Over the past couple of years, I have been embedding myself further and further into three communities that remain separate: language learning, edtech, and startups. And one word that is becoming more and more integral in all three communities is innovation in education.
But what is innovation?
Do people actually want innovation?
Or is innovation something people just like to talk about?
For as long as we have been building AIR Language, we have had this in mind: to build a simple way for language learning to happen in the classroom for every student--those below and above the average.
We started by establishing a few base principles:
1) We make the biggest gains in language by reading.
2) Students should talk about what they have been reading.
3) Students should have a say about what they learn.
And it is by these three principles that we have built AIR Language. But the innovative solution we are seeking isn’t just about fancy new technology or buzzwords. It’s about reimagining how these principles come to life in practical, meaningful ways. At AIR Language, innovation isn’t driven by trends—it’s driven by purpose: how can we make learning better and more accessible?
And how can we use the input from our students and teachers to make what we have, even better?
Giving Students a Voice
Many education platforms provide content to students. We aim to flip that script by creating space for students to take ownership of their learning. Through features like student self-assessment and independent reading conferences, AIR Language helps students reflect, articulate, and grow at their own pace. Innovation here isn’t about control—it’s about empowerment.
So, what do we think innovation is? It’s not a shiny product or a catchy idea. Innovation is an ongoing conversation—a way of thinking that focuses on what truly works for students, teachers, and classrooms, a way for companies like AIR Language to get to know what students, teachers, and schools want and need, and build accordingly. At AIR Language, innovation is baked into everything we do because we know that real change happens through thoughtful action, not empty rhetoric.
We’re not here to disrupt education for the sake of it. We’re here to build solutions that last.
The truth: innovation is a trade off.
Innovation is fun. We can all remember a time when we bought that one thing that changed our lives--made our lives easier. I remember getting bluetooth in my car and listening to anything I wanted while driving. Life got a little bit better that day.
But innovation is also frustrating. I remember, in the same car, not being able to connect my phone for no apparent reason one day. I had to take my car back to the dealership for a few hours to download an upgrade after just a few months.
The truth is that innovation is a convenience and a struggle at the same time. We love our newfound capabilities, but when an error appears, we wish we never made the switch to begin with.
I have a different idea, though. In the software startup world, there is this idea of building as simple of a product as possible. Then, through feedback, iterating on top of that. And it's from this process that I want to press upon you a simple truth about life: we need inconvenience to innovate.
Without inconvenience, we don't progress. The birth of a product comes from the realization of a problem. We build when we are in trouble. And it doesn't stop there, no, as we create our new things, we encounter new problems, by which we have to innovate in order to solve. Don't you see? Our frustrations make our lives easier. Eventually.
This is the beauty of innovation, and the real reason for it's value in the classrom: when we use a product like AIR Language, and we encounter a glitch or something difficult, we get to tell the engineers, and they get to solve the problem in such a way as to fit our needs--not the needs of someone else, but our needs. This means, when they solve the problem, we reep the benefits directly. So, while we experience the frustration of broken parts, we also experience the satisfaction of a product, tailor-fitted to the problems we need to solve.
Care to be part of AIR Language as we innovate to create a new, more effective language classroom with your challenges in mind?
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