Developing the Pedagogy of Presence with XR, featuring Georgian College’s Rob Theriault

Rob Theriault has recently become Georgian College’s immersive lead, finding ways to employ XR technologies to enhance learning in various courses. He explains how faculties need to become innovation adopters if their students are to do the same.

Julie: Hello, my name is Julie Smithson, and I am your XR for Learning podcast host. I look forward to bringing you insight into changing the way that we learn and teach using XR technologies to explore, enhance, and individualize learning for everyone. And today, my guest is a good friend from here in Barrie, Ontario, in Canada. Welcome Rob Theriault, an immersive technology lead from Georgian College. Rob has been a part of the paramedics program, and asked just most recently to start taking over a lot more of the technology at the college. Thank you so much for joining me today, Rob. I'd love to get right into it and learn about your story and your position in the college. So thank you so much for being here today.

Rob: Hi, Julie. It's a pleasure. Thank you. You want some background?

Julie: Yeah, I would love that. Why don't you do a bit of introduction?

Rob: Sure. I've been a paramedic for 36 years and teaching paramedics for the last 20. And I've always had a keen interest in educational technology. But I'm also a skeptic when it comes to technology. So I think educators would be wise to be somewhat skeptical and cautious about using technology, ensuring that it actually enhances learning or provides something new to learning. A couple of years ago, I introduced virtual reality into our paramedic program for patient simulation primarily, and that led to a conversation with our president and vice president of academic, who wanted to know where I thought virtual and augmented reality was going. So I told them that I felt that it needed some investment, that it needed some leadership. And surprisingly, they agreed, created a position and set out. So now I'm the immersive technology lead for the college. And my role is to communicate with the faculty, to engage in exploring virtual reality, engage in its potential pedagogy, and to see about integrating virtual or augmented reality into curriculum.

Julie: That's amazing, because you're really introducing this technology into multiple different courses. So maybe you can actually talk a little bit about Georgian College's highlighted programs, because I know you and I have talked a lot over the past couple of years of knowing each other, and not every course can be put into these immersive technologies. You still need that one-on-one. So maybe do you want to talk a little bit about Georgian College's programs, and then taking a look at all the programs, which ones could have this technology applied to them and the ones that couldn't?

Rob: Yeah, I'm not sure about the ones that couldn't. I'm not convinced of the fact they're any-- that would not be amenable to virtual or augmented reality. But cross that bridge when I come to it. So our architectural technology program has been using virtual reality for the last three years. They were the first at the college. And it's a remarkable experience for students to be able to construct or design buildings from within the building, and have that spatial awareness and be able to test building materials in the process simultaneously. So they were the leaders in that area. And then we introduced it in the paramedic program. And I'm hoping to get funding to continue to use virtual reality in our advanced care paramedic program this fall. We're going to be using a program that involves students resuscitating patients from cardiac arrest and with different abnormal heart rhythms. And the program we're proposing to use employs artificial intelligence and voice recognition.

So essentially, the student stands in a virtual room with -- for example -- someone collapsed on the floor. And they've got a team of paramedics around them, basically, and each paramedic has a name tag on them. And the student just simply commands the avatars to do things. So the student might say, "Aaron, can you start chest compressions? William, can you start an intravenous line? Fatima, can you give a milligram of epinephrine?" So really quite a remarkable program. And what it also does is it tests your leadership skills and your situational awareness. So one of the avatars, for example, might be doing chest compressions and start to slow down, and people fatigue doing CPR after about two minutes. So the student has to be aware that that's happening and prompt the the avatar to compress faster or deeper, or rotate them out and have someone take their place. So really excited about that program.

We're also hoping to do some research around that particular virtual reality experience. Our indigenous studies program has a course this fall called Learning in the Home. They have a small cohort of ten students who will each have headsets. The headsets will be shipped to their home probably mid-September. And what we've done is we've constructed a house, a virtual house in Altspace VR, and we're constructing a second one that can be brought in to any other platform, probably ENGAGE VR. And so what the students will do is they'll go into the home and they'll be learning language surrounding the home. So things in the house, like in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the garage. And what I've done in Altspace VR is, I've built a house with objects that each have an info button next to. So when the student clicks on the info button, it'll give them the Ojibwe word and the English word.

And there's really good research to support context based learning. So you're more likely to retain information if you're within the context, or more likely to retain information about words and verbs and sentences in the home if you're actually in a home, say in contrast with looking at a PowerPoint slide or reading a book. In the second home that we're constructing, we've contracted a company to do this. It'll have interactive objects, so students will be able to open a cupboard, open the stove, pick up a plate, pick up a bowl, and it'll give them the Ojibwe word, the English word, and it'll give them an audio file with pronunciation.

So, again, there's research to support an even higher level of retention when you're in context and you've also got interactive objects. So really excited about this. Our indigenous studies faculty are really enthusiastic about it, which excites me even more. So we're looking forward to that. But the other thing that's great about this pilot -- and we do have funding for this pilot, so we are going ahead with it -- is that not only will students be with their teacher in virtual reality and they're probably going to do about 30 minutes to 45 minutes max per week in virtual reality with their teacher. But the students can go into those platforms any time they want, day or night. And they can have group discussions, they can just socialize, they can just explore the land, if you will. So that social aspect is so important now, especially under the current pandemic, where students don't get to get together. So we're excited about that program.

Julie: That's awesome. What's the response of the students when-- well, I guess in their program itself, it would be, "you will have access to a VR headset." Is there any kind of surprised reaction that you hear from students that they are starting to use this technology in their program?

Rob: Well, they haven't heard yet, so... [laughs]

Julie: Oh, okay. [laughs] Surprise!

Rob: [laughs] Yeah. So they're going to be finding out fairly soon. And so what I will probably do is meet with them and the instructor in the first week via PC, by a desktop computer. And so they get familiar with the platforms and like initially, and then we'll ship the headset. So probably around a week four, and I'll have to do an orientation with them to the virtual space, because -- as you know -- there's a bit of a learning curve, especially if you're in a spatial network like Altspace VR or any other one, where if your avatar -- the character of the human body -- is moving but your legs are not moving, the conflict between what your eyes see and your vestibular system creates some vertigo for some people. So I have to give them a little orientation on how to how to move, and what to do if you feel unwell, and how to reduce the incidence of cyber-sickness. So I'm guessing they're going to be pretty excited. And I'm hoping that in addition to learning the language, I'm hoping that it actually translates into improved language learning and more enthusiasm for language. But I'm hoping it'll also excite students about the idea of learning in virtual reality. Maybe some of them will even go into designing virtual reality in the future.

Julie: Yeah, I would love to actually do a part two on that as a use case study with you. Maybe in a couple of months we'll jump back, and let's see what the results of that class was and the return on experience. It would be great to understand how that implementation goes. Are there any other programs at Georgian College that you want to highlight, that you've put into place, where VR and AR are now a part of the program?

Rob: Yeah, so not yet. But again, we're hoping to launch two of the pilots. One is in our biotech degree and the other is in our vet tech program. So in our biotech degree, there'll be a cohort of about-- there's a large group of students, but we're going to take small cohorts, because we really want to explore virtual reality with faculty and students on a small scale initially, j