Beyond the Canvas: Jai Bishop

Hi. I'm Gemma MacLean. Thank you for joining us today on Beyond the Canvas, the people and the stories shaping education. I'm the K-12 regional director for Instructure here across APAC, and I'm really excited today because I have Jai Bishop joining me. Jai, if you'd like to introduce yourself. Thanks so much, Gems.

My name is Jai Bishop. I am currently the lead teacher for Alba International School in Japan. We're part of, actually one of the first schools in the Asia Pacific region to be offering the International Baccalaureate online. So, basically, I have been a grade five teacher for the last three years. And before that, I was a deputy principal and then also a curriculum coordinator.

And I've been tapped on the shoulder for this particular role, because they're obviously being a purely online high school program. They're looking for certain, skills and, pedagogical thinking to actually drive the learning. That's a lot of information there and really exciting. Right? Like, the the fact that they've tapped you on the shoulder says a lot about you. We can obviously hear as well in the background that you are a teacher, so it's legit.

We're not playing that in the background. That is real noises. So I think it sounds like that everyone's been let out for lunch break, which is fantastic. Unfortunately, it's been raining here at the moment, so it's one of those reverse situations where, okay, guys, in the cafeteria. So I'm actually booked into one of the quiet rooms, but it's just the nature of schooling, unfortunately.

No. That's fantastic. I would have been running around in the background fighting over Hamble. I can guarantee that. So thank you so much for coming on today's show.

The reason why I wanted to have you as one of our guests was because there's been a lot happening. You've been working with Casares, in our marketing team around sort of gamification. But before we get to that, I just wanna understand what actually drives you. Okay. Sure.

So as far as, like, as a teacher, what's my absolute driving passion in teaching? It's very much that moment where you're seeing kids, that moment where you're teaching something, you know, ah, I get it all. Ah, you mean. And I think every teacher, you know, really appreciates that moment. It's a sign that both their teaching pedagogy and the work that they've put into what they're actually teaching has been really successful. It's kind of a validation of our thoughts or ideas, applications, hunches sometimes.

Mhmm. And that's, driven me for as long as I can remember, but definitely more recently as education started to shift, especially around, online teaching. You know, during the pandemic, I'm sure everyone was desperate for more of those moments and not feeling like they were stumbling around in the dark. Mhmm. And, certainly, it's something I've been looking for, greater application both online and in the classroom.

Just that real, I want students I wanna see in students that moment when it all comes clicks in a place and they get excited about making a discovery. Yeah. Those moments. Like, I you know, having these discussions, I think back to sort of my younger self and and what that feels like. And even receiving those as an as an adult, you know, we're constantly doing lifelong learning.

Right? And so as you're sort of working through that learning and as a student capturing that, oh my gosh, I I get it now, and that must be a really fulfilling feeling for the teachers to, you know, see that you've poured your heart and soul into this little learner to really help them grasp that concept. I could imagine that would be really rewarding. So high five to you, Jai. So on that, you know, that moment, you're doing something really cool with sort of game-based learning versus gamification to help students have that. Can you just talk to me a little bit about what that means for people who haven't yet embraced that or have heard it, but don't fully understand that so we could have that moment? Sure.

Absolutely. So, we'll break it down into two parts. So we'll start with game-based learning, and, it's basically the use of any game. It could be a video game, a board game. It could be an outside game, but any game that's used to teach a concept or a set of skills.

Now this can be, games that have been specifically made for that, or it could be games that have been modified for that purpose. And it's, like, a real combination of both incredibly slick and professional looking productions right through to, very, cottage industry in indie, style productions through to games, that teachers design themselves. So you can think of everything from Minecraft education, being a game that's both started as a game, but then became a game to teach concepts right through to, any sort of organ to something like Monopoly to teach certain, monetary skills, or even any sort of little games that you might run-in the classroom to teach certain mathematical concepts. But the idea is that it's, a game. It's got, like, a beginning, a middle, and end.

There's a set of win conditions. You know that, yes, this means I've been successful or, not quite, maybe next time. So that's game based learning. Gamification is something that's come more into the lexicon really in the last, twelve to fifteen, twelve to ten years. Mhmm.

And that's looking at if I take all of the games that I could possibly think of and I pull apart all of the things that make it a game, and that's, you know, basically hundreds of different elements that make a game a game. And it's looking at, well, can I take part of those elements and insert them into, lessons that I'm doing for the purpose of keeping people engaged? There's a couple of, wonderful definitions, and because it's been in the lexicon so much, both from an education and a business perspective, there's a lot of papers that have been produced on it. So and they talk about, you know, gamification is the use of game elements in non-game contexts. Mhmm. And that's, like, a good example of what gamification is.

So you can think of everything from points and badges and leaderboards, which are the real common ones that everyone would recognize as gamification elements, right through to things like immersion, story, progression trees or skill trees. They can be inserted into a whole range of things that are not a game to keep people engaged in whatever the task is. So a good example would be if you've ever, let's call it, played or learned on Duolingo. That's got a whole raft of gamification elements. It's not a game, but it borrows a whole lot of elements from games to keep people engaged and keep playing.

Now, obviously, within the business side of things, you're looking at people keeping people engaged and potentially spending more money. But with education, we're looking to keeping students engaged and learning just that little bit more. Yeah. Awesome. I think, you know, the fact that you mapped it back to Duolingo because I think we're all familiar with that.

Right? But talking about that engagement, you know, if I think about sort of my relationship with education and if this application had have been around or this definition had have been around whilst I was going through my learning, I obviously would have eaten that up because being a super duper little competitive child as well as what I am right now, any opportunity for gamification, like, you chuck a cahoot into something, and I am all over that. Like, I am standing up, jumping around, and, like, in your face, I won types. Probably I take it a little bit too far. I even, you know, race people when I'm making the bed and, you know, you're inserting the doona into the doona cup. Like, you know, I I I'm very competitive.

So as I can see how this would be engaging. But what is the difference? Right? Because you've talked about two very different elements. Right? And why does this matter? Okay. So, what's the difference? So if you're looking at both, both are effectively manufactured. It's not a game in the traditional sense because a game at any stage, someone could go, I'm out of I've had my fun.

You know? So, they're both manufactured, and that can be challenging in its own right because some kids can get very wise to this is not a game. Then, however, both are you're attempting to match the game with the concepts that you're teaching and the right balance of flow. So when you think about it within a game, you wanna make sure that your game is about learning ideas and not about, just playing the game for fun. So if I go back to Minecraft education, there's fabulous coding components that you can embed in Minecraft. And if you're doing nothing but making things but not teaching the actual coding part of it, well, that's not a great game for game based learning.

And the same with gamification. If you're choosing certain gamification vacation elements, that don't match with the concepts that you're trying to teach, it can lead to real problems. So if you're looking at, let's say, empathy and understanding and you introduce something like a leaderboard, that can be at a polar opposite, and that can make certain students feel more. I'm not at the top, and I don't feel good about myself, you know, versus students that are incredibly competitive and, like, no. This is the goal and to let everyone else know no.

I'm that's what a leader board is and lets everyone know who's at the top and who's at the bottom. Yeah. So, the key difference between the two of them would be, well, one is game based learning is I have a set concept or, understanding or set of skills, and this game helps students to explore and experiment with those actual skills and inquire into and manipulate them. Whereas gamification is more, I'm using elements from games to keep students engaged and hopefully learning more as well. Thank you for that.

That has really helped sort of solidify that for myself. Something you raised a really good point there, right, around sort of, you know, how that is applied because I've known that in the past, there's been a little bit of resistance to the adoption of sort of gamification and what that looks like and how you apply that. Sort of why that happens and what educators can do to get around that, I'm sure that you've experienced and been across it all. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Because I'm sure that people have been, like, toying with the idea, but I know that there's certain elements where people are like, no. No.

We can't do that because you know, just because you this and you're not good at this. And how do you handle that type of sort of input or thought process? Absolutely. So often my process when, like, thinking of using any gamification or game based learning elements is getting using a route backwards by design and really starting with what exactly is it that I want to teach students? What do we really want them to walk away with? And then from there actually going, okay then. Well, we know what we want. How do we wanna assess that? And once we've decided on what we wanna like, and not how we wanna assess, but what we wanna assess.

It's a really important difference. Yep. Then from there going, okay then, Are there possibilities to use game based learning or gamification for this? Especially, where you see that strong alignment. So a great example would be, we have looked at refugees before, and we've, especially for middle school students, we've used the game, This War of Mine, which is an incredibly beautiful and powerful and tragic, and it's all looking at from the perspective of what it means to be a refugee in a war zone. I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing both of the creators of that game, and they talked about their desire to get, people that play the game to understand that other perspective that in war, not everyone's a soldier.

And it has like a really difficult consequences for refugees that are caught in these areas and they've got to make really hard decisions that we don't even think about. And their end comment to me about what they wanted their driving purpose behind that game to be was that next stop because they came from Poland, and they said that everyone in Poland is affected by war. They've got air back in their family history. Everyone knows someone or in their family. Everyone has been touched by war.

They know what it means. So with that in mind, they wanted to create a game that not only ensure that people empathize with the plight of refugees, but also really gave consideration to the consequences of war and what that meant for everyday people. So, yeah, that to me is like just, if you were doing a unit on, or we want people to understand refugees and the price of refugees, that's an incredibly, inquiry based safe way to explore that concept. Yeah. Game-based learning is such a wonderful space for people to really manipulate ideas that they might not normally have access to.

And whether that be running a business, having a stock market money on the stock market, or being a refugee in war, they can't do those sorts of things in real life, but games are such a fabulous simulation, and a safe simulation to really explore and inquire into the concepts. But at any stage to stop and really talk about and pause and, like, what does it mean? Well, hang on. What if we rewind five minutes and then try this track? Let's see what happens now. Holy wow. There is a lot to dissect there, Jai.

Like, a lot. I have so many more questions that we're probably not gonna have time for. But sort of, you know, in that application, how have you seen it sort of, you know, those moments, and why do you feel that it's so important within learning? Okay. So we're at a really interesting time at the moment. So, my generation I was lucky when I was a child.

My parents went to America without me, I'm sad to say, and they did all the American things. One of the place I went to Disneyland, and as kids, we were really devastated that they went there and we didn't. But they came back with a suitcase full of things for us as kids. And amongst those was board games and a video game console. So I'm one of that generation who's kind of grown up with not only board games, but digital games.

And we're getting, obviously, games are such a powerful part of our media that students consume. So we've got a group of students who very much, in the same way that I consumed books and TV predominantly as a child, we've got now students who yeah. That is one of their main consumption habits of media. We've also got teachers similar to me, but more so new teachers as well that have grown up with games. And, they understand the powerful impact that games have made on them because I think it's important to remember that games aren't just for entertainment.

I mean, they entertain in the same way that, let's say, movies entertain, but the way in which they entertain and the messages that they, deliver are so rich and varied and powerful. So we've got this, student group that's coming up who is very, very familiar with games. We've got, teachers that are coming up that they understand the power of games. And we're getting at this wonderful crossroad where games are becoming these powerful experiences that tell truly immersive stories. And we have the ability, so to speak, to ride that wave, in game based learning, but we're also getting more and more a really concrete data on gamification and how it can be used to really engage people, especially meaningfully.

I'm sure everyone has played a game at some stage where I wanna say a game, an app, let's call it. You've played an app that's got all those gamification elements. And at some stage, you've got no point at the end of it all, and you've gone, what the hell have I wasted my time doing that? What exactly do I have at the end of this? Yep. There's so many of those, but they've used very successful gamification elements. We're talking about an industry that spends literally billions of dollars every year just in research alone.

And they know what they're doing. So they for whatever like, typically, it's used for, obviously, money generating purposes, but we've got the ability to use it for thought and educational generated purposes. And it's a really exciting time to be a part of that. So to review, we've got students that really engaged in games. We've got teachers that understand the power of games.

We've got incredible game based learning experiences that are immersive and tell amazing stories, and we've got fabulous concrete evidence on how gamification works with people, that we can really target and use as a force of good like, force of good, but for a force of genuine engagement and education? Yeah. I think, you know, you've really harnessed something there about having all of the research in the background. You know, being a kid that has grown out with games as well as my son and seeing how how he gets involved in games. Right? And then how do we apply that to education? So what's really funny about this is I wanna learn about sort of the stock market and how to how to do that. I've identified that there is possibly an an opportunity to build an app as to how to gamify that in a safe space so as I can learn that, while still, obviously, you know so that's going on in the background.

That's my side hustle. Don't tell anyone. But I'm I'm sort of doing the research behind that because, again, I have seen, like, you know, I was never addicted to it, but people addicted to Candy Crush and the amount of money that they spent on that and Farm Bill and all of these things. And, you know, you're chucking Fortnite and buying new clothes and costumes for your Fortnite character, like, for goodness sake. But how do we take that that research and apply that to education for that really, really great opportunity to engage our students.

Right? And so I'm really excited to see more schools adopt that because when used for good, like you've said, rather than the negative approaches to, yeah, this kid playing off against this kid, How do we actually apply that? Something that I wanted to speak about now, Jai, is when we first had our initial introduction, you talked about sort of the different learner types or the different types of student or player types. And you literally just sliced me open and saw me as a child, and the example that you gave was literally just me. And I am still reeling from that, and everyone that I've spoken to was like, oh my god. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that? Because I think that for me and the type of learner that I am and was as a child and how you could provide that insight. Right? Because for those little difficult characters that you've got in class and what their strengths are, how you can actually use that and harness that for good.

Absolutely. So what I'll I'll start with the story because how it all came about, how I fell into this, what we call the, hexad player types is a both hilarious and tragic story all at the same time. Tell me. So I was, planning a unit on space exploration, and we really wanted students to get their head around, you know, both the physics and the inquiry and things failing, but through things failing, you know, people developed new ideas and were able to push further with their understanding of how to explore space. Mhmm.

