Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning

Seth Fleischauer (00:01.172)
Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindful, Insights for Global Learning, the podcast for globally minded educators seeking thoughtful conversations about how education can adapt to an ever-changing world. I'm Seth Fleishauer, former classroom teacher turned founder of an international learning company specializing in the teaching of global learning. Together, we explore the interconnectedness of people, cultures, and systems and how these relationships shape transformative ideas in education.

Each episode features educational change makers whose insights lead to practical solutions and lasting impact. And today I'm joined by Greg Kessler, a leading voice at the intersection of language teaching, technology, and teacher preparation. Greg, welcome to the podcast.

Greg (00:45.794)
Thank you very much.

Seth Fleischauer (00:48.658)
so for more than 25 years, you have partnered with the U S state department to advance English education around the globe from Southeast Asia to Eastern Europe, bringing both a researchers rigor and a practitioners pragmatism. Your work helps teachers navigate a deceptively simple question. When is technology an authentic amplifier for learning and when is it just noise?

you've spent many decades equipping language teachers with tools, judgment, and confidence to design meaningful learning experiences long before the internet and AI were everyday realities. today you continue to push the field forward, examining not just which innovations matter, but how cultural context, teacher autonomy and student agency all shape their impact.

And so in this episode, we'll unpack your journey through 26 years of global consulting, explore your philosophy of innovation and dive into how AI is reshaping language education, not just in terms of efficiency, but in terms of emotional and cultural bonds at the heart of learning brought to you by Banyan Global Learning. Let's make it mindful.

So let's talk about your origin story a little bit, Greg, to set the stage here. As I said, you've been working with the US State Department for over 26 years. You've been at this intersection of English education, technology, and soft diplomacy, we'll call it. What's kept you motivated and relevant across so many waves of change?

Greg (02:22.85)
Well, thank you. I really appreciate that introduction. I should have you join me everywhere I go and speak, because that was about as good as it can get. And you remind me of things that I've completely forgotten about. You know, I started teaching in the early days of the World Wide Web, and before the internet, So not only before AI, but before the internet. The internet wasn't officially born until 1995.

Seth Fleischauer (02:36.016)
You

Greg (02:51.798)
I was teaching in 1990, end of 89 actually. And at the time we were just beginning to get these early, like I said, worldwide web tools that weren't, there was no GUI, no graphic user interface, no images, just text-based abilities to search library databases instead of having to go and use a library with a card catalog, which...

I was teaching international students as part of an English program, also teaching them how to use the library because they were preparing to become students at the university in California. And I just saw immediately that that ability was just, it was mind blowing at the time. And then we had chat bots at that time as well, which is a funny thing to think about, but these things are not new.

Many things just keep coming around in different cycles and they change each time. But I soon realized I've always been drawn to technology. So I had this knack for technology as well as the background in language education. But I realized that all the people around me didn't have that knack for technology. They really didn't see the potential that I saw. And in fact, not only were they not

interested in it, they were scared. They were, they continue to be scared to this day. And I saw that, that I could play a role in serving as a bridge. So I've often been the tech person involved, but more and more, I'm the person helping the tech people understand the language people and helping the language people understand the tech people. And, and throughout that, I mean, we, so many different technologies and, and even more important, so many different,

social practices around using language in a meaningful way in order to learn language have come and this evolution continues. the excitement and enthusiasm that I see when I work with teachers all over the world is what keeps me going. Language teachers are extremely creative and passionate people. And that motivates me to

Seth Fleischauer (05:06.761)
Hmm.

Greg (05:16.458)
always be trying to find new important things that are going to be relevant for the teaching that they do. And yeah, it's exciting. I love it.

Seth Fleischauer (05:26.922)
Yeah, I can feel your passion for it. We met in Vietnam where you were presenting at a TESOL conference in Ho Chi Minh City. And one of the things that I loved about your presentation is that there are certain subsets of professional development that teachers really grasp onto and really enjoy.

and one of those is the, please give me a tool box, a tool for my toolbox type of presentation. And, and when there are people with deep expertise in the industry who have, curated a list of approved technologies, teachers really appreciate not having to do that type of legwork, but still having the autonomy to use the tool as they want to use it in their classroom.

I'm wondering about that process for you of, curating the tech that you approved for teachers, because you go all around the world. You've got this list of things that you think are good ideas. What goes into your deciding that this is something that you want to share with teachers that you approve for their use.

Greg (06:44.364)
Yeah, it's not such a simple process, actually. It's interesting.

I like to think about the practicality of these things. First of all, it can't be expensive. Teachers don't have money. really, unless there's something that's system-wide institutional software or something that's going to be used in many different ways, then it's worth an investment. But when every little tool costs something and also requires a different login or stuff like that.

That's going to be complicated. So I try to keep it simple and I do try to make it so that people can log into the variety of things that I'm suggesting they use with the same login. So I am kind of more more drawn to the things that are tied to Google accounts because that's a lot of stuff. That's a vast majority of stuff actually. they tend to be either free or freemium sites or tools.

know, freemium means it's free to the point of where you pay for the premium features. And you can do a lot typically with the free aspect of that. I will show teachers those things and some of them end up buying the premium versions. But it all really comes down to...

usable it is. Is this doing something that is actually meaningful for language learning or is it just some sort of gimmick? it something that is just not really providing affordances that are necessary, not really adding anything, maybe just doing something the same way that some other tool has done or many many many many other tools have done over and over again with a slight variation?

Greg (08:43.054)
I really try to avoid those. After doing this for a number of years, it's pretty easy to eliminate 90 % of the things that come by because they look like they're a flash in the pan, right? They're not going to be around very long, which is another really important thing. I've used tools over the years that were fantastic, things that were way ahead of their time, but they didn't last long at all.

Seth Fleischauer (08:59.242)
Hmm.

Greg (09:09.9)
You know, we were able to do voiceover IP stuff in the early days of the internet, actually. But very few people knew about these tools. And I think because of that, they didn't get the support they needed, or people didn't recognize the value of it even. I, of course, those of us in language education who were aware of those things really did. But yeah, it's, right, right.

Seth Fleischauer (09:30.505)
Yeah.

Yeah, I used it.

Yeah, it's so what I'm what I'm hearing from you is that it's it's it's not a simple equation, right? But part of it is this the ability to truly differentiate what the what the product does, that it has a purpose that is it is in addition to what you are able to do in the classroom, not just a replacement for.

I mean, one of the things you said the last time we talked was anything that can be done without technology should be done without technology, which I think is a great framework with which to think about when to adopt technology, right? Like, do I really need this or not? Or am I just using a digital version for the sake of it? But you also said something there, you know, about voiceover IP.

Greg (10:15.48)
Definitely.

Seth Fleischauer (10:27.676)
where there's just like a usage element of it. And so it feels like in identifying which tools are going to have longevity, there's this combination of it truly is doing something unique. And it's also somewhat like in the zeitgeist or popular enough that there would be enough user momentum to keep it going. Is that how you identify what's going to be a flash in the pan and what's not?

Greg (10:49.238)
Yeah, that's a good way putting it. In fact, a lot of the work that I've done has been around the use of social media for language education. know, a lot of the things that are often referred to these days as the digital wilds, which is using the tools that people use to communicate in the real world in participatory culture. You know, they feel compelled to engage with others using these things. And it's a way that people engage in language practice.

Seth Fleischauer (11:02.346)
You

Greg (11:17.26)
without thinking that they're engaging in language practice. They're just doing what comes naturally. So those kinds of things are very, very attractive. But then there are problems in the social media world. then you have to think about what are the trade-offs? When is it worth it? What kind of practices can we have people do? What kind of approaches can we think about using with them so that they're safe?

Seth Fleischauer (11:19.912)
You

Greg (11:46.125)
so that they're engaging ethically. think there have been a number of tools that have mimicked those kinds of activities. Social media platforms that were designed specifically for language learning. So they were safe. They function, I mean, kind of like Facebook. I mean, this is a decade ago Facebook, perhaps. But they were designed to function

like those things, but for language learning and created in a way that teachers were in control and all these things and nobody used them. So they were not in the zeitgeist. The concept was in the zeitgeist, right? But you can't get people, when you have a platform that people don't go to, it's just, it's meaningless, right? I mean, even Google had that, right? They had their own social, right.

Seth Fleischauer (12:26.514)
Yeah, yeah, I remember them.

Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (12:41.194)
Google Wave. I remember.

Greg (12:44.098)
Well, Wave was the second version. was a one before it was Google +, right? I believe it was what it was called.

Seth Fleischauer (12:50.31)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so you bring up social media. It's, it's, I think that's a super compelling example of like a real world usage of language that does happen organically. What are some examples of, of sound practice with social media for language learning in the classroom? Like, like, do you have some stories of people who've been able to, like get around all those safety limitations, the

all the concerns that we have about social media to use it effectively to teach language.

