I think the problem is a lack of understanding who the customer is.
Many schools make centralized decisions: you either sell the school board or the IT department or both. The people stuck with the decision aren't the people you need to convince for a conversion.
By the time teaching is happening, you are one level removed. By the time learning is happening (or not), you are two levels removed.
If I were being adversarial and trying to design a system to achieve suboptimal results, this is the sales and feedback channel I would set up.
This may be one of the most surprising innovations we've made at AltSchool; it's completely non-technical but running your own school lets you iterate on the metric that matters: learning.
Absolutely, if the teachers are user testing products with a live classroom they discuss student engagement, learning etc and also give student feedback to the developers too.
"I was surprised how insightful my six year olds were." TinkerEd teacher.
"My students loved that they got to share their ideas with a developer, they thought it was really cool."
TinkerEd teacher.
"...both sides of the community, both teachers and EdTech entrepreneurs"
Aren't students part of this community? Are EdTech companies trying to solve problems for teachers, or for students?