121: Harmonizing Education: Aaron King's Symphony of Transformation from Rapper to Ed Tech Maestro

Holly Owens (00:02):

Hello everyone, and welcome to another fabulous episode of Edup Ed Tech. My name is Holly Owens and my name is Nadia Johnson. And we're your hosts, and I'm super excited about this episode. Today we have my friend or our friend. Now we have Aaron King here who is a solutions engineer, a Blackboard anthology, all the fancy things, and also the owner and chief learning engineer at Snack Size Learning on the show. Aaron,

Aaron King (00:34):

On. Hey, what's up? What's up ladies? I am super excited to be here. Happy New Year. And if I'm not mistaken, I am the first guest of 2024.

Holly Owens (00:45):

You are the third guest actually.

Aaron King (00:46):

Okay, third guest. Okay. I can work with third guests. I'm not fully offended, but yes, I thought I was number one. My mom said I was number one and I believe that. Yeah, but I think it's due.

Holly Owens (00:59):

It's schedules the

Aaron King (01:00):

First kid,

Holly Owens (01:01):

But you're definitely in the top five. You're going in the first round. You're not going

Aaron King (01:04):

To be waiting for next day. Okay. I'm in the next first. I'm still winning. I'm still winning.

Holly Owens (01:08):

Yeah. Well, we're excited to hear your story and I'm so glad that we met at a TD our last year, now South Carolina, so we're all South Carolinians, which is amazing. But tell us a little bit, Aaron, tell us about your story. How'd you get here? Snack size, learning, blackboard, anthology, all the things. Tell us a lowdown. Well,

Aaron King (01:28):

It all started off on a small farm in Amityville, New York in 1970. Oh,

Holly Owens (01:34):

The scary movie.

Aaron King (01:35):

I know, right? So

Holly Owens (01:37):

That's Long Island.

Aaron King (01:38):

Yeah, I'm from Long Island. I'm from Long Island originally, but interestingly enough, I have gotten into the space, well, I think everybody did by accident, right? I don't remember raising my hand in school. And they said, what do you want to be? I was like, instructional designer, learning developer. Yay. I don't think anybody knew what that even was back then. I think when I was in school, you asked me what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a rapper, and I was already into music and DJing and stuff, and I was like, yeah, I want to be a rapper and that's what I want to do. I played sports in college, got kicked out of a bunch of schools, made a rap record when I was in high school, and then I got a major record deal in about 1992 and quit college. I'm like, well, I wasn't doing well anyway.

(02:29):

I was on college number 11 and I'm just like, oh hell no. This is not this education learning thing, not really working out for me. So get a major record deal, move to New York, start producing records, writing records rapping, earn a triple platinum album first time out, and it kind of launched this career as a music producer. The problem was is that I didn't know what a music producer was. I stole people's and sampled it and made new stuff out of it. I don't know. There's an art and science to that, but I was unaware of how that process works or the business aspects of it. One thing that I knew is that I knew how to talk well, and I was very inquisitive. I'm not afraid of failure. Failure is like that's a four letter word for me. I even know it's not a four letter word, but well fail is, but the point is, I'm not afraid to get punched in the face. You cannot learn how to box without getting punched in the face. You can read all the books in the world, but when you get in the ring, as soon as you get hit, all your books fall out your head. So my thing was, let me ask anybody and everybody until the point of annoyance about the music industry, and as I did that, the first thing was someone handed me a book called Everything You Should Know about the Music Industry. It was about the size of the Bible. It

Holly Owens (03:54):

Was about, was it like a book for dummies when people try to learn Microsoft Word? Is it like

Aaron King (03:59):

That? I wish it was. I wish it was bigger. It had a lot of jargon from attorneys and all of these people, and I'm just like, who is supposed to understand this? This is not for me. So cut to the chase. Years later, I was on deployment as a combat medic during the Iraqi Enduring Freedom, and I started thinking about the whole time I spent in the music industry. All the years I spent up until the two thousands and the music industry, and I kind of was angry, but I was kind of like, well, I really wish if I can go back and do it again. Someone left a set of instructions, someone clarified and simplified. And it was funny that I had been in the music industry for so long that when you looked at the books that were out then they were still one using that book right?

