Educational Technology: A Guide to Ed Tech in Schools

Educational technology, often shortened to ed tech or edtech, is the use of digital tools, systems and processes to support teaching, learning and the running of schools: devices and networks, learning management systems, instructional software, assessment and communication platforms, and the data and security work that holds them together. In most American schools it is now part of every school day. In the Consortium for School Networking’s 2026 State of EdTech survey of 607 district technology leaders, 90 percent of districts had one device per student in middle school and 88 percent in high school. Districts accessed an average of 2,982 distinct digital tools during the 2024–25 school year, according to Instructure’s EdTech Top 40 report.

This guide to educational technology explains what the term means and how it differs from instructional technology, how technology is used in schools, what the research says about its effect on learning, how learning management systems work, how districts choose among education technology companies, and what school leaders need to know about funding, connectivity, privacy, cybersecurity, accessibility, artificial intelligence and support for teachers. It is written for district and school leaders, technology directors, teachers and families. Each section links to edCircuit’s more detailed coverage.

Updated October 2026.

In this guide

• The basics: What educational technology is · Educational vs. instructional technology · Technology in schools today · Does it improve learning?
• Tools and buying: Learning management systems · Education technology companies · Funding after ESSER · Internet access and E-Rate
• Safety and rights: Student data privacy · Cybersecurity · Accessibility · Artificial intelligence
• People: Technology for teachers · Questions to ask

What is educational technology?

The field’s own professional association offers the most widely cited definition. The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) defines educational technology as “the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.” The definition, published by AECT’s Definition and Terminology Committee in 2008, makes three deliberate choices: it treats educational technology as processes as well as devices, it names ethical practice as part of the work, and it describes the aim as facilitating learning, which the committee called a more modest claim than controlling or causing it. The committee also called its definition a snapshot in time, expected to change as the field does.

The U.S. Department of Education’s most recent national plan frames the subject around equity. The 2024 National Educational Technology Plan, released in January 2024, identifies three divides that limit what technology can do for students:

• The digital use divide. Some students are asked to use technology actively, to analyze, build, produce and create, while others use it mainly for passive assignment completion.
• The digital design divide. Teachers have unequal access to the time and professional learning they need to design learning experiences with technology.
• The digital access divide. Students have unequal access to connectivity, devices and digital content, including accessible content and instruction in digital health, safety and citizenship.

The office that wrote that plan no longer exists. The Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, which set the national plan, issued guidance and convened states and districts but had no regulatory authority, was eliminated in March 2025 as part of the department’s reduction in force, Education Week reported. The office had three career staff and a few fellows at the time. The 2024 plan remains available through the department’s ERIC database, and states and districts now carry more of the work of setting direction on their own. For how the field and its terms developed, see Three Domains of Educational Technology and The Evolution of Classroom Technology in the Last 20 Years.

Educational technology vs. instructional technology: what is the difference?

Instructional technology is the narrower term, concerned with instruction, while educational technology covers learning and performance more broadly. AECT’s 2008 definition was built on its previous definition, which was of instructional technology (published in 1994), and the committee explained the change of name directly: educational technology is “a construct that is larger than instructional technology, as education is more general than instruction.” Both terms, the committee noted, can also sit inside performance technology, the wider field of improving performance at work, including through training.

In school districts the two terms often describe different jobs. A district’s technology department may be responsible for networks, devices, accounts and security, while instructional technology staff help teachers use digital tools well in lessons. CoSN’s 2026 survey measures them separately and finds a gap: 66 percent of districts reported adequate staffing for technical support such as network administration and application maintenance, but 58 percent said they were understaffed in instructional support for the technology used in teaching and learning. For how district technology leadership has changed, see K-12 Technology Leadership Is No Longer Just IT and The Essential Role of a CTO in Modern Education.

How is technology used in schools today?

