Shannon Putman: Yellow everybody, and welcome to the pop.
You know where it's at.
You know what's popping at the pop?
That's what they say, right?
Do kids still say what's popping?
I don't think so.
Anyways, it is me, Shannon, and I am here with one special treat for you.
I have associate re.
Research professor Amber Roland.
And now I know all my, all my Syracuse friends and, uh, all my, um, bills fans.
Don't worry.
I know she's at can at the, at Kansas, but we're gonna, we're gonna allow her on the pop today anyway 'cause she's that good.
Amber Rowland: Thank you.
Thank you for having
Shannon Putman: Could you just kind of gimme a little bit of background about you and, and your journey and, and kind of what you're up to?
Amber Rowland: Absolutely.
So I have been at the University of Kansas for 23 years now, and got my PhD in 2012 and have been, A PI on various different projects through, um, virtual reality use, but also anything technology integration has been kind of my passion over the years.
And specifically I would say my expertise is in professional development, um, and supporting the implementation of technology.
and then specifically with students, typically with disabilities.
Shannon Putman: Wonderful.
And that's an, that's an incredibly interesting, uh, background and field to be in right now.
you know, you mentioned your, your passion for working with technology and the professional development.
Um, I, that's been a big topic on this podcast because I don't think education is nearly as far along into the VR journey as.
The industry thinks it is.
So what is one of the big challenges you found with integrating new technology, especially in education?
Amber Rowland: Yeah.
Well, if you'd asked me this before chat, GPT launched, um, I would say talking people into believing that it works and that it's helpful.
Um, now similar to what was happening when I first started, you know, in the late nineties, early two thousands, I was trying to talk people into using.
The internet, like it's not scary.
It, it will not eat the world alive.
And we can do amazing things with the internet, I promise you should use it in your classroom.
Uh, and now we're, we're having similar conversations about artificial intelligence and, uh, the notion that we cannot take the street away from the kids.
We do have to teach 'em how to cross it.
And I think that has been something, throughout my career that I've been trying to help people not be afraid because you don't know it.
So it's scary, but, Helping people understand the application that can be there to support all learners, especially those with disabilities.
And, I, I hate to see people not use it with kids because, um, it can help them so much.
Shannon Putman: Absolutely.
The impact is truly profound.
And I always say that, you know, I've, I, I know I sound like a snake oil salesman, but like our snake oil works, you know?
And it almost sounds too good to be true, but it really isn't.
but I also think along with that, you know, being overwhelmed, there's that fear too.
And especially now with AI and with, you know.
With the metaverse and, and you know, avatars and things like that, educators are incredibly fearful of being replaced.
And so how do you teach them that, you know, this is how you integrate it into your instruction, but you maintain the role still out of educator.
I.
Amber Rowland: Yes.
One of my colleagues, Samantha Goldman talks about, the educator's, the, uh, superhero.
Artificial intelligence is the sidekick or the, or the technology of any kind.
And I always like to refer to it as a, as a digital assistant, and just like any assistant, you have to train them.
You have to check their work.
You have to make sure that what they're producing is something that represents you and the concepts that you know.
Because ultimately, educators are the content experts and they know their kids best.
And so my big thing with.
When I'm working with teachers in the field, but also my undergraduates here at KU, is helping them understand that it is simply another tool.
It is a really fancy pencil, and you can misuse pencils, but you can also use them for good.
And so, maintaining integrity and, and always checking their work, that digital assistant is the critical piece.
Shannon Putman: That's a, a very good analogy.
I'm a huge fan of analogies as well, and so I appreciate a good one.
And I like that one.
I might have to borrow that.
but yeah, exactly right, like every step of the way.
It's been, you know, a new tool and, you know, to help support and the industry also, like I, I've seen, I don't wanna say, I guess they get frustrated with educators, but they're like, well, it just needs to be plug and play.
And I was like, well, that isn't the answer all the time either.
There's a time and a place for everything.
But then that doesn't allow the, the educator to maintain their creativity.
And then that is when they're feeling replaced.
If it's like.
Yep.
Just put it on, put the kids in it, and they go away and do it.
And you're not even a part of it in the digital world or in the physical world.
Amber Rowland: Right.
Well, and so voice, uh, one of the virtual reality programs that we can talk about today.
it was designed.
To be used independently with a student on an iPad, a Chromebook, an Oculus headset, a Windows machine.
Um, it was built in Unity, so it has a lot of different applications and can be used in different devices, I always say it is not the be all to end all.
It does help kids learn and practice social skills.
If they can walk away with 183 new, I mean not new social skills, but they can practice about what we've identified as 183 social skills using 142 different scenarios, and it's awesome for that.
But ultimately.
The kids don't necessarily know how to do social skills until they go do it.
In the real world, they have to generalize.
So Voice Advisor is a website we created for anybody who wants to implement social skills, and the idea there is to help educators support generalization so they.
Still have to go out and do some of the direct instruction and role play practice that it requires for a student to actually do it.
Because there are a lot of students, in our case, our demographic tends to be students with autism.
There are a lot of students with social skill needs who know the right answer and what you want them to tell you they're gonna, you're gonna go do.
But when it comes to brass tax, they don't actually do it.
And so we have to support generalization.
So that's a huge piece of the professional development that we do with our virtual reality environment is helping understand that the teacher really still has to help the teach the students implement down the road in the real world.
Shannon Putman: exactly.
That generalization is critical for anybody, and especially like you said, any of our students, you know, with.
A SD or those type of, disabilities where they're, you know, getting it one time and then nope.
Gotta do it again and again.
And, you know, and I think nowadays too, even because a lot of kids in general are so reliant on technology, I'm seeing a lack of social skills from your non-special ed students.
So the idea, I mean, I have, gen ed teachers asking for scenarios where they can, the students can practice making a phone call.
Because they don't even like make phone calls and make their own, you know, doctor's appointments and everything now.
So how are you seeing technology affecting communication as a whole?
Amber Rowland: I was just actually in Denver with, a Group Prospect Academy, but the, the teachers were telling me how much students struggle because COVID.
just completely created a wall for a lot of people to just be online, but also our kids, especially our middle school students, which is what voice is, is made for.
They go home and they play games, and they're used to communicating with other kids.
Sometimes in games and sometimes they're just on Minecraft and they don't wanna communicate with anybody.
They're just in the game and that's what they do all evening.
And so they've lost those social skills, and that ability to communicate.
And they need scenarios where they can go in and watch people their own age, communicate with other people their own age, and then figure out how to handle that situation because it is definitely an epidemic.
It's.
It's very difficult.
And it's not just kids with disabilities, but all kids.
And we get that all the time.
We have people emailing to say, Hey, can my fifth graders use this?
They're getting ready for middle school.
Absolutely.
That'd be perfect.
You know, have them take the opportunity to get in there and see what it's like to be in a middle school and some of the scenarios they're gonna run into, but also as they go up into high school and think about, the situations that'll be a little bit different than what we have in voice, but still.
You know, it's dealing with bullying, it's dealing with how to ask to join, all those bits and pieces that middle school kids already are socially awkward.
And so pretty much anybody can benefit, uh, from doing a little bit of social skill practice.
Shannon Putman: And you mentioned voice, um, a couple times now, and I just wanted to make sure that, uh, everybody had a chance to understand kind of exactly.
Can you just give us a little walkthrough of what it is and, and how it, um, helps student practice, students practice those social skills because it's incredibly impressive.
So I want everybody to, to know all about it and be able to check it out and everything too.
Amber Rowland: Absolutely so voice.
You can go to project voice.org to learn more about it.
Um, voice was the original product.
I also wanna be sure I don't forget to talk about.
I know, because it's the next iteration of voice.
So let's start with voice.
It's been developed over the last.
13 years.
Um, it started as a, uh, Sean Smith started as a little bitty thing called Avis, and it has just blown up over the years into what it is now.
And it's designed to help middle school students learn and practice social skills.
And again, we have 183.
Social skills represented.
Um, they have the opportunity to get in and learn and practice in various different scenarios because as we know, social skills build on each other.
And so you might see a certain skill in one scenario, and then you might go a couple scenarios and find it again, and you get to practice it in a different way.
Um, so we try to facilitate some generalization of those social skills as well.
But you're gonna run into, well, there's 143 different, uh, scenarios.
They're all about three to five minutes long.
They're not.
They're not terribly long within voice.
Students get three or four opportunities to interact.
Uh, so you get thrown into a social narrative.
These are all based on social narratives, so you get thrown into a situation.
So for instance, you might walk into the gym and you watch some kids play in basketball.
And from the point of view of the first person, which is the way the game's played, you wanna join that basketball game.
And so you have to figure out how to go in and ask to join.
And then based on the way that you approach that situation, the avatars react naturally to that.
So if you, um, if you walk up and steal the ball, they're not gonna, it's not gonna go well for you.
Um, but if you go and you ask politely to join, then they're gonna pass you the ball and you get to shoot a basket.
So we try really hard to have, fairly natural consequences, uh, to the way students react.
Uh, voice.
Again, it was developed, with older technology, so it's button pushing, but I know is the next iteration that's coming out.
It's Voice 2.0 and I know is going to have artificial intelligence so that now students can speak and be spoken back to naturally.
With avatars who talk like middle school kids.
Um, it was one of the criticisms we got from voice is, middle school kids don't talk like that.
Well, that's true.
They don't.
Uh, 'cause it was written by adults, uh, and, and teachers, um, in fact, I should mention that voice was created by educators who have years and years of experience working with students who struggle with social skills.
So it's very research based.
We have fabulous research to show that kids can learn and practice social skills successfully in voice.
And now we're super excited to be, uh, developing.
I know, um, it's actually in beta right now.
We have 25 scenarios that are working.
Virtual reality and ai.
You know, we're, we're pioneering this in the education realm and so we're trying to figure out how to decrease the wait time that it takes to hear back from the avatars because it is artificial intelligence.
So it's thinking.
but all of that is solvable.
You know, that's gonna come with time.
So I hope that gives you a summary of the two products and, and we're adding a few more cool things I know I can talk about too.
So.
Shannon Putman: That absolutely does.
And as somebody who checked out voice and loved it, um, and would've loved to have used it, on a, a larger scale, uh, I'm super excited for I know, and you brought up a very good point, something that I'm, uh, always talking about too is that sometimes when, you know, we make these products, especially in education or just anything, a lot of times, uh, we don't.
Yeah, we'll have, we'll get some customer feedback, but like in the designing, we don't have the actual target group.
And I would see that in deaf ed a lot.
Like hearing people love to make things for deaf people without ever even asking them if they want it or need it.
so the fact that, you know, you're like, they actually, you know, we got a criticism that that's not how middle schoolers talk.
And then, you know, willing to adjust.
Like, I love that because, I don't like to think of myself as over 40, but I am now and I'm like.
I don't know what a middle schooler is gonna be saying, so I, they're not gonna say hip or anything like that, so.
Amber Rowland: Yeah, it's hard to keep up.
We dunno.
Shannon Putman: Right.
Exactly.
Gotta have like a little cheat sheet.
But, um, I think that's so important and especially with the role of ai.
Are you seeing like, some of the things that I love with it are the ability to really train it to go for all of those other scenarios that we couldn't cover.
Because a lot of times, you know, the book says, you know, you do this and student does this.
Well, that's not how it always goes, but sometimes, you know, you can work with them and train them to say hello and instead they get a student who just does a head nod.
Amber Rowland: Right.
Shannon Putman: So how are you using this to, to account for those other scenarios?
Amber Rowland: Yeah, I think that is one of the.
Awesome pieces.
And also one of the overwhelming components as a developer because we're trying to navigate all those scenarios.
And even last week I was working with some students, some middle school students, and um, they were using, I know, and they were, trying to trick it.
And so they were purposely saying things that were a little.
A little off kilter.
Um, that probably wouldn't have been the normal way to react.
When I say normal, I mean, uh, I shouldn't have said that.
Uh, would I say, the typical way someone might react in a social situation?
What we're finding is that it's doing a pretty good job.
it does a nice job and we've trained it to redirect.
So we'll say something like, oh, well that's an option for how you could react, but it might not garner the reaction that you need in order to be successful.
Maybe you should try, and then we give it.
We, it, it offers recommendations for how you can then proceed.
And that's part of what's awesome about voice is it does reteach and we always say, no kids, were, were harmed in the making of these social skills because typically when you're doing social skill instruction, you have to do some sort of role play.
So that means that you've got to out a kid.
To their peers and say, okay, so this student struggles with social skills as though you didn't already know.
And uh, and here's a specific, um, scenario where they really struggle and will you help us through that?
I mean, think about the social implications that has for a middle school kid who's being outed to their peers.
And then not only that, but the peers have to practice with 'em.
I mean, that's really hard.
And so we, we created voice to give them that option where they don't necessarily have to do the hard work of practicing and doing it wrong.
Many times they can crash and burn as many times as they need in order to actually, per progress in.
The scenario.
And so we have reteaching that happens from the narrator, so we try to redirect and then we also have videos.
And that's one of the things that we're gonna do way more of in, I know, is we're gonna actually do modeling so that you can watch two characters doing the, the skill that we're trying to teach so that the, the student can actually see it happening and then be able to react in turn.
Shannon Putman: I love all of that.
And it's incredibly exciting too.
Um, and, and like you said to, if we're going to prepare them for real life, then it needs to be real life.
So are you seeing any kind of, you know, gaps or, or you know, like big needs in the ed tech space?
What are, what are you experiencing out there that we might need to develop a little bit more of?
Amber Rowland: one of the nuts that we're trying to crack right now is the professional development component and how to help educators get just in time, uh, resources.
Quick because the number one, anytime you ask any educator what's your number one trouble right now is probably gonna be time.
Time is so hard.
And so the professional development that us, you know.
University types like to give, last, you know, a semester, three hours at a time, right?
It's overwhelming.
It's a lot.
And teachers don't have time for that.
And so figuring out how to do bite-sized professional development that's really packed with good research-based content is hard.
it, it even seems a bit o in opposition.
And so that's a nut we're trying to crack mostly through video.
and I would love to see more.
Ed tech folks thinking about how they're supporting teachers to effectively implement, um, whatever it is that they're coming up with.
The other big one, of course, is, as we've mentioned already, is working directly with educators and teacher or, and students in the development of the product.
there are a lot of ed tech.
Tools out there that're developed by somebody in a garage who has no education background, but thought it'd be a cool idea for teachers or for the education space.
And that's just not gonna have the, in, the integrity that it needs in order to be successful and long lasting.
And so, even with artificial intelligence that can go out there and create scenarios or it can, uh, you know, create lesson plans, you still need a content expert who can say.
Not for that population or, oh, if you did it that way, it sounds good on paper, but in reality, this is what's gonna happen.
All of those pieces cannot be forgotten, and teachers need to always remember that they are the experts.
They know their content, they know their kids, and make sure that when you're, when you're out there looking at an ed tech product that they've worked with educators and students to build it, I think that would be amazing to have more of that and transparency in that.
Shannon Putman: If I'm, I'm pausing or stumbling over my words, it's 'cause I'm fangirling over here because that's exactly the same things that I've been saying and what I've been trying to do different.
And, uh, you know, and, and what I think sets me apart as well is.
The actual professional development, because I have that trifecta experience too, where I actually was a classroom teacher, so I know what it's like and you know, and I've got my PhD so I've got the research, but I've also got the implementation.
So I know what it takes to get educators where they need to go.
you know, when we, we talk about how do we actually reach them, that's what we gotta do.
We gotta hit the ground, we gotta be in there, we gotta be available when they're ready because they are so overwhelmed with everything else.
Amber Rowland: I just think it, until you're in the middle of it and you see everything that they're dealing with, you have no idea just how hard it is.
And they're not gonna be able to have a ton of different ed tech tools that they implement.
They're gonna be able to find a few that work really well.
and they need to be quick so they can learn it and then use it with kids also.
Oh, the other thing that we're working on is, communication with parents again.
People who have even less time frequently than educators to think about an education topic, uh, for their kids.
But they want their kids to learn and they want their kids to be successful.
And so we are in the midst right now of developing quick parent resources that could be sent home kind of in a quick email, you know.
One pager, not even that long.
One paragraph, just description of what it is that they're learning that week.
So let's say they're in voice and they're, they're in the, uh, a specific domain, one of our 10 domains.
You know, if we could just quickly introduce that, give them an overview of it.
Here's the language that we're using.
Can you reinforce that at home around the dinner table?
You know, how can we further bridge that gap between the, the parent and the.
and the school in supporting students 'cause social skills, especially in, you know, since I do social skill, uh, research, that's a, that's, it needs to be a, a, an overall wrapping thing.
You know, everywhere you go you're gonna be doing some social skill interactions, so why not practice what we're, what we're doing in school.
Shannon Putman: Absolutely no, I, I love that because that is such a huge, that, you know, school home connection is such a, a big piece and also in like, you know, home with family and the neighborhood and, you know, all of those things.
And I always said one of the hardest parts of teaching, um, students with oral communication difficulties is.
Creating those authentic communication exchanges, like when kids are playing and stuff, like you can't as an adult, like simulate that.
And so the more of those that we can, you know, create for our students, the more they are getting to express themselves as well.
That's the thing we don't wanna forget about in the whole process too, is the students getting to express themselves more.
Amber Rowland: absolutely.
Shannon Putman: and how neat to go from potentially feeling like you don't have a voice to now you have a method that you can express what you're feeling and thinking, you
Amber Rowland: Oh yeah.
I have an example for you.
So last week, again, I was working with some, some middle school students and I asked, you know, you've been playing voice for, they've been playing voice for like three months.
I said, you know, is there anything that you can do now that socially that you felt uncomfortable with before you got to play voice?
And one of them just nailed it and he said, well.
The scenario where you help me identify emotions has been really helpful.
And I said, oh, tell me more about that.
Well, I really struggle with identifying, uh, emotions.
