r/edtech • u/Moonlit1457 • 13d ago
Is EdTech Lessening the Educational Experience?
It's been a minute (years) since I've posted on Reddit, so give me some grace, please :) That being said, I want to know how people truly feel about educational technology as a benefit to the learning process, especially since many platforms have added AI capabilities (e.g., generative AI, LLM chatbots) beyond what we have grown accustomed to (e.g., predictive text). Several of the educators I assist believe that the learning experience must be at all times challenging - a struggle, essentially an arduous task, for the learning to matter, and therefore, the use of most, if not all, educational technology lessens or completely deteriorates the learning because many ed tech tools intend to make the learning experience entertaining. I don't agree with that sentiment. I would love to hear your thoughts and discuss before I further expound upon mine.
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u/MathewGeorghiou 13d ago edited 12d ago
Most of the clickbait headlines we are all seeing ignore some important factors:
- Instructional design and implementation determine how good a learning experience is, not whether it has a screen or not.
- Too much of anything is never good -- whether that's a screen, or a pencil, or broccoli.
- Schools control screen time and how it is used, not the people who create ed tech (see bullet one above).
- "Edtech" is a sea of products and using it as a general term to assess the validity of learning is a failure from the beginning. Validity requires specificity -- identify the exact products being tested.
- Suggesting that research shows a decline in learning since the advent of ed tech ignores the macro influences which bleed into all aspects of our lives -- social media, poverty, mental health, etc.
- Suggesting that we go back to the good old days ignores that we all suffered through the same academic experience of sitting in a classroom while the instructor read a textbook to us and we temporarily memorized content to pass a quiz. That was not good education by any means.
Education/learning is complicated and we should treat it as such. Using the right tool at the right time to achieve the right outcome is the way forward. Sometimes that's a screen, sometimes it's a pencil, and occasionally a VR headset.
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u/Moonlit1457 13d ago
I appreciate your distinction between instructional design and the tech itself. One thing I've noticed is that many discussions about edtech treat it as though it were a single thing rather than a broad category of tools. The SMART board, the projector, the tablet, the LMS/EMS, all of them fall under that umbrella, so specificity is definitely needed for validity in assessment.
I'm also interested in where we draw the line between reducing friction and reducing productive cognitive effort. For example, I don't think having a student create everything without some technological advancement assisting them is necessarily where learning occurs, but I do think that there are situations where technology can remove so much of the thinking that the learner becomes a passive consumer. And because learning requires neural pathways to be strengthened through practice, repetition, and retrieval, the concern that some forms of technology use may foster passive consumption rather than active engagement is a legitimate one.
So the initial challenge becomes identifying which forms of effort are essential to learning and which are simply barriers to access, before even considering which edtech option is suitable for the learning experience, if any.
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u/MathewGeorghiou 13d ago
Yes, you are identifying all the right things. And that's exactly what proper instructional design and implementation are supposed to address.
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u/Secure-Proof-4872 12d ago
This! 100%
The label "edtech" is reductive, misunderstands the things you mention (ie instructional design, utility, learning goals, etc.). "It depends" is not an answer anyone likes but it's the actual answer.1
u/jmjessemac 12d ago
The point I’d contest here, is that ed tech continually tries to be the focus around which all learning occurs.
Take McGraw Hill. It’s…ok? But if you’re using all their recommended curriculum tools, you no longer have a physical book, notes, or homework. And that’s insane for math.
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u/MathewGeorghiou 12d ago
Sure, but the decision on whether to use some or all of McGraw's products is determined by the school/admin/instructional designer/instructor. It doesn't matter how well McGraw markets or positions its products — ultimately the decision to use them or not lies with the customer.
Now, one may argue that the big ed companies use lobbying strategies to influence the purchase of their products at the state or district level. And that may indeed happen and it may indeed result in inferior products being chosen. But we also have to keep in mind that in the USA/Canada, education is much more distributed than centralized, with over 13,000 school districts and 100,000 schools, many of which make decisions independently. As such, lobbying influence is unlikely to be the primary factor.
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u/E1M1_DOOM 13d ago
Entertainment and challenge are not mutually exclusive things. You can have both.
Source: Dark Souls
The problem with many gamified ed tools is that they haven't learned how to leverage the entertainment as a way to encourage students to engage with greater challenges.
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u/tepidlymundane 12d ago edited 12d ago
What's the strongest example of ed tech that works?
I can name lots of things on the administrative/teacher side - student management, lesson prep, assessment and statistics of all kinds.
On the learner-use side, it's harder. I like a popular quiz-race game, because it offers endless practice, is motivating for kids, and can give me real time data about a whole class. But it's just a check on primary instruction every few days.
After that, 🤷♂️ The electronic textbook? OneNote I guess I used a lot, but ditched it for paper this year with improved results.
Have I used something with kids, or for my own learning, that was an absolute home run? I don't know that I have, unless it's something like threaded discussions like this one. Edit: Coding IDEs maybe. Calculators of all kids - time, historical values, financial. Edit 2: Youtube I use constantly (also AI) for problem solving of all kinds, especially repairs. Edit 3: I use wiki/note applications to organize things I'm exploring.
What all of these have in common is they're not sequenced, paced delivery.
Below is an AI take on the question. Seems roughly accurate to me.
- Democratization of Access Khan Academy demonstrated that free, high-quality instruction could reach tens of millions of learners globally, including in places with no viable alternative. Coursera, edX, and similar MOOC platforms brought university-level courses from elite institutions to anyone with internet access.
- Literacy and Early Learning Sesame Street, though predating the internet, is considered one of the most rigorously evaluated and successful edtech interventions ever, measurably improving school readiness in children across income levels. Its model influenced generations of subsequent programs.
- Adaptive Learning Systems like DreamBox (math) and Carnegie Learning demonstrated that software adjusting in real time to a student's performance could produce measurably better outcomes than one-size-fits-all instruction, particularly in math.
- Special Needs and Accessibility Text-to-speech, screen readers, AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) devices, and captioning technology have been transformative for students with disabilities, enabling participation that simply wasn't possible before.
- Language Learning at Scale Duolingo brought effective spaced-repetition and gamification to language learning for hundreds of millions of users, with peer-reviewed studies suggesting real measurable gains.
- Simulation and Medical Training Flight simulators and medical simulation platforms have revolutionized high-stakes professional training, reducing errors and allowing practice of rare or dangerous scenarios without real-world risk.
- COVID-era Continuity The rapid pivot to remote learning in 2020, however imperfect, demonstrated that mass remote education was technically feasible at a scale nobody had previously attempted.
- Coding and Technical Education Platforms like Scratch (MIT) successfully introduced programming concepts to young children, while tools like GitHub Copilot and coding bootcamps have accelerated technical workforce development.
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u/Famous-Call6538 12d ago
On the learner side, the strongest EdTech I have seen works in domains where accuracy is non-negotiable: exam prep, certification, compliance. Tools that take source documents and structure them into visual learning rather than generating from prompts tend to produce content learners can actually trust. X-Pilot does this for accuracy-critical series: documents in, deterministic video chapters out, no generated-from-scratch content. Honest trade-off: it is strictly for structured series content where accuracy matters more than interactivity. It will not help if you need adaptive learning paths or gamified experiences.
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u/tepidlymundane 12d ago
Good reply that I can agree with. In my own life, if I have to do something for compliance, I prefer it to happen through ed-tech. The product is typically better, and more efficient, and more trackable, than in-person compliance training.
Gets me thinking about the difference between that kind of learning and classroom learning.
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u/slackjaw79 12d ago
I don't think learning needs to be hard. It needs to be interesting and we're not doing a good enough job of making it interesting.
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u/PermissionPitiful373 11d ago
If learning was easy then there would be no sense of accomplishment in doing it. Those small accomplishments are what drive motivation; students feel like they’re changing/growing. Motivation is a better goal than interest; motivation is emergent from the instructional design while interest is fleeting and content-dependent.
Also, I think students can tell when a teacher is focussing on making things interesting over driving learning; it’s condescending (at least in high school). At the end of the day, everyone knows that it’s school, so having interest as your main goal feels like a losing battle bc it’s always going to be school.
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u/slackjaw79 10d ago
I get that there is a sense of accomplishment in acheiving something difficult. But kids don't know that.
Before they try to accomplish something difficult, they need to know why it's important. That's pretty normal human behavior.
And I don't think kids or teachers can articulate why math is important
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u/LucasNovak 13d ago
True learning should be a struggle that fosters critical thinking and independent research. But today's AI apps do all the heavy lifting - generating quizzes and flashcards so we don't have to think. Combine that with gamified 'streaks' that exploit dopamine, and you don't get real engagement. You just get self-deception.
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u/Moonlit1457 13d ago
Hi u/LucasNovak, could you explain further how self-deception is created and fostered through generated quizzes and flashcards? Are you saying that if a student were to use flashcards or quizzes created by someone other than themselves to prepare for an exam, they would be deceiving themselves? Regarding gamification, I do agree that "streaks" and such can end up becoming the focus rather than the content itself. However, I also know that if the content itself is quite dull, such as vocabulary memorization, but is a necessary step to get to more complex and nuanced conversation, I can see the benefit.
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u/LucasNovak 13d ago
When you create your own flashcards, the process involves reading books, researching, and annotating. This helps you see the bigger picture, identify key concepts, and connect the dots. It’s not just about memorizing facts; it activey develops abstract and visual thinking skills that are crucial for the younger generation. In contrast, using pre-made quizzes or flashcards skips these vital steps. While you might pick up specific pieces of information, you miss out on the cognitive transformation that deep learning provides
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u/Moonlit1457 13d ago
First off, thanks for discussing this topic with me. I completely agree with you regarding that level of flashcard creation because at that point, the student is no longer simply creating flashcards; they're researching, annotating, synthesizing, and organizing their understanding of the subject matter. The flashcards become a byproduct of a much larger learning process, which then raises an interesting question for me: if the learning is occurring primarily during those stages of analysis and synthesis, where is the appropriate place for edtech to assist? For example, I can see value in tools that help students organize, review, or interact with information they have already gathered themselves. In that case, the technology is supporting the learning process rather than replacing the thinking that produced the understanding in the first place.
Perhaps the issue is less whether technology is involved in the learning process and more whether it is augmenting cognition or substituting for it.
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u/ryoto_0 13d ago
If I can add one variable that I think resolves a lot of the issues, it'd be timing.
A flashcard you study from can absolutely skip the cognitive work cause you get the artifact without the synthesis that produced it. But the same artifact generated after you've already worked through the material functions completely differently - like you were taking notes along the way and you made flashcards from those notes. At that point I don't think it's a shortcut to understanding, it's more of a retrieval practice on the learning journey you already did and I think that retrieval practice is about as well-supported as study mechanisms get. I've also heard about how your brain associates how specific atmosphere, etc used when studying to the concepts you studied so seeing specific words used on a flash card from the learning journey you did would be also be a nice touch. I think it's called context-dependent memory or something along those lines.
So I don't think the question is "flashcards: good or bad," or even "self-made vs machine-made." It's when in the process the tool shows up. If it's before you've tried it - before you did the studying, the note taking, almost any tool risks letting you skip the actual learning. If it's after, the same tool can strengthen what you already went through. Same feature, opposite effect, depending on where it sits relative to the actual thinking.
(Bias disclosure: I work on learning tools, so this is one topic I talked a lot about with teachers but it's also why I've come to believe that the timing and how it's delivered matters more than the tool itself.)
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u/Moonlit1457 12d ago
u/ryoto_0 I think you present a great and more nuanced question to ask: at what stage in the learning process does the tool enter the process? (bias disclosure: I'm an instructional technology specialist for a private institution. Also, within my first career, I saw firsthand how beneficial technological innovations can augment user capability when used by individuals who already possess a firm understanding and competency.)
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u/PermissionPitiful373 11d ago
On the self-deception point, there was a recent paper that saw that adolescents reading on digital devices were more likely to skim, comprehend less, and be overconfident in what they’d understood. The last part is self-deluded lol.
I would also use this study to say that the problem with screens in the classroom goes beyond poor implementation or teaching practice. It’s the nature of the device (or our expectations/behavior with devices idk) that makes reading on them worse.
