As education technology continues to spread like wildfire in classrooms nationwide, schools and administrators must prepare for the amount of money they must spend to properly adapt classrooms. Recent research shows that EdTech spending is on the rise and the biggest contributor to the increase happens to be hardware.

An EdNET Insight graph published by The Journal shows a breakdown of EdTech spending over the course of three years from 2013-2015. The only two areas that have fallen behind in spending happen to be teacher training and tech support. Software rose slightly but the real star in EdTech spending is hardware.

“On the hardware front, tablet purchases are planned for nearly nine in 10 (87 percent) districts. As the grade level goes down, the investment in tablets goes up,” according to the report.

“At the K-2 level, 68 percent of districts intend to purchase tablets; at the 3-5 grade level it's 56 percent; for middle school it's 40 percent; and for high school it's 36 percent. Laptops will see almost as much buying activity — 86 percent of districts have them on the shopping list. However, the pattern is reversed. While 68 percent expect to buy laptops for high school, only 30 percent are getting them for K-2.”

Of course the report also mentions that the purchase and budgeting set aside for Chromebooks are also on the rise. As we reported last week, Chromebooks are becoming the dominating pieces of technology in classrooms nationwide.

The findings show that schools are concentrating on better machines for students and while it’s still odd that teacher training has dipped slightly in 2015 it’s likely that it may increase this year as a result of the new technology being developed.

"The shift from print toward digital materials will continue, and districts are clear on what they expect from those materials — they must support personalized learning (92 percent), include an assessment component (90 percent) and be compatible with multiple devices and operating systems (90 percent)," said EdNET Insight Senior Director, Kathleen Brantley, according to The Journal.

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Article by Navindra Persaud, Education World Contributor