While we are constantly being sold that newer technology can help students learn faster and make teaching more effective, seeing tangible results is another thing entirely.

So, to understand if these technologies are actually effective, we need to understand what these tools are and how each type can be evaluated accurately.

Top Types of EdTech Tools and How to Evaluate Them

EdTech (Educational Technology) tools encompass digital hardware, software, and online platforms created to enhance teaching, improve student learning and engagement and simplify educational administration. 

They enable personalized learning experiences, support remote and hybrid education, and include solutions for interaction, assessment, and classroom management.

This technology is changing not only distance learning; edTech tools have been implemented in various aspects of education.

Here are a few types that have a direct impact on the classroom.

1. Learning Management Systems

You can call this the virtual version of the classroom. It is the core platform where the coursework and assignments are provided.

In most LMSs, like Coursify.me, teachers can build a course right from scratch. 

For example, they can upload the study materials like notes, slides, videos, etc, then structure the lesson by module, topic, or even time. 

They can schedule the study content according to time to follow the flow of the syllabus.

Similarly, the teacher can schedule assignments with specific deadlines, controlling submissions according to time. 

These eLearning platforms can help the grade and put direct feedback into the system, like leaving comments or feedback. 

This also serves as a channel for communication between students and teachers.

Perhaps the best part about an LMS platform is how it collects data and helps teachers track students’ progress, to help identify which students may need a bit more support.

– What is a Learning Management System (LMS)

Top LMS Tools

These are some of the top LMS tools currently:

Coursify.me

Coursify.me is a SaaS that handles registration, organizes lessons and assignments, and helps teachers grade faster and track student performance, while fostering collaboration and feedback.

Perfect for schools that deal with hybrid learning from time to time, it can help save instructors’ time while helping reduce around 30% time wasted on admin tasks. 

This kind of platform also helps keep students engaged, especially during online classes.

– What is SaaS?

Google Classroom

Google’s platform helps teachers create, distribute, and manage assignments in a simple, organized way. 

Integrated with other tools from Google, such as Docs, Drive, and Meet, it allows educators to streamline their workflow while keeping all class materials in one place. 

By centralizing tasks and communication, the platform helps improve organization, and overall engagement in the learning process.

Canvas LMS

Canvas is an integrated cloud-based platform that provides a one-stop solution to teachers. 

From course management to assessment and feedback, it gives them a comprehensive space to manage everything.

This also works as a student platform where they can track assignments, partake in discussions, access course materials, and view grades.

– Blended learning: a combination of online and face-to-face learning

How to Evaluate LMS for Effectiveness?

Understanding whether an LMS is working is both easy and difficult. 

For teachers, the effectiveness can be determined by manually noting how much time using the platform saves for them, for admin tasks like organizing lessons, delivering them on time, etc.

Another thing to note is whether the LMS has helped student engagement. For example, having a dashboard that shows which work is due by what time may help them get it done by the deadline.

Whether the amount of on-time submission has increased can be a marker of an LMS that is effective, as it may depict higher student engagement.

Given that the generation of students now is technology-dependent, it might make sense that engagement will increase when you meet them in the virtual space they are so used to.

Perhaps the best way to evaluate LMS is the data it collects. 

The feedback you receive in real-time about student participation, submissions, etc, helps teachers not only understand whether the platform itself is working, it can also help them figure out what works and what doesn’t.

2. Teaching Tools

These are edtech tools that work as a supplement to the teachers. 

Such tools can bring the lesson to life and help explain the concepts visually; in some cases, it can make the classes more alive and interactive.

Like, instead of giving a lecture, the lesson can become more audio-visually active.

Top Teaching Tools

Here are some of the tools that schools are using to boost teaching.

Nearpod

This interactive lesson builder helps you create draw-it activities and polls.

The best part is that VR field trips are also part of the service they provide, which can enable teachers to take students to historical sites, museums, etc.

This is a great way to teach about important places “hands-on” virtually, making it easier and more fun for students to retain the information. 

This tool can save a lot of money for the schools, and also makes some places more accessible for lessons, which may have been impossible for students to go to due to funding restraints and distance.

These types of edtech tools help make lessons more comprehensive and foster active participation.

DreamBox

This is an adaptive math platform, suitable for up to K-8 classes. 

The teachers can adjust lessons in real-time and generate predictive analytics based on students.

Meant specifically for elementary school, it can help boost problem-solving skills.

– Desmos: what it is and what are its benefits for online courses

How to Evaluate Teaching Tools?

The schools generally want to know if the tool they are using is worth the trouble and the money spent. 

