What We Learned at Our First Teacher Conferences

This February marked an exciting milestone for us—Knoword’s first time attending a teacher conference! I had the pleasure of representing Knoword at two amazing events:

• Tapestry 2025 in Langford, BC
• CTA PD Day in Coquitlam, BC

These conferences gave us the chance to connect directly with educators, showcase what Knoword can do, and gather invaluable feedback.

Our exhibitor experience

At both conferences, we set up a Knoword booth where attendees could stop by, try the game firsthand, and learn more about how it works in the classroom. We came prepared with:

• A live demo station complete with keyboard and trackpad
• Stickers and t-shirts for attendees to take home
• Examples of printed worksheets and flashcards

The booth created a perfect space for conversations with educators. Many of the people we talked to were discovering Knoword for the first time. Getting to introduce Knoword to new teachers and watching their faces light up as they tried it was definitely a highlight.

🤗 A special thanks to Clara and Ben for joining me at both conferences. They helped run demos, chat with teachers, and made the booth feel welcoming. Having their support made our first exhibitor experience smoother and far more rewarding.

Conversations and feedback

The conversations we had were incredibly valuable. When you work on a product day in and day out, it’s easy to develop tunnel vision. These conferences offered a fresh perspective on what we’re building and who we’re building it for.

Some of the most common topics that came up in our discussions were:

Accessibility

Many teachers shared that their students use assistive technologies to help with learning:

• Text-to-speech features that read content aloud for students who struggle with reading
• Speech-to-text tools that help students input answers without typing

We’re excited to address these needs in our next big update with the introduction of audio clues! This feature will make Knoword more accessible to students with different learning styles and needs.

Pack duplication

One of the most requested features was the ability to duplicate someone else’s pack. We heard things like:

I love this pack, but I want to tweak it to better suit my class.

Can I use another teacher’s pack as a starting point?

Currently, users can only duplicate their own packs, but we heard you loud and clear. In our next release, you’ll be able to duplicate any public pack, making it easier to build on great content while tailoring it to your specific classroom needs.

Integration with other educational programs

We learned about some educational programs that teachers thought Knoword would complement beautifully:

• Heggerty (for developing early reading skills)
• JABC (focused on financial literacy)

Teachers suggested taking results from programs like Heggerty’s phonics assessments and feeding them into Knoword packs for additional practice. These insights opened our eyes to new possibilities for how Knoword can support broader educational goals.

Workshop at CTA Pro D Day

Beyond our exhibition booth, we also conducted a 90-minute hands-on workshop at the Coquitlam Teachers Association (CTA) Professional Development Day. This interactive session walked an audience of educators through Knoword’s key features:

• Creating and updating packs
• Adding different types of words and clues
• Exploring game modes and settings
• Creating and sharing assignments

One of the most fun parts was when we exchanged assignment codes and attendees got to play each other’s assignments. There’s nothing like seeing educators engage with the platform exactly as their students would!

We also demonstrated how to configure and download printable worksheets—a feature many teachers weren’t aware of but were excited to implement in their classrooms.

Feedback from the workshop

The workshop generated fantastic feedback that will directly impact our upcoming updates:

• Can we fit more words into a single worksheet page?

  This request is already being addressed in our next update with a new “compact” worksheet style that reduces spacing and font size to pack more questions and answers onto each page.

• We received questions about migrating from Quizlet to Knoword—a feature I was happy to demonstrate for an attendee who then used it to create their first pack during the workshop.

• Based on the workshop experience, we’re developing a comprehensive set of step-by-step guides that will cover the same material, making these skills accessible to all Knoword users.

Looking ahead

These conferences weren’t just about showcasing Knoword—they were about building relationships. We met wonderful educators and made valuable connections with local teachers, some of which have already resulted in future conference bookings and workshop dates.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be attending three more conferences in BC this May. We’re really excited for these opportunities to continue learning from educators and sharing all that Knoword has to offer. You’ll hear all about these events in a recap blog post coming later in May.

The feedback we received at these February conferences is already informing our next wave of updates, scheduled for release at the end of April. We’re working hard to make Knoword even better based on your suggestions, so stay tuned for those improvements.

—Trevor from Knoword