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Do your students consume technology or do they create it? We like to think that when a student consumes technology, the information goes from the computer to his brain, whereas when he creates it, ideas go from him to the computer. And although we often view learning as only taking place during the instructional portion of our lesson, deeper levels of synthesis actually occur during the apply phase. This is when students take the knowledge they've acquired and use it to create something.

As you design the apply portion of your HyperDoc, include learning opportunities that will encourage your students to develop their independent and critical thinking as well as problem-solving skills. As students digest and comprehend the lesson's content, allow them to use web tools to hone these skills and demonstrate what they've learned. If we want our students to be creative problem-solvers, then we need to create opportunities for them to practice and develop these skills. Students often develop additional soft skills during the application process, including perseverance, teamwork, flexibility, and time management.

An Important Apply Tip for Teachers

When introducing a new tech tool, Give your students time to play with it before requiring them to create something with it for an assessment. In fact, giving them time to explore the "how-to's" of a web tool using a low cognitive load is as much a part of the learning process as the product itself.

For example, have your students create something about themselves using the new tool. You could add a community-building layer to your classroom and ask them to share their creations. When it's time to produce a final product, the students will focus more on the content than struggling to figure out the tool. This could even become a valuable opportunity for students to reflect on and share how they resolved issues and figured out complicated tasks with little direct instruction, further developing their soft skills. This is when the real learning takes place, so it's worth taking time to include and acknowledge.