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August 31, 2021 - No Comments!

Shifts in EdTech: What This Top-Level Hiring Trend Means for You

Tech-focused edTech startups are ramping up their hiring, especially for roles at the intersection of UX, product, and technology. 

Over the past month, new chief product officer positions have popped up at:

  • GoCoach, a professional development and education platform
  • DreamBox Learning, a math software company
  • Sketchy, an illustrated learning platform for medical and pharmaceutical students

What does this shift in edTech hiring mean for you and your company? And how can you get ahead of the curve through UX edTech research and product planning?

We break it all down for you below.

Why Smart edTech Start-Ups Are Investing in UX 

Shifts in edTech are happening faster than ever, and smart product leaders are essential to weathering these changes. Product leaders must have their finger on the pulse and be able to encourage their team to adopt and maintain a nimble mindset. 

As edTech start-ups mature, they're finding new opportunities to invest in leadership, review their products, and address UX challenges. By refining the experience of their products, these start-ups will likely see bigger gains in adoption and customer success.

When chief product officers know how to build for this level of flexibility and adaptability, they're better able to respond to the needs of their customers and incorporate new technologies more quickly into the classroom.

From B2B to B2C: The Great edTech Pivot Continues

This hiring mindset is likely driven by the industry-wide pivot from B2B product to consumer technology. The pandemic shook things up so much that the fastest-growing edTech companies are now thinking about multiple markets. In order to expand their reach and appeal to family consumers, many of these companies are pivoting B2B learning tools to commercial products.

When edTech companies pivot to the B2C market, their products must be more user-friendly than ever. Under these conditions, investing in UX is a smart move. It allows your sales team to market and sell your products more easily—and has the added benefit of making your customer service team's job easier, too. 

This also means that edTech companies who keep chief technology officers in product development positions risk getting out-maneuvered. After all, technology isn't usually the differentiator in edTech products. UX is. 

3 Ways to Futureproof Your edTech Product During a Pivot

Changes in leadership ahead? Still figuring out how to design for that consumer audience? Adjusting to these shifts in edTech isn’t easy--these three best practices will help you focus on user-centered design.

  1. Take advantage of discovery
    More thorough discovery sessions will set you up to build the right thing, right now. When the market is changing this quickly, any time spent conducting competitive analysis or internal UX audits is worth it.
  2. Invest in user-centered research
    User-centered research is more important than ever. UX research is now your mitigation against building the wrong thing or missing an opportunity to introduce a helpful feature.
  3. Use UX research to optimize your workflows
    Investing in UX up front helps optimize your workflows. Nail down the most efficient development process and make your dev team happier than ever.

Additional Resources

Want to read more about industry-wide trends and investing in UX? You might also like: 

  1. How to Pivot Your edTech Product Directly to Consumers
  2. EdTech Product Design: Why Smart UX Saves You $$ on Technology
  3. How Competitive Audits Ensure User-Centered edTech Products
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July 27, 2021 - No Comments!

What Shifting Back to In-Person Learning Means for EdTech

Fall 2021 is still up in the air as school districts around the country consider whether to permanently end remote learning. 

In May, New York City announced that remote learning will no longer be an option for its students in the fall. In 2020, about 600,000 of its 1,000,000 students chose to learn from home. 

Meanwhile, more than half of San Francisco's public school students are still learning remotely. Hybrid classrooms are expected to continue in the new school year.

What does the shift to in-person mean for the edTech industry? And how should you address it in your own product planning sessions this fall?

We break it all down for you below.

How Remote Learning Changed edTech User Journeys

The user journeys for edTech have officially changed. As they return to in-person or hybrid classrooms, teachers will be more fluent in technology, including edTech tools. They're on the hunt for more sophisticated learning tools and interested in using edTech to extend learning outside the classroom.

Parents and school administrators are looking for ways to eliminate 2020 learning loss, too. edTech tools that can be used in both the home and the classroom will still have wide appeal. 

Finally, just because we're making plans to return to school in the fall doesn't mean COVID has left us for good. School districts and other buyers likely have new requirements for remote learning functionality in case COVID cases spike again. Your buyer persona will want the ability to address remote learning on a class-by-class basis, making flexible products even more appealing.

4 Remote Learning Take-Aways for In-Person Learning

No matter what kind of edTech product you're building this year, use these 4 tips to help you stay ahead of the curve.

  1. Allow users to customize learning content.
    Learning content will benefit from teacher prompts and customized sequencing suggestions, making it easier for students to learn at home or on-the-go.

     

  2. Design for parent personas
    Parent personas aren't going away. Address this new persona through onboarding, dashboards, and other product features.

     

  3. Prepare for hybrid learning
    Hybrid classrooms mean your remote-learning features might be a more permanent change.

