With the abundance in education technology (edtech) tools and apps currently available, and new ones popping up in app stores daily, how do you find the right ones for your practice? How do you ensure the digital tools and apps that you select for use in your classroom will enrich and extend your teaching, provide an accessible learning experience, and protect students' privacy? What should you look for when evaluating the user experience of apps and tools?

This free, open access eBook highlights the key steps and considerations for finding, evaluating, and teaching with digital tools and apps!

The book was designed as part of a class project for the Teaching & Learning with Technology course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The following undergraduate and graduate students contributed to the book: Michelle Barrett, Matthew Checrallah, Jacob Desgres, Alyssa Federico, Kiel Maurath, Madeleine Olson, Shaunak Shah, Khizar Shaikh, Alexander Shum, Caroline Sonnett, Isabelle Manrong Wang, Chenyang Xu, Chrystal Zajchowski, and Fred Zinn.

Using This Book

We hope that you find this book to be a valuable resource. Feel free to share it or use it in your class or training! This book is released under a CC BY-NC-SA license, which means that you are free to do with it as you please as long as you (1) properly attribute it, (2) do not use it for commercial gain, and (3) share any subsequent books under the same or a similar license.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to the book:

• Royce Kimmons for making this OER book design platform available and providing ongoing support throughout the design process.
• Sara Henry (founder of Heartful Editor) for providing extensive and exceptional copyediting.
• Matthew Checrallah for assisting with the building of the book on the edtechbooks platform.
• Rachelle Dene Poth & Jennifer Stadtmiller for serving as subject matter experts for the Finding Digital Tools & Apps chapter. 
• Susan Poyo & Sam Fecich for serving as subject matter experts for the Evaluating the Learning Experience chapter.
• Jennifer Courduff & Luis Perez for serving as subject matter experts for the Evaluating Accessibility chapter. 
• Toni Hoehn, Amy Fowler, & Lois Paul for serving as subject matter experts for the Evaluating Privacy, Cost, and Data chapter. 
• Jeff Zilch & Meagan Bubulka for serving as subject matter experts for the Teaching with Digital Tools & Apps chapter. 
• Dennis McElroy & Peter Hessling for serving as subject matter experts for the Finding Digital Tools & Apps chapter.
• Marisa Catalina Casey for sharing her photos of the book authors (pictured above).