Edtech Insiders
Edtech Insiders
The Intersection of Technology and Human Learning with Joel Podolny of Honor Education
Joel Podolny is co-founder and CEO of Honor Education. Prior to starting Honor Education, Joel was a Vice President at Apple and the founding Dean of Apple University, where he reported directly to Steve Jobs and Tim Cook and oversaw learning in areas such as leadership, management, and company culture. Before that, Joel served as Dean and Professor of Management at the Yale School of Management. He previously held chaired professorships at Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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📰 Honor Education Newsroom
🖥️ Columbia University Online Learning
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Welcome to Season Eight of Edtech Insiders where we speak to educators, founders, investors, thought leaders and the industry experts who are shaping the global education technology industry. Every week, we bring you the week in edtech. important updates from the Edtech field, including news about core technologies and issues we know will influence the sector like artificial intelligence, extended reality, education, politics, and more. We also conduct an in depth interview with a wide variety of Edtech thought leaders, and bring you insights and conversations from edtech conferences all around the world. Remember to subscribe, follow and tell your edtech friends about the podcast and to check out the Ed Tech insiders substack newsletter. Thanks for being part of the Edtech Insiders community enjoy the show. Joel Podolny is co founder and CEO of Honor Education. Prior to starting honor, Joel was vice president at Apple and the founding dean of Apple University, where he reported directly to Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, and oversaw learning in areas such as leadership management and company culture. Before that, Joel served as dean and Professor of Management at the Yale School of Management. He previously held chaired professorships at Harvard Business School, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Joe Podolny of Honor Education, welcome to Edtech Insiders.
Joel Podolny:Alex, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me on this podcast.
Alexander Sarlin:Oh, thank you for being here. I've been waiting to have this conversation, you know, you and I met at the ASU-GSV conference had a fantastic conversation on the floor there. And I've just been counting the days until we got to do this podcast because I feel like you're doing incredibly interesting work. Let's kick off, you have a really, really unique background in the EdTech space, your work has consistently highlighted the importance of human connection in learning. Tell us about how you've used your experience at Harvard Business School at the graduate Stanford Graduate School of Business and at Apple University to put together what you're doing today with Honor Education.
Joel Podolny:So in pretty much all the roles I've had, in my career, I've been a case teacher, as part of them. And so for me, you know, transformational learning was always, you know, bringing different people with unique backgrounds and experiences, and trying to draw out of them, their perspective, what they're excited about what they are in violent disagreement about. So that, you know, everybody walks out of a room like a little bit, sort of wiser, knowing a little bit more about others a little bit more about themselves a little bit more about whatever is the learning content that we're focused on. And I took that, you know, from higher education to Apple, and then when COVID hit, and you couldn't get, you know, 80 people into a room. And I realized, like somebody's compelling is a case teacher and I had many on my team at Apple University, we're sort of very compelling case eaters. They can be compelling on Zoom, but but not nearly for the length of time. And it pushed us in the sort of the direction of them thinking, well, how can you create that same amount of sort of shared learning experience, asynchronously between live sessions that you were able to create, in, you know, an extended live session that could go for, you know, hours, or, you know, obviously, with breaks even over multiple days, and, and that was really how this focus on human connection, even in those asynchronous moments between live classes really became a central focus for myself, and then ultimately, on our education.
Alexander Sarlin:I think your focus on the case teaching is such a personal conversational, like, you really feel like everybody's in a room together really making sense of something. It's sort of a very, you know, platonic form of education in sort of a traditional way, Socratic, platonic, everybody's really engaging. And I think when we think about asynchronous education, often you don't get that vibe at all people think of it as very isolating and siloed. And a little bit lonely, in many cases, tell us about how you at honor are really working to design your product to foster human connection and collaborative experiences, even in an asynchronous environment and how other edtech companies might want to think about that
Joel Podolny:city use an example that some people might be familiar with, in fact, I imagine a lot of your listeners are familiar with is, you know, think about Kindle reader and the public Highlighting, as you're going through a book, you see that you know, 2000 people underline something. Now, on the one hand, that can be really interesting, especially if you weren't thinking about highlighting it, because you may wonder, you know, what did everybody see in this that I don't see, and it can start to prompt sort of learning. But imagine what it would be to really try to turbocharge that experience. So that as you're going, you know, through a text, or you're going through a video, you not only see what people are reacting to in a way that's analogous to underlining but you understand something around their intention, when they underline, you know, what did they find important? What did they find interesting? What did they disagree with fine, you know, debatable, what were they unclear on and you make it possible, just like, you know, sort of digital highlighting for that to be done in a really easy way. So that it's not a burden on people to share that information. So it's a combination of thinking really hard about a UI, that the technology doesn't get in the way as people are going through their learning, but at the same time enables that sort of shared journey. That's what we've really been focusing on. And not just, of course, for the learners. But if it's in the context of a class where there's a cohort that's going together with an instructor to create that same visibility for the instructor and the same ability for that instructor to enter in and to react, as everybody is asynchronously going through the content. That's what we've really sort of focused ourselves on that
Alexander Sarlin:idea of sort of making everybody's thinking visible, their real time thinking visible, even if they're not with you at the same moment, even if you're reading or watching a video or reading a learning resource a week after someone else did, you can see how they thought about it, what it raised for them whether they agreed or challenged it. And then you can see that at scale, you can see that for the whole class or for a whole series of different people. It reminds me a little bit of almost like YouTube comments, right? Where you have, you know, a video with 1000s and 1000s of people have sort of left their mark, you know, left their opinions on it. Do you see any overlap between that kind of UX where people are engaging in something asynchronously, but it feels very social? With what you're doing it on her? So
Joel Podolny:the answer is, certainly there's a connection there, I think when the focus is on learning, rather than on, you know, some kind of just consumption, which may involve learning or may not, there's sort of a few things you want to also be thinking about above and beyond like that ability to sort of add comments along the way. The first is, you also want to be really thoughtful about how you integrate sort of notifications for those who may have gone through the course, or the course material earlier. Because unlike the YouTube, if I was the first to watch the video, I don't get the benefit of what, you know, everybody who follows me, you know, sort of comments on So, but if I'm part of a cohort, I want to be notified when others have gone through and had reactions to the material that I've already seen. So I can then you know, be informed. And, and so part of it is making that, you know, really sort of an easy, you know, light experience where it's not like, Okay, I gotta go look back at every article I read, or I gotta then scroll through Where did people make comments? So you really need to be thoughtful about, you know, how do you keep the cohort as they're each going through at their own pace, aware of where the energy of the classes and guiding them to it. And that's one. And the second thing is not so much on the learner side. But on the course creation side, you really want for the instructor to enable what you could call, you know, agile course creation, giving the instructors the ability to modify to annotate to add to a course in real time. If, for example, a large number of students in a class get to a formula that they find, you know, confusing to make it really easy for the instructor to one, be aware that, you know, those students were unclear on this particular formula. And then make it really easy for the instructor to go in and add like an audio annotation right at that formula in a way that allows them to be responsive to the student Once I have the students then notified or for that annotation, and that increases their motivation for further engagement, because they know when they engage, they get a response on the instructor side that enhances their learning. And so I would say it's that sort of combination on the learner side of, you know, allowing for really quick fast, you know, reactions that give you a real sense of what people's intentions are with why they're highlighting the notifications, and then this agile course creation, all three elements have to be there for a synchronous, to be collectively engaging in the same way that, you know, to go back to where we started, that sort of case discussion experience, that Socratic experience can be collectively engaging word
Alexander Sarlin:that you said, that jumps out to me, because I feel like it sort of diffuses through many of the things that you're doing it on or is, is energy, you talk about this agile course creation, and how creators of asynchronous courses in honor can, it doesn't feel like you're sort of setting it and forgetting it, right, which is what a lot of people feel in asynchronous education, you set up a pathway dender day 12345, here are my videos, here are my quizzes, and then you sort of send it off. And that's it. And that can actually be very de energizing for a professor or a teacher who is used to feeding off of the energy of the class here learning from their students, we all know that experience. And you know, if you're just shipping something off, you don't get that energy. And then you mentioned that idea of the cohort staying really connected and using reminders and communication so that everybody knows, as you said, Where are the energy of the classes, what is getting people excited, what is getting them to debate, I'd love to hear you go even deeper into that concept of keeping the energy alive in an asynchronous environment, because that feels really unique to honor and something I think the whole edtech space is really wrestled with for for decades, frankly,
