Thursday, October 10, 2024

EdTech Links of the Week - 10-10-24

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.

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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.

💡 EnlightenAI

Looking for an all-in-one AI platform for planning, teaching, grading, and data-driven instruction? EnlightenAI has you covered (and it's still completely free)! Developed by educators, EnlightenAI simplifies your workflow while helping you deliver personalized feedback and instruction to every student. Here’s how EnlightenAI transforms your teaching:
  • All-in-one platform: Develop teaching materials, grade written assignments, give feedback, and implement data-driven instruction—all in one place.
  • Build and export resources: You can create lesson plans, quizzes, and other teaching materials in their AI-powered editor, and export them as Google Docs or DocX files.
  • Works across LMS’s: While it integrates directly with Google Classroom, even if you’re using a different LMS (or none at all), you can roster students and assign work directly in EnlightenAI.
  • Personalized AI grading support: As you grade and give feedback on written student submissions, the AI learns your style and expectations to suggest scores and feedback, helping you grade faster and more consistently while preserving your personal touch. This is EnlightenAI's signature service, and they recently published very impressive accuracy data
  • On-demand AI feedback for students: Set up writing tasks with instant AI feedback, allowing students to revise and improve their responses on the spot. You're able to customize instructions to the AI assistant to tailor it to your voice and context. 
  • Data-driven instruction: After grading, EnlightenAI identifies trends and builds customized, editable reteaching activities to address learning gaps.
Created by a former teacher and school leader, EnlightenAI is designed to make effective teaching practices sustainable. Try it for free at https://enlightenme.ai/.




🖼️ Art Zoom Out
  • Google Arts & Culture is a treasure trove of resources that I have shared about often.
  • One of its best known features is the ability to zoom in on works of art so close that you can see the brush strokes and cracks in the paint.
  • Well now Google has gone the other direction with "Art Zoom Out".
  • You start by selecting a famous painting and then Google uses their Imagen AI model to expand the artwork and envision what might lie beyond its frame.
  • You can regenerate as many times as you want for a painting, getting a different expanded version each time.
  • You can also get a URL to share your image with others.
  • This can be a neat way to learn more about AI image generation, but could also be a fun lead into a similar art project for students where they each draw or paint an expanded version of a painting.



🕵️ Redirect Detective
  • Shortened links, such as bitly or tinyurl, are great timesavers and I use them frequently to provide an easy way to access my resource documents.
  • Unfortunately they can have drawbacks.
  • First, some schools are starting to block URL shorteners, so teachers there are not able to open my resources.
  • Second, some short links may come from someone you don't know, so you might be hesitant to click on them without knowing where the link really goes.
  • Redirect Detective is a free and easy website that solves both problems!
  • Simply paste in the bitly link (or tinyurl or such) and Redirect Detective will give you the full link that the shortened link goes to.
  • You can then click on the full link to access the resource if you want.




🧔 Make a Minifig of Yourself 
  • I am a big fan of the Lego movies, but I did not realize there was another one coming out this weekend called "Piece by Piece" which is about the life story of Pharrell Williams.
  • Well to go along with the movie they have released an interactive website where you can design your own Lego minifigure.
  • For your creation you pick the skin tone, expression, head piece, hair color, and outfit.
  • You can then download an image of the completed person.
  • This can be a great way for students (or you) to create a minifig of themselves, but could also be used for creative writing by designing a minifig and then writing a story about them.
  • How did I do on my Lego self-portrait below?




💀 4 Googley Halloween Activities

Over the years I have created a bunch of Halloween-themed educational activities with Google tools including:
  • 🎃 Build a Jack-O-Lantern with Google Slides
  • 👻 Halloween Rebus Stories with Emojis and Google Docs
  • 🦇 Halloween Drag and Drop Poetry with Google Drawings
  • 🍬 Skittles and Google Sheets Math Activities
Check out my blog post to get your own free copies of the templates, as well as detailed directions for each project. If you do any of these activities I would love to hear how they go and see some of your students' creations. I welcome any suggestions for improvement or extensions to make these activities even better!




🏫 AI Summit for School Leaders

OASSA (Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators) is hosting an AI Summit for School Leaders on October 31st and November 1st in Columbus, Ohio. I am excited to be providing the training at this event. In this summit we will be covering the "ABC's of AI" for school leaders as we explore:
  • 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) and
  • C) Concerns of AI (how to address potential misuses of this transformative technology).
You can get more details and registration information in my blog post linked above.




🤖 Upcoming Webinar - Cyber Assist: Using AI as Your Teaching Assistant

I am excited to be providing a free webinar for the OETC Postscript Series. OETC (the Ohio Educational Technology Conference) is offering these "postscript" sessions as a way to keep the learning going throughout the year as we head toward the next conference in February. Here are the details:
  • October 16th from 4-5 p.m. (Eastern Time)
  • Cyber Assist: Using AI as Your Teaching Assistant
  • Register for free here - Registration link 




Post by Eric Curts
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