r/edtech

I've been in EdTech long enough to watch the typing software market go through its full cycle and I want to document where we are right now because it's genuinely interesting from a product perspective.

Five years ago the consensus was clear, traditional drill-based typing instruction was boring and engagement was the primary problem to solve, so everyone went gamified, racing games, leaderboards, badges, cartoon characters, the whole thing, and engagement metrics went through the roof and everyone was happy.

Now the backlash is here. Teachers are reporting that students who dominated the typing races have terrible technique. Districts are looking at their WPM progress data and realizing engagement and skill acquisition were not the same thing and they optimized for the wrong one. The pendulum is swinging back toward structured instruction and some platforms that never gamified are now being rediscovered.

The interesting thing is neither camp is actually wrong. Gamification solved a real problem (motivation) and created a different real problem (technique theater). Structured instruction solves the technique problem and has always had the motivation problem. The ideal product is probably somewhere in the middle and I'm not sure anyone has fully nailed it yet.

What I'm watching is whether the market consolidates around a few platforms that can credibly do both or whether we end up with a permanent split between "engagement tools" and "skill tools" and schools have to pick which problem they care about more.

What are you seeing in your districts?

Hey everyone, I recently applied for a role in ed tech sales and completed the first round of interviews. I’m starting to feel hesitant about moving forward and would really appreciate some perspective. I’m 33 and not sure if transitioning into this field is the right move, especially given the current economy.

I’m currently working at a small school, but the pay isn’t great, which is why I’ve been considering a shift into ed tech.

We are a virtual educational company partner with schools and districts to help students with:

• Scholarship & opportunity discovery
• College/trade school planning
• Essay & application support
• Interview prep + confidence building

Everything is delivered virtually, and we typically offer:

• 2–3 session workshop series
• 4–8 week monthly programs
• 8–12+ week semester programs

Right now, our pricing looks roughly like:

• Workshops: $500 – $1,500
• Monthly programs: $1,500 – $4,000
• Semester programs: $4,000 – $10,000+

 

We also try to structure things so schools (especially Title I) can serve more students at a lower per-student cost, and we include some free resources as well.

My question is:
For those of you who work in education, consulting, or run similar programs:

• What are you (or your org) charging schools/districts?
• Are these ranges too low, too high, or about right?
• Do districts prefer per-student pricing, flat contracts, or something else?
• Any insight on what actually gets approved at the district level?

Trying to make sure I’m pricing this in a way that’s both sustainable and accessible.

I just want to share what my Tuesday evening looked like so other homeschool parents don't make my mistake.

It started simply enough, my twelve year old needs to improve her typing before we get into more serious written work and I thought I'd spend thirty minutes finding something reasonable.

Three hours later I had forty browser tabs open, had somehow gotten into a forum debate from 2016 about whether Mavis Beacon was appropriate for homeschoolers, watched two YouTube reviews from channels I'd never heard of for products that no longer exist, read four Reddit threads where people recommended products without explaining why, and found myself on a comparison site that was clearly just ranking platforms by whoever paid them the most.

I still didn't have a program.

I closed everything and went to bed.

What I actually wanted was extremely simple: something structured, something that shows me progress without me having to dig for it, something without so many ads that my daughter gets distracted every three minutes, and something I can trust to actually build real skill rather than just making typing feel like a game until she stops caring.

Is there anyone who has genuinely used something long enough to have an opinion worth trusting?