Quiz: Are You an Edtech Innovator? #Technology Lindsey Canny by Lindsey Canny Lindsey Canny Edtech Thought Leader Read time: Do you have what it takes to innovate when it comes to edtech in your district? Do new devices, apps, and programs feel like a galaxy of opportunities, or do they look like alien artifacts? Take this quiz to find out whether you boldly go through the edtech universe or if you’re still stuck on the ground. The district is looking to purchase new classroom tech to install in each building. How much teacher input goes into this decision? A. Very little. There are too many opinions and too many moving parts to edtech acquisition to spend time crowdsourcing each decision. B. Some. There may be an initial survey or a call for suggestions, but analyzing choices and selecting the tech is up to admin. C. A lot. There’s a group of trusted staff we can turn to for help with tech evaluation and decision-making, but it’s ultimately up to admin for the final say. D. As much as possible. From brainstorming, requesting, and all the way up through implementation, staff members are integral to each step of tech acquisition. You walk through your district's high school and see both kids and staff inside the classrooms using their phones. Your first reaction is: A. It’s unacceptable. They have no place in the learning environment and should be put in a locker or desk until the end of the day, or left at home. B. I don’t like it. They should rarely be used, and only for specific, teacher-guided activities. Otherwise, they should be strictly out of sight. C. I don’t mind. Personal devices are great for supplementing or supporting lessons, but casual use should be monitored or discouraged. D. That’s a-okay! Personal devices are excellent tools to help facilitate education and should be leveraged as much as possible as a resource. Plus, a little phone use during free time isn’t going to hurt anyone. AI Chatbots are sweeping the nation (and your school district.) Thoughts?? A. No way. We need to nip this in the bud and block generative AIs on all district devices. These programs are notoriously used for cheating and plagiarism, and they aren’t secure. B. I’m wary of AI bots. The district should limit its use until there is a well-outlined policy or plan for use in place. C. AI bots aren’t going away, so it’s best to get ahead of them and figure out a plan to integrate AI into learning in safe and effective ways. D. I am 100% on board with leveraging AI bots to aid the learning process. The future is now, and security, prompt-writing, researching, and fact-checking are all things the students should learn about AI chats. Let’s get chatting! Edtech always moves at lightning pace, and your district has the opportunity to be part of a pilot program for a virtual reality learning experience. Are you in? A. No, thank you. We don’t want to get caught up in any flash-in-the-pan pseudoscience that can distract students and staff from already-proven methods of learning. B. I’ll put it under review. It sounds like it could be a fun technology, but I don’t want to jump the gun before getting more information. C. It sounds exciting. I can see the value in being on the forefront of edtech innovation, and it would be a good test run for tech like this. D. Let’s go! I want our district to always be ahead of the game, and if this can put our schools on the leading edge of edtech, I say “sign us up!” With all of this technology, how confident are you in your staff’s, students’, and parents’ digital citizenship and security knowledge? A. Is that a big deal? Everyone knows how to use the internet safely these days, right? Right?? B. Somewhat confident. We have some proper use guidelines posted and have a few lessons about it in the curriculum. C. Confident. We have strong usage policies across the district with parental contact included, and we make it a priority to include tech literacy throughout our curriculum. D. Extremely confident. Signed usage agreements, zero-tolerance cyberbullying policies, media literacy curriculum in all subject areas, parent tech training — you name it, we have it! Finish this sentence: Trying to get all of our programs and software to work seamlessly with one another is… A. Like pulling teeth. Everything has its own process and if we want to transfer data or compile it for reporting we usually have to do it manually. B. Challenging. There’s basic interoperability, but it’s clunky and we usually have to fall back on doing things ourselves. C. Easy enough. We know the importance of interoperability and keep it in mind when making edtech decisions. Otherwise, we have a few go-to fixes for anything that doesn’t immediately transfer. D. A breeze. Interoperability is one of the first things we ensure with new district tech, and if there’s a program that doesn’t fit in with the others, we’re wary of adopting it in the first place. How did you do? Mostly As: You’re a technology comet — it’s really rare to get you to come around to anything new, and so you wind up drifting in the cold. Find out what tech is helping other districts thrive, get staff and student input, and just say yes. Mostly Bs: You’re a technology nebula. You may want to get your district started with edtech innovation, but sometimes it’s difficult to get everything to come together long enough to become a star. Keep working to step outside of that comfort zone so your district can shine as bright as possible! Mostly Cs: You’re a technology superstar! You know how to maintain the right balance of open-mindedness and curiosity when it comes to edtech innovation, but you also know the value of a little caution and care. Keep shining, rockstar! Mostly Ds: You’re a technology supernova. It’s refreshing to see a district so fired up to be on the leading edge of new-and-now edtech, but it’s important to keep a critical eye on any brand-new tech development so you don’t get burned by being overeager. Lindsey Canny Edtech Thought Leader Share this story:
