Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues
“I am in this profession for kids,” Ms. Delzer said, “not for notoriety or the money.”
At a time when teachers shell out an average of $600 of their own money every year just to buy student supplies like pencils — and make pleas for student laptops on DonorsChoose.org, a fund-raising site — it’s understandable
that teachers would embrace free classroom technology.
An Amazon representative, responding to a question about the gift cards
that TenMarks offered to certain teachers last year, said that the company had not given that incentive recently and that it had procedures “to ensure our compliance with applicable laws and to help facilitate teachers’ obligations to their schools.”
The competition for these teacher evangelists has become so fierce
that GoEnnounce, a one-year-old platform where students can share profiles of their accomplishments, decided to offer a financial incentive — a 15 percent cut of any school sales that resulted from referrals — to Ms. Delzer and a few other selected teachers just to try to keep up with rival companies’ perks.
Sitting in her local Starbucks in West Fargo, Ms. Delzer noted: “If you Google ‘Starbucks Classroom,’ it’s a thing now.”
But Ms. Delzer said she did not start out seeking to influence the practice of teaching.
Ms. Delzer has also served as an Amazon Education “Teacher Innovator”; a “Digital Image Champion” for GoEnnounce, the student portfolio platform; a brand ambassador for GoNoodle, a classroom activity app;
and a “Lead Digital Innovator” for PBS LearningMedia, the education arm of the nonprofit broadcasting company.
“Seesaw, my teacher heart loves you :-),” Ms. Delzer wrote on Instagram this year with a video clip showing her students using the program.
According to the Seesaw site, for instance, the company expects its teacher ambassadors to “use Seesaw regularly in your
classroom,” host two Seesaw-related conference talks or workshops annually and participate in Seesaw discussions online.
