Launceston technology education specialist James Riggall has countless new ideas to bring back to Tasmania after six months teaching in Seattle, Washington State.
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A Fulbright Scholar based out of Bellevue College in America’s Pacific North-West, Riggall has made the most of his time in the technological wonderland, where tech giants such as Google and Microsoft are part of the city’s lifeblood.
Alongside his work teaching virtual reality at Bellevue College, Riggall was also offered another opportunity, to teach at Tesla STEM High in Washington State, a ‘choice school’ with a specific focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills.
“It’s a very cool school, it’s probably one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in my time in the US,” Riggall said.
“At this school, every Wednesday afternoon there are no classes, and what this school does is there are a huge range of ‘internship’ options students can choose from.
“It’s free-form and unstructured, the teachers … organise it and let it run.”
Riggall was invited to provide entrepreneurship and leadership training to Tesla STEM students.
“Remembering that I’m teaching virtual reality in [Bellevue College] and virtual reality is really kicking off in this part of the world, I set the kids the challenge of solving a problem using augmented reality or virtual reality,” he said.
From idea to prototype, business model to customer testing and then pitching to ‘investors’, the students had to tackle the entire challenge from start to finish.
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Teaching the students about augmented reality and entrepreneurship meant Riggall could use not just American talent, but Tasmanian talent as well.
Simon Tyrrell from LiveTiles in Hobart, Matt Dobson from Savage Interactive, and Kristy de Salas and Ian Lewis from game development company Giant Margarita all contributed their expertise through Skype lectures – a teaching method Riggall is keen to continue when he returns to Tasmania.
At the final Tesla STEM pitch event, Riggall had an unexpected panellist – Vinay Narayan, the executive director of HTC Vive, one of the world’s leading virtual reality headset manufacturers.
“Here’s the top of this company sitting here listening to 16-year-olds talking about their big ideas,” Riggall said.
“It was delightful, the kids did a fantastic job – I’d pushed them pretty hard, I’d given them real start-up training.”
“It was delightful, the kids did a fantastic job – I’d pushed them pretty hard, I’d given them real start-up training.”
- James Riggall
While Riggall’s students nervously went through their pitches, Mr Narayan spontaneously donated a VR headset to every student team, and one for the school.
“This was special, I’m sure this doesn’t happen to every person every day … here, it’s not just possible, it happens,” Riggall said.
As his time in America draws to a close, Riggall said his experiences have fostered a host of new contacts in the worlds of technology and entrepreneurship that he is keen to put to good use in Tasmania’s technology education, well into the future.