Because I’m still on a lot of edtech-related mailing lists, I was reminded this morning that today is the deadline for submissions to the Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence: Best of 2024.

So, what do I get if my entry is the winner?

Winner packages, including a badge and pre-made social assets, will be distributed for use on product marketing and collateral, fully licensed for global usage. Winning products will be showcased in a special edition of Tech & Learning distributed to the T&L readership, which is built of education professionals, district leaders and school administrators. Winners will be announced before the end of January, 2025.

I’m curious about what constitutes “pre-made social assets”.

Anyway, what are the criteria for achieving this triumph?

The most important requirement seems to be that your $625 entry fee clears the bank. But you do get discounts for multiple entries.

Other than that, the product must have been “launched, relaunched, or saw a significant upgrade or version introduced in 2024 that have helped schools improve teaching and learning”.

Plus “our judges will be thinking about questions like”

Is your product easy to use and does it include support for teachers as needed? 

Does your product simplify and enhance the teaching and learning experience? 

Is your product flexible to support both in-person and asynchronous online teaching and learning? 

How is your product unique compared to others in the market?

Can your product be easily integrated with existing products being used in schools?

Notice something missing? There’s no consideration given to whether the product actually improves student learning. Something that should be the bottom line for any edtech product, but almost never is.

Considering the announcement of the winners will come at the end of the month, how could they determine if a product has actually impacted student learning or teacher practice when it may only have been available for a few months? Do the companies need to submit their research data? Do the judges even know how to assess that data?

Don’t be ridiculous. The answer, of course, is that all of those factors are irrelevant. This is obviously all about marketing edtech to schools. And absolutely nothing about guiding clueless administrators, purchasing agents, and IT people to products that will actually benefit their students and teachers.

However, I know from long experience that this kind of marketing often works. Too many of those people with control over school tech budgets will accept the shiny badge as validation for the purchase and will waste good money on “award-winning” tech without even asking anyone working in a classroom.

Finally, can something be the “best” if the company doesn’t pay the price of entry?

Silly question.

Getting your tech recommendations from a publication like Tech & Learning is pretty similar to any other form of gambling.