Edtech Insiders
Edtech Insiders
Making the Leap from Teaching to Edtech with Eva Brown
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Eva Brown is the author of “The Next Right Step: From Teaching to Edtech”. Eva was a classroom teacher for many years before transitioning into Edtech with Scholastic, HMH and now at Formative. Eva runs a consultancy at Eva Brown Consulting to help transitioning teachers take the next right step in their careers.
Recommended Resources for Transitioning Teachers
- Jeff Patterson, CEO of gaggle shares weekly lists of edtech job openings.
- Linkedin Learning Courses on Edtech (such as this or this)
- Coursera courses on online learning (such as this, this or this)
- HolonIQ's overview of Edtech and their 2021 Global Learning Landscape
Edtech Job Boards
Welcome to Ed Tech insiders. In this podcast we talk to educators and educational technology investors, thought leaders, founders and operators about the most interesting and exciting trends in the field. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an educational technology veteran with over a decade of work at leading edtech companies. Today's episode of edtech insiders, our guest is Eva Brown, client success manager at formative and author of the next right step from teaching to EdTech. Eva was an elementary school teacher and literacy coach for 15 years before breaking into edtech first at Scholastic, then at Hmh, and most recently at formative and educator first learning platform that integrates existing LMS and teaching tools in order to transform traditional lessons into formative learning opportunities. After receiving many requests from teachers about how to transition from teaching to EdTech, Eva authored a brand new book about this topic called the next right step from teaching to EdTech, in which she provides actionable advice for teachers who are looking to leave the classroom and join the burgeoning edtech field. Eva Brown, welcome to Tech insiders.
Eva Brown:Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.
Alexander Sarlin:So walk us through your personal journey from teaching in the classroom to EdTech. And give us a little bit of the overview of what inspired you to write this book.
Eva Brown:Well, that's it like three stories in one, I never plan to leave the classroom. So I was not a teacher who was looking to move into edtech. I love teaching from as far back as I can remember, I've wanted to be a teacher. And so the first decade of my career was spent in the classroom first at the elementary level than at the middle school level. And then I pursued a master's degree in teaching reading. And with that, I became a literacy coach in my school district here in Florida. And it was actually in that role that a lot of doors started to open that I wasn't anticipating searching for, I kind of look back on that time and consider that my best career move ever. It was not something that I thought, but when I became a district, first a coach in the district, and then at a school, I began to network with people in the district, and got to know things about the way districts run. And I got to know leaders in the district. And I learned more during that time than I had learned in my previous eight years in my classroom. So getting to know people in the district ended up being a really big break for me, because somebody in the district was then hired by one of the big five ad publishing companies. I had known her for quite a while and had worked with her and she recruited me, she called me up one day and said, Let's go to coffee. And she sat me down and she said, Listen, you know a lot about teaching literacy. I'd really like for you to come train some teachers when you can on this one product that we offer for middle school teachers teaching reading. And so I started doing that as a side job. And so for a while in my life, I was doing two jobs at once I was working in the district as a coach and then working with scholastic at the time, when my husband graduated from his studies here in Florida, I thought that I was going to be moving we thought we were going to be leaving the area. And so at that point in my career, I made a decision to quit one of those two part time jobs and go with one of them full time and I went with scholastic because I knew I could go anywhere in the world with that. Now, we didn't end up leaving Florida. But that one part time job that I took with scholastic ended up taking off. And for the next 10 years, I worked for Scholastic, and then for one of the other companies Hmh, one of the other big five publishing companies doing consulting for teachers, and during COVID, as so many people around the world experienced, schools shut down, and therefore there was no need for consultants to go in the schools. So there were 1000s of people in the EdTech industry and publishing laid off during that 2020 year. And I was one of them. And that's when I spent four months searching for a new position, which surprised me because I had so much experience, but the market was just saturated. So it took four months to find a position and finally I did find a position with my new company formative I love them as a company I can tell you more about them in a bit but you know is that process that led me to write the book because right after I got my new job, teachers I'd never met before began reaching out to me on LinkedIn and saying, I've been trying for months. How did you make This happened, what did you do? And I have always been a teacher at heart. When I see a moment to teach, I can't ignore it. So I said, Well, let's jump on a webinar and talk about it. And as they started asking questions, I realized I had more information than I realized I had had that I could share with them. And so that's when it became pretty clear that there was enough there for me to share when what I thought would be a 30 minute session turned into an hour and then into an hour and a half. And then there was more that I could still say, it turned into the next right step. And so that's, that's how I ended up writing the book.
Alexander Sarlin:That's fantastic. So it sounds like your personal story came from sort of zooming out, understanding the school system at a sort of broader level. So thinking about how the district work and how the different parts of the school work together, networking with people inside and out of the school, and that sort of laid the groundwork to make this move with a colleague from the profession?
Eva Brown:Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing that teachers experienced that is different than a lot of the rest of the world is that, you know, for much of the day in a school teachers are in their own room, usually their own room, they may have a co teacher, but it's usually their own space. And you know, they may collaborate during a professional learning community or something like that. They don't often have the opportunity to really network within their own district outside of their school building. And I think having that opportunity for me really paved the way for some of the future things that I was able to do, because it gave me a different perspective and a different understanding than I would have had if I just stayed in the classroom.
Alexander Sarlin:Yeah, so we can dive into some of the advice around networking and how teachers can get that kind of bird's eye view. But I would like to ask you about formative formative is a really interesting edtech company, that sort of it's catchphrases built by teachers, for teachers. So it's specifically really about empowering educators. Tell us a little bit about formative,
Eva Brown:yeah, formative is such a great company to work for. And I love that tagline. It's actually true, it was built by a teacher, our co founder, Craig Jones, is a former middle school teacher. And when he was teaching his struggling students in California, he was looking for a platform or a way to really track everything they did to the standards that he was trying to teach, and use that data right in the moment to make instructional decisions. And of course, nothing like that existed at the time. So he actually started creating things on Excel spreadsheets, and you know, tracking every single one of his students on every single assignment and looking at how they were doing on the standards. And what he found was that by doing that, spending so much of his time tracking them, he was able to have incredible gains with his students that year, the students who were in the bottom quartile who were not expected to pass the grade level science test that they had that year, I don't want to say I but I'm gonna say that I think it he says it's 80 to 85% of them, it may even be higher, so I might be low balling, but 85% of them then passed that test. And he saw the beauty of using formative data in the moment of struggle. And so that's where he was able to create this idea for a platform. And what formative does is it allows teachers to close that feedback loop, teachers are able to see student data coming in live as they're answering, they're able before a student even submits an assignment to give that student feedback, catch them in that moment of struggle, help them through it, they're able to do that privately so that the other classmates don't know, which I love. Because, you know, when you think about a middle school, or high school, or social emotional learning, they're not going to raise their hand and ask for help. But if the teacher can see that they need help, and can provide that help in an anonymous way, it really is a very powerful tool. And so I love it. It's it's a great you know, as a former teacher, I love that the way it's built saves teachers so much time, it does so much for the teachers to be able to meet the needs of their students while also saving time for themselves.
Alexander Sarlin:You know, as an instructional designer myself, I've always thought that formative assessment is one of the most underrated and powerful tools in the educators toolbox. And it sounds like formative just makes it easier for teachers to see that data coming in as well as private and actionable. So that's exactly the type of product that teachers could use. Yeah, class to our students and differentiate learning. So, you know, this is such a strange moment for edtech and for the teaching profession, and you mentioned that, you know, these last years for the pandemic actually had a lot of layoffs even in the EdTech sector because anybody Who worked within the school system from edtech? You know, there was a lot of disruption. I wanted to focus on partially on what was happening in the classroom over these last couple of years, because it's been such an enormous disruption. So tell us a little bit about, you know, you've been talking to teachers for a while, what are the main reasons that you see that teachers want to leave the classroom as a follow up, you know, how has the pandemic sort of accelerated or change those reasons?
Eva Brown:Oh, yeah, this, of course, is going to vary by teacher. But the reasons that I'm hearing over and over and over number one is exhaustion, teachers are faced with an incredible amount of stress, perceived low pay, which we can talk about a little bit, that word perceived, but you know, lower pay, and the unrealistic expectations placed on them by society. And what I mean by that is, you know, teachers are constantly being given more to do without more time, there are new standards, more standards, new platforms, new expectations that the students have to meet the day doesn't get longer the week doesn't get longer, their planning time doesn't get longer. And the burnout that they're experiencing is real, there is just so much, that's the rest on them all the time. And that change is constant. You know, we here in Florida, where I live, just in the past decade, I think the standards have changed, I think four times in the past 10 to 15 years that I've been here. So just as a teacher is learning and mastering something, everything changes again, and they're not given time to really learn and focus and become an expert in those things. You know, they're given that, depending on the grade level they teach, they might have 25 minutes a day, they might have 45 minutes every other day to plan or, but that's not quite enough time to do everything that they need to do. And teachers are. By nature, I think teachers are perfectionist, they care about their students, they want to do what is right for them, and not being able to, is really painful for them. And so I think that's some of the biggest difficulties that they are facing. And as the way the pandemic affected this, one teacher, friend of mine recently shared that this year actually, is the hardest year she has ever experienced in 20 years of teaching, even harder than it was in 2020. And that, you know, the end of 2020, when we all lost the fourth quarter. And you know, all of those, all of that was very difficult. But she said this year is harder than even those were because there are so many interruptions happening all the time. There are teachers who are being they now have students in the classroom, but they still have students who are quarantining, who are joining from home, sometimes their class sizes have doubled, they may have 28 in the classroom, but they're also being told to pay attention to 1015 20 more online. On top of that, you add in the swelling, mental health crisis that the pandemic brought about. And we don't have anywhere near enough mental health counselors and our students have had a year of trauma really, and so and difficulty and the teachers have to and so there's, there's that aspect. And then the other thing that she shared with me, which I thought was really interesting was that this year away from school for students has made it really hard for them to be motivated. Again, they had kind of a year, they didn't have a year off. But it was almost like they had a lot of breaks in the last year, a lot of free passes in a way. And now this return to what's supposed to be normal is hard, because they just can't summon up the motivation to do some of the things especially at the secondary levels that they know they need to do. And I think that plays right into the mental health aspect of things. So I think the pandemic affected it in that way, just by all of the changes that are happening so quickly now for teachers.
