From early times, humans adapted how they work, learn, interact with the world through new technology. Technology aids us with accomplishing a task; however, each tool brings its own affordances and constraints. A good instructional tool for learning is unobtrusive so students can focus on learning. We can select the best tool using the heuristics of technology; pedagogy; usability and accessibility; and sustainability—even when considering tools as vastly different as simple machines to books to generative artificial intelligence (AI).

As instructional designers, subject matter experts, and educators, we’re often asked to use innovative new tools in our courses and classrooms. However, we should never adopt a tool just to be on trend. We need to stay relevant with tech trends while meeting the needs of future students. In this post, we’ll discuss evaluating tools by asking strategic questions to determine the fit of a tool for your program or course. 

Selecting a Tool for Learning—for the Right Reasons

Learning does not automatically occur when we include technology in a course or classroom. We need to value learning over tools to avoid the trap of the shiny new thing. Designers should strive to be “tool agnostic”—and prefer flexible solutions independent of a specific tool or platform. This allows you to design pedagogically strong courses aligned with learning outcomes. Tools become unavailable for numerous reasons—which can leave your team scrambling to troubleshoot the issue during a live course. These situations benefit from creating a predetermined alternative assignment which allows learners to reach the learning outcomes.

We should seek solutions which balance the needs of learners, instructors, and organizations with the content and learning outcomes of a course. Too many tools—or the wrong tool—decreases the time available to learn the content; strains the cognitive load of students and faculty; and become a barrier to learning. A needs assessment will help you deliver the right learning experience. Consider the frequency, accessibility, sustainability, usability, and pedagogical use of the tool. Keller’s ARCS model describes how relevance encourages student motivation to learn (McMahon, 2021). A good tool will reduce the amount of choices and signal what learners need to know (like when we curate relevant content).

Evaluating a Tool for Adoption

EdTech companies continue to develop tools to support and assess learning: learning management systems; publisher integrations; content creation tools; cloud computing; collaboration tools; social media; virtual, augmented, and mixed reality; artificial intelligence; etc. Whether you’re seeking alternatives to traditional discussion boards; considering tools for social learning; selecting audio and video tools to enhance peer-to-peer and instructor-to-student feedback; using open tools to foster collaboration with open pedagogy; or determining how to use generative artificial intelligence to support students in your course design, you should prioritize accessibility when adopting new tools. Piloting a new tool with a use case (like when Tara and Kyle K. tested OBS Studio) allows you to collect feedback about the quirks and features of a tool—and build or reuse tutorials or job aids to act as a just-in-time resource.

After you establish the needs of the course, users, and organization, you should identify open questions to learn more about the tool. For example, former colleagues Audrey and Kyle K. used the TPACK method to determine whether our instructional design team should recommend certain tools. (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). If you need to evaluate multiple tools, it helps to include a rubric in your evaluation. Rubrics allow us to consistently assess criteria—which is why we developed media assessment rubrics to ensure the use of high-quality instructional media.

Questions for Tool Evaluation

Our team asks the following questions when choosing a tool for an online or blended course. You’ll want to adapt these questions to fit the needs and processes your organization.

Pedagogy

• Does the tool meet a pedagogical need?
• Will the student use the tool in a professional context?
• If the tool becomes unavailable, what alternative assignment can be completed to meet the learning objectives?

Technical Requirements

• Does the organization own a similar tool?
• Will the tool be purchased with an institutional license? What terms does the contract include?
• What features get included in the paid and free versions of the tool?
• Does the tool require a sign-in or will it be integrated with the learning management system?

Usability and Accessibility

• How much time will the instructor and student need to get acclimated to use the tool? Does the tool provider give adequate documentation?
• What technical specifications do the instructor and students need to use the tool?
• What kind of bandwidth does the instructor and students need to use the tool?
• Does the tool include built-in accessibility? What accessibility needs does it meet?

Sustainability

• How long will the tool be available?
• How does the tool work with copyrighted material?
• What security or privacy concerns need to be addressed?
• Can students export work created in the tool?

At our university, paid tools should be approved by Academic Affairs, Finance, IT, the department or program, and eLearning prior to implementation. Since this takes time, we request departments start the approval process early. This allows us to create realistic timelines for a successful adoption process.

Final Thoughts

Tools change as humans continue to develop new technologies. Currently, artificial intelligence dominates most tech conversations. Without a doubt, AI will disrupt how we work, learn, create, and live (remember when our former director Gary described the Fourth Industrial Revolution?)—but the best practices for evaluating and adopting technology remain applicable. As designers and educators, we can ask good questions to ensure the adoption of the best tool for learning in the classroom.

Have you recently adopted a new instructional tool in your course design? We’d love to hear what questions you asked to help you decide which tool to adopt.

References

Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?. CITE Journal, 9(1). 

McMahon, M. (2021). Keller’s ARCS Model. EBSCO.