What’s in store for 2024? To share some perspective from outside the classroom, District Administration asked vendors from across the K12 spectrum to forecast the edtech trends that will shape their spaces—and yours—in the coming year. Here’s what some of K12’s leading edtech providers predicted—hint: Artificial intelligence isn’t going anywhere.
But the flood of edtech into classrooms may slow in 2024, thanks to the expiration of ESSER funding and tightening budgets. K12 leaders will be zeroing in on the products that move the needle on achievement and other priorities, says Jeremy Cowdrey, the CEO of Discovery Education.
“We are calling this movement the great rationalization and consolidation,” Cowdrey explains. “They will seek to renew products that have high usage, personalize learning, and drive deeper engagement in instruction. They will keep edtech resources that have shown a proven, measurable impact on students. ”
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Leaders will maintain relationships with edtech providers who are purpose-driven and offer multiple solutions from one consolidated platform, he adds.
Beyond that, artificial intelligence will likely continue to suck up most of the oxygen when it comes to edtech trends. “AI will impact everything—from creating relevant lesson plans to acting as a teacher’s assistant and student learning,” says Sara Gu, co-founder and COO of ClassIn, which provides blended, hybrid and remote learning platforms. “AI tools are being developed for educators and launched into the market on a weekly basis. Many of these are designed to save teachers time.”
As many AI tools are designed to save teachers’ time, Gu says she expects a comprehensive lesson-planning tool will emerge in the near future. “With the vast amount of material currently available on the internet and the number of databases that the [AIs] can pull from, a world where all teachers have to do is plug in their learning objectives and standards and get an array of choices in each of the categories—materials, activities, and assessments—can’t be that far off.”
Gu also predicts that student behavior will guide the development of AI codes of conduct and determine how the technology is used in schools. Gu sees a fine line between AI being used as a tool and being used to cheat.
“There is not yet one commonly accepted approach to integrating AI tools and technology into a school or school district’s code of conduct,” she continues. “Early policies range from extremely strict “student work submitted for academic credit and completed using AI will be considered plagiarism” to encouraging teachers to use AI tools in their classrooms.”
Teachers will increasingly use AI to assess and grade students, and these tools could save time and reduce burnout, says Sari Factor, chief strategy officer at K12 curriculum provider Imagine Learning. “Educators will have more equitable access to actionable, research-based measures of student success to better inform instruction, allowing educators to focus on providing personalized support to students,” says Factor.
Ethical school leaders will also have to ensure that principles such as transparency, accountability, fairness, and privacy are priorities when adopting AI-driven educational tools. “Leveraging AI and digital-first curriculum to develop personalized lesson plans that cater to unique student needs, for example, will allow teachers to focus on delivering impactful lessons that inspire student success,” Factor contends. “As a result, we’ll see less teacher burnout over time.
In other edtech trends, Gu expects more schools to lean on virtual and hybrid instruction to cope with teacher and staff shortages. She notes that a charter network in San Jose, California, has transferred math and science classes to Zoom where students are taught by teachers from around the country.
“We also expect hybrid solutions to gain momentum in response to student demand as schools work to balance their finite resources while offering more flexibility,” Gu predicts.
