Shannon Putman: Yellow everybody, and welcome to another thrilling episode of Putin's podcast.
Pops.
Thank you for joining us here at the Pop.
I have a special, wonderful.
Treat for you today.
We have Jonathan Teskey, the CEO of Reframe, and instead of me babbling on about it, I'm gonna let him explain to you what that actually is.
Jonathan, welcome.
Thank you for joining us.
Jonathan Teske: Thanks for having us.
Thanks for having me, and thank you for having reframe.
Yeah I mean, I'll just jump into who we are.
You know, we're a real time immersive learning platform that helps any teacher transform classrooms into mixed reality.
I mean, that's really what it is.
We're a platform that empowers teachers.
But ideally trying to bring immersive learning more to an embodied, I would say group approach to experiential learning and using immersive technologies to do that.
Shannon Putman: Wonderful.
So you threw around some buzzwords and if everybody's listened to the pop, hopefully they've got their vernacular down now.
But I know that you mentioned that you were a mixed reality learning platform.
So can you kind of just explain a little bit for any nubs that might not know exactly what that is?
Jonathan Teske: Yes, welcome nubs.
We need more of you.
I would say the core difference is, you know, in, in virtual reality as a medium you disappear from the world and you exist in a different, in virtual environment.
Much like if you were encapsulated into a video game.
In mixed reality, we say you are continuing in pass through, which means you see the world as you experience the technology.
That's the medium.
So if we had spectrums of.
Realities, virtual, be fully immersive, augmented would just be an overlay.
And mixed realities in between kinda interacts with your world as well as yourself.
And so we exist in the middle of that spectrum in mixed reality where you always see other people with different virtual environments or virtuals, virtual activities or objects or interactions that you're interacting with.
And, you walk around with your physical feet, which is always a good thing.
And that's really the core difference.
Yeah.
Shannon Putman: So what inspired you and reframe, wanting to go with the mixed reality route?
You know, were you ever in a classroom, you know, had you seen the need for it personally?
Jonathan Teske: Leading lead.
Great.
Leading questions here.
Well, yes.
So for everyone's background it doesn't know about me.
I, I. Was a teacher for 10 years here in Montgomery County, Maryland.
My main background is teaching English as a second language.
Born outta my experience living abroad in many different countries before I was 13.
And just realizing that the student populations that I was teaching were becoming less and less of what I looked and sounded like, but I empathized with them more because of my experience having to live abroad and acculturate and learn a language every two years.
And just feeling like an outsider.
Made me feel like I needed to give back to that population.
So I bring a lot of that ESL background teaching around thinking about the four domains of language and how that's really important to drive any type of academic learning.
And then why we chose mixed reality is essentially talking to thousands of teachers while at meta prior to reframe, leading a lot of that work and then even to reframe we felt that.
The core technology we wanted to use was one that would facilitate conversation, collaboration, sorry, in the real world without having to disappear from it.
And that really helps us empower the teacher, I think, in ways that are more focused on not having to change their teaching behaviors and pedagogy, but really focused on.
Reinforcing that really good teacher backed research backed pedagogy around looking over a student's shoulder, knowing more about students when you wanna provide insights having students collaborate and conversate without having to disappear to a world to talk to another student two feet away from you.
We really wanted to lean into.
99.9% of students are still in a brick and mortar classroom, and that's not a bad thing.
The social dynamics of the classroom are features not bugs.
They're valuable to that space.
And so how do we bring parts of the medium of these realities into that space that for us and for the folks that use us, find us more accessible in, in, in doing so.
Shannon Putman: And you mentioned the educator a lot in, in, in your description, and I think that's important to note because something that I've been seeing and I think you have as well, is that the industry thinks in education, we're a lot further along.
In our vr, ar mixed reality journey, and we're not, and a lot of teachers have never even put a headset on, you know, let alone the students as well.
So, how is it that utilizing mixed reality can be less intimidating?
Because I know that it is, but how, for a teacher that might be, you know, nervous to put on a headset, why does mixed reality make that whole transition easier?
Jonathan Teske: Yeah, I mean, I think you've nailed, I mean, this is, I like to tell everyone that, you know, 99.9% of people have never been in a headset.
And then, so your subset in education is teachers and students.
And I think I would also say too you know, I think I. The industry is a little bit culpable here of mixing and matching education and learning and different environments, and it's always a catchall and really what has.
Progressed, I think a lot in the space from an educational lens with XR is primarily VR for simulation and workforce training in different B2B and enterprise verticals, but not in, I would consider hard e you know, education hard e capitalized education, which to me is K 12 where you're really setting the foundations for students to go be great, you know, lifelong learners and really important workers in the workforce.
