Quill Team Profiles — Emilia Friedberg, Software Developer
Emilia is a software developer who is passionate about education. Before joining Quill, Emilia taught at an elementary school in Arizona and tutored students at Breakthrough Santa Fe. As a developer, the first program she built was Word by Word, a grammar tool that teaches students how to identify parts of speech in a sentence.
Why Quill?
I became really passionate about education in college, where I worked as a middle and high school tutor, a substitute teacher at a preschool, and a college lab assistant. Teaching seemed like a really natural progression of that when I graduated. Once I was in the classroom full-time, though, I realized how difficult it is to get through all of the content you need to in a year while making sure every student in your class is engaged and fully grasping the material. While I was teaching, I thought a lot about the ways that technology could support teachers and students in the classroom, so when I learned to code, the first tool that I built was a game intended to teach students the parts of speech. Once I found out about Quill, it was just obvious to me that this was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Favorite Quill tool?
I am partial to Lessons! I love the platform because it’s something that I would have loved to use when I was teaching. The curriculum team put an incredible amount of time into developing the lesson plans and follow-up activities, and I think being able to see what students are writing in real time and use their responses as a jumping-off point for whole class discussion is a great way to meet your students where they are and engage them in collaborative learning. I love that Quill Lessons are customizable because I want teachers to be able to use our tools in the way that will best serve their students.
Hobbies outside of Quill?
I love to read! My mother used to worry about me because I’d walk home from the bus reading a book as a kid, and I’m the person that misses their subway stop because they didn’t want to put the book down. I mostly read short stories and philosophy these days, but I try to dig into a big novel a couple of times a year. I also like to cook, ride my bike around Brooklyn, and fantasize about having a garden again someday.
