Control Alt Achieve: EdTech Links of the Week

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!

This week I have 4 resources from around the Internet and 3 resources from my blog.

💨 Brisk Teaching

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In my newsletter last week I shared about how Brisk Teaching can be used to create curriculum resources such as quizzes, slideshows, lesson plans, and more. However, Brisk Teaching can do so much more...

One of those things is releveling content:

Start with content from an article, Google Doc, or more.
Use Brisk Teaching to evaluate the current reading level, and then choose a new reading level and optionally a new language.
Brisk Teaching will then create a new Google Doc with the releveled text.
Afterwards you can rewrite the content more if needed, such as making it shorter, longer, with more detail, or less detail.

Learn more and install the extension at briskteaching.com or get 3 months of the premium version for free at brisk-teaching.com/curts

🕹️ Flippity Video Game

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Flippity has long been one of my favorite tools to show to teachers. In short, it is a free tool that lets you easily create activities such as word searches, crossword puzzles, bingo games, flashcards, Jeopardy games, and more. You can see my earlier blog post with details on how the tool works.

Another great thing about Flippity is how often new activities get added to the site. As of the time of this writing there are 30 activities you can create. Well I was excited to see that recently they added a new one they are calling the "Flippity Video Game".

Basically it is a version of the old Missile Command game from Atari. With Flippity you simply make a copy of the Google Sheets template, fill in your own questions and answers, and then give students the link to your custom game for them to play.

You can get all the directions and a copy of the template on the Flippity site, and you can test it out by playing a States Capitals game I made using the tool.

✍️ Teach Writing with the New York Times

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Each year the New York Times provides a free writing curriculum for teachers to use with their students. For the 2024-2025 school year, they have created nine writing units based on real-world features like reviews, photo essays, narratives, podcasts and more.

One of these units is "Everyday Practice: Writing Prompts" where students respond to a question that is linked to a free NYT article, which runs through the entire year. There is also the "Picture Prompt" which is a short, image-driven post that invites many kinds of writing. For examples you can see last year's Writing Prompts and Picture Prompts.

Then each month the NYT will release another unit covering topics such as personal narrative writing, multimedia storytelling, argumentative writing, writing for audio, and many more.

Although these resources are aimed at middle school and high school students, many can be adapted for younger students. Check out the NYT article for all the details.

💯 Quizizz Free Upgrade for Student Teachers

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Quizizz is a great tool for creating and delivering assessments, while meeting the needs of all students. A while back I did a blog post and demo video on the new AI tools they have integrated into the platform.

Recently Quizizz announced that they are giving student teachers a free upgrade to their highest plan, which will be good through the entire year until June of 2025. All student teachers need to do is fill out a quick form and they will get the free upgrade.

If you have any student teachers in your school this year, or if you teach in an education program at a college, be sure to share this great resource.

📰 Excellent EdTech Newsletters

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Thanks to everyone who shared their suggestions for helpful EdTech newsletters! I have expanded my list to 18 excellent options. These are fantastic ways to get weekly resources, tips, tools, ideas, and more. Use the link above to explore the current full list, and please continue to email me with other recommendations. I will keep updating the list over time.

🎂 Google Classroom's 10th Birthday

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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

🧰 AI Toolbox Webinar

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I am excited to once again be presenting an "EdTech Playground" for the Teacher Innovation Network! These are free, live-streamed PD sessions that are open to anyone and are recorded as well if you need to watch them afterwards. This year I will be presenting a session on my favorite AI tools for schools:

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)
Session resource document - https://bit.ly/curts-aitools
Registration - https://sccoe.to/tin2425

I encourage you to sign up for my session, and check out my blog post as well to learn about the other playground sessions that will be held this year.