And we were looking for a game that would really encapsulate that. So we found this game called Kerbal Space Program. Absolutely fabulous game, very what we call open sandbox, all lots of different tools. It was physics based, so it was really based on fabulous hard science. And it was a really whimsical game to play that, you know, really fit the bill for us.

Now I had a student in my class who identified as a gamer, but was really difficult to engage. I was really struggling with finding how do I get these moments with this particular student? So when we identified this game, I was really excited. I thought oh wow He is gonna love this game. So in our first lesson, we did what I would typically do. I don't do it so much these days for reasons we'll get to.

But what I typically do is go right here is the game. Go nuts. For your first lesson, push all the buttons, you know, pull all the levers, do as much as you can, almost get it all out of your system so you've got some idea and then we'll do the serious work as, like, into the next couple of lessons. So we did exactly that for the first lesson, and that particular lad was the most engaged I've ever seen him. He was laughing, he was strapping all of these rockets to these really flimsy, like, capsules and firing them up in a space, like, it it blew up multiple times.

He was having the time of his life, and I was just, got it. Yes. There's the hook. Now we can get to the moment. So the very next listener went, right.

Now that we've done that now we're gonna scale back and we're going to have set objectives and do this and he no. Not interested. And that was the end of it. And I was devastated. I thought you identified as a gamer.

I got this game and you're really excited for the first of what happened and it really forced me to confront in the same way that, you know, people say, oh, I like music, but you might like Taylor Swift. And I might say, oh, music stopped being good after Radiohead. You know, we both have a love of music, but our, the things that we appreciate about music can be completely different. It's exactly the same with games. So I started doing research, and I came across what's called the hexad player types framework, and it was designed by a gentleman called, Andrzej Marczewski, I believe.

I'm sorry, Andrzej, if you're listening, and I butchered your name. But, he designed this hexad, and it basically breaks, let's call them players, or we could think of students, into six different categories. And the idea is what motivates people when they play games? And then by default, you can push that back to, well, what motivates people to be engaged? So there's six different categories. We took the six of them and we modified the language for our students, so that that they would go, oh, okay then. I can easily understand what that particular word means, and we created it very much almost like a role playing game.

So that almost like a persona that students might wanna embrace. And the six were, I'll go through and just explain the name of them that we chose and the sorts of things that you might see in these people as students. And it's keeping in mind that for all of us, none of us are any one of these types of, player types. We might lean into them at certain times, and we might have two or three that we're very confident or skillful in using or comfortable, in using. So the first one is your, light bringer, what we call a light bringer.

And they're the students who, are the first to put up their hand when you say, oh, I need someone to do a classroom chore or task and not to get out of work because they genuinely wanna be helpful. They're also the students that love learning with a purpose. So they love issues of social justice or animal welfare or, you know, climate change and personal responsibility. They're the ones that you really wanna know the whys and have a purpose. They're really motivated by purpose, and meaning.

The next ones are your knowledge engineers, and they're the students that are motivated by mastery. They love to demonstrate that I know the content. I know it. They're the first ones with their hand up. They're the students that, almost like, well, is this right? They're desperate and really keen to get feedback to know.

Am I on the right track? Am I getting mastery? Am I getting this right? They could also and all of these have two sides to the same coin. They could be incredibly positive, but also they can have a negative side to them as well. These are the students that can be devastated if they don't get a hundred percent on a test where, you know, they're almost in tears because I I got two questions wrong and it's absolutely devastating. Their identity is so strongly tied to this idea of mastery. Mhmm.

Your tale weavers, they're they're the students that everyone knows their tale weavers. They stick their hand up. The very moment you say we're doing this assignment or work, and they go, can we do this in groups? They're strongly motivated by connection. They wanna work with their friends. They wanna interact and discuss as a part of a group.

They really crave that social interaction. Mhmm. Pathfinders are your students who love being creative and, exploring ideas. So they're your students that love to they've got the most beautiful, drawing skills or, they love exploring particular tangents when you present an idea, and they go down rabbit holes and find all sorts of amazing information. And it's separate from that knowledge engineer.

It's not for mastery, but for discovery. But they find all those weird and bizarre facts and figures, yeah, around the topics that you're exploring. So those four, are very much intrinsically aligned. The next two, are a little more extrinsically aligned, and everyone, every teacher knows these students. So our first one is our treasure hunters, and the best way that I can describe a treasure hunter is try to think of those YouTube videos where you've seen someone that's got a dog on a leash, typically a Labrador, and the dog has decided I've had enough, and it's just lying down and not moving.

And these people are in the middle of typically crowded places. That's what makes the video so amusing. And they're desperately trying to get the dog to move, and the dog is, uh-uh, you're nothing you are offering me is gonna work. And that's your treasure hunter. Your treasure hunter is really motivated by rewards, but it's gotta be the right reward.

