EdTech Fantasy Draft: 41 EdTech Tools for the Student-Centered Classroom (Episode 29 Recap)

In Episode 29 of GotTechED the Podcast, Nick and Guise invite EdTech Guru Jeff Losch onto the show to participate in the first-ever EdTech Fantasy Draft.  In fantasy sports drafts, participants draft players to fill positions on a team.  For example, in a baseball fantasy draft, the managers (participants) draft Major League baseball players from any team to play each of the positions on a baseball field.  The statistics of each player contributes to each manager’s score with the goal of having the best team.

Now let’s set the parameters for the fantasy EdTech draft.  Nick, Jeff, and Guise came up with a list of 41 EdTech Tools and placed them under six categories for the draft.  The six categories included: 1) Photo/Video, 2) Gamification/Assessment, 3) Personalized Learning/Feedback, 4) Collaboration/Curation, 5) Classroom Management/Environment, and 6) Productivity/Creativity. There are 7 drafting rounds (one EdTech Tool must be selected from each of the six categories and one utility tool that can be from any of the six categories). Nick, Jeff, and Guise will be drafting under the following terms:

1. All 3 teachers run a student-centered classroom.
2. All 3 teachers have access to G-Suite (no extensions or add-ons included unless they are drafted).
3. Only the drafted tech tools can be used in their classroom.
4. The person who drafts the best collection of EdTech Tools wins.

This is the Recap of all 41 EdTech tools in the episode.  To listen to Episode 29 EdTech Fantasy Draft: 41 EdTech Tools for the Student-Centered Classroom Click Here!

The EdTech Fantasy Draft:

Round #	Jeff	Nick	Guise	Round #
1 –>	Google Keep	Loom	Canva
	Quizizz	Edjinotess	GimKit	<– 2
3 –>	Teachers io	Talk and Comment	Nimbus
	Verso	GIFit!	Ziteboard	<– 4
5 –>	Click and Clean	Colorzilla	PenPal Schools
	Imagus	Play Brighter	Zoom	<– 6
7 –>	The Fiscal Ship	ClassroomQ	Gooru

Google Keep(Round 1 Pick 1) Personalized Learning/Feedback

Jeff: Google Keep can be used for many things… a storage locker for resources, a to-do list, etc.  One creative way of using Google Keep is to provide feedback in the form of canned comments, rubric-grades, and stickers (GIFs too). Simply go to keep.google.com and create your canned comments and stickers, then open your students’ work and the Google Keep extension. Drag and drop your comments into your student’s documents. It is that simple!

Loom (Round 1 Pick 2) Photo/Video

Nick:I chose Loom, video recording extension that is similar to Screencastify and Screencast-o-matic.  I chose this extension because of how easy it is to create videos for my flipped classroom.  I could create, save, and publish videos with ease.

Canva (Round 1 Pick 3) Photo/Video

Guise:  Canva is a graphic-design tool website. It uses a drag-and-drop format and provides access to over a million photographs, graphics, and fonts. It is used by non-designers as well as professionals. The tools that Canva offers can be used for both web and print media design and graphics.  Make posters, brochures, webs-posts, and much more efficiently.  Freemium that does way too much to be FREE.  Think Photoshop but more user-friendly and with templates!  Canva is a one-stop shop for teacher and student creativity!

Gimkit (Round 2 Pick 1) Gamification/Assessment

Guise: Think Kahoot but with more gamification factors. Students earn “in-game” currency by answering questions correctly.  Students use the “in-game” currency to buy advantages such as point multipliers and streak bonuses.  Students often ask for more opportunities to play Gimkit.  I use Gimkit for most of my formative assessment needs!

 

Edjinotes (Round 2 Pick 2) Collaboration/Curation

Nick: Edjinotes is a fun, easy, and powerful way for students to analyze writing (lyrics, poems, or any other text or image) on their own and collaboratively!  Teachers have the ability to share resources with their students and have them annotate the resource.  Teachers can turn on heat vision and compare areas of the resource that each student annotated.  This resource is perfect for my flipped classroom approach.

 

Quizizz (Round 2 Pick 3) Gamification/Assessment

Jeff:  Quizizz is similar to Kahoot!, but students can compete at their own pace. Fun avatars and memes make up for the lack of fast-paced competitiveness. You can play a live game or assign it as an engaging homework assignment.  Quizizz is my choice for delivering formative assessments.

Teachers.io (Round 3 Pick 1) Classroom Management/Environment

Jeff:  Teachers.io makes it easy to break tasks down into their most granular details making it easy to “show” your students how being organized helps them succeed.  Lessons, Assignments, and Tests can be copied between classes and semesters to save time.  BONUS: Students using myHomeworkapp.com  can easily join your classes and access the assignments, files, announcements, syllabus and other class information you share on Teachers.io.

Talk and Comment (Round 3 Pick 2) Personalized Learning/Feedback

Nick:  This free extension lets you record and sends voice notes on all sites (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Github, Gmail, G-Suite, WordPress, etc. in an easy way. Voice notes can be played even if you don’t have the extension installed.  This extension is easy to use and highly effective and is exactly what I wanted for my student-centered classroom.

