EdTech Links - Week of 6-1-2026

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!

Googley Poetry Projects and Tools

April is the time of year

For kids to write a poem.
There's loads of fun activities
Here for you to show 'em.

Google tools can be used
To make the perfect rhyme,
With templates, tools, and writing prompts
To save your students time.

Draggable Drawings, random Sheets,
And Google Docs highlighting
Will give your students inspiration
For their creative writing.

So look below to find out more,
Then get your students on it,
Writing their ode, haiku, free verse,
Their ballad or their sonnet.

EdTech Links - Week of 2-2-2026

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!

Gemini Goes Bananas: The Ultimate Guide to AI Infographics

Recently Gemini released a big update to their image generation feature (code named Nano Banana Pro). This new version is more powerful and capable than ever, allowing Gemini to make images that are more detailed, realistic, and accurate.

One of the most interesting use cases I have seen for the new image model is generating infographics. In the past this was not possible as infographics typically have a lot of technical details that have to be presented properly for the result to have any real value.

You can get away with having a few errors in a photo of a landscape, but not in a timeline where the details are essential.

With Nano Banana Pro we now have:

• Legible Text Rendering: Words are spelled correctly without the dreaded "AI gibberish" text.
• Search Grounding: Because Gemini uses Google Search, the content in the infographics is up-to-date and accurate.
• Spatial Reasoning: Because this model understands layout, the structure and flow of the infographic aligns with the content being communicated.

I have been playing around with this new feature for a while now and am excited to share some infographic examples it has created, as well as some helpful tips and tricks to get the best results. See below for all the details and be sure to share your creations and suggestions with me.

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!

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!

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!

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!

Googley Poetry Projects and Tools

April is the time of year

For kids to write a poem.
There's loads of fun activities
Here for you to show 'em.

Google tools can be used
To make the perfect rhyme,
With templates, tools, and writing prompts
To save your students time.

Draggable Drawings, random Sheets,
And Google Docs highlighting
Will give your students inspiration
For their creative writing.

So look below to find out more,
Then get your students on it,
Writing their ode, haiku, free verse,
Their ballad or their sonnet.

AI Prompts for Differentiation

Artificial intelligence tools can be used in many ways to help support teaching and learning. You can check out my resource document "The ABC's of AI: What Educators Need to Know" at bit.ly/curts-ai for a wide range of practical examples of how you can use AI in your classroom.

One of the examples I share is using AI to assist with differentiation.

Many times when we think of differentiation, we might focus on how it can help support learners who may be struggling. However, differentiation is about supporting all learners. This can include:

• Students who are currently struggling
• Students who are on track
• Students who are excelling in their mastery of the content
• Students who learn in a variety of modalities
• And more

Below are five prompt templates for differentiation that you can copy, modify, and use however you need with your choice of AI chatbot. These include:

• 🌼 Bloom's Taxonomy
• 🚧 Zone of Proximal Development
• 🔱 Choice Board
• 🎚️ DOK Levels
• 🧩 Content, Process, and Product

Please feel free to share your suggestions for improvements to these prompts, or other prompts that are helpful in differentiation. You can always connect with me at ericcurts@gmail.com

Googley Valentine Activities

With Valentine's Day coming up, this is a great time to highlight some activities I really love! In this case I am talking about technology activities for students that tie into the holiday theme while also promoting creativity, math, and writing.

I this blog post I will be sharing four Valentine-themed projects that use Google tools. Each of these are ideas I have shared in the past, but I thought it would be helpful to bring them all together in one place.

• 📊 Hearts and Charts Google Sheets Math Activities
• 😍 Valentine Emoji Rebus Stories in Google Docs
• 🧲 Valentine Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings
• 💌 Valentine Cards with Google Drawings

Hopefully you find all of them to be fun ways to engage your students, while working on practical skills.

See below for a description of each activity, access to all the templates, and links to the original blog posts for the projects I am re-sharing. Hope you love them!

EdTech Cool Tool - Curipod

This post is Day 20 of my "Cool Tools 2023" series where we are exploring some of the year's best tools for teaching and learning.

This year we are focusing on artificial intelligence tools and how they can be used in schools.

You can access all of the cool tools in the series as they come out at bit.ly/cool-tools-23 and in this Google Slideshow.

For this entry in the series we are taking a look at: Curipod

See below for details, directions, uses, and links for this artificial intelligence resource. If you have used this tool, please consider sharing your experiences, how you have used it, tips, tricks, and more.

8 Googley Wintertime Activities for Kids

As we get closer to the holiday break, it is expected and understandable that our students start getting a little distracted. They are looking forward to lots of days off, holiday celebrations, gifts, and more. Let's be honest … we may be a little distracted as well.

 
This is a time of year when we look for some fun activities to keep our students focused and active. But we don't just want busy work. If possible it is great to find projects that are fun, tie into wintertime themes, and still provide our students with a chance to be creative, write, or improve some content area skills.

To help out with that, I have put together eight wintertime-themed activities that use free Google tools, including Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drawings:

⛄ Activity #1 - Build a Snowman with Google Slides

🎄 Activity #2 - Decorate a Holiday Tree with Google Slides

🧲 Activity #3 - Wintertime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

📬 Activity #4 - Holiday Greeting Cards with Google Drawings

🎁 Activity #5 - "12 Days of Christmas" Guided Google Sheets Math Activity

🌟 Activity #6 - Pixel Art Ornaments with Google Sheets

❄️ Activity #7 - Wintertime Emoji Rebus Stories with Google Docs

💡 Activity #8 - Holiday Lights Writing with Google Docs

Some of these are projects I have shared in the past, while others are new twists on previous posts. Hopefully some of these will be a good match for your students to keep them busy AND learning as we head into the holidays.

