This Morning, I Realized I'm in Very Good Company

Today is launch day.

After months of building, testing, questioning, revising, listening, and occasionally defending what I’m creating, the new Studio coaching apps are officially out in the world.

So this morning, I did something pretty simple.

I went to Studio.com and started looking around.

And then I saw Idina Menzel.

Yes. That Idina Menzel.

Her app is called Mastering the Art of Broadway Performance.

Tony Award winner. Broadway star. Elphaba in Wicked. Elsa in Frozen. One of the most recognizable voices of her generation.

And there she was with her own vocal performance coaching app.

Seeing her there felt validating.

Not because Idina Menzel and I have the same career. We obviously don't.

But because we are both participating in something that I believe is going to become increasingly common: taking the knowledge that an experienced person has accumulated over decades and using new technology to make more of that knowledge available to the people who need it.

And Idina isn't alone.

As I explored Studio this morning, I found accomplished people from music, filmmaking, engineering, cooking, magic, business, and many other fields using this technology to extend their teaching beyond what would ever be possible one person at a time.

This matters to me because sharing my work creating this app hasn't always been comfortable.

If you've followed what I've been sharing over the last several weeks, you know that reactions to my S-Cubed AI Coach have been mixed.

Some people have been fascinated.

Some have been excited.

Some have immediately understood what I'm trying to build.

And some people have very strong feelings about AI.

I understand that.

New technology raises legitimate questions. Educators should ask questions. We should think carefully about what technology does well, where it falls short, and where human judgment absolutely must remain at the center.

But I've spent my entire career adapting.

I started teaching in 1989.

Think about how much the world—and the classroom—has changed since then.

Through every technological shift, I've tried to ask essentially the same question:

How can I use the tools available to me to help teachers and students more effectively?

That is the question behind this project.

S-Cubed AI Coach isn't replacing a teacher.

It is an attempt to make decades of my experience available when I can't physically be sitting beside someone.

A middle school chorus teacher might be wondering:

Am I moving through this lesson too quickly?

What do I do with the boy whose voice changed practically overnight?

How do I handle the student who refuses to sing?

Why is this class struggling when my other class isn't?

Should I move on—or spend another day here?

What would Dale do in this situation?

Should I repeat the curriculum next year or move on to the next level?

For years, teachers have emailed me questions like these.

I've answered as many as I possibly could.

But there is only one of me.

Technology suddenly gives me another possibility.

What if some of the lessons I've learned since walking into my first middle school classroom in 1989 could be available to a teacher at the exact moment that teacher needs them?

That's what interests me.

That's why I built this.

And this morning, something shifted for me.

Seeing Idina Menzel using this technology to extend her expertise in vocal performance made me realize that what I'm doing isn't some strange little experiment happening off in a corner.

Experts across many different fields are exploring the same fundamental idea:

Can technology help us share human expertise in a more personal and accessible way?

I believe the answer is yes.

Not perfectly.

Not without thoughtful questions.

And certainly not without humans.

In fact, the more I've worked on this project, the more convinced I've become that the human experience behind the technology is the most important part of it.

The technology didn't spend 30 years teaching middle school chorus.

I did.

The technology didn't experience the changing male voice in a classroom, learn how to preserve a child's dignity, figure out how to engage reluctant singers, make mistakes, adjust pacing, manage difficult classes, prepare concerts, or discover which tiny choices could completely change the atmosphere in a room.

I did.

The technology simply gives me a new way to share what those experiences taught me.

And today, I feel incredibly good about being willing to explore that possibility.

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Tonight, I'm Going to Show You

Tonight, I'm demonstrating the S-Cubed AI Coach live.

Not a carefully edited promotional video.

Not just screenshots.

I want people to see it tested.

Ask questions.

Give it classroom situations.

See what it does well.

And see for themselves what I've been building.

Get the Zoom link on my Facebook Event page by clicking here.

If you're skeptical, you're welcome.

If you're curious, you're welcome.

If you're excited about it, you're welcome too.

I'd rather have educators see it working and make up their own minds than simply tell them what they should think about it.

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Want to See What Idina Menzel Created?

If you're curious about what caught my attention this morning, take a look at Idina Menzel's vocal performance coaching app on Studio.

Click here to see it.

Her application is very different from mine, but the underlying idea fascinates me: using technology to make an experienced artist's knowledge and coaching available in an entirely new way.

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And If You're an Expert or Creator Reading This…

There's one more reason I'm writing about this publicly.

Maybe you're a teacher.

A conductor.

A coach.

A fitness professional.

A creator.

A musician.

An artist.

Or someone who has spent 20 or 30 years becoming very good at something.

You may be looking at this technology and wondering:

Could I build something around what I know?

That's exactly the question I started asking.

If you're interested in exploring Studio and potentially creating your own coaching app, you can learn more through my creator link here:

https://studio.com/join/daleduncanscubedcoach

Yes, that's an affiliate link. If someone eventually creates through my link and becomes successful on the platform, I may benefit financially from that relationship. I believe in being transparent about that.

But I also wouldn't share it if I didn't think this was something worth exploring.

Because after looking around Studio this morning, one thought kept coming back to me:

I'm in very good company.

And after spending a career trying to keep learning, adapting and finding better ways to reach people, I'm pretty comfortable being here.