New Ed-Tech Apps to Try This Year

It is a new year and a great time to try out new technology! One of the few good things to come out of the pandemic is the plethora of high-quality new or improved educational technology that has become available. Here are some to try this year.

Interactivity and Gamification

Genial.ly provides the ability to create image-rich, interactive presentations with gaming built in. Genial.ly also allows users to easily create video presentations without the need for browser add-ons or other applications. In addition to presentations and videos, Genial.ly provides blank or premade templates for infographics, games, interactive images, guides, training materials, interactive cards, business cards, and social media–friendly horizontal, vertical, and square posts. The template library is vast, and the templates are beautiful. The most surprising thing about Genial.ly is that even with a free account, you can create unlimited creations with unlimited views. There are paid accounts that unlock more features, starting at $1.25 a month for students and $4.99 a month for educators. 

Deck.toys is another app for creating and presenting engaging slide decks and lessons with fun elements such as locks and treasure keys, crossword puzzles, mazes, jigsaw puzzles, and more. Educators can use Deck.toys to create escape rooms, lessons using a virtual Clue game board, or a Wheel of Fortune review activity. There is a “Deck Gallery” with thousands of premade decks that can be assigned, edited, or copied.  Deck.toys also offers interactive video creation capability. The focus of Deck.toys is gamification, unlike Genial.ly, which is focused more on generalized interactivity. Like Genial.ly, users can choose from free or paid subscriptions. The pro subscription is $8.00 a month.                 

Mentimeter can be used as presentation software, but where it shines is in allowing users to create polls and ask questions and view maps of answers in various ways, in real time. Interactive competitive quizzes are another feature. It is perfect for one-time classes and presentations because the audience or students do not need to create an account or log in to answer questions. They just go to menti.com on a device and enter a short code that is shown on the presenter’s screen. Mentimeter offers a range of plans, including a free one. Those using the free plan are limited to two question slides and five quiz slides per presentation but are allowed unlimited presentations. A basic plan is $9.99 a month and gives subscribers unlimited questions slides. A pro plan lets teams collaborate on presentations at a monthly cost of $24.99 per user.                                                                                                          

Organization

Wakelet.com is an organization app that is not exclusively ed tech, but it is education focused. Users can create collections of websites, text, images, PDFs, and apps, and, in the words of Wakelet, “make it look pretty.” It looks and functions as if LiveBinders was crossed with Pinterest. Users can make their collections public, share them with a class, or embed them on a LibGuide. Users can follow each other’s accounts, and educators can create classrooms. Classes or departments can create collaborative group collections. Collections can be downloaded to PDFs, as well.  Wakelet offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge to make it easy to add web pages and videos to a collection right when they are discovered. 

Mind-Mapping, Visualization, and Collaboration

Coggle.it is a collaborative mind-mapping application. Groups or individuals can brainstorm, strategize, learn, problem solve, present data stories, and visualize abstract concepts with Coggle.it.  Completed mind-maps can be shared or embedded.                                                                                         

Padlet.com isn’t new, but it is still an excellent resource for educators. It functions as an aesthetically pleasing, real-time, virtual bulletin board. Instructors can post PDFs, videos, websites, audio, and more  to a padlet, and students can access the material, post answers, write comments, upload assignments, and interact with each other, the files, and the instructor. Padlets can be shared, embedded, made public, kept private, or password protected. Padlet offers a free plan that includes three padlets, a pro plan that gives subscribers unlimited padlets for $10 a month, a school-wide plan for $1,000 a year, and an enterprise plan that starts at $12 a month.                                                                    

Have you used any of these? Do you have a favorite that was not on this list? Share them on my padlet.