Episode 4: The Digging in Series - Beyond the Lecture: Building Community & Empathy in Learning with Bob Ertischek

Holly Owens (00:00.306)
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Ed Up L &D. My name is Holly Owens and I'm your host and we are going into round four of the digging in series and we partnered with Yellow Yellowdig where I work and I have my wonderful colleague Bob here who I'm going to let introduce himself in a few moments but I just wanted to say hi thank you for being here I hope your holidays went well.

Bob and I are probably going to talk about this. got snow in the southeast. So, Bob, welcome to the show.

Bob Ertischek (00:36.64)
Why thank you, Holly. It is a pleasure to be here.

Holly Owens (00:41.122)
Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do at Yellowdig, maybe some of your background and experience, and then we're just going to jump into it.

Bob Ertischek (00:49.216)
You got it. So again, I'm Bob Erdischek. I'm Yellowdig's Senior Director of Client Success. I've been here almost five years. It has been my favorite job in my life, except for maybe when I was a summer camp waterfront staff member when I got to water ski a lot and stuff like that. But anyway, so I think it's worth noting prior to coming to Yellowdig, I have spent a lot of time in higher education. I used to be a lawyer.

Holly Owens (01:08.409)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (01:18.19)
but I didn't like that and before the... Yeah, well, you tried being a lawyer for a little bit, Holly, and then come back to me. Yeah, okay. So, before the turn of the century, which I think is fun to say, and I'm talking about 1900s to 2000, 1990 to 2000, not 1890 to 1900, before the turn of the century,

Holly Owens (01:20.038)
I still find that crazy when you say that. I know that, but I still find that crazy.

Holly Owens (01:27.172)
No thank you. No thanks, Bob. Pass.

Bob Ertischek (01:46.158)
I got the opportunity to do a little teaching in higher education. I really enjoyed that a lot. So I transitioned into doing instruction for a long time. And right after the turn of the century in 2001, I had a role as an instructional technologist, faculty developer, where I was helping people put their courses online back then. And I think we'll talk a little bit more about that.

But I left that position and went back to teaching for over a decade before coming to Yellow Pig. And that has certainly informed a lot of my thoughts on higher education and has really allowed me having this background to work with our clients in a way that I feel like I can sort of speak their language. And I think they think that too. And we get stuff done and create great learning communities.

Holly Owens (02:35.11)
Yeah, I definitely think that it's important that, you know, lot of people in our team do have a background in education and or have some teaching experience. But I think that's one of the things that really with an ed working for an ed tech company that really sets us apart from some of the other people is really understanding pedagogy and andriagagi and how things work in the classroom in higher education. And I, like you, have that background in higher education as well, not just teaching and instructional design. I've been an instructional technologist too.

Um, so I'm really looking forward to this conversation today with you and us sharing our experiences with the audience. And just so everyone knows, Bob's got a little bit of a smoke alarm issue. So if you hear beeping in the background, that's it. But when we release the episode, I'll remove the background noise. So don't be alarmed by the... Yeah, keep them engaged in the conversation. So...

Bob Ertischek (03:25.102)
Maybe it'll help keep people awake if they hear that.

Holly Owens (03:32.463)
One of the first questions I want to ask to you is like, can you share your thoughts just based off of your experience in teaching in higher ed and why traditional methods like lecturing and things like that need to evolve in today's landscape?

Bob Ertischek (03:46.04)
You know, for me, I guess I've always sort of tried to put myself in the position of a student and an instructor at the same time to some degree, right? And, you know, I think people, well, there's a couple things. First of all, I just want to start by saying, I think there's a huge emphasis in higher education on the credential rather than the learning. And I think that's a huge problem, to be honest. I mean, I know people need the credential. I know they're going to school because they want a career and all that kind of stuff.

but I feel like there's actually a little bit less interest in learning and more interest in the credential. And that's something that is a problem. And I think that stems from sort of how the need for education is communicated and all that kind of thing. But beyond that, I think there's a few issues with teaching in general.