Greg (13:22.594)
Yeah, actually there are a lot of teachers around the world who are using specifically Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are the ones that I'm most familiar with. And they are using them in really interesting engaging ways. A language teacher who creates a TikTok channel and then provides students with prompts at the beginning of the week that the students are then to respond to in their own prompts. So they create their own videos, right?

So perhaps the teacher does something like simply introduce themselves and walking on their way to the school in the morning on Monday and talking about what's going to happen that day and how they're excited about that day and then asking the students to do something similar. I mean, it's just so basic. What I've seen mostly done is using that for grammar because language teachers can't get enough grammar. I've had enough grammar.

Seth Fleischauer (14:19.368)
you

Greg (14:21.742)
But yeah, all over the world, but not the most exciting subject, right? I I think we can provide feedback on grammar no matter what kind of language production we're engaged in, right? We can still use that for grammar learning without just talking about grammar all the time. And life would be a lot more interesting for most of us. I mean, I think there's a small group of learners and teachers who are drawn to grammar all the time. That's fine.

Seth Fleischauer (14:22.058)
Not the most exciting subject.

Greg (14:51.042)
But so the TikTok thing is, I think, a really obvious example. Instagram is another one that's just really pretty simple to share pictures of your life, your day, your dreams, your aspirations, whatever it may be, your hobbies, and then have other people comment on them and you comment on other people's pictures. And you can get engaged in a really extensive ongoing dialogue with a number of other people.

There are actually some really interesting articles that have been written about the use of Instagram in language learning. I know there are a couple things written by former students of mine in the Calico Journal, for example, that can provide you with examples of that. Facebook is the one that's been used the longest this way. So you can create a Facebook group that is for your class and just have ongoing engaging discussions.

students can be given a prompt during class while they're working on something else, but sometime during the class respond to this on Facebook as well. And then we'll come back to that and we'll discuss kind of the aggregate of what everybody shared in that. So it's kind of like a, it's a back channel for the classroom, right? So I think those are, those are really obvious and easy ways to do that, I think.

Seth Fleischauer (16:12.274)
Yeah. And, and great examples of meeting students where they're at, especially for older students, right? This, I live in Oregon. We just passed a law saying that there's no more devices, allowed in classrooms. So, and like, you know, Facebook, Instagram, I assume those things are banned, but for, you know, adults like, learning in college, that definitely is, speaks to, to, meeting them where they're at and, and understanding the actual context within which they're using language.

I wonder if this is an example of, of teacher and student autonomy. Last time we talked, you mentioned that this is really central to your work. I hear shades of that here of, being able to kind of create, stuff in a place where you go anyway, as a, as an expression of autonomy, right? Like rather than like forcing you to come to me, I'm coming to you. I'm wondering how else.

these ideas of student and teacher autonomy come into your work as you navigate across cultures and maybe cultures have different ideas of autonomy and how valuable that is. How does this come into language work across the world?

Greg (17:27.714)
Yeah, that's a really good question. I I think I don't even think that consciously about autonomy. It's just like a constant presence in my work. And it is at the core of all the work that I do is helping, especially helping teachers to develop more autonomy. I think it's really easy to be a language teacher who's overworked, which is very common, and to, you know,

open up a textbook at the beginning of the week and chapter one through chapter two, three, four, five, page by page, just follow all that. I mean, I did that. I was kind of forced to do that at one time. Well, I say kind of, no, I was forced to do that. And it was the only way that you could teach five hours a day, five days a week, 51 weeks a year in an intensive English program. And the only...

way to survive that is to do something other than that. I mean, it's maddening. It really, it's just designed to crush you eventually. Your spirit will be destroyed. So that's why I think language teachers, at least language teachers who are able to survive are the ones who are creative, enthusiastic and passionate and are able to develop autonomous abilities to learn beyond what they're forced to learn. And I think

the entire use of computer assisted language learning or technology enhanced language learning, whichever term you want to use for this, any technology that hasn't been forced on people, that the entire history of this is based on instructors who take the initiative to learn how to use these things on their own and then bring that into the classroom. And I mean, these are my people. This is the community that I've been a part of for a long time.

Seth Fleischauer (19:19.539)
Yes.