Alexander Sarlin:So there were sort of pre existing stressors for teachers not having enough time perceived low pay, burnout, or expectations that were not realistic. And then the pandemic added all these twists that just made that three times harder, and you know, even less time even more students even more change coming.
Eva Brown:Right. Yeah. And a lot of schools do not have you know, I think one thing I see with that ad tech industry is sometimes the ad tech industry is not fully aware that the schools themselves are not as technologically adept as we would want them to be. So the technology is often ahead of where that schools are with their technological capabilities, and also where teachers might be. And so you know, you have very tech savvy teachers, of course, but you also have teachers who are really struggling with that technology. And so it's really hard for teachers to know how to navigate and also try to figure out how they're going to be evaluated. In this new normal that they have,
Alexander Sarlin:yeah, I think the ad tech industry means very well, sometimes it overestimates the will and the ability of entire schools to sort of suddenly implement a new platform or a new schedule or a new tool, you know, they often realize the hard way that you need a lot of, you know, training and Customer Success specialists and implementation help just to get everybody on the same page. And during the pandemic, that obviously just didn't happen at all.
Eva Brown:Right. Yeah. And I think the other thing with ad tech is there are so many platforms that are available. And I recently saw a study where, and I wish I could remember who did this study, but I recently saw some information about how many platforms just the average district has, and the number, you know, I was thinking, the number would maybe be 1015. And that may be how many they're paying for. But with all the teachers who are going out there and finding things and using them, on average is about 1300 to 1400 platforms that are being used in a district by teachers. It's kind of like how do you choose? How do you know which ones to use and focus on and so
Alexander Sarlin:wow, that's really incredible. I was just looking at an interesting technology stat about the when the automobile industry started. And there were actually about 1900 different car manufacturers at the turn of the century. And then by World War Two, there were really three big ones. And there were all sorts of reasons for that. But I feel like Ed Tech is really at that Cambrian explosion moment where everybody is launching their own platform and LMS and trying to work directly with teachers. And we're starting to enter an age of mergers and acquisitions and integrations that hopefully will help both sides work better. I wanted to ask about, you know, one thing that struck me about about the next right step is that it's definitely not a one sided account of saying, here's why teachers should jump into edtech, it really talks about both sides, and really has a lot of nuance about you know about the education field and the EdTech field and the pros and cons and having to expense your receipts and, you know, really getting into the, you know, the daily life. Tell our listeners a little bit about what you recommend to a teacher who's sort of trying to decide whether to leave the classroom or not, and how they can help make an informed decision?
Eva Brown:That is a really great question. Because I do think that teachers out of desperation, are just ready to jump. And edtech is such the buzzword, that that's where they think they should jump to. And Ed Tech is not a good fit for everyone, nor is everyone a good fit for Ed Tech. And so what I talk to teachers, what I really encourage them to do is to think about themselves and do a lot of reflecting on their own passions. You may have seen that in the first chapter, you know, each chapter ends with some reflection questions. And that first chapter is really focused in on, you know, what is it that you love about teaching? What is it that you feel like you're really good at? Is it training other people? Is it you know, aside from the kids, because we all love the kids? And you can't there's no way to replace the kids? But you know, is it coaching other teachers and mentoring? Is it creating those lesson plans is it analyzed, you get all excited about analyzing your student data and trying to figure out, you know, every teacher has something that they are really passionate about outside of the students. And I think it's really important to pay attention to those things. And really focus in on what your own passions and individual strengths are. And then, you know, one of the things I talk about in the book, which may surprise teachers is I have this whole chapter on, you know, growing right, where you are staying where you are, and maybe considering not leaving, but staying within the district. And I put that in because a lot of teachers, what I would hear a lot of teachers say is, you know, I don't, I don't want to be a principal. And when I was teaching, I knew of, you know, several other roles that I could do, but I didn't really think about exploring those for myself. And then there were roles that I never even thought of or knew about. And so some teachers might find that staying in the district, but growing right where they are and looking at other things that is the best path for them. And then I really wanted to help them explore like, what is the difference between edtech versus Ed publishing companies and, you know, helping them kind of think through where do your strengths fit and what type of roles would be good for you in those areas. The biggest piece of advice that I give teachers when I first start talking to them is let's talk about you and your strengths and your passions because that will guide what you do next.
