The Metaverse as an Accelerator for School Change: A Conversation with Dwayne Matthews

January 21, 2022 & August 18, 2023

In this episode, I speak with Dwayne Matthews, who makes his second appearance on the podcast. Dwayne is a Chief Innovation Evangelist and Future of Education Strategist. He helps school boards, educators and parents understand new and evolving themes in the 21st century, the future of work and how to help prepare children to thrive in a rapidly evolving digital information driven world. I have thought about and written on the possibilities of the Metaverse and wanted to speak with Dwayne about his experiences and insights. He brings a richness to the conversation that is unparalleled and I hope this opens up more conversations about possible futures, which don’t have to be dystopian. In this episode, we discuss:

  • How the Metaverse and other technologies might put school as we know it out of business.
  • How Dwayne and younger learners from around the world co-creates a (proto-)Metaverse learning experience.
  • How being underwhelmed by what we buy (including tech) and do may be the way out of climate disaster.

We hope you enjoy this episode!…

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Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. is the co-founder of Coconut Thinking, an advisory that supports schools and learning organizations to co-create, co-develop, co-stress test, and co-implement ideas that nurture the conditions for emergent learning. Benjamin is also the Head of Upper School at Green School, Bali. He was previously the Whole School Leader of Learning and Teaching at Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Thailand. He was the Academic Coordinator at Misk Schools, one of the most prestigious and high-profile school in the kingdom. In 2018-2019, he was also the Head of Upper Primary and Middle School at Misk. Prior to this, he was Vice-Principal of the Middle School and High School at the Harbour School in Hong Kong. He holds a Ph.D. in History, an MSc in Education, an MBA, an MA in International Relations, and a BA in International Affairs. Benjamin was born and grew up in Paris, France. He moved to the U.S. when he was 15 and spent 11 years there in different cities before living in the U.K., Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and now Bali, Indonesia. He started his career in consulting for Internet start-ups in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s, working with people whose ambitions were no less than to change the world. This experience had a profound effect on Benjamin's outlook on education, innovation, and entrepreneurship.