Guest post by Tessa Dodson

Digital tools have become part of everyday education, supporting everything from lesson delivery and assessment to student records, communication and reporting. For educators, these tools can reduce repetitive work and contribute to admin time reduction.

The amount of time you save depends on how much of your current workflow is manual, especially across scheduling, reporting, billing, payroll, and coordination. However, adding more software to your workflow does not automatically create more time. The real benefit depends on choosing tools that address specific needs and fit the way you already work.

The Growing Role of Digital Tools in Education

Digital tools have become a regular part of classroom work, with educators using them across different areas of teaching and learning. According to findings from the 2024 Speak Up Research Project, 75% of K-8 teachers reported using digital tools weekly to differentiate learning experiences. The study also shows how essential digital learning resources have become. Students identify two-way communication tools and online learning platforms among the digital resources they find effective for learning.

The role of technology in education has grown as schools and educators respond to a changing learning environment. Students bring different expectations around digital access and interaction, while teachers manage increasingly varied demands.

On a larger scale, educational institutions continue to modernize how they support teaching and learning. As these needs converge, digital tools have moved from an occasional classroom aid to a more established part of education.

How Digital Tools Can Improve Efficiency

Pew Research Center found that 84% of U.S. K-12 teachers do not have enough time during their regular work hours to complete multiple tasks. Their daily schedules often include grading, lesson planning, paperwork and answering work emails. With so many responsibilities competing for educators’ time, digital tools can help reduce repetitive work and make everyday tasks easier to manage.

Economic pressures further underscore this need. As schools navigate constrained budgets and broader financial headwinds affecting families and communities, the efficiency gains from automation become increasingly critical. Research shows that total household debt is now at an all-time high of $17.7 trillion, making resource efficiency a practical necessity rather than an optional improvement.

The right software can deliver time savings and efficiency gains through workflow automation. However, the results depend on how well the platform aligns with an individual’s or institution’s needs.

To identify a suitable tool, consider these key areas:

• The tasks you want to improve: Start with the parts of your workflow that take up the most time. Look for opportunities to automate repetitive steps, simplify manual processes or bring related tasks into one place.
• The people who will use it: Think about who needs access to the platform and what each person needs to accomplish. A tool that works well for one role may create complications for another.
• How it fits your existing workflow: Consider how the platform will work alongside the systems and processes you already use. Adding another tool may create more work if you need to duplicate information or switch between multiple platforms.
• The return on investment: Compare the time, effort and costs of your current process with the improvements you expect from the new platform. A tool that removes several repetitive steps from a daily workflow may offer a stronger return than one with a longer list of features that you rarely use.

Explore Tools That Match Your Educational Needs

Different types of education software address different parts of your workload. Looking at the specific functions you need can help you narrow your options and find tools that fit your day-to-day responsibilities.

Lesson Planning and Curriculum Management

Teachers often spend hours writing curriculum from scratch, managing standards alignment, formatting units, and ensuring multilingual support. This work pulls time away from actual instruction. When curriculum writing falls to multiple teachers or departments, maintaining consistency becomes a manual, time-intensive task.

Curriculum management platforms automate this administrative layer. They handle standards tagging, assessment formatting, and accessibility requirements in the background, letting teachers focus on instructional design.

Danbury Public Schools uses Trellis for curriculum writing. Administrators who spent 90 minutes reviewing a unit now finish in 15 minutes. Teachers cut writing time for a full course from 80 hours to about 30 hours, with the platform also managing standards alignment and accessibility.

These platforms also help ensure curriculum quality and consistency. By automating the administrative work, teachers aren’t rushed to finish units, and department leaders spend less time reformatting and aligning submissions across the board.

By reclaiming hours each week, these tools can help you redirect time to actual instruction, meaningful feedback, and student engagement.

Auto-Grading Tools

Auto-grading tools help reduce the time you spend assessing written work by handling parts of the initial grading process. They can apply a consistent system across submissions and generate initial feedback for you to review. A central platform also gives you a starting point for each student’s work without requiring you to begin every assessment from scratch.

A Spring 2026 field study examined how educators at two West Texas school campuses used CoGrader, an AI-powered grading and feedback tool, in their classrooms. One high school English teacher went from spending 10 to 15 hours grading a full class set of essays to about five minutes with the tool. Teachers also had more time for student conferences and felt more willing to assign writing.

CoGrader also supports rubric-based assessment, helping teachers apply their criteria across student submissions. Its translation feature gives educators another way to provide feedback to multilingual learners.

Auto-grading tools can also quickly process large batches of assignments, multiple-choice tests or programming code, providing faster, more consistent insights into student performance. That said, auto-grading works best for objective assignments, like multiple choice, short answers with clear rubrics, or coding problems with definitive outputs. Subjective work like essays or open-ended responses should still rely on teacher judgment, since these tools provide more of a first pass rather than a final grade.

Learning Management Platforms

Learning management platforms organize course materials, assessments, student information, and learning data within a single hub. They can help reduce the need to maintain separate documents while giving you easier access to information when you need to make instructional decisions.

Otus, a student learning and data platform, worked with the Gravette School District in Arkansas to help educators manage student growth data in a more centralized way. Before using the platform, teachers relied on individual spreadsheets, paper records, and Google Docs to track student growth. After adopting Otus, educators could create standards-linked assessments and access assessment data in near real time.

The platform also gave teachers a clearer view of student performance across different assessments and helped them identify areas where students needed additional support.

By bringing assessment information into one place, Otus reduced the need to piece together data from multiple sources when reviewing student progress.

A learning management platform can also scale as your program grows, without requiring you to introduce a new system for every increase in learners.

Build a Smarter Digital Workflow

Time savings from software come from automating routine tasks, reducing manual work, and streamlining everyday workflows. Before switching, compare the time, effort, and costs of your current process with the specific tasks the new platform could streamline. The best fit is a platform that simplifies your workflow and gives you back time for higher-value work.

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About Tessa

Tessa Dodson is the Senior Writer of Classrooms.com, where she researches and covers educational policy, professional development, teacher support systems, and integration challenges that K-12 and higher education institutions may face. She aims to research and provide actionable insights for students, educators, school administrators, and other leaders.

About Rachelle

Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth is a Spanish and STEAM: What’s Next in Emerging Technology Teacher. Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth is an edtech consultant, presenter, attorney, author, and teacher of Spanish and STEAM: Emerging Technology. Rachelle has a Juris Doctor degree from Duquesne University School of Law and a Doctorate in Instructional Technology. Rachelle’s focus was on the need for professional development for educators, specific to Artificial Intelligence. Rachelle specializes in Artificial Intelligence, AI and the Law, AI and Healthcare, Cybersecurity, and STEM. She has more than 8 years of experience teaching and presenting on AI in her classroom, as well as working with educators worldwide.

Rachelle is currently serving as the Grant Coach for an initiative through ISTE+ASCD and Pinterest. Rachelle works with a Task Force from 12 districts in the United States and assists with policy revision, professional development, and the design of digital wellness resources for students, educators, and families.

Rachelle provides professional development related to AI policy and implementation to school districts, universities, and organizations. She also presents and provides keynotes on AI at state, national, and international events and in schools. Rachelle also provides AI training for other industries, including business, healthcare, and legal fields.
Rachelle is an ISTE-certified educator and recipient of the ISTE Making IT Happen Award and several Presidential Awards for volunteer service to education. Rachelle received the EdTech Trendsetter Award from EdTech Digest in 2024 and 2026.

She is the author of ten books, including “What the Tech? An Educator’s Guide to AI, AR/VR, the Metaverse and More! and “How to Teach AI: Weaving Strategies and Activities Into Any Content Area.” She has written curricula and courses on AI for all levels.

She is also a blogger for Defined Learning, EdTech K12, Edutopia, Getting Smart, and Tech & Learning. She is the host of the ThriveinEDU podcast, ISTE’s Learning Unleashed podcast, and The Lift by Amazon on BAM Radio Network. Contact Rachelle for your event!