November 2001 — Industry Perspective
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Learning From Teachers Beyond the Classroom
- Publisher Relations. As technology became established, educators selecting textbooks looked for integration of technology. Authors and publishers asked us for support, and we responded generously with samples, technical support and advance information about new products. Textbook authors are some of our most important advisors.
Compared to other markets for electronic products, teachers require a broader array of support components. Teachers are also more willing to accept any support they can get. We recently started targeted e-mail newsletters with some hesitation, knowing that recipients can often be offended by unsolicited e-mail. We were very careful to provide a mix of useful teaching information along with new product announcements. We were pleased and surprised to get many more requests from teachers wanting to be added to our mailing lists than wanting to be removed.
For Professional Development, we firmly feel that Internet-delivered courses cannot replace most face-to-face training sessions. However, we see great potential for using the Internet as one medium in a systemic, long-term professional development plan. Short, online sessions can be used to reinforce topics learned in face-to-face training, as well as be used to introduce new material and teaching strategies. Mentoring by expert teachers can likely be done via the Internet in some cases.
While supplementary materials are most useful on paper, we see potential advantages to using the Internet. We are currently developing a Web-based resource where a teacher can select the specific textbook, specify the current chapter and section, and be shown a list of appropriate activities for that specific topic using TI technology. The Internet allows continual updates of this resource to be immediately available to teachers. While that has appeal, we have received opinions that it won't be used unless it is on paper or perhaps CD.
Lessons Learned
We also learned some other lessons in our transition from consumer electronics to educational technology. New products usually drive success in consumer electronics, and those are the items that get publicity and placement in retail stores. Products that have been around for a couple years are generally considered obsolete. Becoming successful in educational technology means fighting these almost-visceral cultural norms. Teachers were asking us to promise that our product would be around, basically unchanged, for at least five years. Since our products are often recommended by teachers and purchased by students at retail stores, we had to spend years re-educating people inside TI and our resellers.
We found that standards of durability for consumer electronics products are often not a match for the demands of classroom and student use. School experiments with notebook computers and PDAs are highlighting the durability issues when moving products developed for the business environment into schools. We learned that very early on with some of our first products and dramatically raised our qualification tests. While the tests are scientific and repeatable, we jokingly call them the backpack tests - simulating dropping a backpack with a bunch of books and our product to the floor.
While this attention to the customer probably seems obvious, we have found there are still challenges along the way:
