In this episode of All Things Marketing and Education, Elana sat down with Thor Prichard, President & CEO at Clarity Innovations—a mission-driven, K-12 education-focused professional services and consulting firm. Clarity Innovations specializes in everything from education strategy and content creation to engineering and design solutions.
You may remember Thor from our last conversation about the challenges of creating effective EdTech products and the importance of designing with learning outcomes in mind.
Thor shares his insights on some of the most fascinating trends and innovations in education technology. Elana and Thor discuss the impact of generative AI, the importance of integrating EdTech products into the everyday practices of educators and students, and the different business models shaping the industry. They also explore the evolving role of family-school partnerships and future trends in product development.
Thor concludes the conversation with thoughts on what he believes are the keys to creating lasting and impactful products in education. This episode is packed with valuable insights and is not to be missed. Enjoy!
Questions Asked:
What types of products and services have you and your team developed in the EdTech space, and at what stages of product development do you typically focus?
From your experience, what are the most critical elements that a product needs to have during the design and development process?
How do you ensure that a product achieves product/market fit, effectively meeting the needs of buyers, users, and the business?
How do you approach prioritizing feature development, and how do you determine when a product might have too many features?
Is it better to develop a product that excels at one or two key functions or one that offers a broader range of features? How do you balance depth versus breadth?
How do you continuously evolve your product to stay aligned with the changing needs of users and buyers, while also meeting your firm's and clients' objectives? Can you share any examples where things didn’t go as planned and any warning signs to watch for?
What’s something you’ve read or watched recently that has inspired you?
Here's the full transcript of Thor’s podcast episode.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
HolonIQ Global Learning Landscape: An open-source taxonomy that categorizes educational products and services into 28 distinct categories, helping to navigate the complex EdTech market.
HolonIQ Education Insights: A resource offering insights and frameworks that explore the future of education, including various educational technology trends and innovations. Discover more on the HolonIQ Education Insights.
TeachFX: An AI-driven tool that provides feedback to educators by analyzing classroom interactions, specifically the amount of time spent by teachers talking versus students.
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): a way to explain the role and intersection of three domains of knowledge relating to teaching and learning.
Resources for data privacy and security:
For schools: CoSN’s Cybersecurity Initiative is the place to start.
For EdTech companies: The Student Data Privacy Consortium and Student Privacy Pledge are good places to start.
UDL guidelines: a set of concrete suggestions that ensure all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.
Office of EdTech Accessibility resources: learn more about considerations around accessibility in both EdTech tools and the classroom.
Resources to support the SAMR Model: Kathy Schrock’s guide to helping us understand the SAMR model, a model designed to help educators infuse technology into teaching and learning.
Global Impact Taxonomy: open source classification framework for the global impact economy.
EdTech Product Design That Improves Learning Outcomes: A Conversation with Thor Prichard
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Thor Prichard, Guest
I lead the team of technology-savvy learning experience designers and education-savvy product designers and software engineers at Clarity Innovations. We create solutions for our clients that help improve the process and practice of teaching and learning. My professional interests are focused on the intersection of technology and learning. I keep current on emerging policy, instructional, and technological trends to inform when a combination is right for potential emergence in the K-12 education market, generally 3-5 years from now. Having worked at this for over two decades, I’ve seen the work of education happen from multiple perspectives. Whether that’s for clients the likes of Intel, Adobe, Sphero, NWEA, PBLWorks, Kindercare, Common Sense, Math Learning Center, littleBits, AWS, Microsoft, or ISTE, it all comes down to improving pedagogy to enrich the lives of learners everywhere. And in my free time, I enjoy offshore sailing.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase reach, relationships, and revenue.
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