On Research, Evidence, and Collaborations: with Emily Guille-Marrett from Pickatale
An interview series with Edtech leaders to understand how they integrate research, evidence and collaborations into their decision-making processes and product development.
In today's landscape, the significance of efficacy and evidence in Edtech has reached new heights. With the lingering effects of the pandemic and ongoing learning disparities, educational institutions and Edtech firms must prioritise research, placing student outcomes and well-being at the forefront of product development. In this series, I delve into conversations with Edtech leaders to understand how they integrate research and evidence into their decision-making processes and product development.
In the first episode of the series, I speak to Emily Guille-Marrett who serves as the Chief Content Officer at Pickatale, a Norwegian-based Edtech company focused on improving literacy outcomes at a global level, while igniting a passion for reading amongst our youngest learners. Pickatale was included among Top 20 World’s EdTech companies 2024 by TIME and Statista rankings.
Hi Emily, I'm looking forward to learning more about Pickatale and your work. To start us off, can you share why research is important to your organisation?"
Pickatale is an ed-tech company so it goes without saying that education lies at the heart of our product. We are committed to helping every child learn to read and develop a love for reading. As a business, we are committed to upholding these values by leveraging existing research and incorporating it meaningfully into our product to aid its evolution and align with our business objectives. 'Evolving' is a good word here; it describes our product's continuous development, guided by relevant new research and findings.
How do you use research in product development, design, and growth?
I can provide examples of how we've integrated research into our product development and design. For instance, we recently added a phonics component to our feature list. To understand how to incorporate it effectively, we acquired an evidence-based phonics programme validated by the UK Department for Education to ensure we embedded a proven pedagogy underpinned by the Science of Reading into our product. Then, we partnered with several schools to learn about phonics instruction in classrooms and gain insights from real classroom experiences that would inform our product development.
Additionally, we are introducing new videos to our product, which I am very excited about. Our research discovered that videos can engage students quickly and enhance their vocabulary. A new product we have coming out is biographies of historians and scientists. There will be an animation before reading where short animated versions of these figures will introduce themselves. These videos will precede the reading material to give students a preview of what to expect. Research indicates that prior knowledge of the book content can engage students, stimulate their imagination, and give them a better chance of reading success.
What's also noteworthy about our organisation is that we have different colleagues focusing on specific areas, such as accessibility and AI tooling, and they actively share their research findings. These findings prompted us to explore adding subtitles to our videos for accessibility reasons and to investigate how reading subtitles can assist children with reading.
In much the same way, research has complemented our growth efforts as well. We collaborate with partners globally who possess extensive knowledge of their respective markets. Leveraging their expertise, we make product changes and draw insights from various research reports—whether academic, governmental, or NGOs—tailored to different markets.
Addressing global challenges like digital poverty is daunting, and while we can't solve these issues entirely, we believe that every child deserves access to reading. So, how can we contribute? We now offer a web app to broaden our reach across the world, while in others, we are in the process of working towards providing downloadable print materials to ensure continuous access for children. That’s what we’re committed to—keeping the learning going.
It's great to hear how much research is prioritised in your company. In what ways do you gather feedback from children and parents or teachers to continually refine and improve your content?
We collect feedback both formally and informally. Currently, we are collaborating with WiKIT to gather feedback from children. We deliberately partnered with an external company to obtain independent feedback from children on the design. Furthermore, we enjoy visiting schools and directly engaging with children. The children test various aspects of the product, and we highly value their opinions. Another interesting method we use to gather kids' feedback is through competitions we organise, such as 'Books on the Box,' where kids create video book reviews of their favourite books, providing us with insightful information about their preferences and reasons. This is done in collaboration with educational expert and TV personality Baasit Siddiqui, which draws a crowd too.
Regarding teachers, we primarily engage with them through our school partners, and customer services teams as well as at conferences and events, such as BETT 2024 and the UK Literacy Association. We also establish partnerships with different schools, similar to our collaboration on phonics, as mentioned earlier. Additionally, we collaborate with schools worldwide to gather feedback and conduct case studies. You can read some of these case studies on the EdTech Impact website, another example of an organization that is working to ensure evidence and efficacy in EdTech products.
