Audio Transcript

[00:00:00]
Amanda Fox: There’s just so many different new-fangled platforms that are popping up everywhere that gives everyone the opportunity to do the artistic design piece of STEAM.

[00:00:15]
Ben Newsome: It’s Amanda Fox’s deep understanding and knowledge about how to use digital education to help kids understand about their world that’s really making a huge difference. Today we’re going to hear from an ISTE emerging leader, PBS digital innovator, and the host of the VR Podcast to talk about everything about digital education and more.

[00:00:33]
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.

[00:00:50]
Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. Glad to have you on board. This week we are speaking with Amanda Fox, as I said in the intro, an incredibly highly vibrant innovator in digital education. Very much so. She used to work at the STEM Academy and actually has a background in English Language Arts, social studies, film and journalism, which is very much an interesting mix when it comes to STEAM education.

[00:01:14]
Ben Newsome: Her work involves a lot of education with primary students, middle school students, and secondary students as well in all sorts of things. She’s very much doing Virtual Reality, stop-motion animation, Augmented Reality, video game design, robotics, app design, 3D printing, you name it, Amanda Fox has been doing it. She’s very much helping in the professional learning space and helping kids with after-school STEAM programmes as well.

[00:01:39]
Ben Newsome: So, with all that in mind, no matter where you happen to be, whether you’re in the classroom, whether you’re in a museum, zoo, aquarium, wherever it is, if you’re working with learners, this episode is very handy if you want to incorporate some digital technology. So, without further ado, let’s listen to Amanda and hear what she’s been doing.

[00:01:56]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:01:59]
Ben Newsome: Amanda, thanks for jumping on the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:02:02]
Amanda Fox: Oh, thank you for having me. My pleasure.

[00:02:05]
Ben Newsome: No, I’m really stoked to have you here. It’s 6:00 PM where you are. It’s currently 8:00 AM where I am. Hey, Amanda, can you just let everyone know whereabouts you actually are?

[00:02:13]
Amanda Fox: Yeah, so I am located in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States, and I am currently the creative director of STEAMpunks EDU.

[00:02:23]
Ben Newsome: Got it. Now there’s a lot of people, especially across North America, who would know what STEAMpunks EDU actually gets up to, but we’ve got quite a few people down here in Australia who do a lot of STEM stuff but may not have run into you. So what’s STEAMpunks EDU all about?

[00:02:36]
Amanda Fox: STEAMpunks is essentially a programme that I designed that focuses on integrating and experimenting with cutting-edge technology, hence our tagline, “Education with Edge”. We try to stay cutting-edge not only with the tech we use but also the classes we’re offering and making sure they connect back to a STEAM or STEM career field for students.

[00:03:00]
Ben Newsome: Straight up tech and everything in between when it comes to education.

[00:03:05]
Amanda Fox: So we have classes like Augmented Reality, video game design, 3D design and modelling, 3D printing, coding, robotics, and my personal favourite, the Virtual Reality class.

[00:03:17]
Ben Newsome: Geez, that’s getting bigger and bigger, isn’t it?

[00:03:20]
Amanda Fox: Yeah. So as you know, I’m also a co-host with Steven Soto, James McCrary, and Alex Chosser on the VR Podcast. So it’s kind of my thing and I enjoy VR very much.

[00:03:33]
Ben Newsome: So what got you into tech and education? Where did this all come from? What sparked your curiosity?

[00:03:40]
Amanda Fox: Well, tech has always made my nerd flag fly extremely high. So technology integration in education has always just been something that I’ve loved. I got my start in STEM education at the STEM Academy in Savannah, Georgia, in 2013.

[00:04:00]
Amanda Fox: At STEM, I kind of helped shape our school-wide story-centred curriculum. We had it themed around outer space travel, there’s a fictional planet Nevermore, and it allowed students to think outside of normal constraints. We delivered this trilogy, and one of the things that we did with technology is it was always like a vehicle to deliver content and it was integrated seamlessly. The focus wasn’t on the tech, it was what we were doing with it.

[00:04:29]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. What ages were the audience, the kids themselves? How old were you dealing with at this time?

[00:04:37]
Amanda Fox: At this time, sixth, seventh, and eighth. So right now, my programme, STEAMpunks in Kentucky, focuses on K through 8.

[00:04:46]
Ben Newsome: Got it. And with all this tech stuff, which versions, whether it’s Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and all the other bits and pieces, what’s grabbing kids’ attention the most?

[00:04:58]
Amanda Fox: I would say right now, Virtual Reality. And maybe I’m a little biased, but it’s like delivering magic to kids. Seeing them put a headset on for the first time and walking in a world that they have built is just mind-boggling for them.

[00:05:17]
Amanda Fox: I would actually say any of the courses that we teach where kids are creating stuff. I would say that final product, like when they build something or they code something or design some sort of solution, that’s what they love. They like to be hands-on and involved.

[00:05:36]
Ben Newsome: If you had to throw together a quick lesson, just say you had to do something tomorrow afternoon for an after-school STEM programme, what would you throw together for, say, a grade 8 and they’re just starting? How would you start kids getting into this environment if it was their very first day and they really haven’t done much to do with it prior?

[00:06:03]
Amanda Fox: With STEM or with…?

[00:06:05]
Ben Newsome: Or more for the Virtual Reality side. How would you get the kids getting into it if they don’t know what to do with this environment? What would you do?

[00:06:16]
Amanda Fox: Oh, this is a great question because I actually did this last week. Last week I was in Dallas and I taught a group of sixth graders and I used VR. I carried a couple of Oculus Go headsets, a Samsung Gear, and some Merge headsets with some phones in it.

[00:06:32]
Amanda Fox: I posed that they had just been hired by a hospital, and the hospital is looking to integrate innovative training programmes. They were tasked with coming up with some sort of app that would solve a problem, whether it be a rare experience or something impossible like operating on a cadaver.

[00:06:57]
Amanda Fox: They had just done frog dissection, so I related it to that. They did a virtual dissection, and then I had them compare the two. Then we talked about, what if you could do this in Virtual Reality? What were the benefits, what were the pros, what were the cons? So I made that career connection, embedded it in a real-life context, and then they kind of understood the power of VR.

[00:07:20]
Amanda Fox: You can’t cut open a frog ten times, and if you make a mistake, it’s hard to recover. So in Virtual Reality, it gives students the opportunity to fail gracefully and then gives them another opportunity to retry within that specific context. But VR is so much more than just what you can do with medical training. It’s concept designs, ideations for industrial engineers and cars, it’s just crazy.

[00:07:53]
Ben Newsome: My mind’s just gone wide open, thinking about all the possibilities. I can imagine training for any scenario that you can’t get to yet, for example, deep-water diving to a site. You could do so much with it. It just comes down to creating the environment to make it as realistic as possible.

[00:08:12]
Ben Newsome: How do you handle the graphic design element of that? If you’ve got a new concept where someone hasn’t built the environment yet, I imagine there’s a fair bit of effort in getting the graphics together so it’s realistic. How do you sort of crack that nut?

[00:08:25]
Amanda Fox: Oh, there’s so many different platforms that already offer STL or OBJ files that you can import into these worlds. Or you can, like with CoSpaces EDU, they offer kind of like a drag-and-drop environment that you can do.

[00:08:43]
Amanda Fox: But outside of that specific platform, which is amazing and phenomenal for educators, I don’t care what grade level, any student can jump into it, drag and drop, and walk through a world they built, and then it layers in the coding. But outside of that, Facebook Spaces, Tilt Brush. Tilt Brush is a programme that actually allows you to go in and design your own environment.

[00:09:08]
Amanda Fox: So there’s just so many different new-fangled platforms that are popping up everywhere that gives everyone the opportunity to do the artistic design piece of STEAM.

[00:09:20]
Ben Newsome: You can have some fun also with gamification. There’s a big movement of getting games into education itself because, hey, if you’ve got to design the game, you’ve got to know what the rules are. And if you know the rules, you probably know the logic and the science or STEM, whatever it is about it.

[00:09:34]
Ben Newsome: Have you seen anything where kids have created games where people have to go into that environment and then perform whatever the tasks are of the game? I’m just wondering if you’ve seen them mashed together.

[00:09:44]
Amanda Fox: Absolutely. So last summer, right before CoSpaces launched CoSpaces EDU, I had a summer camp and students were crime scene investigators and they had to research the career and they had to design the perfect crime scene in VR.

[00:10:02]
Amanda Fox: They created it kind of like a mystery with multiple scenes where the viewer that would go through each scene was actually collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses. And at the end, they had to click on the right criminal. So in a way, that was gamified. But I’ve seen mazes, escape rooms, Breakout EDUs done. The possibilities are really just whatever you can imagine.

[00:10:30]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. I love Breakout EDU. That’s just an awesome concept. And just being able to do that is just fantastic. Now let’s be honest, we’re talking VR because it’s obviously something right at the very heart of what you love doing, but you do so much more. One of the things I was just looking up on foxbright.com checking out what you get up to is Flybrix, these Lego drones. I must admit I’ve never come across it. I genuinely don’t know what’s going on with this. What’s that all about?

[00:11:01]
Amanda Fox: Oh my gosh. Okay, so Flybrix are drones, they’re like Lego drones essentially. I taught a class where students worked in groups of three. You had a master builder, a black box which was the documentarian, and then a pilot who actually flew the drone.

[00:11:21]
Amanda Fox: They did a design challenge. They had to build a quadcopter and they had to have it balanced, they had to analyse its balance for aerodynamics, and then we added a competition layer to it. Working together and collaborating, they also had to be the first team to get their drone off the ground.

[00:11:43]
Amanda Fox: It was fantastic. You can do hot potato drone builds where one student puts something on and you pass it around.

[00:11:50]
Ben Newsome: You can totally mess people up doing that. You can throw it totally off balance! “Righto kiddo, work it out!”

[00:11:57]
Amanda Fox: Yeah, but that relates directly to iterative problem-solving. So then they go back if they’ve had a failed flight and you bring the Wright Brothers into that and you talk about how if you’re not successful your first time, you take pieces apart, you rebuild, you rebalance, and you try again.

[00:12:16]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Actually, having a background story and weaving some history and the “A” that happens to be part of STEAM as well is just as important. I imagine a lot of that comes in, especially when you’re doing the work around stop-motion animation, that type of thing too, yeah? It’s all about the story.

[00:12:31]
Amanda Fox: Oh yes. So stop-motion animation and film are close to my heart. I taught film and digital media at the STEM Academy for three years. So I am all about the “A”.

[00:12:43]
Ben Newsome: No, it’s cool. I guess I kind of wonder, where are you hearing the demands from parents themselves for their kids when it comes to tech and education? I know it’s a broad topic, technology. There’s a lot of different things that are underneath that particular title. What are the parents themselves seeming to want for their kids to prepare them for their future?

[00:13:07]
Amanda Fox: So actually, I just had a parent text me about summer camps and I’m teaching a Social Media Rockstar class. Part of it is they’re going to design their own YouTube channel, their YouTube video intros, and podcast, actually, our Social Media Sensation is what it is.

[00:13:28]
Amanda Fox: That parent specifically was like, “This is what my kid wants to do, will he be able to do that?” And I’m like, absolutely. The first day of class is I’m going to find out where everyone’s heart lies and where their passion is and have them create videos on that.

[00:13:47]
Amanda Fox: There’s a big push for students to be able to navigate the internet, to be able to communicate their ideas, and publish artefacts that are strong representations of what they’re trying to showcase in terms of their learning.

[00:14:04]
Amanda Fox: While I would say screen time is always an issue that comes up, I think if students are spending their time on the screens creating instead of consuming, I don’t care how many hours a day they’re doing it.

[00:14:20]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. There’s this massive push through the schools themselves to get right up to speed with all this tech that’s coming straight down the pipeline, which means that there’s a lot of work on the professional learning space as well, which I know you do a lot of work on. So what sort of things do you do with the teachers?

[00:14:39]
Amanda Fox: With teachers, I do a lot of training on problem-based learning, STEM integration, makerspaces. I’ve done flipped classroom. I have a YouTube video with like 144 videos, a lot of them are either social studies based or flip lectures on animation, copyright, and film.

[00:15:00]
Amanda Fox: So just teaching teachers how to make tech work for them and enhance their classroom activities, and then give more meaningful classroom time as well.

[00:15:11]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, well, I believe you need to be meaningful in class.

[00:15:15]
Amanda Fox: Well, meaningful interactions between students, not just talking at them, but allowing students to work together, which I think is super important, especially middle school and up.

[00:15:29]
Amanda Fox: I mean, primary as well, but just having students draw on their own perspectives, I think, strengthens any lesson.

[00:15:38]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, I agree. And especially when you allow kids the time and space to be able to go on tangents and just explore bits and pieces. It’s definitely the case, which means undoubtedly I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some strange lessons where you think, “I didn’t expect that to go that way.” What are some of the funnier things that you’ve seen happen in tech and education in your experience? You’ve done this for quite a few years. It’s hard to pick one, but is there a particular example you can think of at the top of your head that was just hilarious?

