Ksenia Sejenkova and Emily Egan want learners to see the world differently—literally. As developers on Pearson’s Immersive Technology team, Ksenia and Emily help build educational apps and experiences for virtual reality headsets (such as Microsoft’s HoloLens), mobile phones, and more. In anticipation of Educause 2018, I spoke with Ksenia and Emily about creating virtual reality and mixed reality experiences (see sidebar for definitions), being female developers, dreaming of new educational possibilities, and imagining the future of VR and MR technologies.
How did you come to work in virtual reality development and education?
Emily Egan: I worked as a multimedia content producer before, in publishing, and then I started working at a VR company creating immersive content. So I gained experience from that role and now I work at Pearson.
[Working in education] was something that just came up as an opportunity. I haven’t always wanted to work in education, but the VR Video Experience Developer role seemed really appealing because there’s a lot of interesting use cases in education. It requires you to be very creative, and I wanted to do a creative role.
Ksenia Sejenkova: My background is in video. I used to be an editor. That’s how I learned about 360 video. But then I tried VR—got really into that—did a master’s in interactive technology and started working at Pearson, so I combined my video background and technology interests.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have endured a career in Information Technology for many years. At university, I decided that I was interested in pursuing a career in technology and haven’t regretted my decision. Since joining Pearson four years ago, I have had the opportunity to experience how technology is leveraged to fuel the education business. It’s remarkable that millions of learners globally depend on Pearson’s technology platforms to acquire knowledge essential in growing their careers. At Pearson, the technology team is at the heart of our digital transformation and we are challenged every day to find innovative ways to learn and exploit new and emerging technology and trends. Examples of these technologies are Big Data & Analytics through Robotic Process Automation, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
As part of my role, I have a highly rewarding and demanding responsibility of nurturing and inspiring talent. This is an essential part of leadership, but as a woman who has experienced many years in the technology field, I understand how critical it is for me to prioritize this as it can’t be tackled by a rule book or process.
We’ve recently seen many headlines regarding the scant number of women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). There are many reasons why girls aren’t deciding to pursue degrees in technology and when they do choose to enter a technology career, there are many more reasons for why they decide to change course early in their careers.
During the journey, many women continue to be affected by explicit and implicit biases that impact their decision to continue with a degree or a career in technology. Sometimes these biases are the catalyst to barriers of success, and more often than not, it’s women who become the casualties of this. It’s important that we intervene prior to this resulting in a loss of confidence and a feeling of not being “good enough” to excel in the field of technology — ultimately a tremendous loss of talent.
I am inspired by the growing number of initiatives out there to reach young people who have the odds stacked against them. I advocate for men and women to lift as they climb. Zerin Azun Karim, senior portfolio analyst in tech operations at Pearson, found her way into technology after working at the Genius Bar in an Apple store. Today, Zerin mentors other Bangladeshi women as they navigate STEM careers. It’s hugely encouraging to see talent like Zerin at Pearson, and she’s also made a point to help others facing the same odds she did. I really encourage you to listen to Nevertheless, a podcast celebrating the women transforming teaching and learning through technology, to learn more about Zerin’s story.
Embracing innovation is also a critical part of success. Overcoming barriers — with or without the help of others — to get your foot in the door is only the start of the battle. Technology is changing and the world at large is changing at an unprecedented speed. In this climate it’s critical that our thinking changes too so that we can keep pace and succeed in an aggressively competitive environment. Technology is not going to wait for us to catch up and I’ve adapted my own style throughout my career. I applaud individuals that push against the status quo, positively disrupting business as usual. Speaking out and trying new things can be daunting, especially at companies that have existed for over a hundred years, but that makes thinking differently all the more urgent and necessary. The stakes are higher, but so are the rewards.
As a leader, the job of creating an environment where people feel safe and challenging norms rests on my shoulders. It’s simply impossible to tap into the creativity of seasoned professionals if they’re constantly desk-bound, number crunching, fire-fighting or in fear of breaking protocol. There’s equally no incentive for creativity if we solely reward or recognize people for immediate, tangible results. I’m proud to work for a company that recognizes that it’s our differences that make the difference.
I urge everyone reading this to join me in opening doors for others when and where they can. I encourage you to think big and take calculated risks — everyone will be better for it. After all, innovation has no barriers, except those put up by people.
This series, produced with The Edtech Podcast, explores the implications of and questions around future tech for education. Listen for insights from experts — including contrarians — from across industry, research, and academia. Get caught up with episodes 1-8.
With technology, teachers actually sometimes see less student work than they do with a traditional worksheet. How can resources developers best communicate about students’ work to teachers? What instructional decisions do teachers make for which it is helpful to have data to answer? Are data points useful beyond intervention alone? What do teachers actually seek from data and how it is presented, without adding to existing workload? What latest design methods of communicating information can be used to feedback student performance to teachers whilst maintaining the agency of all stakeholders? Is the “data-dashboard” here to stay? Or, is there another way?
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Mike Holcomb, a former Dean for Technology of the Arts at the University of Arizona, has had a long and illustrious career helping thousands of students, including Tara Johnson-Medinger, find their creative approach.
Tara met Mike while studying in the University of Oregon’s film program in the early 90s. Because the film degree was theory-heavy, she added a Fine Arts minor to take advantage of more production-based courses and get a broader arts perspective.
Tara enrolled in Mike’s motion graphics course, but not without some hesitation. She didn’t consider herself a fine artist, and at first she wasn’t sure that his year-long class was the best choice. Friends who had taken courses with Mike helped convince Tara to take the plunge, and before long she discovered the class was helping her find her artistic voice.
“Because I was struggling so much with learning the animation process and not being a good illustrator, there were moments of wanting to abandon it. Mike helped me out of that, and really made me think of what I was doing in a different way.”
Mike has long believed that the pressure to get things right the first time has a damaging effect on students in the arts, so his teaching style has always focused on embracing their mistakes. He’d always gained satisfaction from guiding students to those moments when they understand their capabilities and start believing in themselves, rather than simply learning by dictation and rote.
“She was apprehensive at first because she didn’t come from a fine arts background. She felt she didn’t have the necessary drawing skills. But there are so many other techniques that can be employed. So, one of my first jobs as a teacher of animation was to acquit her of that notion.”
I felt I had an ally and a friend that supported me. Mike helped me find my voice.
— Tara Johnson-Medinger, Director and Producer
When Tara started to take the lead, he saw the light bulb go on and interesting work develop.
“I remember him being excited when I was trying to figure out my approach, because it was something quite different than what the other students were doing.”
Tara recalls the realization that Mike helped her make: “It didn’t have to be the way everyone else was doing it. Go through the process, fail, try again, succeed — he seemed excited about what I was discovering as a student. Initially, I felt very intimidated in his class, but by the end I felt I had an ally and a friend that supported me. Mike helped me find my voice.”
Tara went on to found the Portland Oregon Women’s (POW) Film Festival and the POWGirls Educational Program, and she credits Mike’s approach with enabling her to do so. She also hopes to pass that approach on to students in the POWGirls workshops.
“I want to help them to appreciate their work and honor what they create, even if it’s not perfect. It’s okay to move through imperfection. Too many people get caught up in the perfection part of it, and just want to get to the end. I want to live through the process of my creations.”
And Mike has enjoyed watching Tara’s career flourish.
“It’s wonderful. Her success doesn’t surprise me a bit. She’s strong, determined, clear-headed, and tireless. I’m just so proud of her.”
Nevertheless, a series produced with Storythings, celebrates women both inside and outside of Pearson who are using technology to transform teaching and learning and improve outcomes for students.
Pearson’s Emily Lai on trust, children, and information literacy
A little-known fact about me is that I was once a librarian. Before I entered the world of educational measurement, I completed a degree in Library and Information Science and worked in an archive. This fact is ironic because there was a time in my life when I actually suffered from library anxiety.