The first thing you need to establish is whether a tool is actually useful or if it simply looks cool.

For a teaching tool to be effective, it should help students understand better and faster. 

Similarly, for teachers, using it should waste less time and make the delivery of the lesson more effective.

The student engagement due to the tool should also be actually helping the lesson, and not just chaos. For example, even if the tool is fun for the students, but not actually aiding learning, then there’s no point in it.

When introducing such edtech tools, you either must track performance manually or through the tool itself, as some of them collect data and give you the analytics that you need.

3. Assessment and Integrity EdTech Tools

Assessment tools are platforms that help with quizzes and testing. More often than not, these are simply online documents to fill out.

Integrity tools are one of the first edtech tools accepted in schools. 

Early on, they were focused on plagiarism, but now the most important integrity tool is an AI detector. 

This has become a crucial part of assessment, as all submissions need to be AI-free.

– 3 guidelines for creating online assessments

Top Assessment and Integrity Tools

Here are some assessment and integrity tools commonly used in education.

Formative

This is a decent assessment tool that has auto-grading tools, intervention hints based on official standards, and polls.

This tool can track a student’s individual progress and can do data-driven assessment without needing paper grading.

Turnitin

This is a platform that works like a powerful assessment tool that peer reviews work, gives originality and plagiarism reports, and gives data-driven feedback. 

According to research, this platform has cut down cheating by 30% while providing extensive improvement insights.

GPTZero

This is a top AI detector with the highest accuracy for finding automated writing. 

Not only can it flag AI-written work, but it can also detect text that has been paraphrased by AI. 

Garnered towards academic use, it can show teachers exactly which parts are specifically AI-sounding.

How to Evaluate Assessment and Integrity Tools?

A great way to evaluate an auto-grading platform like Formative is to test its auto-grading against at least 30 diverse answers, which the teachers will first manually score.

If the platform shows an accuracy of 90% and above, you would understand it is effective.

You can also track a week’s worth of polls to see if auto-grading does as well as manual grading.

For edtech platforms that check for plagiarism and automation, check with handwritten works and AI-generated ones.

If they show fewer false positives and more accurate detection, you would know that it works. 

You can also check mixed samples to see how accurate the tool really is.

– Can AI Writing Be Flagged as Plagiarism? What Educators Should Know

4. Engagement Tools

Students are becoming more and more attention-deficient. 

This is why now there are a multitude of edtech tools available that can help teachers catch the students’ attention and keep it trained on them.

These are platforms that can turn the lessons and quizzes into games, so that students are more engaged.

Top Engagement Tools

These are some of the engagement edtech tools currently available to make classroom activities more fun.

Kahoot!

This is a platform for live quizzes that makes competitive reviews of various subjects fun. 

It comes with music and leaderboards, to really make it like a game.

The teacher can also divide the classroom into teams, as it accommodates team quizzes, enhancing teamwork and making it feel like group play. 

This is well-known for enhancing student excitement, suited particularly for middle school education.

Quizizz

This one is more for homework engagement. It creates user-paced quizzes that feel like games. 

Students can even level up and climb the ranks while playing these quizzes. 

It drives homework completion rates and encourages solo practice sessions, making it more satisfying as you get instant feedback on what went wrong and how you can do better.

– How apply gamification in eLearning

How to Evaluate Engagement Tools?

The biggest issue with this kind of tool is not being able to create meaningful engagement. 

So, the main way to evaluate such edtech tools is by noting whether the students are actually learning.

When the tool is introduced, it might be welcomed and enjoyed. But, students these days get bored easily, so whether the engagement is long-lasting is something that the teachers will have to evaluate.

A tool also needs to give useful feedback to the teacher. Here, there should be some internal data collection and analytics, which can then be used to evaluate effectiveness, so this would also be an important criterion.

Use EdTech Tools to Enhance Learning

Since each EdTech tool is different, it is crucial to understand the parameters for evaluating them. 

Whether it is a LMS or simply an engagement tool, each tech requires a lot of manual trial and error, and while they may not be perfect, their popularity stands as a testament to how effective they can be, based on how they are used.

– Tips for using eLearning in school education

A complete e-Learning platform, Coursify.me is the ideal solution for those who want to create, sell and promote courses on the internet.

Serving companies and professionals in more than 60 countries, the platform is a dynamic and customizable Learning Management System.

This means that you do not need to invest in building your own website. The Coursify.me is ready for you to enter your course and create a fully customized page for your school.

Visit our website, test the platform and start improving your classes!

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