Understanding A.I.'s Role in Online Course Creation (Presented by Sensei)

If you create online courses, you won’t want to miss this very special discussion! I’ll be joined by Ronnie Burt, Business Lead at Automattic, who’s overseen development of the Sensei LMS plugin. We’re going to cover:

  • Managing emails for your online courses
    – A.I.’s role in assisting with online course creation.
    – Sensei’s upcoming A.I. Quiz Generator
    – A.I.’s impact on society
     
    This is a audio version from a live stream we did on April 17th, 2023.

This live stream is presented by Sensei. Learn more here: https://howibuilt.it/sensei

————
Streamlined Solopreneur is the podcast for solopreneurs who want to automate their business and take time off worry-free. Each week, Joe Casabona shares practical systems, tools, and strategies to help you reclaim your time and run your business without sacrificing your the rest of your life, or your health. 

Start with the free Solopreneur Sweep — a step-by-step method for finding where your business is losing time: https://streamlined.fm/sweep

If this episode helped you, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts helps other solopreneurs find the show — it only takes a minute and means a lot.

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcasabona/

Transcript
00:00:00.240 –> 00:00:01.740

Hey, everybody.

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Welcome to a bonus episode of how I built it.

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This episode is a bonus episode because it's actually most of the replay of

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a live stream I did over on YouTube.

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I'll link it in the show notes.

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Uh, in the description for this video.

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I did clean it up a little bit.

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You know, I removed like the shout outs to commenters and things like that.

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But, uh, this is a conversation between Ronnie Bert of automatic and myself.

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On understanding AI's role in online course creation.

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Ronnie has a background in education.

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So much Southern.

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He mentioned MOOCs, which is I think cool.

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Uh, I've obviously been a long time educator across a number of mediums.

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And, uh, Ronnie is also a, the business lead, a business leader,

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automatic who oversees development of the sensei LMS plugin.

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This episode is brought to you this live stream as well

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was brought to you by sensei.

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Uh, so if you are looking for a great LMS plugin for WordPress,

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That gives you quizzes and direct integration with woo commerce and

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heavy use of the block editor.

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I there's not another plugin I can recommend.

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So check out sensei, you can get 20% off at Halle belt slash sensei.

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That's S E N S E I, but the topics that we cover managing emails for

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your online courses, AI's role in assisting with online course creation.

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Sensei's upcoming AI quiz generator.

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And a few other things around.

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Uh, AI, philosophically and what it means for the future.

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Of online course creation.

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So I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and Ronnie Bert.

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And without further ado, let's get to the intro.

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And then the interview

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Joe: Hey everybody, and welcome to How I Built It, the podcast where you get free

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coaching calls from successful creators.

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Each week you get actionable advice on how you can build a better creator

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business to increase revenue and establish yourself as an authority in your field.

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I'm your host, Joe Casabona.

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Now let's get to it.

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So, so let's get into managing emails.

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And this is, this is something that.

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I don't think enough people think about until it becomes a problem.

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So like for me, um, I had, uh, a membership site set up with, uh, I think

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it was WooCommerce memberships that would, um, automatically register new

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members in all of my Learn dash courses.

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And I was like, yeah, this is exactly what I want.

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But what I also had was, uh, an automation, um, inside of

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Learn Dash called Follow Up.

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It was like an add-on called follow up emails at the time where you

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can send emails to, uh, students based on actions they take, right?

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So when they register, when they complete after this lesson, if they haven't

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logged in for a week or whatever, right?

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So any, any of these things can kick off an email.

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And so I had one welcoming them to the course, except I had it for every course.

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And so when they got registered for every course, they got an email,

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a discreet email for every course.

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Um, I had about 10 courses on the site at the time, and I also, they

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also got their, uh, receipt and they got their welcome to the membership.

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And so their first experience was getting 12 emails by making one purchase.

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Uh, and I just never thought about it, right, because I, I

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plugged and played a few things and things work as I tested them.

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Except, you know, the secret is that my user was already

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registered for every course.

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Uh, so I just tested the payment gateway.

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So, um, let's, let's talk a little bit about this and uh, and email reminders

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and things like that, because again, I think like an online course is,

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um, you can have horror stories like mine, but you can also create a really

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good experience for the learner if you have those set up the right way.

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Ronnie: I mean, some things that come to mind is, first, I think we all think

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that there's email fatigue, right?

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I mean, email fatigue is real.

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We are inundated by most of us, probably hundreds of emails a day.

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And, um, you know, as a result we're seeing open rates on email, like

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mass marketing email list, maybe going down, um, and things like that.

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But if someone's interested in your course, or like, we do actually read a lot

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of the emails that are sent to us, right?

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And so I, I just, what I'm getting at is like, I caution people again

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saying like, well, emails don't matter because no one's gonna open them.

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Or I, I'm afraid of sending too, too many emails.

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Like if they're engaged in your.

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They're gonna wanna see that email, see what's next.

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It, it's like the best way really, that we have the best tool that we have

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of communicating directly with those people that have enrolled in real time.

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Like when, when they need some information.

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So things that we've done is, um, first of all, like, you know, I've

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been around WordPress long enough to know WordPress isn't built

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to be an email management tool.

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Right?

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And depending on when your host and the configurations there, like the

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deliverability of emails sent via WordPress can, can vary a ton, you know,

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on if you're in a shared environment, that IP might be flagged and more likely

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to end up in spam folders or just the way that the email is written more likely to

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be flagged to spam or not be received.

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We also have just recently added some pretty big integrations with Mail Poet and

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with Automate Wu, which both in different ways can help with customizing the emails.

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Mail poet works really well to help with deliver deliverability issues with email.

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Um, also, like you mentioned, you know, S M T P, depending on your host, they

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might have things in place that can help help there, but it's something to look

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into if you're relying on these emails, you know, making sure that they're

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delivered and not showing up in spam.

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And so when we are adding email tools in, we're trying to add in in ways

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that we can like, Do everything that we can to make the spam Gods happy.

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And also don't feel bad about like, um, not being able to

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keep your emails outta spam.

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I'm a big Google, like fanboy, I guess, for lack of a better word.

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Mm-hmm.

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I'm in all the Google groups and, uh, like only use Android products and everything.

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Pretty much.

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I get emails all the time from Google itself that end up in my spam folder in

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Gmail, which is like a Google service.

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So if Google can't figure out how to send me emails that don't get marked

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by spam, you know, I don't feel so bad.

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It's, it's a complex issue, but,

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Joe: um, yeah.

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That's such, that's such a good point, right.

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It's it's worth looking into though.

00:07:07.664 –> 00:07:08.024

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Awesome.

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And you mentioned male poet.

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Male poet came into the automatic fold a couple years ago, I think.

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Right.

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Ronnie: Yeah, I don't remember exactly when.

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And it also, you know, is, uh, works really closely with, with

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WooCommerce and automating all your store purchases and stuff there, and

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just making those, those look better.

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Um, so what we've done is now you can, um, you automatically get a mail poet

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list for everyone that's in a course or that's in a sensei group mm-hmm.

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So that you can send out mass emails or you can use some of their

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automation tools, like, uh, I mean, just a whole bunch of different

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possibilities that it opens up.

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You can send an email based on if they purchased a specific product in the

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past or something like that to a course.

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Yeah.

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You, you can get pretty creative.

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Joe: That's, that's awesome.

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And I mean, that makes perfect sense, right?

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Because I think, again, one of the things that, you know, I mean, I've been in

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the WordPress space since like 2004.

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So like before WordPress had pages, like, it was ju it was literally just a blog

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when I first started using WordPress.

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Um, and you know, and, and, and the people in the WordPress space and,

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and developers and agencies, like they would do this piece mill thing.

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But I think especially moving into the creator economy, which is who I'm talking

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to mostly now, um, they're not hiring an agency to set up their online store.

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Right.

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And they're not, and so these are integrations that

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they need to think about.

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And I mean, to woo commerce's credit, especially like the

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onboarding process is really good.

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I think it's really good, at least, um, someone who's used a lot of WordPress

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plugins and most are just like, if there's nothing when you install the

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plugin, I either think like, well, there's nothing to do with just

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doing its thing, or like, now I've gotta hunt down the settings page.

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But like WooCommerce I think does a really good job of like putting

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things front and center and, and like, you know, you probably need

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this like tax calculation, whatever.

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Um, and so, Having tools that integrate like that are, um, I think super

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important and male poet, full disclosure, they years ago sponsored my podcast.

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Um, but uh, you know, I think they were, they're doing a really good job of that.

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Ronnie: Yeah.

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And I think it's this connection piece of getting all these tools,

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like we want to play nicely with, with everything we can, with membership

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plugins, with other mail services besides mail poet and all that too.

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Cuz that's the beauty of the ecosystem that we're in is that, you know,

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you get to choose what you need and what works for you at that time

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and not pigeonholed into one thing.

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Joe: Yeah, absolutely.

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You get to, you get to choose your service.

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Um, so let's, uh, let's move into the, the main event here, right?

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There's, uh, you know, enough dilly dialing.

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Um, let's talk about ai.

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Let's talk about AI a little bit.

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First from like a, a philosophical standpoint, right?

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And then we'll get into kind of the practical applications of course creation.

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Uh, you know, thinking about it for a couple minutes, I think

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probably what I use it for in podcasting is very similar to how

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it could be used in course creation.

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But I'm really curious to hear what, what you have to say about that.

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But again, um, what is your personal philosophy?

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I mean, that, that's

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Ronnie: kinda why I reached out to you, because this is why I'm developing

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it, and that's like the first thing off the bat, I have done nothing

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but listened to dozens and dozens of podcasts from experts on this right?

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Over the last couple of months.

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And I, I don't, um, I mean, none of us are experts because this doesn't exist yet.

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We don't really know what the potential is gonna be.

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We don't really know, you know, where this is ending up.

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But I have to say what I want instead of a philosophy, what I hope we get out of

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this is, I don't want us to get to a place where the robots, the AI, is writing our

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entire course for us, writing an entire blog post for us, and we just blindly

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like hit, publish and run students through that course or something like that.

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I think I've already seen, we have people doing that.

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They're like, oh, I can go create 10 courses this weekend, copy

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paste it in, sell it, and you know, try to make a quick buck.

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Um, you know, the downside of that is, well, first of all, AI is still sometimes

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giving you, you know, bad information.

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Um, it's hallucinating.

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It's, you know, telling you things that are not necessarily true.

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So we first, you know, we need to be mindful of that, but that's

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not gonna be an engaging course.

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I, I, I think a lot about course creators and I believe a million percent that like,

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Putting people through courses, you know, having a bunch of courses available for

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people to sign up for, learn on their own pace, at their own time, things

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they're excited about and interesting in like, that's not going anywhere.

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It's a good industry to be in.

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It's, it's really a needed thing for the world really.

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And, but if we have a whole bunch of really bad, low quality courses out

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there, and that's someone's first experience as a student mm-hmm.

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Like, they're way less likely to ever go try again.

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And, um, I think we saw that with MOOCs like 10 years ago.

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The massive online open courses or whatever they were called.

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Right.

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The universities were rolling out left and right.

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They were not good learning experiences for the most part because they were thrown

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together quickly and they just tried to like convert a textbook into the course.

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Millions of people signed up for these things.

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The completion rate was like sometimes like 1% or something.

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Right.

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Like really low.

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No one signed up for 'em, A second one.

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Right.

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Cuz they didn't have a great first experience.

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Joe: Yeah.

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And gosh, that's such, that's such a throwback that we, we

00:13:07.199 –> 00:13:10.209

talked about that when I worked in higher ed like two years ago.

00:13:10.209 –> 00:13:10.369

Yeah.

00:13:10.559 –> 00:13:16.859

Um, first of all, I'm a New York Italian and MOOC is like a derogatory term.

00:13:18.659 –> 00:13:22.169

The first time I heard the VP of IT at the University of Scranton, St.

00:13:22.174 –> 00:13:26.909

Moo, I was like, Hey, who are you talking to Over, like, I just got very like, um,

00:13:26.969 –> 00:13:28.439

can he say, is he allowed to say that?

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But, uh, I mean, to our credit, like we never like rushed to roll out one.

00:13:33.989 –> 00:13:34.199

Right?

00:13:34.199 –> 00:13:39.359

Like we really, and like by the time, well, I left before this, but like again,

00:13:39.364 –> 00:13:44.639

by the time we were kinda like ready, we kind of saw the, the pitfalls of it.

00:13:44.639 –> 00:13:44.939

Right.

00:13:44.999 –> 00:13:48.149

Um, because like, if you're gonna just.

00:13:48.689 –> 00:13:49.319

Throw.

00:13:49.319 –> 00:13:55.049

Like if I wanna learn something short, I can go read an academic paper on it.

00:13:55.229 –> 00:13:57.569

But like you said, it's gonna be an awful experience.

00:13:58.349 –> 00:14:01.079

Like I'm, when I have questions, it's gonna be so boring.

00:14:01.829 –> 00:14:05.129

Um, and that's almost like what I think about when I think

00:14:05.129 –> 00:14:06.869

of like AI generated courses.

00:14:07.409 –> 00:14:10.079

You're basically just saying like, take all of this information

00:14:11.039 –> 00:14:12.989

and spit it out on a page.

00:14:14.009 –> 00:14:17.069

Put it into lessons you think it should be in.

00:14:17.069 –> 00:14:19.289

Right, which is not thinking about the learning experience.

00:14:19.769 –> 00:14:20.009

No.

00:14:20.159 –> 00:14:25.199

Um, because like AI can't possibly know that, like how each individual will learn.

00:14:26.059 –> 00:14:28.619

And so, you know, that's, that's kind of what I thought about

00:14:28.624 –> 00:14:29.549

as you were talking there.

00:14:29.579 –> 00:14:30.989

But I'm sorry, I like I interrupted your

00:14:30.989 –> 00:14:31.379

Ronnie: philosophy.

00:14:31.379 –> 00:14:32.339

No, I like that.

00:14:32.399 –> 00:14:33.209

Yeah, I like that.

00:14:33.209 –> 00:14:40.019

And what, so where I hope we're going is that, well on a couple of fronts,

00:14:41.819 –> 00:14:46.379

you can now like have some of that boring stuff though, that research.

00:14:47.699 –> 00:14:50.879

Like writing the textbook for you almost, right?

00:14:50.879 –> 00:14:50.969

Mm-hmm.

00:14:51.464 –> 00:14:56.429

Now, your job as the course creator is to put all of that extra stuff, the extra

00:14:56.434 –> 00:15:00.989

elements into the course that make it interactive, make it engaging, building a

00:15:00.989 –> 00:15:06.149

community around the course, possibly, you know, adding some collaborative elements,

00:15:06.509 –> 00:15:10.949

one-on-one coaching with the instructor, or group coaching with the instructor.

00:15:11.249 –> 00:15:14.399

Those sorts of things are gonna be really what set courses apart.

00:15:14.639 –> 00:15:19.709

So this idea of like evergreen courses that are text based and

00:15:19.709 –> 00:15:23.639

like hands off automated, I think we're gonna have a handful of people

00:15:23.639 –> 00:15:26.879

maybe in, in certain niches, like be somewhat successful with that.

00:15:26.879 –> 00:15:33.719

But by and large, like the real value from this is gonna be if we can help

00:15:33.719 –> 00:15:38.699

put tools in the hands of creators that, that go way above and beyond that, right?

00:15:38.699 –> 00:15:40.049

And make that accessible.

00:15:40.739 –> 00:15:45.239

Um, So AI can help us build the foundation, which we can talk more about

00:15:45.239 –> 00:15:47.189

like specifics and prompts and all that.

00:15:47.189 –> 00:15:49.829

But, um, I don't know.

00:15:49.829 –> 00:15:51.419

I mean, what do you think about, about that?

00:15:51.419 –> 00:15:54.869

I, I'm developing this like, you know, in real time, constantly

00:15:54.869 –> 00:15:56.129

evolving in my thoughts,

00:15:56.134 –> 00:15:56.429

Joe: so, right.

00:15:56.429 –> 00:16:01.079

Well cuz I mean, it's like, I mean, this is maybe recency effect, but I

00:16:01.079 –> 00:16:02.939

can't think of another technology.

00:16:03.539 –> 00:16:08.729

And again, I've been in technology for over 20 years at this point.

00:16:09.509 –> 00:16:14.879

Um, you know, and I can't think of something that evolved as rapidly

00:16:14.999 –> 00:16:16.679

as like generative AI tools.

00:16:17.069 –> 00:16:22.199

Um, and so like, I've talked about it a little bit on, on the podcast and

00:16:22.199 –> 00:16:24.719

like, I had to like, put a disclaimer like, hey, we were talking about this in

00:16:24.719 –> 00:16:28.469

January and it's like March now, and it things, everything's totally different.

00:16:28.474 –> 00:16:34.769

All and so, um, you know, and so like it's, it is that constant evaluation.

00:16:34.799 –> 00:16:39.299

The other thing I think, again, as you were talking, what made me.

00:16:39.854 –> 00:16:45.464

What, where my brain went was the idea of the flipped classroom, right?

00:16:45.464 –> 00:16:48.494

So like anybody who's unfamiliar with the idea of the flipped classroom,

00:16:49.184 –> 00:16:55.874

it was that, um, the student would essentially like read the lectures at

00:16:55.874 –> 00:16:59.444

home and then do the assignments in class.

00:16:59.614 –> 00:17:02.774

And when I first heard about this, I was like, oh, this is brilliant, right?

00:17:02.774 –> 00:17:04.754

Like, this is, this makes so much sense.

00:17:05.144 –> 00:17:08.984

You read the material and then like you work through the comprehension

00:17:08.989 –> 00:17:10.964

with your fellow students and teacher.

00:17:10.964 –> 00:17:15.944

But, but then I actually started talking to my students about, uh, those, like who

00:17:15.944 –> 00:17:17.384

had experience with the flipped classroom.

00:17:17.384 –> 00:17:20.894

They're like, oh, they would just make us like watch YouTube videos.

00:17:21.104 –> 00:17:24.194

And I'm like, that's not okay.

00:17:24.464 –> 00:17:28.454

Y that's not a learning experience, right?

00:17:28.574 –> 00:17:34.354

Again, all of this information is out there and, and I, part of the educator's

00:17:34.359 –> 00:17:38.205

job is to curate and filter it.

00:17:39.259 –> 00:17:45.044

Um, and put it into a lens that works best for the people you're talking to and not

00:17:45.044 –> 00:17:46.514

just throw a bunch of information at them.

00:17:46.514 –> 00:17:50.444

And so like, totally AI tools can help us do that, right?

00:17:50.624 –> 00:17:54.914

You can write a prompt for chat, G p t, that's like, uh, I wanna teach

00:17:55.184 –> 00:18:01.184

a group of 10 year olds, uh, how to make their first HTML page, um, right.

00:18:01.184 –> 00:18:05.294

As an expert web developer talking to a group of 10 year olds.

00:18:06.014 –> 00:18:09.944

Um, and like, yeah, maybe you'd get something, but like, maybe

00:18:09.944 –> 00:18:14.594

not, you know, or like, certainly they're gonna have questions.

00:18:15.104 –> 00:18:21.344

Um, certainly they're gonna have questions that AI can't possibly anticipate.

00:18:21.344 –> 00:18:26.474

And so, um, I think that it's a very good assistive tool.

00:18:27.254 –> 00:18:28.754

It's a good research tool.

00:18:28.814 –> 00:18:34.334

I remember when like Wikipedia was first emerging and every teacher wanted

00:18:34.334 –> 00:18:37.724

to ban that because it wasn't a good research tool, but like you had to.

00:18:38.939 –> 00:18:39.989

It's a good first.

00:18:40.019 –> 00:18:44.129

I think it's a good first step, but it's not gonna give you your first

00:18:44.129 –> 00:18:45.659

draft or your final draft, rather.

00:18:46.499 –> 00:18:46.799

Right.

00:18:47.129 –> 00:18:49.079

It's, it's gonna give you some prompts.

00:18:49.079 –> 00:18:52.889

It's gonna give you some prompts to then go and look for more information.

00:18:55.019 –> 00:18:55.229

Ronnie: Yeah.

00:18:55.229 –> 00:18:59.369

And look for like, how to make it relevant, how to tell stories that

00:18:59.369 –> 00:19:03.059

are personal to you as the educator, or maybe that connect specifically

00:19:03.064 –> 00:19:04.469

with the, with the learner.

00:19:04.979 –> 00:19:09.329

Um, then you, you're gonna wanna, I mean, to me, my, my whole

00:19:09.329 –> 00:19:12.959

like education philosophy is learning is doing, not getting.

00:19:12.959 –> 00:19:13.049

Mm-hmm.

