If you’re thinking about leaving the classroom at the end of this year, here’s how to use the time ahead of you to show EdTech leadership at your school! This will prepare you for the job search by exposing you to interesting products and companies and giving you valuable experience to put on your resumé.
Since teachers notoriously underplay their own accomplishments, it’s very possible you’re already showing examples of EdTech leadership. Have you…
- Identified a problem in your classroom, searched for products that might help, and tried those products with your students?
- Seen tangible results after implementing a tool (anything from increased attendance to parent engagement to homework completion)?
- Attended conferences (virtual or in-person) to learn more about trends in education technology, and approached your own instruction differently as a result?
- Participated in a grade level, school, or district-wide committee that reviewed, chose, or evaluated new EdTech tools?
- Informally helped other teachers get value out of a tool you love, or led a more formal professional development session to demonstrate how you use a certain tool in your classroom?
If you have: put those examples on your resumé and tell those stories in your interviews!
For example: “I noticed my students weren’t participating as consistently during virtual learning, and evaluated three different tools to help me increase sharing. I eventually settled on Flipgrid, which allowed me to increase participation from <50% to 80% during virtual lessons. I shared my experience with three other teachers who gave the tool a try in their classrooms, as well.” Boom — that’s EdTech leadership!
If you haven’t: that’s totally fine. Everyone starts somewhere; I didn’t use much technology at all when I was in the classroom, and had a bit more catching up to do when applying for jobs.
Regardless, it will benefit you to “go deep” with one company this month. Let’s say you’re already a fan of an EdTech tool called Frickle (not to be confused with my own product, Freckle, of course). How might you let Frickle know you’d be a great asset to their company without literally telling them to hire you?One strategy is to provide value to their team by reaching out with precise and thoughtful product feedback.
Before reaching out:
- Use Frickle with your students each week & develop real routinesso that you are intimately familiar with the software (you can’t skip this step! Again, your EdTech job search starts with becoming an avid EdTech user).
- Follow Frickle on social media. Most EdTech companies have blogs, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn profiles, and Facebook groups. Joining these communities can help you learn more about the company’s goals & priorities and give you more avenues to talk to people who work there.
- Find a teacher (or several teachers) who haven’tused Frickle and offer to help them get started. While you’re creating an account together and walking through the basics of the platform, note any points of friction (e.g. “took too long to upload all students,” or “wanted a way to assign more specific skills”). Why? This gives you firsthand exposure to two important EdTech jobs: user research (where the design team identifies problems and opportunities by talking to real teachers), and professional development (where trainers facilitate onboarding sessions to help teachers get value out of the product. It also helps you compose a precise and thoughtful feedback email that incorporates perspectives beyond your own, which is unusual and impressive!
Now you’re ready to follow up with product feedback. You can write directly to the company’s support line or your account manager if your school is a paying customer. Some principles to keep in mind when writing an email:
- Share how the tool has benefited your classroom. People who work at EdTech companies don’t get to watch students using their products as often as we’d like to. Most of us are suckers for praise (honestly, who isn’t?) and love hearing that our work is making a real difference for teachers.
- Frame your feedback in terms of problems, not solutions. As this helpful EdSurge guide explains, “Asking for a specific feature request can lead to a very short conversation, as it puts the company in a situation to give one of three curt answers: yes, no, or not now.” Instead of describing the features you want, practice describing the problems you have. For example, instead of: “Can you add a timer to fact fluency practice?” Try: “I can’t tell how long it takes my students to answer each question, so I’m not sure if they are actually fluent — because of this, I don’t use your weekly reports.”
- Make your feedback actionable with visuals or specific examples. You can include a video to illustrate a flow you find confusing, name competitors who do a better job solving the problem you’ve identified (this doesn’t hurt our feelings — it motivates us to do better), or include pictures of your own resources (like a graphic organizer or tracker) that you made in order to compensate for something that’s missing in the product itself.
- Offer your time at the end of the email. 9 out of 10 EdTech companies will champ at the bit to interview a thoughtful teacher about their experience using their product (if they don’t, they’re probably not the best company to work for anyway!) Like Dan explained above, giving feedback in-person or over the phone has two benefits: you build a relationship with someone at the company and demystify how EdTech companies make decisions in general.
Remember you’re playing the long game — sending thoughtful feedback to companies you love is not a strategy for getting a job overnight, but it will absolutely benefit you in the long run.