Back to School 2023 with Book Creator

This blog post brought to you by Book Creator, but all opinions are mine.

Believe it or not, the summer is coming to a close and it is time to start preparing for back to school. 

Whether this thought fills you with excitement for a new year, or disbelief on how fast the summer flew by, Book Creator can help make the transition easy and exciting.

I have often shared about Book Creator, including how this tool can be used to help students write and illustrate their stories. For more details on that, see my earlier blog post and tutorial video here - "Book Creator Pen Tools - Let Your Inner Illustrator Come Alive!"

Well now to help kick off the new school year, Book Creator has a collection of awesome "Back to School" resources including:

• 6 webinars throughout August
• An activity book for students
• A teacher-created resource book
• Blog posts with ideas and lesson plans for teachers
• SEL templates to engage students in reflection
• #ClearTheList promotion 
• New Toolkit for Schools & Districts
• License offer promotion for schools and districts

Take a look below to get details for these resources. And a big thanks to Book Creator for offering these and for sponsoring this blog post!

My 2023 CFISD Digital Learning Conference Sessions

I am excited and honored to once again present at the 2023 CFISD Digital Learning Conference this year.

This year the CFISD Digital Learning Conference is

• Entirely virtual with over 200 EdTech sessions
• Held on July 26th and 27th
• Open to all educators
• FREE!

You can get all the details on the conference website at: www.cfisd.net/DLC

• All sessions for 7/26 - cfisd-dlc-23.glide.page/dl/d0a5f4
• All sessions for 7/27 - cfisd-dlc-23.glide.page/dl/dcc150

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting for the 2023 CFISD Digital Learning Conference, along with any associated resources and the live stream links for each session.  I look forward to sharing and learning with you!

Coding with AI for Schools

Although coding is a powerful skill, it can also be very intimidating. Thankfully generative AI tools can assist you with coding no matter what your skill level is (or isn't).

• If you have never coded in your life, you can use AI to bring your ideas to life.
• If you are learning to code, AI can help with your projects and teach you along the way.
• If you are a seasoned coder, AI can help you troubleshoot errors and discover new coding approaches.

Recently I recorded a webinar on how you can use AI to help with coding. The training is aimed a people who are brand new to coding, but hopefully it will be valuable to anyone interested in how AI can assist them in this process. Here is the description for the session:

Yes (even) You Can Code with AI!

Don't know Python from Perl? Is HTML all IDK to you? Do you think JavaScript is the handwriting on your Starbucks cup? Even if you have never written a line of code in your life, you can with AI! In this session we will see how to use tools such as Bard and ChatGPT to create code that you can use in Google Docs, Sheets, and Sites for learning games, activities, supports, time-savers, productivity helpers, and more.

See below for the recorded webinar, resource document, slideshow, and detailed directions and examples. 

My SPARCC23 Sessions

As part of my job at the Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium (SPARCC) in North Canton, Ohio, I help run a free educational technology conference each year.

We are excited to once again be offering the conference this year, and I would love to have you participate!

• The conference will be held on Tuesday, July 18, 2023.
• The conference will be both in-person and virtual.
• The conference will be held in person at the Stark County Educational Service Center at 6057 Strip Ave NW, North Canton, OH 44720.
• We will have 42 live sessions and 20+ pre-recorded sessions.
• The sessions will also be streamed live for those who cannot attend in person.
• The sessions will also be recorded for those who cannot attend on the date of the conference.
• This is a FREE conference for teachers, administrators, technology staff, and anyone interested in using educational technology to support teaching and learning.
• This is an excellent way to kick off a new school year with great ideas!

More details and registration are on the conference website at conference.apps.sparcc.org and in our "Attendee Information" Google Doc.

See below for a list of the session I will be presenting. I look forward to learning with you!

Connect with Educators on the New Threads App

Social media is a constantly changing landscape. I still miss the days of Google+ where educators had thriving communities to connect and exchange ideas.

In place of that, people can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon, and Bluesky.

I was excited to learn about a new social media platform called Threads, which was created by the team at Instagram!

One of the biggest challenges to any new sharing tool is being able to get enough people to join. The power is in the people! Because Threads is from Instagram it is super easy for people to join and it looks like that is exactly what is happening in the millions.

See below for a quick overview of Threads, as well as a shared Google Form and Sheet to add your accounts to connect with others. And of course please feel free to connect with me at https://www.threads.net/@ericcurts

AI Images in Google Slides

A while back, Google announced a new set of AI tools coming for Google Workspace which they are calling Duet AI. These features help you create with AI right inside of Docs, Slides, Sheets, Meet, Gmail, and more.

I recently got access to the new Duet AI integration for Google Slides called "Help me visualize". This is a text to image tool that lets you type in a description of the picture you want, and then the AI creates several images to match your request.

Text to image generation is a popular and powerful AI tool as seen in DALL-E, Midjourney, Canva, Bing Image Creator, Adobe Firefly, Scribble Diffusion, and other services. It is exciting to see this feature now available right inside of Google Slides.

See below for my demonstration video and detailed directions and examples on using Duet AI in Google Slides to generate images from text.

16 Super Google Updates from ISTE23

Google is constantly releasing new features, updates, and tools, which I try to share out each month in our GEG-Ohio virtual meetings at bit.ly/gegohio

However, sometimes Google drops a large amount of updates all at one time, often in conjunction with a large EdTech conference such as BETT or ISTE. They have just done that for the 2023 ISTE Conference.

I was fortunate to be able to attend and present at ISTE again this year. You can access all of my ISTE session resources at bit.ly/curts-iste23

I was also privileged to get to sit down with Taryn Sullivan from Google while at the conference to do a quick interview concerning several of their new updates.

See below for my recorded interview with Taryn, as well as details on many of the new updates that caught my attention. Which new features are you most excited for? I would love to hear your thoughts!