Ep 110: Empowering K-12 for a Digital Future with Mark Robuck

Good afternoon, and welcome to this week's episode of Level Up cyber My name is Tony Brian, your host and the executive director of cyber Up. We're going to change the pace a little bit. We've talked a lot about the cybersecurity space and workforce, and i'd say over the last couple weeks a little bit more technical stuff around kind of job seeking and career and professional stuff. But luckily he had an opportunity to get introduced to Mark Roebuck in the last couple of weeks and found out that he is a computer science the cybersecurity instructor and the department ahead for the Carolina kunt Of County Public Schools out in Maryland.

So very look, I'm looking forward to dive into this conversation because I know cyber Up has a youth program in talking to students and getting in front of them and talking about the importance of not just opportunities and careers, but also their own kind of personal journey and their own responsibilities into cyber and trying to help them, you know, protect themselves and others along the way. So, without further ado, Mark, welcome to the show. Excited to have you today. Thanks TONI thanks for having me on.

I'll just give a pre warning to anybody. I'm in my classroom right now during my planning period, so if I mute myself, I might have a kid like bust into the room and need something or announcements. Just a fair one the joys of an educator. But with that in mind, and just so we can get going, I mean, I'd love to have you introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your own like how you got to where you're at, and really, you know, start with your origin story here for today.

Sure. So I went to Penn State University for mathematics, so I've got a bachelor's degree in mathematics. I graduated in two thousand and five, which anybody that was kind of job hunting in the two thousand and five to two thousand and eight range knows that that was kind of a rough time, kind of like right now, and so I couldn't really find anything with what I really wanted to do. I went to school to be an actuary.

I just couldn't find anything, especially in the area I was in. I didn't really want to move away from where I grew up at the time, which is funny that I ended up moving away anyway to be a teacher. But I happened to hear about a little private school in my area that needed a math teacher. So I went and I taught math there at the little private school in Pennsylvania for seven years, and then that school closed, so I needed to find another teaching job.

Teaching jobs in Pennsylvania at the time were really hard to come by, and so I went to some career fairs. I found a bunch of jobs in Maryland, so I moved my whole family to Maryland and I taught. I taught one year of math in Maryland, and then I had a principal at the school i'm at now. I've worked at three different schools.

So this current School of matt she said, hey, we have this computer science program starting up. It just started last year. The guy that the teacher that started it, he's going into administration, so we need somebody to take it over. And I heard you knew how the code?

Would you be interested? And I was like, I'll give it a try. So I switched over to that and I love it. I've been doing this for ten years now.

I teach one cybersecurity class. I teach three different computer science courses that are mostly programming, but there's a little bit of other stuff in there too. That's awesome. And I think a story that honestly I've heard quite a bit from educators or right, like a math or science teacher is like, hey, you get short straw.

We're going to teach you how to do this stuff and go, which is neat, right, I think, And I think much like your enthusiasm, enthusiasm and I'm seeing come across, right, it was an opportunity for you to teach students in a new way and a topic that's fresh and exciting. Probably a little bit different than geometry and algorithms. Right, well, there's still algorithms and the code side of it. So you know, it's there's a good prayallel there.

You know, as you as you jumped into this, right, you just described that your program is pretty new. Like where did you start to find your curriculum or your lessons, Like how did you start to build that out to really take shape and to you know, provide a good curriculum for your students. That's a great question. So we have an introductory class that at this point pretty much every ninth grader has to take.

They have to get what's called the tech credit to graduate. It's taking computer science at this point is pretty much the only way to do it. There's a couple other ways, but so majority of ninth graders have to take my intro class, and then I've got two AP courses that are mostly programming, and then we have the cybersecurity course. The when it first started, we only had the intro class and one of the AP courses we were using code dot org, So I don't know if you're familiar with code dot org.

I love their site. I think it's a great site. It's completely free, it's made by like all the big tech companies contribute money, and they've even got like videos by like Bill Gates and then Surf and different people on there. I actually still use that for one of my AP courses.

I use a lot of material from it. But eventually we moved over to Project Lead the Way. I didn't like a lot of what Project the Way did in their coding courses. Their cyberscurity classes is fine, but I didn't like a lot of what they did in their they're more basic classes, and so I still use a lot of a lot of what they have, but I like to mix in my own stuff.

So at this point the Intra class is kind of my own creation. I kind of mix a lot of stuff in there. So we do. We do a whole uniton like how computers work.

We talk about binary code, like what are the different computer parts and what do they do? And then we get into web design, so I teach them a little bit of like HTMLCSS. Then we do some video game design with a website called Scratch, which is a little more of like a middle school, elementary school type situation, but the kids really get into it, and it introduces all those coding topics so that I can kind of transition from that into a quote, real programming language. So then we get to Python, and I kind of say like, hey, remember when we did this in Scratch, Well, now we're going to do it in Python.

And that's I've kind of built my own curriculum from a bunch of different resources for that particular class. As you you know, so ten years into this, I'm sure you've had a lot of students that have come through. You know what, what do you find and is resonating with with you know, freshman's through seniors, in a high school, like what topics. And you know, uh yeah.

We'll start with that what topics for those things? I was gonna go into like a three part question, but then like man, I just it was gonna get a long. So you know what, what kind of topics and things are the students really trying to gravitate towards in the lesson plans you've created. Yeah, so that's it's kind of interesting.

It depends on the class, So depending on like the makeup of the kids in that particular class that that semester. I find that a lot of kids get drawn to like the creation of something. And that's why I really like teaching this subject as opposed to like when I talk math, Like you go into a math class as a math teacher, and you know, ninety percent of those kids hate the subject and don't want to be there. The kids come into the computer science class and I tell them, Hey, we're going to make a website in this class, We're going to make a video game.

They're like, oh, that sounds pretty cool. I'm going to like make some stuff that I want that I'm interested in making. And it's also got that touch of like creativity to it. So, yeah, we're gonna make a website.

But you can make a website about whatever you want within a reason. I mean, you're in school, so obviously I need like school appropriate things and the but like like, yeah, you want to make a website about like selling sneakers, awesome, let's do it. If you want to make a website about like your favorite video games, cool, that's what we're gonna do. So I think that's what really draws the kids, and some of them really kind of grab onto that web design aspect of it, some of it really like the video game video game part of it.

Some of them really like the just Python coding or when they get to the advanced classes kind of we do job or jove a script. Yeah. So how long are you generally with the students. Do they stay with you for their freshmen through senior year and they you know kind of class or what what's the kind of general percentage of students to stick with you for the full four years?

Yep, So I have I used to get every ninth grader at this point of growing the program to the point that it usually just be me at this high school and one teacher at the other high school. Now We've got two teachers at my school, we're the smaller high school, and then we've got four teachers up at the other school. So we've got most of the teachers teach the intro class, and then myself and the other kind of advanced courses teacher at the other high school, we teach the three advanced classes.

So I teach two AP courses and then the cybersecurity class. And I would say that, like I said, the intro class, almost every ninth grader has to take it because they need a tech credit. And then I will get at my school, I get probably like twelve to fifteen in the first AP class, and then I'll get maybe eight to twelve in the second AP class, and then maybe like six to ten in the cybersecurity class. And I worked these kids the whole time, so like the kids that take the advanced classes, I get them all four years.

And then just for context and for size of school district, you know your top up here, you're talking four hundred or so kids for the entire school, right, So like those are really good numbers all things considered, from a high school of four hundred students. So that's awesome, man, Congrats to building that out. So projectally the way, right, I'm pretty familiar with it. For those that aren't, you want to kind of dive into, you know, how that's how that works or where it's gone for you.

I mean, that would be a great way to you know, maybe there's an educator out there looking like and I really want some stuff, where do I turn to? So problitically, the Way is one of the first that came out. Cyber dot org also was really good, and code dot org I echo both of those and for context for everybody or generally national kind of umbrella organizations that that they drive policy and they do a little lobbying and advocacy at a federal and a state level with the idea of trying to roll out a cyber and a coding curriculum across the state systems.

So it's it really is, and it's all free, right, So not I was just trying to price gouge people to like strong armed government to here's my software. Right, it's all given for free through grants and federal funding. But projectally the way it's different because it's a private product that a district goes and purchases. So I'd love to.

Have you to kind of dive into projectly the Way a little bit and talk about that. Yeah, absolutely, So, like you know, like you said, the other programs are free, they're paid for with grants. That was kind of one of my draws to code dot org at the beginning, before we did projectly the Way. It was all free and it was actually a really good quality and just kind of a pitch for them, even though, like I mean, I don't get anything from them, but just to pitch for them.

I oftentimes when somebody's like, even as an adult, it's like, hey, I want to learn how to code, but I don't know where to go. A lot of times I'll say, hey, go to code dot org. I know it's for middle school and high school kids, but that just means they make it a little more fun to learn. I mean, it's teaching the same stuff you would learn it like a professional, like you go pay like any of the other paid websites you might go to, and they make it a little more fun.

So I mean you're gonna have to move on from there to get advanced stuff. But I mean there's nothing wrong with using something high school kids used to learn the introductory stuff, but yeah, Project Lead the Way is paid. We got into it because they also have an engineering and a BioMed set of courses, and so our school was already participating in those courses, and so they since we sorted our computer science program, they say, hey, why don't we use Project ly the Way for computer science as well the coding courses.

So the reason I pull in a lot of extra stuff. They do pretty much just Python in older courses. Now the one AP class is Java. You have to learn Java.

There's no other option, but the other two are kind of up in the air is what you use, and so they do Python and it's pretty much. I would say the inter class is like seventy percent of his learning Python, and then the first AP class is like eighty ninety percent learning Python, which is fine. I mean, if you want to focus solely on that one language, that's that's great. But my cybersecurity kids need to be introduced to like a little bit of HTML, a little bit of JavaScript, because we'll get into topic that they're not going to understand without it.

And one of my kind of drawbacks about Projectally the Way is they expect them to know that when they get the cybersecurity class but nowhere else in their curriculum do they teach it, So I kind of have to pull in those other topics to teach those. Now, that's kind of my opinion on the coding side, the cybersecurity side, the cybersecurity course approachably the way, I think they do a fine job with that. They introduce a ton of different tools and topics, which for anybody that's kind of learned cybersecurity or doing cybersecurity, now you know that it's all about, like I have these forty different tools, and I need to understand in general how to use this type of a tool.

And it's probably going to change in three months, it's going to change in two years, and I'm gonna have to learn a different tool that does the same thing. But I need to know that the concept behind it. So I think they do a nice job of that where they kind of introduce the kids to like here's wireshark for packet sniffing, here's a burpsuite for like application security, that sort of thing. Well, I know, each state and each kind of district does a little bit differently, right, So we're in Missouri.

Missouri does a really good job of backfilling and actually providing support and funding to school districts in the state to cover the costs or Project Way an absence of something like yourself and making a curriculum. It's a great way to do it, and I think the secret sauce that has made Project Lead the Way as successful as it has been as they're trained the trainer model, right, So they embed in a state and then generally there's a college or university that's partnered with them that you're you know, bringing all the students to or the teachers educators in to teach them the curriculum and the ins and outs and actually provide a support system for somebody because there's not many there aren't many programs out there that are developing technology and cybersecurity teachers.

So you go out and get a math or science so you've got to learn the tech side. So like even like for yourself, you started math and converted over the technology, which is not an abnormal transition that I've seen. So there are other states, right like Illinois, our friends to the east. It's extracurricular, so there's not a lot of support provided for Project Lead the Way.

So a lot of times more affluent school districts have access to projectly the way, and some of your more rural urban schools that don't have those resources have a tendency to not have those classes. So a great program that you still that you know, does have a cost. But to your point, cyber dot org and code dot org although a little bit more advanced and doesn't provide the support structure to teach the teacher righte that idea, but it can work given the. Right educator to kind of drive that stuff out.

So I've seen it done a couple of different. Ways, and I will say code dote org will provide training, but they still provide free training. So nice I went and did their free training. I did pluguly the Way training, which is like you said, gudually the way training is is very in depth.

It's two weeks for every class. So at this point I've done eight weeks where the training eventually because I do four different courses. But yeah, codete org alsoys training. There's is free, but it's only like I think two days.

Maybe yeah, to. Me, probably only the ways an educator of product selling to educators that they've packaged it to teach an educator how to educate. That was a lot of words to say educate in a thirty second clip. But they've done a really good job.

I think of building that out. So you know, we hopped on here before as we were getting ready. Right, there's there's always you got to keep it fun and fresh for the students, right, curriculum is great, which you know they're gonna want to play. You know, they all want to hack things, right, That's why they took the class.

Let's be honest, so you know what, you know, what other things are you bringing in introducing to your classroom and your students that are providing some of those maybe hands on experiences for them to learn. Sure, so projectly the way, he does have a bunch of virtual labs in their curriculum, so we get to play a lot with those sorts of things. They even have. I think in the there's there's four units in that class.

I think the third unit is somebody has hacked a water treatment facility. So they go get to like the industrial side of things, which you don't often see in kind of a cybersecurity curriculum, and the kids like look into like, well how do they do that? And they have to like recreate it so they can. Show the.

Water facility employees, you know, how did this happen and how do we prevented that kind of thing? So there are some things in projectly the way already, but I also use things like try Hackney, which I probably everybody that's in cybersecurity has heard of and knows what it is. So I'll give them some try Hackney rooms we'll do. I haven't used hacked the box in my classroom.

I think it's a little more it's a little too advanced for us. But also I think the resource aspect of it, Like you said, the schools that have a cybersecurity program usually have some kind of funding for it. We're a little we're a small rural school, so we don't get a ton of funding, and I don't have the resources to like even show the kids, like here's an actual server, let's like dig into it and look at the hardware. Like I don't really generally have a lot of hardware for that same reason.

And now I forgot what your questioning was. Just the other resources, right, you know, we could jump in let's transition to second question. So you know, competitions are a great way, you know, to take lessons and things you're learning in the classroom through whatever curriculum or you're. Deciding to present the students.

So you know, there are things like Cyber Patriot, National Cyber League, and a ton of others that exist out there, you know, to help really provide I think an important part of the learning is the teamwork, the camaraderie. Right, some of the stuff that is going to be a little harder to simulate and make into a classroom. So you know, what things have you introduced to your students? You know, maybe.

We'll say in class, right, what stuff you're writing class? And do you have any after school kind of things your curriculum stuff that you're also working towards to get kids and students engagement. Yeah. Perfect, Yeah, So let me go back to your original question that I apparently forgot.

So there was try Hackney I actually went through when I was kind of upskilling myself. I went through a program called Whole Cyber Human Initiative, which is generally like a military veteran type situation. But they were kind of just transitioning and trying some new things out. And I talked to the guys in charge names Paul Cummings.

I talked to him and he was like, yeah, I mean you're a teacher. I don't mind you taking the program either. And so I went through the whole program and they used a whole lot of different resources, and I've used some of those in my class. So like, for example, they use something called range Force attack iq, like the CISO website.

They did a SANS has like a course called cyber Aces, which is like their their little free course that so you don't have to pay ten grand or whatever it is for their for their other classes. I went through all those and I've used some of those in the class. So like attack IIQ is a good one I've used in class, Range Force I've used, port Swigger is a great one that was free for like web app security. So those are all resources that I've used in class.

But then like the gamified aspect of a lot of recent things that have come out, I mean there's some older ones too, but like you've got like Haiku and try Hackney and those kinds of programs that they're kind of gamified which kind of catch the kids interest. There's Terminus is a good one for like learning Linux or over the wire. Over the wire bandit specifically is one that does Linux. And then, like you mentioned CTFs, my kids always do Pico CTF, which is Carnegie Melons CTF that they they make.

