Control Alt Achieve

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

EdTech Links - Week of 9-28-2026

Each week I keep an eye out for the latest edtech resources through blogs, social media, podcasts, videos, user groups, and more. I then try to reshare these resources in many ways.

One way I share these is here on the blog in these "EdTech Links of the Week" posts. See below to explore the latest batch of resources, and be sure to share with others who may benefit.

If you want to make sure you don't miss new resources, you can:

🔗 View all EdTech Links of the Week: bit.ly/caa-links

📰 Sign up for my weekly email newsletter: bit.ly/curts-news
📧 Join the "Control Alt Achieve" email discussion group: bit.ly/caa-emailgroup
🔔 Get new blog posts automatically through email - FollowIt link

And as always, please let me know of any resources that you recommend. I would love to learn from you!

EduGems is my website where I share my favorite Gemini Gems for schools.

You can access, use, and copy any of the Gems at edugems.ai where I currently have 160 Gems!

Each month I add new Gems to the site. See below for links to the 10 new Gems I added during the month of September 2026, along with a short description for each.

Feel free to share with others and please consider submitting your own Gems to the site.

Join me for the Northern Ohio AI Workshop

I am excited and honored to be presenting at the 2026 Northern Ohio AI Workshop on October 5, 2026 at the BGSU Firelands Campus in Huron, Ohio.

I always look forward to an opportunity to see old friends, make new friends, share some ideas, and learn so many new things from others.

You can get full details about the event and register for this free conference at:

https://app.smore.com/n/hfrxdb

This year I will be presenting two sessions at the conference:

Your AI Treasure Chest: Creating & Sharing Gemini Gems
Gemini Notebook for Schools: Your Grounded Google AI Super Tool

See below for all of the details on my sessions and the conference. I hope to see you there!

Recorded Webinar - Promptcraft: Building a Better AI Prompt

I recently recorded a webinar about creating better AI prompts.

AI can have a powerful impact on teaching and learning, but the value of what you get out can often depend on the quality of what you put in.

How can you craft better prompts to get the best results?

In this session we explored:

🏆 10 tips for better prompts
💡 100's of examples of excellent prompts
🛠️ Tools to help you build the best prompts for your needs

To learn all about creating better AI prompts, see below to watch my recorded 1-hour webinar and to access the resources from the session.

Upcoming Webinar - Your Brain on AI: Moving from Crutch to Catalyst

I am excited to be presenting a free webinar titled "Your Brain on AI: Moving from Crutch to Catalyst".

When students use AI, are they learning or just offloading?

As beneficial as AI can be, overreliance on it can hurt thinking skills, creativity, and understanding. How do we avoid this?

In this session we explore the 'Wrestle, Rap, Reflect' framework, a powerful, practical solution that keeps the human in the loop by requiring learners to engage their own brains before and after the AI interaction.

Students first wrestle with the content independently of AI, and then rap with the AI to enhance and extend their learning, and finally reflect on their use of AI to thoughtfully incorporate it.

See how to apply this framework to your existing lessons and content to integrate AI in a way that is responsible, meaningful, and transformative to student learning.

Details for this training:

🍳 Your Brain on AI: Moving from Crutch to Catalyst
🗓️ Thursday, October 8th, 2026
⏰ 3pm ET / 2pm CT / 1pm MT / Noon PT
▶️ The webinar will be live-streamed and also recorded for those who can't attend live
✅ Register at https://bit.ly/oct8aibrain or in this Google Form

Feel free to share with others and I hope you will join me for this exciting webinar!

Google Docs Calendar Templates for the 2027-2028 School Year

Several years ago I created some Google Docs templates for a colleague who was looking for a simple one-page document to show important calendar dates for an entire school year. The templates were a big hit and many people found them to be helpful.

Although it still feels like the school year has just gotten started, I have already received emails from folks asking if I have made a version for next year ... the 2027-2028 school year.

So for all of you super organized people who are already planning for the next school year, I am happy to say, yes, I have versions for 2027-2028. See below for the links to get your own copies of these templates, as well as some basic directions on how to edit them for your own use.