The AI Toolbox - 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 artificial intelligence in education.

For my session I presented on a wide range of my favorite artificial intelligence tools and how they can be used for teaching and learning. 

Here is a description of my session:

The AI Toolbox: Best AI Tools for Schools

ChatGPT and Gemini are wonderful, but what other AI tools are available? Thankfully there are many educational AI resources that build on top of these models with tools that are free, provide extra functionality and features, and make the process easier and more convenient for educators. In this session we will explore many of these tools such as MagicSchool AI, Khanmigo, SchoolAI, QuestionWell, EnlightenAI, Snorkl, Sorcerer, Drift, Curipod, Brisk Teaching, Ideogram, Udio and more.

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.

Feel free to share with others who may benefit, and please let me know what AI tools I left out that I should explore.

Upcoming Webinar - The Future of Feedback and Personalized Learning

I am excited to be offering another webinar for Fobizz! 

A few months ago I partnered with them to present my "ABC's of AI" session which provided a general overview of AI in education. You can get all the details about that session in my earlier post.

For the next webinar we are narrowing the focus to grading and feedback with AI.

One of the biggest challenges in education is the time required to provide detailed feedback on student work. Thankfully we now have powerful AI tools that can generate personalized feedback for student work based on the guidelines, rubrics, and style we suggest. This can include feedback on student writing from short answers to full essays, as well as feedback on spoken student explanations. In this session we will explore AI feedback tools such as the Fobizz AI Grading Assistant, Snorkl, EnlightenAI, and more.

Here are the details:

💬 The Future of Feedback and Personalized Learning

📆 Thursday, September 26, 2024 from 4pm to 5pm (Eastern)

🎯 Learning goals

• You will learn how to use AI tools to assist with grading and feedback.
• You will explore how AI tools function in an educational context.
• You will understand how to train AI tools using rubrics and exemplars.
• You will learn methods to save time and increase consistency in grading using AI.
• You will discover how to maintain your personal touch and oversight while using AI tools.

The webinar will be recorded for those who cannot attend live. You can register for the webinar on the Fobizz website at:

https://plattform.fobizz.com/fortbildungen/1827-the-future-of-feedback-and-personalized-learning

Note: The webinar is completely free, but you will need to sign up for a free Fobizz account to sign up. Fobizz provides a wide range of free webinars on EdTech topics.

I am looking forward to learning with you!

EdTech Links of the Week - 9-10-24

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!

Back-To-School AI Webinar

As the new school year kicks off, artificial intelligence is on everyone's minds with thoughts of how to best use this powerful new technology to support teachers and students.

Dan Fitzpatrick, a leading voice in AI for education, has organized a panel of educators to help address this topic in a free "Back-To-School AI Webinar".

And I am super excited to be a part of it!

Here are the details:

• The Back-To-School AI Webinar 2024/25
• 📅 September 19, 2024
• ⏰ 11:00am Eastern / 8:00am Pacific / 16:00 UK
• 🧔 Speakers - Dan Fitzpatrick, Jason Gulya, Dr. Sabba Quidwai, Matthew Wemyss, Aileen Wallace, and Eric Curts (me!)
• ✅ Register for free at https://hz03lw7mbb2.typeform.com/to/ufAsvREV

What you'll leave with:

• Clear steps to get started using AI effectively (or clear steps on how to guide your colleagues)
• Prompting tips for tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini
• Insights into the AI education tools that are causing waves around the world
• Much more

5 attendees will win a brand new copy of the Back-To-School AI Guide 2024/25: 46 Steps & Tools For Educators Exploring Artificial Intelligence

Please share with others who may benefit, and I look forward to learning with you!

Make Educational Maps with AI

By now we are all pretty used to AI chatbots being able to generate a wide range of content from lesson plans to images to even educational songs. However, another creative use for AI chatbots is to create content for informational maps.

Google My Maps is a free tool that allows you to create your own custom maps, where you can add pins for different locations, and then add content to each pin to explain what it represents.

Although you can do this by hand, that can take quite a while. It turns out that Google My Maps allows you to upload a CSV file (comma separated values) with all of the data needed to create a map.

Well the good news is, we can use an AI chatbot to generate that CSV file, complete with all the data needed for our informational map.

See below for a short video tutorial and detailed directions on how to do this, along with several demo examples I created that you can explore. And of course I would love to see examples of what you create. Please feel free to share with me the maps you make.

EdTech Links of the Week - 8-29-24

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!

Free Webinar - Navigating AI Challenges

I am excited to be presenting a free webinar for Skyrocket Education Services on September 13th on the topic of "Empowering Learning with Artificial Intelligence: Navigating AI Challenges".

As beneficial as AI is for educators and students, there are also challenges, concerns, and the potential for misuse.

In this session we will explore ways to address academic integrity concerns, tools and strategies to help monitor AI use, proper citation for AI generated content, ways to encourage positive use of AI in the classrooms, developing your own class set of AI guidelines for students, alternative assessment options, addressing AI bias and inaccuracies, student data privacy, identifying fake content, evaluating AI tools, and more.

Here are the details for this free webinar opportunity:

• 🧭 Navigating AI Challenges
• 📆 Friday, September 13, 2024
• ⏰ 1-2:30pm (Pacific) / 4-5:30pm (Eastern)
• ✅ Registration - https://www.addevent.com/event/CZ22391170
• 🧰 Session Resources - https://bit.ly/curts-aimisuse

I look forward to learning with you!

New Equatio Math Whiteboard

As a previous math teacher, the Equatio extension for Chrome has long been my recommendation for the easiest way to add math symbols and content to Google Docs, Slides, Forms and more.

I have often shared about Equatio in training sessions and blog posts. For example, you can learn more about the basics of this tool in my earlier post "Equatio: Yes You Can Type Math and Science in Google Docs and Forms!"

Well recently Equatio got a new way to create, add, and edit math content… the Equatio Whiteboard tool.

This new tool makes it easier than ever to create and insert math content into Google tools, such as shapes, lines, freehand drawings, text, and even embedded YouTube videos.

To help share about this update I recorded a short demo video going through the basics. See below for the video and details about this new feature. And a big thanks to Texthelp for sponsoring this post!

Eric's EdTech Webinars and Certificates

Although I do lots of live trainings, both in-person and remote, I am only able to reach so many people that way. To try to reach more people, for many years I have been recording a lot of my training sessions and then posting those to my YouTube channel.

If you haven't checked out my YouTube channel, I encourage you to do so. There are hundreds of videos there covering a wide range of educational technology topics. Please consider subscribing as well so you don't miss new content. You can access my channel here: youtube.com/ericcurts

Although having access to my videos on YouTube is great, sometimes teachers ask me if they can also get a certificate of attendance for watching my recorded trainings. Many educators need a certain number of PD hours each year to renew their licenses.

To help with this I am now providing free automated certificates of completion for many of my recorded videos. See below for all the details on how to view the videos and get your own certificates.

EdTech Links of the Week - 8-22-24

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!

EdTech Playground Sessions for 2024-2025

I am excited to once again be presenting an "EdTech Playground" for the Teacher Innovation Network this year! In past years I have presented on  "Mote for Multilingual Learners" and "Accessibility Tools for All Learners".

The great things about the EdTech Playgrounds are:

• They are FREE!
• They are streamed live
• The recordings can be viewed later
• They are open to anyone

This year I will be doing a session on artificial intelligence:

• The AI Toolbox: Best AI Tools for Schools
• August 27, 2024
• 3:30 to 5:00pm (Pacific Time) / 6:30 to 8:00pm (Eastern Time)
• Registration - https://sccoe.to/tin2425

See below for the full list of EdTech Playground sessions for this year, as well as details on how to register. I look forward to learning with you!

Happy 10th Birthday Google Classroom!

It is hard to believe, but Google Classroom came out 10 years ago!

Before we had Classroom, I remember leading loads of PD sessions where I tried to help teachers build their own system in Google Drive where they created shared folders for every student, developed consistent naming schemes, and tried their best to stay relatively organized with the hundreds of files shared by their students.

Then along came Classroom! It automated and simplified file management for teachers, but also made it easier to assist students with their work. Over the years more and more new features have been added to build on this foundation.

On August 14th Google celebrated the 10th birthday of Google Classroom. To help celebrate I updated and reorganized my Classroom Resource page on my blog. Now it is easier for folks to find all of my Google Classroom tutorial videos, blog posts, resource docs, slideshows, and more.

You can check out all the resources here - www.controlaltachieve.com/classroom - or in the rest of the blog post below.

[Image credit ChatGPT]

Excellent EdTech Newsletters

It is difficult to stay up to date on everything new in educational technology. It seems that everyday there is a new tech tool or website, a helpful update, a PD opportunity, a creative idea for using technology in the classroom, and more.

How can you stay in the loop on all this great information?

One practical option is subscribing to EdTech newsletters!

