper focused on and so the difference between an undergrad degree where you are also getting general education, is that you get to dive a little bit deeper into the technical problems. And that's not something you typically get to do an undergrad, you get to do a little bit more open ended problems, and maybe start researching and cutting edge research that's happening. So that's kind of what that gave me. During the PhDs kind of complete opposite the coursework is minimally important. It's more about how you take ideas, explore something that no one else has explored before. To earn a PhD in any field, you have to prove that you've contributed something to that. Honestly, it's easier to get a PhD in computer science than in math, imagine having to contribute, to feel somatics I just
Pj Metz:don't want to talk too hard PhD, like literature where you have a new
Sarah Guthals:wild I think, but what that gives me is the opportunity to think outside the box about how, how I approach solving a problem that I'm defining the problem, right? Like, I'm identifying the problem, I'm defining why it's a hard problem to solve. I mean, you know, what affects people and then I'm, I'm the solution for it. And that was something that then led to be a company, right? And then now with a cutting you have to take that kind of problem solving. And also add in this business aspect, you have to make money. And it's not because we were selfish and wanted money, it was because to make like to employ people we have money so that we can employ people they, you know, have us be their full time job and not be worried that it was going to disappear. And you know, our customers can rely on the fact that every summer every you know after school program would be and they plan on that for the future and each one position I think it was a good question, Brandon, because it presented me with an aspect that was kind of above the tech. It was above the the topic, and it was more about how I'm approaching that community. But, but it also meant that single time I've ever applied for a job I've had to prove by that job tool is something that could match me, because I've never had a job title that really defines what it is I do.
Pj Metz:I think that's the hard part about titles in general.
Sarah Guthals:Yeah, it is. It is.
Brandon Minnick:But I've also say, and I don't know if the company but a lot of companies I worked at most of those so usually started like a level one then get promoted to level three, and sometimes they change the level three anyways, you have level bulls and for buddies, maybe curious and getting the Masters getting the PhD. The couple buddies, bachelor's degree, I experience will start to level what masters give you a level two, and PhD will start yet there is some monetary but don't want to. If somebody is looking for making more money, and then wants to
Sarah Guthals:go for it. Yeah, no, that's definitely true. I will say that I, I pretty much at the same level as friends who did not get their degrees. And in terms of like, the amount of years it took me to get my view was very similar to the amount of years it took them to get promoted to the level that I would then be hired at. Um, I'm grateful for my journey, because with my ADHD and autism with my interest in learning and things like I could not have survived doing a nine to five for those years, like I needed to be able to be jumping around 500 ways. But But yeah, I mean, they're there and think that like higher degrees or, or, or not even just the degree but like alternative jobs, or alternative experiences also give you to have more creative roles, I would not have been qualified for position. If I done like, soft, using Visual Studio and building with Visual Studio, I had built, basically code editor and I built video game in unity to teach kids how to code. So leading a team of people who build or do VS code and unity, Adam, like, did all of that, basically, I wouldn't have been very well qualified. And it was hard for Phil to find someone who understood all of these different, like Nuance communities, is very different from a Visual Studio developer. So that was kind of, like, you know, a unique set of experience that led me there. I love that aspect.
