Technology that Drives Student Autonomy

Dipesh Jain

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Tech in EdTech. In this podcast, we discuss the technology that powers education and improves learning for all. In today's episode, we are going to discuss something that is very, very close to my heart and something that a lot of us are focusing on these days - Student Autonomy…and the guest for today's show is Ewoud de Kok. Ewoud is the CEO of FeedbackFruits, for those who know him as “Woody,” he's also on the European Leadership Board of IUS Global, which is the global tech leadership body, and is a very active member of the Dutch EdTech ecosystem. Ewoud, welcome to the show!

Ewoud de Kok 

Dipesh. Thank you very much for this warm introduction and thank you for having me. Thanks.

Dipesh Jain

Great. Thank you so much for joining, Ewoud, Um, you know we'll go into FeedbackFruits. I love what you are doing over there but before we get into that, I'd love to learn about you. You know, talk a little bit about you your journey in edtech and you know, how you came to be doing what you're doing right now.

Ewoud de Kok 

Of course, I will yeah so I have to say that I basically stumbled into edtech to be honest. So I've been an active student member when I still studied. I've been part of accreditation committees, student committees, faculty committees, restructured my own study. But I was trying to find a startup in sustainable energy technology this is back in the day this is 2012 when I was still a student and then I really just stumbled upon actually starting an edtech company - after realization, that I had is like - climate change that was the thing that I wanted to fight at at that point in time - is something that is a result of a problem which is a bit deeper and that's the problem that we, as a society, are not able to take the right actions if we're confronted with scientific data. Somehow it's just really hard doing that and I felt all of a sudden that, wait a minute, I can't try to tackle climate change. But what if I tackle education because education contributes to um, getting the society ready and better equipped to solve these bigger problems. So, this is how I sort of stumbled into edtech and this was ah me as a student at the TU Delft - Delfts University of Technology - and they basically told me the next meeting will not continue. If you haven't been to the chamber of commerce. So that's how we started.

Dipesh Jain

This is great, and I also want to let the audience know this is one of our first international episodes. We've typically spoken to guests in the US, um, Ewoud  FeedbackFruits is headquartered in the Netherlands. So I'm very excited to hear this journey. And I completely relate to you about it. I mean you know I was at one of the education conferences, I think, this was prior to pandemic and one of the thoughts that stuck in my head was the speaker mentioned that, you know, everything has changed ah in the last fifty years but he showed 2 images one from a classroom in 1950 and a classroom in 2017 at that point in time it remained the same and now of course pandemic is disrupted it all but but it was it that image stage to stock in my head and it's great to see you know how you also had the same inspiration when you started FeedbackFruits.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes, sir, I feel like the moment that we started, basically, Facebook came up this new type of social media, as and all of a sudden we just the gap between what students experienced in outside of university and inside of university just grew, grew rapidly - and and just has been growing over ah over time and that gap has just become more and more painful over time and I feel that that is something that we really have to address. Because if higher education does not address this then they will be obsolete over a decade, maybe 2. Because universities used to have the privilege of being able to ah have a big reputable name, but more and more society and companies, are going to hire on skills over the degrees right? This is a threat to the to the traditional business model of of public education. There's also more and more commercial companies and online alternatives arising which is again a threat to to the existing model and that there’s this third thing which I think is often overlooked I'm sure if you've seen the episode on Netflix “the social dilemma.” Um, basically how tech companies, modern tech companies, social tech companies or social media companies are designed to attract attention. It's how education has been designed and was in a period in where students had only ah, basically alternative next to studying was the bar and now because attention is so scarce resource. You just have that attention problem as well. So that truth - things that are threatening the existing model of universe of of higher education and I feel that the answer to all of those 3 at once is doubling down on improving the learning experience of students and this will help improving the skills of the students, this will help competing with alternatives, and this will help to maintain attention. And that is something that I think we realized relatively soon after ah at the beginning that that was something that we wanted to become really good at. How do we improve that? How do we allow public universities or universities higher education teachers to easily, at scale, improve this learning experience for students. It has been a journey I mean our so-called product market fit wasn't our head on right away we we made some iterations but the reason why we've started never changed.

