New classroom tech usually ends up on a shelf. I built the hub that kept it off one.

Verizon had already put the technology in the classrooms. What was missing was a reason and a way for teachers to pick it up, so we built the hub that closed the gap between having the technology and using it.

The problem

Verizon Innovative Learning was founded in 2012 to help close the digital divide and inspire next-generation learning. VIL HQ expanded it by injecting new technologies into classrooms, and Verizon built the apps and games to run on them. None of that matters if a teacher with a full curriculum and no training time leaves the equipment in the cupboard. The job was making it enticing enough to be worth the effort of adopting.

What I did

Showed it working, with real teachers and real kids. We filmed in a real operating school so teachers across the country could see how immersive their own classrooms could be. Not a demo of the equipment: proof of how easily it slotted into a lesson, and how much the kids got out of it. I oversaw the team and the deliverables from concept and storyboard through edit and post, directing the crew on the ground from a remote studio.

Built the hub that took the lift out of adopting it. The destination where teachers could get professional development and immersive lesson plans already built for the equipment they had, so nobody had to work out how to fit it into a curriculum themselves. I oversaw the UX and the build alongside the film, and the site had one job beyond utility: make all of it feel easy and exciting.

Impact

1.3M views of the classroom film

AWARDS: Webby Honoree, AI & Immersive Games / Virtual & Remote / Science & Education