You know, we're all used to first of all, Holly, you know this. How what percentage of people in higher education are trained as teachers? You know, in high school K through 12 everybody they're trained as teachers. What about in higher Ed?

Holly Owens (04:54.866)
Yeah, I feel like higher rate is much lower. I read that book, Missing Course, that was based off of, we can talk about that, but yeah, it's gotta be lower, maybe 1%. I don't know.

Bob Ertischek (04:59.086)
It's.

Bob Ertischek (05:08.416)
Yeah, I mean, it's very low. most of the people who are in front of classrooms, and they're great subject matter experts. They know what they're doing. They know what they're talking about. But they're not trained as teachers. And that's not their fault. I think it's more of the fault of the system and how the institution works and favoring research over teaching and things like that. And of course, at different schools, it's different. The culture is different related to that.

But I think that's a huge difference. So instructors are put into these situations and maybe they don't really even know how to teach. Like I had some training in androgyny and pedagogy before I got in the classroom and I found that was really helpful for my stuff. Plus I really enjoyed being in the classroom and it's not a universal sentiment. I think that's, do you know teachers who, instructors, professors who don't like being in the classroom? I certainly do.

Holly Owens (06:05.636)
Yes, and they just want to focus on their research.

Bob Ertischek (06:08.642)
Right, yeah. And, you know, I spent a lot of time at a community college and a community college is a place for teaching more than anything else. And I knew instructors there who didn't want to be in the classroom. And I always found that to be sort of odd. So there's that. I mean, there are lots of unbelievably great instructors that I know as well in the community college and everywhere else that I go. And frankly,

You know, so that's part of it. But the other part of it is that we are used to just standing in front of our students and telling them, you know, what we're going to tell them, telling them, and then tell them what we told them as opposed to sort of. Yeah. And, know, we hear all these things about active learning and engagement and all that kind of stuff, but I want to go back to my experience at when I was an instructional technologist, faculty developer, this is 20 years ago.

Holly Owens (06:48.402)
Absolutely. Right. And then they retail it back.

Bob Ertischek (07:06.574)
And 20 years ago, I was teaching people how to put their courses in whatever learning management system we had at the time, which by the way, no longer exists. And it wasn't all that different than what most people are still doing today. They would put that weekly prompt up for their learners.

and require all of their learners to answer that question and then respond to two of their peers. And 20 years ago, the idea was, this is a social experience. This will get them talking. They'll be really engaged. Even though they're all remote and not with us, they're going to feel like they're part of something. But I would argue that they don't feel like they're part of something. They feel like that they're doing an assignment. And it's check the box assignment at that for the most part.

Holly Owens (07:51.824)
Yeah, it's very difficult to get people who think in the more traditional methods to kind of shift into this more like active learning space and really focus from the, you know, I was a teacher in K to 12 and I've been in higher teaching and hired for 20. No, not 20. It's been like 12 years. I don't know. 13 years. I don't know. It's close enough anyways. So I would always.

Bob Ertischek (08:15.244)
Yeah, you're not that old.

Holly Owens (08:21.782)
not understand as a teacher and not understand as a higher education professor. Like when I ran into people, and this is not saying this, I'm not grouping all higher education faculty into one thing, not understanding why they would resist technology or why they would resist these new methods. And I was like, why don't you care about the students? Because I feel like it's kind of sending a message when you're not able to adapt and shift that you're basically stating that you just don't care.

about what your learners are doing. You're not directly stating that, but you're indirectly like making a point that I'm not going to use this. And I think it's, you know, it's not going to help. I don't know. are your thoughts?

Bob Ertischek (09:02.466)
Yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying, Holly, and there might be some of that. But I think fear is a big piece of it, too, right? And doing something different takes a little bit of guts. It's scary to do something different. And I think that's really more than anything, probably. Not only does it take guts, but it also takes, well, at least it's perceived as a different kind of work or more work that you have to put in. And I know, especially, you know,

Holly Owens (09:29.328)
Right.

Bob Ertischek (09:32.406)
that instructors oftentimes, you know, again, have other things that they're doing besides just teaching or maybe they're teaching the same class year after year after year and they've got a flow that they think is working for them, whether that's online or in person. And, you know, so it's, my gosh, if I'm going to.

dip my toes into this, going to require more of me than I was doing. And that may not be true, but it feels that way.

Holly Owens (10:06.074)
Yeah, absolutely. It feels like at the beginning of the semester, especially if you're redesigning your course or pre-semester, that you're front loading a lot of the work. And then it slowly kind of tapers off. So I think that's the, like if we had to put up a chart of like how much work a faculty is doing to beginning of the semester, like mid semester, it's just gonna, the chart's gonna go down. But I think it's important that in higher education today, because of,

Bob Ertischek (10:29.656)
Yeah, totally.

Holly Owens (10:35.964)
post COVID and all the different modalities that we're working in online hybrid, HyFlex, whatever fancy name we want to give to it, that we are prioritizing community building. And with everybody in different spaces, at different locations, at different times. And us working at Yellowdig, who we constantly promote and are proud of the community building that our tool has.

our best practices and the tool help to put out there. What do you think are some of the key drivers behind that community building and making those connections? You're the senior director of client success, whatever. See you. Stop it. Stop it. So what are some of the key things that the drivers behind that? How do people do that? Because I know going through an entire semester, there's a certain

Bob Ertischek (11:19.79)
Senior Citizen Director. wait a minute. that's not right. Yeah.

Holly Owens (11:33.221)
And I'm saying this to some of our colleagues, at the end of semester, you can feel the sense of belonging and the sense of community at the end of your course or not. So what are the drivers behind getting that feeling?

Bob Ertischek (11:44.088)
Well, first of all, I think an instructor has to have a little bit of motivation to want to have that community and engagement, right? They have to be open to thinking about things in a slightly different way. I would say that, you know, Yellow Yellowdig requires a little bit of change in the mindset of the instructor, but not a lot. And ultimately it requires not more work than they were doing before. And they're going to ultimately open

themselves to having a better experience, not only for their learners, but for themselves. So the first thing, you know, the topic, the name of this episode here we have today is, if I'm reading it right, is the paradigm shift. And that's really what it takes more than anything. It's not harder to do this. In fact, it's I could make the case that it's easier to do it, to use a tool like Yellowdig.

Holly Owens (12:40.146)
Tell us what that is. What does a paradigm shift mean along with? Like, what does that mean?

Bob Ertischek (12:44.416)
Yeah, it means for an instructor to recognize that their learners have things to contribute to the whole process, that it's valuable for them as an instructor and for their students learning if they realize that their students have experiences that relate to the course concepts, that their students see what's happening in the world related to those course concepts. And when they have the opportunity to, or maybe a better word, agency to

Add to their own learning. It's going to benefit the entire class rather than. You know, I sort of hate this cliche, but it fits really well instead of being the at least in yellow dig instead of being the sage on the stage. They can be what Ali.

Holly Owens (13:32.722)
the guide on the side.

Bob Ertischek (13:35.458)
The guide on the side now I hope we can come up with something that sounds less silly to say kinda. Yeah.

Holly Owens (13:39.782)
We should make it a point to do that. That is very cliche, but I'm sure we could come up with like a Yellow Digs themed cliche. Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (13:47.086)
Yes, the shovel with that. No, I don't know. But but really that's it. I mean, look, there's lots of other places. The other thing is not the entire course. It is the community part of the course that allows students to interact with each other. I mean, when I was teaching, I'm going off on a few tangents here, but I think it's OK. When I was teaching in face to face class, right? I'm soup. I was super engaging.

Holly Owens (14:08.21)
You're fine, this is exactly what I wanted you to do.

Bob Ertischek (14:15.672)
professor. I really was. I just was. And I think most of my students would agree with that. But every conversation that I have in that 50 minutes three times a week, or that hour and 20 twice a week, was a conversation that I led, that I chose who got to talk, and I chose what they got to talk about. And that might not have always allowed all the learners to really get what they totally needed.

Holly Owens (14:34.983)
Yep.

Bob Ertischek (14:41.582)
They may have, you know, I had this experience with something or other and there's no opportunity for them to get that in. mean, I can certainly, I took questions, I asked questions in class, but I asked my questions and the numbers were limited. On top of that, who's ever been in a Zoom room where half the windows are turned off? Right? And the same thing in a physical classroom. You come in, you have some students who sit in the back row, they come in a second before class.

Holly Owens (15:02.992)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (15:11.47)
They leave immediately after they never participate in any way. They're just doing the work there. And, you know, they may have their own issues. Their fear of doing this kind of contribution. Maybe it's a class that they're forced to take or something like that. And what we need to do is to draw them in and find a way to do that. And in Yellowdig, I think we can do that. First of all, I don't know if you've talked about this in the past, but we have a point system. The point system.

that is designed to motivate learners to come into the community and to create conversations around course concepts that are are good conversations. And it really works. The issue that occurs is that instructors are scared to do that, to allow them. Yeah, go ahead.

Holly Owens (15:53.525)
Yep. Now I was just going to say that, you know, Yellowdig or any other insert, any other ed tech here, it's really important that you take into consideration how things are going with the conversations in your classroom and what needs to shift and and change. Because I think like we talk a lot about discussion boards and discussion boards are a checklist item. Like you're talking about the checklist.

And learning itself is not a checklist. It's something that's constant and it's evolving. It's not just because you're sitting in a classroom or you're sitting at a computer, learning doesn't just happen in a vacuum. It's happening all the time. I feel like Yellowdig really lends itself to those conversations continuing to happen whether you're in your 50 minute session or your hour and a half session or not. And that's just one of the ways the tool really works to promote community.

Bob Ertischek (16:32.558)
100%.

Holly Owens (16:49.986)
And I will say this, and I've said this to the audience before, as we're doing these sessions, even though we're talking about a lot about Yellowdig, I used it before I came to Yellowdig. And it definitely helped build community in my classroom. And I can share some of the ways of things that I did, but you also touched a bit on the prompting. Like if you're prompting somebody to do something, what are you really narrowing their focus and you're not allowing the creative part of the mind to work?

You're just like, this is what it is. This is what you need to focus on. So there you're not, it's not really open. It's just, and that makes it kind of boring.

Bob Ertischek (17:25.922)
Yeah, you're absolutely right. mean, that prompted assignment, you know, it sold 20 years ago or plus years ago as the social assignment. But really what it is is students are obligated to respond to the instructor prompt. Who are they writing to when they're doing this? Even though they have to create two comments, two replies to their peers, they're not writing to each other. They're writing to the instructor to get a grade.

rather than sharing what they need or what the experiences or all the great insights that they really have that are broader than whatever that prompt is. For me, those assignments, if they need to be assessed, they can be written assignments for the instructor instead of faking a conversation.

Holly Owens (18:09.458)
Yeah, yeah, it's like faking it till you make it. Like, and then then there's I agree and I agree and constant like, yeah, good point. So what? Okay, what do you mean by good point? What does that what does that all mean?

Bob Ertischek (18:12.129)
Yeah.

Well said. Good point. Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (18:22.668)
Right. Here's another thing about, know, I think it's relevant to the whole thing. But one of the things we want to do, and I don't think happens in discussion boards at all, is reading, deeper reading and going further. Yellowdig is a single scrolling feed. And because of the nature of the topics that we provide in Yellowdig that you'll provide as instructors, people are at least they're compelled to keep scrolling.

Holly Owens (18:34.47)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (18:50.262)
And keep reading. We know from our data because we track that that learners are viewing much more than they would in a discussion board. They keep scrolling just like you would on well linked in for example, right? You know and. And you're talking about community, right? And what does that mean? It means we get to know each other that we have a shared experience or something like that. A discussion board isn't that, but yellow dig really can be, you know.

