The TechEd Clubhouse is for STEM, CTE, and hands-on teachers who never fit the standardized script — and figured out better pedagogy because of it. Practical thinking on curiosity, judgment, and designing learning that actually demands something from students.
What happens when students stop consuming digital experiences and start building them?
In this episode of the Tech Ed Clubhouse Podcast, I sit down with Rob Keneally, founder and CEO of Aquatic Metaverse and the creator of Salty Sharks and the Saltyverse.
Rob’s work started with a passion for sharks, marine conservation, and changing the way young people see misunderstood ocean species. It has grown into an immersive STEM learning platform where students can explore virtual worlds, solve problems, conduct experiments, and even help design the environments themselves.
Our conversation goes well beyond technology for technology’s sake.
We talk about what happens when students create something with a real audience, a real purpose, and a life beyond the teacher’s gradebook.
In this episode, we dig into:
• Why sharks need better public relations
• How virtual worlds can support STEM and project-based learning
• What changes when students build for an authentic audience
• How students in Australia created a virtual platypus world
• How students in Greece helped develop an interactive Archimedes experience
• The role of productive failure, exploration, and experimentation
• How virtual escape rooms can support problem-solving
• Why student ownership increases retention and engagement
• Student privacy and safety inside virtual environments
• How teachers can explore immersive learning without becoming technology experts
Rob also shares the story behind The Pharaoh’s Vault, a multiplayer virtual escape room where students use history, mathematics, astronomy, hieroglyphics, and collaboration to escape before time runs out.
The bigger question running through our conversation is simple:
Are students using technology to complete assignments, or are they using it to create something worth sharing?
The Tuesday TestYou do not need a virtual reality headset or a metaverse platform to start.
Take a topic you are already teaching and ask students to design an experience that helps someone else understand it.
That could be a physical escape room, an interactive map, a model, a game, a guided tour, or a student-created exhibit.
The tool is secondary.
The real shift is moving students from completing the lesson to helping build it.
Connect with Rob and Salty SharksExplore the Saltyverse, schedule a tour, or learn more about school access at:
Connect with Rob Keneally on LinkedIn to follow the continued development of Aquatic Metaverse, Salty Sharks, and immersive learning experiences for schools.
About the Tech Ed ClubhouseOn the Tech Ed Clubhouse Podcast, I explore practical ideas in technology education, STEM, project-based learning, creativity, play, and school redesign.
No hype. No new initiative required.
Just better ways to help students build, think, and reflect.
