Chromebooks Unplugged - A Day in the Life of a Student Chromebook

Chromebooks are used by 50 million students and teachers every day in schools all around the world. But are you and your students getting the most out of them?

To explore this question I used a student Chromebook for an entire day as my primary device. To keep things realistic I also did it ... unplugged.

What I mean is, when a student is using a Chromebook at school, they may not always have a power outlet to plug into. This is why many schools ask students to make sure their Chromebooks are completely charged before bringing them in each day.

So for my day using a student Chromebook, I kept it unplugged from power and simply used its battery for the entire day. Then every couple of hours I stopped to record a short video to see how well the battery was doing, and to demonstrate some powerful Chromebook features that can help students with learning and creating. I ended up covering:

• Accessibility tools
• Screencast and Chrome Canvas
• Android apps (including Minecraft)
• Video editing
• Offline access

See below for the recorded video of my day unplugged, as well as other Chromebook resources. And a big thanks to MediaTek for providing the student Chromebook for this experiment, and for sponsoring this post.

Rubric for Evaluating AI Tools for Schools

Ever since the launch of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, there has been an explosions in the creation of AI tools for schools. It seems that every week I am hearing about a new AI product launch designed to help education.

Over time I have shared many of my favorite AI tools in the "Cool Tools" series - bit.ly/cool-tools-23 - and in my resource document "The AI Toolbox: Best AI Tools for Schools" - bit.ly/curts-aitools

All of these products promise to improve teaching and learning by assisting teachers, creating educational content, personalizing learning for students, and more. But how can a school evaluate these tools to see if they really do provide safe, educationally sound, cost effective solutions?

To assist with this process I have created a "Rubric for Evaluating AI Tools in Education" which covers 18 essential criteria for assessing these products. The rubric is freely available for anyone to use or modify as needed.

See below to get your own copy of the rubric, as well as detailed directions on how to make the best use of it. As with anything AI-related, this is always a work in progress. I welcome your suggestions for improvements to make this an even more valuable tool for educators.

EdTech Links of the Week - 4-8-24

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!

Googley Poetry Projects and Tools

April is the time of year

For kids to write a poem.
There's loads of fun activities
Here for you to show 'em.

Google tools can be used
To make the perfect rhyme,
With templates, tools, and writing prompts
To save your students time.

Draggable Drawings, random Sheets,
And Google Docs highlighting
Will give your students inspiration
For their creative writing.

So look below to find out more,
Then get your students on it,
Writing their ode, haiku, free verse,
Their ballad or their sonnet.

Super Prompt - An AI Prompt to Create AI Prompts

Recently I shared a blog post with a list of some of my favorite AI Prompt Libraries for Educators.

The idea is that it can sometimes be a challenge to come up with a good prompt for AI chatbots, and thankfully people have been kind enough to share high quality educational prompts that they have developed, tested, and refined.

I decided to go one step further with this. I wondered… would it be possible to come up with an AI prompt that could be used to generate AI prompts?

Sort of like "Promptception". Or maybe "One prompt to rule them all" if you prefer a Lord of the Rings reference instead.

So after lots of trial and error, I did manage to come up with a "Super Prompt" that seems to work pretty consistently and generates useful educational prompts. You simply fill in what sort of task you need, such as a rubric generator or lesson plan generator or student writing feedback generator, and the super prompt will create the prompt you need.

See below to get a copy of the super prompt, along with usage notes and examples. Chances are I will continue to tweak the super prompt to improve it, and would welcome any suggestions you have.

What's New in Google - March 2024

Catch up on everything new in Google Workspace for Education from March 2024, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our March 2024 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 March 2024 meeting:

Chromebook Accessibility Tools Webinar

Over the years I have had the opportunity many times to present sessions on accessibility tools, accommodation options, and resources to help support all learners. 

These have always been some of my most popular sessions as everyone can benefit from these tools.

Over time these resources have also continued to develop with new tools, features, and options. With all of these continual updates, I am excited to once again have the opportunity to present on this topic.

I am thrilled to be presenting a free webinar in conjunction with Trafera on May 8th at Noon ET (11am CT / 10am MT / 9am PT) on "Chromebook Accessibility Tools".

See below for all the details on this great learning event…

Recorded Webinar - "The ABC's of AI"

I recently had the privilege to do a webinar in conjunction with Fobizz on the topic of "The ABCs of AI - What Educators Need to Know".

If you missed the live webinar, no worries! The recording of the session is now available on the Fobizz website.

In this one-hour session we explored the ABCs of AI including: 

• A) About AI - what AI tools are currently available and how they work
• B) Benefits of AI - practical and powerful ways to use AI for teaching and learning
• C) Concerns of AI - how to address potential misuses of this transformative technology

If you are new to the topic, this is a great video to cover all of the essentials about AI in education. However, if you have been using AI already, this video will help you pick up some new tools, ideas, and resources to go deeper.

See below for how to watch this free recorded webinar…

AI Prompt Libraries for Educators

AI chatbots are powerful tools to assist teachers and students. But as the name "chatbot" suggests, it is a two-way conversation, and what you say to them has a big impact on the quality of the response you get back.

Prompts are important. But good prompts can also be challenging. When you are using ChatGPT or Gemini or any other chatbot, you might not be sure what to type into the blinking cursor to get the best output.

Thankfully as people have been using these tools over the last year, they have been testing out options and refining their prompts. And many people have been kind enough to share what has worked best for them.

In this blog post I have collected together some of my favorite AI prompt libraries for educators. Each of these has a wide range of prompt templates that you can copy, and then modify as needed to personalize with your grade level, subject area, standards, and more. You can then paste your new prompt into the AI chatbot of your choice.

This can be a great way to get ready-to-use, high quality prompts, as well as get new ideas for how you can use AI, and pick up tips on how to improve your own prompts.

As always, I am learning right alongside you, so please feel free to share your favorite prompt collections. For convenience you can submit your resources in this Google Form.

Flippity "March Madness" Bracket Template

Although I am not much of a sports fan, I can't help but notice the building excitement surrounding college basketball this time of year. With March Madness beginning, people everywhere are studying the tournament bracket and making their predictions.

Beyond sports though, the bracket format actually has a lot of educational applications for student learning. Besides college basketball teams, a wide range of topics can be placed into a bracket and then the students can compare each item to determine which they think best meets a criteria.

This can be a fun activity that ties into something they are already familiar with, while encouraging critical thinking skills and content knowledge.

There are many tools and templates for creating such a tournament bracket activity, but one excellent option is the free template provided by the Flippity website. In this blog post we will take a look at how to use the Flippity template for a March Madness style learning activity.

My UCET-UELMA 2024 Sessions

I am excited and honored to once again be presenting at the UCET / UELMA 2024 Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 19th and 20th.

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 all of the details about the conference including registration, presenters, sessions, and more on the conference website at:

https://ucet.org/

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at UCET / UELMA 2024, 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!

AI Tools and Student Data Privacy

Artificial Intelligence tools can be such amazing time savers for educators, helping to generate assessments, create lesson plans, develop rubrics, re-level text passages, draft emails, and so much more.

However, in the excitement of running everything through an AI chatbot it can become easy to get careless with the information we share with it.

When educators use an AI Large Language Model chatbot in a K-12 educational setting, there are several types of information we should avoid submitting to protect student data privacy and to comply with laws such as FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) in the United States or GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the European Union.

In this blog post we will take a closer look at this issue including examples of data we should not share and suggestions for protecting data privacy while still being able to benefit from these helpful AI tools. As always though, I am exploring and learning about these topics right alongside you, so please share your ideas and suggestions.

My MACUL 2024 Sessions

I am excited and honored to once again be presenting at the MACUL 2024 Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 13th through 15th.

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 all of the details about the conference including registration, presenters, sessions, and more on the conference website at:

https://maculconference.org/

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at MACUL 2024, 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 NEOTech 2024 Sessions

I am excited and honored to once again be presenting at the NEOTech 2024 Conference in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio on March 12th.

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.

Here are the key details:

• The conference is FREE!
• You can attend in-person at NEOnet in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
• Or you can watch the sessions virtually through a live Zoom stream
• Or you can watch the recordings afterwards

Whichever way works for you, this is a great event that is not to be missed! You can learn more about the conference and register for FREE at: http://neotechconference.org/

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at NEOTech 2024, 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 - February 2024

Catch up on everything new in Google Workspace for Education from February 2024, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our February 2024 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 February 2024 meeting:

Responsible Use of AI in the Classroom

When it comes to artificial intelligence in education, I like to consider myself an optimistic realist. 

I see the positives and I see the negatives, but I believe that in the end we will be able to properly address the concerns, while using the benefits to improve teaching and learning for educators and students.

Many times I talk about the benefits of AI, which you can see in many of the videos and resource documents I share. For example see:

• AI-AI-Oh! Engaging AI Uses in Education - bit.ly/curts-aiuses
• Super Tutor: AI to Support all Learners - bit.ly/curts-aisupport
• Cyber Assist: Your AI Teaching Assistant - bit.ly/curts-aiassist

On the other hand I also address the potential misuses and concerns about AI, such as in my session:

• Artificial Intelligence / Natural Misuse - Managing AI in Schools - bit.ly/curts-aimisuse

Recently though I had the chance to dive a little deeper into what it means to use AI responsibly in the classroom. Specifically this dealt with addressing legitimate concerns about bias and inaccuracies that can come up when doing AI activities with students.

