Here is something I know: there is no one piece of technology that does it all. I gave up believing in one a while ago. I now look for the Fellowship of the Tools. Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, Gandalf and Boromir. * I think of them when I look at ed tech tools. What does this one add to the Fellowship?
“The Fellowship of the Ring”
by
Jukka Zitting
is licensed under
CC BY 2.0
I find things easier to both explain and understand with visuals. Lately I have been using Canva as a graphics maker because it is so easy to use and has so many ready to go designs. And it works great on an iPad. But I can’t add charts easily in Canva so I use Piktochart. I love their app, but charts are only available in their browser view. Two tools to do a better job. And all I had to do is accept that I needed to use two tools! Legolas and Gimli, the entertaining ones!
Luna Pic and PicMonkey are two of my favorite online photo editors. Luna Pic has a great transparent background tool , and Picmonkey has great framing, overlay and text editor. I often use both when working with images. Here I used the transparency tool at LunaPic and the overlay and text tool at PicMonkey. I can’t do this with 1 tool, but can quickly do it with 2. Merry and Pippin, surprising even themselves.
I really love Google Slides both on my computer and on my iPad. On my iPad, I find it to be a great journaling tool, easy to read , and easy to access and organize. I especially like how easily it can work with the iPad camera to curate photos and record phenomena. It is a easy addition to the fellowship when I use Schoology to distribute.
On my computer, in Google Slides, I love the ability to add shape frames to images. This is a great tool when the shape of an image adds understanding, such as hexagonal thinking. I also love the trick of replacing the final/edit in a Google slide with /copy and thus distributing templates of slides to students. I can only do this on my computer. So… I use Google Slides on computer and Schoology to send this to students. Students use Schoology and Google Slides on iPads to deliver content. Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White or maybe the split Gollum?* I add Gollum in, because he is the tragic hero, and also the most interesting character.
by
Jukka Zitting
is licensed under
CC BY 2.0
I love having a place to hang my hat on the internet. It is so convenient to be able to save information and send it out. It is so great to be able to direct people to my place and say, “You can find it there” or “You can send it there”. Schoology provides that space for me at school, and while it does a lot more, if it did only that, I welcome it into my fellowship. It is my Frodo, I suppose. The bearer.
Google is the Samwise Gamgee of my internet. Endlessly useful, surprisingly cheerful, and completely necessary. Great when working with Schoology and so many other tools. I love the ability to use my Google signing with so many tools. This makes the Fellowship so much more efficient.
I find things easier to both explain and understand with visuals. Lately I have been using Canva as a graphics maker because it is so easy to use and has so many ready to go designs. And it works great on an iPad. But I can’t add charts easily in Canva so I use Piktochart. I love their app, but charts are only available in their browser view. Two tools to do a better job. And all I had to do is accept that I needed to use two tools! Legolas and Gimli, the entertaining ones!
Luna Pic and PicMonkey are two of my favorite online photo editors. Luna Pic has a great transparent background tool , and Picmonkey has great framing, overlay and text editor. I often use both when working with images. Here I used the transparency tool at LunaPic and the overlay and text tool at PicMonkey. I can’t do this with 1 tool, but can quickly do it with 2. Merry and Pippin, surprising even themselves.
I really love Google Slides both on my computer and on my iPad. On my iPad, I find it to be a great journaling tool, easy to read , and easy to access and organize. I especially like how easily it can work with the iPad camera to curate photos and record phenomena. It is a easy addition to the fellowship when I use Schoology to distribute.
On my computer, in Google Slides, I love the ability to add shape frames to images. This is a great tool when the shape of an image adds understanding, such as hexagonal thinking. I also love the trick of replacing the final/edit in a Google slide with /copy and thus distributing templates of slides to students. I can only do this on my computer. So… I use Google Slides on computer and Schoology to send this to students. Students use Schoology and Google Slides on iPads to deliver content. Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White or maybe the split Gollum?* I add Gollum in, because he is the tragic hero, and also the most interesting character.
In edtech there probably never will be be one ring to rule them. I don’t think I really want one ring. I’d rather have the creativity and richness of the fellowship.