Digital Content Development

ePP is expert in all phases of content development from idea to ingestion.

Product Planning and Prototyping

ePP has partnered with some of the biggest names in education to plan and produce professional development courses to help educators around the world stay ahead of and on top of their ever-changing field. These images offer a glimpse into the first steps of producing a course: storyboarding (top row) and producing vibrant, engaging slides (bottom row) for a digital course.
ePP partnered with two non-profits to prototype, spec, write, and storyboard three lesson plans--including facilitator, teacher, and student content and multimedia--around a social and emotional learning (SEL) topic. Each lesson plan was customized for different age groups within elementary and lower middle grades.
ePP has partnered with some of the biggest names in education to plan and produce professional development courses to help educators around the world stay ahead of and on top of their ever-changing field. These images offer a glimpse into the first steps of producing a course: storyboarding (top row) and producing vibrant, engaging slides (bottom row) for a digital course.
ePP partnered with two non-profits to prototype, spec, write, and storyboard three lesson plans--including facilitator, teacher, and student content and multimedia--around a social and emotional learning (SEL) topic. Each lesson plan was customized for different age groups within elementary and lower middle grades.

Instructional Design

Our team proposed an instructional design for a brand new professional development product. We were guided by our philosophy that instructors are also learners and that they benefit from the same principles and strategies as students. As part of the same effort, we created wireframes and developed accompanying content.
ePP created this interactive for a professional development course aimed at helping educators better understand how to best set up and utilize the classroom space to maximize student learning, engagement, and collaboration. In this interactive, the user must arrange students’ desks to best support a chosen activity or lesson.
Our math team recognized a gap in parents’ familiarity with the Common Core standards that was leading to frustration at homework time. We took this hot-button math concept from brainstorm to final video as part of our education Positive Project initiative.
Our team proposed an instructional design for a brand new professional development product. We were guided by our philosophy that instructors are also learners and that they benefit from the same principles and strategies as students. As part of the same effort, we created wireframes and developed accompanying content.
ePP created this interactive for a professional development course aimed at helping educators better understand how to best set up and utilize the classroom space to maximize student learning, engagement, and collaboration. In this interactive, the user must arrange students’ desks to best support a chosen activity or lesson.

Blueprinting and Roadmapping

In our experience, the first step to creating a successful digital course is to create a roadmap. This might include learning objective development, content outline, and draft art and media specifications. This particular example is for a virtual PD course.
Our client asked us to map existing CCSS Learnosity K–12 math assessment items to the new FL B.E.S.T. standards and then to blueprint new item sets to fill in gaps. We blueprinted both to the standards and content constraints, as well as the client's core course content.
In our experience, the first step to creating a successful digital course is to create a roadmap. This might include learning objective development, content outline, and draft art and media specifications. This particular example is for a virtual PD course.
Our client asked us to map existing CCSS Learnosity K–12 math assessment items to the new FL B.E.S.T. standards and then to blueprint new item sets to fill in gaps. We blueprinted both to the standards and content constraints, as well as the client's core course content.

Writing, Including Assessment, Student- and Teacher-facing Content, and Professional Development

