Is excessive edtech the next great rebalancing for K12 schools?
Edtech has been around and growing for decades and hasn’t always looked the way it does today. Before we duke it out, we have to survey the landscape.
1900-something: Emerging #edtech
Prior to the advent of Internet, devices were housed and managed directly at the school level. Think back to the mimeograph machine, a precursor to photocopying. Once upon a time, such archaic-seeming technology transformed the classrooms of yore, helping teachers bring more resources to more students faster.This is the gulf of education experience, a cavernous difference between learning on paper and learning via computer application. In between, former students remember computer labs—yes, rooms full of computers students visited, instead of carrying one along with them. A single computer only for the teacher. The overhead projector and transparencies. The advent of whiteboards, quickly eclipsed by Smartboards. And now here we stand from the current pinnacle of education technology, visualizing all that came before and asking:
“Hey... did we climb too high?”
2000s: Device boom
As computers began to trickle into the school environment (still as standalone, shared machines in a lab), they also popped up in students’ private homes. A National Sleep Foundation poll from 2006 found that 97 percent of American adolescents had at least one electronic media device in their room. At the time, this included music players, TVs, video game consoles, mobile- or fixed-line telephones, and computers—21 percent of which allowed for unfettered Internet access.In 2010, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) published a survey of teachers about their edtech use. Among the options studied, teachers could mention items including classroom response systems, Wikis (collaborative webpage creation), social networking sites, document cameras, and information technology and its accessories. The study found that VCRs and overhead transparency projectors were no longer among the edtech scope.
School computer labs began to trickle such technology over into individual classrooms. 97 percent of teachers described having one or more computers in their classrooms for everyday use, with a ratio of 5.3 students to 1 computer. 40 percent of teachers reported using computers often during instructional time, and 29 percent sometimes.
94 percent of teachers used a system similar to a SIS to enter grades and attendance, and 90 percent of teachers had access to a computerized assessment result system. Use of the systems was not universal—while most had access to assessment results, just 75 percent accessed reports sometimes or often. Similarly, while at school, teachers were likely to use edtech, while remote access was still evolving: 81 percent of teachers had access to student data remotely, but only 61 percent accessed it often.
Another disparity emerged among high poverty schools, sharply so in some cases. For example, in a low poverty school, 92 percent used email to communicate with parents about student concerns, while only 48 percent used email to communicate with parents in a high poverty district. Whether the disparity was due to low technology access for the school due to budgeting concerns or more so related to inability for families to access technology to read emails, the use of technology for teacher-to-parent communication was visibly different between high and low poverty school environments.
2010s and beyond: Device use encompasses education
By 2018, researchers were looking back over 20 years of edtech development and weighing the pros, cons, and path forward, noting how some solutions rose and fell quickly without leaving a lasting impact for students and educators. Indeed, the tail-end of the 2010s brought with it a critical eye for edtech.Research emerged that, although student engagement levels responded positively to gamification, video, and other techy tools, the edtech lift was already leaving churn in its wake for teachers. By now, 15 years worth of studies existed about edtech in schools and its effect on teachers. One meta-analysis considered 16 studies occurring between 2005–2019 and aimed to understand the relationship between edtech responsibilities and teachers’ levels of anxiety and stress. Findings from these studies consisted of teacher experiences from all over the globe, where:
- 50 percent named a lack of edtech training and overall knowledge
- 25 percent named the constant need for innovation
- 18.75 percent named the pressure to constantly use technology and
- 6.25 percent named personal insecurity while using edtech
What did longitudinal data say about students using edtech? Remarking on the “miniaturization” of hardware, researchers drew attention to the “optimistic consensus” that edtech ought to facilitate innovation in schools. The narrative went something like this: Edtech has the potential to overcome bothersome limitations leftover from the standardized factory model of education. Instead, rosy conclusions promised technology could facilitate improvements such as:
- Project-based learning (simulations, presentations)
- Hands-on learning (multimedia, augmented or virtual reality)
- Cooperative global learning (using online communication)
- Play-based learning (edutainment and gamification)
- Personalized learning (adaptive algorithms)
But what were the actual outcomes for real students? From 2010 through 2016, researchers followed groups of children in grades K–3 to find out. First, the interactions early childhood students had with education technology over their first four years of school were measured, and, a couple years later, researchers measured their academic performance—all with the optimistic consensus narrative overarching the K12 climate. Edtech was a solution to the factory model, after all.
Results were murkier than the idealistic outlook suggested, however. As children used more edtech (from “once or twice a week” to “almost every day”) math and reading scores dipped. At the same time, the optimistic consensus in edtech was moving further from the reality of edtech use on scores: Proponents believed that more edtech could democratize education and remove barriers for lower achievers (whether the barriers were socioeconomic, natural ability, or both). Unfortunately, the opposite of consensus was found to be true, and researchers began to urge prudence over optimism.
“What have been praised as EdTech’s strengths rather appear to be causing various adverse effects such as dumbing down of school curricula, decline in students’ literacy and numeracy, promotion of distraction in classrooms. The impact of these side effects is likely to be even stronger for low-achieving children who have not yet developed adequate basic skills, or socioeconomically disadvantaged ones who lack sufficient learning opportunities outside of school. Oppenheimer (2003), one of the leading critics in the late 1990s and early 2000, summarized this problem in the following acrimonious phrase: fooling the poor with computers.”
—Excerpt from “Exploring the Negative and Gap-Widening Effects of EdTech on Young Children’s Learning Achievement: Evidence from a Longitudinal Dataset of Children in American K–3 Classrooms.” Available here.
April 2026: “Edtech Backlash is Here” –EdWeek
Though a more accurate headline might read, “The edtech backlash is getting louder and more intense,” given all we already know about edtech critics throughout its history, what we know for sure today: States, districts, parents, and students themselves are getting burnt out of doing school on screens.EdWeek reported that 17 states are considering legislation to slow or curb use of screens, particularly for early childhood. Concurrently, districts and states are beginning to file lawsuits alleging big tech companies are intentionally hooking young kids on their products. And the effects of this addictive technology don’t end at the classroom door. While a vested educational interest may be present in practice algorithms and similar applications, the overarching message students receive muddies the waters for their personal tech use, too. It’s natural for students to assume since technology is ubiquitous in school and in their families’ work, it’s natural for them to use technology heavily as well. They don’t know how much is too much and haven’t yet had an opportunity to question it.
All irony is not lost
Advancing K12 covers technology, leadership, and culture in education. We live and breathe edtech in K12 schools. Wouldn’t it be better to go pedal-to-the-medal, all-in on edtech?Only if it results in a better culture for the staff and students.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR YOUR EDTECH? The right combo of tools & support retains staff and serves students better. We'd love to help. Visit skyward.com/get-started to learn more.
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Erin Werra Blogger, Researcher, and Edvocate |
Erin Werra is a content writer and strategist at Skyward’s Advancing K12 blog. Her writing about K12 edtech, data, security, social-emotional learning, and leadership has appeared in THE Journal, District Administration, eSchool News, and more. She enjoys puzzling over details to make K12 edtech info accessible for all. Outside of edtech, she’s waxing poetic about motherhood, personality traits, and self-growth.
