The Best Edtech for Students Is Backed by Research. Here’s What to Look For.

In almost any school in the country today, you can find an app or program that claims to change education as we know it. Yet schools are littered with products that have not changed anything beyond teachers’ desktop screens. As researchers focusing on education technology, we see this often: interactive whiteboards covered in posters, desktop computers holding up plants, older devices that do not work with a newer assessment system. The list goes on. Our work at the nonprofit Education Development Center’s Center for Children and Technology focuses on how education technology can be used to support learning. The truth is edtech products that foster more learning than would happen in analogue settings can be difficult to find.