Venture capitalists chat edtech’s new normal after COVID-19 

There’s no doubt that the coronavirus has had a monumental impact on the way we view technology’s relationship with education. For now, students are learning from home. But what happens when they return to school?

Picking up where we left off in last week’s survey, we asked top investors in the space for their predictions on what is ahead once life resumes to its new normal. One investor mentioned how in March, they spent a third of their time in edtech. Now, they’re spending almost all their time vetting startups there. Another said that the sector has always been underfunded. Time will tell if venture capitalists become more bullish on the sector, and more importantly, if adoption from schools with strict budgets becomes more lenient.

A harsh statistic sums the dynamic of adoption and investment pretty well: according to Tetyana Astashkina and Jean Hammond of Learn Launch, less than 5% of the $1.6 trillion spent on education in the U.S. is attributed to edtech. Let’s see if other investors think that percentage will shift forward after the pandemic ceases.

Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Jenny Lee, GGV

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape?

It has highlighted this sector as a sector to watch globally and will likely invite more competitors as well as more investing interest and capital.

How has COVID-19 impacted edtech startups operationally?

Startups who are close to 100% automated in their offerings and do not rely on real teachers have not been impacted by COVID-19 but instead have leveraged their technology to offer more products and services to new parents who previously were not comfortable with AI teachers or online platforms. Many students in rural areas were able to continue having their lessons online during this period.

Startups who have a hybrid online model that relies on teachers have to figure out how to allow teachers to conduct classes at their home. We have seen startups scrambling to provide network cards, computers, teaching materials to teachers at their home. Many have figured out a more optimized model of allowing the teachers to continue to teach at home post-crisis, a long-term positive for their operating models. For example, instead of providing work stations for 3,000 teachers at their office locations (think fixed rent and overhead management cost) post-crisis, they have shrunk their teacher workstations to 300 spots (10x savings) and utilized a training rotation scheme for three months, after which the teachers will teach from home instead of from the office. Teachers love it as they can conduct more classes, earn more and spend less time on travel each day. Teachers can now be recruited from many different cities instead of the core 2-3 cities that a startup would typically have, increasing supply access to good teaching resources nationally.

What advice do you have for your portfolio companies facing unprecedented surges right now?

  • Be cautious, view the surge as a “traffic sandbox” to experiment with new service offerings, but do not be deceived into thinking this will last long-term.
  • Focus on quality of service, parents feedback and building brand with new users. Education service, unlike other consumer services is highly dependent on renewal, word-of-mouth referral and customer service. Focus on increasing referral and renewals with existing customers.
  • Figure out the supply-side equation for teaching resources, which tend to be the bottleneck in a surge. It’s not the lack of users, but the lack of teachers and ability to train them fast enough that matters.

What are the biggest cracks emerging through this overnight adoption of edtech? 

  • Hastily unprepared startups may not offer good content or experience in a bid to attract new users, souring overall early acceptance.
  • More new capital pouring into a sector that requires patience, good curriculum development and quality of service. Too much competition may lead to unhealthy pricing and long-term unsustainable models.

What will happen to edtech when it’s no longer a necessity in schools? What will stick and what do you think won’t?

This trend did not start because of the current COVID-19 to assist schools to move learning online. I have seen its development globally for the last 4-5 years and it has been very well-received globally, particularly in countries like China, India and Indonesia where the population is highly spread out, big scarcity of good quality teachers and lack of affordable public education.

Areas like after school tutoring, homework preparation, holistic learning like arts and crafts, music, logical thinking, programming, etc. are mainstream content offered online. With COVID-19, traditional schools are now scrambling to add online infrastructure to support online courses, teachers are learning how to use the tools to conduct classes online; once the habits are formed, I believe will become a long-term supplementary format to in-person classes.

Tetyana Astashkina and Jean Hammond, Learn Launch 

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape?

Tetyana Astashkina: To date, we received mixed signals from our portfolio companies. Some companies stopped their fundraising activities to focus on responding to market demand. This is especially true about K-12 and higher ed companies that see an unprecedented increase in inbound inquiries. At the same time, we have several portfolio companies that are closing their rounds as we speak. Some of them are not insignificant in size.

Generally speaking, edtech investing has been a slower-moving market but in a way also more robust than other investment sectors. The marketplace is small (you can also call it underfunded; no offends) with a number of established impact and specialized players that are now on their third or fourth fund cycle. Also, we saw announcements of several new edtech-focused players emerging shortly before the crisis broke out. These investors will keep investing but we expect to see adjustments in their expectations with regard to price, as will be the case across other sectors. We will probably also see situations when “general VCs” will jump on fast-moving cases as there are a number of edtech companies both B2C and B2B that see unprecedented growth in usage these days. We do not expect to see much change in the behavior of impact investors.

A two-month time frame is not enough to fully understand the degree of “slowdown of this slow industry,” but we will certainly notice it in a quarter or two from now. This will be largely due to fluctuation in angel funding, whose contribution to early-stage edtech is significant. Unlike funds, angels can “wait and see” till they feel comfortable investing again. We will most likely see a decrease in the level of new investments and a shift of focus on supporting existing companies. So, the net total pie for edtech startups will be smaller in the mid-term.

How has COVID-19 impacted edtech startups operationally?

Tetyana Astashkina: A lot of our companies across all segments are offering their products for free. User (teacher) training has always been key to successful product adoption. All of the training happens online now which is new and needs adjustment. Also, the timelines to respond to customer inquiries are very compressed which puts pressure on companies, especially because of eternally limited resources.

K-12 districts need to have budgets in place by the end of June for the next school year. So selling, while giving the product away for free and while supporting un-trained users is going to be a scramble. Now imagine being a cash-starved start-up trying to deal with your own homeschooling needs…

What advice do you have for your portfolio companies facing unprecedented surges right now?

Tetyana Astashkina: We are addressing this in multiple ways:

  • We believe our entrepreneurs are the best source of wisdom and we facilitate the exchange about best practices among our portfolio companies. Also, we invite CEOs of established edtech businesses to so-called “CEO round tables” to have them talk about some of the challenges they see and how to address them.
  • We analyze the new support resources available to entrepreneurs to help our companies navigate and make use of them.
  • We inform the industry about the response of our portfolio companies to build awareness about edtech and increase visibility for our portfolio companies.

What part of education do you think is most apt to adopt technology? 

Tetyana Astashkina: We think that both higher ed and K-12 have a lot of room to adopt more technology. To date, less than 5% of $1.6 trillion spent on education in the U.S. is attributed to edtech. K-12 will see an increase in the use of technology in the classroom already in the short term. But an even bigger shift will happen with a higher degree of consolidation in the market — which is already underway — when we will see more players that offer “broader solutions” in place of dozens of tools that need to be patched together.

Higher education is a different market. In fact, a part of its market already exists fully online. We believe that the rest of higher ed will have to use more technology to offer a higher degree of flexibility and maintain a competitive edge.

Also, corporate space is ready and hungry for more solutions to address the surging need for workforce reskilling.

What are the biggest cracks emerging through this overnight adoption of edtech? 

Tetyana Astashkina: We were surprised to see how unprepared the underlying infrastructure was to deliver high-quality education remotely, especially K-12. The US has one of the best in the world internet connectivity at the school level but it does not matter now when education needs to be delivered remotely. High-quality internet access at home is an issue in many areas.

We have seen some schools that created ad hoc task forces working weekends to develop really comprehensive and thoughtful action plans to respond to the situation. Other schools are slower. We wish there were an exchange forum for school leaders too, but it is hard to do when everybody around is in a “firefighting mode.”

Also, we believe we will learn a lot about communication and engagement with parents for the success of the learning process. A lot of parents woke up in “homeschooling” mode and nobody was prepared to do that. Educators now have to engage parents more than ever before and manage them too to make sure “home classrooms” works.

Educators had to switch rapidly from some level of blended (in K-12) and occasionally online (in higher ed) learning to fully online. They are bombarded by emails with free product offers and advice on what and how to use them. It is really hard to make decisions and immediately implement them at large scale when they are used to long, staged pilot-like product adoption. Current situation debunks a lot of, let us call them imperfections, in technology adoption processes or lack of them.

Last but not least, what is happening in virtual classrooms and at home is really stressful, topped by a lot of uncertainty around how long this new format will last and what implications it will have on other aspects of school life, testing among other things. We believe that emotional wellness for both educators and families will need to be addressed.

What will happen to edtech when it’s no longer a necessity in schools? What will stick and what do you think won’t?

