Hm, interesting. My assumption tended to be the exact opposite: non-technophile people don’t care about all the great features and therefore won’t read your instructions (or do the discobot tutorial for that matter) unless it promises to solve the exact problem they have right now).
Maybe it helped that you as the teacher were in the position to actually do stuff, whether they want to or not. Or, perhaps even more importantly, that you met them in class and told them in person: if you do this quest, you won’t regret it.