Education has a dual challenge of not only keeping up with the scores of information and knowledge developed every day, it must also keep up with the changing ways we learn and consume content. Education is also too valuable of a tool to be isolated to the financially or geographically fortunate. Connected technologies, paired with 5G, are helping educators meet these challenges and offer students an opportunity for economic and social mobility.
In this episode of The Restless Ones I had the pleasure to sit with two women helping advance education in the connected age: Dr. Amy Novak, President of St. Ambrose University, and Dr. Kiesha King, Senior National Education Administrator at T-Mobile for Education. They represent a growing trend of private-public partnerships that are necessary to push society to the next level. Dr. Novak has utilized a set of her restless peers, to create “a pilot of the willing” to develop the latest tools, lessons, and communities for higher learning. Partnering with Dr. King, and other education-focused leaders from the tech world brings access to the latest technologies, which in turn brings the power of knowledge to everyone, from the most flourishing of cities to the most remote broadband deserts.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey everyone, Welcome to the Restless Ones. I'm Jonathan Strickland.
As always, my focus is on exploring the intersection of
technology and business by having conversations with the most forward
thinking leaders. Throughout my career, I've covered everything from massive
parallel processing to advanced robotics, but what truly inspires me
(00:24):
are the stories of innovation and transformation. In this season,
we'll explore technologies like flexible applications, more capable devices, and
advance networking like five G that are helping business leaders
act on their big ideas quickly and unlock mission critical outcomes.
What's become clear to us after three seasons is that
(00:45):
we can't change tomorrow by deploying solutions of the past.
So get ready to be inspired and learn from the
best today. On the Restless Ones, we have two phenomenal guests,
each of whom has a background in education. Doctor Amy
Novak is the president of Saint Ambrose University and has
(01:06):
worked in education for more than two decades. Doctor Keisha
King is the Senior National Education Administrator at t Mobile
for Education. They both have dedicated their careers to furthering
the education of students, addressing social challenges for the betterment
of communities and preparing people to be productive, successful members
of the workforce of tomorrow. It only takes a moment
(01:28):
of reflection to get a hint of the challenges educators
face in today's environment. But with the speed of technological
innovation and how it impacts everything from how we interact
with one another to how we get work done, meeting
that goal is a never ending challenge. I sat down
with doctor Novak and doctor King to get a better
(01:48):
understanding of technologies role in facilitating education. But before we
get into all of that, I wanted to learn more
about my guests, doctor Novak and doctor King. Welcome to
the restless ones.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I'm really excited to have this conversation. Both of my
parents were educators. They're both retired now, but my father
taught college level English, my mother taught elementary level everything.
So I have been deeply exposed to the world of
education and seen, both as a student and just in
(02:27):
my family, some of the challenges that my parents were
facing every day. So, doctor Novac, I'd love to start
with you. Can you talk a bit about where in
your life were you when you decided to really pursue
a career in education.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Thanks so much for the question and just the opportunity
to be in conversation and dialogue with all of you today.
I had a rather circuitous route to the work in
higher education, but I think when I look back and
reflect on how I got here, I spent time in
corporate settings for the first ten years of my career. Also,
I am a mom to eight, and as such, the
(03:04):
reality was each of those young people in my life
were learning and engaging and learning, and it's something that
both my husband and I had a deep passion for.
A series of family circumstances led us back to a
situation where I came back to my hometown and my
husband was medically retired from the military, and I thought,
(03:24):
what am I going to do in my hometown? And
there happened to be a college there, and I thought,
you know, I might have some skills that could be valuable,
and so I applied for a position as a three
quarter time grant writer of all things, and twenty one
years later, I have had a just exceptional experience to
be in a career field where every day I get
(03:46):
an opportunity to interact with students and really be part
of a transformative life experience for them, walking alongside students
as they go from this place of what am I
going to do with my life to now being able
to graduate, and really I see a pathway for them
into careers, but also just into better community leaders, strengthened
(04:07):
human beings. And so it's a privilege to work in
that space.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
And to that end, Doctor King, I understand you also
had a background in education before you transitioned over to
T Mobile for education, so please tell us a bit
about your journey.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I have been an educator, it seems like my entire life.
But when I was younger, I never wanted to be
a teacher because I didn't want to make students have
to sit still. I grew up in Phoenix, and so
I was working for the City of Phoenix and really
excited about that. And then I was in Arizona State
University's Upward Bound program, and that program it was for
(04:44):
underrepresented first generation college graduates to go to these major
universities and have support in just this really great experience
on college campuses prior to enrolling. So I graduated from
Hoig School and went directly into Arizona State University, at
sixteen years old, and I started working for the Upperbound
(05:06):
program as a freshman in college, and through that program,
I was mentoring other students just like me, and it
made me really understand that the teaching and learning process
is so very dynamic, right, especially when in that program
you go from mentorship to teaching, to tutoring, to residential
(05:28):
assistance to all these other things, to like mill Hall assistants.
And when I graduated, I started teaching at a school
district of seventy thousand students and from there I went
into building virtual learning programs and expanding opportunities, and then
became the director of online Learning. I led curriculum and
technology integration and started really honing in on how do
(05:51):
you put devices into the hands of students, but then
beyond that, how do you create content that allows them
to have opportunities to graduate, opportunities to enter in to
post secondary education, opportunities to really be exposed to new
careers that maybe they wouldn't have access to. And so
really got excited about that work because that absolutely loved
(06:12):
working with kiddos.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Fantastic. I'm curious, doctor Novac, if you can talk a
little bit about some of the truly disruptive or influential
changes in technology that you've witnessed over the last decade,
and how those are having an impact in what you do.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Great question, and I want to just go back a
couple of steps first and say that one of the
things that we've been doing, and I think I want
to provide this context for this conversation, is that we
have been hosting an innovation summit, and the rationale for
that was what we were recognizing is that sometimes in
(06:52):
higher ed we tend to do things in a vacuum,
or we sort of say this is what the student needs,
and we know that this is what the student needs
because this is what we like to teach, and I'm
not sure that's the framework that we want to approach
this work by. What we really need to say is
what is it that our business and industry partners are
telling us about our graduates, What might be the strengths,
(07:12):
what might be the deficits, and then how do we
bridge the types of experiences we create to ensure that
when they enter the workforce they are really relevantly prepared
for the work they're doing. One of the things we
talked about at this year's summit was the development of
a growth mindset. Sometimes we think it's all about the technology,
(07:33):
what it is really about is how do we develop
a mindset of being continually curious, continually willing to learn.
And so we need to do that both among our
faculty and our staff in the university community, as much
as we need to do that with our students. And
I hope business and industry sees the need to keep
nurturing that, supporting that incentivizing that mindset in their workplaces.
(07:57):
So when I look back at the way that we
sort of seen the evolution of technology, I think we
had a major leap when we had the invention of
the iPhone because we were carrying frankly, more technology on
our phone than we had on the first manned spaceflight.
And that was probably a really notable disruptor. And as
(08:19):
all of that was happening, what I have found particularly
fascinating is if you talk to cognitive learning scientists, they'll
tell you our human brain was also changing, and how
we were reacting and responding to the content we accessed
was changing. How we interact, We're continuing to evolve. So
(08:39):
as we entered the second decade of the twentieth century,
when we're sitting there in twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve,
and we're really seeing the discussion around Mooch's you know,
massively open classes that people can now access education. All
of these were ways of us trying to figure it out.
And you know, people say to me, were they valuable?
(09:00):
I'm like, absolutely, because we just got a little bit
better about understanding how we could open doors of access,
how we could make education more affordable, how we could
in many respects, break down the digital divide, but perhaps
most importantly, how we could strengthen student learning. And so
it's okay to have thousands of pages of content, but
(09:24):
if we don't really understand what that means and how
to use it and how to manipulate it, or how
to be able to synthesize it or analyze it, it's
really not that particularly relevant. What has happened as a
result of the evolution of technology, I think are two
major things. One is it's forced higher education to ask
itself how do we teach and how does learning best occur?
(09:48):
And how do we use technology to enhance that? And two,
I think it's also opened the door to access and
affordability when used appropriately. And what I mean by that
is is we are no longer place bound in education.
We can actually broaden that and ensure that somebody anywhere
in the country or the world can have access to education.
(10:12):
We are also no longer bound to a model that
says the faculty is the only person who has knowledge.
Now we actually have what I would call inner state
of knowledge in which everyone in the room can be
contributing in a way that I think is extraordinarily powerful.
So we launched our Nanoonago Online School of Nursing. We've
(10:35):
had a long history of health science education and on
ground nursing at this institution going back seventy years. What
we decided though, is that in order to meet the
needs of rural America, where people are in fact place
bound in education, deserts where they don't have the privilege
or the access to drive four hours to a campus
(10:57):
or three hours to a campus and be able to
somehow get to a course at nine am and then
another one at eleven AM, and then another one at
three that doesn't really allow them to keep working alongside
their learning.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We said that.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Model is not going to meet the needs of many Americans.
Who haven't completed a degree, or who simply want to
be upskilled or reskilled, or who are simply place bound
and need an opportunity for economic social and I would
argue spiritual mobility. And so what technology has really allowed
us to do is open doors that I think are
(11:33):
really exciting. And now we can explore ways to do
clinical simulation using virtual and augmented reality. We can rethink
all of the assumptions we had about having to be
in a clinic setting or in a hospital to learn
this content. That's not to say we're going away from
having skills check offs and things like that where students
need to demonstrate that, but boy, we can supplement their
(11:55):
learning with a whole lot of tools right now in
the technology sphere that I think have power to unleash
learning for people who've been placed bound for many, many years.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
It is phenomenal. And to that end, doctor King, I
wanted to talk to you about how connectivity has really
opened up this capacity for reaching people who otherwise would
have these struggles where they wouldn't have the opportunity to
pursue the sort of education because of where they are.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I mean, the biggest concern we've seen across the country.
Are these just broadband deserts places where especially in rural America,
where there's so many companies that just don't want to
make the investment because they're concerned with the return on investment. Right,
there's not enough people there and so we don't want
to make an investment in providing these services. Well, I mean,
the access is critical and it's really priceless, and making
(12:47):
sure that we do make these investments. So that's where
I'm just so proud of the work that T Mobile
has done and making sure that across rural America we
have these really strong commitments and making billions of dollars
in investments in the netw work and growing out what
five G looks like across rural America. And I think
we're really going to be dependent on this five G
infrastructure growing across rural America to make sure that we're
(13:11):
driving these advancements. Specific to what doctor Novac said, I
think for healthcare during the pandemic, health care consultations and
telemedicine has never been more prevalent. Right, How we're training
our medical staff, how we're preparing them, whether it's using
AR goggles or ARVR driven health care models or practices.
