iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Every January, I launch a brand-new edition of my Teacher’s Guide to Tech. As challenging and time-consuming as it is to put this guide together every year, it’s also pretty magical. I find myself sitting at my keyboard with a million browser tabs open and it happens—that moment when I come across some idea that someone has brought into the world and I think Holy cow, this is good. The thought that someone saw a problem or a need in the world, and they used code to create something brand new to meet that need—that process, that realization of human creativity, is just incredible to me. I watch as these tools come and go and change over time and I marvel at the people behind them, the risks they take, their willingness to try new stuff and push their ideas out into the world.

I don’t think technology is the end-all be-all, and of course it brings new problems into our lives, but just watching the creativity behind these tools makes me so excited to live in a time when so many ordinary people can actually bring their ideas to life and watch those ideas impact the world.

So every year, I choose six of these tools that I think are worth a little extra attention. Before we get to the six—plus the two “honorable mentions” I squeezed in at the end—let’s take a quick look at the 2019 guide: