As a school administrator, how can you determine which technology products will support your State-aligned curriculum? As an ed-tech vendor, how can you help your clients effectively integrate products into the classroom? 

These simple and easy-to-use Consumer Guides are decision support tools to help school administrators and educational technology vendors learn what questions to ask and how to make informed decisions relating to education technology. School administrators can use this tool as a one-stop resource to becoming an informed and empowered consumer of assistive and learning technologies and to help find the appropriate educational technologies to address a variety of needs. The educational technology vendors section provides vendors a tool to help navigate the shifting demands of the educational marketplace and understand — as well as meet — the concerns and needs of purchasers. 

The Guides provide assistance in the following five areas:

• Alignment of standards and curriculum goals;
• Implementation of technologies;
• Scientifically-based research;
• Funding for purchasing educational technology; and
• Legislative mandates such as IDEA and NCLB.

The Guides are the result of collaborative research conducted by NCTI with Cheryl Volkman, CEO Emeritus of AbleNet, Inc.  AbleNet, Inc. administrators realized several years ago that they were being asked to provide more evidence of effectiveness for their assistive and learning products by school-based purchasers and that those purchasers were no longer the classroom teacher, but more likely an administrator.  They conducted market research to understand their new customer base. Read more about Cheryl Volkman’s leadership in the assistive and learning technology field in an NCTI  Innovator Profile.

AbleNet’s interviews were shared with NCTI for analysis based on trends and research findings.  Several products are the result; one is the Consumer Guides.  Other results of this collaborative research is presentations offered in collaboration with the Center for Implementing Technology In Education (CITEd), Technology Decision Makers Hold the Keys to Successful Implementation, archived as a webinar (free registration is required).

See the Consumer Guides at the TechMatrix, a powerful online database for finding assistive and learning technology products for students with special needs. The TechMatrix also provides access to a host of research on the effectiveness of technology in the instruction of math, reading, and writing.