Alexander Sarlin:Yeah, the chapter about ways to prepare for a possible transition while in the classroom or in the teaching role was really interesting one aspect of it that jumped out to me, I thought was really compelling was about the sort of choices about further education to pursue how some transitions may require a master's degree even beyond the masters that teachers already have. But you had some interesting ideas about, you know, different types of degrees that may open doors in both professions, that there are some degrees that would be valuable for an edtech transition, but also valuable for growth within the classroom or within a school district. Can you speak a little bit about that? For our listeners? It's really interesting.
Eva Brown:Yeah, I think, you know, I pursued a master's in teaching reading, because I, as a kid, I was always I loved reading. And what I've discovered when I started teaching was I had no idea how to teach a struggling reader, because it came so easily to me. So that's why I chose the master's degree that I did. Had I known then what I know now I probably would have made a different choice, because there are some different degrees that I think get you a little bit further in what you're wanting to pursue. A degree in Educational Leadership is fantastic, not just for becoming a principal, but also for if you want to be a consultant, being able to have that leadership, background is really important. Curriculum and Instruction or curriculum design is another area that really lends itself well to learning and development types of roles. And then there are other things to think about. And, you know, later in the book, I think it's later in the book, I can't remember exactly where I say it. But you know, some business rules don't really require a higher degree. And it's really about for instructional design. If you can learn some of you some of the things that you can learn, you can learn right from places like LinkedIn, or Coursera. Online, you know, those two are, there's different price points for those, but you can find things and learn it without getting a degree as well. And so I think that's why it's really important to think about what your individual passions are. Because if you just go and do something for the sake of it looking good on the resume, you might, you might miss what you truly love.
Alexander Sarlin:Yeah, that's terrific advice. I always recommend this is my edtech bias, of course, but I always recommend that people taste you know, do try out different topics in education by doing informal and lower cost and lower time commitment learning before then committing to full degrees. But there is the value, certainly in both. And the educational leadership degree, it did stand out as one that's of particular interest that sort of spans across the different fields, as well, as you know, curriculum instruction and instructional design. I wanted to go a little specific, because I think, you know, many of our listeners are already working at Tech. And they're always interested in hiring great people, and always looking for fantastic people. And many of the teachers who you're advising are looking to transition into edtech, you talk in the book about a several different roles that really make sort of good transition roles for educators, places that are particularly ripe for sort of leaping from one field to the other. And I'd love to talk about some of them.
Eva Brown:Sure. If I'm remembering correctly, I think there were about eight of them that I talked through in there. And again, teachers asked me this question all the time, what's the best roll for me to apply for, and there was a while there on LinkedIn, where everybody was applying for Customer Success positions. And that was the buzz word, everyone just thought that's what I'm going to do. And I keep trying to bring them back to what are your strengths, because you know, teachers are passionate teachers are tend to be you know, not I'm sure there are outliers, but teachers tend to be organized, they tend to be able to handle multiple things at once. So there's a lot of skills that do transfer. But there is also a huge learning curve. And so it really involves for the teacher figuring out where they want to learn. And so, you know, some of the different roles, I think that teachers would be great fits for, depending on their strengths, that anything involving implementation, you know, if you if you have an implementation specialist or manager, those are the folks who are doing the onboarding, and the rostering of students and usually the initial training, and I think where a teacher brings some insider information there is they have generally used the student information system, they have used an LMS they have an understanding of what that's like from the teacher perspective that somebody who's never been in the classroom won't understand. So, you know, if a teacher is tech savvy and comfortable with those things that might be a great fit for them. The customer success, I think, I think teachers may not always fully understand what that role is. I think they think of it as a training role, and it's it's it can involve training, certainly. But really that role is, you know, they have to understand it the balance of making the customer love the product or you know, whatever it is that's being offered, helping them love it so much that they want to keep using it. And the ultimate goal is continued profitability for the company. So, you know, that is, I think, where a lot of teachers may not fully understand that it actually does involve a little bit of almost the sales skill set there. Because there are difficult conversations that have to happen, you