3.6 Selecting and Evaluating Digital Tools & Resources
Candidates collaborate with teachers and administrators to select and evaluate digital tools and resources for accuracy, suitability, and compatibility with the school technology infrastructure. (PSC 3.6/ISTE 3f)
ITEC 7445
Evaluating Emerging Technologies Project
The Evaluating Emerging Technologies Project invited me to research, select, and recommend an emerging technology that allows for better teaching and learning. First, I researched which digital tools were being discussed in blogs I followed through the news feeds I’d set up. Our school was trying to find formative assessment tools that helped our teachers to monitor the progress of students’ skills. Plus, I found that teachers did not want to change their process in the classroom toom much. Most departments collaborate to produce Google Slides presentations that contain their lessons. So, I found that Pear Deck, a Google Slides add-on, would increase formative assessment capabilities and still allow teachers to keep the Google Slides format that they were used to using. Finally, I produced a presentation to show my fellow curriculum leads so that we could try out Pear deck for ourselves and see if it should be adopted.
First, I knew from implementing my Capstone project that teachers were resistant to too much change at once and that the addition of one more digital tool to the repertoire would feel overwhelming. So, I researched which tools were popular in teaching blogs, and I selected one that had seamless integration with the current habits of our teachers. I didn’t want the tool to be challenging to learn or separate from what we already did. Further, I wanted to find a digital tool that served the purpose of higher-order thinking skills in formative assessment. Pear Deck allows for real-time formative assessment, and it is capable of giving immediate feedback to students as they input answers into the system. This feature greatly increases the effectiveness of assessment teachers are able to give students. Further, the content that Pear Deck asks for also induces the teacher to arrange more rigorous content on the slides instead of the usual information dump that is usually placed there. Thus, Pear Deck seemed a wise choice to increase the rigor of content engagement, as well as it increases formative assessment efficiency.
My intent was to collaborate with other teachers to select and evaluate an emerging technology we thought would be appropriate for our teams. So, I selected Pear Deck to present to my fellow curriculum leads to see if it would work for them. I prepared a presentation about Pear Deck with demo activities that the teachers could actually ty for themselves. They loved it. Their main feedback was that Pear Deck would disallow teachers from being able to put sit-and-get information on their Google Slide decks. Instead, Pear Deck sort of “forced” a more rigorous engagement with content. Further, it did the work of assessment in real time for the teachers.
As an add-on, Pear Deck integrates well with our Google Suite of apps that our county org uses. It is suitable for our Chromebooks which are our primary device available in the school. We planned to diffuse the tool and educate our departments. In a separate meeting, we sat down to make Pear Deck slides together. And then… something happened I didn’t plan on.
We found Pear Deck to not be compatible with our current system. Because of safety concerns in our county about third-party apps, GCPS has blocked users from installing add-ons to our networked devices or primary applications like Slides. Unfortunately, this was a roadblock for me in selecting the device to actually put it to work for us. Pear Deck requires the user to install the add-on, but our county’s permissions do not allow that. So, after all my work to research the tool and select something that fit with our current system, I admit that we could not use it. It’s difficult to find this out in a room full of curriculum leads who are expecting to work on Pear Deck slides that day. I remembered that the device I used to do the research and recommending work was my personal computer - a Mac - at home, but when I tried to get the add-on at school, the school laptop failed to accept the add-on.
Primarily, I learned to try anything I plan on using at school on a school device at school with my org credentials. Also, this experience taught me to look on the Accepted Third-Party App list that our county’s tech team revises each quarter. I scheduled a phone conversation to talk with our tech team representative for our cluster. She and I agreed that student safety was the main issue in disabling add-ons. In the future, I will likely study the Third-Party app list before I grow attached to a tool.
Unfortunately, I can say that the actual tool did not get used, and that the improvement I’d set out to make at tour school was impossible when I tried to implement it. I'd like to report that I made a difference in formative assessment results, but I cannot. Instead, the success of this artifact stems from the mistake I made. Through the conversation I started with our tech team about this and other add-ons that increase accessibility and functionality for our students, I was able to convince our tech representative for the cluster to campaign for the adoption of tools like Pear Deck and Adobe Spark. This year, I see that several apps have been added to our acceptable list. However, there are still no add-on capabilities.