Pj Metz:You have to under a second, what a lot of people worry about is that their past is somehow a hindrance to them and where they're headed. But your your past has led you to exactly where you are. And I saw an image today. And it was all the paths that you could have taken in the past, and they're all over the place. But then it's okay. But where are you now, these are paths that you cannot take anymore. That's not available to you anymore. But what sits in front of you are an equally number of infinite paths, that your specific journey has led you to have the opportunity for earlier, Dr. Couples, you said it's like you took advantage of a chance of luck. And that's that's what opportunity is. And that's why I think when we talk about equity, and we talk about equal opportunity, that's what we're talking about. Not everyone has the same set of opportunities. So if we call it hard work and not what it is, which is not only did you have the luck to be there, but you had the the ability to say yes to it. When Brandon first said, PJ, I think you should learn to code. I had a summer ahead of me of a pandemic where I was literally going to be sitting at home and doing nothing. I used to work a second job as a teacher and I was like, Well, I don't have that. So I guess I'll learn the code. So I had an opportunity to say yes, because my circumstances allowed me to. So it's all about like, yes, taking advantage of the opportunity, but you're someone with a PhD, Brandon Someone with a CS degree on someone with a degree in reading poetry, like we have different opportunities, but we're finding that our, our different paths that lead us there are giving us the next set of opportunities that we're going to be able to take. So don't ever discount, like your people in the audience. Don't discount your past your past is what's led you to exactly where you are now. And you can always do new things next, you know,
Sarah Guthals:yeah, I've had to remind myself to and I remind my friends who want to do shifts in their career that your resume, you can never do, like, erase something off your resume. You know, and I don't mean resume in like the formal sense, but but more the way you were just describing PJ, like, if you've done something, you've done that, and your experiences are only additive, right? And, and I really, really want to hire you just said PJ about having opportunity. Like I, I was lucky enough that my mom spoke fluent English. And I was born and I went to a school where we I learned Spanish, I actually was taught math and history and science, everything in Spanish, from kindergarten, baby, but at home, we spoke English. And that was a huge opportunity when I know, accessibility is often talked about in terms of, you know, able bodies or things like that. But I, I, my line has it, if you put an English dictionary, early English Dictionary of Spanish speakers, that is not accessible to them. You know, it's just, it's just a book with with words.
Unknown:Mm hmm.
Sarah Guthals:So I think about that everything I did, I can't be perfect at it. But I really do drive for that. Because watching my mom start community college I was to and attending classes with her taking exams with her with her ones, um, and, and having her see what I do, and having her raise had, she had that opportunity when she was, you know, my age, she probably would have been a developer, you know, because she, she was interested in that she was doing some of that work in these jobs. But then she had me and she's, you know, chose to have me and she's grateful to have had me, but it meant changing her career. And, you know, it was the same with my daughter, like, I had my mom not been positioned to be able to retire and had I not been in a position to be able to move up with us know that I'd be able to continue working, right, because who's gonna watch my three year old during a pandemic, if both of her parents are working, you know, it's just so very much circumstantial and and taking the opportunities that you have. But I think I think you touched on something, which is you know, if you feel like you're missing on one, because you you need to or have chosen to do something else, try to look towards all of the paths that are opening up. Because especially in today's world, we can create new roles and we can create new careers. Tic tock like with NFL ever, whatever your there's a way to create that and say that and coming from a very privileged position now. But you know, like, it wasn't years ago when we were living in our car hoping to share this McDonald's meal together right and so that wasn't just hard work but it was making choices that made the most sense for that moment in time.
Brandon Minnick:Yeah Yeah, it's interesting life experience. This is Will will dovetail things I think have anything to do with each other like for for me, I see satellite networks my first event totally made my way to Microsoft and C sharp and behind but then what couple Azure announced that they're doing this whole terrestrial restaurant round station in like here they call it like I don't know we'll say add stuff like that I'm like, actually know about that. And it just so happens to be the only person on my knows that stuff and like we interviewed a couple people like I was able to, that's a video tutorials on that stuff. Something that I never come in handy. Yeah.
Pj Metz:I love the idea of like, You're past that you're like, Oh, well, I guess that wasn't as useful. And then suddenly it pops up. You're like, oh, actually, I can help with this.
Brandon Minnick:Yeah, I It's basically like, yeah. It's like, moving Huwag basically, like, it just kind of turned into like, like, tell you how satellites worked or, like, I could point to a satellite inside of the house and tell you what it's for, like, point to our belly when all those antennas do. But yeah, we're coming.
Pj Metz:Neutral. Now that's actually useful. I love that. So, Dr. G, you've got this background. And like you said, you got these three degrees, and you're still a person who says, like, you don't need a degree to work in computer science. And you mentioned this, this Twitter kerfuffle, as it were the other day. And what I saw, in that kerfuffle, what made me really excited to be a part of the tech community that I chose on Twitter, the people that I follow was how everyone was like, this isn't true. And the aim of what they were doing was telling people outside, hey, if you're seeing this, it's wrong. Like, you don't have to have a degree to do this. This person's lying to you. If you want more information, here's where you can go. And that's what I've noticed in the tech community. Like I said, I chose to follow these tech people. It is diverse. We've got drag queens, we've got Latino Latinas, and we've got non binary like Latin X people, too. We have black people, we have like tons, tons of people from a variety of backgrounds, people, young Oh world, everybody. So like that diversity in tech is, is my honestly, is my experience with tech right now. working remotely. My tech community is Twitter. Is tech always been like this. Is it changing? Is it something that's been there and has been hidden? What when we talk about diversity in tech, is what are we talking about?
