ITP - 149: Harry BOTTER, Humanoid Robots, and Teaching Tech in China

Hannah:
Thank you for joining us today here at the International Teacher Podcast. I’m your co-host Hannah, calling in from Pakistan. And today we have Greg. How are you doing, Greg?
Greg:
I’m doing fantastic, Hannah. This is your first intro. I love it.
Hannah:
Yeah. And today our guest is Nishant. Where are you calling in from, Nishant?
Nishant:
Hi Hannah and Greg. I’m Nishant. I’m based in China, in Changchun. It’s a small city in the north of China.
Hannah:
Wow, that’s awesome. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into international teaching. Maybe your elevator pitch.
Nishant:
I came to China back in 2014 or 2015, just for ten months on a project. Then I was supposed to go back to my regular corporate work. But I really fell in love with teaching, and China is a great place to be.
At that time, being a tech person — I’m currently a tech director at an international school — it was a very exciting place to be. A lot of things were happening with the internet, robots, and everything. So I stayed, and it has been 11 years now.
Greg:
You make it sound so glorious to be a tech director. Robots and internet and unicorns and rainbows.
Nishant:
Yeah, lots of things were happening at that time.
Greg:
So you were originally working in corporate tech, I’d imagine, and then a school reached out to you? Or did you answer a call? How did it happen?
Nishant:
There is a university here in China called Weifang University of Science and Technology. They hire professionals from all over the world to train their graduate students, like fresh graduate students. That’s how I got into it.
I was giving them training on what corporate work looks like, what IT offices look like, and what actual software engineering work behind the scenes looks like. All those kinds of training.
It was so much fun being in the classroom, and it was so rewarding, even though I was teaching adults, not necessarily in a K–12 setting. Then I looked for other opportunities and got into teaching first, then middle-level leadership, and now recently I moved into this tech director role.
Hannah:
That’s awesome. So if you went from the tech world into the classroom, was there any certification you got while making that transition? Teacher licensure or anything like that?
Nishant:
Yes. Now I’m a licensed educator. I have a PGCE, Qualified Teacher Status from the UK, and I completed my induction and everything. So now I’m a certified educator.
Hannah:
Were you able to complete that all online while you were in the classroom, or did you go back to school for a little bit?
Nishant:
Just a little bit to complete my QTS induction.
Hannah:
Awesome.
Greg:
Tell us a little bit about your school. Let’s switch tactics here. Tell us about your current school, or the one you worked at before — whatever you’d like to share. A lot of our listeners from around the world or from their home country would love to hear about the school in general.
Nishant:
I’m currently working at Changchun American International School. It’s an IB World School from PYP to DP. This year we are going to celebrate our 20th anniversary.
I’m working here as the Director of Technology and Innovation. We are doing quite well in terms of tech. Overall, we have our own humanoid robot, which we are bringing into the classroom. Our VR programs are very successful. AI is old now, but I’ll still mention AI. We have a tool we use with our secondary programs, including primary school. So we’ve been doing quite a lot of things.
Greg:
Is the AI robot in the room with you right now?
Nishant:
No, not here yet. Here I just have some basic robots.
Greg:
I was hoping we’d be able to talk to the humanoid robot you have at school. That’s quite advanced for us. We’re just hearing about things like this. What a futuristic situation.
You’re one of the first people to come online and say, “AI is pretty old. We’ve been doing it for years. We’ve got our own stuff going.” That’s pretty impressive. What do you think, Hannah?
Hannah:
I think that’s so impressive. I kind of want to know: do these robots have names and personalities?
Nishant:
Yes. Our humanoid’s name is Harry BOTTER.
We did a vote, and students picked the name. Also, because it has its own closet, and Harry Potter used to live under the stairs, we call it Harry BOTTER. He’s quite famous.
Greg:
I’m speechless. I don’t even know where to go with that. That’s so funny.
Hannah:
I love that. I love kids. They’re so funny.
Nishant:
We have a name card for it. It’s called Harry BOTTER, and he’s our honorary human resource officer.
Greg:
I bet every parent and every student who walks in wants to see this. You’re probably trying to train it and take it through different classrooms to do activities. It’s a showstopper.
Nishant:
Yeah, we are still working on it because it’s early. We were one of the first schools to use a humanoid for pedagogical and academic purposes.
We are still building our curriculum and programs around it. Hopefully next academic year, we will start taking it into classrooms across the curriculum. For now, we are only using it for teaching code. Managing the humanoid is also a skill, so we let students from grade one to grade 12 operate it through voice, controllers, and things like that.
Greg:
Give us a success story. A little snippet of a success you had one day with the humanoid in a classroom, or something amazing that happened.
Nishant:
I can give you an example of how we came to this point and why we are doing it.
The world’s first humanoid games happened in Beijing. If you search it, you’ll find a lot of videos and pictures. That inspired us. Managing and operating these humanoids is also a skill.
We decided not to go too deep and make it too difficult. Let’s start from the simple part.
So we took students from grade one to grade 12, at different levels. Early primary students operated it through voice. Then we played games, like a relay race with the humanoid or a kind of musical chairs with the humanoid, and kids just loved it.
One grade two student asked the humanoid, “Okay, we know you can look like a human and you can talk, but how do you poop?” I was so curious. That made my day.
Hannah:
That’s hilarious. Is it adult size? How tall is it?
Nishant:
I think it’s 1.32 meters. So it’s like an 11- or 12-year-old. Around 4.4 feet.
Hannah:
Okay, so not too tall.
Greg:
That’s perfect for elementary. Having one at your eye level, it’s just like another student. Did you have it just sitting there in the group when the kids walked in? I can’t imagine the chaos or the fascination that would happen with that.
Nishant:
We take it to larger groups sometimes when there is an event. But in the classroom, we have around 15 to 20 students, not more than 20 in one classroom. So we take students in batches, not all together.
We have a proper lesson on operating the humanoid in different ways, then doing different activities. The kids are having fun.
Hannah:
Do you dress it up for different events?
Nishant:
Yes. I’m not sure if I have a picture, but he participated in Halloween and was wearing Harry BOTTER.
Also, if you know about the Shakespeare Film Festival, where students put together movies, our school does a production, and he did a small role.
Hannah:
That’s awesome.
Greg:
That’s certainly above and beyond what a lot of our listeners and we as co-hosts have experienced.
I was a tech director in a very small country, Venezuela, in a very small school of 200. It was difficult to run, and that was years ago. I can imagine something disruptive like this and something you have to focus on and put a lot of time into. You probably have a team of techies harnessing it and trying to guide it. Part of your job is to have that vision.
What’s your next vision for this robot? It has done coding and some other things. I think you mentioned your goal is to get it deeper into the curriculum and into classes to help teach.
Nishant:
Yes. Since you’ve been a tech director, you can understand that it’s like a breath of fresh air. It’s not just a software tool. It’s something really disruptive and something that always makes me excited to talk about.
My vision is to divide it into different parts and go slowly, making sure it is effective. I want strong buy-in. I don’t want it to be a gimmick where teachers or students go once and then never want to go back.
The first step was giving them the first experience, where they operate it and get excited. The next step is coding. It supports Python and block programming. Students can code in tech classes and make it move, take steps, move its waist, sit, and do some dance moves.
The third step is using it as a companion for language classes. But there is a long way to go. We have Unitree G1, and Unitree is working on updating their software. By the time it keeps updating, we will have more integration across subjects.
So this is my vision for Harry BOTTER.
Greg:
Every time we get a new tool — whether it’s AI, the internet, or a new app — one of my visions as a tech person is to ask the person asking how to use it: what do you want to do that you already do every day? Then let’s see if the tool can enhance what you already do.
