The shift in educational technology culture became crystal clear to me through our annual edtech-related conference here in South Dakota. Year after year, I’ve watched attendance numbers decline, and it’s revealed something fascinating about where ed tech stands today. Many of our loyal attendees who still show up mention that they miss the “good old days” of fast-paced app demonstrations and tool-centered sessions that defined the Obama era of ed tech. They want those slide decks packed with 30 apps they can try tomorrow.

Yet here’s the irony—to my eyes, many former attendees stopped coming precisely because they believe our conference is still stuck in that app-dump era. They’re burned out on disconnected tools and looking for something more substantial. We’ve found ourselves in the strange position of having to retrain South Dakota teachers to understand that the app-dump era is truly over, and that this is actually a good thing for education.

This tension at our conference perfectly captures the larger struggle within educational technology. The era of “app dumps” is dying—those endless lists of applications thrust upon educators with minimal pedagogical context—and I’m genuinely relieved to see it go. However, as we move beyond this phase, I now observe a worrying trend: artificial intelligence has positioned itself to become the next overhyped technological savior, potentially perpetuating the same fundamental problems under a shinier package.

The Rise and Fall of App-Centric Educational Technology: The Obama Era (2008-2016)

The Obama administration years (2008-2016) marked the definitive era of app-centric ed tech, emerging from genuine enthusiasm about digital tools’ potential to transform learning. This period saw unprecedented federal investment in educational technology, creating fertile ground for the proliferation of digital tools in classrooms across America. Initially, these tools promised to enhance educational experiences through increased engagement, personalization, and accessibility. Early adopters embraced these possibilities with open arms, myself included.

What began as excitement quickly transformed into an unsustainable practice: the app dump. Professional development sessions devolved into rapid-fire showcases of dozens of applications, typically presented in colorful slide decks with minimal time for meaningful integration strategies. Teachers would leave these sessions overwhelmed rather than empowered, clutching lists of apps they barely understood how to implement effectively. This era was further characterized by vibrant but often unfocused Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) on Twitter, where educators enthusiastically shared the latest apps with little critical discussion of their pedagogical foundations.

The Demand for Immediacy: How Educators Inadvertently Feed the Problem

While educational technology companies certainly bear responsibility for promoting tool-centric approaches, educators themselves have inadvertently contributed to this problematic dynamic. The common refrain in professional development sessions—”give me something I can use tomorrow”—reflects an understandable desire for practical, immediate classroom application. However, this very demand has helped create a self-perpetuating cycle that undermines substantive professional growth.

This preference for immediacy transforms professional development into the equivalent of snacking rather than substantial meals. Quick-hit app demonstrations provide the momentary satisfaction of novelty and immediate applicability, but they fail to nourish long-term instructional capacity. I’ve witnessed countless colleagues enthusiastically implement a newly discovered app only to abandon it weeks later when its limitations became apparent or when maintaining it proved unsustainable.

The nutrition analogy is particularly apt: just as filling up on chips and small snacks might feel satisfying in the moment but leaves the body undernourished, consuming a steady diet of disconnected technological tools without theoretical grounding leaves educators professionally malnourished. The balanced meal of theory-informed practice might not provide the same immediate dopamine hit as discovering a shiny new digital tool, but it sustains meaningful instructional improvement over time.

This pattern was most pronounced during the Obama years but persists in current approaches to AI training. Today’s workshops on AI tools often follow the same problematic template: rapid demonstrations of impressive capabilities without substantive discussion of underlying learning theories, ethical considerations, or long-term instructional impact. The drive for immediate classroom application continues to overshadow the need for sustainable, theoretically-sound integration.

The Gamification Trap: Badges, Certifications, and Digital Trinkets

One particularly troubling manifestation of app-centric ed tech during this period was the explosion of badges, certifications, and gamified elements that prioritize “tool mastery” over pedagogical expertise. The 2008-2016 era saw virtually every tech company create its own certification pathway, from Google Certified Educators to Apple Distinguished Educators to Microsoft Innovative Educators. Educational technology companies brilliantly co-opted educators’ intrinsic motivation to improve their practice by creating elaborate certification systems that conflate tool proficiency with teaching excellence.

I watched colleagues (and myself) pursue these credentials with admirable dedication, only to discover that their newly acquired “Google Certified Educator” or “Apple Distinguished Educator” status mainly equipped them to evangelize for specific products rather than meaningfully enhance student learning. The companies benefit tremendously from this free marketing and advocacy, while educators invest countless unpaid hours chasing digital credentials with dubious classroom value.

This certification infrastructure creates problematic incentives:

• Professional advancement becomes tied to corporate tool adoption rather than demonstrated teaching effectiveness
• Schools prioritize hiring based on specific platform expertise rather than broader pedagogical capabilities
• Professional development budgets flow toward tool-specific training rather than research-based instructional improvement
• Educational discourse shifts toward how to use specific products rather than how to address student needs

The resulting ecosystem places corporate interests at the center rather than learner needs. When educators’ professional identities become intertwined with specific products, their ability to critically evaluate those tools diminishes. I’ve experienced this myself—after investing significant time mastering a platform such as Canvas and building my professional reputation around that expertise, I found myself reluctant to acknowledge its limitations even when they became apparent.

The False Promise of Technological Neutrality

The ed tech industry has masterfully promoted the narrative that their tools are neutral—simply instruments that depend entirely on how educators deploy them. This framing absolves companies of responsibility for how their products shape educational spaces while placing the burden of proper implementation entirely on teachers.

This narrative ignores a fundamental reality: all technologies embed values and assumptions about how learning should work. No educational platform is neutral. Each prioritizes certain types of interactions, rewards particular behaviors, and makes specific activities easier or harder. These design choices profoundly influence classroom dynamics regardless of teacher intentions.

When I critically examine the most popular ed tech tools, I find they often:

• Prioritize individual work over collaboration, reflecting industrial-age education models
• Emphasize quantifiable metrics over qualitative aspects of learning
• Reduce complex skills to simplified progress indicators
• Accelerate the pace of instruction without ensuring deeper understanding
• Collect vast amounts of student data with minimal transparency about its use

The tools we use inevitably shape what we teach and how students learn. By pretending educational technology is neutral, we avoid essential conversations about whose interests these tools serve and what educational values they advance or undermine.

The Looming AI Revolution: Different Technology, Same Problems

As app dumps fade from popularity, artificial intelligence has taken their place as ed tech’s next salvation narrative. The seemingly endless enthusiasm surrounding AI tools in education bears striking similarities to previous technological fads. Once again, I observe the familiar pattern of tool-centric thinking overwhelming pedagogical concerns.

The AI training sessions emerging today mirror the app dump workshops of the Obama era with disturbing precision. Facilitators (even myself occasionally) demonstrate impressive AI capabilities—chatbots answering student questions, automated essay grading, personalized learning paths—with the same rapid-fire approach that characterized app demonstrations a decade ago. And once again, teachers leave with superficial tool knowledge disconnected from deeper understanding of how these technologies might fundamentally reshape learning environments.

Early implementations of AI in education demonstrate the same problematic tendencies:

• Emphasis on the technology’s capabilities rather than its educational purpose
• Marketing that promises personalization while delivering standardization
• Corporate interests driving adoption
• Pressure on schools to implement rapidly or risk appearing technologically backward
• Insufficient attention to privacy implications and ethical considerations
• Training focused on immediate “wow factor” applications rather than sustainable integration

The parallels between current AI implementation and the app dump era extend to how professional development is structured. The same educator request—”give me something I can use tomorrow”—now drives AI training toward quick, flashy demonstrations rather than thoughtful exploration of how these tools might transform (or undermine) learning environments. Just as with previous ed tech trends, this approach satisfies immediate curiosity but fails to build the theoretical understanding necessary for judicious implementation.

Having witnessed multiple cycles of technological enthusiasm followed by disappointment, I approach educational AI with skepticism. The fundamental issues that plagued app-centric ed tech—prioritizing tools over techniques, corporate interests over student needs, and technological novelty over pedagogical soundness—appear likely to persist in the AI era unless deliberately countered.

The Erosion of EdTech as a Theoretical Field

Perhaps the most damaging consequence of the app dump era was the gradual erosion of educational technology as a theoretical field with its own intellectual foundations. What was once a discipline grounded in learning theories, cognitive science, and instructional design principles became increasingly reduced to mere tool knowledge in the mass consciousness of education. This transformation has had profound implications:

• University programs in educational technology shifted focus from theoretical frameworks to tool-based training
• The field’s unique contributions to understanding technology-mediated learning were overshadowed by quick guides and video tutorials
• EdTech specialists found their roles redefined as technical support rather than pedagogical consultants

This theoretical hollowing-out ultimately diminished the field’s perceived value. When educational technology is reduced to simply “knowing the tools,” it becomes easily dispensable—particularly when those tools change every few months. Between 2015 and 2025, I’ve observed a steady decline in school districts’ requests for technology-focused professional development, reflecting both burnout from the app dump approach and growing skepticism about its value. Districts that once eagerly embraced every new digital offering have become more discerning, having learned hard lessons about the limitations of tool-centered approaches.

