Coordinating Virtual Squirrels, with Education Consultant Craig Frehlich XR for Learning

Today’s guest, Craig Frehlich, is an educational consultant, and first saw the learning potential of VR on a trip to the mall with his son. But he drops in to stress the experience itself isn’t going to teach much, without a discussion with students about what they experienced after the fact.







Julie: Hello, my name is Julie
Smithson and I am your XR for Learning podcast host. I look forward
to bring you insight into changing the way we learn and teach using
XR technologies, to explore and enhance an individualized learning
for everyone. Today, my guest is Craig Frehlich. And he has been
working in education for over 25 years and has his master's degree in
education with a focus on curriculum design. He is also an
educational consultant and speaker on the topics of inquiry, design
thinking, and the use of technology in education. Craig is currently
a design teacher and academic advisor for various organizations, and
he pioneered the first VR lab for school in Canada. His main focus is
to use contextual and conceptual thinking to translate VR experiences
into lesson guides that help map successfully introspective journeys
in virtual reality. His upcoming book, "Immersive Learning:
Harnessing Virtual Reality Superpowers in Education", offers a
practical approach to using VR in a variety of subjects and
disciplines. Thanks for joining me today, Craig.



Craig: Hi, Julie. Thanks for
having me. I'm excited to be on the show.



Julie: And what perfect timing
this is to talk about some of the schools that you work on, to help
support our educators in the global community today.



Craig: I agree.



Julie: Yeah. So maybe if you
want to share a little bit about what you're working on, and how you
can help our listeners -- especially if they're teachers -- in some
of the work that you've done, and provide some advice on learning for
those listeners today.



Craig: I'd love to. I think I'll
start with my origin story, which is how I first got interested in
VR. So my son and I were in a mall in Canada and it was 2016. He was
16 at the time, 16 years old. So he dragged me into a Microsoft store
where they had an HTC Vive setup. We had to sign a whole bunch of
forms. Luckily, there was no line up and he donned the headset and
was playing around in VR. It was The Lab by Valve. And I watched him,
and he was enthralled and it looked so interesting. So he convinced
me to put the headset on. When I put the headset on, I just couldn't
believe how realistic it was. There's words like presence and when
you're don your avatar, how it feels so much like real life. And it
was that moment that got me thinking about how a great tool this
would be for VR.



Julie: So how did you then take
that next step in to, I guess, becoming an educator within VR? Where
did that take off for you?



Craig: On our drive home back to
our town, we started ruminating on the experience. Like, The Lab has
Longbow, which is an archery game. And my son and I started talking
about how you could feel the controllers vibrate, and we started to
unpack the experience. Which made me think about, it's one thing for
people to put the headset on, but I think most importantly --
especially for educators -- is how can we make meaning from such a
magical/powerful experience? So I started investigating this. Lucky
enough, we ended up getting someone donate some money, and we bought
three headsets for our school in Canada. And as we put headsets on
kids, they walk away with awe, wonder, sometimes bewilderment. But it
was until we had conversations after, that it really solidified the
learning. So I started writing lesson guides, things like "What
should you be seeing? What should you be focusing on before you get
into the headset?" And then probably more importantly, when the
e