Like, typically, for a lot of those people that have got the Labrador that's lying flat, it's because they don't have a treat in their pocket. Those dogs are so motivated by a treat, and it's like, you ain't got a treat for me. I ain't moving, and I know that you ain't dragging me. So those students, they're just delightfully wonderful and humorous with their insights, but they're also keenly aware of what do I get out of this and what exactly do I have to do to get that? And they will only do that bare minimum unless the reward is greater than what it is. So if you think about, like, a rubric and when you might say, oh, this is what you've gotta do for a three, they'll size that up and I'll go, yeah.

That that's what I'll do. I'll get a three. And I'll get a three. They'll know exactly what's gonna be done for the rubric, but you'll get, oh, you could have just done this one thing and push that up in all of a not not interested. They're the students who do have that bare minimum homework if it does not interest them, or they're the students that are highly motivated potentially by their parents saying, hey.

If you get, like, three a's and a b, I'll give you twenty dollars. So, our treasure hunters, you gotta have a real keen awareness of what motivates them, because they're delightful, but at times, they could be so frustrating. And then the last one that we talked about was our spark casters and spark casters are the same. Every teacher knows their spark caster. They're highly motivated by change and it can be changing a situation to a way that they like or a situation's changed and they wanna change it back to the way that they were familiar with.

And these students, again, they, have such a positive and negative influence on the class. And to really describe that I'll give the example that we talked about. Well, I had a delightful student in my class, really beautiful, very bright, very much a spark caster. So there's two situations that came up, which really encapsulated for me perfectly what spark casters are all about. So the first one was we had a new student that came into the classroom, and she was really upsetting the classroom norms.

So, she was gossiping a little bit and kind of upsetting upsetting the social balance. So my spark caster came to me and said, Mr. Bishop, we need to have a meeting. She needs to be involved. All these other students need to be involved.

We need to address this because it's affecting the class. Now my video reaction was, oh, okay. So what we'll do is I said to her, okay. That sounds great. I'll be in the meeting and I'll lead it.

And she's like, no. No need to no. I I know exactly what needs to happen. So I said, look, I'll sit on the side just to make sure everything's okay. And she was very much there.

She said, there's no need to be. I said, no. It's okay. I'll I'll just make sure it's all good. She ran that meeting perfectly.

You know, she said all the right things. She referred back to our, social norms chart. She talked about how important, how much we value respect in the classroom and how her actions weren't being respectful for others. It was incredible. I didn't need to say a thing.

This girl absolutely nailed it because she had spotted change in the class that was for her not acceptable, and she used all those powers of persuasion, everything at her disposal to really make sure that, no, this is the way that it needs to be. We need to change back to this way. So that's that really beautiful way. The the flip side on the other hand, and every teacher knows this, it's when a student is not engaged and that this work stinks, and they will do everything and anything to change the classroom environment. And that's typically through distraction.

That's the most obvious way, and it could be through other ways as well. Sometimes it can be, teacher students going, oh, you think you're making me do work. Watch me make you do work today for making me do work that I don't wanna do. I will change you and how you address me in this situation. For that same student and this was like this example was, it was fairly innocent, but it was also for me at the time when, oh, that's something I need to be aware of.

So that same girl, my same spark caster, she, went out, to do some work. It was the end of the school semester, so we're having a little bit of party. She gone out to run some errands. She came back into the classroom and a group of girls, they had already agreed to set up, some music in the corner and they were just, playing some music and dancing away to it. Now she came in and she no.

I do not like that music. This music needs to change. And I watched her come in and without batting an eye, she just came in and said, yeah. You know what? I think I know a better song and instantly changed it over and then started dancing straight away. And it was a dance that all of the girls were very familiar with.

So within the space of less than really five to ten seconds, she had them all dancing the same dance, listening to the song that she wanted to listen to. And it was so insightful. It's just that power. She was able to pull all of those strings together to make everyone change to the way that she wanted that change to occur. So, those six and we looked at different models when we're looking at, like, what really encapsulates what we see in the classroom.

And there's some models that have got four. We didn't feel that really explained it up. There's other models that have got twelve, and that's just too much for teachers. We've got this six really encapsulated quite beautifully what we were seeing in the classroom, and then what it meant was that we were able to go, right. How do we, when we're planning our activities, make sure that we've got a real balance that caters for all of those six player types? It's just so insightful, Jai, because I think, you know, to your point, every teacher knows sort of they're able to identify who their students are, right, and who's gonna be there.

But the fact that you have captured those elements instead of, yes, the positive and also the negative, and then how to plan for that to make sure that the class you you can't please everyone all the time. We understand that. Right? But how you're able to really critique that and sort of model that to support or at least capture elements of each of those students. For me, when you told that story, it was just where was this when I was at school? Because I felt so seen in both a positive and a negative way because it was just like if my probably if my teachers had identified that I was a spark caster, I probably could have been better managed in the classroom Mhmm. And also better engaged.

