Tech That Powers Scalable Adult Learning

00:00.00
Dipesh Jain
Hello everyone welcome to another episode of tech in edtech. Ah, we have a very interesting episode coming ahead. Before I introduce the guest, Let me tell you. I met ah I met him at a conference I think now a couple of months back. The first time I spoke to him I understood the length and breadth of adult education. I know we talk about adult education. But the way he spoke about adult education and the need to reform it really really opened my eyes. So I knew that I had to have him on the podcast. So please welcome Andrew Roberts. Andrew is the Chief Operating Officer of the Barbara Bush Foundation. Andrew, welcome to the show. 

00:43.53
Andrew Roberts
Thank you so much I'm I'm pleased to be here. Thank you.

00:55.90
Dipesh Jain
So, Andrew, we had an amazing conversation I think at South by Southwest um, it really I went back again to some research and could really really appreciate what you said. Before we get into the details would love for you to give an introduction about you, what you do, and what the Babra Bush Foundation does and we can go from there.

01:06.97
Andrew Roberts
That sounds great. Sure yeah, um, I'm the Chief Operating Officer for the Barbara Bush Foundation very excited to be here today. You know we're very lucky. We have a wonderful namesake of this organization and you know. When she was kind of preparing to be the first lady she was going on a jog around Houston and she thought all about the different things that are kind of plaguing our society at the time, hunger, poverty, crime, kind of civics and she really came to the realization that so many of these problems, there was a foundational challenge which was really around, literacy and if we could find a way to make sure more Americans can read, write, and comprehend that we would be able to tackle these other bigger social issues with ah with ah you know with a lot more success and so at that moment her kind of passion for family literacy was born and our organization was started in 1989, just weeks after George Bush was inaugurated. She established our foundation: The Barbara Bush Foundation for family literacy and since then the foundation has kind of supported family literacy programs in all fifty States, District Columbia, and you know changing a lot of lives in the process. Most recently, in that kind of last three or four years we've been a little more focused on adult education where we're really trying to solve the challenge of adults who you know you know can't read so we're happy to be here today. Thank you.

02:20.91
Dipesh Jain
Thanks Andrew and you know I know we spoke about a few things. So how did you get into this space? Um, you know if you could, what interested you when you joined Barbara Bush Foundation? What did you do before that you know that, I would love to here some of that.

02:37.69
Andrew Roberts
Sure. Yeah I actually started as an IT strategy and operations consultant kind of working you know standard kind of consulting firm. I worked with a private sector and nonprofit and different government clients and I did that for a number of years. After a little while, I kind of wanted to change. I I wanted it to, I

02:56.30
Andrew Roberts
Was really seeking for a position that was a little more meaningful than just kind of dollars and cents and you know revenue and margins. Um, and I was very lucky to start and get an opportunity at ARP, which is the large nonprofit funding for those in this country who are 50 and older. It's a wonderful organization. I worked there for almost a decade. Um. You know the work was very meaningful and I felt like I was able to apply my consulting work to this large nonprofit that was trying to tackle a lot of different social problems. They had been around for a long time but they were they were pivoting and they were really trying to figure out how to make a difference and and you know I felt like I was able to bring my consulting work over there and I just got the complete, um, you know I I got the bug for kind of nonprofit work. I um I just find myself much more motivated by taking on these these social challenges rather than just revenue um, kind of after a decade at ARP in a number of different roles including ah working in the office of the COO and as vice president of strategy there, um I Left to join the Barbara Bush Foundation as their chief job operating officer. Couple of reasons. One, I think the mission is just super important. You know we talked a little bit earlier I mentioned just briefly like all the different challenges that society faces in the United States and how there's like these underpinnings that that that lead to some of these challenges and I really truly feel literacy is one of them. Um I also just felt this was a really great opportunity. The organization had been in a big transition. It was moving back to DC from Florida and I felt I could kind of combine all the different skills I had picked up along my career into 1 position for a really important cause that I believe in.

04:26.00
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, no, that's and that's something That's so so like so interesting in the EdTech space right? I think we all work in different areas but kind of united by the mission of education. Like, you know one of the things what I love about my role is at the end of it, you know, I'm helping somebody get educated um in whatever shape and form that I can um and that that digital learning for everyone, which is by the way of our vision, is so so compelling. So I see that, you know I'm just you know when you mentioned that the reason why you joined and that passion I can I can see that and I see that in everybody in EdTech. Most of them that I speak to kind of comes to EdTech is for that. You know there's all of other things but the education in at EdTech is what is what is so important.

05:10.93
Andrew Roberts
No, you're 100% percent right and it's really moving when you see it in person. I remember ARP had a program called experience core which had kind of older volunteers going into elementary schools to to teach you know first through third through fourth graders kind of who were struggling and reading. Um, and this is before I was even with the Barbra Bush Foundation but I remember being there at a site visit one day watching this happen and a mom came in and um and she saw her first grader reading and she literally started to cry because she had struggled with literacy her whole life right? and and you know, ah, we'll talk about this a little more I'm sure in a little bit but it tends to be a really multi-generational issue like 1 of the biggest factors on the educational attainment of a child is the educational attainment of their mother right? And it tends to be this multi-generational thing and when you actually see the impact you can make with education in person, it tends to really stick with you and and really kind of drive you to go forward.

06:03.81
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, and and I completely relate to you just as a backdrop. So my um I mean my parents are both of them dropped off after like ninth grade, my father ah completed tenth grade but they dropped out and you know that kind of. They knew what they had missed out on and so they made sure that you know I get educated and I study and you know that just made me appreciate the whole education thing so much and I just saying this because you know that generational thing that we spoke about is so relevant. It really depends on how you know how you get it from your parents or how that you know sometimes that also can lead to issues. So yeah, um, that that that's so super important. Yeah, and and I think the thing that I want to talk about I want to talk about adult education. I want to get into that. I want to start by talking about, you mentioned some statistics that actually caught me so interested in this space. Ah, you know if you don't mind talking about how many like what percentage of Americans can read and that was I think but what really got me interested in this topic and event and so you don't talk about that like you know what is the state of adult literacy right now?

07:14.89
Andrew Roberts
Sure, no, happy to do so. So yeah I mean unfortunately it's a little bit sobering. Um, you know today, there's one hundred and thirty million Americans, that's about 54% of adults between the ages of 60 and 74 that lack proficiency and literacy and you know, um, we don't typically talk about reading in adults this way, but that equates to about being below a sixth-grade reading level. So if you think about that that's you know 54% of adults that are essentially reading below the sixth-grade level um so what does that mean?  You know a sixth-grade level of reading if you're below that it probably means filling out job applications is a struggle, voting is probably a struggle. Unfortunately, you've heard just horrible stories around prescription drugs and you know, kind of the labels on prescription medicines being confused. Most of the covid guidance that was released that was released by the CDC was significantly above that level. You know we we estimate, there's you know, 66 million or more Americans that really could not comprehend the guidance that was being given around covid so you know it's ah it's a real struggle. It really stops these people from fully participating in society as you know, parents workers and citizens and it's a lot of people. It's a lot more than I think most people probably imagine when you first talk about it.

08:29.93
Dipesh Jain
I yeah and I want to pause at that moment because you know what happens is we somehow don't up like because We have been, I’m talking about me and you and lot of other listeners. We somehow do not appreciate um this like you know we kind of take things like you're okay. Job application filling. It is so important like imagine not being able to do that. Imagine not being able to understand covid guidance. It's very difficult. It was very difficult for me to empathize with that because it just comes naturally to me because luckily I've had that education but it is so important and I I do want people to appreciate that. that that scale at which this could be a ah challenge.

09:16.20
Andrew Roberts
No, 100% and it's also a collective challenge right? Because you know, um, you know? Ah I think the statistic I saw was 53% of adults, 25 and older, who did not graduate from high school are not in the workforce. So think about that youre talking about 53% of people. Ah adults 25 or older who did not graduate from high school. But, like they're not in the workforce. What are we seeing right now we're seeing all kinds of um workforce issues, workforce challenges, people trying to hire and so you know right? It's hard to really you know as you talked about me and you. And a lot of people who are probably listening to this. Don't have this challenge and it's hard. It's it's hidden sometimes because I think people who have this this struggle of low literacy, often there's a stigma around it and and you know they find ways to cope or they find ways to um to to get things done through other ways but it really does affect them on a day-to-day basis.

10:02.68
Dipesh Jain
I yeah so so you know this is this is a huge challenge and you know after we spoke I went back and I looked at things from a different lens and I realized that you know sometimes it's hidden in plain sight. Um, you know people that you think like you know would Probably are not able to understand some of those things right? so so I think that's that's just understanding and appreciating that scale is is so important and 54% is a huge number. Um, so I think that's very relevant so we understand those challenges now there are I know there are a lot of. Companies working in this space would love to hear on what is Barbara Bush Foundation's philosophy, your principles in tackling some of this, and then how do you think technology can help solve some of these issues if it can or it can enable the solutions?

10:52.48
Andrew Roberts
So. Sure, um, yeah, so ah Barbara Bush Foundation you know again, you know we're of family literacy so we do have quite a bit of programming for for youth as well. But we have more recently really focused our efforts on adult programming and I get before I get too far this I do want to say. You know we're largely talking about adult basic education here. We're not talking about kind of college-level or graduate-level programming. You know our work is really focused kind of on that pre-GED level of literacy learning. Um I told you previously that 130 million ah adults lack proficiency and literacy. Um.



11:30.56
Andrew Roberts
By our estimates, there's enough federal programming for about 2 million people. So if you think about that you're you know on at any any given year you're serving 2 million of the 130 million of potential audience that you're looking for and um, for the most part, these learners are employed they they you know they, sometimes multiple low low level jobs. They probably have kids they have loved ones to care for and there's a stigma involved with with this as we talked about and so sometimes these in-person programming is is tough right um. And we saw this even more so during the pandemic because during the pandemic all these in-person programs stopped and you know the entire field had to kind of figure out what to pivot. So even with a pandemic aside we at the Barbara Bush Foundation really feel that technology will have to be part of the solution if we're going to be able to make a dent in this right? Um you know ss we just talked about there's too many people being unserved um and you know the traditional learning process is effective but it is very hard to scale. It is in-person. It's time consuming right? Um. Yeah, you know it's people going to ah to a literacy center for 2 hours in the evening and there's a lot of reasons why that's tough for someone to do if you're working and you have kids so we we feel very strongly that we have to try to figure out a way to leverage technology or integrate technology, whether as a solution by itself or as a supplement to traditional learning if we're really gonna kind of if we're gonna make a dent of this number.

12:51.69
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, and and I think also the way you think “technology” will have to be different here. Um, you know lot of these lot of these people that you're talking about do not may not have you know the correct access, they may not they may face challenges with bandwidth. So I think even when I look at even when I think about technology right? It will have to be designed in a way that can be used by by people in different kind of environments. I know I'm guessing some of that like you know that is what will have to happen to make this make this successful. Ah I know you spoke about Pandemic but. Can you elaborate on that? What did you see happen because of Covid? Like like you know obviously education went underwent a Huge transformation. But what did you see in adult basic education? What what changes did you see?

13:46.54
Andrew Roberts
Well, you know the pandemic, you know this is probably true for a lot of industries, I feel like but it had a way of kind of finding the weak spot. You know finding the weakest link and you know you just mentioned it. Unfortunately, um a lot of ah adults who are looking for this type of programming, maybe don't have the digital literacy skills that were required to really participate when everything went remote. Um, yes, there's the physical issue of did they have laptops did they have you know, high-speed internet. There's all that but they also there's ah, there's ah, there's a digital literacy component to this that that you know is often overlooked. Um. I Can't stress enough and I'm sure we'll talk about this more when we kind of ah talk a ah little bit more about kind of what we've learned through our through our work and technology here but I can't emphasize enough the role that digital literacy skills need to play in the success of these solutions. Um, you know I think we continually kind of underestimate the challenge that you know, hardware, Internet, Connectivity, Digital Literacy have. If you want these things to be Successful, we have to make sure that that we're making these solutions they might be effective in ah in ah, a kind of a sterile kind of like scientific environment but in the real world people have to be able to get them to work right? They have to be able to navigate to the thing that we had to install it on their phone. They have to be able to make sure they can get through the initial kind of setup registration process to get to the content that's ultimately designed to help them and so that became very apparent in the pandemic. That was where a lot of the kind of early work that was kind of taking these programs Digital failed. It was really tough and you know when you had these in-person experiences there was someone there who might or might not be able to help them get these things up and running, But when everyone was kind of forced remote that was where ah where a lot of people failed.