Jean Hammond: We don’t think the new tools that schools are using to get work done today will completely disappear. Even Zoom meetings may not completely disappear. It might even be that in the future a student out sick or unable to attend for some other reason, will still be “in” the classroom for, at least, some of the work.

What schools are really missing is having students work in teams designing a new bridge from popsicle sticks and learning teamwork and communication. There are experiences that cannot be replaced by technology.

The shift that happened was not from 0 to 100. 85% of teachers were reporting some use of technology in the classroom and more than 40% of faculty in higher ed would occasionally deliver a course online. Most of the curriculum already exists in digital form and in multiple formats and it will not disappear. In fact, it may happen that print will lose more ground.

Marlon Nichols, MaC Venture Capital 

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape?

It seems that everyone is searching for the next version of Zoom or similar technology suitable for education. I think those tools are already built and won’t be the answer to remote learning.

How has COVID-19 impacted edtech startups operationally?

Probably a little more adoption or faster sale cycles due to school districts and universities scrambling to support remote student learning during these unprecedented times. Again, not something that we should expect to last beyond this pandemic. For startups that depend more heavily on physical spaces, COVID-19 means cutbacks.

What advice do you have for your portfolio companies facing unprecedented surges right now?

I sent an email to our entire portfolio with general guidance and then published it on our medium page so other founders could benefit if they choose. I think prudence, diligence, and planning are essential in times of uncertainty so I urge companies that are seeing spikes to operate as if it won’t last. They should still plan for the bear scenario, evaluate the business on a weekly basis, resist the temptation to adjust projections upwards after limited time has passed, manage burn appropriately, and try not to hire too quickly in this environment. Things can shift quickly and it would be a shame to see a company begin to struggle or fold because it overplayed its hand too quickly.

What will happen to edtech when it’s no longer a necessity in schools? What will stick and what do you think won’t?

I think edtech will always be a necessity in schools. While live video conferencing won’t be used as much post this pandemic, it will still be leveraged to an extent — But video conferencing is just one small aspect of edtech. If there is a silver lining in any of this, it is that it has taught academics and administrators that they must embrace technology and new ways of educating students. That bodes well for the future of edtech.

Mercedes Bent, Lightspeed Venture Partners

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape?

It’s flipped the board over. Very few players in education were ready to go fully online. Colleges and school districts are still scrambling as I write this to both secure and plan around foundational resources like 1:1 devices for students, internet access, train instructors how to deliver online content, administer assessments, and preserve a sense of community online. Many leaders in districts and colleges I’ve spoken with haven’t been able to begin planning for a possible 2020 – 2021 school year that is fully online or some hybrid variety.

One of the saddest aspects of Covid’s effect on education is that going fully online has exacerbated existing inequalities. Many poorer students rely on public school for meals, device and internet access. Because school districts are funded by local taxes, poorer areas may have less to spend on public education resources in coming years. High-need students such as those with special needs, behavioral problems, or home environments that are not conducive to learning will suffer with less personal attention and support. Absenteeism is always an issue and is even more so now. Families with more discretionary income are making up for less personal attention and support in school by paying for more tutoring and supplemental content — tutoring companies tell me they’re up 300-400% from normal levels, so what was always an option is being exacerbated further.

How has COVID-19 impacted edtech startups operationally?

K-12 online learning startups are working around the clock to secure supply (teachers) and offer a quality onboarding experience for many people that are trying online learning for the first time. Many are seeing surges in new users. Everyone’s wondering if these users will stay or churn. We don’t know yet but currently backfilling remote teacher supply is the main priority for edtech startups with a live teaching component. Other asynchronous options are scrambling to produce more content while recording studios are closed due to covid and running out of runway.

What advice do you have for your portfolio companies facing unprecedented surges right now?

Double down on customer service values and communicate more frequently to let your customers. Let them know when they can expect an answer even if you don’t have one right now.

Try to build in an ever-improving user experience via drip-campaigns. While we all know first impressions are everything, you can win over customers week by week as you introduce them to more and more of your offering.

What are the biggest cracks emerging through this overnight adoption of edtech? 

In K-12 — lack of devices, lack of internet access at many homes (in LA 25% of LAUSD students don’t have access to the internet), access to learning platforms conducive to online teaching, adhering to security and protecting student privacy in an online environment, and transitioning/training all teachers to teach online.

In higher education — residences for international students, ability to matriculate students for the 2020 – 2021 school year, ability to create an engaging learning experience over Zoom/Microsoft teams, and transitioning/training all instructors to teach online.

What will happen to edtech when it’s no longer a necessity in schools? What will stick and what do you think won’t?

I’m guessing this question means what will happen post-coronavirus? I’m not sure why technology would not be a necessity in schools anymore altogether.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my post-coronavirus predictions. Here’s a highlight reel on what I think will happen:

  1. Early childhood consumer content will stick. Parents who adopted consumer learning tools like Age of Learning’s ABC Mouse and introduced screen time to toddlers at a younger age may continue paying until their child enters full-time schooling in kindergarten. Roughly 40% of three-year-olds attend preschool, so I expect the 60% who don’t to consumer free or paid early childhood content at higher levels.
  2. Homeschooling population will double. 10% of U.S. parents want to homeschool their children but only 3% do. I predict that after this criss, we will see 5-6% of parents and children/teenagers choosing homeschool in the fall as tools that make that possible like Outschool and BrainPOP become more prevalent.
  3. Some colleges will close. There are approximately 5,300 colleges in the USA and just a few have large endowments. Many others rely on state funding, alumni donations and tuition. Enrollment has been declining in higher ed since 2011 and 2017 was the first year where tuition accounted for over 50% of the average public college’s funding. This picture combined with young adults not wanting to pay full price for a remote learning education will force hard decisions at some schools.
  4. Tutoring apps will spike and may see a sustained lift for wealthier parents. Tutoring prices may also come down as more competition drives down cost.
  5. Beyond the LMS (learning management system): someone will develop a truly hybrid learning platform that is intended for both fully online learning and can be flexible enough to support offline LMS needs as well. It will likely be open source, allow developer API integrations, have embedded exercise and grading functionality, ability for an instructor to jump into breakout groups, multimedia instruction formats, short, chunkable attention-span grabbing modules, pre-recorded video with instructor front-facing video technology such as what BYJU and 2U uses and messaging features. Many online educational advocates are urging reporters to draw a distinction between remote learning and online learning because they know the current scramble has created a learning experience so bad that many students are being turned off of distance learning altogether.
  6. University’s admission + credentialing functions will digitize. Two of the most core university functions include 1) admitting students and 2) credentialing their achievements. I believe universities will adopt and keep more hybrid tools — especially in online proctoring and virtual admissions/enrollment marketing. Exams for higher education will move online and stay there.
  7. Companies will begin offering student-debt payoff as a benefit. The CAREs act now allows employers to pay student loans up to $5,250 tax free. Companies like Rightfoot, Tuition.io, Goodly who help company’s administers loan benefit programs others will benefit from this.

Things that will not stick

  1. Preschools teaching toddlers online (many are currently doing to avoid refunds on tuition)
  2. Language learning will likely peak during coronavirus and then subside, but to higher levels than before
  3. Remote teaching is a pale comparison to robust online learning. Professors who rely on a lecturing head speaking at students over Zoom will not have improved on the classroom trope of the monologuing lecturer.

Jennifer Carolan & Shauntel Garvey, Reach Capital

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape? 

Jennifer Carolan: In the past week, I’ve heard Hans Tung and Roleof Botha identify online learning as key areas of investing interest. Like life sciences which was once more nichey and is now mainstream, edtech is also moving into mainstream investing. COVID-19 has brought online learning to the forefront, shining a spotlight on the critical function these products serve. Education penetrates every part of our lives. Learning is innately collaborative and benefits from diverse perspectives which makes the shift to online, for at least a component of learning, inexorable.

How has COVID-19 impacted edtech startups operationally? 

Shauntel Garvey: Many edtech startups are seeing significant increases in demand and are making improvements to their underlying infrastructure, beefing up their customer support teams, and adding additional instructors and facilitators to meet this demand. Companies are also adapting their product offerings to enable parent use at home and to help schools meet specific needs resulting from COVID-19. For example, AdmitHub has created a new chatbot to help schools keep their students informed about the pandemic and related closures. Riipen, an experiential learning marketplace, has expanded their offering to enable universities to facilitate virtual internships.

