One of the first tasks facing Adam Galvan when he took on the mantle of Chief Technology Officer at Aldine ISD in Texas was to do a little forensic accounting of former deals and plans expected to be implemented under his guidance.

“The first thing I had to do was go to the board and cancel two projects for $13 million because they were done wrong,” says Galvan. “Wow. My first step is to go to the board who doesn't know me and tell them we need to cancel these massive projects.”

Starting off through a trust exercise with an unfamiliar board governing an 81-campus district isn’t for the faint of heart, but Galvan knew he had to do right by his students.

“I had to explain to them what I could do with that same amount of money,” he says. “One project in question was intended to solely benefit the high schools, but I knew I could do it district-wide for half the money. I had to explain everything and build that trust. Then I gathered all my team members and explained, 'We are no longer silos.'”

Bringing everyone to the table to improve tech offerings and make the most of every budget dollar is no small feat in a district with nearly 9,000 employees, roughly 4,000 of those being educators, serving 48,600 students across an 111-mile swath of Texas.

“I explained, “We will all sit at the table together,’” says Galvan. “We all discuss the plan, then we look at everything and make decisions together. Now what do you need?' After that it was like an avalanche of projects and things that have been pending that they could never get done.”

So Galvan got to work.

“My budget originally was $17 million, which I have cut down to $7 million,” says Galvan. “I've always believed in stretching the dollar. Before I arrived, they contracted everything out. I went to the board and said, ‘Look, I found $3.6 million. I need 22 new positions to keep us from contracting. We'll do all the work ourselves.’”

That’s just what Galvan did. His department grew from 62 people to 115 after taking over the DLS digital learning team.

“We built a team that could do everything ourselves,” he says. “That's helped us get more out of our projects and still bank money for down the road. It's a lot of fun bringing everyone together and knowing that because of that we have the technology to do compelling things.”

The final piece of the communication win came as Galvan distinguished the district as the first in Texas to launch corporate-style live-chat IT support for immediate classroom assistance, using his expansive team to cover bases throughout the district in a flash.

For this and other work, such as pioneering generative AI to help boost teacher efficiency by 30%, modernizing learning for 10,000 employees, deploying 30,000 touchscreen devices to increase tech-driven instruction by 40% and assessment scores by 15%, Galvan was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award.

Galvan shares his experiences tackling big challenges in a big district, as well as tips on how to use tech to improve performance.

Data Saves Dollars

Another part of smart leading is knowing your students, school campuses, and which tech tools are actually being used. Being able to both capture and analyze the data is key.

“We pull data into Google Looker Studio dashboards and we're able to see usage,” Galvan says. “I can talk to a leader who bought a district-wide license, but I can see only a single campus using it. Conversely I can see at a glance that 12 schools already have a license for a certain product, with another attempting to purchase a license and realize we could opt for a district-wide license and save a lot of money. We help make the most of what we have and make smarter decisions on what we need.”

Galvan flipped the process, making all district software purchases first flow through the technology department before buying. If this sounds like a lot of paperwork, trees everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief.

“It's all online,” says Galvan. ”My former district used 200 forms. We created all those forms as digital. No more paper! It helps to streamline the process; you know at a glance when someone's waiting for approval.”

With current trends forcing a rethinking of tech use in schools, using a tool such as Google Looker also helps track screen time and usage.

“We can easily show usage to a superintendent,” says Galvan. “It shows data for software we explained students need to be using for 30 minutes a week to be effective, but aren’t. It shows principals what is going on with their campuses, teachers and in their classrooms. Are students spending time on YouTube or unauthorized software? Who bought that software without getting it approved? It has saved a tremendous amount of money.”

Game On! Bruise-Free Virtual Dodgeball

To help fight declining enrollment numbers that dropped by nearly 15,000, reducing the district’s 81 campuses to the current 69, the innovative CTO upped the excitement factor in tech offerings by bringing in esports. To accommodate elementary students and to prep for future participation, Galvan’s team created Texas’ first VR HADO tournament system, offering onsite games hosted within the school campuses.

“We use HADO to have virtual dodgeball tournaments,” says Galvan. “We get staff involved and the students love it. You're out there competing. You’re still sweating, you’re still having a good time but it's all virtual dodgeball, very safe and much easier to clean up!”

In the district’s second year of the esports program, 768 Active Club Students participate across 26 campuses. The district hosted 13 events: 11 regular season tournaments, 1 District Championship, and 1 State Championship. Double the students qualified at the highest level in year two, with 21 students competing at the TEXSEF State Championship and taking home four titles.

“This past year our students were actually on the main stage competing,” says Galvan. “To have your students on the main screen representing Aldine ISD at a state event was really cool. We have parents who say, ‘Thank you so much, our kids didn’t talk to anybody, now they have friends.’ Now they're playing with kids from other high schools in our district, working together and practicing after school.”

Kids who parents struggled with to attend school were rushing their parents for rides on days they had events and practices. The camaraderie wasn’t the only reward of the experience.

“We had some money left over from the grant, so we took all the kids to go see Super Mario Brothers,” says Galvan. “This might not seem like a huge deal, but we heard feedback that almost 50% of the kids had never gone to the movies before. It just establishes where we're at and what we have to offer that our students didn't have before.”

4 Ways to Use Tech to Improve Outcomes

1. “For special education, parents and staff expressed concern with language barriers,” Galvan says. “We tested devices that go into the student and teacher’s ear. If the student has a question, they can click the button on their headset to ding in the teacher's earpiece. The teacher would hear their question translated in English, and be able answer back in their language.”
2. “For the administration, we used a translation device loaded onto old district iPhones that shows everything being said back and forth,” he says. “This allowed school secretaries to communicate with parents in different languages, keeping more kids in school.”
3. “We realized our assessment scores were dragged down by students unable to understand what was going on, who would just sit there and wouldn't take the test because they didn't know how to,” Galvan says. “We doubled our wireless bandwidth district-wide. The faster and reliable connectivity for translation helpers was assisted by access points in every classroom.”
4. Galvan deployed 30,000 touchscreen devices. “We use ClassLink, which is so much easier for students to roster them quickly,” he says. “When a student logs on, they can just go to one page and see every link to the software they need to access. Our scores moved up because we didn't have downtime and frustration.”

Tools They Use

• Hado
• Extreme Networks
• Solarwinds Orion
• Lightspeed Systems
• Award Cybersecurity Pilot Program
• Crowdstrike
• Cisco Umbrella
• Manage Methods
• Abnormal Email Security
• Automax
• Viewsonic Interactive Board
• Chromebooks
• Teacher HP laptops
• Apple iPads and iMacs
• Laserfiche
• Tawk.to software
• Google Looker Dashboards
• Classlink - Launchpad App
• Eduhero
• Identity Automation Rapid Identity
• Incident IQ
• JAMF - MDM for iPads
• Video Insight Security Cameras
• Access control doors - Genetec
• Aiphone - video intercom
• Wahsega PA System
• Centegix Alert System
• Garrett Metal Detectors and handheld wands
• Magicschool AI
• Google Gemini and Notebook
• Panorama Solar for Texas SPED
• Claude AI

Many of the educational conversations about artificial intelligence are focused on the direct instructional process. However, AI can be harnessed for creating instructional materials including worksheets, problem sets, quizzes, and in this particular case, presentation materials.

AI cannot replace a presenter’s knowledge, judgment, or personal connection with an audience, but it can reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks and provide useful support throughout the presentation process. Educators and students can use AI to brainstorm ideas, organize information, improve slide design, rehearse delivery, and make content more accessible.

The most effective approach is to treat AI as a creative assistant in the creation of materials. Human users should provide the purpose, audience, and subject expertise, then review and refine everything the tool produces.

With that balance in mind, here are several ways AI can improve presentations.

1. Start With a Clear Plan

A strong presentation begins with a clear objective. Before opening a slide-design tool, ask what the audience should understand, remember, or do by the end. AI can help turn a broad topic into a focused presentation goal and suggest an appropriate structure. In the case of instructional slide decks, you should look to the student learning objectives (SLOs).

For example, a teacher might ask an AI assistant to propose an outline for a 10-minute presentation on renewable energy for middle school students given a specific set of SLOs. The assistant could suggest an opening question, a brief explanation of key concepts, examples of renewable technologies, and a concluding activity. The teacher can then adjust the outline to match the curriculum, students’ prior knowledge, and the available time.

AI can also help identify gaps in a draft outline. Asking, “What important concept might a beginner need before learning this topic?” may reveal that the presentation requires additional context or a simpler explanation. This type of questioning can help presenters build a more logical sequence instead of treating slides as a collection of disconnected facts.

2. Brainstorm Examples and Attention-Grabbing Openings

The opening moments of a presentation are important to establish relevance and encourage the audience to pay attention. AI can generate possible hooks, including thought-provoking questions, short scenarios, analogies, historical moments, or real-world problems. In traditional courses, it can be asked to tie into the previous class session’s topic to help make an effective transition.

For a lesson about data privacy, an AI tool might suggest beginning with a fictional scenario in which a student receives an advertisement related to a recent online search. The presenter can use that scenario to introduce the idea of personal data and digital tracking.

AI-generated examples should be checked carefully, especially if any include statistics, current events, or claims about real people and organizations.

3. Improve Slide Structure and Reduce Text

One of the most common presentation problems is overcrowded slides. AI can review slide text and recommend ways to shorten paragraphs, group related ideas, or separate a complex slide into two or more focused ones.

Instead of placing an entire explanation on a screen, presenters can use AI to identify the main point and convert supporting details into speaker notes. A slide might contain a concise heading, three key terms, and a simple diagram, while the presenter provides the full explanation aloud. This design keeps the audience focused on the speaker rather than distracting them with dense blocks of text.

AI can also suggest transitions between sections. A transition such as, “Now that we understand how the problem occurs, let’s examine how it can be solved,” helps audiences follow the argument and understand why the next topic matters.

4. Create Visuals That Support the Message

Presentation software with AI features can recommend layouts, color combinations, icons, charts, and images. These tools may also transform a list of ideas into a visual timeline, process diagram, or comparison table. Such features are useful when a presenter has strong content but limited design experience.

However, visual design should serve communication rather than decoration. Presenters should choose images and graphics that clarify an idea, show relationships, or create an appropriate emotional response. An attractive but irrelevant image can be distracting. AI-generated images should be reviewed for accuracy, context, and potential bias, and presenters should follow copyright and school or organizational policies.

When using charts, AI can help select a suitable format. A trend over time might work best as a line chart, while a comparison of categories may be clearer as a bar chart. The presenter still needs to verify the data, label the chart accurately, and avoid implying conclusions that the data does not support.

5. Adapt Content for Different Learners

AI can help make presentations more inclusive by creating alternate explanations of the same concept. A presenter might request a plain-language definition, an analogy, a step-by-step explanation, or a version appropriate for a particular reading level. This is especially useful in classrooms with varied levels of background knowledge.

AI can also assist with translation, captions, transcripts, and speaker notes. These features may help multilingual learners and audience members who benefit from reading as they listen. Automated captions and translations should be reviewed because errors can occur with names, technical vocabulary, accents, and specialized terminology.

AI can also help presenters adapt an opening for different audiences. A technical explanation may be appropriate for professionals but confusing for high school students. By describing the audience and the desired tone, a presenter can request several versions and select the one that feels most natural for each group of learners.

Another useful application is creating a glossary of important terms. Presenters can introduce the glossary before the lesson or provide it as a handout. Defining unfamiliar language helps students focus on the underlying ideas instead of trying to infer every term from context.

6. Practice Delivery With an AI Coach

A well-designed presentation can still lose impact if the delivery is rushed, too quiet, or difficult to follow. AI-powered rehearsal tools can analyze a practice recording and provide feedback on pacing, filler words, pauses, pronunciation, and sometimes eye contact or vocal variety.

Presenters can use this feedback to set specific goals. For example, they might practice slowing down during complex explanations, pausing after an important question, or replacing repeated phrases such as “um” and “basically.” Students can also rehearse answers to likely questions by asking an AI tool to act as an audience member with different levels of knowledge.

AI feedback should be viewed as one source of information, not a final judgment. Natural communication does not require a perfectly uniform speaking style. A presenter’s personality, enthusiasm, and interaction with the audience remain key parts of an effective presentation.

One of my graduate students has AI generate a second version of each of his instructional videos. He gives the students the opportunity to view either set of videos in his flipped classroom. The majority choose the AI-generated videos, because these tend to be shorter. We are not sure yet if there will be achievement differences at the end of the course based on which set of videos students viewed.

7. Generate Questions and Interactive Activities

AI can help turn a passive slide deck into an interactive experience. Presenters can ask an AI assistant to create quick polls, discussion prompts, comprehension checks, case studies, or exit-ticket questions based on the presentation content.

For a presentation on climate science, for example, the presenter might pause after explaining a feedback loop and ask the audience to predict what would happen if one factor changed. For a business presentation, participants might compare two possible solutions and defend their choice. These activities encourage audiences to process information rather than simply receive it.

Questions generated by AI should be reviewed for clarity and difficulty. A good question should connect directly to the presentation’s objective and give the audience enough information to respond meaningfully.

8. Check Accuracy and Protect Trust

AI can produce incorrect, outdated, or unsupported information. It may invent citations or present uncertain claims with confidence. Every statistic, quotation, date, and factual statement should be verified using reliable sources before it appears in a presentation. Human agency and human judgment need to be exercised at each step in the development process.

Presenters should protect private information. Sensitive student, customer, or organizational data should never be entered into an AI system unless the tool has been approved for that use and appropriate safeguards are in place. When AI has made a significant contribution to a presentation, it may be appropriate to acknowledge that assistance according to local policies.

A Presentation Partner

AI can improve presentations by helping plan more effectively, design clearer slides, create useful visuals, adapt content, practice delivery, and engage audiences. Its greatest value is not producing a finished deck with a single prompt; it is supporting the many decisions that make a presentation understandable and memorable.

The best workflow combines AI’s speed with human expertise. When used thoughtfully, AI gives presenters more time to focus on what technology cannot replace: insight, empathy, judgment, and meaningful communication. I have found that AI is good about identifying places in a presentation where I chunked information by making assumptions that might not be clear to a novice about steps in a process.

The author used MS Copilot to assist in the development of this article.

Reading Eggs is an online literacy program that helps young students learn to read through interactive lessons, phonics activities, and digital books. Teachers can use it to support early reading instruction, give students independent practice, and track their progress.

The platform covers everything from letter recognition and early phonics to reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. With separate programs for different reading stages, it can support students as they develop their skills.

Here's what educators need to know about Reading Eggs and how to use it in class.

What is Reading Eggs?

Reading Eggs is a digital literacy platform designed for children aged 2–13, with programs aimed at different stages of reading development. It combines structured learning activities with games, rewards, and books to encourage regular reading practice.

The main program, Reading Eggs, focuses on early reading skills for children aged 3–7. Reading Eggspress develops comprehension, fluency, spelling, and vocabulary for older students, while Fast Phonics provides additional systematic phonics practice. Reading Eggs Junior is also available for younger children, with a digital library containing more than 4,000 books.

Together, these resources cover a broad range of literacy needs, from getting started with letters and sounds to developing more confident independent readers.

How does Reading Eggs work?

Teachers can begin by using the placement test to help identify an appropriate starting level for each student. Students then work through interactive lessons at their own pace, completing activities and quizzes that reinforce the skills being taught. The lessons combine demonstrations, practice activities, and reading tasks.

In the core Reading Eggs program, students progress through 120 lessons, each building on earlier learning. Fast Phonics takes a more focused approach, with sequenced activities covering letter-sound relationships, blending, spelling, and decodable reading.

Teachers can assign lessons and books, access printable resources, and use reporting tools to monitor progress.

What are the best Reading Eggs features?

Interactive reading lessons: Structured activities introduce and reinforce early reading skills, including phonics, sight words, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Fast Phonics: A dedicated systematic synthetic phonics program gives students additional practice with letter sounds, blending, segmenting, and decodable texts.

Reading Eggspress: Older or more experienced readers can work on fluency, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary through a separate set of lessons and activities.

Digital book library: More than 4,000 leveled e-books give students access to reading material across different abilities and interests. Comprehension quizzes provide opportunities to check understanding.

Teacher dashboard and reporting: Educators can assign activities, view student progress, and identify areas in which further instruction may be needed.

Printable classroom resources: Worksheets and other teaching materials support follow-up activities away from the screen, helping teachers connect digital practice with classroom instruction.

How much does Reading Eggs cost?

Reading Eggs offers a free 30-day trial for new subscribers, but school subscriptions require a quote from the provider.

For individual families in the U.S., the Reading-only plan costs $9.99 per month or $69.99 per year. A combined Reading and Math subscription costs $13.99 per month or $99.99 per year. Both plans cover up to four children.

School subscriptions include access to the relevant literacy programs and teacher reporting tools, with additional resources available to support classroom instruction.

Reading Eggs Tips

• Choose the right starting level
  Use the placement test and your own classroom observations to find a suitable level for each student, as age alone isn't always a reliable guide to reading ability.
• Introduce it during literacy rotations
  Set aside a regular slot for independent practice while you work with a small group. Short, consistent sessions can help students build familiarity with the platform without replacing direct teaching.
• Assign lessons with a purpose
  Match activities to the phonics patterns, vocabulary, or comprehension strategies you're teaching in class. This makes the platform a useful extension of your lessons rather than a disconnected screen activity.
• Check the progress reports
  Review student performance regularly to spot skills that need revisiting. Use the results alongside classroom reading, discussion, and assessment rather than relying on digital scores alone.
• Follow up with real books
  Connect online activities to shared reading, decodable books, and discussion. Ask students to explain what they've read, practice unfamiliar words, and apply their skills to texts beyond the platform.

I will never forget one of my first tests as a young principal of a large middle school: a veteran teacher dragged a student to my main office, and I’m pretty sure I could see the steam coming out of her ears. She stood at the counter with her lips pursed declaring, “This student told me you said she could carry her backpack! And she has an attitude!”

There was a hard and fast rule in this school that students did not lug their backpacks around, and I, of course, had never allowed her to do so.

I looked across the counter at the student, who was visibly irritated, and responded to the teacher, “I’ll take this from here . . . .”

She replied, ‘You’ll take it from here?”

“Yes.”

“Ok.”

She backed away, not taking her gaze from me, as if to say, “I’m watching you!” I brought the student into my office and looked more closely at her. Something wasn’t quite right. Not her irritation at the teacher dragging her to the office or that she was likely to get in trouble. There was more, perhaps beyond the shell, a look of worry.

I sat her down and asked, “Is everything alright?”

She hesitated and said, “My mom didn’t come home last night . . . .”

I wasn’t sure at the time if I was responding the right way, but I spent the next 20 minutes calling her grandmother, other emergency contacts, and then I eventually tracked down her mother. She had been out partying late but was safe. I handed the phone to the student and told her that it was her mother. Relieved, they talked privately for a few minutes.

After hanging up the phone, I returned to the original issue. This child was known for her temper and I was prepared for an argument. “Let’s get back to why you were sent here,” I said.

She stood up, and I wasn’t sure what she was going to do next . . . .

“Mr. Gaskell, I will NEVER carry my backpack again, and whatever discipline I get, I know I deserve,” she said.

I had never seen her so amicable before. She was always ready for a fight.

Days later, the teacher who brought her to my office asked, “What did you do to her?!? She doesn’t carry her backpack anymore. How did you stop that? I know she did it to get a rise out of me!”

Remember, I was still new, and untested. The teacher wouldn’t have understood that there was a climate in this school that had to shift from “gotcha” to compassion. And she wasn’t ready for that. So I smiled and said, “Someday, I’ll tell you. Not today. But someday . . . .”

Every time I saw that child in the hall ready for trouble, I shot her a look. She would stop and hide her smile. She never forgot.

'IF . . . .'

Over a quarter century of school leadership taught me time and again the simplest and most powerful approach. Humility, compassion, patience. These are hallmarks of what I have posted in my office. It is the first stanza of a poem from the author of The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling, who composed a poem called IF.

This poem reflects the approach that paid off with a child who was at risk, and countless other interactions educators such as me engage in every day.

School leadership is hard. On any given day, a principal acts as an anchor in a swirling storm of competing expectations, high-stakes decisions, and emotional dynamics.

I have had those days when I just wanted to put my head in my hands, or worse snap at someone who was being a real challenge. Kipling’s first stanza of If serves as a roadmap for those needing perspective when it matters most.

It’s worth a closer look:

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . . .”

The challenges of district mandates, budget constraints, and angry teachers such as the one described can trigger an atmosphere of panic. When pressure mounts and blame trickles to you, being a resilient school leader means maintaining my compass. And there’s more:

“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too . . . .”

I trusted my gut instincts, my intuition when I stopped and asked my backpack girl if there was something wrong. Aside from the more urgent matter of helping her locate her mother, I gained an outcome of less combativeness and a teacher puzzled that I got her to follow a school rule she used to flaunt.

“If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, or, being hated, don’t give way to hating . . . .”

Parent, student and faculty partnerships are important, but high emotions can lead to heated conflicts, misinformation, or unfair criticisms leveled against you. In moments of tension—whether over grades, discipline, or policy—the temptation to snap back or engage defensively is high. It is also the wrong reaction- we should model rather than mirror these behaviors.

“And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise . . . .”

Students are the ultimate observers. They see right through artificial infallibility, jargon, and rigid authoritarianism. They need leaders who are human, approachable, and grounded.

I knew this in my heart but back then, and in a climate where I had inherited authoritarianism, I was susceptible to being viewed as weak rather than compassionate. Fortunately over time, that all changed as I modeled; I chose not to play gotcha with faculty or students.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still times when I have to hold children accountable and stand up to the union. But those occasions are further between.

Leadership is a daily practice of emotional regulation, fierce empathy, and steady resolve. By anchoring myself in the foundations of the first stanza of Kipling’s poem that is posted visibly on my office wall, I can establish the principles of patience, trust, and truth. This has transformed the unavoidable pressures of school leadership into a culture of community building.

Welcome to the November edition of Edtech Show & Tell, in which our editors share some of the new edtech products that have caught our attention this month. These are not reviews or endorsements, but a showcase of education-friendly items, platforms, and more that we think might be noteworthy for you.

This month's new offerings include software and hardware products, ranging from technology accessories to education games.

Carahsoft Technology Corp. | Symantec CBX

School districts and universities are under pressure to protect sensitive data as AI makes cyber attacks faster and harder to stop. To help solve this problem, Carahsoft and Broadcom announce the availability of Symantec CBX, a cloud-based XDR platform built for lean teams and budgets. It lets analysts investigate attacks without writing queries, predict an attacker’s next moves and spot exposure of sensitive data during investigations.

Other World Computing

Other World Computing (OWC®) has announced the launch of OWC Dock Ejector 2.1 software that adds one-click safe ejection for connected data volumes, for Mac and PC. In addition, on Mac, OWC Dock Ejector 2.1 now provides seamless high-power USB port enablement.

ParentDraft | ParentDraft

ParentDraft is a web-based tool designed to help K–12 teachers with parent communications. Teachers can enter rough notes or upload a photo of handwritten notes, and ParentDraft turns them into a clear, professional message. It can also help draft replies to incoming parent messages.

Magic School | AI Presentation Generator

MagicSchool just introduced its new AI Presentation Generator for back to school. The tool lets teachers turn a simple prompt, lesson topic, or existing content into a polished, classroom-ready presentation, complete with images, customizable layouts, and themes. Teachers can easily refine individual slides with AI, make their own edits, and export directly to Google Slides or PowerPoint.

Edlio | Edlio Accounting

Edlio has launched Edlio Accounting, a platform built around the daily workflows of school bookkeepers and auditors. Edlio Accounting covers receipts, deposits, disbursements, fund management, and bank reconciliation. It connects natively with Edlio Payments, and districts on other payment platforms can use it as a standalone tool. Large district implementations began this fall, with more rolling out through the 2026–27 school year.

AQL Labs | Jaali

Jaali officially launched its higher-ed-specific AI platform, built to give colleges and universities control over their AI strategy while solving critical administrative workflow gaps. Jaali lets universities: 1) Decide where and how AI is used, set cost/model quotas, and choose where humans stay in the loop. 2) Evolve apps internally: Non-technical staff can modify app features as campus policies change while maintaining data privacy, audit logging, and security.

Hopadoo | Hopadoo.com

hopadoo.com is a set of free browser games kids play by moving in front of the camera on a laptop, tablet or phone. They step into the lane with the right answer to a sum, jump to pop the missing letter into a word, or race over hurdles. No logins, no ads, and the camera video stays on the device. There's a short guide for teachers at hopadoo.com/brain-breaks.

Just Right Reader | Take Everywhere Games

Just Right Reader recently launched Science of Reading Take-Everywhere Games, a collection of more than 375 hands-on literacy activities designed for students in grades PreK-2. Rooted in the Science of Reading and personalized for each student, the games reinforce letter recognition, decoding, spelling, writing, and vocabulary skills that students can practice at school and at home.

Revision History | Byline

Revision History has released Byline, a student-facing, school-managed Chrome extension that provides student writing process visibility to teachers. If the Byline Chrome extension is enabled at the start of a student’s writing process, it transparently logs the websites and extensions the student chooses to visit and leverage until that Byline-enabled document is closed.

Crestron | DM NVX Platform

Crestron Electronics announces a new DM NVX® 370 hardware lineup and the first DM NVX System-on-Chip (SoC). The DM NVX 370 Series adds USB-C connection directly to the device to handle video, USB data, and 100W device charging simultaneously handling all elements with one cable to the room. HDMI® connectivity inputs are also available. Built to the Crestron roadmap, the DM NVX SoC includes 4K60 4:4:4, native audio, and 24/7 operation.

Screenbeam | Virtual ScreenBeam

Virtual ScreenBeam is a software subscription featuring Orchestrate Go, giving teachers simple control over student screen sharing for more engaging, collaborative learning. Available November 9. Experience Virtual ScreenBeam with a free 30-day trial at ScreenBeam.

Texas Instruments | TI-Rover BT

Texas Instruments (TI) announces the launch of the TI-Rover BT, a Bluetooth®-enabled robotic vehicle that transforms the classroom floor into a living coordinate plane. By converting algebraic equations into tangible motion, the vehicle empowers students to move beyond the screen and interact with abstract concepts in real time.

Hall Research | Atlona Omega 2

Hall Research's Atlona brand has expanded its Omega Series of presentation and collaboration products with Omega 2, designed so presenters can connect with one cable and integrators can install fewer boxes behind the display. Built on HDBaseT 3.0, the lineup includes the AT-OME2-E2311 transmitter and AT-OME2-D2311 receiver, the AT-OME2-E2321-WP wall plate transmitter, and the AT-OME2-R2742 4x2 presentation switcher with Dante audio.

Shorthand | Shorthand App

ShortHand is a classroom documentation app built by a third grade teacher who was tired of juggling classroom management, student needs, and parent communication. Teachers can quickly document classroom behavior and turn those notes into professional parent emails or reports without having to start from scratch each time. ShortHand is available on the web and iOS, with a free option for teachers to get started.

National Eye Institute (NEI) | Children’s Vision Toolkit

The National Eye Institute (NEI) has developed a free Children’s Vision Toolkit for Pre-K through second grade educators. The resources were developed with input from educators, pediatric eye health clinicians, and professionals. Included are a checklist for recognizing and documenting warning signs, a fact sheet with classroom strategies, and English and Spanish templates for family communications.

MyDaye AI | MyDaye AI

Student entrepreneurs Avi Rao, Hansen Wilson and Holt Wilson announced the launch of MyDaye AI™, a free conversational AI companion for student life that brings the many disconnected parts of a student’s day into one intelligent platform and, for the first time, lets friends see when they are free and make plans together. All student features are free, with no subscription, trial deadline or paid feature unlocks.

Vestaboard | Vestaboard

Vestaboard is creating a new category of messaging displays that inform, inspire and delight in a world overloaded with glowing screens. Its Note and larger Flagship boards pair a mesmerizing mechanical design with connected software, letting teachers send, schedule and automate messages from anywhere to guide routines, reinforce learning, spark discussion and celebrate students — inviting curiosity, conversation, and connection.

Extron | VoiceLift® Lite Microphone Systems

Extron announces the VoiceLift® Lite Microphone Systems, a cost-effective voice amplification solution designed to improve communication in instructional spaces. VoiceLift Lite delivers clear, consistent audio throughout classrooms, lecture halls, and training rooms. Available with either a wireless pendant microphone or a pendant and handheld microphone, VoiceLift Lite systems include a power amplifier and two compact surface mount speakers.

All the focus on AI cheating is eroding trust between teachers and students. That’s one of the conclusions of a new report from the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard that sampled more than one thousand educators and included interviews with dozens of students.

Teachers are worried about students using AI to cheat, while students are worried about being accused of cheating and that their teachers are using AI in ways they shouldn’t, explains Dr. Beck Tench, a co-author of the AI education policy report.

“The suspicion that students have of teachers is that they are using AI to grade their papers or create their lesson plans or write their recommendation letters and all of that stuff, too,” Tench says.

All this suspicion creates an atmosphere that is not conducive to learning.

“Students and teachers are both entering the classroom with a kind of two-way suspicion, suspecting each other,” Tench says. “And that's eroding trust, which is eroding what they need in order to teach and learn.”

Fortunately, there are ways to move beyond this distrust that Tench and her co-authors share in the report.

“We think it's really important for adults to approach young people with curiosity and empathy," she says. "So we have, in the report, three mindset shifts we recommend exploring in order to approach students with more empathy and curiosity.”

1. Moving From Assuming To Asking

“Instead of assuming students are using AI for everything, ask what they're using AI for,” Tench says. This is a simple mindset shift that can have a big impact, she adds.

AI has a tendency to make students invisible in many different ways, from hiding what they’ve learned if they’re using the tools in submitting papers to hiding their passions and interests if they’re turning to a chatbot instead of a teacher with questions.

Additionally, it can make student achievement invisible, as Tench says that some students dial back their best work because they’re afraid it will trigger an AI detection tool.

“All of these invisibilities, you can tap into, you can make them visible by having conversations about the technology,” Tench says. “The technology itself is making those things invisible, and the conversation about the technology makes it visible. And so if you talk about how you're using the tools, if you talk about why you feel pressured to hide your use of the tools, if you talk about all the different ways a tool can be used and whether or not this one is or isn't okay, you start to uncover the things that the tool is hiding.”

2. Moving From Centering The Technology to Centering The Student

Once again, this involves a small shift in the types of questions you ask. So instead of a technology-centered question such as, “What are your feelings about AI?” Tench recommends student-centered questions such as, “What’s important to you right now? What do you care about? And, is technology making that easier or harder?”

As part of this, it's helpful for students to realize that they are in the same boat as their classmates and their teachers.

“We consider our use of technology as sort of an individual habit, and an individual set of goals and experiences,” Tench says. “And the reality is that it’s very hard to change a specific tech behavior, as an individual.”

AI chatbots, such as smartphones and social media before, have become such an important aspect of society that it's hard for students to opt out of using these on an individual level. But Tench says that discussing what students value as a group can help you decide what limits to place on technology.

She uses a phone-free family dinner as an example. By saying, “We all care about connections, so we are going to put our phones in a stack at dinner so that none of us are looking at our phones,” is "a heck of a lot easier to do than every individual person trying to avoid a phone during dinner.”

3. Moving From 'Us Versus Them' To 'Us And Them'

“It's true that everything that students are experiencing with these tools, adults are also experiencing with these tools,” Tench says. “If we can realize this is a problem that we can tackle together and are each part of that equation, both the young people and the adults have something to contribute to our collective way forward, we're gonna have a more positive relationship as we approach whatever that solution is.”

Doing this involves recognizing the vital elements that young people bring to the conversation and approaching them with genuine interest.

“To be curious about what they experience, and what they think will help us all navigate toward a greater future, instead of basically moving into a stance of being very protective and controlling of their tech behaviors,” Tench says. “That creates an 'us versus them,' a situation where you lay down a rule that they work around and do anyway, right? But when you include young people on the policies, on the thinking around what's happening, on the collective imagining of a better future, that is a much more productive way to go about confronting some of these issues. Because we're all facing this reality. It’s not just young people. So having them help in creating a better future, is better for them, and it's better for us.”

After being a superintendent for more than 20 years, one thing has become abundantly clear to Quintin Shepherd, who leads Pflugerville ISD in Texas.

“What I've come to realize is that there are no lesser paths to a great education,” says Shepherd. “Period. Full stop. There are no lesser paths.”

In conjunction with that, Shepherd suggests that many districts focus on getting students to graduate, but not necessarily for what happens next.

“We prepare kids by walking them up to the launchpad, and having done and provided everything we can, and then on graduation day we say here you are on the precipice of the rest of your life. Good luck! We hope you can ignite,” he says.

To help rectify that, Shepherd advocates for simplifying the conversation. In his district, he has championed providing the students with clear pathways, or what he calls The Three Es Promise: Employment, Enlistment, or Enrollment.

