Teacher Made vs Formative: A Lesson on Student Data Privacy

"You get what you pay for.".

Some educational technology tools look innocent, valuable, and even garner paid endorsements from EdTech celebrities. However, not all tools exist under the same profit model. The recent widespread popularity among teachers using a tool called Teacher Made forces us to ask ourselves what we really pay for free resources. This post will also highlight an alternative product.

Disclaimer: The audience of this post is teachers in my own district. Anyone reading this outside of DCPS should look for guidance within his or her own school district. 

Many educational technology companies have obvious profit models based on paid plans. These companies usually offer free trials or stripped-down versions of their paid plans as bait to hook a buyer into converting to a paid subscription. This is the most common model that many teachers recognize. The tool you'll see endorsed later in this post follows this model.

Some education technology companies offer a product at no cost to teachers or students but have the underlying motivation of building a user base that will one day become paying adults. They absorb current expenses incurred in offering the free service by calculating the future payoff.

Also, there are a few educational technology tools offered purely as philanthropy. A large corporate entity may employ the product with altruistic desires or they may use the product as a donation to education which acts as a public relations feel-good.

The majority of educational technology companies operate under one of the three models above. They do not need to retain or sell student data in order as a means of profit or philanthropy. Moreover, they take the necessary precautions to protect private student data.

However, a fourth business model that we sometimes see is when an educational technology company offers a product or service for free. At face value, this is great for the teacher with no student implications. However, a deeper look reveals the company's intent to sell the private student data to third-party vendors -usually advertisers- for profit. In all due respect, these companies are usually honest and up-front about their intentions to cover themselves legally within their data privacy and terms of use documents. A section or clause will state that it is up to the district, school, or teacher to gain formal written permission from the parent or guardian.

As a district, we do not burden the parent with this research responsibility or the teacher with whitelisted restrictions. Instead, we look for alternatives that are a better fit for student privacy. Sometimes alternatives are apples and oranges, but for this fourth business model, it is the best way to go.

For the sake of this example, we suggest Formative as an alternative. Formative operates under the first business model listed above having a free and paid plan and is a Student Privacy Pledge signatory. 

Keeping student data private is a large responsibility for the teacher, school, and district. We are quick to protect records of students with special needs and are trained to protect records concerning FERPA. Student data privacy is protected in COPPA, CIPA, and similar state laws.

As always, reach out to [email protected] with questions and don't forget to subscribe here to DCPS TechTube.