(04:55):

Now, keep in mind, this is a good 15 years later, that book is still popular. No one still understands it. And what about the guys like me that are college dropouts, more smart ass than smart and really want to just know how to not get taken advantage of? So I sit down, I start penning this book. Now, keep in mind the year before, it was the first time I ever read a book from cover to cover because what I didn't know about myself was I had a DD and it was diagnosed when I was in the military. I kind of got away through school because I could memorize things from being a rapper. I can memorize anything, and I scored really high in aptitude. But that output though, those grades, I did barely enough to get a scholarship to play sports. And I wasn't interested in any of it because I struggled so much. So I decided to write this book called Got to Get Signed, how to Become a Hip Hop Producer, and it was everything I learned in the music industry simplified to a target audience of people who made beats and wanted to make records and make hip

Holly Owens (06:05):

Records don't be like they wanted to be like you when they

Aaron King (06:07):

Grow off. Exactly. And the book, I get this major publishing deal, buck takes off like wildfire. I'm in everything. I'm on everything now. I'm in conferences and I'm not afraid to speak in front of anybody. I mean, I'll talk to, I mean, alien comes down, we're having a conversation, right? Challenge is that I don't know anything about learning and development at this point. And people are going, do you have a seminar? Do you have a course?

Holly Owens (06:36):

You have an online course, do you

Aaron King (06:37):

Have? And I'm like, resources,

Holly Owens (06:39):

Tell us all the things,

Aaron King (06:40):

The other stuff. There was barely an online then though, right? So there was online, but there was no online learning. And I'm just like, well, what do I do? So I called the aunt who was a professor at FIT, the Fashion Institute. She's like, Hey, I know you're really good at graphic design, web design and stuff. You taught yourself well if you do these things, you can formulate a course. She gives me a copy of LEC Torah and she says, start taking your book and the ideas and the things that are in that book and turning them into little segments of learning. And I'm like, I think I can handle that. So I start putting it together. I start building out this course format, and now when I'm going to book to do a speaking engagement in a music conference, I'm getting a room on the side and I'm filling the room.

(07:29):

I'm selling at least a hundred books and I have at least a hundred students who want to learn because in my book, I talked about the contracts, I talked about the things to look for in a contract. Even if you don't know what you're reading, look for these things. This is the do not get screwed over by the record business bullet points, things to look at, how to approach different people and talk to them when you're trying to sell yourself as an artist trying to get a deal. So I started breaking those down and this was kind of like microlearning before it was microlearning. And my aunt's like, you know what, you idiot. I'm like, what? She goes, this is called instructional design. I'm like, what is this witchcraft?

(08:14):

And she goes, did you really make videos to go with it too? I was like, yeah. She's like, well, why? I said, because I'm ambitiously lazy. I don't want to keep talking. I'm going to put a video. She goes, well, what are you doing with this? And I started figuring out how to make this happen online. And that's how I got into the space as an instructional designer and an e-learning developer. And I got really good at developing animations because these were things I was pursuing on the side. Anyway, filmmaking, I was already working in radio, TV and film. So I just applied those skills and then when I realized you can get degrees in them, I was like mind blown. I go back to school. By the time I graduated the first time I had been to 13 colleges, then I graduated 16. I mean, I went to school for 16 years, straight earned. If it's there, I've earned it. Probably got more than one of 'em and learned a whole bunch of stuff. But what I really learned is that I'm not dumb. I was being taught in a way that didn't make sense to how my brain functions, and there's a whole lot more of me than you would think. So that's my introduction to this industry. I know that sounds crazy.

Holly Owens (09:41):

Go Nadia. I know you have some. I want to hear what you have to say.

Nadia Johnson (09:46):

Well, I do want to know the question that we do have. I want to know along this journey. I mean this is an incredible long, crazy all over the place journey, which mine is as well. Like you said, we all kind of move into this space, not really knowing what instructional design is. Who inspired you along this journey?