15:27.37
Dipesh Jain
Right? And you one of the questions that I had wasHow can we help create that system of credentialing that will help organizations look at these jobs in a different way? Is there some thought on that? Like how do you see this operate?

16:08.45
Andrew Roberts
Sure. I mean I think you know when we think about multicredentialing this space, I mostly think about the adult education teachers and maybe we can come back to that one but I think for the actual learners, it's important too I mean um while they may not have kind of Ged or college, a lot of times they have a lot of life experience and a lot of professional experience right? And so so I think if we could figure out ways to create micro-credentials to demonstrate that knowledge that they have to potential employers, it could be a big deal for them to get more raises more stable employment. Um, you know you know we you know we talked a little bit about you know some of the challenges that people with low literacy face. You know to be honest to you, the average income of an adult you know with the lowest levels of literacy is under the poverty line. Um, if you can get people to a sixth-grade education from a literacy standpoint, sixth-grade proficiency. You know their average income rises up to $63 thousand a year. So you're talking about a massive um life-changing impact on that family and again this tends to be multigenerational. So not only you helping that adult but you're helping their kids as well. Um, so it's very crucial that we can get this to work and so I think micro-credentialing can play a role there right? You know we've talked with organizations in the past partners where we've been looking to kind of roll out literacy programming and and and they've talked about well yes, we yes obviously we want people to read but we also need to be able to use our scanners and we need to be able to do these aspects of these jobs and you know obviously we always come back to well if they can read all the training materials they're being provided you know. Sometimes I think there's a stigma that that these people aren't smart and that's not the case you know someone, When  I first took the job at the Barbara Bush Foundation, one of our one of our our kind of tactical leads here gave me this analogy of swiss cheese right? And how an adult learner might get to a situation where they've they've worked their way up through life and they have a little bit of holes in their knowledge and one of the ways I think we can figure out how to to best serve them is to how do you kind of plug those holes right? How do you figure out. They don't need to learn everything. Unlike a k-12 type environment where you're kind of more of a linear progression through learning. We have to figure out how we could figure out where their skills are and where those gaps are and try and address those holes as quickly as possible because you can often get essentially quantum leaps in learning by just plugging a few holes in their knowledge. Um, and that's where you know we've really looked for, um, technology solutions to try and to try and answer there. But I also think that's maybe where we could try and figure out how we use micro-credentialing to really make sure we're raising up the pieces of knowledge they do have how do we make sure people can understand that these people do have skills and and we need to make sure that they're you know they're applicable in the workforce. How do we demonstrate that?

18:49.63
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, no, you know 1 thing that this micro-credentialing and the point on having life skills versus having theoretical skills. Let's say um, a similar analogy as so I started physical therapy. Um, you know when we so in physical therapy in the stage of rehabilitation, right? That's just somebody undergoes has ah has a fracture hand fracture right? The way you rehabilitate is something called as activities of daily living so you don't train a muscle just for the sake of it you train those activities of daily living now I know this is not exactly similar but even in a job, there are these. I would call it these kind of activities that are that are responsible for quantum leap in a job so rather than understanding, understanding a linear progression way of learning. Can you be trained on those job-related skills. That's basically skill-based learning and credentialing on those rather than having a linear progression. My mind went back to that analogy that - learn the skills that will help you become independent - Um rather than learning something and not being able to apply it.

19:58.60
Andrew Roberts
No, that's that's right and you know the other place we really see Microcredentialing playing a huge role is actually in the adult, educator side of this right? Many adult basic education programs could be really small. They're often run by volunteers or local small organizations. You know you can picture some of these programs running in a church or in a library right? They're also very large ones but some of them are very small. Um and there's like an established system of support for kind of take k12 teachers and even more so for the higher education, you know, professors. But there's not really a comparable infrastructure for like adult basic education instructors. Um, so you know they're very well-intentioned but they don't all necessarily have the specific instruction or knowledge on how to teach low-literate adults. There is a science behind how you teach adults right? And you know we could see some type of credentialing existing being really helpful. You know as part of our we have a national action plan on adult literacy that was written in cooperation with a number of different organizations around the adult basic education space and actually it was launched in cooperation with Dr. Joe Biden back in October and one of the pieces that we're really pushing. There is is how do we? this. This idea of a national credentialing or micro-credentialing to make sure that we're able to to demonstrate that the professional development opportunities for these teachers they can get credentials that should lead to a greater emphasis on this field of adult education and hopefully better pay for these instructors as well. Um, you know if you can actually demonstrate that you've. Gone. You've been trained in how this works and I think we think that will you know, kind of help lift all boats there.

21:38.77
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, and I think the other avenue, and again would love to hear your thoughts on that is also employers right? A lot of these large employers have a workforce. Um, you know are you know if you upgrade as you mentioned right? Upgrading 3 levels of literacy would improve their life, you know, love life outcomes by a huge percentage. What do you think the role of the employer could be in this kind of an ecosystem?

22:03.20
Andrew Roberts
Sure I mean in. In fact, the numbers are staggering there too. I mean if you could get all adults up to a sixth-grade reading level. You're talking about 10% added to our GDP. That's 2.2 trillion dollars. We did a Gallup's economic study ah in cooperation with Gallup. Um. And like I said 2.2 trillion dollars if you were able to move the more majority of these adults, we're talking about up to that kind of sixth-grade reading level. So it's it's a huge amount of money right? and and and these literacy skills would also like help fill these critical gaps in our workforce. You know we talk to corporate executives daily who tell me that the literacy and digital skills are a huge barrier to building the teams that they really need right? So to your point these employers do have an incentive to really kind of tackle this issue and I think you know yeah I don't have the statistic informing me but we've all heard those analyses. It's a lot easier to keep a good employee than to than to find a new 1 right? So I think they have an incentive to kind of scale-up these employees and and have them become part of the organization have them move up from a lower level position to a higher level position but they do need to um, provide the resources for that to happen and I I think we are starting to see that now I know when I was at South By Southwest and I think you know hopefully maybe you can back be up on this one. We saw a lot more work in this kind of what is the role of these big employers in the education of their kind of and of their employees. What should they be doing. How are they looking at this. It used to be very much around. Oh well, we provide kind of um Master's level education. You know we provide a stipend towards Master's level education but I know we're seeing a lot more and more of these employees, employers, sorry start to offer additional, you know, benefits kind of farther down the educational spectrum.

23:48.48
Dipesh Jain
Yeah I think what I would say as far as workforce learning or you know, um, employer education. One of the things that I've been seeing is initially like back in the days it was focused on let's say mid to senior leadership training right? Executive education as you would call it. Now you see that moving downwards. I think still we have a long way to go as far as the education reaching the lowest rung and I think that's what you're you're talking about as well. We're seeing activity there but I think there's a lot more that needs to be done for the education to be penetrated to that level and I think that's where there's a scope and there's hope and opportunity.

24:30.57
Andrew Roberts
But you know right now one of the things from the pandemic right? as we see this kind of great resignation and we see this trouble with employers to hire is there's probably more of an an ROI there for them to do that now. Um, you know, ah that that maybe didn't exist a few years ago but I hope we continue to see it.