“It’s easy, every second grader knows what it means,” says Shepherd, who was recently honored with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award for this and other efforts. “Employment–high-wage, industry-based certifications, high-skilled jobs. Enlistment–into the armed forces, letter in hand. Or enrollment–'I've been accepted to a college or university.' If every single student who walks across the graduation stage has one of those in hand, and you can have one of those in hand on graduation day, then what it says is that you're not lost after you leave school Friday.”

Shepherd’s goal is to be able to guarantee 100% of his students–special education learners, ELL learners, every learner–are covered by that promise, and the successful launch that comes with it, by 2029.

“I'm not aware of any school district in the country that can make that kind of a promise to parents or to their community,” he says. “Your diploma is not the goal. It's not the ceiling we're reaching for. It is the expectation. It is the floor. You will graduate from high school, but we live in a world where that's not enough. And we're not doing our job as a school district if that's all we've given you.”

Concentric Circles Of Leadership

The idea of finding your own pathway is a familiar one for Shepherd, who started out as a custodian in his first district before moving up the ranks as a music teacher, elementary school principal, high school principal, and then superintendent–all by the time he was 27.

“I learned very very quickly in my career that there's really just two types of people who work in an organization: Those who teach and those who support teachers,” Shepherd says. “And I realized that I had it in me to be a good teacher, but I probably had more potential being a great supporter of teachers, which can take many different routes.”

Traversing that path has provided Shepherd with valuable insight, which he has shared in multiple books he’s written (including The Secret To Transformational Leadership). It’s also helped him form practical theories to build leadership, including his three-part concentric circle concept.

“The biggest circle is like a social network,” he says. “I go to a superintendent conference or an event like Tech & Learning’s, and meet some superintendents. These people I can hang out with, talk with, I see them, and that's great.”

The next circle inside that is forming a strategic network.

“So, the power of going to these conferences is, ‘Hey, I heard this person talk about this very specific problem that they're solving, and this is how they solved it,’” Shepherd says. “And they have a genius in this area because they've spent years building something out, and I need to get them as part of my strategic network so that when I'm faced with this problem, I now have somebody, a genius who I can call who has years of experience that I can now draw down from.”

The innermost circle then is professional learning.

“These are people who you realize their connection to you on a personal, strategic level is all about your own leadership development and growth,” Shepherd says, adding these should be colleagues who have a way of approaching problems differently. “I'd like to be able to call you when I'm struggling, and I don't even know what the problem is. But I don't want you to help me solve the problem. I want you to push back on me as a leader, and I'll do the same thing for you. But that's got to be our agreement. And if I ever cross that line and I start asking you strategic questions, call me out on it and say, ‘Quinton, that's not what we're talking about. Like, how are you growing as a leader? What's pushing you right now as a leader? What's keeping you up at night?’ Those types of conversations.”

Step Back Before Stepping Forward

Ultimately, Shepherd stresses understanding that there are multiple pathways for students to find career success, and that district leaders need to recognize and understand that.

“And what that's meant for me is to like really step back,” Shepherd says. “Step back, and reframe the whole concept of what we've been building in schools. And there are two things that are self-evident to me. Number one, we still have primary pathways and secondary pathways. So, let's just get rid of that. Let's just say that all pathways are a pathway to a great education. Secondly, we've got ourselves wrapped up in all the metrics and the analytics and how we process this and how we track it, and it's largely lost on the public. So, let's simplify the whole conversation. Again, there are no lesser pathways.”

Tools They Use

“The common thread is that these tools help me listen more broadly, think more deeply, and stay organized enough to turn learning into action,” says Shepherd.

• Thoughtexchange: "Helps us gather stakeholder perspectives, surface shared priorities, and bring more voices into district decisions."
• ChatGPT: "I use it as a thinking partner for analyzing information, testing assumptions, developing ideas, refining communications, designing university coursework, and reflecting on my leadership."
• Plaud: "Helps me capture conversations and revisit the ideas, insights, and action items that emerge."
• Google Workspace (G Suite): "Supports my daily communication, collaboration, document development, and scheduling."
• Apple Notes and Reminders: "Help me capture ideas as they occur and keep track of commitments and follow through."
• Kindle and Audible: "Both are central to my ongoing learning. They allow me to make reading and listening part of my daily routine."

Sponsored by Incident IQ and moderated by Jamie Gahunia, Director of Product Marketing at Incident IQ, this webinar featured insights from Eduardo "Eddie" Coello Amado, Technology Asset Manager at the School District of Osceola County, Chris Warden, K-12 tech leader and podcast host, and Jason Martin, Chief Technology Officer at Incident IQ.

The discussion explored the intersection of shrinking operational budgets, understaffed IT teams, and the strategic deployment of AI to optimize support workflows in K-12 school districts.

Operating in high-volume environments—such as Osceola County's support network of 60+ schools, 66,000 students, and 200,000 tracked assets—creates significant friction. A primary pain point identified by the panel is the "invisible workload" caused by vague, incomplete support requests (e.g., tickets stating merely "it doesn't work").

Investigating unrouted or poorly documented tickets leads to constant back-and-forth communication between technicians and teaching staff, accumulating 15 to 30 hours of lost productivity baseline per issue and potentially extending resolution timelines by days or weeks. Because classroom technical interruptions directly halt student learning, minimizing resolution time is paramount to educational success.

WATCH THIS WEBINAR ON-DEMAND

Key Takeaways

The discussion highlighted critical strategies and architectural considerations for successfully integrating AI into school district operations:

Address Skepticism with Phased Rollouts: K-12 leaders often approach AI with grounded caution. Successful adoption requires piloting tools internally with Tier I through Tier IV support technicians first. Gathering feedback, refining internal knowledge base documentation, and testing natural language intake across varying technical skill levels ensures system reliability before exposing AI interfaces directly to teachers and administrative staff.

Enforce Strict Data Privacy & Security Governance: Protecting sensitive student data (and being FERPA/COPPA compliant) and HR data is the primary hurdle for district leadership. Vendors must guarantee zero data retention policies in which AI processes inputs in memory without using district data to train external large language models. Architecture must enforce role-based permission boundaries, automatic data-masking algorithms for personal identifiable information, and complete digital audit logging ("chat replay") to maintain transparency.

Optimize Intake and Deflection via AI Ticket Assistants: AI tools transform user descriptions into structured issue categories without requiring end-users to navigate complex dropdown menus. Diagnostic prompts narrow down hardware or software faults automatically, while integrated knowledge base articles surface quick self-service fixes that deflect routine tickets before reaching technician queues.

Streamline Technician & Administrative Workflows: Future AI capabilities extend beyond ticket intake to include automated summary generation, step-by-step resolution guides, natural language database queries ("Ask" search bar), single-sentence bulk action execution, and multi-week strategic forecasting agents for fleet refresh budgeting.

Maintain Clear Communication and The Human in the Loop: AI serves as an operational force multiplier rather than a total replacement for human staff. District IT departments must actively communicate the purpose of AI initiatives to alleviate fears, set expectations, and ensure humans retain review authority over automated plans before execution.

Artificial intelligence was used in the transcription of this event.

From an early age, children are asked what they want to be when they grow up. They are told that the classes they take and the skills they develop will prepare them for that future career. By middle and high school, conversations shift toward college, technical programs, internships, and the specific skills employers are seeking.

When I was in school, I remember being part of these conversations. In my own classroom, I have engaged with students in similar ways, curious about what they were thinking about for their future and wanting to support them.

But with so many changes in technology–especially with AI accelerating that by creating new roles are emerging, evolving existing jobs, and supporting tasks that once required significant time–how do we prepare students for jobs that do not exist yet?

AI is Changing Tasks, Not Just Job Titles

One of the most frequent questions that comes up in conversations I've had about AI and the future of work is, "Which jobs will AI replace?" It's an important question, but we also need to consider how AI is evolving the tasks involved in any job.

For many professions, AI will start by changing individual responsibilities long before it completely eliminates an entire occupation. Students in my classroom and I have discussed which jobs might be replaced, and why or why not. We have even explored Will Robots Take My Job? and then analyzed each job to determine why the results showed a high likelihood.

Some of the professions we discussed included teachers, attorneys, healthcare professionals, engineers, marketers, and software developers. Many in these fields will likely continue working in their professions, although how they do their work may change substantially.

Some tasks may become automated, while others will become faster. New responsibilities may emerge because AI-generated information needs to be evaluated, decisions must be made about its use, and people affected by those decisions need to be considered. Problems will also arise that technology cannot solve on its own.

With these considerations, students need to continue thinking about the relationship between people and technology, rather than simply learning how to operate technology.

Some questions I ask students include:

• What does AI do well?
• Where does it struggle?
• When does a person need to intervene, and why?
• What happens when the output is wrong?
• Who is responsible for the final decision?

These are career-readiness questions that help students develop technology skills, discernment, critical thinking, and reflection.

Human Skills Are Still Important

As technology advances, the thought may be that developing technical skills will matter more than human skills, but I believe the opposite is true. With so much technology in our world, communication, curiosity, creativity, collaboration, adaptability, empathy, critical thinking, and judgment will become even more valuable because of AI.

Here are some examples: AI can generate a polished response, but we still need to determine whether that response is useful and accurate. It can generate dozens of ideas within seconds, but deciding which idea is worth pursuing requires judgment. AI can summarize information, but knowing what questions to ask about that information remains important.

While technology is capable of automating parts of a process, having a true understanding of everything and everyone impacted by the process and how to adjust is critical. And something that is still an essential human quality.

Students need opportunities to develop these capabilities, and that means tasking them with problems that do not always have one correct answer. It includes asking them to do more than just answer, but to provide an explanation for their decisions, to collaborate, to revise their ideas and respond to feedback, and to work through any challenges that arise rather than backing away from any source of difficulty.

It's also necessary to create learning experiences that move students beyond simply consuming information and involve them in designing, building, questioning, creating, and finding problems to solve, and then presenting solutions for these.

Students Need AI Literacy, Not Just AI Skills

AI literacy is now essential for career readiness. Students need to know how to write and evaluate prompts, and understand that AI-generated output may be inaccurate or biased. They also need to know how to stay safe and what information should not be shared with an AI platform.

When working with AI, they need to consider intellectual property, transparency, privacy, and responsible use. And what I consider to be very important, developing the judgment to decide when and if AI should be used at all.

As students enter the workplace, they may not always be provided with clear guidelines about when AI is appropriate, as they might be in school, and may need to make those decisions by themselves. If we teach students how to use AI without helping them think critically about its use, we are teaching only part of what they will need to succeed.

Career Exploration Needs Some Change, Too

When I was in high school, career exploration traditionally introduced students to existing professions. That continues to be important, however, for jobs that don’t exist yet, it can be tough for students to imagine the possibilities.

After thinking more about this, I think we need to push student career thinking with some “what-ifs” to explore their interests. They need to consider how AI might change a potential career, what new responsibilities might be required, and which parts of that career require uniquely human strengths.

Another option is to task students with brainstorming what problems might need to be solved five or ten years from now. Engaging them in challenge-based or problem-based learning opportunities might be a good way to spark these conversations and exploration into how the world of work is evolving.

Some ideas to involve students could be having them interview professionals about how their work has been impacted by AI and the changes they are experiencing now. Students can also conduct research on emerging or fast-growing fields of work, redesign a current job description by predicting how it might change in ten years, or identify problems in their communities and come up with ideas about the different types of careers that may develop to address these.

Over the past ten years, I have shifted the questions I use in my own classroom. Rather than asking, “What do you want to be?” I ask, “What problems do you want to help solve?” I then push students to see if technology can be a part of the solution. These questions have led to interesting discussions about existing careers and some that have not been invented yet.

Make Room for Uncertainty

Students come to our classrooms with questions, concerns, and sometimes doubts about their own knowledge. One of the most important things we can model is that we do not have all the answers about what comes next.

While there are people who research and provide insights about the future workforce, predictions about AI, employment, and the essential workforce skills will continue to change as technology evolves. Knowing that can help us guide students to be prepared for change in general and be comfortable when it happens. Developing adaptability and resiliency skills will be highly beneficial.

We should also be creating experiences in which students must iterate because the first solution does not work. We need to provide opportunities to explore new tools, try new strategies, collaborate, receive feedback, adjust, and try again. Students need to understand and embrace productive struggle, and realize that mistakes are often the starting point for learning.

Preparing Students for Work and Beyond

Once they enter the workforce, students will likely work across multiple roles, organizations, and perhaps even entirely different fields over the course of their lives. In our highly digital world, technologies will continue to change, some of the skills in demand today will evolve, and new ones will emerge. And because of all these changes, career readiness is no longer about simply preparing students to have the skills necessary for their first job, but instead being prepared and willing to keep learning after that.

Certain careers may require specific technical knowledge, but any job will also require adaptability, creativity, curiosity, communication, critical thinking, ethical judgment, and the confidence to be faced with something unfamiliar and be able to figure out what to do next.

AI has changed the approach to career readiness, but it has also made schools aware of the need to shift the focus and the conversation. While we may not be able to predict exactly which jobs will be available for our students, we can prepare them to confidently enter an ever-changing world with the skills and mindset to navigate whatever work offers them.

A new question to consider as we think about career readiness is: “Are we preparing students to keep learning when the job, and the world around it, changes?”

Tech & Learning partnered with the Association of Career & Technical Education (ACTE) for its 2026 Northeast Leadership Summit focusing on career-connected education.

Throughout the day at the summit in downtown Philadelphia, district leaders shared ways that they have been supporting career pathways, workforce partnerships, and education innovation.

Here’s a look at some of the key discussions throughout the day.

Connecting Schools with Industry Partners

Stacey Johnson, Director of Workforce and Industry Partnerships, Business & Entrepreneur Partnerships at the University at Buffalo, led this session talking about her institution's efforts in forging industry partnerships.

After initially deciding to build out their CTE program, Johnson got space donated and has subsequently launched five CTE centers that now place more than 1,300 students.

Johnson talked about having the right people at the table in terms of industry partners and empowering them to do what they do really, really well. And that those partners should be actively helping to make a change, and if they are not, then it’s okay to move on to other partners.

“We saw lots of kids being trained, but getting placed in low-paying positions, and that needed to change,” Johnson said. “We worked to modernize and update existing programs to help students to really prepare for careers, not just help provide cheap labor for companies.” She emphasized that in addition to being transparent about all your efforts, when you find those true partners, they should help design the programs from the ground up, and help students with skills such as communication and problem-solving. For example, she mentioned how they’ve brought in partners who use AI in their work rather than just teaching AI on its own. She also discussed the need to reach down into the curriculum around workplace learning and internships, and modernize all of it.

Johnson recommended reaching out to, connecting with, and touring similar programs, as well as actually visiting partner sites to better inform your CTE program and prepare students for their internships or placements. She also noted the need to try different strategies that students can actually access to help find success, such as having a recent past graduate speaking directly to students as their experiences will be much closer to those of current students.

Johnson stressed the importance of needing partners to actually show up, and that they can’t just be a name on a list that looks good for them in terms of public relations. They have to be present and participate, and assist in building personal relationships and connections.

Finally, she said, “It’s okay to say no – sometimes someone who wants to be your partner might not be the best partner for you. They need to be genuinely invested in your partnership.”

What AI Can't Do: Equipping Students with Essential Workplace Skills

For this roundtable discussion with Jennifer Freedman, Director of Instructional Technology and Innovation at Lindenhurst UFSD, the main themes were the importance of human judgment, creativity, critical thinking, and empathy in an AI-driven world. The central question was how AI can expand students' learning without replacing their own creative development.

One practical example was a traffic-light system for guiding AI use, with teachers setting clear boundaries for each assignment. Green means students can use AI freely; yellow allows it for specific tasks, such as brainstorming, while students complete the work themselves; and red means AI use is off-limits.

Educators agreed that AI can be a useful tool for ideation and iteration, but students still need to take the lead in creating the final product and demonstrating their understanding of the concepts behind a lesson.

The discussion also explored skills students need to develop before entering the workforce. These include AI fact-checking and source evaluation.

Neurodiverse Workforce Development

Edward Cohen, Assistant Director at the Rutgers Center for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education, led the discussion talking about the workforce development program at his institution for neurodiverse students. He started by noting that 90-95% of neurodiverse students don’t have leisure activities on campus available to them, so his team’s first goal is to look for “low-hanging fruit” to find what his students are interested in, such as using a makerspace, or working with lasers, woodworking, or 3D printing.

Once discovering activities that they find engaging, the next goal is translating that into a potential meaningful career, beyond an entry-level job such as cafeteria work, which many neurodiverse students do. For example, they’ve offered mat making (cutting) in conjunction with Michael’s, which has helped students get certified and then hired for real jobs.

They also work with behaviorists to teach students coping skills, problem-solving (to find a friend to help, for example, when stuck), and then reducing those behaviors so they can work.

Cohen reported that the success rate was good for Year 1 of the program, although they did cherry-pick higher-functioning students (ages 18-26) to start. The 2nd year was a little more challenging as it included some students with ADHD, which created a challenge around redirecting.

Attendees discussed other CTE programs for neurodiverse students, such as those at Butler Tech and The Nicholas Center, and noted that more facilities are being built to accommodate these students and programs.

One challenge is to support students but then many age out of programs, as well as those trying to cover the gap for those who graduate high school and then don’t have a next step. Another challenge is getting info to parents and students as there’s a disconnect at this level, and you need the support of active parents. It can also be tough to find industry partners to provide meaningful career paths.

CTE: A National Perspective

Luke Rhine, Vice President for Postsecondary Success at Rodel, opened the roundtable discussion by highlighting how CTE governance and delivery can vary across neighboring states, ranging from state-level to county- and regional-level models. Early career exploration and youth apprenticeships are common across the board, but states take different approaches to student implementation.

He also raised concerns about how the federal administration has shifted much of CTE oversight from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor, potentially focusing on short-term job training over broader, higher-quality CTE programs.

Participants also discussed the value of community college, including non-credit programs, and the ongoing challenge of securing funding while showing the value to students and communities.

Using AI to Support College-Level Teacher Certification Program

Executive Director of the Temple University CTE Center Elizabeth Diamond’s roundtable discussion focused on practical ways AI can support educators working toward teacher certification. Participants explored how to introduce AI to educators, particularly CTE teachers, who may enter the classroom before completing certification. One idea was to pair lesson-planning instruction with guided AI use, helping educators draft lessons, improve their own teaching voice and tackle everyday classroom tasks.

Diamond emphasized that AI should support, never replace, educators' understanding of teaching frameworks. Teachers also need a solid foundation in their subject areas to evaluate AI-generated material and decide whether it’s accurate and useful for students.

The conversation also touched on concerns about placing educators with limited teaching preparation in classrooms. Diamond discussed potential solutions, such as undergraduate programs and partnerships with universities.

Updated Programming and the Implementation of Technology

Troy Long, Director of CTE and Grants Administration for Mercer County Technical Schools, facilitated this group discussion, sharing his efforts for his organization.

Long talked about how they’ve reorganized schedules to provide opportunities for CTE pathways and the work that comes with that.

Long also spent a bit of time discussing costs associated with CTE programs, be it equipment or licenses, and the challenges of finding grants and other funding sources. He did stress that sometimes he gets funding because the paperwork involved deters others and he perseveres. He also detailed balancing Title I, II, and IV funding and CTE funding, as well as providing data to justify requests and aligning needs properly to match the funding requirements. “CTE is great for explaining the ‘why,’ for learning,” Long said.

Long stressed his program’s commitment to doing whatever possible to beef up technology for the students, saying, “If we’re not at the cutting edge of technology, then what’s the purpose?” To that extent, he explained how they were able to find funds to buy eight virtual reality anatomy machines at $80,000 each plus shipping. He added that every pathway has certain stipulations, so it’s important to ensure that the technology is there to support it, which often requires constant upgrades.

To also help manage costs, Long suggested sharing tech with other programs – such as using CTE funding to buy equipment for other programs, or getting the tech coordinator to help facilitate purchases.

He also said it’s critical to make sure that there’s teacher buy-in so equipment is being used, and it’s always useful to attend events to find out new innovative products that are available.

Finally, Long discussed the concept of “Nice to have” vs. “Need to have,” adding that having industry professionals as partners is essential as they can validate the costs to make sure the right tech is on hand.

Visual Art Artificial Intelligence Guidelines

Elizabeth Stuart, Visual Art Supervisor for Prince George's County Public Schools, began the roundtable discussion by explaining how high school students in her district have access to select AI tools for creative coursework. Students combine traditional photography and design skills with AI-assisted tools to create a final project. One example Stuart shared was a graphic novel activity in which students used AI to help develop the story before diving into the creation process.

As the discussion wrapped up, Stuart pointed out that AI is likely to remain part of students' lives, making it valuable for her to discuss topics such as deepfakes and the ethical uses of AI both inside and outside the classroom.

A Boots-on-the-Ground Look at Visual Arts CTE Program at Brooklyn Tech

This panel discussion explored how Brooklyn Technical High School builds inclusive, industry-connected CTE pathways while still balancing student choice, staffing, equipment, compliance and industry partnerships. The school has a graduation rate above 98%, and 99% of students have postsecondary plans. Many are first-generation college students or come from immigrant families.

Mark Rodriguez, Assistant Principal of Engineering/CTE at Brooklyn Tech, dove into credentials such as OSHA training and FAA exams that can support internships. He also spoke about costs, citizenship documentation and how limited test-center capacity and scheduling can create barriers. He emphasized making industry participation an easy lift: start with a small group of students, consider early-career employees as mentors and address students' workplace readiness before expanding.

Gustave Trombetta, Assistant Principal: Industrial Design, Architecture, Media Communications, Visual/Performing Arts, spoke on the importance of designing programs for the entire student body to prevent leaving talented students behind. Trombetta explained that courses should connect through vertical and horizontal alignment rather than work as silos.

The panel also highlighted the challenges of bringing CTE programs to life. Rodriguez and Trombetta spoke on the importance of working with facilities leadership and planning for equipment, building access and infrastructure needs.

The key takeaways from the panel: Be realistic about what's possible. CTE educators should use their time and resources wisely and avoid becoming so attached to a single idea that they lose sight of what will actually work.

Data That Delivers: Using AI in MTSS to Drive Workforce Readiness

Mike Gaskell, Principal at Central Elementary School in East Brunswick, New Jersey, looked at how AI could streamline MTSS for classroom teachers, and work more efficiently.

Gaskell pointed out how studies have shown that teachers don’t have enough time to look at students' needs, so if you can automate the non-thinking stuff (such as crunching data), then you can spend more time on figuring out how to help students, which involves human critical thinking. He said that AI can act as an active data interpreter, early-warning detector, and intervention co-designer for K-12 educators.

Gaskell talked about how he used AI to crunch data about students who were struggling, and unsurprisingly, it showed that attendance for economically disadvantaged students was a problem, which caused literacy scores to suffer. Once his suspicions were confirmed, he was then able to set goals and plans to address the issue. He detailed a three-step process for this:

Step 1: Data Input - Anonymized table showing 10th graders dropping from Tier 1 to Tier 2 due to morning tardiness and concurrent ELA grade drops.

Step 2: Role Prompt - "Act as an MTSS coordinator. Based on this tardy/ELA data, suggest a 4-week Tier 2 plan and a 1-page daily student checklist."

Step 3: Dual Assets - Generates a structured educator intervention framework alongside a clean, scannable goal-tracking sheet for student binders.

Gaskell also referenced the Kauai longitudinal study that tracked Hawaiian kids over 40 years who were at risk. He noted that if we know the factors that can help students, then why not use them over and over?

Finally, Gaskell stressed that it’s important to think of AI as an assistant, not as the lead for any solution.

November 30 marks the four-year anniversary of ChatGPT’s launch. In that time as a writing professor, I’ve seen much of the work I do change dramatically, and not for the better. The undergraduate courses I teach are riddled with AI writing, and I’m not alone.

The New York Times reported this summer that between two-thirds and 90 percent of high school and college students are using AI for schoolwork. A recently published study of 77 students by researchers at Virginia Tech found that only six students refrained from using AI to help them write, and nearly half of the students used AI and asked it to write their entire essays.

Individual teachers and institutions have come up with creative ways to overcome AI challenges by designing assessments that are inherently difficult for AI to ace, but collectively, the field of education, and higher education in particular, has not done enough to prevent AI misuse when it comes to writing. Instead, by and large, education has treated the problem of AI writing as an abstract and unconquerable evil, such as human suffering.

But the challenge of AI-generated writing in the classroom has always seemed like a fixable issue to me, if only there was a greater, widespread commitment to fighting it. Regardless of what you think of AI use overall, the idea that instructors should be able to ensure their students are actually writing what they say they are writing shouldn’t be controversial. Nor should we give up on trying to suppress the flood of AI writing.

Here are some steps institutions could take unilaterally or collectively to push back the ever-rising tide of AI.

1. Embrace AI Watermarks

AI watermarks act as a kind of digital fingerprint on AI work. The technology already exists to implement these, and it's likely soon be required for most major AI platforms, particularly to comply with the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act, which requires watermarking.

Educators and education leaders should loudly applaud these efforts and be prepared for when watermarks are rolled out in the U.S. Consequently, schools and universities should issue clear guidance for students and teachers on how AI watermarking will be tested by educators as well as what the penalties and procedures will be once an AI watermark is detected in a student's work.

2. Use Effective AI Detection Tools

AI detection tools emerged early as an obvious hedge against inappropriate AI use for writing. The problem is that many of these were initially terrible and resulted in false positives and nightmare accusations for students, which caused many in the field to immediately dismiss them. That was a mistake.

With the right procedures in place, AI detection tools can be utilized fairly. For example, Pangram has very high accuracy rates according to independent studies, and the company says its rate of falsely identifying a human-generated document as AI-generated is roughly 1 in 24,000. These numbers should continue to be assessed. If those rates hold up, there’s no reason this or other effective AI detection tools can't be used by educators.

3. Put Collective Pressure on Tech Companies

AI technology is evolving and no response to it in the school setting is perfect . . . for the corporations creating the platforms! Not so much for students and educators.

So far, the vast majority of AI misuse in school involves only a few platforms. Still, these solution providers need to take more responsibility in addressing what they’ve done to traditional writing assignments in schools.

If a new smartphone was released that could hack into school data centers and change student grades, educators would be outraged and demand these tools be altered to protect student learning. And yet, this is essentially what is happening with AI writing.

As educators, we should demand tech companies lead the way in ensuring their products don’t obliterate academic integrity. I’m not naive enough to think these types of efforts would actually be effective, but there’s something to collectively and symbolically letting the tech world know that they are causing problems and that we can fix these problems with their help.

4. Greater Emphasis on Originality in Writing

If there’s one bright side to the surge in AI-generated generic writing, it’s that it has demonstrated just how vital creativity in writing is. We should have been fostering this more long before the AI revolution, but it’s become increasingly more critical now.

Writing assignments should not be used merely as ways for students to demonstrate their learning, but as opportunities for students to show their creativity, as well as take conversations and ideas further and in new directions than previously. We should start weighing originality and unique research and perspectives more strongly in our rubrics.

Additionally, we should be unabashed about giving lower marks for work that either was written by AI or sounds as though it could've been written by AI. This might be somewhat subjective, but no more so than many aspects of writing we grade, such as tone or strength of argument.

By centering creativity and originality in our approach to writing and grading, we’ll be establishing a foundation for human writing that can hopefully help stand up to the current generation of AI tools and subsequent iterations. I don’t think we’ll ever return entirely to the pre-ChatGPT days of student writing, but with some of the strategies discussed here, we can get a whole lot closer.

TryHackMe is an online cybersecurity training platform that teaches identifying vulnerabilities and investigating cyber attack skills through interactive lessons, challenges, and simulated hacking environments.

Students can work through guided exercises in their browser, applying what they learn without needing to build their own lab environment. For educators teaching computing, IT, or cybersecurity, TryHackMe offers a practical way to introduce technical concepts and give students experience with the tools and techniques used by security professionals.

Its education platform also provides assignment management and progress tracking, making it easier to incorporate hands-on cybersecurity activities into a course.

This is all you need to know about TryHackMe in your class.

What is TryHackMe?

TryHackMe is a browser-based platform for learning cybersecurity through practical exercises. It covers both offensive security, which involves testing systems to identify weaknesses, and defensive security, which focuses on detecting threats and protecting networks.

The platform offers more than 1,000 training labs and learning pathways, covering subjects such as networking, Linux, web application security, penetration testing, and security operations. Content ranges from introductory lessons for beginners to more advanced challenges designed for learners developing professional skills.

TryHackMe gives students opportunities to work directly with security tools and simulated systems. They might investigate a vulnerable website, analyze suspicious activity or practice identifying weaknesses in a network.

This makes the platform ideal for further education, university computing courses, and vocational cybersecurity training. It can also support school computing lessons in which students are ready to explore network security and ethical hacking.

TryHackMe is not limited to education. Individuals can use it to develop their own skills, while businesses can use the platform to train staff. Its dedicated education offering adds tools for assigning activities, monitoring progress, and managing student access.

How does TryHackMe work?

Getting started is straightforward. Students create an account, choose a learning pathway or individual room, and follow the instructions provided. A room is a self-contained learning activity covering a particular subject, with explanations, questions, and practical exercises.

A teacher introducing network security, for example, could select a suitable beginner activity and ask students to complete it alongside a lesson on how networks communicate. Students work through the material at their own pace, answering questions and applying their knowledge as they go.

Many exercises use virtual machines and simulated environments that can be accessed through a browser. TryHackMe also provides its AttackBox, a browser-based machine equipped with cybersecurity tools, so students can practice without installing and configuring everything on their own computers.

The platform provides structured learning pathways, too. These group related activities into a sequence, helping learners build their knowledge progressively rather than jumping between unrelated challenges. Current options include Cyber Security 101, Pre Security, Jr Penetration Tester, and SOC Level 1, which focuses on security operations.

For educators, the dedicated classroom platform adds a management layer. Teachers can assign rooms, modules, and learning pathways to individuals or groups, set deadlines, and monitor completion. Reports provide information about student progress and performance, helping teachers identify learners who may need additional support.

This gives educators a choice between using individual activities to reinforce a lesson and building a more structured program around a particular cybersecurity skill.

What are the best TryHackMe features?

TryHackMe's biggest strength is its practical approach to learning. Its interactive rooms let students apply concepts immediately, whether they're learning about network protocols, investigating vulnerabilities, or practicing defensive security techniques. The platform also uses points, badges, and progress indicators to give learners a sense of achievement as they complete activities.

Structured learning pathways help teachers organize content around specific learning objectives. Beginners can start with foundational material before progressing to more demanding exercises, while students with existing knowledge can explore specialist subjects. This is useful when a class contains learners with different levels of technical experience.

Browser-based labs reduce the technical work involved in setting up practical activities. Students can access supported exercises without teachers having to build and maintain their own collection of vulnerable machines. The isolated training environments also help keep practice separate from a school's live network.

The education dashboard is useful for classroom delivery. Teachers can assign activities, set deadlines, organize learners into groups, and review progress. Automated marking on supported labs reduces the need to check every answer manually, leaving more time for teaching and discussion.

Custom learning content gives institutions greater flexibility. Education licenses include options for creating or adapting learning pathways and labs, including uploading virtual machines. This can help departments tailor activities to their own curriculum, equipment, and students' experience levels.

Finally, real-world security scenarios help connect technical knowledge to practical problems. TryHackMe regularly updates its content to cover emerging threats and vulnerabilities, giving educators material that can support discussions about current cybersecurity issues.

How much does TryHackMe cost?

TryHackMe offers a free individual account, alongside paid Premium and MAX subscriptions. The free tier provides access to selected rooms, limited learning-path content, and up to one hour of AttackBox use per day.

Premium, from $18.11 per month, unlocks full access to beginner learning pathways, certificates of completion, and unlimited AttackBox usage, while MAX, from $30.73 per month, adds advanced pathways and broader access to the platform's content.

For schools, colleges, and universities, TryHackMe offers a separate education license with classroom management and reporting features. Its education pricing starts at $30 per user per month, using tokens that represent one student for one month. This allows institutions to scale usage around their cohorts rather than committing to a fixed number of seats for the entire year.

TryHackMe Tips

• Start with the right learning pathway
  Choose content that matches students' existing knowledge and the lesson's objectives. Avoid assigning advanced penetration-testing challenges before students understand the underlying concepts.
• Use rooms to reinforce classroom teaching
  Introduce a concept in class before asking students to practice it on TryHackMe. A lesson on network protocols, for example, can be followed by a relevant activity that asks students to apply their understanding.
• Set clear objectives for each activity
  Tell students what they should learn or demonstrate before they begin. They might need to identify a vulnerability, explain how an attack works, or describe a defensive measure. Clear objectives provide the activity with a purpose and a basis for follow-up questions and assessment.
• Make use of assignments and progress reports
  Educators using the education platform can assign activities to individuals or groups, set deadlines, and review completion reports. Check progress during the exercise rather than waiting until the deadline, so students who are struggling can receive help before they fall behind.
• Follow up with discussion
  Ask students to explain what they discovered, why a vulnerability matters, and how a system could be protected against the attack they explored. This encourages them to think beyond finding the correct answer and develop a deeper understanding of cybersecurity principles.