Sarah Guthals:Yeah, no, that's a really good, good topic, because it hasn't always been there. I remember listening to a talk by this woman who, who, when she first started at this tech company, they did not have women's restrooms. What? Um, yeah. But yeah, so you know, nowadays will have your neutral restrooms. I mean, when I started at GitHub, all of the restrooms Well, not all, but they had a gender neutral restroom, which just had theirs where the toilet was, because, like, why not, that just, I would never anyways. And then they also had restrooms, where you could be in one room by yourself, you know, like, just more inclusive, they had, you know, rooms where parents could go and pumper breastfeeding, for example, and, you know, all of that type of inclusion, I think is important, where I see a lot of my energy. That was one of three women in my life computer science, and this was, you know, not that long ago, been relatively, um, and it was, and I was wanting to let x folks do it, there was not another woman. So, you know, it was not super, like, diverse at the time. But that's why I focused on like, I was a part of the team, one of the first AP Computer Science Principles, courses. And for those of you who don't know what that is, AP is advanced Leamas advanced placement here in the United States. And what that is, it's basically the set of courses that are nationally recognized, and there's a certain type of curriculum as well as them you can take, and then that exam, if you get a certain score will qualify you for college. And so it's essentially college level works, that you can take in high school. And the Computer Science Principles was a course that we were saying, was the computer science that every single graduating high school student should take prior to graduating high school. And so it wasn't we want him to be a computer scientist, it was we want everyone to understand. We actually wrote a paper called the cheating as the fourth are, you should have a basic understanding of reading, writing, arithmetic and computing. Right, just basic understanding so that you can participate in the society. And I focus a lot of my energy on that next generation, because the more we can introduce a diversity said, younger people to the industry, the more likely it is that we will have a diverse industry. And then, of course, it's not a pipeline problem, it is not just that it is also supporting institutions or programs that allow students to have the ability to focus on that. You can't really do an a computer science course when your students don't have internet or computer at home to do homework, for example. So we built a course that didn't have homework, you did everything during class, because we had to make sure that and then, you know, similarly, a lot of the schools only had access to Chromebooks, not to any like, you know, operating system where you can install things, right and right, it had to work on the browser, you know, we went through all of these iterations, we localize the content, you know, and we work with folks on that. And then it's inclusive nature of the industry. Again, one of my first full time positions in industry was that GitHub engineering manager position. When I left, I had a team of 10, people were literally I had more women of color than men on my team, which blew my mind, like, my mind. I love her. And it was because, you know, GitHub wasn't as not perfect, but it was because, in particular, Phil was an advocate for hiring the right people for the jobs. And he made it a point to have a community of people, his community of people be diverse. And so when he was looking for the right person for the job, he could look through a diverse set of candidates, and then that would yield the right person. And it just so happened, that that He then looked diverse, because it not like diversity is not a metric, it's not something to check off it is it will happen if your community is diverse, right? If you're looking through diversity, and so it's a lot, a lot, a lot of pieces. But no, it wasn't always person. And that's why I try to focus on on that I, I got an opportunity to partner with Warner Brothers on their base gym, and making content around that. And I advocated for that out too. Because, you know, in my mind, folks who really care about basketball, might not realize how much data science machine learning goes into the sport, how much that goes into choosing players for Team, choosing whether to bench someone on a game, or have a choosing what you know what, like, there's so much data that goes into it. And if you're interested in basketball, and you're also looking into what careers you might want to go into, that might be an interest for you. And we don't have a lot of examples like that all of our examples are like, Oh, how can you make more money with this sharing app? Like? You know, can we have some other types of examples? So I try to advocate for for that type of story, along with the technical pieces.
Brandon Minnick:I look, sir, I have a question for you about how you could redo the education system. But first, let's get a word from our sponsors.
Pj Metz:Hi, if you're hearing my voice, that means you've been listening to or watching eight bits with Brandon and PJ. And we're here to talk to you about your product. And how it can help you in your life by to do whatever your product does. So if you're an avid listener of the show, or you watch us on Twitch, then you will know that your product, your product is right for you. I gotta be honest, I can't wait to replace that with a real ad that you can send in.
