Boosting product development with the EdTech Testbed

In our company-driven Easy Access Co-Development (EAC) experiments we have tested new EdTech innovations in areas such as programming, wellness skills, and learning mathematics. The EAC experiments are tailored to the needs of the companies. The testing and development of the product or service are carried out in various ways.

Programming skills are included in the curriculum

Koodikaverit Oy’s Kodarit challenges children and young people to try programming. The company is best known for its coding courses, where programming and computational (algorithmic) thinking are taught.

— It is important for us to teach coding with a good vibe and as fun and easy as possible. In that way programming can become more accessible for the general public, says Suvi Syrjäläinen from Koodikaverit Oy.

According to the current curriculum, everyone should be taught programming skills already in elementary school. However, the company’s representatives have noticed in their courses that learners’ skills vary greatly. They decided to address this by creating video lessons for use in elementary schools. The video lessons include links to visual programming tasks that students can do after watching the videos. This led to our largest EAC experiment ever: 20 teachers and over 400 children participated!

Teachers enthusiastically received the coding lesson materials. Praise was given for the good structure and goal orientation of the teaching. Also the support and ready-to-use materials provided to the teachers were well received.

— The tasks were really good. I believe that with the help of the video material, teachers who are nervous about programming for one reason or another can easily teach it, says one of the teachers involved in the experiment.

Testbed Helsinki’s EdTech experiments receive praise from Syrjäläinen.

— We have tested video lessons extensively in practice, but Testbed Helsinki was an especially wonderful experiment experience. Everything was well managed and organized. Through this, we were able to approach schools smoothly, and we were received with trust and enthusiasm. We received very good feedback from students and teachers about the experiment and our product, rejoices Syrjäläinen, and continues:

— We would definitely recommend Testbed Helsinki to other companies. In fact, we ourselves applied to participate in the experiments based on a tip from another company that participated in the EdTech experiments, laughs Syrjäläinen.

Supporting everyday life with well-being skills

Campfires Oy encourages investing in well-being for tomorrow’s everyday life and the future society. The company specializes in teaching well-being skills.

— The accelerated pace of society, performance orientation, and everyday pressures have made us forget a more humane life. We developed the Kipinä platform as a solution to the increased mental distress of students, says Mika Ahlqvist from Campfires Oy.

The Kipinä platform is a tool used by teachers in lessons to develop young people’s life skills and support well-being preventively in everyday life. The platform’s exercises on various topics can be used in many ways, for example, from practicing relaxation and concentration to mapping one’s strengths and skills.

We tested Kipinä with hairdressing students at Stadin AO. Teachers found the platform’s content very necessary for the everyday life of secondary education. They praised the platform’s ease of use and the fact that the exercise assignments allowed teachers the pedagogical freedom to adapt the tasks in the classroom. Students and teachers also expressed suggestions for expanding the topics and improving the functionality, duration, and meaningfulness of the exercises.

— The best part of the experiments was seeing how our platform was used in a real school environment. The experiment showed how important it is for product development to receive feedback from users and to study the product’s functionality in practice. Without the experiment, developing the technical features of our product would have been significantly more challenging and slower, says Ahlqvist.

Mathematics and emotional skills in one package

Gamification has been used quite a lot in learning mathematics, but EO Space Oy’s EO Adventure Lessons learning game brings a lot of new elements. The mathematical adventure game includes a storyline that teaches children emotional skills, which they can immediately practice through collaborative tasks. The exercise maintains a balance between screen time and off-screen learning. After succeeding in the game, students can earn physical cards, which, based on teacher feedback, were especially treasured by students under 10 years old. The game was tested at Roihuvuori Elementary School with four teachers and about 60 students.

— The students eagerly participated in the experiment, and the teachers provided a lot of relevant feedback on what works and what could be improved. We got good ideas for product development from the experiment and implemented them immediately, says Evgenii Veselov from EO Space.

Support for product development from EdTech experiments

— Testbed Helsinki is designed to help early-stage companies in the product development process, but at the same time, we want to give teachers and students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the latest educational technologies. When company representatives are actively involved in testing, they get the most out of the trial period. It has been a pleasure to see the positive feedback companies and teachers have given each other after the testing periods. In co-development, everyone wins, summarizes Antti Värtö, project specialist for Testbed Helsinki’s EdTech experiments.

Those interested in participating in the EdTech experiment platform activities can propose their solution to us. Read more about our EdTech experiments in the News section below!