Walking into Gillette Stadium, you could feel the energy of educators, technology leaders, students, and solution providers coming together with a shared purpose: making learning better. MassCUE 2026 was more than a technology conference. It celebrated ideas, connections, creativity, and the people pushing education forward.

I experienced this year’s event from several perspectives. As a featured speaker, I shared our work in New Bedford Public Schools around artificial intelligence implementation and building a technology team that supports learning. As host of the Stronger Together podcast, I connected with educators and leaders to amplify their voices and stories.

But what made this event memorable wasn’t the technology, presentations, or setting.

It was the people.

Across two days, several themes emerged that should guide our work long after leaving Gillette Stadium.

Human-Centered Technology: Keeping People at the Heart of Innovation

One of the strongest messages I took away from MassCUE was the importance of human-centered technology. With artificial intelligence reshaping education, it is easy to focus on the newest tools and features. But technology should never be the starting point of our decisions.

Students should be.

Technology is most powerful when it strengthens relationships, expands opportunities, removes barriers, and creates learning experiences that might not otherwise be possible. As leaders, we must look beyond what technology can do and ask what it should do. Does it improve learning? Support educators? Create greater access? Help students think, create, collaborate, and grow?

Those questions should drive our decisions.

I was especially encouraged by students participating in presentations and panels throughout the conference. Their voices weren’t an afterthought. They were part of the learning.

If students are at the center of our decisions, they should help shape them.

Innovation You Could See, Feel, and Experience

Another standout feature was the energy and creativity throughout the G-P Atrium.

The atrium became more than a gathering space. It brought learning, creativity, conversation, and connection together.

From the main stage featuring Carl Hooker to Marialace Curran leading the Gym for the Brain, opportunities extended beyond traditional conference sessions. The podcast area amplified educator voices. The one-on-one chill zone offered opportunities to connect and reflect. Manuel Herrera’s creativity and artistry reminded us that innovation extends beyond devices and software. Creativity and imagination are essential to learning and leadership. The Educator Playground invited participants to explore, experiment, and experience learning firsthand.

These spaces encouraged participation rather than passive observation. You weren’t simply attending a conference. You were part of the experience. There is a lesson here: Professional learning should provide opportunities to experiment, collaborate, and learn from one another, not just sit and listen.

Moving Beyond Ideas to Action

Conferences inspire us. We hear speakers, discover tools, and leave with notes. But inspiration alone doesn’t change classrooms.

Action does.

What I appreciated about MassCUE was the action-oriented nature of its sessions. Educators weren’t simply discussing future possibilities. They shared what they are doing now. Real examples. Real challenges. Real lessons learned. Across conversations about AI, digital learning, cybersecurity, student engagement, and leadership, a common message emerged: Start with purpose, build a plan, and learn along the way.

AI discussions were particularly meaningful. The focus is moving beyond exploring tools toward responsible implementation. That means establishing expectations, supporting educators, protecting student information, and evaluating results.

Innovation doesn’t require perfection, but it does include purpose, courage, collaboration, and action.

Partnerships That Power Innovation

Another valuable part of MassCUE was connecting with solution providers on the vendor floor. Sometimes we view the vendor floor as a place to explore products. I see an opportunity to build relationships, exchange ideas, and discover resources alongside partners invested in helping schools succeed. Meaningful change requires more than purchasing products. It takes planning, professional learning, support, and partnerships.

Solution providers shared resources to help districts strengthen innovation, cybersecurity, student safety, and instructional impact. The most valuable conversations move beyond what a product does to what a district wants to accomplish. Strong partnerships begin with listening, understanding challenges, and finding solutions together.

Sometimes the greatest opportunity isn’t buying something new. It’s maximizing what we already have.

The Power of Connection

Perhaps my favorite part of MassCUE was connecting with people. Some conversations were planned. Others happened because someone walked by and joined in. Those moments were equally meaningful.

What stands out is educators’ willingness to share their expertise, challenges, resources, and time. There is power in being surrounded by people passionate about improving education who recognize that none of us needs to do this work alone. The best ideas don’t always come from a keynote or presentation.

Sometimes they come from a hallway conversation, a connection over lunch, or an exchange between sessions.

5 Takeaways Leaders Can Put Into Action Tomorrow

Beyond the inspiration, MassCUE offered practical lessons for technology and learning leaders.

1. Start With Learning, Not Technology. Identify the instructional challenge before adopting another tool. Ask teachers and students what they need, then explore how technology can help.
2. Move AI From Exploration to Implementation. Establish expectations, provide professional learning, begin with manageable pilots, and use feedback to guide expansion.
3. Make Cybersecurity Everyone’s Responsibility. Protecting schools requires shared ownership. Include brief cybersecurity reminders in staff communications and reinforce safe practices.
4. Maximize Technology Partnerships. Ask solution providers how existing resources can better support learning, safety, and efficiency. Focus on solutions, not just products.
5. Give Students and Educators a Voice. Include students in technology decisions and provide opportunities for educators to share effective practices.

These steps don’t require major initiatives or new budgets, but intentional leadership and a willingness to act.

As I reflect on MassCUE 2026, one thought stays with me. Technology may bring us to this event, but people make it extraordinary. Technology provides tools. Innovation creates possibilities. Sessions offer strategies. Partnerships provide support.

But people make it matter.

The teacher trying something new. The technology leader creating safe systems. The student sharing a perspective. The school leader rethinking practices. The solution provider helping solve challenges. That is where impact happens.

A tremendous thank you to Grace Magley, Andrea Calvin, and the entire MassCUE conference committee for creating an inspiring event grounded in the work that matters. You created more than a conference. You celebrated educators, elevated student voices, encouraged innovation, strengthened partnerships, and reminded us of the power of learning together.

As we return to our districts, carry that energy forward. Put one idea into action. Continue a conversation. Invite student voice into a decision. Support a colleague. Because the true measure of a great conference isn’t what happens during those two days.

It’s what happens in our schools because of those two days.

Tapestry is a free platform providing immersive cultural heritage experiences: high-quality, guided 3D virtual tours of notable sites worldwide with historical, natural, or archeological importance.

The platform was created and is run by CyArk, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to make the world’s cultural heritage widely accessible to all using the power of 3D technology. Tapestry is browser-based and operates on desktop, tablet, mobile, or kiosk devices.

How Does Tapestry Work?

Tapestry is decidedly simple to use -- the platform runs entirely in a web browser, with nothing to download or install. Visitors can explore on a phone, tablet, or desktop computer at any time, in any place.

Graphic-heavy sites such as Tapestry can sometimes lag on ordinary computers and mobile devices. However, in my testing, I found Tapestry to be highly functional after a brief loading period. That being said, the interactive 3D sections of the virtual tour will use a substantial fraction of your computer's graphic memory and it's best not to have other graphic-heavy programs running at the same time.

Tapestry’s photorealistic virtual tours—also called "experiences"—are beautifully rendered. And its interactive sections, which allow visitors to explore sites across 360 degrees in 3D via mouse or touchscreen, create the sensation of being actually present.

Educators can search for experiences in several ways. Spin the globe to find the location you'd like to explore, mouse over the bright orange dot, and view the description/link to the experience. Or search all 77 virtual tours in the library, filtered by keyword, category, publication date, and language. Finally, users can search directly from the home page by keyword, although I found this this method less useful than the first two methods.

Once begun, the virtual tour displays a menu of “stops” on the left, each one dedicated to a particular sub-location within the site. A narrator describes the scenes displayed and provides background information while the virtual camera zooms, pans and tilts through buildings and landscapes, allowing the viewer to fully explore all aspects of the site.

Closed captions may be activated, in addition to or instead of the narration. Music appropriate to the experience adds to the overall effect of being present. Users can navigate freely among the stops as well as use controls to advance or reverse position.

Is Tapestry Good for Education?

While not explicitly designed for education, Tapestry’s interactive virtual tours can engage students in a way unlike most other learning tools do. The combination of high-quality graphics, soundtrack, narration and interactivity creates the illusion of being present remarkably well. The experience can be mesmerizing.

I asked Elizabeth Lee, CyArk’s Vice President for Programs and Development, about Tapestry’s use in education. “While the platform was launched in 2023, we only created an education section a few months ago,” said Lee. “We wanted to create a resource for the many educators who were already using the platform on their own.”

New resources for educators include newsletters and the Tapestry Certified Educators professional training, whose first cohort has enrolled and begun training.

“After the first cohort completes the professional training, we plan to post more resources about how to use these experiences in the classroom,” said Lee, adding, “We hope to offer additional sessions in the future for other educators, based on the feedback and response we get from these first sessions.”

Most of Tapestry’s experiences are accessible to a 2nd-8th grade audience, with the majority of text comprehension designed for students aged 10-12 years.

All that is not to say that Tapestry isn’t a valuable resource for older students as well. With its highly engaging interface, it can serve as a perfect starting point for more advanced students to explore and discover what interests them on their own.

What are the Best Tapestry features?

Interactive 3D Exploration

The combination of Tapestry’s amazingly accurate and detailed graphics and its interactive 3d exploration creates a virtual experience unlike any other I’ve seen.

When the user selects a numbered feature in an experience, the camera zooms in and a downloadable video opens in the right panel.

Below, I've selected the green turtle detail of the Great Barrier Reef virtual tour, stop four (Relationships on the Reef). I found it quicker to download the video and watch on my computer, rather than running it in browser window. Regardless, the brief close-up video is well worth watching to appreciate the magnificence of these denizens of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem.

Playback Controls
Tapestry’s playback controls allows educators to pause, resume, or jump back or forward 15 seconds while a stop is playing, making it easy to focus on key moments, all while the 3D view remains synched with the narration.

Downloadable Resources and Transcripts
Each Tapestry virtual tour includes a complete downloadable PDF transcript; a gallery of related images and brief videos; and an outline of the story, with a summary of each stop. These extras serve not only to guide educators in using experiences in the classroom, but also as valuable study aids for students.

Direct Links for Content and Stops
Teachers can share a specific stop, photo, voice or interactive, allowing students to land directly on the assigned content, rather than at the beginning of the selected tour.

Tapestry for Teachers Newsletter
The newsletter provides tips on how educators can best incorporate Tapestry into classroom instruction and lesson plans, as well as offering seasonal suggestions for virtual tours.

How Accessible is Tapestry?

Tapestry is in partial conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA, a set of web accessibility standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that guides webmasters in making content usable for those with disabilities, including low vision, cognitive and learning differences, motor impairments, and hearing loss. It's also tested compatible with Screen Reader VoiceOver and Screen Reader Jaws.

How Much Does Tapestry Cost?

Built by the nonprofit organization CyArk, Tapestry is 100% free for all visitors. No account is required to take its virtual tours, access, or download related educational materials.

Google Search has fully integrated AI through a feature called AI Overviews. For some time now, if you phrase your query as a question such as, “When is the next train from Brewster to Grand Central?” the tool will tell you the times the train is leaving . . . except I wouldn't trust that information.

According to one recent analysis conducted for The New York Times, Google AI Summaries are accurate about 9 out of 10 times, which tracks with my experience. Whenever I ask a series of questions around a subject I'm well-versed in, I almost always find minor errors and often notice outright falsehoods, not to mention the aforementioned inaccuracies with train schedule-related questions in my area.

This led me to realize that Google’s AI summaries can be a great tool for teaching AI literacy and giving students tangible insights into AI hallucinations, limitations, sourcing, and more.

To this end, I’ve designed a short assignment. I ask students to use Google’s AI Summary tool for a subject they know well. Then they have to ask it to provide a bio of them or information on their school or the time of their local train or when their favorite sports team is playing. I require that students keep querying until they find falsehoods, which can sometimes take a little time. Then I ask them to verify the sources and explain why and how AI got it wrong.

Though I’ve only recently implemented it, I find this AI exercise enforces the lessons discussed below.

1. Google AI Overviews (And AI Outputs In General) Need Verification

This is an obvious lesson, and one that students already know in theory, but in practice, I find they don’t apply it. Students, and many people in general, will insist something is correct because AI told them, even though they know AI gets things wrong frequently.

Forcing students to confront AI accuracy with this assignment can cut through some of the cognitive dissonance. It’s harder to dismiss AI mistakes when those mistakes are about you or something you know very well, such as your town or school.

2. Source Verification

When I asked Google what nonfiction author David Grann’s next book is, it said he is writing a new book about the Nobel Oil empire. When I clicked on the source to verify this, I was led to Grann’s social media page. As I explored, I realized he was not working on these books but had posted about books on these topics from other authors.

Having students go through a similar process with source verification provided by Google’s AI summary can teach them not only to better spot AI falsehoods but also about source verification more broadly. Even with human-generated work, sometimes when you go back to a cited source, you find it didn’t frame the claim the same way or, in some cases, that the author is making claims the source material can’t support.

Therefore, this type of fact-checking is a valuable skill for AI verification and beyond.

3. AI's Inner Workings

The mistakes this type of tool makes can hint at larger problems and concerns with AI. Any student who knows how to use the internet can look up train times and report back on arrivals and departures.

Powerful AI tools know how to search the internet with an efficiency beyond what any human could dream of achieving, yet these also can’t be trusted with the same simple task. This happens because AI engines don’t verify facts the way a human might. Instead, most current-generation models predict phrases and statements through pattern recognition. This has led some to refer to them as “stochastic parrots,” though that terminology is sometimes derided, correctly, I believe, as an oversimplification.

Either way, the fact that many AI models can’t be trusted to perform a relatively simple task is a good starting point for discussions about the strengths and limitations of these tools, and a direct example of how something about how these operate very differently than humans.

4. Learning When And How To Use AI

Despite all this, I’m not advocating for students to avoid using Google’s AI Overview or some other AI tool. When Google's AI Overview works, it can be a helpful. In fact, one of the main AI uses I’ve found personally useful is as an alterative to a search engine.

Google AI Overviews often get me the information I’m looking for quicker than a traditional search might, and I like seeing what it comes up with before I embark on a traditional search. I’ve just learned not to trust it and always to verify what it says, even on small, seemingly trivial items, such as when the next train is arriving at the station.

Finding these uses and learning the limitations of AI is something important for students to realize as well. Whether we like it or not, we're all interacting with AI content frequently, and becoming more skilled at critically absorbing that content is a necessity for everyone.

Engaging in this type of conversation with students has helped me better focus my own AI use, and I hope has done the same for them. Now, I just need someone to help me figure out my local train schedule.

While some major city school systems around the U.S. are shutting down AI, Frank Murray, Chief Technology Officer of Belton Independent School District in Texas, sees benefits when used correctly. Noting time poverty as a huge issue in education, AI tools can preserve time to solve pain points and best support quality connections with the students.

“We're heavily into the AI ecosystem,” says Murray. “We're on year three of promoting AI use in our district between teachers, students, departments and staff. We pull data every month on the back end to see how much time our students are spending on screens at school and what sites are they actually using the most. By 2030, the number one job skill needed is going to be AI prompting and big data. The biggest thing we know is that we have to train our students how to use AI ethically.”

Murray, a visionary, yet grounded, leader, has fundamentally transformed the district’s operational and technological landscape through high-level strategic foresight and boots-on-the-ground work ethic.

“We have 13,650 students, 21 campuses, 2,100 staff, 32 just in the technology department. as well as PEIMS,” he says. “My day-to-day is to oversee everything 'technology' in the district, to help with our virtual learning academy that we just set up, to help with instructional technology – just the gamut.”

Murray, who was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award for this and other efforts, shares how CTOS as well as educators and students can effectively and ethically use AI to save time in their busy schedules, as well as the results of his efforts to be a catalyst for modernization, including helping to launch a virtual school.

7 Ways CTOs Can Use AI to Benefit Their Schools

School Scheduling: “We did all of our secondary schools' master scheduling using AI Studio this year,” Murray says. “This cut the time to build a master schedule drastically.”

Multi-Tiered System of Supports: The district is doing an MTSS pilot with a lot of AI tools to help provide support at a few of its elementary schools.

Weather Rescheduling: If it rains, redoing the grounds crew schedule takes minutes with AI. “What could take hours before is accomplished in three minutes,” he says.

Professional Learning: We “are using AI for flipped leadership meetings where our leaders listen to podcasts in advance, giving 20 minutes for discussion time about those topics, preserving more time to dive into what’s going on in our district,” Murray says.

Custodial Scheduling: “Our custodial department is piloting GEMS to build scheduling for all our custodians in the district based on the school,” he says. “Rather than a simple to-do list for the night, it breaks down tasks, meal and break times into 15 minute schedule segments that can guide the whole work period with maps to ensure efficient, full school coverage.”

Chromebook Management: “One of our people, Tina, built a new inventory system with AI where you scan the Chromebook cart and then it automatically kicks out what devices it should include,” Murray says. “She built that in a day, and now all our campus technicians just go scan a cart and know where everything belongs.”

Thought Partner: The district has been promoting AI as a thought partner. “We have Gemini for students turned on for all students in the district,” Murray says. “We work with teachers on building Gemini Notebooks and GEMS to help in the classroom to be that resource.”

School Is Where The Student Is

One of the major programs that Murray helped implement is the BISD Virtual Learning Academy, which was launched this year. This option for students gives flexibility to meet students quite literally where they are. The program is available for students in grades 9 through 12 who reside anywhere in the state of Texas.

“Students can attend in a full virtual mode or in a hybrid model,” Murray says. “It helps so many students with its flexibility. Some come and participate in person to their CTE classes, but use the virtual courses for the rest of their courses.”

This creates an opportunity for academic success for every student. It particularly supports those with specific needs or dreams who prefer to spend their time focusing on developing their gifts without scheduling conflicts.

“Our drum major at Belton High School attends almost fully virtual, but comes for band,” Murray says. “We have a cheerleader that does the same thing at Lake Belton High School. We have swimmers that only come for the swim period.”

Students can take as little as one class in person, go completely virtual, or split their schedule to work around their needs. This flexible option delivers the same quality of education and full course load regardless of learning mode. This can be life-changing for students with caretaking challenges at home, who need to work to support their families, or who have accessibility needs making home a more comfortable learning setting.

“You can get your doctorate online today. What's the difference?” Murray asks. “:Why are we not meeting kids where they are in high school? It’s so great when counselors are talking with students who say, ‘School's not for me, I think I'm gonna go homeschool,’ but we have an opportunity for them to stay in school and be a part of something bigger. They can be a part of our school, still walk across the stage being a Tiger, a Bronco, or a Dragon.”

The virtual school currently serves students in grades 9-12, but Murray and his team is looking to expand the program. Students not only gain a format they can be successful in, but a sense of community.

“Watching students be very successful online, and still be able to come to prom, still be able to come and use the libraries with the other kids even if they're fully virtual? It gets them to feel like they are a part of the community,” he says. “We are the Big Red community here in Belmont State, so we want them to be proud to be a part of the Big Red community.”

The Daily Breakdown

To ensure students receive a well-rounded experience, an Innovation Specialist’s day is carefully balanced across four key areas:

Student for a Day

Colleagues note Murray’s leadership style is defined by its lack of ego. He is just as likely to be found assisting with grounds projects or navigating Special Education Medicaid (SHARS) paperwork as he is leading a district-wide technology strategy meeting. The "first-in, last-out" leader refuses to delegate work he wouldn't do himself.

A perfect illustration of his "get-your-hands-dirty" mentality is seen in a unique student-centered program. Sometimes the best way to understand what students need is to put yourself in their shoes. Murray puts himself in their desk.

“There’s something I do every year–it's called Student for a Day,” he says. “I'll call a secondary school and say, ‘Send me five schedules. I want them all on level, no advanced classes, no dual credit, just on-level students, because I want to feel what they go through in a day at school.’”

With schedule in hand, Murray heads off to school

“I want to understand, what does that day look like for them?” he says. “I pick one of the schedules and meet the student right before school, and then I go sit in class and do the work all day with the student.”

Putting himself into the picture gives Murray much more insight than just observing from afar.

“I sit with them and chat as we walk to classes. It allows me to ask them questions. ‘Why do you come to school? Who's your favorite teacher? Why is that your favorite teacher? What's your favorite subject and why? What do you feel about the technology we're putting in your hands? What's your favorite tool to use and why is that? Why is the LMS working for you or why is it not?’ That's the day I really get the data I need rather than just walking into schools.”

What Murray really wants to understand is the why of what makes school and its tech work for kids and how to both continue and expand on those success points.

“I'm spending the day building a relationship with that student to ask questions,” he says. “I sit with them at lunch and I’m able to ask all their buddies, ‘Exactly what brings you all to school?’ We know that extracurricular activities usually bring students to school, or the CTE courses. That's what they're there for, what they're excited for. So we want to make sure that we can provide that for our students using technology, and this does.”

It’s not uncommon for students to bond with some teachers, and sadly, find some educators at the core of why they are not excited to attend school. Murray’s virtual academy also solves that problem.

“We have a student at Belton New Tech, our application-only, project-based learning high school,” he says. “He only comes for history because he loves that history teacher. He loves that subject. So he does all his work from home online other than coming for history class every day. Learning more about their experience not only helps us give those students a choice of their education, but it also allows them to be a part of something bigger.”

Student Success Stories

Murray has vowed to ensure his department gives educators and students everything they need to be successful, bringing ticket times down to 24 hours with response time under three hours. This dedication is just one element of some very inspiring success stories.

“We have students that are trained through an Acer Techsperts course, who then repair devices for us,” he says. “Last year we included Landon, one of our Delta students, which are 18 to 21 students with special needs who we continue to educate. We got him started on the coursework and he was able to get his Techspert certification. He comes over a few days a week to one of our high schools and fixes Chromebooks.”

The student even toured the Acer repair facility recently.

“We talk about meeting students where they're at, and that's what he was excited about,” Murray says. “We tried to make that dream come true for him. He graduates in December and he will be getting a brand new nice Chromebook for his hard work in our Techsperts program to take along with him.”

Two other students at Lake Belton High School started “Begin Fin,” a beginner finance resource.

“They started their junior year when they noted our limited resources in training students on financial literacy,” he says. “They created this fully free, open-source, now being used in over 25 countries. AI allowed them to code this on the backend using Gemini, moving over to AI Studio and a tie-in with the APIs to Google Classroom. Talk about the journey to graduate competencies and how AI can help with that – it’s pretty amazing. We are so proud of our students!”

Tools They Use

• Chromebook Plus
• Google Workspace
• Gemini
• Sam's Lab
• Cybernut
• Managed Methods
• Lightspeed Systems
• Renaissance

AI watermarking could soon provide a way for educators to tell whether students have used AI or not.

To comply with the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act, tech companies will have to watermark content generated through their AI tools. Google is already watermarking text created through its products, and Anthropic will start doing so with similar techniques. OpenAI is expected to develop watermarking methods for its products as well.

Sarah Fisher, a lecturer in philosophy at Cardiff University in Wales, believes this is all a step in the right direction inside and beyond the classroom, though she acknowledges the new technology won’t be perfect.

“As a society of humans, we place value on what humans produce,” she says.

What Is AI Watermarking?

Historically, watermarking has involved some type of visible marker of authenticity.

“You watermark your banknotes, and you know that they're not counterfeit, or hopefully not,” Fisher says.

AI watermarking works somewhat differently, though the end goal is the same. Claude’s watermarking system will make the chatbot follow specific statistical rules for choosing words with the same meaning. Human readers won’t notice anything, but someone with the watermark key will be able to see if the string of words Claude uses is consistent with the watermark, Fisher explains.

“So, if I'm a student, and I go to my ChatGPT, or my Claude or whatever, and I say, 'Write me a hundred words about X, Y, or Zed.' I wouldn't necessarily see a watermark in what gets produced, but if I then submitted that to an online submission system, then presumably, at some stage, we'll have some software that would be able to tell that it was generated by ChatGPT or Claude or whatever.”

Why Could AI Watermarks Be Good News For Teachers?

Fisher believes being better able to tell what is generated by AI vs. humans will be helpful both for educators and society at large, for a few different reasons.

“For some categories of content, it's really obvious,” she says. “If we're talking about especially audiovisual stuff, these deepfakes are so insidious, we really want to know whether what we're seeing before our eyes is something that really did happen.”

Identifying AI text is also important, but in different ways.

“When we get a piece of text, it's not like looking at a deepfake," Fisher says. "We already have to assess whether what we're being told is true or false. And yet, I think it still can be really, really important to know whether that bit of text came from a human or a machine.”

Fisher adds, “One reason is informational or epistemic. These Chatbots tend to make some signature errors that humans don't make and vice versa. So it's just useful to know what to look out for.”

Another factor is just the value of protecting human work. “I've heard a lot of people saying things such as they just don't want to read a story that's written by an AI," says Fisher. "Even if it was the same words as a human produced, something's missing.”

Discerning human-generated work can be particularly important in the classroom setting.

“As educators, we want to know what our students are producing," Fisher says. "We don’t really care about the end products that much. We care about them going through the process. It's not like we're filling a demand for essays in the world.”

Will AI Watermarks Slow The Tide of AI In The Classroom and Beyond?

Fisher believes the answer to this question is yes, but only to a point.

“I think it might help a bit. I don't think it's going to be the silver bullet that solves this problem, and maybe there just never is a solution to this problem,” she says. “There's always a small minority of students who will find a way to cheat. And that's unfortunate, but we should never expect to get it down to zero. But I think the watermarking might help with some of the most egregious cases, where if a student literally has generated a whole long-form piece of text and taken it straight from Claude, say, it seems like in the future the watermark would be pretty good at telling the educator, ‘Look, this is extremely likely to have been generated by Claude,’ and it's very unlikely that we'd get false positives through that.”

What Are Some Limitations To AI Watermarking

It’s already certain AI watermarks won’t catch all AI-generated content.

“There might be rogue systems which aren't doing the watermarking,” Fisher says. “We know that the big companies are trying to do it, but these tools are proliferating, and so if a student has used one that doesn't have a watermarking feature, then that may not get caught.”

Additionally, existing watermarking techniques are less good at catching short passages of AI-generated text.

“Companies are being quite open about the fact that it might be possible to edit text in a way that takes out the watermarks,” Fisher says.

Though she adds, “I don't know how worried to be about that, actually, because once a student's gone to that much trouble, maybe they've done the work by then.”

Future of AI Watermarking

Some critics of AI watermarking worry that since it won’t be perfect, it will lead society to a false sense of security and could potentially make it more likely to fall for AI-generated content, Fisher says. Another criticism is that past efforts to label traditional misinformation on social media have had mixed results, and some think the same thing will be true about labeling AI.

Fisher doesn’t dismiss these concerns, but believes on the whole, AI watermarks will be a good thing.

“I'm reasonably optimistic that this is a positive step in the right direction,” she says. “It's helpful for us all to hold humans and AI apart for now while we figure out exactly what these things are and how we're going to integrate them into all of our social practices and our institutions.”

Chalkie is an AI teaching platform designed to help teachers create those resources from a topic, grade level, and curriculum framework.

It can produce complete lesson slides, worksheets, and activities, while allowing teachers to edit the result before taking it into the classroom.

For U.S. educators, Chalkie supports standards including Common Core, NGSS, TEKS, and C3. It can also work from existing teaching materials, so teachers can upload a file or provide a website as the starting point instead of beginning with a blank page.

What is Chalkie?

Chalkie is an AI-powered lesson and resource generator built for classroom teachers. Its main job is to turn a teaching idea into a classroom-ready lesson.

Enter a topic, subject, grade level, and curriculum framework and Chalkie can generate a structured slideshow containing learning objectives, key vocabulary, activities, and supporting content. The resulting slides can be edited within Chalkie or exported to Google Slides, PowerPoint, or PDF.

It can also create worksheets and classroom activities, including differentiated versions. So Chalkie is useful beyond the initial lesson presentation, especially when a teacher needs several resources covering the same topic.

For schools, the platform is designed to support a more consistent approach to lesson creation across a teaching team. Teachers can share resources, while school leaders get administrative controls and centralized billing.

How does Chalkie work?

Start by choosing what you want to teach. Chalkie asks for the topic, subject, grade level, and relevant curriculum or standards framework, after which it generates the lesson.

The output isn't just a written lesson plan. Chalkie creates a formatted slideshow with the teaching content, learning objectives, vocabulary, and activities already arranged into slides. The company says a complete lesson can be generated in under 30 seconds.

Once the lesson has been created, teachers can edit individual slides using plain-language instructions. You might ask Chalkie to simplify a section, add another slide, change an activity, or differentiate the content for a particular group of students.

An option to start with material you already have is available. Upload a document, PDF, or image, or paste a website URL, and Chalkie can use that information to create a new lesson or activity. Consequently, teachers don't necessarily have to abandon their existing resources to use the platform.

What are the best Chalkie features?

Ready-to-teach slides
Chalkie produces an actual presentation rather than leaving teachers with a text-based lesson plan. Slides include objectives, vocabulary, activities, and visual material, and can be exported to Google Slides, PowerPoint, or PDF.

Standards alignment
Teachers can select U.S. curriculum frameworks including Common Core, NGSS, and TEKS, with Chalkie incorporating the selected standards into the lesson. It also supports C3 for social studies and curriculum frameworks in other countries.

Unit planning
Chalkie can create more than one lesson at a time. Its AI Unit Planner generates a sequence of lessons around a topic, including recap and quiz lessons, with the Pro plan supporting sequences of up to 12 lessons and Max extending that to 25.

Differentiated worksheets
Teachers can generate worksheets for a lesson and create Scaffold and Stretch versions to provide different levels of challenge. Worksheets can include formats such as multiple-choice, short-answer, and fill-in-the-blank questions.

AI editing
The built-in slide editor means teachers don't have to regenerate an entire lesson when only one part needs changing. Instructions can be given in plain English to simplify, extend, or restructure individual slides.

School sharing
The school version adds linked teacher accounts, resource sharing, administrative controls, and centralized billing. Chalkie also says it doesn't require student data, and that it is FERPA and COPPA compliant.

How much does Chalkie cost?

Chalkie has a Free plan that costs nothing and allows teachers to create five resources every seven days, with 10 AI edits per week. It also includes exports to Google and Microsoft formats.

The Pro plan costs $6.65 per month when paid annually, or $79.80 per year. It increases the allowance to 200 resources per month and 400 AI edits, while adding curriculum and standards alignment, YouTube videos, lessons of up to 25 slides and lesson series of up to 12 lessons.

The Max plan costs $12.99 per month, or $155.88 per year. It increases the allowance to 400 resources and 800 AI edits per month, supports lessons of up to 35 slides and lesson series of up to 25 lessons, and adds custom themes and fonts.

Chalkie doesn't publish a fixed price for its Schools plan. Instead, schools and districts can request a quote based on factors such as school size and number of staff. The school package adds linked teacher accounts, administrative controls, resource sharing, and centralized billing. Discounts are also available for districts and bulk licensing.

Chalkie Tips

• Start with the standard
  If curriculum alignment matters for the lesson, select the appropriate framework before generating it. For U.S. teachers, that could mean Common Core, NGSS, TEKS, or C3, depending on the subject and state.
• Give it useful context
  A broad prompt will produce a broad lesson. Include the grade level, topic, learning objective, and anything particular you want students to understand or do, and you're more likely to get a useful first draft.
• Edit before you teach
  Chalkie can produce a lesson quickly, but that doesn't make it automatically suitable for your class. Check the facts, examples, difficulty, and activities, then change anything that doesn't fit your students or your teaching style.
• Try a unit instead
  If you're starting a new topic, use the Unit Planner rather than generating every lesson individually. Having the sequence in place first can make it easier to see how lessons connect and where recap or assessment belongs.
• Use your existing resources
  You don't have to start from scratch. Upload an existing document or provide a URL and use it as the basis for a new resource. This can be a better starting point when you already have material that reflects your school's curriculum or preferred approach.

The Army Software Factory (ASWF) is a first-of-its-kind, Soldier-led tech initiative in which the U.S. Army is partnering with higher education to redefine workforce readiness and support the tech innovators of tomorrow. A humming hive of activity located on the campus of Austin Community College in the heart of Texas, the facility is part software development hub, part college career training and learning hub, and all Army.

“It’s amazing what you can do when your students are used to taking orders, said Dr. Garrett Groves, Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives for Austin Community College, when speaking to attendees of Tech & Learning’s recent Texas Regional Leadership Summit.

Touting that it is “By Soldiers, for Soldiers,” “the program solves Army problems with Soldier-developed solutions.” said U.S. Army COL Jason Zuniga, Director of the Army Software Factory, U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command.

“Our No. 1 goal is to better equip Soldiers,” added Steven Ruh, Chief of Community Outreach & Engagements for the U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command. “How do we have the competitive advantage?”