I enjoy collaborating with academics, teachers, and authors. One cannot be arrogant enough to produce something without seeking feedback from parents, teachers, and children along the way. It’s also important to acknowledge that we’ve also made mistakes, and I don’t think people speak about that often enough. My message to all EdTech producers is to never proceed blindly without consulting, and sometimes it’s necessary to pause and pivot if needed.
How do you balance product development with emerging trends to drive innovation without straying from our primary goals?
I started my career by producing print and website content before moving to interactive whiteboard products, and now the speed of AI is on a whole other scale than I’ve seen in my career. But, as an organisation, we are pretty good at getting on board and sharing new trends. We test anything new. It's easier to find time to test when you’re a small company. We respond to trends and new research, and we balance them by ensuring that new incentives remain true to our core values and mission - to get every child reading.
For instance, we've established a partnership with Universal ELT in Turkey for English learning, where they integrate their ELT curriculum books into our platform. This prompted us to reflect on whether we're primarily a reading platform or an English language learning platform. Without a doubt, we must support language learning and it has given us huge growth already. Nevertheless, reading in local languages is critical too. Two years ago, my decision regarding translations would have been different, but now, with technological advancements, we can swiftly translate content at pace and more cheaply. While our focus remains on English reading, we also aim to instil a love for reading in all children. Therefore, we encourage our partners to include books in local languages too. As long as we stay true to our mission of fostering a passion for reading among children, we remain on track.
There is so much profound good work happening behind the scenes. How do you communicate research and impact to your customers?
Honestly, we have not been doing this well enough. I'm certain many would be surprised by the extent of our research efforts, and we must enhance our communication about it. While we currently share some of our research and its impact through customer letters, LinkedIn posts, and website blogs, there's room for improvement. When we unveil the next iteration of our product, providing more information about it will be beneficial. Additionally, sharing certifications and legitimizing our products will enhance user trust. We live and breathe research as an organisation, and anyone visiting our website should gain a deeper understanding of that. We're actively making changes, and our communication efforts are expected to improve.
We've seen a lot of trends and studies in the kids' space in recent years. Have any of these influence your content creation or product process?
In child development, extensive literature delves into the topic of vocabulary, reflecting a considerable depth of thought. Originally, our approach involved generic quizzes in our books, primarily focused on retrieval. However, we have now shifted our attention to specific comprehension and vocabulary areas post-reading, offering valuable insights for educators. We're exploring vocabulary tiers 1, 2, and 3 and considering what we can do, given the different challenges around them. For instance, can we explore methods for analysing our data to identify how frequently individual children access certain words across our book library?
“How can we ensure that children on the Pickatale platform not only read but also read more? How can we leverage media and data to promote reading while also considering ethical issues? Moreover, how can we use personalised content to assist teachers in supporting their students?”
On a last note, concerning media, there's a lot of discussion about the use of devices and screen time. How is your company responding to this?
We're aiming to highlight the positives of digital learning, especially at a time when children are losing interest in reading for pleasure. We've been considering various rewards and incentives for children, which may include controversial methods such as using avatars, but there is research that supports this approach. I’m not saying this will happen, but we will always look to the latest research and best practices. By drawing on all aspects of academic research, classroom activity, innovations and the voices of educators, parents and children - there is usually an effective solution.
We are increasingly placing a lot of emphasis on datafication, which includes exploring data with new technology and personalized algorithmic content. How can we use the information we have about each child to recommend more books that they'll enjoy? Additionally, how can we use this data to encourage the exploration of new books without limiting them to specific categories? By analysing genres, we can better understand what children enjoy reading and ensure that kids read more books in that genre. How can we also ensure that children are reading across the wider curriculum subjects? These learning pathways are crucial for fostering a love of reading and learning.
Closing Reflections:
Pickatale's journey is truly inspiring. I especially loved hearing about how the company decided to continue its partnership with the Universal ELT in Turkey and encourage the love of reading in local languages as well. I also find it highly commendable how much emphasis the team places on research and never strays from the mission. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, and I hope Pickatale continues to unlock the reading potential of the next generation.
About the author: Camilla Lyndem is a dedicated Kids Media Enthusiast who finds joy in designing educational entertainment for young learners. With her M.Ed from Harvard and experience at Ello, Owl Ventures, and BYJU’S, she's committed to creating fun and effective learning experiences. She's passionate about merging entertainment with education, striving to make learning enjoyable for children.