Dipesh Jain

You know that's that's fantastic I fully relate to these the third piece especially would on attention is so important it's become such a priced commodity. Ah, your attention my attention everybody is banking on that.

It's become such a prized asset that it becomes even more important for for companies to safeguard that like for us to safeguard that and that's where the student autonomy comes in place and we'll dive into the topic but you know I want to understand - I went to the website to see what FeedbackFruits does but you you know your your journey has evolved over a period of time. Can you talk a little bit about what FeedbackFruits does right now? What is a problem that they're trying to solve and how does student autonomy play a role and how does your company play a role in improving student autonomy?

Ewoud de Kok 

Thank you yeah so I will I will take you with with that journey. So we wanted to improve the learning experience of students just didn't really have an idea yet on how. So we started with an app for students to give feedback to their teachers such that that teachers knew how to improve it or that was a failure and but we did keep our name which was which is feedback which that originate from that first product. The second thing that we did I was still a student back in those days is I I was attending a classroom and all of a sudden that the learning experience was completely different. It was a flip in the classroom model that was applied and students just got so excited about the subject and I felt like hey wait a minute what if we build technology to make it easy for teachers to support flipping the classroom. This was our sort of we call it internally our 1.0 product that really works. But the problem is it only worked at one out of thousand courses because one out of thousand professors was ready to actually completely reshape ah, their learning experience at once. So this led us to understand that we have to be more um evolutionary in our approach of trying to get this transition going for professors. So we couldn’t internally meet them where they are so what we do. We. We look at where is a professor in their pedagogical thinking and their learning design thinking and then we try to allow them to take sort of their first next step and then what do we do? What we what we understood from that flip in the classroom model. It's if you change the pedagogy. The design itself. That's what will change the learning experience and that's what will really improve learning and but it's really hard to do that at scale right? The traditional model skills easily right? You just add more chairs and once ah, the room is filled with 200 chairs. You just add a camera and you scale it at up until thousands.

Dipesh Jain

Right.

Ewoud de Kok 

But that these modern learning methods. They're really hard to scale for a teacher and that's what technology solves so what we now do and this is our current proposition is we have a fruit basket full of different fruit fruits and every fruit is a tool that plugs into the existing learning management system with which a teacher can easily organize. Ah, more advanced pedagogical method that lead to much more student engagement. So that's what we do. That's what we're good at and when it comes to student autonomy. Basically they had a core founding principle of feedback fruits was that education should contribute to these public values, this public debate getting our society ready to solve these big challenges, and for that you do more than just training skills in students. You have to create a growth mindset in students and what we really understood quickly is that what is so important for learning is motivation. If you don't have motivation It's really hard to learn if you're motivated to learn then all of a sudden becomes easy. I sometimes make the comparison work right? if work is really nice to do. It doesn't feel like work. It feels like how you want to spend your time. Ah, that's the same with learning if if learning is if you're really motivated to learn. It doesn't feel like it's it's a tough thing to do I mean I love the the reflection that we know for certain that if babies get born and they can’t breathe they will not make it right. So breathing is an essential thing for babies. But what we also know is that if ah babies are born but don't learn that they also will not make it especially not in the societies of two hundred years ago so learning is as important as breathing to people but the effect is just a bit delayed right? If you don't breathe. You won't take that long. But if you don't learn you you all it. Just takes a little longer but but learning is as important as briefing. It's really an internal urge for people to do that. So if you're able to find that motivation for learning all of a sudden it. It becomes so much more easy and this is I would say where learning designs and pedagogy should really? ah. Drive towards to try to find that that point in motivation and what we see from the literature and studies and and also in practice is if you if you allow for more student autonomy allows students to to find their own learning motivation first that's when.

