How to Increase Adoption of your EdTech Product

Spoiler alert: I will not provide you with a quick-fix, step-by-step guide to increasing product adoption. There are many factors to consider and you will need to determine what will impact your product the most.

With the growth projected in educational technology (ed tech), the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI), and the feel-good mission of helping students succeed, new ed tech products are being introduced every day. You may think you have the best new product on the planet with plenty of positive educator feedback to validate your position and still struggle to get product adoption at scale. Maybe you’ve convinced schools or districts to purchase your product, but you don’t see the use within the district. As Digital Promise highlighted, an overwhelming selection of educational technology is available, so how can you ensure your product gets used after you get your foot in the door for a pilot? And how do you successfully grow beyond the pilot to full adoption across a school or district?

With funding sources tightening, it's more critical than ever for your product to be used to justify administrator budget approvals. There are plenty of sources for advice on increasing product adoption. They offer lists of headlines like “Align with Standards”, “Design for Accessibility”, and “Provide Support and Training”, but these are table-stakes requirements to sell - not advice for getting actual use once you've made that critical sale. Here I'm sharing my perspective on what you need to consider to make your product essential in the classroom.

First, it has to be easy to access for everyone, and I don’t mean easy for everyone to create their account and then get into the proper classes. Educational technology that is being used in a classroom needs to be set so that educators and students all have single-sign-on access to eliminate the need for educators to create accounts and deal with forgotten student passwords. Between 1EdTech OneRoster and 1EdTech Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) technology standards, there is no reason an educator should have to spend hours setting up accounts or trying to figure out student access. Single-sign-on access should be table stakes, but we aren’t there yet. Until we are, this is one way you can beat your competition.

Next, your user experience needs to consider all the users within an educational context. I have seen so many products that will focus on features administrators require to sell into a school or district and then take a train-the-trainer approach with educators, students, and their families. The experience for those users gets worse at every step further away from the focal point of the product design. Administrators will seek out educators who tend to be early adopters for a pilot and expect them to train other educators if the school moves forward with the product. Students are expected to figure it out since they are digital natives. Families are lucky if they get some sort of observer code to be able to log in with no other information about what they are logging into or how their experience is different from their students. If you want successful adoption and use of your product, my advice is to have a plan for every relevant user group that will interact with the product.

Families

If families are frustrated with the technology, it influences the students and they may also voice their frustration to educators and school boards.

• Will families interact with your product in any way, whether it's helping a student with homework, monitoring student progress, or as a primary user filling out school forms?
• How can you help those family members who may not use technology in their day-to-day lives feel confident using your product to support their student’s learning?

Don't leave onboarding family members to the teacher or the school - they have too many other priorities.

Students

If students have trouble with the technology, they complain to the educators and their parents and blame poor outcomes on the technology.

• How will you support students who need to learn using your product alongside many other ed tech products also in use in their classroom?
• What other products are they likely to be using with your product and are there opportunities for you to integrate experiences?
• How can you make it quick and easy for those students to find and complete the assignment for learning?

Trying to create a good user experience for students must factor in the other products their school is requiring them to use. Students may be digital natives, but they still get overloaded with so many different ways to do something. Keep their experience simple and easy to complete.

Educators

If educators don’t feel confident using the technology and it’s not making their lives easier while improving student outcomes, they won’t use it and administrators will drop your product.

• What is your professional development plan for educators?
• How will you ensure every eligible educator is trained and take the burden of training off the early adopters?

Teachers are introduced to so many different tools claiming to revolutionize learning in the classroom and help their students succeed. It is critical that your product not only live up to your claims but do so in a way that saves educators time so they can spend more time with their students.

Administrators

If administrators don’t see product use and can’t demonstrate product use to a school board, they may have to cut funding - even if they love your product.

• How can you proactively show administrators the use of your product in a format that presents well to a school board and parents?
• What can you do to help those administrators train new employees after product implementation or quickly onboard substitutes that need to use the product?

I bet this seems like a lot to consider and you may want or need to take some shortcuts while you are building your revenue base. After all, why is it important to address all of those users if an administrator is ultimately making the purchase decision?

Funding is tightening and products that are not being used will be cut from budgets. Since COVID-19, the use of ed tech comes with both positive and negative expectations that will need to be addressed in your product adoption planning. It is not enough to rely on innovators and early adopters to promote the use of your product. Tightening budgets means you have to get the conservative majorities and technology laggards to use your product. That means you have to make their lives easier. When students and families are happy and you reduce the administrative overhead of setting up your product, you’ve made the educator’s life easier. When happy educators are using the product their administrators can demonstrate usage to justify your product's cost and you retain your customers.

Need help improving the adoption of your ed tech product?

Reach out to Carrie Vail at CANYMA Consulting to schedule a time to talk.