RALEIGH – The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is launching a new community-driven review platform powered by Raleigh-based Lea(R)n that gives educators insight into which tools, technology and apps will best meet their learning objectives.

Edtech Advisor, available free to all ISTE members, will allow educators to confidently find and share information about the tech tools they use, discover new tools and apps, and access reviews, ratings and input from a trusted community of tech-savvy educators.

Educators count on peer feedback when selecting edtech tools, but it can be difficult to secure reliable recommendations. Edtech Advisor, powered by LearnPlatform, with a database of over 5,000 tools, allows ISTE members to access detailed reviews and feedback from peers. The Edtech Advisor provides data-driven insights to help determine a product’s potential to transform learning and identifies contexts where the tool has been most successful.

The LearnPlatform was created by Lea(R)n to organize, streamline and analyze classroom technology. Both ISTE and Lea(R)n say they believe in the power of technology to accelerate effective learning and are committed to helping educators make informed choices about products by increasing access to data and evidence.

Currently, educators have limited tools to support decision-making on edtech tools, apps and resources. Existing reviews do not take into consideration the context of the use (type of learning environments, whether the tech is being used by students or a teacher, whether it’s being used for instruction or assessment, etc.).

Edtech Advisor provides ISTE members with:

  • A single location to share and learn about product experiences with other educators.
  • A platform that supports informed decision-making on new products and apps.
  • Real classroom/teacher experiences that provide a more complete picture of a product’s potential.
  • Data points for discussing an app’s effectiveness with peers.
  • An easy-to-use platform with information on thousands of edtech tools.

“Choosing the right tools and apps to use in the classroom is far too important of a decision to be made without accurate, trustworthy data that takes into consideration the context and circumstances in which the tool will be used,” said Richard Culatta, CEO of ISTE in a statement.  “The ISTE Edtech Advisor puts this information right at teachers’ fingertips. Data-driven choices about edtech have never been easier.”