Control Alt Achieve: EdTech Links

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 4 resources from my blog.

💎 Using, Creating & Sharing Gems in Google Gemini

Resource Link

As I have shared before, Gems are a great feature of Google Gemini where you can save a common prompt to use anytime you need. In addition to using the Gems yourself, you can also share them with others so they can benefit from them too. To help explain all the details of Gems and how they work, I recently recorded a short 12 minute tutorial video about Gems that covers the following topics:

❓ What are Gems?
🎁 Premade Gems from Google
🛠️ Creating a Gem
💎 Using a Gem
🔗 Sharing a Gem
💻 My EduGems Website

See the link above to watch the video, and be sure to visit my new EduGems.ai website where I share dozens of my favorite Gems for schools.

📢 New EduGems

Each week I try to add new Gems to my EduGems website. Since last newsletter, the following Gems have been added to the site:

📊 DOK Analysis - Quickly analyze any assessment to determine the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) level for each question
🔄 Station Rotations - Design a coherent, research-based station rotation lesson aligned with blended learning best practices
🪜 Learner Scaffolds - Create a structured, comprehensive, and evidence-based set of learning scaffolds that cover the full learning cycle (front-end, distributed, and back-end supports).

Click on any of the links above to access, use, and copy the Gems.

▶️ EnlightenAI Webinar

Resource Link

I recently recorded a webinar about one of my favorite AI tools for education - EnlightenAI. If you are not familiar with it, EnlightenAI is an AI-powered tool that works hand-in-hand with a teacher to assist in guided grading and personalized feedback for student writing. With EnlightenAI you can:

✍️ Import student writing
🤖 Train the AI on how you grade
🔎 Review & adjust the AI grades & feedback
💡 Get insights & activities for students
⏱️ Give instant feedback to students

And all of this comes in a robust free version! To learn all about EnlightenAI, see the link above to watch my recorded 1-hour webinar and to access the resources from the session.

🍑 My 2025 GaETC Sessions

Resource Link

I am excited and honored to be presenting at the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC 2025) in Atlanta, Georgia next week on November 5th and 6th, 2025.

You can access all the details and resources for the sessions I will be presenting at bit.ly/curts-gaetc25 or the link above.
If you are attending I hope to see you there! If you can't make it, be sure to check out all the resources in my post.

💬 Live Captions

Resource Link

I have shared about live captioning tools for spoken words in the past including the live captions in the new Chromebook Class Tools. This can be a great option for a student to see live captions of what is being said in their class right on their own device while their teacher is speaking, but does require the Education Plus tier of Google Workspace and only works on Chromebooks.

Recently I came across another option. This is a free Chrome extension called "Live Captions" that seemed to do a great job when I tested it. The free features of the extension include:

Captions live speech using your device's microphone
Works on pretty much any webpage (you do need to have something open for it to run since it is an extension)
Puts the live captions in a simple floating caption box that you can move and resize as needed.
Supports all major spoken languages for transcription
Allows you to download the transcript when done

There is a paid version that includes the option to translate your live captions instantly into another language, but the free version works great for non-translated captions.

✍️ Switch-Lit

Resource Link

Switch-Lit is a collaborative writing site (for ages 13 and above) where a user and a partner take turns writing a story together. This could be a fun option to encourage student writing. Here's the gist…

The user signs up for an account on the site (they do not share personal information with any third party vendors).
The user can then send an invite to someone they want to write with. This way a student can write with someone else they know in their class, rather than an unknown person online.
The users can decide how much each person should write on their turn.
Then each person simply takes turns writing, reading, and editing the story.

Every month, they also release new story prompts to help launch writers on their next collaborative fiction journey.

🧲 Class Crunch Labs

Resource Link

Class CrunchLabs is a free hands-on curriculum resource from Mark Rober (NASA engineer and YouTube science communicator) designed for state science standards to inspire student curiosity and creativity.

Topics range from energy to ecosystems to the solar system, with more being added.
Units include a teaching guide, classroom slides, student readings and handouts, assessments, and instructional videos.
Everything is free for teachers to use, and the hands-on classroom activities and teacher demos use common household supplies that are easy to find and low cost.
They are beginning with content aimed at Middle School, with upper elementary to be added in the future.

🎶 BrainZones: Chunk & Chant

Resource Link

Ever wish your lessons stuck with students a little longer? That’s exactly what BrainZones was built for — giving teachers quick, research-backed strategies that make learning more engaging and memorable.

One that always gets the room buzzing is Chunk & Chant. Break a lesson into small bites, add a simple rhythm or rhyme, then layer in claps, snaps, or gestures. Suddenly, recall turns into a group performance — and your students are still chanting the concepts days later.

💡 When you sign up (free!), you’ll get a 30-day Plus trial — including AI personalization. Type in something like “Elements of a story,” and BrainZones will tailor strategies to your exact lesson.

👉 Try Chunk & Chant + Explore BrainZones