Agile development is an approach to software development that emphasizes collaboration, flexibility, and continual improvement. You might not realize it, but agile development is something you experience in education all of the time. Whenever you receive a software update — whether it’s on an edtech tool or on your cell phone — you’re seeing agile development in action.
This is important for educators, because technology constantly evolves, and as it does, you want to be able to utilize those new capabilities to better educate students, and provide a better classroom experience. You don’t want to spend the time, effort, and money on purchasing and learning an entirely new system every time one of your edtech tools is out of date.
On top of that, agile development makes it easier for technology providers to adapt to the needs of users. If you’re finding ways that our software could be improved, we want to make those improvements as quickly as possible. By staying nimble and adaptable, we can work together more effectively with educators. And those educators can have the edtech tools they need to ensure their school communities keep learning together.
Now that you can recognize agile development, take advantage of it – you should feel comfortable sending suggested improvements and updates to your software providers, and they should feel comfortable incorporating user feedback in real time. Have a suggestion for Otus? We would love to hear from you! You can message us on Twitter at @OtusK12, contact us on Intercom, or leave a comment by clicking the envelope in the top right corner of Otus.com.