That learning experience is is so much better afterwards and this and we'll get to this topic later but this is why I am so much in love with the concept of programmatic assessment because I feel and this is the big elephant in the room that I think hasn't been called out enough yet the way that we do traditional assessment the way that that. Again, like this traditional learning experience right? 1 professor in front of a class scaling that to one hundred to two thousand people that that assessment also needs to change because it's this assessment with the final grade at the end is really. Generating the fixed mindset in people I'm an a or I'm a b or I'm an a plus. No, you're not, you're a beautiful person and you have your talents. Let's develop them and let's continue to develop them It's not a final grade. It's a stage in where you are in your growth development and that's. Element I think is really important to to to move towards that we design learning experiences where students find the autonomy to find their learning motivation and are helped and guided to grow continuously and that's what's I feel what programmatic assessment does really well. 

Dipesh Jain

I think that was that was fantastic. Um, mean you know, um I noted so many points there we're going to talk about each of them. Um, there are few things that I've noted and I really liked what you said 1 is you you continue to? you know you keep coming back to this point of scalability and that's where. Technology plays such an important role and we're going to talk about that. The second thing that you mentioned was the importance of pedagogy and learning design and in one of the interviews that I read about you, you spoke about something that I could relate to was content is not the future, Pedagogy is.

Dipesh Jain

Um, and you know we always keep saying that content is the King but you kind of you know said I mean I kind of believe that pedagogy is the King and content follows that so talk a little bit about that like you know why? do you think the pedagogy is the future and you know talk a little bit about your. Thoughts on pedagogy versus content right.

Ewoud de Kok 

I sort of sometimes think about that that moment in where bill gates meets with Ibm right? and Ibm is completely convinced. That's all about the hardware. And bill gates gets the opportunity to to actually develop the software because he sees this differently right? He even tries to convince Ibm that it's about the software but I just don't believe him and he was right I feel. It's this type of situation now also in in education like traditionally. Content has been the the big thing that sort of opened up people to learning right? My father if he explains how he went to university he had to sit in a lecture write the lecture notes and the the professor wouldn't even give him in a book because he was like. I explain you it in the lecture. You just have to come write it down and and then that's it right? I mean the revolution that books brought in that sense has been enormous. So the importance of content has been there but what we've seen over time is that content is become abundant content is everywhere right? It's it's. Um, and but content alone is not learning. It's it. It is a learning experience active learning activating learning on the content. Not just reading or or viewing and answering a couple of questions. But being motivated to try to understand something being guided into a journey with all types of different experiences and learning experiences that is what really make you something learn right? It's that traditional way of saying tell me something and and I will and love. Understand that ah I should have been able to to say this now right away but you you get that you get that point. It. It's let me experience something and I will never forget.

Dipesh Jain

And yes, show something? Yeah, tell me something show me something something like that right? you have be have I remember.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes, and and content is not an experience or at least not an activating experience of course watching a movie is an experience but it's it's It's a low level form of experience if you really want to have ah a rich rich experience that is what pedagogy should be doing. And I feel that that's what real learning will come will will come from.

Dipesh Jain

That But that's that's amazing and and I think that's very it's a very good point that you brought even movies right? It's not the content that we are astroed by it's I think the design and the movie experience. You know so to speak that that is what hooks us like you know.

That suspense or that drama. Um, it's not just the plain content right? That's why you prefer 1 video or the other it's what experience and you know to to kind of stretch that further what emotions does it bring in you and I somehow feel that even learning brings emotions within you.

Um, that emotion could be of mastery. It could be of challenge. It could be a frustration at times. But yeah, sorry you're saying something.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes, no exactly this and and I and I loved his Dipesh because I don't meet a lot of people that really understand this I sometimes feel that ah that I'm alone in the desert but but this is this is it exactly this is it. We even know from Cognitive science that if. There's emotion attached to your learning Experience. You learn things better. Um, and that emotional element that experience element is so important and so much overlooked. Still I think in in how we in how we design design learning experiences.

Dipesh Jain

great. Um, now this is very helpful I'll touch upon 2 things here and you know the ah podcast is tech in edtech so we talk about technology so you know how to use technology to deliver all that you've just said like.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yeah, good question.

Dipesh Jain

Um, and and I want to and in that I want to understand a little bit more about programmatic assessment. You know I'm I'm guessing and I may be wrong. But I'm I'm guessing that you use technology to deliver those assessments at scale. So talk a little bit about how are using technology to deliver all of these things that you want to deliver to teachers as students.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes, yeah I hear you? well this is ah this is an interesting question. So basically when it comes to that scalability element I'm from the Netherlands and the Netherlands has a royal family and the the prince before he became king had 3 or more ah private teachers that's sort of that the best learning experience that would be able to be given was was given in this way this of course is non-salable I mean we're not able to give every student 3 private teachers that doesn't work. So when I talk about scalable pedagogy I talk about trying to find a method and a way in which we can improve the pedagogy but we can still work with that reality that we have over 1 of twenty fifty hundred sometimes even 200 200 students to teacher ratio right? So that is where technology can can really be the um, the solution and I feel that if you look at these modern pedagogical methods then basically the requirements for example. Ah, just let let me take a sample I'm not sure if you're familiar with the the method expert groups

Okay, so this is a pedagogy which we know already before edtech was a thing we knew already hey this pedagogy is just ah, a method that works that engages that engages students and that bring that learning experience to to an next level but it never got adopted broadly because it's really hard to organize this without. Without technology. It basically asks students to pick one out of the 4 topics to study that specific topic and and try to become an expert. You're grouped in a group that has the same type of preparation from another topic and then you're put together. And other groups are put together and there's this bit of a challenge in where you need to do the scratch-off cards and where there's a multiple choice question asked with okay, what's the difference between these four ah these four topics on x That's the most and then they need to as a group answer a question so that's the moment when a discussion starts that will never end that generates questions which are sometimes even hard to answer by the teachers just because they they are so good. That's the level of engagement that you want to have in a class and that's a method which we know works but it's really hard to organize this as a teacher even on a 1 to 20 scale and that's what technology can solve so I feel that technology should not be leading it should be following pedagogical design that we know works and just make it really easy for teachers to organize that pedagogical method at scale in their class without having to worry about oh a group member didn't show up. Oh someone didn't really prepare. Oh there's ah this group is already a bit further than the other and doesn't have to care about the learning but just be be really involved as an expert into these questions and that's I think what technology can do and and that interface is the interface which I feel is so rich and still so unexplored and to me it's really funny somehow because a lot of people talk about edtech right? You have these reports about the edtech community and etc etc and I sometimes feel that. We're talking about food delivery companies but no one actually talks about a person on a bike or in a car delivering food but ah about all the other things ah surrounding it to me. This is how I feel edtech is being referred to like it's it's all about everything except for that core. Learning experience for students which should not even be technology-driven but but which should be pedagogically driven and I feel that that's that's why the big opportunity is and and we're still really at the beginning of ah of the internet and it's just to make that comparison I feel that that is a comparison that really helps me understand where those pfoots need to go to let's look at the first website right? The first website and a couple of first iterations on the website was seen as a huge innovation at the time right? Whoa look at what all of a sudden is possible instead of me having to go to a supermarket one and a half here hours down the line to find out. It's closed and to drive back I can actually go to a website. It takes me only fifty minutes to find out whether the store is open right? That experience was fantastic, but what has happened that that User experience for a website basically was we were able to measure quite well. How ah how ah users are experiencing that we were able to quickly iterate new versions of the website to see how we can improve that experience and that measuring just this data combined with quick iterations allowed us to get to alert ah to to a website experience which is so intuitive that if we see the if we see that website that first version website that was there twenty years ago it it is just a terrible experience because that experience has been continuously improved and I feel that that's also. It's going to happen with the learning design so we are where what we now call innovative and people really love I feel. It's something we will love of ah love in decent I really enjoy that's something that that we will look at it 20 years time oh yeah do you remember that we and we thought this was the the future and and and and we thought this was enjoyable. Like look where we are now. So I feel we use should use the same method for driving learning you know, learning experiences forward as we did with with a user experience or website experiences and that is really a measure and quickly. It's right and then. if if we combine that. That's how we will drive learning experiences forward. But if we understand it's not the technology that matters. But it's the pedagogy that matters we measure what pedagogy or method methods work in what context - because they're often very context sensitive and try to try to improve that and and and forget about technology I often say we are not a. Company. We're a social company because we are doing much more social engineering right? that experience engineering than that then we actually do tech engineering. Yeah, so I guess that that is ah that is a bit and but then specifically in programmatic assessment and it it is it it’s basically a pedagogical methods right? So but is programmatic assessment. It comes from the Netherlands and it's it's gaining a lot of traction now in a moment because we see the results on how students learn and the core of programmatic assessment is basically changing that fixed assessment at the end of the course to a sort of go-no-go moment right? that that fixed mindset to much more holistic trying to get a much more holistic view of someone's development over time and use that as a sort of final more holistic assessment. How does that work? You basically collect a lot of formative data points during the learning experience of a student that gets into a student portfolio and you then together with the student coach that student in that learning experience and build up that final assessment overall as an holistic approach towards where someone is, ofcourse there is totally no surprise for our student. What the end result is of that course because it has been basically just an assessment on how that learning experience went based on a lot of different data points and and then that is something which is extremely hard to do without technology and this is again you have a pedagogy that works where technology can allow it to actually be practical and for teachers to organize in class and also to scale.