That sounds very much like your approach. If someone comes to you and asks, “What does this robot do?” you could say so many things. But in order to direct them to learn how to use it, they need a purpose.
It’s just another tool. It’s an amazing advanced tool, but still another tool. People are going to want to see all the pomp and circumstance. You dress it up and it does fluffy things, but even a robot you pay $200 for can go around and talk to you and get dressed up.
The challenge is to introduce that tool into the curriculum and embed it so you can move forward with whatever students are learning.
Nishant:
Exactly. I completely agree. As a tech person, you understand the 20 things a tool or bot can do. But if you try to explain all 20 things to a language teacher, an arts teacher, or a math teacher who doesn’t have a strong understanding of how tech works, they will be overwhelmed. Then maybe they will say, “This is too complex. I don’t want to do it.”
Instead of over-explaining, it’s better to ask them what they need, help them create the why, and then take that tech into the classroom. I feel that is more successful than throwing everything at teachers and asking them to integrate it.
Greg:
That’s very important.
The trickiest part about technology — let’s use whiteboards or smart boards as an example — is that we have smart boards in every classroom, but teachers often use them as projection screens more than smart boards. There are a thousand things a smart board can do, but teachers don’t have time to learn them.
The tricky part is to grab new technology while it’s hot and find time to get teachers interested enough that they go beyond the obvious. Otherwise, they never dig deeper, and the tool ends up gathering dust. Most interactive whiteboards are just projection screens, and I feel bad. They cost $4,000 or $5,000 US.
That’s not the fault of the teacher. It’s often the fault of the technologist because we haven’t dug deeply enough with the teachers. So I wish you luck with this because this is top-end.
Quick question: how did you get the robot? Was it donated by a company? How did the school get it?
Nishant:
Our board is very supportive and full of tech enthusiasts. They brought it in. We have a bill. All I need to do is make it work.
For me, it’s like giving a new toy to a kid who is already very excited.
Greg:
Amazing. They could actually wash dishes now and do basic humanoid stuff like that. Ironing. Hannah, do you want one too?
Hannah:
I already pay someone to do all that, so I’m like, you know.
That would be cool though. If I could get a robot to do some other things for me, like type papers for my master’s — just kidding. Or maybe do some of the housework while I’m working on my papers. That would be great.
Nishant:
It’s an exciting place here, and the humanoid market is getting very big in China.
In Beijing, there is one of the world’s first robotics malls. The whole mall is for robotics and humanoid companies. They have commercial bots and personal ones, smaller ones that you can use and play around with. It’s excellent.
Hannah:
That sounds so fascinating. So you can just go and buy your own bot, and it’s not going to cost you a ton of money?
Nishant:
Not as much as it would in other parts of the world.
Hannah:
Are they all produced there? Within this mall, do they make them at the mall and show you the different features?
Nishant:
The mall is like a shopping mall. It has different stores with different products. The companies have their own manufacturing units, and they are made in China. Like big clothing stores, they have robotics stores. You walk in, experience it, and see what is happening.
It’s a very exciting place to be.
Hannah:
I don’t know if I’m fascinated or a little nervous that this robot is going to take over my job one day, if you’re teaching it how to teach.
Nishant:
No, we are not teaching it to teach, but it can be a very good companion. It can help students learn or engage a little bit.
Like I said, it’s still very new. I’m also working with different subject teachers, taking their opinions and seeing what they think. Then we work together on how to make efficient use of it and find use cases that make sense.
Not just, “He’s going to the classroom, take some marketing pictures, and post it.”
Greg:
My mind has a thousand questions about it. I could easily see how it becomes a headache for you as a tech director. There are so many things going on around you, and you have to keep the big picture.
I have a question. Can you tell us a little bit about your school size and where the students and teachers come from? How many students are there? Is it K–12?
Nishant:
Yes, it’s K–12 and a small school. We have around 500 students.
We exist here because there is a Volkswagen and Audi manufacturing unit in our city. Most of our students are from Europe. We have quite a number of students from Germany and around Europe, and then people from all over the world.
We have around 50 to 60 different nationalities of teachers from all over the world: North America, South America, Asia, Africa.
Greg:
So it’s a truly international school with the IBO curriculum. Staff and students from all over the world. It’s not just Chinese passport holders with a few other countries represented. You’ve got lots of different colors and languages. What an exciting experience.
I usually think of schools being bigger in China, so it’s interesting to hear about a school that’s around 500.
Where is the city again? I want to look it up on the map while we’re talking. Maybe listeners want to find it too.
Nishant:
Changchun is a small city of nine million people. This is how our head of school introduced it, so I got that from her.
We are around a thousand kilometers north of Beijing, close to Harbin. Harbin is one of the famous cities in the north because of its ice festival. So it’s an exciting place.
Greg:
Have you been to that ice festival?
Nishant:
I did before as a tourist, but not since I moved here to Changchun.
Greg:
Tell us about the most amazing ice sculpture you saw when you went that one time.
Nishant:
I went there in 2018 or 2019, and they had a full-size Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is one of the tourist attractions of India.
It wasn’t like a small snowman. It was a big, proper building-sized Taj Mahal made of ice. That was really amazing.
Greg:
Like 50% of the actual size?
Nishant:
Yes, you could say around 40 to 50% of the actual size. It happens on a huge ground, and they have a lot of big sculptures, different games, and things. It’s something I had never seen before in my life.
Greg:
You lead a very exciting life. You are a dynamic guest. Your answers keep blowing my mind. First the robot, then the mall, then the 50% Taj Mahal made out of ice.
Let’s talk a little bit about family. Do you get to go home? Do you go home once in a while? Do you go to your wife’s country once in a while? What are your vacations like when you live in this part of China?
Nishant:
For summer, we usually travel because it gets very hot in India. In winter, we usually go visit India.
Greg:
Good answer, because India has everything too, from what I understand.
Nishant:
Yes. Winter is comfortable there. I’m from the north part of India, from Haridwar, which is a tourist place close to Delhi. In winter, it is cold but not that cold. It’s not as crowded, and you get to meet everyone. The food is good. In winter, you get all the fresh vegetables and things.
I enjoy going back home in winter more than summer. Summers in India are getting a little bit too much these days.
Hannah:
When you go home, does your wife go with you normally, or do you go by yourself?
Nishant:
Yes, we go together.
Greg:
How are her language skills coming along? Are you both speaking Chinese now? Is she speaking your Indian language?
Nishant:
We are a multilingual family. She speaks Chinese. I don’t speak that much. My wife speaks very good English and very good Chinese. I am still learning and getting better at it.
Greg:
That’s my answer for every language. I’m still learning.
Hannah:
No matter how fluent you are, you can always still learn something.
Nishant:
Yeah, there is always something. Mandarin is a very interesting language. It has a lot of different characters and words. One word can have different meanings. Every day you learn a new word.
Greg:
You think you’re saying hello in Chinese and you’re saying something about your shoe instead. It’s difficult.
Hannah:
Is she learning any Hindi?
Nishant:
Yes, she’s learning. We’ve been learning a lot of different languages.
Hannah:
What language do you speak at home?
Nishant:
At home, we usually speak English.
Hannah:
I feel like that’s pretty common for most multilingual families.
Greg:
Let’s go another direction. The boss is away, so we can have more fun with this. Do you have any police stories for us, Nishant? We like police or customs stories that won’t get you in trouble, but something funny you’d like to share.
Nishant:
I can share something funny. It’s not really police, but it happened when I was moving to China for the first time.
I had just had a knee injury and an operation before leaving. I didn’t have a chance to search much about China or the language. I just knew I needed to go in August, my bags were packed, and I was meeting and greeting people. I knew people didn’t speak much English, or it was very rare.
When I reached China, I remember I went to Guangzhou. The guy at customs or immigration said, “Ni hao.”
