What the XR? with guest Kristin Torrence

Luis Malbas  
All right. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the training learning and development community. Happy Friday to you, here we are on a Friday. Not a typical day that we do TLD casts, but we're here and I'm very excited to be talking with Kristen torrents about XR of all things. And so we're gonna get into a bunch of that stuff soon. Before we get going. Let me just shout out real quick. That's the obvious. And Molly, good to see you. You're in Alex Emmons, thanks for joining. I'm sure more people are going to be logging in soon as soon as they get their little notification. But yes, so XR. Um, let me just start with this. Kristen is has been a TLD. C member for a couple years now. And we were just talking in the greenroom about when we first chatted. Kristen hadn't been working with virtual reality or any of the that type of technology yet. And so it's really interesting to or fascinating to be able to get into this because I you know, every time that I saw like a post from you, Kristin on LinkedIn, and and I'm like, Oh, look at that. She's working with the cool stuff right now. Like, I gotta reach out to her and talk to her about this, because I want to see like, what is she getting into? And so I've sort of been just lurking and watching from a distance. And then I saw that you're speaking at, it was a guild event this week? How did that go? By the way?

Kristin Torrence  
It went really well. I was really nervous. But I think it went really well. I got some feedback from a couple of participants, and they said it was valuable and that they learned something which was great. That's all I wished for. So

Luis Malbas  
awesome. Very nice. So and I thought, You know what, let's talk about XR in a broadcast and sort of get caught up on things. Because, um, well, why don't we start out with this Christian? How about give us your like your background?

Kristin Torrence  
Sure. So, you know, I have a background in cognitive science and game based learning. And I have been an instructional designer now for over eight years, I started off designing educational games for K 12 and doing some blended learning solutions for children. And actually, I, just a couple of years ago, it was during the pandemic, was when I ended up getting hired at tailspin and sort of transitioned not just to the XR space, but also to the also to the corporate space.

Luis Malbas  
Wow. No, that's, and that's what I remember. I remember that you were, you were doing game based stuff for kids initially. So that's, that's definitely what I recall. So it's neat that you've moved into this arena of things. And I sort of want to know that Molly, I know that you work. You do VR stuff. I mean, when we did our last conference, you were doing 360 video, and we've talked about that stuff before, but Alex Zahn you, I don't even know. It's all of you work with it. Avi, if you work with VR, anything like that, I'd love to hear about it in the chat, just let us know. But basically, what I wanted to sort of cover here is sort of just talk about XR a little bit and how it feels like XR has become a more common term lately. Like before everyone was doing the VR AR even mixed reality do they call mixed reality? Mr.

Kristin Torrence  
Do? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Mr.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Because, um, and it was a little confusing, right. And, but now there is the umbrella term right is right, which is xr.

Kristin Torrence  
Yeah. Which is extended reality and I still get sort of tripped up about it too. And I still get a little fuzzy between what Mr. Is versus like, AR because I feel like there's like a gray area there. But XR is the umbrella term extended reality. And within that, I know I think there's some other ARS in there other types of realities that we don't talk about like Like I'll, I'll turn it over. Yeah, there. Yeah, there's just I think there's some other R's in there that we don't talk about, but the main ones we talked about are augmented reality virtual reality and mixed reality. So augmented reality, like you're in your own reality but there's like computer generated things augmented onto the reality that you're in you know, often accessible via phone tablet or you know, glasses and then virtual reality like completely, like, completely, like spatially the entire environment is computer generated, but also accessible either on desktop or head mounted display. Mr. I still get a little like hazy about exactly. what that means or what that looks like, because I've never experienced that.

Luis Malbas  
Right? Nice. Okay. So I think that one of my main goals in being able to talk to you as you as an as an instructional designer or learning experience designer, where you started out like, for example, working on game based learning, you know, building stuff for kids, and then you got into these different technologies, these realities. How exactly that work for you, because I, you know, I know just because this is to LDC, I love to talk about people's careers and stuff. And just so others can learn from it. Tell us how did that work? How did that experience begin? Where did where did where did XR come into your life?

Kristin Torrence  
Sure. So, you know, I mentioned that I was creating the educational games for K 12. Well, I got to demo a lot of our products at conferences or expos. And with that experience, I got to, really, I was exposed to a lot of other like, game game companies or other people who were creating learning experiences, or game based learning experiences. And I got to play a lot of their games as I was at these events. And I wouldn't say like my really my first ever exposure to virtual reality, or augmented reality was out at these events. And it just blew my mind. And this is a couple of years ago, I started because I was going to these events yearly, I think, starting in 2015. And every year, I looked forward to playing like virtual reality, I put the headset on, I still remember the first virtual reality game that I played at, like a conference. And I've always sort of had always, like, stuck with me. And at that, I think that was the moment where I was like, You know what, I want to eventually be able to design things like this where people can have just so much fun as they're learning.

Luis Malbas  
Wow. So So basically, your experience with it just began at events.

Kristin Torrence  
Yeah. Wow. And trying it out. And no

Luis Malbas  
experience with it prior, you just it was just happened when you were demoing stuff and going to booths and messing around with it.

Kristin Torrence  
Yeah, yeah. No, no experience prior knew really nothing about designing for XR, or virtual reality. Rather, when I started at tailspin, I knew about what game design like the game design process was, you know, I took a lot of classes in my in graduate school for that. And then I also, like did that in practice at my previous job. And then I did dabble a little bit, you know, during those years, so before starting tailspin, but after my first exposure at a conference, because my role rolled, rolled in, had published a book called augmented, and a couple of years ago, and I had taken a user training magazine like online course, on like AR rapid prototyping. And I got so into it. And I had used Zapper, and I had brought, like, so I sort of, you know, I tried it out on my own, and I made a gallery walk for my company, like, we were doing research at the time, and we had all these different sites that we were doing research at, and we had a company retreat, and I was like, you know, I want to do something really fun. Why don't I do an AR gallery walk where, like, members of the company can come and learn about the study that we're conducting.

Luis Malbas  
And so and and how did how did that turn out?

Kristin Torrence  
People tended to like it, I use a function in zap R, it may or may not look different now, a couple of years ago, I think is in 2019. But I had I had tagged a number or I had inputted a bunch of different like photos from from the sites, videos of like interviews, like just like site footage. And then also like contents of the curriculum that we were implementing there at the time. And so that people seem to like it. It was it was definitely I think I it was their first exposure to augmented reality.

Luis Malbas  
Right, right. And so was that that was was that when you decided, okay, this is something that I want to keep following this was, you know, I just started this, I'm playing with zapper now I'm on this kind of path where I want to discover more or continue to, to play around with this technology. Is that basically where it started for you?

Kristin Torrence  
I think that's where it started. And honestly, I didn't I know what to even do of it. And it wasn't until I, I even had like the prospect of getting hired by Tailspin that I even thought it would ever come true. I want to say that oh, yeah, like I plan for it. And I, you know, did a lot of professional development around it and then got hired, the stars just kind of aligned, I was looking for a job while they were hiring. And I got hired at tailspin, and I'm really happy here.

Luis Malbas  
That's great. Now, let's get into that and a little bit more, because it really is fascinating to me how you are learning experience designer, the first time we talked to you, and then now you're the, you know, it's an impressive sounding title ahead of learning engineering at tailspin, like what happened between then and, you know, between, like, say, your zapper experience, and then meeting with tailspin and, and having this new role working directly with these types of technologies?

Kristin Torrence  
Oh, I feel like I've just grown so much in terms of even since I got hired at talisman. And I think part of the journey of mine that I think was most like fruitful, like, in retrospect, is that I got to, like, when I, when I started at tailspin, I did feel like you know, impostor syndrome, I'd never designed Virtual Reality before, but I wanted to leverage what I knew. And what I knew was game based learning. And I knew that, you know, game based learning is, in a sense, immersive learning. And so I figured that I can transfer a lot of my game based learning game design concepts over into designing for virtual reality. And that just like really motivated me, because, you know, I felt like I was like, trying to stretch myself, really the whole first year that I was working at tailspin, because I was learning so much, I was trying to soak up so much, you know, it for me, it was a new, it was an entirely new sort of design process that didn't look like any of the other instructional design that I had done before. In terms of things like storyboarding, or wireframing, or evaluation, right, like, actual, like action based evaluation as you're behaving in or acting on the virtual space. And for me, thinking about all those concepts I've always been super interested in, in measurement and analysis. And for me, it was like, a really it was, it was really fun to learn and grow and stretch myself in this new realm that has just, you know, I've been in awe of, and there's, I still feel like, there's so much more to learn about XR, in general, and even just virtual reality in general, which is like really my primary modality that I'm designing for.

Luis Malbas  
Nice, okay, that was actually what I wanted to ask, just so that I could help sort of establish, like, some parameters for our conversation more. So virtual reality is more your focus more so than augmented reality? Or mixed reality, which is kind of like, what is the Microsoft product, I think that they, they their headset is sort of more of a mixed reality headset, right? Where you can actually see through the headset, right, and work with augmented and sort of virtual objects. And I can't remember what the headset is called, but I always wanted to try. Okay, so we're gonna be talking mostly around like, basically, the context is going to be mostly around virtual reality, so good to know. Okay, so um, well, then let me start with some of the questions some of the stuff that's been voted up more highly in one area. How about oh, thank you, Molly, HoloLens. Most impressive example of xr and learning, or why don't we just go specifically with VR and learning? Experience? Is there anything in particular that you've seen that, that just really stands out for you?

Kristin Torrence  
Sure. Um, so I don't know that I can point out like, the absolute best experience that I've ever had. But I could tell you a little bit more about that more memorable experience that I have, which is that, that game which I've actually played since I first, you know, tried it out at an expo. And it was called, it was a science game. And maybe there's a trend here, right? I was creating science games, and I'm trying these science VR games, but it was a game called Tablecraft. And what and I think this is why it blew my mind and it was so memorable. It was the it, you got to, like, literally Smash, like, it was you learned about the periodic table periodic table of elements, and you got to smash elements together to create, create objects in the physical space around you. And for me, that sort of blew my mind because it took something so abstract, you know, and like micro and made it accessible at the macro level and something that we could see here in the physical space. So for me, a, I keep thinking of things like that, right? So like, how do we translate things that are so abstract in our mind, but like, be able to interact with them in in whatever system and whatever immersive system that we're, that we're working with, to better be able to tangibly understand that concept, or that thing or organism or object? Or the physics around it? You know?

Luis Malbas  
Right. And it's so incredibly powerful. I mean, you know, last night, I was talking to my son, Mike, he's only eight years old. But we were, you know, I was working on the computer. And he saw that I was writing, you know, some of the questions that I was, you know, that I'm asking you today. And so he started, he's like, Dad, you remember, you know, two years ago, and you let me look into some VR and we saw that whale, and I got to play with some fish. And the way that he was talking about it was like, you know, like that he actually experienced it, right? Because it's this. It's the simulation that I have, where you go down to a sunken ship, and you get to stand on the on the actual ship, and then a huge gray whale just comes by you and, and it's just with the audio and just the movement of everything. It's totally intense. And I let him experience that I actually don't let him play any other, do anything other than that on VR, but he actually feels like he experienced it. And so, I mean, do you have anything that you've learned when it comes to anything that you're building and designing things, just sort of cognitively? How do we make those? What are those connections like, for for learners when you're in a virtual reality environment?

