Top 5 Tech Tools for the Classroom

 

I am what social scientists call a 'digital tourist' - I wasn't born into a 24/7 connected society but find myself immersed in it everyday. I am trying to maintain my outsider perspective on technology so that I can notice my own addictions (news scrolling - bah!) and delights (reminders of photos I took this week 20 years ago!), while also appreciating all the conveniences and guarding my boundaries against the unhealthful nature of being always-available. 

I carry this lens into the library every day. Is this lesson on genres enhanced by an interactive slidedeck, or is it just as effective without technology, and unnecessarily forcing children to stare at a screen?  Can we present our research on posterboard or is it better to have kids perfect their PowerPoint skills, as that is what is increasingly expected of them for higher education and the workplace? 

Technology is here and there is no use fighting it, and - often - it does make a lesson clearer and more engaging. Here are my top 5 tech tools for use in the classroom:

1. Canva - I can't say enough about how extraordinarily versatile Canva is. It's so easy to learn how to use, create, and customize on the platform and there are 101 uses for it in the classroom. With thousands of fonts, (copyright free) images, backgrounds, and music to use, it's a one-stop platform for developing book trailers, slideshows, worksheets, posters, QR codes, infographics, web pages, advocacy charts, signage, stickers, books, comics, yearbooks, and more. At right is an example of student work done on Canva for an end-of-unit infographic assignment in which partners researched and presented facts on a Black history month trailblazer.

I find that Canva's AI image generator - called Magic Media - is imperfect and often produces hallucinations. There are the third arms and extra feet, but I'm most intrigued by the deeply odd words that appear in images. (See examples at top and below.)

Canva Magic Media. Prompt: create a comics-style image of a school librarian introducing technology
tools to elementary students. 23 March 2025. Canva, http://www.canva.com

2. Pear Deck - This Google extension is a new favorite of mine; I only began using it since seeing it in action at the MSLA conference. I appreciate the interactivity of it and the control that I have in progressing through the slides. My students really like seeing the results of polls and voting that happens in Pear Deck, and it provides a fool-proof way to ensure everyone is clicking on the correct links to get to the external web content I'm wanting them to explore.

A sample poll/voting slide from a Pear Deck presentation.

3. Sora - I have a small library with limited shelf space so Sora is a tremendous boon to the students in my K-12 school. Teachers in the elementary, middle and high school levels have heard me promoting Sora for years and are now coming to rely on it for their struggling students as a source of simultaneous use audiobooks. I love that eBooks on a huge variety of animals, biographies, biomes, and inventions are available for students to access as I teach and reinforce research skills. Sora's built-in list feature means that teachers are able to keep track of books they've used in the past for specific projects without having to recreate the list year over year (see image below). One of my lists is of books that could support our school speech therapists who work on a wide variety of different dysfluency and articulation issues.

Screenshot of eBook resources list in Sora. 

4. Book Creator - As its name implies, Book Creator is a delightful platform for creating books, comics, newspapers, and yearbooks. Being limited in my own artistic ability, I appreciate that Book Creator has built in images (largely from Pixabay) and an easy method for uploading images from external graphic design platforms (hello Canva!). This gets heavy use by fourth and fifth graders in the library as students opt to use Book Creator to write books during their lunch breaks. One of my favorite uses of this program is when 4th graders use the comic book templates to retell classic folktales. Then, they compare which format is more effective. Finally, the books get printed up and displayed on posters for an after-school gallery walk with families. Some of the formatting techniques in Book Creator are more limited and less intuitive than those in Canva, but the kids don't seem to notice and the results are wonderful. See below for an example made by a 7th grader to demonstrate her understanding of the digestive system. Note: a paid subscription is necessary if you work with more than 40 students.

Quizlet Blast game - photo courtesy of Quizlet.com

5. Quizlet - I appreciate Quizlet for a number of different uses. It's flagship digital flashcard service is useful for kids needing to study specialized vocabulary for a math/science/language/ELA unit. Assigning kids to write Quizlet flashcards on facts for a particular unit reinforces their understanding of the data in that unit. My Battle of the Books teams use Quizlet to keep track of book-specific facts and quiz teammates on those facts. I can run a variety of whole-class Quizlet Live activities to asses understanding on a specific topic. And, for kids who are rapid finishers, Quizlet is always available to keep kids learning while I'm working with small groups. Because the games are customizable by question set, they are infinitely customizable. I am looking forward to using the "Categories" game - modeled on Jeopardy - with Battle of the Books kids this week!