Audio Transcript

[00:00:00]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

[00:00:21]
Ben Newsome: You’re back again for another Fizzics Ed Podcast. Hey, glad to have you again for another chat around science and STEM and all that sort of thing. I can tell you what, today is a very inspiring chat with a very passionate K to 6 teacher. We’re hanging out with Karl Easton, who specialises heavily in digital technologies. Trust me, he knows everything from coding to robotics to VR, AR, you name it, it is definitely what he loves. He’s highly passionate about getting kids into STEM and especially the technology area. Now, by the way, he used to be in a previous life in the health and fitness industry. Seriously, he used to be in a number of positions in management, starting with the Revesby Workers’ Club and finishing with Fitness First. But he also coached with New South Wales University on recreational facility management and a sea change 15 years ago sent him towards the education world. Seriously, he’s been really heavily involved in teaching since 2007 onwards and he’s done an amazing job, I can tell you that. So, let’s get right onto the chat.

[00:01:20]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re all about science, ed tech and more. To see 100 fun free experiments you can do with your class, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S and click 100 free experiments.

[00:01:33]
Karl Easton: Hey, thanks, thanks so much for having me, Ben. It’s great to be here.

[00:01:40]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, I’m really happy to… we haven’t chatted in a while. I mean, I think the last time we ran into each other was during this awesome robotics day that you were involved in putting together. But yeah, I mean, how has this year been for you?

[00:01:53]
Karl Easton: Well, we started off with term one with virtual reality at my school. Last couple of years I’ve been doing VR. These are the VR kits that you can get through STEM T4L. You don’t have to go and spend a fortune, you just go and get these things free and you can have the whole kit there for a full term. Of course, the beauty of getting this STEM share kit is that I get it back there at the end of term four the previous year. So, I take it straight off the school via courier to me at the end of term four the previous year. I have it over the whole six-week break. I can fiddle with it. I’m quite accustomed with virtual reality now because I’ve done it for a couple of years.

[00:02:40]
Karl Easton: And yeah, started off with Stage 2 and we did some work with community and remembrance and rolled into a unit of work to do with The Rocks, believe it or not. The Rocks, and I actually went into The Rocks and I joined in on a tour. I don’t know if you guys have ever done or any of your listeners, but you get in there and I joined in, I told them why I was there. There was only a small group of us, a couple of British backpackers and someone from Europe. And so I took along the 3D camera which comes with the kit. And you take all these beautiful shots. Well, later on, I actually went back, took my time, and you have a tripod included in the kit. And I don’t know if your listeners are with 3D cameras, but you set them up, go and hide behind a wall, it’s Bluetooth’d up to your iPad unless you want to be in the shot, and whammo, you get yourself a lovely 360 photo of all these beautiful little nooks and crannies and laneways and places reeking of history in The Rocks. Brought them back, gave them as a package to the kids in Stage 2, said research it, do me up a Google Tour, which is what we did.

[00:03:43]
Karl Easton: Unfortunately, now Google Tours is being canned, I’ve heard. Google Tours will be no more, but save the day, 360Situ (S-I-T-U) is apparently going to be the go-to 360 VR software that T4L recommends you can use. You can get a licence actually via T4L if you take out the VR kit. So, that was the start of my year.

[00:04:13]
Ben Newsome: Have you used that platform much, the 360 one?

[00:04:18]
Karl Easton: I haven’t used Situ, I had a little tease of Situ. Otherwise, the Google Tours was easy-peasy, you know. That’s what we had experience with in the last couple of years, that’s what I went with, you know. And the kids just create their own tours, 360 tours, and they annotate and they research and they put in the photos and they do up the little boxes underneath and they put in the hotspots that you click on and up comes a bit of information and you can just put your fingers on the screen and scroll around to do a 360. It’s quite unique.

[00:04:52]
Ben Newsome: That’s fantastic. I mean, have you come across many schools embedding VR right in their curriculum?

[00:04:59]
Karl Easton: I know they’re out there. I personally haven’t had any contact with some. I know schools that have used VR as far as a tour, an introductory tour. Click this link and here’s a tour of our school, which is really cool. You know, here’s our library. Click on this and you get a little spiel from the librarian saying, “Hi, welcome to our library.” Here’s our principal at her desk. Click on that and away you go. And then you can have a tour of the playground and the classrooms and whatever. So, I thought that was a really great idea, something that really a little bit unique out of the box that you could do with it. Certainly, any school could do it to promote their school.

[00:05:42]
Ben Newsome: That’s funny. I was actually just thinking there, I mean, National Science Week just keeps on rolling around over and over again every single year. I mean, some kids create these awesome things at school and sometimes parents just honestly can’t get into the school for whatever reason to see the creation that they’ve done. You could use that to create a virtual tour of the projects that they’ve been working on. For sure, there’s a lot of things you could do with it, it really just comes down to time.

[00:06:08]
Karl Easton: Yeah, certainly because with parents not being allowed into the schools, you have to stay at the gate now and greet the kid at the gate and drop their child off at the gate. Yeah, you could do a 360 of the classroom and you could have hotspots all over the place and say, “This is our work on this wall of this project and this is their project here,” and click this link and you’ll go and hear me talking about whatever and, you know. So yeah, I suppose it’s particularly good for of course distant family all over the world. You’ve got cousins, uncles, aunts, whatever, living on some other distant part of the planet and they can never get to have a window into the contact of the other child’s world. So yeah, definitely some scope there.