This is actually one of my favorite ways to learn about new EdTech ideas. Sure I also listen to podcasts and belong to email discussion groups and check social media, but I especially appreciate newsletters for many reasons:

• They come directly to my email so I don't have to remember to go out and check anything.
• They are filled with great tools, tips, updates and resources.
• They are free!

See below for a list of many of the EdTech newsletters I currently subscribe to and benefit from. Hopefully you will find some here that will help you. And of course I am sure I am missing many other excellent newsletters. Please send me an email to let me know which ones you subscribe to that I should check out. I will keep updating the list below with more newsletters over time.

EdTech Links of the Week - 8-13-24

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!

15 New Favorite Google Fonts

As I have shared in the past, I am quite a typophile. That is, someone with a passion for typefaces, font design, and the art of typography in general.

One of my main sources for typefaces is Google Fonts at fonts.google.com where Google provides over 1,700 free fonts (as of the date of this writing). These can be used by you and your students in most all of Google's products to add style, personality, and creativity to your docs, slides, and more.

Every now and then I like to go to the Google Fonts website and sort the fonts by date. This allows me to explore the newest fonts that Google has added. I did this recently and wanted to share some of my favorite new fonts. See below for a list, examples, descriptions and links to 15 awesome fonts from Google.

Keep in mind, you can easily add any of these fonts to your Google tools by clicking the font menu, choosing "More fonts", and then typing in the font name. And of course these are only 15 of 1,700+ fonts, so be sure to explore more at Google Fonts.

Texthelp Back to School Virtual Conference

I am excited and honored to be a part of the Texthelp "Back to School Blockbuster" virtual conference on September 18th and 19th, and I invite you to attend!

I have been sharing about Texthelp's products for so many years now, including tools such as Read&Write, Equatio, and more, which provide accessibility and support tools for all learners.

Well Texthelp is once again running their annual back to school virtual conference. I will be joining many amazing speakers, and will be presenting a session on AI in education. See below for more details and free registration:

• Texthelp "Back to School Blockbuster"
• September 18th and 19th
• 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm EST
• Streamed live
• 100% free!
• Recorded videos will be available through November
• Register here: Registration link

I hope you can join us and I look forward to learning with you!

Learn your New Students with Google Slides

One of the first things every teacher wants to do each year is memorize their students faces and names. This makes a personal connection to each of your students and helps them feel welcome and valued in your class. The last thing we want to do is call a student by the wrong name or have to resort to a "Hey you".

When I was first teaching (back in 1992, you do the math) I took pictures of my new students on the first day of class with an old camera with 110 film. I then would get the pictures developed at my local drug store and would attach the photos to 4x6 cards I had the students fill out with their names and details about themselves.

These became my flashcards so I could learn my students names, faces, and key details about each of them. I would practice with these for the first week or so of school to make sure I learned all 130 or so new students I had that year.

Well now with technology there are so many better and faster ways to do this. For one example I have created a Google Slideshow template that you can use to help learn your students names and faces and a little about them. You can even randomize the slides for better quizzing of yourself. See below to get your copy of the template and directions for how to use it.

EdTech Links of the Week - 8-6-24

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!

World Snorkl Day - Recorded Videos

I recently had the privilege of presenting a session for "World Snorkl Day". This was a free live streamed PD event with four hours of awesome content from twelve amazing educators across eight different sessions of fun, learning, and inspiration!

If you are not familiar with it, Snorkl was one the featured AI tools in my "Cool Tools 2023" series. For more details you can read that original blog post and watch my 12-minute tutorial video all about the tool.

In short, here is how Snorkl works:

• You create a problem, question, or prompt for your students and provide an exemplar answer for the AI.
• Students then record themselves speaking as they solve the problem or answer the question while explaining their reasoning.
• If needed the student can draw on the digital whiteboard while speaking.
• The AI then reviews the student's explanation based on the guidance you have provided.
• The AI then provides personalized feedback for the student on their work.
• The grades and feedback are all collected for you as the teacher to review.

See below for all of the recordings from "World Snorkl Day" including the "Snorkl Innovation Slam" session I was honored to be a part of.

Join me for the MakerEd Educators Forum

I am super excited to be presenting at the virtual MakerEd Educators Forum this September. The MakerEd Educators Forum is a two day virtual conference where educators will explore maker topics, share ideas, exchange tips & tricks and learn from one another.

The event will be held on September 27th and 28th, and will consist of 30-minute presentations on Friday, interactive workshops on Saturday and unconference conversation opportunities both days. The cost is $65 which gives access to all the live sessions and well as their recordings afterwards.

