Control Alt Achieve

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Podcast Spotlight - The Global Education Station

I recently had the pleasure to be a guest on the "The Global Education Station" podcast hosted by Annette Levesque.

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:

This unique podcast is dedicated to exploring the vast world of education through the voices of esteemed education leaders from around the globe. It's more than just a podcast; it's a virtual community where educators unite to learn from one another and grow collectively. Please join us for each episode as we delve into insightful conversations with top educators from universities, colleges, K-12 schools, and corporate training programs. Our guests share their personal journeys in education, discuss the challenges they've faced, and celebrate the triumphs they've achieved within their organizations.

I had a wonderful time chatting about:

How Brisk Teaching and Magic School streamline lesson planning and enhance classroom engagement.
The importance of free and accessible AI tools for teachers and students
How AI-powered platforms personalize learning and support differentiated instruction
Insights into Control Alt Achieve and its mission to empower educators with creative tech strategies
Why lifelong learning is crucial for educators in the ever-evolving digital landscape
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.

AI in Education Roundtable - Recorded Session

I recently had the pleasure and privilege to be a member of an AI in Education Roundtable that was hosted by Scott Fisher from GAT Labs.

I was joined by Jason Towne from Squirrel AI, and by Mandy DePriest from AI for Education, as we discussed the significance of incorporating AI tools to create personalized learning experiences that address individual student needs.

Some of the topics covered in the discussion included:

Exploring AI's Benefits in Education
Innovative AI Tools for Teaching
Engaging Students with AI
Motivation and Personalization through AI
Motivating Students in the Age of AI
Engaging Students with AI Activities
Identifying At-Risk Students with AI
Developing Soft Skills and Critical Thinking with AI

The session was recorded and you can watch the full video below, as well as access all of the resources shared throughout the roundtable discussion.

What's New in Google - March 2025

Catch up on everything new in Google Workspace for Education from March 2025, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our March 2025 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda with all the awesome resources and Google updates from the last few months. This includes lots of new Google updates and Google resources for your class.

The monthly meetings are hosted by the Google Educator Group of Ohio, but are open to anyone from any location. The purpose of these meetings is to:

Connect Google-using educators
Share the latest Google Workspace news and features
Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
Share best practices of how Google Workspace is being used within schools
Ask questions and get answers

The video from the meeting is recorded and available for later viewing for those who cannot attend or connect live. See below to view the recorded video, agenda, and all the resources from the March 2025 meeting:

EdTech Links - Week of 3-24-25

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!

Classroom Guidelines for Student AI Use - Free Adaptable Template

AI isn't coming - it's already here and it is not going away.

Classrooms around the world are seeing an explosion in the use of AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and more. Whether we are ready or not, our students are already using these tools, and will just keep experimenting with them more.

As educators, we need to help guide our students' use of AI so it’s productive, ethical, and supportive of learning. And what better place for them to learn about AI than our classrooms?

Now there are dozens and dozens of sample guidelines and policies for the classroom, and I have shared many of them in the past. Over the last few years I have reviewed these examples, spoken with educators across the country, and worked to identify the critical elements of classroom AI guidelines for students.

In the end I created two things:

A comprehensive template with classroom guidelines for student use of AI
A powerful prompt to help you modify my template to fit any grade level and any subject area

If you don't already have a set of AI guidelines for your classroom, or if you are looking to improve the guidelines you do have, then I believe this template and prompt will be a great asset to help get you there.

See below for access to the template and directions on how to use it for your students. And please email me with your suggestions for improving this template and process. I would love to hear your ideas and learn along with you!

EdTech Links - Week of 3-10-25

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!

Google Sheets Pi Day Projects

Pi Day is March 14th each year (since the date is 3/14 and Pi starts out with 3.14). As a previous middle school math teacher, this is always a fun day to be a math nerd, do Pi-themed educational activities, and of course eat some real pie!

Over the years I have shared several technology activities for celebrating Pi Day in separate posts. This year I have pulled all those together in one place including: