1 | Lifelong Educators Show: The World Premier

COVID and technology has changed what we thought was possible in education, but what does this mean for educators?

The Lifelong Educators Show, presented by Clickto was designed to answer this exact question. 

We will showcase and learn from our community of educators that are successfully adapting their businesses to not just service, but to increase the impact they can make in their students’ lives.

At Clickto, we believe that the future of education is community, accountability, and interactivity. 

Tune in for our show which is recorded live every Wednesday at 11:30 am eastern. 

Together we can help people anywhere and everywhere learn, empower, and grow – connecting and interacting without physical boundaries. 

Want more? Join our community, Cohort Based Learning Leadership Council, on Facebook to share your ideas and collaborate with fellow rockstar educators of the future!

Transcript

Jackie Guzda: 0:10

Good morning, everyone. This is the initial episode of lifelong educators. Lifelong educators is going to meet you weekly in just a few weeks in order to form a community where we educators and learners can get together. And talk about all of the issues in education today. As you know, things have been changing rapidly. We went from brick and mortar schools to in-person camps, all of a sudden, because of the pandemic we were all online. Now, there were good things about that as well as bad things about. So today we have two very esteemed educational explorers who are going to tell you a few things about themselves. And then we will get into this conversation. I hope that those of you out in our community will join in on the chat and we can field your questions to these two experts that we have here today so, first of all, let me introduce Dotan to Mir. He is an educational Explorer and also the creator of which is an online educational format. So Dotan, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience?

Dotan Tamir: 1:28

All right. Happy to be here. so excited for our first show and today, thanks for you to introduce Jackie. So my name is Dotan I'm based out of Tel Aviv in Israel and, you know, I've been doing educations since I was 16. So in the past for the past 22 years, mostly informal education. And, I'd love to talk to tell more about it as we go forward, as we move.

Jackie Guzda: 1:55

Okay. Great. And we also have here today, Josh Chernikoff, who is also an educational Explorer and also a serial entrepreneur. So take it away, Josh.

Joshua Chernikoff: 2:07

Thank you, Jackie. I've been called a lot of things. Educational Explorer is a new one. So I'm going to take that one and use it. I appreciate it. It has been a journey in education from, not being a very good student to starting a tutoring a as an entrepreneur than to starting in enrichment company, as an entrepreneur selling both of those companies and then getting introduced to my friend here, Dotan, back when the pandemic started. So that is one positive thing that came out of it for me. And from there, I was able to join the team as a senior advisor for click too, and really believe in cohort-based courses and, excited to have these conversations, on this.

Jackie Guzda: 2:46

Great. And as for myself, I'm an associate professor of communication and media arts at Western Connecticut state university. Now the big PRI in the university, all of the universities and the high schools and the elementary schools has been, we've got to return to normal. We've got to return to the classroom and the brick and mortar life and all of that. But what I want to ask you too, is. Are there things that have gotten better? Are there things that we have learned through the shutdown of the pandemic that we can take away and make an even better normal in our educational atmosphere now?

Dotan Tamir: 3:30

I'll tell you a little bit about the way I, look at education. I look at education as a magical, progress, something that brings growth to people, and you know, education can be looked at, from angles of grades and exams and, and skills for, and all that stuff, which is very important as well. But for me, the basic is this magical experience of learning something together, exploring new areas and topics. And I think when we go back to that fundamental part of education, then we can ask that question of what works better, what doesn't work, what can work online, what doesn't work online. So to me, it's it started, with the pandemic when after having a summer camp or overnight camp about stem education for kids from all over the world for so many years. And seeing that magic happens in person, the pandemic came and we said, let's see if that magic can happen online. So we tried it, and we had kids in the virtual room with an instructor and the magic happened. The kids had fun. The instructor had fun. There was growth. There was excitement. There was learning. So to me it was a eye-opening to see that this is actually working without being physically in the same place. Now, we all come in from different generations, but I think the generation of kids today for them, it's kind of natural for them. You know, almost the same in some way, because the screen is really a, a window for of communication, for them. And they were born like that. So being going back to normal, what is the normal, I think for kids, learning with peers through screen Is as normal, almost as learning with their peers in person. Of course, there are differences in, there are some things that you cannot do online when there are also some things that you cannot do in person. But I think the basic question is what are our goals? What are we trying to achieve? Can we do it fun? Can we do to engaging?

Jackie Guzda: 5:37

Well, Josh, you have described yourself, I believe, or someone has described you as a business dad, and as the chief business operator of you also have gone into the classroom. And you talked about these aha moments that you had when you were actually engaged with the kids. Does that in any way, reflect what Dotan just said.

Joshua Chernikoff: 6:04

Yeah, absolutely. So Dotan is, has always been to me since day one, future man, future man had to convince me that this really was the future. but he did, and there are times where he has to pull me back. and I try not to, to get in the mode that it has to be in-person. Or online, both of us come from an in-person learning experience, Dotan camps, me and enrichment and aftercare. So I think the, the point of this, you know, is that, I saw. For myself with my daughter, when she was doing an art class online and the aha moment, I think you're referencing and there have been many, she was doing an art class and I walked upstairs. This was deep, you know, in April, you know, the pandemic was roaring. and we were scrambling as parents. And her iPad, she had adjusted it so that it was kind of like above her hand. And of course, you know, I go in there and I'm like, Camila, you're supposed to be looking at the iPad. And she said, no, Papi. And she, she kind of turned it off. She said, you know, the teacher wanted to see our hands. And I said, of course, so the teacher was not only looking at their hands to see how closely they were holding the pencil and all that stuff, but how was her drawing? And so the teacher was able to go one by one. This is a class of 18 kids. And so I think that, that this is an example of an activity where you can potentially do. it As well online as you can do it in person, and you can make potentially a global impact. I mean, she was, the instructor was in New York Camila our daughter was in Washington, DC and who knows where everybody was joining from. So, you know as, as a data was had that aha moment. Of course, again, she was right. That happens a lot. And it was a great experience. And again, it kind of led me closer to understanding kind of what Dotan is talking about, which is that, there can be two experiences here and learning the in-person is important. The online is a pandemic opportunities as well hmm.

Jackie Guzda: 8:12

Well, I must say as an instructor, myself, that I did encounter problems with the online transition. I would turn on the computer and my students were at college age, so they're older. they would, some of them would show up and I'd say, you must have your cameras on. And then they say, oh, the internet went out or this happened, or I could hear them like mowing the lawn outside when they were supposed to be in class. So how do you, how do you get engagement going on with your students when you are dealing with just the screen?

Dotan Tamir: 8:48

So many options, right. and we are still exploring and discovering this and what I'm really excited about, when, you know, thinking about our future shows and the guests that we're going to bring in here is, is that discussion? I think we just at the beginning. If we, we're coming really from the future. And I know Josh likes to call me a future man, but, um, I still don't know everything about the future, but if, if we were, five years from now looking back, we would probably say, oh, those people at the 2021, they didn't know how to do, engaging in fun online classes. you know, all the tools that we have today are quite amazing. So this is just the beginning and we here too to go to this on this journey and explore and learn. But I think there are already some experts out there. and some of them are going to be here with us to discuss it as we go forward with the show. cause I, I I've seen this, you know, Josh just described one cool, activity a cool way to do it with the iPad and the camera. Something that you can, you say it can work online. It actually works better online in some ways because the teacher. in a In-person setting, wouldn't be able to see in front of them, 18 drawings happening at the same time and really monitoring everything in the same time. But online they can. now I think education and I said before, and a city, I say again and again, education has to be fun. and to make it fun, it has to include games. It has to be interactive. It cannot be just, you know, the instructor. Talks and lectures. and then the students just watch. and it has to be, it has to be a sense of community and feedback all the time. And I think that's the biggest difference. And we will talk a lot about the difference between self-paced learning courses, sales-based courses to cohort based courses, where there's a group. I think. the biggest difference between learning on your own, on your own pace is that you don't have that feedback. And this feedback must be there in order to push you forward. In order to show you that you have learned to reflect to you, that you are learning, that you are also, you know, giving you answers to questions or asking you questions, and you're going to answer. So all that kind of interaction has to be and can be there in an online sometimes even better than, than an in-person setting

Jackie Guzda: 11:12

wow. You know, you are so right, because one of the things that I found worked better for me on the online format was that I could make direct contact with my students. We can have the conversation, I could see their work and the other students could click right into our one-to-one contact and they would engage because of that. And so when the other professors said to me, how would you teach that course online? I said You know, what it kind of worked better online. So that was something that I discovered, but I wanted to bring up a point I was told early on, and we had no preparation for, you know, in order to prepare for the online experience, but in a workshop, they said that the students needed to feel part of the class they needed, to feel that whole community. Of the class. I think I did the best I could putting together exercises where they had to work together. But what can you tell me about creating a community of the class