24:42.19
Dipesh Jain
Absolutely and you know just coming back on the technology piece right? One of the things that you know comes to mind right away when you talk about Micro credentialing. Ah and you know meeting learners where they are would also be personalized learning. Um, using tech to personalize learning to to these audiences but again without having the and the need to use a lot of sophisticated equipment or software. What do you think? What do you see the role of personalized learning or what what kind of tech can or can that type play a role in this space?

25:21.57
Andrew Roberts
You know, know it's absolutely huge in the space I mean you know again, we talked a little bit earlier about what folks who are kind of facing this literacy challenge are dealing with right and again they they might have multiple jobs they have families at home and and a lot of these ah these offerings are kind of late at night or or in the evening or they can't just take time off or find daycare for their care when they go to these things. So if they're able to do that and join some of these programs or take on some of these challenges. We got to find a way to make it really worth their while and you know how you teach adults is very different right? And um and one of the things we did learn is that it really does you - Personalized learning could be huge because if an adult comes to a class and they sit through 2 or 3 classes and they haven't really hit on something that's that's that's really based for them, they're not going to continue to come right? I think they have to see changes. They have to see the impact of this learning pretty soon after they started so you know if we go back to that kind of swiss cheese analogy. How can we use technology or assessments to really hone in on where are those holes in knowledge and then focus our learning on that we're actually working on ah on a solution now. Um, which is kind of a gaming app. It's it's a little bit of a takeoff on kind of like an Indiana Jones kind of kind of adventure style game and ah, but the whole point of it really is to use the gaming to identify these holes, and then the gameplay changes dynamically to focus the lessons on those areas that the solution identified as being weaker right? So it's just an example of how we can try and figure out how do we really tackle these straight away. How do we kind of make sure we get to the the heart of the matter with these learners as quickly as possible. So we're not running them through that linear progression. That's not relevant to them.

26:33.13
Dipesh Jain
I had a question just when you were speaking we say that I have a three-year-old he's picking up languages as he goes right? He's learning. We speak a language at home. He's learned a language in school. See that language learning becomes progressively difficult as you as you go ahead like you know at a at a later age it becomes more and more difficult. Do you think that that applies to all walks of life?  Would it be more difficult to teach some concepts that were maybe easier or is it just a like like a myth that you know those concepts are difficult in the later ages?  Do concepts become progressively difficult, or not really?

27:54.71
Andrew Roberts
I think you know I I don't know if it becomes progressively difficult but I do feel like you have to change your approach to how you teach that right? You know, we we, have some technical experts on our team who will tell us again How you teach like adults in this space is very different than how you teach kind of like your more traditional learning you have to make sure that it's very relevant to to them. They have to be able to kind of um they to be able to find why it's relevant teach them using real-world examples instead of like kind of conceptual examples. Right? So You know these are just just an example we have to make sure that they're that you're making it. You're building upon their life experience. They already have and you're you're ensuring that you're using what's something that's relevant to them on a daily basis. You know, um, I find that you know sometimes we have a tendency to want to you know to want to use the same products or the same approach that has worked in K12 or even college. Ah, um, for this audience and it just doesn't work because they you know they're at a very different stage of life and we have to make sure we're we're keeping that in mind as we attack it. And our experience though, like if you do that and you kind of make sure you're using, um, you know what we've learned in adult education. These people are very very capable of continuing to learn.

29:07.25
Dipesh Jain
So I think you know just taking that analogy and taking your answer now. It's probably the language learning is not hard is the way you teach teach language needs to change. Um, the way you teach you know why I can completely relate to that because I think over years you accumulated enough experience to relate to some concept concepts that you would not be able to do that as a kid. So I think I think that's a very that is very strong point. So thank you for sharing that and and I think so this is this has been wonderful right? What you, the point that you brought in your last answer also was The products the way you design learning products for this space is going to be very different from designing products for any other other age group and I think sometimes we miss the mark. Like a lot of learning products that you see out there wouldn't if even if they're targeting this audience wouldn't be designed with that kind of mindset so I think that is so crucial and it's important for the audience to kind of just understand those areas like what those gaps could we rethink that product development altogether.

