Why Distance Learning?

Seth Fleischauer (00:01.026)
Hello everyone and welcome to Why Distance Learning, the podcast that challenges misconceptions about live virtual education. Hosted by three seasoned distance learning professionals, myself, Tammy and Allison. Hello ladies.

We bring you real stories, expert insights and research back strategies that uncover the true impact of distance learning in today's world. And today we're going to be talking about something that you might not think is a good fit for distance learning, but we're going to unpack that and it's physical education. For many students, PE is either overlooked or maybe out of reach, whether it's a lack of facilities or limited class time, low engagement, PE can often become an afterthought, especially in a virtual and hybrid learning environments.

Allyson (00:30.21)
Yay!

Seth Fleischauer (00:44.548)
But what if distance learning could expand access to high quality movement education, making fitness and wellness engaging, inclusive and culturally responsive? Well, that's what we are here to talk about today with Joe Titus, the founder of Hive Class. Joe, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for being here.

Joe Titus (01:02.824)
Thank you all for having me here. This is super exciting. I feel like we've been working on this for five years. And so we're coming to a culmination of getting people really excited about what we're doing.

Seth Fleischauer (01:16.916)
Awesome. For our podcast listeners, you may have heard us mention HiveClass in our episode with John Watson from DLAC. And we're going to dive into that today. really, in doing so, investigate a recurring theme on this podcast, which is whether or not distance learning can support whole child development. It's often thought of as a solution for like,

specific academic interventions, but can it work on the rounding out of the child, of which, obviously, physical education is a big part of it, which we'll get into here today. But first, Tammy, could you please introduce our guest?

Tami Moehring (02:00.703)
would be happy to. Prior to being CEO and co-founder of High Class, Joe spent 18 years working in finance, not exactly what he pictured as a kid who had big dreams of being a basketball player. Growing up, Joe took part in various sports. He wasn't collecting MVP trophies, but he had the opportunity to try out different athletic events and he had a great time doing it. Joe strongly believes that all kids globally should have an easy and affordable access to physical education.

in sports training, is exactly what he's trying to achieve by showcasing and presenting HIVE class to schools, educators, parents, brand partners, and beyond. So I know there's more to learn about you, Joe, and I'm excited. So with that in mind, I have a question to kick us off, and that is, what inspired the creation of HIVE class, and what problem were you hoping to solve in the PE and wellness space?

Joe Titus (02:56.68)
Thank you for that. You know, when we started the company, it was the realization that it was really hard to learn sports remotely, and there just wasn't a lot of tools for kids. Meanwhile, adults were being able to take up to fitness in numerous ways during the depths of the pandemic. And there wasn't anything really built for kids with kids in mind.

And so the first idea was really around, could we build Peloton for kids, but make it educational and accessible? No hardware, just the content and the software. And we really thought that we could build a product that teaches confidence. And if we did that, we would get to a lot of parents and a lot of students who just may not have the confidence in a traditional physical education setting. PE, we found out, is the number one most skipped

Allyson (03:28.974)
Yes!

Joe Titus (03:54.015)
class in a traditional setting. I think it's because it's not because of the curriculum, it's because there's just we're not meeting students where they're at. And I think digitally we're able to do that because so many kids learn through video, unlike how I learned the numerous sports that I did when I was a kid. And so we thought we could combine some of these concepts together.

Allyson (04:13.966)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Titus (04:24.19)
to get kids really engaged. And our usage over the last, I just got the numbers earlier today, we've already hit our calendar usage from last year, this month in April. We've got eight more months to go. And so I think we'll triple our usage from last year.

Allyson (04:37.314)
Congratulations!

Seth Fleischauer (04:41.624)
you

Seth Fleischauer (04:45.002)
That's amazing. I would love for you to connect the dots right off the bat here. You talked about meeting students where they're at and building confidence, right? So the whole point being to build confidence and then the rest kind of taking care of itself. How are you building confidence remotely? How are you doing that?

Joe Titus (05:03.504)
Yeah, so let's just think about a traditional setting and a traditional physical education classroom. Maybe there's 50 kids, maybe there's 30 kids, depending on where you are in the country. Maybe it's located inside of the gym. And a lot of times what's happening is someone rolls out a basketball, half the kids participate, and the half the kids are going to the bleachers. I hear this from traditional

school leaders across the country. And so we're not meeting all the kids who are going to the bleachers where they're at. Maybe they don't want to play basketball. Maybe they want to learn dance or self-defense. But that's not an option to them. Digitally, these products are options. You just need the proper instruction. And so that's what we've been able to do with over 2,000 skill-based videos.

teaching bite-sized learning, think TikTok for physical education. But effectively, we break down sports skills, wellness skills into bite-sized video content, along with standards-based curriculum. And we package that together to deliver instruction in a way for physical education that hasn't been done.

not only for the virtual setting, but the traditional setting. But we're doing it digitally. And I think that's what's really empowering certain schools, some of them being virtual, to embrace what we're doing. And they really just got what we were doing from the beginning. And this idea of what I saw when the depths of the pandemic hit, my kids were in front of me and I was on my Peloton and they...

they ran over and they were enamored by the screen. And so we really wanted to take screen time and make it positive, which is, know, some parents may have issues with screen time, but if their kids were learning something that was productive, getting them healthier. And ultimately what we want is less time on the hive class and more time outside moving and kids feeling confident. And I think going back to

Allyson (06:59.694)
Mm-hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (06:59.756)
you

Seth Fleischauer (07:22.978)
Yeah.

Joe Titus (07:25.222)
in a traditional classroom, most kids don't want to get picked last. And so you just choose to not participate. And then that is a, you know, that that just has a longer effect on kids, emotional psyche. And I feel that if they could choose their physical education experience and have choice, that's something that's really powerful. So for the student that doesn't feel confident in basketball,

but really wants to explore dance, they're able to, to click strokes.

Seth Fleischauer (08:02.23)
Wow. Yeah. What I love about this is that it's like, it's kind of the same story of how EdTech has impacted education in a lot of different ways by creating the ability to differentiate where we didn't previously have that ability. You imagine that, you you painted the picture of that traditional classroom of like 30, even just 30 kids and half of them don't want to play basketball. How does a teacher facilitate 15 other activities, you know, personalized for those 15 other kids? You can't do it, right? So you have a

Allyson (08:02.435)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (08:32.088)
an ed tech solution coming into a field of education that people didn't quite think about before. Maybe not until you were sitting there on your Peloton, your kids are coming up. Same thing with my kids. Like they're coming up like, you know, trying to trying to, you know, get their feet in my in my enormous Peloton shoes to be able to do that same video based workout, right?

And so, and I love the idea that simply by differentiating and meeting kids where they're at with their own interests that we are in turn building confidence. I think that makes a ton of sense.

Allyson (09:11.758)
I I love to hear the analogy with the Peloton and also the inspiration that it came from. You really saw something that your children needed and also the idea of positive screen time. I think that intrinsic learning to then, as you said, push them to go outside and be moving meaningfully is so important because they're taking what they're learning in that game-based sense and bringing it outside with that confidence.

And I guess I wonder also since you have so you're working, mean, congratulations on already meeting your goals from last year and for eight months to go, but you do have lots of different audiences that you're working with and student levels that you're working with. So I wonder, could you talk to us a little bit about your approach with the different student groups you're working with and learning environments and how.

You can really address that meaningful movement learning experience in that remote setting, traditional classroom setting, and in some cases in those areas where people don't have as much access, whether it's to bandwidth or the ability to participate in choice, as you were saying with what's available to them in their schools.

Joe Titus (10:21.862)
Yeah, so choice is the key word. In a traditional sense, it's hard to offer choice because of just the dynamics of that classroom. In a remote setting, we have so many different types of virtual learners, and we've learned that through the years. And so what we've found are when you go to a school and offer a full choice on our platform,

Allyson (10:24.781)
Hehehe

Joe Titus (10:51.718)
We've seen that fitness and dance, yoga, things with very little equipment have the most usage. But it is scaffolded when we look through the data across our 19 sports and activities with the lowest usage in sports that have the most equipment barriers. Those sports also have some of the highest cost barriers. And so I think there's a direct correlation.

in my opinion, offering choice with proper instruction and making it affordable and accessible. Those things historically have not been easy to accomplish. And so when we started the company, we felt that youth sports in America, just the cost of entering or participating is just really, really high. And so, you know, whether it's a club sport,

or a recreational league, they're not meeting students digitally because it's so bifurcated from every town in the US. And so we saw that there wasn't a lot of technology, there wasn't a lot of infrastructure across state lines or even town lines, right? One town to the next, a different lacrosse league, no infrastructure savings. And so that drives the cost up.

for participation. And so we wanted to let kids really have choice in the sense when you have young students, they want to try everything. There's not something that they won't try, especially if they have the confidence to go try something. But barriers to entry are a lot of times costs. And so as a parent, if I remember

buying baseball equipment for the first time. I probably spent $300 plus for T-ball equipment. That to me felt very inaccessible. And so can we provide a team of 10 kids and a pitching mound and a tee and the whole thing? No, we can't. But we can offer skill sets so that a student feels confident in trying something for the first time.