Technology in schools now means a device for nearly every student, hundreds of applications, and a growing public debate about screen time. Recent national measures:

• Devices. In 2026, one-to-one device programs were in place in 90 percent of districts’ middle schools, 88 percent of high schools, 84 percent of grades 3–5 and 78 percent of grades K–2; 16 percent of districts did not plan individual devices for K–2 students (CoSN, 2026). Half of districts replace internet-only student laptops such as Chromebooks within four years, and 38 percent expect reduced funding for devices.
• Software. Districts accessed an average of 2,982 distinct tools in 2024–25, nearly 9 percent more than the year before, and students used an average of 48 different tools over the year (Instructure, June 2025). Instructure’s 2026 edition, which switched to counting tools launched through its Canvas learning management system, found that districts had access to an average of 3,001 tools while each student and educator used an average of four such tools a year (Instructure, June 2026). The two editions measure different things and are not directly comparable, but both point to large inventories with concentrated use.
• Screen time. Community concern is higher about students’ personal phones than about school technology: 53 percent of districts reported relatively high community concern about personal device use in school, compared with 23 percent for the technology used in teaching and learning. Seventy-seven percent block social media on school-issued devices and 58 percent ban personal devices during the school day (CoSN, 2026).

Behind those figures is a shift from buying technology to sustaining it: tracking devices, refreshing them on a schedule, managing accounts and retiring tools that are no longer used. edCircuit covers each part of that work:

• How K–12 Schools Are Resetting Device Management
• CTO Checklist: How Schools Get Digitally Ready for Day One
• The Top Five Challenges School Districts Face with EdTech
• School Cell Phone Bans: What the Evidence Shows
• EdTech Trends Transforming High School Classrooms
• The Rural EdTech Revolution
• Homeschooling Growth Fueled by Education Technology

For where the field is heading, see Future of Education: 10 EdTech Trends You Need to Know, and for daily coverage, edCircuit’s EdTech section and home page.

Does educational technology improve learning?

It depends on what the technology is and how it is used: some approaches have strong evidence of learning gains, while simply providing devices has shown mixed results. The most comprehensive review of rigorous studies, by Maya Escueta, Vincent Quan, Andre Joshua Nickow and Philip Oreopoulos, examined randomized controlled trials and regression discontinuity studies of education technology in developed countries, first as an NBER working paper in 2017 and later in the Journal of Economic Literature (2020). Its main conclusions:

• Access alone. Giving K–12 students a computer had limited effects on learning outcomes in most experiments, though it generally improved computer skills.
• Computer-assisted learning. Software that adapts to each student showed considerable promise, especially in math. One low-intensity program giving immediate feedback on math homework had an effect of 0.18 standard deviations; a more intensive software-based math curriculum raised seventh- and eighth-grade scores by 0.63 and 0.56 standard deviations.
• Behavioral interventions. Text-message reminders and similar nudges to students and parents generally had positive, smaller effects, at very low cost.
• Online courses. Students in fully online courses could do worse than those with some face-to-face teaching, while blended courses generally performed on par with in-person ones.

International data point the same way. In PISA 2022, students who spent up to one hour a day on digital devices for learning at school scored 14 points higher in mathematics than students who spent no time, after accounting for students’ and schools’ socioeconomic profiles; students who spent five to seven hours scored 10 points lower than those who spent three to five. Students who said they were distracted by classmates using devices in at least some math lessons scored 15 points lower than those who said this almost never happened (OECD, PISA 2022 Results, Volume II). PISA is a cross-sectional survey, so these are associations rather than proof that device time causes the differences.

Federal law gives schools a ladder for judging a product’s evidence. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, an “evidence-based” activity is supported by strong evidence from an experimental study, moderate evidence from a quasi-experimental study, promising evidence from a correlational study, or, at the lowest level, a rationale based on high-quality research with ongoing efforts to examine its effects. The Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse explains that the top two tiers also require a statistically significant positive effect, at least 350 students and at least two sites. Many widely used tools have no published ESSA evidence at all. Instructure reported that 45 percent of the tools in its 2025 report had published ESSA research, up from 32 percent, and that 52.5 percent of its 2026 top 40 had at least ESSA Level IV evidence, the “demonstrates a rationale” tier. For how districts can judge results in their own schools, see How to Tell if Your Edtech Integration Is Successful and EdTech Value Doesn’t Speak for Itself.

What is a learning management system for schools?

A learning management system, or LMS, is the platform where a school organizes digital courses: teachers post materials and assignments, students submit work and take quizzes, grades and feedback are recorded, and other tools are reached from one place. The term is used both for full course platforms adopted across a district and for simpler classroom platforms. Most students are used to them: in PISA 2022, around three quarters of 15-year-olds across OECD countries reported being confident using technologies including learning management systems and school learning platforms (OECD).

An LMS matters as much for what it connects as for what it contains. Outside tools are commonly linked to an LMS through LTI, which the standards body 1EdTech describes as “a technical standard (not a product)” for connecting learning tools to an institution’s learning environment, so students and teachers can reach them without separate sign-ins; Instructure’s 2026 report drew on launch data from more than 1,000 tools connected this way. Those connections also show how concentrated use is: in Instructure’s 2026 analysis of more than 11 million K–12 students, each student and educator launched an average of four tools through the LMS in a year. Instructure makes the Canvas LMS, and readers should weigh its rankings with that in mind.

Questions worth asking when choosing or reviewing an LMS include how it rosters students from the student information system, how it handles grades, how accessible it is, what data it collects and how easily it connects to the tools teachers already use. For more, see Why Learning Management Systems Have Become the Heart of Modern Education and Training and Can AI Power a Future Learning Management System?

Education technology companies: how do districts choose?

Education technology companies range from a few global platform providers to thousands of small publishers of a single app, and districts are asking more of all of them. HolonIQ, which tracks investment in the sector, counted $2.6 billion of edtech investment in 2025, about 11 percent more than in 2024 and well below the highs of 2020 and 2021; K–12 accounted for 36 percent of 2025 deal volume. Free tools carry data and security risks as well as paid ones, so vetting matters as much as purchasing.

CoSN’s 2026 survey shows where district practice stands (CoSN, 2026):

• Vetting free tools. 86 percent of districts have a process to vet tools before use; 65 percent require IT review and 61 percent keep a list of approved apps.
• Quality indicators. 69 percent require vendors to provide information on at least one of five quality indicators: safety (55 percent), interoperability (46 percent), usability (45 percent) and evidence-based design (41 percent), with accessibility the least required (29 percent). More than half of respondents (54 percent) were unfamiliar with the five-indicator framework itself.
• Interoperability. 24 percent of districts have no established purchasing process for assessing whether a product will work with their other systems.

edCircuit’s coverage of procurement, which is vendor-neutral, recommends starting with the problem to be solved, involving the teachers who will use a tool, testing it in real classrooms before a long contract, pricing the whole cost of ownership including training and support, and planning for evaluation and exit:

• Teacher Input in Edtech Adoption Drives Success
• AI Procurement for Schools: 10 Questions to Ask
• Educational Technology Investments: Beyond ROI
• Educational Technology Benefits Beyond the Classroom
• 10 CoSN Back-to-School Resources for Ed Tech Leaders

For founders and companies building products for schools, see How to Launch an EdTech Startup: From Idea to Impact.

How do schools pay for technology after ESSER?

Districts now pay for technology without the federal pandemic relief that supported school spending from 2020, because those funds have run out. Congress provided three rounds of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding: about $13.2 billion under the CARES Act in March 2020, $54.3 billion under the CRRSA Act in December 2020, and $122 billion under the American Rescue Plan in March 2021 (U.S. Department of Education).

The deadlines, as the Congressional Research Service set them out in July 2025:

• Obligation. Funds had to be committed by September 30, 2022, for the CARES Act round, September 30, 2023, for CRRSA and September 30, 2024, for the American Rescue Plan.
• Spending. Committed funds then had to be paid out within 120 days, or within a longer period the department approved; states could request up to 14 more months, which for American Rescue Plan funds ran to March 28, 2026.
• The 2025 reversal. On March 28, 2025, the department withdrew previously approved extensions with same-day effect. After 16 states and the District of Columbia sued, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction on June 3, 2025, and on June 26 the department said all states could continue under their previously approved extensions, while stating that it would grant no extensions for spending beyond March 28, 2026.

That date has passed. Budget constraints have ranked as the top challenge for district technology leaders in 12 of the 13 years CoSN has asked, and in 2026 districts named classroom technology refresh (42 percent) and devices (39 percent) as the areas most at risk from the end of emergency funding. For how districts are planning, see How Will School Districts Replace Aging Tech Without ESSER.