Greg (19:22.57)
And for many, many years, we've kind of relied on each other and learned from each other. And it was a small subset of language teachers who were just actually really engaged in this. Now, I think there's lots of autonomy beyond just technology use. mean, language teachers can be autonomous in many different ways, but they need to take the initiative to be able to recognize how they can best help the needs of their students.

rather than some textbook that is designed for a very kind of like generic expected set of parameters, right? That is never perfect for anybody, but it's kind of okay for everybody. And I think that the teachers can still use those books. I mean, I don't think, I'm not saying get rid of the books. Don't completely get rid of them. I mean, not all the time at least.

And they can enhance them with their own materials, but they need to know, you know, what purpose does the book serve? What's missing from the book? How can they find the other things that are missing? And then maybe sometimes it's going to involve technology. Unfortunately, sometimes people think that, I just need to use technology. I've got this book, things are missing. So now I just need to throw every technological solution I can find. And that's not at all meaningful.

Seth Fleischauer (20:26.218)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (20:40.117)
and

Greg (20:48.792)
But yeah, think so the teacher autonomy is a really big deal. And then learner autonomy, I really, I kind of have it in my head that teachers can't practice and demonstrate autonomy for themselves until they recognize the need for it among their learners as well. And so in fact, my ability to recognize and cater to my learners needs

Seth Fleischauer (20:49.364)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (21:07.05)
Mm-hmm.

Greg (21:17.002)
relies on me helping them develop autonomous abilities so that they're able to tell me and help me recognize what their needs are. It's not just a matter of me testing them nonstop in order to identify those things because there are things that we don't test. There are things that we don't know unless we ask them. So you mentioned the whole idea of meeting them where they are. I mean, that's a big part of this.

The easiest way to do that is to ask them where they are. Ask them what they're interested in. are they fans of? What kind of technologies do they use? What do they like? And maybe those things that they like can open a door to finding a way that they can practice language that is meaningful for them. And I know it's made a huge difference in many students' lives when a teacher shows that they care enough.

Seth Fleischauer (21:47.199)
You

Greg (22:12.706)
to actually ask those kind of questions.

Seth Fleischauer (22:15.368)
Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm, what I'm hearing from you is that there's a certain amount of, of critical knowledge that does come through in some of these more generic or widespread resources, such as textbooks. and the teacher's job in terms of innovation is to be able to build on what's there that is critical for their students and then be able to, to, to meet, to understand their students well enough.

so that they can innovate and adapt and reach them for their particular needs. And, and in that way express their own autonomy, but in celebration of the learner autonomy. And what I hear all over that is like cultural considerations, right? Like there are, I imagine that recipe looks different.

in a lot of different cultures, some which might be more inclined to accept what's in the textbook and follow it as if it's, you know, dogma and some where they might, celebrate the individual a bit more and try to, understand, okay, like, this is just a box we have to check, but the real work we're doing is over here. I'm wondering as you go to all of these different places, you can't possibly be an expert in every country that you've

been to because you've been to so many countries. So how do you, how do you navigate, those cultural considerations around autonomy, around what's culturally appropriate in terms of use of technology, what's culturally appropriate in terms of how we express language to each other. how do, how do you navigate that working internationally the way that you do?

Greg (24:01.038)
Yeah, I like the way you describe that. It is nuanced and it is different in all of these different contexts, but I think there are a lot of universal things. I think even in the most collectivist cultures, everybody is an individual. Everybody has their own interests and their own personality and their own way of doing things. It's surprising sometimes.

But yeah, before I go, I do try to learn enough. I try to learn a little bit about what's popular in certain places. Typically, well, what I want to learn, this is I tell teachers all the time, is what's popular for the people who are learning, the language learners. I really don't care what teachers are interested in because that's not what we're catering to. So it's really, it's the things that

that their students are fans of that we should be catering to. And so I did that prior to going to Vietnam and I learned about some musicians that I knew nothing about. I learned about some artists that I knew nothing about. Every time I go somewhere, I learn about these things and the internet's pretty good for finding things out like that.

Seth Fleischauer (25:23.592)
Yeah.

Greg (25:24.558)
But it's also, again, this is kind of like I said earlier, ask people, what do your students like? And many of the teachers are very quick. They know exactly the kinds of things their students are into. What worries me is the ones who don't know. And I hope that they're getting the message that you should ask because that's what I follow up with is you should ask them about this, right? But it is, yeah, it's...

Seth Fleischauer (25:43.434)
Thank

Greg (25:53.185)
It's really interesting. are some things that are popular everywhere in the world. And I mean, a lot of American culture, and that's a great asset for us because English and American culture go hand in hand. of course, people love American movies, American cinema is the most popular all over the world. mean, there are, it is our, right. And well, in video games.

Seth Fleischauer (26:18.89)
That's our greatest export.

Greg (26:23.054)
Right, exactly, exactly. And so that's also something that I reference a lot. And then music, American music is of course popular everywhere, but there's a lot of competition in the world now. Even in America, think sometimes K-pop is more popular than American stuff. And of course, anywhere in Asia, it's huge, right? But it's surprising. There's always something interesting for me to learn.

Seth Fleischauer (26:23.666)
Yeah. Yeah. Which are bigger than movies now. Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (26:36.66)
Mm-hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (26:40.542)
Yeah.

Greg (26:53.132)
You know, I'm curious about humans in general. So I like to know that. I like to learn these new things about different places. So it's not just a matter of doing it for my work. It's an enjoyable experience for me.

Seth Fleischauer (27:02.313)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (27:10.566)
that's beautiful. I want to switch gears here a little bit with the, some of the time that we have left to talk about that. I'm going to call it the topic du jour, but this jour has been like three years and really it's been since 2013 for you. And that's AI. you've been talking about this for many years before chat. GPT came into everyone's household. I'm wondering what were you talking about back then that still feels relevant today?

Greg (27:41.903)
Yeah, well, I mentioned using chatbots in the early 1990s. In fact, think that is, as far as I'm aware, that was the first AI that I interacted with. And that was ELIZA. And ELIZA is well documented in the history of AIs in language education. ELIZA was originally created in 1963, I believe, sometime in the 60s. And it's a mock Rogerian therapist. And it was

created in response to Alan Turing's question, can machines think? And it was a demonstration that was supposed to be showing you that machines can think. And it was a very simple chat bot where you would ask it, it would ask you a question, you would respond to it, and it would continue following up with a series of questions that you would answer. it was just constantly going through this cycle.

And not very dissimilar to the way that people are using chatbots today, but very simple. so it's interesting that hasn't really changed. And we had a number of chatbots over the years that did a variety of different things. Some were designed to help students practice more grammar. Some were specifically designed to help students with certain kinds of language production. So that...

has been around for a long time. I think there have been tools that have helped students with their writing for many years. There was a whole, again, pre-internet and early internet era of technology that was delivered on Hypercard that was a platform that probably not many listeners will be familiar with because it's been

Seth Fleischauer (29:32.394)
you

Greg (29:39.073)
It's been expired for a long, long time. There were some iterations of it that remained. There was HyperStudio and Supercard and a couple of other things that that alive for a while. But basically, it allowed you to create something that was very similar to websites, but that were contained within either like a disk or a computer or a network at a school or something like that. So they weren't...

available to the entire world, but they were locally contained. But they allowed audio and video interaction. They allowed all kinds of media and multimedia. And they had functions that included things that we're just barely beginning to see now in whatever version of the internet we're in now. I have students, we had the internet at beginning, then we had Web 2.0.

then we had Web 3.0 and there's a blurred, I don't think we're going to continue counting because now it's just, I don't know where one ends and the next one begins, right? But whatever it is that we're doing today. So those things have been around for quite a while. A lot of the same kind of things that we do with technologies today, people were experimenting with in early versions of email.

Seth Fleischauer (30:42.9)
Yeah.

Greg (31:06.318)
There's a book by Mark Warshaw that when email was new and it's about using email in the English classroom. I believe it's a TESOL press book, but it's a really early book. But if you look at the kind of practices that people were doing, they're very similar to the same practices people are doing today, but using a lot of other kinds of technology. So I think...

Seth Fleischauer (31:11.348)
You

Greg (31:33.527)
We could continue to cycle back through a variety of things. It just has gotten easier to do things, right? When I first started making materials for the web, I had to program everything. And now you don't have, nobody has to program anything really. Even, I mean, I was teaching teachers in Vietnam how to make their own chatbots using AI to do really specific things for specific contexts in classes.

Seth Fleischauer (31:43.786)
Hmm.