Joe Titus (13:18.45)
and then coming back to it the second time. And the amount of wall ball I played as a kid is extremely high where I just kept doing a repetitive motion. And when we started speaking to higher end athletes, they told us that skill-based training is something that they continue well into their journey of a almost professional sporting career. You never stop shooting free throws.

Seth Fleischauer (13:44.824)
Can you... Sorry, keep going.

Joe Titus (13:46.205)
And so that was the thesis around how do you offer choice early and allow them to really pick and choose and try different things and for a parent not have the costs associated with it.

Seth Fleischauer (14:04.964)
Can you break that down a little bit? There two things I'm curious about how and how this works is you talked about skill building as a component to doing some of these sports that have more barriers to entry, more financial barriers to entry. Are you talking about like, you know, in a lacrosse video that you're pretending you have a stick and like, like doing

Allyson (14:29.368)
cradling it.

Seth Fleischauer (14:30.548)
Yeah, like doing some of the motions without the equipment there or that there are other skills that don't involve the equipment at all that are building blocks to being able to engage with lacrosse.

Joe Titus (14:42.142)
Yeah, so, so, you know, I'm going to I'm going to bring on touch on tennis right now, because I can think of an example that that's one of the sports that is really expensive. And it's part of my personal why my son was taking tennis lessons in New York before we started high class. It was one hundred and fifty dollars an hour. He was five years old. Right. Like that is the definition of inaccessible. And.

Seth Fleischauer (15:04.856)
Ugh.

Allyson (15:05.857)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (15:09.676)
Hahaha

Joe Titus (15:10.59)
We have tennis videos where you don't need any equipment and it's all about teaching the motion and you don't need, you need proper instruction, but you don't necessarily need equipment. And again, we wanted to take in tennis, have 60 videos, two minutes each, just touching on a single skill. so forehand, backhand, motion.

Right? There are so many things that you can teach. And so doing it from a physical education lens is different than from, you know, an elite athlete's lens. To me, something like tennis is a lifelong skill. You can play it well into your 70s and 80s. But there's access issues, like I define proper instruction. And so we wanted to.

Allyson (15:54.903)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Titus (16:07.006)
take that and bring that to all kids in a consumable way. And then we started learning about physical education standards. And we said, this translates well. Some schools are teaching tennis in physical education if they have the resources. Maybe that's tennis courts, maybe that's access to racquets and balls, et cetera. But not all schools are teaching it because they just can't. And so we wanted to

We can't provide all equipment, obviously, but I think nationally there will be other organizations that want to solve these kind of problems. And if it's getting access to more tennis rackets or lacrosse sticks, I think there's other partners out there that can help us to solve these challenges out there.

Allyson (16:57.432)
That's, I was just thinking about the challenges, because we talk a lot about how in some cases there's teacher shortage. You know, there's a number of different resources that there could be limited to, but you're really providing such a bridge for individuals, for schools to be able to have that really good PE training. So even if there is an educator that moves on from the position or, you know, that's an area that's a gap for a certain school, you're able to really, no matter what the materials are,

you still have a valuable class that can be put together by the education team. And that's so important, especially when it comes to movement, because we have to move our bodies every day to stay healthy. And if we can do that in a way to also build skills to learn a sport, it makes me think of the fastball, that it's not, there's T-ball and there's fastball, and it's a lot of the building skills up for baseball that was coming to mind. So just really exciting opportunities for teachers to be able to depend on.

Joe Titus (17:54.875)
That's right. The teacher shortage is no different for physical education teachers, right? They have, I hear about student to teacher ratios and I get, you it hurts, right? That some schools just can't, I've seen 50 kids in a classroom, right? And so that's a challenge. There's not enough gym space. There's not, there's a lot of things that are not available and

Seth Fleischauer (18:15.277)
Yeah.

