EdTech
Over 60% of K-12 Students in the USA are below proficiency in Math and Language Arts. My work in EdTech has been to address this issue with two engaging solutions for supported and enabled teachers while focusing on student engagement..
Questily Team-based, K-12 Mobile Learning Platform
Questily was live for three years, serving a dozen elementary schools in the US, including four full-scale Pilot programs (of four to ten classrooms each).
ROLE: Founder & CEO (Full Time)
INNOVATION:
Questily was an iPad + web-based + paper learning platform that was the first product to put technology (iPad apps) directly into the hands of students, while enabling Teaches to simply evaluate Common Core-aligned paper-based assessments (Quests). By having students work in small teams of 2 or 3, each team working at its own pace and level of difficulty, Questily addressed the two biggest unmet challenges in the print-to-digital classroom transformation: 1) the Bell Curve, and 2) teacher training and roll-out..
SITUATION:
60% of K12 students in the US are below proficiency in March and Language Arts. Having helped a top school district in its print-to-digital transformation, I saw a way to overcome a major unmet obstacle: long teacher adoption curve.
ACTIONS:
Ran multiple paid afterschool math enrichment programs, to refine team-based learning process
Hired teachers to run program and create custom K-5 Common Core Math Curriculum
Hired Designer and Outsourced Team from GSLab to build Questily App and Teacher Portal
Launched Questily in 5 Beta Schools
RESULTS:
Over 10,000 student-hours of engaged, self-paced learning
In one 7-week Beta, students preferred team-based learning to individual learning 7-to-1.
Demonstrated ability to deploy Questily in “any” classroom in less than 2 weeks
Demonstrated ability to engage students is self-paced, team-based learning
Students learned Match, Teamwork and Independent Learning skills.
Questily was a comprehensive classroom (or after-school enrichment) solution, with gamification functionality, a teacher portal to create custom Quest-based curricula (by classroom), individual student portfolio to track progress.
The Questily app kept track of digital + print curriculum, and progress, at the teacher, classroom, team and individual student level.
TAGS: Mobile, EdTech, Zero-to-One, B2B2C, Product Leadership, UX Research, Product Design, zero-to-one
ACT K-12 Personalize Learning Platform “icurio”
ROLE: Innovation Product Consultant (Consultant)
INNOVATION:
Icurio was one of the first classroom learning platforms that integrated standards-aligned, teacher-curated content with a Student Workspace and Teacher classroom management and student feedback functionality.
SITUATION:
iCurio’s is the personalized learning platform that was acquired by ACT to “strengthen ACT’s capabilities to supports its transition to a learning, measurement and navigation company”. I was hired to help define the next-gen product to incorporate learnings from working with leading Digital Superintendents, including Mooresville, NC’s Dr. Mark Edwards (Superintendent of the Year in 2013).
ACTIONS:
Led new Market Opportunity, New Product Concept, and New Product Definition efforts
Coordinated closely with CEO, President, VP of Engineering, Product Management and Design
Led large Buyer, User and Influencer Market and UX Research, with n > 300
RESULTS:
iCurio was adopted by over 2,000 K-12 School Districts across US, including Mooresville, NC, one to the pioneers in print-to-digital transformation
iCurio was a significant factor in the acquisition by ACT of Knovation Learning (the software creators)
15% increase in sales the 12 months after release of iCurio
iCurio achieved it product goal of “integrating existing teacher-curated, standards-aligned content into an engaging student workspace, with useful learning tools such as citation, notes and highlighting”
TAGS: EdTech, B2B SaaS, “0 to 1” Product Innovation, UX Research, UX Design, Jobs to Be Done, Story Mapping