To that end, in a unique partnership with Austin Community College, ASWF trains Soldiers and students in modern software and platform engineering, user design, and product management. The program offers credentialing, academic credit, and accelerated pathways to Bachelor's degrees. Thanks to its ongoing success, the institution and the Army recently signed a 10-year Inter-Governmental Support Agreement extension.

ASWF is also a true collaborative innovation center where developers from both the military and civilian worlds come together to create digital tools, platforms, and apps specifically designed for Army use. The key tasks are to rapidly build mission-specific software, conduct responsible cybersecurity, and train Soldiers in commercial best practices. Projects, which can range from improving tactical maneuvers to digitizing military archives for better planning, are sent to ASWF for consideration from any unit in the Army. Each is chosen in the belief that creating a solution will help “to dominate and win on battlefields.”

“In the Army, traditional software engineering roles and disciplines didn’t exist,” said Zuniga. “We had to be able to generate the pipeline to train Soldiers in these areas.”

Soldiers who are selected for a two-year assignment at ASWF choose either the platform engineer, software developer, product manager, or UI/UX designer track.

One project successfully developed at ASWF on display during the visit involved tracking flight data within a 10-kilometer radius to deconflict air space between drone aircraft and manned helicopters to ensure both can operate safely. Another tackled the issue of the high attrition rate of the Delayed Entry Program (DEP). When a future Soldier enters the DEP but doesn’t ship to Basic Combat Training on time, the Army sees an increase in recruiting costs and a reduction in training efficiency. For this, the ASWF gave a full makeover to its outdated DEP Soldier portal, which now includes more dynamic and engaging elements, including gamified activities.

While on site, Tech & Learning summit attendees got to see Soldiers and students working together on various Army-focused projects and hear real stories of how software developed at ASWF has been deployed in the field.

“How Might We Fail”

ASWF’s philosophy is "seeking aptitude over skills," including how teachable soft skills are integrated into a high-stakes environment. That includes learning how to fail, and during the visit, attendees got a hands-on peek into how that process is managed at ASWF.

Given the stakes for much of military operations, failure is typically not an option. However, at ASWF, the idea of productive failure has been embraced. Attendees were asked to brainstorm what they thought of when they hear the word “failure,” and the responses were then organized into groups to help explore and inform the innovation process.

Software design thrives on the process of finding mistakes and flaws during each iteration and then improving. At ASWF, it’s a three-step process:

1. Go fast and expect failure
2. Reframe failure as learning
3. Incentivize honesty and retrospection, not perfection

By better understanding this process and how failure in the design process can lead to a better end result, it can help the Army be more responsive, move quicker to solve problems, and find success.

Solving Soldier – And The World’s – Problems

In addition to hearing more about the ASWF’s history, mission, organization, and operations, attendees were also able to learn about the many career and educational opportunities available to students through Army enlistment, including the advantages of ROTC and JROTC programs. Army representatives from the Austin area explained how they have cultivated strong working relationships with the local school districts to better facilitate students who are interested in pursuing any of the options available.

Ultimately, ASWF embodies the Army’s longtime motto of “Be All You Can Be!” And then some.

“We teach our students and Soldiers to collaborate and work in teams,” said Zuniga. “We don’t say, ‘Go out and solve the world’s problems by yourself.’”

Ray-Ban Meta glasses are a type of wearable tech that can take photos, record, play music or podcasts, capture audio, and pair with AI so you can do a lot of things hands-free. The more expensive Ray-Ban Meta Display glasses also feature an on-lens display meant for tasks such as giving you text updates without blocking your view of the real world.

I recently tried the basic model (without the display) and found that these offer some compelling lesson planning and video creator capabilities for teachers. These also have potential for students and could aid in translation, accessibility, and more, but the price of the tech--the third generation starts around $450 per pair--is currently prohibitive in many education environments. Significant privacy issues are also a concern with the devices.

Here’s a closer look at the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and what educators should know.

What Are Ray-Ban Meta Glasses?

Ray-Ban Meta glasses have also been referred to as AI glasses or smart glasses. These offer a chance to put your phone and much of what it can do in POV mode, allowing you to capture high-resolution photos and videos that show what you see. These also function as a sleek headset with good calling and listening features. More advanced models also offer displays. Different styles of sunglass are available, such as aviators.

The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are a rare piece of VR or augmented reality AR tech that seems to be a success. Ray-Ban’s parent company said that more than 7 million pairs of the VR glasses were sold last year, more than tripling sales numbers from the year before.

What Are Some Ways Educators Can Use Ray-Ban Meta Glasses?

The main use I see for Ray-Ban Meta glasses right now are as an alternative to a wearable camera such as a GoPro. If you’re an educator who films a lot of lessons for students, maybe as part of a flipped classroom setup, these glasses could be a worthy investment. It’s really cool to just film what you’re seeing, and I could imagine using this for lab prep, or to illustrate a lesson. You could also give your students a more immersive quick video tour of a historic site.

Influencers have embraced these glasses for activities such as cooking demos, but for those of us who are not would-be celebrities, these might be better used to provide a helpful way to film practical demonstrations.

Accessibility Potential

In addition to making videos, Ray-Ban Meta glasses seem to offer a lot of potential for accessibility in education. A translation feature worked really well in my tests of Spanish-to-English, but it still provided a text-based translation. The person you’re speaking to’s voice is captured by the glasses, but the translation of what they say appears on your phone. This was convenient but not that big of an improvement over a phone-based translation app.

That said, it’s easy to imagine future generations of this technology adding more robust translation features: it would be nice to have the translated text appear on the glasses themselves, for instance.

Even right now, students could, in theory, use the glasses to photograph slides and info written on the whiteboard or chalkboard. For those with vision impairments, the screen display version of the glasses could allow them to see text up close. However, the technology is still too much in its infancy for these uses to feel really practical today.

The cost is also prohibitive, and most importantly, my concerns about the privacy features of these glasses prevent me from recommending these for student deployment.

Privacy Concerns

The privacy issues with Meta Ray-Ban glasses are significant both inside and outside of the classroom. The New York Times reports that restaurants have banned the glasses, and there are reported incidents of these being used to harass people at gyms.

Some users figured out how to disable the red light that turns on when the glasses are recording; in response, Meta announced that it had permanently disabled the recording abilities of thousands of device owners who had tampered with the glasses in this way. This has led the devices to earn the unflattering nickname of "pervert glasses."

None of this has stopped Meta from moving ahead with the device, though they now offer a record-only version of the glasses. Nor is it preventing other companies from releasing similar devices. Google has a new smart glasses tool in the works, and there are rumors Apple does as well.

In a school setting, however, all these privacy issues would be compounded. On top of inappropriate recordings, there are legitimate concerns about how the technology works with Meta’s AI tech and how student data and safety is addressed. Those are always worries with student tech, but a wearable device that sees and hears everything a student does makes these already vital concerns even more pressing.

Bottom Line: Ray-Ban Meta Glasses And Education

Right now Ray-Ban Meta Glasses are a neat, if somewhat gimmicky, device that would be good for educators looking to make POV educational videos.

Beyond that, these have a lot of potential but are not ready for primetime just yet from a tech capability standpoint. When you add in the significant and quite serious privacy concerns, these aren’t devices I see being handed out in a school anytime soon.

That said, the questions around privacy and smart glasses are ones society will need to deal with in the coming years and, as such, it's worth familiarizing yourself with the devices and discussing these with your students, even if Ray-Ban Meta glasses are something you’d personally never wear.

Every week, the headlines seem to bring a new iteration of alarm regarding generative artificial intelligence in education. From fears of widespread cheating and the death of student writing to warnings about cognitive atrophy, algorithmic surveillance, and the erosion of intellectual independence, the public dialogue is rife with anxiety.

When headlines sound like an impending apocalypse, educational leaders are left standing at the crossroads of community trepidation and educational reality.

Yet, for educational leaders navigating this disruption, the first and most critical leadership act is not reaching for digital blocking software. Rather, leaders should make sure they obtain a historical perspective and consider the history of concerns over technological change. By contextualizing the modern media panic within the history of drama and panic over technological change, leaders can help to guide their institutions though the rough and fluid waters as generative AI grows to maturity within the educational arena.

The Familiar Cycle of Innovation Panic

Every time a paradigm-shifting technology enters human culture, widespread resistance follows. Media narratives tend to frame emerging tools as existential threats to the intellect, but history tells a strikingly repetitive story.

Around 370 BCE, as recorded in Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates lamented the invention of writing itself, warning that it would “create forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not exercise their memory; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.”

While traditionalists worried that inscribed speech would hollow out human cognition, advocates such as Isocrates and Athenian democratic institutions recognized writing as an indispensable tool for composition, transparency, and civic progress. The modern concerns with cognitive atrophy seem oddly attuned to Socrates’s arguments against the alphabet.

Centuries later, similar patterns unfolded:

• In 1913, Thomas Edison proclaimed that printed books would be obsolete within ten years, completely replaced by motion pictures.
• By the 1920s and 1930s, cultural commentary warned that the radio would disturb adolescents’ excitable minds and turn education into “a matter of pressing the button.”
• In the mid-1970s, mathematics educators sounded the alarm that pocket calculators would erode basic arithmetic and ensure children would be helpless whenever batteries went dead.
• In the 1980s, historians and critics warned that microcomputers were vastly oversold and posed an unfounded distraction to traditional pedagogy.

Outside classroom walls, leaders routinely dismissed technologies that reshaped the globe, from Western Union calling the telephone an inferior toy in 1876, to hardware executives dismissing personal computing and the internet in the late 20th century.

When educational leaders view today's headlines about generative AI through this lens, panic softens in perspective. AI is not an unprecedented end to human intellect; it is the latest chapter in our long history of renegotiating the boundaries between cognitive labor and cognitive tools.

Moving From Reactive Bans to Guided Literacy

When generative tools such as large language models emerged, an instinctive reaction across many school districts was simple: block and ban. However, as panels at leadership forums such as during Tech & Learning’s Texas Regional Leadership Summit have made clear, a restrictive approach solves nothing.

Generally, blanket restrictions simply widen the digital divide and force students to experiment in unguided, shadow environments. Instead of isolating classrooms from emerging technologies, educational leaders must step forward to guide students toward ethical, real-world innovation. As Ethan Mollick notes in Co-Intelligence, homework cannot be preserved by pretending large language models do not exist; students must learn to treat AI as a tireless collaborator and thought partner while educators raise academic performance baselines.

Reframing Assessment: The Learning Process Over the Final Product

To address concerns about academic integrity and student agency, schools must fundamentally rethink what they measure as assessment of learning. Educational leaders must guide instruction away from task-completion models and the practice of grading outputs. The entire learning process will need to become more reflective and interactive. Students will need to be asked to consider how they are learning and how successful the use of generative AI tools are within the scope of each assignment.

When assignments measure only a polished five-paragraph essay or a completed worksheet, an AI model will always offer an enticing shortcut. Educators need to prioritize the learning and design process, feedback loops, and deeper conceptual understanding, and AI becomes a catalyst rather than a cheat code. As Salman Khan argues in Brave New Words, generative models can serve as personalized, one-on-one tutors and instructional assistants, addressing Bloom's classic two-sigma problem by supporting deliberate practice.

Simultaneously, district policies must heed the cautious recommendations of the U.S. Department of Education and international bodies such as UNESCO. Leaders must maintain a strict "human-in-the-loop" approach, ensuring that algorithmic models do not usurp cognitive agency or institutionalize evaluation biases. All processes need to enforce the central need for human agency and judgement within the instructional or creative process.

The Path Forward for Leadership

Headlines will continue to oscillate between techno-dystopian terror and commercial hype. The task for education leaders will be to remain grounded.

By understanding the historic rhythm of educational technology panics, leaders will be able to more effectively guide their institutions through this time of rapid change.

The Point Where I Used to Stop

For most of my life, I assumed coding belonged to other people. It was for developers, programmers, and those who understood what all those brackets and symbols meant. I had taken AP Computer Science in high school, but that experience only reinforced the idea that coding was not for me. I remember making it through “Hello, World!” before becoming lost somewhere between functions, variables, and whatever came next. Whether “Hello, World!” was an assignment, a function, or simply a warning sign, I am still not entirely sure.

After that, I stayed away from coding. I could appreciate what technology made possible, and I had dabbled with formulas and macros, but I still did not see myself as someone who could build anything with code.

What I have never been good at accepting, though, is an inefficient process. When I run into a repetitive administrative task that feels more complicated than it should be, I usually start looking for a better way to do it. I search the web, try different features, look for extensions or add-ons, and, more recently, ask AI for ideas.

Quite often, I eventually reach the same answer: the solution involves code. That is usually where I stop. I still cannot sit down with a blank screen and independently create a Google Apps Script, Google’s tool for using code to automate tasks across apps such as Sheets, Docs, Drive, and Gmail.

What I can do is identify a frustrating process, explain what I want to happen, follow clear directions, and keep asking questions when something does not work. As I learned during this experiment, that combination can be enough to get surprisingly far.

One day, I wondered why I was stopping at that point. If AI could help me find the solution, could it also help me write the code? That question became an experiment.

The Annoying Problem That Got Me to Try

My experiment grew out of a task that was not especially difficult. It was simply annoying.

Whenever I needed to share materials with a principal, colleague, or student, I typically would create a folder, name it, grant access, copy the link, send it, and then keep track of where everything was located. Doing that once was manageable. Doing it over and over was the kind of small administrative task that quietly eats away at your time.

Normally, I would have searched for a tool that could help. This time, I described the entire problem to Gemini instead. I explained that I wanted to start with a spreadsheet containing names and email addresses, create an individual folder for each person, assign the appropriate access, and have the folder link automatically written back into the spreadsheet for my reference.

Gemini generated the code, but the code by itself was not what made the experiment possible for me. It also showed me where to open Apps Script, where to paste the code, what I needed to change, and what to click.

When an error appeared, I copied the message into Gemini and asked what it meant. When the script did something I did not expect, I described what happened and asked it to fix the problem. I did not suddenly understand programming; I simply kept following the directions and asking the next question.

Eventually, the tool worked. I could identify a main folder, add names and email addresses to a spreadsheet, and run the script. It created an individual folder for each person, assigned access, and placed the link back into the spreadsheet. The same basic idea could also be adapted to create individual Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides from a template.

Of course, there are other ways to solve a problem such as this. Extensions, add-ons, and tools in the Google Workspace Marketplace may already do some or all of these things, and sometimes may even be the better solution.

What was different this time was that I was not trying to fit my workflow into someone else’s tool. I started with the workflow I wanted and built the tool around it. I could decide what information appeared in the spreadsheet, how folders were named, what the script did, and what information it returned to me.

For a developer, this may be an ordinary project. For me, it represented a significant shift. I had moved from thinking, “There must be a tool for this somewhere,” to realizing, “Maybe I can build the tool I actually want.”

Before using it with real recipients, however, I tested it with sample accounts, checked the folder locations, and verified the permissions. A mistake in an email address or sharing setting could give access to the wrong person, so the ability to automate something did not remove the need to check my work. I also asked a friend who teaches computer science to review both the tool and the code to make sure I was not missing anything important, and I made sure everything aligned with my organization’s policies before considering it ready to use.

Once I Built One Tool, I Started Seeing Other Possibilities

Getting the first script to work changed the way I looked at other repetitive tasks. Instead of immediately accepting a cumbersome process, I wondered whether I could build something to make it easier.

One example involved receiving a large master spreadsheet containing information that needed to be separated and distributed to different people. The manual process required filtering the file, copying the correct rows, creating separate documents, reviewing each one, and preparing the corresponding emails.

I asked Gemini whether a script could handle some of those steps. Together, we developed a tool that could separate the spreadsheet into recipient-specific files and prepare the corresponding emails. Rather than spending my time repeatedly filtering, copying, and creating files, I could spend more of it reviewing the results.

This example also showed me where the limits of my experimentation needed to be. An incorrect filter could place the wrong information in a file or send it to the wrong recipient. I would avoid using an AI-generated tool such as this with student-level data because the consequences of an error could be significant. I would limit it to information that could be safely distributed and that complied with my organization’s policies.

I also preferred to have the script create email drafts rather than automatically send anything. That gave me the opportunity to check the recipient, attachment, subject line, and message before anything left my account. Saving time was useful, but not at the expense of judgment.

Another experiment came from a similar frustration. I often work from spreadsheets containing names, roles, schools, and email addresses, so I wondered whether the spreadsheet itself could become a more useful communication tool.

With Gemini’s help, I created a script that allowed me to select people from the spreadsheet and decide how I wanted to contact them. Depending on the situation, I could place recipients in the To, CC, or BCC field or create an individual draft for each person. The subject line and message could also be pulled directly from the spreadsheet.

None of this is revolutionary technology, and that is actually part of the point. I was not trying to create the next great software platform. I was solving small problems in my own work and shaping each solution around how I actually worked.

The Skill Was Not Really Coding

Someone who knows how to code would already understand functions, debugging, onOpen(), and many of the other concepts that still feel unfamiliar to me, and they would almost certainly produce cleaner and more sophisticated code than I could. But that was not the expertise I brought to the experiment.

What I brought was a clear understanding of the problem, a solid grasp of the workflow, and a sense of what I wanted to happen. I could recognize when the result was wrong, describe the desired outcome, follow instructions, test what AI produced, and explain what needed to change.

Those abilities are not unique to programmers. Educators and school leaders use these constantly. We identify problems, explain processes, coordinate people, review information, and revise plans when something does not work.

Working with AI made me realize that those skills could also be part of building a technical solution and could help democratize solutions to everyday problems. I did not need to understand every line of code before I could experiment with it, but I did need enough understanding to test the tool, question the results, recognize the risks, and know when I was moving beyond what I should attempt on my own.

AI Did Not Make the Problems Disappear

Of course, the experience was not as simple as telling Gemini what I wanted and immediately receiving a perfect tool.

Sometimes a column heading was wrong. Sometimes the script could not find the folder. Sometimes it created duplicate files or stopped before finishing. At other times, I received an error message that meant almost nothing to me.

Previously, that would probably have been the end of the experiment. This time, I went back to Gemini, described what happened, shared the error message, and asked what needed to change. Sometimes the repair worked immediately, while other times it introduced a different problem that required another round of questions.

I was still debugging. I just had help doing it.

AI did not remove the frustration of getting something to work, but it changed what happened when I became stuck. Instead of reaching the limit of what I knew and abandoning the idea, I had somewhere to take the next question.

The Guardrails Still Matter

None of this means that someone should copy AI-generated code, approve every permission request, and hope everything works. Schools and districts may have policies governing Google Apps Script, external AI tools, automated emails, data access, and file sharing, and those policies need to come first.

Privacy matters during development as well. Gemini does not need actual student names, email addresses, identification numbers, grades, or confidential district information to help me write a script. I can describe the structure of a spreadsheet, provide column headings, and use invented names and sample data.

Testing matters just as much. Before using a script with real recipients, I can test it with sample accounts, review permissions, inspect drafts, and confirm that the correct files were created. When the stakes are higher, having someone with more technical expertise review the code can provide another important layer of assurance.

AI can help me debug the code, but it cannot take responsibility for what I choose to do with it. That responsibility remains mine.

Moving Past the Place Where I Used to Stop

What surprised me most during this one-day experiment was not that AI could write code. I already knew that. What surprised me was what happened when I stopped treating code as an automatic dead end.

For years, my question was simple: “Do I know how to code?” Since the answer was no, that usually ended the conversation. AI has given me a different question: “Can I clearly explain the problem I am trying to solve?”

That shift matters. AI does not make me a developer, nor does it replace the expertise of people who actually know how to code. What it does is give me a way to experiment with everyday problems that I once assumed were beyond my technical reach.

I am still not sure I have fully recovered from AP Computer Science. But now, when the answer to a problem involves code, I do not automatically stop there. I might just ask the next question.

Courage isn’t a destination but a muscle that requires training and practice, says Juan Bendaña, keynote speaker at the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents National Summit on Education, October 15-17.

If an assistant principal is set to present at a superintendents’ meeting for the first time and wants to project confidence, she should start by pouring energy into the preparation, Bendaña says, emphasizing his confidence cycle of energy, courage, action, and proof.

“Once you have enough energy poured into that thing, it facilitates courage,” says Bendaña, who’s also the author of Confident by Choice: The Three Small Decisions That Build Everyday Courage.

Bendaña, who has researched confidence across high performers from CEOs to Olympians, spoke in schools early in his career. He started at assemblies for high school and college students, which led to leadership development for parents, school faculties, and school boards.

Education leaders can influence students’ lives for decades, Bendaña says, noting that he hopes to help those at the ALAS summit “inspire confidence in the next generation, but also give them the mindset, the tools, the resources to be able to be successful in that new version of what the future holds.”

Confidence Cycle

Bendaña’s confidence cycle framework has four steps that starts with energy, or a spark that sets off the cycle. The most difficult thing about running can be tying your shoes, he says. Or for the assistant principal, it could be getting ready for the presentation to the superintendents. If you don’t shy away from the discomfort or self-doubt, the energy you exert can facilitate the next step: courage.

A decision to improve something is the courage piece of the framework, which comes after you’ve tied your shoes or prepared for the presentation. Bendaña cites a study in which participants had to go to the gym for 30 days but could stay only five minutes. Eighty percent kept going to the gym when the study ended.

“Why? Because the hardest part was the initial inertia, the energy at the beginning to get themselves to make the decision, take the courageous decision to get into the gym,” Bendaña says.

Going for the run, finishing the gym workout, or delivering the presentation are the action steps.

“Then what happens after?” Bendaña asks. “There is a result, either in success or failure. Either it goes well, or you get tomatoes thrown at you.”

If it goes well, you get a little boost of energy, another spark, the proof that starts another revolution of the cycle. If it doesn’t go well, it’s a different form of proof, indicating an area in which you can grow. In either case, it sparks another round of the process.

Put It To Work

Bendaña encourages leaders to go beyond sharing the ideas that they think people want to hear.

“That's not the one that I'm talking about,” Bendaña says. “I'm talking about the one that you actually think, that you're nervous to share because you're afraid of the impact or the result of you sharing that thing.”

In addition, educators who reach a certain level of success could be lulled into complacency and no longer train the courage muscle. He suggests that to keep practicing, do something a little scary and make the bold ask that makes you nervous.

Every time leaders complete a revolution of the confidence cycle, it becomes more ingrained in their identities as something they are, rather than something they do. After enough rounds of the cycle, leaders could reach a point when they ask how much more they can achieve, or how long they can sustain their success.

Bendaña urges such high performers to compare themselves not to others but to who they were six months or a year ago. “You can check in with your growth trajectory every single month, and then every few months, and be like, ‘At least I'm becoming the kind of person that I said I was going to be.”

NowComment is a free online tool that lets teachers bring students together around the same learning materials, with annotation and discussion built into the experience.

NowComment is designed around the idea that giving students a place to work with shared materials and discuss what they find with their classmates helps. It can be used with a range of content and across different types of classroom activity, from individual work to group discussion.

For teachers, it offers a way to make student thinking more visible while keeping the focus on the material being studied. Here’s what educators need to know about NowComment, and how it can be used in the classroom.

What is NowComment?

NowComment is an online space for discussing and annotating documents. Teachers can upload reading material and invite students to comment on it, with each comment linked to a specific part of the document.

The platform works with text, images, and video so it can be used for more than traditional reading activities. Students can comment on a particular passage, highlight an area of an image, or start a discussion while a video is playing.

Documents can be kept private and shared with selected students or groups, or made public when appropriate. Teachers can also organize students into groups and use collections to keep related material together.

How does NowComment work?

Teachers start by uploading a document to NowComment. Supported formats include Microsoft Word, Excel, PDF, images, plain text, and web content. Video and audio can also be included through embedded media.

Once the material is uploaded, students can be invited to view and comment on it. In the standard two-pane view, the document appears on one side of the screen and the comments on the other, making it easy to see to which part of the material each discussion relates.

Students can start a conversation by selecting text, an area of an image, or a point in a video. Other students can then reply to the comment, creating a threaded discussion around that particular piece of material.

For a teacher, this could be as simple as uploading a reading and asking students to identify an important point, question an argument, or respond to a particular passage. The resulting comments can then form the basis of a class discussion or provide evidence of how students have engaged with the material.

What are the best NowComment features?

The main strength of NowComment is its in-context commenting. Rather than having students write their thoughts in a separate discussion forum, comments stay attached to the section of the material that prompted them. This can make it easier to follow a discussion, particularly when several different points are being discussed at once.

The image tools extend that idea beyond text. Students can identify and comment on particular areas of an image, which could work well for analyzing photographs, artwork, maps, diagrams, or other visual materials.

Useful controls are available for teachers. Assignments can have minimum or maximum comment requirements, deadlines, and email reminders, while time controls can determine when students can view a document or post comments. Teachers can also hide other students' comments until a specified point, which could be useful when you want everyone to make an initial response independently.

Groups make it possible to organize students and share documents with particular classes or teams. Once students are members of a group, new material can be shared with that group without having to invite every student individually each time.

For teachers who want to see how students are using the platform, NowComment also has analytics reports that can sort and tally comments and document visits across multiple documents. Download and export options are available as well, so material isn't locked into the platform.

How much does NowComment cost?

NowComment is free to use.

The platform says there is no charge for creating an account, uploading documents, or inviting others to view and comment.

NowComment Tips

• Start with a short text
  Don't make the first activity a huge reading. Give students something short enough to annotate in one sitting so they can get used to selecting material and joining conversations.
• Set a clear question
  Give students a specific reason to comment rather than simply asking them to discuss the document. A question about evidence, an author's argument, or a particular character can give the activity much more focus.
• Use hidden comments
  If you want students to develop their own response before seeing what everyone else thinks, use NowComment's controls to hide comments from other students initially. This can help prevent the first few responses from steering the whole class.
• Try visual material
  Use the image commenting tools for photographs, artwork, maps, or diagrams. Asking students to identify a particular detail and explain why it matters can make a simple image into a useful discussion starter.
• Review the discussion
  Don't let the comments become the end of the activity. Pick a few interesting or contrasting responses and bring these back to the classroom for discussion, using the annotations as evidence for the conversation.

Being a new assistant principal has to be among the biggest challenges in school leadership. It can feel thankless, like the time I had to call the parent of a child who had made racist comments and aggressive actions toward another child after school on the way home. As typical as that kind of issue sadly is, what made it worse was calling the parents of the offender and being met with equally racist rhetoric and a lecture about how white people were being disenfranchised ….

That was nearly three decades ago, not yesterday. My favorite answer for an aspiring principal who asks (and many do ask), “When do you know when you're ready to be a principal?” is so simple, it may surprise you: You know you’re ready to be a principal when you hang up the phone with a parent after telling them their child was disciplined for (fill in the blank) and they thank you.

I refer to this previous article, explaining school leaders can successfully balance competing demands from passionate educators and defensive parents by anchoring disciplinary decisions in objective principles rather than emotional conflicts, all while coming across supportive and understanding to both sides.

I was a new administrator then and didn’t have advice from someone else, so I am glad I can share now with emerging and current school leaders. We will always have moments when we will face what feels like an onslaught of challenges during which we have to sit squarely in the middle. We are, after all quite literally, middle management. Yet there are ways to throw off the scent of those wishing us harm, and still keep our balance while we work to help students thrive.

‘What Are You Gonna Do About It?’

Another experience that remains firmly in my memory illustrates the importance of managing my own reactions and how fortunate I was to get it right that time by chance, which is something I follow now with intent. This was years ago as a young new assistant principal. I had just been faced with issuing a fair amount of discipline that warranted me suspending not one but a number of students for issues that surfaced on a Friday. I am not someone who had or ever will enjoy suspending children, and I know the negative consequences that go beyond school. Yet at this time and with our school’s code of conduct calling for it, I had no other choice.

Mind you, I’m grateful to have come up with programs since then through research, trial, and error that have become recognized as ways to help children, especially those at-risk. Programs such as schoolhouse adjustments, which helped me drastically reduce suspensions. And Middle to Littles, which helped at-risk children find a unique way to be positively recognized and for it to be cool to care.

But before I had those ideas firmly in place, I had to survive with preexisting traditional methods.

Returning to school the following Monday following the suspensions, I was outside greeting students when there seemed to be a strange vibe. Soon, a young man approached me and said rather confusingly, “What are you gonna do about that?” I turned to him and asked, “Do about what?” As middle schoolers would be expected to do, he turned and said, “Never mind!”

I made my way over to where there seemed to be an unusual amount of attention–a three-foot-high curb, which served as a base for a tree bed and a spot popular with skateboarders, who often used skater wax (that custodians had to clean off regularly) to slide across at night and on weekends. The curb was an ideal height to make a jump and slide, so we were used to seeing wax there.

But this time was different. This time, a skater had drawn with the wax words I cannot quote here about my wife….

The student asked again, “What are you going to do about that?” To which I replied in the blink of an eye, “Nothing, it doesn’t matter, it’s not true.” I walked away smiling, hiding my real emotions inside. As the bell rang and students entered the building, I immediately went to the head custodian and asked him to remove the wording.

Later, I learned that the students were expecting a reaction that would have entertained them. Me, upset, yelling, demanding, etc. That’s because a prior assistant principal would put his hands in his hair and scream with outrage. I didn’t know at the time whether my reaction was effective leadership sense or just plain logical.

I later learned that my response was smart on-the-fly leadership instinct. I didn’t give the expected attention/outrage to the incident, which rendered it anticlimactic. A broken clock is correct twice a day, and I got it right at that moment! Yet it helped me remember that many micro moments call for quick thinking on your feet if you are to be any good at leading.

Leaders are tested as middle managers, by parents questioning our decisions, teachers complaining about our decisions, and yes, skaters laying offensive words across the curb about your wife.

Were they trying to hurt me? Of course, but by not showing any injury, it wasn’t fun anymore. I never saw skater wax with anything about me, or my wife, again. It was just one of those lessons I learned. The “never let them see you sweat, because everyone is watching the person in charge,” kind of a lesson.

Tech and Learning’s "EdTech to Watch Virtual Playground" webinar, hosted by Jess Steinbach and sponsored by Clear Touch, MagicSchool, and Vivacity, focused on award-winning back-to-school edtech designed to enhance teaching, broadcasting, and professional development.

During the event, each of the sponsors presented live demonstrations of their products, and fielded questions from attendees.

Watch the webinar on demand free here

Clear Touch: Command Studio

Tristan O'Connor, Product Solutions Manager at Clear Touch, presented the Command Studio, a portable video broadcasting solution designed for schools.

“We saw the value in making a self-contained video broadcasting solution that is not only self-contained, but also affordable,” O’Connor said. “The vision here was not only to simplify a teacher’s life, but also leaning into those podcast spaces, and those content-creation spaces that are so big now.”

Core Features: The system includes a control console, two to three cameras, and battery-operated microphones with a 6-hour battery life. It can establish its own local network without requiring internet connectivity.

Functionality & Integration: Supports multi-platform streaming (such as YouTube and Twitch via stream keys), local recording, and direct decoding on interactive flat panels via HDMI/USB.

Advanced Tools: Features AI camera tracking, green screen capabilities with virtual backgrounds, built-in audio mixing, and upcoming support for smartphone camera integration.

Educational Impact: Simplifies morning announcements, graduation recordings, and media studies programs, making professional-quality broadcasting accessible without dedicated production spaces or technical staff.

MagicSchool: Presentation & Image Generators

Caroline Humphrey, Staff Product Manager at MagicSchool and a former educator, introduced the latest features of MagicSchool, an AI-powered platform designed to combat teacher burnout.

“Everything we build starts with what teachers need in their classrooms,” said Humphrey. “We use the best frontier models, which have been vetted for education, and we have partnerships with those platforms that help us create really enriching, pedagogically aligned content.”

Platform Overview: MagicSchool provides purpose-built tools for lesson planning, differentiation, and student engagement while maintaining strict data privacy (user data is never shared with frontier models).

Presentation Generator: Allows teachers to generate slide decks by specifying grade level, length, topic, and learning objectives. Users can select from various themes and layouts, edit content directly or via AI prompts, and incorporate image placeholders.

Image Generator: Enables educators to create educationally aligned images across 15 different styles (such as photorealistic, watercolor, or labeled diagrams and anchor charts).

Safety & Moderation: Utilizes a proprietary moderation pipeline to ensure all generated content is safe, age-appropriate, and pedagogically sound for K-12 classrooms.

Vivacity: V Guide Learning Hub

Kendal Shomura, Google Partner Services Leader at Vivacity, announced the official launch of the V Guide Learning Hub.

“It is free, but it’s not just a free tool we threw together and then threw out there into the world,” Shomura said. “The cool part is that we created and designed it for K-12, and exactly what instructional and technical folks need for their PD requirements.”

Platform Overview: V Guide is a 100% free, centralized LMS designed for K-12 professional development, covering both instructional and technical Google tools.

Key Offerings:

• Curated Courses & Learning Paths: High-quality modules on Google Admin, Chromebook Plus, Gemini Essentials, and more.
• The Toolkit: Automatically compiles all resource links, slide decks, and materials from course modules into an accessible package.
• The Pulse: Provides updates on Google Workspace features along with expert commentary on the practical impact on K-12 education.
• AI Educator Series & Trophy Case: Tracks PD progress and displays earned credentials and badges.

