When it comes to being a supplier in the EdTech industry, creating a great product is just one part of the mission. In order to succeed on the mission with your product, schools also need to be able to find it, purchase it and get it into the hands of teachers and students.

That’s just part of what we do at Skolon with our partners, and our partnership with Sountrap is no exception. Read on to find out how Skolon and Sountrap work together to explore how a well-rounded, connected digital ecosystem can make the procurement process easier and help creativity reach even more classrooms.

A brilliant digital learning tool can still face certain barriers before it can ever reach a classroom, with issues such as long-winded purchasing processes, separate logins and the difficulty many face when it comes to rolling out technology across multiple schools, thus making adoption harder than it needs to be.

For Soundtrap, a collaborative music and creativity platform, making creativity accessible has always been absolutely integral to its work, and by partnering with Skolon, we tackle some of those practical challenges, with Angelica Bolle from Soundtrap explaining that the two companies share a common goal.

“We want to make sure that creativity is easy and accessible in the classroom, with Skolon, I feel like you want to make the whole experience easy and accessible as well – the purchasing, the logging in and everything.”

Removing barriers between great tools and the classroom

In the digital world we live in, schools are of course using an ever-growing range of digital tools, often across different systems and providers.
For partners, that can frustratingly mean their product is one of many competing for attention, while schools have to navigate separate purchasing and access processes.

Skolon helps to collate these tools into one connected ecosystem; enabling the discovery and purchase of digital learning resources, with integrated access that makes it easier for teachers and students to get started.

For partners such as Soundtrap, this means less friction around the practicalities of getting a tool into schools, with the ability to work within an established ecosystem and focus on what their product does best.

“We don’t want to add administration to schools, districts or municipalities. We want to alleviate that,” says Angelica.

“It’s so good with Skolon because you fixed that for us so we can really focus on what we do best, which is bring creativity to the classroom.”

That mutual view benefits everyone involved – schools get a simpler way to access digital tools, teachers spend less time dealing with logins and administration, and suppliers can make their products easier to adopt.

From easier access to wider reach

It goes without saying but making a tool easier to access is important, but understanding how it is being used matters too.

For suppliers, visibility into adoption across schools and organisations can help to actually demonstrate the value of their product, in addition to giving education leaders a clearer picture of the tools already being used across their schools.

Angelica explains that this has been particularly valuable for Soundtrap in Scandinavia. Although the company has a strong presence in creative learning, those working in IT and digital strategy may not always see what is happening in individual classrooms.

“We have 15% of the market here in Sweden, but the IT coordinators don’t necessarily know that because they’re not in the classroom every day,” she explains.

The partnership is also helping Soundtrap turn easier access into tangible sales growth. With framework agreements in place through Skolon, purchasing can become a smoother process for schools and suppliers alike. Since starting to sell through Skolon, Soundtrap has seen a 30% increase in sales in the City of Stockholm, Sweden’s largest municipality.

Through Skolon, that activity becomes easier to see.

As Angelica describes it, education leaders can get an overview of the schools using Soundtrap and how it is being used in practice.

This visibility helps connect classroom use with wider digital strategy, giving schools a better understanding of adoption across their organisation.

While growth looks different in every market, reducing barriers to access and making usage more visible can help our partners demonstrate value and support further adoption.

A partnership built for international markets

Of course, expanding into new markets brings its own challenges. There are different education systems, purchasing processes and priorities between countries and even between regions within the same country.

For partners, understanding those nuances takes time. A product that works well in one market may need a different approach to reach schools in another.
Angelica sees this as one of the reasons the partnership works well internationally.

“What I see as a big problem internationally is the decentralisation of EdTech tools and technology in schools,” she says. “It’s great when you’re sort of the first layer of consolidating everything and then we come in as a creative tool and can really just focus on that.”

By helping schools collate their digital tools, Skolon provides a foundation on which partners can build upon, while schools benefit from a more cohesive and direct way to access and manage their digital resources.

Better connected, better placed to grow

For Soundtrap, our partnership is about more than just making a product available. It’s about making creativity easier to bring into the classroom, without adding unnecessary complexity for schools.

As Soundtrap continues to develop its offering across music, podcasting and video creation, that ease of accessibility becomes even more important.

Ultimately, successful EdTech partnerships work when both sides bring something valuable to the table. Partners bring tools that support teaching and learning; and at Skolon, we help our partners connect those tools to the schools and learners who can benefit from them.

As Angelica puts it, success will come when more of the education sector understands “the reason behind adopting more creative tools” and “why having everything in one ecosystem is so important”.

Ready to bring Soundtrap into your classrooms?

Try, test and buy Soundtrap in the Skolon Store today using the button below.

Not a Skolon customer yet?

This is Skolon – we gather the best digital educational tools and make them work in the classroom.

Skolon is an independent platform for digital educational tools and learning resources, created for both teachers and students. With Skolon, accessing and using your digital educational tools is easy – security increases, administration decreases, and there’s more time for learning.

The digital educational tools come from both small and large providers, all of whom have one thing in common – they create digital educational tools that are beneficial for the school environment.