TED Talkin’: Sugata Mitra’s quietly powerful challenge to education norms

Mikey Mioduski (00:02)

Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, AKA the Storyteller Study Club. This is Mikey Medusky, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications at Presentation Design Agency. And I'm joined by my co-host, your favorite, out on the West Coast, Molly Gagan. Molly, what is up?

 

Molly Geoghegan (00:20)

Woo! Welcome, presentation nation. Today, AKA, we're talking about the future of learning, Mikey. We've, yeah, we've been dabbling.

 

Mikey Mioduski (00:28)

Yeah, here we are. ⁓ We love picking apart awesome TED Talks,

 

right? Because we're on this quest to become better presenters, better presentation thinkers. And ⁓ what a repository that old ted.com is, right? And it's fun for us to like watch something, see what we learned, but also see what we learned about the art of giving talks.

 

Molly Geoghegan (00:44)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

Yeah, definitely. Mikey and Presentation Nation, we are always taking TED Talk recommendations because people are, they cover any topic and, ⁓ you know, subject you could possibly imagine. And our ethos is that presentations are found everywhere and presentations are the most...

 

potent form of storytelling. And we were recently turned on to a certain Sugata Mitra, who has a series of Ted talks, honestly, he's been invited back to the Ted stage, I think five times total, starting in 2007, right, Mikey? ⁓ Quite the, quite the repertoire. But Yvonne Wanus Ruiz, who's been on the cast recently a couple of times, he said Sugata is absolutely one of his favorite speakers that came up in his Spice Cabinet recommendation, always worth

 

Mikey Mioduski (01:30)

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (01:45)

digging through the spice cabinets there. And Sugata is a super interesting character. Yeah, Mikey, what's your first impression of Sugata?

 

Mikey Mioduski (01:53)

yeah, like I would want to hang out with this dude, you know, it's like really smart, hilarious, yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (01:57)

Yeah, he's really... I wish he was related to me. Yeah, he seems

 

like such a sweet individual ⁓ and extremely smart. And today we will be talking about kind of a lot of his work, but in particular his 2018 TED talk called The Future of Learning. And he talks a lot. He's a theoretical scientist, a researcher with an interest in education and the Internet and how kids learn on the Internet. So, I mean...

 

This talk was given in 2018. It seems more relevant than ever. And there's a lot of things that I'm sure with AI and chat GPT coming out and poor teachers having to deal with chat GPT in schools, how kids are learning. I'm sure he is very, I'm sure he's still a very busy person, Studying a

 

Mikey Mioduski (02:41)

Yeah, so if you want to

 

participate here, we'll give you 18, 19 minutes to go. Google Sugata Mitra, the future of education, TED Talk. Watch it. Come back, and we'll pick it up from there.

 

Molly Geoghegan (02:54)

Yeah, we'll see you soon.

 

Mikey Mioduski (02:57)

And we're back, sweet. Thank you, Editor John. ⁓ So, Molly, we always like to talk kind of about high level, but ⁓ the hook brings you back. We always like to talk about how a speaker opened up their talk. So do you remember what Sugata did in this case?

 

Molly Geoghegan (03:02)

18 minutes smarter.

 

Yes.

 

Yeah, Sugata for being, like, you can tell he's been on the Ted stage because the way he opens up this particular talk, he immediately just starts to say, good afternoon. They've given me 15 minutes, which is making me very anxious. And I think, you know, that kind of disarms the audience. Yeah, totally. He's like, ⁓ I'm not so sure about this. I think anyone that is able to share their vulnerabilities on stage is a good.

 

Mikey Mioduski (03:32)

He breaks the fourth wall or whatever, right? Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (03:44)

We've talked about that micro joke to like just hit the audience with right away so that they can be on board with you and like relate. And I think that's what this is for Sugata because I'm not sure that he's actually anxious, you know, because...

 

Mikey Mioduski (03:57)

Hey, and yeah, sometimes

 

I'm always just looking for like one little reason to justify the thing that I want to say, which to him was, so to make sure that I don't forget anything, I'm going to show you my last slide first, which is a really clever, cause we hear a lot about some presentation structure is like the tell them what you're to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them, which has been, know Carmen Simon has ⁓ maybe studied this and maybe pointed out that it doesn't always.

 

Molly Geoghegan (04:05)

Mm-hmm.

 

So smart.

 

Mikey Mioduski (04:27)

It's not always the most effective route. However, you know, I think people do tend to like to know what they're about to get into. And I think ⁓ he set it up as a four part structure, I think is four, right, Molly? ⁓ And yeah, he kind of lists out, he shows a slide, says this is what we're gonna talk about. And then kind of, kind of was like, all right, let's go.

 

Molly Geoghegan (04:36)

Mm-hmm.

 

I think so.

 

Yeah, and I mean, a lot of people, this is just another strategy for doing that, where people are like, this is what I'm going to talk, my name's Molly, and this is what I'm going to talk to you about today. And he does this by showing the last slide, which I actually think is just giving away a good strategy. Like if you are running out of time, it's helpful to just kind of cut to the chase and work your way backwards, which is what he does here. So ⁓ he goes to his, his four things, I suppose we can, we can share here is,

 

talking about introducing the internet, introducing complex dynamical systems, dividing the existing curriculum into three parts, and allowing the internet during exams. And sorry, this is the four things we need to do about education today. It's kind of his conclusion, conclusion statement. So they're kind of big, broad, and you're like, okay, I'm not really sure how we've got there yet. ⁓ Unless you're familiar with his work, you could make some suppositions, I suppose.

 

assumptions. And then he says, what I'm going to talk about for the rest of my time is why I'm saying all this. And that's only takes him about 60 seconds, right? That's a minute in. So a good use of time so far. And then he says, then he shifts into a very once upon a time kind of moment, my he or that I that I took where he goes, the story goes back to the experiment about 20 years ago called the hole in the wall.

 

Mikey Mioduski (05:53)

Mm-hmm. Right, right.

 

Molly Geoghegan (06:09)

So he's like, let me tell you about this if you're not familiar. And presentation nation. I've been watching a lot of Suga Tamitra talks in the last week, getting a half here. And he is most famous for this experiment that he did 20 years ago all over India and then later ⁓ replicated in other parts of the world called Hold on the Wall, where he went to very, very rural parts of India where children, the digital divide is super real. The internet had not yet been introduced to a lot of people and he installs a public

 

Mikey Mioduski (06:09)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (06:38)

Screen, I believe there's like two computers that children are encouraged to come access. It kind of almost looks like a little playground wall You know, it's very like inviting colorful and there's these two screens with no other you know there's no other information there except for just there's access to the internet and kids are You know buzz around these little screens because they're excited. They're they're digging into Lord knows what early aughts of internet ⁓

 

it was maybe more wholesome, I don't know. ⁓ And Sugata found that kids could teach themselves how to use the, not only use the internet, but you could ask them a question when he started presenting questions of like, what do you think, why do you think the sun sets at night and rises in the morning? Like simple, you know, scientific questions that you'd explore with your teachers in basic curriculum, they would find out on their own given the autonomy to explore that. So hole in the wall.

 

Mikey Mioduski (07:10)

He

 

Molly Geoghegan (07:37)

is that like screen in the wall, ⁓ there's a few conditions that Sue got to asserts that children need to kind of organize themselves around this. But this was pretty groundbreaking, right? Because there was no facilitation at all and kids were completely autonomous. They look like, he calls them, it looks like little bugs buzzing around the screen because they're all so excitable about this new thing. So that's his claim to fame, if you will.

 

Mikey Mioduski (07:46)

Yeah.

 

So that's like

 

the experiment. Put him on the map. Even though, like he says, he didn't study education, but he was like a, what was he? Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (08:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm hmm. He is a theoretical scientist and researcher

 

with an interest in education and how kids learn. Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (08:11)

Yeah, yeah.

 

And so it caught on. People called him from around the world. They're like, can we do the hole in the wall experiment in, ⁓ what do say, in Wales or something? And he's like, no, they'll freeze. But they adapted it. They brought it indoors in some places. And yeah, that self-organized learning environment, a S-O-L-E, sole, he calls it, it just happens, right? And it was so crazy. kids who don't even speak English started to learn how to search the internet in English. yeah, and then, ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (08:20)

Mm-hmm, right. Right, keep making... Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

So the, just happened.

 

Very cool.

 

Mikey Mioduski (08:41)

Yeah, so I'm sure, I guess he doesn't get into this, but Molly, know, I'm sure with every great person who's really challenging big norms and ideas probably is met with quite a bit of ⁓ pushback. Like, hey, we don't need teachers or whatever. You know, that's not what he's saying, but he's saying like kids will self-organize and holy smokes, they're resilient and they will, they're curious and that's a good thing.

 

Molly Geoghegan (08:51)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah, detractors, sure. Yeah, this is kind of-

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Right. think his assertion is more, yeah, is like teachers are meant to be a guide, right? He keeps coming back to that piece. ⁓ And getting back to his talk, like once he introduces this story, he has these like several qualities that are required in order to make that work because it

 

He shows a very funny picture of himself kind of hovering over the hole in the wall at one point, kind of peeking through. And he said, whenever his presence was there, the kids would engage with him. He was a distraction, right? And so it's like, they weren't able to focus on like the question they were supposed to be answering on the internet or teaching each other and helping each other work through different languages and windows online. And so...

 

The first quality is what does he say? They must be in heterogeneous groups, right? So different ages, different genders. Like it doesn't, it doesn't have to be like first grade, second grade. That just like limited to an age and they need to access this computer through a large public screen in a safe space, safe public space. So that's different than like an iPad. If you're thinking like, you know, of course kids can teach themselves with a phone, but that also

 

as we now very much know 20 years later, that's ⁓ a recipe for you. can also just like distract yourself and you might not answer the question that you are tasked with. And then three, the last thing is, yeah, they're unsupervised. So can they establish it, ⁓ the order and the autonomy themselves without a teacher there? Those are the three big factors. And then, so he takes about like, that's his amazing like...

 

Mikey Mioduski (10:22)

Right.

 

Molly Geoghegan (10:43)

meat of this experiment. Very cool to see pictures from that time and little clips and stuff. And before he starts to talk about expanding to other places. But then he kind of gets to a point where he's like, so what? Yeah. He's like, okay, so kids can learn by themselves. I've established that. And so what does that mean? You know, and that's when he starts to share how he replicated it in different places. ⁓ Mikey, his presentation skills, you mentioned, like, you know, couldn't do it in England because the weather's too bad.

 

Mikey Mioduski (11:05)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (11:12)

to being outside. has a really, Sugata has a really excellent ability with making the audience laugh at like simple things. And I think he has a very charming delivery. Needs to be studied.

 

Mikey Mioduski (11:13)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

I think we, Molly, you and I talked about how, toward the end we'll talk about, like, what type of presentation was this? And I think we like these scientific ones, or where someone walks you through an evolution of, you know, because one question led to this experiment, which led to another question. And so we experimented on that, tested that, you know, which led us to this next question. So.

 

Molly Geoghegan (11:32)

Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (11:51)

You kind of see where it's going, you have for someone to get to where, to appreciate where you ended up, it's helpful for them for as much as time will allow probably to give them the high level of here was the question, here was the takeaway, which prompted us to want to know this other thing. So I think he goes on a series for the middle part of this presentation is from one experiment to the next, you know, cause like what started as that sort of unaided one.

 

Molly Geoghegan (12:06)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (12:20)

Then they said, well, what if we could do this? Was this the granny one who was like virtually almost where like a teacher in England could ask questions to a group in India?

 

Molly Geoghegan (12:25)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm hmm.

 

Yes, I that's exactly what he kind of introduces. He says that after he was able to replicate it in person ⁓ in other places, he also wanted to see if, you know, like.

 

Can you just virtually tune in to this classroom of children? Ask them a question and see if they, and then, you know, disappear for a little bit. But he calls this the granny method. He assembled a granny cloud. He assembled a group of, you know, some older folks that had extra time on their hands, like an hour a week, and asked them to spend time in the classroom as like a facilitator, the guide, right? It doesn't have to be considered the teacher. ⁓ And the method of the grandmother.

 

And so that was something, it was like a new experiment. yeah, he said, if you have an internet connection, a web camera and an interest in children, an hour of their time a week to try out this methodology. So he assembled this like wide range of people involved in this experiment with this, called it a school in the cloud ⁓ with his Ted prize money from his first TED talk. Just crazy.

 

Mikey Mioduski (13:36)

Yeah, and

 

what was the, like, where did they come to as a conclusion on that one?

 

Molly Geoghegan (13:43)

He comes in around a minute 12, he introduces his conclusion, which is that... And yeah, so this is 20 years of work. He's done this experiment. Yeah, he goes, 20 years of work resulted in three graphs, which is of course a funny thing to say about your...

 

Mikey Mioduski (13:46)

Yeah.

 

Yeah

 

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (13:58)

life's work. yeah, it's one that children can teach themselves anything. And he's asserted that in several different ways, right? In person, different places, ⁓ virtually, and ⁓ yeah, just a variety of factors and environments. And then two, if you allow kids to search on the internet, given those four, those conditions described earlier, they'll get better and better at it. So they'll get, yeah, they'll get smarter. They'll get more strategic with their questions. And he also says something very interesting here that I'd love to talk about later too, but

 

He says, this is where they start to discern.

 

what information is, like which sites are good and which ones aren't as good and which ones they can kind of discern are like that doesn't give me the answer I needed exactly and kind of separate fact from fiction and I think that's such an interesting thing now in having to differentiate between false information and AI and that kind of thing. ⁓ And then number three, the last graph asserts that over the years their reading comprehension goes up notably and faster than it would in a normal quote-unquote curriculum and yeah that's including different languages.

 

and you know from sources they might not be normally be exposed to. So it's kind of he talks about like this 2018 his first TED Talks in 2007 and he's been doing this work for almost two decades and so there's a lot of variations of the same experiment and but he's gotten a couple different angles he's collected these different angles so with this talk called the future of learning I was like I had to watch it a few times to be like he's saying so much because it's like there's a lot

 

to beat broad strokes here for sure. But it's cool to kind of see the three graphs for me kind of distilled that down into like, here's all the ways in which we can apply it to the future of learning today. And because he introduces that conclusion around 12 minutes in, he still has his six minutes, it's an 18-ish minute talk. ⁓ And so where he asks the question, so what should a teacher do? And that's...

 

Mikey Mioduski (15:55)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (15:57)

You know, he's speaking to adults, right? That's the audience of Ted. Like, we're not just like here to be like, we're interested, of course, in learning, but he's speaking to adults. And he says that the teacher should be a guide. And, you know, I like this way he says, you go there, I'll go with you as the like, facilitating person, right? And he starts to assert that

 

Mikey Mioduski (16:15)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (16:17)

the testing systems that we use are largely out of date. We need to move from a just-in-case model to a just-in-time because why are we memorizing quadratic equations when we most likely won't? Because when you leave this hall, what if you confront a voracious quadratic equation and everybody laughs because you know that's not true. But when you sometimes when you're like cooking and you're like okay how many ounces are in a cup

 

Mikey Mioduski (16:31)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Hahaha.

 

Molly Geoghegan (16:44)

you need to like convert that really fast. I'm gonna Google that or ask the internet or do a little bit of math where I'm like, well, I know eight ounces is half of a pound or whatever. I'm kind of like putting things together in my head. So I with like previous knowledge that I've found online. So I feel like he asserts that that just in time where you're asking question as in is not a bad thing, right? ⁓ I don't know. And I think that's that kind of brings in

 

Mikey Mioduski (16:46)

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (17:12)

This is, as you said, Mikey, probably where he starts to kind of challenge some, some serious like, ⁓ norms in education that we've had.

 

Mikey Mioduski (17:19)

Right. Like if this is a great

 

thing that kids are in this self-organized learning environments are becoming, it's like amazing at figuring things out. ⁓ Then why should we, they're still being measured on the opposite of that, which is just memorization, you know, and spitting things back that he said, they'll like, you need to learn this so you can then forget it, you know, but rather than just like really developing habits on problem solving and being, yeah, learning how to figure things out.

 

Molly Geoghegan (17:25)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (17:49)

So yeah, he then just advocates to bring internet into classrooms and then let them use it during examinations, which is probably the most controversial thing I imagine. Yeah, yeah, And today, Molly, I assume that would be the equivalent would be if they're employing a lot of AI, chat GPT kind of stuff. Do you assume he'd be an advocate for letting them use that ⁓ as a part of their examination?

 

Molly Geoghegan (17:57)

Yeah. Dun dun dun. Yeah, totally, totally.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah,

 

I'm so interested to know, especially with just the development of that in the last seven years since this talk aired, of what his take would be on some of the chat GPT stuff, because on the one hand, you're like, okay, yeah, we're advocating to use the resource during this open exam kind of thing. And there is kind of a method. I think a lot of his conclusions point to the...

 

the skill of research that is being lost, right? Like ⁓ when you research something on the internet for a paper, pre-chat, chat, GBT, you have to do your own like sourcing, filtering. You have to find the academic approved articles. And when you do, you have to engage with them in a way that is like pretty time consuming. Like that's, that's time consuming research that gets you to learn whatever subject matter you're

 

dealing into. You might even find like some writer has XYZ opinion and some writer has another opinion and you kind of contract those things or you see like what's proven scientifically versus what's still being questioned or something in the world. And so I wonder, what I wonder with his skill and that muscle of research is I feel chat GPT specifically not all AI, but that kind of eliminates that muscle.

 

Mikey Mioduski (19:26)

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (19:40)

test for in my opinion and you kind of you get straight to the point and it might not be as nuanced as you need it to be to know what he's suggesting people can know and learn without having like with having access to the internet during an exam does that make sense ⁓

 

Mikey Mioduski (19:49)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (19:59)

So I think that muscle of research that he's advocating for in letting people use the internet gets lost when ChatGDP just jumps straight to the conclusion with less nuance and less of a journey. I don't know.

 

Mikey Mioduski (20:09)

Yeah, yeah, potentially. Yeah, I

 

get that. And then even, you know, he did have that point. I don't think he talked about this a lot, but on his slide of the four things, dividing the curriculum into three parts, he says that the three that he lists on his slide are one, like those that are necessary for life, two, things that feel good to know, and then three, only for exams. So maybe with that,

 

Molly Geoghegan (20:25)

yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (20:38)

as the foundation, then you're like not, you know, the things that are necessary for life versus things, yeah, if you can use chat GPT or internet to solve these things that you only need to know from time to time, maybe like when you've parsed those into separate kind of, ⁓ and weighted them separately, then it's not like you're using it for everything because it's part of a different curriculum.

 

Molly Geoghegan (20:44)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Exactly. Yeah.

 

And you would be more used to that too. Like you would, yeah, you'd have the muscle. So I'd be very curious who got to let us know what you think about the future of learning right now with ⁓ in the age of AI. But I think in general, I love his, we love a challenging talk. And when we were, when you were referencing earlier, Mikey, like what type of talk this is, sometimes Ted's can easily be motivational talks, inspirational presenting. ⁓

 

Mikey Mioduski (21:14)

⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (21:32)

I guess I kick in the ass for lack of better word. And then there, a lot of times there's, yeah, there's a scientist or an expert of some kind that's done some kind of experiment and they're here to report their findings. And this is a combo of that kind of talk and a talk that challenges norms. It's like a, if we did it differently kind of talk. And I think he does it pretty successfully. He's a very like unassuming, like his delivery so casual.

 

Mikey Mioduski (22:01)

Yeah, sneaky funny.

 

Molly Geoghegan (22:02)

and

 

and sneaky funny he's a soft-spoken guy his pace is really slow i'd be curious about his yeah yeah that's okay yeah this it's an older one

 

Mikey Mioduski (22:07)

huh. Yeah. I didn't do the transcript analyzer 3000 because I couldn't find the transcript, but I agree. Yeah. was, ⁓

 

it was, it was longer. It was like 20, nearly 20 minutes long, even though they gave him 15 minutes. He doesn't give a fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a lot. I mean, if I was that smart, I'd want more time.

 

Molly Geoghegan (22:22)

I, yes, I know he's slower. Yeah. He's like at a slower pace. I think.

 

I think what's interesting about him is that...

 

even though these are really hard and maybe why it's caught on. A lot of people are interested in education, how to teach kids, And then B, he's very charming and his delivery is amazing, his stage presence. If we're talking about the story, screen and stage ⁓ pillars here, presentation nation, if this is your first time tuning in, we always tune into this three-legged stool of story, screen and stage and the elements within each present of a person's presentation. Can't have one without the other.

 

Yeah, I think his story is just so good because it's relatable people can see the clips are amazing to see of people all over the world learning and ⁓ I think the challenging key assumptions and talking about these things that are really hard to measure in learning and He does it in such a deliver like an accessible way. I think are really successful I think that's like his biggest success point ⁓ of The story is super accessible

 

without being over like we really trust him as an expert but he's not overly wordy or ⁓ scientific about it.

 

Mikey Mioduski (23:41)

Yeah, and I think

 

⁓ a good amount of personal stories told and stories of real people, ⁓ for something that's divided into three or four sections, I think we think of these as vignettes or micro stories where each section can have a, here was a challenge, here's what we overcame, here's what we learned, the resolution. So yeah, sometimes we think of like,

 

Molly Geoghegan (23:48)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (24:10)

the presentation has to be this one narrative arc, but really if you, it's not usually how it goes. Like you might have these little vignettes which each have that intention and obstacle, you know, that leads to the next thing. And so I think for that reason, again, my favorite part was the builds and how like, how it was kind of a continuum that like kept getting us to that. It was like the what and then the so what and then the now what was like, here's what the future should be.

 

Molly Geoghegan (24:30)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes.

 

He definitely has like, yep,

 

totally. He's got a few of those so what turns, know, he's like, okay, we did this and then we did this and now we're thinking about this. Yeah. So how are we testing? Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (24:41)

Yeah.

 

Yeah,

 

I think we both story screen. His slides are simple. He put them together, it looks like. ⁓ You know, it's like, we've got some Calibri font. It's like, you know, they're there. You know, my team would love to work on a Sugata TED Talk. Hit us up sometime, it would be fun. But yeah, he's got, I'm sure he has a bunch of awesome videos.

 

Molly Geoghegan (24:52)

Mm-hmm. Simple.

 

Some accessible

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (25:15)

and photos and he showed some videos and photos. So I think those are probably just the best parts. It's just like seeing kids learning, that's amazing.

 

Molly Geoghegan (25:20)

I was going to, yeah, totally.

 

He does a good show, not tell in those moments where he just lets, lets the clips, his several clips. Yeah. Speak for themselves, the photos. So there's like the proof is in the pudding. You don't have to like sort through data. Although I am curious. I suppose one note would be like, what are some data points where you measure with kids learning? Like what are, what is that? What is, what is the word for that? Maybe that's a longer than 18 minute Ted talk, right? ⁓ but curious to know that.

 

Mikey Mioduski (25:44)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (25:49)

like qualification, right? What is he measuring there? ⁓

 

Mikey Mioduski (25:53)

Yeah. I'd be curious presentation-nash

 

as well, or any like exact, you know, speaker coaches out there. What is, have you seen a balance of like too much video in a presentation to where it becomes like, oh, people start to like tune out? I played with it at a recent talk and I felt like it was probably one or two too many minutes of video. And so I'm curious, like, what do do? Do you just like, you know, so I think his had it quite a bit. I think I didn't find it to be problematic.

 

Molly Geoghegan (25:59)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm.

 

Yeah, that's a good question.

 

Okay.

 

Yeah. What was the moment that, yeah, what makes you say that one or two was too many? Do you feel like you kind of lost the audience a little bit or like kind of, or with the transition of being like, play the video. And then it's like, and now we're back from the video. There's a couple, there's like a transition there that you have to account for. ⁓

 

Mikey Mioduski (26:24)

But it's just posing this question.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Yeah, like it's good for a classroom, I think, because it can

 

break it up. And like Steve Jobs would intentionally break up. He never wanted to be talking for too long, every five minutes or so he'd have a side act, a video, someone else coming out to talk, something like that, right? So you can use it wisely. But I assume that it could be overdone, especially if a video is just too long. But I didn't find that to be a problem with his. I just wanted to...

 

Molly Geoghegan (26:51)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes.

 

Mikey Mioduski (27:09)

to see if you had a hard take on that or any thoughts.

 

Molly Geoghegan (27:12)

Yeah, let

 

us know. Yeah, I'd be very curious, especially because it's important to have it. then also, people's attention spans are short, and so it's good to break things up. And if you break things up too much, it's like, is there a lack of focus as well? And they're kind of like this fatigue of being like, now where's the video? Now we're back. Now there's a video, now we're back. Back and forth kind of thing.

 

Mikey Mioduski (27:26)

⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Yeah, maybe.

 

Molly Geoghegan (27:34)

a little fatigue or something. You have to bring in a third thing, bring a third kind of medium. Is there a guest? there, yeah, juggling. You have to bring in so much now. ⁓ Yeah, very curious presentation.

 

Mikey Mioduski (27:40)

juggling yeah yeah yeah and so

 

how about how about stage presence

 

Molly Geoghegan (27:51)

Stage presence, yeah. We've talked about it. ⁓ Soft spoken guy, kind of just paces around a little bit, doesn't move very much. ⁓ But because, Sugata takes that approach of, I'm gonna speak softer so that you lean in and listen, instead of the like, as you've referenced my key, Tony Robbins taking up the full stage, look at me, look at me, I'm the professional keynoter. He's like, I'm this interesting scientist and...

 

I went to India and brought the internet. Do you want to see what that looks like? That's like, yeah, it's the lean in approach, which I think is cool. Yeah. Couldn't be me. Yeah. His pace is great. But yeah, getting into the spice cabinet here, Mikey.

 

Mikey Mioduski (28:22)

Yeah, right. Yeah, the whisper. I loved it. Yeah, he's true to himself. Yeah, just natural. yeah, very, very cool.

 

huh.

 

Molly Geoghegan (28:36)

we will link all of Sugata's talks because if you are interested in education in general or this kind of approach of talking about something like especially if you're doing some research over a long period of time he's definitely someone to model and learn from with his ⁓ hole in the wall you know canon like event his amazing piece of work and just challenging key assumptions if you're if you're talk

 

challenge, think about the type of talks you're creating and the types of presentations for your company or your team or whatever and think about what kind of categories they fit in in that way. Is it motivational? Is it ⁓ revelatory, bringing in some new information? And does it, if it challenges key assumptions, definitely watch Sugata's talk to see how he delivers those challenges in such a like casual and accessible way. Very, very ⁓ interesting.

 

Mikey Mioduski (29:29)

I know,

 

and Molly, like, yet another facet of the presentation thinking, you know, like 360 wheel to where, geez, what can we learn from the psychology and science of education? You know, it's not something I've, we've gone like super deep into, but of course, educators have to think about, you know, how this stuff sticks or doesn't. And so, yeah, the more, I think it's a great new ⁓ kind of like thread to pull is just like.

 

Molly Geoghegan (29:42)

Yeah.

 

it comes. ⁓

 

Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (29:58)

the ins and outs of educational psychology and like, I don't know, curriculum design and all of that and what parts, what can we glean from that for the sake of our presentation game?

 

Molly Geoghegan (30:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

hear me out, curriculums like slides to a teacher's presentation, right? You know, it's like, that's, that's what it is. What is teaching, if not a presentation and trying to storytell important topics to kids going too far. Yeah, make it sick. But yeah, coming down the education pipeline was to be, let's keep digging down this little, this little line.

 

Mikey Mioduski (30:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's yeah.

 

Yeah. Make it stick. huh. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

 

I think...

 

Molly Geoghegan (30:37)

More importantly, what do you think Sugata's walkout song is, Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (30:41)

Yeah, well, that's what I was wondering. ⁓

 

Yeah. Did you have any?

 

Molly Geoghegan (30:48)

Yeah, I haven't thought about it yet. This will be interesting to see what I can edit from Riverside or not on our first go. ⁓ know, Sugata Mitra, future of learning, challenging education worldwide. Let me think about this. Bringing the internet to kid children. Let me think.

 

Mikey Mioduski (30:55)

Yeah.

 

you

 

Molly Geoghegan (31:11)

He kind of seems like,

 

Hmm, let me think about this.

 

It's something upbeat for sure. Like kind of, I could almost go queen with it, but that's not quite right.

 

Mikey Mioduski (31:35)

Yeah, he's not quite like you too beautiful day. That's Steve Earls walkout song. It's great.

 

Molly Geoghegan (31:38)

Mm-hmm. That's yeah, yeah.

 

we should have talked about this. me think. okay. A little on the nose, but...

 

We don't need no education. Pink Floyd. yeah, it kind of like, yeah, this is two on the nose, but We Don't Need No Education by Pink Floyd could be a nice treat for Sugata because I think he would laugh at it. I think he would deliver it really funnily. ⁓ And yeah, he was like, hey, teacher, leave those kids alone. Yeah, you know? So I think that works.

 

Mikey Mioduski (31:59)

All right, damn, Floyd.

 

So yeah.

 

my god, Molly, see? We had to rip that on the fly. Only you could have thought

 

that is correct. We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control. Children's choir.

 

Molly Geoghegan (32:28)

Yeah, but I also think just in general,

 

think Suga has like an ABBA fan for sure. That's what it is. Maybe ABBA, less of a queen. Yeah, I think he just has a good time. Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (32:34)

⁓ yeah. Yeah, I think he just has fun. And

 

maybe he has an eclectic music palette, you know? But I definitely think he had a Pink Floyd phase. And he would dig another brick in the wall.

 

Molly Geoghegan (32:43)

I would assume so.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely.

 

Sugatamitra, very interesting fellow. We'll keep digging down this education learning presentation pipeline. And presentation nation, if this is your first time tuning in, we always take requests for TED Talks to cover. If we, can check out our TED Talking playlist on YouTube. And if you haven't ⁓ seen that.

 

Mikey Mioduski (32:56)