00:19:13.289 –> 00:19:13.469

Right.

00:19:13.469 –> 00:19:13.589

Yeah.

00:19:13.589 –> 00:19:19.289

And so, um, you know, will have to build ways into the courses to

00:19:19.289 –> 00:19:23.669

have the students do something that demonstrates that they've explored

00:19:23.669 –> 00:19:27.659

that new content to whatever it is, or, or played around with it, or

00:19:27.659 –> 00:19:29.579

created something or built something.

00:19:30.209 –> 00:19:34.379

Um, or maybe it's in a traditional sense, a quiz or something like that.

00:19:34.409 –> 00:19:39.374

But, Um, you know, that's really what makes the course, the course

00:19:39.404 –> 00:19:40.964

or those, those experiences.

00:19:41.474 –> 00:19:45.854

And so, you know, anyone that might be listening that is creating learning

00:19:45.859 –> 00:19:52.344

experiences, like always be thinking about, um, what can you have the, the

00:19:52.349 –> 00:19:54.584

student do well, AI's not giving you that.

00:19:54.584 –> 00:19:57.794

Maybe you could ask what could the student do to demonstrate that they've done this

00:19:57.794 –> 00:19:59.384

or, and I've tried that a little bit.

00:19:59.384 –> 00:20:03.344

Like, what's an activity that I could do when I want to teach this concept?

00:20:03.344 –> 00:20:06.074

And it, depending on what it is, it gives some decent ideas

00:20:06.074 –> 00:20:07.334

that can get you unstuck.

00:20:07.874 –> 00:20:11.264

Um, but then, you know, like how much time you have, what resources

00:20:11.264 –> 00:20:13.784

are available, all that, that you would have to then tailor it

00:20:14.354 –> 00:20:16.244

and, and put it into your course.

00:20:16.244 –> 00:20:20.114

But the course shouldn't be about the content because as

00:20:20.114 –> 00:20:21.644

of now, the content is trivial.

00:20:21.644 –> 00:20:22.334

It's everywhere.

00:20:22.394 –> 00:20:24.014

Like your content's not unique.

00:20:24.024 –> 00:20:24.624

Mm-hmm.

00:20:24.704 –> 00:20:26.534

The actual words on the page are not unique.

00:20:26.954 –> 00:20:30.779

Um, So it's gotta be the experiences that are, that are the

00:20:30.779 –> 00:20:31.559

Joe: uniqueness.

00:20:31.859 –> 00:20:32.819

Yeah, I like that.

00:20:32.819 –> 00:20:36.629

I, I always say learn by doing, uh, by doing as well.

00:20:36.689 –> 00:20:40.439

Um, I, you know, I want my courses, I want people to have tangible

00:20:40.439 –> 00:20:42.119

experiences after they take my courses.

00:20:42.119 –> 00:20:45.269

I want them to walk away from my course and have something

00:20:46.049 –> 00:20:47.369

virtually in their hands, right?

00:20:47.369 –> 00:20:51.059

Cuz I'm usually teaching people how to do things online, but like, Hey,

00:20:51.059 –> 00:20:52.679

I took this course and I made that.

00:20:52.989 –> 00:20:55.809

The average student retention rates, when they learn something,

00:20:55.809 –> 00:20:58.629

it's like lecture reading is 10%.

00:20:59.199 –> 00:21:03.399

Um, and then practice doing is up to 75, right?

00:21:03.399 –> 00:21:05.079

And like 90% is teaching others.

00:21:05.084 –> 00:21:10.239

But, um, if you are, if, if you are just giving to Ronnie's point, right?

00:21:10.239 –> 00:21:14.799

If you're just giving people something to read, uh, as their course,

00:21:14.829 –> 00:21:16.119

they're not gonna retain that.

00:21:16.119 –> 00:21:17.349

They're not gonna remember that.

00:21:17.799 –> 00:21:21.729

Um, you probably, I mean, if you're watching on the livestream now, if

00:21:21.729 –> 00:21:25.149

you're listening, maybe you don't even remember what I just said, right?

00:21:25.179 –> 00:21:29.529

Um, but like practical doing is gonna give you a 75% retention

00:21:29.529 –> 00:21:31.419

rate because you're at your, your.

00:21:32.349 –> 00:21:37.989

Forging new memories of, of, you know, like for forming new pathways

00:21:37.989 –> 00:21:40.869

for like actually doing the thing.

00:21:40.869 –> 00:21:41.199

Right.

00:21:41.269 –> 00:21:45.099

That, and that was probably the idea of the flipped classroom, right?

00:21:45.579 –> 00:21:46.149

In theory it was,

00:21:46.154 –> 00:21:49.389

Ronnie: and, and I, I don't have it in front of me and it's been a while.

00:21:49.394 –> 00:21:54.159

And I think it depends on the topic, you know, the content, the age of the

00:21:54.159 –> 00:21:57.069

learners, but I think there was some research that showed, especially younger

00:21:57.069 –> 00:21:59.169

kids, where a lot of this was used mm-hmm.

00:21:59.254 –> 00:22:02.499

That actually didn't show gains in instruc, like in out

00:22:02.529 –> 00:22:04.299

educational outcomes in many ways.

00:22:04.719 –> 00:22:06.519

And that kind of surprised a whole bunch of people.

00:22:06.519 –> 00:22:07.059

Yeah.

00:22:07.059 –> 00:22:12.489

Um, but, you know, other ways to incorporate that, doing into your

00:22:12.494 –> 00:22:16.959

course, having forums like BB press forums or comments, um, threaded

00:22:16.959 –> 00:22:23.739

discussions having, uh, peer review of, of work, um, building that collaboration

00:22:23.744 –> 00:22:28.494

and, um, You know, there's all sorts of tools that, that we could add.

00:22:28.494 –> 00:22:30.204

And AI is not going to generate that.

00:22:30.204 –> 00:22:34.074

Now, you should expect today that your students are probably gonna

00:22:34.074 –> 00:22:36.004

be using chat g p t to mm-hmm.

00:22:36.089 –> 00:22:39.894

Like, answer those discussion questions or whatever, but you know, that's kind of

00:22:39.894 –> 00:22:44.304

on them and that's a skill we're all gonna learn how to, how to figure out, you know?

00:22:44.364 –> 00:22:44.544

Yeah.

00:22:44.634 –> 00:22:45.594

What that really means for

00:22:45.594 –> 00:22:45.894

Joe: us.

00:22:46.164 –> 00:22:47.094

I will say, right?

00:22:47.094 –> 00:22:48.444

You asked me about my philosophy.

00:22:48.444 –> 00:22:53.814

I did write a blog post a couple weeks ago, um, called like, chat.

00:22:53.814 –> 00:22:58.224

G P T is, ex, ex is exposing like a weakness in our education

00:22:58.224 –> 00:22:59.304

system or something like that.

00:22:59.754 –> 00:23:07.494

Um, where I basically talked about how, uh, is exposing our

00:23:07.494 –> 00:23:09.174

broken education system, right?

00:23:09.179 –> 00:23:12.684

Because if te my theory, right?

00:23:12.684 –> 00:23:15.654

And I think based on what you've said, you might agree with this.

00:23:15.654 –> 00:23:20.424

I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but, um, if teachers are banning chat, g p

00:23:20.424 –> 00:23:25.089

t from, uh, from the classroom wholesale, first of all, You're now depriving

00:23:25.089 –> 00:23:28.479

students of a skill that they are going to need when they get into the workforce.

00:23:28.539 –> 00:23:31.359

Like you're going to need to know how to leverage generative ai.

00:23:31.869 –> 00:23:40.539

Um, but also, um, but also that means you're just giving assignments that

00:23:40.539 –> 00:23:42.609

are regurgitation assignments, right?

00:23:42.999 –> 00:23:49.149

Like if you tell me to write, uh, a paper about like the Battle of Shiloh, right?

00:23:49.569 –> 00:23:53.709

Uh, and chat G p t can write that paper and it covers everything

00:23:53.709 –> 00:23:55.119

that you told me I had to do.

00:23:55.899 –> 00:23:59.289

That's not a problem with chat G P T, that's a problem with the assignment.

00:23:59.349 –> 00:24:01.779

Like you're just making me memorize and regurgitate, right.

00:24:02.319 –> 00:24:07.629

Um, instead of like critically think right about the Battle of Shiloh or whatever.

00:24:08.649 –> 00:24:09.759

Ronnie: I completely agree.

00:24:10.149 –> 00:24:16.779

Um, and, you know, for course creators and some, you know, we work with

00:24:16.779 –> 00:24:20.229

people of all different types of courses that they're creating, right?

00:24:20.229 –> 00:24:24.339

There's some that are for like, certifications and you have like strict,

00:24:24.939 –> 00:24:30.729

um, either legal obligations or like some something that you have to make sure that

00:24:30.729 –> 00:24:33.069

they know and that are taught is covered.

00:24:33.129 –> 00:24:37.329

And then you have much more fun, um, you know, hobbies and things

00:24:37.329 –> 00:24:40.599

like that, that people that we, you know, all sorts of stuff.

00:24:40.599 –> 00:24:43.359

And then everything in between.

00:24:43.569 –> 00:24:46.179

It depends on your course, it depends on the topic, but you

00:24:46.179 –> 00:24:49.269

can, you definitely wanna bring in community some way and mm-hmm.

00:24:49.349 –> 00:24:55.089

And the option for that, um, however you can, even if that community is external

00:24:55.094 –> 00:24:58.269

to the course that you're just opening the door to or something like that.

00:24:59.409 –> 00:25:00.549

Joe: Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:00.609 –> 00:25:03.819

And now that we've gotten that out of the way, right, um,

00:25:04.689 –> 00:25:07.989

uh, AI tools can be helpful.

00:25:08.079 –> 00:25:14.139

Um, and I think something that, um, we're teed up to talk about is something that

00:25:14.889 –> 00:25:17.529

I always, always struggle with, right?

00:25:17.529 –> 00:25:22.119

I make courses for LinkedIn learning, um, and if I'm not doing, like, if

00:25:22.119 –> 00:25:23.649

I'm not doing a coding course, right?

00:25:23.649 –> 00:25:27.909

Where like the, the doing part, the assessment part is obvious.

00:25:27.909 –> 00:25:30.639

It's like, take this code, write this code, right?

00:25:30.699 –> 00:25:34.359

Usually I'll like say, oh, right, well, I'm gonna, let's write this code, pause

00:25:34.359 –> 00:25:37.209

this video here, try to do it yourself, and then we'll walk through my solution.