This occurred during my sophomore year of high school, when I had an English assignment to write a research paper summarizing and critically evaluating evidence of some paranormal topic of my choice (my topic: people who claim to recover memories of “past lives” through hypnosis.) Our class made several visits to the library of a local university so we could carry out research. At that time, there were no full-text electronic databases to consult, just stacks and stacks of books, hard-cover periodical indices, and a computer-based card catalog. Even this was intimidating to me.
I remember spending way too much time trying to figure out how to search the collection and then retrieve the results — only to find that they weren’t all that relevant to my topic. I should have approached the reference librarian (the most under-utilized resource in the library!) but I was too shy. I felt this was something I should figure out on my own.
Eventually, I overcame my paralysis in the library and learned to see it as a treasure trove. The tools to support information retrieval projects like this have vastly improved, thanks in no small part to technology. But technology has also made it even more important that students develop information literacy: the ability to diagnose an information need, identify what kind of information is needed, search and retrieve information, evaluate its relevance and quality, and use it responsibly to answer a question or solve a problem. It’s more important today simply because the internet and mobile technology enable ridiculous amounts of information to be instantly accessible to us, anytime and anywhere.
Recently watching my 9-year old daughter try to research rights and responsibilities of citizens for a school assignment brought me full circle. Although she was sitting at home (not in a library) and using her computer (not bound books) to look for sources, she ended up with about the same result as my fruitless search from years before — a small collection of marginally relevant information sources of dubious credibility for the topic. She didn’t know what question she was trying to answer or how to describe what type of information would be best suited to answering it. She was simply googling her way through the assignment.
If ever there was a teachable moment for information literacy, this was it. So we talked about how to search for information and how to judge whether that information is valuable for a given question. We talked about mis-information and the need to critically interrogate information sources to figure out if they are trustable.
If you’re a parent like me who is concerned that your kids aren’t picking up these skills at school, or you’re just interested to hear more perspectives on the topic of trust and technology, make sure you check out the next episode of the Nevertheless podcast, entitled The First Click.
Elaine Cohen is a professor of computer science at the University of Utah. She inspired Bruce Gooch to pick up the teaching baton and pass what he learned — and more — on to a whole new generation of students.
Bruce Gooch wasn’t your typical computer student. For starters, his background was in mathematics, and he had no idea how to code.
“I used to be an actuary, and, after a wildly unsuccessful job search, was looking for something new.”
He decided to go back to school for computer science. By his own admission, he looked more like an outlaw biker than a professor. But once he began studying with Elaine, preconceptions fell away and he found the space and support he needed to excel.
Elaine showed Bruce that coding could be creative. By giving him the responsibility and ownership to explore his ideas, he found the inspiration to make new leaps in the field. As he puts it, “Elaine took away the chains from my mind.”
Elaine recalls, “Bruce was always very inventive and creative. His whole dissertation was something quite innovative that let him do stuff that nobody had done before. He created beautiful work.”
Elaine took away the chains from my mind.
— Bruce Gooch, Founder, Expressive Computer Graphics
Bruce took this encouragement and ran with it, co-authoring a paper on the fundamental shading algorithms in computer science. Prior to the paper, there were only three such algorithms. “Now there’s a fourth,” says Bruce. “It’s called Gooch Shading.”
He even wrote and published the first book in the field of non-photorealistic rendering — an area he helped discover — while he was a grad student, and he has become one of its top voices.
“Elaine let me know that I could do something that I could barely imagine doing—this thing that students just don’t do. My book was published at the same time and by the same company as her book. Students aren’t supposed to do this stuff!”
Because she developed a trust and respect with Bruce, friendship grew between them.
“I think that’s part of being a mentor, coaching people to understand that they can cope with whatever life gives you. It’s not easy, but you can do it if you’re passionate enough about what you’re doing.”
Throughout her career, Elaine has watched her students go on to enjoy all kinds of success.“I consider my students my ‘professional children.’ And when they grow into being successful professionals, it feels good.”
Bruce is one of those “children.” Now at Texas A&M, he helps students learn to create games and computer animations. He gives his students the same encouragement that Elaine gave him, with the perspective and experience to back it up.
