Teacher Voice in the Design Process at SXSWedu

Last week, from March 7 to 11, we traveled to Austin, Texas to participate in SXSWedu, a conference and festival that fosters innovation in learning, provides a platform for collaboration, and promotes creativity and social change. We also met with some of our partners and clients and learned about the latest trends in the world of EdTech.

On March 8th, as part of the Future 15 sessions, our teacher engagement associate Candace Flaherty talked about "Teacher Voice in the Design Process." SXTXState, a project of the graduate program in the Texas State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication, posted a write-up about the talk.

Candy talked about how ed-tech tools are too often built by engineers and designers who have never spent time in a classroom. The result is products that look great in demos but create friction in actual teaching workflows. Teachers know what works and what doesn’t — the trick is getting them involved early enough to shape the product, not just test it at the end.

It’s something we think about a lot in our own education work. The best tools we’ve built are the ones where teachers were in the room from the beginning, not as an afterthought.