KQED is a public media company serving the San Francisco Bay Area.
KQED Teach is an online learning platform for educators that offers a collection of free, hands-on professional learning opportunities focused on Digital Media.
The Challenge
We wanted to empower students to critically create and consume media. Recognizing that educators play a crucial role in achieving this goal, we encountered a challenge – many educators felt intimidated by digital tools, often perceiving their students to be more knowledgeable in this domain.
How might we develop an online learning platform that teaches educators media literacy skills?
Constraints / Guiding Principles:
• Promote free, device-agnostic digital tools
• Self-paced courses that teachers can complete on their own time
My Role
Product Designer / Product Marketer
The Team:
We were a mighty team of four, each wearing multiple hats that extended beyond our official titles: interactive media producer (me), online learning manager, community manager, and managing director.
As our platform and team expanded, we benefited from additional marketing and design support.
Skills:
User Research, visual design, media production, design thinking, product management, content marketing
Platform:
Web
I was involved with this project from conception to launch. Our MVP was 5 courses built with WordPress and a LearnDash plugin. Once we validated our idea, we were able to build out a more robust platform.
From 2015-2017, I developed online courses, produced course videos and additional media assets, assisted with user research, and partook in design sprints to further refine the platform.
Inspired by Mitch Resnick's Creative Learning Spiral, we structured our courses around a "make and share" model. Within our courses, educators actively engaged with digital media tools to create meaningful projects. The end goal was for them to share their creations with the broader KQED Teach learning community.
We incorporated Design Thinking and Sprint methodologies into our development process, using them to test new features and refine the platform. These methodologies enabled our lean team to streamline the development cycle, iterate rapidly, and maintain a responsive approach to user feedback, ultimately leading to more effective outcomes.
As KQED Teach expanded, the demand for a more efficient course video production workflow became evident. With a new course launching every three weeks, our initial talking head videos lacked visual engagement and involved extensive setup. To address this, I initiated the development of voiceover videos complemented by dynamic motion graphics and illustrations.
I also collaborated closely with our marketing team to enhance our overall branding and visual identity.
Receiving direct feedback from educators about the increased confidence they gained in using digital media with their students through our courses was incredibly gratifying. This positive impact led to KQED Teach being honored with the 2017 Media Literate Media award by the National Association for Media Literacy (NAMLE), recognizing our significant contribution to advancing media literacy.
This project comes to mind when people ask me what I’ve worked on that I’m proud of. Building something meaningful from the ground up was immensely gratifying, especially seeing what a profound effect it had on our end users.
Throughout this journey, I gained invaluable lessons on prioritizing progress over perfection and mastering the art of testing and validating ideas. This project pushed me to step out of my comfort zone, embracing new challenges and experiences. As a result, I developed a versatile skillset.
The highlight for me was collaborating with an incredibly diverse team. Creating something new is no small feat, and the people by your side can significantly shape the experience. Establishing strong relationships from the start helped us not only overcome the challenges we faced, but also paved the way for developing close friendships.
In addition to developing course videos, I worked with our social media team to develop content marketing assets to promote our courses.