On September 28th I will be presenting the following 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 Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude to create code that you can use in Google Docs, Sheets, and Sites for learning games, simulations, activities, supports, time-savers, productivity helpers, and more.

You can get more details and register for the event at https://makered.org/educatorsforum

Between a Doc and a Hard Space: How to insert non-breaking spaces

Google Docs is a powerful word processing tool with so many useful features for educators, students, and everyone. As awesome as those are, however, there are still some things that Google Docs can't do, or perhaps just can't do as well as other tools.

Recently I received an email from someone asking how to insert a "hard space" into a Google Doc (or sometimes just called a "non-breaking space").

In short this is a special space character that prevents the words on either side of it from being separated by a line break. When text wraps to the next line, the words connected by the non-breaking space stay together on the same line. It's useful for keeping things like names, dates, measurements or other word pairs from being split apart.

It turns out you can do this in Google Docs, but it is not a simple task. I was excited to dig in and discover how this can be done (as well as create an exceptionally punny title for this blog post).

See below for direction on how to add a "non-breaking" or "hard" space in Docs when needed.

EdTech Links of the Week - 7-30-24

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!

4 Recorded Webinars from CFISD

I was honored to once again present at the 2024 CFISD Digital Learning Conference this year. This was a virtual conference so all of the sessions were recorded. 

If you were not able to join us for the live conference, you can still watch the recordings of my sessions.

This year the sessions I offered included:

• 🖐️ Active Learning with Google Tools and EduProtocols
• 📊 Google Sheets for Educators: From Data Noob to Nerd
• ✨ The "Gem in AI" - Google AI Tools for Education
• 🖥️ Google Meet Enterprise Features

See below for details on these four sessions, including descriptions, resources, and links to the recordings.

EdTech Links of the Week - 7-23-24

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!

Recorded Webinar - Hipster Google

I recently had the pleasure to present sessions at the High Impact Conference for Educators, which is an event we put on through the Educational Service Center where I work. All of my sessions were recorded, and over time I hope to share several of the videos.

Please note that the recordings are a lot more casual than some of my other videos, as this is from an in-person conference with a room full of attendees, so there is some chatting and questions and such. Hopefully though you will still find the content helpful.

For this recording, this is the session:

Hipster Google - Tools You Probably Never Heard Of

Everyone knows about Google Docs, Gmail, Search, and other common Google tools. But there are also loads of smaller, lesser-known, but powerful tools that can be used for teaching and learning. Learn about 70+ hidden gems such as nGram, Trends, AutoDraw, Chrome Music Lab, Toontastic, Landlines, Reverse Image Search, Instant Search Cards, Semantris, Art Palette, Timelapse, Interview Warmup, GameSnacks, Data GIF Maker and more (List subject to change based on how cool and unknown the tools remain.)

See below for the full recording, as well as the resources from the session. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, feedback, or suggestions you have on this topic.

World Snorkl Day - Virtual PD

Snorkl has been one of my favorite AI tools for education since even before it officially launched.

If you are not familiar with it, Snorkl was one the featured AI tools in my "Cool Tools 2023" series. For more details you can read that original blog post and watch my 12-minute tutorial video all about the tool.

In short, here is how Snorkl works:

• You create a problem, question, or prompt for your students and provide an exemplar answer for the AI.
• Students then record themselves speaking as they solve the problem or answer the question while explaining their reasoning.
• If needed the student can draw on the digital whiteboard while speaking.
• The AI then reviews the student's explanation based on the guidance you have provided.
• The AI then provides personalized feedback for the student on their work.
• The grades and feedback are all collected for you as the teacher to review.

The great news is that Snorkl is running a free virtual PD event on July 30th with a wide range of sessions to help you learn, explore, and apply Snorkl even better.

I am super excited to be part of one of the sessions, the "Snorkl Innovation Slam". See below for all of the details and how to register for this free event.

EdTech Links of the Week - 7-16-24

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!

My 2024 CFISD Digital Learning Conference Sessions

I am excited and honored to once again present at the 2024 CFISD Digital Learning Conference this year.

This year the CFISD Digital Learning Conference is

• Entirely virtual with over 100 EdTech sessions
• Held on July 24th and 25th
• Open to all educators
• FREE!

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

• All sessions for 7/24 - https://cfisd-dlc-24.glide.page/dl/d0a5f4
• All sessions for 7/25 - https://cfisd-dlc-24.glide.page/dl/da19fa

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting for the 2024 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!