But.
A lot of that has, I think when you hear about all this, you know, oh man, RN education has really taken off.
I do think it's continuing to take off, but it is continuing to make sure we take the right steps forward.
And so for anyone wanting to dip their toes in, you know, I think mixed reality is the best and I think will be the most used default medium in the space.
I think VR in a class, in a physical K 12 classroom and to an extent higher ed, will still be useful, but I still think it'll be more of a knife, like a, like something to slice really quickly with that you need to like, get to a point and then you're gonna be brought back into mixed reality and kind of spatial computing, you know, the same terms to exist in the real world.
And that's because the cognitive load is lower, you know, for people in general, right.
We do we onboarded a bunch of teachers two months ago and multiple teachers came up to me.
I get nauseous in vr and I'm like, okay.
Let's put on a headset, you know, and they their hesitancy and it's typically always ask, the follow up question I always ask is, well, did you do a VR rollercoaster simulator
Shannon Putman: On a Google Cardboard.
Jonathan Teske: Yeah.
Yeah.
And they're like, oh yeah.
I was like, yeah, it sucked.
It's it sucks now still.
And so, and every time then they get in a headset in mixed reality with us.
You know, they take the headset off after 20 minutes on their head and they're go, oh, I feel fine.
You know, and I think that's where.
I, you know, I'd like to see industry players like Meta and Pico and others do a much better job of stewarding that for us as developers and important parts of the ecosystem that don't rely upon us to do that consistently.
But I do think that is, I. Seeing is believing, feeling is believing in this technology.
And for mixed reality specifically, the cognitive load is lower.
I mean, you're walking with, you're walking around with your feet, so, so you don't get a lot of nausea.
And I and every time we test with students, they just remark that they love being able to look at and talk to and collaborate with other people.
And I think that it just feels more natural, you know, in general.
And you don't have to embody this uncanny avatar.
So, yeah I think that's the biggest thing.
And then you just combined with, we need to start separating how we use and define the terms learning, education, training to the respective industries.
'cause the more that they crossed over you know, everyone loves to site that PWC study was very much a workforce training, adult learning study that.
It's just a wholly different environment than a bunch of young children with a teacher at the head of the classroom.
Shannon Putman: Fantastic points there.
And I'm not, and I've, you know, I've used the whole gamut of reality in higher ed as well.
And there's a lot of great stuff being done in higher ed.
I'm not taking anything away from that.
However, working with college students and working in K 12 is incredibly different.
Jonathan Teske: It's so different.
Shannon Putman: It, yeah, it's almost non-comparable and, don't think that even educators.
Being so overwhelmed.
I don't even think they think it's a possibility.
And I'm the biggest proponent of the headsets and everything, but it's still not user friendly yet.
It isn't.
As much as they like to think that it isn't.
So, yeah.
I love that mixed reality.
Like you said, you can it's not.
The learning curve isn't as bad either, because it's not like your body doesn't have to understand the ideas of smooth movement and getting used to those different feelings.
So instead of it being couched to 5K where you have to build up to it, you can kind of just get right into mixed reality.
Jonathan Teske: one too, like you don't, I mean, this is getting more technical, so hopefully don't lose all the nubs, but you know, like when you're in a fully immersive world, you recognize things like frame rate, dips.
And that's really jarring to people, you know, and if you're a gamer like myself and others, like, you'll notice that on a TV and you can discern the difference between like a 30 FPS and a 60 FPS.
But it is harsh when you see that dip and you're fully immersed in vr.
And so I do think that you can, the develop developers are afforded a little bit more leeway when they're creating as well, because that dip doesn't hurt as much.
And just.
That dip creates that nausea amongst many other things.
And so I, again, I just think there's more leeway too with mixed reality.
So there's benefits on both sides of how you approach it.
Shannon Putman: Yeah, absolutely.
And you complimented me on my leading questions.
Thank you.
That's in part to Mr. Jade Kyle from Marcellus High School in Syracuse, New York.
I was on, I was a mock trial.
All star thanks to him.
And if he's listening still love you.
Ja.
But here's another one for you.
I had to get Dave's shot out in there, so, reframe Now, is it a, is it content?
Is it a platform that delivers content?
If I were to invest in purchasing, reframe, what would I be getting?
Jonathan Teske: Yeah, we're really focused on platform infrastructure first.
And so we've really put a focus on classroom management.
The sword we wanted to die on really because my time at Meta in the last two years of building reframe everyone, for lack of a better word, has complained about MDM.
