Category: tutorials

  • Transform Your Classroom with Google Workspace AI Tools

    Transform Your Classroom with Google Workspace AI Tools

    The 2025-2026 school year brought a wave of powerful AI-enhanced tools to Google Workspace for Education. These aren”t just shiny new features—they’re practical classroom tools designed to save you time, personalize learning, and unlock student creativity. Best of all? Most are free for educators and students. Now that 2026 is upon us, I am excited to share with you some of my favorite new features that can be used in your classroom with your students. If you are already using these, I’d love to hear from you and learn how you are exploring AI and Google Workspace in your classrooms.

    Let’s walk through the standout Google features you should try with your students this year.

    Google Gemini for Education: Your AI Teaching Assistant

    Google Gemini isn’t just another chatbot. It’s an AI assistant built directly into the Google apps you already use—Docs, Slides, Sheets, Gmail, and Classroom. No more copying and pasting between tabs.

    • Why it matters: Gemini 2.5 Pro incorporates LearnLM, making it the world’s leading model for learning. It’s purpose-built for education with enterprise-grade data protection. Your data isn’t reviewed or used to train AI models.
    • Try this on Monday: Ask Gemini to “Create a lesson plan on photosynthesis aligned to NGSS standards” or “Generate a 25-question multiple choice practice exam from this syllabus.”

    Key Features for K-12 Classrooms:

    Deep Research — Students can research complex topics and receive synthesized reports with sources and citations in minutes. Instead of spending hours searching, they get a comprehensive report they can then explore further.

    Gemini Canvas — Create quizzes, practice tests, study guides, and visual timelines in one interactive space. Go from blank slate to dynamic preview in minutes. Students can build interactive prototypes and code snippets without knowing how to code.

    Gemini Live — Students can talk through complex concepts, get real-time help, and even share their screen or camera for personalized feedback on problem sets.

    What Are Google Gems?

    Think of a Gem as a specialized AI assistant you create for a specific purpose. Instead of writing the same prompt over and over in Gemini, you build a Gem once with custom instructions, and it becomes your go-to expert for that task.

    The difference: Regular Gemini is a generalist. A Gem is a specialist.

    For example, instead of typing “Create a Jeopardy game about the water cycle for 5th grade” every time you need a review game, you create a “Jeopardy Game” Gem that already knows your grade level, subject area, and preferred format. Then you just give it the topic.

    Creating Custom Gems: Build Your Own AI Experts

    Once you’re comfortable with Gemini, Google Gems let you create custom AI assistants tailored to your classroom needs.

    How it works: Give Gemini instructions, examples, and resources so it behaves exactly how you need it to. Upload unit plans, pacing guides, rubrics, or anchor texts so your Gem can reference them when creating content.

    Teacher-facing Gems:

    • Lesson Plan Generator — Aligned to your specific standards and teaching style
    • Parent Communicator — Drafts emails that match your tone and school policies
    • Emergency Sub Plan — Creates ready-to-go activities when you’re out sick
    • Standards Unpacker — Breaks down complex standards into teachable chunks

    Student-facing Gems: Create a Gem and share it with your class through Google Classroom. Students interact with your custom AI expert independently.

    • AI Tutor — Provides step-by-step help without giving away answers
    • Writing Coach — Gives feedback on essays and helps students revise
    • Study Partner — Creates practice questions from their notes
    • Career Explorer — Helps students research potential career paths

    EduGems: Pre-Made Gems by Eric Curts

    Don’t want to build Gems from scratch? Eric Curts (Control Alt Achieve) created EduGems—a growing library of ready-to-use Gems organized by category.

    How to use EduGems:

    1. Visit edugems.ai
    2. Browse by category or search for what you need
    3. Click any Gem to see details
    4. Click “Use” to open it in Gemini, or “Copy” to customize it
    • 🧑‍🏫 AI Tutor — Guides students through problems with questions, not answers. Great for homework help and independent practice.
    • 🎭 Reader’s Theater — Converts stories or historical events into scripts students can perform. Brings content to life through drama.
    • ❓ Jeopardy Game — Creates Jeopardy-style review games on any topic. Perfect for test prep and engagement.
    • 🤔 Student Brainstorming — Helps students generate and organize ideas for projects and writing assignments.
    • 💼 Career Explorer — Students explore career paths, learn about required education, and discover related occupations.
    • 📋 Lesson Plan — Generates complete lesson plans with objectives, activities, and assessments.
    • 📦 Standards Unpacker — Takes complex standards and breaks them into clear learning targets.
    • 🚨 Emergency Sub Plan — Creates complete sub plans with activities, materials, and instructions.
    • 🔀 Re-level Text — Adjusts reading level of any text for differentiation.
    • 📊 Assessment Data Analyzer — Analyzes assessment results and suggests targeted interventions.

    EduGems Categories:

    • Curriculum & Lesson Design (13 Gems) — Lesson plans, unit plans, choice boards, station rotations
    • Student Activities (11 Gems) — Games, simulations, debates, interviews
    • Assessment (15 Gems) — Quizzes, rubrics, test prep, data analysis
    • Support (14 Gems) — Accommodations, scaffolds, behavior plans, social stories
    • Literacy & Language (6 Gems) — Decodable texts, discussion prompts, sentence starters
    • Professional Tasks (11 Gems) — Newsletters, recommendation letters, PD plans

    Pro tip: Start with EduGems to see how effective Gems work, then customize them for your specific needs. You can also submit your own Gems to be added to the collection.

    Learn more: Watch Eric Curts’ complete Gems tutorial video or explore his AI resources at controlaltachieve.com.

    NotebookLM: Your AI Research Assistant

    Teachers and students work with overwhelming amounts of information. NotebookLM becomes an instant expert on whatever documents you upload.

    What makes it special: It grounds all responses in the specific documents you provide—no hallucinations, no random internet sources.

    Features you’ll use:

    • Audio Overviews — Turn lecture recordings, textbook chapters, or research papers into podcast-style audio summaries. Students can study anywhere—on the bus, at practice, during their commute.
    • Document synthesis — Upload PDFs, articles, unit plans, and curriculum resources. Ask questions and get answers pulled directly from your materials. Create summaries, study guides, and student-friendly resources instantly.
    • Student independence — Help students understand complex texts without constant teacher intervention. They can ask clarifying questions and get explanations grounded in their assigned readings.

    Google Vids: Create Professional Video Content in Minutes

    Student attention spans are shrinking, and teachers need tools to deliver content that sticks. Google Vids is Google’s answer: an AI-powered video creation tool that lives right in your Google Workspace.

    What Makes Google Vids Different?

    Think Google Slides turned 90 degrees—instead of slides arranged vertically, you work with scenes arranged horizontally. If you can use Google Slides, you can use Google Vids. But here’s the game-changer: it’s powered by Gemini AI.

    The “Help me create” feature: Type what you want to create (“Make a 3-minute tutorial on the water cycle for 5th grade”), and Google Vids generates a complete first draft in under 60 seconds—script, visuals, timing, transitions, and all. You customize from there instead of starting from scratch.

    Key Features Teachers Love:

    • AI-Powered Creation — Describe your video in a sentence, and Gemini builds the first draft for you. Add your own screenshots, adjust the timing, choose AI voice or record your own.
    • Convert Slides to Videos — Already have a Google Slides presentation? Import it into Vids and transform it into an engaging video with music, transitions, and narration in minutes.
    • Stock Media Library — Access thousands of royalty-free videos, images, music tracks, sound effects, GIFs, and stickers without leaving the platform.
    • Professional Templates — Start with beautifully designed templates for tutorials, announcements, student projects, and more.
    • Real-Time Collaboration — Work together on video projects just like you would in Google Docs. Perfect for group projects or co-planning with colleagues.
    • Seamless Google Classroom Integration — Assign videos as templates so each student gets their own copy. Review student work directly in Classroom and see their progress in real-time.

    For Teachers: Scale Your Impact

    Create professional development videos, flipped classroom content, and instructional materials in 20-30 minutes instead of 2-3 hours.

    Practical use cases:

    • Tool tutorials — Record once, share forever. Every new teacher gets instant access to training.
    • Flipped lessons — Create micro-lectures students watch at home, freeing up class time for hands-on work.
    • Lab procedures — Record safety demos and complex procedures students can review anytime.
    • Personalized feedback — Send quick video messages instead of lengthy written comments.
    • Professional development — Build a library of PD resources teachers can access on-demand.

    For Students: Voice, Choice, and Creativity

    Google Vids gives students an accessible way to demonstrate understanding without needing advanced tech skills.

    Student projects:

    • Video essays — Students explain their thinking, cite sources, and present arguments visually.
    • Book reports — Create “movie trailers” for novels or informational texts.
    • Science demonstrations — Record experiments with narration explaining the process.
    • Digital portfolios — Showcase learning growth throughout the year.
    • Public service announcements — Combine research with persuasive communication skills.

    Scaffolding tip: Start simple. Have students brainstorm in Google Keep, create a 3-slide presentation in Slides, import those slides into Vids, replace slides with video B-roll, add music and transitions. This progression teaches cross-tool workflows while building video literacy skills.

    Getting Started is Simple

    Access Google Vids at vids.google.com or vids.new. No software to download, no complicated setup.

    Three ways to start:

    1. Record — Easiest for screencasts and quick tutorials on Chromebooks
    2. Use templates — Start with professional designs for various purposes
    3. “Help me create” — Describe what you want and let AI build the first draft

    Videos save automatically to Google Drive. Share through Classroom, Drive links, or export as MP4 files.

    Why It Matters for K-12

    Google Vids democratizes video creation. Students and teachers without technical expertise or expensive software can now create professional-looking content. This levels the playing field and opens doors for creativity that were previously closed.

    Want the complete guide? Check out these in-depth resources:

    Getting Started: Your Action Plan

    This week:

    1. Visit gemini.google.com with your school Google account
    2. Ask it to create one lesson plan or assessment
    3. Try Deep Research on a topic you’re teaching next week

    This month:

    1. Create your first custom Gem for a unit you teach frequently
    2. Have students upload their notes to NotebookLM and create an Audio Overview
    3. Record one instructional video in Google Vids

    This semester:

    1. Share the college student offer with your seniors
    2. Build a library of custom Gems for different units
    3. Let students create their own Gems as study partners
    4. Assign a Google Vids project—have students create a 2-minute video explaining a concept, book report trailer, or science demonstration

    One Important Reminder

    With all these powerful AI tools at our fingertips, don’t forget that the most meaningful learning still happens through conversation, hands-on exploration, and human connection. Technology should enhance—not replace—the relationships and dialogue that make your classroom special.

    Use these tools to reclaim your time and energy so you can focus on what matters most: your students.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Want to Learn More?

    Take a free course: Getting Started with Google AI from Google for Education

    Explore use cases: 100+ ways to use Gemini in education

    Deep dive: Teaching Channel’s course 5381: Teaching with Google’s AI Tools covers Gemini, NotebookLM, Google Vids, and image creation

    Ready to try one of these features? Pick just one from this list and test it this week. Reply and let me know which one you chose and how it went.

    • Jeff Bradbury, your digital learning coach 🎸

    Don’t Miss the Next EdTech Breakthrough

    Google isn’t done innovating, and neither are dozens of other EdTech companies building tools specifically for K-12 educators. New features drop every month—some game-changers, some duds.

    I test them all so you don’t have to.

    Join 20,000+ educators who get my weekly newsletter with:

    ✅ Early access to tutorials on new classroom tech

    ✅ Honest reviews (I’ll tell you when something isn’t worth your time)

    ✅ Ready-to-steal lesson ideas and project templates

    ✅ Time-saving workflows that actually work in real classrooms

    No fluff. No vendor pitches. Just practical strategies from a teacher who’s actually using these tools with students.

    Subscribe to the TeacherCast Newsletter →

    Upgrade Your Teaching Toolkit Today

    Get weekly EdTech tips, tool tutorials, and podcast highlights delivered to your inbox. Plus, receive a free chapter from my book Impact Standards when you join.

    Discover more from TeacherCast Educational Network | Developing Standards-Based Instructional Technology Integration

    Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

    Source link

  • Transform Your Instructional Coaching with Notebook LM Today

    Transform Your Instructional Coaching with Notebook LM Today

    Jeffrey D. Bradbury
    Latest posts by Jeffrey D. Bradbury (see all)

    TL:DR – Key Takeaways

    • NotebookLM for Instructional Coaches revolutionizes resource management by allowing coaches to use their specific materials instead of generic AI outputs.
    • The tool helps create professional development materials quickly, enabling coaches to synthesize various sources effortlessly.
    • NotebookLM offers unique features like audio overviews, video explanations, and infographics, enhancing the way coaches present information.
    • Coaches can organize notebooks by purpose, rename their sources for clarity, and customize responses for different audiences.
    • Joining communities like GEG helps coaches share strategies and stay updated on innovative practices using NotebookLM.

    As an instructional coach, you’re constantly juggling multiple responsibilities—supporting teachers, creating professional development materials, organizing resources, and staying current with educational technology. What if there was a tool that could help you synthesize information, create engaging content, and save hours of prep time? Enter NotebookLM, Google’s AI-powered workspace that’s revolutionizing how coaches work with information.

    What Makes NotebookLM Different for Coaches?

    Unlike general AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini that pull from the entire web, NotebookLM gives you complete control over your sources. You choose exactly what information goes in—whether it’s your district’s strategic plan, professional development materials, curriculum documents, or teacher resources—and NotebookLM works exclusively with that content.

    This is a game-changer for instructional coaches. You’re not getting generic advice or hallucinated information. You’re getting insights, summaries, and resources based on your specific materials, aligned to your district’s goals, and tailored to your teachers’ needs.

    Real-World Applications for Instructional Coaches

    Creating PD Materials in Minutes

    Imagine this scenario: You’ve gathered resources about implementing Google Workspace tools in the classroom. You have PDFs, website links, video tutorials, and Google Docs with implementation guides. Instead of manually synthesizing all this information, you can upload these sources to NotebookLM and ask it to create a newsletter for teachers, generate a quick-start guide, or develop talking points for your next coaching session.

    One coach recently used NotebookLM to record a 40-minute lesson observation, uploaded the audio as a source, and asked it to create professional development slides with detailed presenter notes. The tool generated beautiful, comprehensive slides that captured the key teaching strategies demonstrated in that lesson—all without the coach spending hours creating materials from scratch.

    Building Notebooks for School Leaders

    Several coaches are now creating custom notebooks for their school leaders that include strategic plans, policy documents, and instructional frameworks. School leaders can then interact with these notebooks to get quick answers, generate reports, or explore connections between different initiatives—all while staying grounded in the district’s actual documents.

    Powerful Features That Save Coaches Time

    Audio Overviews (The Podcast Feature)

    One of NotebookLM’s most popular features creates AI-generated podcast discussions from your sources. Upload your curriculum materials, coaching protocols, or meeting notes, and NotebookLM will generate a conversational audio overview that makes complex information more digestible. These “deep dive” or “brief” options let you control the length and depth—perfect for sharing with busy teachers who prefer audio learning.

    Video Overviews with Visual Styles

    The newest feature generates explainer videos complete with visuals, making it easier to create engaging PD content. You can choose from multiple visual styles and customize what the video focuses on—ensuring the content stays relevant to your coaching goals rather than pulling in extraneous information.

    Infographics and Slide Decks

    Need to create professional-looking materials quickly? NotebookLM can generate infographics in landscape, portrait, or square formats, and create slide decks in both detailed and presenter modes. The image generation has improved dramatically, producing visuals that look polished and professional—often better than what many of us could create manually in the same timeframe.

    Smart Strategies for Instructional Coaches

    Organize by Purpose

    Should you create one massive notebook with all your coaching resources, or multiple smaller ones? Most coaches find success with focused notebooks organized by purpose—perhaps one for Google Workspace training, another for literacy coaching, and another for new teacher support. This approach allows you to keep sources relevant and responses targeted.

    Rename Your Sources

    When you upload documents, rename them to something meaningful for your audience. Instead of “Google_Docs_Editor_Help_Final_v3.pdf,” rename it to “How to Create a Google Doc for Teachers.” This becomes especially important when sharing notebooks with teachers who need to understand what sources are included.

    Customize for Your Audience

    The new “Configure Chat” feature lets you set how NotebookLM responds. You can create prompts that tell the tool to speak at a second-grade reading level, communicate with teachers who aren’t tech-savvy, or address cabinet-level administrators. This customization ensures the responses match your audience’s needs.

