UX of EdTech

What's your dream project? In this episode of the UX of EdTech podcast, hosts Alicia Quan and Sarah Mondestin explore their dream EdTech projects and the values behind them.  Join us as we talk about products that inspire us, people who motivate us, and boy band posters we grew up with. We talk about the intersection of traditional and non-traditional edtech products, children's books, kid...

This is a must-listen for those who want to get into the mind of a teacher.  Alicia Quan and Sarah Mondestin interview Missy Testerman , the 2024 National Teacher of the Year. Missy shares her journey from aspiring to be a teacher from a young age to becoming a specialist in teaching English as a second language in Rogersville, Tennessee.  Reflecting on her career, Missy discusses the importance o...

Alicia Quan and Sarah Mondestin interview Alex Darrow , Principal Designer at Microsoft Education.  Alex discusses his journey from a childhood love for gaming to leading the design of innovative reading tools at Microsoft. He shares his experiences working on reading products, including the development of the Reading Coach and Reading Progress tools that have become essential in classrooms, espec...

This might be our most giggly conversation yet. Alicia Quan and Sarah Mondestin interview Annabel Blake (they/them), Principal AI Design Researcher at Canva. The three discuss connections throughout Annabel’s career and life, touching on various topics like research, kids, play, AI, ethics, toys, authorship, and advice for designers and researchers working the spaces of education and AI.  So much...

Alicia Quan and Sarah Mondestin hang out with Michelle Lee , Partner and Managing Director of IDEO’s Play Lab. This convo is so delightful and fun! So much inspiration to go around. Listeners will be enriched. Michelle discusses her unconventional career journey from mechanical engineering to toy design, and eventually to leading kid-focused projects. She emphasizes the importance of play in learn...

Alicia Quan and Sarah Mondestin interview two key figures in the development of Google's Learn LM.  Julia Wilkowski is the Pedagogy and Learning Sciences Team Lead, ensuring Google products adhere to learning science principles and best practices and have a demonstrable effect on learning. Hayes Raffle is a Principal Designer on Google's LearnX team, where he makes Google Search, YouTube a...

This is the story of a print-first EdTech product and it's packed with nuggets about UX Research with teachers. — Ethan Pierce , founder of Adaptive Reader, shares his personal journey from struggling with literacy in his early school years to founding a company dedicated to enhancing reading accessibility for students of varying developmental and linguistic backgrounds.  He discusses the iter...

Designing for K12 EdTech? Take a moment to linger in the world of this teacher. Alicia Quan and Sarah Mondestin listen to second-grade teacher Danielle Rivera, as she shares her perspective on growing through EdTech’s various iterations. She also gives her personal perspective on this question: What do veteran teachers want from AI? Chapters 00:00 - The Joys and Challenges of Teaching 06:08 - Tran...

Alicia Quan introduces our new podcast co-host, Sarah Mondestin !  Ever wondered how to collaborate with UX of EdTech ? This episode should point you in the right direction.  The hosts discuss Sarah's diverse career journey from educator to UX content designer and her involvement in various UX of EdTech initiatives. The conversation covers the structure and goals of the UX of EdTech Community...

How can UX practitioners upskill in game design for a learning context? And why is this important in EdTech? ⁠Alicia Quan⁠ chats The Sims, cheat codes, and moving past the “Big 5” of gamification (points, badges, leader boards, levels, progress bars) towards something more with: ⁠ Chris Bennett , Game designer, Stanford invited lecturer, and EdTech advisor Worth Noting: ⁠ Chris’ Stanford Game Desi...

What is the current state of inclusive EdTech products and what are some resources to grow in this area? Alicia Quan chats with: Louisa Rosenheck , Director Learning Design at Kahoot! Sean Oakes , Creative Director at Backpack Interactive Worth Noting: The Kahoot! For All project , funded by the LEGO Foundation Follow for more goodies The Latest at UX of EdTech UX Job Openings in EdTech

Alicia Quan chats with two members from the Khanmigo team at Khan Academy: Karen Shapiro , Sr. UX Researcher, former teacher of 16 years Jonah Goldsaito , Principal Product Designer They discuss: The story of how Khanmigo was developed and their early partnership with OpenAI on its GPT4 LLM launch The most challenging parts of the journey so far Balancing excitement and optimism with caution and f...

