Teduka
A web platform that connect teachers around the world
Teduka is a pioneering web platform connecting teachers worldwide to support each other in facing the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Designed to create a global community of teachers, Teduka facilitates peer-to-peer mentorship and allows teachers to learn from and share experiences with each other.
The problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need to shift from traditional teaching methods to digital solutions. While this transformation is essential, many teachers struggle to adapt, especially when it comes to using communication and collaboration tools. Who better to guide teachers through this change than fellow educators? Teduka addresses these challenges by offering online mentoring and connecting teachers globally, fostering a supportive community to help them thrive in the digital classroom.
The solution
The platform was created to address the urgent need for a swift shift from traditional to digital teaching. The solution? A teacher-to-teacher mentorship approach. By connecting educators worldwide who teach similar subjects, the platform allows them to share knowledge, explore new tools and techniques, and offer feedback to one another. Rather than building new tools, we leveraged existing ones to make this transition faster and more efficient.
Challenge Overview
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on all aspects of life, from health and families to the economy and businesses. The sense of uncertainty has overwhelmed many of us, and UXER SCHOOL calls on the design global community to work together to reduce this sense of uncertainty by engaging in a five-week challenge.
Research
What does being an analogical or digital teacher mean? How could we make this transformation easier?
Research was conducted through surveys and interviews of 160 teachers to determine what being an analogue and digital teacher meant and how to make the transformation from the former to the latter easy.
The research revealed that teachers and students often lacked resources, knowledge, and experience using digital tools.
- Unnecessary time to be formed for online teaching
- Lack of knowledge and experience using digital tools
Users personas
Based on the research and feedback, the team created user personas for teachers with different levels of experience and diverse educational backgrounds. The personas helped to identify common pain points, including a lack of knowledge, communication issues, and motivation.
- Some teachers were completely analogous and other have a high level and experience in remote work
- The educational levels were diverse
- Some teachers work in small groups and others in large
- Some teachers worked in urban schools and others in farms
- The internet connection and devices available are diverse
The team categorized the tools they needed to learn into five groups:
- Webinars
- Video-callings
- Communications
- eLearning platforms
- Collaborative tools
Brainstorming
We did a brainstorm and some ideas were:
- Mentoring
- Chatbot/Online chat
- Forum/Articles/Blog
- Clue game across tools
- Step-by-step tutorials
- Gamification
- Daily challenge
One very nice idea was the clue game. It has a start point and an ending point. Following the clues the player will interact across different tools/platforms and learn about them trying to resolve the clue.
It would resolve lack of motivation problem but it would take more of our time to create and implement all the challenges.
The fastest idea, to create a site using existing tools to help teachers connect, schedule meetings, and share their teaching experiences. Imagine being able to connect with a fellow educator on the other side of the world to exchange insights and ideas!
Wireframes
Combining everyone’s ideas, a wireframe was created that matched the users’ needs. We decide to combine tools such as Calendly for scheduling meetings, Jitsi for video calls, Mural for improving communication, and Slack for a forum-like discussion. We only need to create a space for them to connect.
The participants demonstrated great enthusiasm towards the prospect of interacting with other educators who teach the same subject at the same educational level, and exchanging valuable experiences.
Lo-Fi
We create a basic prototype with the this options
- I want to learn
- I want to teach
- Public lessons
We create a data input process in order to offer best results according to the profile of the teacher and the mentor. We create teacher profiles to show external courses. Public lessons could be offer for everyone and they were free.
The low-fidelity prototype was tested with 30 users, and the feedback was overwhelmingly. Users were enthusiastic about the mentorship opportunities and the chance to connect with teachers worldwide. The team continued to iterate, creating a high-fidelity mockup that streamlined the user flow, reduced unnecessary screens and colors, and added features such as public lessons, lessons of the day, and more teacher profiles.
Hi-Fi
We decided to iterate the prototype before our final presentation.
We must:
- Create a unique user profile
- Stimulate interactions between users
- Avoid unnecessary login to access public clases
- Reduce categories
- Simplify image. Reduce color usage
We modify user flow making it more simple, reduce unnecessary screens, avoid quantity of colors, modify home screen, et.
We created a new prototype and made the presentation to this project but it was not tested because of the lack of time to do it.
Conclusions
I am honored to have participated in this challenge, where I had the opportunity to connect with incredible individuals who are not only passionate but also fully dedicated to their work. Despite having their own personal and professional commitments, they willingly participated and dedicated their time to the project.
Our team members were spread across different countries, yet through remote collaboration, we discovered the most wonderful people who have now become dear friends.
We utilized a range of collaborative tools to effectively organize ourselves and contribute our individual skills and expertise towards the project. Everyone was highly proactive and demonstrated independence in resolving any challenges that arose.
It was heartening to see that the participants embraced our proposal for mentoring and being mentored by teachers from different parts of the world who teach the same subject. The opportunity to share experiences and learn from one another was highly valued, and it was wonderful to see participants building their professional network on a global level.
I am immensely grateful for the contributions of the more than 200 teachers who participated in the surveys, the more than 20 teachers who participated in the interviews, and the institutions that made this project possible.
My sincere hope is that we can all contribute to this difficult situation and emerge stronger as a humanity. I would like to conclude by emphasizing that this project is licensed under Creative Commons.
Did you find this case interesting? I recommend reading the one about Jitsi UI Redesign to see how UI could impact user adoption.