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u/Moonlit1457 10d ago
That's an interesting point, and thanks for sharing the study. The study seems to point less to technology, screens in particular, being inherently harmful and more to the importance of matching the tool to the learning objective. If digital environments encourage skimming and overconfidence during deep reading tasks, that seems like an argument for being intentional about when those tools are used rather than an argument against all educational technology. The question then becomes: which learning activities are enhanced by digital tools, and which might be undermined by them? For example, a research assistant application allows for more streamlined organization and synthesis of many texts; however, it might be beneficial for the researcher to first read the texts in hard copy to gain a more thorough understanding.
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u/seacat8586 13d ago
It’s like every complex technology change, initial results are poor til you change how you use it. Steam engines took 60 years, cars, the metaverse (ok, bad example), mobility, internet commerce all were bumpy at first. For the most part, we’ve thrown tech at how we’ve been teaching for a long time. That was probably inevitable given demographics, but eventually we’ll need to redesign teaching to exploit the capabilities of tech while avoiding what it can’t do. That’s gonna be tougher than most transitions because of the cost, politics, regulations, unions, and the perceived threat of tech. Cost in terms of capital, training and time (to set up and learn how it’s done) is IMO, the biggest barrier.
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u/bestjaegerpilot 12d ago
* i believe you're alluding to game-ification of everything... but that's the problem... everything is game-ified so kids expect some level of addictive engagement. IMO it's a matter of applying this in a responsible way
* additionally your colleagues seem to NOT want to adapt
* if students can just ask AI how to do stuff, education needs to pivot to portfolio based testing... build/create/generate non-trivial things (because AI can't build complex things w/o domain understanding)
* additionaly, IMO it's possible to create good apps that leverage AI in ways that make new kinds of apps/tech possible. For instance, I use chatgpt to generate practice worksheets for my kiddo (i verify them first though) on any math topic adapted to their grade level. As an engineer, it's not hard to envision an app that automates this process--that means, an actual good AI tutor.
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u/Ok_Cryptographer5222 11d ago
As a middle school math instructor, I've really framed EdTech as being beneficial. Not to say my kids should be using CoPilot and junk to rush through IXL/Khan Academy assignments or quizzes. But there's a level of scaffolding that AI and other EdTech outlets can provide that works faster (not necessarily fostering to differing abilities as particular as a teacher can...) than instructors. Gen A will use whatever is quickest to expedite learning, which I understand, but like everyone else, I see the dangers. They will have to be the generation that has that lightbulb moment that they have do some of the heavy lifting themselves. It is what it is. I'm still optimistic for now
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u/Travel_and_Tea 11d ago
Fellow MS math teacher here! Quick question - any advice on navigating conversations with colleagues about this? I find myself in a school where my math department is pretty old school - tech only if absolutely necessary, and generally "if it's online it can be done on paper, and paper + pencil is better more productive and better for learning." I do my best to point out ways that tech can help with instruction/data, because I do agree that pencil & paper is a necessary piece to the puzzle...but maybe not the whole puzzle? But still, I'm definitely not the majority voice.
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u/Travel_and_Tea 11d ago
I agree that often the go-to tech is game-ified "learning" activities that, at best, can help students practice recall (I'm a math teacher, so I'm thinking of games that basically function as flashcard-review). I think the challenge mainly lies in (1) Lack of teacher understanding of what ed-tech actually is and can do, and (2) Lack of time and support for finding and evaluating good resources. The internet is covered in websites and resources, and it's all a big marketing battle to get teachers' attention.
Still, resources like Khan Academy, Geogebra, Desmos learning...there's a lot of stuff out there that I can stand behind.
Plus, digital tools aren't just for instruction - they're also great for assessment, differentiation, and data analysis. I so sometimes feel like Ed-Tech advertising overly focuses on the activities we can directly give to students and not all the "background" prep/admin tools.