Import your Jamboards into FigJam

Google recently announced that they are shutting down Jamboard by the end of 2024. Thankfully Figma has partnered with Google to provide their tools absolutely free to educators and students.

One of their tools is FigJam which is an advanced collaborative whiteboarding tool with features including stamps, emotes, stickies, shapes, connectors, drawing tools, plugins, interactive widgets, and much more.

To help you get started with FigJam I recently hosted two webinars on the basics of using FigJam in your school, as well as going deeper into advanced topics, features, and uses.

To make this transition even easier, Figma has now announced the launch of their import tool for Jamboard. With this easy-to-use tool you can convert all of your existing Jams into FigJam files. See below for details on this new tool, as well as a helpful 2-minute video on how it works.

Cyber Assist: Using AI as Your Teaching Assistant

I recently had the opportunity to present a live-stream of my session "Cyber Assist: Using AI as Your Teaching Assistant" for the CuriCon virtual conference.

Curicon was a week-long series of live video sessions exploring artificial intelligence in education, presented by a wide range of amazing educators.

My session explored how we can use a wide range of AI tools to help us with our daily tasks as educators. Here is the session description:

Cyber Assist: Using AI as Your Teaching Assistant 

It has been said that with generative AI, every educator now has their own personal 24-hour assistant. Learn how to use tools such as ChatGPT, Google Bard, Curipod, EduaideAI, Conker, MagicSchoolAI, Twee, Diffit and more to help you generate presentations, create lessons, write emails, provide feedback and much more. Save more time so you can spend more time impacting students!

See below to watch the 30-minute recorded video, as well as access all of the resources from the session. And please share your ideas for how you use AI as your daily assistant. I am excited to learn from you!

FigJam for Schools Advanced Webinar

I recently had the pleasure to host an advanced webinar on FigJam for Schools, as a follow up to the introductory session I hosted last week.

As you have probably heard by now, Google has announced that they are shutting down Jamboard by the end of 2024. Thankfully Figma has partnered with Google to provide their tools absolutely free to educators and students.

One of their tools is FigJam which is an advanced collaborative whiteboarding tool with features including stamps, emotes, stickies, shapes, connectors, drawing tools, plugins, interactive widgets, and much more.

To help you get started with FigJam, and get the most out of it, I have hosted two webinars with David Curran, a former teacher who has recently joined the Figma for Edu team. These sessions covered all of the basics of using FigJam in your school, as well as going deeper into advanced topics, features, and uses.

See below for a recording of the advanced webinar, as well as the recording from the earlier introductory webinar, and resources from both sessions.

FigJam for Schools Intro Webinar

I recently had the pleasure to host a webinar on FigJam for Schools.

As you have probably heard by now, Google has announced that they are shutting down Jamboard by the end of 2024. Thankfully Figma has partnered with Google to provide their tools absolutely free to educators and students.

One of their tools is FigJam which is an advanced collaborative whiteboarding tool with features including stamps, emotes, stickies, shapes, connectors, drawing tools, plugins, interactive widgets, and much more.

To help you get started with FigJam, and get the most out of it, I hosted a webinar with David Curran, a former teacher who has recently joined the Figma for Edu team. This was an introductory webinar to cover all of the basics of using FigJam in your school.

We will also be hosting a follow-up webinar on October 10th to go deeper into the tool and answer questions we did not get to in this first webinar.

See below for a recording of the webinar, resources from the session, and details on the advanced webinar coming up.

FigJam for Schools Webinars

Google has recently announced that they are shutting down Jamboard by the end of 2024.

Thankfully Figma has partnered with Google to provide their tools absolutely free to educators and students. 

One of their tools is FigJam which is an advanced collaborative whiteboarding tool with features including stamps, emotes, stickies, shapes, connectors, drawing tools, plugins, interactive widgets, and much more.

You and your students can use FigJam to:

• Brainstorm ideas for projects and assignments with sticky notes, shapes, and freehand drawing.
• Organize thoughts and research with decision trees, diagrams, and mind maps.
• Collaborate with classmates and teachers in real time with feedback and comments.
• Plan and run group projects, presentations, and more.

To help you get started with FigJam, and get the most out of it, I will be hosting two free webinars in October. Whether you have never heard of FigJam, or if you want to dig deeper into it, these live-streamed training sessions will be super helpful.

See below for details on each webinar and the registration information. If you are unable to attend live, the sessions will be recorded and shared out afterwards. I look forward to learning with you!

Fabulous Features of Google Docs

Google Docs is a powerful word processing program with loads of useful features, and Google frequently adds new tools and options.

Even if you use Docs often, you may not use all of the features, or even be aware of some of them.

Recently I went through all the menus, settings, tools, and options in Docs to try to compile a list of some of my favorite features. I ended up with a list of 24 fabulous features of Google Docs which I am sharing below.

If you are new to Google Docs, or just a casual user, this list will help introduce you to the features that make Docs unique and powerful. Or if you are a seasoned user, hopefully you will pick up a few new ideas or reminders for tools that you can make more use of.

Either way, be sure to let me know what features I have left off the list that you would recommend, as well as how you use those features. I am excited to learn from you!

Active Learning with EduProtocols and Google Tools

I am always looking for activities that get students thinking critically, collaborating, creating, communicating, and basically being engaged in the learning process. Recently I had the opportunity to record a training session on just that.

The session was "Active Learning with Google Tools" which focuses on using EduProtocols with your students.

If you are not familiar with EduProtocols, they are defined as follows:

• EduProtocols are instructional lesson frames that are designed to engage students in learning through critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity.  
• EduProtocols can be used with any subject, any grade level, kindergarten through adult.

In this training session we explore three example EduProtocols including Sketch & Tell, Tier List, and Iron Chef.

See below for the 43-minute recorded video of the training, as well as access to the session resource documents and details.