Districts engage with edtech products primarily through three scenarios: RFPs, vendor pitches, and peer recommendations¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · design r1 · q1
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2028: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q1 i? Districts encounter edtech mainly via requests for proposals, vendor sales pitches to decision-making roles, and peer recommendations, with a newer scenario of deciding which tools to keep as funding lessens. → scenarios-1

Evidence¶

scenarios-1¶

Noakes, Sierra. (2023, June). Select the Right Edtech: How to Leverage Certified Products During the Procurement Process. Digital Promise. https://doi.org/10.51388/20.500.12265/182

q1 · i? · design · r1

Descriptive statement in the report's vendor-engagement section enumerating the three primary engagement scenarios in the districts' own practice, plus an emergent fourth scenario around sunsetting tools as funding sources lessen.

"Districts primarily engage with edtech products in three scenarios: (1) Districts put out requests for proposals (RFPs) to find a product that serves a specific need; (2) vendors' sales teams pitch to those in roles that may have edtech decision making authority; and (3) peers offer recommendations about tools."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Trust amongst peers is high while trust of outsiders is low, and vendor relationships in districts follow a long consultative sales cycle — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Districts rely more on peer recommendations and pilots than on rigorous evidence when choosing ed-tech products — related
• Education stakeholders report that limited, hard-to-find, and rarely trustworthy information about edtech products creates significant barriers to selection — related
• No readily accessible sources of rigorous evidence exist for most ed-tech products — related