Maloney asks about ongoing monitoring of ed tech program usefulness
Maloney asks how DOE monitors whether apps and programs remain useful over time, whether DOE consults with teachers, and how it measures when programs need to be phased out. Giunta says gamified apps with AI fall under the moratorium and describes the purchasing review process.
Chair?
Thank you for your time.
I had a few questions left.
And then I'm good to go.
Sorry, one minute.
So one of the questions to start out with was, you know, we talked a lot about gamified apps and, you know, data protections and the utility of these educational programs.
So how is DOE on an ongoing basis monitoring the usefulness of these programs?
Are you consulting with teachers?
And are you looking at student performance and progress?
What way are you measuring that apps and programs that may have once been useful are not useful anymore and need to be phased out?
Yeah, thank you for that.
You know, a lot of our gamified apps, by the nature of including AI in them, are now part of our moratorium.
We are looking, even we are looking closer at all of the software that is in our schools.
And as part of the purchasing process, we have a team
at Central that is reviewing the requests to make sure that any software that's brought into our schools is at a minimum in alignment with our policy.