Joe Titus (18:23.24)
getting new teachers is hard in the physical education setting, just like every other subject that we have. And so what we've tried to do is support teachers in a way by not only offering a curriculum, because think about a teacher doing down dog in yoga or doing certain skills where they've never played the sport. It's gonna be hard for them to teach those skills. So instead they're gonna go to the things that they're most comfortable with.

but that isn't effectively as well-rounded. And so now they don't have to worry about knowing pickleball because it's new, right? And it's the fastest growing sport and it's accessible. It's a lot more affordable to play. It's easier to get to than say tennis, but you know, the teachers just may not have the confidence to give the proper instruction. And so you've got another challenge that we're trying to help solve.

Seth Fleischauer (18:53.793)
Mm-hmm.

Allyson (19:03.822)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (19:22.264)
Yeah, it's funny. I coached my daughter and my son's basketball teams and my entirety like I was coached until I was eight and then I didn't play until I was 20 and then I played pickup ball for like 20 years. Right. But like none of that was coached. Like it was all just like I was kind of learning the game by running around. But I actually on Instagram followed a bunch of coaches and and that was my education.

of like how to become a better coach was to have those skills broken down for me in video form so that I could then go as a, you know, generally athletically competent person, go and teach kids what I had learned the night before on Instagram. and this is basically like a curated, like, like, you know, a group of those videos that any given PE teacher, you know, if they, if they lack the pickleball expertise, they can go and they can learn before they're teaching it.

Um, and I do hear another thing. I have to think of like karate kid, right? With wax on wax off. Like, like when you were talking about like the skills that you're teaching that, that like build up to the other things, you know? Um, but, uh, but the question I have is about, is about gym space. You mentioned this is like, you know, if you have, you know, 30 kids in the class, 15 of them are playing basketball. 15 of them now have the opportunity to pursue their own interests, uh, via hive class. Um,

how does that look in like a physical space? I understand how it looks in a virtual classroom where it's now it's like, okay, everybody go off in your own bedroom, you're doing this thing, let's reconvene, let's talk about it. But in a in an actual physical space at school, like how are the kids finding the space to move their bodies and do what they're doing when there are other kids who are doing different things, I assume all over the in the same space.

Joe Titus (21:11.548)
Yeah, so I'll answer the question with a little story. my first New York City public school conference, I went to it and there was probably 100 plus vendors and there were at least five smart board vendors. And I was shocked that there was so many. And I realized I was like, wow, that must be like New York City schools must be buying smart boards if five different vendors are effectively selling these things.

So think of station work where there's a smart board, maybe two smart boards in a connected gym, which now today schools are pretty much there's Wi-Fi everywhere. And so kids are playing basketball. Another group of students are moved to a different area. Two smart boards. Teachers are still there to help facilitate instruction. But on those smart boards, you can be teaching dance, yoga,

You could be doing soccer drills skills. It's endless on what you could do by using other pieces of technology in the physical education classroom. So HiveClass is not the only solution. We need other partners. But I think I feel that because of where we are in today's world, there's these smart board providers. And most schools are now one to one. And so students have individual

Hardware assigned to them that they're able to use whether they're at home or in the class setting now We don't envision a world where every student is in the gym with an iPad and kind of walking around like that That's not what we envision but we do envision using other pieces of hardware to help facilitate instruction and I've gone to gyms and I've seen it projected on big screens and I've seen

a group of 50 kids moving in unison to the video, and I've seen teachers be able to walk around and facilitate the instruction. It's no different than if you went to a high-priced 30, 45-minute workout class in any major city in the country. It's happening everywhere, and instead of the instructor having to do all of it, it's just done on

Joe Titus (23:36.862)
through video and the instructors are there to help facilitate.

Seth Fleischauer (23:41.25)
Yeah.

Allyson (23:42.51)
That made me really excited. I was also thinking we had guests on our podcast, Shared Studios, where you have a full body immersive experience. And I was just thinking soccer drills in front of a full screen, how fun would that be? So we'll definitely share that information, Jo. Maybe there's a connection there because that would be so fun. And I love the idea of being able to think about how also you're intrinsically in a sense, you're helping the students learn how they can go and find.

Seth Fleischauer (24:00.408)
That's a idea.

Allyson (24:09.462)
and utilize their devices and when they do, you the access that they have to find different types of exercise experiences. As they get older, you know, you're not always gonna be able to get to that gym class or, you know, based on the weather, maybe it's not as feasible to go outside. What are those other resources that can make sure that your mind, body, and soul can stay healthy? So, you know, they're intrinsically learning those resources by what you're providing them, which I think is always exciting.

Joe Titus (24:37.498)
I think that's right. And think that's right. And Seth touched on it, right? Whether it's Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, you will find instructional sports videos in every sport. I can find something with a million views. So we know it's being consumed. And so what we've now done is we've curated and put it all together and we've really normalized the experience of dance to yoga, to pickle ball and created

Seth Fleischauer (24:37.698)
And I, you go.

Joe Titus (25:06.952)
consistency for the learner and the educator. I think that's the biggest difference because if you just go to Instagram and find one great instructor and then you say I want to do this again for another sport you may or may not have luck with that and you definitely will struggle with meeting standards and I think that's really the overlay that we've we've solved for.

Seth Fleischauer (25:26.776)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (25:31.658)
And so I imagine that's one of the impacts that you have is what Allison's talking about, understanding that there are these ways to utilize your screen for wellness, for movement. We know from research that PE is tied to way more than just physical health. You're talking about academic performance, emotional regulation, cognitive development. It seems

absurd the extent to which it's been cut out of the school experience when we know that these are the impacts that they have and that these impacts are so central and important to so many other aspects of life and development. am wondering, you know, with your the obviously you guys are growing. You've got you know, you hit your four month mark of the all the usage from last year.

What is the impact that you're seeing of the use of Hive Class in the schools that you're working with, whether they be virtual or brick and mortar? We know of all the benefits of PE, but specifically of Hive Class, like what are you seeing as its impact so far?

Joe Titus (26:33.298)
Yeah, mean, slowly but surely we're getting more confidence out of kids. Now we're once removed from hearing direct stories from kids, but this touches on, you know, a couple of stories that I have from from virtual learners across the country that we get to speak to. And it's really skill based learning and standards based learning in physical education has been virtually impossible to solve for until I've

And that's what a educator in the state of Virginia told our team just recently, that we really came in and are providing the skill-based learning, but meeting standards in a way that they have not been able to do in a physical education setting. I think that is something, that impact measuring that.

across the country, we are still working on how to do that. But we've been measuring our usage very closely since 2023, and it just keeps ticking up at an exponential level. So I think we've 10x in the last 20, 22 months, something like that. And I think that usage increase is just going to get higher and higher because of the adoption rate at which we're seeing.

and the conversations with schools, whether they're virtual or brick and mortar, where this is just making sense. I almost think physical education needs to be rebranded because you touched on this as well, that it gets cut. It's so important we understand the mind and the body and how important that they are together. Meanwhile, physical education, those two words, just there's something missing.

And so what if it was rebranded to physical wellness education? We think wellness just has such a huge impact and it means so many things to so many different people. And I think that's okay. That's why you offer choice, right? There's so many different types of wellness. And I think that's what we have to be supporting our kids with is physical wellness education so that they can come out of their academic careers and feel physically literate.

Allyson (28:27.502)
Mm.

Joe Titus (28:54.714)
Once they have that physical literacy, they're able to accomplish more in their life as an adult, whether that's in the work setting, their relationships, the whole, know, Seth, you touched on it as well, the whole child, right? And I think physical education is the one subject that really can touch students in so many different ways. And that can be in a traditional sense or in a virtual sense.

Seth Fleischauer (29:25.11)
Well, you we mentioned the previous episode with John Watson. We do like to have a segment where we bring in a quote from a previous episode, and we wanted to highlight a different one here as well from Noam Gerstein. Tammy, could you could you bring that in?

Tami Moehring (29:43.331)
I'd happy to. Noam Gerstein said in episode 47 in the digital, she's the founder of the Bena School and International Virtual School for Gen Alpha Digital Nomads. She said, in the digital realm, you can do the impossible and you can do the dangerous, you can do the impractical, and you can do the expensive, which I think is a great way of looking at things. High class brings physical education to the digital space.

Allyson (30:04.974)
I'm

Tami Moehring (30:09.855)
digital spaces. You talked about ways that you made impractical or kind of expensive things available in niche sports, personal coaching, or expert instruction. I would love to hear if you have more examples or want to go in depth and more on those, but are there some areas, and this is something I just thought of, that you're thinking about going into that you haven't already and upcoming.

Joe Titus (30:34.076)
Yeah, I mean, with every startup, you get so excited about so many different things. And so you have to stay focused. But a couple of examples I'll touch on are one is around dance. So something like 44 % of girls take a dance lesson at one point in their life. The Aspen Institute.