Alicia Quan chats with several members from the team at ETS AI Labs: Lisa Ferrara , Sr. Director, Product Development  Narmeen Makhani , Executive Director of Technology  Erin Scully , Sr. Director of Learning Science and Design  They discuss: 1. Cross-functional approaches to product development  2. The role of LX Design 3. Educational contexts and use cases for AI 4. Designing with explainable A...

Alicia Quan chats with Dr. Rachel Schechter, who founded Learning Experience Design (LXD) Research at Charles River Media Group, acting as Principal Investigator and Chief Research Advisor to companies large and small. Rachel helps guide the use of data and evaluation to support product improvements, build evidence of efficacy, and strengthen customer implementations. They discuss: Ensuring educat...

Alicia Quan chats with two members from Duolingo about their work as an early launch partner with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model: Edwin Bodge, Principal Product Manager Megan Bednarczyk, Senior Product Designer  They discuss how they launched Duolingo Max, including: The story of how Duolingo Max came to be Biggest challenges of that journey and process Balancing optimism with caution when it comes to recen...

Alicia Quan chats with Yuan Wang , the Head of Design at Maven, aka the university of the future. She is also a leadership coach (CPC) and an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts. She previously led design at Airbnb, Twitter, and Mozilla. They discuss: Maven’s mission How the Founding Product Designer role influenced the business Best timing for hiring design support at a startup Wh...

Alicia Quan chats with a few members of the team who worked on Quizlet’s Q-Chat, the world’s first AI tutor built with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It is modeled on research demonstrating that the most effective form of learning is one-on-one tutoring. Eli Kariv , Sr. Product Manager, Pranavi Javangula , Product Designer, Ling Cheng , Director of Machine Learning They discuss: What problem is Q-Chat solving...

Alicia Quan chats with the team at Backpack Interactive . Backpack is a strategy, UX and design company focused on the EdTech space. On this episode, we hear from: - Principal and Creative Director, Sean Oakes - Director of Creative Operations, Milagros Montalvo They discuss the benefits of when companies design to outsource their UX design work and also the flip side when there would be factors t...

Alicia Quan chats with Nicole Gallardo , Founder and UX/UI Director of the program, Founders Who UX . They discuss why UX work is important and valuable for EdTech and education companies. They talk about the biggest barriers startups face in hiring UX support, the options they have, and what their next steps should be. They also touch on what’s next for UX of EdTech this year. —— 🔸 Connect: Nico...

Alicia Quan chats with Jessica Millstone , a venture capitalist, angel investor, and co-founder and managing director of Copper Wire Ventures , an early-stage fund focused on investing in women-led technology companies, primarily in the education space. Prior to the investing world, Jessica’s career spans deep and wide in EdTech and UX. She now brings her growing UX mindset to her current work wit...

Alicia Quan chats with a former educator and principal, and now UX Writer at BrainPOP, Sarah Mondestin . Sarah has served as the Editorial lead at UX of EdTech and has helped build an amazing mound of written resources to support UX practitioners in our industry. Be sure to check out the publication that she has been leading. They talk about going from the classroom to an EdTech role and the trans...

Alicia Quan chats with a Senior Product Design Manager at Coursera, Justin Morken. They discuss how to approach moving the needle from design as a service to design as a thought partner. Justin explains in very practical ways how to shift people’s perception of what a designer does for the organization and the people it serves. This is Part 7 and the final episode of the Design Maturity Series (20...

Alicia Quan chats with the Chief of User Experience at EdPlus (Arizona State University), Amanda Gulley. EdPlus is a central enterprise unit within Arizona State University focused on the design and scalable delivery of digital teaching and learning models to increase student success and reduce barriers to achievement in higher education. Students are deeply embedded throughout their design proces...

Alicia Quan chats with the VP of User Experience at Renaissance Learning , Jonathan Mann . They discuss what design representation looks like there and take a look at the company’s journey towards design maturity in the midst of making acquisitions and merging into one team and organization. As a former design leader at PayPal and Target, Jonathan shares what he has learned about the unique consid...

Alicia Quan chats with Jing Jin, Head of UX at Outschool. They discuss how this startup has grown since 2017 and how the role of UX grew all the way to the executive level. Jing explains why Outschool has a role titled Head of School instead of a CEO and why they chose to skip the typical Chief Executive type titling. They discuss the role of Head of UX and its impact across the organization. Jing...