Aaron King (10:08):

No one myself.

Holly Owens (10:11):

Okay. Well it sounds like your aunt helped a little bit.

Aaron King (10:15):

Well, my aunt helped, but that's all she knew. She didn't know anything about it. She just knew that at the time, she's a professor face-to-face, 30 something years, 20 at that point, right? She's getting ready to retire, but she's like, they're forcing us to go online. I don't understand it. You probably could figure this out. What is it? And that was it. If I had to give props to people, I would give props to my boy. Well, Nelson Santiago. So when I came into a TD as a facilitator, him and I became besties. I would give props to Alexander Als, who was my partner at one point when I first kind of realized that I was going to move in this space full-time because I also was in real estate investment. I owned the real estate investment firm and I did very well and I was kind of, what

Holly Owens (11:08):

Haven't you done?

Aaron King (11:11):

I've kind of done a lot of stuff. Either people, they go, oh, you couldn't possibly have done that. And I'm like, yo, check Google. I'm not lying. I wish my brain worked in a different way. But I get up every day at 3:00 AM even on the weekends, that's when my brain turns on. I wake up, I am on fire from the moment till I go to bed. And the way it works is if I don't do something with that energy, it's going to get the best of me. And I've been in places and spaces that I'm not going to speak about that weren't always so great for me. That could have went and led me down a lot of different paths. But I looked at it as this is a superpower. It is a gift. I need to do it. And it's actually the amalgamation of what my book that's coming out this year is about is called No One Starts At Zero, how to Use Your Life Experiences to Level Up.

(12:07):

All I've done is connect the dots from the things that I did that didn't seem to make any sense at the time to other things. There are so many parallels in this bag of experiences that we carry on our backs and go, okay, here's all the things that I did. But when you start connecting and making sense of them, now you can hop to the next thing and you may not ever have started in the beginning, you went right to the top. That's how I did it with learning and development. And I want to say Alex Alexander SLAs was important in that because I went to an A TD conference and I didn't see anybody that looked like me. There had to be, and I mean I'm multiracial, but I identify. I'm a black man. So even though I'm multiracial, I'm still black wherever I go.

(12:59):

And the point is, I went to the A TD conference for the first time I went, I didn't see, but maybe seven black guys and four of them worked at the venue. And then to see Alex, who was a Latin man, a Latino, and kind of grew up from Miami, I'm from New York and from Florida and being him connected, and I'm like, wow, he's being himself, he's showing up, being him unapologetic. He's joking, he's making things that are off color and his guy's got the biggest heart in the world. I love him to death. And he showed me that I can be in this space and I don't have to change who I am. And that him and meeting Nelson, I mean there's quite a few people, Amira Roan, Dr. Carl Copp. There's been several people that I've connected with, my boy, Kevin Yates. But I think these are all, in my opinion, my peers and they're also superheroes. Holly, you're a superhero. I met you. I'm like, okay, we connect. Power's activated and now Nadia. So I think it's the vibration energy and frequency in which you put out into the world, you kind of get back. So everybody's, you are your own mentor or your own driving force, but then so is everybody else if you're open to that. I get that. I hope that makes

Holly Owens (14:31):

Sense. Your whole experience. Well, let's say it's getting instructional. I don't like using traditional non-traditional. It just wasn't linear. Nobody's journey is linear. It still isn't. Yeah, I don't understand that perspective, but just the way you got into this, it just piqued my interest when I was listening to you talk at a TD and I was like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. You've been to the top of the top. You have your record, you have books, you've been around the world, you traveled, you speak everywhere. But it all led you to l and d instructional design. And I just love that because I think this is one amongst teachers and healthcare professionals. This is one of the areas that is undervalued in our world, is instructional designers and instructional technologists is people that are playing that supporting role in different situations. So I just love your story and it resonated so much with me when you were talking and what you're saying now.

Aaron King (15:35):

Well, I appreciate that. And I kind of feel like, and this is why I'm not big on, we're not our title, we're not our job, we're not our salary, we're not any of those things. You've never been to a funeral and saw a armored car full of money poured into the casket. You've never seen anybody put their degrees, their trophies, what you see if you're in the casket looking out and not to sound mac cob. But what you see is your life's experiences and the people you've touched and influenced and how it's not what you did so much as how you made them feel about what they could do, the art of possible. And I kind of feel like we are here to find our purpose, use that purpose to serve as many as we can. And in that we kind of resolve and kind of go up this spiral staircase of understanding what this was all for because it's all peaks and valleys when you get up at the peak. The challenge is when you get to the top of the peak, don't lose perspective of the valley going back down to the valley. But see maybe when you were going up the peak who you helped pull up, that might be right behind you might be the person that's helping you get through the valley on the next door that

Holly Owens (16:54):

You're about to go into.

Aaron King (16:55):

And you definitely go into another valley. So I kind of look at is I'm grateful for and appreciative of all the people who have been a part of my circle because all circles overlapping. And where we find that positive energy is in that Venn diagram, in the vesica pisses where they overlap. And I say that to say, my son Aaron is an instructional designer and he's way better as an e-learning developer. And now keep in mind I got chops, but my son is way better than I am. He's from a different generation. His brain fires differently. And I have to say I learned from him even though I was his catalyst to getting in the industry. And the way I look at it is we all are bringing something super dope to this industry, and as long as we keep building each other up and not tearing each other down, then that energy's going to circle back around and you're like, you know what? That person that I really didn't know where they were at a year ago is now this rockstar. And they just show me these three things that I had no idea existed.

Holly Owens (18:07):

Oh my gosh, this could be an hour podcast. Really could. I'm loving this so much. I love talking to Erin. And so I don't want to get too much into it, but I really do want you to talk about snack size learning, and I want you to talk about what you do at Blackboard because I want our audience to know more about what you're doing, what you're putting already know just from hearing this conversation so far. They already know you're giving back. They already know what you can do. But tell us a little bit about snack size learning, what that entails, and then tell us about your role at Blackboard. So is it Blackboard or is it anthology? I don't. Maybe you can give us the insights here since you're an insider.

Aaron King (18:48):

So I'll ask you this. We got two questions here. Which one would you like me to unpack first, snack size learning or as a solutions engineer?

Holly Owens (18:58):

Let's leave them with the Blackboard thing. Let's keep 'em listening. Let's go to snacks. Size learning first and then we'll go to Blackboard. Yeah, I'm

Aaron King (19:05):

Interested in

Holly Owens (19:06):

Snack

Aaron King (19:07):

Size learning. So snack size learning was, it started off in, I want to say 2011, I was a vice president in the OPM space. I made senior vice president was managing 26 black colleges and universities under a gentleman by the name of Dr. Benjamin Chavis. Well-known in the civil rights space. Well-known in the HBCU space. And we were working in the OPMs where we were helping black colleges, historical black colleges and universities get online for the first time in terms of their offering in the space of competing against the and Capellas of the world, which was really cool. And so I come up with this idea of, and what I saw when I got in that space, because again, here's a guy who, how I know Dr. Ben wasn't from education. I knew him from being on a book tour for what Russell Simmons was doing with the hip hop Summon Action Network and Susie Orman and a bunch of other folks, that's how I met him and knew him.

(20:19):

So this is just me in this other space, three P suit with a bow tie, and I'm this other guy in a space where, how the hell did I become a VP in this space? And I realized that at the time there was a lot of pushback from faculty, a lot of pushback from some of the stakeholders in the sense of we've never been in this online space. It's scary, but we know that we're missing our opportunity to compete. Especially when at the time the data showed that the majority of students that were going to the Phoenixes, the Kaplans, et cetera of the world were African-American students who were older working adults who had some college and they primarily have started their college career at an HBCU self included. So now if we offered them this product and an opportunity to go back to a school where they started and they have a history at where they know they're going to get the same kind of treatment in terms of not equality, but in terms of what they're familiar with, and at half the price we have something amazing.

(21:38):

So I noticed that in between the faculty and the stakeholders, that there was this divide, this digital divide where people were very apprehensive to move into the digital space because they didn't understand it. So as a digital thinker, my understanding was like, well, okay, well if I speak about it and I talk about tradition on this side and the opportunity to be digital natives and the people that we're addressing weren't necessarily digital natives, they were kind of converts like myself. But the people coming after the millennials were all digital natives. That's what they know. So in that regard, it was an opportunity to start thinking different. So I came up with this company called EDU Think Box, and I started building little things, little commercials, animations, things to kind of introduce folks to digital teaching and learning from that. Once I got moved out of that space and I decided I wanted to be an individual contributor, I started thinking of, well, microlearning is the best way that I learned. You were

Holly Owens (22:46):

Doing microlearning before was microlearning. Yes. Like

Aaron King (22:48):

You said, yes. So I said, well, learning to me, it's like a snack, right? This little piece of thing, it's like a charcuterie board. I can grab this, grab that by the time I'm done, I have a full meal and if I have a full meal of my choosing, I'm likely to remember that meal way more than I was. That's something I was forced fed. So I said, well, you know what, I'm going to change my company to snack size learning. I started offering e-learning services. I started with one client and now I've worked with clients like fema, the Army. I mean, I have a laundry list of people in that space. And what's also awesome is that I'm a service connected disabled veteran. So now I'm getting the certifications and my business is legit and I'm making money hiring people, working with other people who are independents like myself, saying, Hey, I have this company, I have the deal.

(23:49):

Let me farm you some work. I can't eat all of this, so let me share the love. I would rather make 30% of something than a hundred percent of nothing. And that's kind of how snack size learning started. And I love it. We offer a full suite of digital services design strategy. We do animation, vr, ar, you name it, cool. If people want to pay for it, we can create it. And I have about six people that work with me on a regular basis, but then I have an army in a secret group on LinkedIn that I have that's about a thousand people. So I can always go and say, Hey, who's looking for something? I also feel like it's an opportunity to share. You may be working at your full-time gig, but we live in the side gig economy. Every milk is going up, gas is going up, your mortgage is going up, the rates have gone up, everything but pay. So if I could share the love and say, Hey, you know what, you got 20 hours on the side to do this project with me, boom. That's it. And that's kind of what I've been doing since 2017.

Holly Owens (25:00):

I love that. That's great. And they're so supportive of the people that need it. Yeah, it's really

Aaron King (25:06):

Awesome as say, get the bag right. I'm trying to get the bag and I'm trying to give everybody else their bag too because not you can't

Holly Owens (25:13):

Do it alone. You really can't. These projects are huge and we know both NAIA and I know that for sure, being in

Aaron King (25:20):

A, and we're not each other's competition either. There's so much work out here. It is unfathomable, but everybody's like, this is the precious, this is my piece. I'm going to hold onto it till I smother it and then it's nothing.

Holly Owens (25:34):

Well, tell us a little bit about your role at Blackboard and then we want to kind of end the episode because we're going to have you back. We're definitely going to do a live's and we're going to do it for an hour. So we want to hear a little bit about Blackboard and what you do there, but then we also want to know your perspective on what the future is, what's going to be happening in ed tech, what people should look out for. So tell us a little bit about Blackboard and then tell us about the future so that we can definitely entice people to, they're going to want to come back and hear you talking. I want to keep talking, but life meetings, things, right?

Aaron King (26:10):

We're all in a relationship with a man and his name is Bill Light, bill, the Rat race,

Holly Owens (26:15):

Gas

Aaron King (26:15):

Bill, phone bill, tuition bill. So we all have to work to pay bill because Bill may even call your house sometime. It's like, Hey, is Aaron, this is William. I'm like, oh no, it's Bill. I'm sending the money right now. So I get it. So what I do at Blackboard and it's anthology and what really the story behind that is. Okay,

Holly Owens (26:37):

So we establish it's anthology now. Yeah,

Aaron King (26:41):

Anthology is the company. Blackboard Learn is the product. Got it. So Blackboard Learn is at LMS, but the reason anthology is a combination of a bunch of companies that were put together for the purpose of using different products and services to be the biggest ed tech platform in that space for education. So offering a myriad of different services, different products, and fine tuning it so that it enhances the learner experience. It's all about making the learning experience and the learning landscape easy to navigate, more intuitive, more comprehensive measuring competencies, doing what we aim to do as instructional designers is teach people things and they can earn degrees, they can earn certificates at work, they can move forward in the military. So we work in the government corporate space, higher education space, military space, serving through our EdTech platform right now, Blackboard Learn is still the product, it's the learning management system.

(27:49):

All these other things are kind of the ancillary products that build on them, like SIS, accessibility tools, tracking CRMs and all of that kind of thing, if that makes sense. I kind of fell into that space. Weirdly, everything else met someone at a conference who heard me speak him, and I realized that we only two guys that look like each other, we're talking about everything that has to do with learning and development that doesn't have to do with learning and development. He's had a kid in the music industry, my kid was in the music industry. We start realizing we know the same people. He goes, Hey, have you ever decided you ever thought about being a solutions engineer? I'm like, say what now? What is this? I had never heard of. It don't have to be coding or programming. That's what I'm, I'm engineering. That's exactly what I think of when I hear engineering.

(28:38):

I'm engineering. So what I do is it's kind of pre-sales demonstration of the product. So I'm a product expert in the sense that I know all the features and functionalities of what we sell, but beyond that, it's also to be able to discover, and this would be the analyze in the ADDIE model because, and throw a little Addie at y'all. We fail at analyzation, we fail always in analyzation. We go right to design and develop. I can't solve your problem with tech if I don't know the problem or you don't really know the problem. So part of that is teasing out what the challenge is and then providing the right technological solution to solve your challenge today. But then what do you need to build capacity moving forward, right? Current state, future state. The other aspect of that is the implementation. What are the services?

(29:38):

What are the ancillary pieces to the puzzle that you need to build out your full ecosystem to serve your illicit purpose? Not what I'm trying to sell you, but what you're trying to do. Can I prove what I said that we could do? And then from there it becomes a matter of the consultant on the backend, what are best practices? So it's more than just engineering a solution. It's from beginning to end, how we can make you better at what you're doing and helping not only your instructors, but your administrators, your faculty students, and what is that learning experience about?

Nadia Johnson (30:21):

Right? Got it. And solutions. That's kind of what it brings to the table is solving problems.

Aaron King (30:30):

I am a problem solver, six sigma, lean, all of that good stuff. And if there's a problem, I'm going to find out what that problem is. And I always believe in, that's my natural curiosity. I ask five why's for everything, even if I think I know it, I got five. How come? Why sound like a little kid?

Nadia Johnson (30:57):

Well, to kind of wrap up this episode, this was an awesome episode and we can't wait to have you back, especially live. What do you think the future of education looks like? Future of ed tech, future of education, what is it looking like to you?

Aaron King (31:13):

I think we're still singing the same song in terms of personalization and competencies, measuring competencies and experiential learning. I think that's important because I do see that being a father of five and a grandfather, I have children in that are millennial children that are Z and a grand baby. That's whatever that generation is. All of these folks function think differently and they see different value in education formally and informally. I think the world has realized that you don't need a degree to level up. I mean, I'm a prime example. I've never made less than a hundred KA year in my life and I didn't get a degree until I was 37 and I'm 54. So at the same time, and I'm not saying that as a humble brag, I'm saying that to say is there's value in what you bring to the table. There's value in experiences, there's value in the proficiency and competency of a person as opposed to I have a degree on the wall and it says I can do X.

(32:19):

Both have their place. But I think where education is moving in terms of just thought leadership is bringing the value back to meeting learners where they're at and help giving them the tools and technology where applicable to achieve the goal that they're trying to reach. Not a goal that we decide, but the goal that they want to reach. Because I could tell you when I talk to my kids, they want it the way they want it, not the way, because they already seen the way that it's been forced on them and it doesn't work. I could tell you how many people I know. I spent a ton of money on college. I didn't go anywhere. I went to the military. I got this training, I'm working. I don't owe nobody money. So in terms of thought leadership, I think education is going to find its way. And I want to say in a lot of ways there's roots there because back in the day, there was apprenticeship, there was, you worked as a print. So I think we're going there. But it terms of technology, I think it's talking about ai. Everybody's afraid of ai.

(33:27):

I think it's a double-edged sword with AI because it being that it's works the way it works, there's a lot of automaticity there. You set it, it goes, it does this thing. Someone has got to watch the robots. That's us instructional designers and learning developers. You will not be without a job if you know what you're doing because someone has to manage the chaos in the way of, okay, is it doing what I needed to do? Is it overshooting the target? Is it undershooting the target? And then how are we using it in a way that allows for expression? I'm a big fan of UDL, universal Design for Learning. I think those principles are coming back full fledge accessibility. Like one of my favorite tools at Blackboard is the ally tool. And I'm going to tell you the things that you can do from changing languages to playing it, reading it, changing it from one line to read it, and then highlighting verbs, adjectives changing it to your native language, showing pictures.

(34:32):

It is communicating, learning in a way that's digestible for everybody, right? Electronic braille, audios, kids say, podcasts are my jam. Turn the content into the podcast. Use the technology to meet learners and encouragement and uplifting upliftment, right? I mean, the experience that I had, and one of the, if I had to give props to anybody that made me make this decision to go into this full scale is I have a son, I'm not going to put his name out there, but he's a college student and he's doing well, but he had all of the same challenges that I had, and I noticed that in him, I saw the damage that was done by school based off of how they told him what he was capable of and what he could achieve to share with you. My son dropped out of high school. He was just emotionally, he takes a test in Florida to see if he's college ready.

(35:38):

He knocks it out, the park gets a general degree, goes right into college. Skips the last two years of high school and Excels now going into his third year of college. And this is a kid that was left back twice. And they told him that he wasn't capable of doing any of these things and it wasn't a matter of what he could absorb. It was how he was able to articulate himself. And that's where the UDL came in. So I'm always going to be an advocate of UDL. I'm always going to be an advocate of micro-learning, always be an advocate of accessibility. I think those are the things that are driving where we're going. The AI is kind of, yeah, that's great and it's going to run a lot of things, but we need to stop looking at the shiny new thing and focus on the whole point of, yes, this is why we do what we do. If people don't learn, it doesn't matter how sparkly and magical the PowerPoint presentation was or how cool I sounded. No one caress about that. Did I learn what I need to learn and can I apply it in a real world setting? I do

Nadia Johnson (36:48):

What I need to do. Exactly. From the

Aaron King (36:50):

Learning. Exactly. Exactly. So I know that sounds lofty and humble. No,

Nadia Johnson (36:57):

That was great.

Aaron King (36:58):

Yeah, I'm going to get off my soapbox right now. But yeah, that's kind of, I know because I've lived, I've walked the walk from both sides of it, the struggle, the perseverance, the persistence, and then the reward. And now I'm at a point in life where I want to share with people, and I'm not everybody's brand of Kool-Aid. You might not like my flavor, but I know that somebody does and somebody's listening. And if I can help them and motivate and inspire them, I'm good. I can go and be like, let me transcend to the next place.

Nadia Johnson (37:32):

You've met your goal. You've done what you've set out to do. Well, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Erin, for joining us. We really enjoyed chatting with you. We'll definitely add everything about snack size learning and all of the things that you shared in the show notes for the audience. And we would love to have you back, hopefully to do that live one hour long conversation because I know there's so much still left to unpack. But thanks so much for joining us.

Aaron King (38:03):

Alright. Really appreciate it. And just so that everybody knows, let me do my little shout out. The name of my book is No One Starts At Zero using Life's Experiences to Level Up, and that will probably be out sometime in the spring.

Nadia Johnson (38:17):

Perfect. We'll have you a, where are they now? Episode, to share more about that.

Aaron King (38:22):

I'm going to be right here in the same office doing what I'm doing.

Nadia Johnson (38:27):

Well, thanks so much.

Aaron King (38:28):

Fantastic.