My partner is a high school teacher. I hear about edtech constantly. Most of it is sold to school districts by people who haven’t been in a classroom in 20 years.

Last semester, I surveyed 30 teachers (primary through high school) about what software they actually use vs what their schools pay for. The gap is enormous.

I also tested 15 education platforms myself to understand the teacher experience. Here’s what helps and what’s just admin overhead.

What Schools Buy vs What Teachers Use

Schools pay for comprehensive platforms: Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams for Education, Canvas, Schoology. These do everything: assignment distribution, grading, communication, analytics.

Teachers use them because they have to. Not because they want to.

The consistent complaint: these platforms are designed for standardization and data reporting (what admins want), not for actual teaching (what teachers need).

Example: Google Classroom makes it easy to distribute the same assignment to 150 students and collect submissions in one place. Great. But it’s terrible at differentiation (giving different students different work based on their level), flexible grading rubrics, or anything that requires nuance.

The Tools Teachers Actually Choose

When I asked “what software do you use that you found yourself, not what the school mandated?”, these came up repeatedly:

Kahoot (Free, $10/month pro) — Quiz game platform. Teachers create multiple-choice quizzes, students answer on phones/laptops, live leaderboard appears on screen.

Every teacher I talked to uses this. Students love it. It gamifies review without feeling patronizing. The free tier is generous (basic quizzes, unlimited students). Pro adds advanced question types and analytics.

Quizlet (Free, $8/month pro) — Flashcard platform with study games. Teachers create flashcard sets, students use them to study.

Also nearly universal. Works for vocabulary, definitions, formulas, historical dates — anything memorization-based.

Canva for Education (Free for teachers) — Graphic design tool with education templates. Teachers use it for presentations, worksheets, posters. Students use it for projects.

Better looking than PowerPoint, easier than Adobe tools. The education tier is actually free (not a trial), which matters when you’re spending your own money on classroom supplies.

ClassDojo (Free) — Behavior tracking and parent communication. Teachers award points for positive behavior, deduct for negative. Parents get updates via app.

Controversial (some see it as gamifying obedience), but widely used in elementary schools. Parents like the transparency. Teachers like not having to send individual emails about every behavior issue.

Desmos (Free) — Graphing calculator and math activities. Interactive, visual, runs in browser. High school math teachers use it constantly.

Better than physical graphing calculators ($100+ each). Students already have phones/laptops. Desmos is free and more powerful.

The Premium Tools Some Teachers Buy Themselves

Yes, teachers spend personal money on software because their schools won’t. The most common:

Teachers Pay Teachers ($60/year for premium) — Marketplace where teachers sell lesson plans, worksheets, activities. Technically not software, but it’s digital.

Many teachers buy more resources here than from their official curriculum. Quality varies wildly, but veteran teachers know which sellers are reliable.

Nearpod ($10/month) — Interactive lesson platform. Teachers create presentations with embedded quizzes, polls, virtual reality content. Students follow along on their devices.

Significantly better than static PowerPoints. The free tier is limited (max 40 students), so teachers at larger schools pay out of pocket.

Edpuzzle (Free, $12/month pro) — Video platform. Teachers take any YouTube video, add questions throughout, track who watched and how they answered.

Great for flipped classroom models. Free tier is solid (unlimited videos, 20 students). Pro removes student limits and adds analytics.

What Actually Makes a Difference

After talking to 30 teachers, the pattern is clear. Useful edtech has these traits:

Fast setup. Teachers have 4 minutes between classes and 20 minutes of prep time. If the tool takes 15 minutes to create one activity, it won’t get used.

Student-facing simplicity. No downloads, no account creation, no “reset your password” drama. Ideally just a code they type in.

Flexible. One-size-fits-all doesn’t work. Good tools let teachers adjust content for different student levels.

Visible engagement. Teachers need to see, in real-time, who’s participating and who’s stuck. Live dashboards matter.

Free or cheap. School budgets are tight. If it costs money, teachers either pay themselves or don’t use it.

What Teachers Don’t Need

Learning Management Systems (LMS). Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology — these are required by schools, but no teacher I surveyed said “I love our LMS.” They’re tolerated, not embraced.

The problem: they try to do everything and do nothing particularly well. Assignment distribution is clunky. Grading is slow. Parent communication is buried in menus.

AI consultants in Sydney helped one private school I know evaluate whether to build custom tools vs stick with Canvas. Turns out the cost to customize Canvas for their needs exceeded building something purpose-fit.

Automated grading for essays. Several platforms offer AI essay grading. Every English teacher I talked to hates this. The tech isn’t there yet. False positives are common. It removes the human element that matters.

Automated grading for multiple choice? Fine. For writing? Still needs human judgment.

VR field trips. Marketed heavily to schools. Rarely used. Requires expensive headsets, WiFi infrastructure can’t handle 30 simultaneous VR streams, and managing 30 students in headsets is chaos.

Cool demo. Impractical reality.

The Honest Problems Nobody Solves

Differentiation at scale. How do you give 30 students individualized instruction when they’re all in the same 50-minute period? Software hasn’t solved this.

Adaptive learning platforms claim to, but teachers report they’re clunky and students resent feeling “tracked” into different levels.

Parent communication. ClassDojo helps, but it’s still time-consuming. One teacher told me she spends 5+ hours per week responding to parent messages. No software makes that faster without feeling impersonal.

Assessment overload. Schools require constant data: quizzes, exit tickets, formative assessments, summative assessments. Software makes collecting this easier, but it doesn’t reduce the burden. Teachers are drowning in assessment requirements.

The Real Recommendation

If you’re a teacher:

• Use what your school mandates for grades/official records (Google Classroom, Canvas, etc.).
• Use Kahoot and Quizlet for engagement and review (free).
• Use Canva for visuals (free for teachers).
• Consider paying for Nearpod or Edpuzzle if flipped classroom model fits your style ($10-12/month).

If you’re a school administrator:

• Ask teachers what they actually use before buying expensive platforms.
• Budget for teacher-chosen tools, not just enterprise contracts.
• Accept that no single platform does everything well. Teachers will supplement with other tools. That’s fine.

If you’re building edtech:

• Talk to teachers who will use it, not just admins who will buy it.
• Make setup fast (under 5 minutes).
• Make student access simple (no accounts for young kids).
• Keep it free or very cheap. Teachers have no budget.

The Bottom Line

Most edtech is sold to administrators and tolerated by teachers. The tools teachers actually love are simple, fast, free, and built by people who understand classroom reality.

The best investment schools can make isn’t a $50,000/year LMS contract. It’s giving teachers $200/year budgets to buy the tools they know will actually help their students.

Software can help teaching. But it should support teachers, not create more administrative work. Most edtech fails that test.