Greg (31:59.073)
and they don't have to program for any of that at all, and they're creating customized chatbots. So, yeah, we're continuing to do a lot of the same things. It's just gotten easier. We can do it on a bigger scale. We can do it in a variety of ways. But I think a lot of it has been around for quite a while. I mean, another example is picture stories, right? Telling stories with pictures, which is one of the simplest things there is to do, but also I think one of the most

engaging and meaningful ways that learners can use language and demonstrate their own language proficiency and be creative, right? And so in the early days, we were doing those on paper and we were doing those in storyboards in a variety of ways like that. Now people are able to make digital stories. They're able to make very elaborate websites. Maybe even graphic novels are an extension of this.

So I think those same kind of practices are everywhere. Well, that's what's being done on Instagram, right?

Seth Fleischauer (32:58.825)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (33:06.73)
Yeah, it's, it's interesting. So many of the practices are the same, but the ease and the scale are so much bigger, right? I I'm wondering specifically for language learning, and the application of AI to the language learning classroom, something I've struggled with is that when the stuff first started coming out, I was, I thought it, I, came down on the side of

Greg (33:13.846)
Right, right.

Seth Fleischauer (33:35.179)
It would be irresponsible of us as educators to not teach students how to use these things because they're going to be behind once they get out into the real world. I do wonder how much of that was specific to like prompt engineering because that's a lot of what we would have taught like a year and a half ago that seems less relevant now as they've gotten better at understanding your context. But one of the things that I ran into when crafting AI policy for a school that we work with in Asia,

Greg (33:44.481)
I agree.

Greg (33:51.982)
Hm. Mm-hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (34:04.746)
where they're learning English as a foreign language is the idea that we want to avoid cognitive bypass when students are using AI tools. And that means one thing in a math class, and it means a different thing in an English class. And it means, I think a, a, something that leads to even more restrictive policy in an English as a foreign language class or an English language learning class, because.

the cognitive bypass of language learning is so much easier to do with an AI tool than it is to bypass many of the other skills that you would learn in other classes. I'm wondering if you've come to the same conclusion or what your perspective is around AI for the language learning classroom.

Greg (34:56.044)
Yeah, I think the cognitive, that's an interesting way of thinking about it, the cognitive bypass. Yeah, unlike math, we don't ask students to show their work, right? That would be a, although I guess sometimes we do in grammar classes, maybe it might be the one place we do that. So I think that that's true as far as explicit instruction or explicit learning of

language.

policies or language structures or rules or all of that stuff. But the great thing about AI in the language classroom is using it as a partner, using it as a sounding board, using it as a way of getting feedback on your language production. I think there's more potential for AI and language learning than any other field, actually. I think it's amazing because

If you don't have anybody to talk to, you can talk to the AI all day long and you can get, and you're engaging in authentic, like it doesn't get tired at all. And it never runs out of ideas, right? It never, and it's, yeah. And even you ask it the same thing multiple times, it's going to give you different answers. So it's, it's, you're, you're always getting new things, but I think also for language teachers, again, who are typically overworked and don't have all the time in the world to do the things they need to do.

Seth Fleischauer (36:00.811)
Yeah. Doesn't get, doesn't get tired.

Seth Fleischauer (36:09.513)
Yeah.

Greg (36:27.854)
And I do think, again, that they're some of the most creative people that there are, but we can't anticipate every possible example of a structure or of a potential dialogue. And AI can provide us with so many examples instantly that can serve as really good material for the language classroom. I mean, I've already been for many years teaching people to use the internet for that, for authentic language, because the internet's full of authentic language.

Seth Fleischauer (36:54.228)
Mm-hmm.

Greg (36:57.726)
There are different places in particular. right. Right, right. Well, and so in fact, that referencing the AI slop is even I see that as an opportunity right now, because I think that that requires us and our learners to identify where there is slop. And then also to

Seth Fleischauer (36:57.832)
Well, it used to be now it's just AI slop, but yeah.

Greg (37:26.242)
to be able to address that slop. What is the slop? Why is it slop? How can it be changed? How do you even think that slop came to be, right? What should that be? How do you interpret it? How might it confuse you? mean, it's so many opportunities, but it is a great introduction to the revision process because that is something that we're constantly doing at least in academic language. In real life, in regular,

everyday life, most people don't engage in the revision process very often. I mean, we say something, even when we know we said something stupid, we don't too often go back and correct it. It depends on who we're with, I guess, and what the context is. And sometimes we do if it's important enough, but typically we just let it be and we keep going, right? But in academic language learning, it's a very different thing. And that whole idea of

Seth Fleischauer (38:09.834)
You

Greg (38:25.486)
that language is iterative. And so you say, you do something, you write something, but it's not the finished thing, it's the first thing, and you're going to keep going back through it and back through it and back through it. And working with AI is ideal for that, because you keep feeding it the things that you've done and you've improved. then you, and again, you can start with even the poor production that it creates. Yeah, I think.

