Strategies for Locating & EdTech Tools

Introduction

Has a colleague ever referred you to something that was either well below your standards and/or is not even available any more? Have you ever randomly searched Google for "best tools for my classroom" only to have your devices inundated with malware? Has your school provided tools with similar functionalities but you're unsure of how to decide between them?

There is nothing wrong with asking professional colleagues about where to find EdTech tools you can use in your classroom or how they feel about it. However, their opinion is only that of one individual and may be grounded on experiences, biases, or general technical proficiencies that differ from yours. On the other end of the spectrum, there is similarly nothing wrong with simply going to Google and YouTube to generate ideas about tools you can use for their classroom. However, you'll find that there may be too many opinions to choose from, and you can't always assess the expertise of the anonymous masses.

Fortunately, there is a middle ground: curated lists and databases of EdTech tools and apps by reputable educational organizations.

Benefits

Below are a few of the benefits for taking advantage of the curated lists and databases of EdTech tools:

Grounded in Expertise

Curated lists and databases of EdTech tools are largely aggregated and reviewed by education technology experts, faculty or academia professionals, or experienced teachers.

Up-To-Date

One dire problem with YouTube videos is that content uploaded to the platform are usually akin to a timecapsule, their relevance frozen in time. This is because multimedia files are inherently more difficult and time consuming to update than static text in a PDF. Moreover, professional content creators simply lack the incentive to update obsolete content, opting instead to upload a new video, because of the inherent nature of revenue generation in YouTube.

For example, why remove or replace old content when they are still accumulating views? If they do choose to upload a new and more relevant video, now there are two sources of continuing revenue instead of just the one they would have if they replaced the obsolete content.

On the other hand, curated lists and databases of EdTech tools are frequently updated by the professional who manage them. Many of the organizations who offer these resources nonprofit organizations that have a stated mission of helping educators.

Teacher Reviews & Contributions

Many of the resources below are also supplemented by contributions be current educators who actually use tools that may be of interest to you. The resources below generally offer one of the following methods for empowering contributions by educators on their platform:

Allowing educators to provide ratings and/or reviews about a product, including strategies and ideas about how they personally use the products in their own classrooms.
Allowing educators to submit an entry onto the list or database, which help ensure that new EdTech tools are are represented in the collections.
Allowing educators to use advanced filters to quickly locate tools that best align with their needs and objectives.

Curated Lists & Databases

The chart below provides a quick summary of the curated lists and databases of EdTech tools found in this module.

To view this in Google Sheets, please click here.

UMASS: The Online Tools for Teaching & Learning

This site offers a strong collection of education technology tools reviewed and assessed by UMass Amherst students.

URL: https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/

STRENGTHS

Reviews describe how tools fit within the SAMR model and ISTE standards
Provides classroom usage ideas
Updated regularly
Although the number of tools in this site is much smaller compared to EdSurge or EdTech Advisor, the quality is generally superior, particularly in terms of pedagogy and theory.
Since all reviews are provided by the UMass Amherst students, and because the number of tools reviewed are low, the high-level quality of each review is consistent for each tool.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

No search options. Thus, no filter or sort options either. Users must seek tools by the four menu categories available, which align with the National Research Council’s (2000) four types of learning environments:
- assessment-centered,
- community-centered,
- knowledge-centered, and
- learner-centered.
No option for user/teacher review submission

Common Sense Media: Apps Reviews

An excellent non-profit supported resource for EdTech tool reviews for two distinct targetted audiences: parents & educators.

URL - For Educators: https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/

URL - For Families: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews

STRENGTHS

Large quantity of tools to search for
Community is driven by teachers of diverse backgrounds, geography, and subject matter.
Large number categories to help find relevant apps.
Provides two distinct sets of tool review webpages that target parents and educators.
- - The pages for parents provide strategies that focus more on what parents would need to know (e.g., FERPA from the parent perspective) and less peda-lingo-gy.
  - The pages for teachers offer reviews from a pedagogical and education theory perspective. For the more popular tools, they also provide strategies for how to use the tool in the classroom, sample lesson guides, and cheatsheets. The teacher version also has "top pick lists", which groups the best tools for various categories.
In-house reviews are excellent and written by vetted reviewers.
Users can create collections of their favorite tool reviews for quick access later.
Conducts a very deep dive into privacy analyses conducted by "experts".
The teacher reviews (educator pages) have a "HOW I USE IT" section. This is a fantastic resource for other teachers looking for ideas on how to integrate tech into their classrooms. It's also great for serendipitous discoveries for finding different uses for tools which other teachers may never have considered previously.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

Limited number of review postings permitted before users are required to sign up.
Users may not add or request tools to be reviewed

EdSurge: The EdSurge Product Index

EdSurge is a user community and information resource for the emerging education technology ecosystem. Our goal is to help accelerate the adoption of innovation in education.

