Today on the educational duct tape podcast, I'm tying a gift wrapped bow on 2024 by sharing five education updates, including new features from Canva ed puzzle and Google classroom. A really cool new ed tech tool and my very favorite article ever written. Honestly, it's my favorite. And you're gonna want to hear about it after this. What's up duct tapers. I hope you're doing well. And I hope the 2024 portion of this school year is wrapping up nicely for you.
If you're like me, you're ready for a few weeks off to rejuvenate and reenergize so that you are ready to do awesome stuff for your learners in the new year. So today's episode is going to be a bit different. A week ago, I recorded an amazing interview with Adam Sparks, a former teacher and the current co-founder and CEO of short answer.
So Adam recently became internet famous, we'll say, uh, for some awesome writing, it started off on Twitter or X and then became a blog post and so on and so forth, but any awesome, awesome writing that he did. About the flaws of AI detection tools. But when Adam and I connected and started chatting about this, I found that well, that stuff's fascinating.
What I was really interested in is what he recommended that we do instead of using AI detectors, especially when we talk about writing either in the writing classroom or in other content areas. Um, and his wisdom around the quality pedagogy relating to writing is truly impressive. And how leveraging these insights, circumvents much of the AI issues is also super pertinent right now. I learned a ton from Adam and he really had me thinking in the interview. It was a great, great, great chat.
I was so excited afterwards. Uh, learned a lot. I cannot wait for you to hear it. But I'm going to have to wait. You see, I need a few more hours of work on this episode before I could release it. And if I give it those few hours, then I would end up dropping it on like December 21st. And that is not a good day for launching an education podcast because it's beginning to look a lot like winter break. Uh, everywhere. Go, do you guys think I have a career in singing?
No. Okay. Um, but anyhow, if I release it on December 21st, that probably wouldn't work for you. Most of you will have turned off your EDU brains by then and would have turned your focus towards the holiday movies and sugar cookies and gift wrapping and baking and planning for holiday gatherings or whatever it might be that you're doing during those days. So. Rather than trying to release it on December 21st and hoping for listeners, I'm just going to wait. Hang on to that amazing episode.
Cause I don't want anybody to miss that chat with Adam. I'm going to hang onto it and I'm going to drop it the first full week of 2025. So January 8th or something like that, like that week, um, you do not want to miss this, make sure you're subscribed so that you don't. It trust me. As really good. And you're going to find that putting his insights into your practices, whether you teach writing or not. Um, is going to be one of your new year's resolutions when you hear it. It's so good.
So make sure you're subscribed. Make sure you don't miss that. When that comes out. So we'll be saving that for the first full week of 2025, but now I wanted to be here now and I wanted to be here once more in 20, 24. I wanted to wish you happy holidays. I wanted to tell you to have a great break and I figured what else should I do while I'm here? I'm telling them this episode, that's amazing is not coming to them yet. All I'll by the way, also happy holidays and have a great break.
But w w what, what, what value can I bring? And so I figured I there's a whole bunch of different news. In the EDU and ed tech space, that's come out over the last couple of months that I've wanted to tell you about. And I'm trying to kind of bring it out a little bit at a time and every episode of the show. And so I figured why not just have an episode where I just share a few of those things.
So I'm going to share five pieces of education news that I'm excited about, or as I call them in my email newsletter five pieces of EDU news that I have my peepers on. Does that make sense? My peepers. Is that a good word for eyes? I say it for eyes. I hope that. When I say EDU news, that I had my peepers on people understand what I'm talking about. Maybe I should change that. Maybe being worried about it as a clue that it's probably not the best. Anyhow, here are those first five.
So first up Canva welcomed a new tool called affinity. So I have to be honest, I had never heard of affinity. Until I saw this news article come out. But earlier this year, Canva acquired this tool. It's a professional design software suite. That apparently is used and loved by millions of designers worldwide. So not educators necessarily, but designers and what I've discovered in learning about affinity is that it offers really powerful tools for video editing.
Vector graphics, page layouts, things like that, that have made it a go-to for creative professionals. So now that it's part of the Canva family, that means that schools can access these advanced tools for free. I'm eager to see how this levels up, what we could do just inside of Canva.
You're like what they integrate into the regular canvas platform, but I'm also interested in seeing, and I'm wondering how will those vector graphics that affinity already makes now that they're part of the canvas family, and now that schools can access them for free. Um, how will those. Vector graphics tools work and be used and digital fabrication spaces. So could we potentially be making things in here that we're using with laser cutters and vinyl cutters and things like that?
I am eager to find out. I don't know the answer if you know, uh, reach out and let me know. Uh, second piece of news. Uh, one of my favoritest tools, favoritest. That's a word, one of my favorite tools, ed puzzle. Added a feature called teacher assist. So this new option called teacher assist. Auto grades, short answer responses that truly assists the teacher and doing their work. It auto grades, short answer responses.
And not only that, not only does it help you save time with grading, it can also save time with planning because it's got a question generator too, obviously, using AI. We could plug in the videos and to ed puzzle and it'll generate questions for us as well. And if they're short answer, you could potentially turn on the teacher assist auto grade, tool to grade, your questions for you. So very handy. Very cool, very great for, uh, some formative assessment with videos. That's really cool.
Next number three is a brand new tool that I learned about on blue sky. Recently. I think I saw Alice Keeler share this one. Uh, it is called grouper. And if you feel like you need one of those conspiracy theory, bulletin boards with the pins and the strings to be able to group your students like you've got, well, Johnny can't be paired with Susie and Susie works really well with Sally and Billy has to be in the front of the room and he does work really well with Johnny. And you've got these.
