There’s a temptation in the world of educational technology to think that if only instructors had the right tools, all their teaching troubles would go away. But Kathleen Perdisatt knows better.

Technology “should be the secret sauce on a teacher’s plate,” and not another dish altogether, says Perdisatt, an educational technology teacher on special assignment at Saugus Union School District in Santa Clarita, Calif. 

The latest tech solutions, she adds, are typically only helpful “when teachers understand them, and when they actually know how to use them.”