know, the customer success, folks are the ones who send the invoices for the next year. And so it's important for teachers to understand that side of it. But if they're not afraid of having those conversations, and if they love helping people figure out what their goals are, and how the platform might be able to help with those goals. And if they love a little bit of the competition, and you know, China makes it make something happen. Customer Success is a great place for them. And then of course, there's all the content creation roles, instructional designers, the content writers, learning and development roles. Those are great fits for teachers who love you know, if they if they're the ones on their teams who are writing new lessons and creating lessons and sharing them. Those can be great fits for those, those are also great for people who have a particular niche. So I recently spoke to a teacher who she wasn't sure edtech would want her because she is early childhood and has had preschool experience her whole career. And I told her, I said, Do you know how few teachers there are with that experience, your ability to write content for that preschool market is not something that a lot of people have. And you know, so again, it's focusing on those strengths there. Of course, the consultant role was one I was in for a long time, that is a great role for you know, usually, to be a consultant, you have to have a few more years of experience as a teacher, possibly have been a coach and administrator of some sort. But those are often great roles for teachers. And that's actually the role that I stepped into the publishing world with as a coach from a district into the head publishing. So those can be great. And then of course, you know, people often ask about sales. And a lot of people say, I don't want to do sales, like that's their immediate thing. I want to do sales, to which I say, Okay, well, then let's talk about customer success and why you don't want to do sales, because it might be the same reason. But if, if there's somebody who loves competition, and if they get passionate about something, and are just, you know, excited about it, that passion and that commitment to show others the value. You know, as a teacher, you have one of the things I've seen, I've never done sales. But I'm often asked by my salespeople, why have you never done sales? Because I get so passionate about something, and I can talk about the platform to educators in a way that makes sense to them, and makes them go, oh, I need that. I see the value in that. And I think we have a stereotypical negative view of salespeople, that is not actually true. And for teachers who are really passionate about something, who you know, have, maybe they've sold it to their admin, they've gone into their admin and said, We need this. If they've done that they've sold it, they've already done the sale. So those are some of the roles I think, you know, outside of edtech, too. There's there's roles that trainers, you know, there's a lot of corporate trainers that are needed within edtech and outside. But I think teachers there have a lot of pedagogical knowledge that they can bring in, I would say my advice to teachers on that, and to the EdTech industry as they hire teachers is it is very different working with adults than it is working with kids. And it's important for teachers who are used to working with children and teens that they also have an understanding of adult learning theory so that they can really bridge that gap. And that's something that would be a great fit for any edtech company to have. Because you're no longer training children. You're training adults. Yeah,
Alexander Sarlin:so many great points in there. Well, one of the things I really love about the EdTech industry as a whole is that, you know, many of the people on the EdTech side, were also classroom teachers at some point in their career, virtually every guest we've had on this podcast was a classroom teacher before they entered edtech. So you do have a lot of sort of generations of people transitioning in and out and you have a lot of goodwill on all sides. So like I love what you're saying about how people sometimes have negative connotations with sales because they think of you know, used car salesman or something very, you know, stereotypical like that, but sales in edtech is about you know, getting districts and teachers and classrooms to adopt software that ideally everybody believes in and that will actually improve Learning Outcomes and make classrooms more engaging. And so it doesn't have to have quite the same negative connotation. Nobody wants to build bad at tech that raise kids, or bowl or teachers lives even harder. So, you know, I think there can be a lot of alignment there. You know, I want to ask you, and I'm sure this is a lot of interest to people who are looking to break into this field, you know, there are more and more ad tech companies being formed and growing every day, and the field is seeing a huge growth across the board. But it's still a competitive field to break into. And there are lots of applicants to certain positions, especially to positions that are open to those without a lot of tech, background or experience, because they have, you know, a wider range of people who can apply. You have some advice in the book about how to stand out in a crowded field, you already mentioned adult learning theory, you know, that if you're a classroom teacher looking to become a trainer of adults, you may need to, you know, bolster those skills with some adult learning theory. Yeah. What are some other things people can do to stand out and really sort of hit the ground running as an applicant?
