EDU App Challenge Aims to Bridge Differing Perspectives of Educators and Developers

The EDU App Challenge, a Canadian event bringing together developers and educators to create learning tools for K-12 students, is happening next month.

In Calgary from November 6th to 8th, $10,000 in cash and prizes will be up for grabs.

The EDU App Challenge aims to bridge the different perspectives of educators and developers, leading to the design of tools that expand a generalist teacher’s toolkit and empower students to take charge of their learning.

The Royal Conservatory’s Learning Through the Arts program commissioned a survey of School Board CIO’s, Principals, Superintendents, and teachers to find out how they view existing educational technology. The study found a big gap between the perspectives of the developer community and educators. Teachers believe in-school technology can enhance education, but fear being replaced. By creating the EDU App Challenge, LTTA realized that it could play a vital role as a bridge between developers and educators by building a suite of apps focused on making video, animation, and soundtrack easy for teachers and students to work with on a daily basis in classrooms. 

“Teachers value digital media arts projects because they include multiple literacies: you need to create a storyboard, write a script, record your voice, create a sound track, and think about imagery,” said Shaun Elder, Executive Director of Learning Through The Arts. “These are the very skills students will need to communicate effectively in their future careers.