As a result I took some time to expand and revise the directions I provide to teachers for doing projects such as the AI roleplaying interview or AI debate activities. I also had the privilege of speaking about these ideas in more depth on a recent episode of the "Shukes and Giff" podcast.

See below for all the details on my updated teacher guidelines, as well as the recording from the podcast discussion. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on these topics, as I am learning right along with you as we explore how to use AI responsibly, but powerfully, in the classroom.

AI Prompts for Differentiation

Artificial intelligence tools can be used in many ways to help support teaching and learning. You can check out my resource document "The ABC's of AI: What Educators Need to Know" at bit.ly/curts-ai for a wide range of practical examples of how you can use AI in your classroom.

One of the examples I share is using AI to assist with differentiation.

Many times when we think of differentiation, we might focus on how it can help support learners who may be struggling. However, differentiation is about supporting all learners. This can include:

• Students who are currently struggling
• Students who are on track
• Students who are excelling in their mastery of the content
• Students who learn in a variety of modalities
• And more

Below are five prompt templates for differentiation that you can copy, modify, and use however you need with your choice of AI chatbot. These include:

• 🌼 Bloom's Taxonomy
• 🚧 Zone of Proximal Development
• 🔱 Choice Board
• 🎚️ DOK Levels
• 🧩 Content, Process, and Product

Please feel free to share your suggestions for improvements to these prompts, or other prompts that are helpful in differentiation. You can always connect with me at ericcurts@gmail.com

ABC's of AI Webinar

The capabilities and availability of Artificial Intelligence tools have skyrocketed in the last few years. 

Although I have presented and shared on this topic most every week for the last year, every time I do the content has changed with the constant progress of tools and resources.

With all of these changes, I am once again excited to have the opportunity to present on the topic of AI in education.

I am thrilled to be presenting a free webinar in conjunction with Fobizz on March 21st at 7pm EST (4pm PST) called "The ABCs of AI - What Educators Need to Know". In this session we will explore the ABCs of AI including: 

A) About AI - what AI tools are currently available and how they work

B) Benefits of AI - practical and powerful ways to use AI for teaching and learning

C) Concerns of AI - how to address potential misuses of this transformative technology

See below for all the details on this great learning event...

Free Resources to Teach Your Students about AI

As artificial intelligence has become more popular in schools, we have seen lots of great support materials for educators. I have provided many hours of PD, as well as videos, blog posts, resources docs, and more.

You can access all of my AI resources at www.controlaltachieve.com/ai

In addition to training educators, we also need to make sure our students are being well educated on AI. This can involve lessons and activities on:

• What AI is and what tools are available
• How they can use AI to assist them
• What are appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI
• Identifying potential misinformation and bias in AI
• And more

Thankfully we are not on our own in providing this information to our students. Many organizations have created lessons, activities, videos, and more to cover these topics in engaging ways for our learners. And best of all, the content is free!

See below for a collection of free resources to help educate students about AI. Although this is an excellent list, I am sure there are many other resources that could be added. Please share any resources you know of ( to me at ericcurts@gmail.com ) and I will be happy to update this post to include them.

Podcast Spotlight: Tech Unwreck

I recently had the pleasure to be a guest on the "Tech Unwreck" podcast.

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love podcasts and am always mentioning something new I learned from one of them, so I was super excited to get to join an episode of this podcast.

The podcast is hosted by Nicky Acevedo from Vivacity Tech and is described as follows:

Tech Unwreck is a podcast for educators and technology experts in the K-12 space to learn, share, and grow in their knowledge. Hear from experts in their field about K-12 technology in the classroom and learn about new and exciting tools, classroom techniques, and more.

I had a wonderful time chatting with Nicky all about artificial intelligence in education including the AI tools currently available, the beneficial ways they can be used in schools, and ideas for addressing potential concerns..

Take a look below to listen to the episode, access the resources that I shared in the episode, and explore more about the podcast.

EdTech Links of the Week - 2-12-24

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!

Googley Valentine Activities

With Valentine's Day coming up, this is a great time to highlight some activities I really love! In this case I am talking about technology activities for students that tie into the holiday theme while also promoting creativity, math, and writing.

I this blog post I will be sharing four Valentine-themed projects that use Google tools. Each of these are ideas I have shared in the past, but I thought it would be helpful to bring them all together in one place.

• 📊 Hearts and Charts Google Sheets Math Activities
• 😍 Valentine Emoji Rebus Stories in Google Docs
• 🧲 Valentine Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings
• 💌 Valentine Cards with Google Drawings

Hopefully you find all of them to be fun ways to engage your students, while working on practical skills.

See below for a description of each activity, access to all the templates, and links to the original blog posts for the projects I am re-sharing. Hope you love them!

