EdTech Links - Week of 8-25-2025

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!

AI Deep Dive with the Digitize Fully Charged Podcast

I recently had the pleasure to be a guest on the "Digitize Fully Charged Podcast" hosted by Pam Currie and Niall Ridgway.

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 described as follows:

Welcome to the Digitize Fully Charged Podcast – where Scottish humour meets digital transformation. Hosted by Pam Currie and Niall Ridgway, we’re here to spark real conversations about how technology is shaking up classrooms, schools, and local businesses across Scotland (and beyond).

I had a wonderful time chatting about AI topics including:

• Why AI must move beyond helping staff, and reach students too.
• The big question: Will AI ever replace teachers?
• Creative classroom ideas: AI guest speakers, debates and choose‑your‑own‑adventure games.
• How to get started with AI as a teacher, even if it feels intimidating.
• The dangers of bias, mistakes and misinformation in AI – and why that’s exactly why it belongs in the classroom.
• Data privacy, student safety and why I recommend Gemini for schools.
• Why AI is your new teaching assistant, not your replacement.

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

The Bionic Educator - Banzai Recorded Webinar

A few weeks back I had the privilege of presenting my "Bionic Educator" keynote to kick off Banzai's virtual "Back-to-School Bootcamp".

If you are not familiar with Banzai - https://banzai.org/ - here are some quick details about them:

• They provide totally free online courses for students in grades 3 through 12.
• The courses cover personal finance, digital citizenship, college and careers, and more.
• The courses are highly interactive with games and resources that allow students to make mistakes, learn, and succeed from the safety of their classroom.
• Teachers instantly view student progress with a powerful grading interface.
• Banzai complies fully with restrictions set by COPPA and FERPA, and does not store any personally identifiable information.
• And it really is free, thanks to the support of banks, credit unions, and other organizations.

My keynote was "The Bionic Educator" which explores the impact of AI on education, with the key question being "Will AI take our jobs, or help us do our jobs better?" The recording of the keynote is now available! See below to watch it and access more resources from Banzai.

My Sun City EdTech Sessions

I am excited and honored to be a featured speaker at the 2025 Sun City EdTech Conference hosted by ESC19 and TCEA in El Paso, Texas on September 11th.

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:

esc19.net/conferences/sun-city-edtech-conference

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at the conference, 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!

EdTech Links - Week of 8-18-25

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!

Chromebook Accessibility Tools with the Innovation Squadcast

I recently had the pleasure to be a guest on the "BCSD Innovation Squadcast Podcast" hosted by Pam Hubler and the team at Berkeley County School District.

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 described as follows:

In this podcast, the district’s Innovative Learning Coordinators delve into the newest technology and innovations to equip our schools, teachers, and students with advanced resources and support. Produced by the Berkeley County School District’s Office of Technology in Goose Creek, South Carolina.

I had a wonderful time chatting about Chromebook accessibility topics including:

• Built-in accessibility tools such as select to speak, dictation, docked magnifier, face control, quick answers, reading mode, and more.
• Recording tools for students including the Chromebook Screencast tool
• Helpful extensions to support learners such as Read&Write, Helperbird, Google Translate, Beep, Mote, and more.

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

Why Every School Should be Using Gemini - Data Privacy

There are a wide range of excellent AI tools that can benefit educators and students. I have shared many of these on this blog, and I routinely provide training on them for schools around the world.

One of the AI tools that has consistently improved over the last few years is Google's AI chatbot - Gemini.

Google has added so many useful features to the free version of Gemini including Deep Research, Fact Checking, Guided Learning, image generation, Gems, Canvas, Audio Overviews, Quizzes, and more.

However there is one feature that is the number one reason why Gemini should be a part of every school's AI toolbox. It may not be the most exciting or flashiest feature, but it is arguably the most important for schools and educators.

And that is data privacy.

As educators we are required to protect student data privacy and to comply with laws such as FERPA and GDPR. Well thankfully, for free, Google provides schools with built-in data privacy and protections in Gemini.

See below for a short video and write-up that covers the details of what is included in this.

EdTech Links - Week of 8-11-25

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!

Career Tech AI Prompts for Teacher Support and Student Learning

Over the last few years I have had the privilege to provide AI training for a wide range of educators, conferences, and organizations. Sometimes that has included Career Tech teachers.

I recently presented a day of sessions for a Career Tech conference in Alabama. In preparation for that training I put together a couple of new documents to support the attendees. These included:

AI Prompts for Career Tech Educators - Over 300 prompts broken down by different Career Tech subject areas, designed to help support educators with planning, differentiating, assessment, content creation, career exploration, and more.

AI Interactive Simulation Prompts for Career Tech - About 100 prompts that can be used to create engaging interactive simulations for career tech students. These allow the students to interact with AI for simulated interviews, problem-solving scenarios, work-based simulations, and more.

As with all of my resources, these prompt collections are completely free to access, modify, and use however you need. See below to get those documents.

Gemini's Guided Learning - Moving from Answers to Understanding

There are lots of ways that AI can be helpful to students, such as personalized learning, feedback, productivity support, and more.

The problem is, sometimes it can be a little too helpful.

A student might ask for assistance with a homework problem or an essay and the AI chatbot will simply do the problem or write the report. We want AI to support learners in their work, not do their work for them.

Thankfully Google has a helpful feature built right into Gemini that does just that. It's called "Guided Learning".

With Guided Learning, instead of just giving the student a quick answer, Gemini will explain some of the basic information, but will then ask the student questions to bring them into a discussion and encourage them to think critically.

See below for a short demonstration video and written directions on how you and your students can use Guided Learning.

EdTech Links - Week of 8-4-25

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!

Two Truths and a Lie - AI Prompt

"Two Truths and a Lie" is a classic game you can play with your students to see if they can guess which of your three statements is false.

This can be a great way to build critical thinking and subject area knowledge.

And this activity was invented by Abraham Lincoln.

Which of course is a lie. And that is how the game is played.

As a teacher you can create the statements for your students to evaluate. But wouldn't it be nice if we could use AI to help with this process. Well we can!

I have put together a prompt that you can use with your favorite AI chatbot to create an interactive “Two Truths and a Lie” game for any topic and any grade.

See below to get your copy of the prompt and see a short video about how it works.

Back-to-School Bootcamp with Banzai

I am excited and honored to be providing a keynote to kick off Banzai's free virtual "Back-to-School Bootcamp" on August 5, 2025 from 11am to 3pm MT (1pm to 5pm ET).

If you are not familiar with Banzai - https://banzai.org/ - here are some quick details about them:

• They provide totally free online courses for students in grades 3 through 12.
• The courses cover personal finance, digital citizenship, college and careers, and more.
• The courses are highly interactive with games and resources that allow students to make mistakes, learn, and succeed from the safety of their classroom.
• Teachers instantly view student progress with a powerful grading interface.
• Banzai complies fully with restrictions set by COPPA and FERPA, and does not store any personally identifiable information.
• And it really is free, thanks to the support of banks, credit unions, and other organizations.

You can sign up for my keynote here - Registration link - or sign up for any of the sessions on the Bootcamp website. I hope you can join us!

World Snorkl Day 2025 - Recorded Videos

I recently had the privilege of presenting a session for "World Snorkl Day". This was a free live streamed PD event with six hours of awesome content from amazing educators presenting a wide range of sessions to help you learn, explore, and apply Snorkl even better.

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.

This year I got to provide the closing session on "Level Up All Learners with Snorkl" where we did a deep dive into how Snorkl can support all students with feedback, personalized learning, accessibility, and more. 

See below for the 30-minute recording of my session, as well as links to all the other recorded sessions from the event.