Technology has the potential to support teaching and learning and reduce teacher workload, but we know that it doesn't always live up to expectations. There are many reasons for this - from unreliable infrastructure or lack of guidance on effective implementation to poor training or an ill-suited product. Against this backdrop, it can be difficult for schools and colleges to know what technology will work for them. Through the Edtech Innovation Testbed, Nesta will use evaluation to help address some of these challenges and provide better evidence for schools and colleges. This also shows the various models of edtech testbeds based on our research. We found 30 diverse examples and we chose five testbeds to present as case studies in the report. These are iZone (New York City, USA), MindCET (Israel), Digital Promise (USA), European Schoolnet (Europe), and EDUlabs (Tallinn, Estonia). These were selected because they are actively trying to address some of the EdTech evidence challenges outlined, and they offer a diversity of approaches across a range of countries.

1. nesta.org.uk @nesta_uk
Edtech Testbeds: Models for Improving Evidence
Joysy John
Director of Education
@JoysyJ

2. We back new
ideas to tackle
the big
challenges of our
time
Research & Policy Major co-funded
grant programmes
Earlier stage pilots
and prototypes
Advisor & convenor

3. Context
for our
approach
Schools don’t have the evidence to know what to use
● Evidence is often missing, low-quality, esoteric or inconsistent.
Companies find it hard to continue their evidence journey
● an be time-consuming, costly, or require specific expertise
EdTech sector suffers from cycles of hype and disappointment
● varying school/college contexts, processes and implementation
How to ensure that evidence is useful for
schools/colleges and EdTech?

4. ‘An environment to test and experiment
with EdTech in a real world setting’.
What’s a
Testbed?

5. Models for Testbeds

6. Case Study

8. These range from teacher-driven to supplier-driven, from experimental to design-based, and from
city-scale to continent-scale. Some collect quantitative data, others focus on qualitative data, and
some collect both. All the case studies demonstrate a distinct approach to gathering evidence
around EdTech in real-world settings.

9. £4.6m partnership to:
● Improve Edtech products, grow reach
and build evidence (Fund)
● Support schools & colleges to test and
evaluate Edtech tools (Testbed)
EdTech Innovation Programme

10. ● Support EdTech organisations to generate more
robust forms of evidence through rapid, mixed-
methods experimental evaluations.
● Provide opportunities for schools/colleges to test
technology tools.
● Disseminate and share evidence, working with
schools/colleges and the EdTech sector.
What are
our goals
for the
Edtech
Testbed?
The Testbed ambitions

11. How will
the
Testbed
work?

12. Most actors in
the educational
system have
both a need for
evidence and
can help with
generating
evidence