How Immersive Tech Transforms Learning - Rob Theriault

In today’s episode, I chat with Rob Theriault, President Canadian Chapter of Immersive Learning Research Network, author, innovator, researcher, and speaker. Rob is also the Immersive Technology Manager at Georgian College. 

Located just outside of Toronto, Ontario, Georgian College is a world leader in XR exploration and integration, with pilot initiatives running across multiple disciplines.  Rob spent the first 35 years’ of his career as a paramedic, and he has over 20 years’ of teaching experience within the profession. Rob was also one of our 60 speakers at the Global HR Summit bringing a breadth of experiences at the intersection of paramedicine and immersive technology. 

We spent our time together discussing Rob’s path to his latest role at Georgian. Tasked with exploring, adopting and integrating immersive technology into existing curriculum, Rob is helping Georgian bridge the gap. We talk about the future of technology in learning, how teaching roles in post-secondary institutions are evolving, alongside his broader predictions for the future. 

It was such a pleasure reconnecting with Rob. And I hope you enjoy it.


Rob Theriault

Rob Theriault is the Immersive Technology Manager for Georgian College. Prior to taking this position, Rob was a 35 year veteran paramedic and former Critical Care Flight Paramedic. Rob also taught paramedics for over 20 years. After introducing virtual reality into the paramedic program at Georgian and helping to create a VR hub in the library, Rob was asked to lead the exploration and integration of VR for Georgian’s eight campuses.

In just over two years, with over 300 VR headsets, Georgian has launched approximately sixteen virtual reality pilots for Indigenous language learning, Veterinary Technician, Biotech, Paramedic, Nursing, Power Engineering, Events Management, Trades and others. Georgian is now regarded as one of the world leaders in the exploration and integration of virtual reality as a learning medium.

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Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Guest 1: It was a good investment because we do mock uh, disasters, but it takes months to prepare. Uh, we have to put makeup on, volunteer patients, and we have to, uh, organize the space on the campus. We have to contact, uh, fire, [00:00:20] police and paramedic dispatch centers to let them know we're doing a mass casualty incident.

Uh, so I did that and, um, it started to garner some attention from other faculty.[00:00:40] 

[00:00:42] Matt: Constraint, constraints, drive innovation. Hey everyone, it's Matt here for another episode of Thinking Inside the Box, a show where we discuss complex issues related to work. And culture. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us@bentohr.com and wherever you find your favorite [00:01:00] podcasts.

By searching, thinking inside the box. And if you enjoy the work we're doing here, consider leaving us a five star rating, a comment and subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Rob Terrio, president of the Canadian Chapter of [00:01:20] Immersive Learning Research Network.

Author, innovator, researcher, and speaker. Rob is also the immersive technology manager at Georgian College, located just outside of Toronto, Ontario. Georgian College is a world leader in XR exploration and integration with pilot initiatives running across multiple disciplines. [00:01:40] Rob spent the first 35 years of his career as a paramedic and has over 20 years of teaching experience within that profession.

He was also one of our 60 speakers at the Global HR Summit, bringing a breadth of experience at the intersection of paramedicine and immersive technology. In today's episode, we spent our [00:02:00] time together discussing Rob's path to his latest role. In that role, he's tasked with exploring, adopting, and integrating immersive technology into existing cu.

And in doing so, he's helping bridge the gap. We talk about the future of technology and learning how teaching roles in post-secondary [00:02:20] institutions of the future are changing alongside Rob's broader predictions for the future. It was a real pleasure reconnecting with Rob and I hope you enjoy it. And now I bring you Rob Terrio.

Rob, I am looking forward to this conversation. It's been almost, what, two years since 

[00:02:37] Guest 1: the Global HR Summit? It's been a while. Yeah. I'm looking [00:02:40] forward to this 

[00:02:40] Matt: too. Yeah. I remember we first got involved in our planning stages for the conference. You were introduced to me specifically from one of our conference contributors and specifically around.

A really cool use case for virtual reality that I was drawn to. Before we get into that bit of a, like a teaser for the audience, before we get [00:03:00] into that, let's talk a bit about your background, your experiences, Rob, and what led you to this point today. Sure. 

[00:03:07] Guest 1: I actually come from, um, an allied health background.

I was a paramedic for 35 years and taught paramedics for 20 years. I've always had a, a serious interest in educational technology. Because of the [00:03:20] novelty of it. But I, I've always been looking for ways to help my students learn and, um, in interesting and more compelling and interactive and engaging ways.

So, a long, long time ago, uh, for example, I started, um, screen casting and teaching synchronously online. Um, in fact, I [00:03:40] started, um, exploring synchronous online learning in 1999, long before many educators even knew what it was because I. I had some online learning experiences and I felt it's a very, um, isolated experience when you're learning asynchronously.

And I really felt that there needed to be a connection between teacher and student. And [00:04:00] in 2005, I started synchronous online learning much more seriously and tried to make a case to our, my college, for example, to, to invest in, um, synchronize online learning. And, uh, I was unsuccessful in that. But, um, my dean.

Was able to support me in, in getting an, uh, [00:04:20] synchronous online learning platform for a few, a few of us who were interested in doing that. And then 2020 comes along and we have a pandemic. And suddenly every single teacher at every college and university is teaching synchronously online. That's just an example.