Sarah Guthals:Feel like I feel like I might need to talk to you about putting on for our for our podcast or something.
Pj Metz:We accept money for that. Yes, absolutely. Actually, that'd be fun. That'd be fun to have you guys do that.
Brandon Minnick:Yeah, I do want to talk about that. Real quick. You mentioned kind of this, the small tweaks you make to make learning more inclusive. But I'm curious if you could just blow up up the entire system, let's just start how would you design say, a K through 12? Education? That run?
Sarah Guthals:You know, I, I don't, I don't think it can be a magic wand, let's let's redo it. And I would say the big thing is incorporating it into all of the subjects. So, for example, and PJ you can, you can correct me, but what I, what I've noticed about, like, the other three R's, the reading and writing, is, what seems to be effective for a lot of students is showing how the three parts of the things that we say are important for learning, math, reading, and writing, can come together. And so, you know, one of my favorite types of assignments that I would do as a child would be when we mystory, we would write an alternate ending, and then maybe there would be like, some fun, graphical, you know, representation using the formulas of geometry to, to, like plot something out on a, on a graph chart or something. Those weren't backwards. But that's, that's part so. So for example, maybe you have an assignment and, and Minecraft Education Edition, by the way, which recently, is up to not just formal education institutions, but also after school programs or things like that case where you could have like this PV module, where maybe you're learning about ancient Egypt. And then maybe there's a story that goes along with it. And then maybe you write your own, you know, I remember them like, like third, something where we would write as if we were one of the pharaohs or something, right, write it, write a letter, and then you go in Minecraft, and you create a scene might have happened in that time. And you use the coding to to make it interactive, or something, right. So so the the point of introducing computing or computer science to young students, is helping them understand how it can apply to any aspect. In fact, I taught a course to high schoolers who were in foster care. And so these these, these foster children came and they opportunity to come to you, DSD, which was my school in San Diego and take free computer science course. And some of them were Yes, I got this, we're gonna do this. I was using the app inventor, MIT App Inventor, which allows you to build a functional Google App that you could actually either put on the App Store or install on your phone. This was many years ago. So I'm not positive quiz now. But I had this one grinchy. Class, she did not care about this. She you know, and understandably, like, I don't know what her life was like, but she had to choose just like, I do not care. And rather than what you have to, you know, whatever. I said, No problem. Tell me what you're interested in. And she was like, I want to be a preschool teacher. So apps don't matter to me, like I care. Okay. And I said, what if, you know, you want to be a preschool teacher? And what if, you know, in preschool, you're teaching kids about letters and short sight words. I said, what if you have a group of, you know, five kids, but one of your kids is struggling with some sight letter? What if you could that night, build a very simple app to just help them with some words, and all the app would do? Show them the sight word. And then they could say it, and then they could click it, and it would record them say it, and then they click the word and it would, it would say you saying the word right? To them, they could click it, it would be too and then they could record themselves. And then while you're doing other activities with the other, or you know, a kid that you have, that could kid could be on, you know, simple tablet, practicing those because you can't let yourself in to, but then you can help that student. And immediately she stood up and she was like, now I see how me knowing a little bit of coding might help me achieve what I want to achieve, which is to help young children and And that's where I think the priority of integrating computer science education into all walks of life is, is the strongest, it's when you can help people see that tool can help them they want to achieve and not just be a developer for us.
Pj Metz:Yeah, and that's so many people think of tech, they just think of it as well, like, so you have to go and make an app, or you have to go and do this, but they don't see the value of simply understanding how things work. And to use kind of a metaphor kind of analogy. When I used to finish with my seniors, there was always like, two weeks at the end of the year for seniors were like, there's nothing for them to do, we've finished the curriculum, they've got graduation in two weeks, and like, there's no time to do something new. So I would always have like a little film unit in my pocket where I was like, Hey, we're going to talk about the language of film and how to analyze film. And most of the time, most of the kids are checked out, it's senior year, yada, yada, yada. And I remember, like several kids every year, it'd be like, I can't watch films regularly anymore, because I'm thinking about the choices made and unlike Yeah, good. Because now you're not passively just taking stuff in, you're actively involved in something now. And I think the same is true of technology, you shouldn't just think back oh, well, this is how it works. Like you should know, at least a little of least a little about it. Dr. G, we got to talk about like these amazing things you're doing. First off, there's that podcast you were talking about earlier. And you tell us about that podcast, and I'm gonna drop your link tree in the chat. But tell us about the podcast you're on.