Dipesh Jain

Got it? No, I think that's very helpful. So what you're saying you know if I have to summarize is that pedagogy leads and technology follows to scale the impact of that pedagogy. Um, I think in a nutshell right? and when you talk about Programmatic assessment, I see some similarities with adaptive assessment is that um, is is that what and I think what I'm understanding is it's more embedded with rather than being um, you know, kind of um at the end a go or no go thing. It's more embedded within the curriculum and the pedagogy. So that it becomes a natural part of a learning process is that correct.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes, yes, that's correct and and this is also where I would would like to make a reflection. What is so what I think is so funny of where pedagogy is worldwide I mean we operate robot right in Australia, North America, in Europe, in the Middle East the terminology that it's used really is significantly diverse right? The the one calls it this way the other calls it the other way there hasn't been yet a Darwin of educational science that has sort of classified all these all these things into into an order which we all use the same technology. So what you often find is is similar ah concepts using a different terminology but to me that also shows again that we're still in this pioneering phase right where we haven't really worked work these things out and that's just a really interesting phase ah to be at. But yes, it is indeed really similar I would say programmatic assessment even takes a bit more effort on um, trying not to have any assessment points as actual assessment points but really build up a whole a holistic picture of someone's journey experiences and where also a professor get whether the role of a mentor or a coach is is really important in that experience.

Dipesh Jain

Got it, no, that's helpful and you know we are seeing a lot of uptick in the adaptive assessment space as well. A lot of companies coming to us to see how we can help with adaptive assessment. But I totally get your point I think ah I think what I really like about this conversation is this you know if I have to take away is that pedagogy leads and technology follows to make the fruits available to everyone and know which gels well with your feedback fruits as well. Um, you know I'll talk about something important here. So you know we were doing -  edTech was growing at a certain pace and then the pandemic happened how did that, the pandemic, change the way you were working at feedback fruits in your teams. How did they respond to all that was happening. You know what? what changed for you when with with the pandemic?

