How an Education Technology Specialist Evaluated Our First E-Course

hey rabbits head here phoebe here we've got another video for you today and this is an interview with a technical education specialist who is doing a great little beta testing and borrowing around in a warren academy agility course at the moment so today i'm going to be speaking with zoe carr hi zoe i would really love a frosty focusing on zoe today and what she thinks she is a real expert in in this very type of thing so i'm simply going to introduce you zoe um as someone who is now in a lived experience wrong working uh mental illness fellowship helping with their amazing new uh platform finding north network uh but in your previous life that's my mother used to say in the previous life i did this uh you have a really extensive background working as a leader for technical education particularly for universities and how they um really have to provide and engage academics and students in this type of online education mandatory or otherwise so i know very little about it so i'm going to shut up and let you just explain who you are what you do why you're here thank you so much and it's so good to be here um as we said my name is zoe i'm currently working as a lift experience project lead for mental illness fellowship of australia um and we're a national advocacy organization for severe and mental severe and complex mental health um my life my previous life as phoebe said has been in education coaching and ed tech and it's really about um helping students um complete courses online um with the best possible engagement and making sure that they're learning and having useful feedback loops etc so as a program manager i would design a test and continuously improve these programs and to make sure that our students are getting the best out of um different programs whether it is um you know careers whether it is resume whether it is complete uh units practical units and internship units um you know i've kind of done a little bit of everything in there so um it's always interesting i'm here because this is um my first lived experience course um you know i've started uh i moved into this space um only uh 12 months ago and phoebe has really um kindly given me access to not only test this program as a technical um from a technical perspective but i'm also learning a lot um as a first time lived experience professional so yeah thank you sorry that was that was yeah a really really great explanation of some of the things you do because i i don't have a background in any anything i.t you're technical related so why i chose to start an online business with every technical element and i t related elements um i love a challenge like a channel because i'm a peer worker i probably should have said to anyone who hasn't seen any other warren academy videos or been to the side but i'm a peer worker um in in wa but do do consult um to eastern states and internationally as well um so yes i was thrilled when i met you by other work that you said that that was your background and in fact you had led about seven you were doing things about seven universities across the country or something at the time so i thought wow um so so grateful to have you on board with this one it is a online exploratory platform offering courses uh with a difference they they're good uh to be we don't really like the word training and teaching so much it's really come to a place dig deep develop your own insights firm up your own opinions change your opinions get confused ask questions um and have have a real experience down in the worldwide warren and hopefully come out the other side with an emergence experience so many people have asked me don't you mean immersion course and in that sense yes it's a it's a lived experience version of an immersion course but i have yes marketed as such as an immersion course because immersion actually relates to emerging so you soak in and it's actually about coming out so all of our language is very very intentional foreign academy so i thought what we might do though is i just had four questions to ask you because you've been moving um through the course for a bit of time that this force through the rabbit holes of mental health service user self-advocacy is a six-month course it is massive uh the content is mammoth um and for some people that's a good thing but i wouldn't want anyone to be put off because there's a massive course you can dip in and out of that whenever you want and i think people have access generally for about nine months and we can just extend it if people uh want to take their time so obviously you have not because i've just said you've only been in a few months you've not completed a whole course yet but you have been borrowing through i have seen on my analytics side she's she's in another rabbit hole she's roughly here or there i have a question for you to kick us off so zoe purely this question is purely from your professional background has warren academy from what you've seen so far after a few months has created a good course or an effective course and what is your overall introductory uh experience of the course uh i would say that um it is not a standard course um be prepared to be shocked um and whether it is um positively or negatively when you first get in that is the whole point of it um and uh from an engaging perspective um i think it's done really really well it has the right amount of causes reflective tools and also asking um you know the person that's currently doing the course a lot of very important questions a lot of questions about why what you want to learn these things or explore or whatever the word you want to use it's really important because this course is not like a uni degree and you have specific um technical things you want to learn this i think lived experience course like this is so personal but yet you have to learn how to not take it personally um so uh it's a very very well done course um and but