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These are short, powerful, and focused 5-10 minute episodes designed for busy educators who want quick insights into:
✅ Virtual Reality in Education
✅ Exciting Trends in EdTech
✅ Game-Changing Tools for Quality Instruction
In just a few minutes, you’ll gain actionable insights into how VR and emerging technologies are transforming learning—no fluff, just the good stuff!
🔥 Want to be featured? If you’re an edtech innovator, VR developer, or education leader, let’s connect! I’d love to showcase your work.
Shannon: Yellow and welcome to a nice spring episode of Putman's Podcast Pops.
Spring on in and show us your grin.
That used to be how I had to answer the phone when I worked at the Picture People, that was my, uh… I had a job as a photographer and I would say, "Spring on in and show us your grin."
So welcome on Into the Hop with the exciting and thrilling episode today with Ms. Mercy Johnson, the marketing director for V Lab.
Did I get that right?
Mercy: Yes, I love it.
I love it.
Yeah.
Good
Shannon: Yes, welcome, Anne.
How are you today?
Mercy: Oh, doing great.
The snow finally melted where I live, and the weather's back to being nice, so it's a good, it's a good
Shannon: That is absolutely an amazing day.
Good for you.
Wonderful.
Well, can you kinda just start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and, uh, I'll let you do most of the talking
Mercy: Yeah, for sure.
So I do all the marketing for a company called, uh, VLab Education, and we do virtual reality chemistry labs.
And that's-- it's kind of our sweet spot, and we have been tweaking and building and developing and trying to spread the message for the past three to five years, and we're really hitting our stride this year.
And so we're super excited to connect with, uh, with you and be here on this podcast to spread the good news about what virtual reality can do in the classroom science-wise.
So we're really excited.
Shannon: Heck yeah.
And I've been saying it, so I'm glad to have you in here to back me up as well.
Absolutely.
And now you, it, so VLab InforScience, okay?
I know a lot of people hear the term STEM or, you know, STEAM and all that kind of stuff.
But can you go a little bit more in depth in what VLab actually offers?
Now, is this like chemistry?
Is this, you know, your standard lab?
What can I expect when I get into VLab?
Mercy: Yes.
So that's an excellent question.
We do, specifically right now we do entry-level chemistry.
So whatever your basic high school first round of chemistry class would be, we provide all of the experiments.
We just rolled out our seventh experiment right now, and we have the other six.
We also have the basics for how to use a lab and the safety awareness and stuff like that, which has been really cool to build in safety features for a lab that you would experience in the real world into VR.
One of the really cool things that we have is while you're going through the different labs, if you get yourself in a situation where you would potentially burn your hands
or burn your eyebrows off or something like that, we can simulate that kind of experience in VR without any of you actually losing your eyebrows or your hands, you know?
So one of the coolest safety features we put in recently was we put in an eye wash station and a full body shower, 'cause a couple of our labs, you-- If you do the lab correctly, obviously you'd be fine.
But if you know, are screwing around or you mess up or you're like, "Hey, I wanna try this or this," and it goes sideways you have the
ability to practice using all of those safety features in the same way that you would in the real world, which I think is really awesome.
Another thing that's really unique about our labs is that they're not they're not locked in to step-by-step.
So we provide all of the pre- and post-lab worksheets for our labs.
We provide the instructions for how to do the lab correctly, both in a written format PDF outside of the lab, and we built in a chalkboard on the
wall in each lab that's, that has the specific lab steps you need to do But you can walk around and do them in the correct or incorrect order.
You can also improvise, you can try different things multiple times.
And again, we're really trying to like, to simulate that, that real world learning experience and the value of trial and error, which is what science is all about originally, right?
It's all about trying this and trying that, and that's how we have all the cool inventions we have today, and we wanted to really bring that learning experience to life for students and for teachers and for parents alike.
And I'm-- as somebody who's experienced a couple different types of VR games and also has, you know, experienced, I was-- I did part of my college
education during COVID and I did a science class in a digital setting on a laptop during COVID my senior year, and I was like, "Man this sucks.
This is not great." Like I've learned nothing.
I've been-- Like it's hard to use.
I'm so locked in that I don't-- I can't mess this up, and I actually have not retained any of this information.
And when I use our labs, it's just, it's night and day difference, and you see people come alive with the concepts.
I've actually learned more chemistry in the last three and a half years than I did in high school.
So, uh, yeah, it's been… It's a good, it's a good time.
It's a good time.
Shannon: That's really fascinating, and I love that you guys have built in this ability that you-- Look, if you want the worksheet, if you wanna do it this way, we've got it.
But also, just like in life, it doesn't always happen that way.
And so that's what I've been always screaming about, you know, virtual reality and immersive learning, like we're only limited by our imagination.
And, you know, when teachers are like, "Oh, well, do you have a classroom setting?" And I'm like, "We're sitting in a classroom." We don't have to put a headset on to go into a classroom.
You know?
We can use our imaginations.
And sometimes with that, you know, it can go-- it can be good or bad.
And it might not even be, you know, that somebody was messing around, but you could just unintentionally drop something.
I mean, mistakes happen, you know, that is life.
And so to be able to work with those chemicals in a way that those accidents aren't going to cost us our lives, uh, is incredibly valuable, I would think
Mercy: Oh, for sure.
