The surprising and the not: Education IT leaders have to say

Key points:

Sometimes when you ask a question, you get an answer that is surprising and completely expected at the same time.

That’s what happened when we surveyed edtech leaders — and not the people you might think of when you hear that description. Not entrepreneurs, investors, and experts. There’s already a lot of talk about them. Instead, late last year and into the first part of 2024, we surveyed information technology leaders in schools — the people in IT departments who work to make technology work. We asked questions of the people for whom innovation and disruption become to-do lists.

Our survey was neither long nor overly detailed. Overwhelmed by security threats, daily demands and new deployments, they already have enough on their plate.

And while some of the answers surprised us (and may surprise you, too), many of them make a lot of sense if you step back and look at the issue from a broader perspective. And honestly, that's why we asked.

The first response that fit the surprising/not surprising pattern was when we asked school IT leaders to think about the combination of “all technologies used in schools and classrooms.”

Perhaps not surprisingly to many of us working in schools, more than two-thirds of edtech professionals said they were not short of technology solutions. The largest group said the mix of tools was fine as it was, and the remainder implied by their response that they couldn’t keep up with what was needed to fully understand how to use them all effectively.

If you think about it, this makes sense. Those who actually manage edtech are the ones who bear the brunt of the work. They are stretched to the limit, feeling exhausted 10 days out of 10.

That conclusion was reinforced when we asked them what they would most like for their school or classroom. This time, the answer was more surprising: Most did not want more funding. Only 28 percent cited financial resources as their top wish. The most common response was time: Our edtech teams wanted more time. Thirty-one percent said that above all else, they wanted more time to learn and implement the technologies they were already using or trying to use.

Related to the same question, 22 percent also said they wanted more training and support regarding technology solutions, which is a version of time. So, if you add those two things together (training and more time directly), the majority (53 percent) wanted space and support, not money.

Perhaps it's surprising. When was the last time you heard someone in the education sector say they didn't need more money? The answer should send a strong message about how seriously our school IT leaders take the time and support to do their jobs; they're more or less willing to pay for it.

To be clear, the IT leaders we surveyed are not anti-technology. It would be great news if they were. In fact, when asked what they thought about edtech in general, a resounding 92 percent said that edtech, when used correctly, “enhances teaching and learning.”

It's that level of support that should open some people's eyes to the current state of our schools, teachers and technology experts. They love edtech very much, but they clearly don't want more of it. That says a lot.

The results we see in the survey data reflect what we hear from our customers and partners all the time. For those who have to do the work, technology is great, but pace and space are increasingly incompatible.

We compare it to one of those self-serve ice cream bars. The ice cream and all the toppings are amazing. But sometimes we need time to digest what we're eating. Sometimes we already have too much on our plate to even consider adding more. That's how our school's IT departments feel. That's what they tell us.

For those of us working in education or edtech, the lesson to be learned is that we need to invest much more in supporting, training, and managing our technologies, especially for the heroes in IT departments. They need the time and space to do the jobs we’ve already asked them to do before we can reasonably ask them to do more. And that we, collectively, need to spend time making the deployment and management of our technology as simple and effortless as possible.

Honestly, it doesn’t seem like too much to ask of us. We all know that none of us can do what we want without the help and consistency of IT leaders. They are literally indispensable to the mission of every other edtech leader. And it’s about time we asked them more questions, listened to their answers, and included them in our planning and development.

Laura Ascione is the editorial director of eSchool Media. She holds a degree from the prestigious Philip Merrill School of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

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