Educator Technology · edtech guidance for teachers
Most edtech is bought over a teacher’s head and abandoned by November. These guides exist to change that ratio: eight practical, vendor-neutral starting points for evaluating tools, protecting student privacy, setting up shared devices, and knowing when to close the laptop. Written for the classroom, not the IT closet.
Eight guides are published today. Community walkthroughs and printable quick-reference cards are planned — labeled plainly as planned, not live.
What this is
The standard edtech guidance is written for the people who buy technology, not the people who use it. It evaluates tools on integration capability, administrative dashboards, and license structures. Those things matter to someone. They are rarely the question a teacher is standing in front of a class trying to answer.
The questions a teacher needs answered are different: Does this tool actually work with thirty students on a Monday morning? Where does the data go? Can my students use this without a password they will forget? What happens when it stops loading halfway through the period?
These guides answer those questions. They are vendor-neutral by design — no tool is named as the right answer, because the right answer depends on your class, your network, and your district’s policies. The point is to give you the framework to make that call yourself, rather than waiting for a decision to arrive from above.
Starter guides · 8 published today
These are the eight starting points we could not find written plainly for teachers elsewhere. Each one is published and readable in full below. More are in progress and labeled honestly as in progress.
Guide 1 of 8
Most teachers inherit their edtech from a purchasing decision made somewhere above them. This guide walks through the five questions that let you assess a tool on your own terms before you build a lesson around it.
Guide 2 of 8
You do not need a law degree to protect your students' data. This guide covers the practical basics: what the relevant rules actually require, what you can do without IT, and the three things no edtech tool should ever do with a minor's information.
Guide 3 of 8
A device setup that works for one student in a quiet office is not the same as a setup that works for thirty students on a Monday morning. This guide covers the three things that fail most often and how to fix them before the lesson starts.
Guide 4 of 8
Free edtech falls into three categories: genuinely free, free until you need the thing that matters, and free because you are the product. This guide walks through how to tell them apart and which free tools are worth your time.
Guide 5 of 8
Artificial intelligence tools are arriving in classrooms faster than the guidance for using them responsibly. This guide does not tell you whether to use them -- that is your call. It gives you the information you need to make that call honestly.
Guide 6 of 8
Accessible classroom technology is not a specialty topic -- it is a baseline for any tool that a student with a disability might use. This guide covers the practical steps a classroom teacher can take without waiting for an IT audit.
Guide 7 of 8
Most teachers do not have time for a dedicated digital citizenship unit. This guide gives you the five concepts that fit into existing lessons and the three questions that are worth asking every time a student is about to post, share, or submit something online.
Guide 8 of 8
More technology is not always better teaching. This guide is about when to put the devices away, why that choice is often the right one, and how to tell the difference between a tool that helps learning and one that just adds noise.
Guide 1 of 8
Most teachers inherit their edtech from a purchasing decision made somewhere above them. This guide walks through the five questions that let you assess a tool on your own terms before you build a lesson around it.
Before a tool earns a place in your day, it needs to answer five questions honestly. If the company dodges any of them, that is your answer.
1. What does it actually do? Ask for a five-minute walkthrough of the feature you need -- not a demo of the most impressive feature, the one you will use on Tuesday. A good tool does one thing well and does not hide that thing behind three clicks.
2. Where does student data go? Ask directly: does this tool store student names, ages, or work? If yes, what is the legal basis? A tool that cannot answer this question in plain language has not thought carefully about it.
3. Who else sees the data? Many tools share data with advertising networks or analytics partners. The terms of service will say so if you read them. Ask the vendor to point you to the clause.
4. What happens when a student is done? Ask whether student accounts and their content are deleted at the end of the year, or whether they persist. A tool with no answer to this question probably does not have an answer.
5. What does setup actually take? Ask for the setup time in minutes, not hours, and ask whether it requires an IT ticket. If the honest answer is that IT needs to be involved for every class, that cost is real and it belongs in your evaluation.
A tool that passes all five questions is worth a trial. A tool that cannot answer them is not worth your students' time.
Guide 2 of 8
You do not need a law degree to protect your students' data. This guide covers the practical basics: what the relevant rules actually require, what you can do without IT, and the three things no edtech tool should ever do with a minor's information.
Most teachers know there are privacy rules. Very few teachers have had thirty minutes to read them. This guide gives you the part you actually need.
The basic principle: A student's name, photo, grade level, and schoolwork are personal information. Any tool that collects that information is handling it on behalf of the school. The school -- and by extension you -- are responsible for how it is used.
What you can do without IT: You can choose not to use a tool that asks for student names to sign up. You can choose a tool that works with a class code instead. You can read the privacy policy before you assign a tool -- it is usually under 'Legal' or 'Privacy' on the company's website. You can ask the vendor the five questions in Guide 1.
Three things no edtech tool should do with a minor's information: (1) Sell it or share it with advertising networks. (2) Use it to build a profile of the student for purposes outside your class. (3) Keep it after the student leaves the school. A tool that does any of these three things should not be in your classroom, regardless of how useful the feature looks.
The practical floor: Use a fake name or a class alias when a tool only needs a display name. Use a school email address rather than a personal one. Turn off any 'personalization' or 'recommendations' features you did not ask for. These small choices add up.
You are not responsible for knowing every clause of every regulation. You are responsible for making a reasonable, considered choice. A tool that makes that choice easy is a tool worth using.
Guide 3 of 8
A device setup that works for one student in a quiet office is not the same as a setup that works for thirty students on a Monday morning. This guide covers the three things that fail most often and how to fix them before the lesson starts.
Most classroom device problems come from three sources: accounts, connectivity, and the gap between what the tool was designed for and what a shared device actually is. Here is how to address each one.
Accounts and sign-in: The fastest setup is no sign-in at all. If the task does not require saving work, use a tool that works without an account. If sign-in is required, set up class accounts before the lesson -- not during it. A class code or a shared display name (not a personal student name) gets thirty students into a tool in under two minutes. Avoid anything that requires each student to remember a password they set up six weeks ago.
Connectivity: Test on the actual classroom network, not the teacher lounge network, the day before. School networks often block ports or domains that a tool requires. If a tool fails to load on the classroom network, submit the IT ticket on Wednesday for a Friday lesson -- not the morning of. Keep one offline fallback activity in your back pocket for the lesson that breaks anyway.
Shared devices: Many edtech tools are designed for a device that belongs to one person. A shared classroom device is different. Clear the browser history and sign out of any accounts at the end of the period -- not the end of the day. Bookmark the three tools you use most so students spend thirty seconds getting started, not three minutes typing URLs. If a tool saves to the device rather than to an account, make sure you know where those files go and who can see them.
The goal is a setup that runs without you in the first five minutes of class. If the setup requires you to be at every device, it is not set up -- it is held together.
Guide 4 of 8
Free edtech falls into three categories: genuinely free, free until you need the thing that matters, and free because you are the product. This guide walks through how to tell them apart and which free tools are worth your time.
Not all free is the same. The word is used to mean at least three different things in edtech, and knowing which one you are dealing with saves you from building a lesson around a tool that locks the essential feature behind a paywall on week three.
Genuinely free: Some tools are free because the publisher is a nonprofit, a research project, or a government agency, or because the free tier is the complete product and paid tiers add administration features the teacher never needs. These tools are usually straightforward about what they are. Look for a '.gov' or '.edu' domain, or a clear nonprofit disclosure on the about page.
Free until you need the thing that matters: This is the most common category. The tool works well for the first few lessons and then presents a paywall exactly when you try to use the feature the tool was marketed on. The way to spot this early: look for a 'pricing' page before you plan a lesson around the tool. If 'export,' 'share,' 'assign,' or 'track progress' is behind a paid plan, budget for it before you assign it or find an alternative.
Free because you are the product: Some tools are free because they monetize the data -- yours or your students'. The privacy policy will say so. Terms like 'improve our products,' 'third-party partners,' or 'personalization' in a privacy policy can mean student work or behavior is being used for advertising or sold to data brokers. A tool in this category should not be used with students.
The practical test: Search the tool's name alongside 'privacy policy student data.' Read the first three paragraphs. If you cannot find the privacy policy in under two minutes, that is a signal.
The best free tools for classrooms tend to be the ones built by and for educators, not the ones built by a company that happens to offer a classroom tier. The former are usually free because the people who made them understand what a classroom budget is.
Guide 5 of 8
Artificial intelligence tools are arriving in classrooms faster than the guidance for using them responsibly. This guide does not tell you whether to use them -- that is your call. It gives you the information you need to make that call honestly.
This guide is not an argument for or against using artificial intelligence tools in your classroom. It is a plain description of what these tools do, what the honest limits are, and what questions to ask before you assign one.
What these tools actually do: Most artificial intelligence writing and tutoring tools work by predicting the next word in a sequence based on patterns learned from a large amount of text. They do not know things the way you know things. They do not understand a student's intent. They can produce confident-sounding text that is wrong -- and they do this without any indication that they are unsure.
The honest limits: An artificial intelligence tool can produce a draft, a summary, or a practice problem. It cannot check that draft against reality. It cannot know whether a student understood the concept or just accepted the output. It cannot replace the conversation between a student and a teacher about what the student actually meant to say.
The privacy question: Most artificial intelligence tools send the text a user types to a server to generate a response. That text may be stored and used to improve the model. A student's essay, a student's question, and a student's name are all text. Before assigning an artificial intelligence tool, read the privacy policy for the answer to: does text submitted by users get stored, and is it used for training?
The academic honesty question: This is a question your school or district may already have a policy on. If it does not, the conversation is worth having before students submit work, not after. The most practical approach: be specific about what you want students to do themselves, and design assignments where the student's own thinking is visible -- not just a final output.
Before you assign: Try the tool yourself on a task your students will do. Ask it a question you know the answer to, and ask it a question in a domain where you are not an expert. The gap between how confident the tool sounds and how accurate it is will tell you a lot about how to frame it for your class.
Guide 6 of 8
Accessible classroom technology is not a specialty topic -- it is a baseline for any tool that a student with a disability might use. This guide covers the practical steps a classroom teacher can take without waiting for an IT audit.
Accessibility in classroom technology is often framed as something for specialists. It is not. Every teacher has students who benefit from accessible tools, and many of those students have not been identified or do not want to be singled out. Here is what you can do in the classroom, today.
Text size and contrast: Most browsers and operating systems have built-in accessibility settings: larger text, higher contrast, and the ability to override a website's fonts. Before a lesson, check whether the tool you are using works with the browser's built-in zoom (Control-Plus on most computers). A tool that breaks at 150% zoom is not accessible.
Keyboard navigation: A student who cannot use a mouse should be able to use the tool with a keyboard alone. Tab through the tool's main actions before you assign it. If you cannot reach the 'submit' button with the tab key, that student cannot submit their work independently.
Screen readers: Some students use screen readers to have text read aloud. Images in a tool should have a text description (called 'alt text'). If a tool relies entirely on images or icons with no text labels, it is not accessible to these students.
Captions and audio: Any video in a tool should have captions. Most video platforms offer auto-generated captions; they are imperfect, but they are far better than nothing. If the tool's core content is audio-only with no transcript, flag this before you assign it to a student who is deaf or hard of hearing.
The practical question: Before you assign a tool, ask: could a student who uses a wheelchair, who has low vision, or who has a learning disability that affects reading complete this assignment using only the features the tool provides? If the answer is no, you need either a modification or a different tool.
Accessible tools are better tools for every student -- not just the ones with documented accommodations. The student who benefits most from captions is often the one who left their earbuds at home.
Guide 7 of 8
Most teachers do not have time for a dedicated digital citizenship unit. This guide gives you the five concepts that fit into existing lessons and the three questions that are worth asking every time a student is about to post, share, or submit something online.
Digital citizenship does not need to be a separate unit to be taught. The concepts that matter most fit into the lessons you are already teaching -- they just need to be named.
Five concepts that fit into existing lessons:
1. Permanent versus reversible: When a student submits or posts something online, ask: is this reversible? A deleted tweet is not the same as an unsent one. This fits naturally into any lesson that involves sharing work publicly.
2. Source and claim: A piece of information is only as reliable as its source. Before a student uses something they found online, ask where it came from and who wrote it. This fits into any research activity.
3. Audience and context: Something appropriate to share with a friend is not always appropriate to share publicly. This fits into any writing lesson where students consider their audience.
4. The cost of attention: Apps and platforms are designed to keep users engaged. Naming this design choice -- rather than treating it as a personal failing -- helps students think about it rather than just experiencing it. This fits into a media literacy discussion.
5. Consent and images: A photo of a person belongs to that person in a meaningful sense, even if the photographer technically took it. Taking and sharing a photo of a classmate without their agreement is a violation, even if it is not illegal. This fits into any lesson that involves cameras or video.
The three questions before posting, sharing, or submitting: (1) Would you be comfortable if everyone who might see this actually saw it? (2) Could someone be harmed by this -- directly or indirectly? (3) Is this accurate?
These questions are not a guarantee. They are a habit. A student who has asked them a hundred times in class is more likely to ask them once on their own.
Guide 8 of 8
More technology is not always better teaching. This guide is about when to put the devices away, why that choice is often the right one, and how to tell the difference between a tool that helps learning and one that just adds noise.
The assumption in most edtech guidance is that more technology means better outcomes. The research on this is considerably more complicated. This guide is about the cases where the right answer is to close the laptop.
The substitution trap: A tool that does the same thing a pencil does -- but with more steps -- is not an improvement. A digital fill-in-the-blank is not better than a paper fill-in-the-blank just because it is on a screen. Before adding a tool to a lesson, ask: does this do something that is genuinely hard to do without the technology, or am I using it because it is available?
The attention cost: Every device in a classroom is a portal to everything else on the internet. The cost of that portal is real and it is paid in attention. A lesson that requires sustained reading, discussion, or creative thinking is often better served by removing the devices than by trying to manage the competition for attention they introduce.
