Paving the Way for DataInformed Edtech Decisions

Located less than an hour north of Seattle, Edmonds School District is on a mission to “advocate for each and every student by providing learning environments that embrace their cultural and linguistic diversity as an asset that will prepare them for success as lifelong learners and responsible world citizens.”

Discover how LearnPlatform by Instructure allows this diverse district to understand edtech usage patterns and begin centralizing district-wide decisions from their Director of Technology, Chris Bailey, and Executive Director of Student Learning, Lisa Gonzalez.

Today’s school districts face the challenge of overseeing expansive edtech ecosystems and must select, evaluate, and manage the right tools to impact student outcomes.

Like many districts, Edmonds needed help to evaluate their significant investments in education technology effectively. With over 20,000 students and significant financial resources spent annually on digital tools, the district needed more visibility into actual tool usage, a streamlined approval process, and more informed conversations surrounding the impact of technology on student success. Before implementing LearnPlatform, their edtech tool review process was a homegrown solution built using forms and spreadsheets. With this system, they had limited channels to convey approval decisions or inform conversations about where investments were or weren’t paying off.

“With Google Forms, we didn't have a great way to communicate,” Chris Bailey, Technology Director at Edmonds, explained.

Stakeholders from curriculum specialists to special education and assessment staff would separately fill out their requests for tools, and the responsibility fell on Bailey’s team to manually sort through the siloed feedback. They also lacked visibility to actual edtech usage data or a reliable way to correlate use with improved student learning outcomes–even with those tools most favored by the district’s educators. Bailey and his team realized that they needed a way to take an honest look at their holistic edtech landscape in order to make decisions that would truly move the needle on student learning outcomes.

With LearnPlatform by Instructure, they found an opportunity to begin uniting stakeholder insights and tool usage data into their edtech management strategy. Gaining visibility into actual edtech usage and departmental needs can uncover some challenging truths, such as when a tool is not impacting student outcomes like expected, or being used as anticipated.

By taking an honest look at their current edtech landscape, they can lay the foundation for making informed decisions about the future of edtech. Edmonds now also has a more centralized system to streamline edtech review processes and communicate edtech decisions.

“…Now we have a dashboard in LearnPlatform where staff can find approved and not-approved tools and filter them. We can update information there, and then we can communicate those updates to families,” Bailey explained.

Recognizing technology’s role in supporting student learning goals, Edmonds has reimagined their approach to edtech decision-making. LearnPlatform provided a framework, as well as scalable automation, that helps connect tech to the district’s academic priorities and bring more stakeholders to the table

“The workflow process has allowed us to pull in additional team members who weren’t included previously that might be able to add value to the decision-making process,” Bailey explained.

They now engage cross-functional teams in digital tool reviews, including Curriculum, Assessment, and special education.

This integrated approach continues through their Rapid Cycle Evaluation work conducted in partnership with the LearnPlatform by Instructure Research Team, where they are able to dive deep into the usage and efficacy of priority tools in their unique setting. Gonzalez shared that having neutral third-party analysis is critical; reports tailored to their specific metrics cut through the noise so they can take action.

“How much time are students spending in an Edtech tool? We know how much time the vendor and research suggest that students should spend to see academic gains and growth, but until we started this work, we didn’t have a way to look at that data together every month.”

With a solid foundation in place, Edmonds is poised to continue leveraging LearnPlatform to optimize their edtech ecosystem—both for process efficiency and demonstrating ROI on edtech investments. Bailey mentioned that this work will also shape professional learning for staff while uncovering which tools deliver results.

Amanda Cadran, RCE Program Director at LearnPlatform, who partners closely with Edmonds, said, “The 'cycle' part of Rapid Cycle Evaluation truly is a cycle. The more district leaders engage in closely evaluating the impact of edtech tools they're investing in, the more it becomes a natural part of the work, and the stronger ecosystem they can build."

By implementing LearnPlatform to coordinate insight and ownership of edtech decisions, Edmonds School District has:
 

“...Having [LearnPlatform] in place now will help us as we go forward over the next couple of years to see how we're making an impact,” Gonzalez said.