2018 House of #EdTech Final Four - HoET107

Feedback, Shoutouts, and Links

• Derrick Crabtree – Top Tenn Teaching Podcast
• Mike Mesner
• Adam Schoenbart
• Episode 87 with Bruce Reicher

#EdTech Thought

The Cost of Free

Recently, another popular player in the world of edtech and education made a sinister and troubling decision. Padlet, recently described as a platform that I personally put ahead of Flipgrid, announced that they would be changing what was available for free and what was paid on their site.

Now this change has angered many educators, perhaps even you are upset by this. Personally, I am neither surprised nor upset by this move by Padlet or any other company that makes this decision. While the Padlet team is six people, those people are not volunteering their time to produce, maintain, and improve this platform. It’s their job and many of us have simply benefited from their hard work and efforts to this product.

To make sure we’re clear, I began this segment with sarcasm. Why? Because this is what happens. Sure, I say all the time that Free is my favorite 4-letter f-word but I also realize that there is a business side to all of this. Keeping your product free eventually means you will go out of business.

For example, free podcast media hosts pop up all the time. But the average life-span of this sites is 23-26 months (Watch out Anchor!)

Should you be upset by this? I’m not here to tell you how you should feel. You’re entitled to feel however you like about this. I will say though, paying for things that you believe in and provide you and your students with a better experience should be worth serious consideration for your dollars. If Padlet is your jam, then the current price tag could come from your daily coffee fund or not going out for lunch one less day each month.

This is also not worth getting upset about because there are more than enough new blog posts out there with alternative recommendations if you insist on using free tools in your classroom.

Featured Content

The 2018 House of #EdTech Final Four was a collaboration between myself and Nick Johnson and Eric Guise, both of New Jersey.

How did your bracket turn out? Click Here to Get the Final Bracket

Resources Mentioned:

• EquatIO – Equatio lets you easily add equations, formulas, graphs and more to g suite for education apps and Microsoft word.
• WeVideo – Make and share videos using WeVideo’s cloud-based online video editing software. Available on Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, and Chromebook.
• Google Forms –  Forms allows you to create a new survey on your own or with others at the same time. Choose from a variety of beautiful, pre-made themes or create your own. Analyze your results in Google Forms and Sheets.
• Google Classroom – Google Classroom is a free Google app that lets educators create classes, distribute assignments, send feedback, and see everything in one place.
• Google Expeditions – Google Expeditions is a virtual-reality teaching tool. You can swim with sharks, visit outer space, walk through a museum, and more without leaving the classroom. There are close to 500 expeditions available and more in development.
• Kahoot! –  a game-based platform that makes learning awesome for millions of people all over the world. Sign up to create and play fun quiz games!
• Book Creator – Book Creator is a simple tool to create ebooks on iPad, Chromebooks, and on the web. Create a book and publish it to Apple’s iBooks Store, or share it online with our built-in ePub reader. You can also share your book as a PDF and print it.
• Remind – the popular tool that helps teachers reach students and parents where they are via text messages and reminders.

House of #EdTech VIP

NICK JOHNSON and ERIC GUISE – Nick and Eric are both teachers from Hopewell Valley Central High School in New Jersey. Nick is a Chemistry Teacher who Flips his classroom and Eric is a Biology Teacher turned Tech Specialist.

They are the hosts of the GotTechED Podcast

Connect with Nick and Eric:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GuiseGotTechEd
• https://twitter.com/NickGotTechEd
• https://twitter.com/GotTechEd