Mobile device management and that's gonna solve everyone's classroom's problem, specifically teachers and I mean, I call bs you know, I it's not true.
Mobile device management is an IT administration platform.
It's built for IT administrators.
It's built for fleets of hardware.
It is not built for software and human experiences.
And so, knowing that, that.
What people were asking for is not exactly what they wanted.
Was having to then take a step back and realize someone needed to build the infrastructure to support the opportunity to have others build upon and build and create more content experiences.
And so what we said is that, okay, well, we'll kind of disa how.
You build a room, mixed reality will strip away What's unnecessary?
Ai will put in more power and control to teachers, so it's manually built, but then all of that spatial data lives and sits with the school.
They manage it, they secure it just like every other utility that they have and own and LMS assists.
Sorry, I'm using terms learning management system, student information system, an attendance system.
Anything that a school uses to run they need a platform to manage, secure it and be aligned to their privacy policy.
And so, we took a very much a platform, and technology oriented step first because we wanted to get that right.
'cause if you could build great content, but it, again, it doesn't matter if you don't have the vehicle to which to get people to the place you're trying to get them to.
And so now we're both investing in our own content, but also slowly starting to work with other partners around the space.
We can't name yet, but that are, that wanna work with us.
But we have done some earth science content.
We'll continue to build out for our first partner.
Broward County schools.
And then we're also taking shots at different content areas.
We're even taking shots at humanities and ELA that no one else has, and that's, that to me is the most exciting piece because again, when we're in our.
Teacher training two months ago, we ha we had every content gen ed and CS teachers all there.
And afterwards I had multiple social studies teachers come to me with ideas that I've never seen before.
Like that.
That's what, and then I had ELA teachers who came to me and said, oh, can you do this?
Can you do, can we visualize rhetoric in a different way and figurative language?
I'm like.
Heck yeah.
Like let's do it.
Like there's this and that.
That to me, I, you know, I tip our hat to the team and just to the opportunity and the idea is that, and why I go back to like the industry players that they need to be a little more forward in how they proliferate.
This analogy is that people just, I. I don't think people are really afforded the opportunity to dream 'cause they don't get access to the technology or they don't see the possibilities.
And then what they think is a possibility is shrunk to what is marketed, what's on LinkedIn or what comes from higher ed and workforce training.
And then that's a very small subset, which tends to be STEM or workforce training.
And then you just get so narrow and then everyone focuses, oh well the technology can only do that.
And you know, as someone who wants the technology to proliferate everywhere.
There needs to be folks that are taking shots at acro across the board, across all content areas to demonstrate the full value.
And I think everyone should be invested in that.
But for us me specifically, you know, I want the technology to proliferate with or without us.
I think what we're building is important and will be built with or without us.
And I just think we as a team and myself have a unique perspective and value that could do that with some fidelity.
Shannon Putman: If I was more tech savvy, I would've had like angelic music playing When you said a couple of those things because it's everything I've been saying as well, and I know people are sick of listening to me, but
Jonathan Teske: Get outside of the XR industry.
And it's like gold.
Like, 'cause people just, they just go, yeah, that makes sense.
Like you just, you talk more to teachers who've never been in the technology and they're like, oh yeah, that makes, like, this makes complete sense.
You know?
But I think what we do in inside the industry is just, it's a very technocentric first view.
Where it's like, we gotta bend the will to the technology we're bringing in, and you're like, no, you gotta bend the will of technology to make sure it exists in the environment.
So yeah, the more I talk to students and teachers, the better I feel because I get outside of folks who are just like, it, just constantly talking about the tech and I'm like, tech doesn't matter if it, if the use case doesn't exist.
Shannon Putman: Yes.
And what I love about what you were mentioning was you talked about how, you know, social studies teachers came up with ideas.
You know, came up to you with ideas.
That's the whole point.
So the industry thinks that either it's, here's this prepackaged software that we created that we say is good for STEM, or we say is good for this and here's a lesson plan and here's the script.
Or it just needs to be plug and play, which we know doesn't work.
And so what it does is that.
Cuts out the entire thing that makes educators special, which is our creativity and you know, and what we want to do.
Like we have great ideas, we wanna do things, we've just gotten beaten down by, you know, core content standards, test scores, all those other things.
So when you just give them it, instead of letting them be creative, like you're like ideas I'd never even heard of.
Like, I'm an awesome teacher too.
And teachers will be like, what about this idea?
I'm like.
Never thought of that.
Like there's so many amazing educators out there that have things that want things.
So I love that your platform is just that.
It's a platform.