Kristin Torrence  
Well, you know, there's sort of that textbook answer about virtual reality being really good for like a handful of things, you know, things that cost a lot things that are high risk, and, and so on, and so forth. But I want to say, you know, just in my own opinion, the thing that I feel are the element that I feel that virtual reality really excels in, is the the effective part of of learning, and really tapping into our emotions, and emotional triggers, really, there's just so much there. And, you know, a lot of that what we do at Tailspin is soft skills training. And, you know, we have to situate folks in really uncomfortable social situations. And I think that, in and of itself, is, you know, I love hard skills training. And I feel like it's super super fun to create hard skills training, but just that the emotional aspect and like the storytelling and the just the affective elements that you need to hit when you're teaching in virtual reality in terms of these like interpersonal skills, I think there's an element there that is just so cool. And so powerful, because you can, you know, you can really, I guess, it's maybe it's because it like effects or our, I don't know, like our, our emotional, it really hits at our at our heartstrings sometimes, especially if you know, something is really devastating. It can be really memorable.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, I know that for myself. One of the more powerful virtual reality experiences I had was, it was a music video. And I think it was it was created by Google and it was a few years ago, you can, you know, watch you could you know, you're able to it was one of those ones you could actually watch on your phone with, you know, one of the cheap headsets, but it was just the story about a dad who was a musician, and you know, he was not successful as a musician. And then he had a daughter and he was a single dad and he was raising her and then he ended up you know, having to sell, sell, sell everything because she wanted to be a musician and he just supported her and then eventually she became rich and famous, but it was there was music, and it was VR and it was just brought you through this whole story. But as an salutely It was so emotional, it was absolutely it was totally intense, like, seeing that, and I can see what you're saying, because you feel so immersed in these experiences. But when you are building this, the soft skills training things, do you design for that? Do you actually like, say, you know, like, write down, like, we need to trigger anger or trigger. You know, empathy, like, you know, like Molly's saying or anything like that, is that something that you actually build out?

Kristin Torrence  
Yeah. So, and this is, you might find this interesting. So you know, how, you know, in typical instructional design processes, you may create a learner persona. Yeah. So one of the things that I learned from our narrative folks is that, we also, it's helpful to create, like character personas for everyone that the learner will be interacting with in a virtual space. And identifying who those people are, what their dispositions are, you know, what a day in the life of for them is? Did they, you know, did they get coffee spilled on them before going into this before interacting with the learner in this particular situation? Right. So really thinking through who are each of these people not just, you know, their, their general archetype of like, their role, or, you know, the role they play in, in, in the workforce? But, you know, who are these humans? And what things trigger them? Or what things do? They prefer, right? Do they like to build a lot of empathy and, you know, have some icebreakers before getting down to business? Or are they a straight shooter, and, you know, they prefer getting straight to the point when when you meet with them, so really thinking through because it because it is like a story, you're, you're creating these immersive storylines, and the learner is just immersed in it, and, and is interacting, and by those interactions, you know, the storyline and stay in that dynamic. And depending on the decisions, the learners making, you know, one or more things may happen in that situation.

Luis Malbas  
That reminds me of like, say, building like non player characters in like a role playing game. Exactly, yep. Wow, that's interesting. You know, I, like I've told you, before I had, I had like, some interest in VR, like, I have an HTC Vive, which I haven't booted up in a few months. But um, you know, back when we even did TL DC 16. In San Diego, I had an area at that conference that I set aside for VR. And you know, and I remember just introducing it to some of the folks that attended, and it was, it was really, really fun. But I got into it. And I started, I was wondering, how do you produce this type of content? And I started talking to a friend of mine, who's a filmmaker and wondering, like, how would you write the storyboard for this, because everything's coming from, it's all coming from different directions. But you putting that into some, you know, like, talking about sort of these, you know, the getting into the personas, that definitely makes a lot of sense. That's very, very cool. And it actually helps me a little bit thinking about people as non player characters that that, that that connects really, really well. Wow, that's great. Oh, and

Kristin Torrence  
yeah, oh, it just wanted to add one more thing, because I was thinking about empathy, and just sort of like the narrative that you had been talking about, I wanted to bring up like VR films, and how those sort of role I mean, I guess you can call it role playing, but because you're like, situated in within the story, but could really, really could be really eye opening, and expose people to situations that they may not have ever experienced before. So I had one of the XR VR film experiences that I once experienced was one for like Planned Parenthood, and you were playing the role of like a pregnant teen going into a Planned Parenthood, like site with but there were people, you know, protesting outside and they were yelling at you. It was it was like very intense, like, emotionally intense, you know, and I was when I knew I was just sitting there experience like demoing this experience. I'm also thinking of things like, like traveling while black. That that's a VR experience that I hear has is really, really powerful. I think there's a Smithsonian one about like crossing the border. So yeah. When it comes to empathy, you know, think being able to situate yourself in the shoes of someone else is Yeah. Unlike any other experience, you know,

Luis Malbas  
is there data that might that sort of that can express whether or not that virtual learning is a better modality, then, you know, something else, you know that it's more efficient or more effective? I mean, is there do is, has there been any research done on that? And? Yeah, do you know of any? Yeah. So

Kristin Torrence  
so there's a lot of research out there. And I think the question is, in what context? And what teaching, and what does success mean? You know, I would say that a lot of the really like popular studies out there have to, at least, honestly, like, in the maybe enterprise, but maybe like, just corporate, like any space where they're like selling anything, I would say like the, you'll find a lot of really great data around how virtual reality helps saves money, helps saves time. I mean, cost and time, like, that's, that's huge. And time is money, right? So there's a lot of data around that which is, which is awesome. So that's a great sort of angle to build a use a case around if you want to bring XR to your business. But in terms of like, actual, like efficacy with with virtual reality, like interventions, there is some data out there so not to like, pump up. So like an article that I posted on LinkedIn. But I did a 25 days of xr research. Remember that? I was watching that, yeah, 25 days of Christmas. And then. So there I, I sort of debrief a bunch of different XR studies, that compared there are a number of studies that compared virtual reality to elearning to in person training, and things things like that. Oftentimes, you'll see that virtual reality, you'll see a number of different sort of findings there. Ranging from like virtual reality has, produces comparable or more favorable results, then elearning. And at like, at the very, I guess, like at the very basic level, like if that's providing comparable results, like that is good. But I know in terms of things like cost and investment, like you probably want more. So I don't know that there's like a whole lot of robust data. And I don't know that I've seen any, like really hardcore, like, randomized controlled trials around Virtual Reality interventions in comparison to like, a bunch of other things, a bunch of other modalities. Also, with like, an incredibly large sample size, right? Yeah, so weighed in on that. Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
no, absolutely. Um, let me get into some stuff here that because I'd like to kind of provide a little a little, um, content or some background on like, if there are CLDC members that or listeners to, to this podcast, if they wanted to get into into XR and possibly look at shifting their career towards working with with, you know, extended reality. Just throw out some info there for them. But let's start with this question from Molly. Molly's asking in your role with utilizing VR, do you create the environments for the games? Do you actually do the programming with all the elements? Or do you focus on the UX UI flow and dynamic of the story or goal?

Kristin Torrence  
That is a really, really great question. So really, my primary responsibilities are around the needs assessment, the discovery and really identifying what needs to be learned, identifying learning objectives, but then operationalizing those into actual decisions and behaviors that we are soliciting from the learner in the VR space, and tracking, like defining a way to track track and measure that. So I'd say like that is like the primary scope of my role as like a learning engineer. However, I do interface with a lot of the other teams so I'm on the learning team. We also have a narrative team that is They, they, you know, they're their story. They're storytellers, they write a lot of the content. There is an art team and a UI UX team. So my I would say like, my role is fairly specialized in the, in the learning aspect of creating the virtual reality experience that I do interface with, with other folks who do a lot of those other elements. So, another thing is that Tailspin has a no code editor, a no code authoring tool, that, that they have a no code authoring tool, it's a it's on the it's on the website. And that allows us to create virtual reality experiences. Just you know, with with a smaller team, with without having to worry at all, all we need to do is like select the virtual humans that and select the environments and sort of just drag and drop, you know, and type in the dialogue we want them to say. So that is also really cool. And I think that this like, no code, authoring is the direction that the industry is going to start going in.

Luis Malbas  
Definitely, no, that's fascinating. That's interesting. Often I want I'm gonna take a look at that after our we wrap up our conversation. So if there if there are people that want to get into, say XR for themselves, or their organization, can you name some things maybe that l&d professionals should know about it before? You know, like getting into it?

Kristin Torrence  
Sure. And I sort of touched on on this one with my last response. But there, there isn't an instructional design team of one, you know, when it comes to designing XR, or sorry, virtual reality. Simply because like, as I mentioned, you know, there's a lot of cross functional collaboration, when it comes to learning or art, or production, you know, we often have to interface with producers and the QA team, right? So it's like, you'll hardly ever find a verb or an instructional designer, team of one, or department have one. Like you, like you might encounter. And I know, I was an instructional design department of when at my previous in my previous role. So that was a really interesting transition, when all I needed to do was focus on on the learning aspect, versus all these other other responsibilities that being a department have one, you know, requires.

Luis Malbas  
Wow, wow. And so really now like, yeah, that's oops, sorry. That's, that's interesting, how, you know, it's broken out to other teams, but do you ever, like, go out and work with them directly? And do any of the other stuff? Or do you ever miss it? Like being able to, like, get your hands into a bunch of different stuff? Like you probably used to?

Kristin Torrence  
Um, no, not really. Because I feel like I have been able to focus on the things that really, that I'm truly interested in. So now that I don't really have to deal with development of, of anything, or the art direction of anything, you know, I get to, and I've always sort of been a fan of, of measurement and assessment and research. And so now, in this in my new role, I get to really focus on the thing, those things that I that I really love.

Luis Malbas  
So what has been your biggest challenge, getting into this space?

Kristin Torrence  
You know, I would say, the lack of best practices, and, you know, just resources out there in terms of, you know, really sound instructional design principles and practices when it comes to virtual reality training. That's been hard. And but, you know, it also presents a really great opportunity, right? So, an opportunity to dive into the research a little bit more and really try and translate research into practice around VR. Learning from like, serious games like VR series games, and or even just like any, any sort of experiences in VR, it's definitely you get to explore all these other experiences in VR and see how that might translate into, you know, into your learning design. So there's a lot of like inspiration. Taking that, that for that is required. Now, I think in for designing in virtual reality, because there is not those already, you know, defined instructional design principles and practices. But it's also really the fun part of it, right? Because you're sort of like discovering it all, as you're going.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. And as you gain, you know, the experience, and especially if you're somebody that is building out some of these best practices, it just really defines you as a leader in the space. And, and I think that's sort of what I'm seeing with you right now is just all this content that you're contributing is really interesting. And I'm sure that people are kind of looking to you for answers. So, you know, it'll be a, it's gonna be fun seeing your trajectory in this. So what's been your biggest success so far?

Kristin Torrence  
I would say my biggest success is, well, I want to say it was the first ever VR experience that I ever created is a hard skills training for like, an H fac, a, like HVAC like service. And for me, that was it was such a, like a learning opportunity for me, I had grown so much over the course of that entire project. Everything from you know how to have your story design, or sorry, a storyboard in for VR in a in an effective way that, that both designers and also like devs Could, could understand. So that was really my, I want to say my first ever VR project was probably like my biggest success. Because it's just so it was so special to me. And another because there's actually an element in that experience. That is, I don't know, I got really excited about it. Because I was really to at the time tapping into a lot of like, learning science and you know, how do we create discovery moments and things like that. And I think we included an element in there that was really grounded in in learning science. And I think it turned out really well. Thank you.

Luis Malbas  
Was that something you built a tailspin or

Kristin Torrence  
it is? Yeah, it's something I felt it tailspin.

Luis Malbas  
Very cool. And so you know, you're working on this stuff. I see your posts, you do the Tick Tock stuff.

Kristin Torrence  
That is new. I just started the ticks duck stuff, and it's so fun.

Luis Malbas  
That's great. You're gonna have to put a link or like, tell people I don't do the Tick Tock thing. I'm totally terrified of it. But um, you know, maybe put something in chat so that people know where to find you on tick tock. But when you want to talk, l&d XR with people, what do you do? Where do you go

Kristin Torrence  
not to like drum roll into something else that I'm promoting. But me and a couple of other instructional design friends of mine, we all sort of created this community of practice called XR and Alex T. And we have a monthly meetup, the last Wednesday of every month, where you know, anyone is invited anyone who with an interest in XR, you don't need to already have experience with XR. And we just come together and we talk about XR, we talked about you know, any sort of hot topics that are there, we often have people present their own XR projects, so we can learn from them. And we also have some design challenges that are quarterly, to give people some some time to try it out and build their portfolio, get feedback from the community, we have an a pretty active slack workspace as well.

Luis Malbas  
That's great. No, that's really, really cool. Put that in chat, too, if you can well ensure that people would love to hear more about that. And then how about like, like, where are you getting your professional development? For this specifically? I mean, are you going to, I mean, trade shows are and conferences are just starting to happen again. But is that part of the agenda to go to events? I know I went to a couple VR events like way back when, and that was where I, you know, just I learned a ton just by going to the expo, right? Just sitting down in, in in chairs with a headset on and experiencing all of these different things. But what do you do to try to maintain your professional development within this space?

Kristin Torrence  
Yeah, that's a that's a really great question. So I did join two other communities firm Merced learning, one is called iLearn. It stands for the Immersive Learning Research Network. And in that they have a discord. And, and they also have a conference coming up in in June. But they, it's an entire community of like researchers and practitioners who who share their work openly and share, you know, what's new in the industry, and, you know, processes and practices and just like research that is out there. And I found that really valuable in terms of just keeping abreast of, you know, what people are doing in terms of immersive learning and like, what research is being done out there. And all different facets of immersive learning. So that's been really helpful. I've also joined educators in VR, they are really also a really active community. They, they meet in alt space VR, they have a ton of like events, they and they have a lot of different groups that the group that I attend most often is the researchers and VR group, but they have they have all they're a whole bunch of other subgroups. And then I also join and this is like tangential to learning but XR women, they are. They meet every Wednesday in the in the island campus, but they had their own like XR women Hall. And they Oh, sorry. I learned also that that campus is in for Bella, which is like a metal Metaverse community. Or world I guess. And then. So they there's a really great group of supportive women who share their work and share, you know, happenings in VR. And they really like to uplift other women. And they've just been a really strong and supportive like community. That's great. Well, no, you

Luis Malbas  
know, and to DC 16, one of our keynotes was actually a woman who was she was a VR producer. And yeah, and it was, you know what, I should just open that one I we have her a keynote, she kind of just goes through the history and stuff in in her keynote, but it was fascinating. Yeah, I don't even know like where she is in the space anymore. But that's kind of just goes to show you even back then just, you know that VR and learning was was definitely like still a significant thing. And it will kudos to Brett Schlenker he was the one who would was really interested in having her come in. And, and she was a just a fantastic keynote at the time. So yeah, and it is I do think that I've seen a lot of that. I liked that there is actually some very strong women leadership in that space. So that's impressive to see.

Kristin Torrence  
Absolutely. Well, very

Luis Malbas  
cool. Christian. And I feel like I want to, like talk more about this. But you know, I'm actually past my time. And but we're going to, you know, keep an eye on you. And and please just share some links, post them in the chat area currently will do. And let's see, is it okay, if I post your LinkedIn profile in there? Yeah, of course. Yes. And I know, you know, I'm not sure if you've ever talked to Molly before. But you know, Molly does the work. She's been in VR for awhile, and it would be be great if you guys connected. And yeah, we'd love to if you have any more anything else that you want to share with the TL DC audience that relates to you know, extended reality, virtual reality, anything like that, please feel free to reach out and I'd love to have you back on.

Kristin Torrence  
Thank you so much for having me. It's been so fun chatting. And you know, I honestly love this this community so much. It's I don't know where I'd be in my profession without this community. So thanks for all you do. Molly, I would love to to connect at some point.

Luis Malbas  
Definitely. All right, everybody. Thanks again, thanks for attending. And then don't forget, end of the month, we have the elearning tools Summit. Getting everything finished up. We have pretty much all the slots in but we're just figuring out times and stuff, but I'll have that on the main website at some point this weekend. But it's looking really, really good 12 speakers 12 different tools, and it's going to be a lot of fun, and that's on April 28th and 29th. But that wrapping it up. Thanks again, Kristin, and we'll see everybody next week. Bye bye.

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