Internet access, E-Rate and the homework gap

Nearly all school-age children have internet access at home, but not all have adequate access, and federal support for off-campus connections narrowed in 2025. In 2021, 97 percent of 3- to 18-year-olds had home internet access, 93 percent through a computer and 4 percent only through a smartphone; 3 percent had none. Access through a computer ranged from 85 percent of children in the lowest-income quarter of families to 98 percent in the highest (NCES, last updated August 2023). Many districts do not know the current picture: in CoSN’s 2026 survey, 22 percent did not know whether their students had devices at home and 25 percent did not know whether they had broadband.

E-Rate, the federal program that discounts internet and network services for schools and libraries, is paid for through the Universal Service Fund, with larger discounts for rural and low-income areas. On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the fund’s financing in FCC v. Consumers’ Research, ruling 6–3 that the universal-service contribution scheme does not violate the Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine. Three months later, the Federal Communications Commission narrowed what E-Rate covers. On September 30, 2025, it voted to:

• rescind its July 2024 rules that had allowed E-Rate support for Wi-Fi hotspots lent for off-premises use, finding that the Communications Act does not permit it;
• declare Wi-Fi on school buses ineligible for E-Rate beginning in funding year 2025, reversing a 2023 ruling; and
• direct the program’s administrator to deny pending applications for both. Commissioner Anna Gomez dissented.

District practice is moving in the same direction. Fifty-nine percent of districts had a strategy to expand students’ broadband access outside school in 2026, down from 74 percent three years earlier; 47 percent lent district-owned hotspots, down from 58 percent in 2023; and 6 percent provided Wi-Fi on school buses, down from 13 percent. CoSN also notes that the federal Affordable Connectivity Program, which subsidized home internet, ended in June 2024 (CoSN, 2026). For approaches that have worked in rural and low-income communities, see Leveraging Technology to Provide Equitable Learning Experiences.

How do schools protect student data privacy?

Schools protect student data through federal privacy law, state law and the contracts they sign with technology companies, and each of the three has limits. The main federal rules:

• FERPA. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects education records. A school may share them with a company without parental consent only when the company performs a service the school would otherwise use employees for, is under the school’s “direct control” with respect to the use and maintenance of the records, and is bound by limits on redisclosure (34 CFR 99.31).
• COPPA. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act covers online services collecting personal information from children under 13. The Federal Trade Commission’s amended rule took effect June 23, 2025, and companies had until April 22, 2026, to comply with most of it. It requires, among other things, a written information security program and a written data retention policy (Federal Register, April 2025). The FTC chose not to finalize its proposed rules on education technology and schools’ role in consent, to avoid conflict with planned changes to FERPA, and said it would continue to apply its existing guidance.
• State laws. Many states add their own student privacy statutes; the Future of Privacy Forum keeps a state-by-state table of legislation from 2013 through 2025.

Practice often falls short of the law’s intent. Internet Safety Labs tested 1,357 apps recommended or required by a random sample of 663 schools across all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found that 96 percent shared children’s personal information with third parties, most often advertising and analytics companies (December 2022). The figure counts apps, not students, and predates the amended COPPA rule. In 2026, 37 percent of districts planned to improve how they vet data-protection agreements with companies that receive student data (CoSN). See Digital Footprint: Why Schools Must Teach It Now and AI Procurement for Schools.

How common are cyberattacks on schools?

Cyberattacks on schools are frequent, and most districts say they lack the staff and budget to defend against them. The Center for Internet Security analyzed more than 5,000 K–12 organizations between July 2023 and December 2024 and found that 82 percent of reporting K–12 schools experienced cyber threat impacts, with about 14,000 security events and 9,300 confirmed incidents; cybercriminals targeted human behavior at least 45 percent more than technical vulnerabilities (CIS, March 2025).

Cybersecurity has been district technology leaders’ top priority every year since 2018. In 2026, 65 percent cited the lack of a dedicated budget as a barrier, 52 percent said staff needed more skills and expertise, and 65 percent said they were understaffed for cybersecurity. Among districts that had been attacked, 28 percent of those whose networks or administrative operations were disrupted described the disruption as severe, meaning services were unavailable for more than 24 hours. Half (51 percent) were paying higher cyber insurance premiums (CoSN, 2026). For the threats and the defenses districts are adopting, see Cyber Attacks on Schools: Why Hackers Target K–12.

What are schools’ accessibility obligations for digital content?