And one of the labs that we have is like a glassware lab, and I just got done teaching, uh, seventh and eighth grade and ninth and 10th grade history in a classroom.
That's a history class, so there aren't any glass.
We, you know, we don't-- We're not really trying to be careful.
And the energy level of-- Because I had 17 students in each class, the energy level of the students in the room was so high volume, and I would talk to the teach- the
science teacher all the time, and I was like, "So you're gonna, you're gonna really do that lab in the parking lot with them?" And she was like, "I don't know, man."
She's "I don't know.
I don't know if they're all gonna make it." Like she's "I've been having to threaten them that if they don't learn to calm down, we're not gonna be able to do this stuff." 'Cause she's "I don't want to.
I don't wanna get chemicals out when things are so high energy and people are touching each other and poking each other."
And I really-- That's one of the things I really love about our labs too, is it really brings you into… You're locked in, you're on your own with all the tips and tricks
and the, you know, the little hints and the pop-up boxes that say, "Hey, you know, your, uh, pipette is on the ceiling 'cause you chucked it, so go hit the reset button."
You know, stuff like that to help you.
But you're focused, you're dialed in, you're being-- the creativity and the attention is being pulled from you to really immerse yourself in the setting and focus and I-- and to be safe.
And it's-- You drop as many glass, you know, pitchers and beakers on the floor as you want.
Actually, the one lab is really incredible.
We have a heat capacity lab where you have everything from tungsten to copper to gold and silver and bronze and aluminum, and you take turns putting them in what would
be a sci- like a scientific microwave, like a science quality high end microwave, and melting them down to see, okay, what temperature do each of these metals melt?
So you know their heat capacity.
And you can do that over and over again.
And I would bet $1,000 you're not gonna find 50 blocks of tungsten in any, you know, high school in the United States that kids can just use over and over again.
Shannon: And have you seen the price of gold?
It's like over 3,000 an ounce.
I know 'cause I'm a huge "Gold Rush" fan, by the way.
If anybody from "Gold Rush," Parker or Tony Beets happens to hear this podcast randomly, big fan.
So when you said that, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you could smelt
Mercy: Love it.
Shannon: How
Mercy: Yeah.
Yep.
Yep.
So it's stuff like that's like that is what the technology is there for.
You know?
It's like we have these incredible tools, and it's-- when you use them the way they're designed to be used in moderation, they're exceptional and they're just, they take everything to the next level
Shannon: I absolutely love that.
And I love that you have different labs for different things.
And one of the problems that I always see with like educators and stuff is they're like they think it needs to be, you know, well, A, B, C, D, E. You know, it's step by step by step and, you know, we know life doesn't work that way either.
But they also think, "Well, I have to use it for that." If it's the, you know, if it's the smelting lab, if it's that, then it has to be for that.
Whereas we literally just proved in 30 seconds that like you learned that I like Gold Rush, I learned what the price of gold was.
So and getting out of that thinking of it can only be used for that purpose.
Well, I don't teach chemistry, so I'm never gonna need that.
No, you don't know that, and maybe you'd have some more fun if you wanted to talk about, you know, the, uh, about interest rates and things like that.
If you let kids get some of that energy out, go melt down some gold or silver, and then bring it back, like getting some movement and things and it feels like in education we're so hesitant to lose what we think is control
Mercy: Yeah.
Yep.
Definitely.
Definitely.
It's kind of-- It's, uh… Do you remember that Pink Floyd song, "Just Another Brick in the Wall?" You ever heard that?
We have-- Have you seen the music video for it where it's the school kids on desks on a conveyor belt?
Yes.
Shannon: That, mm-hmm, so
Mercy: it was really special.
We got to go to the we got to go to a homeschool convention not last year, but the year before, and we've only gotten to go to four conventions in the last three and a half years.
And this lady came up to us, and she was like, "Okay, so is this only for high schoolers?" Very very abruptly walked right up to the booth.
"Is this only for high schoolers?" And we're like whoa.
Uh, no you can just use it.
It's fine." And she was like, "Okay.
Because," and she had all these hand gestures, and she was v- she was, like, five feet tall, and she was just going on.
And she was like, "My son is, he's very much on the autism spectrum, but he loves science, and he's wicked smart." And we were like, "Well, good for you.
That's incredible." She's "Well, the problem is he's obsessed with video games." And she's like, "This is perfect.
This is the perfect crossover for him.
I don't have anything for him to do over the summer.
Would this be something he can do?" And she's "If you do it once is it lose its value?" And we're like, "No, 'cause you can do it a bunch of different ways.
You can crunch the numbers.
We have the precipitation lab that has five different chemicals in it, and you can mix the chemicals together with a pipette, and then…"
This is not something you can do in the real world, but in VR, we made it so you can step into the beaker you mix the chemicals in and see the molecules interacting
or even the dormant molecules that are still there but don't have a reaction that's visible by the naked eye and experience them having their dormant reaction.
And she was so excited, and she was like, "My kid has a VR headset.
It was, you know, $9.99 on the Meta website." She went home, and she was like, "He's had, you know, he's having a blast." So it was-- It's cool.
It's really cool.
Shannon: And that's great, and that's kinda keeps you coming back, you know?
And that, that's a parent that gets it, you know?
He loves video games, so how can I use that to motivate as opposed to, "Oh, they like video games. We gotta get 'em off them games." No, use what they like and get them excited about learning.
'Cause I can tell you right now, I was not excited for chemistry or you know, any you know, molecules, protons, neutrons, all that kind of stuff.
It just was not my cup of tea.
But if I could do stuff like this, it absolutely would, and it-- and who knows what it might have sparked in me.
And you mentioned the precipitation.
Do any of your labs have anything with, uh, uh, with checking the barometric pressure at all?
Mercy: Ooh,
Shannon: I didn't
Mercy: that's a good question.
I don't think we do, I don't think we do currently.
That, that might be a question that's above my pay grade
Shannon: Well, and it's pretty random, I know, but I was just thinking 'cause my friend is, uh, my dear friend is a respiratory therapist shout out to Sarah.
And when she does certain things, she has to test, she has to look and record the barometric pressure.
And I never thought about it until I went and saw her at work, and I was like, "See?
Now there's even more things." You know, and so that might be something, you know, that you could, like… I it just gets me thinking about different things in a lab, 'cause I'm sure there's probably Do you guys have like clean rooms and stuff?
Like how-- Can you give me a little bit more detail about your different labs?
You've touched a little bit on them, but like I'm really excited to hear some more about what different types you have.
Mercy: Yeah.
Yes.
So we have we have labs that are, they, again, they're for that intro level of chemistry, right?
And so it starts out with the safety lab, and within the safety lab, you kind of go around and you learn this is how you use the gloves, and this is your-- You get to wear a lab coat.
Everybody was so excited when we programmed in a lab coat that you could wear, and there's goggles you put on and everything.
And that was super-- that was a super good day.
And then you also have another lab that is the glassware lab, so you get accustomed with all of the equipment.
Uh, we have a a fume hood, like a $20,000 fume hood in real life.
We have one built into the simulation, so you can do all these different things and learning how to use the Bunsen burners and the the high-- like the, you know, industrial microwave I mentioned earlier and stuff like that.
We have a hydrate lab, so determining the amount of water molecules in any given salt hydrate sample.
We have a flame test lab where you identify different elements by their ionization color using a Bunsen burner.
We have a precipitation lab that I mentioned already, uh, discovering what kinds of solutions will create pres-- a precipitate when mixed with like silver nitrate.
Uh, the heat capacity lab that I mentioned.
And then the one that we recently just finished is the explosion lab where you can unleash the explosive power of like alkaline metals and learn
to like safety ha-safe-safely handle elements like sodium and potassium and water while witnessing the way that those kind of can bust together.
And that's what we have so far.
And then our last one that we're working on right now is we're almost done with, it's called the radiation lab, where you can actually step into a virtual nuclear lab
where students can uncover like hidden radioactive elements using a Geiger counter and analyze the real-time data to identify the unknown isotopes and stuff like that.
So it's really incredible the-- what we've got so far.
Shannon: That is impressive and would be super fun to investigate, especially 'cause pretty much anything I know about nuclear is what I've seen on "The Simpsons" and when it bounces off and hits his on his shirt or something.
But I love that you've taken in what would be by your own description, entry-level, you know, exploration, and it really isn't.
It's everything.
You guys have the whole gamut, and that's sup- that's super exciting because even I didn't
Mercy: I know we kind of stepped out of it with the nuclear lab.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yep.
Shannon: Good for you.
Mercy: So
Shannon: That's super neat.
So did-- were you big on the chemistry and the science of things, or did you come to this through the technical side?
Or just by
Mercy: so
Shannon: how did you get into this whole virtual… I'd like to know how people got into virtual reality
Mercy: Yes.
Oh, for sure.
So I was actually connected-- So Adam, who is one of our founders, he, uh, his best friend's mom runs a homeschool group, like a co-op day thing, and I was one of the teachers at their homeschool group.
I was offering classes there.
And she-- and I was, you know, she and I had sat down, and I told her how I'd been doing marketing for several years.
And I love it and hate it at the same time because it's so ha-hard to find things you wanna market that you actually believe in sometimes.
And and then, you know, Instagram and the rules are always changing on social media and the paid stuff, and it's just-- it makes you wanna jump off a bridge most of the time, honestly.
And so she retained that from that conversation, and she's like: "Listen, my son's best friend i- is starting a company." Oh, and the other thing was too, I had told her that I'd done-- I have a master's in bioethics,
and I'd written my thesis paper on this, the efficacy of being inside of VR and how that is sustainable and the role that consciousness plays in the moral decisions we make in the virtual realm versus the physical realm.
And so, so it's six months after I told her that, she gives me this call and is "My son's best friend, Adam is building a virtual reality chemistry
lab company, and I told him that you have experience in marketing and VR." And I was like: "Okay, those are-- yes, those are true statements.
That is-- Yeah, that's valid."
And so Adam and I jumped on a phone call.
I was at a, uh, I was at a boba place in Orange County, I'll never forget, and I was walking around outside, and he answered the phone, and he started talking immediately, and he just laid out the whole gambit.
And I was like, "Actually," I was like, "I don't even super enjoy science, but I love this.
I love this.
I love the vision.
I love the drive.
I love the concept." And honestly, the more I've got involved over the last three and a half years of doing the marketing and going to
meetings and going to conventions and working with the team, who are absolutely incredible it just-- I was like: "Yeah, I love this."
And even people will be like: "Hey, are you still doing those Zoom meetings at 11 o'clock at night on, you know, every Monday?" I'm like, "Yeah." And they're
like: "Are you still not getting paid for that?" I'm like: "Yep." But we're building something that's a game changer, that's real, and it's a forward motion thing.
And we also-- we kind of got a break because the, The next generation science standards are being rolled out across different states
in the United States, and one of the requirements for that program is that s- high school students have to have two actual labs.
And so there's gonna be this huge push of, okay, so where are we gonna get these labs?
And the other problem that's happening at the same time is sometimes they're building new schools and they're not because they get a grant
if they build the schools eco-green with no gas lines, that completely kind of cripples their s- their science lab department a little bit.
And so there's this tension here, and VR fills that space so beautifully.
It just steps in with the safety the way it's an attention grabber, the gamification, the real world experience, and the versatility of it, it steps in that space.
And I was like, "This feels like a slam dunk all the way." And you know, maybe we won't make a billion dollars.
Maybe I'll never retire.
You know, maybe the world will all end and who knows.
But I feel really good and strong about what we're doing, and I love it, and everybody on the team loves it.
You know, everybody's working other jobs while at the same time making these labs happen and you know, we're obviously desperately trying to move away from that.
But, uh, you know, responding to emails, going to meetings, making connections, working with teachers.
We have a bunch of different teachers who are demoing our equipment with students in the classroom both last year and this year and are loving it.
And, uh, yeah, it's good stuff.
It's a good time.
Shannon: I love absolutely everything that you just said first off.
And second off, I say kind of ditto because that's kind of what almost the same kind of experience I had with you guys in that you know, we found each other and I
was like, look, like science obviously isn't my… Even though I started out as a marine biology major and then Microsoft Excel single-handedly caused me to switch.
But I still got to work at SeaWorld anyway.
But yeah, exactly.
So you can still, you know, reach your dreams, kids.
But it, uh, I was like, I, you know, I remember saying I like the energy of these guys.
You know, they're doing the, they're doing things right.
If, you know, and you wanna get behind people like that be it because it just, you know, like I'm sick of seeing people strive and thrive that I feel like maybe shouldn't and other things possibly should.
Trying to be as PC as possible, and you guys definitely are that.
And I love that energy.
And you're like, I kept telling people like, this is like the youth.
Everybody in the VR industry wants to talk about what to make VR, and it's dead, it's not dead, and this, that, and the other.
And no offense, but it's a bunch of I don't know what generation I am, whatever I am, you know, 40 and above people saying what the kids want.
And I'm like, are you are you kidding me?
Listen to them.
So I love that you're leading this charge
Mercy: It's been super cool.
Yeah, these guys, they, uh, they started developing the lab as part of their senior projects in college.
I came on, uh, me and one other team member came on the year that they graduated.
They kinda brought us on.
And everybody is under the age of 34.
Everybody is, you know, dialed in.
We are super committed to retaining feedback from the students.
That's actually been a huge point of our program and the work that we've been doing over the last couple years, is using it in classroom
settings with students as well as one-on-one settings with students to be like, "Okay, so no really what do you like and not like?
What's pulling you in?
What's not pulling you in?" Another great thing that, uh, Adam really tows the line on and is committed to as well, is that we are not a tech company doing education.
We're an education company using technology.
And that really-- Like I've, I-- Like he's even said that to a couple of potential investors, and like we've had these really heart-to-heart things about do we wanna get involved with X, Y, and Z person because we might lose this.
We might lose this special space that we're in, you know, kind of thing.
Obviously, we would all love to work full-time for our own company that we love, but at the same time, we don't wanna lose the integrity of what we're doing at, you know, while we're trucking along.
And so that's been a huge I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say tension point, but every serious conversation we've had in the last three years, that statement comes up.
Is this keeping us as an education company utilizing technology, or are we selling our souls to VR and to trends, you know?
So it's been good.
Shannon: And I love that 'cause you, and you are, and you can tell the difference.
I mean, any it, you know, maybe the average person, but it might not be able to, but any educator that has any experience in an actual classroom in the last, you know, 20 years, which a lot of our
administrators unfortunately don't have that, but anybody else, they can tell the difference, and they can tell what has been designed, you know, with educators in mind and you know, what hasn't.
And so you-- it really does stand out apart.
And I like to say that the other ones tend to make a big splash and you know, a lot of hype and, you know, maybe a bunch of money, and then they fade out because they just, they don't have the staying power because they're not legitimate.
And so as we're seeing those trends and things like even you mentioned you know, are you-- Is there anything that you think you might see in, and I have to say immersive learning space because, you know, it's VR, AR, it's a whole spectrum, all that stuff.
But what are you kinda seeing as some trends you might think, uh, we'll see in the next three to five years, especially in education?
Mercy: Yeah.
Yeah.
We-- I love that term immersive learning.
I love that.
The I see two things in talking to students and teachers over the last couple years People are desperate for new tools because I think it's become really clear that the classroom environment has changed which is this whole other own topic.
We'll put a little box over there.
But the other thing is people want the change, but they're also scared, you know?
And people are tired.
That's been the huge feedback that we've gotten.
And I see this thing where people-- there's gonna have to be change in the way that we engage students into new topics and stuff like that.