30:14.92
Andrew Roberts
Sure yeah I mean you know there are you know unfortunately Edtech is a little bit of a littered graveyard with promising solutions that did not come to fruition, particularly in kind of this adult education space. Um, you know it's one of the reasons why our organization before I joined worked with the dollar general foundation to to start the Xprize.It was an Xprize kind of competition around. How can someone develop an app that can teach people to read and that work identified a number of very promising solutions that are still being worked on today but it also helped us learn some of the common pitfalls that that people fell into right? One is that I've mentioned this earlier is digital literacy. And we have to make sure you're building in you know, making the journey into these products as easy as possible as smooth as possible. What is that kind of tutorial that gets them where they need to go so they can actually use the product effectively? The other thing I think we've seen in education that sometimes is different from other tech areas is. The text-based. It's often fine to bring a product to market and then kind of continuously iteratively improve it over time and obviously, that's also fine in education but but um in education the product that goes to market has to be good enough right? You know it can't be the. You can't just bring something out and continue to build upon it. It has to be enough. You know it has to kind of have a learning theory built-in from the beginning. It must be effective and kind of show efficacy. It must have the audience in mind and and be very useful for the audience. Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart. It just doesn't work and so you know um in some in some spaces that's not true you can you know you can kind of make big changes with an app and experiment. But in education, I think we as as professionals have ah have ah an obligation to make sure that what we're putting out um does no harm right? that it that it it is you know it has been piloted. It has gone through the Usability studies. It needs to go to so that by the time it reaches actual learners. It has a real chance of success. And I think um, that's sometimes the disconnect that we see that you know people want to get it to market and we totally understand that. But in education we have we have a you know again, a responsibility to make sure that that it's meeting those basic needs before we do that.

32:18.85
Dipesh Jain
No I think this point is so relevant right? See we we at least here at Magic we keep talking about product adoption. Ah, product adoption is such an important metric and especially so in learning because if if students do not adopt the product right away chance the very low that they want to come back to it ah because in any case, that product is going to challenge them so any learning product out there is designed to challenge users because that's how you learn. That's how you grow. So if you don't get it right or reasonably right the first time, that in combination with the challenging piece will make that options way more difficult and then any iteration that you do is not going to help that cause So I think you touched up on a very very important topic there. This has been a great conversation Andrew who I think. Learned a lot. I would want to just ask you, where do you see the future of this? I mean you know it. It might seem like a niche space. But when you talk about those numbers of of 54% and those now this is not a niche space anymore it it has to be much more than that. So where do you see the trends of this? What do you see happening in the next near future and in the long term. Yeah.

33:26.30
Andrew Roberts
Ah, no I mean and you know obviously we're hoping that we can create a more focus on this audience segment for for education and particularly in Ed Tech you know again, I think there's a lot of promise around this personalized learning. How can we make sure that these learners are getting so getting served the information that really helps them and not necessarily having to sit through a big long progression of information that they already know. Um I think you know the other thing the promise for Ed Tech I think in this space is that, and I mentioned earlier but there's a stigma for adult learners who who who struggle with literacy and I think one of the things that's nice is you can kind of deidentify or be anonymous if you're taking kind of Ed Tech solutions in this space. Um I think the adoption of micro lessons or asynchronous learning to really bring the learning to these people. Um. In a way that meets their needs. Whether that be you know in the evening before they go to bed, or on the bus on the way to work, or or wherever it might be right? I think these kind of this idea of kind of micro lessons. How do we kind of build content into very digestible small chunks that people can can tackle when when they have time? I also think we need to make sure we're really, we're really ensuring that the content that's delivered is authentic. It's relevant. It. It has real-life application. Um, and and I also am really interested to see kind of how we can vary in approaches I talked you a little bit earlier about how we build a game around around it I think there are a lot of other opportunities to like how do we kind of. Tackle Ed tech in a less traditional approach and you know everyone learns differently, especially adults. Everyone has different experiences they're pulling upon and they might have different things that draw them in. Ultimately we have to kind of find a way to to meet those people's needs and so I think the more kind of different approaches we can have we need to kind of test and see which ones work and I'm I'm excited to see how we can kind of push the boundaries on the different ways we can we can tackle education through technology. Um in in new ways I know you know we're even but working recently on some stuff using the Microsoft HoloLens which is like a kind of a mixed, Augmented Reality approach. You know we have to find people to engage people get people in and and and everyone learns differently. So We have to figure out we have to have enough different options on the menu that we can make sure we're meeting a lot of people's needs.

