A Teacher's Guide to EdTech: August Edition
Lindy Hockenbary
I partner with K–12 schools & EdTech companies to maximize the use of educational technology to create powerful modern learning experiences. Find help with instructional tech: AI, immersive learning, Minecraft.
Back to School Season
August was as eventful as ever. Thus you're receiving the August email newsletter in the early days of September. This introduces my new motto:
I promise this newsletter will be worth the wait, as I was working to bring you a deep dive, two-part blog post on AI in education.
Dear Educator
You need to know how AI will change the world.
"On your commute to school, your self-driving car communicates with other vehicles and traffic systems, ensuring a smooth and safe journey. You use this time to provide feedback to students and send them personalized messages. The city around you is alive with AI: smart lampposts monitor air quality, drones deliver packages to your front door, and AI-driven urban farms produce fresh, local produce for your school cafeteria."
Update: "A Teacher's Guide to AI"
Thank you to those who provided feedback on the content of A Teacher's Guide to AI. Based on that feedback, it is possible that it is going to be more than a mini-book as I originally planned. ?? ?? If you know me, this probably isn't much of a surprise. ??♀? Go big or go home is another motto of mine! Regardless, I am still working to ensure affordability and get it out swiftly (because I know educators need help with AI...yesterday).
Watch for an Amazon pre-order page soon. In the meantime, I need more help!
I need readers and reviewers. How does being a reader/reviewer benefit you??
I need:
The form includes more details. Complete the short form to express interest:
Tech Tool Spotlight: Recast
A key principle of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is multiple means of representation, which emphasizes providing content in diverse forms to cater to differing cognitive processes. Content could be provided in text, video, audio, or other multimedia formats. Providing multiple means of representative has been a challenge for many educators . . . until now.
Generative AI has made it possible to quickly and easily take one piece of content and repurpose that content into various formats. (If you are a reader of my blog, you may have seen that I have started to provide my blog content in multiple formats over the last few months).
So far, my favorite tool for providing multiple means of representation is recast, which summarizes provided text and turns the summary into a podcast format. You read that correct. Multiple AI voices host a podcast about the content. You have to try it out yourself to believe it. Here is an example recast from this blog post.
Recast is a freemium tool. You can recast text from a variety of websites for free. You can upgrade to recast any website. This and ChatGPT Plus are the only AI tools I have purchased (watch for a blog post on why soon).
Where in the World Is Lindy?
August is for AI (and immersive learning).
I visited two Montana schools to help teachers navigate the curricular impacts of AI.
We played "Chopped: AI Stars" as one example of an AI-friendly learning task.
I visited schools in California and Illinois and helped teachers learn how to integrate virtual reality as a learning tool.
Immersive learning is the future!
Explore AI...Now
My takeaway from working with educators this past month on everything AI in education:
Educators must explore AI tools as soon as possible.
For one, this is the only way we will keep up with the ever-changing AI landscape and be able to make needed instructional changes. Secondly, AI has the potential to save you a lot of time! And every educator needs more time.
I have filtered my Wakelet collection to include only tools relevant to educators. I have also organized the collection into categories of AI tools: accessibility, audio generation, avatars, policies, etc. If you need a starting place, pick one category that interests you and start clicking!
If the Wakelet collection is overwhelming, this blog post features five of my favorite AI tools for educators.
Free Learning Opportunities
Generative AI: The New School Supply?
A webinar where I spoke on assessing learning in the age of AI.
You can listen on the CoSN podcast for free. The full episode is one hour; my part starts at minute 0:43.
Ped-AI-gogy: Teaching with Hāpara in a Generative AI World?
How do you assess learning when generative AI can complete traditional assessments with a high level of accuracy?
Even if you don't use Hāpara, you will still get a lot from this session.
To watch the replay:
Book Study
"I wanted to share that I am loving your book so far! I pitched it to our leadership and it is going to be a part of our Lit Circle (book study) this year!"—Megan Buchanan, Teacher, Bethel Virtual Academy
If your school wants to use a book in the A Teacher's Guide series for a book study, reach out and let me know how I can support you. I would love to host a discussion, be a guest visitor, or lead a webinar.
ScreenPal Giveaway of A Teacher's Guide to Online Learning
ScreenPal is doing a giveaway of my book, A Teacher's Guide to Online Learning. This is the final week to enter!
More Templates
I have added and enhanced my "Snapchat" templates: