Backpack Interactive

The edTech space is constantly evolving. Keep up with news and insights from the Backpack team here.

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June 17, 2022

Not Just for Kids– Gamification is For Teachers Too

In edTech product design circles, we often talk about gamification as a way to reach young learners. After all, using game mechanics in edTech products is a proven way to increase student engagement. Designed with intention, game mechanics can also reinforce learning goals and pedagogical strategies, making your product more effective and valuable. But there are good reasons to consider gamification for teacher-facing products, too. Corporate learning has long used game mechanics to tap into powerful intrinsic motivators that all humans share, including autonomy, mastery, purpose, and social interaction. If these motivators sound familiar, it's because we often use the…

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June 6, 2022

5 edTech Innovation Examples with Long-lasting Impact

Remote learning needs, pandemic learning loss, and changing personas have re-shaped the edTech industry over the past three years. With new insights from students and educators, product owners are now designing based on a more nuanced understanding of what our users need and want. The result? Rapid edTech innovation, from key software integrations for educators to better reporting data for parents monitoring their child’s learning activities at home. Gone are the days of ignoring the parent persona or assuming that teacher expectations for edTech products are lower than their expectations for consumer design. Here are five examples of edTech innovation…

May 19, 2022

How UX Design Wireframes Solve Creative Problems in edTech

In UX design, wireframes are considered a product "blueprint." Think about a traditional blueprint for a building. Outlined on that bright blue paper, you might see the footprint of a magnificent house. You'll get a sense of how big each room is and where all the doors and windows are placed. But you won't, for example, get a sense of what anything looks like inside the house. Wireframes are no different. They give product designers a sense of structure, layout, and navigation. User interface (UI) and visual design are the next-to-final touches that provide wireframes with visual appeal. (To continue…

May 5, 2022

Why User Flow Testing Matters—and When to Use It

We always want to know if the learning tools we design for teachers and students will work for them. Do they like it? Will it be useful? How would they integrate the tool into their learning experience or into their teaching? These questions are central to qualitative user testing. But testing user flows is a little different. By conducting data-focused research on a prototype, you can determine whether users can complete tasks or how they get off track. Data-driven user testing is also the perfect opportunity to test the assumptions behind your design decisions. After all, edTech products aren't meant…

April 14, 2022

Using UX Design Prototyping at Every Stage of Your edTech Product

The design prototyping stage for a learning tool is exciting. You've designed enough of the product that you can envision how students will move through an intuitive user flow to learn new concepts, or how teachers will quickly and easily group their students in just a few clicks. But how do you get from wireframes to a high-fidelity prototype that wows your stakeholders? And how do you make sure that new design ideas will move your products closer to the classroom without wasting time and money? With UX design prototyping, you'll develop a series of artifacts to help you at…

April 3, 2022

Using Wireframes to Power Decision Making and Your UX Design Strategy

Product wireframes are one of the first strategic milestones of the design process. Designed intentionally, wireframes facilitate important decisions early in the UX process. They provide a visual record of discussions about UX strategy, big-picture product goals, user flows, and technical requirements. Use wireframes to lead your stakeholders through strategic conversations about UX before moving to visual design. Clickable wireframes and prototypes will also help you establish your workflow with technology teams and developers early in the process. This step-by-step guide to using wireframes in your UX strategy will help you align with stakeholders, make decisions more quickly, and create…

March 31, 2022

User Research Findings are the Key to Designing More Adaptive edTech

As teachers returned to in-person instruction this year, they reported unprecedented learning gaps between their students. Some students stayed engaged during virtual learning. Other students didn't attend virtual classes or experienced difficulty completing tasks on their own. This widening gap between individual students makes it more difficult for teachers to meet students where they are. Typically, a teacher "differentiates" content for students, especially students with special needs. Differentiation requires teachers to provide individualized support, so all students can understand a concept—no matter their starting point. With so many students now at different levels, however, differentiation on a large scale has…

March 24, 2022

5 Innovative Trends in Educational Technology that are Changing the Game

As much as we'd all like to be "post-pandemic," reality says otherwise. Teachers understand this better than most, too. They're more savvy than ever about how to use edTech in and out of the classroom, and their attitudes about how to use learning technology have permanently changed. The most innovative trends in educational technology from clients and industry leaders reflect this new reality. Whether brands are introducing content platforms for teachers or supporting students' SEL growth with multi-modal responses, flexibility is the name of the game. Here are five edTech trends you'll see in 2022—and how you can address them…

March 3, 2022

How Teacher Content Creators Are Changing edTech

Digital platforms where teachers can create content and communicate with one another about lessons are scooping up venture capital and transforming the edTech marketplace. Investors currently favor teacher-founded companies, like veteran brand Coursera and newcomer Fiveable. Meanwhile, content platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers are growing in leaps and bounds, too. This growth and investment trend represents both a business opportunity and a significant shift in the teacher user persona. With the right strategy, you can assess how your own brand should get in on the ground floor of this industry-wide change. Whether your existing teachers are interested in creating and…

February 25, 2022

Defining and Designing for the Parents User Persona

The rise of the parent user persona represents a major shift for edTech companies, and there are many new opportunities to design edTech with parents in mind. Commercial edTech companies like ABCmouse figured this out before the pandemic by focusing specifically on designing for education with the parent user persona in mind. BrainPOP, on the other hand, simply markets differently to parent users. Over the course of the pandemic, parents have become more sophisticated consumers of learning products. Because students often need help using edTech products at home, parents are using learning tools more frequently. They're communicating with teachers and…

February 11, 2022

Using EdTech to Teach SEL— Both Remotely and In Person

As schools returned to in-person learning last fall, teachers identified both a student learning gap and a persistent loss of social emotional learning (SEL) skills. After all, when students are in a classroom with their peers, they collaborate, share, and find their place in a learning community. Unfortunately, remote education meant that students didn't have the same opportunities to practice these skills. That means it's up to teachers to find new ways to address students' SEL needs to avoid student stress, frustration, and burn-out. Thankfully, edTech has the power to help. We can design digital tools that build students' SEL…