Cultivate 21

Molly wanted this web application to host a multitude of project design challenges and units, host a place for members to collaborate and share ideas, and have a place to access resources.

Problems

While we helped build the application ROOT, we also assisted with updates since its creation. Cultivate 21 needed ROOT to overcome these challenges:

• Needed to manage problem based learning (PBL) templates for different topics.
• Not having video capabilities to help users understand the ROOT software
• Not utilizing up-to-date styling for user friendliness.
• Needed existing users to be converted to a new payment plan.

The Cultivate 21 team wanted this online software to be a great resource for educators everywhere. After we built the original framework, their team came to us noting some improvements to be added.

There was a new payment method needing to be applied, so existing users needed to be converted as the new plan was implemented. Some users needed extra clarity, so Cultivate 21 requested the ability to add video to the platform too. On top of that, the platform needed some updates in design to make it overall more user friendly.

Solutions

In order for ROOT to be a haven for educators to access innovative lesson plans, all of the hurdles needed to be overcome. We collaborated with Cultivate 21 to meet all goals for ROOT by:

• Building an application that allows educators to create, read, and share project templates.
• Coding the ability to embed instructional videos for users.
• Updating design to make the software more intuitive and user friendly.
• Converting existing users to a new self-registered payment plan.

Outcomes

We provided Cultivate 21 with a great web software to host designs for members to easily implement into their classrooms. After building ROOT, we helped make improvements to better user experiences for the future

Suman Koirala, a Software Engineer, helped with the earlier stages of ROOT’s build. He learned a lot being hands-on with it. “Being one of the first projects, I had to learn JavaScript to Ruby from this project,” Suman said.

Software Engineer Gabe Wilberscheid found working on the updates for ROOT to be very rewarding. “Knowing that teachers will be better able to cater towards their students and give them better lesson plans by sharing lessons across the whole app,” he shared as his favorite part of the project.

Seeing is Learning

As educators know, many people are visual and auditory learners. Adding video capabilities helps cater to those types of users. 

Videos can now be easily embedded to show users how to use the software. Users can see and hear explanations in the how-to videos.

Eye for Design

Technology is always changing. To keep up with this and improve ROOT, our engineers made design improvements. User’s experiences with ROOT are made simpler and easier to understand, therefore leading to growth in its user base.

Payment Power

ROOT’s payment plans needed to be updated away from school organizations to a self-registered option. We migrated existing users carefully to avoid issues in payment processing. Now all users are registered on their own accounts instead of having to go through school organizations.