Um, uh, I started podcasting in 2005 and interestingly enough of all the [00:04:40] educational technologies I've. Dabbled in The one technology my students loved more than anything was podcasting because they could listen to the lesson after the class and redo their notes. And oftentimes students came to me and said, You know, I really thought I understood this concept in the class, but then when I listened to the podcast, uh, I learned it was something [00:05:00] completely different from what I perceived.

And to me, that that was very powerful. So I, I've always had an in, in educational technology and its potential, um, at a, as a pedagogical tool. And, um, when I did my Master's in Educational Technology at the University of British Columbia, I wrote some papers on virtual and [00:05:20] augmented reality. Thought that was particularly interesting and um, in, what was it now, in 2017, I think it was, I attended a paramedic educator conference and I got to experience a patient simulation of virtual reality.

And when I went by the [00:05:40] exhibit booth, someone had a headset on and I was seeing what he was seeing on a big screen, and quite frankly, looking at the big screen, it, it didn't impress me at all. Just looked like an animated patient sitting on a bed. Um, you know, who's sick? And I thought, Yeah, all right, this is okay.

Then I put the headset on. The experience I [00:06:00] had was similar to that of a lot of people who try virtual reality for the first time. It was a wow experience. I was there in the room with this patient. I could hear him struggling to breathe. I could see that his skin was, um, Ashe and his lips were blue from lack of oxygen.

And I could hear, I'm struggling to breathe. And [00:06:20] when he spoke to me, he was only able to speak four or five words between taking breaths and I could take a stethoscope and listen to his chest and. Uh, identify abnormal lung sounds and I could take vital signs and initiate treatments. I could walk over to, to his night table and pick up his medications to see what he was taking and [00:06:40] be able to identify his medical history based on those medications.

And at the end of that experience, I think I must have said, Wow, a thousand times during that experience. And it was all of maybe 15 minutes, but at the end of the experience, two things really struck me. One, I got the same twinge of [00:07:00] adrenaline that I would get as a paramedic when I see someone who's really, really sick, who needs to be assessed and treated quickly.

And the second thing that struck me was the context that I was in his apartment, seeing him sitting on his bed, struggling to breathe. Not at all dissimilar from what I would encounter as a [00:07:20] paramedic on a call. And to me that context for learning is so important. So when I think about my first year paramedic students, for example, we talk about cases and how patients might present clinically, but they really have no.

Visual context for how someone looks when they're sick and how their, how their chest hes, [00:07:40] and, and how their skin color changes and, and how that starts to improve with treatments. And so it was a, it felt like an almost real experience and, and to me, uh, I started thinking, Experiential learning, and that's really what we want for our students.

No matter what the subject matter, [00:08:00] we want them to have experiences because people learn from experiences. They don't, they don't learn as easily from reading texts or listening to audio or, you know, looking at PowerPoint slides on the screen. They, they learn from experience, from seeing, from touching, from doing, from hearing.

All, you know, using as many, uh, sensory [00:08:20] senses as as possible. So when I got home, I, uh, I was determined to to, to try VR on my own. And, uh, I wasn't able to find anyone who had a VR headset or a computer, cuz that's really, you know, the world of. People in their teens and twenties, at [00:08:40] least at that stage. And that wasn't that long.

It was only 2017. So, uh, I went out and I bought my own computer, my own gaming computer, my own headset. And, uh, I started to play with it in my basement. And in fact, um, one of the first experiences I had with my own headset, I, I connected with, um, company called CX with um, Dr. [00:09:00] Tyler Andre, who's an emergency room physician from la and he has, uh, this product cx, which is patient simulation.

And I wanted to see what was, what it was all about. So he and I met in virtual reality and did three or four medical simulations together, me and my basement in Barry Ontario, him in la, and [00:09:20] uh, uh, it was great. Uh, one of the scenarios. Sticks in my mind was, um, a scenario where, uh, some soldiers were up in a mountain and one of the soldiers was having difficulty breathing.

And the challenge in the scenario was not so much diagnosing, um, his medical condition, [00:09:40] uh, but it was, it was telling his commanding officer, sorry, as me playing the role as a field medic, Uh, as a military medic telling the commanding officer that this soldier could not continue the mission, which meant aborting the entire mission altogether.

So it was, it was a bit of soft skill and it was a bit of medical skill. [00:10:00] Uh, but it was also kind of fun for me because he, uh, he had, uh, high altitude pulmonary edema, which is something that happens when you, when you ascend a doubt to l too quickly. And this is an area of my expertise because I was a critical care flight paramedic for 10 years.

Uh, worked on the Hear amels helicopter out of Toronto, so that was fun and. So, [00:10:20] uh, I applied for and received some funding to purchase some software and some hardware for my paramedic lab. And, um, you know, I started to think about what kind of virtual reality experience would have the best return on investment.

And one of the things we do with our paramedic students is we train them in. Mass casually triage, you know, [00:10:40] a large car crash or a plane crash or a train crash where, where you, you spend a very limited amount of time, maybe 30 seconds with each person at the site. Um, do a very rapid assessment, uh, correct any life threatening bleed or airway issue immediately on the spot, and then move on to the next person and [00:11:00] determine.