“I’ve started some companies, and I have software that’s with millions of users. That’s what I’m pushing as ‘possible’ with my students. You can start a company. You can deploy a product. You can do these things that 20 years ago no one could.”
And Bruce is quick to point out how he got where he is: “Elaine encouraged me to do my own thing. She gave me an extreme amount of confidence, and the ability to see possibilities I hadn’t seen before.”
Higher education is moving into a new phase when it comes to the power of technology in the classroom. More sophisticated learning tools are being developed, and they promise to fundamentally change how instructors teach and students learn. Such advances are being met with a mix of resistance and acceptance. Some educators worry that new technologies may diminish their role in the education process will eventually replace them, or that digital learning tools are too costly, or not necessary. Some are concerned about the amount of work involved with incorporating technology into their courses. Despite such uneasiness, a growing number of educators are adopting the tools and using them in innovative ways to enhance student learning.
Among other products, Learning Catalytics is an interactive student response tool that educators are using in classrooms and lecture halls to pose questions and poll students’ understanding real-time with graphical visualization. We are continuing to develop even more advanced learning tools, including technologies that can assess critical thinking skills and broaden tutorial capabilities.
According to higher education experts, many educators are turning to technology to enhance the learning experience, deliver improved outcomes, and to manage increasing class sizes and varying learning styles. They are selecting course materials that are available in digital format, and they’re using interactive tools to check students’ progress and mastery on assignments when completing course assignments. Many educators are redesigning coursework to blend online activities with classroom experiences. Some are sending texts and emails to nudge students to keep up with assignments, while others are recording and streaming lectures for students to view outside the classroom at their convenience, on a variety of mobile devices. A number of educators are even setting up labs where students can use sophisticated technology to conduct research.
For example, the college of education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign two years ago unveiled its Illinois Digital Ecologies and Learning Laboratory (IDEALL) where students can set up technology–enhanced learning environments and then use technology to study the impact on learning. The lab features state-of-the-art equipment, including 360-degree audio- and video-recording systems, ceiling-mounted cameras, and 55-inch touch-screen tabletops. University researchers say the entire lab operates as a data-collection device to track learners’ interactions with technology. They use data analytics techniques to identify patterns and relationships among the learners’ movements, responses, discussions, and other actions to gain insight into their levels of engagement.
H. Chad Lane, an associate professor of educational psychology, says the high-tech lab is making a “huge difference” for student researchers, and is an energizing, popular, and much-sought-after resource.
Although students might be gravitating toward digital tools, many education technology experts say their use will not replace instructors. Digital learning, the experts say, makes educators better able to meet the students where they are technologically, better able to adapt lessons for varied learning styles, and better able to reach more students. Those benefits, the experts say, translate to stronger academic success, improved retention rates, and higher graduation rates.
“Students learn best when there is an available instructor because those personal interactions and relationships are a very essential part of the teaching and learning process,” says Barnes. “Technology is simply backing up the instructor because the instructor cannot be there at every moment for every student.”
Indeed, students can access digital coursework on their own schedule, anytime, anywhere, on their personal device of choice. Digital products also offer a flexibility and malleability that print books cannot. Electronic materials can be easily updated by publishers, and they can be integrated with other technologies to become even more adaptable. Interactive learning solutions typically present topics in small chunks, along with a video, audio, or other teaching aid. Students can highlight and take notes, and they test their knowledge before moving on to the next topic. The interactive capability helps students grasp the concepts, accounts for their different learning styles, allows them to work at their own pace, and pushes them to be more engaged in their studies—all while helping to reduce the cost of learning materials by as much as 70 percent.
The interactive capabilities also help the instructors by giving them a broader reach to connect with students, an opportunity to give feedback outside class, and the ability to adjust and optimize their instructional plans. Instructors can electronically observe what assignments have been completed, how long it takes students to do them, and how they score on the online quizzes. Educators can send notes to students, prompt them online, or modify a lecture, assignment, or coursework, if they see that students are not understanding a concept.
