It is incredibly easy for adults to sit in offices and conference rooms and make assumptions about what children want to see in an EdTech program. As a developmental psychologist, researcher, and parent to two elementary-age kids, I’ve seen firsthand how well-intentioned tools can miss the mark when they are built entirely from an adult’s perspective.

To truly engage and motivate students — and ultimately unlock brighter futures for all —

we can’t just build solutions for students; we have to build them with students.

This collaborative approach to design is at the heart of our latest initiative, as we partner with leading voices in children's media and literacy pedagogy to enhance the ExploreK12^™ Raz-Plus^® student experience.

What is co-design in EdTech?

Co-design is the practice of bringing the end-user — in this case, children — directly into the development process as active partners, rather than just subjects of observation. It’s a shift from asking, “Will kids like what we built?” to asking, “What should we build together?”

Definition and core principles of co-design

True co-design elevates children to the role of design partners. It requires us to listen deeply, respect their unique perspectives, and give them the agency to influence how digital tools look, feel, and function.

If you are curious about learning more about what co-design is, our friends at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop recently released an incredible resource. The Co-Design with Kids Toolkit is a fantastic new website full of resources to help developers make technology with kids, for kids. Their toolkit includes:

• 🐙 Co-Design 101: Information about the philosophy of co-design and tips on how to run co-design sessions with kids.
• 🐠 Techniques: A repository of techniques to use when co-designing with kids.
• 🐳 Case Studies: Examples of real products made by co-designing with kids.
• 🐡 Expert Advice: Learn from practitioners with years of experience co-designing with kids.

Why co-design matters in EdTech

When we invite students into the design process, everyone wins.

Benefits for students

For students, the immediate benefit is empowerment. When digital environments reflect their actual preferences, cognitive needs, and motivations, they experience greater agency. Co-designing with students can lead to tools that are relevant, engaging, and intuitive. Creating tools that students actually want to use and enjoy using can help build intrinsic motivation and improve long-term learning outcomes.

Benefits for educators

Teachers are the ultimate facilitators of EdTech, but they are often tasked with driving engagement in programs that students find difficult or unenjoyable. Building tools that are fun and easy to use can reduce this barrier and help teachers spend their valuable time on actual instruction and meaningful learning moments rather than troubleshooting technology.

Benefits for education technology

For EdTech developers, co-design eliminates guesswork. It reduces the risk of building solutions based on assumptions that end up falling flat in the classroom. By grounding our development in the lived realities of children, we ensure our solutions are not just theoretically sound but also easy to implement and fun to use.

ExploreK12’s partnership with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center

This past spring, ExploreK12 was selected to participate in the second cohort of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center Sandbox for Literacy Innovation. Named after Sesame Street’s visionary co-founder, the Cooney Center is an independent research and innovation lab within Sesame Workshop dedicated to shaping a positive digital future for children. The Center conducts cutting-edge research on emerging technologies, partners with industry leaders, academics, and educators to translate insights into action, and works closely with policymakers and investors to drive meaningful conversations and decisions.

The Sandbox for Literacy Innovations is an initiative to help developers incorporate evidence-based research and co-design methods with kids to create more effective literacy products. By actively involving children and young people in co-designing the tools that they use, the program ensures that innovations enhance both learning and well-being — ultimately empowering children to thrive in the digital world. We are incredibly proud to be one of seven organizations selected for this year’s exclusive cohort, drawn from a highly competitive pool of 70 applicants.

Read more about our participation in the program.

Co-Designing Raz-Plus for Science of Reading excellence

Raz-Plus was launched in 2002, featuring around 150 digital and printable books. The goal then is the same as it is now: to make teachers' lives easier by providing high-quality, accessible resources they can trust. Today, Raz-Plus provides educators with thousands of texts, interactive learning experiences, and instructional resources grounded in the Science of Reading, developing strong foundational skills alongside deep reading comprehension.

As the Science of Reading has evolved, so have we. Last year, we officially brought together the explicit instruction from Foundations A-Z^® with the expansive library of decodable readers and grade-level texts of Raz-Plus, addressing all strands of the "Reading Rope" in a single daily literacy block. Our ongoing dedication to pedagogical alignment made this the perfect moment to engage with the Cooney Center Sandbox.

By combining our scale — in 2025, our literacy solutions reached nearly 8 million students across just over half of all public school districts in the US — with the Cooney Center’s unparalleled expertise in literacy pedagogy, child development, and co-design, we are ensuring our products remain maximally effective for improving literacy skills and reading comprehension.

The mutual benefit is clear: we get to learn from extraordinary scholars and researchers, and together, we can impact student literacy outcomes at an extraordinary scale.

What’s next for co-design at ExploreK12

So, what does this look like in practice? This August, representatives from our research, learning design, and creative design teams are heading to New York City.

We will be working alongside The GIANT Room, an incredible organization serving as an implementation partner with the Cooney Center for this project. They are recruiting local families and deploying research experts to teach us advanced co-design methodologies and facilitate our sessions.

During these sessions, we will sit down with students to co-design exciting new aspects of the Raz-Plus student-facing experience. We want to ensure that every student who logs in feels empowered, engaged, and excited to read.

We can’t wait to share what we learn from our most important stakeholders — the students themselves — and show how their brilliance helps us unlock brighter futures for all students with the help of ExploreK12’s literacy solutions.