Eva Brown:I think, you know, the first thing definitely is to reflect focus on themselves, what are their strengths? And then I think also sharing that one thing I see teachers often doing on social media sites is they'll, you know, out of desperation, they'll kind of say, hey, take a look at my my resume. I've done everything, as a teacher, I've done sales, I've done project management, I do customer success, I do. And I don't think they realize that that can actually come off as showing some ignorance about what the roles are, it would be similar to somebody who's worked with children in some capacity, you know, saying, I've been a teacher, but not having been a teacher. And so I always hesitate when I see teachers doing that. And when I, when they do ask me, I say, Listen, don't don't say I teach, and therefore I've done everything that you've done, because that can backfire. But instead, focus in on what the passions are. If you discover that you think instructional design is going to be the right role for you, or customer success, or whatever it is, be laser focused on that particular job, learn absolutely everything you can about it, you cannot get hired for a role if you cannot speak about that role. So you have to be able to talk about that role, why you're good at that, give examples. Share why you're a good fit. I think one way to do this as a teacher is to you know, I had a teacher asked me the other day, should I say that I've done customer success, even though I haven't really had that role. But you know, on my resume, should I put customer success manager and then explain why I think I've done customer success? And I said no, because that comes across. That's disingenuous, that's not true. But what you should do is on your resume, focus on what you've done with adults, everyone in edtech generally knows what teachers do. They know that you're working with diverse student populations, they know you're creating lessons, they know all of that. But if you focus in on what you've done with adults, that shows how you would interact as a team. So if you've been a part of a committee, you've been collaboratively working with a team, and what were your goals? And did you meet your goals for that committee, if you've been a team leader, focus on that focus on the growth that you brought to your team, if you trained, you know, if you if you were asked to lead a PLC and you trained everybody on a particular platform, talk about that, you know, show what you've done with adults. And then try to build on that what you're doing with adults. So look for opportunities to expand what you're doing with adults to show that on your resume. A couple other things I might say is, you know, seek out certifications in different levels. This was something that I found very helpful in the book. I'm a big fan of LinkedIn, because that's the one that I I use the most. And the reason I use them the most was because LinkedIn as a platform, it's one of the two largest job aggregators in the world. And so you know, everybody's on there, looking for people and networking. And what I loved about LinkedIn learning, which does have a monthly fee, but I love it, because I could take these courses in customer success, for example, and get a certificate saying that I had taken this and post it to my LinkedIn learning feed, and it would show up on my profile, so it would show people that I'm actively learning about it, seeking different certifications, there's you know, Coursera has a lot of great ones. The Association for Talent Development is another great place to for those, especially for those interested in training. Another thing that I see teachers do that I think is really, really good is formative has a formative certification for teachers who are really passionate about it, they can become certified teachers and I know other platforms do as well. You know, Google has this there are lots of different places where you can be an ambassador for I think anytime that you find a teacher finds themselves being really interested in some curriculum that they have, or a platform that they're using, they really should lock into that and see what they can learn about that, and then share it with their team. Because by sharing it with their team, they can talk about that on their resume. And then the other two things that I always tell teachers who are searching to trying to get into edtech is, first of all, anytime anyone applies for an edtech position of any type, they need to make sure that they've tested out the platform, they need to spend at least half an hour, you know, sometimes teachers don't know that they can create a fake account, and it's okay, like, it's okay to do that. You don't actually have to use it with your students test out the platform, because that is going to be something that they are looking for in an interview is to have you actually spent time looking at their platform looking at their materials. And then the very last thing that I share, and I share about this in the book is, you know, the applicant tracking systems, those ATS, those are the biggest hurdle to getting an interview. And I share in the book about ideal resume, which is a website that the founder West brach has created. And it really was remarkable in helping me tweak my resume. And so Wes and I have now teamed up and he's done webinars with me to share with teachers on how they can use this to tweak their resume, some of the advice that he gave was so counterintuitive, but it really helped with getting through that applicant tracking system. So I always recommend learning about how the applicant tracking systems work, I actually have, there's a recording of one of the sessions that we did on my website, which is Eva, Brown consulting.com. And so there's a recording there that teachers can go to to view that. And that I think will be a big, a big help in helping them break through that crowd.
Alexander Sarlin:And we will link to the brown consulting website in the show notes for anybody to go watch those webinars and get that additional advice. Those are really very actionable tips for teachers looking to enter the tech field. So one thing that strikes me about some of the different roles you named are that certain companies hire, you know, a huge number of implementation specialists, because they're in so many school districts, other companies hire many, many content writers, because they're not in you know, maybe they're a direct to consumer company, but they just need tons and tons of great lessons, you know, out there, or different companies sort of have different makeups that define what they're hiring for, and sort of what they what they need to succeed as a company. And I thought, you know, as we talk to our edtech audience here, maybe we can think a little bit about, you know, what types of edtech companies teachers might want to look at, as really good targets for them as a way to break into edtech. And, you know, we can decide whether to name specific companies or not, but maybe it's just giving us a little bit of an overview of the type of company because there's 1000s of edtech companies, including household name companies, like you know, Khan Academy and Newsela. And some very underground companies that do student information systems, or do content writing white labeled for Pearson and Kaplan, and it's such a vast field, maybe we can talk a little bit about how teachers can make sense of the field and and decide, you know, where to set their targets?
