№33 Michael Greenburg, Call for Content

My guest today is on a mission: To change the way you create elearning content into an “audio-first” e learning strategy. Michael Greenburg believes that if you “get” audio, in terms of the quality of the recording and the content, every other part of your course will have a solid footing. Not only that: By being the one effective method that does not need your eyes, audio increases your learning opportunities.

In this “ear-opening” conversation we talk about:

• Why audio is such an important piece of the learning experience, and why paradoxically is one of the least taken care of.
• Michael’s three key steps to get started with a quality, audio-first elearning experience.
• The many ways you can turn audio content into a variety of formats and experiences, or in Michael’s case, a promising business model.
• The benefits of stepping up your audio game, for anything from your confidence as a public speaker, to the way you make content intrinsically compelling.
• And of course, the limitations of audio-only learning; which is to say that in many cases audio can play a fortifying role when used along with other media.

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№31 Julian Davis, Digital Learning Solutions


Tell me if this is familiar to you: Your organization adopts a piece of tech, usually a learning app, with excitement and optimisms. Then they realize it might need more attention than anybody at your team has, and it slowly fades out of everyone’s priorities. As a result, the elearning becomes orphaned.

My guest today is Julian Davis. He describes himself as a Learning Solutions Architect,  although in the story he’s about to tell you, you might want to think of people like him as “EdTech Foster Parent.” This time we have for you a case study, that’s actually the basis for an article Julian wrote called “Soufflé out of mud.” In the article, and this conversation, he sets the scene and walk us through the ways we turned a discouraging technology setup into a “wowing” solution for his client.




In this exciting conversation we talk about:

👩‍👧‍👦 Mudpies! Children love making them, but being given one and expecting to create an amazing learning experience, may not be as fun.



👥 And why a mud pie is almost never  just a mudpie. There’s mudpie user, mudpie deliverables, mudpie backwards  compatibility and of course, mudpie stakeholders.



💡 Why it’s much better to innovate by trying out, or better, allowing yourself to try new things on your regular work, than waiting for a director with a dozen priorities to give the go ahead to a groundbreaking idea.



🔵 But why it’s also important to find the “big button” and make any new development as relevant as possible for the organization and their leaders. Once they’ll get it, they’ll want more.



💭 Julian’s thought on various elearning technologies: xAPI of course, Articulate, Learning Locker, CMI5; and is “SCORM” finally becoming a bad word?





And don’t miss Julian’s article, “Soufflé out of mud -  an xAPI challenge” over at his website
https://digitallearningsolutions.com.au/souffle-out-of-mud-an-xapi-challenge/




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№32 Kristin Barrett, Collective Academy

My guest for today is Kristin Barret. Born and raised in Chicago, Kristin and her family transitioned to Mexico to oversee the operations of an MBA and leadership school. Before her key role at Collective Academy, Kristin built a tenured career in the meeting point of innovation and education. Now, she co-heads an ambitious plan to forge Mexico’s next generation of leaders by providing critical needs and helping accelerate their success.

In this surprisingly relevant conversation we talk about:


🗽 Why the pandemic and all the struggles it brought for teachers, it was a real boon for a lot of urban Latin American students, many of which experienced online learning for the first time.


🎓 Lifelong learning, but from a perspective of inclusion, and why Kristin decided to expand from an MBA into Compass, a pre-university program that starts nurturing business and leadership skills.



📲 Why teenagers, regardless of their eventual calling, can benefit from leadership, resilience, organizational and even IT and more technical skills



🌱 The interesting new ways in which Collective Academy is giving talented young people access experts and industry leaders; and how connecting with young thinkers can be a powerful tool to address uncertainty and change in creative ways



🎒 Why the pandemic bolstered a revolution in leadership education across the continent, but why we need to continue to explore ways to clear the gaps and promote the creation of valuable business models to anybody who wants it.


Visit https://collectiveacademy.com/



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№30 Eva Lantsoght, PhD Talk; Universidad San Francisco de Quito

My guest today is Dr. Eva Lantsoght, a civil engineer from Belgium, currently a tenured research professor at USFQ in Ecuador, and Duolingo success story. But if you are in the process of either starting or completing your doctoral studies, chances are that you are more familiar with her work at PhD Talk, a blog and podcast she created. PhD Talk is an amazing resource covering everything there is to know about the doctoral student life. From figuring out your dissertation topic and research planning, to networking, time management and getting better sleep; to of course, the many ways online learning has transformed postgraduate education. Which in Dr. Eva’s opinion, are ultimately beneficial for students and the global research communities.