And the reason I do that one is because they have a whole section on their website that's Pico Gym, which is they can like practice all the old ones and they can like learn like, oh, what is a CTF. Like my kids don't even know when they come in. I'm like, Oh, we're going to do this CTF and like, oh, what's that? And so it kind of explains them what a CTF is, walks in through like some really easy basic flags at the beginning, so they learn like what a CTF is and how to like turn in a flag and that kind of thing, and then it gets progressively harder and teaches them like, oh, here's like a really basic cryptography question, here's a really basic forensics question.

And then it gets harder and so we practice some of those for a while, and then I think they are competitions in March every year, So then in March I have my class participate in picoCTF. The other high school in my county has done Lockheed Martin's in Person CTF. I'd like to do that one. It just takes a lot more planning and resources.

So I'm hoping to be able to do that one this year, but I don't know for sure if we'll be able to do it, and I don't I think our other high school might not be able to do this year either. But that's one where you have to go, like on the weekend to the in person site. But we're kind of lucky where we're located because we're in the eastern shore of Maryland, so we're across the if you don't know what that is, it's across the big bridge that's in the Chesapeake Bay. But we're only I mean, we've driver of the bridge.

But we're only an hour or less from Annapolis, and we're like less than two hours from Baltimore, Washington, d C. We can go the other way and get to New York in like three hours, Philadelphia in like two and a half. So we're actually near a ton of. Big cities that we could get to if there were things we wanted to go to there.

I like it. So let's let's shift gears ever so slightly here, right because I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, I think we're I'm gonna have a tendency to share this out to other educators. We you know, cyber up engages in outreach for second, fourth, and seventh graders just with the goal, right, like, if we do our job right, you have more students registering for your classes because they're more familiar with the topic, right, And that's really the goal. And I know Nashally it's been a push around stem steam.

For several years, right, and I think this definitely falls in that. So let's play say that I'm an educator. I'm listening to you today, Mark and saying, man, this is really cool. I would like to learn how to do this.

I have an interest in technology. Like what advice would you give somebody who's you know, maybe a current math or science teacher that's hearing this and it's like, yeah, I want to do that. Where what advice would you give them over where to start? And like where did you go?

Yeah? So I think that a lot of school districts right now are pushing to add computer science to their curriculum, to add some courses somewhere in the school. So if your school doesn't have one and you're interested in it, I would definitely go to like your admin or your school board and talk to them like, hey, I'm interested in learning computer science and bringing like starting a program at our school. I've seen a ton of Maybe this is a little bit biased because I'm Maryland, and maybe Maryland is doing this in not necessarily other states, but I feel like there's a lot of schools that in the last five years or so have added computer science programs, Like just in my area, after I started my program, there was a math teacher that I worked with at my previous school that I found out started teaching computer science at another county near me, so he kind of got started in the program.

And there were a couple other schools like that. I don't necessarily know those other teachers, but the same idea they kind of started in the last maybe five years. So there's definitely the potential to just start a brand new program if you already have a program, like I said, mine grew pretty well. I personally would love to see like on a nationwide level accepting computer science as a kind of a math credit.

I know in Maryland you can do it, but there's some kind of hoops you have to jump through, so like our district doesn't do it that way right now. But you're learning the same like logical thinking steps. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to count computer science as kind of a math credit. And if we kind of go back, I think.

I'm out of froze there for a second. Is it kind of regroups? We'll keep going, got you your back kind of froze up there for me a second? Okay, pro all good.

I was gonna jump in and take over for it, but you have back in good transition. All right. So what I was saying was I think every every school has kind of these math classes that every pretty much every kid has to take. And in my this might be an unpopular opinion as a teacher, but like I don't feel like every kid should have to take calculus and jomps, Like, yes, you should know your basic math skills once you're out of like elementary school, middle school.

We kind of push every kid to have to keep taking a math class every year, and so that ends up being like every kid's taken Algebra two and pre calculus or trigonometry. Well, uh, Markle joined us back in a second, and just as as a kind of add on and for for perspective there, you know there. I've seen it done a couple of different ways for educators in school districts. Right, So like obviously Mark has a district that lean into it made an investment, but not every district has that opportunity, right, So we've seen a lot of educators that have taken some initiative on their own, added an opportunity to their table, and really have come into their own of building out their own curriculum to do it.

I've seen it sit in CAPS program, career technical education programs, and I've also seen it in this regular classrooms. Does your curriculum and list lessons is it just sitting as a normal kind of class load or does it sit in does it a fix to a CAPS or CTE kind of program for you? Yeah, that's a great question. Ours is a ct program, So for people that aren't kind of familiar with how schools set things up, CT program is like your career technology education.

So typically that's seen as like your electricians, your plumbers, your HVAC kids, your culinary kids, your cause pology kids. But our school also puts like the engineering program, the computer science program, BioMed nursing, all those are also covered in CTE, and there's really a big push right now in Maryland for sure, but I think also nationally to get more kids into those programs, just because we're seeing so many people kind of almost being forced into college that you feel like you have to go to college, and then we have all these college graduates that can't find jobs and like, well, I just went into debt to try to get this supposed better job, but there aren't any jobs for me.

So I think there's a big push to get into the kind of technical program rather than kind of a college route. Yeah, I had an opportunity for the last two days to be around a lot of the deans and colleges, right the community colleges in Missouri and the four year institutions in Missouri. I mean, I learned a lot about higher education, and I felt like I knew quite a bit, but just you know, they've kind of went through their fifty years of just how education right. So for the past twenty five years, it's been all about getting you know, access to college right.

And clearly we've created a ton of access to college and changed the relationship there and now it's really more about the completion of college right. So we've got numbers up, but there are still high percentage of kids that are not completing. And now there's a new trend in this idea about the value, right, And I think what you're alluding to is career technical education is starting to provide more value for students, you know, who are more mindful of going into an incredible amount of debt for a college education that may pay them fifteen bucks an hour.

Right, They're not going to get the job they want, So can I go do a different pathway or an apprenticeship for those types of opportunities. So it was an interesting to hear just the transition and hearing educators, you know, obviously presidents of colleges that are working hard to recruit students, and just to really see that the shift from four year liberal arts type of education to much more short term credentialing scaling up in a quicker way and creating more value. And I'm excited to see what the future that has to do and how it transitions.

I also just like they gave a lot of demographic around, like just age, and I've never realized seen it in the chart, just you know, birth rates back in the sixties with the boombers and like to now we're just the chart was a funnel, you know, and now it really is it's a balloon. It kind of bubbles in the middle, and like we're just so low. So like we have to start looking ahead to things that you're doing and really finding ways to not reduce standards but expedite the expedite how we are getting people's skills to do jobs that don't necessarily require.

The degrees and just need some technical prowess to it. So yeah, and I think the cybersecurity community, like businesses, and I think they really latched onto that, especially recently, where they're like, hey, we don't need you to have a degree, but we need you to have these certifications to show that you kind of know what you're doing, or we need you to have experience in like some kind of an internship or apprenticeship so that we know, like you kind of know what you're doing without having to have that degree.

And a computer science I think is maybe starting to get there, but there there's still computer science a lot of time, as you need that college degree in some computer science related field to get like a coding job, whereas cybersecurity for sure is like, Hey, you're in the military for ten years doing this great come and get a certification and it doesn't matter if you have that degree or not. Yeah, it's interesting. And then right now the market's changed a little bit for the hiring right to slow down quite a bit.

There's a lot of i'll call it fear and uncertainty maybe of just with the election. I think there's a. Lot of stuff. You sprinkle in a little strike here there from long shore man, right, things go a little crazy.

So there's a lot of concerns that are out there. Do you have you know, we're right a time and I got a question I want to ask, like, do you have a great student six I'm gonna throw this as left field. Do you have like a a student success story that maybe this kind of come through and they've been doing it ten years. I'm sure you've had a couple of students gone and do some great things, you know, anyone that jumps out to you that you'd love to share with the audience.

Yeah, I've had a few. I had a non related tech kid that was really great at math back in my school that went on to become an army ranger. I still hear from him every once in a while, So that's exciting. I had.