It's not a, we're telling you how to teach and we're telling you what to teach and how
Jonathan Teske: We're not a way to teach.
Yep.
We're not a way to teach.
And I think that's what VR specifically does and doesn't do well is this is the way to teach.
Whether it's simulation training or it's just, it's K 12, but it's still on a kind of a simulation, you know, 20 minute experience track.
I would rather, I'd rather have the teacher build up.
In terms of her skillset and technology and content that she wants to do, versus here's something fully prepackaged and, you know, we're working on a light offering tool that allows teachers to build mixed reality scenes and reframe, and that's it's basic stuff, but it's like how, okay, how do I ingest a model and give it light interaction and give it some context with a panel?
That, that's billboard that follows along on the user.
No.
You can put any 2D content and reframe too, so you can give it even more context.
Like teachers can do that already.
Now CS teachers can do that with our software development kit and Unity, but soon teachers will be able to do that.
The 99.9% of teachers who never want to get into code will then have the opportunity to start doing that.
And to your point around the social studies stuff, like we don't wanna be the arbiters of that.
We wanna say, okay, we'll build the first one with you.
You gave us the idea, we'll build it.
But then we pass that template along.
Then you can then do it on that authoring tool.
So it's like, we'll take the first shot at it, we're gonna co-design with you 'cause you came with the idea, but we're not gonna own it.
We're just like, okay, in the future, if you want to build more of these, because like there's not just one version of the thing you came up with.
You have you, if you came up with it as a teacher, you know, then you have infinite ideas around this thing.
So we just say, okay, we'll build the first one with you.
We'll build a template and then we'll put that template into authoring tool.
So it's not like we're gonna build 10 of these for you now, so we're gonna build one, and then we're gonna build the structure.
We're gonna make the structure of it accessible to you, and then you build as much as you want.
And then it proliferates, and then kind of a Nearpod approach where you just, you share the lessons with other teachers who are in the network, a reframe.
Shannon Putman: That's so refreshing too, because a lot of companies don't do that.
And let's just face it, everybody knows, you know, money makes the world go round, so they want us to be beholden to them.
You know, like if you want something new, you have to pay us, you know?
And so a lot of people in the industry are.
Don't want to do that.
And so that's what I always talk about.
You know, anybody that's ever listened to me knows that the only principle is what's best for students.
So I align myself with people that have the same belief and you guys absolutely do by the
Jonathan Teske: Well, I think you win.
You just win in the long run.
Yeah.
You just win in the long run, you know, like.
I'm not, I'm here for the long game.
Like this is, to me a very much a life thing I want to do, you know?
And I'd rather continue to build those relationships where we lean into teachers.
It's longer, it is much harder, but to me it is much more rewarding in, in, at any stage, but especially in the back end.
And so if we can continue to leverage teacher skillsets and communicate that to.
Purchasers, you know, to school admin.
I think it's really important for the space to grow.
Otherwise, I think it's just gonna, it's gonna be small.
Shannon Putman: We don't, I don't think it's going to be long lasting if we don't do those things.
It has the potential to be everywhere, but if we.
Don't change how we're doing some things.
It might not ever fully take grip and we've lost all
Jonathan Teske: I think it will.
I think it will.
I do think it will but to your point, like I. On the 2D web world, it took, you know, almost 20 years for tools like Canva to take off and to exist first, and then to take off, you know, in the educational setting, in the web 2.0 world.
So, you know, I still think we're, are a little bit early, but we're finally getting to a space where the core technology is accessible, but the products that use that technology now need to be accessible.
And so that's just where we're taking that shot.
Shannon Putman: Absolutely.
And as we're kind of wrapping up here because this has been fascinating and I could go on forever, but I promise the pop would be a short and quick.
But is there anything that so of course people can, you know, contact Putman Exar Consulting.
But and I'm putting links, you know, in.
In everything.
But is there anything, if they wanted to get in touch with you, where should they go and, you know, where, as a kind of a closing thought, like where are you seeing kind of this technology going or, you know, what would you kind of like to leave educators with in regards to, to reframe as a final thought?
Jonathan Teske: Yeah, well first you can reach out to me.
You can check us out on the website or just email me, jonathan@reframexr.com.
Please reach out.
Thoughts, ideas, opportunities you want us, you wanna bring us to your school?
It'd be great.
Where I see the space going is.
Definitely, I think, faster towards that convergence of light glasses and face computer on your head.
And I do, I see the glass that's becoming a bit faster to some light AR concepts, which I think, again, validate and help us get into spaces that are much easier.
