We’ve spent the last two years developing a specialized learning platform focused on reading comprehension for middle schoolers, and the underlying pedagogy is incredibly solid.

When we tested the core curriculum in a controlled environment with a few beta classrooms, the academic results were fantastic, proving that our core methodology actually works.

However, now that we are rolling it out to broader school districts, we are hitting a massive wall with actual user adoption and daily active usage in the classroom.

The feedback from educators is honestly pretty brutal; they say the teacher dashboard is way too cluttered, and it takes them too many clicks just to assign a simple module or check a student's progress.

On the student side, the cognitive load of navigating the interface is distracting them from the actual learning material, causing engagement and completion rates to drop significantly after the first week.

We tried tweaking the layouts and menus internally over the summer, but my co-founder and I are backend developers and former educators, so we honestly have no idea how to build a truly intuitive user experience.

I'm at the point where I know we need to bring in professional app design services to completely overhaul the front-end and user flows before we lose our upcoming district renewals.

For those of you building in the edtech space, how do you find UI/UX designers who actually understand educational accessibility, cognitive load, and classroom workflows, rather than just agencies that build flashy consumer apps?

My school has asked me to create and teach a new AI elective for students aged 13–15, and I'm currently planning the curriculum from scratch.

I'd like the course to focus on practical, useful AI skills rather than just the theory behind how AI works. My goal is to help students become confident, responsible users of AI and give them skills they'll actually use in school and later in life.

For those of you who work in AI, education, or both:

• What topics do you think are essential for teenagers to learn?
• What practical AI skills will be the most valuable over the next 5–10 years?
• Are there any topics that are overhyped or not worth spending much time on?
• If you were designing a semester-long AI course, what would you definitely include?

I'm looking for ideas from people with different backgrounds, so I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

been teaching for a while and thinking about trying different ai presentation tools. some faculty use the zoomable canvas ones and students perk up but im wondering if thats just novelty. the zoom thing seems cool in theory. show the big picture then zoom into details but does that actually help students retain info?

some of these ai presentation tools have ai built in too. generate decks from prompts or upload lesson plans. sounds useful for saving time but im suspicious of ai content quality. basically wondering if this style is worth learning or if i should stick with whats familiar. for people who use ai presentation tools do you see better engagement?