URL: https://www.edsurge.com/product-reviews/

From Site: EdSurge Product Index: Our community-driven products and reviews database in curriculumn, teacher needs, educational operations, post-secondary and more.

In early 2011, EdSurge got started as a newsletter filled with tips and insights about the emerging education technology industry. We figured everyone would benefit by knowing more about what was going on–and we wanted to respect your time by boiling it all down into succinct snippets.

STRENGTHS

Any teacher can post reviews
When available, tool reviews (aka "case studies") often provides high-quality classroom ideas and great details.
Tool descriptions offer very specific cost and platform details.
EdSurge is backed by ISTE (acquisition in 2019).
Massive database of tools.
Does not require registration

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

The database appears to be missing lots of the "big guys" - for example, as of 08/2021, there are no entries for Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or even Microsoft Word!
Few teacher-posted reviews (perhaps, however, that speaks to the volume of tools in the database instead)
Difficult to search for tools.
Limited filtering options
No sorting options.
Due to the massive number of tools in the database, the quality of descriptions and teacher reviews are hit or miss, with only the more popular tools (e.g., Kahoot, Pear Deck, Flip Grid) being consistently high-quality.

*sign up required

EdTech Advisor via LearnPlatform

ISTE Edtech Advisor is a member-only review and rating platform that gives educators insight on tools, apps and resources to help inform decision-making. Edtech Advisor curates and identifies new digital resources and tools for learning based on their alignment to the ISTE Standards and the experiences of educators.

URL: https://app.learnplatform.com/

Users can register to Edtech Advisor to rate and review a vast collection of tools. The EdTech Advisor program was initiated by ISTE, but ISTE has since sunset the program on July 2021. It has since been picked up by Learn Platform.

STRENGTHS

Massive database of EdTech Tools
Community is driven by teachers of diverse backgrounds, geography, and subject matter.
Advanced feature set compared to other tool aggregation databases
- - Users can filter search results by focus area, date of review, institution type, instructional objectives, platform, grade level, software and product type, features and capabilities, and others.
  - Users can sort by name or ratings
  - Users can add apps to a personal "library" that is shareable
  - Users can compare up to 5 apps at a time

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

Users must register, but the registration link in ISTE's site appears outdated and yields an error.
The account registration is separate from ISTE account database.
Although feature-packed, the GUI and site navigation is a bit clunky and may be too advanced for "non-techy" users.
Due to the massive number of tools in the database, the quality of descriptions and teacher reviews are hit or miss, with only the more popular tools (e.g., Kahoot, Pear Deck, Flip Grid) being consistently high-quality.
Privacy considerations.

EdShelf

A socially-curated discovery engine of websites, mobile apps, desktop programs, and electronic products for teaching and learning. If the ads don't bother you, this offers a good size of apps included and reviews from teachers.

URL: https://edshelf.com

STRENGTHS

Massive database of EdTech Tools
Community is driven by teachers of diverse backgrounds, geography, and subject matter.
Advanced feature set compared to other tool aggregation databases
- - Users can filter search results by focus area, date of review, institution type, instructional objectives, platform, grade level, software and product type, features and capabilities, and others.
  - Users can sort by name or ratings
  - Users can add apps to a personal "library" that is shareable
  - Users can compare up to 5 apps at a time

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

Users must register, but the registration link in ISTE's site appears outdated and yields an error.
The account registration is separate from ISTE account database.
Although feature-packed, the GUI and site navigation is a bit clunky and may be too advanced for "non-techy" users.
Due to the massive number of tools in the database, the quality of descriptions and teacher reviews are hit or miss, with only the more popular tools (e.g., Kahoot, Pear Deck, Flip Grid) being consistently high-quality.
Privacy considerations.

Crossroads: Apps for Teaching and learning

Small, but a good middle-of-the-road community-driven EdTEch tool aggregation site.

URL: https://ctl.mesacc.edu/crossroads/

STRENGTHS

Developed by Education faculty, instructional designers, and "tech heads" at Mesa CC.
App reviews & app submissions by teachers on the field
No registration is required. Any teacher can post an app review, ask a question, or reply to a submission.
Decent collection of apps.
Forum-style app-review process
The review submission forum system uses Google Forms & Apps Script, which demonstrates just how powerful Google Apps can be.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

Although adequate, it could benefit from reviewing more tools, particularly to more recent and more popular ones that teachers use the most.

Other Notable Resources

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