Joshua Chernikoff: 12:24

online? you know, as we're, as we're sitting here having this conversation, we're talking about this and I'm thinking we're doing right now. Exactly what we do. Are talking about in the sense of this is our first show. We're trying to create a community that's going to interact. We're interacting. We're hoping to make an impact in the lives of the people around us, who also believe in this cohort based learning. So we're actually a perfect experiment for what we're talking about, because we're going to do this on a weekly basis, you know? So I think what you have to do is. You know, we had the benefit because we're potentially talking about enrichment or for adults, professional development courses that they want to take. Is that not to take anything away from school, but you got to learn a lot of stuff in school that you don't want to learn but when it comes to enrichment professional development, you might be able to take courses that you really want to learn. You know, my daughter is super into art. you know, I've enrolled myself in some courses that I never thought I would take, back in Spanish courses trying to learn those. so I think you get the opportunity to take courses that. you Want to be in, you get to interact with people who have that same energy, and then we get to make an impact on each other's lives. So hopefully that answers your question of how do we do this, which is, you know, we do it by all, bringing this same positive energy to wanting to learn, wanting to learn online and then holding each other accountable.

Dotan Tamir: 13:52

I think that, um, I like what you say, Josh, you know, what the title of the show is life educators, right? and, we believe that educators have the answer. They have been doing that for a long time, in a brick and mortar, setting, they just need to understand and learn how to adjust what they are so good at to online. So let's say you were an instructor in a, in a class and you give an exercise to the class now for, you know, 20 minutes work on something is sometimes you tell the class, please, getting two pairs and work on stuff with your peer. but when the instructor moved online, they had no to do no idea how to do that. Really? No, no clue how to really get that working, in an online setting. It can work. And I, so examples of, of this kind of, exercise in pairs work amazingly in sometimes, and, you know, went into class. It's always the one that sits next to you. So it's based on where you sit, but online you can choose, or the instructor can actually. You know, choose for you, who you're going to be with. It can be random. There are many cool, cool, cool things that can create a sense of community because you asked about how do we create a sense of community of being a part of it. so I think as much as you can give your students, your learners, the feeling that they are. They are others around them that are having the same progress that would make them feel that they're part of it.

Joshua Chernikoff: 15:25

Yeah. And one other comment about community that I wanted to make, you know, Dotan and I have been lucky enough to be in this space, enrichment and camps for 10 years, made a lot of friends. and, when it comes to community, I think as we get this going, our hope is that all these. You know, enrichment providers that we know and that we don't know come on board and we can not only create a community by, by, you know, them Being assigned to say, Hey, you don't know this one and you don't know this one, so we're going to get you guys together. But Dotan and I want to be able to induce folks. I mean, I know amazing chess companies, you know, like silver Knights or Felix, who does chess in Westchester, New York. And we can connect these folks to say, this is working well in the chess world. And you know, you've got future Picasso's in Connecticut and we've got, you know, Marsha down at young Rembrandts in Maryland and say, you guys should talk because there's so many kids out there you're not competing, you know, you can learn from each other. So, you know, I think the idea here is to create a community for the kids, for sure. But then, you know, also we really believe that we can create a community of enrichment providers as well. Wow.

Jackie Guzda: 16:37

I mean, that sounds great. And I've, I've got to tell you that I did use the whole community aspect in one of my courses and the grades were so high that the average grade was an a minus, I got in trouble for that, because I'm not supposed to be doing that, but they got together and they did the work online with each other and it worked out well. So, yeah. So, but let me ask you a question. If we never had the pandemic, we never shut down. Never had to go

Joshua Chernikoff: 17:10

to virtual.

Jackie Guzda: 17:12

Do you think that teachers would still be online or do you think they would opt to be in person at this point?

Dotan Tamir: 17:22

I have a very clear answer. I would be, you know, walking the paths off the summer camp right now. and not even thinking about online, I think, the world has shifted and it, and everything around it has shifted for us as well. And personally, You know, I didn't believe in online education before I saw it in action before I had to try it. So I, you know, it, it changed my mind. It changed my, the way I see the future. I think that we would have got there. It would just take, you have, it would have taken like 10 years maybe, for the world to reach the point that was achieved in, in a few months. because thanks to the pandemic. Yeah, they're

Joshua Chernikoff: 18:11

there. So many ifs without the pandemic. One of them, you know, that comes to mind quickly is that Dotan and I will be meeting in San Diego for the second time we had, we had brunch in DC at one point at a wonderful restaurant on a random Saturday, cause he was in town, but we'll be at ASU GSV. this amazing conference comes Sunday. So that's that's us. What the