So I had a girl maybe three or four years ago that took my intro class, didn't really know that she liked computer science. She did the website design part of my inter class and really loved it. So she ended up taking all of my classes. She got to cybersecurity, realized that was something she was interested in.

She went to college for cybersecurity, and she graduated with a degree, and she went I don't remember where she went, but she she went to a school where she helped make their CTF, Like they built their own CTF and had kids participate in Like she was part of that team that like built the CTF. So that was really cool. I got to kind of see the backside of that as she was working on and telling me about it. She's come back to my class one year to speak to my kids.

I've speakers coming to my class every once in a while. And I think she ended up doing she she didn't even end up doing the route she wanted to go. She ended up after school somebody introduced her to something that I had never even heard of that was like cybersecurity adjacent. So it was still security and it was dealing with coding, but it wasn't the specific thing.

She went for. And it's just kind of one of those things where tech changes so much that as long as you're good at learning and you're good at adapting, you're going to have a job or be able to find a job because maybe in ten years they're not going to need a Python developer, but maybe they need somebody to do this other job. That you're now kind of equipped with that ability to learn and adapt that you can get that job. That's great advice.

So we're at the end. Thirty minutes always goes fast, you know, But I'm going to change up the last question ever so slightly here just because of the topic. So what advice would you give educators that are looking to level up their cybersecurity curriculum and education. In their schools.

I think. To somebody that's kind of level up skills for job hunting, I would say, there's a learning aspect, but then there's applying that learning aspect. So when you learn the code, you learn the theory, but then you need to actually go build some stuff to really know what you're doing. And I think that's true of educators as well, so I can look as many different curriculums as I want, but if I don't kind of dig into them and try them out for myself, I'm not gonna know.

And you can try something and realize, hey, I don't like this one, it's not gonna work. There's I've tried out probably dozens, maybe two dozen different platforms for my classes, and I only use maybe three or four of them right now. So there's tons that I've used that I've kind of realized now I don't like the way that this does something, or maybe it's fine, but it doesn't work for my class. So kind of I would say, similar to anybody the job hunting, you need to there's a learning aspect, but there's definitely a get it and dig in there and kind of do it and apply what you what you've figured out.

Yeah, one thing I would add is I've talked a lot of educators over the years, so there's a fear of like looking silly in front of the students, right, like you know, like and I get it, right, nobody wants to be embarrassed, especially in front of a high school kid. Then they're gonna get bullied. Of course, it's gonna happen. But in the grand scheme, my advice is, don't be scared.

Right I put yourself out there, there's so many resources if you have an interest. I'm not going to guarantee, but I promise your school district's probably going. To embrace that. If there's not already a program.

Where I know we're at time, but I'll throw one more quick thing in there. The beginning of every one in my classes, I picked some kid in my class that has never played the video game Mario, the original Nintendo Mario, and I make them play it in front of the entire class, and they always do terrible, but I have them keep playing, and so the second time they play, they get a little further than the third time a little further. And that becomes kind of my running theme for the class.

They are the Mario Martor. They have to fail in front of everybody else so that everybody else can learn from them. And you also have to realize that I don't keep playing the game, I'm never going to get to the end of the level. I can't just give up because I fell in the pit or ran into the turtle at the beginning of the game.

That's a great analogy and a good advice, and I'm sure makes the students enjoy because everybody loves video games. Who doesn't it, So Man. Mark, I really enjoyed the conversation right it's I think it's a topic we haven't had in quite a while, so you know, I'm definitely excited to share it with other potential teachers and educators because I think what you shared was very enlightening. So thank you so much for the words.

Thank you for everybody for always tuning into the show. I always appreciate, uh, you know, the time that people give up right time is precious. So I when I see views, I'm like, mall, that's great. It makes me happy.

I was a I was in an event last week and a guy comes and then I really like your podcast and show. I'm like, oh, thanks, buddy, Like you never know when people do so, but when you have great guests like you right now today, it makes it all a lot easier to do that. So Mark, good luck on the school year. I know you just got kicked off and started, so I hope everything goes well, and good luck to your students, and appreciate you tuning in today.