Most of the apps schools adopt are neglected.

School leaders expect students and teachers to be using their licensed apps all the time, says Ryan Baker, director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Learning Analytics. But in reality, most of the apps schools adopt are neglected.

A new report that analyzes 1.48 million hours of technology usage by 390,000 students across 48 U.S. school districts underscores this point.

“Schools will buy these licenses, and then they never really get touched,” says Baker, who analyzed the data and co-authored the report.

If you’re a school leader who has invested big in education apps, or a proponent of digital apps in the classroom, the findings from this report are bleak.

Many apps, independent of how long or often students use them, have no relationship to learning outcomes. And the majority of purchased licenses don’t get used. A median of 97.6 percent of licenses analyzed in Baker’s study were never used “intensively” (for 10 or more hours between assessments), despite the recommendations of the edtech app providers.

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