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Humanities: Introduction to Digital Humanities by Harvard University.Entrepreneurship: How to Build a Startup by Udacity.Communication: Communication Skills - Persuasion and Motivation by Alison.Writing: Good with Words: Writing and Editing by University of Michigan.Business & Finance: The Fundamentals of Business by Smartly.Design: Graphic Design Course by HubSpot Academy.Personal & Professional Development: Conquering the Fear of Public Speaking by Udemy.
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However, our main assumption on gamification proved false and our current systems were putting us into technical debt. We learned that on a fundamental level our students loved our content, teaching style, and the idea of our custom platform for content delivery. We also had difficulty using Firebase to deploy against custom marketing systems such as coupon codes and course redemptions, and were unfortunately at the mercy of Apple’s update process when we needed to ship critical updates. As our user base began to grow, Firebase also became restrictive as our learning paths became more complex. The majority of our users were indifferent on gamification, and some even found it a slight distraction to their content consumption. On average, our students became more focused on aggregating coins through whatever means necessary just to redeem resources - not necessarily to utilize them. We implemented Firebase for our backend and relied on Apple’s built in systems for monetization (In-App-Purchases), analytics, and distribution.ġ0 months after launching, we learned that gamification actually had the opposite effect on student learning. With a focus to create a gamified experience coupled with high quality learning content, we used out-of-the-box solutions when necessary. Coins could be earned through completing course content, and then used to redeem new courses and exclusive learning resources. We wanted to reach feature parody with widely known LMS systems as quickly as possible while validating our main assumption: Gamifying ed-tech would be the x-factor that boosts retention and student success. With the majority of our team having roots in iOS development, we started building our iOS and macOS app.
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As the milestones progressed, we committed to creating an Android, Windows and Linux version respectively. The first few milestones committed us to creating apps for the Apple ecosystem - specifically iOS, macOS, and tvOS. Our funding milestones were structured and tiered by platforms. In May of 2016, our small but close knit team of 6 had completed our funding goal on Kickstarter to create our learn to code platform, Devslopes.
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