I also think there needs to be better investment and we're doing this, but I think that there needs to be better investment around how do you bring other devices?
Into an immersive space that is happening or occurring in real time with these headsets.
I, you know, I. Case in point, right?
Meta with Horizon Worlds was headset only.
And then they backed up into web and mobile.
And there just needs to be better on-ramps to the technology.
And again, the technology doesn't always have to be on a headset like xr.
Like you can have great ar content on a phone, like anything with a camera, right?
And so how as reframe, we think about how do we help?
Our current customers, our future customers and the space recognize that the on-ramps to what we know is the best experience, which is the headset, how do we give them better on-ramps?
And so that's what we're really focused on, is creating that accessibility piece.
For.
People, students or teachers who otherwise wouldn't or don't want to wear a headset anytime soon, how do they get still, you know, 80, 90% of what reframe offers?
That's what we're really focused on.
There's been some great convergence of technology that allow us to do that, and so this summer will be very exciting to get to as the things we have on our roadmap.
But that, that to me is where we.
We just wanna offer up, you know, the thinking, the space to the space around our vision of the future.
And I think it's bearing out with who we're partnered with right now.
Shannon Putman: I love that.
I think that's perfectly said and a wonderful way to, to wrap everything up other than the closing countdown.
Jonathan Teske: yeah.
The closing, yes.
The closing rando question.
The fastball.
Give it to
Shannon Putman: Yes, which you said you could handle, so, all right, so it's a good one.
Now I got this just from looking at your environment and I gotta ask you, your top three favorite machines ever invented.
So this could be like even in a sci-fi movie, like, so it could be that R 2D two, whatever.
What are your top three favorite machines?
Non br too.
Like
Jonathan Teske: Yeah.
You gotta make this hard.
Shannon Putman: Yeah, I told you.
Jonathan Teske: oh man,
Shannon Putman: I know.
Jonathan Teske: this is good.
Well, I would say I'm gonna, I'm gonna maybe cheat a little bit here, but I, the Matrix just because I just think it's just a wonderful thought experiment.
Just the idea of the matrix and it is loosely tied to this, like whatever metaverse term, but just the technology.
But I love that.
I would say to an extension the DVD player.
I, you know, I, you know, I'm I grew up where the DVD player was right in the middle of high school, smack in the middle of high school.
And just the ability to see movement of such clarity from a jump from VHS and I, you know, look, I had all the big Disney boxes of VHSs for anyone who's still of a, of our age.
But like to me, the DVD player was huge.
And then, you know, heartstrings machines, I would say.
A video game console?
I'm trying to, I'm trying to think of like the best, most important.
I would still, I would say the switch.
Like I, you know, my huge gamer since the beginning since the eighties.
But I would say the switch was.
To me, the culmination of all of Nintendo's work for the last, at least from a video game perspective, the last 40 years of work and the convergence of both something that's mobile and something that's console.
And it's just it's yet to be fully replicated.
And I'm excited for their further, their upcoming switch to reveal next week.
But I think that has.
That to me is a category of itself that we're seeing a lot of competitors try to reach into, including Steam with their steam deck and all these other third parties.
So, it's just really cool to kind of be alive right now in that level of technology, let alone all the stuff we're talking about with mixed reality and vr.
But like, you know, that's just the screen.
But it's just, again it's a tech, it's a boring technology, but it was the core product that created this new, unique product that used that technology in a unique way.
And I just think it's just awesome.
I can't wait to see him extend it.
Shannon Putman: Those are fantastic.
As a my dad is probably right now playing his original Game Boy Tetris.
Jonathan Teske: I still got that one.
I still have that brick.
And it
Shannon Putman: Absolutely It does.
It does.
Jonathan Teske: works.
Shannon Putman: And he still, when he beats nine five, he still turns the music up and we hear the music.
So that's how he lets us know he beat the level again.
But
Jonathan Teske: it.
Shannon Putman: much respect for sure.
Those were good ones.
You handled the pop the closing countdown very well and the pop, so.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I can't express how grateful I am for you and your guidance and your different perspective and also your friendship.
I truly appreciate it and I'm excited for everything Reframe has to offer and I can't wait to maybe be even just a tiny part of it or just enjoying the ride that you guys go on.
So.
Jonathan Teske: I appreciate it.
Well, thank you for having us.
I think you, this won't be the last time you hear from us.
Shannon Putman: I hope not.
I know it won't be, but you know, I just always like to knock on wood and everything.
I'm not,
Jonathan Teske: That's right.
Shannon Putman: Thank you again, Jonathan, so much.
Jonathan Teske: Thanks Shannon.