[00:06:56]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. So that was your term one. I mean, undoubtedly you… so by the way, we’re timestamping this, this is 2020 we’re chatting at the very end of this, but undoubtedly term two and part of three was slightly different. How did you go with the whole online thing?

[00:07:12]
Karl Easton: Yeah, the school had a mixture of platforms. We went with Google Classroom, we had Microsoft Teams, and we had Seesaw. So, we had all the three, we had the big three running. Don’t ask me why we just didn’t go for one with the senior stages, that’s a question for another day. But Microsoft Teams we had to get our heads around, but the kids quickly took to it like a duck to water. Google Classroom they’d already been using, so they were fine with that. And Seesaw a number of the teachers… now I’m a Seesaw Ambassador so I helped the school out a little bit with getting our head around the ins and outs of Seesaw.

[00:07:57]
Karl Easton: But it’s a great little platform, I’ve been pushing Seesaw for a long time, but a lot of teachers just weren’t aware of what was there. I think a lot of principals too at the time when Seesaw came out, a little bit hesitant about opening the doors and letting the parents into the classroom so to speak. They weren’t too sure what was going to go home. But the beauty of Seesaw is of course it needs that administration stamp from you, the teacher. So, you’re the gatekeeper, you’re the one who lets that through and you say, “No, I’m not letting that go out,” or, “Yes, that’s good work. I’m going to send that for sure.”

[00:08:33]
Karl Easton: So they’re the three platforms that we had. A lot of square eyes, a lot of bleary eyes every morning in the staff… well, I can’t say in the staffroom because we never got to the staffroom, we weren’t allowed in the staffroom. But yeah, there was a lot of staring at screens, as you probably know.

[00:08:49]
Ben Newsome: Yes, I mean, I think everyone understandably, I mean, there is a… we all get tired of it. I mean, I’ve lived my world in doing this distance learning for quite a while but eventually looking at a box, there’s only so much looking at a box you can do. As much possibility of doing hands-on is important. But oh gosh, the thing is though, not everyone was able to do this because did you have a device issue with it all where you were working? Because I mean, everyone’s different, trying to get all devices out to every student could be challenging, or maybe some kids didn’t have access to internet, which is just the realities of just trying to roll this out on mass within very little time frame. How’d it go?

[00:09:27]
Karl Easton: Yeah, I suppose if you wanted to put a percentage on it, I don’t know if you could. I’d grab 70-75% of kids. It depends on the stage. I think Stage 3 was a lot more engaged, it might have been 85-95% engaged. You know, then you had particularly the younger kids that were being looked after by grandparents. And of course, they didn’t grow up in this technology world that we’ve grown up in, whereas, you know, our kids are born with a phone in their hand. You only got to walk through a shopping centre now and see some kid playing on mum’s phone while she gets some peace and quiet and gets to do the shopping.

[00:10:12]
Karl Easton: So, they live and breathe the tech, whereas the grandparents had some difficulty. Particularly if mum and dad are working, you know. Mum and dad had to go to work, the money had to keep coming in, the bills were still there to be paid, and so the child still went off to grandma and grandpa. And they said, “Hey, we’ve got to go online here,” and they said, “Oh, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” So, I think there were problems there and that would have been across the field for a lot of schools.

[00:10:41]
Ben Newsome: So, one of the things I really wanted to have a chat about is one of the many things, let’s be honest, you’ve been involved in lots of cool stuff, is I love the work that you do with working with other schools and other teachers in other schools and in an informal way. I mean, as we alluded to at the very start of this chat was the last time we hung out was at a robotics day that you and Russell Cairns put together. How did that all start?

[00:11:05]
Karl Easton: Russell Cairns, for everyone out there, does what I do really sort of face-to-face. He’s over there at Jasper Road Public School and I’m at Kellyville Ridge Public School. And we teach from Monday to Friday hundreds of kids because we’re teaching from K to 6. And we do all the digital technologies for the school. So, we embed digital tech from the syllabus into whatever they’re doing, whether it’s maths, whether it’s history, whether it’s geography, even whether it’s literacy, art, even PDHPE. Yeah, so I met Russell at a STEM T4L Friday, I think evening, a showcase of goodies that they do now and again. You can go along and have a little play and tinker and see what’s going on and have a talk to reps. This was in, of course, at their Redfern offices there. And yeah, we sort of hit it off, so we sort of tagged ourselves the… I don’t know where it came from, but it was the Dynamic Duo. So, there’s always arguments over who wants to be Batman. I mean, everyone wants to drive the Batmobile, of course, you know. We won’t get into the tights business, but we just felt that we lived off each other’s energies, you know. And so the idea came around that we wanted to do three teacher meets. We hadn’t done teacher meets before, we’re talking about last year, the golden year 2019. And so we rolled off with one over at Russell’s school. This is all to do with technology and STEM, of course. And then I think we hit about 30 people on that one. Then we went to number two, which was about 50 people over at my school. We had people from Apple there, we had people from Microsoft, we had people there from Adelaide Uni.

[00:12:54]
Karl Easton: And then we went to number three, which is the one that we invited Fizzics to and a number of other digital disruptors, we call you. And that was over, of course, at the museum’s discovery centre, at the… I call it the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) museum discovery centre, which is a real mouthful. But for those not aware of it, it’s really like the hidden gem in the northwest there, just out there at Castle Hill. And it’s a museum, it is a… you know, it’s the younger brother of the main Australian… well, sorry, the museum centre in the city there, the one where we’ve had all the disruption about whether it’s going to go to Parramatta or not and so forth. And now we hear it’s going to stay. And there’s a lot of great things out there, fantastic. I always recommend people to get out there and take the kids. It’s only open on weekends, but we hired the place for free as long as we showcased in our promotional video what they do there. And there’s planes and trains and automobiles and cars and washing machines and technology from the past and you name it. It’s a real Aladdin’s cave, isn’t it? I mean, you know, you’ve been there.