[00:16:10]
Amanda Fox: Well, I wouldn’t say so much with the technology. I guess there was a chemistry lab one time and students were about to measure calories of Cheetos. Except no one told the students what they were going to be doing, so they ate the Cheetos.

[00:16:28]
Amanda Fox: All the way around the classroom, gave the Cheetos out, I guess everyone thought it was snack time. And then when they got to the front, they’re like, “All right, we’re going to burn these and measure the calories,” only to realise that there weren’t any Cheetos left standing.

[00:16:44]
Ben Newsome: Oh no!

[00:16:46]
Amanda Fox: In terms of tech, I would say I haven’t had any huge funny mishaps. Using Classcraft, have you heard of Classcraft?

[00:16:56]
Ben Newsome: I have heard of it. I haven’t played with it yet.

[00:16:59]
Amanda Fox: Well, it’s a gamification platform that allows students to roleplay and it’s great at empowering students. There’s a random event at the beginning of each class, and somehow one of these random events ended up with me having to sing Disney songs at the top of my lungs in class. So that was quite unfortunate. It was amazing how many phones came out.

[00:17:24]
Ben Newsome: I bet. Which means that you’re now documented somewhere for posterity.

[00:17:29]
Amanda Fox: Yeah, I’m probably viral and I’d prefer not to know about it.

[00:17:33]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, we could let that go. That would be true. Dear oh dear. You’ve got to do a lot of very cool things. If you had to think about one major highlight with the work that you’ve done up to this point, what would that be?

[00:17:48]
Amanda Fox: Well, I love travelling and seeing what education looks like everywhere. It gives me an opportunity to kind of get a global pulse and a real perspective on trends that are working, not just in the United States, but I’ve got the opportunity to go to Brisbane, Dubai, and Manila in the last two years and talk to the teachers and different educators around the world.

[00:18:16]
Amanda Fox: So for me, the coolest thing about being an educator and from a professional development standpoint is to see how other teachers are integrating tech, and also the obstacles that teachers in different areas of the world have to overcome because it’s very different.

[00:18:32]
Ben Newsome: Yeah. And actually, I mean you’ve been to Brisbane and you’re coming back in October for DigiSTEM.

[00:18:37]
Amanda Fox: I am. I’m going to be at DigiSTEM. I’m doing a keynote on VR in VR. It’s called “Bridging Realities” or “Blending Realities” because it’s about being able to use VR platforms to blend virtual and brick-and-mortar classrooms and bringing in global experts.

[00:19:01]
Ben Newsome: I must wonder about this VR thing. Where do you think the future is heading with that area? Are there any developments that you know that might be on its way potentially to be applied in the classroom in years to come?

[00:19:15]
Amanda Fox: There is a really cool platform called Rumii. It’s made by Doghead Simulations and it is a virtual classroom where they actually just did a full VR conference back in March. No, maybe it was April. Okay, we’re in May, almost June. It was sometime this year. But it was the first one of its kind.

[00:19:43]
Amanda Fox: But this platform allows you to come in, you can play videos, you can draw, you can import 3D models, have discussions, and you import into this classroom as an avatar from either a desktop, a headset, or whatever. I think in the future that platform, you’re going to see a big boom where a lot of people start pushing for that.

[00:20:09]
Ben Newsome: That sounds really cool.

[00:20:12]
Amanda Fox: Think of Mystery Skypes in VR.

[00:20:16]
Ben Newsome: Wow.

[00:20:17]
Amanda Fox: Where you can actually pair students off and they can go up and talk to each other.

[00:20:20]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, that’s really good fun. There was a group down in a town south of Sydney, Wollongong, that did something in a way similar, but it never really took off because they had this idea of having avatars walking around a bit like Second Life. And the idea was they could literally have thousands of people, almost like a big carnival.

[00:21:00]
Amanda Fox: Or let’s say you have students working in WeVideo. You have maybe two classrooms doing two different world problems that are specific to that geographic location, to the two different locations but maybe a shared problem. And they’re showing the perspective of it from that location, and then we go into VR and we actually play the video from YouTube and we play student pieces and we have a film festival with a school or a classroom in Australia and one in the United States sitting at the same time. Well, of course, time zones are still a problem.

[00:21:36]
Ben Newsome: It’s just a little bit.

[00:21:38]
Amanda Fox: I mean, I prefer 6:00 PM much more to your 8:00 AM right now.

[00:21:43]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, I’m waiting for my caffeine to work through me, hence the vague questions occasionally because it’s not quite there all the way. Now, you get that. Actually, I was lucky this morning because the person who was using this room before me had a connection to Canada doing some liquid nitrogen stuff and she started at 6:00 AM, so I think I got it lucky.

[00:22:01]
Amanda Fox: Oh my goodness!

[00:22:03]
Ben Newsome: But it’s all part of it. But hey, so you’ve been recognised as an ISTE emerging leader which is fantastic, a PBS innovator. Hey, being with ISTE, I’m guessing you’re coming to Chicago soon, yeah?

[00:22:16]
Amanda Fox: Oh yeah, I’ll be in Chicago. I’ve got, of course I have a VR session. And the VR Podcast will be there, we’ll be interviewing people in immersion tech. And I’m also the Young Educator Network President, so I will be running the social Monday night. So all young educators, that means young at heart, feel free to join us. There’ll be more information on Twitter soon.

[00:22:42]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Well, ISTE‘s a big massive party I must think. It’s crazy how many things are going on, but I would recommend anyone especially to go rock up because hey, if there’s a lot of people there and you can’t have too much time to speak with Amanda because she’ll be running around the place doing her thing, there’ll be a lot of really innovative exciting young educational leaders all in the same room and going nuts, it’d be great.

[00:23:09]
Amanda Fox: Absolutely, absolutely.

[00:23:11]
Ben Newsome: Hey, speaking of which, there’ll be people who want to get into more VR and all that type of thing in their classrooms. What sort of advice would you give to someone who is just starting out?

[00:23:22]
Amanda Fox: Be fearless. Just with reckless abandon, approach any new thing or any new technology and don’t be afraid to fail. There’s a podcast, gosh I don’t remember the guy’s name, but he talks about living life in beta. And that today, know that you’re the best version of yourself but tomorrow you should be a better version, and that better version comes from being a forever learner. I feel like I learn more when I approach learning fearlessly. So just be fearless.

[00:23:56]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, I love that. Actually it reminds me of someone who once told me, said “you know that old story about the journey of a thousand miles”, he said “why does it have to be a thousand miles, why not further?”. Fair enough. Yeah, that’s cool. Well thank you very much for taking the time to pop on the Fizzics Ed Podcast just for a moment and look hopefully we might be able to catch up in Chicago and if we don’t meet up, hey, you’re coming down to Sydney soon.

[00:24:23]
Amanda Fox: I am. I am. We’ll say g’day then. I also have a book coming out in October.

[00:24:29]
Ben Newsome: Oh cool, tell us about it!

[00:24:31]
Amanda Fox: So it’s called Teachingland: A Teacher’s Survival Guide to the Classroom Apocalypse. It’s being published by Dave Burgess Consulting and it is about education through a zombie lens.

[00:24:43]
Ben Newsome: Love it. Zombies and education.

[00:24:46]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, actually we had someone who was presenting at the Youth Eco Summit last year and she was teaching how kids can learn about mathematics and statistics by modelling what would happen in the zombie outbreak.

[00:25:01]
Amanda Fox: Yep. We had a very similar lesson at the STEM Academy. They made PSAs and they had to analyse virology and epidemiology and understand how things spread in patient zero outbreak points and how to inform the public. So absolutely.

[00:25:20]
Ben Newsome: You use whatever hook you can and let’s be honest, zombies is a great hook. I love it. We started with VR, we end up with zombies, which means I guess you’re going to have to put zombies in a VR situation.

[00:25:34]
Amanda Fox: Oh, it’s happening. I’ve already had some 3D zombie models made, so expect to see some thriller VR going on soon.

[00:25:44]
Ben Newsome: Wow. You’re really just playing, aren’t you?

[00:25:47]
Amanda Fox: I’m not playing, but yeah, I’m totally playing. It takes a long time to play. Like there’s a lot of work involved but we’re still playing.

[00:25:56]
Ben Newsome: Yes, exactly. Very cool. Well, thank you very much. I should let you get back to, I suppose, your dinner will be coming up soon. But enjoy your evening and, hey, we might catch you another time.

[00:26:08]
Amanda Fox: Absolutely. I hope to meet some of your listeners in person at DigiSTEM.

[00:26:13]
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.

[00:26:31]
Ben Newsome: Well, there you go. That was Amanda Fox, who is truly a highly innovative educator when it comes to digital education. Very, very cool. I mean, her work isn’t just about Virtual Reality. You could hear there is so much more to offer with STEAMpunks EDU. It’s very much worth your time going and checking them out. So actually, if you go onto foxbright.com, you can find out all about the stuff that she’s been doing in professional learning, STEAM programmes, and all the rest. And I must say, I really want to check out Flybrix. That is such a cool idea with Lego drones. Unreal.

[00:27:02]
Ben Newsome: Now, by the way, after that initial chat, we kept on talking a little bit further about what she’s been getting up to and she talked a bit more about her upcoming book, which is coming up in October. So, maybe let’s hear a little bit more about what that’s all about.

[00:27:13]
Amanda Fox: So imagine if Piaget or Dewey found themselves in the shoes of Sheriff Rick Grimes of The Walking Dead, waking up amidst a zombie apocalypse, except instead of a hospital, it was a classroom. In many places, the classroom apocalypse is upon us and we are in the battle to fend off forces that will drag down our teachers or students.

[00:27:32]
Amanda Fox: So basically, it’s more about surviving the policies and the obstacles that are put in front of us, testing and stuff like that. And it’s really for pre-service teachers and new teachers because it focuses on classroom management strategies, pedagogy, and then cognitive scientists and tying the pedagogy back to the scientists. And then creating personalised learning through technology integration, and then building rapport with students. So I don’t, there’s a, I call it a monster chart because it’s huge, it’s a zombie book so monster chart fits. But it’s a huge chart of just different tech tools and how to integrate it. But the strategies are timeless.

[00:28:16]
Announcer: Sign up now for our fortnightly email newsletter. It’s loaded with details on new experiments you can do, STEM teaching articles, new gadgets, exclusive offers and upcoming events. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. Scroll to the bottom and add your email.

[00:28:34]
Ben Newsome: Well, there we go. We’re at the end of yet another Fizzics Ed Podcast. I hope you got a bit out of it. I certainly did, especially with all those links you’re going to have to go check out on the web. So many digital tools that Amanda Fox talked about and it’s going to be a lot of fun to help enrich our lessons. I hope you’re going to do the same in your classroom too. But until I get to speak with you again, I hope you have a fantastic week. You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education, and you’ve been listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. I’ll catch you next week.

[00:28:59]
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.

[00:29:26]
Announcer: This podcast is part of the Australian Educators Online Network. aeon.net.au.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the primary advantage of using Virtual Reality for high-stakes training like medical procedures?
As Amanda explains, Virtual Reality allows students to “fail gracefully”. Unlike a physical dissection where a mistake is permanent, VR enables learners to retry a procedure immediately within the same context, building competence through safe repetition.

How can teachers introduce Virtual Reality to students who have never used the technology before?
Amanda suggests using real-world career connections, such as posing as a consultant for a hospital. By using accessible platforms like CoSpaces EDU, which features a drag-and-drop environment, students can build their own worlds and layer in coding without needing an extensive technical background.

What is the educational value of using Lego-based drones like Flybrix?
These tools facilitate iterative problem-solving. Students must balance the drone for aerodynamics and, if a flight fails, they must analyse the failure, rebuild, and rebalance—much like the Wright Brothers did in the early days of aviation.

What does it mean to “live life in beta” in an educational context?
Derived from software development, this philosophy encourages being a “forever learner”. It posits that while you are the best version of yourself today, you should strive to be a better version tomorrow by fearlessly approaching new technology and learning from failures.

How can a flipped classroom model benefit teacher professional development?
By providing lectures and technical instructions as digital content (such as flipped lectures on YouTube), valuable face-to-face time is preserved for meaningful interactions, hands-on experimentation, and addressing specific classroom obstacles rather than just “talking at” the teachers.

Discussion points summarised from the Virtual Reality in the Classroom with AI assistance, verified and edited by Ben Newsome CF

Extra thought ideas to consider

Creation vs. Consumption on Screens
Amanda argues that the debate over “screen time” should shift from the number of hours spent to the nature of the activity. If students are using digital tools to create artefacts, design environments, or solve problems rather than passively consuming content, the educational value is significantly higher regardless of the duration.

Bridging Realities via Avatars
Platforms like Rumii allow students and global experts to meet in virtual classrooms as avatars. This could revolutionise global collaboration, allowing a classroom in Australia and one in the United States to hold a joint film festival or science discussion in a shared virtual space, bypassing physical distance.

The “Zombie Lens” for Engagement
Using a narrative hook like a “Classroom Apocalypse” can make abstract concepts like virology, epidemiology, or statistics feel immediate and necessary. Modelling a zombie outbreak provides a high-engagement scenario that requires students to apply rigorous scientific and mathematical logic to survive the fictional mission.