How Do Edtech Products “Stack” Up?: Improving Quality in Virtual and Hybrid Learning Through Technology

Technology can be a powerful tool for augmenting teaching and learning – regardless of how, when, and where students learn. It plays a significantly more crucial role, however, in digital learning environments used by virtual and hybrid learning (VHL) programs as compared to in-person learning environments.

Over the last year, The Learning Accelerator (TLA) has supported school and district leaders in improving their virtual and hybrid programs as part of our Strategy Lab initiative. Through this work, it has become clear that the quality of the educational technology (edtech) used by virtual and hybrid programs significantly impacts the overall quality of these programs.

Because edtech plays such a critical role in promoting virtual and hybrid learning quality, leaders of these programs must understand how to determine the capability of edtech to support their program’s quality. This resource distills TLA’s learnings about what must be true for edtech to promote VHL program quality and offers leaders a series of questions to ask themselves when considering their own edtech products’ ability to do so.

While virtual and hybrid programs often use the same edtech tools as traditional in-person learning environments, VHL programs rely more heavily on these tools. In-person models use technology as one of many tools within a broader network of additional resources and instructional practices. However, virtual and hybrid learning environments count on technology to serve three vital roles – infrastructure, instructional practice, and instructional content – simultaneously.

This relationship, in which edtech tools serve three interwoven functions simultaneously, merits a new way to think about edtech tools deployed within a learning environment. Where an edtech “suite” or “portfolio” might be used to describe the technology that any educational program (virtual, hybrid, or in-person) deploys, these can fail to account for or represent the relationships that exist between tools and how they are used. Instead, in the context of VHL, we must consider the “edtech stack.” This alternative framework highlights how these programs use each tool based on the function it serves, the relationships between tools, and how they rely on one another.

The edtech stack accounts for the differences in how tools are used and their relationships to one another by categorizing each tool into one of three groups based on the primary function the tool serves. Virtual and hybrid programs rely on technology to serve these three essential and interwoven functions – infrastructure, instruction, and content – each of which is explored in further detail below.

• Infrastructure: Tools that create the infrastructure for teaching and learning in virtual environments, including both the physical devices (e.g., computers, tablets, internet hotspots) and foundational software platforms and programs (e.g., learning management systems [LMS], student information systems [SIS], single sign-on systems [SSO], video conferencing platforms, communications platforms). While these tools are often used in traditional schools, they become a gatekeeper for all learning experiences in a virtual setting.

• Instruction: Tools that facilitate instructional practice or serve specific functions such as creating and sharing content, fostering collaboration, and facilitating assessment. VHL and in-person programs often use these tools similarly. However, it is essential to note that when used in person, these tools are also supported by a broader network of instructional practices that can promote their use, many of which are unavailable in virtual environments.

• Content: Tools that deliver content and curriculum using content-specific platforms, as well as tools that communicate information, guide students through content, or provide support.

These tiered functions build off of one another sequentially and can be considered a “stack” within VHL programs’ edtech suites.

The first step to organizing tools into an edtech stack is understanding what tools programs deploy. Leaders might start this process by conducting an edtech inventory.

While there is room for variation in the design and structure of VHL programs, these learning environments always rely on a customized stack of technologies that supports infrastructure, instruction, and content in each program’s unique context. This reliance on technology makes VHL programs highly dependent on the quality of their tools.

To understand how the quality of edtech tools impacts learning environments, we can look to TLA’s 2020 report, Driving Quality in Virtual and Remote Learning, which offers a research-based framework for understanding quality in VHL environments. Analyzing edtech tools through the lens of TLA’s quality drivers framework provides unique, specific insights into where edtech is successfully supporting quality and where it falls short. This framework outlines three drivers that work together to ensure quality:

• Technology that is accessible and matched to the goals, context, and modality of the program, is clearly organized, and is easily navigated to engage students optimally in learning tasks.

• Pedagogy that is rigorous, mastery-based, and encourages active learning to enable strong teaching and learning.

• Relationships based on connection and personalization that engage learners, motivate them, and deepen their commitment to and motivation for learning.

For more information on these quality drivers and remote learning improvement processes, see:

The quality drivers for VHL described above can be further broken down into factors contributing to each driver. Below, we explain how edtech can support each factor, specific challenges virtual and hybrid programs face related to each factor, and potential solutions that would improve edtech’s ability to support each driver. More meaningful reflections can be sparked by going deeper and analyzing where edtech supports the factors that contribute to each of these drivers.

The questions below are designed to prompt holistic reflection about the ability of a virtual or hybrid program’s edtech stack to support overall program quality. VHL program leaders may also find this editable tool helpful for organizing and auditing their edtech stacks. This tool, in conjunction with the questions outlined below, can be used to uncover insights about where edtech supports specific drivers of VHL quality, both at the individual tool and stack levels, as well as where edtech stacks might be strengthened to improve overall program quality.

Driver: Technology

To support virtual and hybrid learning quality, all edtech products within a program’s edtech stack, including infrastructure, instruction, and content tools, must be:

1. Accessible: Edtech products must demonstrate that they leverage Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to provide a diverse range of entry points to support learners with varied needs, and they should meet web accessibility standards that allow for easy integration with other assistive tools. Additionally, these products must demonstrate that they are designed to account for equitable access in spite of disparities in internet access or the availability of other at-home resources between users.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Is each tool in your edtech stack aligned with UDL principles and accessibility standards?

• Do your edtech products work together to provide your learners with diverse entry points?

• Do each of your products – individually and as a whole – account for equitable access in spite of disparities in internet access or the availability of other at-home resources?