Reclaiming Educational Technology from Corporate Influence

The field of educational technology need not remain captive to corporate agendas. Reclaiming this space requires deliberate resistance to product-centered thinking and a return to purpose-driven educational design grounded in theoretical understanding. This shift demands several concrete changes in approach:

First, we must invert the typical adoption process. Rather than starting with exciting tools and searching for applications, we should begin with specific educational challenges and evaluate whether technology offers meaningful solutions. This approach positions technology as a potential means rather than an inevitable end.

Second, educators must reclaim professional development from corporate influence. When technology companies control the narrative around how their tools should be used, critical perspectives are marginalized. Independent, educator-led professional learning communities focused on pedagogical needs rather than specific products offer a promising alternative.

Third, we need transparent evaluation frameworks that assess educational technology based on its actual impact on learning rather than its market penetration or novelty. These frameworks should consider not just academic outcomes but also effects on student well-being, classroom dynamics, and educational equity.

Finally, educational institutions must demand greater accountability from technology providers. This includes:

• Requiring evidence-based research demonstrating effectiveness before significant investment
• Insisting on data transparency and ethical privacy practices
• Prioritizing interoperability to avoid vendor lock-in
• Supporting open-source alternatives to corporate platforms

Toward a Technique-Centered Future: Reclaiming Theory in EdTech Training

The most effective educators I know focus not on mastering the latest tools but on refining instructional techniques that respond to student needs. They select and adapt technologies based on how well they support these techniques rather than allowing tools to dictate their teaching approach.

While not as immediately exciting or flashy as app demonstrations, what educational technology training truly needs is a fundamental reorientation toward theory, best practices, and strategies. This shift requires recognizing that technology itself is not merely the physical object or software, but rather our understanding of how to use that object for a meaningful purpose. The field desperately needs to reclaim this more profound definition of technology—as a means of extending human capability through purposeful application—rather than reducing it to specific branded products.

A useful design challenge for evaluating the substance of current educational technology training is simply this: How many current EdTech professional development sessions could still exist if facilitators were required to remove any and all specific tools from the content? When stripped of specific applications, many sessions would collapse entirely because they lack substantive foundations.

Truly valuable EdTech training would survive this challenge intact because its core value lies in teaching:

• Theoretical frameworks for evaluating any technology against learning objectives
• Universal design principles that transcend specific platforms
• Critical analysis skills for identifying when technology enhances or inhibits learning
• Implementation strategies that focus on sustainable integration rather than novelty
• Evaluation approaches that measure impact on student learning rather than engagement metrics

If we are to move beyond the app dump era and prevent AI from becoming the next hollow technological fad, we need to fundamentally reimagine what educational technology professional development should look like. The path forward requires designs that might seem less immediately exciting but offer far greater long-term value:

• Beginning with learning theories and cognitive science rather than tool demonstrations
• Centering discussions on pedagogical problems before introducing potential technological solutions
• Analyzing case studies of both successful and failed technology implementation
• Developing evaluation frameworks that help educators make independent judgments about technological value
• Focusing on transferable skills and concepts that remain relevant even as specific tools become obsolete

Perhaps most importantly, effective EdTech training should model the very approach it advocates. Rather than asking “What cool tech can we show teachers today?” professional developers should ask “What enduring understanding about technology-enhanced learning do we want teachers to develop?” This shift in framing would transform professional development from technology showcases to substantive learning experiences.

Final Thoughts (For Now)

The decline of app dumps in educational technology represents an opportunity—a chance to reconsider our relationship with technology in learning environments. The waning enthusiasm for tool-centered approaches evident in school districts since 2015 suggests a growing recognition of their limitations. Districts have become more savvy consumers, less susceptible to technological promises without evidence.

I’m still somewhat optimistic that the pendulum is swinging back toward a better edtech. The pandemic forced many educators to confront the limitations of technology-driven approaches, revealing that digital tools, however sophisticated, cannot replace thoughtful instructional design. This realization may help us resist the coming wave of AI enthusiasm long enough to ask essential questions about its educational value.

The future of edtech lies not in accumulating more tools but in developing the wisdom to know when technology serves learning and when it doesn’t. Sometimes the most innovative choice is to set digital tools aside entirely. In my view, only by breaking free from the corporate-driven cycle of technological solutionism can we reclaim educational technology as a field truly centered on education rather than technology.