Open Source for Education: Last Article
The Open Source for Education section of the Classroom Toolkit Newsletter has reached its "end of life" stage.
This is the last article in this series.
Open Source for Education will be replaced by a new article series, on "Professional Self-Improvement.""
Open Source for Education: High Value, Low Interest
Open Source for Education provides a high potential value for teachers, but there does not seem to be adequate interest for Classroom Toolkit to continue devoting the time in creating world-class newsletter articles. Instead, the topic will be relegated to our Blog when items of interest develop.
Saga of a Marketing Research Plan
We have been conducting marketing research for a Texas-based organization that we belong to, Strategic Open Source. This is a special interest group of the Texas Computer Educators Association (TCEA).
This group has experienced difficulty in expanding its membership base, and in "getting behind the need of marketing Open Source solutions to teachers." I pressed the group to begin a marketing campaign, but I was assigned to conduct the marketing research and report at a subsequent meeting.
Sidebar
This seems to be an issue of "Techie-Type" folks thinking that they know what teachers need.
Of course, educational research shows that instruction is the focus of teachers' needs, and that technology should be transparent, i.e., invisible to the teacher.
The reason that the Texas organization hasn't developed a marketing plan to reach teachers is that many members seem to cling to the idea that Open Source is a "Technology" issue.
That research leads me to believe that…
- Teachers don't care if products are Open Source, or not
- There is not enough teacher interest to warrant a separate article each month
- Teachers are concerned about instruction, not technology, and teachers don't care what company provides software, as long as the software is easy to use and solves their biggest headaches
- The Open Source movement of Classroom Toolkit is about freely available content, not software
Online Research
I completed some research before changing the focus of this section of our newsletter. What I found was that almost no one searches for Open Source software for Instruction .
Classroom Toolkit always supported the use of Open Source tools for Microsoft™ Windows to create modular (and interchangeable) learning materials. This would…
- Streamline teacher lesson planning and save time
- Shortcut the search for instructional activities, and save more time
- Provide a vehicle to train students in the use of visual learning components such as Graphics Organizers
Implications for Teachers
I created a Website presentation to communicate marketing principles to the Texas organization.
Sidebar
I didn't share the Website presentation because I realized that the marketing materials that I created were even better suited as a tutorial for teachers in using marketing strategies to increase students' motivation.
For a preview of what these instructions look like before they are converted to a teacher-centric format, visit…
Open Source Marketing Checklist
The basic tenets of marketing seem to be exactly what Master Teachers do as they get to know their students, and as they communicate in ways that make students eager to buy-in (learn) each lesson's content.
Eager to learn students are excited by teachers who implement the same principles as marketers.
Master Teachers are master marketers of the curriculum that they teach.