(13:33):
It requires high bandwidth, it requires fast communication, it requires
a little latency, and all of that means that five
G has a very meaningful influence on how we're providing
these services to the folks who are going to need
them the most. And you mentioned just that digital divide piece.
T Mobile has a ten point seven billion dollar commitment
(13:55):
to bridge the digital divide, and that's Project ten million.
And what I love about Project ten million is that
it's available to every student that qualifies for the National
School Lunch Program across the country, every student household. It
provides a free hotspot and one hundred gigs of internet
access per year for five years for every single student
household that qualifies. That is really changing the landscape of
(14:19):
how we see access. Now, does that mean that we
don't need to go that extra mile? Absolutely we do.
And so when we think about fixed wireless access, when
we think about the Emergency Connectivity Fund and all of
the other things in place to make sure that we're
driving the access, that piece is going to be critical
as well.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
One thing that I wanted to talk about with you,
doctor Novak, I was fascinated to learn about the sort
of test run with mixed reality and how that could
play a role in education moving forward. Obviously, connectivity is
is at the very foundation to make that technology possible,
But beyond that, what is the utility of mixed reality
(15:08):
in your eyes? What opportunities does it present.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
When we think about the multiverse and how we do
this right? I think it's untapped in terms of what
it will mean for Higher ED. I want to be
really clear here. We're just at the front end of
this conversation, and what I mean by that is there
hasn't been a lot of content developed for Higher ED
in this space. We have a huge investment that will
(15:33):
need to be made in what I call the faculty
of the future, in other words, equipping people for this
sort of learning and work and understanding is it working
and how does it best work. We have to be
equipped with partners like t Mobile, Qualcom, others who are
walking alongside us and asking the critical questions around what
(15:55):
are we learning about the technological interface? Where does it work,
doesn't at work? Where are the limitations? I called it
a pilot of the willing in Higher ED. Sometimes saying
to someone you have to do this is kind of
the kiss of death. So the strategy for me is
who wants to give this a shot. We had all
our faculty go through a micro credential in which they
(16:17):
spent about fifteen hours really learning about the tools, exploring it,
understanding their capacity, and then we delved into about five
different disciplinary areas engineering, biology, nursing, history, art, philosophy, and
really just said let's see what we can learn. And
so my request of those faculty was to see if
(16:40):
we could integrate it into maybe five or six lessons
within their content of a semester, and then we would
meet weekly and just sort of discern what was working,
what was not working.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
We got back.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Together with some of the programmers and said time out,
we can't do this in this classroom because we've got
bandwidth issues or we have students who weren't sure how
to use the technology. So we ran into a lot
of opportunities for what I would say learning. But we
also discovered that when students are in this engaged space,
(17:11):
when they've got a set of goggles on, you can't multitask,
you can't be on your phone and your laptop and
your other device. You're just immersed in the learning. And
thus the outcomes for how they retained and engaged in.
The content was so much more robust. So I believe
there is a strong future in this multiverse where we
(17:34):
have this integration of both virtual and augmented reality, and
I think it's only going to continue to evolve. What's
really critical is that we have industry partners working right
alongside faculty and the people trying to implement this work,
and in so doing, we don't do this work in
a vacuum, because I've seen a lot of technology in
(17:55):
the past that's been designed for higher ED without any
higher ED expertise around the table, and the result of
which is we don't use it. And so what's so
exciting about the collaboration we have with Victory XR, with
T Mobile, with Qualcom and some of these conversations is
we're all around the table, we're all listening to one another,
(18:16):
We're all understanding the limitations as well as our aspirations,
and I think that makes this a really powerful pilot.
We're really understanding where this technology can.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Go and just to piggyback off of that. This is
why it's been so important for T Mobile to bring
in these industry experts as well, even working alongside doctor Novak.
We've taken the opportunity to bring in the former CIO
of Penn State University, Michael Kubick. We've brought in doctor
Ann Clancy, the former vice PROVOS for Chicago Community Colleges.
(18:49):
This is not something that you can come in and
be prescriptive about. I think research and development is also
a really key piece of this work.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
I would concur I think this is a a really
big opportunity for higher education and again working alongside business
partners to really explore where can this go and how
we go about doing that matters. And you early on
doctor King mentioned who we put in the room matters,
so that the content we're developing, we can ensure is
(19:21):
representative of the real diversity that exists in our society today,
and we honor that lens of our diversity as a
country and as a world in the content we create
and ensure access as well through that process. So we
don't want to have all of one type of person
(19:44):
or one way of thinking influencing how we create content,
or I think we will really have missed our opportunity.
So higher ed needs to make sure it's investing and
doing the research and development work that is inclusive of
a lot of different voices, people from rural areas, people
from urban areas, people of different ethnic backgrounds, people of
(20:05):
different racial backgrounds, people of different disciplinary backgrounds. Right, so
that we understand how to maximize the potential of this
in a manner that is inclusive of voices and understandings
of the human condition. So in something like engineering, we
can create a virtual or augmented We've got a sort
of multiverse welding laboratory. Okay, that doesn't feel as perhaps
(20:30):
deeply personal, but when we take people into Plato's cave,
or when we explore history, or when we dive into
theological context using these tools, it matters if we want
to go into depth and have these tools really be
meaningful pedagogies to engage students in learning. It's much more
(20:51):
than a tactical action like a welding lab It is
a way of thinking. It is a way of learning,
and we must have voices around the table creating that.
So our R and D work needs to be as
inclusive as possible. And so I'm hopeful that as we
begin to make strategic investments in higher ed in the
(21:14):
future of faculty, that we're really mindful about who we
bring around the table for those conversations.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And that is the power of private public partnership.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
I could not agree more learning those tools to do good,
responsible research where you actually are able to look at
the full chain of where information came from and how
it's been shaped along its way. To me, that's absolutely
critical to being able to judge whether or not the
information you're being presented is reliable or not reliable. And clearly,
(21:47):
if we're to have technology bring this immersive experience to students,
we want to be certain that that immersive experience reflects
that same level of accountability and that same chain of
a stewardship. Dodr Novic, We've talked a lot about the
different technologies you saw over your career in education. From
a leadership perspective, I'm curious what your view is on
(22:11):
generative AI in general and its role in education in particular.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Sure, so as soon as chat GPT launched, I had
an account that day because I'm like, okay, and I
have Frankly, I've been reading about generative AI for some time,
and so it wasn't shocking that it was coming. But
I think I was impressed by I mean My husband
and I both have advanced degrees, and I'm sitting at
home and I'm like, give it the most difficult question,
(22:36):
and we're trying to mess with it to see if
we can outsmart it. So immediately, like the next week,
I have sort of these town hall type meetings with
our faculty and I said to them, friends, it's out
of the box. You can't say we're going to come
up with some device to stop this, or we're going
to be able to outsmart chat GPT from st Ambrose University.
(22:56):
I mean, that's not going to happen. So the real
question is how do we begin to think differently about
how we leverage it, use it, and ask can we
leverage it in such a way that the way we
create assignments or the way we create learning opportunities which
I like to use that phrase even better than assignments,
but learning opportunities might be to say, let's put this
(23:16):
question into chat GPT or into some sort of generative
AI large language model. Let's see what's generated, and then
let's ask those questions about reliability and validity, and can
we ask ourselves to then connect disparate pieces of information
that isn't real capable of being done through generative AI,
(23:37):
and so we've begun a pretty robust effort to equip
our faculty for how to do this work differently going forward,
because there are things about generative AI that can be
really powerful and things that can be used I think,
in really productive ways, just like the scientific calculator. On
the other hand, there are things that it generates that
(23:58):
are clearly inaccurate or rampant with bias or not a
reflection of what i'd say good moral judgment or ethics.
And so this then affords us the opportunity to really
use it as a teaching tool, to ask critical questions
around it. And so I think we have to begin
to equip both our students and our faculty and staff
(24:20):
differently for the work that lies ahead. I'm not scared
of it. I think it can be powerful. It's just
that again, we're evolving rapidly and it is shifting quickly
the landscape of how we do the work and hire it.
And so as a leader, I feel really obligated to
be ensuring our faculty are as equipped as possible to
(24:41):
think differently about how teaching and learning happens in this environment.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And we know that there are companies that are looking
to use chat GPT in their work in various capacities,
so students should get at least some exposure since that
is definitely going to be a component in the workforce
in the future. So I really appreciate your answer. Before
I could let my guests go, I needed to ask
(25:08):
a couple more questions, Doctor King, I'd love to start
with you. Our show is called The Restless Ones. What
do you think of when you hear the phrase restless ones.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
When I hear the phrase restless Ones, I think of
a never ending journey growing out the love of something
and watching that manifest into something that we use in
our everyday life, and then watching that transform into something
that changes the way that we interact with the people
that we love and the environments that we love, and
(25:45):
then watching that then transform into how we see our
future and how we see our potential to grow and
learn and flourish. And so when I think about restlessness,
to me, it is really true a trajectory of an
idea and going into a potential future of something that
(26:07):
can really only be imagined, and that is really exciting
to me.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
That's an excellent answer, Doctor Novak. I have a different
question for you, which is what advice would you give
to business leaders who have an opportunity to partner with
the public sector, specifically the education sector.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I think it's just being willing to be co creators
and really explore what is the potential when collectively we
come together to address complex problems, whether it's labor force,
whether it's upskilling, reskilling, strengthening our communities. We're better together
and I always tell people when something good happens, all
(26:48):
boats rise. This is no longer an either or conversation.
We collectively need to start to co create our future,
and we do that best in partnership. I think about restlessness,
I think about creativity, and I think when we talk
about the future, the possibilities are really endless. If we're
collaborating to make that a reality.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
What a fantastic optimistic note to end on. Yes, chills
are throughout the rooms, Doctor Novak, Doctor King, thank you
so much for joining us for the restless ones.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Thank you, thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Thank you again to doctor Amy Novak, President of st
Ambrose University and doctor King, Senior National Education Administrator at
T Mobile for Education. I learned a lot during the
course of this conversation, and I think the lessons learned
in the education sector and the desire to collaborate with
businesses to forge the best path forward to integrate innovation
(27:48):
effectively in higher learning actually have applicability beyond education itself.
I think it's clear that businesses will be making greater
use of technologies from mixed reality to AI in the future,
and business leaders need to learn the right questions to
ask in order to develop tools that add real value.
We all know that we should focus on the things
(28:11):
that will solve the problems we face today and the
ones we'll face tomorrow, and not just embrace every technology
that comes along. But to achieve real success requires more
than a plug and play mentality. Partnering with companies to
craft the right solution is absolutely critical. I hope you
(28:32):
enjoyed this conversation with doctor Amy Novak and doctor Kisha King.
Make sure to check out future episodes or else sit
down with other thought leaders to learn how they approach
innovation and the challenges associated with it, and take a
look at our past episodes as well. Until next time,
I'm Jonathan Strickland.
Hey everyone, Welcome to the Restless Ones. I'm Jonathan Strickland.
As always, my focus is on exploring the intersection of
technology and business by having conversations with the most forward
thinking leaders. Throughout my career, I've covered everything from massive
parallel processing to advanced robotics, but what truly inspires me
(00:24):
are the stories of innovation and transformation. In this season,
we'll explore technologies like flexible applications, more capable devices, and
advance networking like five G that are helping business leaders
act on their big ideas quickly and unlock mission critical outcomes.
What's become clear to us after three seasons is that
(00:45):
we can't change tomorrow by deploying solutions of the past.
So get ready to be inspired and learn from the
best today. On the Restless Ones, we have two phenomenal guests,
each of whom has a background in education. Doctor Amy
Novak is the president of Saint Ambrose University and has
(01:06):
worked in education for more than two decades. Doctor Keisha
King is the Senior National Education Administrator at t Mobile
for Education. They both have dedicated their careers to furthering
the education of students, addressing social challenges for the betterment
of communities and preparing people to be productive, successful members
of the workforce of tomorrow. It only takes a moment
(01:28):
of reflection to get a hint of the challenges educators
face in today's environment. But with the speed of technological
innovation and how it impacts everything from how we interact
with one another to how we get work done, meeting
that goal is a never ending challenge. I sat down
with doctor Novak and doctor King to get a better
(01:48):
understanding of technologies role in facilitating education. But before we
get into all of that, I wanted to learn more
about my guests, doctor Novak and doctor King. Welcome to
the restless ones.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I'm really excited to have this conversation. Both of my
parents were educators. They're both retired now, but my father
taught college level English, my mother taught elementary level everything.
So I have been deeply exposed to the world of
education and seen, both as a student and just in
(02:27):
my family, some of the challenges that my parents were
facing every day. So, doctor Novac, I'd love to start
with you. Can you talk a bit about where in
your life were you when you decided to really pursue
a career in education.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Thanks so much for the question and just the opportunity
to be in conversation and dialogue with all of you today.
I had a rather circuitous route to the work in
higher education, but I think when I look back and
reflect on how I got here, I spent time in
corporate settings for the first ten years of my career. Also,
I am a mom to eight, and as such, the
(03:04):
reality was each of those young people in my life
were learning and engaging and learning, and it's something that
both my husband and I had a deep passion for.
A series of family circumstances led us back to a
situation where I came back to my hometown and my
husband was medically retired from the military, and I thought,
(03:24):
what am I going to do in my hometown? And
there happened to be a college there, and I thought,
you know, I might have some skills that could be valuable,
and so I applied for a position as a three
quarter time grant writer of all things, and twenty one
years later, I have had a just exceptional experience to
be in a career field where every day I get
(03:46):
an opportunity to interact with students and really be part
of a transformative life experience for them, walking alongside students
as they go from this place of what am I
going to do with my life to now being able
to graduate, and really I see a pathway for them
into careers, but also just into better community leaders, strengthened
(04:07):
human beings. And so it's a privilege to work in
that space.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
And to that end, Doctor King, I understand you also
had a background in education before you transitioned over to
T Mobile for education, so please tell us a bit
about your journey.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I have been an educator, it seems like my entire life.
But when I was younger, I never wanted to be
a teacher because I didn't want to make students have
to sit still. I grew up in Phoenix, and so
I was working for the City of Phoenix and really
excited about that. And then I was in Arizona State
University's Upward Bound program, and that program it was for
(04:44):
underrepresented first generation college graduates to go to these major
universities and have support in just this really great experience
on college campuses prior to enrolling. So I graduated from
Hoig School and went directly into Arizona State University, at
sixteen years old, and I started working for the Upperbound
(05:06):
program as a freshman in college, and through that program,
I was mentoring other students just like me, and it
made me really understand that the teaching and learning process
is so very dynamic, right, especially when in that program
you go from mentorship to teaching, to tutoring, to residential
(05:28):
assistance to all these other things, to like mill Hall assistants.
And when I graduated, I started teaching at a school
district of seventy thousand students and from there I went
into building virtual learning programs and expanding opportunities, and then
became the director of online Learning. I led curriculum and
technology integration and started really honing in on how do
(05:51):
you put devices into the hands of students, but then
beyond that, how do you create content that allows them
to have opportunities to graduate, opportunities to enter in to
post secondary education, opportunities to really be exposed to new
careers that maybe they wouldn't have access to. And so
really got excited about that work because that absolutely loved
(06:12):
working with kiddos.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Fantastic. I'm curious, doctor Novac, if you can talk a
little bit about some of the truly disruptive or influential
changes in technology that you've witnessed over the last decade,
and how those are having an impact in what you do.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Great question, and I want to just go back a
couple of steps first and say that one of the
things that we've been doing, and I think I want
to provide this context for this conversation, is that we
have been hosting an innovation summit, and the rationale for
that was what we were recognizing is that sometimes in
(06:52):
higher ed we tend to do things in a vacuum,
or we sort of say this is what the student needs,
and we know that this is what the student needs
because this is what we like to teach, and I'm
not sure that's the framework that we want to approach
this work by. What we really need to say is
what is it that our business and industry partners are
telling us about our graduates, What might be the strengths,
(07:12):
what might be the deficits, and then how do we
bridge the types of experiences we create to ensure that
when they enter the workforce they are really relevantly prepared
for the work they're doing. One of the things we
talked about at this year's summit was the development of
a growth mindset. Sometimes we think it's all about the technology,
(07:33):
what it is really about is how do we develop
a mindset of being continually curious, continually willing to learn.
And so we need to do that both among our
faculty and our staff in the university community, as much
as we need to do that with our students. And
I hope business and industry sees the need to keep
nurturing that, supporting that incentivizing that mindset in their workplaces.
(07:57):
So when I look back at the way that we
sort of seen the evolution of technology, I think we
had a major leap when we had the invention of
the iPhone because we were carrying frankly, more technology on
our phone than we had on the first manned spaceflight.
And that was probably a really notable disruptor. And as
(08:19):
all of that was happening, what I have found particularly
fascinating is if you talk to cognitive learning scientists, they'll
tell you our human brain was also changing, and how
we were reacting and responding to the content we accessed
was changing. How we interact, We're continuing to evolve. So
(08:39):
as we entered the second decade of the twentieth century,
when we're sitting there in twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve,
and we're really seeing the discussion around Mooch's you know,
massively open classes that people can now access education. All
of these were ways of us trying to figure it out.
And you know, people say to me, were they valuable?
(09:00):
I'm like, absolutely, because we just got a little bit
better about understanding how we could open doors of access,
how we could make education more affordable, how we could
in many respects, break down the digital divide, but perhaps
most importantly, how we could strengthen student learning. And so
it's okay to have thousands of pages of content, but
(09:24):
if we don't really understand what that means and how
to use it and how to manipulate it, or how
to be able to synthesize it or analyze it, it's
really not that particularly relevant. What has happened as a
result of the evolution of technology, I think are two
major things. One is it's forced higher education to ask
itself how do we teach and how does learning best occur?
(09:48):
And how do we use technology to enhance that? And two,
I think it's also opened the door to access and
affordability when used appropriately. And what I mean by that
is is we are no longer place bound in education.
We can actually broaden that and ensure that somebody anywhere
in the country or the world can have access to education.
(10:12):
We are also no longer bound to a model that
says the faculty is the only person who has knowledge.
Now we actually have what I would call inner state
of knowledge in which everyone in the room can be
contributing in a way that I think is extraordinarily powerful.
So we launched our Nanoonago Online School of Nursing. We've
(10:35):
had a long history of health science education and on
ground nursing at this institution going back seventy years. What
we decided though, is that in order to meet the
needs of rural America, where people are in fact place
bound in education, deserts where they don't have the privilege
or the access to drive four hours to a campus
(10:57):
or three hours to a campus and be able to
somehow get to a course at nine am and then
another one at eleven AM, and then another one at
three that doesn't really allow them to keep working alongside
their learning.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We said that.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Model is not going to meet the needs of many Americans.
Who haven't completed a degree, or who simply want to
be upskilled or reskilled, or who are simply place bound
and need an opportunity for economic social and I would
argue spiritual mobility. And so what technology has really allowed
us to do is open doors that I think are
(11:33):
really exciting. And now we can explore ways to do
clinical simulation using virtual and augmented reality. We can rethink
all of the assumptions we had about having to be
in a clinic setting or in a hospital to learn
this content. That's not to say we're going away from
having skills check offs and things like that where students
need to demonstrate that, but boy, we can supplement their
(11:55):
learning with a whole lot of tools right now in
the technology sphere that I think have power to unleash
learning for people who've been placed bound for many, many years.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
It is phenomenal. And to that end, doctor King, I
wanted to talk to you about how connectivity has really
opened up this capacity for reaching people who otherwise would
have these struggles where they wouldn't have the opportunity to
pursue the sort of education because of where they are.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I mean, the biggest concern we've seen across the country.
Are these just broadband deserts places where especially in rural America,
where there's so many companies that just don't want to
make the investment because they're concerned with the return on investment. Right,
there's not enough people there and so we don't want
to make an investment in providing these services. Well, I mean,
the access is critical and it's really priceless, and making
(12:47):
sure that we do make these investments. So that's where
I'm just so proud of the work that T Mobile
has done and making sure that across rural America we
have these really strong commitments and making billions of dollars
in investments in the netw work and growing out what
five G looks like across rural America. And I think
we're really going to be dependent on this five G
infrastructure growing across rural America to make sure that we're
(13:11):
driving these advancements. Specific to what doctor Novac said, I
think for healthcare during the pandemic, health care consultations and
telemedicine has never been more prevalent. Right, How we're training
our medical staff, how we're preparing them, whether it's using
AR goggles or ARVR driven health care models or practices.
(13:33):
It requires high bandwidth, it requires fast communication, it requires
a little latency, and all of that means that five
G has a very meaningful influence on how we're providing
these services to the folks who are going to need
them the most. And you mentioned just that digital divide piece.
T Mobile has a ten point seven billion dollar commitment
(13:55):
to bridge the digital divide, and that's Project ten million.
And what I love about Project ten million is that
it's available to every student that qualifies for the National
School Lunch Program across the country, every student household. It
provides a free hotspot and one hundred gigs of internet
access per year for five years for every single student
household that qualifies. That is really changing the landscape of
(14:19):
how we see access. Now, does that mean that we
don't need to go that extra mile? Absolutely we do.
And so when we think about fixed wireless access, when
we think about the Emergency Connectivity Fund and all of
the other things in place to make sure that we're
driving the access, that piece is going to be critical
as well.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
One thing that I wanted to talk about with you,
doctor Novak, I was fascinated to learn about the sort
of test run with mixed reality and how that could
play a role in education moving forward. Obviously, connectivity is
is at the very foundation to make that technology possible,
But beyond that, what is the utility of mixed reality
(15:08):
in your eyes? What opportunities does it present.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
When we think about the multiverse and how we do
this right? I think it's untapped in terms of what
it will mean for Higher ED. I want to be
really clear here. We're just at the front end of
this conversation, and what I mean by that is there
hasn't been a lot of content developed for Higher ED
in this space. We have a huge investment that will
(15:33):
need to be made in what I call the faculty
of the future, in other words, equipping people for this
sort of learning and work and understanding is it working
and how does it best work. We have to be
equipped with partners like t Mobile, Qualcom, others who are
walking alongside us and asking the critical questions around what
(15:55):
are we learning about the technological interface? Where does it work,
doesn't at work? Where are the limitations? I called it
a pilot of the willing in Higher ED. Sometimes saying
to someone you have to do this is kind of
the kiss of death. So the strategy for me is
who wants to give this a shot. We had all
our faculty go through a micro credential in which they
(16:17):
spent about fifteen hours really learning about the tools, exploring it,
understanding their capacity, and then we delved into about five
different disciplinary areas engineering, biology, nursing, history, art, philosophy, and
really just said let's see what we can learn. And
so my request of those faculty was to see if
(16:40):
we could integrate it into maybe five or six lessons
within their content of a semester, and then we would
meet weekly and just sort of discern what was working,
what was not working.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
We got back.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Together with some of the programmers and said time out,
we can't do this in this classroom because we've got
bandwidth issues or we have students who weren't sure how
to use the technology. So we ran into a lot
of opportunities for what I would say learning. But we
also discovered that when students are in this engaged space,
(17:11):
when they've got a set of goggles on, you can't multitask,
you can't be on your phone and your laptop and
your other device. You're just immersed in the learning. And
thus the outcomes for how they retained and engaged in.
The content was so much more robust. So I believe
there is a strong future in this multiverse where we
(17:34):
have this integration of both virtual and augmented reality, and
I think it's only going to continue to evolve. What's
really critical is that we have industry partners working right
alongside faculty and the people trying to implement this work,
and in so doing, we don't do this work in
a vacuum, because I've seen a lot of technology in
(17:55):
the past that's been designed for higher ED without any
higher ED expertise around the table, and the result of
which is we don't use it. And so what's so
exciting about the collaboration we have with Victory XR, with
T Mobile, with Qualcom and some of these conversations is
we're all around the table, we're all listening to one another,
(18:16):
We're all understanding the limitations as well as our aspirations,
and I think that makes this a really powerful pilot.
We're really understanding where this technology can.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Go and just to piggyback off of that. This is
why it's been so important for T Mobile to bring
in these industry experts as well, even working alongside doctor Novak.
We've taken the opportunity to bring in the former CIO
of Penn State University, Michael Kubick. We've brought in doctor
Ann Clancy, the former vice PROVOS for Chicago Community Colleges.
(18:49):
This is not something that you can come in and
be prescriptive about. I think research and development is also
a really key piece of this work.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
I would concur I think this is a a really
big opportunity for higher education and again working alongside business
partners to really explore where can this go and how
we go about doing that matters. And you early on
doctor King mentioned who we put in the room matters,
so that the content we're developing, we can ensure is
(19:21):
representative of the real diversity that exists in our society today,
and we honor that lens of our diversity as a
country and as a world in the content we create
and ensure access as well through that process. So we
don't want to have all of one type of person
(19:44):
or one way of thinking influencing how we create content,
or I think we will really have missed our opportunity.
So higher ed needs to make sure it's investing and
doing the research and development work that is inclusive of
a lot of different voices, people from rural areas, people
from urban areas, people of different ethnic backgrounds, people of
(20:05):
different racial backgrounds, people of different disciplinary backgrounds. Right, so
that we understand how to maximize the potential of this
in a manner that is inclusive of voices and understandings
of the human condition. So in something like engineering, we
can create a virtual or augmented We've got a sort
of multiverse welding laboratory. Okay, that doesn't feel as perhaps
(20:30):
deeply personal, but when we take people into Plato's cave,
or when we explore history, or when we dive into
theological context using these tools, it matters if we want
to go into depth and have these tools really be
meaningful pedagogies to engage students in learning. It's much more
(20:51):
than a tactical action like a welding lab It is
a way of thinking. It is a way of learning,
and we must have voices around the table creating that.