District Management: District leaders can create custom courses (using up to 3GB of storage or external links), organize learning cohorts, set assignment due dates, and track engagement through detailed analytics insights.

Artificial intelligence was used to help transcribe this webinar.

A group of speech pathology graduate students are standing in front of a “patient." They listen as she tells them about the difficulties she’s encountered since returning to work after getting treatment for cancer.

“Everyone tells me I look great,” the patient says, “but I still don't feel like myself.” She adds that she gets tired easily and has started to cough when she eats, which she finds embarrassing.

One student asks her how often she gets the coughing sensation.

“Usually if I drink too fast or I’m not paying attention,” she says while looking at the student. She also provides more details about her symptoms.

The “patient” is an interactive AI hologram speaking from within a lifelike holographic display, a device about the size of a refrigerator that creates the illusion of a 3D and life-size person. It’s all part of a pilot program at the University of Central Florida designed to utilize holographic AI avatars to help give students the experience of interacting with actual patients.

Bari Hoffman, Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs and Healthcare Innovation, is leading this effort and is a proponent of hologram use in education. In 2024, she spoke with Tech & Learning about how holograms can provide lifelike lessons in STEM and other fields. The tools allow educators to “beam” in experts to speak in class, display intricate machinery, and provide more immersive examples of various kinds.

Hoffman has also recently begun using the technology in coordination with AI, a pairing that she believes will have significant impact for her students.

AI Holograms

The term “AI hologram” conjures all kinds of science fiction imagery, but in practice it can be a way for students to get more real-world, hands-on experience and be better prepared for careers. Students, such as the ones in the YouTube clip above, get a chance to learn more about what it’s like to interact with a real patient.

Traditionally, health students at the UCF have had the opportunity to interact with real patients who volunteer to come to campus, but such an opportunity is limited out of necessity.

“Somebody who has maybe some mobility challenges or other health-related challenges, it isn’t necessarily safe or easy for them to come to campus,” Hoffman says. So AI and hologram technology have allowed the school "to create something that is reproducible across programs, across days, across semesters; it allows us to really scale those experiences,” she says.

This principle extends beyond just working with AI avatars. Hoffman’s institution has also created realistic 3D videos of actual patients discussing their treatments and struggles. These stories can be replayed via hologram technology, and AI can make these even more accessible through its ability to translate patient testimony (with permission of course) into various languages that can reach students from different backgrounds, and be used for other educational purposes.

“We’ve been able to take our existing content and really translate that in any language, and that's allowed us to scale application and integration in a more culturally sensitive way, and even to expand our work in collaboration internationally,” Hoffman says.

The Power of The Hologram

Hologram technology goes beyond what students might glean from an AI avatar alone on a standard computer screen, Hoffman says. One of the reasons is what is called “copresence.” Holograms seem to fill up the room the way a real person might.

“You get that sense of realism, that eye contact," Hoffman says. "When you create your content properly, the content kind of has this Mona Lisa effect, where anywhere you are in the room, those eyes are going to follow you."

For example, Hoffman points to pediatric physical therapy students. “The students are able to do assessments with children two months of age to 10 years of age, and looking at individuals with low muscle tone or spasticity, that volumetric image allows the students to appreciate the center of mass and subtle changes in muscle tone that often are lost on traditional 2D platforms,” she says.

These types of realistic insights for students are part of why Hoffman's become such a strong proponent of the technology. She regularly hears from educators at other institutions and even some K-12 leaders looking to learn more about how hologram technology might fit into their institutions. She always advises teachers to find faculty champions, and make sure to keep learning objectives and the student experience in mind.

Hoffman also urges educators who are using holograms to think about how the technology can be used to create meaningful experiences for students. Then it’s important to measure that experience in some way, either through objective or qualitative data, that shows how holograms were used to achieve something new or different.

“That's got a lot of ROI to faculty, to programs, and to institutions,” she says.

Much of the conversation about students and AI has focused on cheating. Even esteemed tech reporter and columnist David Pogue recently framed student AI use through that lens in an online exchange we had. But what if we shifted the conversation from detecting AI use to thinking about the learning itself?

Instead of focusing on whether students used AI to complete an assignment, we can ask two more useful questions: Why are we giving students assignments AI can easily complete in the first place? And how might students use AI and/or other tools to support their thinking and learning?

Multiple-choice tests. End-of-chapter questions. Worksheets. Book reports. Generic essays. These assignments were problematic before generative AI. AI just magnified the problem and made it much harder to ignore.

That's why Michael Hernandez's work on Uncheatable Assessments caught my attention. Rather than focusing on catching students after the fact, Hernandez turns the lens back on us. What are we asking students to do, and is it actually worth doing?

Put Your Assignment to the Test

Hernandez created a tool that gives educators an Assignment Vulnerability Report. His Cheat Vulnerability Index scores assignments from 1 (vulnerable) to 10 (cheat-resistant).

The report looks at things such as originality, AI resistance, evidence requirements, personal or local connections, scaffolding, modality choice, authentic audience, reflection, and what we are actually assessing. Hernandez explains more about the thinking behind this approach in I Used AI to Build AI-Resistant Assignments.

I tried the tool with several assignments. A traditional worksheet earned just 1.3 out of 10. It lacked authentic purpose, evidence, meaningful choice, and personal connection. AI could complete it easily, but the real problem was the assignment.

Creative Doesn't Automatically Mean Uncheatable

A stronger assignment that gave students multimodal choices and asked them to explore human creativity and AI jumped to 5.9. It scored well for AI resistance, originality, and modality choice, but poorly for personal connections, authentic audience, and reflection.

That's important. Swapping a worksheet for a podcast, video, or presentation isn't enough. Students need something meaningful to do and a reason to do it.

This is something I've written about for years. In 5 Innovative School Models You Might Not Know, I looked at schools where students pursue interests, work on projects, learn in their communities, and demonstrate learning through real work rather than just tests and assignments created for the teacher.

What Might an Uncheatable Assignment Look Like?

Let's say students are studying pivotal moments in recent history. We could assign questions, a test, or an essay about how an event affected Americans. AI can do all of that pretty well.

Or we could ask students to interview an adult about pivotal historical moments they lived through. Now the student has something AI doesn't have: that conversation. They have to listen, ask follow-up questions, connect history to lived experience, and decide what matters.

Then give students agency over what they create: a podcast, picture book, video, biography, artwork, song, or another format. Give them examples and a rubric so they know what strong work looks like without requiring everyone to show learning the same way.

The audience matters, too. The person whose story the student is telling is an obvious place to start for finding an authentic audience. Students could also share their work with classmates, families, or the larger community. As I've written before in 5 Steps to Help Students Connect With Real Audiences, audience shouldn't be something we figure out after the work is finished. It should be part of why students are doing the work in the first place.

Reflection can be simple: What surprised you? What are you most proud of? What do you want others to understand? How did feedback affect what you created? Now we're seeing the thinking behind the product, not just grading what landed in the teacher's inbox.

I put this assignment into Hernandez's tool too. It scored 7.8 out of 10, including a 10 for local/personal anchoring, 9 for originality and authentic audience, and 8 for AI resistance and evidence. Because students gather primary source material themselves, the feedback called it "genuinely hard to fake or automate."

It still wasn't a 10. The tool flagged clearer expectations, stronger reflection, and more flexibility in how students present their work. I had already envisioned multiple formats, but making those choices explicit would make the assignment stronger.

Uncheatable Doesn't Mean AI-Free

Here's another thing I like about Hernandez's approach: uncheatable doesn't mean AI-free. He used AI to help build a tool for creating AI-resistant assignments.

Students could use AI to brainstorm questions, organize ideas, consider formats, or get feedback. AI can help students think more deeply without replacing their thinking. The goal isn't to prevent AI use. It's to create learning students can't outsource to AI.

AI happens to be very good at the recall, regurgitation, and generic production schools have assigned for generations. Those problems existed long before AI, which is part of the argument I've made about why we need to stop romanticizing school before technology.

AI didn't create the problem; it exposed it. We can spend our energy trying to catch students and preserve outdated assignments, or we can create work students actually have a reason to do. Then educators can stop trying to detect AI and start creating better assignments.

Welcome to the October 2026 Edtech Show & Tell, in which our editors share some of the new edtech products that have caught our attention this month. These are not reviews or endorsements, but a showcase of education-friendly items, platforms, and more that we think might be noteworthy for you.

This month's new offerings include new virtual and augmented reality solutions for history, math and language; clearer classroom sound technology; a free K-5 digital literacy resource with no advertising, and much more.

Avantis Education | Eduverse+ New Math and Language Learning Experiences

Avantis Education, creator of ClassVR virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) solution, has expanded its Eduverse+ platform with two new immersive learning libraries for math and English/Spanish language: EscapeRooms and LingoLab. Designed for use with ClassVR headsets, these suites provide immersive experiences designed to support a broad range of curriculum areas and learning needs.

Avantis Education| EduverseSTEM

EduverseSTEM combines ClassVR Xcelerate 6DoF headsets, with a content library mapped to standards, including NGSS. With more than 500 STEM experiences and unlimited creation opportunities, it supports hands-on learning across biology, chemistry, physics, engineering & technology, and computing. EduverseSTEM also includes modules that support project-based learning.

Captivate | CP-PVOT-C1622 AI dual-lens camera

Captivate today announced the CP-PVOT-C1622, a 4K AI dual-lens camera built for conference rooms, training facilities, classrooms, and streaming setups. The camera pairs an 8 MP PTZ main lens with 3x optical zoom against a 2 MP panoramic lens covering 120 degrees, so AI tracking modes can frame the room and follow whoever is speaking without an operator at the controls.

Common Sense Media | Tech in Schools Toolkit

Designed to establish evidence-based best practices for kids, the Tech in Schools Toolkit is a collection of free resources to support families, educators, and district leaders in making appropriate decisions about classroom technology use. The toolkit includes resources tailored to the needs of teachers, including templates and presentations to drive effective communication around tech with families.

Cyark| Tapestry

Tapestry helps students explore history and heritage through photorealistic 3D environments, with more than 70 experiences ranging from the George Wythe House at Colonial Williamsburg and Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde to the Great Mosque of Djenné, Mount Rushmore, and humanity’s legacy on the Moon. Tapestry connects historical narrative, archival material, oral testimony, photographs, video, and other evidence to the 3D environment.

Coursera | New partners and certificates

Coursera has added 17 new university and industry partners, more than 5,000 new Udemy instructors, and more than 20 new professional certificates, alongside new specializations and courses. Coursera’s micro-credential catalog has grown 90% to more than 3,000 programs. New partners include Asana, Harvard Business School, GitHub, Perplexity, Texas State University and the American Medical Association.

Edlio | Edlio Accessible Documents

As schools and districts work to improve digital accessibility ahead of upcoming ADA Title II deadlines, PDFs have posed a challenge, as they are not easily remediated. Edlio Accessible Documents improves PDF accessibility in multiple ways, creating HTML versions of each document while also providing tools to remediate the original PDF.

iCEV | Partnership with Simformotion LLC

iCEV, a leading provider of Career and Technical Education (CTE) solutions, has partnered with Simformotion LLC, the exclusive licensee of Caterpillar Inc.’s heavy equipment simulator training, to make it easier for learners to earn heavy equipment operator credentials. The partnership will create a path from training to credential for students, career and technical education programs, and workforce training providers.

IXL | LevelUp Diagnostic Snapshot

IXL's LevelUp Snapshot is a new type of assessment window that gives administrators a quick read on student performance in as little as 15 minutes. LevelUp Snapshot delivers interim data that districts can use to track growth over time, compare performance across schools and classrooms, and monitor trends between major assessment windows.

Learning Commons | Learning Commons

Learning Commons' platform give education technology organizations access to the datasets, evaluations, and instructional workflows that ground AI in learning science. Canva Education, Level, MagicSchool, OKO Labs, Really Great Reading, and TalkingPoints also announced that they are integrating Learning Commons into their platforms, adding to existing collaborations with Anthropic and OpenAI.

Logitech | Rugged Combo 4c

The Rugged Combo 4c keyboard case provides protection for iPad (10th gen and A16) and features an additional USB-C connector allowing students to charge their iPad and use a wired headset simultaneously; a large asset tag window and QR code for simplified device deployment at scale; military-grade drop protection; smart connector; secure digital pencil storage; and a sealed, spill-resistant keyboard.

Other World Computing | Thunderbolt 5 Dock with Dual HDMI

The OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock with Dual HDMI one connection provides the displays, storage, networking, power, and connectivity of an enterprise-class desktop workstation – without the need for adapters and workarounds. Features include: two HDMI 2.1 ports built in; everything through one cable as a single Thunderbolt 5 connection delivers dual displays, wired networking, storage, card readers, and full laptop charging simultaneously; and 140W Power Delivery.

Panopto | Folio

Panopto has launched new capabilities designed to make trusted video knowledge easier to find, learn from, and use in education. Folio turns trusted content into study guides, flashcards, practice quizzes, and AI tutoring, while MCP Server securely connects Panopto knowledge with approved AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Microsoft 365 Copilot while preserving existing permissions and controls.

Riedel Communications | OnAir Headset platform

The new OnAir headset platform is a family of professional intercom headsets for broadcast, live entertainment, sports, and other live production applications. The platform includes the OnAir 200, 400, and 500 Series, covering applications from lightweight single-ear communication to dual-ear headsets for high-noise environments. Riedel developed the OnAir platform with a focus on speech intelligibility, ergonomics, integration, and serviceability.

Shotoku Broadcast Systems | Aura E2 PTZ Elevator

The Aura E2 PTZ Elevator is a studio pedestal designed specifically for PTZ production, providing smooth elevation of the PTZ camera – and the P2 panner when teleprompters are in use - to accommodate different production styles or presenter heights. Its self-contained two-stage elevator provides more than 1.2m (47”) of variable-speed elevation control.

SMART Technologies | SoundFlow

SoundFlow is a classroom audio accessibility solution that brings clearer, more flexible sound to everyday instruction. Using Auracast technology, it creates a simple one-to-many audio broadcast from a SMART Board display to students’ compatible hearing aids, earbuds, headphones, personal listening devices or speakers. This gives students clearer access to lesson audio from anywhere in the room.

TypeTastic | Ad-Free K-5 Digital Literacy Curriculum

TypeTastic.com has relaunched as a broader K-5 digital literacy resource. Alongside typing, it now covers digital citizenship, digital literacy and computer science for K-5, plus AI literacy lessons for grades 3-5. The site is free and ad-free, with no login required, so a teacher can open a lesson and start.

Wiley| Artificial Intelligence (AI) zyBook

zyBooks are interactive learning solutions that replace traditional textbooks with digital courseware. The new AI zyBook is intended for upper-level computer science, data science, engineering, and other technical majors, designed to give them the real-world experience and practical skill set that AI-related jobs now demand, including emerging roles such as AI developer.

WordFlight® | Fluency Kit

WordFlight®, a literacy intervention solution, has launched new research-backed resources—including an e-book, quiz, discussion guide, and observation checklists—to support educators with reading intervention and instruction. The resources are available to download for free on the Fluency for All website

• Edtech Show & Tell

Mental health can often mean another program, another training course, or another thing for teachers to squeeze into an already packed school day.

Mood Classroom delivers simplicity by offering 20 free lessons that can be delivered directly in the classroom, with no teacher training or preparation required.

Designed for children in grades 3–8, the lessons take around 20 minutes and introduce simple strategies for dealing with everything from frustration and overstimulation to anxious thoughts and difficult emotions.

The material comes from MOOD, a mental wellness organization focused on giving children and teenagers practical tools for managing everyday emotional challenges.

What is Mood Classroom?

Mood Classroom is essentially a ready-made mental wellness curriculum that teachers can use whenever their class needs a short emotional reset or wants to explore a particular coping strategy.

It offers 20 lessons in total, covering techniques including breathing, movement, progressive muscle relaxation, sensory grounding, tapping, and thought-shifting. Lessons have accessible names such as, "Name It to Tame It," "Surf the Wave," "Just Move," and "Use Your Senses," to help turn potentially abstract ideas about emotional regulation into things children can actually remember and use.

MOOD says the activities are based on proven psychological techniques, adapted to make these appropriate and accessible for children. Its wider collection of Mood Tools draws on approaches including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).

Mood Classroom isn't presented as a replacement for professional mental health support. Instead, it gives teachers a set of simple classroom activities that can help children develop emotional awareness and practical coping skills.

How does Mood Classroom work?

Getting started with Mood Classroom is super straightforward. Head to the Mood Classroom website, choose one of the 20 available lessons, and open it on the classroom display.

The lessons are designed to take 20 minutes or less, so these can fit into the school day without the need to carve out a whole lesson. You could use one during morning meeting, as a transition between activities, after break or lunch, or when the class needs a change of pace.

Each lesson focuses on a single technique and guides pupils through it. "Hand Breathing," for example, uses the movement of tracing around a hand to pace breathing, while "Tighten, Hold, Relax" introduces progressive muscle relaxation. Other sessions use movement, sensory awareness, visualization, or ways of approaching difficult thoughts.

The 20 lessons don't need to be followed in a particular order, either. Teachers can choose an activity that fits the class, or work through the collection over time so pupils are exposed to a range of different techniques. That also means a teacher can return to a familiar exercise when a particular approach has worked well for their pupils.

The idea is to provide children with practical strategies they can try for themselves. Once pupils know the techniques, the activities can also be revisited outside the formal lesson, giving them something familiar to turn to when they feel overwhelmed, distracted, or stressed.

What are the best Mood Classroom features?

The appeal of Mood Classroom is largely in its simplicity. Yes, there are 20 lessons to choose from, but they aren't 20 versions of the same mindfulness exercise. The collection moves between breathing, movement, relaxation, sensory grounding, visualization, and cognitive techniques, giving teachers plenty of different ways to approach emotional regulation.

The lessons are also short enough to really work in a busy classroom. The roughly 20-minute format makes it easier to build the activities into existing routines. This is an ideal way to make wellbeing activities a regular part of the week.

Another useful feature is the way the activities turn quite complicated psychological ideas into things children can do. Pupils are shown a breathing technique, asked to notice their senses or guided through a physical relaxation exercise. The emphasis is on practicing a skill rather than simply learning about one.

Plenty of flexibility is available in how the resource can be used. A teacher can introduce the whole class to a new technique, revisit an activity pupils already know or pick something that suits a particular point in the school day. Because the lessons don't require specialist training, they're also accessible to teachers who aren't mental health professionals.

While Mood Classroom is designed to stand on its own as a free classroom resource, it's part of MOOD's wider collection of mental wellness tools. That includes its Mood Tools app, which gives children and families access to additional techniques for managing emotions beyond the classroom.

How much does Mood Classroom cost?

Mood Classroom is completely free.

All 20 classroom lessons are available to access online without a subscription, and MOOD also makes its wider collection of Mood Tools freely available.

For schools, there's no software licence to negotiate, no specialist hardware to buy and no training programme to organise before teachers can try it.

Mood Classroom Tips

• Don't wait for a crisis
  Introducing the tools when things are calm gives children a chance to learn the techniques before they might need any.
• Build a regular routine
  Regularity and familiarity should make it easier for children to recognize and use individual techniques independently.
• Let children find their favorites
  Not every strategy will work equally well for every child. Give pupils opportunities to try different approaches and identify the ones that feel most useful to them.
• Use movement as well as mindfulness
  The collection includes physical activities alongside breathing and thought-based techniques. That's useful for classrooms where sitting quietly and focusing inward isn't necessarily the most effective way to reset.
• Keep the conversation going
  The lesson itself doesn't have to be the end of the activity. Use it as a starting point for talking about emotions, stress and the different ways people respond when they're struggling.

For years, district leaders have understood the importance of family trust. But in today's environment, trust is no longer simply a byproduct of good schools; it has become a strategic priority.

Families have more ways to engage with schools, greater access to information, and higher expectations for transparency and communication than ever before. As a result, trust increasingly shapes how communities respond to district decisions, how families engage with schools, and how effectively students are supported both inside and outside the classroom.

While it may not appear on accountability dashboards or state report cards, trust plays a critical role in a district's ability to achieve its goals.

In McDowell County Schools, we've learned that trust is rarely built through major initiatives or strategic plans. Instead, it develops through hundreds of interactions between schools and families throughout the year. Every classroom update, parent conversation, district announcement, and school event contributes to how families perceive their relationship with the school system.

Today's families want more than information. They want transparency, consistency, and confidence that schools view them as partners in their children's success. Trust is built, or weakened, in those everyday moments.

Family Engagement Starts with Trust

Research consistently shows that family engagement contributes to stronger student outcomes. Students whose families are actively involved in their education are more likely to succeed academically, demonstrate positive behaviors, and remain engaged in school.

Yet engagement cannot be mandated. Families are more likely to participate when they feel informed, respected, and connected to their child's school community. Trust creates the conditions that make those partnerships possible.

When families trust their schools, they are more likely to attend events, respond to outreach, support learning at home, and work collaboratively with educators when challenges arise. For district leaders, that means viewing trust not as a separate initiative, but as a foundation for meaningful engagement.

Consistency Creates Confidence

One of the most important lessons we've learned is that consistency matters as much as content.

Families receive information from a variety of sources, including district websites, social media accounts, emails, text alerts, newsletters, and classroom communications. While each channel serves a purpose, too many disconnected communication streams can create confusion about where families should look for reliable information.

When families receive conflicting messages or struggle to locate important information, frustration often follows. Clear, predictable communication creates confidence because families know what to expect and where to find information when they need it.

Consistency may not seem transformational, but its impact compounds over time. When families regularly receive timely, accurate information, trust continues to grow.

The Importance of Tone

Consistency is important, but how a message is delivered can be just as influential as the information it contains. For many years, school communications often reflected the language of policies, procedures, and compliance requirements. While those elements remain necessary, families connect with schools through relationships and shared goals.

Several years ago, our district began taking a closer look at the tone of our communications. We realized some messages unintentionally emphasized rules and consequences when our goal was partnership and support.

Attendance communications provided one example. Like many districts, we needed families to understand attendance expectations and the importance of being in school every day. As we reviewed our approach, we shifted from leading with consequences to emphasizing why attendance matters and how schools could work alongside families to support students.

The information remained the same, but the tone became more personal, supportive, and focused on shared goals. Those small adjustments changed the nature of many conversations and strengthened family relationships.

Small Moments Matter

Another lesson we've learned is that trust is built through positive communication, not just problem-solving. Too often, families hear from schools only when there is a concern about attendance, behavior, or academic performance. While those conversations are necessary, they should not define the relationship between schools and families.

Some of the most meaningful communication occurs when educators share everyday successes—a student helping a classmate, a classroom project that sparked excitement, or a note recognizing effort and growth. These moments help families feel connected to their child's daily experience and reinforce the positive work happening in schools.

That kind of personal communication is also what many families value most. According to Project Tomorrow's 2025 Speak Up Research, 91% of communication leaders believe parents are satisfied with the student-specific information they receive from teachers, while only 56% of parents agree. The gap suggests that families are looking for more meaningful, personalized communication about their own children—not just schoolwide announcements and operational updates.

Our district has used ClassDojo for Districts to create more consistent communication and strengthen connections between schools and families. But the platform itself is not the story. The real story is what happens when communication becomes a tool for building relationships rather than simply delivering information.

Building Trust One Interaction at a Time

At a time when public institutions face increasing scrutiny and community expectations continue to evolve, trust has become one of the most valuable assets a school district can possess.

It is built gradually through consistent actions, clear communication, and genuine partnership with families. Every interaction matters because every interaction contributes to the relationship between schools and the communities they serve.

When trust grows, engagement follows. Families become more involved, communication becomes more productive, and students receive stronger support both at home and at school. That is why family trust is not separate from student success—it is one of the conditions that helps make student success possible.

Tech & Learning talks to Andrew Vollavanh, Senior Project Manager Edtech R&D, and AJ Foster, Project Manager Edtech R&D, for Digital Promise, covering the edtech procurement framework.

For a long time, whenever I heard the phrase “teaching critical thinking,” I got something like what the kids call “the ick.”

First, it seemed redundant to me. If you’re not teaching critical thinking, then what exactly are you teaching, I wondered?

As I’ve matured both as an educator and person (hopefully), I’ve realized that in fields other than writing, there can be a tendency to lean toward rote memorization assignments that avoid critical thinking. I’ve also seen that there are certain times when critical thinking lessons seem extremely necessary. The rise in "fake news" has been one such era, and our current AI age is another.

Here are some of the critical thinking writing techniques I try and stress all the time but am putting particular emphasis on now. These broad strategies range from good-old-fashioned writing and rhetoric advice to some basic science literacy.

1. Critical Thinking and Writing: Source Evaluation

Most of us intuitively realize that a reputable news source is more likely to have correct information than a social media post, but that’s just the start.

I encourage my students to look up the publication and authors they are reading and citing. Then I have them examine what bias the publication or author might have? For example, what reasons they’d be putting out this story, and what narratives, sources, and aspects of the story/subject are not included.

Then we take things a level deeper and interrogate the info in the story. If it’s a story about a new medical study, let’s find the actual study, see how it was performed, and how participants were included.

Finally, let’s examine our own biases. Do we find the study convincing? If so, why, and is it because we want to believe it? In other words, is it a form of confirmation bias?

2. Writing Not Regurgitating

When it comes to actually writing, I try to structure all my assignments in a way that encourages, and in some cases even requires, students to say something new about a topic.

Instead of a book report, which always seems to me to be about proving that you’ve done the work, I want students to produce a unique response to the book through something such as a related research project, or a more critical response to a reading. This not only makes the assignment more engaging, it forces them to exercise their critical thinking muscles as they explore the concept.

Proving what you know is never fun, but discovering and saying something new can be both fun and rewarding educationally. Additionally, with the rise of AI writing, originality is an even more important criterion in student work.

3. Learning To Steelman

One of the best ways to think about different perspectives is to “steelman” the opposing arguments. By learning and thinking about the best version of an opposing argument, students get a better understanding of where others are coming from and learn more about the issues being debated.

This is also ultimately a more persuasive rhetorical strategy than the more common strawman arguments. Arguing against strawmen doesn’t really engage with the issue or move the conversation further.

On the other hand, building strong steelman counter arguments can help students clarify their own thinking and recognize where they might have common ground with those who disagree with them.

4. Difference Between Causation and Correlation

Learning the difference between causation and correlation is such a big step to becoming a more logical thinker, I believe. Issues around this are common in debates about everything from healthcare to education and more.

The way this was taught to me in my freshman psychology class always stuck with me. The instructor told us that a city’s crime rate had increased as its number of schools increased and asked us if that meant that schools were causing the crime rate to spike. The answer is, as is easy to guess, of course not. Instead, the increase in schools was likely due to an increase in the city’s population that also led to an increase in crime. Though assigning causation is very difficult, and we shouldn’t even assume population increases alone was to blame.

This may be an obvious idea in this type of example, but it tends to be forgotten too often in everyday life, especially in more subtle instances or when the correlation tends to agree with what we want to believe. For instance, if more schools were correlated with a decrease in crime, we should still question whether that was the cause, though many people wouldn't because schools lowering crime rates sounds good to us.

5. Asking The Right Questions

I try not to tell my students what, or even how, to think. Listening to anyone’s advice on that can often be the opposite of critical thinking. But I do encourage them to learn to ask the right questions.

Research suggests this type of critical thinking can be taught. For instance, currently, the debate around the dangers of AI has intensified. How dangerous is AI to the future of humanity? I’m not sure anyone knows the answer to that for certain, but if students can ask the right questions, they can get closer to that. Who is arguing that AI is safe and shouldn’t be regulated? Who is arguing it should be regulated? What do both sides stand to gain or lose? And, perhaps even more importantly, what is the content behind the headlines of each side’s arguments?

I find asking these types of questions and giving students space and time to investigate their answers can be a productive way to explore these and many other issues.

Everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes the passion of its education leaders for guiding their students to successful learning outcomes. During the recent Tech & Learning regional summit at the TCEA Conference Center in Austin, that elevated dedication was on display throughout the day.

The Tech & Learning Regional Leadership Summit brings together superintendents, CTOs, CAOs, and instructional and tech district leaders to share ideas, best practices, and solutions to help to reshape and reimagine the future of education. One of the best ways that happens is during the table discussions scheduled throughout the day.

During each 20-minute session, attendees can choose from various problem-solving discussions, which range in topics from screen time and professional development to cybersecurity and student engagement. A fellow attendee who has experience in the subject facilitates each discussion, although everyone at the table is encouraged to share their thoughts, experiences, solutions, and advice.

Here are takeaways from a few we sat in on:

Screentime and AI: Calming the Chatter

Discussion moderator Kari Murphy, CTO for Deer Park ISD, started this discussion by asking attendees what kind of communications and suggestions they were getting from their communities. A few heard comments such as “Take devices away at lower levels,” but attendees pointed out that it was up to them to point out the difference between perception and reality, or how much the community thinks screens are being used versus the actual totals, as there’s generally a big disconnect. Attendees also discussed how it’s important to drill down into and be transparent about what students are doing with devices.

The discussion then turned to what various leaders are doing to address the issue. Maurie Beasley of Llano ISD reported that their school board is digging into data to develop a long-term plan–one of the issues with taking away screens in early grades is that a major state assessment is given on screens only in third grade, so students need to be comfortable with devices so that’s not an issue when it comes time to test.

Quinton Shepherd of Pflugerville ISD says he’s met with the Lieutenant Governor three times to talk about screen time, and is in the process of drafting policy with the school board.

The group mentioned how active screen time is “another whole ball of wax” compared to passive screen time, and it was necessary to dig into the different types. It is an inherently complex subject, so part of the solution is having conversations with the community to help build decision-making. And by being proactive first, then legislators don’t have to legislate later.

Murphy talked more about being proactive, looking at data, and creating intentional use policies. Her district also sought out the most vocal community members to be part of the conversation in the hope of converting them to be advocates for productive screen time. She also mentioned the challenge of trying to regulate screen time at schools when we can’t control it at home

Frank Murray of Belton ISD shared how his district has done the screen time research, and it’s less than 30 minutes per day for his students. He also touched upon the need to partner with parents to limit screen time at home as well, and suggested sharing screen time totals with principals so they can post it.

Finally, Kyle Berger of Arlington ISD suggested surveying parents and the community to create guidelines. He also said we need to show that it’s not “a free for all” on YouTube, and that we have to educate parents on edtech vs. consumer tech.

Scaling and Implementing Digital Literacy

During the “Scaling and Implementing Digital Literacy” roundtable, attendees talked about how schools are moving digital literacy beyond one-off lessons and toward a more coordinated, districtwide approach. That includes connecting digital citizenship with social-emotional learning, curriculum and professional development. Annababette Diemecke, Systems & Digital Learning Coordinator for Copperas Cove ISD, and Jessica Bredwell, Director of Digital Learning for Copperas, led a conversation about resources such as Common Sense Education’s Digital Citizenship Curriculum, which participants said can be relatively easy to implement across a district.

Participants shared several ways schools are building digital literacy into the school day, including grade-level scope and sequences, advisory periods and scheduled SEL time. Counselors and librarians also play a role in addressing topics such as cyberbullying and responsible technology use. Student check-ins, classroom walkthroughs, student work and feedback can help schools gauge whether those lessons are actually meeting students’ needs.

Librarians were another important part of the discussion, particularly as schools rethink how digital literacy connects with library, STEM and innovation programs. Rather than eliminating the librarian role, some districts are expanding it to include areas such as STEM, maker spaces, gifted education, and innovation.

A key theme from the roundtable was that scaling digital literacy requires more than choosing a curriculum. Participants discussed the need to connect technology and academics, create time for instruction, and give educators practical tools they can actually use across different campuses.

Effective Cybersecurity Programs

During the “Effective Cybersecurity Programs” roundtable, Chaz Quilter and Caroline Lightfoot of Dickinson ISD led a discussion on how school districts are strengthening cybersecurity, from employee training and phishing simulations to technical safeguards and student education.

Participants came back often to the role employees play in protecting school systems, and shared examples of using platforms such as KnowBe4, Vector, Microsoft tools, and CyberNut for training and simulated phishing campaigns. Some have even turned the exercises into friendly competitions, using leaderboards and other incentives to engage staff.

The conversation also touched on how cyberattacks are becoming more subtle. Instead of relying on obvious malicious links, attackers are increasingly using conversational approaches, such as asking employees to respond, share a personal phone number, or continue the conversation over text. Participants discussed layered defenses such as MFA, VPN restrictions, geofencing, threat detection, and zero-trust approaches, while noting that automated systems can still miss more complex attacks.

Student education was another part of the discussion, with districts incorporating internet safety, cyberbullying, and AI awareness into instruction. Some are also giving older students more specific guidance around email and account security as they prepare for college and the workforce.

Overall, the discussion highlighted how cybersecurity is becoming an ongoing part of school culture, with districts relying on a combination of technology, employee awareness, and student education.

The Best of Both Worlds: Crafting the Modern Technology & Literacy Specialist

Kelly Grigg, CTO of Deer Park ISD, led off this discussion describing how her district of 12,000 students recently consolidated the roles of tech integration coaches (TICs) and librarians into single positions at every elementary school, which when the dust settled, resulted in a 50/50 mix of librarians and TICs being retained.

To address this disparity, Grigg then had to develop a training/prep program for the one position in a way that balanced the strengths and deficiencies of both groups. Those in this new position came back nine days before school for team bonding and PD. Grigg used Future Ready Schools resources to help define roles, and each group is mentoring the other in the key aspects of their jobs. Lead librarians and TICs at high school level are helping to manage some of the specific duties such as buying books, balancing budgets, etc. They have also all been given new computers and other necessary equipment.

To also aid the transition, they have no classes on Mondays, which is a PD and catchup day for other tasks such as dealing with technology and PD for tech. Grigg has also divided the month into two weeks in the library and two weeks in classrooms with teachers.

The biggest challenge, however, has been trying to manage the district’s teachers’ expectations, who were expecting the transition to be seamless, and it hasn’t been. Teachers were also upset that they weren’t getting lessons every week, and are still working through that it all doesn’t look the same. “The library of today is not the library of old,” Grigg said. “But we’re building the plane while flying it as it’s year one.”

Professional Development Through Professional Learning Networks

During this roundtable, Teeya Davis, Process Improvement Coordinator for Harris County Department of Education, discussed how educators can use professional organizations, conferences, committees and online communities to build skills and connections beyond their own districts.

Davis shared how professional organizations supported her transition into education after more than a decade in healthcare. Participants talked about how professional networks can provide access to thought leaders, emerging trends, certifications, conferences, webinars and leadership opportunities. One participant also highlighted recent Google and ISTE training on bringing AI micro badges into districts, noting that the experience was especially useful because the team could immediately start working on a district rollout plan.

The conversation also went beyond formal training. Attendees highlighted the value of joining committees, volunteering, attending local chapter events and helping organize programming as ways to build relationships and develop leadership skills. LinkedIn, free webinars, and other online resources were also mentioned as easy ways to stay connected and keep learning.

Attendees recognized that choosing where to invest time can be difficult, especially when it is unclear what a particular organization or event will offer.

Overall, the discussion highlighted that PD can happen through relationships just as much as formal courses. Being active in professional networks can help educators learn from others, discover new opportunities and build the experience needed for future leadership roles.

Student and Staff Programming for Well-Being/Wellness Days

Lindsey Brewer-Munoz, Coordinator of Library & Media Services for Stafford Municipal School District, led this discussion about what she’s doing in her district to support student and staff wellbeing and wellness.

Brewer-Munoz has instituted half-day wellness days on early dismissal days – teachers have PD in the afternoon, so the activities to engage kids are scheduled in the morning. Kids choose what activities they want to participate in, which range from pickleball to gaming to dancing and karaoke, a Lebron v. Jordan debate – just a wide assortment of fun things for kids. Students sign up and are engaged because they’re interested.

For adults, the program featured a full day of PD, with standard PD in the morning, and then in the afternoon, it’s fun and wellness activities, such as archery, hummus tasting, floral design, and painting. Although it was “mandatory fun,” staff got frustrated because they’d rather have time to grade/plan, etc. So Brewer-Munoz asked what they wanted to do instead.

The result was a “Beyond the Bell” program for weekend and afterschool activities for teachers, like a “choose your own adventure,” with mostly free programs and activities put together in conjunction with the community and staff who have passions and hobbies that they want to share with others.

Brewer-Munoz also has started an “Underground Spirit” day for staff during which they will randomly dress up on random Thursdays with no explanation to students, with themes such as “Dress like your grandma’s couch” or “Disco.” Teachers have fun conspiring together and seeing the students’ reactions.

What does a "Portrait of a Graduate" look like in the age of AI? As the future workplace grows increasingly unpredictable, district leaders must rethink how they equip students for success.

During Tech & Learning’s recent regional leadership summit in Texas, a panel of district leaders discussed evolving workforce readiness strategies and what districts can do to prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.

The panel included:

• Quintin Shepherd, Superintendent of Schools, Pflugerville ISD
• Kyle Berger, Chief Technology Officer, Arlington ISD
• Melissa McCalla, Chief Technology Officer, Pasadena ISD
• Frank Murray, Chief Technology Officer, Belton ISD

“What’s a skill that has actually become more important because of AI, not less?”

Berger: A skill now becoming more important is human judgement. And just the ability to think critically.

McCalla: Critical thinking plus accountability. If we’re making decisions about AI, are we thinking critically about it down the road, and the impact that will have.

Murray: We’ve always taught kids to evaluate output, but now AI is gaslighting everyone so much, you don’t know what to believe. So they have to be able to evaluate that.

Shepherd: Leadership is a key skill. Finding that relationship between people who want to bring about meaningful change. And now that goes beyond just human relationships, especially with AI agents. So how do you lead humans and agents who intend meaningful change in your organization?

“What’s one thing schools need to be doing if we’re serious about preparing students for an AI-shaped workplace?”

Shepherd: The tools are there for them to succeed, so our job is to make sure they know they’re there and can avail themselves of these tools. It doesn’t matter what job they go into, but it’s going to be a world in which an agent force will be working alongside them, and how they can prepare for that.

Murray: We’ve embraced AI in our district – we know that by 2030, the top skill they’re going to need is how to use AI for work, so we have to prepare them for that, especially when it’s going to be around for the rest of their lives. They’re already using AI as a thought partner, not so much to cheat.

McCalla: Are we building the practical workforce we need for the future? Are we doubling down on the careers beyond AI (trades, etc) we will need in 13 years, especially with so much of the current service workforce, such as electricians and plumbers, retiring.

Berger: We need to be working together with students as a partner in AI.

Murray: We also need to be teaching them about using AI and making a human connection. It’s not about the tools we’re giving teachers, but teaching them to use those tools so that they can have more time with students.

Shepherd: When you think of evolution, I think we’re in a phase of punctuated equilibrium for AI. And I think we’re not that far off from getting the best model, but that’s going to be shut off from the general population, and we’re gonna be told, “It’s too dangerous.” So it’s going to be “This is for Thee, and this one is for Me.” The top models will be for governments and high-end business. So consequently, if we are close to the final model of available AI, then it’s okay for teachers to finally really start learning it now so that they can start introducing it in the classroom. It’s leveled out a bit so this is the version we can teach around.

“What are employers telling you they want from graduates that might surprise educators? Has anything you’ve heard from employers actually caused you to change what you’re doing?”

Berger: Employers want employees who can actually communicate and type their own emails. Employers want that level of authenticity, but also the critical thinking piece of it. We can all find the right answer now, but do you know how you got to it? The human element in the loop.

McCalla: They want to see resiliency – do our graduates have the ability to take feedback and move forward. How are you teaching that when they hit failure, they don’t get defensive, and then learn from that. Also, are we creating opportunities to not be task-completion focused.

Shepherd: I’ve been a superintendent for 22 years, but three years ago, an employer said to me, “If an employee has to be managed, then they’re unemployable at any level of our organization.” So how are we teaching kids to self-manage themselves?

Murray: I would echo resiliency. Simply teaching kids not to quit.

“What’s one thing schools need to STOP doing if we’re serious about preparing students for an AI-shaped workplace?”

Murray: Why are we not grading along the process rather than just the final product? We need to change the approach and pedagogy because of AI.

Shepherd: It might be more productive if we could walk away from grading in general altogether.

McCalla: Again, we need to get out of the task-completion process. We need to ask where’s the design process, where’s the feedback loop – we need to stop the current cycle to actually learn. We need to get away from “Just tell me what the answer is” thinking. It’s about the learning process.

Berger: Again, moving beyond grades and final product. We have to break the cycle, and focus on the process of learning. Getting the depth of understanding going beyond there and how we got there.

“What’s one thing schools need to START doing if we’re serious about preparing students for an AI-shaped workplace?”

Shepherd: Teaching kids how to make a job, not get a job. How though? I would tell them to find something that you love, and then find something completely different that you love, and then that find the infinitesimally small space where those come together, and that’s where the job is.

Murray: We need to help them create their own careers. One student built his own very successful site after he came to me, and rather than just saying, “No,” I encouraged their innovation.

Berger: Yes, we need to start “stop!” preventing access, and really engage in the conversations to support innovation. We have to stop blocking all the time, and teach the proper way to innovate with AI and other tools in the real world, the right and ethical way.

McCalla: It’s tough seeing kids in elementary school stop loving to learn, so we need to think about why that happens, and how we can change it so they keep on loving learning. So when they get out of our doors and into the real world, they believe that learning is a lifelong process, and that will help them guide them to those jobs and careers.

Shepherd: We need to teach them that it goes beyond the simple pursuit of happiness, which I see as one part of enjoyment, one part satisfaction, and one part finding meaning in what I’m doing. If you can get those three things right, then that’s the definition of happiness. AI can’t do any of that, so that’s the answer.

Microsoft Learning Zone is an AI-powered tool designed to help educators turn teaching ideas and existing materials into interactive lessons.

Teachers can describe what they want to teach, add source material, and set parameters such as grade level and activity type, before the app generates an editable lesson, containing instructions and practice activities.

The aim is to speed up lesson creation while still leaving the teacher in control. Once a lesson has been generated, every part can be reviewed, edited, removed, or reorganized before it is shared with students.

So what exactly is Microsoft Learning Zone, how does it work and what do educators need to get started?

What is Microsoft Learning Zone?

Microsoft Learning Zone is a Windows app that uses AI to help educators create personalized and interactive learning activities.

A teacher can start with a simple lesson idea or add their own reference material, including uploaded or cloud-based files. They can then specify details including the age or grade level, activity type, language, and number of slides.

The AI generates a lesson outline first, allowing the teacher to review and adjust the structure before turning it into a complete interactive lesson.

Students can then work through the lesson at their own pace, completing instructional and practice activities. Lessons can be shared using a link or join code, or posted through Microsoft Teams or a compatible LMS.

How does Microsoft Learning Zone work?

The process starts with a teacher entering a lesson prompt and, when useful, adding their own source material.

Learning Zone uses this information to generate a lesson outline, which can be edited before the complete lesson is created. Teachers can then modify individual slides, including changing text and images, adjusting questions and answers, adding new content, or asking the AI to regenerate material.

Separate editing and playback modes are available, so educators can check the lesson from a student's perspective before assigning it.

Completed lessons can be shared using a link or join code, or distributed through Microsoft Teams and compatible learning management systems.

Students can work through the material at their own pace, while teachers can use the available reporting features to see participation and average scores.

What are the best Microsoft Learning Zone features?

The biggest strength is the combination of AI generation and teacher control.

The outline-first approach is useful because it gives educators an opportunity to fix the structure of a lesson before spending time reviewing the finished content. That can make AI-assisted planning feel more like having a fast first draft than accepting a finished lesson on blind trust.

The ability to use existing teaching resources is another helpful feature. Teachers can provide their own material so that generated activities are based on content they actually want students to learn, rather than relying entirely on a generic AI response.

Learning Zone can also create interactive practice and conditional slides, allowing the experience to respond differently depending on how students answer questions.

For teachers, the reporting tools add another practical benefit. Rather than simply sharing an AI-generated activity, educators can see how students have engaged with it and where additional support may be needed.

How much does Microsoft Learning Zone cost?

Microsoft says Learning Zone is included with Microsoft 365 Education licenses at no additional cost.

However, there is an important hardware requirement: Educators creating lessons need a Copilot+ PC as well as a Microsoft 365 Education A1, A3, or A5 license.

Students do not need a Copilot+ PC to access lessons, and can open any through the web or on devices already used by their school.

At the time of writing, lesson generation is supported in English and Spanish.

Microsoft Learning Zone Tips

• Start with your learning goal
  Be specific about what students should understand or be able to do by the end of the lesson, rather than simply asking Learning Zone to create a lesson on a broad subject.
• Add your own resources
  Upload or connect relevant teaching materials when possible so the generated lesson has useful context and stays closer to the content you actually want students to learn.
• Check the outline first
  Use the planning stage to change the order, remove unnecessary sections, and make sure the lesson has a sensible progression before generating all the slides.
• Play it as a student
  Use the preview and playback tools to experience the lesson yourself, checking that questions, explanations, and interactive elements work as intended before sharing it.
• Edit the AI output
  Treat the generated lesson as a first draft rather than a finished resource, checking facts, difficulty and language and making changes based on the needs of your particular class.

The Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) empowers educators with cutting-edge tools, hands-on training, and networking opportunities. This November 4-6, the GaETC theme of “Playbook for Progress” will inspire attendees to come together and design the next winning game plan for teaching and learning. Just like a great playbook, effective educational technology requires vision, teamwork, and the ability to pivot in real time.

Someone who can run superbowl rings around other presenters when it comes to living these concepts is GaETC 2026 keynote speaker, Malcolm Mitchell. Not only is Mitchell a former starting wide receiver in the NFL – and local University of Georgia Bulldogs star – but an award-winning children’s book author and dedicated advocate of child literacy.

Winning a Super Bowl might make the highlight reel, but most would consider Mitchell’s feats off the field serving more than 3.5 million students through his Share the Magic Foundation an even bigger accomplishment.

A Playbook for Literacy Progress

“A strong playbook starts by identifying the fundamentals,” says Mitchell. “In education, literacy is the fundamental that makes every other opportunity possible. When leaders build a clear strategy around ensuring every child can read, they create a foundation that allows innovation, technology, and teaching to move students forward.”

From Mitchell’s experience, the stakes could not be higher. The “why” for founding Share the Magic was, bluntly, “Children who struggle to read often drop out of school, live in poverty, and end up in jail,” he says. Mitchell faced similar challenges and re-directed his life through reading.

“I grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, a community where football reigned supreme,” says Mitchell. “So like many kids, I gave that the majority, if not all, of my attention. Once I got to the University of Georgia, I was placed in a different environment. I began to notice things that I hadn’t in my hometown.”

Mitchell saw people take a very determined approach to education, which forced him to ask himself the question, ‘Is it that important?’ It confused the Georgia native because the student who had the highest grade point average didn't get the most attention. It was the star athlete.

“I was under the overwhelming conviction that if you were a good athlete, that's all that was required,” he says. “Being on the campus of University of Georgia proved that notion to be incorrect. I realized that while athletics are great and provide a platform that, in many cases, can't be matched, there's something that is of greater value, and that's being literate.”

Malcolm Mitchell’s Share the Magic Foundation Playbook

• Increase access to print. Creating access to age-appropriate books is proven to almost triple interest in reading within months.
• Improve reading interest. “Our virtual reading challenges were created to inspire and encourage kids to read in a game-like environment,” he says.
• Enhance reading skills. “We want kids to engage in reading more frequently, ultimately improving their grade-level reading standards, preventing academic failure,” Mitchell says.

Mitchell’s Winning Second Half

Discovering reading as a college freshman changed the trajectory of Mitchell’s life, bringing him to his work championing literacy through Share the Magic.

“It came down to wanting to be the best I could be,” Mitchell says. “Sport allows you to be the best you can be in that individualized activity, but outside of that, it does almost nothing. If you make it professionally, it can give you financial resources which you could use to accomplish things. However, reading really positioned itself as this tool that could be used to electrify all sides of myself.”

Mitchell realized that literacy was the key to fulfilling his potential. “I really wanted to be in a position to help my family. Yes, football would give me a glimpse into that, but it won't really help me sustain it,” he says. “Reading was clearly the thing that could supercharge anything.”

Illiteracy is a complex problem to solve, adding even more importance to summits such as GaETC. Mitchell notes limited financial resources sometimes create limited access to tools you need to foster different outcomes.

“I do not believe that poverty is the cause for illiteracy, I think illiteracy is the cause of poverty,” he says. “There’s not a parent I've encountered that wants their child to struggle academically. The question is, what information is needed, what skills need to be practiced and what resources need to be provided to create a culture of reading excellence.”

Making Tech a Teammate

When it comes to reading and supporting children in literacy, tech can be a great teammate.

“My foundation hosts digital reading challenges,” says Mitchell. “We also use tangible book approaches, but it's limited, whether due to access or cost. The digital approach takes down some of the barriers that restrict engagement. My organization serves a million students a year, with only 5% through my interacting with the students and giving them tangible books. You can connect with more people by using technology”

Mitchell and his team have visited countless schools across the country. The foundation’s digital platform serves all fifty states as well as nineteen other countries.

“We launched a symposium called Read University this year,” says Mitchell. “We’ve worked with Kennesaw State University creating micro-credentials. We connected with Atlanta Speech School and the Rollins Center to ensure the books we use and how we present them is most effective in the classroom.”

Mitchell is proud of the partnerships he’s forged and what he’s done the past decade to boost literacy, but the work is far from over.

“We are continuing to search for innovative ways to connect with educators and students to foster or ignite a passion for literacy, but also be a resource for educators, local leaders and state agency policymakers,” he says. “While passion definitely plays a huge role in charging me up and energizing me throughout the process, it's really become a mission.”

What to Expect from Mitchell’s Keynote

A Malcolm Mitchell speech isn’t your run-of-the-mill conference experience.

“I'm appreciative of any opportunity to share my story and contribute to what I think is Georgia's, and really the country's, ambition to increase literacy rates, knowing it determines outcomes for communities,” says Mitchell. “I do my best to be authentic. I highlight the barriers I faced in embracing reading. The point of my not shying away from my truths is to highlight a different perspective that can inform or help leaders build a strategy to increase engagement."

Innovation in education doesn’t happen by chance—it’s built through strategy, collaboration, and a willingness to adapt. GaETC attendees will explore emerging trends, get inspired by award-winning speakers, and discover groundbreaking technology while gaining access to expert insights and exclusive resources

“I think my greatest value-add in being the keynote speaker for GaETC 2026 is sharing my authentic story and sharing what I have learned through visiting so many communities throughout the state of Georgia and beyond,” says Mitchell. “Plus, I think I tell some pretty good jokes. I also usually bring a football with me, so I hope we have some people in the room that know how to catch.”

4 Truths Malcom Mitchell Learned Through Share the Magic

• There's a cultural disconnection between the value of reading and the outcomes it can help you produce in society. Students who play football know if they make it to the NFL, they will be in a position to do something they couldn’t have previously. Many communities aren’t aware that reading can provide the same opportunity.
• Reading is a skill that has to be developed in the same way that a person learning to play football develops. Some people think you either can read or you can't, but no one is born a reader. It is a skillset that needs to be practiced and developed. People might not remember learning to read, just like I can't remember learning to catch a football because it was so early.
• In a community where reading is not shown visually, it's hard to embrace it or imagine yourself engaged with it in any capacity. If there are no books in the home, if there are no bookstores nearby, if there's no one reading on the front lawn or backyard like I see in affluent neighborhoods, you ask yourself, "Is this something I'm even permitted to do?" I've never seen it from someone who looks like me or within my family dynamics. It’s almost like a need for permission to engage.
• Illiteracy does not discriminate. It does not care who you are, it does not care where you are, it does not care how much money you have. If the foundation for building the skills to be literate are not there, illiteracy is coming for you. I have seen it in every community – affluent, middle class and impoverished communities. Illiteracy runs rampant when the foundational tools aren't consistent or there at all.

When schools make decisions about artificial intelligence, the conversation is usually led by adults. Administrators develop policies, educators establish classroom expectations, and technology leaders evaluate all of the platforms. These perspectives are essential, but I believe there is another important voice that is often included only after the decisions have been made, and that is the students who are already using AI.

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to work with educators, leaders, students, and families across 12 school districts as they explored digital wellness, responsible technology use, and emerging questions about AI. Through student conversations, classroom visits, and task force planning sessions, I was reminded that students do not simply need to hear our guidance–their voice can help us create better guidance.

Students in third, fifth, and eighth grades, and in high school, offer insights that might otherwise be missed. They see AI used for homework, projects, online searches, and social interactions. They understand the pressure to finish work quickly and the temptation to seek help when an assignment feels confusing or overwhelming.

That does not mean students understand every risk. Knowing how to access an AI tool is not the same as knowing what happens to the information entered into it or why its responses may be inaccurate or biased. But listening to students can reveal where adult assumptions differ from their reality.

Several themes stood out in our conversations:

• Students want transparency. They want teachers and schools to disclose when and how AI is being used, especially when it involves grading assignments, evaluating their work, or generating feedback.
• Students want to understand how AI works. There is often an assumption that because students are comfortable with technology, they automatically understand AI. Knowing how to access a tool is not the same as understanding how it produces information, uses data, makes mistakes, or may reflect bias.
• Students want guidance. They want educators to model how AI can be used safely, ethically, and responsibly. They need opportunities to learn how to protect personal information, evaluate AI-generated content, and decide when AI should or shouldn’t be used.
• Students want clear expectations. Students want to know what is allowed for each assignment, which uses must be disclosed, what work must be completed independently, and where the boundary between assistance and cheating lies.
• Students want consistency and equitable opportunities. Confusion and frustration arise when one teacher permits AI use and another prohibits it without explaining why. Expectations do not have to be identical across every subject. Students should not have to guess what the rules are from class to class. If students in one biology class are permitted to use AI in meaningful ways, students in the same course with another teacher should have comparable learning opportunities, or it places them at a disadvantage.
• Students want meaningful learning experiences. They do not want to use AI simply because it is available or new. Several students shared with me that when they first started using Chromebooks, it was the best thing ever, but with repeated use without purpose, it made them want technology-free activities. AI should add value, and its use should be connected to a clear learning purpose.
• Students want protection from unfair accusations. Unclear rules can leave students worried that their own work will be questioned. Students need opportunities to show their thinking and demonstrate their learning.

Students can also help us understand the difference between the AI use we see and the AI use we do not. Educators might notice AI-generated language in an essay, but students are using these tools for more than schoolwork. Some use AI to seek advice, generate images, rehearse difficult conversations, or ask questions they are afraid or uncomfortable asking another person. Taking time to listen to students will help schools think beyond academic integrity and consider data privacy, well-being, relationships, and digital citizenship.

When thinking about creating policies, students can have a positive impact when they are involved in the conversation, be it through surveys, focus groups, technology advisory groups, or opportunities to give feedback on proposed guidance. Educators can also incorporate regular reflection into classroom activities and ask students how they used AI, what it helped them do, what was not possible with AI, and whether they had any concerns while using it.

Conversations such as these will provide educators with valuable information while also helping students to develop their AI literacy skills. Involving students shows that their perspectives are valued. Getting their input will help us understand how they are being affected by AI. When they have a comfortable space to share what they are seeing and experiencing and explain what they need, it leads to a stronger culture for learning about and working with AI.

If we want to prepare students to use AI thoughtfully, we need to ask what they are experiencing, listen to their answers, and let what we learn inform the decisions we make.

The 2026-27 school year is off and running, and it’s already shaping up to be another pivotal year for education. While AI remains a massive topic, the biggest headline this fall is the screentime debate, hands down. Communities nationwide—including the country’s two largest school districts—are advocating for strict limitations and outright bans to reclaim screen-free classrooms.

Yet, if there’s one constant in education, it’s resilience. We adapt, we evolve, and we keep going because at the heart of it all, we want what’s best for our students. Instead of a setback, this heightened scrutiny around screentime and AI has forced the edtech community to be better. It demands that the tools we bring into the classroom are safe and built to inspire active creation rather than passive consumption.

The products meeting these rigorous demands are celebrated below as our “Best for Back to School” award winners. Our judges evaluated each solution for its ease of use, overall value, uniqueness in the market, and proven ability to streamline teacher workflows while supporting student achievement.

Congratulations to our winners!

Winners of Best for Back to School 2026

PRIMARY

3P Learning, Reading Eggs

"WIth 30 years of backing, Reading Eggs provides Science of Reading compatible resources and engagement for your elementary readers. IT will love the integration in both Clever and Classlink."

Acer, Acer Chromebook 311 (C725T)

"For students who tend to beat up Chromebooks, this may be one to consider. It offers a 48-inch drop protection, an 11 oz liquid drainage system, anchored keys, and 2-screw repairability. As a bonus it has optional low blue-light capabilities."

Acer, Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (CPE584-1N)

"The Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 brings strong performance, long battery life, durability, and useful AI capabilities into a flexible device built for education. Its combination of classroom versatility and easy ChromeOS management makes it a practical long-term option for teachers and districts."

Amplify Education, Boost Reading

"Boost Reading does a strong job of integrating assessment data, adaptive practice, and teacher intervention into a single literacy platform. Its Science of Reading foundation, MTSS flexibility, and evidence of improved outcomes make it a particularly strong option for K–5 reading support."

Belkin International, Connect Rugged USB-C Keyboard Folios for iPad

"Belkin’s Connect Rugged USB-C Keyboard Folios supports student productivity, device protection, and flexibility. While features such as the integrated keyboard, trackpad, adjustable stand, and direct USB-C connectivity offer benefits, I believe the value of this product lies in its ability to simplify device management, reduce classroom disruptions, and help students and teachers make more effective use of their iPads throughout the day."

Benchmark Education, Benchmark Advance

"Benchmark uses modern technology, but its backbone is researched-based pedagogy. It's not based on 'new and flashy', but rather tried-and-true data strategies. It's exceptional with language development."

Benchmark Education, Benchmark Phonics Intervention

"Benchmark Phonics Intervention is a proven and research-backed solution for schools looking for intervention for students needing explicit, systematic structured literacy instruction."

Benchmark Education, Benchmark Adelante

"This isn't Spanish language support, but Spanish Language Arts instruction. For dual-language schools, this can transform your language arts classrooms."

Benchmark Education, Rising Readers Club

"Aligned with the Science of Reading, Rising Readers Club raises reading engagement for your readers in an intervention."

Bookelicious, Bookelicious-BookmojiPLUS

"I am impressed with BookmojiPLUS’s approach to promoting literacy by connecting students with age-appropriate books from their school libraries based on their interests. Its personalized avatar experience makes book discovery fun while empowering librarians and teachers to encourage independent reading. I particularly appreciate the platform’s analytics, which provide insights into student engagement, ultimately maximizing resources and inspiring students to develop a love of reading."

Boxlight, Boxlight Symphony - Primary

"Boxlight Symphony offers a cohesive approach to campus communication by combining everyday paging and bell functions with emergency alerts, visual messaging, and district-wide monitoring. Its ability to keep critical communications running locally during internet outages, while still supporting phased deployment and existing phone systems, makes it especially strong in terms of reliability and infrastructure."

Boxlight, Clevertouch FOCUS by Boxlight - Primary

"Clevertouch FOCUS is a strong all-in-one classroom display that combines teaching tools, screen sharing, device management, and school-wide alerts in one system. Its broad, well-integrated feature set gives it value beyond instruction and helps reduce reliance on separate platforms."

Boxlight, Boxlight Symphonic Series - Primary

"The Boxlight Symphonic Series modernizes school communication by combining paging, intercom, visual alerts, and camera support into a single PoE-based platform. Its flexible hardware options and compatibility with existing SIP systems make it especially practical for phased campus upgrades."

Cignition, Inc., K-12 Math & ELA High Dosage Virtual Tutoring

"Cignition stands out as a strong, data-driven tutoring solution that combines experienced educators, live small-group instruction, and standards-aligned progress monitoring rather than relying on software alone. It's refreshing to see a program featuring real tutors who communicate with teachers about students. The emphasis on conceptual understanding, differentiated instruction, and measurable outcomes makes it feel particularly well suited to sustained academic intervention. "

Class Composer,Class Composer

"Class Composer addresses an important school challenge by replacing a cumbersome, subjective class-placement process with a system that combines educator judgment, student data, and algorithmic balancing. Its focused feature set is well matched to the problem, and the addition of historical records and flexible grouping extends its usefulness beyond annual class placement. This unique tool fills an important gap in the edtech market!"

ClassLink, ClassLink Suite

"ClassLink LaunchPad has been a great resource for our younger learners, giving them a simple way to get where they need to go without navigating multiple usernames and passwords. From a district technology perspective, SSO removes a real barrier to learning, and our staff has found it very useful in helping students quickly access the digital tools they use throughout the day."

Clear Touch, Nova

"The 6000 Nova Series takes a different approach to interactive displays by designing around serviceability, modular upgrades, and long-term ownership rather than another short replacement cycle. The hot-swappable Core Module is particularly compelling because it could reduce downtime, installation costs, and e-waste. These displays also deliver classroom features educators expect, including wireless screen sharing, remote panel management, and interactive lesson activities."

Clear Touch, Command Studio

"Command Studio makes professional-quality broadcasting far more accessible by packaging cameras, microphones, switching, and streaming into one portable system. Its mobility, simple touchscreen controls, and strong education use cases make it especially appealing for schools without dedicated production spaces or technical staff.

CodeMonkey Studios Ltd., CodeMonkey Computer Science Curriculum

"Designed for primary education, this computer science platform has engaging videos, complete with cartoon monkey, and nice for those are needing a place to start kids with block coding and a way to transition them to text coding in a real CS language."

Second Step, Committee for Children

"Second Step is a well-rounded, mature solution for teaching social-emotional and behavioral skills. Its comprehensive K -5 scope and sequence allows teachers to make these skills a consistent part of everyday learning. It includes a combination of core human-skills instruction with focused areas like bullying prevention and digital well-being."

Crick Software, Clicker - Unlocking Writing Word By Word

"Clicker is a strong literacy support tool because it gives students meaningful help with writing, reading, and communication without lowering expectations. Its accessibility features, flexible scaffolds, and progress tracking make it especially valuable in inclusive and special education settings."

D2L, D2L Brightspace: Learning Designed for Impact

"Brightspace brings course creation, assessment, communication, analytics, and accessibility together into one, helping educators work more efficiently while providing insights into student learning. Its innovative features, including AI-assisted course development, interactive content, and data-driven decision-making, empower teachers to personalize instruction and support student needs. Brightspace offers a powerful, integrated solution that can enhance teaching and create an engaging and accessible learning experience for students."

Discovery Education, Discovery Education Science Techbook

"Teachers like that Discovery Education Science Techbook blends digital resources with hands-on learning rather than relying on a screen for the entire experience. That balance gives students opportunities to explore science through engaging digital content while still investigating, building, and learning by doing."

Discovery Education, Discovery Education Social Studies Essentials

"Discovery Education Social Studies Essentials balances screen time with classroom conversation, which our teachers found most useful. The digital resources helped launch the learning, while the inquiry activities, and discussion prompts gave students opportunities to talk, and make sense of history."

Edmentum, Exact Path for Primary Education

"Exact Path is a personalized learning system that connects diagnostic assessment, individualized learning paths, and standards-aligned instruction into one workflow rather than leaving teachers to piece those steps together. The breadth of data, external assessment integrations, and reported achievement gains make it highly compelling for elementary schools, with its innovation coming primarily from how effectively it connects instructional practices into a single system."

Epic for Kids, Epic - Primary (K–6)

"I like Epic as a way to add choice, variety, and some fun to reading for students. I see its greatest value as a supplemental resource that can encourage students to explore topics and books that interest them, rather than as part of required or core reading."

ExploreK12, Frax

"Frax does a particularly good job of turning a traditionally difficult area of math into an engaging, structured learning experience, with adaptive instruction and number-line reasoning helping students build genuine conceptual understanding rather than simply memorize procedures. The combination of game-based learning, personalization, teacher reporting, and research-backed program makes it a strong addition to upper elementary math classrooms."

ExploreK12, Raz-Plus

"Raz-Plus is a supplemental literacy platform, bringing foundational skills, comprehension, assessment, differentiation, and independent reading together without forcing teachers to juggle multiple resources. Its Reading Growth Assessment and Science of Reading alignment allows it to meet the needs of learners, while its innovation is in how effectively it brings these components together rather than in a completely new instructional model."

ExploreK12, Reflex

"Reflex is highly effective solution for a specific math need, using adaptive practice and game-based activities to make fact fluency more engaging while giving teachers visibility into individual gaps. Its focus on math fluency means it is not as broad as a complete math platform, but the personalization, progress tracking, and motivational elements make it a strong tool for building automaticity."

Frontline Education, Frontline Education AI for Education x Frontline Professional Growth

"This professional development tool is a timely, practical approach to AI adoption in K–12. It focuses on AI literacy and responsible classroom practices rather than training teachers around a single tool that could quickly become outdated. The integration with an existing professional-learning platform, combined with tracking, continuous updates, and district-wide implementation, gives it strong practical value."

HamiltonBuhl, Personal Finance Foundations™

"Personal Finance Foundations is a practical way to introduce financial literacy at an age when students can begin developing real-world habits, using discussion, scenarios, and collaborative decision-making instead of relying on worksheets and vocabulary drills. Its classroom-ready, reusable design gives teachers strong value across K–5. It is an effective hands-on, tech-free implementation of financial literacy for elementary schools."