You know, level of, um, criticality they're, they're at and who needs to be transported immediately, who can wait and who is, um, you know, in cardiac arrest and is, is gonna remain on the scene. And, um, so I found, um, a software application and I purchased the equipment and we installed it in our paramedic lab and we [00:11:20] rotated students through this mass casualty triage.

It was a good investment because we, we do mock uh, disasters, but it takes months to prepare. Uh, we have to put makeup on, volunteer patients, and we have to, uh, organize the space on the campus. We have to contact, uh, fire, police and paramedic [00:11:40] dispatch centers to let them know we're doing a mass casualty incident and it's a mock incident.

And so if they get 9 1 1 calls for multiple bodies lying on the lawn of the , the college campus, you know that. Probably part of our mock disaster and not, you know, real situation going down. Cause you know, how do people call 9 1 1? They see [00:12:00] someone lying on the grass and they don't stop, they don't talk, they don't ask questions, they just call 9 1 1.

Uh, so I did that and um, it's started to garner some attention from other faculty and I started, uh, Talking with other faculty, faculty about things like virtual reality, anatomy and other programs. And, uh, occasionally [00:12:20] I would step outta my office if I saw a nursing faculty and say, Hey, do you wanna try this virtual reality anatomy program?

That's very cool. And they put the headset on and they go, Oh, Mike, Wow, this is incredible. And I put together a little, uh, group of volunteers to, um, help me prepare a proposal to, to build a VR lab in our library because I [00:12:40] thought it was important to have, um, virtual reality and high traffic area to give faculty and students the opportunity to experience virtual reality firsthand.

And, uh, and then I hosted an event. Uh, virtual reality event in our paramedic lab, we showcased, uh, virtual reality anatomy, mass [00:13:00] casualty triage, mass casualty, instant triage, rather, a couple of other things. I invited a company and then they showed augmented reality and, uh, use of AR for, for, um, ultrasound training.

And it was a big success. We had, oh, well for us anyway, we had about 200 people who cycled through and we had some physicians and nurses from [00:13:20] surrounding hospitals and the president of the college and the vice president of the academic got wind of it. And they called me up and they invited me to meet with them for an hour to, to get my sense of who, to ask me where I thought virtual reality was going and education VR in particular.

And, uh, so I met with. And [00:13:40] a colleges and universities, um, new technology doesn't typically get funding or human resources attached to it until it reaches a threshold level of interest. You know, like when I started teaching synchronously online, I tried to get the college to invest some money in that my dean did, but the college wasn't [00:14:00] interested in doing that.

It wasn't big enough at the time, but you know, then as I said, you come to a pandemic and suddenly you need it and there's no choice. But, um, anyway, so I went into this meeting thinking I'll, you know, I'll, I'll give my talk. I'll, I'll try, I'll make the pitch, but ultimately I'm gonna go back to [00:14:20] my paramedic lab and do what I do at my paramedic lab.

Uh, so we had a really good conversation and, uh, a meeting, sorry, a week after that meeting. Uh, Called me up and said, We'd like to post a position for this and we'd like you to help us create that position the description for it, and we'd like you to apply for it. So [00:14:40] I did and I applied and I got it. It was a temporary position, initially supposed to be two years, and uh, year and a half later I said, You know, I'm growing.

I need staff. They posted a full time. Position as opposed to a, a secondment. And I applied for and got that. So now I'm the immersive technology [00:15:00] manager from the college, and my role is to help faculty and programs explore, uh, virtual reality and integrated into curriculum where, where appropriate. So that's, uh, long introduction, but essentially that's, that's what I've been doing now for the past two and a half years.

And it's a lot. 

[00:15:17] Matt: Yeah. And as you pointed out, the [00:15:20] conditions were perfect to allow for this exploration and proliferation of the technology. So, and I wanna be sensitive because you said a lot that we can go into a couple of those areas. So let's maybe start with the audience of, of learners that you are working with.

So for those who aren't familiar with the day to day life, Of a first [00:15:40] responder. Maybe spend a couple of minutes talking a bit about why, like what kind of things they can expect during the course of a shift and why in particular with this cohort of people is simulation particularly valuable? 

[00:15:56] Guest 1: Right. We do a lot of simulation in, uh, [00:16:00] paramedic education, uh, and it's.

99.9% of it happens in the lab setting where we're using mannequins and um, we're either using high fidelity mannequins where you can, you know, feel the wrist and actually feel a pulse or, and take a blood pressure on it. Or we're using medium fidelity mannequins where. Where you go through [00:16:20] the motions of checking up pulse, checking up blood pressure.

But a teacher gives you the fe feedback that, you know, the blood pressure is this and the heart rate is this, and the respiratory rate is that. And, um, the student goes through the motion of hooking up the monitor and all those things. Um, simulation is really critical for paramedics because, uh, one, they're dealing with life and.[00:16:40] 

Death situations they're dealing with calls that range from, you know, looking after someone who is sick in a nursing home to crawling on their belly under an overturned truck on the highway to, um, resuscitating someone in a, in a ditch down a ravine in subzero [00:17:00] temperatures. With the wind blowing against their face while they're trying to get the patient sort of packaged and out of the ditch and into the back of the ambulance where they can start venous lines and start resuscitation.

So, wide range, um, you know, from literally. Helping moms give birth at the scene to, you know, [00:17:20] running cardiac arrest scenarios and, and, uh, reviving people whose hearts have stopped. And it's difficult in a lab to, I mean, you can run all those kinds of scenarios, but the student really has to use their imagination.

And when you're, when you're looking at a mannequin on the floor and you say, [00:17:40] you know, This guy is a 22 year old and he's in a bar and he's been stabbed , you know, But yet the lab is just a plain old lab, and the mannequins looks the same day in day out, and the stab wound just looks like a pen mark on the belly.

The student really has to visualize. And [00:18:00] visualization is so critically important in paramedicine, in policing and firefighting for, you know, you have to go through scenarios in your mind constantly. We try to convey that to the students, but virtual reality gives you actual context. You can actually, you see the space you.

You are on the side of the highway and traffic is rushing by you while you're trying to look after this [00:18:20] person who's critically injured or you're in the bar with the music still pounding, trying to look after this guy who's been stabbed. And you can see the stab wound and you can see the blood and you can see his distress.

And um, you may not have the. Same tactile experience in virtual reality. Um, but you've [00:18:40] got the visual and you've got the auditory. And eventually we'll get the tactile with haptics. But, um, the same principles apply for any kind of simulation, whether it's nursing simulations in the hospital setting, firefighter simulations in a fire setting, police situations in a deescalation scenario, or.

You know, someone working in a [00:19:00] boiler room regulating temperature gauges and, uh, flows of valves and so on, so forth. So, so it's, you know, VR allows for experiential learning in a way that up until now has only been possible in the real world.[00:19:20] 

[00:19:20] Matt: Hey everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's discuss. Before we continue, I want to make you aware of my latest creative project this week at work. Presented in partnership with my good friend Chris Rainey of HR leaders. Each Friday will live stream on LinkedIn at 7:00 AM Pacific Standard Time.

That's [00:19:40] 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time and 3:00 PM GMT for our European viewers. And together bringing the latest trends, news on topics emanating from organizations, everything from culture to technology, and the future of work joining is easy. Just follow me on LinkedIn. Click the bell at the top right hand side of my [00:20:00] profile and you'll get notified when we go live each.

Whether you do experience the content live or later, if you've been following me for a while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun banter Chris and I have developed over the years and whether it's been podcasts or digital events. We're so excited to again, bring you the topics affecting today's workplaces and their [00:20:20] leaders.

And now back to our discussion.

So Rob, it's clear that the paramedic profession is dealing with a lot of a breadth. And a complexity of issues where there's very real stakes. You're talking about life and death. You're talking about very challenging circumstances, different environments, [00:20:40] different conditions, different variables. It's a lot.

You mentioned earlier though, that it was important that these individuals in these roles are visualizing. Why is it important for these individuals to be visuali visualizing in their particular function? 

[00:20:55] Guest 1: It's, it's really about context. It's, it's understanding what [00:21:00] the environment looks like, how the environment affects the call itself.

So for example, you know, if you're in a, in a ditch in subzero temperatures, You're not gonna spend a lot of time there. You wanna get that person out of that environment safely, quickly, and into the back of Daniels where it's warm and where, where [00:21:20] it's well lit, where you can look at them and be able to initiate transport, initiate treatments.

So that context is really important. Of the alternative, which is what, uh, most schools are doing right now, is in the lab. They tell you, you know, while you're doing that scenario, Oh, by the way, it's really, really cold and the wind is blowing, and you know, [00:21:40] the student is sort of focus focusing on doing vital signs and not thinking it's really, really cold, and it's really, really windy.

They're, they're just, you know, seeing what they're seeing and not. Absorbing the, the context, but VR provides that context. The other thing I was gonna add is with simulations, one of the, uh, big advantages of virtual reality is most [00:22:00] simulations come with analytics. So it gives a report to the student and the faculty member at the end of it about everything that was done in that simulation.

So what was done and what sequence did they give the right drug in the right dose at the right time, to the right person, et cetera. So, There's, uh, a lot of value in that. The other thing I'll [00:22:20] add you, you know, before I talk about other areas where we're using virtual reality of the college is in the future.

Well, right now this technology exists, but it's, it's gonna become more pervasive in the future. We're seeing more and more use of biometrics in virtual reality. So tracking, um, eye gaze. Pupil geometry, pulses, [00:22:40] facial grimaces, galvanic skin centers. So we'll actually be able to gauge a couple of things, quantify a couple of things.

One cognitive load. At which point does the student sort of stop learning, and do we need to, you know, modify the lesson in such a way that they're not overwhelmed? Number two, we'll be able to quantify stress levels. [00:23:00] And that to me is really exciting because we'll be able to provide training for, say, police, fire and paramedics, nursing, et cetera, in a way that's, that, um, starts with low acuity cases and builds from there.

And so we can, we can actually build, or we will be able to build [00:23:20] stress resilience into their experience. We can never fully prepare a police student or a paramedic student for what they're gonna see in the field. But we can, we can do it in a quantitative way, uh, with, uh, biometrics in virtual reality, uh, in a way that we've never been able to do before.

So that's pretty exciting. Well, it speaks 

[00:23:39] Matt: [00:23:40] to the. Inherent advantages with a lived experience. And I think what virtual reality is providing us is an opportunity to redefine what a lived experience is. Traditionally lived experience is, to your point, if you need to simulate attending to somebody in cardiac distress in minus 40 in a ditch somewhere in the [00:24:00] Midwest of the United States, you have to be in that spot and it won't be too long before you can get.

Nearly identical experience, but in the relative comfort of your own, um, living room, as you mentioned earlier, auditorily and visually today. And there are, I, I, you know, mentioning to you offline that I talked to a gentleman earlier today in the next hour [00:24:20] context. Mm-hmm. , who has triangulated biometrics, um, and they do now deploy it with, in addition to headsets to look at cognitive load in particular.

I think it's really important that I think that people like yourself and myself, Are reflecting on and thinking about [00:24:40] learning outside of our own individual experiences a lot. Mm-hmm. and I think we all would accept as truth that if you're in a state of stress, It's harder to certainly learn, but absolutely perform.

And given the aforementioned stakes and given the aforementioned conditions, you [00:25:00] clearly want professionals to be able to undertake their professional responsibilities in the, in the most effective way possible, given the less than ideal conditions because they're, they're not training on how to do fake simulations on mannequin.

They're ultimately training on how to, to care for human beings of all, you know, shapes and sizes [00:25:20] and, and different conditions. So I think that's an important point to make, is that you're bringing them a, a one step closer to that reality, which will ultimately improve their performance and have only positive effects for themselves and their patients.

It's 

[00:25:32] Guest 1: really about delivering the right level of stress, uh, because with the right level of stress, people do learn and they learn more [00:25:40] effectively than. Then in a no stress situation, but you're right, once you exceed a certain threshold, the learning stops. And so, you know, the beautiful thing is, as I said, is you can quantify that stress level and, and, um, tailor to individual students and scaffold their learning in such a way that builds stress resilience.

[00:26:00] So that's, um, Incredibly exciting. I, you know, in my mind that's probably five years away and we'll probably do some, some research around that. 

[00:26:08] Matt: Well, I think, and I think the inverse of that, or maybe not the inverse, Rob, but I think a complimentary application that ties into that is I think about the undoing.

Of situations as well. So as you [00:26:20] mentioned, there is a reality and I grew up in a household with a first responder, so I perhaps have a bit more visibility to that than the average citizen. I've also have many friends who are in the healthcare profession and are interacting on a daily basis with these situations.

They're not always easy. Mm. And it's very easy to forget that in traumatic situations that [00:26:40] involve victims and involve other people, that there are first responders is as the interface between that situation and our experience. When we see things on the news, it's very rare we hear the account from a paramedic who's on site of a mass shooting.

For example, that is a very challenging situation for anybody to be involved with. In particular, having that level of [00:27:00] access and exposure to those situations. I think about the same thing for my friends and family who are in the armed forces, who are often put in situations where they are seen and exposed to situations that are not the experience, the majority of us, thankfully, And there's an element of post-traumatic stress, uh, [00:27:20] reintegration, um, and higher degrees.

Abnormalities from a, from a psychological perspective, that, that pop up when we are exposed to a, a, an ongoing consistent form of trauma and of challenging situations. Yeah, I get really excited about the, the power of virtual reality and, and helping [00:27:40] provide some remedy, some help for individuals who, who by only in undertaking their jobs, Were exposed to things that nobody really should be 

[00:27:49] Guest 1: exposed to.

Right? Yeah. I've, um, you know, the, the area of virtual reality for therapy is massive, and the research going on in that area is [00:28:00] huge, and I've very intentionally stayed away from it because my focus is on VR as a learning platform. But you're right, it's, uh, it's being used for treatment of ptsd. For sort of gentle re-exposure of those similar situations for soldiers and paramedics and so on.

So yeah, it's another interesting area that fascinates me, but when people [00:28:20] ask me about it as an educator, I usually steer away from it. Yep. Notes therapy. I'm on the education side, you know. Well, and the 

[00:28:26] Matt: wonder of the technology is that, as you mentioned, there's so many different use cases. So as, as an active observer as I am, I'm not deeply steeped in it as you are in that particular function of, of xr.

As an avid observer, I get excited about the [00:28:40] applications of the technology to solve bigger societal problems. Mm-hmm. and education. Is a significant societal challenge in terms of, uh, where we find ourselves today. So if you'll bear with me, Rob, let me give you kind of a bit of a background story, kind of where I'm coming from so we can pivot this conversation into, I think a really cool [00:29:00] discussion around education.

I, I am blessed with having had an experience through high school. Was non-traditional from an educational perspective. I was in a group of 25 kids that were hand selected from around my hometown and put into curriculum that while it was in parallel with traditional high [00:29:20] school curriculum, also included additional learning opportunities, both experiential and it just exposure to different ways of thinking.

Because of the nature of this program and the, the intention of the program was to. Global citizens of sorts, um, and was, um, embedded into programming in such a way where things like [00:29:40] philosophy, social justice, were included alongside mathematics and social studies and history and things of that nature.

So we ended up just basically taking less electives and doing more academic studies, and we had, uh, the opportunity for shared experiences with a cohort of students that was largely the same for five straight years. From that, [00:30:00] I went right into the workforce. Situations in my family such that I went to the workforce and didn't go in, uh, went to post-secondary education and got education as a consequence of my experience after having acquired professional experiences in leadership and things of that nature.

Um, which gave me a different perspective on technology. Now, it was my [00:30:20] money that I was out of pocket to spend, and I was doing so to help me advance throughout my career or to areas that I was passionate about or curious about that I wanted to really invest my time and energy. And at the same time, I found that my experiences in an educational context were [00:30:40] still largely based.

The value that I derived was largely based on the relationships that I built with the people in my programs. So when I ultimately chose to undertake it a graduate degree, I did an executive mba knowing that it wasn't gonna be as academically rigorous, perhaps as other master's programs, but that because it was an international program that would take me to South Paul, Mexico [00:31:00] City, Nashville, and Vancouver.

As residencies and that broad exposure of the Americas and the experiential learning that came alongside that, that for me was the currency of the program, less than the adaptation of, um, undergraduate content to graduate program content. Like for example, Rob, when I [00:31:20] went through the HR module in my MBA program, I, I almost cried with just like the, the irrelevancy of the content to what was actually happening in the real world.

And I can imagine that would've been the same across the other modules of that program. But the learning from spending two years with 50 people and traveling the world together. [00:31:40] Is invaluable to me, and it's fundamentally changed the way I look at the world and fundamentally changed my trajectory in the world and what I saw value in, and then ultimately was the catalyst for a personal transformation that's gone on for almost four years.

So I derived significant amounts of value from the program, but it wasn't academic value. Why I get excited about virtual [00:32:00] reality is I love to. I'm exceptionally curious, but the methods of instruction, traditionally education have not been learner-centric. Mm-hmm. , virtual reality to me feels more learner-centric.

And I'm curious from an educator's point of view, how you view the technology interfacing with the profession that you spent most of 

[00:32:19] Guest 1: your life at. I [00:32:20] see. It is exactly that, that it, it is learner-centric. That it's, it's what is learner-centric? What is, um, you know, student centered education. It's really about, Having the students discuss debate, experience, explore, problem, solve, [00:32:40] um, it's not me standing at the front of the class giving a lecture that's, you know, the easiest way to anesthetize your class.

Is to stand up and give a talk and show some PowerPoint slides and have not have the students engage. You know, students are funny. They, they, they like that though. They like a passive [00:33:00] experience. They wanna sit in the class and just sit there and take notes and listen to you drawn on. They really don't like doing group work, but when you force them to do group work, um, and have them talking and debating and doing those sorts of things, it is a more powerful learning experience for them.

It is somewhat experiential and it is learner centered and [00:33:20] VR takes. Students to that next level. It adds, you know, an element of experience that they do on their own, that they, they learn on their own through exploration and through curiosity and through feedback where that's contextual to their chosen profession.[00:33:40] 

It's, it's one thing to give a lecture about crime scene preservation or crime scene investigation. It's another thing entirely to take all your students to an actual crime scene, which would be quite inappropriate in the real world. But a virtual reality, you can do it, You can replicate an actual crime scene and, uh, take them through it and tell 'em, [00:34:00] you know, where to step, where not to.

What to touch, what not to touch, how to ca, you know, catalog evidence and so on, so forth. And so the things you can do in virtual reality that have been impossible in the past are just really fascinating and, and compelling Recently. Uh, myself and a [00:34:20] group of my colleagues have been, um, and I've got, I've got colleagues who, who are not paid to work with me, but they're so curious and interested in the potential of virtual reality and those sorts of things that they, they're doing some work with me and.

One of the projects we're working on is creating digital twins. So using, you [00:34:40] know, high end cameras like the Matterport camera, uh, Insta 360, and other cameras and so on and so forth. And, you know, with that we can, we can do things like, uh, replicate a crime scene or, uh, we can do photogrammetry or, uh, lidar scanning of a car crash.[00:35:00] 

and a paramedic at a car crash scene is usually focused on assessing and extricating the patient and typically doesn't have a lot of time to think about the speed at which the vehicles were traveling, the angles at which they were hit. And you know, usually at a car crash, I go to the police officer before I get in the ambulance and leave and say, [00:35:20] I just want to confirm with you that the patient we've got.

The driver of the car. And do you know if they were seat belted? They told me they were seat belted. But what did you find when you arrived here and do you know at what speed roughly they were traveling at and and who hit who and from what angle? So I just, it's just sort of confirmation. I do a quick visual scan of it and I [00:35:40] confirm.

But what you can do with, when you create a digital twin of a cart crash, you can take your students into virtual reality and you can take your time walking around. Let's say two cars and walk through them, which I have done. And, and you can look at the kind of damage that was done to the vehicle. And by [00:36:00] examining it slowly, you know, the luxury of time, you can, you can start to form, um, a picture in your mind of the, the kinetics of the trauma so that you know, uh, based on the damage, how fast the cars were, were probably traveling.

And you know, some of the critical things in the car crash, for example, are [00:36:20] the intrusion of the compartment. So oftentimes cars are designed to, for example, attenuate energy. So when you're in a head on crash or a sort of kitty corner crash, the front of the vehicle completely crumbles. It's designed that way.

But you'll notice oftentimes the passenger compartment is completely intact. [00:36:40] And so, uh, you know, so that the impact isn't just. Absolutely sudden that collapse. So the, the front absorbs some of the energy and helps protect the occupants. But when you look at a car and you can see that the side door, for example, is intruded into the par, um, compartment by, let's say six inches, you know that.[00:37:00] 

Even, even though the patient might look okay and might not have any visible external trauma, they probably got some serious internal injuries based on the intrusion. So you're able to go into virtual reality and examine that car in, in a, in a slow and detailed way. Such a way that, that I, I personally believe, [00:37:20] Once you get out into the field, uh, you'll be able to look and at a glance you'll know, okay, serious damage to the car.

Patient looks okay, but I know they might have internal injuries, so we're not gonna mess around. So even though their pulse is fine, the blood pressure's fine at the moment, I'm gonna assume they have internal injuries. We're gonna get them out quickly. We're gonna get them in the hospital quickly. We're gonna get them [00:37:40] directly to a trauma center instead of the local hospital.

And that's all based on. The kinetics of trauma that you can see in virtual reality that they would otherwise never have that opportunity to do, cuz it'd be completely inappropriate to take my students on a field trip to a car crash the police, fire paramedics, they don't want me and my students [00:38:00] at the, at the crash scene, so, Uh, yeah.

Context, spatial experiences, hands on experiences. Uh, it's, it's opening new doors to some incredible opportunities and education that are doing things I can't even conceive of right now. But, um, it's gonna completely change, I think the [00:38:20] way, the way students learn in the next 20 to 50 years. 

[00:38:23] Matt: How's it gonna affect the role of instructors, of educators, of 

[00:38:27] Guest 1: teachers?

Yeah, great question. Uh, hopefully it'll make us better teachers because, you know, when I walk around to college and I've taught to a couple of college, when I walk around, a lot of the colleges, what I see is a lot of teachers lecturing. [00:38:40] And occasionally I'll see a teacher who's walking around and sitting at tables with students and engaging in discussion, which is great.

Don't get me wrong, um, you know, lecture's. Okay. But, um, uh, you want learning to be student, uh, centric. And I think what virtual reality is gonna bring is to some extent, it's [00:39:00] gonna supplement the theory portion of, of the learning. So for example, if I've got a theory class, I could put four students into VR headsets and I can be in there with them, sort of moderating the scenario while other students are looking at what's happening on the big screen.

And so I've got a group of students who are getting some [00:39:20] experiential learning, and I'm there as the mentor, not the lecturer, not the sage on the stage, but the, the mentor, the rumble strip. The guy on the side. The gal on the side who's, who's, uh, just uh, helping out here and there. But the student is actually, you know, Student centered learning, they're learning on their own through experience.[00:39:40] 

And so I see it vr, slowly weaving its way into theory classes, slowly supplementing the, the lab experience, whether it's the trades and welding, or whether it's nursing or you know, whether it's, um, you know, fine arts where you're learning your techniques on a virtual reality canvas. And that [00:40:00] translates to consumption of fewer art supplies when.

Actually painting on canvas. So, uh, I see the teacher still as a mentor and which is really what the role of the teacher should be. It should be someone on the side who's, um, you know, for example, you know, when I go into, uh, when I go into grocery store and someone's learning [00:40:20] how to operate the cash register, the educator and me.

You know, looks at someone teaching and the person teachings doing all the keyboard work on the cash register and telling the learner what they're doing. Uh, and to me the better way to learn is have the learner actually using the [00:40:40] keyboard and the teacher being on the side is a guide. That's something.

You know, all educators need to get better at, and college and university professors are no exception. We tend to be experts in a particular field. We're not experts in teaching. Um, you know, my wife is a teacher. She is an expert in [00:41:00] teaching teachers who teach high school and elementary school. They are much better student centered teachers.

And the rest of us at college and university, we have to learn , you know, those principles. And, and I've had to learn, I mean, uh, 20 years of teaching and I'm still learning, you know, 20 years more. And I'll still be thinking I, you know, I need to learn so much more about teaching. [00:41:20] But the bottom line is the, the.

Closer we move to being the mentor. Uh, and away from being the lecturer, the better off the students will be and the better teachers we will be in. Virtual reality doesn't change that. In fact, it might be the catalyst for that kind of, uh, better teaching and student centered learning. Well, 

[00:41:39] Matt: and this discussion's [00:41:40] been a catalyst for me to probably put an article together the next couple of days.

The roles of teachers in today's society and having that changed. Rob, I think he hit on a couple of real key points there. As I think about the evolution of teaching, it was clear that in its early origins, and we're talking in pre-digital, the value of [00:42:00] teachers in a lot of cases was they were the most trusted and effective source of delivery.

They had the knowledge, they had spent the time deeply steep in the expertise, the lived experiences, the academic pursuits, um, the discoveries, the experimentation to arrive at being an expert in this area, and, and people would go to them for sources of [00:42:20] information. As we become increasingly digital information now has been democratized such a degree where, No teacher, no individual likely has that much more information than can be found other places.

The issue we actually have now is one more of synthesizing and curation than about, than [00:42:40] exploration, and therefore teachers are increasingly facilitators of knowledge and experiences and less. To use your, your coin of phrase, the sage on the stage. So it's, it's a different role inherently. I think to your point, virtual reality doesn't change that.[00:43:00] 

In any other way, except that it makes the delivery tools more compelling and more effective, but still necessitates the shift of educators, facilitators, teachers, instructors, coaches, whatever you wanna label them as you as an individual who's communicating with other people and trying to help them acquire knowledge, you're really creating the [00:43:20] conditions such that they feel comfortable in receiving the knowledge or learning, growing, challenging assumptions, et cetera, et cetera.