Sarah Guthals:Completely unrelated to tech. But a good friend of your, your show
Pj Metz:Chloe Condon, a creator of the show,
Sarah Guthals:creator of the show, um, she and I found a love a mutual love for 90s movies and TV shows. And in particular, just the the fact that a lot of the themes from those shows played out into who we are today. So we just have a podcast where we, where we go over 90s TV shows movies. In fact, our most recent episode at the time of this show is featuring PJ where we went over our first Disney original film, which was Johnny. So lots of lots of fun, bright and open. And yes, random has also recorded and said with us, but that'll be coming in the future. So yeah, I like to I like to just kind of branch out. In fact, real quick. Johnny tsunami actually has a whole storyline about tech, which I'd forgotten about, which is fun. But yeah, I mean, in general, I I've written a few books on tech, my most recent one was actually a few years now. But that one was fun. Um, I will make YouTube videos in particular, I want to start making more videos in Spanish. So feel free to head over to my YouTube channel, or any of my social medias. And let me know if you have interesting topics. Especially if you want me to do them. Tic TOCs every once in a while I usually do like 50 of them and then disappear for a week because and yeah, I talked about I go on like random, little like, not aggressive but rants about parenting and my three almost four year old daughter is just amazing. And it's fun and thoughts about things I do with her. And yeah, I'm just I'm basically at Dr. Gonzalez on everything, including spacing, which is like that new MySpace thing. I haven't haven't gotten into it yet, but it's I'm excited about it
Pj Metz:on the edge with Polly work. I haven't even heard a space Hey,
Sarah Guthals:literally like a MySpace recreation. I'm so good about it. Yeah, so leave your sports. The podcast. You should listen to it. It's on pretty much anywhere you can find podcasts. And yeah. Me let me out and I'll probably want to talk
Pj Metz:right let's start at the time. The lag correct there
Brandon Minnick:I just feel like I'm on the moon. Sir. Thank you so much for for joining us on the show today. I I apologize. But I said it hasn't been better. It's just so fascinating listening to your stories. Listen to your advice. That takes work hard but look out for those operative that luck when it comes your way. Keep open for all the other new opportunities that appear as you go. You never lose those old Africa. This has been such a blessing to everybody. Do go follow Dr. G link tree that we have in the comments. By the way, what else? Did I miss me Jenna get
Pj Metz:her on Tik Tok like she had heard about. It was talking about are you afraid of the dark lately on Tik Tok during episode by episode, and it's been fascinating to see these old episodes that I remember terrified me as a child, and now are like, Oh, that's actually still a little scary. And that's actually also an episode of the podcast, also an episode of the podcast. So your scores, they did that with Joe Carlson shout out, Joe. But yes, I want to reiterate everything Brandon said and and to tell all of our viewers and listeners go look up what Dr. Goebbels is doing. There's never been as prolific a person. And as amazing a person that I've interacted with, like Brandon, you are really cool, but I the fact that I got to meet Sarah gumbo, and that I can call her someone that I'm collaborating with. And I know that you're into horror. So moron, our horror project that we're gonna make later. But um, any final words, final advice, any last thing that you feel like you have to say to everyone, Dr. G.
Sarah Guthals:Um, first of all, thank you both for having me on the show. It was an absolute pleasure, I'm so grateful to know both of you as well. And to any listening. You know, I want to say to you belong if you're interested in and I'm one person, so I can't you know, be available to everyone. But please feel free to reach out. And if I if I have the band's I'm always happy to respond. And I think you know, even stage the things that you're excited about, and unless make space for those, for those things to to impact others, because it's likely that you are not the only one who believes in those things are excited about those things. So let's do it together. Absolutely. Fantastic.
Pj Metz:Thank you for that message. Thank you Dr. Gumbo. Thank you, Brandon for coming in all the way from Prague, slash like the other side of Venus. I know it's rough over there. But thank you all so much for listening. And we will catch you all next week on a bit