Ewoud de Kok 

Good question I yeah, good good good question. Well first of all, ah, um, feeling okay when we started with with with that same vision right? I really felt I was alone in the desert screaming something that no one really. Understood or really cared about and that was already changing over time but the pandemic just really accelerated that change all of a sudden people realize wait a minute there is this this this is an important thing. We actually have to understand this better. And that of course made us as a company grow also very rapidly with it. Um, and what I feel is the interesting reflection here is there's 2 sort of sides towards it like the. People that were already innovating and frontrunners they have excelled and been been been been really successful during the during the pandemic because they already doubled down on these type of experiences the ones that were more traditional. They already in my opinion worked with the pedagogically broken method which is this traditional method that was already also broken before the pandemic - just on campus. However, by bringing that broken method online forced just make and something only much more painful, and that's I guess where this of course and and these reflections are not necessarily new. But I think they are really important. It's that what we found out is the importance of ever that doing a traditional method online that is not what we call online learning or or even from bendering - That's just presenting. The importance of looking at that experience, also if if it's online and and what we can do to to improve it, that is something that all of a sudden people really realize yes wait a minute that is now indeed the thing that we should start focusing on and that's and that's fantastic because we can't do this alone right? We I hope there's more and more and more people starting to realize the importance of learning designs and trying to drive that forward because this is how we can learn from each other and this is how we can together drive this learning experience forward and thereby help students develop these skills which are so vital for our societies to solve the big challenges with.

Dipesh Jain

Yeah, no I think that's yeah so I think I mean we've seen everywhere that the pandemic ah just made things more urgent for everyone. You know it was we were innovating at a pace and then Pandemic happened and then suddenly everybody realized the importance of what you were doing in edtech right? Ah, that's that's very helpful.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yeah, yeah. And and I also feel as as some people are saying yeah well after a pandemic like we won't be so technology dependent anymore. But we are not not for the management of that experience but but definitely for for for still improving that experiences experience and. I Find a bigger and bigger and bigger bigger group of people realizing wait a minute we really have to double down on this and that is um, that does I think the right way forward.32:32.40

Dipesh Jain

Yeah, and and and you know we can't talk about all of this without talking about teachers right? So we spoke about student autonomy How it's important for students to take charge of their own learning and how pedagogy plays an important role. You know one of the things that you know, even pandemic, but even before Pandemic, we've seen that you know teachers spend a lot of time on things you know that that that they do like you know in which are in in addition to the pedagogy like you know work administrative. But how do how do you think that we can help teacher take an active part in this entire learning process.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yeah I hear you. Your your spot on. It's the teachers that are central to this transition transition and you're also spot on that it's the teachers that are already really overloaded and it's a - They are already in a very tough position. So what we see is there's sort of mainly 2 types of teachers. There's this special breed - We call them the innovators, um and they're sort of between brackets more of the normal teachers. So what we've done. We have created a method. We call this the “do tank” with which we co-create new pieces of fruits. Ah basically with these innovators that are already working with advanced pedagogies or or new type of pedogies that we know work - to make their life easier, basically, but they they are invested into helping to shape this new fruit such that it has the exact exact shape that works and and and and that is a way to move forward, but what we know is really important sort of more majority teachers they are already ah, really really stressed and being a teacher that that is having to be ah well I was a master of all trades right? That's what you have to be if you're a teacher - because you have to have so do so so much things at the same time also having to think about ah completely restructuring their pedagogy is just often too much ask. So we we work with this principle of meeting where they are so we look at this where are you currently in pedagogical thinking and we try to make it really easy to make that first step that's a hurdle for people. It's always a hurdle and and and good technology alone doesn't solve that there - good support ah, human support is really important element that we we take a lot of care for but the funny thing is once such a teacher has made this first step, adopted 1 specific learning method in their course and sees the effect on their students, sees this engagement increasing then all of a sudden teachers become intrinsically more and more motivated to continue walking on this path and that is an exciting experience because then also the demand on our support reduces and they are sort of starting to to export themselves because they've seen the effect. Because in the end teachers do this also, I mean a lot of teachers teach because they really care for their students but therefore they also really care for the learning experience of their students and if they see that improving, that's when you trigger that internal motivation of teachers. And then the only thing that you have to do properly is to make sure you keep supporting ah these next steps and that is I feel how we should drive the transition but teachers are here completely very important to it and for us. Also if we look for example in the in North America if more and more more institution joining us. But for us, and and a criteria to to to think about engaging with an institution is also really how many learning designers do you already have ah working in in your institution because it's not technology is not a sale for bullies. It is a catalyst into Pedagogical transition. So it helps speed up that transition. But there's more needed and proper support for teachers is really important and luckily more and more institution for higher education realizes hire ah learning designers and and and then are able to actually help teachers in this transition.ah, forward and then combined with the right technology that is how you can really get fantastic results and if you if you look at at the use cases that that that we published I feel that has been a result um of that dynamic.

