8 Terrific and Not-So-Terrific Technology Tools

Below are assessments of eight technology tools that can be used in the classroom. I give the assessments a holistic score, in that I am not breaking my final judgments down according to rubric-worthy criteria and do allow some room for subjectivity to creep in. These scores are on a collegiate academic scale of A to B-. 

A technology tool receives an “A” if it is excellent as is; while it mostly likely will be improved in some way in the near future, I am at a loss to predict how it could be.  A “B” is for a tool that is good, but that could be augmented in a few minor ways. A “B-” is for a tool that is average and could be improved in several major ways. A “C” would be for a tool that is below average and would take many major improvements to be useful, but none of the below tools merit such a grade.  

Due to the personal preferences of the author, aesthetic and sometimes affective factors are given more weight. As the author is also cheap, financial considerations may also drag down a grade.

Firefox: A

Firefox is a browser that is quick, user-friendly, and safe.  It might possibly be too safe, as it blocks almost any pop-up and cookie, but to my mind, a mind that has been nearly digitally lobotomized by computer viruses and the colorful, sharp noise of unwanted online shilling in the past, there is no such thing as too safe. To my knowledge, it was the first browser to use tabs, in that when I first started using it five or so years ago, other browsers were not using them. While this convenient and desktop space-saving feature is now fairly standard, the fact that Firefox did that first earns it my trust as a browser that has had my best interests at heart since I first met it. Love at first sight and fidelity over the years earns it an A.

Google Docs: A-

Google Docs allows a user to create, edit, and save documents without having to download and open them with Office software. Along with those advantages, it also allows a level of interactivity that would not typically be allowed with such documents; users can share documents and edit them simultaneously with the sharers. It also has a wonderful form feature that allows users to send a simple survey via email and organizes the results in a spreadsheet as the recipients submit their responses. The main drawback of Google Docs is that the word processing and spreadsheet functions do not have the same wide array of features as their Office counterparts; for example, when editing Word documents, the user will not have the same selection of fonts or layout options as with Word; when editing Excel documents, the user does not have the same amount of options in presenting data in charts. However, this is a tool that is highly portable in that it can be used on almost any device, from a tablet, to a PC, to a Mac, and that helps cut down on the amount of space documents take up in a hard drive, as it is stored online. Those two advantages, along with its exceptional interactivity, nearly make up for its limited features.

MOODLE: B-

MOODLE is a course management system that allows educators to create online courses or to support face-to-face ones. When I assess a site, how it looks is the first criterion that comes to mind. While educators can tailor the look of a site somewhat to their personal taste and the needs of the class, I’ve yet to see a MOODLE site that looks all that good—either in choice of font, color, or spacing of elements. The reason for that is that MOODLE sites are usually content-rich. In fact they are so saturated with content—with all sorts of information that is both useful and necessary—that they are an easy place to get lost. Unfortunately, when you get lost on this site you miss an assignment and your grade goes down and/or you lose the respect of the instructor, who is secretly—or not so secretly—disappointed that you, a student in higher education, did not have the good judgment or acumen to thoroughly examine each feature and link of a site that plays a key role in your academic future. While college students should know better, MOODLE might be improved by further compartmentalizing its elements, perhaps, by separating them like a webpage into a more simplified homepage with tabbed categories.

Weebly.com: B

Weebly.com allows users to create simple but aesthetically pleasing websites with a broad range of attractive templates. Its editor is easy to use, allowing elements to be placed on a page through drag and drop. However, the layout options are limited; for example, when moving pictures around a document, there are few text wrap options and often the text winds up in an undesired area on the page. The editor is also glitchy in terms of placing captions on a picture. In fact, “glitchy” typifies the published result, as sometimes elements are not immediately updated or sometimes the end result ends up unintended in terms of layout and font. The other limitations of Weebly.com is that it only allows a user to create two websites for free before upgrading to “pro” and paying for its services; one can also not have a non-Weebly.com address or run ad-free without upgrading. The premium plan is affordable at around $5 a month, but the fact that the number of websites one can create is limited makes that price difficult to accept.

Wix.com: A-

Wix.com is another website creator with a wide range of attractive templates, but it outdoes Weebly.com in that its websites are flash-based. This allows a user to create dynamic sites with moving photo galleries and snappy—or slowly graceful—transitions between pages. Users who upgrade to premium service can use a personal domain, remove ads, and get extra storage. The number of websites a user can create is limited to a certain amount of storage space on the server. (This user has created three already and has yet to reach the limit.) Premium service is a little more expensive than Weebly, but the casual user does not necessarily need its premium options. The casual user can be as cheap, as he or she wants and still put together an engaging website. One possible demerit might be given for an editor that, while intuitive, is a tad oversensitive; an errant touch can send an element flying off the sitemap.

PowerPoint: B-

I evaluate PowerPoint here because my attitude toward PowerPoint has changed as I have explored website creators. I used to believe that PowerPoint was the ultimate tool for class instruction; it allowed instructors varied ways to reach learners—through image, text, video—ways that complemented a lecture and made instructions easier to follow. However, its main drawback is that it lacks dynamism of other tools now available, and it is too linear. It is difficult to go from slide 15 to slide 7--and be entirely sure that slide 7 is the one you wanted in the first place. While the content of a lesson can be separated into categories and chunked into smaller parts on a website, it is difficult to do that with a PowerPoint presentation. Websites provide a better way of compartmentalizing a lesson into more easily remembered parts of a whole, where a topic is separated into different pages with each page having different subsections. Not having that structure is where PowerPoint fails. It also fails in its lack of portability. They are designed to be projected on a large screen, and although instructors often make their PowerPoint available to students via e-mail or MOODLE site, the student-aesthete might find it off-putting to read a document in such large type on his/her desktop.

GoAnimate.com: A-

This website allows users to create animated stories of varying degrees of complexity. A person can use quick templates to make a cartoon in a few minutes or an editing screen to create a “video from scratch.” The choices are many—for settings, characters, text-to-sound voices, effects, and ways to share via Facebook, Twitter or email—and an amateur cartoonist can make appealingly customized and multifaceted works without going into premium territory. The one advantage of their premium plan—beyond larger galleries of scenes, characters and effects—is that it allows a user to upload directly to Youtube. The fact that this one valuable feature is not free knocks it down a fraction of a grade. All the same, premium packages are not too expensive, starting at $18 for three months, considering the range of features offered, and users are awarded website-specific currency every time they log in and create a cartoon.

Vyew.com: B

Vyew.com is a web-conferencing tool that allows users to collaborate in an online environment via text chat, webcam, and audio. Meeting rooms have whiteboards on which one can insert videos, text documents, images and music, and facilitate discussion with highlighting and marking tools and comment features such as sticky notes. It installs easily, loads fairly quickly and is user-friendly in terms of functions being easy to find and figure out. However, the webcams sometimes do not immediately load or load at all and the audio is glitchy; if users are not wearing headsets with microphones, the room becomes an echo chamber. Free use is limited to 10 users and the creation of 20 rooms, but the premium plans are somewhat affordable, starting at $10 a month.