For district IT leaders, the thought of vetting, selecting, and implementing new educational technology can be the stuff of nightmares. When you’re choosing new edtech for your school, it needs to meet so many different criteria:
- The edtech must have a purpose within your curriculum
- It must be cost-effective
- The solution must meet your minimum security requirements
- You must be able to integrate the edtech with your existing system
- It must deliver to expectations
Evaluating EdTech Solutions
Selecting new edtech for your school can be overwhelming. In addition to all of the factors you must consider above, you must also consider whether or not educators will be able to implement it into their classrooms – or if they’re on board with the change or implementation at all. One way to overcome teacher objections to implementing new edtech is to give them a voice in the decision-making process. Teachers know their students. They know the curriculum. They know what gaps they have in the classroom to meet student needs. Giving them a voice not only helps you overcome the risk of adoption but may also ensure a smoother vetting process.
Create a Framework for Your Needs
In order to ensure that you minimize being overwhelmed in your search, start by defining what you need and what minimum criteria must be met. You may have curriculum-based limitations. You may have system limitations. You can also set basic requirements for security and eliminate choices that don’t meet your minimum standards.
Case Studies and Reviews Tell a Story
As you’re vetting edtech, don’t be afraid to ask for case studies from potential vendors and check reviews. You can often discover any challenges or benefits the edtech product may offer simply by learning from other districts that have already implemented it. It’s ok to be selective or reject edtech that doesn’t meet your minimum criteria, especially when it comes to student data privacy. If you quickly reject solutions that don’t meet your basic needs, it will be easier to evaluate the ones that do.
Making the Selection
Some questions you should consider when selecting edtech include:
- Does it integrate with our student information system?
- Will there be any required infrastructure investments?
- What kind of support does the vendor provide? Is there training, tech support, and assistance in implementing the solution?
- What kind of student data is required, what data does it capture, and how securely is it stored? Where is it stored?
- Can it be accessed anywhere, from any device and maintain functionality?
- Do the developers of the solution continually work to improve and update the solution?
- Do you have access to analytics that allow you to view how and when students are benefitting from the solution?
- Is the solution customizable to meet the needs of your school, teachers, classrooms, and infrastructure?
As you evaluate the solution, allow your teachers to test it out. Is it easy and intuitive for them to use, or do they get frustrated? Does it make their job easier, or add another layer to their days?
Make EdTech Selection Easier with School Passport
GG4L’s School Passport® makes selecting and implementing edtech solutions easier and more secure than ever. It is the first of its kind school-centric trusted digital engagement hub that empowers schools to centrally:
- Govern the exchange of student, staff, and parent PII data with SaaS vendors
- Approve and publish apps to a district or school branded on-demand AppStore
- Delegate to school staff and teachers the ability to activate apps within their managed groups on-demand
Free to any school, the School Passport 2.0 API enables ubiquitous access to all apps from within any LMS, SIS, or any pre-existing enterprise portal, while leveraging GG4L ID as an anonymized, secure, and federated access credentials for all end-users. Now, schools have the option School Passport Enterprise Edition with more robust features. Learn more.