Jackie Guzda: 18:34

conference

Joshua Chernikoff: 18:34

is, Josh. Uh, yeah, I mean, it's an amazing conference where folks in the education space, very focused on, technology and certainly, democratizing education get together. So I'm a first timer. I believe Dalton's a first-timer we've even spoken to a mutual friend. Who's been there so many times. He's not, he's not going this time. I think he's, he's leaving it up to us to report back, but there are so many things. With the pandemic. luckily, you know, fortunately we're all happy and healthy right now to, to have gotten. and so I think we have to take this pandemic opportunity and what we've been given as, you know, explorers and education to create this community and make an impact. And I'm with you. darn it, I wish 5, 6, 7 years ago. I know I had the idea of taking this enrichment online and putting cameras into classrooms, but I was. Working on an, in the business, couldn't focus on it. but now we, we do have this opportunity, so I I'd be right along there with you, probably worlds away. You'd be doing the camp thing in person. I'd be doing the enrichment thing in person. but now we get to come together online and in-person, you know, on Sunday and, and hopefully build this.

Dotan Tamir: 19:48

I don't want to follow up more on this topic because I think, you know, we're looking at education that the whole, sorry, Yogi or

Joshua Chernikoff: 19:55

new technologies. Yeah. I got to get better lights here. We're learning. We're learning, right? Lifelong educator. All

Dotan Tamir: 20:04

right. Right. And, and they, you know what, this is also going to be one of the topics of the show, what technology you want to use, because that's also part of doing good occasion when you're online. and so I think that the whole world has changed their the workspace has changed and families are moving away from city centers because. You know people can now work remotely or at least a hybrid in a hybrid mode. and that all connects that all connects to the fact that remote became accessible. This is something that, you know, the technology is not new. It was there via technology, communication, everything kind of was there in place. That's why the effect of the lockdowns and the effect of the pandemic, was rough on the health side, the health angle, but people were still able to continue getting educated, continue work, continue getting different kinds of services. So the technology was there, but the whole progress of using the technology got accelerated and and if you want to know what I think that that's will be the, you know, the, the, how it's going to look like in five years time, or even three years time, is that they say that about 1 billion people are going to be taking online courses. When I say online courses, I mean, courses over video with a community, with a group, And it's they will, those 1 billion are going to be kids. They're going to be, adults they're going to be senior. Citizens they're going to be everyone. and so we are really looking at this future, this opportunity and understand that the transition from offline to online. Is is, is wide. It's not just technology. It's how to do it engaging how to build a business around it, how to get good feedback, how to support the students, all that stuff. So, and that's why we're not just going to discuss, we were going to discuss less technology over those shows and more how to, how to do it right.

Joshua Chernikoff: 22:09

one thing that the 1 billion people, you know, when Dotan says that, you know, I, again, we were worlds away, but we were both in the same space here. And I think we had the same feelings that we weren't necessarily competing with. The people that were, using the camp space and I was in the enrichment space. Cause there are so many kids when you're doing in person. Now you take it to online and we're talking about a billion people so for the enrichment providers that we get to talk to in the camp providers that we get to talk to, you know, our goal, I think as we, as we create this community is to think that the community yes. Used to be. Potentially, if you had a brick and mortar on main street, you know, in wheeling West Virginia, that that's the people that you were catering to. But now if you're in wheeling West Virginia and you get yourself, a mic like Dotan's got and those headphones, like Dotan's got you know, you can really be a rock star educator around the world and why not do it? Cause there are a billion people out there that want to learn from you. And so, you know, he said that number and it always. kind of Comes back. And I'm like, I can't believe there are a billion people out there that we can reach and make an impact on. thank you for bringing that number back up. I think it's, I think it's really important.

Jackie Guzda: 23:25

Hey, Josh, you asked why not do it? I've encountered other professors that could answer your question. They did not do it. One professor in our university, couldn't figure out how to do the tech. And so she had the students come in and sit and watch her on a screen in one classroom as she lectured in the classroom next door, because she didn't know how to get her, her skills, her lecture skills onto that screen and deal with the tech at the same time. So what do you have in store for people like that?

