When integrating technology into your classroom, learning theories can serve as a guide for selecting and identifying the most appropriate digital tools and apps for the type of learning experience you want to create for your students.

Take a moment to reflect on your teaching...Are you just substituting technology for another tool by having students type a paper rather than writing one by hand, giving students a digital handout rather than a printed handout, or asking students to create a presentation slide rather than a poster on paper? Or, are you using technology to empower your students to learn in ways that would not be possible without it?

In 2017, Congress repealed the rules from the FCC, essentially without explanation, so we’re back to having no such protection for internet service. We still have the protection for telephone services, but no such protection for your web browsing.

Imagine if you completely rearranged your classroom every day. When students walked in, the whiteboard or screen had been relocated, classroom materials were in a different place, and the seating arrangement was different. Students would have to spend time and energy reorienting themselves to the design of the space before being able to settle down to learn. The same principle applies to your online learning environment. Standardize the organization and language used for recurring course elements. For example, if a course uses the convention “Module #”, carry that forward across all content items. As elements are repeated, learners will build familiarity with activity and content types and their associated expectations.

Customization. As educational developers, we value alignment between intended learning outcomes and learning activities and assessments, advocating for technologies and tools that complement learning outcomes. A tool can support this alignment when it gives instructors the flexibility to customize how learners will engage with a tool, thus enabling them to focus on specific uses while disregarding other, distracting functions. Ideally, the tool also supports instructors in communicating this intentionality—making it clear to students why they are doing what they are doing.

On average, people who are 70 years old or older will spend eight years as individuals with disabilities.

Unfortunately, many tools are not robust. For example, you might find the perfect app for your students only to discover it works solely on iPads, and your students have Chromebooks. Or, you may come across an excellent Flash-based math game, but it cannot be accessed on iPhones or iPads without paying for a Flash-based browser like Puffin. Or, you might find a captivating geography app, but it isn't compatible with your students' older tablets.

When students feel a tool is easy to learn to use and navigate, they are more likely to engage with it, enjoy the learning experience, and focus their learning on developing knowledge and skills.

My journey towards a PLN started a few years back but for much of that time it was something I dabbled without any real commitment. A little bit of Twitter, the occasional blog post, articles shared with colleagues by email, some social bookmarking. The trigger was seeing what deliberate, regular engagement could produce.

If you have a specific question, write it out in the search bar. Framing a search as a question will often result in finding pages that specifically answer that question (e.g., “How can I teach with augmented reality?”).

However, educators are unlikely to limit their learning to a single space or modality (Trust et al., 2016). In the digital age, educators often turn to multiple spaces (e.g., Professional Learning Communities, conferences, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), many different groups of people (e.g., colleagues, students, people at conferences and social media), and various tools