This is a great example of how admitting when you're wrong is incredibly difficult for most people to do. Educators, especially older ones, can be very set in their ways. This is human nature, but it does not mean that it cannot be overcome. We as educators need to be able to step back, look at things in perspective, accept when we are wrong, and change our ways. Society is constantly evolving and education needs to be able to keep up with it.

This is interesting - inclusive design and accessibility have always been indistinguishably synonymous in my mind. Reading this explanation, though, makes me realize the significant difference: accessibility is the bare minimum; an accommodation created simply to make the tool legal. Accessibility features are not always as good as they should be and are often added almost as an afterthought. Inclusive design is far broader and is created with the intention of making everyone feel comfortable, and not as though they are a burden or too different from their peers.

Going even deeper than this, it's important to remember that a child's educational experience all the way through adulthood is arguably the most important and impactful influence on who they will become in a social and political context when they reach adulthood. It is imperative that we as a society open our eyes to the racism, ableism, and any other bigotry that is present in our educational systems, lest we foster yet another generation full of implicit bias and exclusivity.

This may be an outdated opinion, but I will always firmly believe that this is the one theory that benefits more from technology free learning than edtech support.

I take issue with recommending Kahoot as a tool. Although it is an accurate use of behaviorist learning and can be successful in classroom settings, it is incredibly ableist and does not do enough to address its accessibility issues and implement universal design for learning. I am going to do some research to see if there is a tool that we can recommend instead of Kahoot that still implements behaviorist theory and is quiz based with immediate feedback, but more accessible to the disabled community.

Honestly, I find that selecting the right tool is the most overwhelming aspect of integrating technology and education. I never struggle to find tools; some may think that this would be the most difficult aspect with EdTech. Instead, I find it rather difficult to narrow down the overwhelming selection of hundreds of tools that would be right for my goals and choose the one that will benefit my students the most. I think I need to not try to be such a perfectionist and just pick a tool that meets my needs, instead of spending hours trying to find the best one.

Where do we draw the line between "assistance" and the tool completely performing the task for the student, when that should be the ones doing it?

This reminds me of something that most Venmo users do not know. If you have not read the Venmo terms of service, then you would not know that Venmo takes the money that people leave in their Venmo accounts (before you transfer it to your real bank account) and invests it in order to profit. However, if they make a bad investment or if the stock market crashes, or if Venmo is hacked, that money is not protected and you have no rights to it. You will not get it back. If you are a Venmo user, you should immediately transfer any money that you receive into your real bank account.

I feel like companies purposefully make these privacy policies too dense and convoluted for the average user to understand, because if people actually read them, they would not agree to them. There should be a tool that simplifies privacy policies and puts them into understandable language to help protect users.

This is terrifying. I remember that we went over an issue with an EdTech tool that was stealing childrens' data during our first ever 390D class, but I can't quite remember which tool it was. Technology may be incredibly helpful and convenient, but it is important to remember that their goal is to profit off of their users, even if the tool is "free".

If you're into psychological thrillers, Black Mirror is a great show that explores the dangers of technology and how it might progress in the future. A personal favorite episode relating to privacy and technology is The Entire History of You, which takes place in a future where almost everyone has memory chips implanted and is able to replay their memories for themselves and for other people. It explores one man's descent into madness after his wife cheats on him, because he is able to pick apart all of their memories and watch them back. I highly recommend it!

This is essential and I'm not sure why the education system did not realize it sooner. Every child learns in vastly different ways, and some are incredibly uncomfortable with certain ways of learning/expressing their learning. I was discussing our 390D Zoom classes with a friend who is not in the class, and praising the decision that students do not need to turn their cameras on or even speak out loud; they can simply use the chat box and are never put on the spot. We are almost always offered multiple ways of responding to prompts/showing our learning, and this is a prime example of UDL because it allows all learners to feel comfortable in their learning environment without feeling "othered" by having to ask for accommodations. She was telling me how lucky I am, because she has a professor who requires cameras to be on and frequently cold calls students, which can be incredibly anxiety inducing.

How can we counteract this? Human nature is often competitive by default, but how can we integrate acceptance and lifting those in need up into curriculum?

As someone who learned English as a second language when I first started school, I cannot stress the importance of this enough. I felt so othered by having to ask for translations all the time, and felt as though I was stupid or not learning English fast enough. By incorporating universal design for learning and having multiple language options, students feel less out of place and "not as good" as their peers.

This is truly important, for reasons that teachers might not even think of. When I was in the seventh grade and students were given iPads for the first time to complete work, students used to "prank" their peers by permanently erasing their work. Children are unpredictable, so it should always be possible to undo actions/recover work that has been deleted or lost!

I have often been overwhelmed by digital tools that are too complicated/not user friendly. I had never really thought about it before and just attributed my confusion to my own lack of ability with technology, but now I understand that a good edtech tool should have an interface that even the most inexperienced users can understand.

This ties back to a previous concern I have had with the education program at UMass. As future educators, unless we are specifically on the special education track, we are only required to take a one semester, intro to special education course (EDUC 325). With only those four credits under our belt, how can we possibly support students with disabilities to the extent that we need to? How can they feel comfortable in a school where only a select few teachers are trained with all the necessary tools to make them feel comfortable and supported?

This is important to note, as many educators can become stagnant and not change with the times, adopting a "my way or the highway" mentality. Growth is continuous and must be sought out to continue to better yourself as an educator.

How do you build a PLN if your community of educators doesn't have one? are there ways to make it catch on, especially for educators who don't trust/understand the most modern edtech?

Does this make or break the usage of a website? I feel like this is not necessarily extremely common, but I may be wrong.

I didn't know this! Thought it was only an option when using advanced search. There are obviously reputable websites that end in .com, but it is much harder to tell if they're trustworthy and can take a long time. Filtering to only .edu and .gov is far more foolproof.

These are great tips, but you can also use the "advanced search" option on google to really narrow results down. Can limit results so that you only see scholarly articles, pdfs, educational websites, etc, and it's very helpful when trying to sift through millions of results to find one specific piece of information.

What does this mean? Networking nationally or on a more local scale? What platforms do people use?