Seth Fleischauer (38:40.394)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (38:49.607)
Hmm.

Greg (38:52.066)
I think that's a missed opportunity that a lot of teachers don't recognize when a student turns in something that's obviously just produced by AI. The first thing to do is ask them to fix it. You know?

Seth Fleischauer (39:03.668)
Hmm. Yeah, it's, it's funny what your title is a professor of innovation, right? Is that your title at Ohio?

Greg (39:10.222)
innovative learning design and technology.

Seth Fleischauer (39:12.87)
Innovative learning, designing technology. can hear it in the way that you answer questions this, you know, cause you're like, that's a problem. No, that's an opportunity. Right. and it's, it's, it's very innovative thinking. I love it. and in terms of that, my last question is about collaboration. So this is something that, you know, as you've gone around the world, you, there are certain tools that have come about certain programs that you've learned about that, that have this like collaborative component to it.

Greg (39:22.851)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (39:40.555)
It's something I'm super interested in. as, as, the president of Bandy global learning, we, are creating these types of collaborative opportunities for our students. I'm wondering if you could design like a dream program for international collaborations in the near future, leveraging technology you imagine might be there or is already there. what, what would it include? What would that look like?

Greg (40:08.824)
Well, I think that even with everything that's happening with AI today, the thing that excites me the most right now is the potential for virtual and augmented reality. And I think those areas are, they've been around for quite a while. And those are things I've been working with for quite a while. But they're just really beginning to explode and they've been waiting for their moment for a long time.

Seth Fleischauer (40:37.46)
Mm-hmm.

Greg (40:37.658)
I think that's a good way to put it. But they allow us to immerse ourselves in another context, another culture in a way that is really convincing and meaningful and increasingly becoming higher and higher quality so that our experience is better and better. And I think ideally, being able to bring people from different cultures in exchanges where they...

they provide material from their context to people who want to learn about that context and vice versa, right? And so I think we have exchanges where people go to other countries, which ideally, if you're talking about in an ideal world and money is no object, then we could send everybody everywhere all the time and that would be fantastic, but this is the next best thing. having...

having students and instructors create those experiences for other students and instructors in other places, and then have them share those virtual experiences, and then interact with each other in meaningful ways. And actually doing this in a cyclical way, where they go back and forth, so you have online virtual exchanges, but then you have the virtual, you have the...

the local virtual exchange where you're still visiting that other place, I think there's so much that can be done with this. And AI is going to be part of that as well. So that's the other thing. When you get virtual reality, augmented reality embedded with AI, that's a game changer and that allows us to do so many different things. I mean, I'm amazed that people still

Seth Fleischauer (42:05.13)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (42:25.054)
Yeah.

Greg (42:30.446)
invite me to go and speak all over the world when I could just do it online. A lot of them have gone just online, but yeah, I think we're going to be seeing so many more wearable devices like my Meta AI glasses, so I can actually engage virtually with other people in other places. There's a really interesting book called Our Next Reality, and it's written by

a handful of people from the VR and metaverse worlds, people that have built these environments and these tools, and they're talking about a very near future where we might be in the same space together, maybe 50 of us, and all having completely different curated experiences because of the equipment that we're wearing, while we're also still interacting with each other in that space.

Seth Fleischauer (43:29.478)
Hmm. Ooh, that hurts my head to think about that. That's that's a lot of inputs. well, Greg, thank you so much for being our guest today. my last question is like, where can our listeners find your work on the internet?

Greg (43:30.84)
So.

Greg (43:48.751)
that's a good question. I have a Google site. If you search for my name, you'll find it. And LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn.

Seth Fleischauer (43:59.25)
Awesome. Well, we'll put that in the.

Awesome. We'll put both of those in the show notes, in addition to some of the other resources that you mentioned here today. thank you so much for the work that you do, for sharing your ideas about innovation and culture and language, here on the podcast. Those are all things that are very dear to our heart. for our listeners, if you'd like to support the podcast, please do leave us a review, tell a friend, leave us a rating. and,

Thank you as always to our editor, Lucas Salazar and my advisor, Deirdre Marlowe. remember if you'd like to make positive change to education, we must first make it mindful. See you next time.