Marketing Technologies in Public Schools*
The ways that high-tech vendors market their products just ain’t helping teachers.
Companies selling new hardware and software to K-12 schools—over $18 billion was spent in 2013– have three serious problems:
1. Determining who is the customer.
2. Ignoring how teachers and students use devices and software in real time.
3. Marketers hype claims for achieving student outcomes that few teachers believe.
Who is the customer?
Apple, Dell, and software firms have a hard time figuring out who their customers are. They want to have students and teachers use their products but few sales representatives ever talk or listen to teachers. Instead, most companies market their products to school district IT professionals, district office administrators, and superintendents. Why?
That is where the money is. School officers are the ones who recommend to
