By Melissa Lowry

When I think back to the pandemic, which typically makes me shudder, I remember the same thing many people do, nothing was easy. Every decision felt crushing, like the wrong decision could cost everything. That said, one choice felt universally right…do whatever it takes to deliver instruction and keep kids connected. That mandate opened the floodgates for Ed Tech in ways no one in the field of education could have predicted.

During the pandemic, educators didn’t purposefully veer off course, they made the best decisions they could with the information and tools available to them. The circumstances made it impossible for learning to look the way it always had. Deep thinking, paper-and-pencil assignments, hands-on projects, and interpersonal communication had to be sacrificed because digital platforms and online classrooms were the only viable means of keeping instruction going. Writing shifted to typing. Screens replaced paper. Recess turned into Google Meets. Many children spent more time on devices than with their own families, and when everyone returned to campus, the digital tools and habits that were meant to be temporary fixes had woven themselves into the fabric of virtually every school culture.

For educators who had just lived through the darkest time in modern-day education, automation lifted a boulder-like burden. As a school principal, my mantra at the time was simple: “Just keep people from crying and quitting.” It’s embarrassing to admit, but some days, that was the only goal I could realistically hit. Years later, however, school leaders are facing a different challenge; how to dismantle a makeshift system built in crisis and thoughtfully, intentionally replace it with a solid, sustainable system.

A fundamental problem is that many Ed Tech tools quietly removed the human aspect of teaching and learning. Many Ed Tech platforms “gamified” academic tasks, turning learning into a series of clicks, badges, and rewards. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation has pushed society to rethink children’s relationships with social media. In the education sphere, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath’s work, specifically the focus of his prolific book, The Digital Delusion, should be doing the same for Ed Tech. His research is clear; gamified learning rewires motivation, digital consumption is not digital learning, and offloading cognitive tasks weakens the very neural pathways children need for deep, durable thinking.

Horvath’s research shows that gamification fundamentally alters how the brain engages with information; students begin to chase external rewards instead of developing intrinsic motivation, and the shallow, fast-paced nature of gamified tasks prevents the brain from encoding information deeply. His work also highlights how digital tools encourage cognitive offloading, allowing the device to do the thinking for the student, which weakens the neural pathways required for memory, reasoning, and long‑term understanding. What was once a necessary emergency measure has, in many cases, become a barrier to the kind of deep, durable learning children need.

In plainer terms, let’s consider an analogy involving calculator use.

We don’t hand kindergarten students a calculator on the first day of school and expect them to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Through direct instruction, practice, and skill building, we wait until students have developed math fact fluency, the internal number sense that allows them to vet the answers, before handing them a calculator. Only once they have mastered the underlying skills do we allow them to offload some of the cognitive work.

Why?

Without foundational fluency, a calculator becomes a crutch, not a tool. The same principle applies to Ed Tech and AI.

Students should not be using digital tools that offload writing, critical thinking, comprehension, or problem-solving before they have achieved competency in those skills. Dr. Horvath’s research reinforces this. When students offload cognitive tasks too early, the brain does not build the neural architecture required for deep learning. The tool becomes the thinker. The student becomes the operator. Just as a calculator can only enhance math learning after fluency is established, Ed Tech and AI can only enhance academic learning after foundational skills are secure. When we give students digital tools too early, we are not accelerating learning, we are hindering it.

Horvath further argues that we’ve mistaken novelty for progress, and in doing so, we’ve drifted far from what actually helps children learn. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. This isn’t a call to ban technology. It’s a call to use it purposefully, not passively. To choose production over consumption. To ensure that every digital tool serves students, not adult convenience. Let me know clear. We should never sacrifice student learning for adult convenience. Full stop.

As school leaders, however, how do we get there?

For the past several years I have struggled with the gravity of the decisions my leadership team made during the pandemic. Using 20/20 hindsight, it’s clear that many of the decisions we made did not serve the best interest of students. Again, I’m not here to litigate the past or assign blame, but it is important that educators acknowledge the simple fact that we lost our way. More importantly, we need to accept responsibility for our decisions and commit to getting back on track. On this note, I have some thoughts for school leaders who are looking to rethink how to approach student-facing technology integration.

Lead With Transparency and Ownership

Acknowledge how we got here. Not with blame but with honesty. We made decisions that were right for the moment, and now we must make decisions that are right for the future. Transparency with faculty, families, and students builds trust and opens the door for meaningful change. This is also where we reestablish the core question that should guide every decision: “Is this digital platform in the best interest of students?” Not adults. Not convenience. Not efficiency. Students.

Anchor Every Decision in Research and Purpose

We cannot rely on habit, preference, or vendor promises. We must ground our choices in strong research, including cognitive science, child development data, and our own school‑based evidence. This is how we create buy-in and ensure that reducing Ed Tech is not seen as regression, but as alignment with what we now know about learning.

This also means choosing production over consumption. Technology should help students create, design, build, and solve, not click through gamified worksheets that mimic tasks they could do more effectively with paper and pencil. And, it means applying the calculator principle; no tool should offload a cognitive task before the student has mastered it.

Become Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Pulling back on Ed Tech and rejecting AI, especially in K-8, may not be universally welcomed. Teachers may feel anxious. Families may worry their children will fall behind. Students may resist. That discomfort is not a sign you’re wrong; it’s a sign you’re shifting culture.

Strong leadership requires that school leaders:

  • Remain flexible and adaptable in the face of evolving technological advances
  • Commit to open communication with stakeholders
  • Have empathy for the stress any shift will create
  • Ground the decision-making process with research-driven data

No leader can do this alone. Align yourself with advocates, researchers, teachers, parents, and community members who understand the “why” behind the decision to put students first and resist the simplicity and automation of Ed Tech and AI.

Understand the Work Ahead

Educators didn’t lose their way during the pandemic. Our industry courageously led a nation of learners through the most challenging moment in modern educational history. But now, with the crisis behind us, we have the opportunity, and quite frankly, the responsibility, to design learning environments that are developmentally appropriate, cognitively challenging, and rooted in human connection.

In plain terms, the calculator analogy reminds us:

  • Tools are powerful only when students are ready for them.
  • Offloading too early undermines learning.
  • Mastery must come before automation.

In plainer terms, the research reminds us:

  • Ed Tech and AI will never replace high quality instruction. Ever.
  • Children need deep human connection to learn.
  • Students deserve high quality instruction, which is best delivered by teachers.

Carry on.

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