So our R and D work needs to be as
inclusive as possible. And so I'm hopeful that as we
begin to make strategic investments in higher ed in the
(21:14):
future of faculty, that we're really mindful about who we
bring around the table for those conversations.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And that is the power of private public partnership.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
I could not agree more learning those tools to do good,
responsible research where you actually are able to look at
the full chain of where information came from and how
it's been shaped along its way. To me, that's absolutely
critical to being able to judge whether or not the
information you're being presented is reliable or not reliable. And clearly,
(21:47):
if we're to have technology bring this immersive experience to students,
we want to be certain that that immersive experience reflects
that same level of accountability and that same chain of
a stewardship. Dodr Novic, We've talked a lot about the
different technologies you saw over your career in education. From
a leadership perspective, I'm curious what your view is on
(22:11):
generative AI in general and its role in education in particular.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Sure, so as soon as chat GPT launched, I had
an account that day because I'm like, okay, and I
have Frankly, I've been reading about generative AI for some time,
and so it wasn't shocking that it was coming. But
I think I was impressed by I mean My husband
and I both have advanced degrees, and I'm sitting at
home and I'm like, give it the most difficult question,
(22:36):
and we're trying to mess with it to see if
we can outsmart it. So immediately, like the next week,
I have sort of these town hall type meetings with
our faculty and I said to them, friends, it's out
of the box. You can't say we're going to come
up with some device to stop this, or we're going
to be able to outsmart chat GPT from st Ambrose University.
(22:56):
I mean, that's not going to happen. So the real
question is how do we begin to think differently about
how we leverage it, use it, and ask can we
leverage it in such a way that the way we
create assignments or the way we create learning opportunities which
I like to use that phrase even better than assignments,
but learning opportunities might be to say, let's put this
(23:16):
question into chat GPT or into some sort of generative
AI large language model. Let's see what's generated, and then
let's ask those questions about reliability and validity, and can
we ask ourselves to then connect disparate pieces of information
that isn't real capable of being done through generative AI,
(23:37):
and so we've begun a pretty robust effort to equip
our faculty for how to do this work differently going forward,
because there are things about generative AI that can be
really powerful and things that can be used I think,
in really productive ways, just like the scientific calculator. On
the other hand, there are things that it generates that
(23:58):
are clearly inaccurate or rampant with bias or not a
reflection of what i'd say good moral judgment or ethics.
And so this then affords us the opportunity to really
use it as a teaching tool, to ask critical questions
around it. And so I think we have to begin
to equip both our students and our faculty and staff
(24:20):
differently for the work that lies ahead. I'm not scared
of it. I think it can be powerful. It's just
that again, we're evolving rapidly and it is shifting quickly
the landscape of how we do the work and hire it.
And so as a leader, I feel really obligated to
be ensuring our faculty are as equipped as possible to
(24:41):
think differently about how teaching and learning happens in this environment.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And we know that there are companies that are looking
to use chat GPT in their work in various capacities,
so students should get at least some exposure since that
is definitely going to be a component in the workforce
in the future. So I really appreciate your answer. Before
I could let my guests go, I needed to ask
(25:08):
a couple more questions, Doctor King, I'd love to start
with you. Our show is called The Restless Ones. What
do you think of when you hear the phrase restless ones.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
When I hear the phrase restless Ones, I think of
a never ending journey growing out the love of something
and watching that manifest into something that we use in
our everyday life, and then watching that transform into something
that changes the way that we interact with the people
that we love and the environments that we love, and
(25:45):
then watching that then transform into how we see our
future and how we see our potential to grow and
learn and flourish. And so when I think about restlessness,
to me, it is really true a trajectory of an
idea and going into a potential future of something that
(26:07):
can really only be imagined, and that is really exciting
to me.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
That's an excellent answer, Doctor Novak. I have a different
question for you, which is what advice would you give
to business leaders who have an opportunity to partner with
the public sector, specifically the education sector.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I think it's just being willing to be co creators
and really explore what is the potential when collectively we
come together to address complex problems, whether it's labor force,
whether it's upskilling, reskilling, strengthening our communities. We're better together
and I always tell people when something good happens, all
(26:48):
boats rise. This is no longer an either or conversation.
We collectively need to start to co create our future,
and we do that best in partnership. I think about restlessness,
I think about creativity, and I think when we talk
about the future, the possibilities are really endless. If we're
collaborating to make that a reality.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
What a fantastic optimistic note to end on. Yes, chills
are throughout the rooms, Doctor Novak, Doctor King, thank you
so much for joining us for the restless ones.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Thank you, thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Thank you again to doctor Amy Novak, President of st
Ambrose University and doctor King, Senior National Education Administrator at
T Mobile for Education. I learned a lot during the
course of this conversation, and I think the lessons learned
in the education sector and the desire to collaborate with
businesses to forge the best path forward to integrate innovation
(27:48):
effectively in higher learning actually have applicability beyond education itself.
I think it's clear that businesses will be making greater
use of technologies from mixed reality to AI in the future,
and business leaders need to learn the right questions to
ask in order to develop tools that add real value.
We all know that we should focus on the things
(28:11):
that will solve the problems we face today and the
ones we'll face tomorrow, and not just embrace every technology
that comes along. But to achieve real success requires more
than a plug and play mentality. Partnering with companies to
craft the right solution is absolutely critical. I hope you
(28:32):
enjoyed this conversation with doctor Amy Novak and doctor Kisha King.
Make sure to check out future episodes or else sit
down with other thought leaders to learn how they approach
innovation and the challenges associated with it, and take a
look at our past episodes as well. Until next time,
I'm Jonathan Strickland.
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