Right? And my relationship with education probably would have been different. You know? And those two different stories that you told, I was just like, oh, was her name Gemma? Like, so so real. I think I still do both of those things as an adult, to be honest. How do you see what we've talked about thus far kind of really melding with what you're doing with Canvas across your institution? Right? Sort of, how are you sort of, like, I guess, bringing all of that together, even your little sort of types of students? How do you bring that all together and sort of what's the sentiment across the school? So there's a couple of areas. Some of them are really boring, and some of them are really exciting, but all of them help.

So, one of the key ones is accessing data. It's just amazing the amount of data that we're able to access on the web on the, on our platform. And it means that we can look at everything from things like, you know, badges where we've got badges for work and who's accessing what badges, and students can then also see that same work. But it also means that we're able to look at even things like page views and really get a feel for what what are we seeing in the classroom, what are we seeing on, Canvas, and what's really making a difference here? You know, like, where do we need to perhaps tighten things up, or what do we need to change, or what do we need to promote even more? So, that's our first one where we really see, just some fabulous data, that is boring, but, again, it gives that validation that, yeah, we're on the right track or, oh, we've just gotta change things a little bit. The other area, the whole platform's ability to share work and encourage discussion in multiple formats is absolutely brilliant because it means then the kids are able to, with those player types that we talked about, identify with their player types.

Oh, well, well, what are you doing? So there's not only the initial feedback of, this is the work that I'm doing. What do you think? There's also the ability for students to look at other people's work on top of it's no one format. So where we have had, let's say, creative activities that path finders found really are like, draw a particular model of something, where they really engage that they love being able to share it, but they also aren't necessarily restricted to pencil and paper. So it can be digital. It can be pencil and paper.

We had one student create the most incredible, model of Mars on a game design platform, but he was able to share that as well. So being able to put it all together all at the same time and generate these really fabulous discussions and encourage students to look at it. And some of the feedback that we got was, I love the fact that we can see other people's work because it helps us to understand if we're doing the right thing as well. So, that's just absolutely wonderful for Canvas. It does a really wonderful job there.

The incorporation of gamification elements such as badges, it does so easily. Now, admittedly, there's some external apps like Badgr to integrate into the system to do that, but it makes it incredibly easy to do. And, again, students get that really quick turnaround of feedback, and, we also get a really good, data set as to who is doing what activities. And then finally, just the overall creation of left lesson sequences that reduce friction and lead to better moments. I should say, when we talk about friction, when we use gamification, it's effectively to lessen the idea of students not doing what we want them to do.

If, we'll talk more about, like, where to go after this for people that are interested. But things like, a course called the, Maker Toolkit really goes into this idea of understanding, like, motivations and gamification elements to reduce friction in some areas to get students to do something or increase friction in some areas. And Cadence does a wonderful job at empowering teachers to put together lesson sequences and activities, that do both that all with the goal of making those moments, easier to come to. Yeah. I think, you know, when you talk about budgets and sort of, like, even the digital credentialing and those types of things, right, I can remember I had a discussion back in 2016, which is quite a long time ago when sort of this kind of, idea was first coming into education and we were all like, that's not gonna take off.

And now when you look at it, like, in the ability to be able to sort of even just build pathways. Right? So, you know, showing students as to if you do this, you also get this. So, you know, and how they all thread in and how you build that into Canvas to create that really engaging learning and then there's a reward at the end. Right? So who doesn't love receiving a reward? But then also how that flow happens to support the teachers as well. Right? Because we talk about administration burden and and really creating that sequence and supporting the teachers to build that and almost giving them a license to be a little bit innovative and creative as well.

You know, can you talk to me a little bit about the sentiment of Canvas throughout your teachers? Probably the most powerful thing, with using that, that innovation to bring others along in the journey is collaborating with other teachers. Yeah. There's nothing more powerful than finding, like minded individuals to share, both discoveries, ideas, successes, and failures. And, again, the Canvas platform does a wonderful job at enabling that for teachers. I was lucky enough the last three years, working as a grade five teacher to be part of, there were three other, grade five teachers, a learning support teacher, and then all our specialist teachers, and to be able to come together for every everyone to come together and, actually share, this is what we're doing and how do we plan this out, both in real time and then to look over it.

It's just really, really powerful, and so easy to actually be able to give feedback, suggestions, advice, and just see it grow over time. So without a doubt, that idea of, you know, innovation, bringing others along in the journey, collaboration that systems that allow for ease of collaboration, is probably the first and foremost thing. So and if you can't find that immediate collaboration, it's then finding sources of inspiration, to actually empower you to try, the innovation. I for myself, there's I've talked about three that have all been absolutely exceptional. And strangely enough, all of them have been innovators, but none of them have been educators as in school teachers, working in schools.

