As a self-identifying Old and selective Luddite I not merely agree with but take for granted Sally Song’s warning against tech overreach by teachers. One can indeed get carried away with social media to everyone’s detriment and the novelty of apps and technology in the classroom can mask their lack of necessity, if not even merit. I confess that this spoke to a misgiving about some of the apps introduced in an earlier presentation to our Educational Technology class, my notes for which include the observation that much of what we were seeing was “collages with glue.” Technology can sometimes be useful for teaching useful tech skills, but fail the necessity test for replacing more tactile work. My children attend a Montessori school, of course I value the tactile experience, but I think there is enough research that I can honestly claim not to be opining out of total ignorance on this score.

Office 365 sounds like a useful product. Many of the ways Song described it being used were very much reminiscent of Google Slides, Google Docs, and Google Classroom, all of which I have used in the past to my own general satisfaction. Sway sounds like an interesting cross between a website and PowerPoint with the potential to combine design skills with presentation of content, thus offering a welcome alternative to the rather limited structure of PowerPoint that is not Prezi, an execrable, ugly, and needlessly flashy mind-map variant of PowerPoint (I’m voicing an opinion here, but this is a hill on which I am prepared to die, as the saying goes). I’d like to look more into Sway and any potential FIPPA issues therewith once I have the time to do so. Sometime next year, perhaps.

Many of the services offered through 365 were familiar enough to me, that on the whole I think I would have been more interested not in hearing what in can do, but rather learning more about how it is used. That is to say, I find myelf in the unusual position of wishing a presentation had been more like a tutorial. It would be interested to compare the ease of use and capabilities of the Google and Microsoft suites.

As a parent who relies on small children to bring home messages about school events, and as a former teenager who typically found school announcements in jacket pockets a month or two after their best before date, the Remind app sounds like a wonderful tool. A great way to spam (in the most positive sense of the word) (willing) parents with important updates.