I thought, “How does he know about my knee?” So I said, “Yeah, my knee is good. Thank you for asking.”
Then I was wondering, “Why did he ask about my knee? How did he find out? Do they really monitor something?”
When I met my HR person, who came to pick me up, he said, “No, ni hao means hello. He was just trying to greet you. He didn’t know about your knee.”
That was funny.
Greg:
I love that. That’s a great language story. Oh my God.
And they do have cameras everywhere, just so you know. I’m sure the interior ministry knows about your knee. They’ve known about it for over 10 years now. It’s still a topic of discussion.
What do you think that customs guy tells people? “I said hello, and the guy started talking about his knee.”
Hannah:
That’s a great language story. But now, of course, you know ni hao means hi. What a great introduction to the language.
Nishant:
Yes, from day one, from the moment I entered the country. I still remember it because it was very funny.
Greg:
Our second question we ask every guest is what, Hannah?
Hannah:
What three things do you bring to make yourself feel at home on your travels? Three things without a heartbeat, so you can’t say your wife or cat or something like that.
Nishant:
As a tech person, first is my laptop. That goes with me almost everywhere, no matter if I’m on holiday or wherever.
Second, I cancelled all my subscriptions and went back to an MP3 player. That stays with me all the time. I choose my own music, and it gives me pleasure to manage my playlists myself, getting all the MP3s.
The third thing is sunscreen. That goes everywhere.
Greg:
Sunscreen. That’s awesome. We haven’t had that answer on the show before, and we’ve done a lot of shows.
As a techie, I agree. I always leave out the techie stuff because people are like, “Of course, Greg, you have your phone and laptop and everything that goes with it.” I’m a mobile tech man. I bring everything I need to every job and every place I live, and just hope they have Wi-Fi and stable phones.
What’s it like living in a country that has almost everything you’d ever need in technology?
Nishant:
I feel very rewarded because you can get almost everything you need.
The downside is that it becomes so normal. People start taking it for granted. We have this humanoid, and some people say, “This is not very exciting.” I say, “You should go visit some other schools and see what they are doing.”
Otherwise, everything else makes me excited. If I talk about tech, everything is easily available. Living here in China is very convenient. Everything is at your fingertips.
The e-commerce here is incredible. We don’t have Amazon. We have Taobao and other platforms, and you can find everything you can ever imagine, including pets online.
Greg:
I was going to say it’s probably difficult because people are always looking for the next best thing instead of focusing on what they have.
Sorry to go too tech-heavy, Hannah and listeners, but I find that schools that really bite into tech tend to keep going to the next best thing. Some tools, like interactive whiteboards, just go off to the side and don’t really get used.
One of my goals at school is to use everything as much as we can. Don’t let it sit in a box. If it’s something we can use, how do we use it to its maximum? How do we get deep into it?
The problem is that sometimes schools, administrators, and teachers just want it. Then it gathers dust and they want to move on to the next thing. In China, where you have everything, I can imagine some kid bringing something brand new every day or some teacher saying, “How do I connect this?”
Do you have a tech team with you?
Nishant:
Yes, I have a fairly large team here. We have one EdTech integrator who works directly with teachers in the classroom.
We have a technology center, and for that we have two people who help teachers set up VR glasses, green screens, and those kinds of things. So I have around three people. We also have some tech-enthusiast teachers we use when needed.
Teacher buy-in is excellent. We have a very good team of teachers.
Greg:
Let’s talk about student machines. In your school, what does it look like? Do you have something different for elementary, middle, and high school? Is it bring your own device?
Nishant:
Yes, it’s BYOD. From grade one to grade 12, students bring their own devices.
In elementary and primary until grade five, it is iPads. Beyond that, we give students options because iPads are also very advanced now. If students have an iPad with a keyboard or a MacBook, that works.
We are an Apple school, so all of our students use Apple products: iOS and Mac.
Hannah:
Did you have to get an Apple certification as a school? Is that the terminology?
Nishant:
Yes. We recently applied to become an Apple Distinguished School. The application is in process. We did a lot of work on that. All our teachers get Apple Teacher Certification. We applied in January.
Greg:
I want to go to China. Are you hiring right now? Nishant, what do you need on your team?
Sorry for all my coughing and going in and out of the show, everybody. I am in the middle of a cold or something.
Nishant:
I hope you’re feeling well. Maybe get something to drink or we can take a rest.
Greg:
I’m okay. I’ve been drinking tea. I have all the tea in China right next to me right now.
I do like my chai tea. I have a friend who works in our IT department, and she makes chai tea at home. She told me it takes about a day to make it. I don’t know about your family or if you have your own recipe for chai, but she’s cooking it all day long. I wish I had some of that right now.
I’m excited about your school. For such a small school, your experience is golden. You didn’t expect to be in a school. You were working for a corporation, ended up teaching, got your certification, and now you’re a tech director for a 500-student school in China with a humanoid robot.
What a great show.
How about some last thoughts? Anything you want to leave listeners with about teaching in China?
Nishant:
I would say welcome to China. It’s a great place to be. It’s very safe and secure.
But it’s not for everyone. I have friends who moved here for a year and didn’t like it because the culture is different. But people who are adaptable and respect different cultures and different things will like it.
It has excellent travel opportunities. People are nice. Food is good. Air is good, which we don’t really see in the news. It does get difficult in winter sometimes, but overall it’s an excellent place.
And if you are a techie, then you will like it.
Hannah:
I’ve taught in schools with technology and smart boards, and I’ve taught in schools without a lot of technology. Using technology is important because we’re going into the future, and those are important skills to learn as a teacher.
At my previous school, we had smart boards, but we didn’t have anyone to teach us how to use them. So I spent time doing my own training and figuring out how to use them. I was teaching early childhood at the time, and I was still able to integrate them into my classroom as more than just a projector.
These are important skills our kids need as they grow up and move into the real world. I would encourage teachers to do your own training and figure out how to use the technology you have on hand. It’s important for you as the teacher to show kids how to use it.
Nishant:
That’s a very good thing. If you don’t have a team of tech people, go to YouTube or find people on LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn. If anyone has questions, I’ll be very happy to help or guide people if anyone needs support.
Greg:
Well, you just opened the floodgates, man. People are going to ask about Harry BOTTER and say, “I want one.”
I wish I had teachers like Hannah. I wish I could clone her and have a staff of Hannahs who want to learn tech. A lot of times it’s on your own time. We can only have so many PD sessions.
This has been a very tech-heavy, exciting episode with you, Nishant. I want to go to China. I hope it’s open when I’m ready to recruit.
Thank you for being on our show. I’ve learned so much, and I’m sitting here smiling because I’m thinking about the robot. More than that, I’m smiling because it was such a great episode listening to your experiences and opening our eyes a little bit more.
Nishant:
Thank you for having me, both Greg and Hannah.
Greg:
It has been a lot of fun. If you’re ever in the Middle East, come and visit. Or if you’re in Florida next year.
We’d like to thank our listeners and definitely invite you to find Nishant on LinkedIn. We’ll keep his information in the show notes.
Nishant, would you come back and visit us later, maybe next year, and give us an update on how you and your wife are doing? Do you plan to stay in China for a while now?
Nishant:
Yeah, we’ve been here for almost a decade, and we don’t have plans to leave anytime soon.
Greg:
That’s good to know. When I’m looking for a job and have questions about different schools, I think you’d be a great resource. I look forward to sending you some questions.
Maybe next year you can come on and tell us how Harry BOTTER has been going through the grade levels and see if he has graduated yet.
I am Greg the Single Guy, signing off. We have Hannah coming from Pakistan, and you have been listening to Nishant from China. He’s got such great stories. Go back, take some notes in this episode, and we will see you next time.