[00:14:05]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, it’s crazy. You feel like you want to spend more time there, seriously. So, those people who are Sydney residents, even if you’re not, if you’re in Sydney come visit, it’s out at Showground Road. I actually know it quite well because for many years we ran a science club there back when the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences ran it. But now the Museum Discovery Centre is a collaboration between MAAS, the Sydney Living Museums, and Australian Museum. And therefore, you’ve got a natural history museum working with a history museum effectively, and a technology thing. It’s so much, it’s really cool. But I must say, that event was so well-suited to that site that you ran because it was, you know, it was a lot of fun, a lot of really… I mean, you had over 100 teachers easily there.

[00:14:47]
Karl Easton: Yeah, I think we were around that number. It was a big afternoon, you know, it was after school. It was primarily aimed at teachers, but we had lots of people bring their kids along and so forth. And of course, it was a free event. And we had a number of speakers there, whether it was VEX Robotics or yourself from Fizzics. We had Grok Learning there. We had One Two Three Four, we had Pakronics there. We had all these different places that people… and they rotated through and they got a little… a bit of a taste tester of all things STEM, from coding to robotics to Arduinos to secondary robotics clubs to what you guys do at Fizzics and so forth. So, yeah, we were really happy with it. It sort of opened a few doors for us too and sort of got a few other things rolling, a few other ventures.

[00:15:40]
Ben Newsome: I’ve got to say, one of the things that, I mean, we get asked a lot and I still haven’t got a great answer because I don’t think I’ve seen them all, is the robotics platform. I mean, so many… let’s be honest, there are so many robots. I mean, I go to ISTE every year and you walk the floor and my gosh, there is a lot of things that roll around with code in them. I mean, without going down like which brand’s better, what not, I mean, what are the sort of things that you’re looking for from your perspective, and considering what you get up to, that go, “You know what, that platform is great and this platform needs some work?” I mean, what are the sort of things that you sort of look for that at least can help others to go to keep an eye out for when they’re choosing their platforms?

[00:16:25]
Karl Easton: Yeah, it’s a bit of a Pandora’s box, it really comes down to the needs of the school, doesn’t it? This sort of question was slightly related to the other night at the AGM with RoboCup that I’m associated with, which is New South Wales RoboCup. And, you know, RoboCup is open to any platform. It doesn’t have to be EV3, it could be a Dash, it could be an mBot, it could be a Sphero, whatever. But I must tell you, the entrants this year, there was a high amount that Spike Prime actually… Spike Prime has sort of hit a chord. You know, Spike Prime came out at the beginning of this year, beginning of this year. And it’s sort of for those not sort of au fait with robotics, it’s sort of filled in that middle spot. EV3 was sort of hitting year 5, 6 and then up into 7, 8, 9 and onwards, whereas Spike Prime sort of is geared and marketed towards hitting that middle primary, a little bit lower maybe.

[00:17:31]
Karl Easton: And so a lot of schools have taken to it. Apparently, I’m hearing a lot of secondary schools want to take it up too. But then on the downside, I don’t want to get too much wrapped up on Spike, I can go to other devices, is that a lot of people I’m hearing are saying, “Well, there’s not enough goodies in the box for me to do what I really want to do,” you know. But then again, that was coming from someone that’s been into robotics for a while. So, if you have totally no idea with robotics and you’re looking for something to start with, you could not go maybe past Spike Prime. Sphero’s now got a number of new sensors on the robot compared to the good old days when Sphero came out. So, there’s a few more things that Sphero can do. It’s got something about a Sphero, the kids are immediately engaged with a Sphero because the thing lights up. There was even an entrant I saw, it was done with a slow-frame camera, primary school kids, and they turned off the lights and they got the Sphero to draw a Christmas tree. It was really cool. So, low-frame software, you can get it on an iPad, film the thing, and it had this Christmas tree being drawn with this… and you can do art. You go and Google it after this podcast and you’ll find there’s all sorts of links that’ll show you how you can do fantastic art with slow-mo framework with a Sphero.

[00:18:48]
Karl Easton: You know, look, I’m an EV3 person, but I’ve also worked with Spheros, I’ve worked with mBots, I’ve got one sitting here on the table. I only bought this one because it was pink mind you, I like pink okay? They didn’t bring out any other colours after that, traditionally mBots are blue.

[00:19:10]
Karl Easton: But I’ll tell you what, the flavour of the month at the moment is really micro:bits. Going off on a tangent here, the V2, the version two is now out. You can put in an order, I’ve ordered mine, I think it’s in the mail at the moment. Same similar pricing, 25, 26, 27 bucks to the last one. Now has a few more additional sensors to it, which is really nice. It’s got a speaker in there too, got a touch sensor.

[00:19:40]
Karl Easton: And of course you can go and buy a robotics kit that will work with the micro:bit. So you’ve really got two things going here. You’ve got the little Arduino, little microprocessor, micro:bit, and you can go and do all sorts of things with that with a MakeCode whatever, tie it into Scratch. If I get time I’ve got to tell you about a great Scratch programme I did with the micro:bit with my GATEways kids during the year. And of course then you can go and buy all the additional add-on kits. You’ve got the Grove, the Boson. I used the Grove Inventor Kit and it’s about 100 bucks and it’s got nine, ten different projects in there. These are additional little add-ons that connect to a shield that comes in the box. And it just the scope that you can… things you can do with a micro:bit and I mean for 25 bucks…

[00:20:25]
Ben Newsome: I mean you compare the price to an EV3 which is price prohibitive. It’s just insanely obscenely expensive to buy an EV3. But mind you if you want to compete in heavy-duty robotics competitions, you really want to do some heavy-duty coding then… the beauty with the EV3 is the creativity. It comes with an additional kit you can buy where it’s just full of Lego and you can just add things to this and it might not be a robot. I’ll tell you another one I saw in our robotics competition was a Rube Goldberg, Rube Goldberg machine with EV3. Just amazing. The one robot would run to something and it would hit a touch sensor and a ball would fly off and roll past something and hit a colour flap which would run past the light sensor and then the robot would roll forward and the ultrasonic sensor would detect something and something else would drop into something else. And meanwhile there’s circus music playing behind this. It’s just you think, “Who thought of this?” Like I mean I’m hoping…

[00:21:33]
Ben Newsome: Gotta love the Rube Goldberg in the competition because that’s high stakes because Rube Goldbergs don’t always work.

[00:21:40]
Karl Easton: They don’t always work, you know. I’m really hoping if I go and Google it, I’m not going to find someone has done it with an EV3 because maybe they got their idea off the net, I don’t know, but I’d like to think they didn’t, but it looked really cool. I’ve got to say though, what you were talking about just does remind me about those micro:bits. The… okay, there’s plenty of robots and they do their job and very, very well. But in some ways it feels like it’s just the robot and what can I do around it once I’ve learned all the code and whatever. I mean, one of the things that micro:bits kind of do, they really are just a chip and you can have sensors and bits and pieces of it. But that means you can kind of put it onto anything. I mean, we’re seeing quite a few people build some really cool stuff, honestly, out of wood or cardboard or plastic, whatever it is, especially if they’ve got a 3D printer and they make other bits and pieces to work with it. You can really do whatever you want. You can make your own robot with this own microprocessor in it because 25 bucks, I mean, it’s a pretty easy entry level. And that is neat, no wonder you’re an advocate for it.

[00:22:42]
Karl Easton: You had one school, I’ll tell you, one of the divisions in RoboCup was ArtBot this year. Now ArtBot for my memory doesn’t normally exist, but because it was a virtual comp, ArtBot existed. And you took your EV3, if this was the EV3, and they actually went and 3D’d out of a printer a little device that held the pen. Pen sticks down onto paper you go and you code in the geometrical design that you want. And there were some really creative designs of people came up with all these weird and wonderful designs and that there’s your art, you know, there’s your art. And some even had the pen lifting up off the page and so the robot could move over to some other part of the page, go down and draw something else and then yeah.

[00:23:26]
Ben Newsome: No, it’s pretty good. I mean, I actually I do know RoboCup pretty well. I mean, years ago I was a judge when it wasn’t the EV3s, it was the NXTs.

[00:23:35]
Karl Easton: Oh yeah, going back a bit.

[00:23:36]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, I’m going back a bit. But I remember, I mean one of the biggest pains everyone had was always trying to work a light sensor in a dappled light room. And the kids that strapped torches onto their robot were the ones that tended to do better just because it was just a constant light.

[00:23:54]
Karl Easton: Oh, so they had a constant light source because the dappled light is always bad. Like it’s never useful.

[00:24:00]
Ben Newsome: But I think there’s a rule against that now.

[00:24:04]
Karl Easton: You can’t do it anymore. Ah, there you go. You know, light thresholds are a pain in the arse, particularly if you’re in a large auditorium room and you go and set up in one corner and of course then you go and compete somewhere else and the lighting is totally different. So the smart schools I met last year at RoboCup, they had three or four different settings built into the EV3 brick. So if they had a low-setting light threshold, they had a medium, and they had a high. So they could adjust depending, they just played the programme that suited the light threshold. I thought, that’s really smart. I thought that’s, you know, you pick up these things when you go to a competition. I mean, that was our first time, so we learned a lot.

[00:24:50]
Ben Newsome: Actually, I agree with that. I mean, isn’t that the whole point of competitions? Like kids might want to focus on the award they’re trying to get. But the point is that you get to push yourself and see what other people are doing when they’re pushing themselves and then you can get better. Isn’t that the point?

[00:25:04]
Karl Easton: That’s what I said to my kids before we walked in the door. I said it’s about the networking. You get out and you learn all these ideas, you pick up these ideas and you go, “Oh, I didn’t think of that,” and you know. If they had a moment between competing, I’d say, “Go around and have a look at what other guys are doing and sort of pick their brains if they want to talk to you, maybe they don’t, maybe they do, but you’ll get a few other ideas.” And I certainly did. I always make it a goal to go out and talk to a few people, pick up a few things, get names, get some phone numbers, and try and make some connections. You walk away and you think, “I picked up…” You know, I tried to use every minute that I had there.

[00:25:43]
Ben Newsome: No, it’s awesome. And actually, and here you go, so for those people listening in, you can sort of pick Karl’s brain, you can also ask questions and whatnot. But here’s one thing I want to ask about. You’ve been doing some really cool stuff with retirement homes and linking to with your students. And it’s something that I know that a few schools do this, but you’ve been doing this really, really well. And I remember you presenting it at the Australian Museum… was it only last year, wasn’t it? And I thought, “That is just cool. I just really wanted to have a chat with you about that at some point.” And now’s my chance. So, I am going to pick your brain. That is a really cool thing. Maybe let people know what I’m actually going on about here, if you could.

[00:27:00]
Karl Easton: All right. So we’re talking Stage 2. It was a term project and it was with the VR kit that I referred to earlier from STEM T4L. And they were doing a what were they doing? They were doing a history unit on on again, it was on community and remembrance, something to do with the connection with the school and the surrounds of it. And we were at the time when the northwest rail link was was about to open and we live stones throw from that. So we would go underneath it and see the work happening every day.

[00:27:38]
Karl Easton: And then at the same time, I had got in contact with Quakers Hill Nursing Home, which we’d had a previous contact with for many years because on Anzac Day we’d take the executives, you know, the captain, vice-captains down there for the flowers left over from our assembly, and we’d go around and we’d give it to the residents, which was a really nice thing to do. So I rang up the Quakers Hill Nursing Home and I said, “Have you ever experienced virtual reality? Have you ever had anyone bring these kits down?” And they said, “No, no.” And I said, “Do you think they might be interested?” And they said, “Oh, I think so.”

[00:28:19]
Karl Easton: So, the idea being that we were going to connect the community with the kids and with a project that they were on. So we had this little triangle happening. And the kids were going to do a Google Tour of historic homes in the area. And they… I went out again during the holidays, took photos of all these historical homes, and there’s numerous ones just again within a 5k radius of where we are. And then the kids would research these homes and put up little bits of text on the screen about each one of these homes.

[00:29:04]
Karl Easton: And then one of them was very close to the northwest rail link. And one of the ideas was I did some research on a pub, the original pub that now stands opposite the Mean Fiddler. So a lot of people that live in Sydney here might know the famous Mean Fiddler Hotel. And actually, sorry, not Mean Fiddler, Ettamogah, Ettamogah down the road. About a kilometre down the road is the Ettamogah pub. Again, quite famous, hasn’t been around as long as the Mean Fiddler, but right across the road was an original pub.

[00:29:43]
Karl Easton: And when they went to they knew it was there as far as underneath about a metre of dirt. When they went to put the footings in for these massive staunchions to carry the train on the rail, they had to excavate underneath and they knew they were going to dig up. So they got an archaeologist in and I managed to get her to come to the school free, which was great. And she talked to the kids, she had a thing in the hall for about an hour, did a massive slideshow presentation, and she went into the dig. So this dig was of a very early 1870, 1860 hotel.

[00:30:27]
Karl Easton: And they found all these amazing little trinkets and so forth when they were excavating. And believe it or not, they covered it back up with dirt and said one day we’re going to do something with this, you know. This is if the council ever gets some money or gets someone that really wants to push it. And it’s still there. Like there’s an underground basement there, they never got down into that because it was full of water, but they did excavate all around the top. And you could have actually have had tours, this was about six years ago now, you could have when they were doing the early diggings.

[00:31:06]
Karl Easton: And so she came to the school, did a big talk to the kids, and at the same time I filmed where it is now, just a pile of grass underneath two massive concrete staunchions. And we put up old photos of what it used to look like, these are just artist’s impressions because the thing did burn down and there’s no history as to why it burnt down, it’s a bit of a mystery behind the whole thing. So then we packaged all this up, give it to the kids, they create these Google Tours and off we went to Quakers Hill Nursing Home.

[00:31:47]
Karl Easton: And we had two afternoons down there, both was if you want to call them sell-outs okay. We had something like I think the ratio was 12 to 13 in the room in both sessions. And the kids, we videoed all this. So this is available online if you go and Google on YouTube Quakers Hill Nursing Home VR you’ll more than likely find it. If you can’t, just run off to the T4L site and it’s showcased there as one of the things that teachers can do with virtual reality.

[00:32:28]
Karl Easton: So it was this beautiful little afternoon of tying community with a school and digital tech setting in there at the same time. And the kids set up, you know, they set them up on the iPhones that come in the kit, stuck them in the VR kit, took it over to the 76-year-old, 86-year-old, 92-year-old and said “Would you like to experience this?” And you see all this on the video. I mean you’ve seen the video. And they’re just sort of blown away, you know. I think half of them were really engaged because they’re talking to lovely little primary school kids and at the same time they get a bonus because they get to see some of these beautiful period houses that would have brought back amazing memories. You know, because there’s pictures in there of people milking cows, you know, tending to chickens, feeding pigs, riding horses… and this is Kellyville, Kellyville Ridge, Rouse Hill area.

[00:33:30]
Ben Newsome: Ah, I love it. And actually, wind forward to this particular year, how cool would those resources have been? Imagine that every school just for a moment in Australia had done something like that for their local retirement home. Because let’s be honest, there are still sites that we can’t still go into those sites because we’ve got to look after them from a COVID-19 point of view. I mean, having those things created, curated for the residents would be so cool. I mean, there’s a challenge. So anyone listening in, there is a challenge for you: see if you can create some form of VR something and hook up with your local retirement home, see if they’re keen to actually do it.

[00:34:12]
Ben Newsome: It could be on anything. I love the history side of things because I mean, I actually run, I mean amongst the various hats I do, I run these Talk with an Aussie programme to American schools. Usually have to get up at crazy hours in the morning like 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. And the word it literally is “Talk with an Aussie”. And often do it with the schools and whatnot, but every now and then they’ll invite their grandparents in, or occasionally I might run it with a retirement home. And the memory lane that people go through, because they might talk about, “Well, you know, back in the ’50s, I jumped on a boat and I sailed to Australia, and I remember what I learned when I came to Melbourne,” or whatever it is. It is so good for, you know, our senior citizens to actually, honestly, not be stuck in a box. Even if they have to be stuck in a box physically, not be stuck there emotionally or mentally in any way. I mean, I love what you did with the VR thing.

[00:34:56]
Karl Easton: You know, the crazy thing is we still do get kangaroos jumping around suburbia here in Sydney. There was only one this year I know in Kellyville Ridge on National Nine News. And at the same… did you see that story? There was a koala found on someone’s Christmas tree, I think it was in South Australia. Now, apparently, they lived near the bush, get this, I think they had a cat flap. The story didn’t relate to how this koala ended up in the Christmas tree, but I’ve got a feeling it has a cat flap, koala’s found its way inside, snooped around, found the tree, climbed up, thought, “I’ll have a snooze.” They come down in the morning, and lo and behold, there’s a koala in the Christmas tree. Only in Australia. It could only happen here. Go and Google it, I’m not making this up, it’s true.

[00:35:38]
Karl Easton: So yeah, the other idea I would suggest to schools: try out your local fire brigade. VR, I’m thinking that would look really cool, a 360 panoramic tour of the local fire brigade and get a photo inside the truck and have someone pointing out “This is this and this does this” and then do the truck and the where the bay is parked with all their suits hanging up and all the gear. That would be really cool.

[00:36:06]
Ben Newsome: It would be really interesting. Actually, you could take that to another level with permission when they do the training exercises for when they’re overrun by a fire. It’d be very interesting to have that taken inside the cabin when they drop the shielding down and the sprinklers are going nuts and all the rest, just to know what it’s really like and this is why we don’t try and outrun a fire in a car. VR opens up so many opportunities. You could do the same thing on the bridge of a ship. You could do whatever you want as long as the place, the site will let you in, off you go.

[00:36:39]
Karl Easton: Yeah, it’s giving people a view into places they normally wouldn’t ever get to, probably. So, like you said, if you live near the water and there’s a ferry and you can get to the ferry captain and… yeah. No wonder you’re an advocate for it, that’s awesome.

[00:36:55]
Ben Newsome: So I’ve got to ask. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s the end of the year, our brains are all starting to tick towards… end of the year is not far. But what have you got in mind for next year with bits and pieces? I mean, obviously, we need to have a bit of a break first, but in 2021 will come around and off we go again. What are you… what sort of challenges or things you want to try out next year if you get the chance?

[00:37:21]
Karl Easton: Well, I’ll tell you what’s been sitting in the cupboard here at our school for a good 12 months, and they were bought off those Woolworths credits. You know, when you could shop at Woolworths and get these little dockets and then you could go and refund, redeem those in and buy things for your school. And our school bought Edisons. And they’ve been sitting in storage for 12 months. So I want to get my hands on these Edisons and do something with them. At the same time, some micro:bits went in there with they bought some micro:bits, my principal. And I think it was some Elecfreaks. I’ve actually got a kit over here. Elecfreaks make a Smart Home kit. It’s like an internet of things kit and comes with a lot of little goodies. So they’re sitting in storage, you know, and I know what these things are capable of because I went and obviously bought myself one and had a play with it.

[00:38:07]
Karl Easton: So I want to get into that. And yeah, we’re going to start a Brekkie with a Techie thing. I wanted to do it again this year, but it all got pushed over to next year. And that’s where once a week teachers can come to my door at 8 o’clock, say, on a Friday. And we might just decide it’s different stages on different days, we’ll see. But anyway, we’re going to sort of answer their technical questions and we sit down and have something to eat in the morning and yeah, a bit like they used to run “Brekkie with a Techie” ages ago, I think it was the days before T4L came along.

[00:38:46]
Karl Easton: So that’s an idea to try and do a bit of personal development with the teachers and hand it down out of my head to them and then get them to go out and start to play with ideas where they can embed technology into the curriculum. That’s really me at the moment. I’m not thinking too far past micro:bits, Edisons, get the EV3s probably out of the dust room because they only got used once this year and that was for the RoboCup. And we’ll see what comes. Oh, and teacher meets, get back into some teacher meets.

[00:39:21]
Ben Newsome: No, absolutely. And actually, I do love what you’re saying with the downloading things out of your brain because often there’ll be someone who’s seen as the STEM expert or the STEM person of a particular school and the reality is that… what if you get sick for a month? You know, God forbid, right? You want to be able to show that it can keep on going. I mean, obviously, it takes time to do the training and to document and everything else, but there’s a hack: the kids are really good teachers too. They can, especially if they’re towards the end of it, they can easily help you out. So if you are listening in and you’re like, “Well, I actually have someone who does that for us,” it’s kind of cool just hook up with the students that that teacher’s working with to then get them to teach you what’s going on. And you can then create some interesting sessions for sure.

[00:40:10]
Karl Easton: That is an idea we’ve floated around that we get my robotics club kids, I run a robotics club after school on Mondays, again didn’t happen this year. But and they pay extra for that, but they could come along on the Friday morning if it was at 8 o’clock and they could help the teachers and show the teachers, you know, how to do a few things. But as you said, it’s about no one is expendable, you know, no one should be expendable in any business. So if you lose your head chef, then you should have had an understudy in the first place learning from that head chef. And the same thing, if I disappear tomorrow, you would like to think that someone else was under my wing and start to pick up on a few ideas because there’s not many, I can tell you now, no one in my school’s going to know how to drive the EV3s. So because you know what that code looks like? Your eyes glaze over the first time you see a LabVIEW Mindstorms code, you’re just lost for words, you think “What is this strange alien language?”

