TC’s EdTech Innovation Award (INA) is a competition in which small teams of Teachers College students are challenged to design innovative educational technologies. This year, the Innovation Award theme was “Storytelling and the Design Journey,” which invited participants to incorporate storytelling and media in their design solutions. Throughout the competition process, students work with faculty researchers and mentors to learn how to design, develop, and test their ideas. At the end, final product prototypes are presented and judged during a culminating competition and showcase event. The judges for the 2023 Innovation Award were CEO and Founder of The Giant Room Dr. Azi Jamalian, Head of Partnerships for Neol Luisa Covaria, and Associate Professor of Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design Dr. Ioana Literat.
This year, Team Transcendence, who developed Project aMuse, won the 2023 Innovation Award. The team members are Jianan Liang, Dora Zhang, Shiyue Peng, Yolanda Xing, and Xichen Li. aMuse is a music-based journaling app that caters to music lovers and those seeking new creative outlets. It offers an alternative to traditional journaling that empowers users to express themselves and reflect via AI-assisted songwriting, sound collecting, remixing, and audio journaling.
Team Accessing Autism, who developed a project titled “Magical Girl Kato presents: Conquering Middle School!,” won the 2023 People’s Choice Award. This project was created by Daniel Hiterer, Zhanlan Wei, Mara Danoff, Janani Harinarayanan, and Yajuan Wu. Magical Girl Kato Presents: Conquering Middle School! is a social skills game designed to teach social skills to young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a fun and engaging way. This project was designed in close collaboration with autistic youth, ensuring that the game meets the needs and preferences of people with ASD.
The Innovation Awards showcase the learning, creativity, and skills gained from students’ time and efforts spent in the CMLTD Program and the MST Department. You can read more about the 2023 Innovation Award on their website and watch the full event on YouTube. We look forward to seeing what these TC students will do for the next steps of their app’s development.