00:25:37.869 –> 00:25:44.649

Um, if it's not that, then they want me to write quiz questions and I hate.

00:25:45.669 –> 00:25:50.079

Hate writing quick because like, they're so to me, they're like so

00:25:50.079 –> 00:25:52.029

contrived the way I write them.

00:25:52.029 –> 00:25:52.929

I'm really bad at writing.

00:25:52.929 –> 00:25:54.369

I just say that right off the bat.

00:25:54.369 –> 00:25:54.609

Right.

00:25:55.029 –> 00:25:56.589

It's always like four.

00:25:57.099 –> 00:25:59.079

One is I think the obvious answer.

00:25:59.079 –> 00:26:01.929

One is a very, obviously not the answer.

00:26:01.989 –> 00:26:04.029

It's like, just totally at a left field.

00:26:04.569 –> 00:26:10.089

Um, and then, but it's like, it's something I spend, I think, a, um,

00:26:10.659 –> 00:26:14.499

inequitable amount of time on when it comes to creating the course.

00:26:14.679 –> 00:26:17.859

Um, but it sounds like Sensei is about to integrate something

00:26:17.859 –> 00:26:19.719

that could, could maybe help me.

00:26:20.649 –> 00:26:20.799

Yeah.

00:26:20.804 –> 00:26:21.909

This is our first,

00:26:21.909 –> 00:26:23.499

Ronnie: our first tool that we're building in.

00:26:23.499 –> 00:26:31.149

And so what we wanted to avoid, um, was not having this like chat interface that

00:26:31.154 –> 00:26:33.239

you have everywhere else with mm-hmm.

00:26:33.324 –> 00:26:34.179

With AI tools.

00:26:34.509 –> 00:26:37.389

We just kind of want it to be magic wherever we can.

00:26:37.899 –> 00:26:41.709

And so you already have a lesson in Sensei and the lesson has content.

00:26:42.579 –> 00:26:45.969

Then you can click a button to create a quiz.

00:26:45.969 –> 00:26:46.809

I mean, that's how it works.

00:26:46.809 –> 00:26:50.499

Now, when you do that, we'll ask, well, do you want us to generate

00:26:50.499 –> 00:26:51.879

a few quiz questions for you?

00:26:52.689 –> 00:26:56.379

And we did a lot of testing and we found that like chat, G p T

00:26:56.384 –> 00:26:58.389

usually writes three good questions.

00:26:58.389 –> 00:27:00.759

If you ask for more than three, they get really repetitive.

00:27:00.939 –> 00:27:01.029

Mm-hmm.

00:27:01.359 –> 00:27:06.099

Um, and so we were just showing three quiz questions and they, for

00:27:06.099 –> 00:27:08.049

now, the, they're multiple choice.

00:27:08.054 –> 00:27:12.639

But what I like about it is when we can take it a step further, we

00:27:12.639 –> 00:27:18.549

then ask to, well also display why the right answer is correct and why

00:27:18.579 –> 00:27:20.859

each wrong answer is not correct.

00:27:20.859 –> 00:27:22.569

Like, why is that the wrong answer?

00:27:23.139 –> 00:27:27.969

And then we, so when the learner is taking the quiz and they choose the

00:27:27.969 –> 00:27:33.189

wrong answer, they'll immediately get the feedback that, you know, this

00:27:33.189 –> 00:27:36.009

is why this is the wrong answer, and here's the right answer and here's why.

00:27:36.009 –> 00:27:39.189

So it's like reinforcing right in real time and.

00:27:40.104 –> 00:27:43.554

You know, we could do that when we're building the course, but like you

00:27:43.554 –> 00:27:44.964

said, it's pretty time consuming.

00:27:44.964 –> 00:27:46.464

It's also a little challenging.

00:27:47.004 –> 00:27:51.564

Um, and I think once you, I've been playing with these a bunch, like,

00:27:51.654 –> 00:27:57.174

it kind of helps train the course creator too, like on writing better

00:27:57.179 –> 00:27:58.764

quizzes and writing better feedback.

00:27:58.764 –> 00:28:01.524

So then you can extend and write a fourth and a fifth.

00:28:01.524 –> 00:28:03.864

And we don't want you to just use the quiz questions exactly

00:28:03.864 –> 00:28:04.944

as they come out of the box.

00:28:04.944 –> 00:28:07.404

Like we're hoping you're reviewing them and making sure that it's

00:28:07.944 –> 00:28:10.524

a good question and like it's the right answer and all that.

00:28:10.529 –> 00:28:15.774

But, um, that's just like one way of starting and it's, you don't have

00:28:15.774 –> 00:28:17.244

to worry about writing a prompt.

00:28:17.274 –> 00:28:21.354

We've we're customizing those prompts for you all in the background and

00:28:21.354 –> 00:28:23.574

then putting it into the blocks.

00:28:24.264 –> 00:28:26.274

So no copy pasting or anything like that.

00:28:26.279 –> 00:28:29.454

It transforms it into Gutenberg and into the quiz editor.

00:28:30.264 –> 00:28:30.894

Ah, that's awesome.

00:28:30.894 –> 00:28:31.344

Joe: Which is pretty cool.

00:28:31.764 –> 00:28:32.064

Yeah.

00:28:32.064 –> 00:28:32.664

That's awesome.

00:28:32.664 –> 00:28:34.974

And like the, why is it, right, why is it wrong?

00:28:34.974 –> 00:28:36.984

Like, that's another thing that I really struggle with.

00:28:36.984 –> 00:28:39.474

I'm just like, The right.

00:28:39.474 –> 00:28:43.224

I like, I feel like when I say, when I write y, is this the right answer?

00:28:44.064 –> 00:28:45.504

I can also put that in the Y.

00:28:45.504 –> 00:28:46.854

Is this the wrong answer, right?

00:28:46.854 –> 00:28:47.994

Like yeah, like yeah.

00:28:48.054 –> 00:28:49.434

Why is a the right answer there?

00:28:49.464 –> 00:28:50.934

The A is the right answer for these reasons.

00:28:50.934 –> 00:28:54.414

Why is B the wrong answer for the reasons that A is the right answer?

00:28:54.924 –> 00:28:57.234

But that's like not really helpful, right?

00:28:57.234 –> 00:28:57.564

It's like,

00:28:57.564 –> 00:29:00.114

Ronnie: and it's, and you wanna just kind of cut, be and paste what you've

00:29:00.114 –> 00:29:02.424

already written cuz you already wrote the right answer, you know,

00:29:02.424 –> 00:29:03.834

up above or whatever in the text.

00:29:04.044 –> 00:29:06.804

But chat g p t does a pretty good job of like writing it in a slightly

00:29:06.804 –> 00:29:10.374

different way that might connect with them a little bit better or something

00:29:10.374 –> 00:29:12.144

like that and not feel super repetitive.

00:29:12.144 –> 00:29:15.834

So, um, you know, that's just the first thing we're playing with.

00:29:16.374 –> 00:29:24.789

Um, right after that it's getting to creating, we found, Just creating

00:29:24.789 –> 00:29:28.119

the course outline, which you can already go to chat G p T or

00:29:28.119 –> 00:29:30.069

I've been using Bard a lot too.

00:29:30.639 –> 00:29:30.909

Nice.

00:29:31.059 –> 00:29:32.439

I think that G Google Chat.

00:29:32.439 –> 00:29:33.879

Joe: G p t Google established

00:29:33.879 –> 00:29:34.209

Ronnie: earlier.

00:29:34.214 –> 00:29:34.449

Yeah.

00:29:34.929 –> 00:29:35.169

Yeah.

00:29:35.529 –> 00:29:36.999

Um, yes.

00:29:37.089 –> 00:29:42.999

And so, um, you know, you can already ask it for a course outline based

00:29:43.004 –> 00:29:44.109

on the course topic and all that.

00:29:44.109 –> 00:29:47.829

But what we're doing is you have to put a course title in

00:29:47.829 –> 00:29:48.939

when you create a new course.

00:29:48.999 –> 00:29:52.959

And we ask you right after that what like the objectives are of the course.

00:29:53.169 –> 00:29:53.289

Mm-hmm.

00:29:53.529 –> 00:29:56.439

Well now we already have all the information we need to

00:29:56.829 –> 00:29:58.029

write the prompts for you.

00:29:58.479 –> 00:29:58.629

Yeah.

00:29:58.659 –> 00:30:04.419

Um, so then we can generate a, an outline and say, do you like this?

00:30:04.479 –> 00:30:06.129

You can just start blank if you want.

00:30:06.129 –> 00:30:09.279

Like, you're not forced to use it, but if you choose to use it, you can easily

00:30:09.279 –> 00:30:12.579

customize it, edit it, but hopefully, you know, the goal is to get people

00:30:12.584 –> 00:30:14.289

to publish their first course faster.

00:30:14.289 –> 00:30:16.179

That's like the metric we're trying to improve.

00:30:16.179 –> 00:30:16.239

Yeah.

00:30:16.269 –> 00:30:20.174

Cuz we're a business, you know, we have to be, um, And,

00:30:20.194 –> 00:30:23.424

Joe: but I mean also like starting a course is like the hardest part, right?

00:30:23.484 –> 00:30:26.304

I mean, to me it's some people, they're like people who have a hard

00:30:26.304 –> 00:30:29.334

time starting and a, uh, some people who have time, like getting a hard

00:30:29.334 –> 00:30:30.354

time getting over the finish line.

00:30:30.834 –> 00:30:33.144

I am hun a hundred percent in the starting.

00:30:33.804 –> 00:30:34.074

Yeah.

00:30:34.164 –> 00:30:36.144

I will stare at a problem for like a week and be like, yeah,

00:30:36.144 –> 00:30:37.164

I really gotta start this.

00:30:37.284 –> 00:30:41.994

But like, again, generative AI has been, that made that a little bit easier, right?

00:30:41.994 –> 00:30:45.954

And like getting an outline, at least like you said, gets the ideas

00:30:45.954 –> 00:30:47.754

flowing and that's like super helpful.

00:30:47.754 –> 00:30:50.934

And so, yes, like you're a business, you want people to make more courses

00:30:50.939 –> 00:30:56.214

obviously, but like that is also extremely beneficial to the course

00:30:56.214 –> 00:30:59.634

creator who probably wants to get the course done as soon as possible.

00:30:59.634 –> 00:30:59.724

Oh yeah.

00:30:59.724 –> 00:31:00.714

So they can start selling it,

00:31:00.714 –> 00:31:00.984

Ronnie: right?

00:31:01.434 –> 00:31:05.094

No, we want, I mean we want, we wanna make tools that makes their

00:31:05.094 –> 00:31:07.554

lives easier and better and a better end result of the course.

00:31:07.554 –> 00:31:10.974

And everything like that helps 'em learn how to use the our tool as well,

00:31:10.974 –> 00:31:13.254

because that is kind of the hardest.

00:31:14.454 –> 00:31:17.604

Piece is that very beginning, just getting used to the course.

00:31:17.604 –> 00:31:20.244

And so if it already has the lessons laid out there with the titles,

00:31:20.364 –> 00:31:23.064

it, it all just makes a lot more sense to teach you how to use the

00:31:23.064 –> 00:31:24.594

tool, which is a big part of it too.

00:31:24.744 –> 00:31:26.064

And we'll do the same for lessons.

00:31:26.064 –> 00:31:28.134

We know the lesson title, we know the lesson objectives.

00:31:28.434 –> 00:31:30.384

We can, I'm nervous about this one.

00:31:30.384 –> 00:31:34.854

I, we're not gonna publish it if it's not good content, but like, I'm hoping

00:31:34.854 –> 00:31:41.064

we can write it in ways, like tell a story a around this topic or Yeah, like

00:31:41.064 –> 00:31:45.984

try to make it more engaging or ask discussion questions for this topic.

00:31:46.074 –> 00:31:50.124

So it's not just like regurgitating a textbook of content, right?

00:31:50.129 –> 00:31:55.014

Like it's gonna vary based on what the topic is, that it gives you some lesson

00:31:55.014 –> 00:32:00.924

output, help build some of that, um, you know, interactive elements into the lesson

00:32:00.924 –> 00:32:01.374

Joe: for you.

00:32:02.214 –> 00:32:04.644

Yeah, I really, I really like that.

00:32:04.734 –> 00:32:09.204

Um, cuz usually, you know, when I start, when I start on a course,

00:32:09.204 –> 00:32:10.764

the first thing I'll do is.

00:32:11.604 –> 00:32:13.599

Um, this is like course or book.

00:32:13.899 –> 00:32:18.669

Um, there's a like dual mind map of like everything I know about the topic.

00:32:18.669 –> 00:32:18.909

Right.

00:32:19.419 –> 00:32:24.369

Um, and so like even if I start there, right, I could still ask cha

00:32:24.669 –> 00:32:28.899

e p t or Bard, um, which by the way, I tried Bard when I first came out.

00:32:29.229 –> 00:32:30.609

Um, it's not as good, I'll be honest.

00:32:30.939 –> 00:32:31.389

Yeah.

00:32:31.389 –> 00:32:36.849

I mean, I, I I I kind of feel like Google's like scared of how good it

00:32:36.849 –> 00:32:39.879

could actually be and like they're probably throttling it a little bit.

00:32:40.299 –> 00:32:40.959

Oh, interesting.

00:32:41.019 –> 00:32:45.039

Um, just based on what I've read, pre Bard coming out.

00:32:45.729 –> 00:32:49.869

Um, but like, is that, is that rapidly, is that changing rapidly?

00:32:49.874 –> 00:32:52.749

Cuz I know like one of the things that Bard can do that chat c p t

00:32:52.754 –> 00:32:55.309

can't is like get the content of a.

00:32:56.079 –> 00:32:56.379

Right.

00:32:56.829 –> 00:32:57.879

Ronnie: Yeah, it does that.

00:32:57.909 –> 00:33:00.549

Um, and I use Bing actually a lot too.

00:33:01.329 –> 00:33:01.449

Oh, nice.

00:33:01.449 –> 00:33:04.509

Like, I'll test them all and Bing is chat g p t four, but it does

00:33:04.509 –> 00:33:07.749

the website stuff and I really like the way it cites its sources.

00:33:07.754 –> 00:33:07.879

Oh.

00:33:08.229 –> 00:33:10.059

And tells you where it pulled the information.

00:33:10.599 –> 00:33:11.279

Um, dang.

00:33:11.589 –> 00:33:11.949

That's awesome.

00:33:11.979 –> 00:33:12.039

Yeah.

00:33:12.039 –> 00:33:15.189

One thing, one thing I like about Bard is it usually gives you three

00:33:15.189 –> 00:33:17.109

versions of whatever it writes.

00:33:17.649 –> 00:33:20.619

And so you can immediately see what's different between the three versions.

00:33:20.619 –> 00:33:21.729

So that's pretty cool too.

00:33:21.949 –> 00:33:24.739

And I'm hoping we kind of build that in maybe with, it's kind of like

00:33:24.744 –> 00:33:26.089

we're doing three quiz questions.

00:33:26.089 –> 00:33:27.829

You can choose to have all three.

00:33:28.369 –> 00:33:33.829

Um, but with the outlines, we might have it do a short course outline

00:33:33.829 –> 00:33:38.299

or a more complicated course outline with like modules or something so

00:33:38.299 –> 00:33:40.009

we can show you the differences.

00:33:40.489 –> 00:33:46.399

Um, that is, is something we're, we're actively kind of looking into.

00:33:47.084 –> 00:33:51.764

Joe: Did you read Bill Gates's article about ai, like the future of AI

00:33:51.764 –> 00:33:54.194

and, and how it could help people?

00:33:55.514 –> 00:33:57.734

Ronnie: I don't think I, I mean, I know I didn't read it.

00:33:57.794 –> 00:33:59.264

I've heard bits and pieces

00:33:59.264 –> 00:34:04.304

Joe: of what I, my biggest takeaway and what I liked best from it was he

00:34:04.304 –> 00:34:05.804

basically said that my job is safe.

00:34:05.804 –> 00:34:06.014

Right?

00:34:06.014 –> 00:34:09.134

Educators, the world's always gonna need educators and the

00:34:09.134 –> 00:34:10.244

world's always gonna need nurses.

00:34:10.244 –> 00:34:12.284

So like, my job and my wife's job are safe.

00:34:13.189 –> 00:34:21.284

Um, but, uh, to that point, right, anybody at this moment can look

00:34:21.284 –> 00:34:23.024

up anything they want, right?

00:34:23.729 –> 00:34:26.729

Uh, you can find information on anything.

00:34:27.389 –> 00:34:33.239

And, um, but that doesn't mean that schools and educational

00:34:33.239 –> 00:34:34.889

institutions are eliminated, right?

00:34:34.889 –> 00:34:43.409

Because you still need someone with the experience to discern and distill

00:34:44.069 –> 00:34:46.529

and filter out the garbage, right?

00:34:46.889 –> 00:34:53.429

Um, and so I think like what we're talking about here is how chat G

00:34:53.429 –> 00:34:59.909

P T or other generative AI tools can help us make better content,

00:34:59.909 –> 00:35:01.439

give us better ideas, right?

00:35:01.569 –> 00:35:07.859

Because we as educators, we still only have like our personal lens, right?

00:35:07.859 –> 00:35:13.739

So like, I mean, I don't want to, um, disparage programmers.

00:35:13.739 –> 00:35:17.669

I am a programmer, but like I've, I've said this before, right?

00:35:17.669 –> 00:35:20.369

Where like I'll be talking to a client and they'll want to feature and I'll

00:35:20.369 –> 00:35:21.289

be like, why would you want that?

00:35:22.379 –> 00:35:22.739

Right.

00:35:22.739 –> 00:35:26.609

Like, which is just such a conceited thing to think and say.

00:35:27.179 –> 00:35:32.849

Um, but like the same could be said in, in the education setting, right?

00:35:32.849 –> 00:35:38.519

Like, I might not think of something that the, uh, the learner might need to learn.

00:35:39.029 –> 00:35:44.249

Whereas a few good prompts from chat G P T might show me like, I'm teaching WordPress

00:35:44.249 –> 00:35:48.629

and most people don't know the difference between a page and a post that comes from

00:35:48.629 –> 00:35:51.629

a real life experience where my student was like, what are you even talking about?

00:35:52.349 –> 00:35:53.159

What's the difference?

00:35:53.279 –> 00:36:01.289

Um, so things like that, if you can short circuit that, uh, incredulous

00:36:01.289 –> 00:36:07.559

look from a, an 18 year old student, uh, chay, VT could save you a lot of pain.

00:36:09.389 –> 00:36:11.789

Ronnie: Well, you know what, you made me think a little bit about.

00:36:13.029 –> 00:36:13.124

Chat.

00:36:13.124 –> 00:36:18.224

G p t is so text heavy and I know that there's some like generative like

00:36:18.224 –> 00:36:21.884

art and image tools and even videos we're getting there, but mm-hmm.

00:36:22.129 –> 00:36:25.934

We, we've kind of been on this trend away from reading a lot of text and

00:36:25.934 –> 00:36:30.044

moving into like these like TikTok like video for everything, right?

00:36:30.044 –> 00:36:35.294

Like if you can't, if you can't teach it in a, in a quick, uh, portrait mode.

00:36:35.294 –> 00:36:38.204

TikTok, I mean, forever it was like, how dare you record a video

00:36:38.204 –> 00:36:39.764

in portrait mode and now Oh, I know.

00:36:40.004 –> 00:36:48.614

Um, and so like that's a good thing that educators have to remember.

00:36:48.619 –> 00:36:51.314

Like depending on the topic, depending on the learner, you

00:36:51.314 –> 00:36:52.874

kind of set it with their needs.

00:36:52.879 –> 00:36:57.554

Like some things somebody might be able to read and understand others they

00:36:57.554 –> 00:37:01.244

might be better if they hear it or if they see it in a video or if they get

00:37:01.244 –> 00:37:03.194

to draw it themselves or whatever.

00:37:03.464 –> 00:37:05.964

So when we're building our course, we can inc.

00:37:06.764 –> 00:37:10.514

All these strategies, whenever possible, give people the choice

00:37:10.514 –> 00:37:13.304

and we don't have to funnel them through the exact same experience

00:37:13.304 –> 00:37:15.134

as everyone else taking the course.

00:37:15.224 –> 00:37:16.484

We can give them their options.

00:37:16.484 –> 00:37:21.854

And that's really what I hope this like AI will help us be able to build

00:37:21.854 –> 00:37:26.084

those sorts of like, just experiences

00:37:26.084 –> 00:37:26.594

Joe: faster.

00:37:27.554 –> 00:37:27.974

Yeah.

00:37:27.974 –> 00:37:31.034

And, and this is something I talk about with like content reuse, right?

00:37:31.094 –> 00:37:35.334

Um, you know, I've got students who are like, how am I supposed

00:37:35.334 –> 00:37:36.164

to make all this content?

00:37:36.169 –> 00:37:41.114

Like, well, you know, it's, uh, record the podcast, use generative AI to get

00:37:41.114 –> 00:37:44.594

a transcript, have chat, e b t, clean up that transcript and make it readable

00:37:45.404 –> 00:37:47.204

and then have it summarize, right?

00:37:47.264 –> 00:37:48.734

Oh, now you have LinkedIn post, right?

00:37:49.214 –> 00:37:52.634

Uh, there is, if you are creating text based courses, like maybe you're not

00:37:52.814 –> 00:37:57.464

good on like, maybe, you know, I mean, Thomas Jefferson famously delivered

00:37:57.464 –> 00:38:04.044

his state, state of the Union, states of the State of the Union addresses.

00:38:04.214 –> 00:38:04.694

There we go.

00:38:05.204 –> 00:38:08.789

Um, Via, via written word, right?

00:38:08.789 –> 00:38:10.319

Because he hated speaking.

00:38:11.099 –> 00:38:16.919

Um, but I was just looking at this tool by, uh, 11 Labs.

00:38:17.729 –> 00:38:18.989

I don't know if you've seen this one.

00:38:18.989 –> 00:38:23.489

You give it, you feed it a sample of your voice, and then it will, you

00:38:23.494 –> 00:38:29.909

know, generate, uh, text to speech with your own voice, um, does a pretty

00:38:29.909 –> 00:38:37.409

good job if you have like that North American kind of accent and dialect.

00:38:38.039 –> 00:38:43.529

Um, you know, I think, uh, I was listening to a podcast with, uh, John Voorhis,

00:38:43.679 –> 00:38:49.019

who's from like Chicago and Federico Vici, who's from Rome, Italy, and, um,

00:38:49.649 –> 00:38:52.619

definitely worked a little bit better for John than it did for Federico.

00:38:52.619 –> 00:38:55.649

So probably a very US-centric tool right now.

00:38:55.654 –> 00:38:58.709

But, um, you know, if you're in a position where you can.

00:38:59.924 –> 00:39:02.684

Audio content, you're not comfortable in front of the mic.

00:39:02.774 –> 00:39:02.954

Yeah.

00:39:03.314 –> 00:39:05.054

That could be an opportunity.

00:39:05.114 –> 00:39:05.474

Right?

00:39:05.534 –> 00:39:06.494

Or vice versa.

00:39:07.394 –> 00:39:11.654

AI tools are giving us the ability to meet the learners where they want

00:39:11.659 –> 00:39:13.214

to be, which I think is super great.

00:39:15.404 –> 00:39:16.244

Ronnie: Yeah, absolutely.

00:39:16.544 –> 00:39:22.634

And like I can write a blog post or an email like in no time.

00:39:22.664 –> 00:39:25.934

That's just a skill that I've developed, but when it comes to trying

00:39:25.934 –> 00:39:29.774

to record a video, like it could take me all day to record a minute

00:39:29.774 –> 00:39:34.724

because I just like, just get stressed out about it and wanna rerecord a

00:39:34.724 –> 00:39:36.074

million times and all that stuff.

00:39:36.074 –> 00:39:36.164

Mm-hmm.

00:39:37.304 –> 00:39:39.824

Maybe there's tools that are available that are gonna help me.

00:39:39.824 –> 00:39:40.124

Right.

00:39:40.124 –> 00:39:43.034

Like I can write it out and like get it out quickly.

00:39:43.564 –> 00:39:46.324

Joe: I think it's really interesting when you think about those things, right?

00:39:46.534 –> 00:39:50.854

Turning on a video and, and talking is energy.

00:39:50.974 –> 00:39:54.874

Like it takes a lot of energy, the camera steals energy from you.

00:39:54.874 –> 00:39:56.974

So, um, yeah.

00:39:56.974 –> 00:39:57.754

But these tools can be

00:39:57.754 –> 00:39:58.834

Ronnie: a great equalizer.

00:39:58.834 –> 00:39:58.924

Yes.

00:39:58.984 –> 00:40:01.684

I mean, I think about, uh, you know, people with.

00:40:02.794 –> 00:40:07.474

Dyslexia or dysgraphia like or anything really.

00:40:07.474 –> 00:40:09.574

Like we can What's dysgraphia again?

00:40:09.754 –> 00:40:13.414

It's writing issues like especially handwritten.

00:40:13.414 –> 00:40:13.444

Okay.

00:40:13.449 –> 00:40:16.054

Like handwriting and getting their words onto paper.

00:40:16.114 –> 00:40:16.384

Gotcha.

00:40:16.744 –> 00:40:21.904

Um, like, you know, we have such good tools with text

00:40:21.904 –> 00:40:23.734

to speech that really helps.

00:40:23.944 –> 00:40:24.064

Mm-hmm.

00:40:24.429 –> 00:40:29.764

Um, I've even seen people use like paste, copy paste and a whole bunch of text

00:40:29.764 –> 00:40:34.294

and say like, rewrite this in a more friendly format for someone with dyslexia.

00:40:34.294 –> 00:40:37.264

And it takes out some of like, it, there's some tools that people are

00:40:37.264 –> 00:40:42.664

working on just for that, but like, it's just these tools will hopefully be une

00:40:42.664 –> 00:40:46.774

equalizer for those, those of us both wanting to create content and consume.

00:40:46.779 –> 00:40:47.104

Right.

00:40:47.104 –> 00:40:49.594

We will all be a little bit more on an even playing field.

00:40:50.304 –> 00:40:51.034

Joe: Yeah, absolutely.

00:40:51.034 –> 00:40:51.554

To be pretty cool.

00:40:51.554 –> 00:40:51.954

Absolutely.

00:40:52.114 –> 00:40:52.744

That's awesome.

00:40:53.104 –> 00:40:55.174

That's like one of the things everyone's like, why do I, why

00:40:55.174 –> 00:40:56.674

does my podcast need a transcript?

00:40:56.764 –> 00:40:57.034

Right.

00:40:57.094 –> 00:41:01.234

I'm like, well, there's like a lot of reasons, but some people prefer to read.

00:41:02.244 –> 00:41:05.254

And like the argument will be like, well, our podcast is so

00:41:05.254 –> 00:41:09.574

conversational that like just the transcript will be terrible to read.

00:41:09.574 –> 00:41:12.244

And I'm like, all right, well let the reader make that judgment.

00:41:12.364 –> 00:41:12.664

Right?

00:41:12.669 –> 00:41:15.214

Like, don't be like, you won't like this anyway.

00:41:16.564 –> 00:41:17.074

Um,

00:41:17.764 –> 00:41:17.974

Ronnie: yeah.

00:41:17.974 –> 00:41:21.604

Well, similarly, if you have a video based course, of course it's heavy with videos.

00:41:21.604 –> 00:41:25.534

Like not just having the caption option, but like you can use an

00:41:25.534 –> 00:41:28.234

accordion to hide it, but put the whole transcript in there, right?

00:41:28.264 –> 00:41:28.534

Yeah.

00:41:28.654 –> 00:41:33.214

So someone can expand, but you're also gonna like benefit search if

00:41:33.214 –> 00:41:34.384

someone's searching through your course.

00:41:34.414 –> 00:41:37.174

One of the things that, I don't know how long this will take or how useful

00:41:37.179 –> 00:41:40.534

this will be, but I feel like we're gonna have these chat bots that follow

00:41:40.534 –> 00:41:41.884

us on every website we visit now.

00:41:42.544 –> 00:41:43.154

Mm-hmm.

00:41:43.234 –> 00:41:48.304

So the idea is like, and we're kind of looking into this like an AI tool

00:41:48.304 –> 00:41:49.864

where you could chat with the course.

00:41:50.404 –> 00:41:50.684

Yeah.

00:41:51.364 –> 00:41:55.234

And you know, so having that transcript in there is gonna make, building these

00:41:55.234 –> 00:41:57.394

tools and add-ons later so much better.

00:41:57.394 –> 00:41:58.684

So I would definitely,

00:41:58.744 –> 00:42:00.964

Joe: someone told me.

00:42:01.999 –> 00:42:03.724

About a tool like this.

00:42:04.144 –> 00:42:06.514

It's not on this piece of paper, I thought it was.

00:42:06.964 –> 00:42:10.384

Um, but it's like you feed it a bunch of your content, video content,

00:42:10.384 –> 00:42:14.434

audio content, and it transcribes it, transcribes it, and then you basically

00:42:14.434 –> 00:42:19.864

say like, um, where do I talk about, uh, this was a real estate example, right?

00:42:19.864 –> 00:42:22.714

So like, where do I talk about, um, HOAs?

00:42:23.584 –> 00:42:27.274

And this chat box comes back and it's like, in this video at minute

00:42:27.484 –> 00:42:30.094

nine you talk about HOAs, right?

00:42:30.094 –> 00:42:33.334

Like, so these tools are already being developed and that is

00:42:34.114 –> 00:42:36.034

absolutely bananas to me.

00:42:36.064 –> 00:42:38.434

Ronnie: And even more than like search results like that, it'll

00:42:38.439 –> 00:42:41.554

like synthesize like, what did we talk about with HOAs in there?

00:42:41.554 –> 00:42:41.644

Right?

00:42:41.784 –> 00:42:44.584

And it'll like summarize instead of you having to read the transcript.

00:42:44.584 –> 00:42:47.374

And, and so I feel like that's coming.

00:42:47.379 –> 00:42:51.064

I don't know how far in the future, but your course will have

00:42:51.184 –> 00:42:53.734

a chatbot that someone can like.

00:42:54.579 –> 00:42:57.019

You know, ask questions of the course.

00:42:57.439 –> 00:42:57.709

Right?

00:42:57.709 –> 00:43:01.429

Um, every website has it with documentation and all that sort of stuff,

00:43:01.429 –> 00:43:02.719

Joe: so Yeah.

00:43:02.749 –> 00:43:04.399

Completely indexed, right?

00:43:04.399 –> 00:43:08.329

And then this is, yeah, I mean, cuz this follows the trend and I'm

00:43:08.334 –> 00:43:09.649

aware we're coming up on time here.

00:43:09.709 –> 00:43:14.209

Um, so if anybody has any, any questions, uh, for me, or more importantly,

00:43:14.209 –> 00:43:16.669

Ronnie, um, leave them in the chat.

00:43:16.669 –> 00:43:17.839

I'll make sure we get to them.

00:43:18.229 –> 00:43:25.399

Um, but you know, the trend for the last few years has been, um, I first heard,

00:43:25.399 –> 00:43:32.059

uh, uh, Chris Badgett from Lifter, uh, use this term, um, like just in time learning.

00:43:32.059 –> 00:43:32.149

Mm-hmm.

00:43:32.929 –> 00:43:33.199

Right?

00:43:33.199 –> 00:43:37.219

Where people have a problem they wanna solve and they want to find course

00:43:37.219 –> 00:43:40.579

material in that moment, uh, to help them.

00:43:40.579 –> 00:43:42.829

And so this tool, the tool is called Searchy.

00:43:43.339 –> 00:43:44.719

I'll put it in the chat here.

00:43:45.319 –> 00:43:46.579

Um, oh, nice.

00:43:46.699 –> 00:43:50.299

But this is like, this is the, the tool I was talking about, that like

00:43:50.299 –> 00:43:52.279

index is your own content for you.

00:43:52.279 –> 00:43:55.294

This is like, Definitely something I'm gonna be playing with

00:43:55.714 –> 00:43:56.734

probably on the next live stream.

00:43:57.364 –> 00:44:00.664

Uh, either that or like generating an outline for my next book idea.

00:44:00.844 –> 00:44:08.614

Um, but uh, having a tool like this means that you can have, uh, over

00:44:08.614 –> 00:44:11.014

six or 14 hours of course content.

00:44:11.044 –> 00:44:14.644

And like, that doesn't feel daunting to the, the learner anymore.

00:44:14.644 –> 00:44:14.854

Right.

00:44:14.854 –> 00:44:18.334

Because I think this was like another thing that like course creators felt like

00:44:18.334 –> 00:44:24.454

they had to do was just like, put as much content as possible because content equals

00:44:24.454 –> 00:44:27.394

value, but like outcomes, equal value.

00:44:28.114 –> 00:44:29.584

Um, yeah.

00:44:29.584 –> 00:44:29.674

And

00:44:29.674 –> 00:44:33.914

Ronnie: these micro courses are like a big thing and a good, I mean, you

00:44:33.914 –> 00:44:35.554

can learn so much in 15 minutes.

00:44:35.664 –> 00:44:36.154

Yeah.

00:44:36.154 –> 00:44:37.194

And like absolutely.

00:44:37.614 –> 00:44:41.014

You know, and you could, you could sell that easily.

00:44:41.824 –> 00:44:42.094

Right.

00:44:42.099 –> 00:44:44.914

Um, you know, and, and get good value

00:44:44.914 –> 00:44:45.304

Joe: out of it.

00:44:45.424 –> 00:44:46.504

So yeah.

00:44:46.504 –> 00:44:50.674

That's like a tactical error I made recently where, um, I've got

00:44:50.674 –> 00:44:54.184

over a hundred videos, probably like 125 videos on podcasting.

00:44:54.994 –> 00:44:57.844

And, um, they were all in kind of self-paced courses.

00:44:57.844 –> 00:45:01.624

They were mostly in one big self-paced course, and I just kind of turned

00:45:01.624 –> 00:45:06.004

it into a membership where you could search for videos and, uh, I thought

00:45:06.004 –> 00:45:09.364

this was really the way to go, like Netflix style search for your topic.

00:45:09.714 –> 00:45:14.014

Um, when I didn't anticipate was for like, I kind of priced myself

00:45:14.014 –> 00:45:21.154

out of the market, um, for my target audience, but also, like, sometimes

00:45:21.159 –> 00:45:22.804

people don't know what they don't know.

00:45:23.674 –> 00:45:28.204

And so if I give them a, um, micro course or a mini course where it's like, how

00:45:28.204 –> 00:45:31.744

to start a podcast for less than 400 bucks, oh, well that's the thing that

00:45:31.744 –> 00:45:35.944

they know they, they need or how to get your first podcast sponsor right now.

00:45:35.949 –> 00:45:38.794

Let's not think long term about generating hundreds of thousands

00:45:38.794 –> 00:45:40.114

of dollars off of sponsorships.

00:45:40.114 –> 00:45:41.974

Let's just talk about getting your first sponsorship.

00:45:41.974 –> 00:45:43.264

Is that worth 50 bucks to you?

00:45:44.049 –> 00:45:44.749

Well, yeah, totally.

00:45:45.499 –> 00:45:48.499

Ronnie: And then you can cross sell, upsell, right, exactly.

00:45:48.499 –> 00:45:50.209

Link all that sort of good stuff.

00:45:50.269 –> 00:45:50.569

Yeah.

00:45:50.569 –> 00:45:53.299

Especially into like a one-on-one coaching thing or whatever

00:45:53.299 –> 00:45:53.779

Joe: it may be.

00:45:54.499 –> 00:45:55.639

So Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:45:55.639 –> 00:45:59.869

And the mistake I made learn from this mistake friends, um, I tried to bundle

00:45:59.869 –> 00:46:05.089

it all together, like you get all hundred 20 videos and live cohorts with me and a

00:46:05.089 –> 00:46:09.799

one-on-one session with me, and I thought I was throwing in a lot of value, but

00:46:09.829 –> 00:46:11.389

it kind of sounds overwhelming, right?

00:46:11.389 –> 00:46:13.849

And so, like people who bought, and now we're six months in, they, and

00:46:13.849 –> 00:46:16.429

they're like, do I still have that one-on-one coaching session with you?

00:46:16.489 –> 00:46:21.499

Like, and maybe if I let more people buy it when they're ready, right?

00:46:21.499 –> 00:46:25.249

If I get them in and they, I solve their immediate problem, then the

00:46:25.249 –> 00:46:27.349

upsell the cross-sell is, is better.

00:46:27.409 –> 00:46:33.829

And so, um, not really generative ai, but just like kind of the theory of, I, I

00:46:33.834 –> 00:46:36.469

think we're moving towards, uh, away from.

00:46:37.084 –> 00:46:38.734

By the college degree.

00:46:38.854 –> 00:46:39.184

Right?

00:46:39.814 –> 00:46:40.054

Yeah.

00:46:40.194 –> 00:46:40.554

Yeah.

00:46:40.554 –> 00:46:43.714

And, and, and we're moving more towards like buy the skill, right?

00:46:43.714 –> 00:46:47.794

We're moving from like the big, like four, six year universities

00:46:47.794 –> 00:46:48.994

to the trade school again.

00:46:51.874 –> 00:46:52.114

Yeah.

00:46:52.714 –> 00:46:53.164

Awesome.

00:46:53.164 –> 00:46:59.014

Well, I wanna wrap up here with, um, uh, we touched on the

00:46:59.014 –> 00:47:00.364

stuff that, that you are doing.

00:47:00.394 –> 00:47:04.714

Uh, obviously you work for Automatic, automatic has a lot of different tools.

00:47:04.714 –> 00:47:05.344

Automatic.

00:47:05.344 –> 00:47:11.464

For those who don't know, uh, they run wordpress.com, own WOR WooCommerce, uh,

00:47:11.464 –> 00:47:14.704

and therefore Sensei Mail Poet, Jetpack.

00:47:15.994 –> 00:47:17.944

A lot of other things that I'm probably forgetting.

00:47:18.514 –> 00:47:20.704

Um, did I miss anything major there?

00:47:20.764 –> 00:47:22.234

Did I name all the major properties,

00:47:22.414 –> 00:47:25.024

Ronnie: but for anyone listening, pocket cast, it's my favorite

00:47:25.024 –> 00:47:27.334

Joe: pocket cast, of course.

00:47:27.634 –> 00:47:30.964

Um, God and Pocket cast is amazing.

00:47:31.024 –> 00:47:38.299

Uh, Hashtag not a sponsor, but like really, um, the web interface

00:47:38.299 –> 00:47:41.389

is still like the best of any podcast app I've ever used.

00:47:42.139 –> 00:47:44.179

Um, yeah, so Great point.

00:47:44.299 –> 00:47:47.359

Podcasts, uh, lots of other great stuff.

00:47:47.359 –> 00:47:52.639

So, um, is there like an overarching philosophy inside of Automatic?

00:47:53.119 –> 00:47:56.359

I know Automatic has for a long time been very like, let the

00:47:56.359 –> 00:47:58.069

teams do their things ship.

00:47:58.639 –> 00:48:02.089

Um, but as you've grown, maybe you've, you've gotten a more

00:48:02.089 –> 00:48:03.649

like com company wide philosophy.

00:48:03.654 –> 00:48:04.789

Does that question make sense?

00:48:05.254 –> 00:48:05.854

Ronnie: Yeah, it makes sense.

00:48:05.854 –> 00:48:06.934

And it's a little bit of both.

00:48:07.024 –> 00:48:13.834

I mean, I think, uh, Matt Mullenweg, our founder CEO o like posted in a publicly

00:48:13.834 –> 00:48:18.004

in a post status channel recently, like, you know, he thinks everyone across

00:48:18.004 –> 00:48:21.664

the entire WordPress ecosystem needs to learn AI deeply and experiment.

00:48:21.664 –> 00:48:24.424

And it's like, I think like everyone, it's taken over.

00:48:25.684 –> 00:48:30.214

Um, like it's something every team is talking about and is thinking about how

00:48:30.214 –> 00:48:34.714

to incorporate in their own way and that the teams have the autonomy and, you

00:48:34.714 –> 00:48:36.334

know, to figure out what works best.

00:48:36.574 –> 00:48:40.954

Everything from like, tools that we're using internally, like I now have a

00:48:40.954 –> 00:48:46.924

chatbot to ask like how, you know, like sense senses, subscriber numbers

00:48:46.924 –> 00:48:48.544

or changing over time or whatever.

00:48:48.544 –> 00:48:52.624

Instead of looking for a graph all the way up to like getting it into the hands of

00:48:52.684 –> 00:48:54.784

users, creating content in different ways.

00:48:55.504 –> 00:48:59.464

Also a big focus around, uh, we have so much content.

00:48:59.884 –> 00:49:06.694

Uh, forums and from courses and from blog posts, you know, about how to use

00:49:06.754 –> 00:49:10.774

WordPress, wordpress.com and all these sorts of things that like, you know,

00:49:10.774 –> 00:49:15.094

how can we use AI to, to help synthesize all that and, and get the user what they

00:49:15.094 –> 00:49:18.314

want to know from, from a support aspect.

00:49:18.694 –> 00:49:23.824

So it, it really runs the picture there, but it is like every team for themselves,

00:49:23.824 –> 00:49:31.654

we are working on like some centralized like, um, a p i tools that we can all use

00:49:31.654 –> 00:49:36.934

as, so that, that like some of the dirty behind the scenes under the hood work

00:49:36.934 –> 00:49:40.654

can be taken care of for us so we can just build faster, which is pretty cool.

00:49:41.494 –> 00:49:41.884

Joe: Nice.

00:49:41.884 –> 00:49:42.574

That's amazing.

00:49:42.634 –> 00:49:45.304

Um, we'll have to get into this at a later date, right?

00:49:45.304 –> 00:49:48.334

But like, customer service is probably a really good place

00:49:48.339 –> 00:49:49.804

where AI could be helpful, right?

00:49:49.884 –> 00:49:53.074

And yeah, this is like the first quote unquote chatbots.

00:49:53.079 –> 00:49:55.444

I feel like chatbot has a totally different meaning now

00:49:55.924 –> 00:49:57.244

than even like two years ago.

00:49:58.024 –> 00:50:01.444

But like, you would see that in, in the chat bots that, you know, you

00:50:01.444 –> 00:50:03.754

have little bubble on the site and it's like, Hey, how can I help you?

00:50:03.754 –> 00:50:06.574

Like the support chat.

00:50:06.844 –> 00:50:11.464

And it's like, oh, well, oh, it looks like you said the word migrate here.

00:50:11.464 –> 00:50:13.774

Like, have you looked at these FAQ articles and

00:50:14.434 –> 00:50:15.004

Ronnie: it was rarely

00:50:15.009 –> 00:50:15.514

Joe: what you needed.

00:50:15.519 –> 00:50:15.814

Right?

00:50:15.814 –> 00:50:16.954

It was rarely what you needed.

00:50:16.954 –> 00:50:17.044

Right.

00:50:17.334 –> 00:50:18.574

But like now Right.

00:50:18.574 –> 00:50:21.874

It feels like it'll be less rare.

00:50:22.804 –> 00:50:23.434

And also

00:50:23.434 –> 00:50:28.384

Ronnie: like the folks, you know, handling, uh, which their job is unreal.

00:50:28.384 –> 00:50:32.674

And I could never do like handling multiple live chats and tickets.

00:50:32.674 –> 00:50:32.764

I know.

00:50:32.769 –> 00:50:34.324

And like helping people all day long.

00:50:34.414 –> 00:50:38.524

Like they're the heroes, but they also have access to this data and

00:50:38.524 –> 00:50:40.054

it's like a lot to keep up with.

00:50:40.294 –> 00:50:40.684

Mm.

00:50:41.254 –> 00:50:47.944

Two, um, to help them like search and, and find the right way to say it that worked

00:50:47.944 –> 00:50:49.384

for someone in the past or something.

00:50:49.384 –> 00:50:49.684

Right.

00:50:49.744 –> 00:50:50.104

And

00:50:50.104 –> 00:50:50.314

Joe: yeah.

00:50:50.319 –> 00:50:51.034

That's pretty cool.

00:50:51.514 –> 00:50:52.114

Absolutely.

00:50:52.114 –> 00:50:57.784

I'm, I'm gonna, um, end with a, a question that I, I'm curious about, uh, cuz I know

00:50:57.784 –> 00:51:02.254

for a while every new hire at Automatic had to work support for two weeks.

00:51:02.254 –> 00:51:03.034

Did you have to do that?

00:51:03.424 –> 00:51:04.204

Ronnie: I did, yeah.

00:51:04.204 –> 00:51:07.564

And I had to do Woo support and I had never really used Woo.

00:51:07.834 –> 00:51:08.134

Oh wow.

00:51:08.134 –> 00:51:11.164

And so it was quite eye-opening and I'm, I'm due for

00:51:11.254 –> 00:51:12.604

Joe: getting back in there for a week.

00:51:12.904 –> 00:51:13.234

Nice.

00:51:13.234 –> 00:51:13.414

Yeah.

00:51:13.419 –> 00:51:16.564

Is that something that you can just like optionally do at any time or, uh, it's

00:51:16.569 –> 00:51:17.194

Ronnie: once a year.

00:51:17.224 –> 00:51:18.844

Everyone needs to do it, do a week.

00:51:18.849 –> 00:51:19.024

Oh,

00:51:19.444 –> 00:51:20.044

Joe: that's amazing.

00:51:20.104 –> 00:51:20.584

That's great.

00:51:20.614 –> 00:51:20.674

Yeah.

00:51:20.674 –> 00:51:22.684

That's, it's such a good, such a good thing.

00:51:22.684 –> 00:51:22.924

Right.

00:51:22.924 –> 00:51:28.354

I, um, just migrated to Transistor FM for my podcast host and, uh, the

00:51:28.354 –> 00:51:32.404

guy helping me support was also like the co-founder, uh, Justin Jackson.

00:51:32.404 –> 00:51:37.654

And I just thought that was like, Such a great thing, like, oh well, like,

00:51:37.864 –> 00:51:40.684

because you know, some people are like, I'm the ceo, and like, they're

00:51:40.684 –> 00:51:42.034

too good for like, the grunt work.

00:51:42.034 –> 00:51:44.824

But like, he's like, yeah, let me help you with that really

00:51:44.829 –> 00:51:45.094

Ronnie: quick.

00:51:45.364 –> 00:51:47.614

Just really, no, absolutely everyone in the company.

00:51:47.614 –> 00:51:51.574

I mean from like the accountants and the lawyers to the developers Wow.

00:51:51.579 –> 00:51:52.054

To everyone.

00:51:52.204 –> 00:51:53.374

So it's pretty

00:51:53.374 –> 00:51:53.704

Joe: cool.

00:51:53.974 –> 00:51:54.604

Yeah, I know.

00:51:54.604 –> 00:51:58.834

I've seen screenshots of like Matt jumping in too few times in time, which is cool.

00:51:58.834 –> 00:51:59.704

Yep, yep.

00:51:59.734 –> 00:52:00.814

Um, that's amazing.

00:52:00.814 –> 00:52:04.024

And then the last thing I'll just mention here is, uh, of the automatic

00:52:04.024 –> 00:52:07.294

products that I think are worth mentioning that I forgot to mention.

00:52:07.954 –> 00:52:09.064

Uh, we already mentioned Tumblr.

00:52:09.544 –> 00:52:13.324

Uh, day one, the journal app, which is super cool.

00:52:13.414 –> 00:52:17.854

Um, nice to be like, uh, I feel like Automatic is a good steward of that app.

00:52:18.484 –> 00:52:22.324

Uh, and simple note, which again, I feel automatic has

00:52:22.324 –> 00:52:23.794

been a good steward of that app.

00:52:23.794 –> 00:52:28.804

So, uh, looking for notes, especially for Android, I feel like, well, I mean,

00:52:29.644 –> 00:52:31.264

when I was on Android it was lacking.

00:52:31.434 –> 00:52:31.924

Yeah.

00:52:31.924 –> 00:52:34.309

Uh, Simple in a long time.

00:52:34.309 –> 00:52:35.389

Best joint based.

00:52:35.419 –> 00:52:36.469

Yeah, it's been a long time though.

00:52:36.769 –> 00:52:37.039

Yeah.

00:52:37.969 –> 00:52:43.069

Ronnie: So, oh, I mean, we've all in on open source and making the web better and

00:52:43.069 –> 00:52:45.109

not just through WordPress, which is yeah.

00:52:45.199 –> 00:52:45.799

Joe: Is pretty cool.

00:52:46.519 –> 00:52:47.029

Awesome.

00:52:47.089 –> 00:52:48.409

Well, Ronnie, this has been great.

00:52:48.409 –> 00:52:50.779

Thanks so much for joining us here on the livestream today.

00:52:51.019 –> 00:52:56.349

Thanks to, uh, EDMA and Wanda and all the lurkers, uh, who were watching

00:52:56.354 –> 00:53:00.169

or who will be listening to this later, uh, if people wanna learn more

00:53:00.169 –> 00:53:01.879

about you, where can they find you?

00:53:02.899 –> 00:53:06.709

Ronnie: I wrote a post on using Conmigo, which Khan Academy's

00:53:06.709 –> 00:53:08.839

ai on my blog@ronniebird.com.

00:53:08.899 –> 00:53:15.619

But you can also check us out on sensei lms.com, uh, for all the

00:53:15.619 –> 00:53:16.399

good stuff we're doing there.

00:53:17.479 –> 00:53:17.989

Joe: Nice.

00:53:17.989 –> 00:53:23.119

And, uh, yeah, I will make sure to have again, links in the description for

00:53:23.119 –> 00:53:25.639

both this video and the podcast episode.

00:53:25.644 –> 00:53:29.029

But, um, This episode has been presented by Sensei.

00:53:29.029 –> 00:53:34.099

So, uh, if you go to How I Built It slash sensei, you'll get a little, a

00:53:34.099 –> 00:53:39.229

little coupon code if you want to check out Sensei for your own online courses.

00:53:39.289 –> 00:53:43.579

Uh, I'm gonna find this blog post as we speak, um, and link

00:53:43.584 –> 00:53:45.109

that in the show notes as well.

00:53:45.109 –> 00:53:46.519

So, uh, oh, great.

00:53:46.519 –> 00:53:47.029

I found it.

00:53:47.059 –> 00:53:47.869

Oh, very timely.

00:53:47.869 –> 00:53:51.109

Thank you Ronnie, um, accounting Cafe.

00:53:51.109 –> 00:53:52.399

Thanks so much for being here.

00:53:52.399 –> 00:53:53.299

I appreciate you.

00:53:53.329 –> 00:53:54.169

Uh, really interesting.

00:53:54.169 –> 00:53:55.189

Thank you, Ronnie.

00:53:55.189 –> 00:53:56.929

Thanks so much for spending some extra time with us today.

00:53:57.059 –> 00:53:57.419

Yeah, it's fun.

00:53:57.419 –> 00:53:57.819

I appreciate it.

00:53:57.819 –> 00:53:58.179

A lot of fun.

00:53:58.399 –> 00:53:58.879

All right.

00:53:58.909 –> 00:53:59.119

Yep.

00:53:59.179 –> 00:54:02.119

Thank you to everybody watching slash listening.

00:54:02.539 –> 00:54:06.349

Uh, and until next time, get out there and build something.

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