Why Ublend is not “just another EdTech platform”

At Ublend, we have worked with some of the best, most inspiring instructors in the world and their students to build a simple and easy-to-use communication platform dedicated to education.

The question

When we talk with instructors who want to use Ublend, the single most asked question (for good reasons!) is: “How is Ublend different from what I already use?”.

The answer

You and your students need Ublend because communication is key to learning experiences. Communication platforms currently used in education are either clunky and outdated (read: learning management systems) or not made for education (e.g. Facebook/Slack etc.). Ublend is different — it is modern, easy-to-use AND dedicated to education. You will feel the difference and so will your students.

Listen->Learn->Design->Build. Repeat.

The difference in user experience between Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook Groups, Slack etc. and the average learning management system makes it impossible to genuinely engage students on the latter. We start with the user and then build the technology, not the other way around. By talking to hundreds of educators and students whilst learning from communication platforms students actually use, we’re building a communication platform for education — not ‘just another platform’. This is clear in two ways:

1. Empowering 21st century classrooms requires 21st century tools

Learning is about interaction. Interaction is empowered by flexible and simple tools. The complex structures of learning management systems emphasise one-way communication of content. We think differently -simplicity, flexibility and interaction is at the core of what we do. It takes the instructor not more than 30 seconds to create a new class and get students onboard. Once they are there, no instruction is needed, the user interface is self-explanatory and encourages dialogue and interaction.

A common reaction in our instructor product demos is: “oh, it actually does what I need, but it just has so few buttons compared to an LMS.”

Ublend’s simplicity gives the instructor an easy-to-use complement/alternative to learning management systems that focuses on engaging students, individually and in groups, around the content of the class. This makes it easy to create a strong community, which enables collaborative learning and encourages sharing of relevant content and questions by both instructors and students.

2. Dedicated to education because education is different

Many of our academic advisors and first users are innovative educators who rethink not only teaching methods, but also the role of digital platforms in getting the most out of those methods. They use Facebook, Slack, Medium, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox and many other great tools in their teaching.

It was clear from our conversations with them that communication is such a fundamental thing that there’s a clear need for a communication platform as engaging and intuitive as Slack/Facebook, but 110% dedicated to education.

The education-focus is the foundation of our user-centred design process. The benefits are clear in many aspects of Ublend — from the ability to easily retrieve class material to the ability to share equations and code in technical subjects. This approach will only continue to manifest itself as the platform evolves (I’m looking forward to the Wolfram Alpha chatbot).

To see how Ublend works for you, just head to https://ublend.co/ and create your class.