Public school districts must make their websites, apps and digital course content accessible to people with disabilities under a federal rule adopted in April 2024, with compliance now due in 2027 or 2028. The Department of Justice’s rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act adopted the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA, as the technical standard. On April 20, 2026, the department published an interim final rule extending the compliance dates by one year:

• April 26, 2027 for public entities serving a total population of 50,000 or more (previously April 24, 2026).
• April 26, 2028 for those serving fewer than 50,000 people and for special district governments (previously April 26, 2027).

Which date applies to a school district depends on the population it serves. The Justice Department’s fact sheet states that a school district is not a special district government: a city school district uses the population of the city, a county district the population of the county, and an independent school district the Census Bureau’s most recent Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. The extension did not change the standard. In explaining it, the department noted that school associations had told it many districts lacked the money and staff to comply, while disability organizations had argued against any delay.

Districts have work to do. Only 11 percent have formal procurement policies that require accessibility, and 31 percent of technology leaders were unsure of their district’s policy (CoSN, 2026). Accessibility is separate from, and in addition to, the assistive technology that IEP teams must consider for each student with a disability; see edCircuit’s Special Education Guide.

Artificial intelligence in educational technology

Artificial intelligence is increasingly embedded in the software districts already use, and districts are writing rules for it quickly. In 2026, 79 percent of districts reported having AI guidelines, up from 57 percent in 2025, and 75 percent of technology leaders were very concerned that AI would enable new forms of cyberattack (CoSN, 2026). The same questions this guide asks of any technology, about evidence, privacy, accessibility, cost and teacher training, apply to AI with added weight. edCircuit covers the subject in its own guides:

• AI in Education: A Guide for Schools and Colleges
• AI for Students: A Parent’s Guide by Age
• AI Procurement for Schools: 10 Questions to Ask

Technology for teachers: what support do they need?

The support teachers most often lack is training and ongoing help with the tools they already have. Lack of relevant training and professional development ranked as the third-largest challenge to technology-enabled learning in CoSN’s 2026 survey, behind budgets and district silos, and 58 percent of districts said they were understaffed in instructional technology support. The 2024 National Educational Technology Plan calls the same problem the digital design divide: unequal access to the time and professional learning teachers need to design learning with technology.

Training on newer tools is growing but often thin. In a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey conducted from September to November 2025, 50 percent of teachers reported at least one professional development session on using AI in their work, up from 42 percent in October 2024; about a third had attended only a single one-time session (Education Week, November 2025). edCircuit’s reporting on district adoption draws the same lessons: teachers use a tool well when they help choose it, practice with it before students arrive, and have coaching and peer support afterward. edCircuit covers what that support looks like:

• Teacher Input in Edtech Adoption Drives Success
• Professional Development for Edtech Change
• People Make Successful EdTech Integrations Possible
• How to Tell if Your Edtech Integration Is Successful

Questions to ask before adopting educational technology

For school and district leaders

• What problem will this tool solve, and how will we know in a year whether it did?
• What level of ESSA evidence supports it, and who conducted the research?
• What student data does it collect, does the contract keep that data under our direct control, and how is it deleted when the contract ends?
• Does it meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and has that been tested with students who use assistive technology?
• Does it connect to our learning management system and rostering without manual work?
• What is the full cost over the life of the contract, including training, support and devices, now that ESSER funds are gone?
• Which tools that we already pay for are unused, and can we retire them?

For teachers

• Does this tool ask students to create, analyze and explain, or mainly to click through assignments?
• Will it save instructional time or cost it once logins, setup and troubleshooting are counted?
• Is it approved by the district, and what student information will I be entering into it?
• What training and follow-up help will I have after the first week?
• How will I know whether my students are learning more with it than without it?

Technology in service of teaching

Educational technology has moved from a special program to the ordinary infrastructure of schooling, and with that change its hardest questions have become questions of judgment rather than access. The evidence suggests that technology helps most when it is designed to teach, used in moderation and supported by trained teachers, and least when it is simply handed out. Districts now carry that judgment with less federal guidance and less federal money than a few years ago, which makes careful choices about evidence, privacy, security and accessibility, and steady investment in the people who use the tools, more important than the number of tools a district owns.

Related reading

• Teacher Input in Edtech Adoption Drives Success
• Future of Education: 10 EdTech Trends You Need to Know
• How Will School Districts Replace Aging Tech Without ESSER
• AI in Education: A Guide for Schools and Colleges

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