Readying them to go through an experience which now could be delivered through any number of mechanisms, but is no longer you standing in front of them 10 feet away talking and they're running currently running [00:43:40] notes down. That world is gone and it's also, 

[00:43:44] Guest 1: um, not gone yet, but hopefully it's, hopefully will be.

[00:43:48] Matt: Slowly going, and I think it's getting to a place where, to your earlier point where moving more and more to a world where evidence based principles are gonna be increasingly necessity, [00:44:00] it just won't be acceptable anymore to be like, Well, we've always done it this way when there's so much science and, and discovery and papers and math and business impetus and societal impetus and technological impetus for us just to like, we'll look back and go.

What, why did we do this this way for this long? And then it will just be a, it'll be a switch. I [00:44:20] just think we're, it's gonna take us some time to move to that space, but I think virtual reality is one more nudge to that, that eventuality. 

[00:44:27] Guest 1: Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I, I come from a medical background where evidence based care is, is paramount and, um, but it's fairly easy.

It's, I mean, it's easy to do randomized control trials, double blind [00:44:40] to trials where you're comparing. A medication to placebo, and you have a clear winner in that kind of a study. Um, research and education is a little more nuanced, a little more qualitative and less quantitative, and so it's a little more difficult.

But you're, you're right, we're moving to an evidence based approach to teaching and I think it's critically [00:45:00] important that we continue to move in that direction. And, um, you know, where I work, Georgian College, we're doing a lot more research than many. Community colleges we're not, um, under the gun like universities are, but we're doing a lot of research and I think it's critically important.

And as, as one of the leaders in the virtual reality space, I think we have a responsibility at, at, [00:45:20] uh, my college to, to do some research in this, in this area. And. I've worked with educator for a long time and I, I have to say, you know, pretty much every educator I've ever met is genuinely interested in helping their students learn and learning ways to teach in a way that makes learning more effective.[00:45:40] 

And so, You know, whatever college or university experience you may have had. Mine as a, both as a student and as a ed educators, has been one of people I work with who might greatly respect because of their desire to, to improve the learning experience, uh, of the student. There was one other thing I wanted to say.

[00:46:00] Uh, you know, before we, before we part ways that , uh, that I think is really important, uh, to convey to other educators who are thinking about virtual reality or augment reality, mixed reality and exploring it. Um, at Georgian College we took a very different approach. To virtual reality the most colleges, universities, most universities in [00:46:20] particular, and colleges to a lesser extent, will harness the talents of their XR developing students.

And they'll develop a virtual reality application, for example, and they'll, they'll beta test it and they'll, uh, maybe do some research around it. I was able to successfully convince, uh, senior management of my college to let me run a [00:46:40] series of pilots with off the shelf virtual reality experiences. My goal was to get virtual reality into the hands of as many teachers and students as possible so we could begin to better understand it, to see its pedagogical potential or lack of potential in some cases.

And, uh, I think part of the reason I took that approach is because, [00:47:00] uh, of my paramedic background, I'm very impatient. I like to make things happen quickly and I like to see results quickly. And so, uh, I. Incredibly grateful for the management team at Georgian College who've allowed me to do that. And we, we are running virtual reality pilots in about 16 different program areas, probably more than [00:47:20] just about any college university on the globe at the moment.

uh, but I'm also, you know, convinced that other schools are gonna catch up and surpasses pretty quickly now because, Now that we're, you know, the dark clouds of the, uh, pandemic apocalypse are starting to part, uh, we're seeing more and more [00:47:40] schools move into virtual reality, uh, uh, exploration and adoption.

Um, so we've, we've had that experience and hopefully we'll continue to do that sort of thing. But at the same time, we're, we're currently doing some research and, uh, for example, uh, using virtual reality for anatomy to look at its efficacy and. We're gonna [00:48:00] continue to do research and. You know, sort of get it out there quickly and as broadly as possible, but simultaneously look at the evidence behind it.

So it's, it's a really interesting time for educators and I would encourage educators to start exploring now so we can have some influence over development of [00:48:20] applications and where it goes pedagogically. I couldn't agree 

[00:48:23] Matt: with you more. I think it's, it's well state. However, this war, new world shapes up educators will be remain critically important in the learning process.

And virtual reality doesn't change that. It simply changes the delivery mechanism and actually increases [00:48:40] the another tool in your tool belt of experiences that you can provide to your learners. On their path to self discovery and learning and, and, and, you know, hopefully betterment for society. So I think that's, that's a really powerful piece.

And I, I love the spirit at which you're approaching it at Georgian College. You guys are [00:49:00] all in on the technology and, but doing so in an ev evidence based, methodical, deliberate way. And that's undoubtedly going to, you know, yield benefits in the. I'm gonna, I'm gonna link all your details, Rob, in the show notes of this podcast so folks can reach out to you directly.

They can find you on LinkedIn. I know that you're always open for a conversation. It's been a real pleasure. I always enjoy talking [00:49:20] to your, to Rob. You bring a real pragmatic, uh, evidence based, action oriented, uh, methodology to this conversation, and I just wanna appreciate. That. Thank you so much for your time today.

Yeah, it was a pleasure talking with you again.[00:49:40] 

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