Queen Rania Foundation, Edraak, Jordan
Although I may not choose teaching as a profession, I have long had an interest in education, particularly back home in Jordan. This summer I had my first experience working in this field during my internship at Edraak. Edraak, now an independent company, is an initiative started by the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development (QRF), and is a prime example of QRF’s achievements. Edraak is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform that aims to provide free, high-quality courses in Arabic to the Arab Region, a service that previously had not been widely available. It has partnered with some of the best educators and universities in the region to offer courses ranging from K-12 math courses, to adult courses on Java programming and fashion design. Being an EdTech company, Edraak was the perfect place to explore my interest in education, all while exploring what is possible with my education in Computer Science.
The nature of my work did not allow me to directly see the impact this initiative was making, but through the various team meetings that took place, I was able to see clearly that Edraak was helping countless users achieve their educational goals. For example, one student, who due to their physical ability was not granted admission to any university in Jordan, was able to continue his education through Edraak. Another student, in Morocco, set up a learning club, in which they taught their friends using Edraak’s online resources. These are just two of the many examples we heard of students benefiting from Edraak’s services, from users looking to explore new interests, to others seeking an education they otherwise couldn’t afford or have access to.
At Edraak, I worked with the Engineering and Development Team on various issues regarding user experience or user interface (UX/UI) of the online platform. A design team from Google had recently worked with Edraak to develop better design strategies and tools. This was evident as soon as I arrived at Edraak, as they were using these tools—the same ones I had learned in my Human-Computer Interaction course I took at Williams—to develop more flexible and customizable learning tools for the educators on the Edraak platform to use. This included interviews and focus groups with teachers and professors around Jordan, affinity diagrams that covered the walls of the office, and prototypes and usability tests conducted on more teachers and professors.
Towards the beginning of the internship, my main project was to learn and practice the programming languages and tools that the team used, including Javascript, Django, React, and other web development tools. Once I was comfortable with all of that, I moved on to work on various tasks regarding UX/UI on the content management system (CMS) of the platform, which is where educators create and design their course materials, such as lecture notes, videos, or assessments. For example, educators have the option of changing the visibility of certain course materials; they can either release it to students, or keep it visible only to the course instructor for further editing. However, the design of this feature needed to change to a clearer and more intuitive one, since many instructors looked over this feature, leaving students unable to see certain material. I was tasked with improving this feature’s design. The task began with several iterations of prototypes, with each being critiqued by both the Engineering and Development Team and the Quality Assurance Team. Once the prototype was complete, I then moved on to the implementation of it. This task proved more challenging than I thought, as it forced me to put myself in the shoes of different types of users, from the tech-savvy educator to the educator who only recently attempted to use educational technology. With every critique, I learned how to expand the possibilities of my design, as well as how to defend the designs I created.
My other project focused on developing video interaction tools that kept the learner more engaged with the material. One issue we face in online learning is the fact that videos, no matter how engaging, are not sufficient enough to lead to full comprehension of the course material. The aim of this project was to seek new ways of including in-video activities for the student to perform that would lead to deeper understanding, as well as help locate weak points in student comprehension. This task included preliminary research on what similar tools already exist, and finding those that would fit the current platform. I then worked on designing how we could incorporate these tools in our platform’s videos.
Coming into Edraak, I quickly realized there was a large gap of knowledge and experience between the team and myself. They used tools and programming languages that I was either had very little practice with or had never used before. They were also working with a much larger project that I had ever worked on during my time at Williams. The platform that Edraak was working on included courses, specializations, payment methods, partnerships with universities, a marketing site, and much more. However, with the help of my team, I learned a great deal about how software engineering works in the professional world. I learned and practiced the tools they used, and learned how a small team of programmers can create and maintain such a large project. Conversely, I found that the skills I learned at Williams helped me perform well at Edraak. During my junior year at Williams, I had the chance to take a class on Human-Computer Interaction, a class that explored the field of human-centered design in Computer Science. This course focused on developing tools used in the design process, from the ideation phase until the creation of the final design. These tools include affinity diagrams, user research, usability testing, prototyping, and so on. At Edraak, I had the chance to practice what I learned, to explore many of these tools on a much larger scale, and in a real-world context. Working at Edraak has taught me to work much more efficiently, enhanced my problem-solving skills, and strengthened my ability to work with a team of other programmers. These are skills that I can also use in my career in the future, whether that is at Edraak itself or anywhere else. This experience has also renewed my passion to give back to my home country, and to work harder to help develop education there.
Of course, my enriching experience at Edraak wouldn’t have been possible were it not for a number of people. I must thank the team at Edraak for supporting me during my internship and teaching me all that I have learned there. I must also thank the ’68 Center for Career Exploration and the Class of 1972. It is their support and generosity that allowed me to pursue this internship have the enriching and fulfilling experience that I had at Edraak. It is also their contributions that allow Williams to be the school that it is and provide the support that it does, both on campus and beyond.
Megamenu Social