According to founder and CEO Jared Schiffman, the new platform is designed “for digital natives by digital natives” and includes a collection of STEM lessons created by users for students and teachers to incorporate into classroom instruction.
The announcement said the collection currently contains nearly 100 activities across math, physics, chemistry, biology and music. It added that the collection and depth of lessons will grow as more users join Phenomena.
“It’s a space where the mind’s eye meets the creator’s hand — where students learn by exploring and experimenting with dynamic interactive experiences,” Schiffman said in a press release.
The release of the new platform comes amid the recent release of other new ed-tech tools created to allow users to design their own lessons, and as schools adopt digital learning platforms to increase student engagement, boost participation and combat learning lossexacerbated by the pandemic.
Schiffman said in the announcement the idea is to help meet students where they are. He believes visual communication is the baseline for “digitally native” students of the current generation, “who consume gigabytes of visual media every day.”
“Our visual, interactive approach serves two learning goals — it engages a wide range of students, and it successfully conveys concepts that otherwise seem out of reach,” he said in the announcement.
“Phenomena is a marketplace for digital learning experiences. Ultimately, for each concept, there will be a plethora of experiences made by different creators with distinct perspectives, and the best ones will rise to the top,” added Schiffman. “And unlike iOS or Android apps, which take weeks or months to build, these experiences can be created in a day or two with the Phenomena Creator Tool.”