[00:41:06]
Karl Easton: But mind you, now we’ve gone to Scratch. You know, there is the new coding platform up there now that is Scratch-based, the block-based, and I think it’s a lot more user-friendly. I haven’t personally played with it too much, it’s probably on my to-do list for the holidays. And a few kids actually did use it in the RoboCup competition, the online one that we just had. But yeah, always trying to get it out of your head and get other people, you know, flying on their own, so to speak.

[00:41:37]
Ben Newsome: Well, on a personal note, I was able to take my family away for a trip that was planned for 10 years. So in 2018, we were going to be gone for six weeks and we were, we went to the States and we had a great time, absolutely had a great time. But we had this project that ran for a year and a half to two years within work at Fizzics called “Make Ben Redundant.” That’s what it was called. And it was deliberately designed so that the place could operate without me, and it did. Totally did. And there is never ever a time when someone can’t do something that you already that you do. For sure, it’s actually and it’s actually good to empower people to be able to do that too because what came out of that was actually an acceleration because we now had lots of people doing bits and pieces and they were able to collaborate even when I’m not around. So it was fantastic.

[00:42:23]
Karl Easton: Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s like God forbid anything ever happened to us, but you’d like to think someone could step into the fray and have a go, you know, and maybe been tinkering or been, you know, as I said, shadowing you and watching what you do in certain things. So, you know, they can just step up and people do step up and people don’t realise it’s actually within them until they’re put into that situation. And as you said, it opens new doors and it instils confidence and away they go.

[00:42:58]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, it’s good fun. Hey Karl, just before you run away because I know it has been a long day for you, but I do want to ask, if you had a bunch of people in front of you, I don’t know, just say it was a teacher meet next year, and they were wondering how do they start the first steps to start implementing VR in their classroom in any key learning area for any grade level, whatever, what would be your first suggested steps to start them on that journey so that they have a, you know, a fairly good success with it? What would you suggest?

[00:43:35]
Karl Easton: Well, for me, the STEM T4L kits that are available was an easy start. As I said, there was no money outcome. And I had the kit for a full term and the beauty of these kits is you have ambassadors. If people haven’t had experience with this, you get a regional ambassador will come out. And these are full-time guys that just live and breathe this stuff. And they are versed in the ins and outs of all these kits. Whether you order a robotics kit, a virtual reality kit, there’s other kits there, there’s a green screen kit in there. They will come out and they will help you set it up.

[00:44:23]
Karl Easton: And so even if you’re a technophobe, you really have no idea, they’ll be there and they’ll hold your hand and they’ll make sure you’re up and running. So that that’s… I mean, that’s the way it really happened with me. I had no idea of VR maybe three years ago. And I made some friends along the way too with that. And then I mean the beauty with mine was I had it six weeks before I had to stand in front of the kids and pretend I knew what I was doing. So it gave me a lot and I didn’t go away in those six weeks, so I could live and breathe the thing, go and experiment with it, make some little home tours around my backyard, whatever. And it really is that easy people, it’s not difficult. Don’t be scared of it, get in and have a crack at it.

[00:45:09]
Karl Easton: Get onto Yammer. Now Yammer, of course, is a free online service available to teachers and you can connect with other community groups. There’s a myriad of community groups there of teachers that have a passion and experience and a mindset for various KLAs. It doesn’t have to be STEM, you could be into literacy, maths, English, creative arts, you name it, there’s a community group there for you. Let alone under the STEM category there’s something like 15 community groups. The robotics one I’m the administrator of. The Makerspace one I’m the administrator of.

[00:45:53]
Karl Easton: There’s about 300 people in each one of those. And they could be in any little dinky town in the middle of New South Wales outback to some massive school in the eastern suburbs or here in the northwest. And it’s anywhere from primary to secondary and it’s free. And if you’ve got a problem, I can guarantee probably within 24 hours you put out the call and someone will come back to you with an answer and say, “Why don’t you try this link?” or “Why don’t you try this?” or “Have you tried this?” So it’s like an additional peer network, particularly if you’re feeling a bit lost and a bit alienated, and particularly if you’re in a tiny little community where you haven’t got that peer support around you of going to talk to other teachers. It opens up a lot of possibilities. So definitely try and get the thing early if you can, so you can play around with it. Get onto Yammer and then try and find something you have a passion for. That of course has helped me, and it just fell into my lap that we happened…

[00:47:13]
Karl Easton: …to have the Northwest Rail Link opening last year and at the same time the kids were doing a project on the surrounding history of the place. So, that all just came together naturally for me.

[00:47:30]
Ben Newsome: Mind you, I can’t think of a single school that doesn’t have a project outside that suits, like maybe they live on the coast, maybe they can talk about Coastcare, maybe they’re out in the outback and there’s something going on with the river, or maybe the cropping nearby, whatever it is, there’s usually something that can be done. And it’d be a lot of fun.

[00:47:51]
Karl Easton: Yeah, as you said, life-long learner. There’s always something. I mean it’s a constantly evolving world, the area of STEM. Someone as you said is always bringing out some new device somewhere that does whatever, or they’ve upgraded something, or the kids, the kids teach you so much as you said. You know, I look over the shoulder to some kids doing Scratch this year, and we did a lot of Scratch, because we couldn’t touch anything. Couldn’t touch micro:bits, couldn’t touch robotics, because of COVID. And so, we did a lot of coding. And yeah, the kids were doing these amazing things. I said, “How did you do that? You’re going to have to show me how you did that, you know? Jesus, I want to use it in my class!” Thank you so much for the invitation.