     

  4. Schedule a classroom field test
    There's a new user baseline for in-person teaching with digital tools. Test product features with your users in real time to find out how the last year transformed their skillset.

Additional Resources

Want to read more about how a year of remote learning will affect edTech next year? You might also like: 

  1. How a Year of Digital Learning Will Shape edTech in 2021 
  2. 6 Easy SEL Features for Remote Learning Products
  3. What Teachers Really Need in a Remote Learning Product
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May 14, 2021 - No Comments!

Two Ways to Support User Journeys in edTech Products

As we begin to apply lessons from remote learning to new product roll-outs, edTech product owners have a unique opportunity to evaluate how user journeys have changed. With a more nuanced understanding of users' new learning environments, you'll be able to design products that support your users' day-to-day experiences in post-pandemic classrooms. 

User feedback throughout remote learning has also clarified the technological needs of teachers and learners. The increased use of digital learning tools has made all of our users more sophisticated, discerning, and engaged edTech consumers. Redesigns for existing tools must meet this new set of demands and expectations.

Buckle up! Everything in edTech is about to change.

Why the Pandemic Changed edTech User Journeys

The pandemic changed the trajectory of edTech user journeys in ways big and small. 

School schedules are more flexible than ever, and students have far more choice about how they complete projects. Educators are also more sophisticated about how they approach classroom tasks and digital learning, including how they combine technologies to facilitate that learning. 

This means that the universe surrounding your product has fundamentally changed, too. Educators are no longer using individual edTech products in isolated ways. Your edTech product is, in all likelihood, being used in concert with many other products, making integration a key need. If your product is a platform built for school use, user relationships to your product look more like a B2C model than they ever have in the past.

The relevance of future edTech products depends on how well product owners navigate these major shifts in the user journey, from learning environments to individual user needs. In light of these changes, Fall 2021 is the perfect time to refresh your approach to conducting user research and challenge the typical assumptions you start with in edTech product development. 

Here are two areas where we think product owners should revisit user research ahead of Fall 2021 product roll-outs:

Embedding Project-Based Learning Features into Your Learning Tools

We know that student collaboration and project-based learning have an outsized impact on learning outcomes. But the rise of remote learning demonstrated why educators need product owners to embed these approaches directly into their digital learning tools.

Re-thinking the UX design of your collaboration tools in this way requires digging back into your learning content. This could mean re-examining tried-and-true content or lessons already vetted by subject-matter experts. It could also mean re-evaluating user flow and changing how your content is delivered, from teacher-student facilitation to peer learning models. 

When you've already built and tested content designed for one method, it's no small feat to re-imagine it within a different context and for different users. Good UX design teams can look at teacher-student content and help product owners translate it into content that works more effectively for flipped classrooms or peer-to-peer learning environments. 

Although this might seem like an expensive investment, developing better UX for peer learning drives both student and teacher engagement. And as the edTech market becomes more crowded, it's even more important to build meaningful digital learning experiences that extend beyond digital workbooks, virtual lectures, and online quizzes.

Your new approach to peer learning environments can also be quickly validated with lightweight user research and rapid prototyping. Whether you're building project-based learning features, asynchronous online grouping and collaboration tools, or embedding SEL tools into existing content, rapidly building and testing features is an inexpensive way to test new approaches to delivering tried-and-true content. 

With a targeted, lean UXR strategy, you'll ensure that your peer-peer content not only works in a digital format but also meets the needs of future classrooms.

Addressing New edTech User Expectations with Short-Form Content 

It's no coincidence that educational TikTok posts and YouTube channels became ever more popular during the pandemic. Short-form learning content engages users in their curiosity, shapes their expectations about content, and broadens the concept of who a learner is, how they learn, and when they engage with content.

YouTube Channel "The Sci Show" offers easy-to-digest science  content for teens.

Product owners can apply these lessons to digital tools by producing high-quality, short-form learning content of their own. Short-form digital learning content addresses new user expectations while providing multiple engaging pathways to learning. From a production standpoint, short-form learning content is also easier to produce and repurpose for other channels, including just-in-time support for both teachers and students.

If you know that short-form content will drive future products, you should be prepared for how this decision will affect your UX and design strategy. From solutions for search to more personalized dashboards, your learning content should be highly personalized to the user’s journey and easy to browse. 

The more targeted each piece of content is, the more you'll be able to surprise and delight your user with UX and design decisions that support their needs and interests. As industry leaders like Khan Academy have demonstrated, short-form content is ideal for supporting students who need additional support. Videos and other learning aids are capable of breaking down complex concepts into foundational steps. Teachers can supplement their existing instruction plans with high-quality, short-form content and create targeted interventions more quickly. 

In student-facing products, learners think creatively, stay engaged, and exercise additional agency by choosing the types of content that appeal to them. Because digital learning tools are also able to gather data about learner interactions, students can receive content suggestions that personalize their user flow.

