ISTELive ’22 Recap: What Educators Shared About Challenges and Opportunities for Technology in Education

The International Society for Technology’s biggest live event offered the opportunity to learn how to unlock potential to improve student outcomes

Education technology’s biggest conference, ISTELive ’22 in New Orleans, signaled a major shift back to in-person events. More importantly for K-12 education, the conference highlighted the importance of connecting one-on-one with educators to find out their challenges, successes, and potential opportunities. 

Nearly 9,000 educators, tech leaders, and administrators attended this year’s event. Our team of PowerSchool executives, product leaders, solution engineers, and customer service staff were thrilled to meet with these leaders and teachers, who showed genuine passion and dedication to improving education and helping students succeed.  

“Getting the opportunity to interact with so many educators never disappoints,” said Sam Sale, Solution Vice President of Marketing. “Hearing their stories, sharing in their excitement to be back at a live ISTE conference, and discussing how PowerSchool can continue to help them better support their students, staff, and families was an amazing experience.” 

While we received a wide variety of questions about how edtech solutions can support educators and improve student outcomes, attendees were most interested in our newest products:  

• PowerSchool Unified Classroom? Behavior Support, a product designed to meet the behavior-related needs of the whole child 
• PowerSchool Unified Home?—a solution set with products that support student outcomes through increased family engagement 
• PowerSchool Unified Communities? Naviance for Elementary to ensure younger learners can develop college, career, and life readiness (CCLR) skills 
• PowerSchool Unified Classroom? Curriculum and Instruction to increase the efficacy of curriculum and give teachers time back 
• PowerSchool Unified Insights? MTSS to support students with deeper, more connected data

Many educators discussed a common fundamental challenge experienced by schools and districts of all sizes: the limitations of working with multiple, disconnected edtech products and siloed data. These disparate products lack whole-child insights, limit productivity, and take extra time to bring data together from various products.

Our main message to ISTE attendees was that to overcome these challenges, PowerSchool provides one place to go for all school needs—from the office to the classroom to the home. PowerSchool’s interoperable best-in-class solutions can help educators securely manage all operations, simplify talent processes from recruiting to offboarding, and provide students with data-driven personalized education. Schools and districts can access a complete set of tools designed to develop lifelong learners from pre-K to beyond high school.

Unlock Your PowerSchool Potential 

ISTE’s 2022 theme of “Empowering Educators. Elevating Equity” aligned with what we heard from attendees and what we shared with them in terms of solutions.  

“At PowerSchool, we’re committed to offering a pathway to provide personalized instruction to students,” said Marcy Daniel, PowerSchool’s Chief Product Officer. “To do this, we know educators need data from across the education ecosystem, including the tools to support student success, to ensure educator effectiveness, and to boost operational readiness.”

PowerSchool Unified Solutions support: 

• End-to-end integration for SIS, classroom, assessment, finance, talent, and analytics 
• Development and delivery of whole child instruction 
• Access to the comprehensive tools needed to analyze data throughout your organization 
• Recruitment, retention, and development of educators and staff 
• Understanding and supporting students in ways that meet their specific needs

K-12 educators can accomplish all this through interoperable software solutions. Leveraging an integrated edtech approach with PowerSchool means that you can increase return on investment, decrease risk, and ultimately, help better understand and support students.

ISTE Thought Leadership Sessions 

During the conference, PowerSchool hosted a pair of popular thought leadership sessions. In the presentation, “Ethical Digital Citizenship: Protecting Passwords and Being ‘Nice’ Isn’t Enough,” we discussed what we mean when we refer to good digital citizenship being increasingly complex. The session, led by Ryan Imbriale, PowerSchool’s Vice President of Education Solutions, and featuring education consultant Susan Brooks-Young, explored evolving ethical challenges. This topic is especially relevant in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, as educators have become increasingly reliant on technology to support instruction, provide learning environments and build relationships.  

The second session, “Powerful Professional Learning in the Digital Age,” was part of the PowerSchool Unified Classroom? Schoology Digital Learning Leading Academy, recipient of the ISTE Seal of Alignment. PowerSchool’s Director of Customer Education, Gina Hartman, Ed.D., and a pair of PowerSchool education coaches discussed lessons learned post-pandemic, including the evolution of professional learning. In addition to robust digital tools, educators need powerful and innovative professional learning opportunities. This discussion focused on a research-based blended professional learning program that is positively impacting educators and school districts around the U.S. 

A Time for Fun: New Orleans City Walk and Professional Portraits 

In addition to discussing K-12 challenges and solutions, we were pleased to provide attendees with professional portraits in our booth. Over 500 educators took advantage of this fun feature, with many already adding their new pictures to their social profiles.

And finally, we had an amazing time connecting with educators on a memorable New Orleans sightseeing experience. Attendees were led by a 5-piece brass band on an evening walk starting at historic Washington Artillery Park, in the heart of “The Big Easy,” and on a tour through New Orleans. The event wrapped up with time to relax and enjoy refreshments on Bourbon Street’s longest balcony.