What advice do you have for your portfolio companies facing unprecedented surges right now? 

Jennifer Carolan: Keep your servers up and be prepared for international growth. Many companies seeing a surge right now were not ready for the demand outside of the U.S. — it’s been significant and at this time, accounts for roughly ⅓ of the growth.

What are the biggest cracks emerging through this overnight adoption of edtech? 

Shauntel Garvey: The overnight adoption of edtech is revealing fundamental issues such as equity and access and student data privacy. Assuming we could solve both of these issues, we also need to address human capital needs and ensure that educators are adequately trained and prepared to make this transition. My mother is a college professor and like many of her colleagues, is not a digital native. She is overwhelmed with having to teach exclusively online and not only needs support on navigating the tech tools, but also guidance on adapting her teaching to this new environment- how does she keep students engaged? how does she check in on students’ welfare? In addition to professional development and the sharing of best practices, we need embedded tools that empower teachers to be successful in the adoption of edtech.

What will happen to edtech when it’s no longer a necessity in schools? What will stick and what do you think won’t? 

Jennifer Carolan: We get this question a lot and I ask the same about telehealth and WFH practices we’ve adopted. The products that delight us and improve our lives will stick, those that don’t will be fast forgotten. My gut feeling is that retention of new customers will be high although usage may drop a bit as companies learn to serve their new customers in a post-COVID world.

Jan Lynn-Matern, Emerge Education

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape?

Two global forces combine to create extraordinary opportunities for technology founders: a) an accelerated innovation cycle for educational institutions and b) a sharp increase in future demand for education offerings that offer viable routes to employment.

Accelerated innovation cycle: Every university is in crisis mode right now, moving student acquisition, teaching and assessment online and ensuring they are better prepared for next time. This is creating an unexpected learning opportunity about the potential benefits of digital education services. Some universities will use this learning not just to respond in the short term, but also to fundamentally improve student experience, creating long-term advantages. As a result, we will see offerings that are more accessible, flexible and engaging. A generation of technology companies that provide support around digital acquisition, delivery, design, assessment and student success will emerge from this.

Routes into employment: As a recession looms and more and more workers are being pushed into unemployment, edtech’s role in providing access to viable routes to acquiring in-demand skills and accessing employment opportunities has never been more important. Online vocational schools and other skill providers may experience a short-term dip in demand for the talent they produce in line with the economic shock, but will benefit long-term as this recession accelerates the need for more and more individuals to re- and up-skill.

How has COVID-19 impacted edtech startups operationally?

Like all startups, edtech startups are impacted across demand, supply chains, teams and financing. Unlike most startups, edtech companies are amongst the few types who are experiencing surges in demand while also having to contest with the difficulties of having their teams and the financing environment impacted.

Companies that are experiencing especially high growth and engagement right now include those that:

  • Are genuinely able to help universities move their existing courses online rapidly – like Aula
  • Enable universities to move their marketing activities online – like Unibuddy
  • Provide access to digital learning content, like Duolingo and Coursera

What advice do you have for your portfolio companies facing unprecedented surges right now?

  • Invest in scalability over other features
  • Transparent communication with investors
  • Don’t expect this to last

What are the biggest cracks emerging through this overnight adoption of edtech? 

Digital divide.

What will happen to edtech when it’s no longer a necessity in schools? What will stick and what do you think won’t?

Smart universities will use the learning they gain from this to create long-term advantage by innovating on their course catalogue, pedagogical and operational models.

Tory Patterson & Ian Chiu, Owl Capital 

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape?

We believe that COVID-19 and the dramatic adoption of digital education during this time marks a profound turning point in the market for education technology and has dramatically increased broader investor interest in the category. Educational institutions from here on out will need to be prepared and ready to deploy technology at scale. Even after this initial wave of COVID-19 passes, many experts predict future periods where schools and businesses will again need to be remote. Investors recognize this and are eager to deploy capital to help support edtech companies who are serving the market. As one data point — we’ve been fielding an increasing amount of outreach from generalist investors wanting to learn more about what we, as a edtech sector-focused fund, are seeing in the space and to explore the possibility of investing in the portfolio companies that we’ve backed.

How has COVID-19 impacted edtech startups operationally?

