Choosing learning technology

Education technology, as Dr Gary Fisher, Senior Learning Designer at the University of Derby explains, is a very large business that has spawned a bewildering number of platforms, apps and tools ranging from the LMS/VLE’s we saw last week to apps such as Poll Everywhere, Kahoot and Mentimeter.

Invariably, and perhaps fortunately, universities tend to limit the digital technologies they support to a more manageable number. At the University of Nottingham where I work, for example, these include Moodle, Microsoft Teams, Echo360 (or Engage as it’s referred to locally), Turnitin, ExamSys, Mahara and Xerte.

In addition to these centrally supported technologies, some faculties and schools have invested in additional tools to support the development of particular discipline relevant skills. In my own faculty, the Faculty of Arts, for example, we use Talis Elevate to support the development of academic reading skills. Another technology widely used in the Faculty of Arts is Padlet, which is used to stimulate idea sharing and social knowledge construction.

As you will be aware, assessment is an area in which digital applications and platforms are playing an increasing role in Higher Education. Many of these such as Moodle Assignments, will be incorporated into your institutional LMS/VLE. Your institution might also subscribe to additional tools offered by third-party providers that integrate with your LMS/VLE. A good examples of this is Turnitin. It is used primarily by students to check the originality of their work and by teaching staff to check for plagiarism.

As you watch Dr Fisher, focus your attention on what he believes to be the essence of education technology, as well as the advice and questions he suggests colleagues might ask themselves when deciding which education platforms, tools and applications to use in their own teaching context.