Eva Brown:Yeah, that is such a great question, because it's really hard. In the United States alone, there's over 1300 edtech companies, and that was at the start of 2021. So I can't imagine what it is now. Yeah, it's gone way up. So I think what I always say to those and tech is, you know, every edtech company should be interested in hiring educators. The edtech business is really made of three sectors, education, technology, and business. And in my opinion, you need all three to really make a great company because you need great people from all three of those sectors leaning into each other, to make the company a great fit for teachers, but for teachers looking for a company, that I think again, starts with their strengths starts with their area of expertise. You know, if you're a math teacher, then you are not going to want to apply to no reading, which is you know, focused on writing. And so really kind of knowing where is your area of expertise, and then doing some searches for edtech companies within that niche or that have platforms or curriculum within that niche, I think is really important. There are a lot of great with 1300 companies in the US alone. There are so many great opportunities for finding Some of those, I think one thing I would say, and this doesn't really answer your question, but I think one thing I would tell teachers is, they have to be a little bit willing to maybe not go in at the level they think they should go in at. So when I was talking to recruiters, one thing they said was, you know, a teacher coming out of the classroom should not apply for any role that says senior on it. Because even though you may have 10 years of experience in the classroom, that 10 years of experience in the classroom does not equate to 10 years of experience in the corporate world. And that's not a negative thing. It's the same, you know, if somebody were to be a banker for 10 years, and then become a teacher, they would be a first year teacher, and they would start at that first year salary step. And so I think teachers have to be willing to consider that they may need to start in a position that they didn't expect to start in. And they may want to consider starting part time, you know, these per diem roles that are listed are often a way to get your foot in the door. And it's a lot to do part time work when you're teaching. But if you're really passionate about breaking into it, that is the foot in the door that can get you in. And then there are you know, there are some great websites that were teachers can kind of look and see, there's one built in comm has edtech companies listed there, and they can actually go through and like see what job openings there are. So that's a great one for teachers to start in, I would highly recommend that they search by what their expertise is, and their area of focus.
Alexander Sarlin:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, as somebody who follows the field a lot, there are a couple of other sites that are sort of my go twos to sort of get a landscape of the whole field to start to make that match between your own domain interests, the interests in terms of K 12 versus higher ed versus adults or workforce training. I love the EdSurge product index, which has over 1000 companies, it's just a great, you can sort of split it by anything. Again, we'll put all these links in the show notes. I'm also a big fan of hold on IQ, which is an Australian firm that studies the ad tech field and is basically has made it their business to sort of chronicle every ad tech company in the world. 1000s of companies, they have a global learning landscape that tries to break it down in different ways. So I love that advice to sort of, for teachers to evaluate their strengths. What do they like doing in the classroom? Is it social emotional learning, or data analysis or content writing or lesson plans or curriculum, and then sort of look at that area of the EdTech field maybe as a first pass to see where the interest might overlap with job opportunities.
Eva Brown:Absolutely. And you know, I said something early on in the podcast, and I feel like I should come back to and that was this idea of this perceived low pay. And I just I wanted to come back to that because I was what I found when looking for a job in edtech, after losing my my other job during COVID Was that the salaries are lower than one might expect. And I think sometimes teachers think with the word technology thrown into the title of edtech, it must be higher paying. And as I share in the book, as you've read, there's a lot of data in there about how the salaries may not always be what you think they're going to be. And it really depends on what state you're in some states, the teacher salaries are much higher than what you would make if you move into edtech in a starting, you know, depending on the state that you that your company is based in. And so, you know, it's important for teachers to realize that it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to jump up the ladder, because depending on where you live, your salary as a teacher may actually be higher than you would make in some of the roles in tech.
Alexander Sarlin:Yeah, the range of teacher pay by state is really very wide. So depending on where you're starting, you may find yourself going up or down entering a different profession, depending on where you're starting. It's a very, one of the weird byproducts of our federated education system. Absolutely. So one thing that struck me about formative is that it's a company that, you know, puts its hard on its sleeve about being you know, for educators and by educators, as we spoke about, I'm sure that you know, many teachers who want to enter edtech want to make sure that they're keeping sort of their moral compass in place that they're working for a company that is, you know, proven to help teachers that helps students and really be an educator friendly company. Yeah, I'd like to think that almost been many, many companies in edtech meet that role, but definitely, some may meet it more than others, especially companies founded by educators. Are there any companies that stand out to you or factors that teachers might look for when they're looking at a company to determine whether the company is sort of really taking the educator perspective seriously?
Eva Brown:High while formative of course Does that I think about half of our company are former teachers. So I think I can say that for sure. I think that's a great thing to be asking. What I would recommend that teachers do is to think about what they love in the classroom, what are the products that they're using in the classroom that they love, whether it's an edtech platform or some curriculum, and then start paying attention to those companies online? I did a lot of looking at places like Glassdoor and asking, looking up the company morale for places. Now, some people will say, Well, you know, if somebody is going online and talking about company morale, they're probably unhappy. But actually, what I found was that, in my experiences in the corporate world, a lot of times, that was a much more balanced approach to you know, people in education, if they go on good schools are, you know, whatever that different school sites and put information in about their teachers are, so they might only be putting things in if it's negative, but on on places like Glassdoor, it was really important for me to look at the morale that people were saying was in the company. And so I really look at that, I think it's important for teachers to pay attention to, you know, if they've been using something in their classroom, and the company has been responsive to their needs, they've written in for support, they've gotten that support, they requested, you know, there was some promise made by the company and the company kept that promise. I think those are things to pay attention to, because there are some companies that will make promises. But you know, I don't think intentionally not keep them but they might be moving on and there's something else that there's coming down the line, and they may not be able to fulfill that thing that they said that they were going to do. I love working for formative because it is a company that responds to teachers needs as best as we can. We can't always do everything that teachers want. But we do what we can. And I think that that makes us stand out to a lot of teachers. And I think that that's what teachers should be paying attention to look for those companies that are responding to their needs, follow them, look them up online, follow them on LinkedIn, sign up for notifications about job postings for those companies. Because those are the companies that are really going to benefit from that having that teacher, if that teacher can come in and say I've used this program, I've used this curriculum, I've used this platform, they are going to bring a whole different aspect to that company than somebody who's coming in learning it cold.