Holly Owens (19:00.114)
Love LinkedIn. LinkedIn world.

Bob Ertischek (19:19.114)
students share amazing things in Yellowdig. I have one vague, one story that I remember from a few years ago, probably during the pandemic, where at whatever school it was, I think it was somewhere in New York state, there were two students. One was from Germany and the other was from Japan. But they were both in the same Yellowdig community. And they wouldn't have connected in any way

Holly Owens (19:43.697)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (19:48.138)
But they had some sort of thing where they were doing, somebody did some sort of musical performance in Yellow Yellowdig, sort of as interesting response to something that somebody had posted in an English class or something like that. And the German person, I think, had done their performance. I might be getting this wrong a little bit, it a few years ago. But the Japanese person's cat was listening to that on Yellow Yellowdig and.

Holly Owens (20:15.887)
my gosh.

Bob Ertischek (20:17.006)
and posted a video of their cat listening to the other person's song. It was so cool. And these people ended up interacting, becoming acquainted with each other from other countries. And they would never have done that in any other sort of framework. And it just goes on and on. People share all kinds of things that are related to the course.

Holly Owens (20:22.034)
That's so cool.

Bob Ertischek (20:45.27)
allow for real connection. When we talk it in class, we're talking about, here's what happened then, and here's what this concept is. But Yellowdig allows people to see, that's what really happened. This is the connection I'm making with the real world. I always give the example. Holly, are you aware that this week on the 20th, there was some sort of thing that happened in the US government? No?

Holly Owens (20:58.802)
Yep.

Holly Owens (21:11.268)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (21:12.066)
Well, some people heard anyway, so I taught American government OK and you know early on we talked. Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. Yeah, so so you're familiar with the.

Holly Owens (21:18.096)
I taught high school government, so American government, yeah.

I'm so glad I'm not in the classroom to have to answer any of those tough questions that the students are asking. my goodness, but yeah.

Bob Ertischek (21:30.626)
But let's say we're talking about that early in the semester, we're talking about the Constitution, Article II, the election of the president, all that kind of stuff. And then it happens. then the oath of office. So this creates opportunities for students to see that conversation isn't over after week two. I can come back to that and say, oh, I saw the oath of office or the inauguration or I saw the

Holly Owens (21:36.657)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Holly Owens (21:54.683)
Right.

Bob Ertischek (21:55.468)
right? And now I understand what you're talking about. Or maybe I didn't understand it initially, and now I see that. And that also provides opportunities for the instructor to see that the learners are getting it or not getting it in course correct. So it allows people to open up a little bit to share their own insights to things that matter to them and to see what their peers are thinking about that too, as well.

And people worry about, bad behavior. I've been on social media before and things happen. This is not social media. It's a classroom. And so they're not going to do that. But they're really going to get to know each other in a way that they didn't before and build a real community. We've had people ask, can we keep our community open after the semester ends?

Holly Owens (22:41.426)
Yeah, mine was still very active after the semester ended when I was using it a few years ago. So one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking is how it feels to be an educator in this whole situation with virtualness, hybridness. And one of the things I want to say is that

I always constantly think about the impact it's going to have on the learners. So one of the things I feel like Yellowdig does a really good job of and other ed tech tools as well, and this isn't just, you know, focused on Yellowdig is they really focused on the learner and their needs. And like you were saying, like after the class ends, they're still connecting. So, you know, you built that sense of community, but when it comes to, you know, belonging, how does that

all translate in student success and then ultimately what institutions are looking for trying to improve the retention.

Bob Ertischek (23:47.104)
Okay, I'll give you quick story. So people are lonely, right? I mean, I think people are just generally lonely, whether and I don't think that students can be lonely, they can feel like they're not in a place that they belong or that they're not a full part of. We've all felt that way one place or another. And I think that happens in school a lot. You know, when you're in a four year institution or what, it doesn't matter if you're online or face to face or anything, it doesn't matter.

Holly Owens (23:48.943)
Okay.

Bob Ertischek (24:16.984)
You know, I'm in this class, nobody's gonna accept my experiences, no one wants to listen to what I have to say or anything like that. And, you know, one thing that we have in yellow, this is the story, but I'm gonna go back a little bit further, I guess, I don't know how much time we have. There was a learner who, we have something.

Holly Owens (24:34.958)
You're good. told you 30 minutes, but plus or minus 10 minutes is what we try to do.

Bob Ertischek (24:38.272)
OK, great. So we have a network graph, Holly, right, in the other dig. And the network graph allows us as instructors to see who's interacting with who and how they're interacting, the strength of those connections. And once in a while, you end up with a learner who has zero connections. They're not connecting with anybody. They might be posting something, but nobody's responding to them or whatever. And we have tools to address that to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Holly Owens (24:42.758)
Right?

Bob Ertischek (25:07.782)
but an instructor noticed this and reached out to that learner and said, Hey, you know, you haven't been participating. It's really important to do. It's part of your grade, all that kind of stuff. And learner said, well, I'm just so lonely. don't feel like any connection or anything like that. And the instructor, you know, showed some empathy and spent some time with that learner who then felt got. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and, and, and, know,

Holly Owens (25:29.074)
Keyword empathy, that's huge. Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (25:36.046)
sort of made it so that that learner could get back into the community and that learner who really wasn't doing well at all ended up doing pretty well in the course and felt comfortable and, you know, was stayed in school, right? I mean, isn't that what we want? We want that to stay in school. so Yellowdig works in that way. But beyond that, it provides those connections that sort of are natural, too.

You you post something like, yeah, I did have that experience in my psychology class where I, you know, I had a depressive issue or I don't know what it is. And other people say, yeah, I've had that too. I feel that. Right. And, and, and, you know, it's brave of somebody to do that, but when they do it, opens up worlds for everybody else too. And creates that connection.

Holly Owens (26:30.194)
Yeah.

Absolutely, because I feel like some people on surface level, they judge. And then you find out that when you start talking to other humans, you know, me and you talk to pets a lot, but when you talk to other humans, it's like you have more in common than you actually think. Even if you're, say, on different sides of the political spectrum, you have different beliefs, different values, you start talking to a person and you realize that they've gone through similar experiences as you.

and that you can relate to another on that level, but also too, from a faculty perspective, leading with empathy is something that I do constantly and naturally. Some people that doesn't necessarily come naturally to you, but if you try to understand another person's position in life and what they've been through, it really just, changes the game of teaching. And I feel like, you know, as a higher education instructor, I share a lot with my students. I share like, you

I had a struggle today at work. had something happen in my life. Not getting too personal or too deep in those particular situations, but just letting them know that you understand that they have full-time jobs and that they're going through stuff too besides just taking this class. It really goes a long way. And I feel like that's something that can be promoted out on Yellowdig is like those shared experiences, the human connections.

Bob Ertischek (27:45.742)
100%.

Bob Ertischek (27:55.05)
It, you know, it, I think it even goes deeper than we were talking about, you know, you and I were sort of in social sciences in one way or the other, right? But even in STEM classes, asking and answering each other's questions, instead of relying on the instructor to do all of that, Yellowdig encourages them to do that. And when they, when they do answer another person's question and they're incentivized by the point system, by the way, they're going to get points for trying to answer that person's question.

They have to figure out how to effectively communicate that answer to their peers. So it's a process for the person answering the question as the one as well as learning it. But what they learn from that is that I do have value. I have something to contribute to this community. And even if it's some sort of code thing or some sort of math thing, don't ask me because I didn't do well in trigonometry. What? Well, for us, but other people, yeah.

Holly Owens (28:44.16)
God, don't ask me about them. Skip the math. Skip the math part. Yeah, hard, hard pass.