We have experience blueprinting and writing practice tests for the AP Exam and ACT Test for ELA, reading, writing, math, science, literature & composition, and history. This includes sourcing and writing new passages and data; speccing and creating images; and writing student- and teacher-facing rationales and explanations.
We have been curating educational virtual and augmented reality content since 2015. Our storyboarding tasks have included speccing new panoramic images; searching Google Street View for existing images; selecting points of interest on each panorama; writing descriptions of each panorama and associated points of interest; and writing leveled assessment questions.
When it comes to authoring algorithmic items, our team knows when it’s appropriate to iterate a variable and how to meticulously define related variables in an item across the stem, answer choices, and feedback to prevent the item from generating a set of impossible or otherwise undesirable values. This is the student view of an algorithmic math item we authored in ExamView.
ePP believes that learning is a lifelong journey. While ePP’s main focus is on educational materials for grades K–12, we also have vast experience planning and producing professional development aimed at helping educators become the best they can be. Here’s part of a storyboard we authored for a course about differentiated instruction.
We have written tech-enhanced ELA and math items in a variety of platforms for both SBAC and PARCC. Because high-stakes items are strictly confidential, this image is a published sample item from Grade 7 Math.
Our client asked us to do a cold solve of all of their online math curriculum materials to ensure mathematical accuracy of answers, explanations, and stepped-out examples. This is one of the annotated answer keys that we reviewed and updated as necessary.
ePP has partnered with many clients to help plan, author, and refine professional development courses for educational professionals. We have been tasked with taking existing face-to-face courses and transforming them into lively, engaging digital courses. Here is an example of a storyboard of one such project.
As part of our work developing Grades K–1 interactive math instruction, we created digital versions of print practice items. This is the storyboard for one practice item, including all item text; sample answers or scoring formulas; alt text; audio scripts; metadata, including target standards, DOK, and difficulty level; art and interactivity specs and scrap; and file names and art codes.
ePP was asked to spec, storyboard, and produce a proof-of-concept short, engaging, topic-specific live action video for high school ELA. It became apparent that full live action was not going to be possible within the client’s budget for the entire project, so we created this video that has a live action feel on an animation budget.
We partnered with this client to reimagine a Grades K–1 print math program for online use, which was particularly challenging given the limited dexterity and digital fluency of that age group. This is the storyboard for one lesson, which contains all instruction; audio scripts; metadata including target standards, DOK, and difficulty level; art and interactivity specs and scrap; and file names and art codes.
We have experience blueprinting and writing practice tests for the AP Exam and ACT Test for ELA, reading, writing, math, science, literature & composition, and history. This includes sourcing and writing new passages and data; speccing and creating images; and writing student- and teacher-facing rationales and explanations.
We have been curating educational virtual and augmented reality content since 2015. Our storyboarding tasks have included speccing new panoramic images; searching Google Street View for existing images; selecting points of interest on each panorama; writing descriptions of each panorama and associated points of interest; and writing leveled assessment questions.

Accessibility, Including Alt Text, Long Description, Closed Caption Review, and Audio and Visual Description

As with static alt text, subject matter and pedagogical expertise are critical when crafting audio and visual description. In addition to considering the unique purpose and context of each video, it is crucial to consider cognitive load and the use case of each type of description.
We have extensive experience developing alt text and long descriptions for images to support visually impaired learners in all grades and disciplines. As always, we took special care when developing this elementary reading content to consider the grade level and vocabulary comprehension of the target student audience.
After our client had approved the alt text, long descriptions, and null attributes our team had developed, we authored that content in our client's proprietary LMS. Then we QA-ed each element by proofreading and using a screen reader program we know is commonly used in schools to confirm the desired output.
For this project, our math team reviewed a high school math ePub and, based on our experience and WCAG guidance, we evaluated the context and purpose of each image to identify whether it needed alt text. We then developed alt text and long descriptions in a spreadsheet, which was our client’s preferred format.
Subject matter and pedagogical expertise are critical when crafting a description of the image for learners to envision in their mind. In addition to considering the unique purpose and context of each image, it is crucial to consider the diverse spectrum of seen experience. For example, we would be doing learners a disservice by assuming they've seen dice, and so our visual storytelling requires thoughtful groundwork.
As with static alt text, subject matter and pedagogical expertise are critical when crafting audio and visual description. In addition to considering the unique purpose and context of each video, it is crucial to consider cognitive load and the use case of each type of description.
We have extensive experience developing alt text and long descriptions for images to support visually impaired learners in all grades and disciplines. As always, we took special care when developing this elementary reading content to consider the grade level and vocabulary comprehension of the target student audience.

Alignments, Crosswalks, and Gap Analyses

Our client asked us to perform a gap analysis for Texas on an existing National digital science course to determine where coverage was lacking. Once we identified gaps, we outlined, specced, and storyboarded new digital learning objects to fill them.
Our client asked us to analyze the K–12 ELA and math standards of 23 states and to use the data to create a proprietary skills hierarchy for each discipline and grade for their internal use tagging assets. This is one of our working spreadsheets, which we used to create global strands and skills tagged back to individual state standards.
This client needed to crosswalk individual standards to their own proprietary skills hierarchy so that the assets currently tagged to standards would inherit the skill alignments. This spreadsheet created the alignments in the platform.
This client created an innovative career-based middle school math program and asked our team to collaborate with them on content blueprinting. Our math team assigned each unit to a real-world career cluster that was applicable to the math in each lesson, correlated career clusters to modules across the grades, and ensured full coverage of CCSS via the proprietary learning objectives.
Our client asked us to perform a gap analysis for Texas on an existing National digital science course to determine where coverage was lacking. Once we identified gaps, we outlined, specced, and storyboarded new digital learning objects to fill them.
Our client asked us to analyze the K–12 ELA and math standards of 23 states and to use the data to create a proprietary skills hierarchy for each discipline and grade for their internal use tagging assets. This is one of our working spreadsheets, which we used to create global strands and skills tagged back to individual state standards.