I was interviewed on Dr. Greg Walkup and David Miller's Bulldog Bites podcast. We discussed teaching in the 1900s, Palm Pilots, and the evolution of podcasting. #GaETC25 youtu.be/eoSz0EsqL48?...

If you want to see a thoughtful approach to AI in K12, this article shows how CBCSD is doing it: clear guidelines, teacher voice, and classroom-ready ideas.

The newest issue of my Learning in Hand newsletter features a clever 3D printed sign, a handy new Canva feature, and a fresh math app! #EduSky learninginhand.com/issue47 ⚙️ 3D Printed Possibilities ⚠️ Seats and Signs 🎙 Plugged into Podcasting 📐 Authoring Angle Ace 🎨 Style Switcheroo 🚸 AI Adventures

Tip Tuesday! Both Gemini and ChatGPT have a Deep Research mode that searches the web for you and delivers a detailed, cited report of what it finds. Great for learning about a new topic, product comparisons, and professional learning.

Tip Tuesday! Upload an image and ask an AI chatbot, "Write two versions of alt text for this image." Compare the results and choose the one that works best.

A good reminder for teachers: AI isn’t a reliable science illustrator. www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Tony is tech support for Halloween! 👨💻 Check out the shapes and word art used to draw this comic in #GoogleSlides. 👀 # EduSky #EdTech #DigitalArt

Presenting with Canva today? Special Halloween Magic Shortcuts are here! While in Present view, pressing... 🕷️ S drops a spider from the top of the screen. 👻 G summons a ghost to float across the screen. These spooky shortcuts are temporary and will disappear after Halloween.

Play Halloween Jeopardy in your classroom! Pre-made games on Factile provide team management, buzzers, and score keeping. 👍 Read about it in Issue 46 of Learning in Hand: learninginhand.com/issue46

Looking for a scary Halloween activity that can connect to any subject? 🎃 Use GHOST WRITER for a quick write, brain dump, rough draft builder, or think-pair-share starter. #EduSky What's scary about it? One you start typing, don't stop too long, or your words will vanish! 👻 tonyv.me/ghostwriter

Issue 46 is a mix of spooky, creative, and fun #EdTech! Take a look: learninginhand.com/issue46 🧟 Fang-tastic Fun with Factile 🎨 Perfecting Perspective 👻 Creepy Canva 🎬 Fun (and Flawed) Films ✂️ Cricut for Classrooms 💡 Batch of Bests

Tip Tuesday! For perfect alignment, hold Shift while dragging. Your object will only move straight up or straight across. Works in Google Slides, PowerPoint, Illustrator, and others design apps.

Help students use AI in a way that keeps their own brains doing the learning, practicing, and reasoning. In Issue 45 of my newsletter, I share a one-pager of prompts designed to put the cognitive load back on students. learninginhand.com/issue45

Tip Tuesday! On iPhone and iPad, you can quickly save an image without its background. In Photos, press and hold on the subject of the image, choose Share, then Save Image. The picture is saved to your Photos app as a PNG with a transparent background.

In case you're not on the Shapegrams mailing list, this just went out. See how I drew a glitchy ghost with shapes in Google Slides. 👻 birdsend.page/7854/J2kfJ7W...

Ghost Writer 👻 is here! If you stop typing, your words vanish! Read how teachers can use it for quick writes, brain dumps, and more in Issue 45. learninginhand.com/issue45

Issue 45 is here! Inside: 👻 Ghost Writer app for flow writing ✏️ 3D printed pencil sleeves 🤔 AI prompts for student thinking 🎩 My favorite hat: Shapegrams! Read now: learninginhand.com/issue45 #EduSky #EdTech #Teaching

Wakelet is trimming back its free features to stay sustainable and ad-free. Free accounts will be limited to 3 editable collections and 50 items per collection. All other collections you might have will become read only. Unlimited plans are $90/year. #EduSky

Tip Tuesday! See the emails you have subscribed to in Gmail and easily unsubscribe by opening this link: mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sub

Curious about AI slideshow tools? I wrote about my 6 top tools for drafting slide decks and go into detail about the one that works best. 👇

ChatGPT helped me code this game: Six or Seven. 😉 Players decide if each falling expression equals 6 or 7, with four modes suited for Grades 3–8. tonyv.me/sixorseven

Tip Tuesday! Got an phone with Apple Intelligence and iOS 26? Go to Settings → Camera → Lens Cleaning Hints When turned on, a message displays when the camera lens should be cleaned to improve image quality.

Wanna see a cool trick for dividing a slide into even sections? Check out Issue 44 and scroll down to "Page Partitioning." #EduSky #EdTech learninginhand.com/issue44

Curious about AI slideshow tools? Check out Gamma for quick, editable decks you can share anywhere.

So much to explore in Issue 44! #EduSky 🫴 Six or Seven 🕵 Element Exploration 🔲 Page Partitioning 📲 Transparent Trick 🧠 Slide Smarts 📤 Subscription Shortcut learninginhand.com/issue44

Tip Tuesday! Chrome can generate captions for any audio or video in your browser. 1️⃣ Play audio or video. 2️⃣ Click the Media Control icon (≡♪) in the top toolbar. 3️⃣ Toggle on Live Captions. A black box will appear, transcribing the spoken words in real time.

Tip Tuesday! Got a phone with Apple Intelligence on iOS 26? 1️⃣ Take a screenshot. 2️⃣ Tap Add to Calendar in the smart actions at the bottom. 3️⃣ Preview the event that is drafted from details in the screenshot. 4️⃣ Edit if needed before confirming the event.

If you’ve played classroom buzz-in games, you know one team can dominate. Factile’s new Buzz-In Sequence Randomizer lets teachers shuffle the order of who buzzed in, giving every student a fair chance to shine. www.playfactile.com #Sponsored #EdTech

Go from a PDF to a complete classroom Jeopardy experience! Upload a PDF to Factile, and its AI will generate Jeopardy questions and answers straight from your material. www.playfactile.com #Sponsored #EdTech

Go from a PDF to a complete classroom Jeopardy experience! Upload a PDF to Factile, and its AI will generate Jeopardy questions and answers straight from your material. www.playfactile.com #Sponsored #EdTech

New tools and ideas are waiting for you in Learning in Hand Issue 43: 🤩 Fantastic Factile 🎯 Targets that Tie to Tomorrow 🖨️ Piece by Piece Posters 💬 Chrome’s Captions 🔗 URL Upgrades 🍁 Fall Fonts learninginhand.com/issue43 #EduSky #EdTech

Tip Tuesday! You can suggest meeting times right inside Gmail. When you’re writing an email, click ⋮ → 🗓️ Set up a time to meet → ✅ Propose times you’re free. Then enter the dates and times that work for you. The recipient chooses a slot and a calendar event is added for both of you.

I'm sharing low-prep activities that tap into the brain's natural desire to make predictions, resolve uncertainty, and discover what comes next. #EduSky Join me Tuesday, September 16 at 3pm Central Time. Register for free: figma.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Want AI to draft a series of slides about any topic for you? You've got options... learninginhand.com/blog/2025/ai...

Listen to my 5 minute chat with Carl Hooker on The Idea Spark (a mini-podcast series, from EdSurge Solutions Studio). We chat about AI, deep work, and getting into a flow state. #EduSky

Tip Tuesday! Triple-click text to select the entire line or paragraph. It's faster than dragging your mouse to select the text.

If you want more clever teaching tips, tricks, and tools, I highly recommend subscribing to Matt Miller’s Ditch That Textbook newsletter. Check out the Ditch That Textbook Archive, where you can read issues going back two years!

🔴 Most Shapegrams require a membership, but not this new one! 🟢 Maybe this is your signal to give my digital art challenges a try?

Brisk Teaching is always a crowd-pleaser in my workshops. Teachers love the extension that streamlines tasks. But have you tried Brisk Next? It’s a teacher’s hub for insights, resources, activity management, and next instructional moves. 👉 Read more in my newsletter: learninginhand.com/issue42

Brisk Teaching is AI teachers can use for free. It can do a lot, and it helps to see it broken down into 6 core tools: 📝 Create 💬 Give Feedback 🔎 Inspect Writing 📖 Change Level 🎒 Brisk Boost 🏠 Brisk Next www.briskteaching.com #Sponsored #EdTech #AIinEducation

Brisk Teaching is always a crowd-pleaser in my workshops. Teachers love the extension that streamlines tasks. But have you tried Brisk Next? It’s a teacher’s hub for insights, resources, activity management, and next instructional moves. 👉 Read more in my newsletter: learninginhand.com/issue42

New issue of Learning in Hand is live, complete with its signature alliterative headings: learninginhand.com/issue42 🔀 Directional Differences 🌟 Next-Level Teaching with Brisk 🗓️ Calendar of Curiosity & Creativity 📺 Cord-Free Confidence 📖 So-So Stories 💁🏼 Helpful Handout

I wrote a book! It's a 92-page PDF full of one-pagers about making digital art in Google Slides and Drawings. The only way to get it is to be a Shapegrams member for $35. 🙃 #EduSky #EdTech shapegrams.com/pdf

Tip Tuesday! Have a GIF that plays too fast? Upload it to EZGIF and lower the speed to under 100%. #EduSky ezgif.com/speed

Everything mentioned in Learning in Hand Issue 41 is free! 👉 learninginhand.com/issue41 👥 AI Summit 🛟 AI Unit Builder 🆕 Google Slides Update 📖 Guided Learning in Gemini 😎 Thinking "covertly" 💻 Digital Norms Notebook 💬 AI Lingo Explained 🚸 EdTech Tools Webinar

Did you know Google Slides and Drawings work a little differently now? Check out 3 updates that affect nudging and scaling. #GoogleEdu #EduSky

I’m presenting a free webinar! Join me for “The Curiosity Effect: Irresistible FigJam Activities” Tues, Sept 16 at 3pm CDT. Learn about FigJam while exploring how surprise, anticipation, and prediction can help students stay focused and excited to learn.

Keep answer short and sweet OR make students write more in Google Forms. Use Response Validation to set a minimum or maximum character count for a response. The form won't submit unless the response fits the rule. #EduSky #GoogleEdu

Tip Tuesday! Set up keyboard shortcuts like /rubric, /sva, or /commas to instantly paste your full rubric or your most common comments with the Text Blaze extension for Chrome. (via Donnie Piercey) #EduSky chromewebstore.google.com/detail/text-...

I used TeachAid to generate a week-long AI literacy unit, complete with daily lessons, interactive slides, activities, exit tickets, and assessments! It’s customizable, and it can differentiate everything it generates. See how it works → teachaid.ca #Sponsored #AIinEdu