Edtech has many ways of ticking teachers off.
To raise awareness about this, EdWeek surveyed about 800 teachers, principals, and district leaders from across the country. They were all asked THIS question:
What is the worst or most misguided use of educational technology you have experienced during your career in K-12 education?
Below are the emerging themes that edtech providers should avoid.
No matter what your role in the industry is, challenge yourself to leave this post making sure that the edtech you support isn't on (track to make) this list!
(You can view the full list of Edweek's 'stupid uses' at the end of the article.)
Edtech doesn't mean online-only
What is the worst or most misguided use of educational technology you have experienced during your career in K-12 education?
Thinking that students only want to learn online. They don't. They appreciate print sources, hard copies of handouts, and books.
We make a lot of assumptions about students in this generation. The latest myth to squash:
Just because the kids of today are digital natives, this doesn't mean they want to learn online all the time. Or that they should.
Did you know there are different benefits when kids read on paper vs. digitally?
So here's how your edtech can offer the best of both worlds:
Offer printable components. Encourage minimal or strategic digital use only—this works especially well for supplemental solutions.
There can be such thing as using edtech too soon
What is the worst or most misguided use of educational technology you have experienced during your career in K-12 education?
Virtual teaching for kindergarten. They are too hands on. It just didn't work.
Teaching computer literacy at an early age is important—but so is teaching gross motor skills.
Pairing edtech with our youngest learners raises serious developmental concerns about their ability to self-regulate, especially if they're using tech at school AND at home.
Vaguely offering learning games isn't cutting it.
However, there are still learning benefits for grade K-2 students with edtech that has elements of the following:
Animated videos that suit short attention spans and limited reading skills. Promoting language and self-reflection skills with voice recording.
Not all learning demands have or need edtech alternatives
What is the worst or most misguided use of educational technology you have experienced during your career in K-12 education?
Trusting that by using technology to replace tried and true methods there is a guarantee of improvement.
Edtech is awesome when it's used in the right place at the right time. That doesn't mean every learning demand can or should be solved with a tech solution.
Hyper adopters of innovation get excited by the sparkly promises of new tools. In the case of new learning tools, these people are willing to make radical instructional changes, hoping to get radical results.
Not all edtech adoptions have a good return on their investment.
So how can solutions stand out to wary buyers?
Solve a key need, but stress what's new, different, and revolutionary.
Reconsider jumping on high-tech bandwagons
What is the worst or most misguided use of educational technology you have experienced during your career in K-12 education?
The purchasing of smartboards before teachers were properly trained on how, when, and what to use them for. It became a huge waste of time and money.
Meet the bandwagons: VR and the Smartboard.
We've seen the sparkly headsets and virtual reality rooms. If you're struggling to see how the new Apple Vision Pro headset is relevant to the average consumer, you can imagine that a similar issue is happening in the classroom.
This doesn't make sheer innovation any less cool and exciting! Certain gadgets just might not be an appropriate fit for students. At least not right now.
I remember the sweeping adoption of Smartboards in my early 2010s elementary school classrooms. Once or twice I was lucky enough to go up to the board and tap the pen on the screen a couple of times.
Even though I didn't have much experience using them, the boards simply looked cool. High tech. Futuristic. But was the hype worth the north of $3,000 price tag?
To guide makers and sellers of high-tech, high-cost items should emphasize how user benefits outweigh the drawbacks, no matter how large they may seem.
Tech should fit the needs of lessons, not the other way around
What is the worst or most misguided use of educational technology you have experienced during your career in K-12 education?
When teachers consider what technology to use and then fit the topic to the technology, rather than use the appropriate technology to fit the topic.
NOT a winning strategy: changing the intent of a lesson to fit the needs of the expensive tech ya just paid for.
Think less about the tech and more about the mission.
You can check out the full list of stupid edtech uses here.
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