What Teachers Wish EdTech Companies Understood.
🧑🏫 Good EdTech Isn’t Enough — It has to Understand Teachers Needs
There’s no shortage of education tools promising to save time, increase engagement, or “revolutionize the classroom.”
But if you ask most teachers? They’ll tell you something different:
“I don’t need more tools. I need tools that help.”
Because when you’re managing 30 students, differentiating content, staying compliant, writing reports, and trying to care for actual human beings, the last thing you want is a dashboard that adds friction.
Of course, no tool can solve every challenge. But here’s what we keep hearing from teachers — again and again.
📌 1. We Don’t Need Another Login — We Need Less to Manage.
Teachers do not need more tools, they need few that actually works.
Too many tools mean:
Too many passwords
Too many platforms
Too many hours re-learning things we didn’t ask for
And even worse — tools that don’t talk to each other.
What teachers wish:
“Please don’t give me another thing to juggle. Let it fit in, not take over.”
⏳ 2. Time Is Our Most Valuable Asset
Every hour spent managing a new system is an hour not spent connecting with students, families, or simply recovering from the day.
The best EdTech doesn’t just work — it works fast.
What teachers wish:
“Don’t tell me it’s ‘efficient.’ Show me how it gives me my evening back.”
🎯 3. One Size Doesn’t Fit a Mixed-Ability Classroom
Real classrooms are messy. They’re diverse. No two lessons are ever the same.
Teachers are already differentiating in adapting for ability, language, behavior, mental health, and more.
What teachers wish:
“Help me reach more students — not just the ones who fit the template.”
🧠 4. Innovation Shouldn’t Mean Complexity
Teachers do not need complexity.
Some edtech tools are packed with features, but unclear in function.
Teachers don’t have time to “explore” on Monday morning before class.
What teachers wish:
“I don’t need 40 features. I need 3 that work really well.”
❤️ 5. We’re People. We’re Exhausted. Please Design Like You Know That.
Too many tools are built for a vision of school — not the reality.
The reality is:
We’re under pressure.
We’re overwhelmed.
We want to do good work without breaking ourselves to do it.
What teachers wish:
“See me as a person, not a user. Build tools that respect my bandwidth.”
💡 A Note to EdTech Founders: Teachers Want to Trust You
We’re not anti-innovation.
We’re not tech-averse.
We just need tools that feel like they were made with us, not just for us.
The EdTech companies that earn trust:
Interview teachers before building
Stay for the follow-up
Make changes when something isn’t working
Solve real pain points, not imagined ones
🙌 What We’ve Learned So Far
Teacher supported by Dolly AI — real-time help with planning, feedback, and admin so she can focus on students, not stress.
We’re still a young company. We don’t claim to have it all figured out — but we’re trying to build with teachers from the start.
When we created Dolly, we didn’t begin by asking, “What can AI do?”
We began by asking, “What’s making teaching harder — and how can we help?”
That’s why Dolly supports:
• Feedback
• Planning
• Differentiation
• Report writing
• Weekly organization
Quietly. Practically. No overwhelm.
🚀 Want to Build EdTech That Lasts? Start By Listening.
Teachers are not just users. They’re Experts. Humans.
They don’t need hype.
They need help.
💡 Try Dolly this June
📰 More insight on how Dolly helps teachers on our Blog.