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| October 21, 2025 |
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| Edtech news for those building the future of Edtech
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Fresh Intel
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Edtech tools designed without teachers' needs in mind have resulted in only a tiny fraction of students getting a real impact -- and that leads to low adoption, Sarah Johnson, CEO of Teaching Lab, and Abbas Manjee, chief academic officer at Kiddom, said at EdTech Week in New York City. To overcome this, Johnson and Manjee called for deeper collaboration with educators and ongoing research to embed AI in a way that connects curriculum, instruction and student outcomes.
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"Play the long game. You can sell to district leaders, you can sell licenses, you can scale within a school system, and you're not really incentivized to go on the ground and see if the teachers are actually using the tool in a way that benefits them or the students. ... I think you have to care about impact." -- Sarah Johnson, CEO of Teaching Lab
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Scanning the News
Online K-12 and higher-education platforms, such as Canvas and Canva -- along with dozens of other programs used by businesses, airlines, social media and more -- that are hosted on Amazon Web Services' cloud services, stopped working around the world Monday due to a problem originating in AWS' Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2). "As a result, students are unable to view course materials and assignments, submit work or quizzes, see grades, or receive course announcements; instructors cannot post content, administer tests, grade, or message through Canvas, a Guilford Technical Community College (N.C.) spokesperson said. The issue, which originated with a domain name system error, went beyond Canvas and impacted a few different technology platforms in the schools that we use,” Tyler Overstreet, assistant superintendent of the Republic School District in Missouri, said. |
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SmartTake: As the Associated Press said, "The all-day disruption and the ensuing exasperation it caused served as the latest reminder that 21st century society is increasingly dependent on just a handful of companies for much of its internet technology, which seems to work reliably until it suddenly breaks down."
Are you relying on just one cloud service, or have you spread everything out among a few cloud options? Don't let a single outage stop your clients and business cold!
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| Two teachers' differing views of the outage |
The outage left some -- but not all -- K-12 teachers pivoting to a different way of teaching. "Raise your hand if your day was so hard because of AWS? I honestly didn’t realize how much Amazon had a hand in my day to day life in the classroom. ... ClassLink wouldn’t open. Schoology froze. Infinite Campus spun forever. Signup Genius? Gone. ClassDojo? Silent -- and that’s hard for me because I actually love dojo. ... Even Limitless Library and every research site my kids needed -- down." -- Teacher on Instagram
"[M]y lesson kept truckin’. Long live paper! ... I was over here handing out paper rough draft packets like it was 2004." -- Teacher on Reddit who hasn't adopted Canvas, although most of her school has |
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K-12 education is overdue for a major modernization -- not just adding new devices or apps, but fundamentally rethinking and redesigning systems to support learning, teaching and equity, Julia Fallon, executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, or SETDA, writes in this opinion piece. "Our collective mindset must shift from compliance-driven technology adoption to mission-driven modernization, which will require policy, procurement and people systems to evolve," Fallon says, pointing to the potential for durable, interoperable infrastructure that can scale, yet still adapt to local needs.
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Despite the promise of ed tech for students with disabilities, a chronic funding gap remains a key barrier, write Mark Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute and Ayan Kishore, CEO of Benetech. Accessibility and assistive technology innovations often lack the financial support needed to move beyond small-scale pilots, preventing them from reaching students on a broad scale. Unlike mainstream tech, which attracts significant private investment, disability-focused solutions rely heavily on limited federal grants and sporadic philanthropic contributions, they write. This underfunding traps promising tools in early development and maintains high costs, deterring further investment and limiting market viability.
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The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have partnered with Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic to provide AI training for teachers, aiming to prepare students for a future workforce dominated by AI. The partnership will see the creation of an AI training hub in New York City and a goal to train 400,000 teachers over five years.
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In the Schools
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Henry County Public Schools Superintendent Jim Masters leverages free AI tools to streamline administrative tasks and support teachers. Masters uses Google NotebookLM to summarize documents, draft emails and assist in individualized education program development by uploading relevant documents, ensuring compliance with state laws.
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K-12 schools, including New Jersey's Passaic School District and Maryland's Washington County School District, are increasingly incorporating AI literacy lessons into their curricula to prepare students for a future where AI is prevalent. Schools are using existing technology classes and librarians to teach topics such as ethical questions, responsible use and AI bias. "What we really need to do is stop spending so much time teaching AI literacy and we need to start teaching how students should be using AI for learning," says Richard Culatta, CEO of ISTE and ASCD.
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Pam Amendola, an English teacher at Dawson County High School in Georgia, has incorporated AI into her lessons on "Macbeth" to engage students. Amendola's students used AI tools such as Veo 3 to animate scenes from the play, acting as animators, actors and directors.
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Technology Policies
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| (Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images) |
School districts across the US are developing AI policies to guide teachers, staff and students amid growing interest and concerns about the technology. The challenge lies in creating policies that are flexible enough to keep up with rapidly evolving AI.
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School libraries are scrambling to maintain Wi-Fi hot spot lending programs after the Federal Communications Commission cut a program that provided funding through the E-rate system. With no equivalent funding available, libraries and schools are seeking alternative sources to continue providing internet access to underserved communities.
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ICYMI
Top stories from last week's newsletter
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Association News
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About ISTE Solutions Network
| The Solutions Network a member-based community that aims to 1) connect innovative solution providers to one another to learn, explore, and share best practices, 2) engage with the ISTE/ASCD member community to gather feedback and increase the impact of high-quality learning solutions, 3) engage in thought leadership conversations and 4) provide benefits for the annual ASCD + ISTE conference, where approximately 16,000 educators, decision-makers, and vendors convene. This community is made up of edtech companies of various sizes that are interested in engaging with each other and with ISTE to discuss Edtech’s role in teaching and learning, industry trends, and solve common challenges. Members of this network can benefit from connecting with industry experts and thought leaders, as well as from gaining key buyer information and insights.
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Disclaimer
| Product announcements appearing in SmartBrief are paid advertisements and do not reflect actual ASCD + ISTE endorsements. The news reported in SmartBrief does not necessarily reflect the official position of ASCD + ISTE.
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| Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. |
Francis Bacon,
philosopher, statesman, essayist |
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