Empowering Educators by Getting Immersive, with apelab's Emilie Joly XR for Learning

We often say that some concepts can only be taught to students spatially, and getting them inside some VR is the best way to do it. Emilie Joly from apelab visits with Julie to explain how that same concept, applied to educators, inspired Zoe.com.







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. Today, my guest is Emilie Joly, and she is a CEO by
day, an interaction designer by night, co-founding apelab, a Swiss-US
software company bringing immersive technologies to the world. And
with her co-founders, they launched an exciting remote learning
platform called Zoe for teachers and schools around the world.
Students are able to learn and build their own immersive experiences
around curriculum-based subjects, using their visual soft programming
tools and Unity game engine. Thanks so much for being with me here
today, Emily. Welcome.



Emilie: Thank you, Julie. It's a
pleasure to be here.



Julie: That's great. Well, why
don't you tell me a little bit about the history of apelab, and then
dive right in on how Zoe is helping people learn.



Emilie: I co-founded apelab six years
ago now -- so it's been a while -- with two other great peers of
mine. We founded the company when we were still at university. Our
background is we're interaction designers, and we wanted to build 3D
interactive experiences using our iPhones on 360 degrees. But there
were no tools. We used the Unity game engine at the time, but it was
still very early. And so we decided to build our own software tools.
And the goal of those tools was to help non-coders, creative teams,
creative people to build immersive 3D content without having to code.
And so that's how we started the company. We worked with different
partners in the immersive space like Facebook, Google, HTC, did some
work there. And then recently we decided to put all of our software
tools in a platform called Zoe. And that platform is for teachers and
students to take advantage of what we've built in the edtech context.



Julie: So can you tell us a
little bit about introducing the concept? Because what you're telling
me is it's a new way to tell stories. It's a brand new way of
storytelling. It's three dimensional learning. It's something that I
felt very passionate about, how to introduce three dimensional
learning into our classrooms to explore spatial presence and
understanding, since that's what-- where we live in today. So maybe
can you share some of the concepts that you use at Zoe to introduce
why do we need this spatial understanding and three dimensional
interactions?



Emilie: There's something about
being in a virtual space -- in a 3D space -- that makes so much
difference. We are used to flat interfaces, but when you put students
that are younger -- like 12, 13, 14 year olds -- into a 3D
environment where they can fully interact with the space, and then
you put them back into 2D flat interfaces, they don't understand why
we haven't been using those 3D interfaces in the first place, because
it's much more natural. It makes a lot more sense for learning, and
for creating, and also just for sparking imagination. These 3D
spatial environments are very unique in terms of what, how, and what
you can learn. And I think at least our approach is that we're
interested in giving-- empowering the students to build their own
experiences in that 3D world. So they are the ones creating the
learning material for others, they are the ones telling stories, they
are the ones building the stories. Like they would if they were doing
an essay, or having to do an argument with other students.



Julie: S