I am part of and see daily the frustration that teachers have being bombarded with tools clearly untouched by teachers and where teachers have never been asked for their opinion and have certainly never been engaged or approached in the early development stage.
In response to this massive problem, I created a platform where EdTech developers can actually collaborate and share their products with our community of willing teachers. They get real time feedback and expert eyes on their products in the early stages. In your words, we hope that there will no longer be an excuse to not 'engage with teachers.' You can check out our site:
We have 500 teachers onboard and they are taking on paid jobs for the summer to Tinker with new tools and take part in meaningful interviews and user testing studies. Their input leads to iterations of Edtech products that meet real classroom needs and solve real problems. It is a lot of fun and rewarding to both sides of the community, both teachers and EdTech entrepreneurs.
At every edtech or digital learning meetup/conference my developer colleagues and I went to, it was all other developers, non-profits, and edtech startup people, but almost never any teachers. And yet, all of us were dying to connect with classroom instructors! We understood of course that teachers were super busy, but edtech is a two-way street. Teachers have to meet developers at least part of the way if they want edtech products to improve, right?
Anyway, I'm really thrilled that you're finding those teachers who are willing to give feedback and beta test and putting them in touch with developers. I wish this had been around a few years ago.
I have done lots of research in the field and found the 3 top 'no no's' and why the disconnect can still exist:
EdTech developers (not all) make the mistake of talking and forgetting to listen once they finally get in touch with a teacher.
Teachers are tired of being told "we have the BEST tool for ...." Let them make that judgement.
Giving teachers your sales pitch instead of a 2 way collaboration process.
I hope that with TinkerEd we will continue to narrow the gap. As you say it is a 2 way process and it is exciting to see some great advances from all parties.
"...both sides of the community, both teachers and EdTech entrepreneurs"
Aren't students part of this community? Are EdTech companies trying to solve problems for teachers, or for students?
Many schools make centralized decisions: you either sell the school board or the IT department or both. The people stuck with the decision aren't the people you need to convince for a conversion.
By the time teaching is happening, you are one level removed. By the time learning is happening (or not), you are two levels removed.
If I were being adversarial and trying to design a system to achieve suboptimal results, this is the sales and feedback channel I would set up.
This may be one of the most surprising innovations we've made at AltSchool; it's completely non-technical but running your own school lets you iterate on the metric that matters: learning.
"I was surprised how insightful my six year olds were." TinkerEd teacher.
"My students loved that they got to share their ideas with a developer, they thought it was really cool." TinkerEd teacher.
1) Don't know how to get it
2) Only get it from only a handful of teachers that don't represent a wide range of teacher interests
To be fair, I've seen the same problem in other industries too. In edtech, this problem is particularly noticeable because there's a new wave of edtech startups right now, driven by advances in web technology, decreased startup costs, and increased investor interest. This new wave has catapulted dozens upon dozens of new offerings, so it's very easy to get lost in the sea of choices.
If it makes you feel any better, since markets tend to be cyclical, this expansion will eventually collapse and consolidate into fewer choices, I'd imagine.
But back to edtech startups and teachers. It's hard for many founders to know how to find and engage with teachers meaningfully. Those that don't do it are doomed, IMO. For those that want to find out how, a handful of resources are rising up to fill this need, such as:
+ http://edtechhandbook.com/ - A collection of informational articles.
+ https://www.edsurge.com/summits - A series of conferences to bring teachers & startups together.
+ http://tinkered.co - A new teacher-created service to help startups employ teachers.
If anyone else knows of others, please share!
One way to get teacher engagement and feedback is to run your own schools, with your own teachers. Works like a charm.
Disclaimer: I work there.
It seems like if you build a school around these tools, it could work a lot better than bolting on to existing schools. In that sense, charter schools may be good for experimenting with technology.
The other observation - teachers are very busy. Each technology initiative takes time and attention. Reminds me of this Onion article. http://www.theonion.com/articles/magical-office-worker-able-...
(i'm not affiliated, but have been impressed by the founder. They are bootstrapped)
In my school we have an MIS that seems to have evolved from an Access Database created in the 90s, that manages all student data, but has no API. We also have a VLE that was designed to look pretty, but offers almost no functionality and has a UI that is tortuous to use and actually lengthens the time it takes to mark work and record results.
Every teacher I work with has a different way of operating. Some write assignments on the board and take in hard copies. Other's use the official VLE. Some use email or shared network drives, and others Edmodo or whatever platform is flavour of the month.
Work is marked and fed back to students, and then inevitable placed in an Excel spreadsheet, exported as a CSV or transcribed into a paper mark book, only then to be then double entered into our MIS at a later date.
The system is a mess, and every new Edtech tool I see just adds to the confusion - another URL to remember, another username, password, interface. I wonder how many Edtech startups have founders that were actual teachers, or bring teachers on board at an early stage. Judging by the tools on offer, I would guess that it's not many.
There are a couple of exceptions. EdX, I think, is an amazing platform, but even though it is OpenSource, it is well beyond the capabilities of most schools to set up an in-house platform. Codecademy seem to genuinely want to engage with teachers (in the UK at least) but where are the Codecademy startups for Geography or French or Science.
In my own teaching I find myself increasingly shunning new Edtech tools, and now barely bother clicking on the links I receive in my inbox every day. Until Edtech startups really engage with teachers, rather than just treating them as beta testers, I really don't see anything in the future other than increasing fragmentation and frustration.