Due to COVID-19, edtech startups have experienced explosive demand from existing and new customers. K-12 districts, universities, and corporations are all rushing to implement comprehensive remote learning technology. An overwhelming majority of edtech startups have stepped in with offers to serve new customers with their premium products, free of charge through the end of the school year. This is a response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding, an effort to cut through the procurement red tape and deliver much-needed assistance to the market as quickly as possible. This is naturally being embraced at scale with thousands of new educational institutions and learners getting exposure and assistance from education technology solutions.

What advice do you have for your portfolio companies facing unprecedented surges right now?

The bulk of our portfolio is comprised of companies built to support digital and subsequently remote education, and we are finding that traffic and engagement metrics have accelerated dramatically. We’ve guided our portfolio companies to focus first on delivering value and support during this unprecedented time.

As backdrop, most educational institutions are in a state of flux when it comes to immediate product procurement and are simply seeking to stand up solutions that will help their communities quickly adapt to a new normal. During the back-to-school procurement season this summer, these institutions will be in a better place to evaluate and prioritize procuring products and solutions that will help them prepare for the prospect of continued in-person classroom disruption.

What are the biggest cracks emerging through this overnight adoption of edtech? 

Digital Divide: We live in a time where internet access is a necessity and there has been a lot of progress to make this a reality in the context of K-12 schools. As an example, since 2013, the cost of school broadband has decreased by 85%, and 40.7 million more students have access to high-speed internet. In the United States, 98% of school districts can now take advantage of digital learning, and by 2020, all 250 million Chinese students will have broadband access.

However, the current pandemic has only exacerbated the digital divide caused by the lack of devices and wifi hotspots needed for students to continue online learning. Given what we know about the summer reading slide, the long-term impact of a temporary pause in learning is profound for the achievement gap, especially in students from low SES communities.

Compliance with student data privacy laws: As educators and schools have had to adopt virtual models of teaching, it has become increasingly difficult for them to comply with well-intentioned FERPA laws that have strict guidelines around capturing photos, videos and other identifiable personal information of students. As we think about the virus potentially returning and schools having to spend more time offering virtual learning solutions, the need to redesign FERPA laws to today’s realities will become urgent.

Good product implementation: It is estimated that every year, nearly 14,000 school districts procure 6,000+ edtech products. In today’s time, we believe schools and districts will rely on a short list of turnkey solutions that a) are easy to implement, b) provide ongoing PD and support to its users and c) have product efficacy. Edtech solutions that do not meet these criteria will likely have a harder time with adoption, sales, and renewals given the new need and flexibility of remote implementation in this post-COVID-19 reality.

What will happen to edtech when it’s no longer a necessity in schools? What will stick and what do you think won’t?

We believe edtech will be a necessary part of education and schools, even beyond this current environment. COVID-19 marks a profound turning point in the market, as educational institutions from here on out will need to be prepared and ready to deploy technology at scale, especially since many experts predict future periods where schools and businesses will again need to be remote.

So, in a world where COVID-19 will come and go in waves, there will likely be more adoption of solutions with online offerings that can seamlessly switch between in-person and virtual contexts, across categories of online curriculum, communication and collaboration tools, telehealth, etc.

Tony Wang, 500 Startups 

How has COVID-19 impacted the edtech investing landscape?

The current situation will present a step change in edtech that has been very slow in coming. In the past, we’ve largely seen incremental opportunities to leverage technology in education, and most of these focused on the fringes; for example, edtech that is focused on parents as buyers. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is that incumbent institutions generally don’t have a reason to risk downside disruption for the chance at optimization. For example, despite the widespread awareness of massive open online courses (MOOCs), higher education in the US is still largely a brick-and-mortar service.

The reality of a whole nation facing potential school closures creates several important opportunities. First, there is an acceleration of technology adoption and utilization that would only have been incremental at best under normal circumstances. Now, universities, school districts, even daycare centers are forced to make digital a priority because that will be the only way they can deliver content to students in the foreseeable short term. The hard shift is painful for incumbents, but once done, it creates a new normal.

What are the biggest cracks emerging through this overnight adoption of edtech? 

The exposure that both students and parents have to technology adopted by learning institutions during this period highlights the importance of investing in quality software. The dependence on technology will cause institutions to re-evaluate the quality of their current vendors and suppliers. By way of personal example, my daughter’s school canceled class for the entire day because the software platform they were using was too unstable.