In the educational technology (EdTech) ecosystem, stakeholders such as government decision-makers, entrepreneurs, parents and teachers face challenges in making informed decisions about the quality of EdTech products that meet their varied needs. While numerous frameworks exist that address diverse stakeholders, there is a lack of customizable frameworks that cater to each of the stakeholders' requirements, especially in lower-middle-income countries. This paper presents the EdTech Tulna initiative, a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) aimed at building a shared understanding of what constitutes 'good' quality EdTech. This partnership between the research group, non-profit organization and diverse stakeholders presents a unique solution for varied needs and purposes. An analysis of the EdTech Tulna initiative's key offering is provided, which is the robust Tulna framework that supports stakeholders in making informed decisions about the quality of EdTech. The paper examines the design of the Tulna framework and presents case studies on how the framework has been customized to support diverse stakeholders' EdTech quality decision-making. This paper contributes to understanding an RPP's dynamics. It also promotes the discourse on the usefulness of research-based frameworks to drive EdTech Quality decision-making for diverse stakeholders' needs.

This paper provides an experience report of middle school science teachers' pedagogy for activity-based learning in Indian classrooms. For the study, four science teachers were interviewed having varied teaching experience in CBSE board schools. The transcripts of the interviews were analyzed using Thematic Analysis method, and the resulting themes were used to answer the research questions. Novel challenges related to culture and diversity were found, along with the findings reported in literature.

Understanding complex systems is crucial, making it vital to strengthen high school students' grasp of complex biological processes. This study explores the design, development, and implementation of BioAnalogica, a Technology Enhanced Learning Environment comprising animated stories based on the Structure-Behaviour-Function (SBF) framework that use real-life analogies, like roof repair, to illustrate the human immune system's wound healing process. BioAnalogica was implemented with high school students as participants. Their understanding of wound healing was assessed through pre- and post-tests, interviews, and surveys. Findings show that students made improvements in understanding the mechanisms of wound healing, though their grasp of structures and functions did not change significantly. They responded positively to BioAnalogica, praising its clarity, connection to concepts, and engaging approach.

There has been a surge in the development and use of education technology (edtech) learning solutions in the past decade. Amidst the pandemic, teachers were compelled to incorporate edtech into their instructional approaches. While there are several frameworks, standards, or guidelines available for implementing these edtech solutions, few address the problem of selecting good quality edtech solutions. The ones that address the problem of quality edtech solutions fail to cover all criteria that are needed for effective edtech solutions. In addition, they are not easily usable by the teachers for the selection of an edtech solution. For an edtech solution to be effective it is crucial that it aligns with the context of the learner such as their grade range, their subject of interest, language comprehensibility, etc. Also we found that there are no standards that are available specifically for science teachers in the Indian context. In this paper, we present a validated, reliable, and research-based, Edtech Tulna Index designed to support science teachers in India to select quality edtech learning solutions for their classrooms. We conducted a study to understand the challenges that teachers face and to test the usability of the tulna index and its usefulness to mitigate teachers’ challenges pertaining to the selection of edtech. We found that teachers found the tulna index easy to use. This paper contributes to the research of evaluation of edtech solutions by listing the criteria required for science teachers to select the edtech product, while it also provides the practice community with a usable tool that can be used to select effective learning solutions and potentially enhance their teaching- learning.

Biological education grapples with the challenge of teaching intricate systems, particularly the complex human immune system. Existing teaching methods often fall short of conveying these complexities effectively. Analogies and metaphors have proven successful in teaching complex biological systems across educational levels. We developed video scenarios connecting a wound-healing phenomenon with a real-life analogy, incorporating reflection spot activities for students to map elements based on structure, function, and behavior. Our study with high school students revealed significant improvements in their understanding of the wound-healing phenomenon through analogy mapping and reasoning. The study's contribution lies in an effective pedagogical and technological design for complex biological phenomena using analogies to enhance students' understanding of complex biological systems.