So, I talked about the hexad player framework by Andrzej Marczewski. That was just, and he wrote the book, Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play. That was just an excellent, book introduction into the player types. Mhmm. I talked about, the Maker Toolkit, by Massimo in, Geno, and he looked at gamification, and he's classified it into fifteen different groupings that you can use, your gamification, let's let's call them snippets or elements, and actually group them accordingly.

And then thinking back to how do those elements motivate people so you're matching the right motivation with the right gamification element to the right concept or skill that you're trying to teach. Yeah. And then, the last one, that really has helped me think about, gamification game based learning as innovation is Mark Brown who's on YouTube and runs game makers tool, toolkit. So and that program is all about how game designers create games and the crossover for how teachers create lessons because, obviously, the crossover is that idea of engagement and motivation. He does an absolutely brilliant job.

So using those specifically for gamification game based learning, combined with all of my pedagogical experience, has been the best way to actually really innovate, within the classroom. I really love the fact that you've sort of taken all of these things that aren't education based with your previous knowledge, applied them together, and your tag I I'm tagging that of, you know, innovation in the classroom and bringing others along on the journey. Right? Because it's that thing of, you know, you are not alone as a teacher. Sometimes I'm sure it can feel very lonely. And then how do you how do you drive those moments, and how are you doing that altogether? Right? And then if you've proven it over here, then surely that can at least be attempted and applied over here.

So that collaboration space, I think, is really, really important, particularly with technology. And the platform like Canvas, sort of, like, leveraging Canvas Commons and the discussion forums and giving teachers, like, a safe space to try things and how to easily share that content, It sounds like you guys have really nailed it, so I'm high fiving you. Because I think for me, something that I love about and the reason why I wanted to sort of do beyond the canvas is I'm hearing about all of these little snippets across so many different themes, and they're all just coming up organically around how our users are leveraging the platform to get the best out of it, but also to make it work for them and things that when it was probably first developed, we hadn't even thought about was a possibility. Right? And so I really wanted to spotlight what you were doing. And then I think gamification is certainly something that should not be sort of people should not be scared of it.

They should be looking to embrace it because we've seen how it can sort of be embedded in my child's life, and also their child's lives, and how you can actually take all the good that that has and apply it to education. So, Jai, thank you so much. This has been so amazing. I definitely wanna know more about those player types. I'm sure that there is gonna be a lot more people that pop up and wanna know more about that.

When you were talking about them as well, I was thinking, well, you know, you said that person is not just one and those different elements that feed into that. I was, yeah, aligning with some of those, not all of them. But, obviously, yes, hearing some of those, I was like, yeah. I think I'm a little bit of that. But I guess it sort of just leads back to how a teacher can best work with her students or their students to get the best out of them to help them reach their true potential.

Yeah. Absolutely. And that's yeah. Those moments come through not when we plan engagement activities that we know, yeah, exactly that we'll engage students. Mhmm.

And in engaging students, it's really about understanding, well, who are you and what are the things that you love doing and not making it about, it's stick and carrot. Look. Do this and we'll let you have fun, but rather, how do I make it that they're learning through the thing that they love doing? Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.

High five to you. I wish you were my teacher. Back in the olden days, I'm very old. So yeah. No.

We I was first there when we started to surf the w w w. Right? Like, that's how old I am. And it's certainly come a long way from then. Jai, I am now gonna ask you my hidden gems. So this is one of my favorite parts of the show.

Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Fantastic. Jai, what did you wanna be when you grew up? Wow. So, there was a couple of things that I had in mind, and they were all influenced by different things, which is quite hilarious.

So one of the things that I desperately wanted to be was I wanted to be, a vet. So and that was influenced by my father who had, an absolute love of nature and really encouraged me to observe and watch the natural world. But, unfortunately, I was dyslexic at the time, and that meant that things like physics and chemistry, which you needed as prerequisites, were just not a go. So, I also, really loved art, and I actually started my teaching career as an art teacher. So I really loved getting messy, especially involved with things like ceramics.

Mhmm. And then I went through another stage after, and this is dating me, watching the movie Backdraft about firefighters, and I desperately wanted to be a firefighter. So Nice. There are all very different elements into to what made you up. And so how did you then take all of those things and now end up where you are? Right? Because I obviously, the creativity flare comes through.

You couldn't hide that one. We could see that one a mile away. How did you end up here? Oh, man. It's really the the full so I'll try and give you the condensed version. Yeah.

As I said, very much an undiagnosed dyslexic as a child. Yeah. And this was before dyslexia was a thing. So, my mom knew something was up, and she put me through all sorts of testing because just learning wasn't happening. And I still remember one of the tests that came back said, oh, Jai's got a comprehension level two years above where he currently is, but his writing ability is two years behind.

