#edtech

#edtech

San Francisco, CA, January 12, 2026 - ClassDojo is now an all-in-one district communication platform, expanding ClassDojo for Districts with new capabilities that give K-12 leaders greater visibility and insight across schools without changing how teachers and families already use the platform. These updates strengthen districtwide coordination and communication while keeping teacher-family relationships at the heart of ClassDojo. The updates come amid growing demand from school systems.

In 2026, the EdTech market is crowded and mature. LMS, LXP, skills platforms, AI-powered learning tools, and compliance solutions all compete for the same budgets. Nowadays, buyers are more cautious. CFOs reduce spending while enterprise deals take longer. In the meantime, customer acquisition costs keep rising, and switching costs are lower than many vendors expect. The hard truth in the market is this: great products are now table stakes.

Every year, TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield pitch contest draws thousands of applicants. We whittle those applications down to the top 200 contenders, and of them, the top 20 compete on the big stage to become the winner, taking home the Startup Battlefield Cup and a cash prize of $100,000. But the remaining 180 startups all blew us away as well in their respective categories and compete in their own pitch competition.

From nurturing curiosity to harnessing cognitive science principles and designing learning for co-intelligence, November's Guest Author Article Showcase spotlights some excellent pieces on human-AI convergence. What happens when humans focus solely on technology when designing learning with Artificial Intelligence? Why do we need to teach and cultivate critical thinking? Can AI tools amplify our humanity? In no particular order, here are last month's top guest author articles on this hot topic.

Stemaide's goal is to bring science and technology skills to all young Africans. Started in 2022 in Ghana, it has developed a science kit that will work in areas without the internet. Prince Boateng Asare, CEO of Stemaide, says the firm wants to prepare young Africans for the jobs of the future. This is the second in a six-part series on technology in Africa. More on Technology in Africa

Chegg is slashing about 45% of its workforce-388 roles-as the company says the "new realities of AI" and a sharp drop in Google-driven traffic have significantly reduced its student traffic and revenue. The edtech company will eliminate 388 positions globally, about 45% of its staff, in a major restructuring aimed at cutting costs and reshaping operations for an AI-first market environment. Chegg attributed the cuts to generative AI's rapid adoption among students and reduced Google referrals to content publishers, which it said have materially eroded demand for its services.

"There are few solutions available on the market that are dedicated to non-technical people," Aureliusz Gorski, founder and CEO of Warsaw-based CampusAI, told TechCrunch. CampusAI's solution? An educational platform focused on making learning accessible to everyday people who want to bring AI into their everyday workflows - whether that's to help improve sales, HR, legal, or just give your personal branding a boost with AI. The platform aims to help people understand and work with AI, rather than be intimidated by it.

We have been concerned about the expansion of EdTech includes a wide range of tools that enable the surveillance of students and academic staff, often facilitating monitoring by both public authorities and private entities. We brought our concerns responding to the UN Special Rapporteur on education call for contributions on safety as an element of the right to education and a precondition for its full realization.

The Role ITHAKA is looking for a Software Engineer to join the JSTOR Labs team. As Software Engineer, you will have a pivotal role in building the Transfer Explorer pilot application. The Transfer Explorer is a collaboration between Ithaka S+R and JSTOR Labs which aims to make it easy for students, school administrators, and advisors to see how earned credits and prior learning experiences will transfer and count toward a degree at a new institution.

They're for things like figuring out bus pickup timings, notifying the school about days off, and keeping parents informed about grades and special events. All of those things are helpful! (It'd be easier to have them all in one app.) But these apps and services are often clunky, buggy, and have confusing design - making it hard to figure out where to get the information you need.

"Many of the products that were on the market catered to someone who knew chess already, and we really saw an opportunity to bring it more to the masses," says Edwin Bodge, group product manager on Duolingo's chess team.

The EdTech sector has witnessed explosive growth with innovations like AI-powered platforms and adaptive learning systems, promising to revolutionize how we teach and learn.

"Agentic AI systems are designed to make decisions, take effective actions, and then adapt their behavior based on the environment, along with the types of goals that they are pursuing."

"The fewer decisions that have to go to the CEO, the faster the organization will move," Hart tells Fortune.

ZNEXT, a €60M initiative by Zanichelli Editore, aims to invest in technologies that unlock human potential, focusing on long-term growth in education and wellbeing.