Resources

Backpack resources help you stay ahead in EdTech by getting expert analysis on the industry's most important topics.
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Mar 27, 2026

The Benefits of User Personas for Your EdTech Product

You already know that deep discovery into the needs of teachers and students sets your EdTech product up for success....
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Jan 03, 2026

How to Level-Set with EdTech Product Stakeholders throughout the Discovery Process

You’re about to design a brand new EdTech product, and you know the first step is to align internally with all the product stakeholders....
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Oct 31, 2025

A Product Owner’s Guide to How Generative AI is Changing Education

When we first surveyed educators about their use of generative AI tools in 2024, teachers were lukewarm...
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Sep 26, 2025

What Teachers Want: How Tailoring edTech Features to Educator Workflows Boosts Product Adoption

For edTech companies, the consequences of poor UX and disconnected tools are clear: if educators can’t...
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Aug 31, 2025

How Teacher Content Creators Are Changing edTech

Digital platforms where teachers create content and connect with one another about lessons are scooping...
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May 30, 2025

How to Leverage Design Thinking in Education Products for Better Learning Outcomes

As edTech product designers, we have a unique window into empathizing with the teachers and students wh...
How Competitive Audits and Analysis Ensure User Centered ed Tech Products
Apr 04, 2025

How to Identify Market Gaps & Drive Product Strategy with Competitor Analysis

You’re ready to develop a new learning tool, and you’ve pulled inspiration from consumer platforms and...
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Mar 20, 2025

Working with Authors as edTech Product Stakeholders

Creating a new edTech product based on original print material from an author or publisher is a complex...
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Oct 04, 2024

3 Product Planning Tips for Alternative Input Devices in edTech

We all want our edTech products to be accessible.  But strategic planning for edTech products that use...
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Sep 25, 2024

4 Tips for a Flawless edTech Product Development Timeline

How do you get an edTech product over the finish line on time—and on budget? Why, develop an incredible...
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Jul 26, 2024

5 UX Design & Business Challenges edTech Companies Get Wrong—And What to Do About It

Editor’s note: This article is based on a recorded conversation between Sean Oakes and Jessica Millston...
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Jun 27, 2024

The Value of UX Discovery Sessions in edTech Product Design

If you want to create an edTech product that learners love and teachers love to adopt, UX discovery ses...
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Jun 30, 2023

UX Strategy: How to Create More Inclusive and Effective Designs

As the first billion-dollar edTech product, Scholastic’s Read180 is often cited as one of the most succ...
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Jun 15, 2023

How edTech Can Support Educator Burnout: edTech UX Tips Vetted by Teachers

There’s a crisis brewing in education: teacher burnout. In fact, in a 2022 survey conducted by Gallup,...
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Mar 13, 2023

Finding the Balance: Prioritizing User Needs in edTech Product Design As You Meet Business and Curriculum Requirements

Even if you love the idea of incorporating learning science techniques into your digital learning tool,...
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Oct 28, 2022

A Teacher’s Take: How edTech Can Help Us Close The Learning Gap

It’s one thing to read about the learning gap in news and media outlets, but it’s another thing to expe...
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Sep 02, 2022

3 Effective Ways edTech Products Can Support Professional Development

So many digital professional development offerings are very linear. Teachers take courses, watch video...
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Aug 16, 2022

Beyond Reports: Better Ways to Use Data in edTech Products

Because of pandemic learning outcomes, now is a crucial time to use data in your edTech products to ref...
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Jul 07, 2022

8 Tips for Planning Your edTech Tool Like a Pro

Whether you’re leading your company’s entire product division or managing a specific product, you know...
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Mar 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...
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Feb 04, 2022

How to Develop Smarter edTech Tools for Collaboration

When it comes to “smart” edTech tools, we tend to think of artificial intelligence and powerful algorit...
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Dec 13, 2021

Design for Education Toolkit: Why User Needs in Higher Ed Are Changing

The market for edTech in higher education is changing fast, and edTech product owners can do more to su...
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Jul 28, 2021

UX in Education: Why UX Designers are the Learning Engineers of the Future

When it comes to designing UX in education, a generalist approach to product design and user experience...
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Jul 27, 2021

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...
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Jul 09, 2021

A Guide to Turning Your Successful Print Product into a Digital Learning Tool

Your company has a successful print product on its hands, and you’re on the hunt for ways to turn that...
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May 28, 2021

Educational Resources for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month & Beyond

This is part of an ongoing series about edTech industry shifts in at-home learning. You can read our re...
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Jan 28, 2021

How to Pivot Your edTech Product Directly to Consumers

As an edTech firm, you’ve already seen the push for learning products that work in the home. Does that...
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Jan 19, 2021

How to Integrate Your Development Team into the Creative Process

As remote learning becomes the norm, your UX design and development teams need to be even more thoughtf...
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Nov 24, 2020

20 Years of Insights from the Front Lines of edTech

For the past 20 years, Backpack Interactive has partnered with museums, universities, publishers, and m...
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Nov 09, 2020

How to Build and Launch an Online Course in a Crowded Market

When we work with brands to develop an online course from existing content or from the ground-up, we kn...
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Sep 11, 2020

How to Design Impactful Digital Experiences on a Small Budget

Nonprofit and community organizations are already working hard to support their communities with few re...
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May 15, 2020

Where Does Your edTech Product Fall on the UX Threshold?

If you’ve ever tried to sign your child up for a PlayStation or Nintendo Switch account, you know how c...
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Jan 14, 2020

How to Incorporate SEL into any edTech Product

Over the past decade, the education world has embraced the idea that respect, social awareness, and rel...
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Dec 11, 2019

Visual Design Strategy: How to Make Stunning edTech Products Users Will Love

Strong visual design strategy is crucial for creating an effective edTech product that engages your use...
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Dec 03, 2019

EdTech Product Design: How Smart UX Saves $$ on Technology & Creates Efficiencies

We know that adding a UX or UI team into the mix at your company can be scary, even if you have lots of...
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Oct 01, 2019

The edTech Designer's Creativity Toolkit: Deep Listening

“Deep listening” is a process of engaged inquiry and openness crucial to design work. When you truly li...
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