Incident IQ, iiQ Facilities

"If you are using iiQ for technology inventory and help tickets, this can provide one ecosystem for facility requests and help, using the same tools and support you are accustomed to with iiQ."

InfoCase, PermaLock™ XP Case

"The PermaLock XP Case’s innovative locking design prevents students from removing protective cases while reducing device damage, classroom disruptions, and repairs. The pilot results, including 78% fewer break/fix events and an estimated $12,000 in savings, demonstrate how this solution can improve efficiency and extend device lifespans, while the guaranteed buyback program helps districts maximize their technology investments."

Inquisitive, Inquisitive — PreK–5 Science

"Inquisitive makes a strong case for solving one of elementary education’s persistent problems—getting rigorous science taught consistently—by combining ready-to-use lessons, hands-on inquiry, built-in assessment, and extensive accessibility support. Its phenomena-based approach makes it engaging for students and high quality for teachers. The breadth from PreK–5, multilingual resources, low-cost model, and new automated assessment tools give it impressive practical value."

Instructure, Mastery

"From a data-review lens, I have found Mastery Predictive Assessments gives leaders and schools clear, visually accessible information that can help teams identify needs and more accurately plan interventions. I also liked being able to quickly understand the data and turn it into instructional next steps is where we found the greatest value."

K12 Tutoring, K12 Tutoring Reading Enrichment Program

"The K12 Tutoring Reading Enrichment Program stands out for using assessment data, small-group instruction, and consistent certified teachers to give young readers targeted support. Its strong reported growth and evidence-based structure make it a practical approach to improving foundational literacy at scale."

Kai's Education, KaiBot: Screen-Free Coding for Math and Computational Thinking

"KaiBot is a hands-on approach to coding education, using physical programming, feedback, and cross-curricular activities to teach computational thinking without screens. Its accessibility, curriculum connections, and progression from card-based coding to advanced programming give it impressive range. The tactile, screen-free approach makes it a great tool for any students, even the littlest learners! Teachers can use KaiBots in screen-free, fully virtual, or a hybrid format."

Lightbox Learning Inc., Lightbox Learning-Spark

"Spark is a unique resource for supporting students at varying reading levels, especially in the primary grades. The short, accessible articles allow younger learners to engage with curriculum topics at a level that feels manageable while still building their confidence and understanding as readers."

Linewize, Linewize EdTech Manager

"From a district perspective, Linewize EdTech Manager gives us valuable visibility into how technology is being used across our schools. Our teachers especially like Classwize because they can view student app usage and screen time, while also having the ability to share a student’s screen to the projector, making it useful for both classroom management and instruction."

MAXCases, Folio Work-In Case

"The Work-In Folio is a budget-conscious solution that emphasizes protecting school-issued devices without sacrificing usability. It offers rigid construction, secure fit, cooling channels, and easy port access. Its universal-fit approach and successful drop testing make it particularly appealing for districts managing diverse range of devices. This thoughtful design solves many storage, use, and protection dilemmas!"

MobyMax, MobyMax

"MobyMax stands out for combining a broad K-8 curriculum with adaptive learning, diagnostics, progress monitoring, and engagement tools on a single platform. Its ability to automatically identify and address skill gaps gives it strong practical value for teachers managing students at very different levels."

Otus, Otus

"Otus has the ability to connect over 50 data sources within and outside your SIS to give you one source for data visualizations. It uses AI to analyze that data to also give teacher-level suggestions for instructional needs."

Perpetual Learning, BookBreak

"BookBreak offers a compelling way to make reading feel more social and engaging through author talks, ready-to-use lessons, and family resources. Its growing K-12 reach and strong focus on building a lasting reading culture give it more depth than a typical literacy engagement tool."

PowerSchool, MyPowerHub

"MyPowerHub makes it much easier for families and educators to find the information they need without having to jump between multiple systems. Its tight connection with PowerSchool SIS and role-based experience make it a strong solution for simplifying communication and improving family engagement."

Presence, Kanga by Presence

"Kanga by Presence is a platform for elementary special education that combines assessment, therapy resources, caseload management, documentation, and secure reporting. Its strength is less about flashy innovation and more about making clinicians’ day-to-day work easier. The integrated documentation within the platform saves teachers time. Kanga offers flexible, engaging tools to individualize services and support students across remote and in-person settings."

Quizizz Inc. (DBA Wayground), Wayground for Primary Education

"Our teachers like that Wayground has a built-in game modes that can make assessment and practice more engaging for students, turning activities into more interactive experience. Teachers can still customize assessments to meet their instructional goals, fun and flexibility into checking for understanding."

William H. Sadlier, Decodable Text Placement Wizard

"The Decodable Text Placement Wizard does a nice job of turning foundational-literacy assessment data into an actionable instructional starting point. It reduces the guesswork and planning time involved in matching students with appropriately challenging decodable texts. It has transparent recommendations within the Sadlier program, flexible digital or paper assessment, and direct assignment of texts. The Wizard is a useful tool for K–3 differentiation."

Savvas Learning Company, myView Literacy

"Delivered through the Savvas platform, which gives district insight/oversight, myView Literacy offers a complete K-5 ELA ecosystem. A favorite feature is the ability to create custom decodables for students."

SchoolAI, SchoolAI for Primary Education

"Through their Spaces, SchoolAI utilizes AI to pair a teacher's knowledge of their students with just-in-time academic feedback for students, and progress monitoring that is sharable to other educators who need to know."

SchoolStatus, SchoolStatus Attend

"The SchoolStatus Attend platform is focused on reducing chronic absenteeism. It streamlines not only the communication process for messaging interventions but also allows fewer personnel to manage student attendance. In addition it offers robust interventions for behaviors that lead to chronic absenteeism, using a positive, proactive approach and outreach processes to work with families on the root causes and not just the symptoms."

Science Interactive Group, Standards & Starlab

"Starlab has been around just short of 50 years, but the stars much longer and they are still worth exploring. Now with curriculum that adheres to NGSS along with the communal experience under the dome to spark curiosity."

SMART Technologies, SMART Control Signage

"This solves two problems - repurposing SMART panels that can live on as communication boards and seamlessly communicating to panels across a school or district. Non-technical users will find it easy to share directly from Canva, Google Slides, or video sources."

SmartLab / Salesforce, SmartLab Spot

"SmartLab Spot brings curriculum, training, support, and community resources into one easy-to-navigate platform, which should make life noticeably easier for facilitators. Its value lies less in flashy features and more in reducing friction and helping educators get what they need faster."

SpringMath Accelerate, Inc., SpringMath

"SpringMath takes a focused, data-driven approach to math intervention by identifying specific skill gaps and turning them into ready-to-use weekly instruction. Its combination of strong progress monitoring, paper-based student work, and automated intervention planning gives it real value for schools trying to strengthen MTSS without adding more screen time."

TalkingPoints, TalkingPoints Attendance Improvement

"This communication tool for schools and parents is SMS first, which removes a technology barrier some parents have. With translations into 150+ languages, this is accessible for just about any parent to receive notifications and have two-way communication about their students."

TalkingPoints, TalkingPoints District Engagement

"For schools that need next level messaging, including translations to 150 languages, plus a low-barrier to access from the teacher and parent side, this is a tool that meets communication needs of today. While it has an app, there is a functional option for no wifi and no login required."

TalkingPoints, TalkingPoints Academics at Home

"This communication and instructional tool has two features of note. One is the text-first delivery model across 150+ languages, removing tech and language barriers. The second is its low-prep activity creation that aligns with district-specific scope and sequences."

Teachers' Curriculum Institute (TCI), Social Studies Alive! — TCI K–5 Social Studies

"TCI offers an engaging, interactive curriculum that supports differentiated instruction. Its flexible reading levels, language translation options, immersive video activities, interactive maps, and built-in review games empower teachers to personalize instruction while making learning more meaningful and accessible. I believe TCI provides an excellent balance of digital and hands-on learning experiences that can increase student engagement, strengthen understanding, and support academic success."

TranslateLive, LLC., TranslateLive

"ILA makes real-time communication available across a broad range of languages while still providing a path to professional interpreters when automated translation isn't enough. It has two-way translation, app-free Broadcast Mode, ASL support, and can be used with different devices. These features have meaningful real-world value. Its biggest innovation is how it brings multiple forms of language access into everyday school interactions."

VariQuest, StudioVQ™ - Primary Education

"StudioVQ is a well-integrated solution that removes friction from creating and producing school materials, especially for educators who don't have design expertise or time to start from scratch. It offers a huge education-specific resource library, collaboration tools, and direct connection to hardware. The collaboration tools are especially helpful, allowing teachers to work simultaneously on posters, signs, templates, graphic organizers, infographics, and more."

ViewSonic Corp., ViewSonic myViewBoard Quiz Tools Powered by ClassSwift

"ViewSonic delivers again, this time with an 'on-the-fly' Snip and Share, which allows a teacher to turn any teaching material into a and interactive activity. Another feature to admire is the multi-modal functionality, including simultaneous audio recording."

Voyager Sopris Learning, Step Up to Writing

"The Voyager Sopris Learning Step Up to Writing curriculum is designed using research-proven practices. This program was created for students to use strategies that can be integrated into any curriculum or implemented as a standalone writing solution. This unique approach breaks writing skills into smaller steps for quick wins as students fine tune their writing abilities."

SECONDARY

#HalfTheStory, Social Media U

"Social Media U tackles digital wellbeing in a way that feels current, practical, and genuinely relevant to teens. Its mix of AI literacy, emotional resilience, media literacy, and active discussion gives schools a strong framework for helping students build healthier relationships with technology."

Acer, Acer ProDesigner PE270K L1

"Bridging the gap between professional grade and classroom grade, the ProDesigner gives students who create and design digital content a tool to increase their skills and level up their creative potential."

Acer, Acer Veriton GN100 AI Mini Workstation

"For districts looking for a way to put generative AI on prem, this workstation provides a viable and more affordable option. Specifically designed for AI workloads, it packs a punch with a Blackwell GPU, a 20-core Arm CPU, 128 GB of unified memory, and up to 4 TB of storage."

Amplify Education, Amplify ELA

"Amplify ELA offers a strong, well-rounded middle school literacy program that coherently connects reading, writing, discussion, vocabulary, and critical thinking. Its built-in differentiation, engaging content, and useful teacher reporting tools make it especially effective for classrooms with a wide range of student needs."

AVID Products, AE-56

"These are strong headsets; we have used the brand for years with high satisfaction"

Boxlight, Boxlight Symphony

"Boxlight Symphony brings bells, paging, intercom, emergency alerts, and visual messaging into a single system, simplifying both daily communication and campus safety. Its local operation, district-wide monitoring, and compatibility with existing phone systems make it a strong option for schools modernizing in phases."

Boxlight, Clevertouch FOCUS by Boxlight

"Clevertouch FOCUS packs a lot into one classroom display, from whiteboarding and screen sharing to device management and campus alerts. The tight integration of teaching and school communication tools gives it a strong edge over more basic interactive panels."

Boxlight, Boxlight Symphonic Series

"The Symphonic Series is a thoughtful modernization of school communication, bringing paging, intercom, visual alerts, and camera capability into a single PoE-powered system. The three-model lineup and SIP compatibility make it flexible enough for different spaces while simplifying installation and long-term management."

ClassLink, ClassLink Suite

"Our high school teachers found ClassLink especially useful because students could have class-specific apps right in their suite, making it much more efficient to get where they needed to go. Having those resources organized in one place reduces time spent searching and logging in and allows teachers to focus more quickly on the learning."

Curriculum Associates, Stile

"Stile’s PROVIDES real-world, hands-on science investigations that encourage students to learn through experience rather than simply reading about science. By combining inquiry-based learning with integrated digital resources and assessments, Stile helps students develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and scientific reasoning skills. I particularly appreciate how it empowers teachers to focus on meaningful learning experiences that connect classroom instruction to real-world applications and future STEM opportunities."

D2L, D2L Brightspace

"Brightspace brings course creation, assessment, communication, analytics, and accessibility together into one, helping educators work more efficiently while providing insights into student learning. Its innovative features, including AI-assisted course development, interactive content, and data-driven decision-making, empower teachers to personalize instruction and support student needs. Brightspace offers a powerful, integrated solution that can enhance teaching and create an engaging and accessible learning experience for students."

Edmentum, MajorClarity for Secondary Education

"MajorClarity stands out as a strong college- and career-readiness platform because it connects student interests, academic planning, postsecondary exploration, credentials, and real-world experiences instead of treating them as separate activities. The combination of student ownership, dynamic career matching, and district-level data makes it especially useful for turning career planning into an ongoing process rather than a compliance exercise. "

ExploreK12, Gizmos

"Gizmos is an engaging STEM learning platform, with a large library of interactive simulations, virtual investigations, and real-world STEM cases. The combination of inquiry-based learning, standards alignment, formative assessment, and career-connected activities makes it both practical and engaging. Students will love exploring the simulations, investigations, and inquiry-based activities!"

Follett Software, IT Asset Manager

"The Follett Software IT Asset Manager is a great tool for tracking assets and resources, as well as providing real-time reporting on usage. IT Asset Manager is an AI-enabled technology operations platform built for K-12 school districts. It connects device lifecycle management, asset tracking, help desk ticketing, repairs, reporting, and mobile workflows."

Frontline Education, Frontline Education AI for Education x Frontline Professional Growth

"This professional development tool is a timely, practical approach to AI adoption in K–12. It focuses on AI literacy and responsible classroom practices rather than training teachers around a single tool that could quickly become outdated. The integration with an existing professional-learning platform, combined with tracking, continuous updates, and district-wide implementation, gives it strong practical value."

HUE, HUE HD Pro

"The HUE HD Camera does a terrific job of not only capturing still pictures, but also video and audio for teachers to use for lessons beyond the average document cameras. The included software does a great job of capturing content in a easy to embed format for online lessons as well as using the camera for Zoom or Meet sessions with classrooms all over the world."

iCEV, iCEV’s Comprehensive Solution

"iCEV offers more than 200 courses across 16 career clusters that connect classroom learning with real-world industry expectations. Its support for 19 industry-recognized certifications provides students with credentials that can lead to career opportunities and workforce readiness. I particularly appreciate how iCEV combines hands-on learning, certification preparation, and data-driven insights to help schools prepare students for careers while addressing the demand for skilled workers."

Instructure, Canvas K-12

"For high school students who move between multiple classes, teachers, and electives throughout the day, Canvas can maximize efficiency by keeping learning materials, assignments, and communication in one consistent place. That organization makes it easier for students to navigate their courses and for teachers to create a more seamless learning experience across a secondary schedule."

IXL Learning, Rosetta Stone for Schools

"With 16 languages represented across our district, supporting multilingual learners and. Rosetta Stone for Schools has been a valuable resource for our teachers, students, and families by giving learners opportunities to build confidence and begin using their new language right from the start."

Lightspeed Systems, Screen Time Dashboard

"Lightspeed Insight gives districts a clear, data-driven view of student screen time, making it easier to evaluate usage, spot trends, and communicate with stakeholders. Its focused analytics and benchmarking tools make it especially valuable for districts trying to connect technology use with instructional goals and accountability."

Magic EdTech MagicBox

"MagicBox brings content delivery, assessment, analytics, AI-powered instructional support, and offline access together in one ecosystem. Its scale and integrations make it especially practical for schools and publishers. The AI enhancements and white-label flexibility add meaningful value, although much of the innovation is in how comprehensively these capabilities are integrated rather than in introducing an entirely new learning model."

ManagedMethods, Classroom Manager

Classroom Manager helps a teacher direct students to the learning activities of the day. Key feature include the "Follow Me," which makes it easy for teachers to manage students accessing additional resources during class time, and integration within the Microsoft and Google environments.

MAXCases, Folio Work-In Case

"The Work-In Folio is a budget-conscious solution that emphasizes protecting school-issued devices without sacrificing usability. It offers rigid construction, secure fit, cooling channels, and easy port access. Its universal-fit approach and successful drop testing make it particularly appealing for districts managing diverse range of devices. This thoughtful design solves many storage, use, and protection dilemmas!"

Minga.io, Minga

"Minga tackles a major weakness in K–12 operations: the number of disconnected systems teachers and administrators have to manage daily. Its combination of behavior, attendance, hallway management, interventions, communication, and real-time data creates a strong unified workflow. Its integrations with existing school systems (SIS and LMS) means it will help teachers document a range of student information with ease."

NetSupport, classroom.cloud

"The NetSupport Classroom Cloud product is amazing when it comes to mobile device management at the classroom and teacher level. This system is also device agnostic and allows teachers to have full control over the content and use of their students devices that are district owned."

NOLA Education, Star Academy

"Star Academy takes a comprehensive approach to helping struggling middle school students catch up academically while rebuilding engagement and confidence. Its combination of accelerated academics, hands-on learning, career exploration, and ongoing teacher support gives it strong potential for meaningful, lasting impact."

Otus, Otus

"Otus has the ability to connect over 50 data sources within and outside your SIS to give you one source for data visualizations. It uses AI to analyze that data to also give teacher-level suggestions for instructional needs."

ParentSquare, ParentSquare

"ParentSquare has been a game-changer for how we communicate and connect with families across our district. Having communication in one place, along with translation and multiple ways for families to receive information, has helped us make district and school communication more accessible, consistent, and effective."

Presence, Kanga by Presence

"Kanga by Presence is a platform for secondary special education that combines assessment, therapy resources, caseload management, documentation, and secure reporting. Its strength is less about flashy innovation and more about making clinicians’ day-to-day work easier. The integrated documentation within the platform saves teachers time. Kanga offers flexible, engaging tools to individualize services and support students across remote and in-person settings."

Proximity Learning Inc., Proximity Learning

"Proximity Learning offers a practical, scalable answer to teacher shortages by putting certified teachers into classrooms live, while its tutoring and SPED case-management services extend the platform beyond simply filling vacancies. The synchronous model, strong reported outcomes, and ability to serve hard-to-staff subjects regardless of geography make it especially useful. This core approach represents an effective evolution of virtual education."

Quizizz Inc. (DBA Wayground), Wayground for Secondary Education

"I like the flexibility Wayground gives secondary teachers to customize assessments while still keeping the teacher at the center of the process. The ability to bring existing paper assignments into the platform, add accommodations and translation is especially useful."

Robolink, Robolink CoDrone EDU

"The CoDrone EDU is a programmable drone for learning which allows users to code in Python or block-based coding. It's an effective and engaging tool for teaching beginning coders as well as more advanced students."

SAE International, A World In Motion® (AWIM) Career Pathfinder

"AWIM Career Pathfinder’s engaging, interactive approach helps students explore diverse career opportunities while developing critical thinking, communication, and research skills. What makes this product particularly appealing is that it is completely free, allowing school districts to provide high-quality career readiness experiences to all students without adding financial strain to already limited educational budgets, making it an outstanding resource for promoting equity, accessibility, and college and career readiness."

Savvas Learning Company, myPerspectives English Language Arts

"The myPerspectives English Language Arts program from Savvas is a program for ELA. myPerspectives English Language Arts diagnoses student performance and provides real-time data to create a picture of where students are in their learning and pinpoint a path forward."

SchoolAI, SchoolAI for Secondary Education

"SchoolAI’s Spaces provide a strong student platform where teachers set the learning outcomes while AI helps adapt the experience to individual student needs. We found this approach especially useful for making assignments and communication more efficient while still keeping the teacher in control of the learning experience."

Share-A-Cart, Share-A-Cart

"Share-A-Cart solves a very practical school workflow problem by making supply requests, approvals, and purchasing much faster and easier to manage. Its free pricing, Google Classroom support, SSO integrations, and growing retailer coverage make it a useful tool, even if its overall scope is fairly focused."

SMART Technologies, Lumio AI Assist - Activity Generation

"Lumio AI Assist differentiates its classroom activity generator by parsing pre-existing teacher material to build interactive activities for quick and easy use. It also features an LMS integration and mandatory teacher review to ensure a Human-in-the-Loop AI experience."

SpringMath Accelerate, Inc., SpringMath

"SpringMath offers a practical way to turn math screening data into targeted instruction without adding student screen time. Its automated intervention planning, weekly progress monitoring, and evidence-backed MTSS model make it especially useful for schools trying to close foundational skill gaps efficiently."

Teachers' Curriculum Institute (TCI), TCI Social Studies, Grades 6–12

"TCI offers an engaging, interactive curriculum that supports differentiated instruction. Its flexible reading levels, language translation options, immersive video activities, interactive maps, and built-in review games empower teachers to personalize instruction while making learning more meaningful and accessible. I believe TCI provides an excellent balance of digital and hands-on learning experiences that can increase student engagement, strengthen understanding, and support academic success."

VariQuest, StudioVQ™ - Secondary Education

"StudioVQ is a well-integrated solution that removes friction from creating and producing school materials, especially for educators who don't have design expertise or time to start from scratch. It offers a huge education-specific resource library, collaboration tools, and direct connection to hardware. The collaboration tools are especially helpful, allowing teachers to work simultaneously on posters, signs, templates, graphic organizers, infographics, and more."

ViewSonic Corp., ViewSonic WPD-900E Wireless Presentation System

"When you need a wireless presenter solution to cast to a display, this lives up to the hype. No need for WiFi or a long HDMI cable. If the display has HDMI and USB ports and you have a USB-C port, you are good. No need to call IT support."

Voyager Sopris Learning, LANGUAGE! Live

"LANGUAGE! Live is a comprehensive literacy intervention for struggling students in grades 5–12 that incorporates both online and teacher-guided instruction. I particularly liked the blended learning opportunities the online components provided students by allowing them to move at their own pace in authentic texts."

HIGHER EDUCATION

Ascend Learning, Engage® Series

"Engage Series with Claire AI gives nursing students a strong mix of interactive practice, personalized support, and clinically focused learning. The AI integration stands out because it is directly tied to nursing content and helps faculty reduce prep time and target student needs."

Blackboard, Cursive by Blackboard

"Cursive takes a more constructive approach to academic integrity by showing how student work was created instead of relying on potentially unreliable AI-detection scores. Its focus on authorship evidence, writing-process visibility, and LMS compatibility makes it especially relevant as schools rethink assessment in the AI era."

Copyleaks, Copyleaks AI Logic

"AI Logic by Copyleaks is an AI content detection product to help academic institutions to make informed decisions surrounding generative AI use. Not only does AI Logic have extraordinary accuracy rates and a .2% false positive rate, it also can detect AI content in over 15 languages, AI-generated source code, and paraphrased AI content and AI text interspersed with human-written text."

D2L, D2L Brightspace

"Brightspace brings course creation, assessment, communication, analytics, and accessibility together into one, helping educators work more efficiently while providing insights into student learning. Its innovative features, including AI-assisted course development, interactive content, and data-driven decision-making, empower teachers to personalize instruction and support student needs. Brightspace offers a powerful, integrated solution that can enhance teaching and create an engaging and accessible learning experience for students."

D2L, D2L Lumi

"D2L Lumi combines unique instructional knowledge with the latest in generative AI."

FeedbackFruits, Oral Assessment and Practice

"Two key components to like about this product: pedagogy-first "human-in-the-loop" AI architecture and a scaffolded three-tier learning arc of practice, reflection, and assessment."

Instructure, Canvas

"Canvas is a robust LMS that provides a seamless experience for higher education faculty and students to create courses, manage learning, and communicate in one place. Its strength is bringing the different pieces of the learning experience together in a platform that is organized, flexible, and easy to navigate."

Kahoot!, Kahoot! EDU

"This new, reinvented Kahoot EDU platform is a game changer now that it has added the power of AI! Now, the same power that teacher's have had for years with Kahoot creativity is now also in the hands of students to help them prepare for national placement tests and even next week's test with powerful AI tutoring tools!"

Kaplan, All Access License by Kaplan

"Highly effective preparation for professional licensure and graduate entrance exam—including MCAT, NCLEX, LSAT, GMAT, Praxis, FE, CFA, CPA, and CAPM. Kaplan offers both live-online and self-paced instructional modalities to meet learner preferences."

Money Confidence Project, Venture Valley Game

"Venture Valley Money Confidence Project platform uses experiential learning and gameplay to foster financial literacy, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills as students take on the role of startup founders in immersive, fast-paced business simulations. This experiential way of problem-solving provides real-world tasks that help students understand what it is like to be an entrepreneur while also fostering better understanding of design thinking."

Other World Computing (OWC), OWC USB-C Travel Dock

"The OWC USB-C Travel Dock is a simple, useful accessory that solves the everyday connectivity limitations of thin laptops and tablets. Its mix of display output, USB ports, SD access, and power passthrough offers strong value for students who need one compact adapter for multiple settings."

PFU America, Inc., RICOH SP-2240N

"The RICOH SP-2240N is a capable, straightforward scanner that handles a wide range of administrative and instructional documents without adding much complexity. Its speed, mixed-media support, network scanning, and built-in image processing make it a dependable fit for shared higher education environments."

Science Interactive Group, Science Interactive

"One of the challenges with hybrid learning is getting a physical experience with lab tools. Science Interactive solves this by pairing physical, home-shipped lab kits with interactive digital simulations. "

Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America, Sharp XP-P621U-W laser projector

"The Sharp XP-P621U-W looks like a dependable, high-performance classroom projector that prioritizes the things education AV teams care about most: strong image quality, low maintenance, quiet operation, and installation flexibility. The combination of a long-life laser source, sealed filter-free design, quiet operation, and a strong warranty makes it a compelling and practical choice for institutions using numerous projectors."

Thea Study, Thea Study

"Thea takes a smart approach to AI-assisted learning by pushing students to actively recall and apply material rather than simply giving them answers. Its personalized study tools, faculty insights, broad language support, and reported learning gains make it a particularly strong higher education platform."

ViewSonic Corp., ViewSonic LDE Series Direct View LED Displays

"Viewsonic offers large scale (100" to 163") displays with a smaller price tag and smaller footprint. Maintaining ADA compliance with a 4" depth and 1080p resolution, they are a great option for those needing a larger display in common spaces."

VitalSource, VitalSource’s Bookshelf+

"Bookshelf+ makes AI study support feel more trustworthy by keeping responses grounded in assigned course materials rather than open web sources. Its in-textbook tools for questions, flashcards, concept review, read-aloud, and language support give students useful help without pulling them away from the content they are supposed to learn."

Common Sense Media’s new online, self-paced course examines AI use and its connection to student wellbeing.

While most discussions around AI in the classroom focus on topics such as AI tutors or AI cheating, an arguably more pressing concern is how these tools are impacting student wellbeing. More and more young people are turning to these tools for the type of mental health advice traditionally offered by a friend or therapist.

Common Sense Media’s free, hour-long class focuses on these types of AI use. I recently took the course and it was easy to follow, helpful, and a very productive use of an hour. The course lays out how students are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for emotional support, and explains why that can be harmful to their wellbeing. Then the AI and Student Well-Being course offers specific and actionable advice for educators to help their students overcome these challenges.

While some of the discussion in the course was familiar to me, other aspects of it were new. The whole course is a great reminder that I, and other educators, should be taking this issue seriously. Here’s what I learned.

1. AI and Student Well-Being: Students Are Using AI -- A Lot

In the course, Common Sense Media shares results from a survey it conducted in which more than a thousand 9- to 17-year-olds across the country were asked to discuss their AI use. It’s no surprise that the survey revealed that students are using AI a lot, but even so, the numbers are eye-opening.

“Nearly 9 in 10 kids age 9 to 17 use or interact with AI, including about one in four who do so on a daily basis,” the course reveals. Additionally, these regular AI users exhibit signs of AI dependence. “Twenty percent of kids who use AI, and 42% of kids who use AI daily, say it would be very or somewhat hard for them to go without AI for a month.”

Concerningly, students who said they were lonelier were also more likely to use AI more often and to turn to it for emotional support. Only 33% of kids who rarely use AI said they felt lonely some of the time. Meanwhile, “about half of kids who use or interact with AI daily (54%) or weekly (47%), and 44% of monthly AI users, say they feel lonely at least some of the time.”

2. AI Can Appear Helpful for Emotional Support

The course is not actually anti-AI and makes it clear that AI can appear (and might even be) helpful for emotional support in some instances. For certain students, AI could reduce feelings of loneliness in the moment, offer a low-pressure space to ask questions, and provide guidance and practice for navigating social situations. It could also spark creativity and self-expression.

But there are limits to these benefits. “[AI] does not actually know a student, care about their future, or share in the relationship,” the course text warns. “Its responses are generated, not felt.” This could lead to AI stopping students from seeking help from humans and its constantly affirming responses can reinforce “validation-seeking patterns.”

Additionally, “for vulnerable students, AI may intensify rather than ease existing struggles,” and, “One-sided interactions can start to feel safer or more satisfying than real relationships.”

3. Chatbots Appeal to Students Because They Offer “Frictionless Friendships”

One of the reasons AI chatbots appeal to students is that these platforms offer a frictionless friendship. “When a chatbot uses simulated curiosity to ask a student about their day, it signals interest,” the text states. “When it uses social presence to reference something a student shared the week before, it signals memory and care. When it uses sycophancy to affirm a student's feelings without question, it signals safety. These may not be real in the way a human relationship is real—but they can feel real.”

Additionally, talking with a chatbot doesn’t carry a social risk, and these tools are always available and never require anything from a student. In contrast, a real friend might challenge you and disagree with you, isn’t always available and has their own interests and passions. But they do care “about your wellbeing in a real, embodied way.”

4. There Are Signs of Concerning AI Use Educators Can Watch For

The course offers several tangible solutions for addressing concerns about AI use and teaches you some potential signs that a student may have entered into an unhealthy relationship with a chatbot. These include discussing AI as a “real friend,” and sudden switches in academic performance and overall behavior.

In these instances, the course advises not trying to perform the role of a therapist, but instead talking with the student about their AI use in a curious and non-judgmental way, and following your institution’s guidelines around recommending wellbeing and mental health supports. Understanding what students are getting out of their interactions with these machines can also help.

Many students are drawn to chatbots because of their sycophancy (a tendency to agree with the user) and students also have “automation bias,” a strange new tendency many have to trust AI more than their own intuitions because it seems so knowledgeable and confident in its responses.

5. There Are Steps Educators Can Take

When it comes to AI and student wellbeing, as with so many other things, the best interventions are often the ones that take place before a problem develops.

To this end, the course recommends that educators take an active role in preventing students from entering into potentially harmful scenarios with AI. This can be done through digital literacy and by making AI a regular low-stakes topic of conversation in class. Additionally, the course encourages educators to model intentional AI use, explaining why they are using AI and its limitations.

In a great piece of advice for this and other situations as an educator, the course advises teachers not to be afraid to let the students know the limitations of their own knowledge on these topics by saying something such as, “I'm still figuring this out, too.” The course notes that this “is an invitation to think together,” modeling exactly the kind of real human collaboration and thoughtfulness AI can’t duplicate.

Artificial intelligence is quickly moving from novelty to infrastructure. In many schools and universities, AI is already shaping writing, assessment, tutoring, research, student support, and administrative decision-making. UNESCO’s 2026 report, The Algorithm in the Room: Seeing and Confronting the Implications of AI for the Future of Education, argues that educational leaders should resist treating this transformation as inevitable.

The more important leadership question is not simply, “How do we adopt AI?” but “What purposes of education do we want AI to support, and what should remain distinctly human?” In some cases, the broader conversation might also include questions such as, “What is the purpose of our school, program, or course?”

For school and district leaders, higher ed administrators, and instructional technology leaders, the report offers several immediate action items.

1. Start with educational purpose, not the tool

One of the primary principles of effective educational technology has always been to focus on the instructional goal rather than the technology. The UNESCO report repeatedly returns to the problem of alignment. AI systems are designed to optimize toward goals, but schools are complicated, and not all educational goals can be easily quantified in a dashboard or reduced to a simple metric.

The immediate leadership implication is straightforward: before approving a new AI product, ask what educational problem it is intended to solve. Leaders should require a clear instructional or administrative rationale rather than adopting tools simply because of a promise of efficiency or personalization. A useful leadership question is, “What do we want students or educators to be better able to do because this tool exists?”

2. Audit where algorithms are already making decisions

UNESCO’s first recommended horizon is to “see the algorithm.” Educational leaders may be surprised by how many algorithmic systems are already embedded in their institutions, from adaptive learning tools and plagiarism detection systems to enrollment platforms, analytics dashboards, recommendation engines, and automated assessment tools.

An immediate action is to conduct an institutional AI and algorithm inventory. Identify which systems are being used, what data these collect, what decisions they influence, and whether those decisions can be challenged by a human.

This is especially important because UNESCO warns that algorithmic decisions can be opaque, difficult to appeal, and capable of reinforcing existing inequities.

Algorithms need to be tested from time to time. Do not assume that the conditions that allowed an algorithm to be effective a decade ago are still in place.

3. Protect human agency in teaching and learning

One of the report’s strongest warnings concerns the gradual transfer of intellectual work from people to machines. UNESCO describes the possibility of a “classroom AI doom loop,” in which AI generates assignments, students use AI to complete the work, AI evaluates the responses, and automated systems record the grades. The issue goes beyond academic dishonesty and into whether meaningful human learning is taking place.