[00:48:15]
Karl Easton: We’ll see you on the flip side. Everyone out there: get over to Yammer, have a look at Yammer, explore it. Go and explore teacher meets, too, if you’re someone new to teacher meets and it’s an alien word to you. It’s free, it’s after school, you get to meet similar like-minded people. It’s a format where people will talk from three to five percent minutes, and you might hear seven or eight people talk. And out of those, two of them you might think, “Nah, not for me,” but then you might pick up a couple of ideas. And you get a little chance to have a tea and coffee and a mingle and the social connections and so forth, and the networking. So, put it on your to-do list for 2021.

[00:48:35]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And it’s a challenge. If you can’t find a teacher meet that’s for you, set one up yourself! You can always do that, too. No reason why you can’t. Absolutely. Well, Karl, thank you very much. And as usual, everyone, we do put these links in the show notes, and we’ll get that all out for you. Have a fantastic afternoon. And for you, Karl, have a Merry Christmas.

[00:48:50]
Karl Easton: Thanks, Ben. Cheers to everyone over at Fizzics and more power to you guys in 2021. Hopefully, we can get together and do a few more cool projects, eh?

[00:48:58]
Ben Newsome: That would be awesome. Take it easy, man.

[00:49:01]
Karl Easton: All right. All the best. Bye.

[00:49:04]
Announcer: We hope you’ve been enjoying the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We love making science make sense. Why don’t you book us for a science show or workshop in your school? If you’re outside of Australia, you can connect with us via a virtual excursion. See our website for more.

[00:49:18]
Ben Newsome: Well, there we go. We just heard from Karl Easton, who you can really tell loves his technology in education. Seriously, everything from tinkering with EV3s to making Scratch arcade games, you name it, he is right into it. Now, it’s seriously well worth going to the show notes for this particular episode. Karl sent across a heap of things to showcase what he’s been up to, especially his partner in crime, Russell Cairns, who is heavily involved with all sorts of learning at Jasper Road Public School. I might get to have a chat with Russell another time soon. But I tell you what, there is a lot of things that Karl’s been doing, so I really highly recommend going into the show notes for this particular episode and checking out what Karl’s been up to.

[00:49:55]
Ben Newsome: So anyway, that is the end of yet another chat with a really awesome educator. I hope you’ve been enjoying all of these episodes. There are more coming up. If you want to hang out with a really great bunch of motivated educators, I’ve been hanging out on Clubhouse lately and having some amazing chats with people right around the world who love their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in lots of different ways. So it’s very much well worth your time hanging out in Clubhouse and reaching out to me; I’d love to connect with you. Until then, I hope you have a fantastic morning, evening, or night, wherever you are, and I hope to catch you another time soon. You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education. Catch ya.

[00:50:11]
Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S.

[00:50:41]
Announcer: This podcast is part of the Australian Educators Online Network. AEON.net.au.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can primary teachers overcome the fear of teaching complex digital technologies?

Karl Easton emphasises that “nothing grows in a comfort zone.” Teachers should adopt a growth mindset and be willing to learn alongside their students. You don’t need to be the absolute expert before introducing a new tool; often, the most powerful learning happens when a teacher and student troubleshoot a coding error or a hardware issue together.

What are some practical applications for Virtual Reality (VR) in a school setting?

Beyond immersive geography or science lessons, VR can be used to build community and empathy. Karl highlights an intergenerational project where students at Kellyville Ridge Public School used VR to connect with residents at a local nursing home, sharing experiences and bridging the age gap through technology.

Why is it important to start teaching robotics and coding in the early years?

Early exposure helps transition students from being passive consumers of technology to active digital citizens and creators. It builds foundational computational thinking and problem-solving skills that are applicable across all areas of the curriculum, not just in a dedicated technology lesson.

How does digital technology integrate with other subjects in the primary curriculum?

Digital technologies should be seen as a tool rather than an isolated subject. For example, coding can be used to model mathematical patterns, VR can provide context for historical inquiries, and robotics can be used to demonstrate physical science concepts, making the learning more tangible and engaging for students.

What role does Artificial Intelligence (AI) play in the modern primary classroom?

AI is a rapidly evolving field that teaches students about data, pattern recognition, and the ethics of technology. By introducing these concepts early, educators prepare students to understand the underlying mechanics of the world they live in, ensuring they are informed users and future innovators.

Discussion points summarised from the Teaching technology in primary school with Karl Easton with AI assistance, verified and edited by Ben Newsome CF

Extra thought ideas to consider

The Power of ‘Unplugged’ Computational Thinking

Before diving into expensive hardware, consider how much logic and sequencing can be taught through physical games and paper-based puzzles. Building a strong foundation in algorithmic thinking without a screen can make the transition to physical robotics much smoother and more meaningful.

Students as Co-Teachers in the Tech Space

In the rapidly changing world of EdTech, students often discover features or shortcuts faster than adults. Cultivating a classroom culture where students are encouraged to teach the teacher fosters leadership skills and reduces the pressure on educators to know every single technical detail of a new programme.

Moving from Consumption to Creation

Challenge students to look at the apps and games they use daily and ask: “How was this made?” and “What problem does this solve?” Shifting the focus toward purposeful creation helps students understand the impact of their digital footprint and the potential for technology to serve the greater good.