Any elementary or English teacher can tell you that English Language Arts is typically broken down into four strands: Reading, Writing, Language, and Speaking & Listening.  Most educators focus the majority of their explicit instruction on the Reading, Writing, and Language strands, while embedding the Speaking & Listening strand throughout the day.  Because of this, Speaking & Listening is often not explicitly taught.  In addition, many teachers assume students have the skills needed to demonstrate mastery of Speaking & Listening standards.  Unfortunately, this is often not accurate and students usually struggle with listening the most.

Thankfully, there are multiple Ed Tech options that can help educators explicitly teach listening skills to their students.  Three of these options are ReadWorks, Listenwise, and Adobe Spark.

1. TikTok provides student engagement.
2. Bullying can be found on this app.
3. It's important that students understand privacy and data sharing using this app.
4. Students should start a TikTok club.

While I agree that TikTok can be a useful app with high school students, I don't believe that the actual app is appropriate to use with students.  ​

30 years ago, when I started attending elementary school, there weren't many options for EdTech.  I don't actually remember using computers until the 4th grade.  Now, teachers are overwhelmed with so many different options of what their students can use in the classroom.  How do educators choose?

There are two main questions educators needs to ask themselves before deciding which EdTech options to use: