Learn21's Weekly EdTech Update
May 7 2026
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Showing Up for the Future of Learning
By Stacy Hawthorne, Ed.D.
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Last week, I had the opportunity to join education technology leaders from across the country in Washington, D.C. for EdTech Advocacy Day. More than 50 leaders from 22 states met with nearly 60 congressional offices to discuss the federal policies that shape digital learning, cybersecurity, student data privacy, artificial intelligence, E-Rate, and local decision-making in K-12 schools.
That sounds like a long list of policy topics, and it is. But underneath every one of those conversations was a much simpler message: students deserve learning environments that prepare them for the world they are entering.
We often talk about education technology as though it is a device issue. How many laptops? How much screen time? Which apps? Which platforms? Those questions matter, but they are not the heart of the conversation. The real question is whether we are designing learning experiences that help students think critically, communicate effectively, solve complex problems, protect their privacy, evaluate information, and use powerful tools responsibly.
That is not a “technology” agenda. That is a student success agenda.
During EdTech Advocacy Day, participants advocated for federal support that strengthens local capacity rather than replacing local decision-making. School communities are closest to their students, families, educators, and local priorities. They are best positioned to decide how technology should be used to support learning. But local decision-making only works when districts have the resources, infrastructure, and professional learning needed to make thoughtful choices.
Programs like E-Rate are a clear example. Reliable connectivity is no longer optional for modern learning. It supports everything from classroom collaboration and digital assessments to accessibility tools, career and technical education, cybersecurity protections, and communication with families. CoSN notes that 99% of public school students and 45% of private school students rely on internet connectivity made possible by E-Rate, which is why protecting and modernizing the program remains such a critical priority.
Professional learning is equally important. As artificial intelligence rapidly changes how we work, learn, and create, educators need time and support to understand how to guide students in safe, ethical, and effective use. We cannot expect teachers to help students navigate AI, privacy, misinformation, digital citizenship, and cybersecurity if we do not invest in their learning, too. Title II-A and Title IV-A funding help make that possible by supporting educator capacity, flexible local innovation, well-rounded learning, school safety, and digital learning environments.
The same is true for student data privacy and cybersecurity. These are not side issues. They are trust issues. Families need to know that schools are using technology in ways that protect students. Educators need guidance and tools to make responsible decisions. Districts need resources to secure networks, evaluate vendors, and respond to increasingly sophisticated threats. Federal policy can play an important role by strengthening technical assistance, supporting cybersecurity coordination, and helping schools build sustainable systems.
What I appreciated most about EdTech Advocacy Day was the balance of the message. This was not a call for technology without guardrails. It was not a defense of every screen, every app, or every digital tool. It was a call for thoughtful implementation, strong safeguards, educator voice, family engagement, and local flexibility.
It is easy to let national conversations about education technology become polarized. One side worries that technology is moving too fast. Another worries that restrictions will leave students unprepared. Both concerns deserve to be heard. But the answer is not panic or paralysis. The answer is leadership.
Leadership means asking better questions. Is this tool helping students learn in ways that would be difficult or impossible otherwise? Are we protecting student data? Are teachers prepared? Are families informed? Are students learning how to use technology with purpose, judgment, and care? Those are the questions policymakers need to hear from the people closest to schools.
Advocacy is not about having all the answers. It is about showing up with real stories, practical expertise, and a commitment to students. Last week in Washington, D.C., education leaders did exactly that. We showed up to remind policymakers that the future of learning should not be shaped by fear, slogans, or one-size-fits-all mandates. It should be shaped by the educators, families, and communities working every day to prepare students for a digital world that is already here.
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Banning Screens and Teaching About Them Are Not Mutually Exclusive
As phone bans spread to all screens in classrooms, digital literacy advocate Diana Graber makes a timely case in this Psychology Today piece that restriction without education leaves students unprepared for the AI-saturated world outside school walls. Her argument: students don't need a device in hand to learn how algorithms work, what deepfakes are, or how to question what they see online. They just need a skilled teacher and a good discussion. With 134 AI literacy bills introduced across 31 states in 2026 alone, the push to integrate that instruction into schools, regardless of their screen policies, has never been more urgent.
The World's Biggest Student Assessment Is Adding AI Literacy
PISA — the international test that benchmarks 15-year-olds across more than 90 countries — will include a first-of-its-kind Media and AI Literacy domain in its 2029 cycle, assessing students' capacity to access, analyze, and critically engage with digital information, misinformation, and disinformation. As The Educator K/12 reports, the focus is less on tool use and more on whether students can think critically and responsibly in AI-mediated environments. For school leaders, this is a signal worth heeding: media and AI literacy are becoming globally recognized benchmarks of student readiness.
Media Literacy Isn't Just a Young Person's Problem
It's easy to assume misinformation is a Gen Z issue but this Conversation piece pushes back on that assumption with some striking evidence. Adults 65 and older shared nearly seven times more fake news links during the 2016 U.S. election than younger users, and around 15% of adults rarely or never consider whether news items are true. For educators, it's a useful reminder that media literacy education has a role to play across all ages and that family and community conversations about spotting misinformation matter just as much as what happens in the classroom.
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When Screen Time Laws Move Faster Than Classroom Reality
By Stacy Hawthorne, Ed.D.
