'Innovation Index' Launched to Guide Ed-Tech Decisionmakers

A new report offers an "innovation index" meant to help school leaders and teachers, education company leaders, and investors determine whether digital innovations deliver on their promised classroom benefits.

The index allows evaluators to rate digital products and services based on three broad criteria: pedagogy, system change, and the quality of the technology. Michael Fullan and Katelyn Donnelly co-authored the index, which is explained in detail in a new report titled "Alive in the Swamp: Assessing Digital Innovations in Education." The index is available as an "open source" tool to be used by anyone, free of cost. "We expect the biggest impact to be on system leaders making procurement decisions about which tools to introduce into the classroom," said Donnelly, an executive director at Pearson, a major producer of educational technology and products, in a phone interview. Her co-author, Fullan, is a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto who now works to accomplish whole-system reform in educational systems.