    Share Strategically

    In education domains, you can share notebooks within your district, either giving full access or chat-only access (with Google Workspace for Education Plus). This makes it easy to create resource hubs that teachers can explore independently, reducing the number of repeat questions you field.

    Ready to explore NotebookLM with fellow instructional coaches? Join the Google Educator Group (GEG) for Instructional Coaches—a global community of nearly 500 coaches who share strategies, resources, and support.

    Our community hosts monthly meetings, shares practical demonstrations, and provides ongoing support as you implement new tools and strategies in your coaching practice.

    Getting Started with NotebookLM

    The best way to understand NotebookLM’s potential is to experiment with it. Start small:

    1. Record a coaching conversation or PD session and upload the audio
    2. Gather 3-5 documents on a topic you’re currently coaching on
    3. Upload them to a new notebook and ask NotebookLM to summarize key themes
    4. Try the audio overview feature to see how it synthesizes your sources
    5. Share it with a trusted colleague for feedback

    Remember, this tool continues to evolve rapidly. Features that launched just weeks ago are already more powerful, and new capabilities are added regularly. The key is to start using it, share what works with your coaching community, and stay curious about new possibilities.

    Take Your Coaching Impact Further

    As you explore new tools like NotebookLM to enhance your coaching practice, consider diving deeper into frameworks that amplify your impact. My book, Impact Standards, provides actionable strategies for educators and coaches who want to make a lasting difference in their schools and districts.

    Get Impact Standards

    Want to stay connected and receive regular insights, tools, and strategies for instructional coaching? Subscribe to my newsletter for exclusive tips that will help you continue growing as an educational leader.

    The future of instructional coaching involves smart use of AI tools that amplify—not replace—the human connections at the heart of our work. NotebookLM is one more tool in your coaching toolkit, helping you spend less time on content creation and more time on the relationships and conversations that truly transform teaching and learning.

    Upgrade Your Teaching Toolkit Today

    Get weekly EdTech tips, tool tutorials, and podcast highlights delivered to your inbox. Plus, receive a free chapter from my book Impact Standards when you join.

    Discover more from TeacherCast Educational Network

    Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

    Source link

  • ‘It’s different when they’re in their office’: the disconnect in student perceptions of academic meetings

    ‘It’s different when they’re in their office’: the disconnect in student perceptions of academic meetings

    by Stacey Mottershaw and Anna Viragos

    As we approach the five-year anniversary of the closure of UK university campuses for the Covid-19 pandemic, we thought it might be interesting and timely to reflect on the way that the sector adapted to educational delivery, and which innovations remain as part of our new normal.

    One key aspect of educational delivery which has remained to varying extents across the sector is the move to online student meetings. This includes meetings for academic personal tutorials, dissertation supervisions and other one-to-one meetings between students and staff. The Covid-19 lockdowns necessitated the use of online meetings as the only available option during this time. However, even post-lockdown, students and staff have continued to request online meetings, for reasons such as flexibility, privacy and sustainability.

    To explore this further, we conducted a small mixed-methods study with students from Leeds University Business School to consider their preferences for online or in-person meetings, utilising a faculty-wide survey for breadth and short semi-structured interviews for depth.

    We designed a questionnaire including questions on demographic (eg gender, home/international, whether they have caring responsibilities) and situational questions regarding their preference for face-to-face only, hybrid, or online meetings. We also included some questions around the ‘Big Five’ personality traits, to better understand factors that influence preferences.  We then distributed this online questionnaire, using the Qualtrics questionnaire software.

    Based on our findings, 15% of respondents preferred face-to-face only, 31% online only, with the remaining 54% preferring to have the option of either face-to-face or online.

    We also found that international students had a stronger preference for online meetings compared to non-international students. Whilst we had a relatively small sample of students on the Plus Programme (our institutional programme targeted to under-represented students); they had a stronger preference for in-person meetings. In terms of the Big Five traits, this student sample was highest on agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lowest on extroversion.

    In addition to the questionnaire, we ran seven one-to-one interviews with students from a mix of second year, the year in industry and final year, who had all experienced a mix of both online and face-to-face meetings throughout their studies.

