1/15/2020

New Evidence-Based Resources Aim to Aid Districts in Edtech Decision-Making

Educational technology is a fast-moving train, bringing new products, promises, and procedures to school districts and classrooms across the country. Indeed, investors poured more than $1 billion into edtech ventures in 2018 alone, per a recent EdSurge report.

However, in a conversation with EdSurge's Tony Wan, investor Jason Palmer of New Markets Venture Partners opined that edtech companies looking to continue attracting investment funds from outside sources will need to show consistent results. This brings up an important question: Amid all the money and promise associated with the K-12 edtech marketplace, how are teachers and administrators supposed to know which products have sufficient staying power to be worth bringing on board?

Fortunately, some new tools are available to help school districts gauge the value of an edtech product or app before adopting it.
 

Shining a light
 

Writing for the online education news site Education Dive, Shawna De La Rossa described a “new evidence-based databank designed to help districts vet education technology products” known as the EdTech Genome Project. The Jefferson Education Exchange—a nonprofit dedicated to applying sunlight to the ever-expanding world of edtech—is developing the tool to ensure promise meets practice, drawing upon funding from the University of Virginia Curry School of Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and additional philanthropic organizations. As De La Rossa noted, school districts typically have little understanding of where the money they put into edtech is going, despite the fact that their investments are often quite sizeable. 

Here's a look at how vetting efforts such as the EdTech Genome Project are trying to demystify the edtech purchasing process.
 

• Evaluation criteria: The first step of the edtech evaluation process outlined by Jefferson Education Exchange project managers is to create a clear sense of the criteria that should be used along the way.
  Ask: What variables matter most and why?

• Specific methodologies: To gauge edtech efficacy, it is important to solicit input from the individuals tasked with implementing new products. In other words, teachers should feel inspired to share feedback and insights.
  Ask: Which edtech products are "crowd favorites" and which leave teachers underwhelmed?

• Information exchange: A key aspect of the EdTech Genome Project is the concept of a databank wherein edtech insights and information can be stored and shared as needed. After all, having a comprehensive and easily accessible framework of understanding will spare teachers and administrators the headaches of trying to figure out what a product is supposed to do and whether it actually delivers.
  Ask: Who already has experience with a particular edtech product?

• Result-sharing and analysis: To build a storehouse of reliable data, the Jefferson Education Exchange set out to gather and analyze classroom-level input. The goal? Empowering district and site-based decision-makers to select vetted tools and products—and save time and money along the way.
  Ask: What does the data say about a product's cost, efficacy, and efficiency of implementation?

Alleviating data privacy concerns
 

In addition to detailing the EdTech Genome Project, De La Rossa acknowledged some of the other vetting services available. For instance, Check the Privacy focuses on rating the privacy levels of thousands of edtech items, thereby “alleviating the need for district IT staff to comb through the fine print of every product being considered.” As a post on the Ed Tech Magazine website pointed out, teachers often need support connecting edtech to pedagogical practices and goals, but district staff may not be able to dedicate adequate time to this if they are tied up with data privacy concerns.

That’s where Check the Privacy come in. By offering its services for free, the organization aims to make it as easy as possible for teachers, parents, administrators, and edtech providers to share and access information about important student privacy concerns. According to Check the Privacy's website, the five main reasons why stakeholders should consider using the tool are as follows:
 

• Cost savings as a result of careful product vetting

• Neutral, unbiased product ratings and information

• Increased equity and access to quality products

• Less liability and fewer security breaches

• Access to an established list of quality vendors
   

Going to the library
 

Looking beyond the realm of data privacy, De La Rossa made mention of another type of vetting resource: product libraries that function as online storehouses for teachers and administrators seeking information on everything from renewing their annual edtech software licenses to determining which products might best supplement their curriculum. Ultimately, product libraries aim to bolster district staff and teachers' attempts to better manage the seemingly constant flood of edtech products, as well as to dissuade educators from striking out to “find tools to use on their own—often without the knowledge or approval of school leaders.” 

As profiled by Wan in a separate piece for EdSurge, one such library run by the tech company Clever offers more than 100 educational apps for teachers' perusal, with the goal of giving educators “more agency in finding and trying new products.” On the back end, Clever organizes apps into relevant categories, helps oversee the handling of safety concerns, equips districts with data on which apps are most popular among teachers, and defers to district staff's implementation procedures to ensure chosen apps pair well with overall curriculum goals or standards. That said, a couple of caveats should be noted: The Clever Library can only be accessed by districts that utilize the Clever platform, and although the apps that it houses are free for teachers to use, Clever does collect a fee from product developers. 
 

The bottom line
 

Although the development of edtech decision-making tools is still in its early stages, the creation of resources like the EdTech Genome Project, Check the Privacy, and the Clever Library indicates a growing awareness of the need for schools, districts, and providers to collaborate on edtech-vetting—and, ultimately, to prevent money, time, and students’ learning potential from going to waste.