Are there that many Johnny's and Susie's and Billy's in classrooms nowadays. Anyhow. And you've got this board, that's connecting all those different things. Um, that's what it feels like for me sometimes when you're making groups in class, um, that's, that's a, that's a pain that's difficult. So you might want grouper. So it's an ed tech tool that forms teams in a click. You just give it your list of students and you tell it, do I want randomized teams?
Do I want to randomize them and then move some students around, you know, once I see some of the things maybe that are in there that don't work out well for me, do I want to have a certain rule that you randomized by? Do I want to give my students. Uh, attributes and then have you grouped them by maybe proficiency or interests or something like that? So you're doing an activity and if they're interested in football, they're going to be grouped together. Do this version.
If they're interested in Taylor swift, they're going to be interested in this version. And if they're interested in Travis, Kelsey and Taylor swift, they're gonna do this version. I don't know. Um, or it can be by proficiency. So may mixed groups or, um, groups based on what level of content they're ready for within a learning standard. You could do that all at automates it and grouper, but then also lets you customize it. Um, I've watched the video about it, but I haven't tried it out yet.
So if you do, I would love to hear what you think of grouper and the link will be in the show notes. And also the other things too, the links will be to the articles, maybe where they're now to me, things are in the show notes too. Next number four, I would like to share some news from Google. They recently rolled out Gemini education tools for classroom users. So Gemini is their AI tool. Uh, originally it was called Bard and then it became Gemini and they have shifted it into Google classroom.
And it gives educators AI powered help with lesson planning, with quiz creation and more right inside of classroom. So if that sounds good to you, you may want to go check this out. You probably definitely want to go check it out, but you may not have access to it. I should say this is a special add on in Google classroom. I don't know anything about the pricing. It's something for you to evaluate. And maybe if you're not the person who does that kind of purchasing, you send that on to them.
There'll be a link to the announcement in the show notes. And if you're interested, you can go check out the details there, and if you need to send it to a. Uh, technology director or something like that, then you just send them that link that you got in the show notes. Um, the fifth and final thing that I'm going to share for today is not news. It's just something that I revisited recently and went like, man, this is so good. I need to tell everybody about it.
So it's an article that I first read. , years ago. I read it just A week or so ago, as I was preparing for a session, I was leading about assessment and feedback and the article is called, um, assessment capable learners, and it was an a S C D article. Uh, by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher and John Hattie, it's called developing assessment capable learners. And there's just one quote in there.
And it says, are we fighting with a hand tied behind our back by not involving students more in the assessment and feedback process? I think if you check out the article, you'll see what they mean. And they make a really compelling case. Uh, for changing the way that at least I used assessment and feedback in my classrooms, I was not developing what they call assessment capable learners. This is my favorite article. Like it, it, it confirms everything that I believe to be true.
And education, maybe not everything, but a lot of what I believe to be true in education. Um, Nick is really powerful, really impactful, really well done. Um, at has a lot of things that I think are really important to think about. It's all about helping students become what they call assessment, capable learners, learners that track their progress learners, that set goals.
Learners that use feedback to grow learners that have a growth mindset and seek out that feedback learners that know where they're going and how they're getting there. Um, and it proves through some of Hattie's effect sizes. Uh, that these strategies are truly a game changer for fostering independence, motivation, and actually student learning and student achievement. Um, If you haven't read the article and you check it out, I'd love to know what you think of it.
If you've already read it and you do these things, or I've tried these things, I'd love to know how it went. So feel free as always to reach out. So that's all the news for today. We will be back in early January with that episode with Adam Sparks. about, how to teach NSS writing and the age of AI. It's actually going to be a double episode. There is so much amazingness in the episode that I'm splitting the interview across two episodes.
So make sure that you are subscribed so you don't miss either. After that I will have another amazing episode with Adam Waters and Catherine Juliet. Um, Uh, husband and wife, ed tech duo from out in California. Uh, authors of a book called The Complete EdTech Coach. So, we've done the interview already and they were awesome. We talked about ways to improve accessibility and universal design for learning in our classrooms.
We talked about some ed tech tools, but we also talked about some AI tools. I talked about a lot of ideas for how we can make our classes more accessible and empower students, get what they need. And that will be followed by, I believe an episode with Eric guys and Nick Johnson of the ed tech Throwdown podcast. We've talked about doing this. They've said they want to do this, this. They said, when do you wanna do it? And I said, I'll get back to you. So we just have to schedule that.
So hopefully we'll have that scheduled and recorded and time to hit the airwaves. Just after that episode with. Uh, Adam and cat. Um, and I forget what Nick and Eric and I are talking about, but it's going to be awesome. I've got a whole bunch of other really awesome guests up my sleeve for 2025 . So I hope you are subscribed in your favorite podcast app or wherever or on YouTube too, so that you could hear all of these amazing things.
I hope you're up subscribed to my newsletter too, so that you hear announcements about them as they're coming. We got some great stuff coming your way in January and throughout 2025, but first I hope you all have amazing. Breaks. I hope you get some rest and rejuvenation. I hope you do things that make you smile, make you laugh. Make your heart warm. And not warm, warm. Make your heart warm. And we enunciate better.
I hope you get to spend some time with family and friends, people, you care about people you love. I hope you have a blast, and I hope you come back to your classrooms in January rejuvenated and ready to rock it. So thank you guys for everything you do. Happy holidays. Happy break time. Happy new year. I will see you soon.