So there was this four year gap, and it just crushed me. Yeah. So that academic side of things, I just was not good at, because it required before the w w w, everything to be written down, and I just could not do that. So after I graduated, the two areas that I was quite strong in were biology, mainly because of the practicals and visual arts. So, I studied visual arts part time and then full time for five years, but I also did a lot of, youth work, especially with churches at the time.

So once I've, completed my advanced diploma in arts, I then thought, maybe I'll go somewhere and do some community service work. I got offered a position with a church in South Australia. I went down there and I started also working after school care because I still love just engaging with young people and I remember my girlfriend at the time, said. What what are you doing with all of this? You know? After school care work and I was explaining that I love it. It's really great.

I enjoy it so much and at this stage I'd started studying school counselling because I thought I'm not good enough to be a teacher, but maybe I could do school counselling. And she looked at me and said, why aren't you studying teaching? I said, you know, my spelling's terrible. It makes and it's still to that this day, it makes me very nervous when I've got to write things down. I misspellings terrible. I couldn't, you know, possibly stand in front of a group of kids and write things on a board, and she just rolled her eyes and looked at me and said, Jai, how hard is it to spell cat or dog? So and I'm oh, maybe.

And from that point there, I then the within two weeks, I switched my course from, school counselling to education, and I graduated within three and a half years. So, that was that progression, and that's led into a whole lot of things to the point now where I'm a lead teacher for, Alba International School. That story makes my heart so happy. Thank you. I'm so glad that we sort of drilled down into that a little bit more.

I'm so thankful to your girlfriend for, you know, pulling you out on that, and high five. I'm so glad that you're a teacher. My next question is, if you had one superpower, what would it be? Oh, man. I thought about this a lot. And I have got this terrible habit of rumination.

We talked about different sides to the same coin, like, and when I'm ruminating really well, I love thinking about how I could do this and I could do that and plan and all of those ideas branch out like a network of roots from a tree. But the flip side is when you get stuck on something negative, oh, man. Do you I and I really have a terrible habit of ruminating. So I've had a superpower to be the rumination man, just taking my headspace out and inserting it into someone that who look not even someone, something that looks happy. So whether it's a bird sitting on a wire, we can swap places for a while, and I'd be happy to do that for anyone that had the same problem.

Just that instant swap with someone else or something else just to really get that calm space and then okay. Yeah. I think I'm ready to go back now. No. Rumination, man.

I love it. I think there's a tag tagline there. But also, I think that that there is power in both of those things as well. Right? Because you recognize it. So you kind of have that power.

So good on you. You're already there. You're like a you they walk among us. And lastly, what is your favourite thing or what do you love most about Canvas? Well, I'm gonna put it down to two things because one is for me and one is for the students. And I've talked about both of those things.

So the thing that I love about Canvas is just the amount of data that you can pull up and really drill down to it's one thing's when students say something, it's another thing where you can really see it in numbers and you can see those trends. So I really do love that because it's a real, for me, sense of validation. Like a good example is I had, one student who on average was going through about, two hundred page views per week, and I know that that can be on off on off, but we're getting about that for all of our coursework. And then when we really started ramping up gamification, she exploded into over a thousand page views per week while we were doing it. So to be able to see that and see where she was looking and what she was doing and the task that she was completing really gave us just fabulous, not only information validation for what we were doing, and we knew that we were making a difference for her.

So the other thing that I love is the structure for students to share their work and ideas and comment meaningfully on it as well. Like, again, that's just something that the kids have really grown to love and I really value because they really see it as a source of pride, to not only get their work up, but then to look at other people and go, how are they doing it? And, and then commenting, I love what you did. So we'll often set up, you know, once you put up your work, go and find two other people's pieces of work that you really like like or see something in it that you think is really interesting and comment on that. So it's ability to create that classroom, community, culture where we can really bring students up. I really do value that as well.

It sounds so supportive. Like, you know, where you're saying go and find two other students who you really appreciate their work. It just makes, like yeah. Just as a as an empath and a lover of encouraging and uplifting people, it sounds like you're really building that sense throughout your school. So thank you so much, Jai.

This has been so informative, and I know that my brain is popping going, oh, what can we do? And I think that there is gonna be a lot of people who are wanting more information. So you're on our Canvas community. And Yeah. I'm yes. And we are gonna we are gonna flag you and talk about that.

You can find me. I am GemsK12hype girl. So, again, I'm thinking off the back of this. People are gonna have a lot of questions, and so we'll absolutely find out those three people that you have called out and those resources. But thank you so much, Jai.

You are amazing, and thank you for all that you do and for innovating. Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it, and I'm only too happy to reach out to anyone who's got questions in this regard. High five. Thank you. Thank you so much.