The article deals with modern educational technologies, analyzes approaches to their classification. In particular, it considers such a classification criterion as the features of cognitive activity management. It is noted that the cognitive activity management in a number of educational technologies can be characterized as a «strategy of indirect actions». The term of «indirect action strategy» was introduced by B.G. Liddell Hurt, an outstanding military theorist and historian. This term was previously used in military affairs and related to interstate relations, not in pedagogy. However, this term best describes goal setting in many educational technologies. As applied to educational technologies, the «indirect action strategy» is that the student consciously pursues one goal, but actually achieves another one. The goal that seems to the student to be the most significant in the educational process, in fact, is of a subordinate, service nature. This shows such a common property of hierarchical systems as the ability to form system inversions. In the case of system inversion, the lowest, subordinate element in the hierarchy takes on the dominant value, while remaining in its former low hierarchical position. In other words, there is a contradiction between the formal position of an element in the system and its actual role in it. For example, this situation develops when using game educational technologies. The learner, immersed in the learning game, does not perceive and is not aware of anything other than the game itself; however, in this game he acquires a number of important professional skills. This is due to the very nature of the game activity, in which it is not the external goal that is crucial, but the game process itself. A similar situation develops when using problem-based learning. The student solves the educational problem, which in the course of activity seems to him something very important. However, it is not the problem itself that is really important, but the competencies that the student acquires in the process of solving it. Similarly, the strategy of indirect actions is manifested in the application of the project method, as well as in the use of case study technology.