Allyson (30:38.094)
You

Joe Titus (30:57.598)
aggregates a lot of sports usage data across and activity data across our youth. And so I remember when I learned that it was so high, was so much higher than any other sport for males. I was like, wow, that is incredible. Like 44 % of any population is just, it seemed too high. And then when I realized that the average

American family that is in dance spends over $4,000 a year, I realized it would actually be higher if it wasn't so inaccessible. Right? $4,000 a year is almost three times what other sports and activities. And so to see such a high percentage at a one-time usage, I think there's more girls out there and boys.

that wanna take dance, but they just can't afford it. And that was something that really bothered me. I think another example is, I grew up, I graduated high school in the 90s and I went to a university in Southern California and it was the first time I had been exposed to lacrosse. And...

As I mentioned, had spent, you know, I grew up playing a lot of sports, but at the time, lacrosse was not in Southern California, and at least in high school sports. And so you get to a university and you're like, wow, I think I could have played this sport. I played football and I had pretty good high end eye coordination, but I had never seen it. had never, never, it wasn't in my nature to even give it a try.

I then moved on and I moved to New York and I worked in finance and there are a lot of people who have lacrosse backgrounds that I worked with. And I just thought it was, I thought that correlation that they moved from lacrosse into finance, that's interesting. Most Ivy league schools have lacrosse as a division one sport.

Seth Fleischauer (33:00.54)
yeah.

Allyson (33:01.358)
you

Seth Fleischauer (33:07.606)
Yeah.

Joe Titus (33:17.19)
And so I just, I started putting those things together and I said, I think there were more kids from Southern California who could have got scholarships, but just didn't have access to the sport. It just was, it was a really, really a East coast sport at the time. Now it's much different, but I think that always sat with me in my early life that why isn't this

available to everyone because at the end of the day, if you can get to an Ivy League school through a sport, but then you don't even have access, you don't even know it exists, right? Like that's just, it doesn't seem fair. And so those are some of the things that we were subtly trying to solve with IVE class where we wanted all sports and activities, movement, wellness. We wanted, we wanted kids to have access to everything. So

through the years as we've rolled out new sports and activities, we haven't charged more. And I don't think that'll be in our business model to change that. We just wanna keep growing our library and keep providing more resources, but at an affordable price point for schools. Another thing that we do just on that is every...

Allyson (34:19.726)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (34:34.752)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Titus (34:40.058)
Sometimes schools want to use, and this is traditional schools, they want to use our product as potentially a teacher resource, but we always make student accounts. And the reason is we want all kids just to be able to have that exposure if they wanted to. Maybe it's something they do not through the class, but after on the weekends with their parents, right? After school programs have reached out to us to use our product as well. So we think there's a lot of different use cases.

Allyson (34:47.278)
Hmm.

Allyson (34:59.79)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (35:11.8)
Perfect. Allison, you want to tee up the golden moment?

Allyson (35:15.01)
Yes, my goodness, I'm so excited. Thank you so much for sharing all of just what inspired you and also the stories that just show all of the gaps that you're filling and bridges that you're making. But we do always like to ask if you are willing, because you've shared so many wonderful moments, but is there one specific golden moment, one situation that stands out the most where you felt like, yes, Hive Class is on the right track, we are here.

that really makes you see the power of how you can leverage technology, this technology of distance learning to help the communities that you're helping.

Joe Titus (35:51.399)
Yeah, was, for me, it was probably about three years ago. And we'd never we didn't know about D Lack. And David Dom, who is one of the foregone experts in online physical education in America, he joined our team. And when I learned about him, he had been researching online physical education for about 18 years when I had met him.

early 2000s. And so his research spiked tremendously during COVID. And I said, I need to meet with him. And I met with them after my co-founder had met a meta conference and convinced him to join the team and just help us. And he told me about DLAC and he said, you need to take your product to DLAC. And I said, okay, let's, there was a lot of conferences. There's a lot.

You know, the U S education system isn't, isn't there, there isn't a playbook necessarily for an ed tech company. Say launch a product and this is where you go. And so you, you've got to sort of navigate a little bit. And I, David reached out to, John Watson and he, and I'm John and I met, and I think one of the things that came up was, you know,

Allyson (36:51.598)
You

Joe Titus (37:19.452)
the virtual community is going to get this just like that. And I think I didn't, I didn't know what that meant until I went to my first DLAC a few months later, we got our first deal. The following year we got four times as many deals. Now we're, we're, we're excelling in this community. And you know, the, the, the mention that I told you about the teacher earlier,

who basically said, we've figured this out for them. So you put all those things together. If I hadn't gone to that first DLAC, it would have just taken more time. And I think that's part of the reason why went when Seth asked me to join this podcast. It's kind of why I'm here. I want more people to understand that there are so many different learners across our country and there are so many ways

to learn and there's so many ways for companies to navigate how do they launch their products. And I think we just need to do a better job between the public sector, the private sector, all these different organizations to get really great products in the hands of students and teachers and administrators where it makes sense. And for me, it was when I heard they're gonna get it and then I've slowly seen that I truly

Like it motivates me to keep going because startups are hard. It takes a lot out of you and it can be lonely at times, right? Because you just, you think you build something and you think there's the product market fit and you wait, but slowly but surely we're getting there.

Seth Fleischauer (39:08.088)
Yeah, it's a shout out to DLAC. We had a similar experience of being in global learning going there. yeah, avoiding the first three exchanges of a conversation where you're just explaining what it is, you can skip that part and just get to like, oh, what exactly is it? And I've recommended the conference to the CILC folks as well. I think it'd be a great place for us all to meet up next year.

Allyson (39:23.534)
Yeah.

Allyson (39:36.973)
Yes.

Seth Fleischauer (39:38.136)
So, Joe, thanks so much for being here. Our last question is the titular question of the podcast. Joe Titus of Hive Class, why distance learning?

Joe Titus (39:49.043)
You know, all students deserve the opportunity for mind and body wellness. Wellness should be accessible to everyone. And I think physical education is such an important part of students' lives. It was for me. I had access to so many things as an immigrant student. And I remember how great

a PE classroom was in the 80s and the early 90s. And I felt like this distance learning community had a lack of great innovation in physical education. And I would argue sometimes I notice across EdTech distance learning, there's not as many innovative companies as there could be. And so how do we solve that?

How do we get more companies, more funders to get excited about this space? And I think when we have quality partners and quality relationships, you slowly start getting there. And I think that's what we've been able to build. Now, we've got a lot more states to get to and a lot more schools to get to and a lot more kids to impact. But I think distance learning, what we're doing just

It makes a tremendous amount of sense and there's not enough. I want more competition to be honest. I think it's good. I think it's healthy and I want more innovation in the space.

Seth Fleischauer (41:22.328)
Awesome. Well, thanks again for being here. Tammy, Allison, do you guys have any last questions for Joe?

Allyson (41:27.03)
No, just thank you so, so much. This was such a wonderful conversation and I just love the way that you ended it, that the idea of competition is healthy and that's also what you can find in sports. So it's great to think about that being part of the wellness process, being able to be around those that help you, push you up and make you feel how you can constantly improve and improve and improve. So thank you for taking the time and sharing all your knowledge.

Joe Titus (41:51.09)
Definitely appreciate it.

Tami Moehring (41:51.437)
Yes, thank you, Joe. That was great.

Seth Fleischauer (41:54.712)
Awesome. Last question, Joe, where can our listeners find you on the internet?

Joe Titus (41:58.975)
I've historically not been a big online person, but I love LinkedIn. That's probably the one place where I either comment or I like things the most. But I'm sort of, I have never been a big social media person.

Seth Fleischauer (42:19.446)
No problem. And then it's at hiveclass.com. that what you guys are?

Joe Titus (42:23.358)
It's www.hiveclass.co, but if you type .com, it'll get rewritten.

Allyson (42:30.616)
And we'll link that in the notes so that all the listeners have a link right to your website.

Seth Fleischauer (42:31.062)
Nice.

Joe Titus (42:35.368)
Great.

Seth Fleischauer (42:36.076)
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much again for being here for our listeners. If you want to check the show notes, we'll list anything mentioned here. And you can also find those on cilc.org slash podcast. Thank you to our editor, Lucas Salazar. If you'd like to support the podcast, please do rate it, leave a review, tell a friend, follow us. And if you're curious about the realities behind the perceptions of distance learning, stay tuned to the voices we highlight on this podcast.

Allyson (42:51.202)
Thank you.

Seth Fleischauer (43:03.83)
These are the innovators and educators proving what's possible in virtual learning, challenging misconceptions and transforming education along the way. Why distance learning? Because it's evolving, impactful and here to stay. See you next time.

Allyson (43:16.845)
Bye!