One year ago, in this space, I launched Insta~Lesson: a free tool that helps teachers build complete, classroom-ready learning activities fast. Over the last 52 weeks, I’ve heard from hundreds of educators across the world, and done my best to turn my initial prototype into a fully functional tool that meets teachers’ day-to-day needs.

This has been a new experience for me. As a teacher I used edtech tools every day. At Modern Classrooms Project I continue to research, test, and recommend tools to teachers - and I’ve recently started to design a few new tech products too. (More soon!) But the work I’ve done in my free time on Insta~Lesson has been my first experience really building the kind of tool I’ve spent the last decade using and testing.

I’ve learned in the process that, to empower teachers, edtech tools need 3 things:

1) Simplicity

Teachers are always pressed for time. The easier it is for teachers to learn a new tool, the more likely it is that they’ll get value from using it.

One of the first things I always hear from teachers about Insta~Lesson is that they appreciate its simplicity. They know right away how to create a lesson.

Enter a lesson topic, and Insta~Lesson will guide you through the rest.

While we’ve added lots of features to Insta~Lesson over the past year, we’ve worked hard to maintain that essential simplicity. Seeing quickly how the tool works lets teachers focus on something more important: how it will help students succeed.

Want more insights on teaching and tech?

2) Clear Use Case

Most tech tools provide guidance on how to use their various functions. But what teachers really need is a clear answer to a different question:

How does this tool make my and my students’ lives easier?

At first, I saw Insta~Lesson as a tool for creating daily lessons. But I soon realized that most teachers already had daily lesson plans. My tool wasn’t adding value there.

I also realized that what teachers didn’t already have - and what they often spent many hours creating - were things like:

Intervention activities, for students who have learning gaps or attendance issues

Enrichment activities, for students who are ready to go deeper

Sub plans, when teachers inevitably need to miss class.

So we rebuilt Insta~Lesson to address those specific use cases. Now teachers know exactly how they can use our activities to help students learn.

3) Customization

Every classroom is different. This means that teachers will inevitably have to adapt what they get from edtech tools to meet their own unique needs.

At first, I thought it would be easiest if Insta~Lesson did all the work. A teacher enters a topic and we create the entire lesson ourselves.

I soon realized, however, that teachers wanted to be involved in the creation process. They wanted to tailor the learning objective, select the instructional video, and ensure that each question we suggest for their students meets the mark. So we rebuilt the entire lesson creation process to solicit teacher expertise at every step. Here’s how.

Today, the activities Insta~Lesson builds are truly teacher-created. Our AI systems just help accelerate that process. And because these lessons are built by teachers, we know they’ll work for students too.

(If you like, you can browse hundreds of teacher-created lessons here.)

Thanks for reading Meet Every Learner's Needs! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

Final Thoughts

If you’re thinking of building an edtech tool to make money, you should probably be wary of my advice. (And maybe build in a different industry?) Insta~Lesson is a free tool and, though thousands of teachers have used it and I’m working on a few premium features, I haven’t quite figured out how to monetize it yet.

That’s okay. Making money here isn’t my primary goal. If you’re reading this post, it probably isn’t yours either.

So if you, like me, want to build something that really helps teachers and students succeed - or if you want to find existing tools that do - I hope you’ll pursue simplicity, clear use cases, and tools that can be customized to meet students’ unique needs. That’s what we’ll continue to do at Insta~Lesson. And I’m eager to share what I learn over the next 52 weeks!