My 2023 FETC Sessions

I am excited and honored to be presenting at the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC 2023) in New Orleans, Louisiana this week on January 23th through 26th, 2023.

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 register for FETC at https://www.fetc.org/

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at FETC 2023, along with any associated resources. Please feel free to join me for any of these sessions. I look forward to sharing, learning, and chatting with you!

My 2023 OETC Sessions

I am excited and honored to be presenting and keynoting at the 2023 Ohio Educational Technology Conference (OETC23) in Columbus, Ohio on February 14th through 16th.

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 access more OETC23 information and register for the conference at:

• https://oetc.ohio.gov/

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at OETC23, along with any associated resources. Please feel free to join me for any of these sessions. I look forward to sharing, learning, and chatting with you!

What's New in Google - January 2023

Catch up on everything new in Google Workspace for Education from January 2023, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our January 2023 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda with all the awesome resources and Google updates from the last few months. This includes lots of new Google updates and Google resources for your class.

The monthly meetings are hosted by the Google Educator Group of Ohio, but are open to anyone from any location. The purpose of these meetings is to:

• Connect Google-using educators
• Share the latest Google Workspace news and features
• Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
• Share best practices of how Google Workspace is being used within schools
• Ask questions and get answers

The video from the meeting is recorded and available for later viewing for those who cannot attend or connect live. See below to view the recorded video, agenda, and all the resources from the January 2023 meeting:

EdTech Links of the Week - 1-16-23

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:

📰 Sign up for my weekly email newsletter here: bit.ly/curts-news
📧 Join the "Control Alt Achieve" email discussion group: bit.ly/caa-emailgroup

📅 Subscribe to the "Control Alt Achieve" calendar for livestreams: Calendar link

🐦Follow me on Twitter here: twitter.com/ericcurts

🔗 Subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog here: RSS feed link

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

Google Slides Photo Words - Advanced Webinar

I recently shared my blog post and tutorial video about creating "Photo Words" with Google Slides. This is a fun activity for students to take any word and put an image inside of the word.

This engaging project can allow student to:

• Visualize any vocabulary word
• Create a "One Word" for the year
• Summarize a story
• Learn a new word (in their language or other)
• Represent a location
• Tell about themselves
• Recap a year
• Make a logo
• And so much more!

My original blog post and 16-minute tutorial video were designed to help you and your students learn the basics of this activity, but there was so much more that I couldn't cover in the short introductory video.

To help with this I did a 90-minute live-stream webinar where we did a deep dive into creating Photo Words. In the video I go step-by-step through the process of creating four different advanced designs.

See below to access the recorded webinar video, as well as other support resources from the training. And again, I would love to see what you and your students create!

EdTech Links of the Week - 1-9-23

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:

📰 Sign up for my weekly email newsletter here: bit.ly/curts-news
📧 Join the "Control Alt Achieve" email discussion group: bit.ly/caa-emailgroup

📅 Subscribe to the "Control Alt Achieve" calendar for livestreams: Calendar link

🐦Follow me on Twitter here: twitter.com/ericcurts

🔗 Subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog here: RSS feed link

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

Creating Photo Words with Google Slides - How to Place an Image inside of Text

I am always excited about discovering new ways to use Google tools for creativity. Recently I have seen some people sharing some cool designs where they placed images inside of text to create what I am calling a "Photo Word".

As I looked into this many of them were being created with Photoshop or some other graphics editing tool. As awesome as that is, not everyone has access to those tools.

So I asked myself the question I usually ask in this situation, "Is there any way to do this using Google tools?"

And the answer is … YES!

Just using Google Slides, I was able to create all sorts of creative designs by putting photos inside of text, which can be an engaging project for students or for anyone.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions on how to do this.