Education technology

If you’re not yet familiar with the term edtech, now might be a good time to learn about it. Edtech — educational technology — refers to the broad range of devices, apps, and internet-connected digital tools that schools use today as learning or teaching resources. Edtech has taken off in a big way.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed schools to provide all their students with their own devices, often low-cost Chromebooks. But now, many of these Chromebooks are failing, according to a new report by U.S. PIRG Education Fund entitled “Chromebook Churn.” Doubling the life of just Chromebooks sold in 2020 could cut emissions equivalent to taking 900 thousand cars off the road for a year, more than the number of cars registered in Mississippi.

The Aspen Institute and HP Inc. announced the selection of ten not-for-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations in Malaysia, Mexico, and South Africa for the 2023 Digital Equity Accelerator. Each organization is working toward the digital inclusion of marginalized populations and, with the support of the Accelerator, is poised to expand its reach and impact over the next six months. Selected organizations include:

During the U.S.

Our analysis of 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) data shows that the Chicago Connected program helped to more than halve the connectivity gap for Chicago’s school-age children — from roughly 110,000 children in 2018 to roughly 46,000 children by the end of 2021 (19% disconnected in 2018 vs. 8% in 2021). The number of disconnected adults was also reduced in 2021 by 2% (from 15% to 13%) which amounts to a reduction of nearly 30,000 adults in 2021 alone.

Technology is increasingly at the center of our lives. And as our dependence on the internet and digital communications increases, our workforce must keep up with the evolving skill demand. Despite the high demand for digital skills and the desire for skill-building opportunities among workers, many have not had the opportunity to fully develop such skills. The digital skill divide is the space between those who have the robust access and support needed to engage in skill-building opportunities and those who do not.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $24 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

As of February 2023, all states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have received their digital equity planning grants from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). At the Office of Educational Technology (OET), our priority is to support states as they include the voices, needs, and assets of the education community in their digital equity plans. Therefore, in 2022, OET launched the Digital Equity Education Roundtables Initiative and published Advancing Digital Equity for All, which identifies barriers faced by learners in adopting reliable, high-speed

As of 2021, roughly 13 percent of Alabama’s 1.65 million addresses were unserved by broadband of at least 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload (25/3), while about 19 percent of addresses were unserved by 100/20 service—the threshold recommended as the state’s five-year target to align with new federal funding opportunities. Higher-speed services like 100/100 and symmetrical 1 Gbps were available only to about 25 percent of addresses.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $30 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country. These funding commitments support applications from all three application windows, benefiting approximately 75,000 students across the country, including students in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Nevada—and will fund applications from all three application windows that will support over 200 schools, 15 libraries, and 1 consortium.