As a learning technologist, I often get asked, “What is the best tool for ____ [fill in the blank]?” Many don’t like my answer, which is usually, “It depends.”

Case in point: If you were to ask me, what is the best tool for polling? My answer would be, “It depends.” Then, I would have a slew of questions about what goals you want to accomplish. For example, do you want to poll for audience engagement, for research, or to gather participant scores? Do you want more than simple multiple choice? Do you want the students to be able to see their responses? Do you want to grade students using the polling device? Do you want a grade to be added to your learning management system based on the poll? Do you want music to automatically play in the background? etc., etc., etc. From your responses, I’ll be able to recommend the best polling tool for you, but it will still require you to experiment to verify that the tool really does all that you want it to do (and to try to uncover any hidden issues that might underlie the use of the tools, such as parts of the tool not working with certain browsers that you need, etc.). All of these considerations make the choice of a polling tool an investment of time and energy.

To further illustrate the complexities of choosing a tool, I found myself caught in this type of choice conundrum recently as I prepared for my own class. I’ve always been a fan of Google Slides as a presentation platform instead of PowerPoint. However, I was also excited to use a new Wacom touch screen in my classroom to annotate my slides in real time. Unfortunately, I found that only PowerPoint worked with the Wacom monitor for the purpose of annotation…so guess who has converted to PowerPoint presentations? Yep. It’s that one purpose and functionality that rerouted my repertoire of tech tools.

Trying to find the one tech tool?…It depends. The question is are you up for the challenge?