i would just say be prepared take the breaks that you need jump in and out when you need it but you will definitely be shocked and learn so many different things about you about others about what's out there especially in this space wow well thanks laurie that is a fantastic wrap up i think the the delineation is is that warren academy comes from a very progressive perspective so the language is very intentional uh from myself and other instructors that work within a niche within a niche within a lived experience workforce so you won't find words like mental illness there unless they're being used specifically and problematized it's really not just the language is it zoe there's uh we don't want to give too much away it can get a bit dark in many senses uh in there and and it can be enormously illuminating sometimes when you get to an end of the rabbit hole there's some lovely chambers in there where uh things happen and trying to make that happen in an online environment is quite difficult um this course is perhaps a little bit vanilla compared to what some of them are going to be like zoe so uh oh my goodness i'd love to see your face when you do some of the more controversial courses that are from very specific uh viewpoints within mental health but i think as you said everyone can come in and gain you know that is sort of a self-learning environment as an element of that there are questions in there that are geared for you to answer and develop what your view is and we're not going to tell you because it's not our business to tell you to tell rabbits and the woman this means this and this is what it is and this is the world uh it's not the world according to warren academy but one thing you can get in one academy is the questions perhaps that we all should be asking either of ourselves or from the system so yeah really great few points that he made this though i'm so glad you picked up on all of these things because we've only managed to talk about twice we've had a couple of feedback sessions i do have other course testers in as well constantly um filing in would be to test the feedback so uh next question uh you're a personal lived experience who's only relatively recently stepped into an identified peer role so not only did you throw yourself bravely passionately and expertly really yeah i think you're very gifted actually i think you were born to do this into this role um i've been throwing you into a warrant and made you burrow around um connected to your previous job also very much connected to what you're experiencing now so what i've got so many questions i just can't just yeah i wish i could ask you five at once uh let's just stick to one here um what is your view on this course uh specifically as a person of lived experience who is quite new to some elements of of it wow that's a very big question i think um the first thing is this course will make you think more than you ever want to and um one of the thing is that i think the course really forces you to be uncomfortable um you know and really from the get-go you go into the course and you learn about things and it tells you that you might not be comfortable because you have to consistently think about your current viewpoint are there any biases in there um you know where does this thought come from where does you know why do you like this for example let's just say i'll give you an example of you know i like labels i don't like labels um you know it just forces you to think outside the box and what you're and it's nothing that you traditionally get used to and nothing traditional i would say um and for someone that's relative very new i would say i'm still a baby in this industry it's that when you work in the corporate sector you have yes or no you have black and white whereas lived experience there is no black and white you know like you said before right um the course doesn't tell you what viewpoint is right or wrong it tells you what viewpoints there are and it's up to you to decide what it is um and it for what for what for that it has made me i feel like i've gained a lot of power back because i have been someone who i've always been someone who just sticks to authority you know when someone told when a doctor says i've got depression then i just accept it without um having the power or even knowledge of thinking that i have a right to question that so coming into this course i've learned that i have a right to ask these questions i don't need to be an expert or a doctor to question if i have any concerns um so i think it's it's really really empowering for someone that's really new to this industry um and also i would say that for my personal recovery journey or whatever language people like to use um it's a really good learning experience as well and it really helps you settle in and look deep in within yourself from a personal perspective but also as a professional i think the most wonderful thing that this course has helped me it's understand that lived experience uh it's very personal uh but at the same time you need to learn to not to take it personally which is a big skill in itself because i think when you well at least for me when i first joined um the lived experience workforce um you know 12 months ago i i felt that i have a story to tell my experience means something i hope that i can relate and help other people and you know i'm i'm sure that many other people who join this workforce have similar thoughts as they want to give back and hope that whatever has happened to them will not happen against others um but then when you come into the industry and you realize that even as taking it as a professional you need to learn to build boundaries um and also have really important um skills to know how not to take things personally because lived experience is so personal yet we need to learn to take specific experiences or how people talk to us um not you know not in a personal way i guess [Music] it's bringing little tears i'm not going to see the water yeah little tishmans because i was hoping for even a half of that kind of reaction perhaps what once someone had completed done the whole six months or seven or eight months of this and and for that to maybe get a glimpse of that and i thought it might take the whole course but i remember speaking to you even a month ago and you said i i'm blown away i'm just questioning things that i didn't question and it was more you were looking i think you were seeing sort of subtext and those i don't know if subtone is a phrase let's make that a phrase for today but you were looking at things behind the questions and that's why you were being moved and i thought oh wow if that's someone pretty new coming in um to identifying someone lived experience and being a peer worker i think my peer worker can have that kind of um experience early on in the course and in their career then um yeah that does bring a little tear to my eye because it makes me uh really ambitious for a lot of things that are coming uh other courses but also zoe there's a few other things for you coming when you get a bit further into the course i thought before i ask you the next question what you've just said then does yes reflects the importance of the warren academy cta so we have a coming together agreement which goes into that introductory uh chamber of the course there's about 11 nearly a dozen chambers that are just a welcome chamber which is really just to get people oriented um onto the course and i have had a lot of positive feedback about the cta and it's interesting because even relatively new very experienced peers who often go out to training courses or meetings we will talk about sometimes you're calling group rules or um working together agreements wtas and things and when you're all there in person and you're you're in a group with other people um they always tend to sort of list the same kind of really important things now of course i just couldn't put one of those standard ones into an online course because you are in there individually but i wanted people to feel uh some sense of connection so there is a little community group and touch on that another day but i thought i still wanted some kind of agreement some kind of thing to say this is what we're about this is how we do it so that's how the coming together agreement came around and so that one is very different because it's three things and those three things are um very much the things you've just said to come in with an open mind to be curious rather than deflect or that when you're talking about things you've learned about in the course for someone else not to assume that other people would agree or that you're right um and to always be respectful and so that cta um i've worked so hard to try and capture like some simple things on one level but more complicated on another so it was lovely to hear you say a few of the things that you just said there because that really reminded me of the ct eggs i've just had feedback coming from that this week as well and it's gone really well i really like the cta phoebe because not only with what you intended but i think when doing this course the coming together agreement made me accountable and it's always in my mind when sometimes maybe i'm seeing something that is in there that's making me really feel uncomfortable and it makes me it reminds me to stop and say why am i taking this personally okay it's triggered a specific thing um you know and that's really important but more importantly i also feel a bond and a connection within the even though i'm doing this course by myself and i know there's a forum i i feel that i'm not alone because that coming together agreement i know that other people that are doing this course um will feel the same and just in that i feel like i'm not alone and god knows that sometimes uh we can feel quite alone in these um uphill battles um and to represent lived experience so it's really nice to really just feel like and know that there are others who are coming together to learn about this because we just want to do better no that's so beautiful yes there is a little forum and it was uh i had it established uh when i first launched the because i've actually launched warren academy as in uh opened it sort of january was there and it was like it was live it was there it was accessible you could buy the course and have the free course out there but i've put no big paid advertising behind somebody wanted to launch into more of a hard opening and more promotions which hopefully we're going to start in the next few weeks so i had the forum there and then i noticed someone pop in there recently and then all of a sudden there were i think there's only about five people in there uh probably i know i noticed you could oppose some people that's roughly closed and they thought well that's something you grow so this is a brand new thing it's a forum that's attached to a type of course that is very different and there is five people in there just kind of checking doing a couple of things okay is there um and then don't worry if you can't think of one right now because we're not massively prepped everybody because i like to do things organically um is there one thing uh that when you came across it i even already mentioned a few this might be a difficult question but is there something that struck you uh even if it was a negatively so i know there was a couple of things but tell me something that struck you positively or negatively or mentioned both and and and why was it comfortable uncomfortable yeah first of all um in terms of uncomfortable um the color palette i would say how the course is designed um it's quite dark and from a um i guess a technical perspective i don't you know my first recommendation to phoebe was change the color so it's easier to to um read but then after chatting to her um there is clear intentions on why it has to be this way um and um once you actually settle yourself in these rabbit holes it actually becomes a norm and i'd say that now i actually prefer these dark colors compared to these light things because when sometimes at night i'm on my bed and i'm just reading it um it's a lot lighter as well so i um it was something that i wasn't comfortable with at the beginning um but eventually um i felt that it was something that i got used to and i actually quite like now but it took me a little while and i think that's the thing about courses this course that you've created it's hey it's okay to be uncomfortable it's okay to not agree with everything it's okay not to like everything um that's why you're here um you know whereas some courses you know they have specific viewpoints and forces you to think a certain way or say this is right or wrong whereas i feel like this course is telling me hey you do you you know we're giving you this this is this is um you know these the content um is for you to experience in your own unique specific way there's no right or wrong um and to be okay with that i think um it's a skill in itself it was a sort of a dark mode setting that is very uh very prevalent and it it's actually it's like one of those eye health settings and a lot of people have their mobile phone permanently on that and my husband is one of them and whenever i have to use his phone i used to oh get this where's the white uh you know and i i i really didn't like it and so i decided to put myself out of the comfort zone going well actually this goes with marketing as well you are in a warrant and as this it's it's similar to the eye health setting and it's this i thought i've just i'm i'm going to go with this i would saw um had you know feedback so we've gone with that but i yeah i've put myself out of my comfort zone with some elements of this course i just wanted to i have everything that makes sense uh with the concept that those those color palettes might yeah that's that's a concept and i didn't want to create something that is just phoebe phoebe what phoebe likes what even things what uh what should you all think just the direct switching of colors like for example i'm looking at a word doc or i'm opening google chrome and then i go into this course it's like okay zoe switch mode you're in learning mode or exploration mode so it's also it's a good differentiation as well um if you're doing other things um and i actually didn't realize that until i think i flipped into it yesterday and i was like oh learning mode and my brain just kind of switched and it's like oh that's actually quite nice yeah oh i'm hoping uh is that strange somebody else said that i i'm hoping that might become a thing like warren mode you know that all our participants that are in doing the course have a similar like when i'm in we go in dark moment i'm in one room mode i'm digging down and it's different and on my mobile when i switch to that on my laptop it's a different mode for me i would love it if people said that because i'm starting to get similar feelings that's really interesting what i really really like um actually i did write write down the things that i like you so let me pull it up oh oh you're surprising me i do my work i need to find it um i would probably say that i love the chambers especially the two chambers for exploring effectively um more than anything else because i think that has really set me up to learn how to learn i think often when you do courses um and you do these things i think from a very young age we were taught to learn a specific way and that's it and sometimes we forget how to learn and when we do new courses we're actually not digesting um the content or what we actually need from it as effectively as we want to and warren academy and this course has really dived me back and really stopped me and made me consider what is the best way that i learn and how is that really helpful as well i really like the music at the end as well um and also the reflective exercises as well because sometimes you run with these courses and you read and you're like okay yeah i got this i got this toolkit yeah i learned this um and then you real it's easy for you to forget about these things when you get once you get back out of the real world um but these reflective parts has really made me pause and say okay for this rabbit hole these are the best things that i got out of it um these are in my toolkit now um i didn't like this or i didn't like this feeling uh let's come back to it and explore it so it's given me full permission um to like dislike um be scared be uncomfortable and be excited so yeah oh wow yeah i do remember one comment at the end of our other meeting a while ago and here we had a quick chat i said how are you going on the course oh well i got into that that chamber where you're supposed to do you the challenge jane you're i think you're in a referring to the challenge chain because i've renamed and restructured a little bit just prior and after and uh yeah i remember your comment that i didn't i didn't really want to answer the ques you know it was i felt i was going to get stuck in there baby but then i really did i knuckled down and i i looked at the challenge questions and i did my time and then you said that you you really benefited and i i really empathize with that because it's those times where i really make myself and be committed that i probably come out with some very crystallized and crystal clear views and i probably do understand things better so um there are some elements of this course um that i put in that i don't always like but that's the thing it's been uncomfortable for me zoe to try and gear the course in a way that is going to be really meaningful and useful and at the end of the day um people will take what they do from it but i'm trying to offer something in that is at least geared a certain way and as you notice a lot of all of the chambers they're sort of mandatory you can't just um some of the things you just can't skip past i mean you can in certain ways but you you do at least have to open them and go you gotta you can't just start a rabbit hole one and then skip down to a rabbit hole eleven and have a look so you know i've really tried to give people say take your time and go in and do one chamber at a time because it's um well we wouldn't think uh it's really worth it i'm gonna ask you i think i had only one more yeah so it's sort of a two-part question would you recommend this course and to who and why this particular course because obviously we're going to do lots of other ones for clinicians because i i'm also a teacher in uh i lecture and assess in allied health but um with this course in mind who if you would recommend it who to and why i'd recommend it to early lift experience professionals and peer workers who who would like to start advocacy and move into that space i recommend that because the language within warren academy is unique and the good thing about warren academy is it teaches you that there are other languages out there that you need to use for specific environments but at the same time learning that it's okay to switch it around and use what you need for specific um environments you're in um so learning that is really important for example you know we don't use uh mental illness for example within warren academy but we know that that's a terminology that's well used out there um and i'd recommend this for um people who are ready to be uncomfortable and to be challenged as well um you know as um as you go on this journey you learn more about yourself and you learn about your biases and triggers um but also how to manage them properly and question yourself and also question those around you with compassion understanding and kindness because i i'm just sitting here so grateful so you have all these three um elements uh your your you the embodiment of three different angles of it where i can get a blend of all the type of uh feedback uh blended together in in one person uh which itself is is unique and i have about i think i invited about 30 maybe 30 course testers uh when i found you i thought oh this is going to be super interesting so um i'm sorry what what what you say about your experience of the course and i'm thrilled that you've had such a um a meaningful time down then and i think some people on the course uh or one person mentioned to me that they did notice i don't always say oh have a great time down there or were you gonna have a great time or you're gonna learn like because i i really say that i just say have a really meaningful time because as you say you can go in there and come up with a question and you'll go through your own reflections and something uncomfortable will come up or there's a question that might be positioned you know uncomfortably or there's going to be a piece of text in that language hamburg not written by warren academy because there's loads of stuff in there you go i just don't i don't i don't like it there's probably less of that in this course and there will be in others but there are there are elements of it for sure plenty and i think um that's why i you know i say to people hope that you have our real experience our meaningful journey have an adventure because that's what it is um yeah the courses are they are geared that way so it's good to hear some reflections of that um yeah thank you so much i really appreciated it thank you philly i just want to add lastly that this course is i think mimicking real life in a sense because we're in a world where everyone just says i want to be happy i want to be happy i happy or i should be happy and if i'm not happy it means i'm not normal when in fact our lives every single day we are supposed to feel we're human we feel different range of emotions there really is not positive or negative they're just emotions and whether it's good or bad um there's a meaning to these emotions and feelings and i think that's what warren does to you and i think that's why you don't use like have a great time because sometimes i'm actually having an awful time because i'm having these exercise existential crisis and questions that come out that i i really don't feel comfortable with but at the same time without these thoughts or questions i would not progress in my life or as as a professional or understanding of um lived experience from my personal perspective and how that might come across to other people and what that means for other people with lived experience and how we can be allies to everybody um regardless of experiences wow oh zoey you are going to be i think a trial blazer in your role at mother i'm very i'm very excited about warren county and i'm also and i really want to tip my hat to the finding north network in this video as well because um uh you guys have been so supportive um wine academy absolutely and i think that's the thing about this uh workforce and us as live experienced professionals you know we all want to make our contribution to the space and how we do it what we do um and whether or not we can see the fruition of it um it's it's not as important as knowing that together we're stronger and you know thank you for so much for you know giving me these compliments but i i think that i'm learning so fast um if it is fast it's because i'm very lucky that i have a group of amazing lift experience professionals around me you know you you for example every time i talk to you you teach me to question these things but also um be okay with not being okay with a specific questions or not feeling um comfortable with things and just being open to it and being agile and flexible so yeah oh right well that's it from us i hope you enjoyed uh whichever version of this that you're watching right now i'm here here phoebe signing off and i just wanted to thank zoe carr from michael one more time thank you zoe bye [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you

2022-08-11 16:24

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