Joel Podolny:we got a nice note from a philosophy professor at Austin Community College, which is one of our partner institutions is amazing, amazing institution. And he commented on how he felt like, as an instructor, you know, he was losing the ability to sort of lecture to his students, and, you know, he he made, you know, reference to what a lot of people make reference to attention spans aren't as long as they used to be, you know, people are sort of, as used to, you know, sort of full 45, you know, kind of minute lecture. And he said, what he, what was so exciting for him, as he put his course on honor is, you know, he essentially took what had been his lecture, and he put like, these sort of, you know, two minutes, sort of four minute, you know, sort of annotations along the way, which were, you know, his voice guiding the students through, and he said, like, even for those students, you know, in the past, like he said, like that, you know, the content was the same. He even tried to break down the lecture, but the fact that as they're going through that material, they sort of hear his voice as they're reading it, and then they get his interpretation of it. You know, he said, like, This feels like the future of, of education. And what I loved about that, and it goes back exactly to what you said about the energy, right, it is that interplay around the learning artifact, random video around the book, and it's keeping people mindful of that, that I think, is where the energy come from. And so it's just thinking about the UI, the user interface on both sides, both the learner side and the instructor side, that enhances that. I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, part of the reason like why, you know, lectures tend to be so ineffective sometimes is because they're not at all responsive to the energy, right, you know, it's like, it's entirely one way, you know, students could get excited about a particular point in a lecture, but the lectures just gonna go on as opposed to there being an opportunity. Can we dive deeper into this? Can the instructor hear what's going on in the students? So all of a sudden, like, you make possible that sort of interplay. And yeah, that's why we try to keep as mindful as we can be of that notion of energy, and having a UI that supports it. I
Alexander Sarlin:love that concept of interplay, you know, education should never feel siloed and totally solo endeavor, even if you're doing it asynchronously. And that concept of keeping the interplay very visible throughout an experience is really in important. So, you know, there's a trend in education right now and in edtech, right now partially fueled by AI to sort of make education more and more what people tend to call personalized or individualized. And so that people's experience is adaptive or changes based on their particular interests are their particular speed, which they go through the material. And it strikes me when you talk about the learning artifact being centered. And you know, in the case of a case study, you know, the case is centered, in the case of a people reading a book together, the book is centered, or it can be of course, material, it feels like the concept of personalized learning, at least in some ways of defining it, where people are getting different experiences. And the concept of cohort based community focused, you know, everybody wrapped around a really interesting learning artifact and learn from each other, feel a little bit at a tension with each other. And I'm curious how you think about these, these different styles of learning? Do you do you envision that honor? Would want ever to have students having different experiences based on their personal characteristics? Or is the idea that instead, it's really a cohort, a community, a class and the energy is collective? How do you think about that?
Joel Podolny:Yeah, it's a great question. And you're right, like, certainly at a high level, it feels like there's this tension between, you know, sort of personalization everybody on their own pathways and community focused learning, which almost by definition requires bringing people onto a common pathway. I'd like to sort of double click though, on, you know, the term personalization, because I think it can mean, you know, sort of different things. And what I'd like to draw a distinction between is personalized consumption, versus personalized expression. And to me, you know, I mean, both are potentially of value. But when we think about learning, and we think about, you know, growth, growth in critical thinking, growth in terms of empathy, personalized expression, is as important, if not more important, I would argue, than personalize consumption. Because if I can express myself, in a way, that's true to me, true to me on as in terms of where I am on my learning journey, you know, what I'm excited about what I'm not excited about what I agree with what I don't agree with, if I've got that opportunity to express that, not only does that feel affirming, right, like, I get to be part of this learning experience, where I know I belong, because I can express sort of who I am as part of it. But I also give others the ability to sort of react and respond, and to help shape my thinking. And again, I'll keep going back to sort of the case teaching as a metaphor, I could have 100 people in a room, but I think, you know, across the arc of a class, my hope would be that those 100, even if we're looking at the same case, would feel they had a personal experience, because they got to express their own views, they got to be in a debate with somebody else in the classroom sort of disagreed, you know, with them, they got to be in a debate with me as an instructor, if they, you know, sort of felt like, there was something I was missing, or, you know, sort of my, and we really put that emphasis on personal expression. Now, scale, of course, helps, right, if you can, you know, start creating large enough groups that are coming to, you know, if, for example, you enjoy learning through video, and I enjoy, you know, learning through reading, we could, with enough scale, you could start personalizing your learning artifacts to personalize consumption now, while at the same time, you know, also bringing to bear personalized expression. They are the only tension I think starts to become that if you lose some of that diversity of learning styles within a group, I think you lose the ability to learn and to be challenged, you know, by others. I mean, I certainly know through my education, there would be people who would be in the room who like you know, their mind work completely differently than minded. They would be able to sort of take things in, you know, survey, and, you know, while I may never do it in exactly the same way, I know I certainly benefited by I buy trying to sort of track and understand how are they approaching what I was approaching, but in a very different way. But again, this distinction, I think, between personalized consumption and personalized expression is, I think, really important, we leaned into very much into the ladder. And then scale can help even bring in some personalized consumption. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to push that too far. Because I think being exposed to differences is one of the great sources of learning.
Alexander Sarlin:That's a very, very interesting distinction. And that concept of personalized expression feels like a very rich thing. For Ed Tech. And especially in this moment of AI enhanced ed tech, where people have a lot of options about how to express themselves, even beyond opinions, they have ways to express themselves in many different multiple means to use the Universal Design for Learning phrases, multiple means of expression, and multiple perspectives and backgrounds. And people bring their experience to classrooms. So I that is a fascinating distinction, I think it really illuminates some of the needed nuance around this idea of personalization. Thank you. You mentioned Austin Community College. And one of the things that is really very interesting to me personally, and I note to you as well about about honor education is if you can continue to make a synchronous learning as engaging, rich, effective, and experience as possibly can be and as effective and engaging as synchronous experiences, that really opens up equity issues in education. Because we have a situation right now, where many students, especially at community colleges, or fully online institutions, do a lot of asynchronous learning or hybrid learning. And currently, it takes a lot of motivation, it takes a lot of know how to be able to, to work within a fully asynchronous or a very hybrid environment. You know, you've advocated for mobile first design, partially from your amazing experience at Apple. But you've also really thought a lot about how to make sure that the asynchronous learning experiences that honor provides, try to even the playing field, they try to make it a learning experience that learners with families, learners with jobs learners with complex lives with, with chronic diseases that, you know, there are so many different types of learners, especially when you're talking about community college or online learning, you know, you're trying to even the playing field and make asynchronous learning something that everybody can engage in, tell us about your perspective on equity. And what you do it on are to really make sure it's front and center.
Joel Podolny:Yeah, so you know, one of the things I think, sometimes we lose sight of is that, you know, the idea of a sort of four year, you know, kind of degree, as you know, sort of a stage in somebody's life, it emerged in a time, and it was ultimately, you know, sort of set up largely for people who were for sort of an aristocracy for individuals who didn't have to worry about, you know, how they were going to provide for themselves, you know, financially, during this four years that they were, you know, committing themselves to the study and preparation for life and career. And, obviously, you know, the costs of education, you know, have gone up and at the same time, and for really wonderful thing is, education is more broadly accessible. And yet, because of the complex lives that so many people have, sometimes the way in which that education is provided, it doesn't sort of fit the other demands of their lives, the need to fit learning in with work, the need to fit learning in with taking care of a family, and it could be children, it could be I'm taking care of an elderly parent, the way of course to address that is to, you know, offer learning experiences that are woven into people's lives into the 30 minutes that they may be transitioning from, you know, taking care of their children to, you know, being on a bus and going, you know, to work, but they're not going to have a laptop, you know, with them. And so one of the things that we've put a real premium on, and you alluded to this is the importance of mobile first design as a matter of equity. Let me just sort of say briefly, what mobile first design, you know, I think means, you know, because you can say, well, it means like native apps, so native iOS and native Android apps, and of course, you know, we have those, but more importantly, it means the design the UI presumes as a base case, a small form factor in portrait, as opposed to a large screen in landscape. Not only is it the device that, you know, it is maybe the only device that they have with them. But it's also the case that, you know, those who have not necessarily had, you know, sort of the financial resources that others, it may be the device that they are most empowered with, and sort of feel most comfortable with. And so if you design for that first, and you make that the premium experience, now, all of a sudden, you know, you've equalize the playing field, as opposed to, there's some who have, you know, a really good learning experience on a computer, and the rest are kind of doing the best they can on their phone.
Alexander Sarlin:And that mobile first design is a huge piece of equity story, because it creates flexibility, mobility, the ability, as you say, for people to jump in and out of learning experiences that presume that they may have other things going on in their lives, which a huge percentage of students do one or two for college students has children, that people don't know that, right. But it's pretty amazing. And you know, all sorts of things. So tell us a little bit more about how you do this. And so mobile first design feels like it's something that you and your team have a lot of experience in, how do you think about it? In terms of your particular learner persona? How do you make sure that their mobile experience is optimized?
Joel Podolny:So first is having is obviously a hard thing to sort of explain, it's sort of easier thing typically to show. But to have, once you go to mobile, for example, you have to assume that people don't have you know, a physical keyboard, and you need to start then enabling collective engagement that doesn't presume a physical keyboard. And so allows for meaningful and quick, you know, reactions allows for, you know, audio notes, you know, or transcribed notes, as much as it would allow for notes that would be delivered with a physical keyboard. That's one big piece. On the learner side, there's also the piece on the instructor side, which is allowing analytics that give the instructor you know, real clarity around, you know, how people are tracking with respect to the material, because if everybody's coming into class, on a really regular basis, and there's a lot of in person time, most instructors, even for large groups of ad 200, they can start to tell Well, who's engaged who's not who's getting it, who isn't, the more you move to, even as part of a hybrid experience, the more that is online, even if there are synchronous moments where we're in a zoom session, somebody's staring at a screen, I can't tell if they're actually staring at me, or, you know, they've got Amazon open up in front of the screen, and are, you know, kind of putting a shopping order together. And so making those analytics really user friendly in a way that helps the instructor connect with those people who are struggling challenge, or may just sort of feel like, I'm not sure I belong here. That's a real key piece of ensuring equity in the design.
Alexander Sarlin:That's really insightful. And I think I had the pleasure of getting a little demo of some of what you are doing an honor and one aspect of the mobile experience, it's stuck with me, you can talk about it if you'd like, or I don't know if this is public consumption, I think it is. But you've incorporated, you know, gestures and swiping and you know, some of the sort of mobile first affordances into the experience. So not only are you as you say, assuming that there isn't a full keyboard, but the ability to sort of rapidly respond, even you know, with a finger while you're standing on a bus holding on. It feels like even that is built into what you do. I remember when Angry Birds was first came out and sort of took over the Appstore having this realization, I was like, you can play this game with one hand. That's why this is so popular. I mean, it's one of the reasons. And I think you can do that with honor too. You can sort of learn with one hand, so to speak, if you're comfortable. Tell us a little bit about what that looks like. Just so our listeners can have a little bit of a vision of what this actually means.
Joel Podolny:Yeah, so you know, I mean, let's assume you're going through tax, you know, could be ePub textbook, it could be a PDF. And suppose as a learner, you hit a piece, you know, an element of passage, let's say, in the text, where there's something that you as a learner, you're just not sure you, you know, agree with. And so you'd either like somebody else to provide further clarification that could danger point of view or you'd like to just know what you know, what's everybody think? I'm not sure I agree with it. So a fundamental aspect of the UI is what we call, you know, our reaction button, it's, you know, sort of there's one big multicolor button at the bottom with two taps of that button one to open up, you know, sort of a set of four choices. And then the second tab would be to choose among the four. So is it important? Is it interesting? Is it unclear is that debatable? So if I tap to come up with four choices, and then tap debatable, the second, I've done that second tap, three things have happened. The first is, I've highlighted now that paragraph as debatable. The second is, it's saved in the my digital notebook with everything else I've reacted. So I'm getting a personalized notebook of what's the material that's most relevant to my learning. And the third is now everybody else is going to know that somebody regarded this as debatable, and it could just stop there. And now as people are reading through, they'll see like this, shared, you know, highlighting and somebody and maybe others will have similar or different reactions, same texts, that could even go further. And you know, with another tap, I can, like, I want to record a quick transcribe note. So I click on the microphone, I make my note, and I can, I can make that a private note. And that's just a swipe to the right, or I can make it a public note, and that's a swipe to the left, and then done, and then we move on. And so with a couple taps, and in this case, like you know, my thought as to why I am not sure I agree with the text, we've now done for that individual on that bus. And you're right, you know, with one hand, what normally we would associate with being in a live synchronous class, somebody raises their hand, maybe they get called on, maybe they don't, this allows all 80 people to be called on essentially, or to express their view around that same material. So we don't even think that, you know, kind of that live case discussion, you know, should be seen as the ideal towards which we're aspiring, we think we can do even better by allowing, you know, everybody to sort of simultaneously react, and then to provide that instructor with real clarity on the reaction. So if the instructor sees now that that student is regarded as debate, that instructor can now go in, add an audio recording, you know, like, really easily, you know, two minute answer, and then they just record it, and then the system will like, notify everybody, your instructor has just left a comment. And again, with one hand, I can tap on that notification, and it sends me right to where the audio clip is, I can hear it. So you know, we've kind of woven that in, you know, that engaged collective experience, you know, right into the mobile UI.
Alexander Sarlin:It's really powerful. And I think you're mentioning a key point to me, which is that it starts to simulate some of the energy and the changing energy, the shifting energy that happens in a live classroom, that is a big part of what live instruction is, like, you know, you mentioned that somebody raising their hand is sort of potentially expressing, you know, a question or debate and sayings. It's debatable. I would even say, you know, in a regular classroom, you feel the moment when a bunch of people don't understand something, or, you know, I remember in college, a professor would be lecturing, and you just feel a moment when people start looking at each other in the class, or you hear just like the notes, stop moving for a moment, this these these little signals that something is a little amiss, and people are not following. And I love your point that, you know, in a traditional classroom, maybe a seasoned instructor would catch that and say, Oh, I feel the energy just shifted, maybe people have, you know, comments, or they're, they don't don't agree with this. But certainly an asynchronous instruction. It's very rare. And I think even in synchronous online instruction, it's very rare to have that kind of moment, you just don't have each other present to have that kind of energy shift. So I love the idea. And I loved the UI of it as well. And it was really spectacular of, you know, people being able to express their slight shifts in energy in response to the learning artifacts and to the instructors, delivery, that can really enhance a learning experience. It's not a small part of the learning experience. It's actually a really big part of the learning experience that we've lost, I think, in many cases in async. So the reaction and the idea of students consistently reacting and those reactions sort of aggregating, you might have 20 Different students disagreeing with a particular passage or a whole long debate happening about one particular sentence. That's exactly what we want in Socratic education. And that's like, it's so exciting that it can be reproduced. I've never seen it reproduced well, so thrilling. Well,
Joel Podolny:first, thank you for those very kind words. Second, I want to like pull on something you just said, because I think it's really important, right? It's one thing to create that opportunity for people to express themselves, you know, again, and as you said, it's one thing to express, it's another thing to express with one hand on a mobile device. But the third thing that you're pointing to, and so I just want to sort of draw a line on it is when we're in a class with others, and we're confused by, you know, what's being talked about, we can look around the room, and we can see other furrowed brows. And so we know we're not alone. And so you come back to equity, and you come back to people who may not have as much experience in learning settings. And then you put them online, by themselves. You know, we know we know from research, when something is unclear, they don't make the attribution to the material as but you know, they make the attribution to themselves, you know, I don't get it, I must not belong here, right. And so what you want to do is, you want to make it possible, not just for people to express themselves and express whether or not something is unclear, they don't agree with it, you want to normalize it. And that normalization is, I think, really, so central in the point that you're making. Because if we can normalize people's expression of I just don't get this, or I just don't agree with it. Now they are along for that full learning journey. Right? Because they know it's okay, this is part of the journey, as opposed to this is a sign I don't belong on it. And I don't think we've given enough attention to that, as we've moved from learning experiences that have been largely collective and in person to moving online, if you can't normalize the lack of understanding or the lack of agreement, when those things arise, you're essentially giving people the indication, it's like, okay, you just don't belong here. And so that's why the transparency around how everybody is reacting is so important.
Alexander Sarlin:Such a amazing point. And, you know, it really resonates with me, in my time at Coursera, we were constantly getting research results that were very discouraging, because they were coming from exactly that perspective, people who had more previous experience with higher education, more master's degrees more, you know, did better in Coursera classes, they went further, they got better grades. And there was something happening that was just, you know, giving people without as much as you say, experience in learning settings, so many off ramps, right, there were so many opportunities for them to say, this isn't for me, or I just didn't get it or I fell behind or, you know, because there just wasn't enough visibility into what anyone else was thinking and whether if the instructor used a word that nobody knew, because nobody had learned it yet. And it's very specialized, that can make the difference for a learner who thinks, oh, I don't know that word must be me. I don't have enough, you know, I never finished high school, or I've always had reading issues. So it must be me and I don't belong here. I'm going to drop out right now, because I heard this one word that confused me. And that is like, the worst possible outcome for instructors and for edtech. Companies, frankly. And for equity. I mean, it literally creates a divide. And you know, it's something that we're still struggling with, I mean, Coursera is still struggling with it, I think they've hopefully improved it somewhat. But I think the entire edtech industry really struggles with that normalization, as you call it, of confusion, or of struggle, or of, you know, disagreement or debate or, you know, it's a really, really powerful point, I think, really poignant, frankly, when it comes to what we all need to do. And partially, this is obligatory, but I also am really curious how you think about this? You know, we haven't talked too much about artificial intelligence in this talk. And it is obviously the sort of, I don't want to say flavor of the month because I'm a big believer in artificial intelligence. But it is a very hot topic in the educational technology world and technology world in general. How do you think about AI in the context of honor education? And specifically, you know, how do you think AI might be used to support some of the vision of education that honor is trying to deliver on creating a more connected, more energized, learning experience?
Joel Podolny:By the way, I also think AI is important, but I do think we need to congratulate ourselves on having had so much to talk about without mentioning AI. So let's congratulate ourselves and we're going to talk about AI. So I don't think you can be an ed tech these days and obviously not thinking about You know, AI and how to integrate it into your platform. And that's true for honor as well. I think and there are a number of things that, you know, we're doing, we think, for example, as much on the course creation, as on the learning side about how AI can reduce the frictions, of course, creation, as I sort of said earlier, we sort of have this model of agile course creation. And if you can make it really easy and light and fun for instructors to quickly update, and you can use, you know, an AI assist in that process for everything from, you know, titling, and describing assets to laying out learning objectives, or at least offering a provisional set of learning objectives for a set of assets. That's, you know, one important way to integrate AI, but I'll focus, you know, on the learning side, we've been using, for honor, the metaphor of AI is coach more than AI, or I should say, rather than sort of simply as tutor, which I think is kind of the metaphor that seems largely to be governing. And so let me sort of talk about that distinction between coach and tutor. I mean, I think the tutor metaphor is relatively straightforward, it's, you know, it's going to quiz me, you know, if there's something I don't get it, I'll sort of explain it in a different way, or it'll explain it with a vocabulary that is more at my level of understanding, and I don't want to downplay the value of it. And we even have that integrated into some proof of concept work, for example, that we're doing right now. But honestly, the thing that I think is a opportunity that not enough are paying attention to, is how AI can give me feedback on my desire attempt to engage with others, to persuade others. Imagine, you know, an instructor setting up, you know, it could be an asynchronous conversation around an op ed piece in The New York Times just, you know, come up with a sort of a simple example, and tells those, you know, half the class, I want you to be pro, this Op Ed and I want the other half to be anti, and I want you to sort of highlight in the argument that's being made, you know, what are the points that really stick and mean something to you, either positively or negatively? And what are the ones that don't? Well, imagine the AI tutor, not like, sort of having to give me additional reasons why the argument is true or false. So I don't go to the, you know, as a tutor, like, please tell me reasons why this is a bad argument. Right? That would be one way to use the AI tutor. Another way to use the AI Tutor and this would be as coach would be, I start expressing, you know, my reasons for disagreement. And then I asked, in this case, the LLM to give me advice on Are there ways I can word my argument that somebody on the other side will regard as more persuasive or critique the way in which I said it from the point of view of empathy? Is there a way in which I said it that may have somebody who has different views, different beliefs sort of shut down as opposed to being open, or their words that you know, may have triggered them or words that have, you know, a heightened meaning that if I change the words could change how it's received? I think that's a real opportunity. And again, it comes back to that personalized consumption versus personalized expression. AI can help us explore express ourselves in ways that help us realize our intents that we have to have more of that metaphor of coach rather than tutor as the guide through the process.
Alexander Sarlin:I think that's an equity issue as well. I mean, you have English language learners, or, you know, many students who are first generation college students, for example, are much less likely to speak in class, they're much less likely to, you know, engage in debate or ask for help. And the idea of an AI coach that can support their communication and persuasion. It's a very exciting and compelling vision for how to use AI. You know, one thing that strikes me as I listened to you, there are a handful of that tech companies that use AI that seem to be going out of their way to think about How AI can be used in the context of interpersonal communication between people. So instead of it being the AI and the person are the sort of it's a two way dialogue, it's more how can the AI be a facilitator between two people, whether that's an instructor and a student, or a tutor and a student or two students. And the vision you just laid out, I think fits very well into that second category, and is very exciting in that way, I think it could be very powerful, as you say, especially for students who are not yet confident in their ability to express themselves or maybe in classrooms with very different ability levels, and might have something incredibly powerful to say, but not be able to or be willing to express themselves because they're worried about not using the right vocabulary, or having their English not be perfect. So that is extremely powerful and really exciting. And I can also do translation. So there's also, you know, that is sort of baked into that as well, as a potentially a coach, you could say your whole comment in Spanish or Cantonese, and it could say, okay, yeah, great point, let me help you massage that into something that will can be interpreted by English language speakers. Yeah, absolutely. So I wish we had more time we were coming on in our time honored nation is such a fascinating product. And I really admire it. And I didn't ask about this very much. But I really admire how much you think about the instructor experience when you talk about the Agile course development and the ability to react in real time and real time analytics. That's a big part of what you do. And I think it's a part of the experience that a lot of ad tech companies or ad tech observers don't always realize it's such an important aspect, especially when it comes to college, you know, to higher education products. But I want to end with two questions which we ask every guest, I'd love to hear your answers. One is, what is the most exciting trend that you see in the ad tech landscape right now. And I'll ask you to avoid, you know, AI writ large, but something AI related, of course, is relevant, that you think our listeners should keep an eye on, what is something that you feel like from your particular perspective, with all your amazing experience and working in honor, and working as a first time ed tech entrepreneur to which is really interesting, what do you see coming that you think others might want to pay attention to? Yeah,
Joel Podolny:I'm gonna hold AI aside, I mean, it's definitely getting enough buzz doesn't mean more buzz. So I think the trend I'm most excited about is a multifaceted blending of learning environments and work environments. And I think, you know, a move to more asynchronous engagement is a major enhancement of that. But I also think you're seeing a mindset shift, you know, the idea of, I mean, we were just talking about, you know, people who have work, and at the same time, they're trying to weave in education and learning into work. But on the flip side, is, you have more and more work settings, where the learning rather than being to the side, and like sort of a physically removed, you know, sort of corporate university, more and more of the learning is actually woven into the work experience. And we think technology sort of is such an enabler of that. And it's not just like, oh, I can be at my desk and be learning, it's that if you think about even some of the work conversations that we have, is a very large pharma company that, you know, we're working with, and they have drugs that they roll out on a global basis. And typically, the way in which they'll roll them out is they'll have a webinar, and you know, they'll have the teams around the world. And they'll have, you know, here's how we're going to take this to doctors around the world. And it's entirely one way, you know, I mean, if it was education, we'd say they're just being lectured to. And, as opposed to what if you thought about that as learning conversation, where people have the opportunity to react and to respond and to say, what they don't agree with? And, and that idea of work conversations, also being learning conversations, there is an opportunity for a blending, we think of both that I think we're really, really on the cusp of, and I see that as being exciting. Because I think, you know, without a doubt, you know, the greatest organizations are, by definition learning organizations. And so to allow for a seamless blending of learning and work is, I think, only going to make that possible for more.
Alexander Sarlin:I love that it strikes me as also very beneficial to a company to be able to have your like I imagine a I just this is where my mind goes when I hear you explain this, this really interesting idea, you know, you're doing a sales training. So a new product is coming out or they're conceiving of it and they're talking to the sales team about how you know its features. Let's say it's car, a new car feature, the ability for rather than those salespeople to be just receiving the information in one way environment, like you said, A but to be able to debate about it, complain about it question really learn and discuss, not only would that be incredibly valuable for the sales team, it would be very valuable for the rest of the company to know how that particular team thinks about this particular product. Because you know, work conversations, and especially conversations across teams are some of the richest places for understanding in a work environment, but they're often lost or happened, you know, complaining behind the watercooler or now I guess, on Zoom, the idea of being able to incorporate that kind of deep thinking and conversation into the work experience as a learning experience, I feel like it could be beneficial not only to, to the end learners, but actually to the entire organization, it's really interesting visit, I feel like I want to digest that one and think a lot about it, there's a lot they're really interested. And then last question for you What is a resource you would recommend, and that can be a book or blog, a newsletter, whatever is interesting to you, but that you would recommend for somebody who wants to dive deeper into any of the topics we discussed today,
Joel Podolny:Other than the tech insiders podcast?
Alexander Sarlin:Doesn't count, but that's very nice. So,
Joel Podolny:you know, I mean, honestly, and this sounds, maybe it's like, you know, sort of a plug of honor, or we learn a lot from our partners. And, you know, we put on our website, you know, sort of what our partners are doing. I mean, what excites us is kind of what they do with the platform. And we we try to highlight that in our newsfeed because I think it is, I mean, we in some ways, we've been talking about sort of a mindset shift, in terms of, you know, what it is to think about collective engagement in an asynchronous setting. And to kind of learn from those who are, you know, really trying to practice it and enable it, that's I know, what really inspires us at honors. So people are curious, you know, what different partners are doing, that's one place to go. I also, if it's a helpful resource, I gave a talk at Columbia as part of their Provost conversations on online learning, where we go into a lot more detail around, you know, the notion of a learning artifact and the different ways to kind of create engagement around that and make reference to some other things. Fantastic.
Alexander Sarlin:As always, we'll put links to those resources, the Columbia Provost talk that you gave, I'm going to look that one up. And the case studies and some of the partners that our education has been working with, which are very interesting. You mentioned Austin Community College, you're also doing economics curricula, you're doing a number of different things. We didn't talk about a lot of the actual use cases here, but they are really interesting, definitely recommend looking into them. And maybe when we publish the newsletter version of this, we can expand a little bit more on some of the case studies because it is really interesting how people are using honor to actually make some of these visions of equity based engaging energizing online, you know, hybrid learning into a reality. So that's exciting. Thank you so much, Joe budoni. Of Honor education, doing something really, really important for the EdTech landscape, making hybrid and asynchronous learning as energizing as in person learning for everyone. Thanks so much for being here with us on edtech insiders. Thank you, Alex.
Joel Podolny:It's been a real privilege. Thank you so much for having me.
Alexander Sarlin:Thanks for listening to this episode of Edtech Insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more Edtech Insider, subscribe to the free Edtech Insiders newsletter on substack.