And it's just a matter of can you get your ducks in a row, and can you create a product that is easy to use?
Are you developing something that people can actually use, or are you developing something that's gonna slow down classroom progress because it takes so long to set up and so long to turn on and so long to get engaged and stuff like that?
And I feel like over the next couple years, there's gonna be this push to like, "Okay, we've gotta change. What are we gonna do?" And people are just gonna, you know, they're either gonna
find tools that work, or they're gonna cycle through and waste a bunch of money on three or four things that don't work and then find something which is always a bummer when that happens.
So that's another reason why we're really trying to drive this message of building a tool and a platform and a learning space that prioritizes the customer service element towards towards the teachers and the students alike.
Uh, we were actually talking about that the other day.
We were talk-- As a team, we were discussing after we get to bring on a couple developers full-time, we have a really incredible tech guy named Seth, and we're like, "We would love for-- be able to pay Seth full-time
so he can be a real human customer service person for us," like solving pe- problems and helping people set up because that is for real, especially in my day-to-day job and in other things that are going on.
This huge push to have AI do all your customer service is kind of really creating severe backlash, and the market is not loving it.
The cust- the consumer's not loving it.
The market's not loving it.
It's all big hype and, you know, people are having fun with it, but the number of people I talk to that will literally are ready to throw their phone across the room if they get an AI rep when they call in for customer service is pretty much everybody I know.
And so our-- that was one of our big commitments too, was like we wanna provide incredible customer service that helps people get things set up and solves problems and is available and stuff like that.
And I think that's really gonna make a difference in what tools people use in the classroom versus the ones that they don't, is the ease of usability, The visual engagement and the gamification.
I think those would be the three things, which is the, where, which are the three topics we're trying really as a team to absolutely nail
Shannon: Yeah I agree and I see all of those things as well, especially with AI and, you know, and the toll it takes on the environment too.
Like, all of this stuff, like it's gonna burst, and it's happening.
And I always-- I've been saying it for the whole time now, but I mean, I liken it more to back with immersive learning that we're in the stages of, you know, like Chromebooks and, you know, going to that
Mercy: Yes, smartboards
Shannon: 'Cause everybody in the beginning especially too, like when we went from the overhead to the smart board and then, you know,
when, "Oh, well, we're one-to-one with Chromebooks," or, "Oh, every kid has an iPad." Okay, well, what are you actually doing with those?
And then COVID showed us that, yeah, you're one-to-one, but they don't even know how to log into a Google Classroom.
So just having it doesn't mean you're actually using it, and I think that's a big difference that a lot of people don't tend to realize, and until something like COVID or something like that happens that kind of forces that shift is what we need to have.
And if we don't, I feel like if we're not gonna do it now, I don't know if there's gonna be anything else that ever could convince us.
'Cause other than going from, you know, the one-room schoolhouse to a large school building, education hasn't changed in America.
I mean, yeah, we've integrated technology, but nothing else has changed.
Nothing.
And so it's about time that we do something different, and I think that this immersive learning is one of the ways that we can do that.
And I really appreciate that you guys especially, you know, so young, and I mean, I don't like to consider myself as old, but you know, I mean, anybody under 44 is younger than me.
You're a kid, you know?
So to see that you guys are thinking that way, it does give me a little bit of hope, you know, for the future.
'Cause it can-- Right now it can seem pretty hopeless, especially around education and funding and just all of that.
And so, you know, what have you seen?
So we've kinda talked about what's been, you know, kinda the friction points, but what have you seen has worked really successfully?
Like when have-- 'Cause I know Alto's also too an initiative of, "Oh, we gotta have a champion teacher."
And I don't believe in that because that champion teacher is always gonna leave, and then nobody picks up the slack.
And it doesn't have to be a classroom.
That's why I use the word educator.
It doesn't have to be a classroom teacher.
There are so many more people in the building that make education work.
So what have you seen has been really successful?
Mercy: Yeah, definitely.
We've seen, uh, the excitement.
I'd say the excitement of the students that they're drawn in, they're engaged in the process both, you know, in classroom settings, in independent learning settings.
They-- There's something about you pulling out a headset and then them being in an environment that they have not previously experienced.
'Cause most of the kids that we've worked with-- Well, I'd say it's a 50/50 split.
About half the kids that we've worked with, they have-- they're in a high school that has a lab, and then there's been other kids that we've worked with where they've never
been in an academic science lab setting, and just the engagement from the kids and we've received tons of feedback that the kids are genuinely retaining the information better.
They're like, "Oh, I understand what's happening here." And that was actually-- that's actually a huge thing that's on our list too, is to do testing
along with the semester of using the labs to establish that hey, are these kids testing better after using the labs than before using the labs?
And it's-- usually it's gone really incredibly well with the teachers that have used it.
They haven't quite done the testing we'd like to see done just 'cause you need so many pieces in place prior to that to get that done.
But yeah, the engagement, the excitement the investment and the pre- like, the presentness of the kids in the experience is really…
That's gone so well.
It's gone so, so well, and the information retention is so much better.
Yeah.
Shannon: Yeah.
See, that's exciting.
And why would you-- I mean, obviously why would you not wanna be excited or why would you not wanna have fun at school?
I have to be here too, you know?
I don't wanna be bored.
And like at my high school, so I'll never forget Mr. Bersofsky.
Ugh.