And so I was able to practice watching somebody in our scenario.
They're actually sitting in the cafeteria and they're eating food and you know, somebody's happy, somebody's surprised by what they got, somebody's upset by what they ate, you know?
And so being able to practice seeing facial.
Features and identify those has been helpful.
Another student said, you know, the, the one about the sad day, so there's a, there's a scenario where a student is crying because her dog died the night before.
And so this student said, you know, I, it was really helpful for me to, to experience that and it's to be able to give, Verbal feedback to the student that that's not how the student said it.
But it was really helpful for me to know what to say to this person who was so sad and in, and when I was, you know, doing it before, I would just sort of not talk to them because I didn't know what to say.
And so that's the kind of thing we wanna give them, these opportunities to experience hard things.
Digitally before they have to actually do them in reality.
So those are just a couple of examples of, where teacher or students have made the connection themselves.
Like, I know I struggle with this, but voice helped me practice it.
Yay.
That's what we wanna hear
Shannon Putman: Yeah.
That's unbelievable because even like my generation, we weren't taught like how to handle our emotions and stuff.
Like it wasn't, you know, like I didn't know anything about boundaries or,
Amber Rowland: Yeah, it's the hidden curriculum.
It's the thing we assume kids come with, but they don't, especially post COVID.
it's amazing what a year and a half will do as far as the social skills that we lost.
Shannon Putman: um, as we're,
This has been absolutely fabulous.
I've had such a wonderful time, and as we're kind of coming towards the close, is there anything else you'd like to kind of share?
And also, you know, I'm gonna put links and everything in it but, um, anything else that you wanna make sure that people know about?
Amber Rowland: Yeah.
You know, reach out if you wanna play voice.
That would be great.
We are looking for people to pilot it, um, and use it.
Uh, we are also gearing up with, I know we are in a beta version, so next year we're gonna need people who wanna test it.
Um, so we're always looking for kids and educators who wanna give us, you know, play it and give us feedback, help us make it better, in various capacities.
Uh, for that as well.
So, don't hesitate to reach out to me, Amber dot roland@ku.edu.
or you can go to Project Voice or project I know, and you're gonna get the same contact information and, and you can learn a little bit more about us.
We have a trailer out there if you wanna better understand what voice is.
and then we're gearing up.
The, I know, content to help people understand it, but voice is, is up and running and functioning.
it's right now, it's on the app, which is the Apple Store or Google Play Store.
You can download it and play, uh, up to six scenarios, uh, for free.
And then if you want more than that, you've gotta have a code and that's when you can reach out to me.
and I know is actually, we're not building it right now in Unity.
We're building it on, a web.
Servers so that anybody in the world who has a a web enabled device can play it.
And so that's another big thing that we're moving, from voice to.
I know it's gonna be a little bit more accessible and robust, so
Shannon Putman: That's super exciting.
I, I understand that need too because, um, you know, not everybody has headsets or anything like that.
And, you know, a a a VR headset is one thing I never force on anybody.
So if they don't wanna do it, you have to have another, you know, option and things like that.
So, that's a very smart decision.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I've had the most wonderful time.
Um, if you think you're getting away though, without the closing countdown, you're not so, because you did a lot of like research on writing.
Um, I was.
Wasn't gonna out myself, but I'm gonna, I, uh, attributed an acronym from the Louisville Writing Project.
What Up?
Jean Wolf?
and asked her about it.
She's like, I don't know what that is.
So thank you, Amber, for being understanding of my newness and my confusion.
But what are your three favorite fonts?
Amber Rowland: Oh, okay.
So Ariel is my favorite.
Probably because it doesn't have the feet on it.
And I know for students who have dyslexia dysgraphia, that's very helpful.
So I tend to use aerial mostly times.
New Roman is one as a research professor in a PA. They make me use it all the time.
So I do live in that one.
And then Comm Sands, comic Sands is one that kids middle school kids love.
And so I tend to gravitate towards that one as well.
So those are my big three.
Shannon Putman: I like it.
Those are definitely good.
Very nice little fancy in there, a little practical like it.
Amber Rowland: There you go.
Shannon Putman: Well again, Amber, this was absolutely wonderful.
Um, you guys are doing fabulous work.
Everybody needs to check it out and, uh, I can't wait to continue to, uh, use it some more and hopefully get to collaborate with you and, uh, maybe we can do another follow up when I know was officially out there and, and rocking it, so.
Amber Rowland: that would be awesome.
Would love to.
Shannon Putman: Well, thank you again so much.
Uh.
Amber Rowland: You're welcome.
Thank you.