Community Highlight: Celebrating Our Lesson Creator Team
This month, we have a blog post by our Lesson Creator Program Manager, Andrew, to highlight some of the amazing work their team has been creating in an effort to create effective, accessible content for all of our learners. Read on to learn about all of the wonderful work they’ve done to make Oppia.org what it is today!
Oppia has come a long way since we first started our goal of achieving educational equality, and while we still have a long way to go to achieving that goal, we have made significant progress since our inception. Our contributors have done an incredible job in allowing us to get to where we are. Since the beginning, Oppia has set forth to put out 15 basic mathematics lessons that we believe are central to the learning development of students. Today, with over 50% of those core mathematical topics completed in half a year, our contributors are looking to finish this bracket of material by the start of the next quarter for 2020.
As a former project manager, I’d like to express how grateful I am to have worked with Anisha Sridhar and Anmol Shukla, two amazing topic managers that spearheaded the Factors and Multiples exploration. Their commitment allowed us to draft, write, and implement over 10 lessons of quality material that provides a clear and comprehensive overview of the aforementioned topics. Not only did Anisha and Anmol create amazing content, but they were also aided by two creative graphic designers that made a more enjoyable and relaxing learning environment. I’d like to thank Noah Ku and Tuna for illustrating all the images put into this exploration; they provided clean and imaginative graphics that aided in the comprehension of the materials laid out.
I’d also like to take the time to highlight the amazing work done by Kevin Lee and Raina Park, two contributors that I’ve also worked with, who helped implement one of our earliest explorations, Expressions and Equations. Despite being one of the longer explorations implemented on Oppia, their hard work combined allowed completion of this essential topic in just under a month through dedication and determination. With a comprehensive overview of mathematical expressions and equations paired with an enjoyable storyline, this topic is one of the best projects that I’ve worked on during my time here.
And while I’ve only had the pleasure to work the aforementioned topic managers and graphic designers, I’d also like to take the time to thank the following contributors that have made Oppia such a wonderful platform: Elaine Huynh, Shreya Shubhangi, Ji Su Lee, Thomas Lee, Allan Zhou, Nitya Sunkad, Dawson Eliasen, Noah Ku, Michelle Tam, Chill Minh, and Tuna Terzi.
In addition to all the topic managers and graphic designers who have made this journey possible, I’d also like to take the time to thank our two project managers, Angie Goh and Ligia Brito, for organizing and leading the bulk of the teams here at Oppia. Their ability to manage and delegate power to our contributors illustrates the trusting relationship they’ve established, which in turn has allowed us to put out lessons in an efficient manner. Without their hard work, Oppia would not be in the position it’s in today.
Although it is currently a difficult time for many, we at Oppia still feel it’s important to celebrate our successes and victories in order to find light in an otherwise darker time. Oppia has made great progress in a short time period, as we have completed 75% of our core mathematics explorations at the end of March. The passion and dedication from our content creators, graphic designers, and project managers has allowed us to get this far, and we’ll continue to charge at full speed until we reach our goal. While we continue to make progress towards reaching the finish line, we’re also consistently trying to find ways to make the content we publish better, so stay tuned for future updates that will soon be rolled out!
If you’d like to try out some of our lesson creators’ explorations, you can check them out today on oppia.org! If you’d be interested in volunteering as a lesson creator or artist yourself, you can express interest at oppiafoundation.org/volunteer.