Dipesh Jain

I love it. You know what I really like about that is the co-creation part and I'll you know I'll tell you where I'm coming from a lot of products are - teachers today have so much like you know there are so many tools coming out every day that you know eventually they go to teachers and teachers are like I Think drowning in the sea of ad tech products. Um, so a lot of times you know I see companies. You know they obviously go do Pilots which is a good way to go about it. But what I like about this so much is if you are involving teachers in the development process itself, your your product your product adoption problem reduces to such an extent because if they are co-creating it, they will create it for themselves, they'll adopt it easily and as you mentioned you will see not only the support ticket going down support going down but also the product adoption going up which is so important. So I really like how you're doing that co-creation.Ewoud de Kok 

Yes, and deep here you hit into something and I just like to use a small example to strenghten this message when I worked with my with our first CTO,  when we were still very small we together, we talked to and interviewed teachers, work with teachers - we concluded after I don't know dozens of interviews - how on earth are we ever gonna build a product that satisfies everyone because everyone has their own context their own things like how will this work.

Ewoud de Kok 

And that took a while before we realized wait a minute we should allow for much more customization at scale because teachers really have to make it their own have to allow them to adapt it to their own sort of context and so the design we at that point decided to completely throw away all the code that we had to tap on in time and really from scratch in the architecture allowed for that sort of personalization at scale because we understood that education needs this and that that has been ah important transition moment for us. But this all of a sudden allows us to really quickly do these iterations right without having to work ah having to have to ah too many developers work ah on it and thereby being able to really design exactly what people avoid what teachers want and then you you get that sort of um change in in in attitude I'm not overexaggerating that we sometimes have meetings where teachers are standing and, learning designers as well, by the way, standing on their chairs saying we need this, this is exactly like it's like we've we've seen so much product around but it all had this I don't know. And then all of a sudden boom. They really felt like yes, this is it and the reason is not because we designed it. No, it's because teachers designed it and we just supported these methods and that is that is a key thing that we have to do because we have to understand that that yes it's all these context are so important and we really need to take into account and it's in the end a teacher that is in charge of the learning experience of students.