When technology helps most: Technology tends to add genuine value when it does something that is genuinely difficult without it: real-time collaboration on a shared document, access to primary sources that are not in the school's library, simulation of something that cannot be done physically in the classroom, or feedback that would take a human teacher twenty minutes per student. If the tool is not doing one of these things, the case for using it is weaker.
The two questions: Before a lesson, ask: what does this tool do that I could not do without it? After a lesson, ask: did the technology help students learn the thing I was teaching, or did it give them something to do while I taught it? The second question is harder to answer honestly. It is also the more important one.
The best technology decision a teacher makes in a week is sometimes the decision not to use technology. Naming that as a legitimate choice -- rather than a failure of innovation -- is the beginning of using these tools well.
What is live, what is planned
The eight starter guides above are published and readable today. They do not require a sign-in, a subscription, or an email address. That is what ships at launch.
Two things are in development and labeled as planned, not available: a community space where teachers can submit walkthroughs of tools they have actually used in a classroom, and a set of printable quick-reference cards that summarize each guide on one page. When those ship, the label will change. Until then, the guides are the site.
There is no checkout on this site. The guides are free. If you want to get in touch — to suggest a guide topic, to flag something that is wrong, or to ask a question the guides do not answer — the contact form is the right path.
FAQ
Ask it five questions before it earns a place in your day: what it actually does, where student data goes, who else can see that data, what happens to a student’s account and work when they are done, and what setup actually takes in minutes and IT tickets. A tool that cannot answer these plainly is not worth your students’ time -- the full walkthrough is Guide 1 above.
No. The practical floor is a short list: you can choose a tool that works with a class code instead of a student’s real name, you can read the ‘Legal’ or ‘Privacy’ page before assigning a tool, and you can rule out anything that sells student data, profiles a student beyond your class, or keeps their information after they leave the school. Guide 2 above covers the basics a classroom teacher can act on without IT.
Skip sign-in entirely when the task allows it. When sign-in is required, set up class accounts before the lesson using a class code or a shared display name rather than individual passwords. Test on the actual classroom network the day before, not the morning of, and keep an offline fallback activity ready. Guide 3 above walks through accounts, connectivity, and shared-device setup in detail.
Sometimes. Guide 4 above splits free tools into three kinds: genuinely free, free until the feature you actually need sits behind a paywall, and free because the data -- yours or your students’ -- is what pays for it. The practical test is to search the tool’s name alongside ‘privacy policy student data’ and read the first few paragraphs before you build a lesson around it.
That call is yours to make, and this site does not make it for you. Guide 5 above is a plain description of what these tools actually do (predict a likely next word, not verify a fact), the privacy question worth asking before you assign one (does submitted text get stored or used to train the model), and the academic-honesty conversation worth having with your school before students submit work.
Check it against the practical tests in Guide 6 above: does it still work at 150 percent browser zoom, can every main action be reached with a keyboard alone, do images carry a text description for a screen reader, and do videos have captions. If a student who is low-vision, uses a wheelchair, or is deaf or hard of hearing could not complete the assignment using only the tool’s built-in features, it needs a modification or a different tool.
No. Guide 7 above gives five concepts that fit into lessons you are already teaching -- permanent versus reversible, source and claim, audience and context, the cost of attention, and consent around images -- plus three questions worth asking every time a student is about to post, share, or submit something online.
Ask the two questions from Guide 8 above: what does this tool do that I could not do without it, and did the technology help students learn the thing I was teaching, or did it just give them something to do while I taught it. If a task is really a pencil-and-paper task with more steps, closing the laptop is often the stronger choice.
The educator family
Each educator domain covers a different part of the teaching profession. This site is the technology guidance layer; the others cover resources, professional development, career services, and international placements.
Shared lessons, templates, and classroom tools from a community of teachers.
Short, practical classroom tips: management ideas, lesson shortcuts, and daily advice.
Professional development and certification tracking for school staff.
Licensure records, credential files, and staffing data for districts.
Career coaching, certification help, and portfolio support for teachers at any stage.
Teaching across borders: international certification, cross-country placements, and global programs.
Related platform properties
The tools described in these guides exist alongside a platform that schools and teachers already use. These are the related properties worth knowing about.
The school operating system: roster, communications, yearbook, picture day, and records on one platform.
Standards-aligned curriculum resources freely available to every K-12 teacher.
Ready-to-teach lesson plans teachers can adapt and use in any classroom.
Stay in the loop
These guides are written by people who have been in classrooms. If you have tried something that is not covered here, or if you found a claim that does not match your experience, we want to hear about it. The fastest way to make this more useful for more teachers is a real conversation with real teachers.
There is no newsletter sign-up. No drip campaign. No tracker. If you send a message, a person reads it and responds — with something useful, not a product pitch.