HOW TEACHER BRAND AMBASSADOR PROGRAMS COMPROMISE STUDENT PRIVACY

In today’s media landscape, anyone with a thousand or so followers on Twitter or Instagram can become a microinfluencer. Teachers, who hold the near-captive audience of dozens of students every day, have proven increasingly enticing to edtech companies looking to promote their products via teacher ambassador programs. A new report out by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) describes the potential pitfalls of these teacher ambassador programs. In worst case scenarios, they can lead to using subpar technology, conflicts of interest, and even compromise student data.According to the NEPC’s report, companies exerting their influence in the classroom is nothing new. The authors describe a campaign launched by Channel One News in the 1990s that provided schools with a television, VCR, and satellite dish in exchange for playing their daily 12-minute broadcast (and without lowering the volume). The broadcasts only wrapped up in June of last year.