Crowdsourcing Educators Perspectives on First- and Second- Order Variables Impacting EdTech Implementation

Current edtech implementation falls far below expectations, and there is a critical need to identify the contexts in which technologies do thrive. Following the 2017 EdTech Efficacy Symposium, 2018 summer summits crowdsourced educator perspectives on the contextual variables impacting edtech implementation, and we captured attendees’ perspectives on the variables that matter most. To analyze responses, we categorized variables as first-order, structural variables or second-order, human-centered variables and identified themes in attendees’ final takeaways. Results suggest second-order, human-centered variables intrinsic to teachers and school leaders are most salient in educators’ perceptions of variables that impact technology implementation. These findings provide direction in efforts to define contexts in which technologies thrive or fail by capturing the most critical first- and second-order variables.