My Five Tech Tools with the Capacity to Make a Huge Difference
A friend of mine sent me an email asking for a recommendation for five tech tools that would be worth learning, emphasizing the need for the tech to truly transform learning and the learning process.
As you can imagine, it's taken me about ten hours to come up with my answer. I've changed the tools on it more times than I can count. I ended up not even putting an LMS on there because...well, often times LMS systems end up just upholding the status quo of how classrooms operate. Here's what I considered in making my list:
1. Versatility - If I can learn one tool and do three things, why would I choose to learn three tools instead?
2. Function - While novelty holds quite a bit of power, identify the function you need a tool to serve and then finding one tool to meet that need is ALWAYS the best way to approach grabbing new tech tools.
3. Ease of Learning - Every tool on this list can be learned essentially in its entirety in a 5-minute video. I have found that sometimes the simplest of tools can end up being the most powerful.
4. Student Use Possibilities - So often when we look for tech tools, we're looking for things that we, the teacher, can do. The real power comes in identify what the tool allows students to control.
With that in mind, here are my five tools.
Now, turn on the unlimited attempts and teach students a learning process where they attempt a formative assessment, identify their strengths and gap, access YouTube to teach themselves those missing skills, and then repeat the cycle until they've demonstrated mastery? THAT's a game-changer. This is why Quizizz made the list. The purpose of Quizizz in a modern classroom is to provide immediate feedback that promotes student-directed learning so that they can eventually achieve mastery.
I won't go a ton into Quizizz because that's really what I think it should be used for. Because of the unlimited attempts, it becomes an incredibly powerful tool in pursuit of a mastery-based learning paradigm.
As you can imagine, it's taken me about ten hours to come up with my answer. I've changed the tools on it more times than I can count. I ended up not even putting an LMS on there because...well, often times LMS systems end up just upholding the status quo of how classrooms operate. Here's what I considered in making my list:
1. Versatility - If I can learn one tool and do three things, why would I choose to learn three tools instead?
2. Function - While novelty holds quite a bit of power, identify the function you need a tool to serve and then finding one tool to meet that need is ALWAYS the best way to approach grabbing new tech tools.
3. Ease of Learning - Every tool on this list can be learned essentially in its entirety in a 5-minute video. I have found that sometimes the simplest of tools can end up being the most powerful.
4. Student Use Possibilities - So often when we look for tech tools, we're looking for things that we, the teacher, can do. The real power comes in identify what the tool allows students to control.
With that in mind, here are my five tools.
1. YouTube (Content Delivery)
Did I really choose YouTube for this list? Uh, yeah I did. Sometimes I think we don't appreciate how YouTube has completely changed the learning process. You can literally learn anything at any time you want thanks to YouTube.
Our job as content-delivery vehicles has been outsourced, and that is an incredibly good thing. When we were responsible for all the content delivery, we could teach one lesson at a time (and at the same pace for every student). Now? I can literally teach thirty different lessons to thirty different students at the same time.
Let that sink in for a second.
So often teachers bemoan how difficult differentiation is, and I just sit there like, USE YOUTUBE! Kids at different levels? Let them watch different videos. Kids who process information better in another language? Let them watch a video in their primary language.
Need to teach a topic? Curate a list of videos and have students choose the ones they like. Better yet, send students out to YouTube and have them curate the videos themselves. There's a lot of deep thinking that goes into evaluation.
Plus, I haven't even talked about the power of authentic audience and the value of contributing to a global source of information. (More on that in the next section.)
Harness the power of asynchronous video. It can revolutionize the way learning happens and empower students to become independent, autonomous learners who know how to seek out the resources they need to teach themselves, and isn't that really the goal anyways?
2. Screencastify (Content Creation)
Okay, I really went back and forth regarding content creation. There's WeVideo, FlipGrid, etc. out there, but I finally landed on Screencastify for a couple of reasons.
First, it's free. Everyone's like, "Oh, but you can only record five minutes." It's 2020. Nobody watches more than five minutes anyways.
Second, there are so many different things you can do with it. Now with the option to export the audio only...instant podcast. Want to create a GIF? Yup, that can happen. Want to be able to film a video of a skit? Webcam is ready for you. Want to explain your thinking process or create an explainer video? Screencast it.
