Saturday, February 15, 2025

Give Your Students a Voice - Be An Author Month 2025

This blog post is sponsored by Book Creator, but all opinions are mine.

Book Creator has long been one of my favorite EdTech tools, providing students with both the inspiration and the tools to tell stories, share their ideas, and let their voices be heard.

I have often shared about Book Creator, including how this tool can be used to help students write and illustrate their stories. For more details on that, see my earlier blog post and tutorial video here - "Book Creator Pen Tools - Let Your Inner Illustrator Come Alive!"

Well March is "Be An Author Month" and Book Creator is helping to celebrate it through activities, webinars, templates, and a personal narrative competition for all students.

Writing is a passion of mine, including this blog, my "Control Alt Achieve" book, my poetry for kids, my essays on wellbeing, and more. I am so excited for resources that support and inspire students to write.

See below for all the details on how you can access these free resources and engage your students in the writing activities.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

EdTech Links - Week of 2-10-25

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!

Sunday, February 9, 2025

AI-AI-Oh! Awesome AI Uses in Education

Artificial Intelligence can be used in so many different ways in schools to improve teaching, learning, creativity, productivity, support, and more for educators and students.

Recently I recorded a 45-minute webinar where I covered a wide range of helpful and creative ways to use AI in schools

To bring some order to my examples, I organized them into six categories including:

  • 🤔 Brainstorming
  • ✍️ Creating Content
  • ✂️ Altering Content
  • 🔎 Processing Information
  • 💯 Grading and Feedback
  • 🗣️ Student Conversations

See below to watch the recorded video, as well as access the session resource document and slideshow. And please reach out to me to let me know your suggestions for other AI uses. I am excited to learn with you!

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

EdTech Links of the Week - 2-4-25

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!

Thursday, January 30, 2025

What's New in Google - January 2025

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

Below is the recorded video from our January 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 January 2025 meeting:

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Boost Student Learning with Brisk Teaching

Brisk Teaching is one of my favorite educational AI tools which I have shared about often on this blog.

I usually refer to Brisk Teaching as the "Swiss Army Knife of AI Tools for Schools" because of all the things you are able to do with it from creating content, to generating feedback, to re-leveling text, to so much more.

In addition to all of those uses, recently Brisk added a new feature that is easily one of my favorites… Brisk Boost activities for students!

With Brisk Boost:
  • Educators can create school-safe student-friendly "Boost" activities with customized AI chatbots that students can interact with.
  • These can include chatbots for tutoring, chatting with a character, debating, brainstorming, exit tickets and more.
  • And Brisk records everything typed by the student and the AI so you can review it and learn how best to support your learners.
Recently I had the pleasure to present a booth session at FETC on how to use Brisk Teaching for students. See below for the 25 minute recorded video of that presentation to learn all about creating Brisk Boost activities, the student experience, and the teacher experience.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

EdTech Links of the Week - 1-28-25

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!