Accessibility Tools for All Learners - Recorded Webinar

Recently I had the privilege to offer a free online session for the Teacher Innovation Network "EdTech Playground" series where the theme was accessibility tools and resources for all learners.

For my portion of the session I presented on a wide range of assistive technology tools and resources. Here is a description of my session:

Google Tools to Support all Learners

There are many Google tools, apps, extensions, and features available to assist all learners. In this session we take an in-depth hands-on look at a wide range of technology tools to assist any and all learners. These can include text-to-speech, speech-to-text, readability, reading comprehension, artificial intelligence tools, audio support, organization, focus, and more. Learn what tools are available and how to access and use these free tools with your students.

The other presenter was Kat Goyette who also addressed accessibility resources and support ideas.

The Teacher Innovation Network was kind enough to make the recorded video available for people to view if they were not able to attend the live session. See below to watch the recording, as well as access the resources I shared in the session.

What's New in Google - January 2024

Catch up on everything new in Google Workspace for Education from January 2024, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our January 2024 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 2024 meeting:

16 Updates to Make Google BETTer

This week Google is in London at BETT, the world’s biggest educational technology exhibition. At the event, companies from all around the world show off their latest and greatest innovations for educational technology.

Google is using this opportunity to showcase new updates for Google Workspace for Education. These updates include new features for Google Classroom, Docs, Accessibility, Chromebooks, AI, and more!

Although I have never been to BETT yet (definitely a goal for the future!) I wanted to share these new updates with you. See below for my rundown of my favorite new updates that Google is announcing. For each item I give the gist of what is new as well as how these updates can make teaching and learning BETTer.

Google Duet AI for Schools

Artificial intelligence tools and resources for schools have been exploding over the last year. It seems like every day there is a new AI tool or feature.

Google has been very active in the AI space as well with their development of Google Bard, NotebookLM, and much more.

Recently Google has launched Duet AI for Google Workspace, one of their most powerful and ambitious artificial intelligence projects.

If you haven't heard of Duet AI, it is a suite of AI tools from Google that integrate directly with the Google Workspace products such as Docs, Slides, Sheets, Gmail, Meet, and more.

Recently I was fortunate to be able to interview Vivek Chachcha who is a Product Manager for Google Workspace for Education and who works directly with Duet AI for education. We chatted all about this new tool including current features, new options coming soon, how educators are using it, and how your school can try it out.

See below for the 25 minute recording of our conversation, as well as other information and resources related to Duet AI.

EdTech Links of the Week - 1-22-24

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!

Google AI for Schools YouTube Shorts Series

Google has recently posted a series of YouTube Shorts all about using AI in education for teaching, learning, saving time, and more.

And they all are quick because YouTube Shorts can only be 1 minute long!

Some of the topics include:

• Engaging classroom activities
• Interactive interviews with AI
• Using AI to elevate how you teach
• Coding with AI
• Saving time with Practice Sets
• Generating creative writing prompts
• Writing and performing a class play
• How to talk to parents about AI
• Designing effective professional development activities
• And more!

I am extra excited because I was able to be in two of the videos! See below for more details and how to watch these helpful YouTube Shorts.

EdTech Links of the Week - 1-15-24

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!

10 Ways to Add Emojis in Google Tools

Emojis can be a fun and creative tool for educational activities. They are easy to use, can represent many ideas, work well with any age range, and are just fun and engaging!

Over the years I have shared lots of ways that emojis can be used for teaching and learning and creativity. 

Some of these have included:

• Emoji rebus stories - Valentines or Halloween or Winter
• Emoji drag and drop poetry - Valentines or Spring or Halloween or Winter
• Character emotions with emojis - Resource link
• Random emoji writing prompts - Resource link
• Emoji story cubes - Resource link
• Graph a pi-line skyline - Resource link
• Google sheets emoji math - Resource link
• Improving navigation in Docs, Drive, and Classroom
• And more!

Also over the years we have gotten more and more ways to add emojis to Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Classroom, Drive, and more.

In this blog post we are going to explore 10 different ways you and your students can add emojis to Google tools. It is good to have all of these different options as some will work better in specific tools or on particular devices or for certain activities.

EdTech Links of the Week - 1-8-24

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!

Join Me for Sequoia Con 2024

I am honored and excited to be providing a keynote session for Sequoia Con 2024!

Sequoia Con is an online conference focusing on Artificial Intelligence in K-12 education, which is hosted by Evergreen Education. The event will have presentations from dozens of teachers, administrators, and technology experts.

The conference will be delivered live through Zoom on February 29th and March 1st 2024, but all sessions will also be recorded and shared after the event with everyone who registers.

Speaking of registering, You can also get $50 off your registration with coupon code "CONTROLALT".

For more details on the conference, visit the event website at...

bit.ly/sequoiacon

...and see below for additional information. I look forward to learning with you!