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Last week in Washington, D.C., education technology leaders from across the country gathered for EdTech Advocacy Day to talk with federal policymakers about broadband, cybersecurity, student data privacy, artificial intelligence, digital learning, and screen time. Those conversations matter. Federal policy helps create the conditions schools need to use technology responsibly through funding, infrastructure, professional learning, and guardrails that support local decision-making.
But while federal advocacy is essential, some of the most consequential education technology debates are happening much closer to home.
Across the country, state legislatures are moving quickly on bills related to school-issued devices, screen time, instructional technology, artificial intelligence, parental rights, and digital learning. A school device legislation tracker from SIIA identifies 40 bills across 22 states, including 28 focused specifically on screen-time limits or bans. Some proposals call for state model policies. Others limit digital instruction by grade level or minutes per day. Some restrict take-home devices, require paper-based assignments, prohibit technology-supported homework, or create new parent opt-out provisions. The volume of activity tells us something important: policymakers are paying attention.
That is a good thing. Families and communities have real questions about how technology is used in schools. Educators do, too. Screen time, student data privacy, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, age-appropriate use, and instructional quality all deserve thoughtful discussion. No one should argue for technology without purpose, limits, safeguards, or accountability. But thoughtful policy and blanket restriction are not the same thing.
When legislation is written too broadly, it can create unintended consequences for the very students it aims to protect. A daily screen-time cap may sound reasonable until it limits access to assistive technology for a student with a disability, translation tools for a multilingual learner, advanced coursework for a rural student, or digital creation tools that allow students to demonstrate learning in ways a worksheet never could. A requirement that most assignments be completed on paper may sound like a return to “the basics,” but it may also reduce opportunities for collaboration, feedback, accessibility, media literacy, computer science, and workforce-aligned learning.
The question should not be, “How do we get rid of screens?” The better question is, “How do we make sure technology is being used purposefully, safely, and effectively?”
That question is at the heart of my forthcoming book, Purposeful Technology, Powerful Learning. The stories I have been collecting from schools across the country are not stories about devices. They are stories about students gaining access to opportunities that would not have been possible without technology. Students are collaborating across distances, using accessibility tools to participate more fully, building digital portfolios, learning cybersecurity skills, analyzing data, creating media, and developing the digital judgment they will need long after graduation.
That does not mean every digital tool belongs in every classroom. It does not mean more screen time is always better. It means purpose matters. State policymakers need to hear that nuance from educators.
Too often, educators enter the policy conversation after a bill has already gained momentum. By then, the language may be difficult to change. That is why advocacy cannot be reserved for trips to Washington, D.C. It must also happen in statehouses, committee hearings, local legislative meetings, and written public comments. Educators, school technology leaders, parents, students, and community members all have a role to play in helping policymakers understand classroom reality.
The path forward is not to ignore concerns about technology. The path forward is to design better policy. Good policy should protect students without limiting opportunity. It should preserve access to assistive and instructional tools. It should support educator professional learning. It should strengthen privacy and cybersecurity. It should require transparency without creating impossible compliance burdens. Most importantly, it should leave room for educators to make instructional decisions based on student needs.
Technology used poorly can absolutely become a distraction. Technology used purposefully can become a doorway.
As state legislatures continue to take up screen-time and school-device bills, educators cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. We need to show up with stories, research, practical examples, and honest concerns. We need to help policymakers understand not only what we want to prevent, but what we must preserve.
Because the goal was never to put more screens in front of students.
The goal is to put more possibilities within their reach.
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The Dog Ate My Homework–Agentic AI style
PocketOS, a software platform serving car rental businesses, suffered a catastrophic outage when an AI coding agent wiped its entire production database and all backups in seconds. The culprit was Cursor, powered by Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6, which was handling a routine task when it independently chose to "fix" a credentials issue by deleting the database — with no human approval. Railway, the cloud infrastructure provider, then helped restore data within an hour and added further API safeguards. When asked to explain itself, the agent produced a written confession detailing the specific safety rules it had violated.
Helium is for balloons, Hydrogen is for Cars
Hyundai Motor and the Georgia Institute of Technology have expanded their collaboration to advance hydrogen-powered transportation and zero-emissions vehicles on campus. The partnership includes the donation of four Hyundai Nexo fuel cell electric SUVs and the installation of a hydrogen electrolyzer at Georgia Tech's North Avenue Research Area, making it one of the most prominent real-world hydrogen mobility testbeds in the US. Research will focus on hydrogen-based mobility solutions, environmental benefits, infrastructure integration, and regulatory implications of hydrogen adoption. The initiative aims to generate insights that can accelerate broader hydrogen technology deployment across campuses, fleets, cities, and freight corridors.
My times are slowing down even as racing technology speeds up
Spokane's Bloomsday race has undergone a dramatic transformation in timing technology over its 50-year history. In the early years, volunteers manually collected tear-away tags from runners' bibs and threaded them on strings sorted by 30-second intervals, with results taking up to 48 hours to publish in the newspaper. A chute system was later added to handle growing crowds more efficiently, requiring around 250 volunteers by the early 2000s. In 2006, Bloomsday switched to RFID ankle chips, and by 2010 had adopted thin, disposable chips embedded directly in race bibs. Today, timing mats at the start and finish lines instantly log each runner's time, with results available on the Bloomsday app within seconds of crossing the finish line.
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