Joshua Chernikoff: 24:07

I mean, I I'll just answer the first question, which I think was why not. And, and I'll answer it from, you know, the, the path that I know most, which is being an entrepreneur, and I'll be interested to hear what Dota has to say, but the, the, as an entrepreneur, you've got a million things on your plate and if your business was an in-person business and you think you just have to get back to in-person. Cause that's the only thing you're going to be doing. Then I think it's tough to carve out any time to do online. And then when you try and do online the right way, at least at this point, you know, you've got to figure out how to register the people and then you've got to send them invites and then you got to make sure the technology is right, and then you got to get this and then you got to do that, but there are great, as we know. Platforms out there that, that make sure you don't have to do all that. So I would say one of the biggest challenges of the entrepreneurs that I've talked to in the enrichment space is just finding the time. And when you look at it is I've got to do that and that, and that, and that not yet seems like a lot, but when you find the right platform, it might not be that hard to find an hour a day every week to go online and reach that worldwide audience. I think that's one of the first challenge.

Dotan Tamir: 25:23

I think the one solution to the problem that you bring it up, Jackie is is a community, right? I mean, we learn from a community. We learn from each other and we learn from experts. What the teachers, in some cases or others, and this is what we're doing here. We here to educate the comunity of a lifelong learners, who is invited to this community, those professors, like the one that you just described that have, you know, they're less tech savvy and they need the help and the support, but also those pros and experts that are doing it and know what tools to use and know what the best methods to do. And they're all going to be part of our community where they can learn from each other. And we are going to give this platform for people to meet for people, to discuss. People are invited to get on our shows, live and ask the questions and get answers right away. And this is how this is how it's gonna, it's gonna work, right. It takes time for people to learn and become experts at something new for them. And we'll give them the, the best practices and success stories. We'll show them how to do. it And then meet them on our community, on our Facebook group to be help them one-on-one and show them, you know, give them the right.

Zoom speaker view - August 4, 2021: 26:43

tools

Joshua Chernikoff: 26:44

And one thing I think we can also talk to them about Dotan being honest is we can also tell them the opposite of success stories and we can tell them the opposite of best practice. I mean, we can explain to them the mistakes that we made going online, that other people may going online, you got to fail fast, if you're going to fail, so let's get through it. So I think we can also expose in a good way, you know, what the challenges are and you don't have to. make Some of the mistakes that we made, although they got us here. So, you know, we're grateful for them, but there's also mistakes to be made and, and that will happen.

Jackie Guzda: 27:20

Well, Josh, can you share perhaps one or two of those mistakes because some of the people that are joining our community today, might've made those name mistakes?

Joshua Chernikoff: 27:29

I, there's an interesting one. I don't know if you know, If this is the one Totonno's thinking about, but he knows, I love to tell this story is that back in March, when the epidemic hit, both of us thought that we should bring all of our in his camp, you know, so to speak his camp, he wanted to take camps online and the enrichment world I wanted to take enrichment providers online. And so I thought I'm going to go out there and I'm going to build a platform that does all that. It's it's easy. I can do this, you know, and then in Israel, Dotan is sitting there thinking the same thing and he today has a phenomenal platform, that he's helped build. and that I'm a part of, I'm fortunate for that. in my platform. And so, you know, it was a lesson learned and actually we've taken some pieces and things that we did, when I tried to create this platform and I think we're hopefully gonna use them, you know, to help us as a group, as a community. But I think the lesson learned there was, you know, Don't necessarily go out and try and build the whole platform yourself, you know, leave that to people who have those minds. And so that was a learning experience for me, which was, you know, go online for sure. But you don't have to build the whole dang platform for the world.

Jackie Guzda: 28:43

I wish somebody had told me that at the beginning

Joshua Chernikoff: 28:45

of the pandemic. Right. We're all learning. Yeah. Yeah.

Jackie Guzda: 28:52

So to both of you. Could you paint a picture of what the future of learning might look like? I know that's a broad question, but what possibilities do you see and what benefits, what outcomes?

Dotan Tamir: 29:09

I think the democratizing, the education globally, is, is one of our missions. And I think this is also, an incredible change that we're going to see the fact that. engineer that works for HP in Spain. No, his day job is going to the office and do engineering stuff, but he's passionate about teaching. He loves teaching and he's great at it, but he couldn't ever do it before, because that would mean, you know, we go somewhere, drive somewhere a few times a week for a few hours. Now he can become a teacher and you can work. No, he doesn't have to have his own school because it doesn't have time to do all the marketing and business and enrollment and payment collection and finding the students and all that and all the admin, but he can work for, a school in New York that teaches engineering, you know, to people that want to upscale their game and to get better career. and that school knows how to get the students and do the marketing and the business side, but they can't hire The HP educator or future educator from Spain. So, and then their students also don't have to be from New York, right. They could be from Asia, they could be from Europe, they could be from Africa. so this is now there's not anymore. any, you can be really. and be part of the learning community really, really everywhere. And that's a game changer because that will open up new topics that will open up new opportunities that will open up new business opportunities, for so many people and let people, you know, take that passion for education to the next level.

Jackie Guzda: 30:49

All right. So you almost described my PhD program. It was, no, it was, I thought it was

Joshua Chernikoff: 30:57

Dr.Future man,

Jackie Guzda: 31:00

but I thought it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. My, my school got instructors from all over the world so they could get, the best in philosophy, the best in communications. I was John Waters, teaching assistant. And that was an awesome experience. So we were online all year because people have families, they had full-time jobs. And then we met in a very small town in the Alps for the summer and did our on the ground work there. It was a hybrid situation. Now help me out here. It is not as respected. In academia as a brick and mortar degree from say Columbia or Brooklyn college, wherever. So how can someone like me who has taken the dip into online education and found it very beneficial? How can I create credibility around the program that I engage in?

Dotan Tamir: 32:06

I think, you know, I have a lot of respect to academia. I think, it's always a cycle. There are the early adopters, they are the followers. And, in this case, the early adopters might not be the academia might be the other organizations that, more entrepreneurial that can move fast, that see that as a business opportunity and they'll get credibility if they do a good job, if they'll teach. Well, if they'll have good if they will become well reputated and then the academia will see that and say, well, you know, if that works, we should do that. We should try it again. Now it takes time. we are actually. No, we understand. That's why we call us the lifelong educators show because we understand that education is not just in school system, not just in academia, it's everywhere. So we, first see the opportunity for people to get educated outside of the suit of the school system. And academia is that like the, the, the news, the biggest opportunity that was opened up with that, the world change, that we.

Jackie Guzda: 33:06

Wow. Well, I just got tenure dotage, so I'm doing

Joshua Chernikoff: 33:09

something right. You're doing something right. Yeah, for sure. But you're also, you're here thinking with us about the disruption in the enrichment space and, and, and the professional development space potentially for adults and potentially academia and colleges are also in the cross hairs, you know, in the sense of, you know, as we were in the middle of it, it didn't seem like it was broken and maybe it wasn't broken, but maybe it needs to be broken and put back together in, in a way that in-person is available to those people who can do in person, but online is available for those around the world, or potentially a mile away from a school that might not just be able to get to that school and take an online course. so, you know, I think the community we're going to try and build is, is going to be about. making impact and maybe it'll cross over into lots of different, areas, including academia as we think differently about education. Hmm.

Jackie Guzda: 34:08

Hope so. So how does this all tie into your mission statement? You've talked about it a little bit and you've touched upon different aspects, but if you could go into it a little deeper and tell us how this affects our community.

Dotan Tamir: 34:23

Well, I think the core goal of education is making an impact. Right? I mean, we'll probably all agree on that. so we are. coming from an education background, we, this is what motivates and drives us this change and impact that education creates. And we are here to build the infrastructure, the platform, and to help more and more and more people get into that impact cycle. So, you know, one of our KPI as a company. Is not just a number of customers or a number of classes revenue, that we see as a company. It's also the number of people that have been impacted, the number of people that get educated around the world. And, if you look on our website and that would be an interesting something to, you know, to talk about that also we have a guest planned to speak about the sustainability goals, that clickto relate to. And I'm talking about the UN sustainability goals. and yeah. We, we relate to six of them and it's on our, about us, on the pay on the website. and we look at them almost everyday to, to see that we are aligned with that. I think we could choose to do a lot of different things in our lives, Josh, myself, you, but we chose for some reason to be involved in education. Which is challenging, which, takes time. It's not instant. You don't, you know, it's a progress. but I think the fruits of it are the, the best, if you can achieve, the feeling of accomplishment that you can have when dealing with education is something that you can not get anywhere else.

Joshua Chernikoff: 36:14

What do you have to say about that job? I was thinking about all the things that I've meant to do other than getting into education. But somehow, this, this not very good student from Washington DC got into this and I love it. And I think you can boil it down to really one word and Dalton used it. And I don't think you can overuse it, which is impact. And we really want to make an impact not only on the kids, of course, but I think what we see is also making an impact on our peers. You know, on our, on our fellow entrepreneurs, on our, on our, the PhD years that we get to interact with, you know, so, making education available to everyone, certainly those of the kids, but also thinking about how we can make the ability to educate available to everybody as well. So we're, you know, we're, we're trying to do both sides of the coin here and we're going to be successful and it might take us a while, but we're ready for it. And, we're lucky enough also to have some fantastic people around us, a bunch of them who are going to be on the shows here. So it's going to be a, it's going to be fun and educating.

Jackie Guzda: 37:21

Yeah. Well, you know, I have a question that has to do with this from Pablo in North Carolina. And he says, do you think that in time, academia will invest more in tech capabilities over brick and mortar buildings? And how would that affect here's the big question fundraising for education.

Dotan Tamir: 37:41

Wow. If you ask me if they should, then they should. I mean, academia should invest more in tech capabilities of our buildings. you know, I, I started to, to flow with my imagination after, we discussed. academia. And what does it mean for academia? And I started to think about student exchange programs, right? Where you, if you are a student in some college or university, you might want to take to an exchange program to go somewhere else, meet others, have a different, you know, different, an opportunity to, to explore some other spaces and get a education from somebody else. But with online, Student exchange programs could be something that you are always participating at. You can always take a course from university in south America next semester from university in Israel. We have some great universities here or university somebody somewhere else as part of your degree, as part of your, you know, your, being, being a part of your universe. And that's something, you know, there needs to be an infrastructure for that, and it will be a system. So universities, academia, they have to invest in such opportunities in order to be, leaders, in education to stay the leaders in education. what, how will it affect fundraising for education? I think the, when we look at the numbers and the estimations for, you know, the size of the education economy, we see predictions that it will double up in just three to four years from now. because education. As, such an amazing opportunity, when transitioning to digital, it's still, most of education is still, you know, old fashioned old school. and there's so much more to do. that's why, you know, if we were really, if we really had a time machine to go 10 years, 15 years to the future, you know, I, I, I, I do, but I, I can, you know, I can tell you, but if we had that, then, then I hope that we would probably not even recognize how schools look like how academia look like how students daily life look like. I hope. Yeah. I think there's a lot of space.

Joshua Chernikoff: 39:56

You know the question should, you know, colleges and universities invest in absolutely less buildings. Absolutely. but I wanted to, to kind of touch on what, What Don said here. And I, cause I want to make sure that people understand as we're out there talking about the future of online education that we still believe in in-person education. I thought that was a really cool comment. You know, Don's talking about online exchange programs and we're actually helping a great program in Utah. Do this really well. But as he was talking about that, my mind wandered to the six absolutely glorious months. I spent as a sophomore in Prague, you know, doing my, study abroad program study. Right. And nothing can replace that, but just think about. You know, I, I could have also done online exchange programs, you know, eight week online exchange programs and done something in Sweden, you know, and done something in South Africa, done something in Taiwan. And so now, because we can think differently and have, have seen that this is possible, we can do these things. So, you know, I just wanted to kind of emphasize again, Again, we're not, we're not saying it has to be one or the other. It can, it can absolutely be both when it comes to the future of education.

Dotan Tamir: 41:17

Oh, Jackie, do you want to start the new company? Called evergreen exchange program. I think it's a good idea.

Joshua Chernikoff: 41:28

And I'll run the in-person part first tours. Whoever's on board. Let's go. I got the places to take us when

Jackie Guzda: 41:36

you were talking. My mind was wandering to the professor who is in charge of the international program. Who takes her students all around the world all year long, the pandemic killed her. She couldn't wait. She was chomping at the bit to get out

Joshua Chernikoff: 41:52

of there. Speaking of killing. If I started another business, my wife will kill me. So I'm out on that one. I love the idea. Yeah. For awhile.

Jackie Guzda: 42:00

Yeah. so what, so I think these are all fantastic ideas. Could you please tell me a little bit more about your mission statement and. How this all ties in to your future plans for education, you talked about international students, you talked about, age related learning with adult learners and young children. What else? What else is in the possibilities?

Dotan Tamir: 42:31

Well, I think that, you always want to also monitor and understand what you do, right? And when you have a class in person, sometimes it does. It's just enough to get into the class. Take a look for five minutes and understand if this is working or this is not working, but when you go to digital, it becomes a challenge. But I'll tell you the truth, if it becomes an amazing opportunity as well. because, when you do it online, there's always a computer there as well in the class and the computer can do amazing things that not, they cannot necessarily do in person. They can actually, analyze the engagement. And is it, are the students having fun? Are the students learning? Are the students engaging? Are students giving feedback, getting feedback? we can get into a world where. the admins the professors that the leaders of the educational institution can get immediate data and analytics on what's going on on, and then make decisions fast. And this will create. You know, shorter times for change or their science for improvements. So this is a really interesting space that we at click to also look at, where, you know, what does we call it? Engagement metrics. but yeah. What does it mean? What do we engage with metrics mean? and this is another discussion that we'll have here as part of the show, with some experts from the field and people, and also people that are doing this and big technology corporates that are doing with this question. And, I think this, the solution for this will be groundbreaking for education.

Joshua Chernikoff: 44:12

Groundbreaking

Jackie Guzda: 44:13

because in academia, we spent so much time assessing our work. It's a very work and time intensive. So if you have another way to take that burden off of our shoulders, many, many professors around the world would welcome that. But let me switch over and talk a little bit about large corporations where the money comes from big business. Do you think that with all of the changes now that we're talking about, that they will want to take a bigger role in education and is that kind of a threat to the educators that corporations would come

Joshua Chernikoff: 44:55

in? No Dotan and I, I believe we don't see it as a threat. We would see it as an opportunity, you know, an opportunity to work with this bigger companies that certainly have deep pockets, of course, and then have deep thinkers who, you know, given the right lens can see how far and, their dollars can go. And some of their thinkers can help us as well. So I don't think we necessarily see it as a threat. I, I certainly see it as an endless opportunities to partner up and, and democratize education and making them.

Dotan Tamir: 45:31

I think that, you know, education, we can look at education as a product as well. You know, obviously it's a very different productivity, different kind of service, but education is a product, that has costs and had value and, and bottom line. And, you know, when there's a good product out right. Well, how do we know it's a good product that people come back and return and repurchase and refer others to, to buy it? Right? So if corporates, if big money is going to be in education, they have to deliver a really good product. And if it will be a good product, then I don't mind who, you know, who's really behind it because at the end of the day, If I enjoy my education program, if I get good results out of it, if it's what I was aiming for, then I get a good product and, and there's going to be a competition. Competition is, is awesome. It's great. It's perfect. I think that needs to be more and more and more competition, in education. and especially. Now, and there is a, you know, I'll take it to somewhere else, take it to a different angle. we speak with enrichment providers, we speak with, training. Companies, for adults and that are brick and mortar and they are looking at what's going on on Google. When you search, I want to learn coding. I want to learn engineering. I want to learn art, and now they are people get all those offerings of, do it online, do it online with me, do it online here. They don't land. There. There's a lot of competition online, so they have to around pump TIG. And get into the field and be there as well, which will do good for everyone. It's challenging. It's kind of a threat, for the beginning, but we are here to help. We are here to take it from being a threat to take it, to being an opportunity.

Jackie Guzda: 47:34

So all's, well, that ends well, is what you're saying

Joshua Chernikoff: 47:39

all is. Well, that ends well. And, and one last point back to that one, bill. You know, for those enrichment providers in those, those companies that we're talking about in the, in the adult space, just think about getting 1% of 1 billion, you know, of the learners out there, and you've got yourself, an impactful and probably really cool business that you can do online. So let's do this,

Jackie Guzda: 48:06

let's do this. If you had one thing to say, we've been speaking now for about an hour. So if you had one message to deliver to our growing community out there, what would it be?

Joshua Chernikoff: 48:25

So, in, in, in, when the Washington nationals won the world series, their manager, the slogan was go one and O. And for the enrichment providers and the professional development courses, you know, the CEOs out there who were thinking about going online, you can go on and oh today by joining this community because we're going to be on this journey together. It's a, it's a small step. We've just taken it in the last, you know, 55 minutes together. But you can go on a note today, join the community. And again, I guess I'll go back to that. Let's do this again. Great.

Dotan Tamir: 49:03

I refer to your question about the threat. I think don't worry about on education. Look at it as a threat and look at it as, an obstacle on, on your way forward. Look at it as an opportunity. We are here to help. We're here to take your hand by hand, we here to get you to in front of the world. so this is an opportunity, take it all the way.

Joshua Chernikoff: 49:30

Wow.

Jackie Guzda: 49:31

I love the idea of future possibilities. All four of them. All for the good for everyone. So Josh and I can't thank you enough for sharing what you shared with us this morning and, those of you out there on our Facebook group, would you please, you know, join it and, sign off from Facebook. And we hope to be seeing you again and hearing from you again, future Wednesdays at 1130 in the morning, we will not be airing the next two Wednesdays, but we will let you know when we're up again with these exciting guests that Josh and are bringing here. And I want to say, gentlemen, good luck at the seminar in San Diego and do

Joshua Chernikoff: 50:18

us. We will.

Jackie Guzda: 50:21

Okay, thanks again. Bye everybody. Thank you.