Alexander Sarlin:That's terrific advice. And I think that dovetails with what you were saying earlier about, you can get certifications from the company for many, many tech companies offer sort of I'm a you know, Google Classroom certified teacher, or I'm, you know, ClassDojo certified teacher, if you want that kind of certification, you teach people within your district, you you to work with the platform, then your application may be seen very differently. Yes. Yeah. It's terrific advice. So, you know, just in wrapping up, one thing I always ask our podcast guests is, if a guest wanted to go deeper and learn more about what we've talked about today, you know, where should they go. And in this case, we're talking about something so specific, which is moving into edtech, or whether to move into edtech. From the classroom? What are some resources that you would offer and suggest to teachers who want to sort of dive even deeper and understand that transition? Even better?
Eva Brown:I love this question, because I feel like there isn't one. Like, the reason I wrote the book was because I couldn't find one source for this. So I of course have to say, you know, going to my website, either brown consulting.com. Or looking at the book. The reason I wrote it was because everything when I was looking at everything that I looked for, I couldn't find one place that would give me all the information I needed to make that transition. But you know, you have shared already about the EdSurge job boards, I think that EdSurge is a fantastic resource, to not just look at their job boards, but also to read their blogs that they put out to just learn to speak the language of edtech listening to podcasts around edtech. I feel like this, you know, this one and any others that they find that are reputable, that I think will help them with that language. And then I think the other thing that I would really recommend to them is that they again dive into their area of focus. And really, I love LinkedIn learning. I'm not affiliated with them at all I have to say that they required me to say that in my book and also here but not affiliated with them at all. They have not endorsed my book, but like I love them and just the level of class of lessons that they have there to help teachers be prepared to speak business. Because you know, there are so many acronyms in education. I think there are just as many if not more in the business. world, and to be able to learn those to speak to the job, I think is really important. So I found LinkedIn learning to be invaluable for my own learning at the time. Those are the things I think are really important. And then of course, networking on LinkedIn. You know, there's a lot of teachers on there trying to network, find those that will help you. Personally, I, there's one gentleman, Jeff Patterson, he's the CEO of gaggle, he's on there every week sharing weekly lists of edtech job openings, so I recommend following him, but those are those are I think the the ways to really kind of get immersed in learning about edtech. Yeah, it's
Alexander Sarlin:terrific advice. And, you know, learning to speak the language is, I think, very underestimated sometimes as a way to make career transitions or, as well as networking, of course, and teachers often find themselves very isolated in the classroom, as you mentioned. So getting out and speaking to people in not only in school districts, but also in the tech fields. fantastic advice. Speaking of speaking the language, I have one, one of my own two cents to add to this, which I don't usually do, which is that one of the really interesting aspects of the EdTech field is that a lot of the companies, the smaller companies are funded by venture capitalists. And specifically, there's a few venture capital firms that fund a majority of new ed tech companies and the companies like learn capital reach capital, OWL ventures, GSB, ventures, 27 v. And those sites are not only amazing, each of these venture capitalist has their own site. Not only are they fantastic places to learn the language of edtech, from their perspective, but they're also have job boards. So if you go to the reach capital website, or the Learn capital website, they have a giant job boards just for their portfolio companies, which happen to all be edtech companies. So those are really interesting ways to find out about ad tech jobs as well as sort of impressive ways. When you reach out to a recruiter and say, I found your job on the Learn Capitol job board that might sound a little more sophisticated than saying I found it on on indeed or you know, something standard. So that's my everyone. Eva brown. This has been a terrific conversation. Eva Brown is the author of the next right step from teaching to EdTech. Check it out. It's a terrific book, and we will link to all of the resources in the show notes. As always, everyone, thank you so much.
Eva Brown:Thank you. I really enjoyed our time.
Alexander Sarlin:Thanks for listening to this episode of the EdTech insiders podcast. If you liked the episode, remember to subscribe on Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're listening on Apple, please leave a rating and review so others can find the podcast. For more edtech insiders content subscribe to the EdTech insiders newsletter at edtech insiders.substack.com