Dipesh Jain

I know I I think that's a masterstroke to be very honest. It's phenomenal that you know so I think they get the feeling they're part of this process and you know that adoption becomes such you know one of the things that we continuously talk about you know, even at a company where we talk to companies is. the most important metrics for any foremost for product companies is the adoption How many features are people using it because you know everything else will follow that your revenue, your profitability, your you know word of mouth, everything will follow our option and you know you're kind of I think I really like what you're doing at FeedbackFruits.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yeah, but but ah sorry, Dipesh just my last last thing to give to the community this reflection. Thank you for calling at a masterstroke I don't really look at it like that we are not here to make FeedbackFruits big. We are here to improve the learning experience of students in higher education worldwide that is our goal that's what we've set out to that's always what we will be doing and in the process, yes, FeedbackFruits becomes big. So for me. Adoption is not the key metric. For me the key metric is the improvement of the learning experiences of students and sometimes we advise teachers not to adopt certain tools just because they are not pedagogically ready for it yet. Yes, I sometimes get into a fight with the CIO over yeah, but the learning management system got adopted after half a year by 95% of the people I'm saying listen that's a technology-focused way of looking at at at what we do, you should understand what we're doing - We're driving and ped pedagogical innovation. So sometimes it's okay, so not go this fast because the end goal is this learning experience and this is what I feel a lot of companies can still learn. Is your end goal is more than your own success and have that as an end goal because then your success will follow and that is a sort of mindset that I feel a lot of at tech companies can still really ah, learn from.

Dipesh Jain

I Absolutely I think I I completely agree with that. You know I mean we've recently changed our positioning and or we've always been doing that but our focus as you mentioned is for us. It's digital learning for everyone and you're so right? like if we are able to solve for that. Everything else will follow. How do we make digital learning available for everyone and so I really appreciate those thoughts. Thank you so much you know it was - this has been a great session I really appreciate all your thoughts I really like the passion that you have for learning design and pedagogy. It's very infectious I can say before we go do you have any parting thoughts or advice ah to other companies in edtech space or you know to your customers or peers. What do you? you want to say something.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes, yes, this is 1 thing that I want to say we are all on a journey. All of us. Let's get that mindset in. What we have today is just a way to get to what we are going to get in a year time. We should be open to continuously innovate take this next step open to critique if a critique and reflect on it to really try to drive this forward because what we are doing together in education is so much more important than our own success. It's really - let's try to drive this transition because this transition is key, in some sense and I might become philosophical here but, I see the relations really clearly to maybe at one point in time survival of humanity. Like what we're doing here is so much bigger and if we understand this and if we keep driving this and if we never are satisfied with where we are I feel and then we are in the right mindset to to make a significant impact ah on the world and and I feel that that is a this is this is what make education more special than than other industries around that and then and let's let's embrace that and let's let's take that responsibility together to drive this forward.

Dipesh Jain

You're not philosophically you’re very practical I think I wouldn't have been here. Had it not been for education. It's literally responsible for not just my survival but thriving I think education is so important It's so important that you know you're born with something but education is what takes you somewhere So you know I completely relate to that. Um, and you know I think in in between all these we continue to hear about Ed Tech funding at Tech this at tech that growth we sometimes miss the larger picture that all of this is to solve that problem of education

for people. Your future shouldn't be determined by the zip code that you're born in ah and education makes that change possible and I think we sometimes lose sight of that amidst all this frenzy of funding, unicorn, growth and you know all of that.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yeah, exactly exactly.

It's it's yes and founders get sort of sucked into this I mean where we remain shut because we really clearly saw that a lot of this funding in their key value is not aligned with what we wanted to achieve in the world and I feel that hopefully also there we will see change and I I Also I mean I don't blame founders especially not in higher edtech in higher Education story that they take on the ah investment because it's really hard as a founder to actually become successful in this industry because it's so extremely hard to even penetrate with a successful product to even be able to sell it. So I understand sort of the then investment hey you have traction on your product not yet on your Because it's so hard then to still sell it to an institution that that that you have enough traction to get an investor on board in order to to survive basically, but then you have to be really careful that your your your compass - the reason why you do what you do doesn't get changed. 

Dipesh Jain

Yes, absolutely and I think that come that that purpose is so important, especially when you are in education. So thank you so much I know we you know, but this was an amazing conversation, Woody, and I really appreciate all your thoughts and you know.

Ewoud de Kok 

Yes.

Dipesh Jain

Thank you so much for coming on the show and yeah, um, yeah, thank you so much and and take care have a good one bye.

Ewoud de Kok 

Okay, Thank you bye-bye.