Bob Ertischek (28:51.99)
Yeah, I mean there there's a lot of ways to build a community and you know. We think of ourselves Tali, you know this as an education company rather than a tech company really, because really what what happens in the other thing and I just want to hit this before the end of the time is we are changing the way that people sort of. Teach not fully, but but within you know interacting with their learners and and it involves.

Holly Owens (29:04.039)
Yep.

Bob Ertischek (29:21.58)
that paradigm shift of sort of trusting your learners a little bit. Allow you're still there. You're a member of this community, but you can take your hands off the dial. I'm not the dial off the wheel a little bit and let your students start interacting with each other on those course concepts and they're going to learn and I hate to say it, but you're going to learn too. You're going to find some really cool stuff happening and you know, use it in your class next time.

Holly Owens (29:43.698)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Ertischek (29:49.486)
You know, you're like, wow, this was really cool. I'm so glad that the student brought this in. It's so interesting. And they're going to remember you as a teacher who cared. Your evaluations are going to be better. And they're going to learn more.

Holly Owens (30:03.492)
Absolutely. There's a lot of different like great effects of Yellowdig that you don't realize that would occur if you're using the tool beyond something that's just discussions. just, I'm immensely grateful for products like this and working at companies like this because it reminds us of why we're really here and what we're doing. We're all trying to connect with each other and we all want to be able to learn and grow in these safe spaces.

I think it's important to point out that students come in with a lot of fear at the beginning of the semester and throughout the semester. The course itself can be very transactional. You're giving me this and then I'm giving you a grade. But if you set it up in a way where it doesn't feel like that, I feel like everybody in the class benefits, including the instructor. Because you do learn something, but you also like, I've mentored a lot of my students.

outside of the class, outside of my class, and they've gotten into roles in instructional design and other areas because of the relationship building we did and say Yellowdig or, you know, just within our synchronous sessions. So I think I definitely think that that's important as well.

Bob Ertischek (31:18.412)
You know, it's funny related to that if it's all right. One thing that we say and you you've been around Yellowdig, how long have you been with us now?

Holly Owens (31:21.883)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (31:28.466)
Three months, October.

Bob Ertischek (31:30.51)
So I don't know if you've heard this yet, sometimes, but people say come for the points, stay for the conversation. Yeah, I figured you would have any anyway that what that means is, you know this point system that we have is designed to motivate people to come into the community and do what they're supposed to do. But eventually it becomes sort of an afterthought because people find value in the community and they just stay and they we have data that shows that they exceed their point goals. This is the opposite of a discussion board and we don't call it a board. We call it.

Holly Owens (31:36.634)
Yes, I've heard that a million times.

Holly Owens (31:50.8)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (32:00.48)
a community with conversations rather than a place with these individualized discussions. So people, people find value in it. Now that we have a mobile app, you know, it's going to, it's going to be addictive. It's people are going to just be, I got a notification the other day. yeah. And I'm going to pop up something that I'm doing right.

Holly Owens (32:16.742)
Yeah, you're seeing something out in the real world that you want to post right away using using the mobile app. And obviously we're going to share the links and everything. Yeah. In the show notes. That's what we do podcasting world Bob. It's fun. We share all the resources. So last question for you. And I think just based off of your experience is if you could give one piece of advice to educators who are in this space and it's continuously evolving what would it be.

Bob Ertischek (32:24.308)
that's a idea.

Bob Ertischek (32:30.594)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (32:45.784)
Wow.

Holly Owens (32:45.904)
It can be more than one, one piece or a few pieces.

Bob Ertischek (32:49.758)
you know, try to enjoy your time in the classroom, really, you know, interact with your students, let them interact with each other. And, you know, allow them to teach you. I think that would be the thing that I would say. Yeah.

Holly Owens (33:06.427)
I love that.

I love that because the subject matter experts, know the content very, very well, but we also don't know like some of us haven't been in certain spaces in a while. So just hearing from my students, a lot of them are New York City public school teachers is hearing what's going on in the classroom good and bad. I'm like, whoa, I can't believe that you're dealing with this and or this is happening. I think it's.