He was my physics teacher, and we talked about labs and stuff.
We had the tables and they had the gas things, but we never used any of the stuff, you know?
It was like we always just had it just to have it, you know?
And granted, and that was physics, but it's still, you know.
And the only thing I remember really from physics is the I and the full shopping cart.
So I-- Like when you have a full and an empty shopping cart and you push them down a hill, like the full shopping cart's gonna go faster 'cause momentum.
So that's why, how I describe my like running style and stuff.
I'm that full shopping cart, baby, once I get going.
And that's what I remember from physics and how rude and horrible Mr.
Bersofsky was to me.
But if we could, you know, change that to those experiences.
And guess what?
If they don't become a physicist or a chemist, that's okay.
They had fun.
They learned stuff.
And maybe that means that it's a student-- That's the other thing too.
There's so many second and third, you know, things that happen.
A student that's really shy, maybe they talk more than they did because they were really excited.
Maybe they reach out and work with a new peer.
You know, there's so many other things that happen in that excitement, you know, that you can only get when you let, you kinda let go and you get, you give it a try
Mercy: Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
I remember I was doing a demo for a classroom, and I broke the, I only had a couple headsets.
I didn't have one for each of the kids.
I think I had 18 or 19 eighth graders.
And I broke them into groups of three, and we kind of did some stuff around like people reading out loud the pre-lab and post-lab stuff back and forth and answering the questions as a group and talking about the
answers and like having them collaborate, having one person reading the pre-lab while the other person was actually doing the lab, or not the pre-lab, but the lab instructions while the other person was doing the lab.
And just watching the kids genuinely invested in working well together and, you know, practicing that reading aloud, which I grew up reading aloud all the time.
I didn't realize how much of a lost skill that was until recently.
The, uh, but yeah, there's so many pieces to it, and we've even had kids who are super excited about the labs, not because they love chemistry, but because they're interested in the concept of building a reality inside of virtual reality.
They're like, "So this is a computer thing you do on the computer?" We're like, "Yeah, you can go to school and learn how to do, to build virtual reality
and augmented reality spaces and the math behind it and all that stuff, and the working together as a team." So yeah, it's been really really good.
Another thing too that we found is, uh, with our labs and with a couple different things on the Meta Quest headsets that we use, you can screencast to a TV while you're in the lab, and we've gotten some feedback
from parents that they've had fun, like doing it as a family, and so screencasting it to the TV at home, and then taking turns doing it and just like the fun and camaraderie that's brought is really cool.
Shannon: Yeah it's bringing people together.
And I can remember in the beginning, they-- there was this big push against VR.
This was in 2018, and it was when we had the Oculus Go, and they were like, "Well, it's isolating, and the kids get in their own headset and they're in their own world." And literally, I couldn't have found it to be any more the opposite.
They were literally taking their headsets off and saying to their peer, look at this," and holding each other's hands, doing the different experiences and things, yo.
It was so opposite.
And so, you know, and just also knowing that it's not a replacement.
It isn't, you know, it is not going to be used all day, every day.
Like, why people feel this, it's this black or white, all or nothing type of thing.
That's not how it is, and that's not how we're designing it to be.
Like, nobody's pushing that.
It-- I mean, at least I'm not, but
Mercy: No, it's one of the best parts is that all of our labs can be done anywhere from five to 15 minutes.
Again, depends on which lab you're doing and how much you're actually doing of lab versus, you know, screwing around, taking your lab coat on and off and, you know, using the eye wash station over and over again, you know, living your best life.
But, uh, yeah, 'cause we found that it pe- that's usually about 15 minutes is a window where people are, especially students, they're comfortably engaged.
You're usually not getting headaches or dizziness or anything like that at that point.
Especially because you have the post-lab worksheets to do afterwards.
You kind of do need to just do the lab and then do the worksheets.
We have a really incredible feature where you can input the numbers for the different experiments on a tablet inside of the lab, and then we built a dashboard where you can export your answers out to
the dashboard to download the answers to like the math equations and the calculations you did within the lab and then submit those to a teacher grading platform, which is incredible and stuff like that.
But yeah, the only thing we haven't been able to build in is like more of that accessibility features and stuff like that which I
think will get developed more as headsets get developed more and we'll be able to develop more as we get bigger and stuff like that.
We have noticed that adults have way more issue just jumping into VR if they've never done it before.
They're much-- it's, they're much more likely to get dizzy faster and stuff like that, or to feel like a slight headache faster.
But the students, y- they're totally fine.
It's actually scarier.
The younger they are, the better they are, which is wild.
Shannon: It is so true though.
It absolutely is.
And that's why I tell the adults, I'm like, "Let the kids do it.
Let them take over.
Give them some freedom.
Let them do some things and, you know, actually en-enjoy." And we can learn too, like why, you know, i- if the switch of, you know, that we're
perfect or anything like that, like I never, you know, gave off that type of a-- But, you know, my classroom management was different than others.
But do you have multiplayer?
Like how many people can be in a lab?
Are you in it by yourself?
Are you with your other peers?
Mercy: Yeah, so you are in the lab by yourself.
We kind of debated back and forth the whole multiplayer thing, but right now all of our stuff is just solo.
We're really trying to build on the safety like the safety features for minors.
You know, that was a huge concern of ours not being able to access anything at the, you know, on the internet from within the lab.
You really are just in the lab by yourself.
You're not sending and receiving messages within the lab to-- from anybody including the teacher.
We are in the middle of developing built-in pop-up help screens and tip screens.
If you get too far off course, you know, a little tip pops up like, "Hey, you might wanna try this," or, you know, "Well, you took everything off, it's laying on the floor and now your avatar's stuck."
"Hey, you need to hit the reset button," and things like that to help students.
But it is, yeah, single player.
Shannon: Sure.
And I think there's times and places for both and everything in, in-- You know, I don't think there's one right way to do things.
That's the other, you know, thing too is like people always say "Well, it needs to be exactly how it is in the physical world." And it's well, no, it doesn't.
It just-- it, it might not be, you know, like it's a lab.
Well, you know, our countertops are, you know, brushed concrete.
But, you know, like they get-- I feel like they get focused on the little things to maybe prove their point of like why it wouldn't work or something.
But I really like how well thought out everything is.
I like how everything is planned out.
As we're kind of bringing it to-- in towards the finish line there, if you could-- That's the other question I like to ask.
If you could give educators one piece of advice for a mind shift to switch their thinking about technology in the classroom, what would it be?
Mercy: I would say that because of how immersed in technology kids are outside of the classroom, taking the time to restructure around
integrating technology into the classroom it'll be easier than trying to fight against trying to get the kids off technology in the classroom.
I think it's gonna be easier to integrate it than it is to try to ride out this, to try to ride out the analog classroom experience.
And I think there's a lot of incredible tools that we just-- Some of them have been built, some of them are being built, some of them are gonna be built in the future.
And if you think about even the way technology has changed since just what?
2007. We have facial recognition software on our phones, right?
I'm ki- Like think about the thumb drives.
Remember when you'd go to conferences, and you'd get the two point five
Shannon: Oh yeah,
Mercy: drive for free at a booth?
I have two hundred and fifty-eight gigs on my phone right now and it's nothing.
It's the size of a thumbnail.
Like it's ha-- The world has shifted, and it's shifting rapidly.
And I feel so bad for educators because I know they're exhausted, and they're burnt out, and it's brutal out there, and it's underfunded.
And that sucks.
It really does.
And that's gotta be brutal.
But if you can find the time and the community support to take a step back and let yourself shift and put some energy into shifting towards a technology-integrated classroom, I think the payout will really be worth it
Shannon: I completely agree.
I love that.
That's so good.
That's such a good piece of advice that I hadn't heard people really kind of put it that way.
You know, especially like with the, you know, with this fighting against tech, they're like, "Well, no AI is allowed." Well, no, now you're not preparing the students either because it's an AI world.
So we don't know what exactly what's gonna happen, but we know what they're going to need to know, how to use it, what is it, you know, this, that, and the other and the misconception of, "Well, just have Gemini do it." Like it doesn't work that way.
That's not how it
Mercy: Yes, exactly.
Shannon: need to prepare them, you know?
And I, as I tell kids now too, like maybe in my day you had to, on your resume, talk about how you were good at Microsoft Word and you know, Excel, whatever.
Now it's gonna be, you know, Claude or GPT, whatever it is.
Like we have to prepare them for what life is going to look like.
And it's not what we as the educator want it to look like.
It's what it looks like.
Mercy: Totally.
Totally
Shannon: if you're not willing to do that, then don't be an educator.
I'm over it.
Like it's awful, it's hard, it's horrible.
I know I've been there, but I don't want my students to have to go to your, you who don't care because you need insurance or whatever.
Like then find something else.
That's where I'm at.
And, uh, you know, and it, not that it-- I'm not willing to support educators, but you know, we gotta do something here.
And so that's, that was
Mercy: Oh, for sure.
I mean, creating space for the people who are impassioned about what they're doing is so critical.
It's so, so critical to have people in the s- in the jobs and the spaces that they're actually passionate about.
And probably for the first time ever in history, it's more important to be willing to change in your job than ever before.
You know?
It's crazy.
Like my dad, he went to college to be an electrical engineer.
He was an electrical engineer for like almost 40 years.
He started his own electrical engineering company, and now he's about to retire as-- sold that company.
He's gonna retire as an electrical engineer.
It's like I can't even fathom doing the same thing for 40 years like that.
You know?
It's just everything's so, so different now, and so it's yeah, you just gotta, you gotta keep rolling with the punches.
It's you know, I-- especially living in Southern California, we like to talk about you either ride the wave or you get tumbled in it.
So
Shannon: So true.
That's absolutely true.
Okay, so I did want you to to tell our listeners, now granted, I don't know when this will come out.
It might come out after we get back, but we are actually going to get to meet in person very soon.
So will you tell everybody where we'll be meeting and where they can come check us out?
If it airs
Mercy: we are going to be, yeah, very importantly, uh, we are gonna be at the National Science Teacher Convention that's gonna be in Anaheim, California.
So excited.
I believe it's April, uh, 16th through the 19th, maybe 15th through 18th.
And yeah, we're super stoked.
We went to the NSTA, I believe, two years ago and met a bunch of incredible contacts.
Actually, I think that's maybe where we met… Did we meet you at the first NSTA?
Did we meet you at an NSTA or no?
Might have
Shannon: fighting each other now.
It could have been
Mercy: Yeah.
I feel like you were in that batch 'cause you weren't in the batch of people I'd emailed.
So I think the guys met you at the NFCA convention, and, uh, yeah,
Shannon: I probably made a resounding impression, so they were probably like, "Hey,
Mercy: excited.
Shannon: gotta follow up with that
Mercy: Yes, exactly.
They're like, "Somebody pass her off to Mercy. We don't wanna do this."
But, uh, no, it was great.
We're gonna be there.
It's gonna be beautiful.
There's gonna be tons and tons of vendors and speakers and product demos and I think it's a really cool setting, and it's really cool because
the NFCA convention is a really good mix of the-- I forget the word you used earlier, but all the people who are involved in a school setting.
It's not just teachers.
It's not just administration.
It's been a really good mix of a bunch of different people, and it's great for networking
Shannon: Sweet.
Well, I'm hoping I haven't-- this is a big surprise, but I'm thinking we need to do a live podcast while we're there.
I mean, obviously we so have to,
Mercy: that'd be
Shannon: I'm gonna get a little, one of those little mics, and we're just gonna walk around and talk to people, and I--
Mercy: There you go.
Shannon: Yes.
All right.
Mercy: it.
Shannon: Sweet.
Well, we're gonna be there.
Also, I always put links and everything in the episode, but if people wanted to reach out besides, of course, contacting me, if they wanted to get any more information
about V Lab or talk to you guys or anything, is there any information you wanna give them of where they should go or how they should get in contact with you?
Mercy: Yeah, so people can contact us.
We have a website.
We have an Instagram.
We have a LinkedIn and a Facebook.
Our website URL is v-lab-education.com.
And we actually have a form submission tab on there, so if you wanna reach out and talk to us about product or about a demo for your classroom, or just get to, you know, learn more about what's going on, or if you wanna
recommend an experiment that you love that you'd love to see replicated in VR, 'cause we are-- Like I said, we're just finishing up the nuclear lab, and we're taking submissions from teachers about labs they'd love to see.
You can visit our website or just google vlabeducation.com and, uh, you can talk to us through our website
Shannon: Awesome.
Love it.
And along those lines, you didn't think that you were getting out of the closing countdown, I hope, because
Mercy: there you go
Shannon: it's my favorite.
I think I think this is topical.
I think it's a good one.
So if you could shrink yourself down to the size of a molecule, a little Ant-Man style, or before that there was Body Wars, which was a movie with Martin Short, and it was a ride at Epcot, uh, back in the history books there.
What would be three places you would go explore?
Now, this can't be like-- Now, it can be nefarious as far as if you wanna go rob a bank or something, like you could totally do that.
I'm not hating on that.
Mercy: Yes.
Yes I love that.
Okay, three places I would wanna explore.
If I could be really small, I would love to sit inside of a raspberry in the sun.
I think that would be just absolutely gorgeous to be inside of a raspberry with the sunlight shining through.
I just… Something about that, and I'm sure it would smell super good, too.
I would love to do that.
Let's see.
Another place I would go is… Oh, I remember there was a book growing up called The Borrowers, and they were little, tiny people, and I would love to walk around in the grass.
I think it would be terribly dangerous, but I think it'd be so fun to experience grass as a little tiny person and just to see what that was like.
And y- and I've seen obviously they're not real videos, animated videos of interacting with a water droplet.
I would love to do stuff like that.
That'd be super fun.
And let's see.
What would the last one be?
Oh, I'd love to sleep inside of a, uh, pasta noodle.
A penne.
Shannon: No
way
Mercy: get a little piece of tissue and take a little nap inside a little penne.
I think that'd be
Shannon: That is awesome
Mercy: hopefully I wouldn't get eaten, but I think that'd be so fun.
Shannon: That, that is a good-- I like those.
Those are really good.
Total Honey, I Shrunk the Kids right there with the grass and stuff, absolutely.
Mercy: Yes
Shannon: but, uh, I love those.
Those are really good.
Uh, I think you've had some of the most interesting
Mercy: you.
Shannon: Mm-hmm.
And I was going to say you could become big again once you got in there if you wanted to go into a bank or something, or you know, go into Fort Knox or something and see the gold you could get big, like, when you get out.
But you took that and ran with it, and that's exactly what,
Mercy: There you go.
What's the, what's that one that they claim there's the underground bunker that's full of cheese or whatever?
I'll sneak into there and see if there really is an underground bunker
Shannon: yes.
And then I would eat said cheese 'cause I love
Mercy: Yes.
Yes.
Shannon: my gosh,
Mercy: Yep.
Yep.
That'd
Shannon: Well, this has just been absolutely awesome.
I've had such a wonderful time chatting with you, and it makes me even more excited for seeing you in a couple weeks, and I can't wait.
And I'm so excited for everybody to check out VLab.
If it's, uh, something science-y and I'm promoting it, you know it's gotta be good.
'Cause there's a lot of fractions in math and science, which we know put me into a coma.
So, I'm just so proud of what you guys are doing.
I couldn't be more excited for you, and I couldn't think of anybody more deserving, so keep up the great work.
And thanks for joining us, and I can't wait to see you soon
Mercy: Thank you.
I so appreciate it.
Thanks for having me on your podcast, and we are, we've really enjoyed working with you and all your input's been incredible.
Shannon, we really appreciate it, so good times.