2. Matched to specific goals and context: There is no “right” or “correct” edtech product, suite, or stack for VHL programs. Different edtech products can drive quality when aligned to pedagogically sound practices, specific goals, and the specific contexts of the VHL programs deploying them. However, high-quality edtech stacks must support a variety of rich learning experiences that leverage multiple modalities enabled by technology and not simply reproduce in-person learning online.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are your edtech products matched to specific learning tasks, goals, or pedagogical practices?

• Do your edtech products support a variety of rich learning experiences, including those that leverage transformational uses of technology?

3. Organized and easy to navigate: Edtech products should be consistently and simply organized to: reduce the cognitive load associated with navigating within and between tools, as well as in ways that make tools easier to use. Further, edtech products should be interoperable or allow for clear, seamless, secure, and controlled data exchange between systems and applications. This allows a tool to work seamlessly with others within its edtech stack while protecting student data and ensuring student and educator energy is used to engage with the material, rather than navigating the virtual environment.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do the edtech products in your stack integrate in ways that minimize the cognitive load needed to navigate to, within, and between them?

• Are the edtech products within your stack interoperable? Do they exchange data with one another in meaningful ways, and if so, is that data secure?

Driver: Pedagogy

To support VHL quality, instructional and content tools – edtech products within a program’s edtech stack that are used to facilitate instructional practice or deliver content – must:

1. Offer rigorous content: When edtech products deliver content, it must be aligned to grade-level standards and designed to accelerate learning. Rather than simply replicating curricular materials used offline, content should take advantage of functionalities like multimedia that technologies provide to offer flexibility and present information in ways that might differ from how the same material is presented in in-person instruction.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• When edtech tools are used to deliver content to students, is this content aligned to appropriate grade-level standards?

• Do your edtech tools offer technological functionalities and modalities that allow for flexibility and engage students in learning in ways that would not be possible in person?

• Do your edtech products provide just-in-time supports and interventions that scaffold students to meet and go beyond proficiency with grade-level material?

2. Foster active learning: Passive learning methods (e.g., instructor-delivered lectures) are limited in effectiveness in in-person models and even less so in virtual models. Rather than replicating passive formats, edtech tools delivering content or facilitating instructional practice must leverage active strategies such as metacognition, application tasks, peer collaboration, and interactive multimedia materials like videos, response clickers, polls, and others. Further, these tools should offer opportunities for students to apply and demonstrate their knowledge to create content.

Ask yourself the following question:

• Do the tools within your edtech stack offer functionalities that could be used to support active learning strategies that include but are not limited to: application tasks; knowledge demonstration through content creation; student choice; peer-to-peer collaboration; Interactive multimedia presentations?

3. Be mastery-based: Edtech tools that facilitate instructional practice or deliver content should support mastery learning by offering opportunities for deliberate practice, offering immediacy in feedback, providing feedback in multiple forms, and supporting authentic, ongoing assessment forms.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do your edtech tools provide students multiple chances to practice new skills and opportunities to demonstrate mastery?

• Do your edtech tools work together to provide multi-modal, holistic, and meaningful feedback regarding student progress that teachers can act on and share with students and their families?

• Do your edtech tools support innovative assessment forms and use assessment to personalize learning and support based on students’ individual learning needs, interests, and cultural contexts?

Driver: Relationships

To foster relationships to drive engagement in VHL, some of the edtech products within a program’s edtech stack – including infrastructural, instructional, or content tools – must:

1. Build connection: Relationships and collaboration can be powerful drivers of student outcomes in virtual learning. However, online interpersonal relationships rarely form organically, and edtech products must offer features and functionalities that help construct and facilitate them. Edtech products can support VHL by offering opportunities to build a social presence and allow students, teachers, and families to easily engage with each other continuously.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do your edtech tools support ongoing two-way communication between students and teachers? Teachers and families? Students and their peers?

2. Personalize learning: Personalized goal-setting, individualized support, and reflection on a personal connection to the material can drive student engagement and perseverance and, in turn, improve learner perceptions and outcomes. Edtech products should be flexible, offer meaningful choices, and be targeted to meet students’ needs, experiences, cultures, and interests.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do the tools within your edtech stack offer functionalities that can be personalized to students' needs, interests, and lived experiences?

• Do your edtech tools offer students choices and the flexibility to drive their learning?

• Do your tools produce accessible and actionable data for students to set and track progress toward goals?

The questions outlined in this insight are designed to prompt actionable reflections for VHL program leaders. Depending on their reflections, leaders may arrive at several potential next steps. Below, we outline two high-leverage opportunities leaders may consider to make use of their reflections:

Auditing an Edtech Stack

District and school leaders can organize and audit their edtech stack using TLA’s Edtech Stack Reflection Checklist. This editable spreadsheet allows leaders and their teams to log each edtech product their program uses, where and how these products are used, and which virtual learning quality drivers each tool supports. Leaders should begin here to better understand their edtech stack and uncover any specific gaps that might be addressed.

Add New Tools to an Edtech Stack

In completing the above Edtech Stack Reflection Checklist, VHL program leaders may uncover gaps that need to be filled by adding new tools to their edtech stacks. Leaders can use the following resources, curated by TLA and our partners, to undergo equity-driven processes to add tools that support quality in ways their current edtech products do not.

Leaders who make determinations about which edtech products their virtual and hybrid programs deploy play a critical role in improving the quality of their programs. With an understanding of what drives quality in virtual and hybrid learning, leaders can use the above tools to understand how and where the tools within their edtech stacks support quality, and if needed, select tools better equipped for the task. Taking part in these reflection processes can help leaders strengthen their programs and better empower students to receive an engaging, equitable, and effective education.