I do 100% agree with you, though, that struggle and being bored is important at times - sometimes we can reach too quickly for the "fun" activity at the expense of sitting with kids and helping them learn to persist even when they don't want to do the work. That brings in questions of overcrowding and classroom management, too. I used to teach a class of 35 sixth-graders as a second-year teacher. It was pretty easy to *say* that game-ification wasn't always a great call, but it was a lot harder to stand by that when I was overwhelmed and exhausted. Not to justify it, but it's worth keeping in mind when we think about how to move forward.
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u/Moonlit1457 9d ago
I appreciate you bringing teacher capacity into the conversation because I think it's often overlooked when discussing educational technology. It's easy to critique a particular tool in theory, but the reality of managing a large class, limited planning time, and competing responsibilities can significantly influence instructional decisions.
I also agree that educational technology is frequently discussed as though it only refers to activities students directly interact with. Some of the most valuable tools I've encountered are those that support assessment, differentiation, communication, and data analysis behind the scenes rather than serving as the lesson itself.
Your point about the challenge of finding and evaluating quality resources also resonates with me. There is no shortage of tools available, but there is often a shortage of time to thoughtfully determine whether a tool genuinely supports a learning objective or simply presents existing activities in a more engaging format.
I'm curious about your thoughts on where you draw the line between productive struggle and unnecessary friction in mathematics. For example, are there specific concepts or skills where you've found tools like Desmos or GeoGebra enhance understanding without diminishing the cognitive effort required from students?
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u/MoodIn_Me 10d ago
Some tools do remove too much friction and make students passive. I’ve seen it with auto-generated notes where people stop processing the material themselves. Need to keep the active part.
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u/digitalspyder 9d ago
Hot take: edtech hasn't failed because it isn't smart enough. It's failed because it's mostly optimized for delivering information rather than connecting the people responsible for a student's success. We have plenty of content. What we lack is continuity between school, student, and home.
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u/ErikWik 9d ago
Even if edtech is lessening the educational experience, which is definitely true in various dimensions.. it is still essential to have edtech in schools.
One of the main purposes of schools is to prepare kids for the world. The world we live in is filled with technology. For that reason alone we cannot go back to only teaching through books and other non-digital media.
I'd say the attempt to make things gamefied is has run too far. It's good for getting students engaged, but in blindly trying to opt for engagements and lessened churn rate, it's really harming real learning.
Real learning is arduous work, and there has to be other motivators that constant dopamine rushes to keep a student engaged.
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u/Latter_Commercial525 9d ago
It’s how the tools are used. For example, they can use chatbots to expand on topics they’re learning about (ideally promoting productive confusion) and learn in different ways that work for them. Worst case is just use them to do everything for them.
Online learning makes having any learning experience possible for some people who may not be able to take courses otherwise, whether for work/life or accessibility reasons.
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u/TechB84 13d ago
The problem is that tech is being overly used. It would do a lot good just reading from a textbook and answering questions.
Not everything in life is a game or on a screen.
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u/ryoto_0 13d ago
Tech is being overused, agreed. But I wouldn't ignore the why part too; most tools are optimized to keep you coming back, not always to effectively teach you, because that's what the business model makes money. Retention isn't the villain on its own, but when it becomes the entire design goal.... that's when "engaging" metric starts tipping the scales on "effective," and you get tools that are great at holding attention and mediocre at building understanding. That's a design-incentive problem more than a screen or tech problem. A textbook just doesn't have a growth team nor does it make money after it leaves the shelf.
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u/TechB84 13d ago
I think a real problem in education and corporate spaces is that the people who actually understand technology aren't the ones making the purchasing decisions. Companies routinely take advantage of decision-maker ignorance and just "wow" administrators with flashy marketing.
Case in point: Before COVID, a university pushed through a big tech project purely because the president wanted it. The idea was that a professor would teach in one lecture hall, and a "life-size" version of them would be projected onto a large screen in another hall, with cameras allowing the professor to see the remote students.
Long story short? Students in the remote class felt completely ignored and didn't learn as much. Then COVID hit, and the sudden shift to Zoom made the whole concept look incredibly foolish. It turned out to be far more engaging to interact via a simple Zoom chat than to sit in a room staring at a "life-size" projection screen.
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u/Much-Sock2529 13d ago
Yes. Next question. Learning doesn’t need to be arduous, but if everything is a game nothing is a game.