I think it's great that that's shifting or whatever. It's important to have that openness. like that.

Bob Ertischek (33:41.762)
Awesome, yeah.

Holly Owens (33:43.046)
Yeah. Any key takeaway, call to action, anything you want to leave learners with, tell them where to find you, where to hang out with you, if they want to talk to you. I posted the link to Yellowdig, our website, if you want to learn more about Yellowdig and just learn more about the paradigm shift. But where do they reach out to you at?

Bob Ertischek (33:53.024)
All right.

Bob Ertischek (34:05.006)
So LinkedIn, certainly one place, Bob Erdischek, as it's spelled there. And I think the link is just LinkedIn slash Erdischek or something like that, E-R-T-I-F-C-H-E-K. And also, now this is my email address. It's really complicated. It's bobb, B-O-B, at yellowdig, Y-E-L-L-O-W-D-I-G dot com.

Holly Owens (34:32.465)
Yeah.

Bob Ertischek (34:33.518)
I would also, you know, come check us out. Yellowdig is great. I so wish I had it when I was teaching. It's exactly what I tried all.

Holly Owens (34:40.976)
Me too. Well, I do have it, but I wish I had it in K-12 as well. They could have handled it.

Bob Ertischek (34:45.878)
Yeah, I I tried all kinds of experiments to create better engagement when I was teaching. I did weird things with blogs and AOL Instant Messenger, but man, this is exactly what I was looking for. we're here, our support, our success team, our educators who are working to support you and help you get effective use out of our tool and pedagogy or androgyny.

Holly Owens (35:11.814)
Yep, absolutely. All right. Off topic now. Where are you sitting at?

Bob Ertischek (35:16.064)
Okay. I am in the frigid wasteland of Rochester, New York, where it's gone up from zero degrees this morning and a wind chill of negative 11 to it's 12 degrees now with a wind chill last I looked was, I think like two or something like that. Yeah. no, it's it feels like two degrees. So nice, but I, you know, I'm inside. So I'm happy, you know.

Holly Owens (35:23.25)
What's the temperature?

Holly Owens (35:39.602)
my.

Bob Ertischek (35:45.87)
And yeah, and I believe you are in a frigid environment yourself.

Holly Owens (35:46.15)
You're happy you're in the heat and with your fancy with your fancy yellow dick swag.

Holly Owens (35:54.81)
Yeah, so about five years ago, I moved to the Southeast. lived in Myrtle Beach for almost five years and now I've moved up a little bit north to Wilmington. Basically they're 90 miles apart and we got four inches of snow last night. And yeah, it's still, you can see it outside of my apartment. It is still there. It is going to be cold for the next few days. It's going to hang around and we are temperature of the real field is 17 degrees, which is this is

Bob Ertischek (36:08.254)
Is the snow still on your driveway or whatever?

Holly Owens (36:24.568)
of rarity for the southeast. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I threw him out there for five seconds to go pee and then he came right back in. So we'll do that. Yeah, why not? Well, Bob, it's been a true pleasure. I love working with you. You know that. And I really appreciate you coming on here and sharing your experiences and talking about yellowding and other ways in higher

Bob Ertischek (36:30.584)
Keep your pets inside.

Bob Ertischek (36:36.76)
Can you say P on LinkedIn?

Kidding.

Bob Ertischek (36:46.968)
You too.

Holly Owens (36:54.092)
teaching like the things that are shifting. I really feel like this community is very supportive. And if we all just take some time to think about what our learners needs are, we're going to make the world a better place. if you definitely have shameless plug for Yellowdig, if you want to check us out, our website contact near Bob. And Bob is spelled the same way forwards and backwards.

Bob Ertischek (37:18.153)
Yeah, you you can Google it if you don't know how to spell it. But Holly, this was so much fun. Let's do it again.

Holly Owens (37:21.414)
Ha ha ha ha.

Holly Owens (37:25.616)
Yeah, we definitely will. So enjoy. Bye.

Bob Ertischek (37:27.298)
All right. All right. Bye.