Additionally, educators themselves are likely to consume video content on their phones or in between other tasks, a finding supported by our existing user research. These viewing habits make short-form learning content an ideal component of teacher-facing products that offer professional learning, too.

We're at a unique turning point in the edTech industry, and we're never going back to old ways of thinking about digital content or designing digital tools. As you reimagine your user journeys, consider how these shifts are likely to affect your approach to learning content in new and existing products. 

Whether you create new, short-form content or shift teacher-student content toward a peer learning model, your UX team can help you find and test the best solutions for your users.

Are you thinking about making a change for Fall 2021? Contact us today to discuss how new user journeys have shifted your product and feature priorities.

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February 22, 2021 - No Comments!

What’s the Future of edTech in the Classroom? Two Teachers Weigh In

From tech to teaching strategies, educators are doing their best to reach students in remote, hybrid, and in-person classroom environments. They still face unique challenges, including flagging student engagement online and accommodating special needs in remote environments.

We talked to two teachers who are members of Backpack Interactive's Teacher Council, Dannielle Rivera and Daniel Nero, to find out which digital tools are helping them effectively reach students, how their teaching plans continue to evolve, and the future of education technology in their classrooms.

Dannielle Rivera teaches 2nd grade in a public school in suburban Southern California. Daniel Nero is a fourth-year English teacher at a Title I high school in Las Vegas, Nevada. These conversations have been edited for length and clarity.

Integrating edTech into Remote Learning

How are you currently teaching? Hybrid? Remote only? How's it going?

Dannielle Rivera: I'm completely remote. I'm the grade level chair for my department. I created a Google website and told my teachers we were going to create tech tutorial videos so [students and parents] can access them on their own. The biggest feat [is] tech knowledge for parents and students. Now when parents watch [our tutorials], they're not messaging me like, "Oh, my gosh, I can't do this."

Daniel Nero: It's hybrid. Some of my students are in person, whereas I'm, as you can see, at home. But I could always jump into the building if I wanted to teach.

What was your remote teaching plan like last September? Which digital tools did you start out using?

DR: The first two weeks was just teaching the kids how to log on. I tried to premeditate those things. I made their Clever badges and attached them to pre-made folders. They're 7 and 8. As resilient as they are, I have to remind myself what is age-appropriate. To what extent can I push them?

At first, we were converting everything to digital worksheets. We would screenshot the page and make it a background on Google Slides. Then we switched over to Jamboard because on Google Slides, they couldn't annotate. We just had to learn over time.

DN: When I teach in person, there's a lot of paper, there's a lot of hands-on activities. And all of that disappeared when we switched over to remote learning. I had to digitize all of the texts that we're [reading].

A lot of the skills that we did on paper—like annotation, highlighting, taking notes, answering questions—all of that also became digitized, and I had a lot of trouble transferring those necessary skills to remote instruction because I had a hard time finding the tools to be able to do that.

I was using Google Docs, collaborative Google Slides, and Pear Deck, but I decided to cut back on a lot of these apps and try to make it as simple, consistent, and doable for the kids.

How has your remote teaching plan evolved?

DN: One thing that I brought into remote learning is socio-emotional learning. Because a lot of our kids right now are struggling, not only academically, but emotionally. A lot of things that happen at home are aggravated because they're stuck at home. I just wanted to check in on them and tie social-emotional learning to what we've read, or what has happened in the news.

Pairing Instructional Strategies for Remote Learning with Digital Tools

Which specific modes of teaching have you gravitated toward?

DR: For math, we use whole group instruction and independent instruction. Students are also given the opportunity to work collaboratively in small groups in Google Meet rooms. I've evolved to [using] Jamboard and the HoverCam. Jamboard is great, but there is just something about pencil and paper. They can either solve the problems and show their work digitally through Jamboard, or they can solve it on pencil and paper or whiteboard and a marker and take a picture of their work. After taking a picture, students then insert the image into their Jamboard assignment, which is linked to our Google Classroom.

Language arts is an orchestrated set of tasks and lessons, and we have a lot of moving pieces. It entails 1:1 assessments, whole group instruction, small group instruction, and group work through Google Meet rooms. Because we have kids that go to reading intervention groups or speech, we also have independent work.

DN: We mostly do synchronous instruction through Zoom. Regardless of whether the students are in person or not, they're on Zoom. On Fridays, we have one-on-one office hours, and students jump into the Zoom call based on [their needs]. Within the Zoom call we sometimes go into breakout rooms where we have small group instruction. So we're trying to mimic what we had in person, but in an online setting.

What activity, subject, practice have you found the most difficult to translate to remote learning?

DN: Discussions. I love to talk to students, especially if we're talking about the text that we're tackling. But because of remote learning, I feel like a lot of the students are very quiet, shy, or just not willing to participate. I truly miss discussions because I get to see the students' faces. I get to hear their voices. I get to hear their opinions. But in online settings, all I see are black screens sometimes.