In this exciting conversation we talk about:

👩‍🔬 What it’s like to be Eva! Her engineering background, how she ended up in South America, her writing and the origins of the PhD Talk blog and podcast.
🎒 Why she’s optimistic about the mix of postgraduate education and online learning, especially when it comes to building community and fostering partnerships; and of course, the many educational hurdles that still remain, and the ways technology can help, if not totally replace field studies and research labs.
💭 What has made PhD Talk such an important reference and support tool. Not just for PhD students, but also Master’s graduates thinking about their next chapter; and even more than a few tenured professors interested in learning how to do a better job online.
👥 The importance of support systems and organizations that help teachers to work on their digital competencies; and the fascinating case of SHIFT whose help allowed Dr. Eva’s students avoid long hours at the Zoom, in exchange for more engaging and personal exchanges.}
🗺 Dr. Eva’s advice for doctoral students in a mostly online learning world: Stay flexible, and get comfortable with networking with the whole world.

Connect with Dr. Eva over at https://www.evalantsoght.com​


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№29 Chip Reaves, Bigger Brains

My guest for today’s episode is Chip Reaves, IT veteran and President for almost 10 years of Bigger Brains. Bigger Brains’ vast library of high-quality video-based courses on a variety of corporate training issues has received awards every year since at least 2015. And with Brain Bot, a chatbot that periodically quizzes you about past courses taken, it adds spaced repetition into the mix to multiply the value of the content.

In my conversation with such a fountain of wisdom we talk about:

• The highlights and perils of producing corporate training contend during a pandemic, and whether or not you’ve been committing “eLearning malpractice”?
• What it takes to adapt: From classroom to online, from recorded to live, from Microsoft to Google, from lectures to microlearning, and much more..
• The challenge of adapting to young mindsets, and the enormous rewards that await you. Or as a millennial learning with Chip says: “Old people want to be paid with money, young people want to be paid with time.”
• Chips’s adventures in microlearning, and how, despite the seemingly small number of variables at play, there is still a lot of room for creativity and rigorous experimentation

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№28 Andreana Castellanos, Afinidata

It’s a joy to introduce you to my guest for this week: Andreana Castellanos, Process Engineer, Founder and CEO of Afinidata, and fellow Colorado State graduate—go Rams!

Afinidata is a Guatemalan-American social entrepreneurship born out of Andreana’s volunteering experiences. It sends users personalized early childhood development activities through Facebook. It’s as simple and brilliant as it sounds. In 4 years, Afindata has sent parents across Latin America over 50 thousand activities, and is a member of the UNICEF Innovation Fund.

In this lovely and eye-opening conversation we talk about:

• The social and neuroscience of early childhood development and how incredibly important the first 5 years of a person’s life are with regard to brain development
• Why Andreana believes in the power of “Navigational startups,” dedicated to make cutting-edge evidence useful to those who need it most, which in her case, is low-income parents
• Why she believes chatbots offer a unique opportunity to engage with teachers and parents in critical moments
• We touch on the fact that for many countries, governments are the main suppliers of elearning solutions to children and households, and how data-driven innovation could play a role in policymaking 
• How adapting to working from home is shaping the way we view and celebrate our success; which should give you some hints about how we need to reframe success and achievement with our children

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№27 Kasper Spiro, Easygenerator

My guest for today is Kasper Spiro, Dutch tech entrepreneur, and CEO of EasyGenerator.com

With a tenured background in enterprise software, Kasper realized there were glaring gaps in the way corporate training tech addresses customer issues. Long story short, he decided to join EasyGenerator out of frustration with the general state of support and needless complexity plaguing the industry.

In this illuminating conversation we talk about:

• The story of Easygenerator, an easy to use and maintain cloud-based platform for content creators and collaborators.
• How your frustration can be a powerful motivator and an innovation driver, as long as you learn to take a step back and find out who shares this frustration with you.
• Why Kasper thinks the distance between the content creator and the employee who consumes it is a problem people don’t talk about enough, and all its unintended consequences
• How thanks to the pandemic more people saw how detrimental it was for creators and learners to be separate, the update cycles so long; and how tools like Easygenerator help in keeping things fresh

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№26 Mike Weiss, Client Engagement Academy

Have you ever wondered if the way you reward your students works? Do they actually display these rewards in public? Does it actually show evidence for their skills? And is the idea of earning a reward be a strong enough motivator for your student?

If you’ve ever wondered how to use badges and make the most of them in your elearning, you’re in the right place. My guest today is Mike Weiss, Founder and Director of the Client Engagement Academy. His approach, involving social media, is sure to spark some ideas for your next badge-worthy classroom activity.

In this very rewarding conversation we talk about:

• What is the Client Engagement Academy, their ambitious proposition, and some of the ingredients in their secret recipe to success for coaching business built by instructors
• Why Mike is bullish on LinkedIn, and some of the specific strategies suited for the professional network. Hint: Open source is key here
• Why badges work, why they have worked since prehistoric times, and why they remain a core element of some of our society’s longest standing institutions.
• The ingredients of the perfect badge. In short: Evidence, Motivation and ‘Shareability’
• Why Mike thinks badges will be critical in the future of microlearning, among other things because they will extend the results of your initial investment down the line.

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№25 Julie MacGregor and Gina Mallon, Pennsylvania Virtual Charter Schools

I hope you find my two very special guest for today as lovely as I have all my life. Julie MacGregor and Gina Mallon have been teachers at different schools in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School system for more than 10 years each.

Full disclosure: they also both happen to be my aunts.

I thought to invite them over for the podcast, not only because of their life stories and wisdom, but because of their tenured experience in 2 very critical issues in education today. One, naturally, is their transition from old fashion, Catholic schools into fully virtual experiences. We take a fast paced tour of all the issues involved in transitioning to online learning, including the fascinating approach they’ve taken to offer differentiated teaching for a broad variety of students: Special Ed, gifted children, low-income, adult learners… Sometimes all in the same classroom!

The other issue is a bit more complicated. What could be more complicated than COVID-19? Try charter schools. But since this is a family conversation, I’ll just let you know that touch on issues of diversity, access and the importance of school choice for teachers who’ve been at it for most of their lives.

In this “family affair” conversation we talk about:

💍 What it’s like to be in online and distance learning… for over a decade! From their decision to become online teachers, to getting comfortable and finding support, to the answers for the perennial question of student engagement.

👩‍🏫 What it’s like to be a Special Ed online teacher, where the same questions on engagement and effectiveness apply, but on a broader scale. Hint: it involves the students’ families.

🏩 Why, despite their experience and skillset, the pandemic also affected virtual education teachers in particular ways, like socialization. But how COVID has also validated many of their lessons and has turned them into informal advisers and counselors among their peers.

🌌 Finally, the interesting ways in which cyber or virtual charter schools address issues like equity and diversity when, by law, “you simply have to take everyone in”; and  the many benefits that school choice has given students and families as seen from the vantage point of teachers, over the years.

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№24 Chris Badgett, LifterLMS

My guest for today’s episode is Chris Badgett, founder of LifterLMS. As many of you know, we love open source technology. And when it comes to elearning, we think of Moodle, the most widely used learning system on the planet. But believe it or not, there is another, more omnipresent system on the internet with the potential of transforming the education of millions. I’m talking about WordPress.

After over a decade as a WordPress developer, Chris realized the potential of adding LMS superpowers to his clients’ websites. LifterLMS provides WordPress sites a ton of goodies to create, manage and promote courses to those who don’t want to get into specialized software.

In this exciting conversation we talk about:

• The fantabulous world of the Educational Entrepreneur, perhaps not as big as others in the technology space, but one you should not dismiss quickly as innovator or even investor
• Chris’s lessons in market validation and scalability, without necessarily leaving your niche. (Spoiler alert: Can you guess how much money did the most successful online balloon animal teacher make last year?)
• Why it made sense for Chris to talk about a “Wordpress LMS” and its possibilities as a ubiquitous platform that’s easy to use and scale
• How the benefits of open source in education can compound, as long as we understand that making it “talk” in the language of any user is a necessary piece of the puzzle
• And finally, why for many entrepreneurs in the education space, interoperability and a collective vision for an interconnected ecosystem is a legitimate path for growth. Customers want more openness, not less.}

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