How to get off the endless edtech treadmill

Back in the early 2000s, when I was first putting together my CV to apply for jobs, I was advised to include a bulleted list of the software packages I was familiar with. I included all the big names: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, I think I even added MS Paint (I was a dab hand with editing and embellishing photos before I’d even heard of Adobe Photoshop).

Over the years, as I grew familiar with new platforms and software, I added them to the list: Google Docs, Prezi, Dropbox and so on.

These days, it feels a little redundant to add these bullets to any CV, because it’s assumed that most people will have at least a basic grasp of most productivity and office-suite packages, and it’s a reasonable bet that most jobs will require you to be able to use them.

The growth of the digital ecosystem

This digital ecosystem has grown steadily over the years, and school counsellors (and teachers) are these days expected to be familiar with, understand and implement an ever-growing collection of different platforms: application portals, data systems, scheduling tools, document-management systems and communication apps. To their users, each offers the tantalising promise of more efficiency – yet, collectively, they create a significant administrative burden.

Even keeping track of the numerous passwords and user login details for each platform can feel like a job in itself. I’ve known people to keep a paper notebook of their passwords and usernames right next to their laptop, which doesn’t seem sensible. But perhaps that feels like the most straightforward and practical way to stay on top of everything.

And just when you have remembered all your passwords (or invested in a password encryption manager), another platform appears. At any given point, most school counsellors have to use (and be proficient using) a whole suite of online office applications to create documents, spreadsheets, presentation slide decks, surveys and schedulers. Then there are the ubiquitous careers and university-exploration tools: Cialfo, Unifrog, Maia Learning, BridgeU and so on.

The AI sales avalanche

If the proliferation of platforms over the past two decades has felt like a steady climb, the arrival of artificial intelligence tools has been more like an avalanche.

Hardly a week goes by without a new product landing in my inbox, each promising to “revolutionise” counselling, streamline workflows, personalise guidance at scale and – of course – save you time. AI-powered CV builders, essay reviewers, career matchers, university-shortlist generators, interview simulators: AI can do it all, faster, slicker and smarter than you are currently doing it. And each arrives with slick branding and bold claims that are hard to ignore. The underlying message: adopt this now or risk being left behind.

For counsellors, this creates a new layer of professional tension. On one hand, we are expected to be early adopters, guiding students through a broad and increasingly complex digital and higher-education landscape. On the other, we are already stretched thin doing the 9-5, while managing the cumulative weight of existing systems.

The question is no longer simply “what works?” but “what is worth the time it takes to learn, implement and sustain?”

There is also a deeper concern. Many of these tools promise efficiency by automating aspects of guidance that have traditionally been relational: conversation, reflection and the slow process of helping a student to understand themselves. While AI can undoubtedly enhance our work, there is a risk that, in chasing productivity, we begin to outsource the very elements that make counselling meaningful. But those vital human skills we provide will become increasingly more important in a hyper-digitised world.

This is not to suggest resistance for its own sake. Some AI tools are genuinely useful. They can reduce repetitive tasks, manipulate or collate useful data, and even help students overcome initial barriers when drafting applications.

But the current pace of development – and the intensity with which these tools are marketed – makes thoughtful adoption difficult for counsellors. It is hard to evaluate impact when the landscape shifts every few months, and when you’re strapped to find time.

So perhaps what we need is not another platform, but permission to pause. To step off the endless treadmill long enough to ask a few simple questions. Does this tool genuinely improve outcomes for students? Does it save time in a meaningful, sustainable way? And, crucially, what does it replace?

How to get off the treadmill

In a profession built on human connection, discernment may be more valuable than adoption. This is particularly important in a field where our students are themselves navigating an environment saturated with competing signals. They need to be able to discern best fit from the hundreds of micro-impressions they receive from university marketing-email blasts, social-media interactions, word of mouth and suggestions from parents and teachers. Counsellors, too, need to model a similar kind of critical filtering in the tools we choose to adopt.

You will not be the only counsellor to have received that email from the latest AI-powered “revolutionary” new platform. Few of us have the time or capacity to properly test every new system that arrives in our inbox, and so decisions are increasingly shaped through professional dialogue.

Conversations with colleagues, comparisons across schools, and informal feedback from networks reveal more than vendor demonstrations or promotional materials ever can. Increasingly, it is in counsellor shared spaces – education conferences, regional groups, online communities – that a clearer picture emerges of what genuinely adds value in context.

After all, just as we advise our students that not every university will make it on to their final list, not every new AI tool deserves a place on a counsellor’s list either. The task is not to engage with everything available, but to make considered decisions about what genuinely belongs.