Introduction

With the abundance in education technology (edtech) tools and apps currently available, and new ones popping up in app stores daily, how do you find the right ones for your practice? How do you ensure the digital tools and apps that you select for use in your classroom will enrich and extend your teaching, provide an accessible learning experience, and protect students' privacy? What should you look for when evaluating the user experience of apps and tools?

This free, open access eBook highlights the key steps and considerations for finding, evaluating, and teaching with digital tools and apps!

The book was designed as part of a class project for the Teaching & Learning with Technology course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The following undergraduate and graduate students contributed to the book: Michelle Barrett, Matthew Checrallah, Jacob Desgres, Alyssa Federico, Kiel Maurath, Madeleine Olson, Shaunak Shah, Khizar Shaikh, Alexander Shum, Caroline Sonnett, Isabelle Manrong Wang, Chenyang Xu, Chrystal Zajchowski, and Fred Zinn.

Kiel, Michelle, and Fred (authors) at the College of Education Tech Tools Showcase

Chrystal, one of the book authors, discussing Digital Literacy and Computer Science at the College of Education Tech Tools Showcase

Jacob, one of the book authors, showcasing Beautiful Audio Editor at the College of Education Tech Tools Showcase

Using This Book

We hope that you find this book to be a valuable resource. Feel free to share it or use it in your class or training! This book is released under a CC BY-NC-SA license, which means that you are free to do with it as you please as long as you (1) properly attribute it, (2) do not use it for commercial gain, and (3) share any subsequent books under the same or a similar license.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to the book:

This content is provided to you freely by EdTech Books.

Access it online or download it at https://edtechbooks.org/digitaltoolsapps/introduction.