K-12 Privacy, Security Tools Join EdTech Top 40 List

Two of the three newcomers to this year's EdTech Top 40, the sixth annual list of the most commonly accessed ed-tech tools for K-12 in the United States, according to data tracked by the software company LearnPlatform, are student privacy and security tools. And while the generative AI tool ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022, it did not make this list.

The findings, released June 26 by LearnPlatform's parent company Instructure, are based on 57 billion interactions on 9,000 different ed-tech tools by 3 million students and 465,000 educators across the country over the 2022-2023 academic year ending in May.

The report also noted that students and educators interacted with fewer unique technology tools last year than in the previous year — an average of 1,379 distinct tools per month, down from 1,417 per month in 2021-2022. Thirty-seven of the top 40 most commonly accessed tools this year were also on last year's list, with newcomers including Study.com and data security tools GoGuardian and Securly.

“Teachers and students appear to be taking more agency,” Karl Rectanus, Instructure senior vice president of K-12 strategy, said in an interview with Government Technology Thursday. He added that he is noticing a trend in schools “thoughtfully refining” their list of tools and becoming more aware of platforms that help schools track their inventory better and subsequently improve student data protection.

“This is no longer about a shared spreadsheet from a tech coordinator in the basement,” he said.

The largest share of tools on the list, 58 percent, focused on student engagement. All told, the report contained the usual familiar names — Google Classroom, YouTube, Encyclopedia Britannica, Scholastic, Khan Academy, Quizlet, Wikipedia, NYTimes.com and Zoom.

The most commonly used by category were:

• Learning management systems — Google Classrooms
• Courseware platforms — i-Ready
• Supplemental platforms — Nearpod
• Classroom response and assessment — Blooket
• Study tools — Quizlet
• Sites and resources — YouTube
  

In the first year of its top 40 list, in 2016-2017, LearnPlatform reported that schools used an average of 300 unique technologies annually. That number more than doubled the following year, and by 2020-2021 had increased to 2,358, largely due to the need for remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rectanus said he wouldn’t be surprised to see generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT make the list in the coming years, but the cost of those tools are an issue. School districts will need to determine if they would see a favorable return on the investment in terms of student achievement and well-being, as well as equity. But at the same time, with a major teacher shortage across the nation, AI may be needed to help fill in the gaps.

Rectanus emphasized that, in his opinion, ed-tech tools are not and will not be designed to replace human teachers, though the level of innovation and number of tools to chose from will remain quite staggering.

“Learning is now technology-enabled,” he said.