Evaluating Emerging Technologies Project
The Evaluating Emerging Technologies Project invited me to research, select, and recommend an emerging technology that allows for better teaching and learning. First, I researched which digital tools were being discussed in blogs I followed through the news feeds I’d set up. Our school was trying to find formative assessment tools that helped our teachers to monitor the progress of students’ skills. Plus, I found that teachers did not want to change their process in the classroom toom much. Most departments collaborate to produce Google Slides presentations that contain their lessons. So, I found that Pear Deck, a Google Slides add-on, would increase formative assessment capabilities and still allow teachers to keep the Google Slides format that they were used to using. Finally, I produced a presentation to show my fellow curriculum leads so that we could try out Pear deck for ourselves and see if it should be adopted.
First, I knew from implementing my Capstone project that teachers were resistant to too much change at once and that the addition of one more digital tool to the repertoire would feel overwhelming. So, I researched which tools were popular in teaching blogs, and I selected one that had seamless integration with the current habits of our teachers. I didn’t want the tool to be challenging to learn or separate from what we already did. Further, I wanted to find a digital tool that served the purpose of higher-order thinking skills in formative assessment. Pear Deck allows for real-time formative assessment, and it is capable of giving immediate feedback to students as they input answers into the system. This feature greatly increases the effectiveness of assessment teachers are able to give students. Further, the content that Pear Deck asks for also induces the teacher to arrange more rigorous content on the slides instead of the usual information dump that is usually placed there. Thus, Pear Deck seemed a wise choice to increase the rigor of content engagement, as well as it increases formative assessment efficiency.
My intent was to collaborate with other teachers to select and evaluate an emerging technology we thought would be appropriate for our teams. So, I selected Pear Deck to present to my fellow curriculum leads to see if it would work for them. I prepared a presentation about Pear Deck with demo activities that the teachers could actually ty for themselves. They loved it. Their main feedback was that Pear Deck would disallow teachers from being able to put sit-and-get information on their Google Slide decks. Instead, Pear Deck sort of “forced” a more rigorous engagement with content. Further, it did the work of assessment in real time for the teachers.
As an add-on, Pear Deck integrates well with our Google Suite of apps that our county org uses. It is suitable for our Chromebooks which are our primary device available in the school. We planned to diffuse the tool and educate our departments. In a separate meeting, we sat down to make Pear Deck slides together. And then… something happened I didn’t plan on.
We found Pear Deck to not be compatible with our current system. Because of safety concerns in our county about third-party apps, GCPS has blocked users from installing add-ons to our networked devices or primary applications like Slides. Unfortunately, this was a roadblock for me in selecting the device to actually put it to work for us. Pear Deck requires the user to install the add-on, but our county’s permissions do not allow that. So, after all my work to research the tool and select something that fit with our current system, I admit that we could not use it. It’s difficult to find this out in a room full of curriculum leads who are expecting to work on Pear Deck slides that day. I remembered that the device I used to do the research and recommending work was my personal computer - a Mac - at home, but when I tried to get the add-on at school, the school laptop failed to accept the add-on.
Primarily, I learned to try anything I plan on using at school on a school device at school with my org credentials. Also, this experience taught me to look on the Accepted Third-Party App list that our county’s tech team revises each quarter. I scheduled a phone conversation to talk with our tech team representative for our cluster. She and I agreed that student safety was the main issue in disabling add-ons. In the future, I will likely study the Third-Party app list before I grow attached to a tool.
Unfortunately, I can say that the actual tool did not get used, and that the improvement I’d set out to make at tour school was impossible when I tried to implement it. I'd like to report that I made a difference in formative assessment results, but I cannot. Instead, the success of this artifact stems from the mistake I made. Through the conversation I started with our tech team about this and other add-ons that increase accessibility and functionality for our students, I was able to convince our tech representative for the cluster to campaign for the adoption of tools like Pear Deck and Adobe Spark. This year, I see that several apps have been added to our acceptable list. However, there are still no add-on capabilities.