Technology changes every day, and I think schools are under some obligation to adjust to the new world our students are living in. I don’t think avoiding technology is the answer.
But I also think that obligation comes with a responsibility to be extremely careful about what we choose and why.
That’s the double-edged sword.
We’re constantly looking for ways to save time, accomplish more tasks, support more students and solve problems that have existed in education for years. Technology promises to help us do all of those things.
Sometimes it actually does.
Sometimes we take what we can find and afford until we discover something better.
And sometimes, in our rush to find shortcuts and solutions, we sign up for things that aren’t actually the best solution to the problem we already have.
That makes me wonder whether we’re asking the right question.
Are schools measuring whether technology improves learning—or merely whether students and teachers are using it?
Everybody’s app is the next solution to all of our problems
As a teacher, I’ve worked with platforms that had very clear and specific purposes. I’ve also worked with platforms that felt redundant or simply couldn’t live up to the hype surrounding them.
Everybody’s app is the next solution to all of our problems.
The problem with that is that sometimes nobody bothered to ask us what our problems were.
There’s something incredibly overwhelming about having another system forced on you because someone somewhere made a decision without you.
The tool gets purchased. Teachers get trained. Logins get created. Expectations get communicated.
And now we’re using it.
But using something and benefiting from it are not the same thing.
I’ve experienced situations where teachers and students repeatedly complained about the relevance and redundancy of a curriculum platform, but because the district had entered into a multiyear contract, we were still expected to use it.
That raises a question I don’t think we ask enough:
What happens when what teachers and students are experiencing in classrooms conflicts with what was promised when the contract was signed?
A login is not an outcome.
Usage is not an outcome.
Even engagement isn’t necessarily an outcome. In fact, the American Psychological Association’s September 2026 report on learning with educational technology specifically warns against confusing engagement with learning. The APA argues that what students can retain and apply outside the tool is a much stronger measure than how much they interact with it.
I want metrics that tell me whether something actually affected a child’s growth.
Technology can absolutely make things better
AI changed my work.
Initially, some of the benefits were exactly what you would expect. I could save time writing emails. I could scaffold material faster. I could complete tasks that previously took much longer.
But learning how to appropriately use AI in my own best interest—to actually get better results from it—was game changing and illuminating.
I moved beyond asking, How can this save me time?
I started asking, How can this help me better support my students and interpret their individual needs?
Those are two very different uses of technology.
And I think that’s part of what’s missing from some of our conversations about EdTech.
Having technology, using technology and benefiting from technology are not the same thing.
The APA report raises a similar concern about generative AI: a student can produce a better immediate result with AI without necessarily developing the underlying knowledge or skill themselves.
That distinction matters.
Five questions that should have been obvious
On August 20, the U.S. Department of Education released new guidance on responsible classroom technology.
The guidance asks states and districts to focus on instructional value, evidence, educator judgment, transparency for parents and student outcomes. It also says schools should regularly evaluate whether tools are working and be willing to change course when the evidence says they aren’t.
What caught my attention were five questions the Department says every education technology product should be able to answer:
What learning problem does it solve?
When should it be used?
For whom should it be used?
For how long should it be used?
What evidence demonstrates that it improves student learning?
These questions seem obvious.
The one I keep coming back to is for whom?
Did we really think this out?
Did we have every student in mind, or were we thinking about a particular kind of student and assuming everybody else would adjust?
Because “for whom?” isn’t just a technology question.
It’s an equity question.
Accessibility can’t be something we discover afterward
A product can work beautifully for one group of students and create an entirely different experience for multilingual learners, students with disabilities, families with limited digital access or students who need information presented differently.
Too often, I think we discover those barriers after the product is already in use.
Now we’re adapting.
Now we’re troubleshooting.
Now we’re trying to figure out why certain students aren’t responding the way we expected.
And this isn’t happening in an environment where technology is some small piece of schooling. The CoSN U.S. State of EdTech 2026 report describes 1:1 technology implementation as nearly ubiquitous across grade levels while districts are simultaneously navigating questions involving AI, accessibility, cybersecurity, procurement, device management and community concerns about screen time.