35:40.88
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, and I think very relevant points I do want to touch upon the authenticity of the content or the learning you a lot of these there are standards for different areas like there are SEL standards. Do you think standardization or having standards in this space I know that a professional learning standards would that you see that emerging? are there is there something already in place or is that something that needs to be worked on creating those learning standards for for this for this age group?

36:11.62
Andrew Roberts
It's interesting. You know, um, the problem. The hard part about that is as we talked about earlier is everyone has kind of different gaps in their knowledge and how do you kind of fill those. But yes I mean I think ultimately some of the work we're doing in our in our national action plan on adult literacy is trying to figure out. What are these big underlying challenges and how do we tackle them as a field? Um, and so I do think particularly in you know, professional development for adult educators like there are there does there could be or could benefit from some national standards or from national certifications that can really kind of lift that field. Um, and make it a more desirable place to work I think you know, um, it tends to be kind of the the um step step brother or sister of education and that people kind tend to want to go to k12 or they go to college and there's there's kind of this gap in the middle and I do think we could. You know benefit this field a lot if we could figure out how we can lift up the work they're doing and make sure that we're really calling attention to how important it is and and as well providing some standards on what adult education looks like right? Um, what are the things and we do I mean and and again we know right? again, it has to be relevant. It has to use realworld situations. We have to make sure we're you know, utilizing their life experience in the design of the class and we have to make sure like the learning objectives for each piece is very clear and discrete. This is where we think micro lessons is so this could be so effective and that it's very clear like in this lesson you're learning this skill. You're doing this thing. Um. And ultimately we have to figure out how to meet them where they are and so I think there's kind of a dynamic there right? At one side you want to make sure that the quality of the of the education is very strong at the same side you you know you have so many different individuals and you have to be to meet them where they are so I think that's kind of the pull and push of where this could go.

37:56.87
Dipesh Jain
Yeah and know this is this has been a wonderful conversation and we really appreciate all the insights that you bring in before we end any final I mean I mean for from my side you know for the audience listening if you take away nothing from this I think just the awareness of this. You know this audience segment - the the importance of adult basic Education, Digital Literacy I think just that awareness would be a huge takeaway from this. But yes, there is a lot of work going on and hopefully more to come ah but Andrew, any parting thoughts? 

38:30.90
Andrew Roberts
Know I just want to say yes I think that's it the adult literacy challenge is much more prevalent problem than than most people probably think if you go to our website, https://www.barbarabush.org/ we have a gap map um, and it breaks down kind of the the percentages and the measures of data around literacy by zip code. Go away there type in your zip code I think it's ah it's a little sobering but I think you're going to realize that the challenge is probably a lot more widespread than you probably think so please give that a go. The only thing I would I'll just give a quick plug as well. We just released a new you know I just talked earlier about how important kind of digital literacy is part of this experience. Um. Just really critical in the success of all the programs we do and we actually just launched a digital literacy guide in partnership with an organization called Digital Promise - this can also be found on our website - Um the guides really more aimed at teachers who. Kind of need resources to help their students with digital literacy challenges. But I do think it would also be a great resource for developers or other people in the ed-tech space to look at because it just kind of shows how you can tackle digital literacy and infuse it into your programming as a way that hopefully might kind of spark some ideas for people to make sure they're making their product very accessible.

39:36.14
Dipesh Jain
I love it and I will put it in the show notes as well. So people have access to that. Thank you so much, Andrew this has been a pleasure, really appreciate your time and sharing your insights. Thank you.

39:47.65
Andrew Roberts
No, thank you. So thank you so much for having me and it was great meeting you at South by Southwest, and thank you for this opportunity.

39:52.90
Dipesh Jain
Thanks, Andrew bye.