Nimbus (Round 3 Pick 3) Productivity/Creativity

Guise:  Nimbus is the snipping tool on steroids!  Snip, edit, and save anything from any web-page.  Nimbus also allows you to blur out student faces in pictures that you want to use on social media!  Nimbus is a simple, yet effective tool to use in a student-centered classroom!

Ziteboard (Round 4 Pick 1) Collaboration/Curation

Guise:  Zoomable real-time whiteboard for shared teamwork collaboration.  Explain, sketch, teach anything. Design layouts, workflows, prototypes. Extend video conferences with visual teamwork: discussions, meetings, daily presentations, online training, tutoring or even mind mapping.  Ziteboard extends the walls of the classroom by allowing students and teachers the ability to collaborate anywhere at any time (as long as they have an internet connection!  The opportunities for this tool are endless!

GIFit! (Round 4 Pick 2) Photo/Video

Nick:

Make a GIF out of any YouTube Video using the GIFit Extension.  Simply download the extension, go to YouTube and find a video that you would like to convert to a GIF.  Click the GIFit Icon that is next to the video and select the time frames that you want to include in the GIF.  Set the parameters and enjoy your GIF.

Verso (Round 4 Pick 3) Collaboration/Curation

Jeff: Activate student voice, gain authentic feedback and personalize learning. Use the Verso app to transform learning in your classroom. Verso’s ground-breaking peer anonymity and research-based workflows foster original thought from all students and nurture true collaboration while leaving you in control.  This was an easy selection for my student-centered classroom!

Click and Clean (Round 5 Pick 1) Productivity/Creativity

Jeff:  Is your laptop or Chromebook acting up?  Sometimes clearing your cache can bring your device back to normal!  Make clearing your cache as easy as one click with Click and Clean.  With more schools adopting the 1:1 Chromebook classroom… this is an extension that you shouldn’t go without!

Colorzilla (Round 5 Pick 2) Productivity/Creativity

Nick:  ColorZilla includes a Color Picker, Eye Dropper, Gradient Generator, and many additional advanced color tools.  Colorzilla gives me the tools needed to help personalize my website, worksheets, and labs.

PenPal Schools (Round 5 Pick 3) Classroom Management/Environment

Guise:  Exposing your students to real-life experiences in an important aspect of Student-Centered Learning.  PenPal Schools allow teachers to provide distance learning opportunities with other classes from around the world.  Students have the ability to teach others and learn from others using this 21st-Century PenPal platform.

 

Zoom (Round 6 Pick 1) Collaboration/Curation

Guise: Zoom, in my opinion, is the most user-friendly video-conferencing platform out there.  Simply schedule a meeting, share a link with all participants, and start the meeting.  Collaboration isn’t a problem with Zoom because the meeting creator can allow members of the meeting to take screen control.

Play Brighter (Round 6 Pick 2) Gamification/Assessment

Nick: Play Brighter is a gamification tool that makes learning fun.  In order to complete missions, students must answer questions successfully. You can choose from a bank of over 20,000 questions or create your own. When students perform well, they earn currency that can be used to customize their avatars in the game.

Imagus (Round 6 Pick 3) Photo/Video

Jeff: Are you sick and tired of opening image after image in a google image search to find the perfect image?  Use imagus to hover over images to make the image enlarge.  Save the valuable time you would have used when you opened several images and get the image that you need.

The Fiscal Ship (Round 7 Pick 1) Gamification/Assessment

Jeff:  The Fiscal Ship teaches government policy, budget, and ethics.  The Fiscal Ship challenges you to put the federal budget on a sustainable course. Measured as a share of gross domestic product, the federal debt is higher than at any time since the end of World War II and projected to climb to unprecedented levels. America is looking at a permanent, growing mismatch between revenues and spending, and policymakers are faced with difficult decisions about how to reconcile important government priorities—including retirement and health benefits promised to the growing number of old folks—with the tax revenues that the current tax code will yield. Today’s tax code won’t yield enough revenue to pay for basic services of government plus the retirement and health benefits promised to the growing number of old folks. So your mission is to pick from a menu of tax and spending options to reduce the debt from projected levels over the next 25 years. Small changes to spending and taxes won’t suffice. The choices are difficult, but the goal is achievable.

ClassroomQ (Round 7 Pick 2) Classroom Management/Environment

Nick:  Using their website, teachers can efficiently organize student questions. This system allows teachers to tend to each individual student need without interrupting learning.  This is not only the future of hand-raising but also the key factor in running a student-centered learning classroom.

Gooru (Round 7 Pick 3) Personalized Learning/Feedback

Guise:  Gooru designed the Learning Navigator as a “GPS for Learning” — a way for each student to follow their own path to mastery. Schools ask every student to achieve the same level of proficiency, but each student begins with a different set of knowledge and skills. The Learning Navigator meets each student exactly where they are and navigates them to their learning goals.  Did I mention Gooru is backed up by Google?

All the Undrafted Tools With Hyperlinks:

Pablo: (Photo/Video)

See a picture or quote that you like? Take a picture that you like from a webpage, click the Pablo button and add a quote

Kaltura: (Photo/Video)

Video creating platform similar to Loom, Screencast-o-matic, and Screencastify.

Quizalize: (Gamification/Assessment)

Quiz game like Kahoot. Allows a teacher to put students on teams.

Virtonomics: (Gamification/Assessment)

A game that is for higher education students and can be accompanied by educators as well. It’s an online business game that gathers over 1 million players from all over the world. A virtual economy fully populated by sentient people – businessmen and businesswomen, entrepreneurs, university and college students and overall smart individuals forming a friendly, business-oriented community. Players are keen to share their knowledge and experience, explain how to implement successful business strategies and grow your company exponentially.

ClassRealm: (Gamification/Assessment)

ClassRealm is a customizable classroom management system built on role-playing themes. Teachers can use ClassRealm to set up specific goals and achievements for individual students or entire classes, as well as to track student data and progress. Students can earn achievements and experience points by doing a wide array of school-related tasks such as doing well on tests, helping others, and reading extra books. Parents can use ClassRealm to follow their child’s many adventures online and can even create personalized side quests. ClassRealm makes learning a grand adventure!

SoloLearn: (Gamification/Assessment)

SoloLearn aims to gamify the way we learn how to code. As an educational app, SoloLearn naturally has lessons that teach players how to code, but that’s just the beginning. SoloLearn utilizes player challenges (players can compete head-to-head in a coding challenge and the winner earns XP), a Code Playground where players can show off the code they’ve created and get feedback from other members of the community, and a leaderboard that shows the top coders.

Checkmark:  (Personalized Learning/Feedback)

Kaizena allows you to highlight and record a voice comment without leaving Google Docs! Stop repeating yourself with our Lessons feature, which let you attach saved feedback to highlights inside a Google Doc. Track evidence of skills students demonstrates in their Google Docs with the Skills feature.

EzTalks: (Collaboration/Curation)

Collaborative Web Meetings, Alternative to hangouts and Skype

Explain Everything: (Collaboration/Curation)

Create collaborative learning experiences where students and teachers can share thoughts and ideas in real-time.

DebateGraph: (Collaboration/Curation)

DebateGraph is an award-winning web-platform for visualizing and sharing networks of thought – and opening reasoning and action to collaborative learning and iterative improvement.

Classcraft: (Classroom Management/Environment)

Classcraft is a fantasy-based game in which students can be warriors, mages, or healers. They form teams, and points are earned or lost based on classroom behavior and performance. You can also gamify the existing curriculum, with students “fighting battles” against your questions.

Flippity: (Classroom Management/Environment)

Flippity is your one-stop shop for turning Google Sheets into an interactive playground. You can make timelines, scavenger hunts, flash cards, quiz games and more. Flippity also has a new add-on for sheets!

Wheel Decide: (Classroom Management/Environment)

Use Wheel Decide to randomly select names or topics in class.

Extensity: (Productivity/Creativity)

Turn extensions on and off with the click of a button.

Incredibox: (Productivity/Creativity)

Allow your students to make background beats for their screencasts.

Picture in Picture: (Productivity/Creativity)

Allows you to pop out a video into a smaller window so you can work on other things while the video is playing!

Just Read: (Productivity/Creativity)

Cleans up a page for reading or printing… no more unwanted advertisements or pictures.

Tab Resize: (Productivity/Creativity)

Split Screen made easy. Resize the CURRENT tab and tabs to the RIGHT into layouts on separate Windows.

DocSecrets: (Productivity/Creativity)

DocSecrets is a Google Add-on that allows you to make sensitive Google Docs password protected.

Complete List of all 41 EdTech Tools:

Loom(Nick)	Checkmark	Classcraft
Canva(Guise)	Kaizena	PenPal Schools(Guise)
Pablo	Talk and Comment(Nick)	ClassroomQ(Nick)
Imagus(Losch)	Google Keep(Losch)	Flippity
Kaltura	Gooru(Guise)	Wheel Decide
GIFit(Nick)	Zoom(Guise)	Teachers.io(Losch)
Gimkit(Guise)	EzTalks	Extensity
Quizalize	Edjinotes(Nick)	Incredibox
Play Brighter(Nick)	Verso(Losch)	Click and Clean(Losch)
Quizizz(Losch)	Explain Everything	Picture in Picture
Virtonomics	DebateGraph	Just Read
ClassRealm	Ziteboard(Guise)	Colorzilla(Nick)
SoloLearn	Tab Resize	Nimbus(Guise)
The Fiscal Ship(Losch)	DocSecrets

Social Media:

1. Guise on Twitter @guisegotteched
2. Nick on Twitter @nickgotteched
3. GotTechED the Podcast on Twitter @wegotteched
4. Jeff Losch @HV_ETC

Other Relatable GotTechED Episodes:

1. Google Docs Best Practices
2. Survival Tips For the First-Year Teacher (Google Slides)
3. Effective, Yet Simple Methods of Introducing Real-Life Problems into Your Classroom (Google Drawings)
4. Project-Based Learning from Idea to Implementation

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