Using edTech and SEL to Reach Struggling Students and Promote Self-Efficacy

What strategies or tools have you tried to reach students who are struggling with remote learning?

DR: Our special needs students are truly struggling. This is not the proper way of learning for them. My heart breaks for them. Because many of their parents have to work, the kids that are thriving are the kids who have a grandparent sitting with them.

While students are working on independent work, I open up another Google Meets room for students that are stuck or need help with a problem. This alleviates them from reaching their frustration level.

I've also adapted the lessons. When I try to meet with the parents of my struggling students, I really adjust their work. For example, if it takes four problems to complete an exit ticket or complete an assessment, I tell the parents, "You pick two."

I also like to focus on the social-emotional aspect. What should be the forefront of our concern is the social-emotional states of our students. That has to be a priority because if that is not in tune, then they can't do the academics.

DN: For the students who are struggling, or just about grade level, I put a lot of scaffolds in my lessons. Everything is scaffolded up to the assessment. I tell them that at the beginning of each class. "We're going to have this as the assessment today, and everything that you're going to do for the next hour, you're going to need to show me for your exit ticket."

How has remote learning fostered positive outcomes in your students?

DR: They're becoming more tech savvy. They've become more responsible in some ways, like taking ownership of their work. These are the kids that are succeeding. Obviously, a lot of things can become frustrating, so we've had our share of breakdowns. They've really had to learn how to self-regulate their emotions. I feel like their coping mechanisms have gotten better in times of struggle.

DN: Student accountability. On Pear Deck, I can see who is writing and who is not writing, and I would narrate on Zoom, "Awesome! Thanks, Ashley, for giving me your answer. I'm waiting on four more people to respond to this prompt." A lot of the students are also starting to become critics of their own writing. It's related to the students finding a way to sustain themselves in their writing and their reading. That makes me feel good. At least for me, that's my responsibility as a teacher. I'm there to guide them, but once they're ready to fly free, they can.

How edTech Product Designers Can Address Real Classroom Needs

As you consider returning to the classroom for full-time instruction, which elements from remote or hybrid learning would you continue to use?

DR: One of the things that I've learned is grace and being more gracious towards parents. I've always considered myself to communicate well with parents, but I feel like I've just learned how to talk to parents a little bit differently.

I would also take a lot of the tutorials that we do. Let's say a student is struggling, and a parent can't meet with me. I can record a screencast of a demo. I feel like you waste so much more time trying to coordinate or schedule meetings. You can definitely hold parent teacher conferences virtually. There are these families that bend over backwards to try to make it in the middle of the day when they can just pop on their phones and not have to deal with driving and stuff.

We are living in Google Classroom right now. And I'd definitely love to take that with me into the normal classroom. I was already using Google Classroom quite a bit, but now we have this archive of videos, so independent work in a classroom will look so different now. I feel like it will free me up to meet with small groups more.

DN: Consistency and the simplicity of my lessons. It's working right now, so it should work in the classroom with a printer and paper and all that stuff. I think it should be fun.

The strategy that I would hold on to even more is to just make sure that I put the students first. Sometimes I'll be doing my lesson, and the students are not responding or I'm having low participation, and I get frustrated as a teacher. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is our new normal right now, and we have no idea what's happening to our students on the inside or behind the screen, at home. So I just have to bring myself back down to reality. You don't know what's happening. And you have to give them that.

What's something that you wish one of your current learning products did that it doesn't currently do?

DR: I wish more of the products had SEL components ingrained into them. For example, when they're taking an assessment, iReady has them take a "brain break," like breathing exercises or stopping to do something active.

I wish more products had video tutorials for students and parents. I wish some of the programs had a live chat with customer service so I could solve problems faster.

I wish there was a way to set up my break out rooms in Google Meet, name them, and save the grouping settings. That way I wouldn't have to make new break out groups every single time.

DN: I would like to be able to link to a text in Pear Deck, so students could annotate that whole passage. Right now, I have to chunk the texts out into different slides. I also wish it had a student comment function. Only teachers can comment.

Using Teacher Feedback to Shape the Future of Education Technology

From onboarding parents to anticipating student needs, teachers are working overtime to ensure that their students are mastering content and staying safe, healthy, and balanced.

When edTech products don't rise to meet teachers' demands for flexibility or SEL content, they find work-arounds and tailor solutions to the needs of their own classrooms.

Product owners can still do more to understand how teachers use and adapt their digital tools. By conducting additional UXR, testing products in real or remote classrooms, and drawing on the insights of the Backpack Interactive Teacher Council, your next edTech product can help teachers meet even more students where they are.

Want more insights on how our Teacher Council can help with your next edTech product? Let's talk!