Recorded Webinar - Accessibility Tools to Support All Learners

I recently had the pleasure to present sessions at the High Impact Conference for Educators, which is an event we put on through the Educational Service Center where I work. All of my sessions were recorded, and over time I hope to share several of the videos.

Please note that the recordings are a lot more casual than some of my other videos, as this is from an in-person conference with a room full of attendees, so there is some chatting and questions and such. Hopefully though you will still find the content helpful.

For this recording, this is the session:

Accessibility Tools to Support all Learners

There are many 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.

See below for the full recording, as well as the resources from the session. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, feedback, or suggestions you have on this topic.

EdTech Links of the Week - 7-9-24

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!

Recorded Webinar - Storytelling Activities with Google Tools

I recently had the pleasure to present sessions at the High Impact Conference for Educators, which is an event we put on through the Educational Service Center where I work. All of my sessions were recorded, and over time I hope to share several of the videos.

Please note that the recordings are a lot more casual than some of my other videos, as this is from an in-person conference with a room full of attendees, so there is some chatting and questions and such. Hopefully though you will still find the content helpful.

For this recording, this is the session:

Once Upon a Google: Innovative Storytelling with Google Tools

Google tools provide many ways for students and educators to create and share stories. Slides can be used to create storybooks, e-books, comic strips, stop-motion animation, and story soundboards; Docs can be used for "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories, emoji rebus stories, and black-out poetry; Sheets can be used to create random writing prompts for inspiration, and more!

See below for the full recording, as well as the resources from the session. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, feedback, or suggestions you have on this topic.

EdTech Links of the Week - 7-2-24

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!

Creating Educational Songs with AI Tools

A lot of times we focus on how AI tools can generate text, such as lesson plans, rubrics, assessments, leveled reading passages, and more. As awesome as those uses are, AI can create much more than text.

Recently AI has become more and more multi-modal, meaning that it is also able to understand and generate media in other forms such as images, audio, music, and video. Each of these deserves its own blog post (or several) but for this entry we are going to explore making a song with AI.

Specifically I decided to see if I could use AI tools to create an educational song that could be used to help teach a concept to students. The plan was to use ChatGPT to write the lyrics for the song, and then use Udio to generate the music and to sing the completed song.

For this test I used the water cycle as my topic, and I am so excited with the final product! See below to listen to the water cycle song, and for the directions and tools I used to create it. I hope this will inspire you to create a song, and I would love to hear what you make, as well as any suggestions you have for making this project better.

Recorded Webinar - Today's Special Classroom Guest: Mr. A.I. Chatterbot

I recently had the pleasure to present sessions at the High Impact Conference for Educators, which is an event we put on through the Educational Service Center where I work. All of my sessions were recorded, and over time I hope to share several of the videos.

Please note that the recordings are a lot more casual than some of my other videos, as this is from an in-person conference with a room full of attendees, so there is some chatting and questions and such. Hopefully though you will still find the content helpful.

For this recording, this is the session:

Today's Special Classroom Guest: Mr. A.I. Chatterbot

AI access for students is often limited because of the students' age or because of school policies. However there are lots of engaging ways for a teacher to use AI in class for interactive learning activities where the students are participating but the teacher is still managing the AI. In this session we will see how you can "invite AI into your classroom" for interactive projects including debates on any topic, live interviews where the AI takes on a role, "20 Questions" games on subject area content, co-writing activities, and more.

See below for the full recording, as well as the resources from the session. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, feedback, or suggestions you have on this topic.

My ISTE 2024 Sessions

I am excited and honored to once again present at the 2024 ISTE Conference in Denver this June 22nd through 26th.

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

You can attend ISTE in person this year, or take part as a virtual attendee. Registration opens in January. To get more details and register for the conference go to:

• conference.iste.org/2024

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at the ISTE Conference, along with any associated resources. I will continue to update this list with any changes and additions to my schedule.

Please feel free to join me for any of these sessions. I look forward to sharing, learning, and chatting with you!

Recorded Webinar - Guided Grading with AI

I recently had the pleasure to present sessions at the High Impact Conference for Educators, which is an event we put on through the Educational Service Center where I work. All of my sessions were recorded, and over time I hope to share several of the videos.

Please note that the recordings are a lot more casual than some of my other videos, as this is from an in-person conference with a room full of attendees, so there is some chatting and questions and such. Hopefully though you will still find the content helpful.

For this recording, this is the session:

The Future of Feedback - Guided Grading with AI

One of the biggest challenges in education is the time required to provide detailed feedback on student work. Thankfully we now have powerful AI tools that can generate personalized feedback for student work based on the guidelines, rubrics, and style we suggest. This can include feedback on student writing from short answers to full essays, as well as feedback on spoken student explanations. In this session we will explore AI feedback tools such as Class Companion, Snorkl, EnlightenAI, and more.

See below for the full recording, as well as the resources from the session. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, feedback, or suggestions you have on this topic.

What's New in Google - May 2024

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

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

Elevate Critical Thinking with AI Debates in the Classroom

Although I often share about the beneficial ways AI can help educators and students, I also focus on the potential concerns about AI in schools, and how we can address those issues.

These concerns often arise during my professional development sessions or workshops, particularly in my "Artificial Intelligence / Natural Misuse: Managing AI in Schools" workshop. You can access all the resources for this workshop at https://bit.ly/curts-aimisuse

I will often ask the educators what their concerns are about AI in schools. In addition to the common responses of cheating and data privacy and biases, many times the attendees will mention they worry that AI might discourage critical thinking in students. If AI can do so many things so efficiently, it could be a temptation for learners to just let the AI do the thinking instead of themselves.

My normal response to this is that yes, that is certainly a possible outcome, but it doesn't have to be. Ultimately AI is just a tool. It is not good or bad. Just like a hammer can be used to destroy or to build, AI can be misused or it can help students grow.

One of my favorite ways to demonstrate AI's ability to encourage critical thinking is the "Debate an AI" activity. Let's take a look at the prompt and directions for this activity.

Recorded Webinar - Chromebook Accessibility Tools

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 was excited to have the opportunity to present a webinar for Trafera on "Chromebook Accessibility Tools".

In this 1-hour training we did a deep dive into all the ways Chromebooks can support all learners through built-in accessibility tools and features. See below for the recording, as well as all the resources for the session.

AI Policies, Guidelines & Frameworks for Schools

Although ChatGPT became readily accessible to the public back in November of 2022, we are still in the early days of exploring and understanding these new powerful AI tools and their implications for education.

For most schools around the world that means developing policies and guidelines that clarify how AI can and should be used by their students and educators, as well as which uses are prohibited or limited in a school setting.

If your school does not have AI guidelines yet, you are certainly not alone. Many districts are still digging into this task with committees and pilot groups and more.

Thankfully there are many organizations and schools that have been blazing a trail in this area by developing and sharing their own AI policies, guidelines, and frameworks. I have been collecting links to these resources as I come across them and will share them below in this post.

These resources provide templates, examples, and guidance that you can use when developing policies for your entire district or just your own classroom. As I come across more resources I will continue to update this page, and encourage you to share similar resources through my Google Form.

AI Prompting: Collaborative Prompt Technique

I have shared a lot of resources recently to support AI prompting for educators. These have included my collection of AI prompt libraries and my AI super prompt.

In both cases the idea has been that prompting an AI chatbot can sometimes be a challenge, as we are not always sure what to type in to get the best results.

Recently I learned about another great suggestion to improve prompting, which came from one of my edtech colleagues, Chris Deis from Grandview Heights Schools. I have been playing around with this new technique and have really been impressed with its ease of use and the quality of the results.

For lack of a better term, I am calling this process the "Collaborative Prompt Technique". Instead of trying to come up with the best prompt yourself, the idea is to:

• Tell the AI chatbot the task you want to accomplish
• Ask the AI chatbot what information it needs from you to do this
• Provide that additional information to the AI chatbot to get your result

This collaborative prompting technique is a great way to work with the AI to determine all the details needed for the best results. See below for the template I have been using for this approach, as well as three examples of how this works.

EdTech Links of the Week - 5-7-24

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 Week of AI 2024

With AI in education constantly evolving, it is always great to have new professional development opportunities to stay up to date and keep learning.

I am excited and honored to be part of a free week-long virtual PD opportunity called "Week of AI" that anyone can participate in.

Here are the essential details:

Week of AI

• Registration - www.weekofai.ai
• Dates - May 13-18, 2024
• Times - 5pm-9pm EST (M-F), 11am-7pm (Sat)
• Cost - Free (except for Saturday workshops)
• Delivery - Virtual live-streamed sessions
• Schedule - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

I will be providing two sessions during the Week of AI:

• Friday - 5:30-6:30pm EST - "The Bionic Educator" Keynote
• Saturday - 1:00-2:00m EST - "Today's Special Classroom Guest: Mr. A.I. Chatterbot"

I look forward to learning with you!