What's your strategy for choosing digital tools for teaching?

1 Define your goals

Before you start browsing for digital tools, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with them. What are your learning objectives for your course or lesson? How do they align with your curriculum standards and expectations? How do you plan to assess your students' progress and performance? Having a clear vision of your goals will help you narrow down your choices and focus on the tools that support them.

2 Consider your pedagogy

Another factor to consider is your pedagogical approach or philosophy. How do you want to teach and how do you want your students to learn? Do you prefer teacher-centered or student-centered methods? Do you use direct instruction, inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, or a mix of them? Do you value collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, or communication? Your pedagogy will influence the type and level of interaction, engagement, and feedback that you want to create with digital tools.

3 Know your students

You also need to know your students and their characteristics, preferences, and needs. What are their prior knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards the subject and the digital tools? What are their learning styles, preferences, and motivations? How do they access and use technology? What are their strengths and challenges? How can you differentiate and personalize instruction with digital tools? Knowing your students will help you choose the tools that suit them best and address their diverse needs.

4 Evaluate the tools

Once you have a list of potential digital tools, you need to evaluate them carefully and critically. You can use various criteria and frameworks to do so, such as the SAMR model, the TPACK framework, the Triple E framework, or the ISTE standards. These frameworks help you assess how the tools enhance, transform, or redefine your teaching and learning practices, how they fit with your content, pedagogy, and technology knowledge, how they engage, enhance, and extend your students' learning, and how they promote digital literacy and citizenship.

5 Try them out

Before you implement a digital tool in your classroom, you should try it out yourself and test its functionality, usability, and reliability. You can also ask for feedback from other teachers who have used it or from your students if you do a pilot run. You should also check the privacy and security policies of the tool and make sure it complies with your school or district regulations. You should also prepare a backup plan in case the tool fails or malfunctions during your lesson.

6 Reflect and improve

After you use a digital tool in your teaching, you should reflect on its effectiveness and impact. You can collect data and evidence from various sources, such as student work, assessments, surveys, interviews, observations, or self-reports. You should analyze the data and look for patterns, trends, strengths, and weaknesses. You should also ask yourself and your students questions, such as: Did the tool help you achieve your goals? Did it enhance your teaching and learning? Did it create any challenges or issues? How can you improve your use of the tool?

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?