Approximate Time: 5 minutes | Welcome and Framework Orientation
-Content: Introduce the session objective and ISTE’s 5 Quality Indicators: Safe, Evidence-Based, Inclusive, Usable, and Interoperable. Emphasize that this packet serves as a living draft to build a working plan.
-Audience Activity: Attendees open the digital packet and complete a brief introduction with nearby peers to note district alignment.
-Process and Tactics: Device-based setup via an on-screen link combined with immediate, low-stakes peer-to-peer connection.
Approximate Time: 10 minutes | Section 1: Meet the EdTech Index
-Content: Explain how to leverage the EdTech Index to quickly view independent, pre-verified vendor validations aligned with the 5 core indicators.
-Audience Activity: Attendees use their own devices to search the index for one tool they are confident is high quality and one tool they are unsure of. They fill out the corresponding verification tables in their packets.
-Process and Tactics: Device-based sandbox exploration where individual digital research is directly applied to the packet text.
Approximate Time: 8 minutes | Section 2: Prioritize What Matters
-Content: Compare baseline indicators against unique local requirements like AI transparency, cost, and learning analytics. Introduce available national and state scoring rubrics.
-Audience Activity: Attendees flag their local priority criteria from the provided tables and narrow down their choice to 1 or 2 preferred evaluation rubrics.
-Process and Tactics: Individual self-triage followed by a short partner turn to discuss why specific local criteria are missing or urgent.
Approximate Time: 7 minutes | Section 3: Form the Team
-Content: Deconstruct key stakeholder perspectives—including IT, Curriculum, Special Ed, and the Business Office—to show how collaborative vetting avoids operational blind spots.
-Audience Activity: Attendees map out their current district team roles, explicitly identify their primary organizational gaps, and log their target meeting leadership goals.
-Process and Tactics: Reflective individual auditing combined with a rapid room-wide poll to see which stakeholder lenses are most frequently missing across districts.
Approximate Time: 12 minutes | Section 4: Draft the Workflow
-Content: Outline the 7-step request pipeline from initial submission to final library logging. Discuss the minimum data points required from staff during tool intake.
-Audience Activity: Attendees assign step owners for reviews and approvals in their district. They define how and when teachers submit new requests.
-Process and Tactics: Operational workflow modeling where peers sit together to debate and benchmark realistic intake deadlines.
Approximate Time: 10 minutes | Sections 5, 6 and Bonus: Library, Evaluation, and Audits
-Content: Address the ongoing edtech lifecycle, including choosing an EdTech Library format, setting a review cadence, defining retirement criteria, and auditing legacy software.
-Audience Activity: Attendees select their library format, identify data sources for evaluation, establish a usage percentage threshold for tool removal, and choose audit discovery methods.
-Process and Tactics: Rapid-fire guided execution where the presenter displays real-world examples on slides while attendees quickly check off operational choices.
Approximate Time: 8 minutes | Commit and Reflect
-Content: Shift from high-level conference learning to immediate, post-return district execution.
-Audience Activity: Attendees write a 30-day action plan featuring three concrete tasks. They finalize a commitment statement naming their first contact, target meeting date, and core goal sentence.
-Process and Tactics: Silent independent reflection followed by a final peer-to-peer sharing of their single most important idea lab takeaway.
The Action Plan
The core of the takeaway is a structured action plan that attendees will begin to draft during the session. This plan is based on the six key organizational steps presented, which provide a clear roadmap for implementation. The key components of the action plan they will develop include:
Prioritizing Evaluation Criteria: Choosing what matters most to their district
Forming a Team: Identifying key stakeholders from various departments (Curriculum, Technology, Financial, etc.) to ensure a collaborative process.
Drafting a Workflow: Outlining the specific steps and approvals needed for vetting new EdTech requests within their district's structure.
Planning for Ongoing Evaluation: Establishing a timeline and process for continuous feedback and review of approved tools.
Auditing Existing Tools: Creating a strategy to discover what is currently being used by staff and students, using sample surveys and other methods as a model.
Supporting Artifacts
The action plan will guide attendees in identifying critical action steps and discussion points upon returning to their districts. During the session, they will work with templates and examples of these artifacts:
An Evaluation Rubric: Attendees will use the Five EdTech Quality Indicators (Safe, Evidence-Based, Inclusive, Usable, Interoperable) as a foundation to select or adapt a research-based rubric that fits their district's needs. They will be provided with several sample rubrics to guide this process.
An EdTech Library: The ultimate goal of the action plan is to create a centralized, public-facing library of approved digital resources. Attendees will review various examples—from simple spreadsheets to more advanced platforms—to decide on a format that works for them.
https://edtechindex.org/validations/
https://39700426.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/39700426/Tools%20for%20Download/VATT%20Framework%20&%20Reflection.pdf
https://www.instructure.com/resources/research-reports/edtech-top-40-look-k-12-edtech-engagement-during-2022-23-school-year
https://www.cosn.org/tools-and-resources/resource/k-12cvat/
https://ies.ed.gov/ies/2025/01/essa-tiers-evidence
https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
https://www.projectunicorn.org/project-unicorn-rubric
https://teaching.uwo.ca/pdf/elearning/Rubric-for-eLearning-Tool-Evaluation.pdf
https://cdn.iste.org/www-root/2023-06/ISTE_Edtech_Product_Evaluation_Guide-2023_06.pdf
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/usin532b4taf28a5m943x/2024-State-EdTech-Trends-Report_Final.pdf?rlkey=gmx7ar9d36lsm78x4fgdob9he&e=2&st=loxbvaln&dl=0
https://www.setda.org/priorities/state-trends/
https://tec-coop.org/data-privacy/
| Related exhibitors: | Instructure, Lightspeed Systems, Clever |
Back
Trips and Tours
