Hey, hello, and welcome once again to another Putman's Podcast Pops. And are you in for a treat today, everybody? I have the glamorous Jeff Roessner from Pico. He is the head of education. We don't go for the low hanging fruit. We go straight to the top, ladies and gentlemen. So, Jeff, welcome. How are you today?
Doing great, Shannon. Great to see you. Great to spend time with you today.
Thank you so much. I know you have to be incredibly busy, so we really appreciate you taking the time to come and chat with us and tell us all about. Everything exciting that's happening in the world of Pico.
Thanks for inviting me. Anytime I can get a chance to kind of connect with you on just learning about what. You know, the the word is on the street. Happy to have it to jump in.
Yes. Well, exciting. And you know, Putman's podcast is always tapped into the social pipeline. Let me tell you what. So you're in a good place. Let's just let's kick it off. And why don't you just tell me a little bit about you and your role at Pico and what excites you about working in virtual reality?
Yeah, of course. So, I've been working with Pico for two and a half years and what really captured me or captured my interest about Pico is just the XR community in general. So I've been a VR enthusiast for several years with just on the gaming side and As immersive as those experiences are, I know there could have been, I knew there could have been a ton of value for the real world for not just education, but also training with across a variety of industries.
And that's really what kind of captured my interest is the opportunity to leverage this technology to improve student outcomes in the education space.
exciting. I love that. Did you come from an education background or was the whole education aspect kind of new for you?
Yeah, so prior to joining Pico, I served in the education. Field for four years doing just ed tech. Yeah.
So we've seen some trends come and go.
Seeing them come and go. Yeah. A lot of them.
Well, how has Pico actually positioned itself as a leader in the VR for education and training market so that it isn't one of those that comes and then goes, but that stays with us?
Yeah. That's a really good question. I mean, when you're thinking about VR on the technology that we're all using in, in the entire industry advancements in, in the capabilities are massive in between. So how do you keep a headset that's relevant? How do you make sure that it can make sure it has the enough compute power?
Make sure the experience is as immersive as it needs to be to maintain users interest and also the UX design and making sure that the platform itself is user friendly, not just for our development partners, but our consulting partners like yourself and also our end user customers. So, like for students or educators, as an example, so one of the things that we make it easy for our customers is. Having them be able to receive devices by leveraging our partner network.
All ready to go and like in a white glove format. So it'll come with the obviously device controllers, preloaded content, and maybe other kind of applications to make sure that device is going to be in the most secure place as it possibly can. And for readiness in the classroom,
I like that. And you mentioned kind of ready to go out of the box. And I think that's a feature that a lot of people assume is already there with the headsets and yet. It's not so one of the ease of uses of why Pico for me stands out is that there's nothing to create to use a Pico headset. So, when I get that Pico headset, right from the box, is there anything else that I need to do to create anything?
It's a great question. One we get asked off when we get asked a lot. So with the Pico headsets, you know, there's, it's not tied to any sort of account, whether it's a Pico account or a social media account, you don't need to create an account to use a Pico headset. So as soon as you get those headsets, they're ready to go right out of the box.
Okay. So now we say you can use it right out of the box. Do I need to connect it to an app or anything? Or can I just start using it and go by connecting to the internet? Like I would
Yeah. I mean, essentially that's what you need to do. You don't need to download any app either on your phone, tablet or to the device. You can connect it right away to the internet and begin either browsing or beginning, enjoying your simulated content. You don't have to enter in any other kind of like personal details or do any sort of account creation.
I think that's an important feature for listeners to understand that there isn't any of that tracking and especially any districts now that worry about student and data and security, because that's an important thing that we do have to worry about in today's day and age.
Yeah. That is a cornerstone of Pico. So our devices are. I'll say enterprise ready right out of the gate. What that really means is. Data security and privacy are paramount with our platform. We don't collect any personal data at all. And that can even go so far as to, we don't collect any payment information. So, first and foremost, student data privacy is the utmost importance for Pico.
Nice. So, no matter what, when a teacher asked me those, the kids can't hack it and get into buy anything or anything, because it's not even possible.
So PICO from our onset data security and privacy is kind of paramount and it kind of the cornerstones to our platform. And one of the things that we allow educators or just school districts to have. At their disposal is either through our native capabilities or through our technology partner capabilities is the ability to control the headsets in a way where they can see like battery life. They can decide which content goes to the headsets.
They can decide what can be seen on the headsets and they just have. Total control from the student experience so that it's done in a safe environment.
Perfect. So any educators that are listening, that's basically the VR version of GoGuardian or any of those type of systems and it gives you that same, if not better level of security. What I am also excited about with Pico is the current functionality and accessibility that you have and features of, particularly the Pico 4 Ultra, which is one of my favorite headsets. Can you kind of just give us a little bit of a rundown of why that headset is so amazing?
Yeah, so the 4Ultra is it's our flagship and everyone's really excited about it. We're really excited about it. You're excited about it. Your students are excited about it. What separates the 4Ultra? As kind of our flagship device is a variety of things. One, it's a lightweight design. It's a quarter of a pound lighter than the neo three pro. And a lot of that is due to the new lens technology that we're using our own in house generated pancake lenses.
And it also leads to a much slimmer form factor of a headset. So it's easier to wear It's more approachable. It's very comfortable for that reason. Our headsets also have the battery on the rear of the headstrap for a more balanced weight for those users. And with the Portal 2 in particular, it's our first purpose built mixed reality headset.
So it's an amazing VR headset with a 4k resolution for the VR optics, but on the pass through, so we can see your physical environment, the clarity is unmatched and it's the best we've ever had. And it makes great for a great use for like mixed reality applications where you want to kind of weave in the virtual world into the physical world and intermingle those two together. And students love it. Educators love it. It's really one that we've been able to knock out of the park.
It's been a success.
so you and I, in the industry, we throw around terms like mixed reality, you know, extended reality all the time. But in education, in particular, we're still so new into the journey that virtual reality is kind of the 1st step and then as we expand and develop out into mixed reality, what are you kind of getting for a feedback for how that's? Making for a smoother transition to the headset.
Yeah. You know, mixed reality is a newer kind of form factor. It's only been out for about 18 months or so. And VR it allows the users to really experience what an immersive environment looks like before they get into like a mixed environment. And it really depends on. What type of mixed or sorry mixed reality environment you want to look for and there's still a lot of applications that are being developed for it, not as built out as all this VR curriculum content and also reward content for VR.
But what I think what I like about mixed reality for education and what are what educators like in students. At any moment, if you need to get this sense of like space outside of the immersive world, you can either do a quick double tap on the side of the headset or click the immersive view button and the physical world will immediately come into view.
So now you can see your, you can see your classroom from an educator's perspective, from the student, you can, they can see their desk, they understand where their hands are, where their body is. And I think most importantly for education, if a student is working on a problem in VR, And they might have a question for the teacher. You don't need to take the headset off to engage with the teacher.
Again, they can just double tap on the headset, and they can speak with the teacher with the headset still on, get that feedback. Once they have the problem sorted out, they can get right back into the headset. And continue on with learning. Being able to go back and forth between the two worlds is comforting for a lot of users knowing that if if it gets a little intense, they can always go out for a breather.
So when I first started with VR, the first thing that got me into being hooked, as I like to say, in VR was my student with autism, who his family had never been out to dinner before. It was too overwhelming, just too much for him. So I filmed in 360 and we worked every day in the classroom with that headset and he'd have to make it 60 seconds longer. And when he would get upset, he could just take the headset off and he would be.
instantly back in a safe place and just going from where that started to now where he wouldn't even have to take that headset off to be back in his safe place is kind of, is phenomenal advancement in the technology
Yeah. I mean, it's an important thing to call out or an experience to call out because if they don't have, if they don't feel, if they don't feel safe in their space that could lead to just sensory maybe some sensory challenges that they might have, but it's really good to hear that. Just being able to do the double tap into that full color pass through mode, brings that sense of calm when they need it most.
And accessibility as well, because I work with the deaf. population a lot and the ability to see their interpreter in real time and not have to take the headset off is an area that I think a lot of people are not thinking of, but it's so critically important. And that accessibility feature now allows a whole new population to be able to use the headset, just like everybody else.
And that's a great way to think about maybe a mixed reality application, right? So if it's a vision impaired user or a, or maybe a hearing impaired user, they can go into mixed reality. They can see their interpreter on the other side. They can complete an exercise and in the physical space, a virtual element will pop up and they can continue their education in that capacity as well.
So what industries are you seeing that are actually taking hold and adopting Pico VR for, you know, whether it's workforce development or even education.
Yeah, you know, we're seeing a lot of industries adopt VR in general for corporate training. A lot of soft skills applications to improve experiences with like customer facing rules. Education is actually our largest growth vertical. And I think that is because of just all the advancements that we're seeing in the. Testing scores and learning outcomes, but also it's a new pedagogy. Students are really excited to learn in VR.
They're familiar with VR because as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I got started in VR on the gaming side, which a lot of students are already familiar with. So when they hear about VR in the classroom, they automatically get excited. What they don't know is that. They will have improved learning outcomes just because of that unique engagement style. And it really depends on how the educator decides to use the VR in the classroom.
There's a lot of different ways to deliver the content and deliver the the testing. Apparatus. What we hear from all districts is we want more and we want we want more content, we want more students enrolled because they're seeing just really positive gains across the district.
If an educator or, you know, an organization is considering investing in VR, what advice would you give them?
there's a few different ways to invest, right? You have to invest your time. Do we have the resources to deploy this technology in our classroom or the district, but there's also the, there's the financial component, right? So there are a lot of grants that. Districts can leverage to bring VR into the classroom when you stem focus grants title one grants, maybe steam grants as well. I would encourage them to look at all the possible grants that are available to them to.
Bring newer technologies into the classroom so that they can kind of can access and kind of start their own pilot. Pico has a trusted network of partners to help source the right hardware. Also make sure that when the hardware is received, it's exactly how you want it. It's customized to exactly how you want it, whether it's content, whether it's even at the kind of the boring operational level, asset tagging, right? A district might share headsets with other either classrooms or schools.
You need to be able to track the physical headsets as well. So there's a lot of ways they can be tailored to each district.
And shameless plug, if you know, connect with somebody like Putman XR Consulting, they can guide you on that process which is critically important. So one of the things that happened with Google expeditions was, you know, it brought VR into the classroom, which was fantastic. However, it kind of set up this false narrative that educators had to have all students on it in headsets all at the same time. And I think part of the reason for that is because they were just. Sit and observe.
There was no interactivity. It was just sit and observe a field trip. So you didn't have to worry about students being up or moving or using a controller or anything like that. So it was a lot easier to have 30 students just sitting and watching something. But now that everything is so much more interactive, I hear a lot of schools say, well, if I can't get a whole class set, because of the budget, you know, should I even start?
how do you see that education institutions, maybe they can't get a full class set to begin with? Are they still able to use a couple of headsets and get started in the process of integrating VR?
Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. And you're right. Like Google expeditions. Awesome for the time, you know, but now we have next generation like headsets, technology, much more immersive environments that allow six degrees of freedom of movement. You know, it can be a lot to get all the students in the classroom get going at once. So, yeah, it really depends on. Kind of how the classroom or how the school wants to introduce VR, you know, it's okay to take baby steps.
It's okay to just let's get one or two in the classroom. Let's see how it works. Let's make sure that it's everyone is responding really well to it. What we don't want to do is overwhelm an entire classroom or a group of educators right up the offset, and if it means kind of step taking baby steps into what may eventually lead to a full class set, I think that's the best approach. I mean, there's no reason to rush into something if you don't have to.
Absolutely. I had been saying, you know, In five years, we're going to see VR headsets in schools. Like we have Chromebooks now. And I think it's the same kind of thing, you know, you have to learn the skills needed to manage it. And then also, I think when you do it that way, it sets up nice opportunities for students to become leaders because let's face it, they know technology, they've been raised with it, you know, they're usually better at it than us. So the more opportunities we can have.
For them to be leaders and take ownership of that technology. I think the greater investment we can get from those students as well. so of course people can reach out to Putman XR consulting and find out all the best information about Pico and VR and everything else. But is there any other place that you would recommend they check out? To learn more about Pico and what Pico is doing in education and anything that we can direct them to.
Yeah, of course. So you can always feel free to visit the Pico XR LinkedIn page to get the most up to date information on Pico, what projects we're working on and what use cases. You can also visit the Pico XR website if you want to learn some more about use cases and also kind of explore some of the like education content or in general content that is available in the business store.
But you know, Staying plugged in with folks like yourself, Shannon and Putman XR consulting and following, you know, your your LinkedIn page. It's very informative. You're timely with updates. You're timely with everything that, that you have going on, which is a lot. And I think, well, you know, from my own sincere gratitude to you for.
Being that voice, being that advocate in VR for education, especially in your own community of Kentucky, but for all the districts that are interested in VR districts that don't really know where to go or how to approach it. You've been really able to kind of break it down to them and like bite size amount or bite size pieces for them to. Understand it and be comfortable with kind of taking that leap into an immersive learning environment. Thank you for that, Shannon.
Well, thank you. That was very kind of you, especially the LinkedIn, because that's like the grown up social media and it's not always like, you know, at the end of a long day, you're not like, Oh my goodness. So I know I'm not good with my LinkedIn, but I've been making a concerted efforts to be more active on there. So appreciate that.
But yeah I can't thank you enough for coming on and chatting with me and being willing, and I didn't say anything in the beginning cause I didn't want to make you even more nervous, but I do believe this was your first podcast. If I am correct and
it's my first podcast. Yeah.
you did amazing. Yay. We're so proud of you. Absolutely. You should be very proud and an expert now.