What an incredible reflection – such detailed thinking about what, where, when and how to improve student learning experiences and outcomes. I’ve had similar thoughts to many of these points, just never wrote them down as succinctly as this! The issues with missed classes always comes up – here in Canada, in winter months, it becomes an issue of safe driving through life threatening snow storms to attend class. Not cancelling a whole class, but ‘going digital’ has been a solution that supports content AND skill development.

I was surprised by the comment about group work – I find the opposite happens here, but I’ll have to be explicit in asking students about their preferences. Like you, I use lots of tech in class and rarely take time to reflect on choices and reactions to specific applications. I remember one student telling me she was not going to use Twitter, after the initial exploration time, but should have prompted her to blog about this decision.

I’d like to talk more about your use of Slack with your students. I wrote a bit about my experiences here: http://extending.hjdewaard.ca/2018/05/just-teching-it-out/

I’ve learned lots from this post. Thanks!
Helen