    In reviewing the data, we identified five core themes of student preferences around meeting modes:

    • Connection and communication: Participants felt that the type of meeting affected connection and communication, with in-person meetings feeling more authentic.
    • Privacy/space: Participants felt that the type of meeting was influenced by factors including their access to private space, either at home or on campus.
    • Confidence: Some participants felt that the type of meeting could affect how confident they would feel in interactions with staff, with online meetings in their own environment feeling more comfortable than in spaces on campus.
    • Time: Participants discussed the amount of time that they had for each type of meeting, with online meetings deemed to be more efficient, due to the absence of travel time.
    • Flexibility: Participants demonstrated a strong preference for flexibility, in that they value having a choice over how to meet, rather than a meeting mode being imposed upon them.

    Through cross-examination of the core themes, we also identified something akin to a meta-theme, that is a ‘theme which acquire[s] meaning through the systematic co-occurrence of two or more other themes’ (Armborst, 2017 p1). We termed this meta-theme ‘The Disconnect’, as across each of the core themes there seemed to be a disconnect between student expectations of APT and what is typically provided, which ties in with existing literature (Calabrese et al, 2022).

    For example, one participant suggested that:

    It’s different when they’re in their office like popping there and asking a question for the lecture or even like the tutorials rather than having to e-mail or like go on a call [which] feels more formal.

    Whilst this comment seems to lean more towards other types of academic teaching (eg module leadership, lecture delivery or seminar facilitation), it can also translate to availability of staff more broadly. The comment suggests that students might expect staff to be available to them, on site, as and when they are needed. Yet in reality, it is unlikely that outside of set office hours academic staff will be available to answer ad hoc questions given their other commitments and particularly given the increased proportion of staff regularly working from home since the pandemic. This perspective also seems to contradict the perception that staff are much more available now than ever before, due to the prevalence of communications administered via email and online chat and meeting tools such as MS Teams. Staff may feel that they are more available as online communication methods increase in availability and use, but if students do not want ‘formal’ online options or prefer ad hoc on-site provision, then there may be a disconnect between student expectations and delivery, with all stakeholders feeling short-changed by the reality.

    Another disconnect between expectations and reality became apparent when another participant commented:

    […] online it was more rushed because you have the 30 minutes and you see the time going down and in the Zoom you will see like you have 4 minutes left to talk and then you’re rushing it over to finish it.

    Whilst this clearly relates to the core theme of time, it also seemed to be correlated with participant understanding of staff roles. It is difficult to understand how the time limitation for online and in-person meetings is different when the meetings are of the same duration, except that in the case of in-person meetings the student may be less aware of timings, due to not having the time physically visible on the screen in front of them. This might be reflected in the student-staff dynamic, where managing online meetings might be seen to be a joint and equal endeavour, with the responsibility for managing in-person meetings being skewed towards the staff member. Whilst it can be argued that staff should take responsibility for managing the meeting, in a time of increased narratives around student-led tutoring, it may be worth exploring the possible knock-on effects of students passively allowing the meeting to happen, rather than actively owning the meeting.

    Final thoughts

    A limitation of this study was the low response rate. At the point of dissemination, there were approximately 2,000 students in our faculty. However, we received just 198 survey responses (9.9%), and only seven people took part in the interviews, despite repeated calls for participants and generous incentives. Although this was a smaller sample than we had hoped for, we are confident that our study makes a timely and relevant contribution to discussions around delivery of APT, both within our faculty and beyond.

    As a starting point, future research could seek to generate responses from a broader pool of participants, through both a quantitative survey and qualitative methods. Based on our findings, there may also be scope for further research exploring student expectations of staff roles, and how these match to institutional offerings across the sector. Ultimately, universities need to do more to investigate and understand student preferences for educational delivery, balancing this alongside pedagogical justifications and staff circumstances.

    Stacey Mottershaw is an Associate Professor (Teaching and Scholarship) at Leeds University Business School and an EdD candidate at the University of Sheffield. Her research predominantly seeks to understand the needs of marginalised groups in higher education, with a particular focus on equitable and socially just career development. 

    Dr Anna Viragos is an Associate Professor in Organizational Psychology at Leeds University Business School, and a Chartered Psychologist of the BPS. Her research focuses on a variety of topics such as stress and wellbeing, creativity, and job design.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

    Source link