EdTech Digest

Dr. Sheryl R. Abshire on developing bold leaders, defending digital access, and keeping education focused on the future. INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero Few leaders have shaped educational technology as deeply—or continue to advance it as energetically—as Dr. Sheryl R. Abshire. A pioneering educator, national policy advocate, mentor, and trusted bridge between school systems and industry, she has spent decades turning bold ideas into better opportunities for students. Today, her influence remains

Connected systems help institutions personalize engagement, respond in real time, and support the entire student journey. GUEST COLUMN | by Jess Lanning The traditional enrollment funnel—awareness, inquiry, application, decision—has guided higher ed institutions for decades. And the framework itself isn’t the problem. It’s that the systems built to execute it haven’t kept up. Today’s students move across channels, devices, and timelines that rarely follow a straight line. Yet most institutions

How intentional communication, culture, and protected innovation can help distributed product teams do more than simply execute. GUEST COLUMN | by Vishal Gupta Most remote work advice applies broadly to sales teams, customer service, and marketing. Product development is different. It’s messy by design. The best ideas often come from a hallway conversation, a sketch on a whiteboard, an engineer overhearing a customer call and thinking, “wait, that’s not how we built it.”

In an AI economy, the durable advantage isn’t fluency with the tools—it’s the ability to think clearly and say exactly what you mean. GUEST COLUMN | by Jason Robinovitz Ask most parents which skill will matter most in an AI economy and they’ll say coding. For the moment that’s about half right: the people getting the most out of these systems are still largely programmers who understand how the system works. But a shift is underway. You operate these tools with words, not code: you don’t progra

The problem with AI in education may have less to do with the technology itself—and more to do with the products, incentives, and guardrails surrounding it. GUEST COLUMN | by Buzz Rubenstein Students are becoming power users of AI’s most popular products — ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. These chatbots are always-on geniuses-in-a-box that do most of what’s asked of them. Unsurprisingly, many students ask them to write beautiful essays, build well-structured powerpoints, and broadly offload c

Successful technology rollouts begin long before launch—with teachers, families, students, districts, and vendors aligned on what success should look like. GUEST COLUMN | by Dr. Chad A. Stevens and Adam Creasy, Ed.D. Something is not adding up in educational technology. School districts invest billions each year in devices, software platforms, learning management systems, and communication tools. Vendors invest heavily in product development, onboarding, professional learning, and customer succ

Reimagining student participation with a screen-free student response system, Classwise from Photon Education helps teachers engage every learner while gathering real-time instructional insights. Designed for elementary and middle school classrooms, it combines formative assessment, game-based learning, and instructional feedback in a single, easy-to-use platform. The system includes a library of lessons, quizzes, and teaching resources, along with classroom sets of handheld Classpad controllers

AI can accelerate instruction, but teachers remain essential for creating the relationships, structure, and learning environments where students thrive. GUEST COLUMN | by Chris Hull Eleven years in the classroom taught me the importance of cultivating relationships and establishing a strong classroom culture before launching into instruction, because students learn best when they feel seen, understood, and supported. In the decade-plus since I transitioned to edtech, the number of instructional

EduverseTHRIVE from Avantis Education is an immersive virtual reality (VR) solution that helps schools create learning environments where every student can reset, regulate, and thrive. Combining award-winning ClassVR headsets with educator-led immersive experiences, it supports sensory regulation, emotional readiness, wellbeing, and engagement as part of everyday classroom practice. EduverseTHRIVE includes four dedicated VR content suites: MyThrive, a personalized virtual space where students ca

Eric “Buzz” Rubenstein argues that the next generation of AI tools shouldn’t police student writing—they should illuminate the thinking behind it, giving teachers a clearer understanding of how students learn. INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero When generative AI burst into classrooms, much of the conversation centered on detection: How can teachers tell whether students wrote their own work? Eric “Buzz” Rubenstein took a different path. Rather than trying to determine whether AI was used after

Edtech leader Diane Doersch on the mentors who shaped her, the resilience behind every career, and why Beneath the Water moves beyond résumés and titles to reveal the defining moments, values, and relationships behind education’s most influential leaders. INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero For decades, Diane Doersch has been one of the most respected and influential voices in education technology. As a former CoSN Board Chair, current F3 chair, accomplished edtech leader, and trusted advisor to

As AI puts powerful tools into every student’s hands, the next chapter of edtech may belong to the learners helping build it. GUEST COLUMN | by Tyler Maher Long before humans built schools, humans gathered around fires. The fire was rare, expensive, and dangerous to keep alive. Whoever tended it held something the rest of the tribe needed, and the rest of the tribe stayed close. Every institution humans have built since runs on the same principle: a small group controls a scarce resource,

The rush to adopt AI is understandable—but without governance, schools risk compliance failures, community backlash, and missed opportunities for students. GUEST COLUMN | by Andrea Claver Artificial intelligence is currently a topic of conversation in many sectors; however, in the world of education, it’s taking center stage. From staff professional development to student AI literacy, the subject dominates every circle, including EdTech, K-12, and higher education. As these conversations evolve

AI can make us more capable—or less original. After a close call on a panel discussion, I developed a simple framework for deciding when AI should extend human thinking and when it risks replacing it. GUEST COLUMN | by Michelle Odemwingie I was halfway through a virtual panel when it happened. Another panelist started answering a question we’d both been prepped on, and as they spoke, I felt something cold settle in. The phrases were almost identical to the prep document I’d gotten

As AI reshapes learning and work, school leaders face a critical choice: wait for certainty or begin building a thoughtful implementation strategy today. GUEST COLUMN | by Vraj Shroff Artificial intelligence is already reshaping how students learn, how teachers instruct, and how schools operate. For principals, the window for deliberate action is now—not next year, not after the next conference, and not once the research has fully settled. This guide offers a practical framework for AI adoption

MIT’s Justin Reich explains why schools should be wary of unproven AI initiatives, rethink how they adopt new technologies, and focus on evidence over enthusiasm. INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero In a field often driven by promises of transformation, Justin Reich has built a reputation for demanding evidence. As an associate professor at MIT and director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, Reich has spent years examining how schools respond to technological change—not just what new tools can do,

When assessment becomes part of learning, data can do more than measure progress—it can help move students forward. INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero IXL supports more than 17 million students worldwide. In this EdTech Digest conversation, Jennifer Gu, Chief Operating Officer, and Kate Mattison, Vice President of Curriculum, discuss the company’s connected Assessment Suite, the new LevelUp Diagnostic, and how real-time insight can help educators personalize learning and support student growth. K–12

For decades, English-speaking universities have recruited globally while communicating only in English. Most have not thought hard enough about what that may be costing them. GUEST COLUMN | by John Crick I have spent most of my working life in international education. Around ten years at Study Group, another ten at Navitas, then almost six years at Enroly, where I was part of the early team. I was also based in Tokyo for three years, which gave me a useful grounding in how the mechanics of inte

On the AI features that now arrive switched on, and the right to delete that stops working the moment a model learns. GUEST COLUMN | by Daniel Kilback Most schools don’t think hard about what happens to student data once a new tool is in the building. They’ve never had to. Whatever goes in can come back out. Close the account, delete the files, ask the vendor to remove what they hold, and the data leaves more or less when the relationship does. That assumption has held for so long t

An estimated 773 million teens and adults worldwide cannot read above a basic level, according to UNESCO. For schools, the challenge is especially urgent among older students who need foundational reading support but are often disengaged by materials designed for younger children. Developed by the literacy experts at Storyshares, Literacy Intervention for Teens (LIFT) is a research-based literacy intervention program built specifically for striving readers in grades 5–12. Grounded in structured