Contacting Students, Bypassing Teachers

[Artie.Duncanson]

My name is Artie Duncanson, and I wanted to create something that could help prevent future generations of young minds from being atrophied by the school system. After 2 years of non-stop working to fund and develop, spending just shy of $70,000 of my own money, my team and I have developed a language learning computer program that will provide real educational value outside of the drudgery of schooling.
The reason that I'm posting is because I'm looking for advice or ideas on how to get our free software into the hands of students who are still mired in the school system.
While I could easily contact language learning teachers and sell them on the idea that our program would be a great tool for them to use in their classrooms, I refuse to go that route. I do not want to provide the schools a tool that could make them better; I want to see schools wiped off the face of this planet. After all the hard work, money, and loss of social life in order to create this program, I cannot actively use it to help improve, to bring legitimacy, to such an evil institution as school.
Our software is a radical departure from anything else out there, and we already have numerous companies who've seen a demonstration of our software and have committed to using it at their various organizations (mostly ESL programs). I now want to get it into the hands of school students, with the hope that they will love it, learn a new language exponentially quicker than they would at school, and begin having the validity of schooling chipped away in their minds.
This is merely the first step of a multi-phase process I intend to implement that will provide an educational alternative that will give parents the final nudge they may need to be confident that their children can be educated without having to send them to school. But right now, I do not know how to reach out to school students, and that's what I was hoping this forum might be able to help me with.
I don't want to go through teachers to get my software into the students hands, because the teachers could co-opt it and turn my program into their own homework assignments, thus creating resentment among the students for my program. Ideally, since I've developed software for language learning, I would like to contact students in French and Spanish clubs, but I am unsure how to do so without contacting a school administrator. If you have any advice on how to do so, that would be greatly appreciated.

[okymek]

The first logical group to reach out to would be parents in the home school community.

Another step would be to make a version of the program for IOS and Android, I have seen my youngest daughter start to grasp basic fundamentals of operation at a year old. I have seen children start reading before kindergarten as well so this may be great for early development too. Before they even set foot in the system.

 

As far as keeping it out of the hands of schools, you could use a distribution platform like Steam which also serves as DRM(digital rights management) that could still allow you to distribute for free but at the same time maintain control over unauthorized distribution because no school is going to install a gaming platform on a school system.

 

[AncapFTW]

You could try setting up a download site, like Steam, which okymek mentioned above, and then use social media to get the word out.  Sure, the schools would learn about it, but it would get the kid's attention first.  Once it's popular enough on social media, schools might try to use it, but by that time it's got its own reputation which they aren't tied to, so it would be harder for them to tarnish it.  Or you could just refuse to license it to public educational facilities, but that would cause other issues.

[Artie.Duncanson]

Thank you all for your responses. I greatly appreciate them. I reread my initial response and realize I did not properly explain what I want, and do not want, to do.

You are all correct in the need for putting my program on mobile devices and on sites like Steam, something we will certainly do in time. What I meant to ask is how do I reach out to students and let them know my product even exists. We have just released the alpha test version, so students are not aware of my program. Without contacting a school administrator or teacher, do you have any ideas on how I could directly contact students who are studying languages to let them know my program is available for them to try out? When I've searched for high school French or Spanish clubs either on Facebook or on a search engine, I was not able to find individual student profiles or names on the pages. I would contact the language club directly, but since it's a school function, it is quite likely a teacher will be the first to see any message I send.

As far as keeping it out of schools, let me clarify. I do not plan to actively keep my software out of the schools, what I refuse to do is actively market the program to schools. If I can get the program into the hands of students, and they decide they want to show their teachers, then there's nothing I can do about that. Or if a teacher happens to stumble upon it and wish to use it in the classroom, that's too bad for me. But I do not wish to be the initiator or bringing my program into the schools, nor will I do anything to facilitate their use in schools.

And yes, the homeschooling community will certainly be a group I reach out to once we make the proper corrections from the feedback my program has received from the organizations that are trying it out.

Mellomama: Thank you for the suggestion of language clubs. I will certainly look into that. And yes, by all means please feel free to try the program out! The program is called Viglo, and you can see how we propose to help people absorb a new language at our website here. From the website, you can request to be a tester, and we will quickly get back to you with all the information you need to download the program. I will admit that based on the feedback we've received the program was not quite intuitive for those without average computer skills, but we are in the middle of correcting that right now. You are more than welcome to try it out anyways, or I can let you know when we've released the newest version which will be much more easy to use (it'll likely take us about a month to release). Everyone has really enjoyed the new method we are pioneering, it's just the controls that need to be simplified.

If you enjoy it, I would be thrilled to have you share it with other parents! Take care, and I wish the best for your children who are in school (fortunately you are aware of schools faults and can be in a position to help them through it, unlike the vast majority of kids today. Sounds like your kids are in good hands).

[okymek]

Another way I think you may be able to keep it out of schools is to specifically state in the EULA something like "For private use only, for organizational/educational use contact xxxxx for permission."

 

As far as advertising, I think you may be able to look for youtubers to talk to. Channels of foreign exchange students or people living abroad often share experiences they have and are often asked language questions by viewers. You could decide whether you would want to sponsor them or just ask for a one time review or mention on their channel. The youtube channel ExtraCredits also focuses on learning with video games and I'm sure they might be interested as well.

[Artie.Duncanson]

As soon as we take care of some of the feedback we received and release the next version of our program, I was going to reach out to a bunch of language bloggers (I've already written the emails). I did not think about seeking out youtubers. That's a great idea. Thank you. I will look into ExtraCredits, they sound like they'd be an ideal fit for what we're producing. Thank you.