So this is where the difference between designing for people and designing with people matters to me.
Designing for students means we can sit somewhere without them, decide what they need, choose the solution and then introduce it to them.
Designing with students changes the order.
The people who will actually experience the technology—students, educators and families, including people whose language, disability or access needs are too often treated as exceptions—have to help us understand the problem before we decide what the solution should be.
Otherwise, we shouldn’t be surprised when accessibility becomes something we discover after implementation.
That’s part of what Equity By Design means to me.
I don’t want to build something and then ask people how they can fit themselves into it.
I want to understand them well enough that what we’re building accounts for them from the beginning.
Teachers should not become the integration department
There’s another piece of this that I don’t think gets discussed enough.
When systems don’t communicate, teachers are still expected to get the work done.
Sometimes the task might technically belong to departmental leadership or administration, but teachers are told to split the workload and get it done.
After all, we have to stay compliant.
Deadlines have to be met.
Numbers have to be measured.
So teachers learn another dashboard. Enter information somewhere else. Troubleshoot another login. Help a parent figure out another platform. Attend another training.
Then we call the technology efficient.
Efficient for whom?
Technology saves teachers time when it is implemented properly and teachers have actually been trained to use it well.
And when a new system directly replaces something we were already doing, the old thing should go away.
Adding efficiency on top of inefficiency doesn’t make the system efficient.
It just gives us one more login.
Families shouldn’t find out after the fact either
If my son’s school introduces a new platform, I want to know what it is.
Why are we using something new?
How will it be implemented?
How does it benefit my child?
What kind of training are the educators receiving?
What support is available to my child?
What information is being collected?
As a parent, I deserve to know what my child is learning and what he is being introduced to.
And family transparency can’t stop with sending a letter.
For multilingual families, yes, that information should be provided in their home language. That doesn’t always happen.
But even when it does, translation doesn’t automatically equal understanding.
Can the family understand what the technology actually does?
Can they ask questions?
Do they understand how it affects their child?
Do they know where to go when something isn’t working?
If the answer is no, then we communicated something.
I’m not sure we engaged anyone.
This is also why I paid attention to the Department of Education’s emphasis on transparency for parents. Responsible technology use isn’t only about what happens between the student and the screen. Families are part of the system too.
Buy the outcome, not the product
Maybe every education technology purchase should have to complete two sentences before anybody signs a contract:
We purchased this because ________.
We’ll know it worked when ________.
My answers would look something like this:
We purchased this because it offers time-saving solutions that leave teachers and students feeling less stressed and overwhelmed.
We’ll know it worked when we have actionable growth metrics that allow us to better support each other as a system and the children and communities we serve.
And if the evidence eventually tells us that it isn’t working?
Then we need to be willing to stop using it.
Not keep something alive simply because we paid for it.
Not force teachers to keep using it because implementation itself has somehow become the goal.
Stop. Figure out what’s wrong. Decide whether it can be fixed. And if it can’t, move on.
That’s not an anti-technology position. It’s actually consistent with the new federal guidance, which says schools should change course when evidence shows that a tool isn’t improving learning and remove tools when repeated findings demonstrate persistent shortcomings.
I want FAM+PACT held to that same standard.
My goal is for it to meet rigorous responsible-AI and research-based design standards as it develops. If I’m going to ask schools to prove that their technology deserves a place in children’s lives, then technology I help create shouldn’t get an exemption from that question.
Responsible innovation isn’t buying the newest thing.
It isn’t adding AI because everybody else has AI.
It isn’t counting logins and calling that transformation.
Before a district signs another EdTech contract, maybe the first thing it should have to prove is its purpose.
What is the problem?
How is this solving it?
What is the value for each stakeholder?
Why now?
And maybe most importantly:
What isn’t working now that makes us believe we need this in the first place?
Because if we can’t answer that before we buy the product, I’m not sure the product was ever the solution.