Third, students can use it. Because it's free, students don't need to buy a license. They are just ready to roll. Not only that, but it works solely through a web browser, which means Chromebooks are good to go. This means students can create their own lessons where they screencast a slideshow, upload it to YouTube, and teach the world. This means that instead of only seeing the product of students learning, you can have them record a screencast and explain the process of their learning, too. This means that students can create podcasts, vlogs, how-to videos, etc. centered on their passions and then SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD.
Yeah, that's one of the most powerful things I can think of.
3. Google Slides (Packaging...and Everything Else)
Google Slides is a Swiss army knife. When I first started using it, I was like, "Great, a free PowerPoint." Now, I couldn't live without it. A few game-changers with Slides.
First, you can customize the size of the page. Need students to publish an ebook? Make it 5x9. Need a poster creation tool? Make it 11x17. Want to create an assignment that you can actually design (because Google Docs has the design capacity of a typewriter)? Make it 8.5x11 and design away! Are these products game-changers in education? Not really, but telling students, "Here's a tool that you can use to make anything you need..." now that's a game-changer.
Second, you can set up a backchannel chat during your lesson. If you are providing direct instruction to students, you can turn on a presentation mode that allows students to engage in a running dialogue in a backchannel chat. With this, you can pause your lecture and say, "Who is seeing some common questions?" or "What is the most important thing people are saying in the chat?" It gives your shy students a safe place to speak up and your EL students a chance to slow things down and gather the words they need to engage. In short, it allows more voices to be a part of the conversation, and that is so important.
Third, packaging your lessons. If anything is essential in our remote learning environment, it's that lessons are clearly packaged and organized to keep everything all in the same place. You can embed videos, add links, give instructions, etc. all in one place. It might not seem important, but it helps to provide students ownership over the process when we clearly package our learning experiences, especially in a remote setting.
Fourth, you can create live captions. Any time a tool has accessibility features built in, I'm on board. Slides lets you turn on live captions so that as you're talking, it is creations captions as you go. Not only does this increase access for students in a live setting, but combine this with Screencastify, and you have yourself an asynchronous accessible video.
4. Quizizz (Formative Assessment)
I hesitated to put this in here because the way it's used will heavily determine whether or not it truly changes the learning experience for students. If you just use this as a quiz at the end of a lesson, it's not changing anything; it's just making the old ways easier.Now, turn on the unlimited attempts and teach students a learning process where they attempt a formative assessment, identify their strengths and gap, access YouTube to teach themselves those missing skills, and then repeat the cycle until they've demonstrated mastery? THAT's a game-changer. This is why Quizizz made the list. The purpose of Quizizz in a modern classroom is to provide immediate feedback that promotes student-directed learning so that they can eventually achieve mastery.
I won't go a ton into Quizizz because that's really what I think it should be used for. Because of the unlimited attempts, it becomes an incredibly powerful tool in pursuit of a mastery-based learning paradigm.
5. Padlet (Collaboration...and a Whole Lot More)
If Google Slides is my Swiss army knife. Then Padlet is my...other...Swiss army knife. I kid you not. I could run my class entirely on Padlet.
Everyone approaches Padlet as a bulletin board, which it is, but it's like the bulletin board that they have on board the Millenium Falcon that has holograms, sound clips, etc. If you've never click on the "More" options when you're posting on Padlet, let me just share what you can do: upload a file, add a link, search Google (images, GIFs, etc.), take a picture, record a video, create an audio recording, record your screen, draw on a whiteboard, add a location, or link to another Padlet.
I honestly can't think of something I couldn't do with those options. The icing on the cake? It's set up as a place for students to publish their work and share it with an audience.
Before anyone says it, yes, you only get three pads with the free version. When it fills up, export an old pad as a PDF to save it, delete it, and make your new one with the space.
Final Thoughts:
No tool will ever redefine education. I've seen learning experiences with no tech that were some of the most innovative things I've ever seen. I've seen lessons with tech that were mind-numbingly dull, or almost even worse, super fun with absolutely no learning happening.
Your ability to create meaningful learning experiences boils down to one thing: a powerful vision of learning in the modern age. Without that vision, nothing changes; we just keep doing the same things with shinier packages.
However, when we pair a powerful vision for learning in the modern age with the tools that empower students to teach themselves and reach the world, we open doors for incredible things to happen.