Leaders should therefore ask instructors to identify the parts of learning that must remain human. These might include forming questions, interpreting evidence, explaining reasoning, engaging in discussion, solving unfamiliar problems, reflecting on mistakes, and defending conclusions. Assessment seems like a key process that needs to remain under human agency. AI can support those processes, but it should not replace any.

4. Rethink assessment instead of relying on AI detection

UNESCO’s discussion of pedagogy and assessment suggests that educational institutions need to move beyond the search for increasingly sophisticated AI detectors.

If AI can produce conventional academic products, leaders should help educators reconsider what those products are intended to demonstrate. Assessment should increasingly make student thinking visible. That could mean more oral explanation, iterative drafts, demonstrations, presentations, authentic projects, reflective commentary, in-class problem solving, and assignments in which students document how they reached a conclusion.

The leadership challenge is to support redesign of assessment to disclose, document, and reflect on AI use by students.

5. Make AI literacy broader than prompt engineering

Many current AI literacy initiatives focus heavily on how to use generative AI effectively. UNESCO suggests that students need something more substantial.

AI literacy should include understanding how algorithmic systems work, how training data influence outputs, how bias can emerge, why hallucinations occur, whose knowledge may be overrepresented or absent, and how commercial incentives shape technology. Students should learn to question AI outputs, not simply generate better ones.

The UNESCO report raises concerns about linguistic and cultural flattening. Dominant languages and highly digitized knowledge traditions may receive disproportionate representation in large language models, while local, indigenous, and less digitized perspectives risk being further marginalized in some cases.

6. Establish clear human-rights and privacy guardrails

UNESCO emphasizes that AI use in education should be grounded in dignity, non-discrimination, participation, equity, informed consent, and protection—especially when children or vulnerable learners are involved.

Educational leaders should immediately review policies governing student data, AI account creation, vendor access, automated decision-making, and the use of personally identifiable information in generative AI platforms.

Institutions also need a clearly articulated guiding principle that consequential decisions affecting students should not be delegated entirely to automated systems.

7. Strengthen teachers rather than designing around them

One of the most important leadership messages in the report is that AI should not become an excuse to hollow out educational institutions. UNESCO argues that hopeful AI futures depend on strengthening libraries, arts and humanities programs, teacher development, and public educational infrastructures.

To achieve this, professional learning should move beyond one-time workshops on individual AI products. Educators need ongoing opportunities to examine AI’s instructional, ethical, cultural, and assessment implications. Teachers should be positioned as designers of learning environments, not simply supervisors of automated systems.

8. Move from consumers to shapers of AI

UNESCO’s final horizon is the most ambitious: “rewrite the algorithm.” The report encourages educational communities to participate actively in shaping AI rather than simply consuming commercially produced systems. It highlights possibilities such as community-trained models, citizen science, indigenous-language projects, locally developed small language models, and collaborative rather than purely individualized AI tools.

For educational leaders, the immediate step may be modest: involve teachers, students, librarians, technology staff, and community members in AI governance and purchasing decisions. Those who experience the consequences of educational technology should have a voice in determining how it is used.

A leadership agenda for right now

Perhaps the most useful takeaway from The Algorithm in the Room is that educational leaders still have agency. AI is not an external force that schools must simply accommodate.

UNESCO’s three-part framework provides a practical leadership sequence: see the algorithm, steer the algorithm, and ultimately help rewrite the algorithm.

For leaders, that means conducting an AI inventory, establishing governance and privacy expectations, supporting assessment redesign, expanding AI literacy, protecting meaningful human interaction, and ensuring that technology remains subordinate to educational purpose.

The most important AI strategy may therefore begin with a question that has very little to do with technology: What kind of education are we trying to provide, strengthen, and create? Once leaders can answer that clearly, decisions about AI become considerably easier.

Of course, what kind of education we should be providing might be the most difficult question of all.

Calm is best known as a meditation and sleep app for adults, but the platform also offers resources specifically designed for use in schools.

The idea is simply to give teachers easy ways to introduce short periods of mindfulness, breathing, relaxation, and reflection into the school day. Calm says more than 250,000 teachers are already using its resources.

That could mean starting the morning with a short mindfulness exercise, using calming music during independent work, or giving students a simple breathing activity when the classroom needs to slow down.

This aims to lay out all you need to know about using Calm in your class.

What is Calm?

Calm is a digital mindfulness and wellbeing platform offering guided meditations, breathing exercises, music, Sleep Stories, and other tools designed to help people manage stress and relax.

For education, Calm has a dedicated Schools offering with age-specific resources intended to help teachers bring mindfulness into the classroom. It also includes material aimed at teachers themselves, recognizing that staff wellbeing is part of creating a healthy school environment.

The classroom resources aren't designed to replace teaching or act as a standalone mental health intervention. Instead, these can be dropped into the school day as short activities alongside existing lessons and routines.

This makes Calm very easy to use. A teacher doesn't need to build a course or learn a complicated piece of software. Instead, they can select an appropriate exercise and play it for the class.

Calm's current free school resources include a 30 Days of Mindfulness in the Classroom guide, with age-specific activities for PreK-12 students, as well as a self-care guide aimed at teachers.

How does Calm work?

Calm is primarily accessed through its website and mobile apps, although teachers don't necessarily need an account to make use of the current free classroom materials.

The downloadable classroom guides include links to selected Calm audio content, allowing teachers to play exercises directly from the resources. These can be used during activities such as morning meetings, quiet time, or other points when a class might benefit from a short reset.

One useful aspect is the range of formats. A teacher could use a guided meditation when the class needs to settle, breathing exercises as a quick reset, or relaxing music as background audio while students are reading or working independently.

Calm also makes its resources suitable for use beyond the classroom. Because the free guides don't require a login, teachers can share these with parents and students for use at home.

That is potentially useful for schools looking to make wellbeing activities part of a wider wellness routine or social-emotional learning rather than something that only happens during a particular lesson.

What are the best Calm features?

Age-specific resources
Perhaps the most useful feature for teachers is that the classroom material isn't simply a collection of generic adult meditation sessions. Calm's school offering includes age-specific resources designed for different stages of childhood.

That makes it easier to choose something appropriate rather than expecting a teacher to work out which activity will suit a particular age group.

30 Days of Mindfulness
The 30 Days of Mindfulness in the Classroom guide gives teachers a ready-made structure rather than leaving them to decide what to do every day.

It includes daily mindfulness exercises and links to selected Calm Kids content, making it possible to build short activities into a regular classroom routine.

Breathing exercises
Breathing exercises can be useful because these don't require much preparation. A teacher can introduce one as a short activity before a lesson, after a busy transition, or whenever the class needs to pause.

Calm Music
Calm's music library can also have a less obvious classroom use. The company highlights music as a way to create a more relaxed environment, and teachers can use instrumental tracks during activities such as reading or independent work.

Teacher self-care
Calm doesn't only focus on students. Its Schools resources include a self-care guide for teachers, covering ways to manage stress and avoid burnout.

That is worth noting because wellbeing initiatives can sometimes put another responsibility on teachers. Giving staff something they can use themselves makes the offering feel more rounded.

How much does Calm cost?

Calm provides free classroom resources that don't require a login or subscription.

These include the 30 Days of Mindfulness in the Classroom guide and teacher self-care resources, with links to selected free audio content.

Teachers who want access to the full Calm library, including additional meditations and Sleep Stories, need a personal Calm Premium subscription.

Schools and districts looking for wider access can also investigate Calm's business and organizational offerings.

Calm Tips

• Start the day calmly
  Use a short breathing or mindfulness activity at the beginning of the school day. This can create a consistent transition from arriving at school to beginning lessons without taking up much teaching time.
• Don't overdo it
  Start with a few minutes and see how the class responds. A short, repeatable routine is likely to be easier to maintain than an ambitious wellbeing program.
• Use music during quiet work
  Try Calm's relaxing music while students are reading, drawing, or working independently. Keep the volume low enough that it remains background rather than becoming another distraction.
• Build a reset into transitions
  Rather than waiting until a class is visibly unsettled, use a short breathing exercise between activities. Moving from PE back to academic work, for example, can be a natural point for a brief reset.
• Let students choose
  Once students know the different types of activities available, give them some choice. One student may prefer breathing exercises while another finds quiet music more useful.
• Share it with parents
  The free Calm classroom guides don't require a login, so teachers can share relevant material with parents who want to continue the practice at home.
• Look after the teacher, too
  Don't make Calm something that is only for students. A short mindfulness session before school, during a break, or at the end of the day can give teachers a chance to use the same tools they are encouraging their students to try.

Plagiarism is an age-old problem. Artificial intelligence-generated content is a very new problem. Yet these two practices—one ancient and one modem—are linked by their ability to replace true learning with copy-and-paste.

The word plagiarism, derived from the Latin plagiarius ("kidnapper"), dates back to 17th-century English. Much earlier than that, in the first century, the Roman poet Martial used “plagiarius” to castigate another poet whom he accused of appropriating his words.

In our modern world, however, the ability of students to find and copy others’ work is greater than ever before. While there are a number of in-depth and effective paid solutions that allow educators to verify the originality of student work, there are only a few free solutions that are worth trying.

Sites that characterized trial texts as substantially or highly plagiarized or AI-generated passed my testing. Sites that didn’t recognize texts as such were deemed unreliable and therefore excluded. Interestingly, six sites which had passed near-identical plagiarism testing three years ago failed the most recent testing and have been excluded.

Read on for the best free online plagiarism and AI-generated content checkers. Interested in non-tech methods of detection? Check out T&L contributor Erik Ofgang’s article 10 Ways to Detect AI Writing Without Technology.

Best Free Plagiarism and AI Content-Checking Sites

Grammarly
Grammarly’s free plagiarism and artificial intelligence detector tools allow users to simply paste text or upload files to be scanned for plagiarized or AI-generated text. No account is needed for the first scan. After that, users can quickly create a free account via Google, Apple, or email to continue scanning. In my testing, Grammarly correctly identified plagiarism in all three texts, reporting each time in this way: “We have found significant plagiarism in your text.” While the free version does not provide a line-by-line plagiarism analysis, it is nevertheless a very good choice for a free detector, especially considering the generous 1500-word limit. Grammarly’s AI detector delivered a perfect result, correctly identifying all three AI-generated texts as 100% AI.

Quetext
With a clean, well-designed interface, it’s a pleasure to use Quetext. After the first free search, you’ll need to create a free account. Current testing results were near-perfect, with 98%, 100%, and 100% for plagiarized texts, and 100% for all AI-generated texts. Unlike many other plagiarism sites, Quetext makes it easy to compare the free and pro offerings -- free accounts allow 2,500 words monthly, while the paid Pro account allows 100,000 words, plus deeper search capability. The site usefully displays the number of words remaining in your word count. An excellent, user-friendly choice.

Dupli Checker
Dupli Checker furnishes a hassle-free plagiarism- and AI-content-checking experience. With no account needed, users can check for plagiarism and AI-generated content once daily. Offering a robust 2000-word limit, the site identified the three plagiarized texts as 100%, 100%, and 92% plagiarized, and the AI-generated texts as 100%, 89%, and 82% AI content. Note that retained cookies from Dupli Checker may interfere with results, so it’s best to clear cookies after each session. To access unlimited plagiarism checks and additional features such as downloading Word or PDF plagiarism reports, create a free account. Dupli Checker also provides a set of free, entertaining, and useful text and image tools such as the reverse text generator, favicon generator, and MD5 generator.

Plagiarism Detector
Easily check for plagiarism without creating an account, then download the pdf report file at no charge. The site accommodates multiple languages, while allowing unlimited free checks of text up to 1,000 words. In the latest testing, Plagiarism Detector characterized plagiarized texts as 100%, 100% and 92% plagiarized, while its AI content detector performed well, reporting 100%, 78%, and 82%. Flexible premium accounts are available on a weekly, month or yearly basis.

I was sitting in a leadership session presented by a fellow author in leadership, looking back and thinking about the stark contrast between smart and dumb leadership. It’s sad for me to admit, but after 30 years in education and leadership, I remember poor leaders better than good ones. The memory of poor leaders failing to meet the moment—and their gross inability to build trust, loyalty, and teamwork—remains vividly stuck in my mind.

The problem has as much to do with there being too many poor leaders as their impact on us. Fortunately, I have experienced the kind of leadership that captures the principles of how to make a school great, even remarkable. I think we all know how important strong leadership is and there is ample evidence about its value in taking an organization to the moon, and with adoring fans.

One of the best ways to understand the difference between bad and good leadership is to look at how leaders engage their teams. My research shows over and over an undeniable pattern: Great leaders act as "multipliers" who set their egos aside to amplify and empower the skills, ideas, and intelligence of those around them, whereas bad leaders act as "diminishers" who wall themselves off, micromanage, and suppress their team's potential out of insecurity.

In short, leaders who work smarter save everyone from working harder.

How leaders can make your organization smart, not dumb

I remain stunned even now, after 30 years of seeing bad leadership over and over again. Pride and insecurity seem to be the biggest culprits.

One of the most significant lessons I learned in leadership was acknowledging that there was always a smarter person in the room than me, and that it wasn’t a threat to me to admit I was wrong, or someone had a better idea. I heard this saying once, and it has always stuck with me: If you’re the smartest person in a room, you’re in the wrong room.

If I have to be the smartest person in the room, two dangerous facts exist:

1. I will have a lot of inferior people working for me, and as any coach will tell you, when the team loses the game, YOU lose the game. I’d rather have smarter people making me look good, winning . . . .
2. Even if someone has a smarter idea for a pivot, they will be afraid to share it because they fear I will snuff them out.

I have had the privilege of working alongside incredible educators, absolutely compassionate and skilled individuals, supporting children of all types. One of the most important lessons I learned came from concepts such as edcamps. I learned about Edcamps from an innovative educator who showed me the empowerment associated with learning that is targeted, with an energized vibe, and focused on high interest topics for educators. These are worthy of engaging professionals with and offer the kind of intelligent learning that matters more now than ever.

Smart leaders don’t let great ideas die in a corner of the school. If you have been around schools as long as I have, you know that there are remarkable ideas hidden in classrooms where humble yet amazing teachers bring learning alive. Great leaders use grassroots ideas to overcome contractual barriers, reclaim time, and empower teachers to share their hidden classroom expertise across the entire school.

As an author, researcher, and school leader, I have a rare vantage point: I've observed how thousands of classrooms function firsthand, allowing me to bridge real-world practice with evidence-based research. It was hard for me to keep quiet, working behind “diminisher” leaders, but it’s taught me not to be them and to share with you how important humility is in leadership.

Helping kids win

Is actively becoming a smart leader hard? Yes. It’s easier in the short term to shut your door and say, “I’m boss!” But I have been part of leadership teams in which the hard work was fun and worth the sacrifice. Change happens when a leader embraces vulnerability—a risky move for an organization accustomed to covering its tracks, but brave and beneficial in the long run. And smart!

Having that courage took me years to see change. Patience and persistence were the pillars of that process. I endured dumb leaders and a long road of frustration for an organization that always had that untapped potential percolating just under the surface, and needed smart leadership to help it burst out and do what matters most in education: Help kids win—in the classroom, at home, and in life.

Such success doesn't happen every day for every child, but when it does, it makes the pursuit of great, smart leadership entirely worthwhile.

Schools across the nation are being told to limit screen time. That sounds reasonable until you ask a basic question: What exactly are we limiting?

A student could spend 30 minutes passively clicking through a poorly designed program. Another could spend 30 minutes researching a topic, reading, collaborating with classmates, writing, or creating a podcast or video. Same 30 minutes. Very different learning.

It's a little like calories -- 300 calories of avocado is not the same as 300 calories of Twinkies. The number tells you how much, but not enough about the quality.

Screen time has the same problem. A minute watching random videos is not the same as a minute reading, writing, creating, collaborating, coding, or getting feedback. In my previous Tech & Learning article, Screen Time Is the Wrong Unit of Measurement, I argued that instead of measuring minutes, we should be measuring learning.

Interestingly, MIT is taking a similar approach in its new report on AI and education. Rather than simply embracing or rejecting AI, MIT's Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training recommends "AI-aware" education. That means revisiting what students need to learn, changing assessments, strengthening hands-on learning, maintaining human interaction, and helping students understand when AI should and shouldn't be used.

That's the conversation schools should be having about technology more broadly. Don't start with the tool or the number of minutes. Start with the learning and decide what tools are best to achieve the desired outcomes.

We should also be helping students think critically about their own technology use. They need to recognize when technology helps them learn, create, and connect, and when it distracts, gets in the way, or results in cognitive offloading. Counting minutes doesn't teach that judgment, and with technology evolving constantly, judgment matters more than a timer.

Measure What Matters

Instead of counting minutes, we should evaluate the quality of the learning experience. Other considerations exist, too. Privacy and safety should be prerequisites for any technology we put in front of students.

Here are some of the areas we should be looking at:

Learning value and engagement: What is technology adding? Are students learning, thinking, creating, questioning, solving, and making decisions, or mostly clicking and consuming?

Accessibility: Is the technology helping the student by making the learning more accessible through tools such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, captions, translation, audio, enlarged text, or other supports?

Personalization and agency: Does technology let students learn at an appropriate level or pace and make meaningful choices about how they learn, create, communicate, or demonstrate what they know?

Human interaction: When interaction matters, is technology helping students connect and collaborate, or getting in the way?

Transformation: Does technology simply replace an analog tool, or does it change what students can do? The SAMR model gives us a useful way to think about this through substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition. Not every activity needs to reach redefinition, but we should be able to move beyond substitution and explain what the technology adds.

Evidence and outcomes: Did it work? What evidence shows that students learned, gained access, improved their work, or achieved the intended outcome?

A screen-time limit is a lazy measure. Pick a number, start a timer, and you're done. We've done this before with multiple-choice tests. These are easy to score, but easy to measure doesn't mean meaningful. We should be moving toward better ways of evaluating learning, not backward toward whatever is easiest to count.

Empower Students to Know When the Screen Should Go Away & When It Should Stay

None of this means students should be on devices all day. Support students in determining if technology is supporting their learning. If technology isn't adding anything, they shouldn’t use it. If students would learn more with pencil and paper, by moving, building, experimenting, performing, playing, or working with their hands, let them.

But the reverse is also true.

If a student needs text-to-speech or translation to access a book, let them use the screen. If they can collaborate with experts or peers they couldn’t reach without technology, let them. If they can authentically publish their work, empower them with a screen. Students also shouldn't be called out, stigmatized, or othered for learning through different modalities. The modality should not matter if the student is learning.

The question shouldn't be, "How much screen time did students have?" It should be, "What were students doing, what were they learning, and was technology helping?"

Quantum computing could mark the next revolution in tech. Giants in the industry such as Google and IBM are making big investments in these next-gen computers, and industry is not alone. In June, the U.S. Department of Energy announced its Quantum Genesis Initiative, which aims to develop and deploy fully “scientifically relevant quantum computing capability for research and development by 2028." In July the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced Project Triad, an initiative that seeks to unify “three domains of quantum technology — sensors, computers and networks — in a unified, functional system.”

Instead of the bits used by classical computers, quantum computers utilize qubits. While a classical bit can be represented as either a 1 or 0, qubits take advantage of the strange properties of the quantum world to be both 1 and 0 at the same time. This, paired with other quantum characteristics such as entanglement, allows quantum computers to achieve levels of computational power that aren’t possible with classical computers.

As exciting as quantum computing is, there’s a problem.

“The field of quantum technology is growing faster than the current workforce can support,” says NSF Spokesperson Miriam Kleiman. She adds, “There is a significant shortage of qualified people.”

In an email, Kleiman shared steps educators can take to help their students learn about emerging quantum industries and how to potentially play a role.

Taking Steps To Prepare Students for Quantum-Related Careers

In addition to teaching core ideas from quantum mechanics, computer science, and mathematics, Kleiman says NSF scientists advise teachers to bolster these lessons by adding “simple hands-on activities, like writing basic programs for quantum devices, and exposing students to real tools and demonstrations.”

She adds, “Partnering with industry for guest talks or internships and using local training opportunities strengthens the connection to careers.”

Existing curricula that educators can utilize are available from NSF-supported centers. These include:

• Robust Quantum Simulation’s K-12 materials
• HQAN (TeachQuantum and Wonders of Quantum Physics)
• National programs such as the A Collaboration To Support Quantum Education, Chicago Quantum Exchange and QuSTEAM.

Tech & Learning has published an overview of some quantum computing resources that explores some of the mind-bending science behind it all.

Things All Students Should Know Regardless of Career Path

Whether or not a student is interested in pursuing a career in quantum computers, there are still aspects of this technology of which they should be aware.

“Every student should understand the basics: what a qubit is and how it differs from a traditional bit, plus the key concepts of superposition, entanglement, and decoherence,” Kleiman says. “With this foundation, students can see how quantum computers differ from classical machines, grasp where the technology is useful, and think critically about its social and ethical impacts.”

Those impacts are potentially profound. “Quantum technology could help solve problems that overwhelm today’s computers,” Kleiman says. “It may enable accurate simulations of complex molecules and materials—supporting drug discovery, better battery chemistry, and cleaner fertilizer production.”

Kleiman adds it could increase efficiency in global shipping and various supply chains as well as areas such as city transit. Additionally, it will have a significant impact on the fields of data security and cryptography.

Despite misconceptions to the contrary, quantum computers are unlikely to replace classical computers. Ultimately though, these devices will used for specific problems and are expected to have a huge impact on society.

“For certain math-heavy problems, quantum approaches promise much greater efficiency and better results,” Kleiman says.

Generative AI has created a new challenge for teachers. Students can ask tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini almost any question and receive a polished answer in seconds. The problem is that polished does not always mean accurate.

Large language models (LLMs) can produce incorrect information, misrepresent sources, and even invent convincing citations to publications that do not exist, which is why many educators remain understandably cautious about students using AI for research.

The better response is not to tell students to avoid AI altogether but to teach them how to use AI tools that keep evidence at the center of the research process.

What Is A RAG?

A retrieval-augmented generation tool, or RAG, helps students move from asking AI for answers to asking AI to help them find, examine, and explain evidence.

One way to explain the difference between a traditional LLM and RAG is to compare it to the difference between a closed-book and open-book exam. When students use an LLM by themselves, the model answers from what it learned during training and from whatever the student provides in the conversation. It may produce a useful response, but it may also fill gaps with something that sounds right rather than something that is right.

RAG changes that interaction. Before answering, the system retrieves information related to the question and gives that material to the model. In that sense, RAG is less like asking AI to guess and more like asking AI to work with evidence in front of it.

The process is essentially: Question → Retrieve sources → Analyze sources → Generate response

This distinction is important for students because it introduces something often missing from conventional AI interactions: an evidence trail.

RAG does not eliminate hallucinations, and students still need to verify AI-generated information. However, properly designed retrieval systems make verification much easier because students can trace claims back to underlying sources.

Sometimes the term agentic RAG is used; most current RAG tools are better described as RAG with agentic features, not fully agentic RAGs at this point. These retrieve evidence, but may not independently plan, evaluate, and revise the research process in the way a true agentic system would.

With that foundation in mind, here are five practical ways educators can begin using retrieval-based AI tools to help students ask better questions, locate stronger evidence, and verify what AI tells them.

1. Use Gemini Notebook to Create a Controlled Research Environment

Google's Gemini Notebook provides perhaps the easiest introduction to RAG for students. Rather than relying primarily on the model's general knowledge, teachers and students can provide the sources Gemini Notebook will use. These can include PDFs, websites, Google Docs and Slides, YouTube videos, and other materials. Responses are grounded in those sources and include citations students can follow back to the original material.

That allows teachers to create a controlled AI research environment. For example, instead of asking students to use AI to investigate the causes of the American Revolution from the open web, a teacher could provide six carefully selected primary and secondary sources. Students could load those materials into Gemini Notebook and ask: "What were the most important colonial objections to British taxation?"

The assignment also shouldn't end with the answer. Require students to identify the sources Gemini Notebook used, locate the supporting passages, and determine whether those passages support its conclusions.

Suddenly, AI isn't replacing reading but giving students another reason to read critically.

2. Use Consensus to Move Students Toward Scholarly Evidence

For older students, particularly those beginning serious research projects, Consensus can provide a useful bridge from general web searching to scholarly literature. Instead of asking a general-purpose chatbot to recall studies from its training, students can enter natural-language research questions and receive results grounded in academic research. Consider the difference between asking: "Does homework improve student achievement?" and asking: "What peer-reviewed research suggests that homework improves student achievement?"

The second question establishes an evidentiary expectation. Students can then examine the research Consensus retrieves, determine which studies address their question, and follow those studies to the original publications.

The objective is to help them identify research worth investigating rather than have Consensus do it for them.

3. Use Elicit for More Sophisticated Research Projects

Elicit takes this process another step and is particularly useful for advanced secondary and postsecondary research. Students can use it to locate scholarly literature, compare studies, extract information, and begin organizing evidence for literature reviews. This provides an opportunity to teach something students frequently struggle with finding a source is not the same as evaluating a source.

A student might use Elicit to identify ten studies related to a research question. The next task should be determining which studies belong in the research project. Students can examine methodology, sample size, population, publication date, limitations, and relevance to the research question.

In this example, AI accelerates discovery but students remain responsible for judgment. That distinction should become central to AI literacy.

4. Use Scite to Ask, "Does Research Really Support This?"

Students often assume that finding a citation proves a claim. Scite provides a useful way to challenge that assumption. Its Smart Citations show how later scholarly publications have cited earlier work and classify citation statements as supporting, contrasting with, or simply mentioning the original study.

Imagine a student finding a 2018 study that makes an important claim. Rather than simply citing it, the student can ask better questions: What happened to this finding afterward? Have later studies supported it? Challenged it? Qualified it? Has the scholarly conversation moved in another direction?

This approach introduces students to an important feature of authentic scholarship: knowledge isn't simply a collection of isolated facts but an ongoing conversation in which evidence is continually examined and reconsidered.

5. Use Perplexity for Current Information, but Verify the Sources

Not every student research question belongs in an academic database. Students researching current legislation, technology developments, elections, economic conditions, or breaking events need access to information that changes quickly.

Retrieval-oriented tools such as Perplexity can be useful because it searches current web information and connects generated answers to sources. However, this presents another excellent teaching opportunity. A citation does not automatically make information credible. Students should examine who published the information, when it was published, what evidence the source provides, whether other credible sources corroborate it, and whether the AI accurately represented what the source said.

The presence of citations should therefore be the beginning of verification, not the end of it.

Establish One Simple Classroom Rule

Teachers introducing RAG do not need an elaborate AI policy to get started. Begin with one simple rule: Never cite the AI tool, but cite the evidence behind the AI.

When an AI tool provides a source, students should open it. When it makes a factual claim, students should find supporting evidence. When it summarizes research, students should compare the summary with the original. And when the evidence is not strong enough, students should keep researching.

Establishing these habits turns AI use from passive answer collection into active information evaluation.

Create an AI Research Toolbox

Students also need to understand that there isn't one best AI tool. Most of these tools have clear strengths and weaknesses, so they will have to learn to use the one best for each type of question or problem.

• Assigned readings and teacher-selected sources: Gemini Notebook
• Finding scholarly evidence: Consensus
• Conducting deeper literature reviews: Elicit
• Determining whether research supports or challenges a claim: Scite
• Investigating current information: Perplexity
• Brainstorming, tutoring, explaining, organizing, and feedback: General-purpose LLMs such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini

This shift represents an important evolution in instructor and student AI literacy. Instead of teaching students simply how to prompt an AI system, we need to teach them which information environment they should ask the AI to search.

Getting Started Tomorrow

Teachers can introduce this approach without redesigning an entire course. For example, choose three to five credible sources related to something students are already studying and put them into Gemini Notebook. Give students a research question and ask them to generate an initial response. Then add the requirement that students verify three claims in the AI response against the original sources. For each claim, students should identify the source, locate the supporting evidence, and decide whether the AI represented that evidence accurately. A follow-up discussion can focus on what the AI got right, what it missed, and where its interpretation differed from students' interpretations.

That's a relatively small instructional change, but it introduces several important competencies simultaneously: AI literacy, source evaluation, corroboration, close reading, and evidence-based reasoning.

Move From Prompt Literacy to Evidence Literacy

The first phase of generative AI in education focused heavily on prompts. Students and teachers learned that better questions could produce better AI responses.

The next phase needs to go further. Students need to understand where AI-generated information comes from, why some sources deserve more credibility than others, how retrieval influences an AI's response, and how to determine whether the evidence supports what the AI says.

Ultimately, the most important question we ask students may no longer be, "Did you use AI?" A much better question is, "What evidence did the AI find, and how did you determine that evidence was trustworthy?" This then becomes information literacy for a world in which students will increasingly encounter information through AI systems.

When school districts invest in instructional technology, implementation is often measured through familiar metrics: How many teachers are using it? How often are students logging in? How many activities have they completed? How much time are they spending on the platform?

Those measures can tell leaders whether a tool is being used. They cannot necessarily tell them whether students are learning.

That distinction became especially clear to me while conducting a meta-analysis of Penda Learning, a computer-based science intervention. Across 13 independent school-based samples involving more than 33,000 students, we found significant gains in science achievement. But because results varied across schools, we were able to examine an arguably more useful question for education leaders: What conditions were associated with stronger outcomes?

One finding stood out: It wasn't simply the amount of time students spent using the intervention that best predicted achievement. It was mastery.

Students were considered to have mastered an activity when they demonstrated at least 80% accuracy. As the number of activities mastered increased, so did the effects associated with the intervention. Schools with low, moderate, and high levels of mastered activities showed effect sizes of 0.56, 0.89, and 1.40, respectively.

Mastery remained the strongest predictor of science outcomes even after engagement hours were considered. Time-on-task alone was not positively associated with better performance.

For district leaders, there is a broader lesson here that applies well beyond any single science intervention: Implementation should not be confused with usage. If we want evidence-based programs to produce evidence-based results, we need to pay much closer attention to what happens after the purchase.

Here are five ways district leaders can move beyond measuring usage and focus implementation on what matters most: student learning.

1. Define Successful Implementation Before Launch

Too often, districts decide how they will measure implementation after a program is already underway. Instead, leaders should define success before students ever log in. Adoption and participation matter, but these are starting measures, not end goals.

Ask more meaningful questions: Are students progressing toward mastery? Are they retaining and applying what they learn? Where are they struggling? Are teachers using the information generated by the program to adjust instruction?

The answers help distinguish between activity and impact. Digital programs make usage data remarkably easy to collect, but leaders should resist equating a dashboard filled with logins, minutes, and completed assignments with successful implementation. The metric that is easiest to measure isn't necessarily the one that matters most.

2. Measure The Quality of Engagement, Not Just The Quantity

Our findings illustrate why this distinction matters. The relationship between mastery and outcomes followed a dose-response pattern: as students mastered more activities, achievement effects grew substantially.

Rather than asking only, “How much did students use the intervention?” leaders should also ask, “What did students accomplish while they were using it?”

Two students can spend the same 30 minutes in a digital learning environment but have very different experiences. One may demonstrate understanding and progress while the other struggles without reaching mastery. Their time-on-task looks identical. Their learning does not.

When students spend significant time on an intervention without demonstrating progress, that should be treated as an instructional signal—not evidence of successful implementation.

3. Connect The Intervention To Instruction

Even a strong evidence base does not make an instructional resource self-executing. Technology works within an instructional system. It needs to connect to what students are learning, the standards teachers are responsible for teaching, assessment information, and the district's broader scope and sequence.

The studies in our analysis took place in real school environments, where teachers differ in experience, schedules vary, and local contexts affect implementation.

In one large implementation examined separately, teachers had a recommended schedule for using the science intervention, but support went well beyond usage expectations. They received professional development around curriculum integration and instructional alignment, along with ongoing opportunities to strengthen implementation and share instructional practices.

The lesson here is that leaders should think about implementation as instructional integration, not software deployment.

4. Support Teachers Beyond The Kickoff Training

Most educators have experienced some version of this: A new resource is introduced during PD, teachers learn how it works, and then everyone returns to their classrooms. That is adoption, but it isn't necessarily implementation.

Teachers need to understand not only how to use a resource but when and why to use it. They need support interpreting data, responding when students struggle, connecting digital learning to classroom instruction, and sharing practices with colleagues.

Variation shouldn't automatically be viewed as failure. It is information. If one school is producing stronger student mastery than another using the same resource, leaders should investigate what is different—whether it's instructional integration, teacher support, or opportunities for students to revisit concepts and demonstrate mastery. Implementation data become much more useful when districts use it to ask those questions rather than simply monitor compliance.

5. Treat Implementation As A Continuous Improvement Process

Perhaps the biggest mistake districts can make is treating implementation as something that happens only at the beginning of an adoption. It should be an ongoing feedback loop in which evidence continually informs practice.

District leaders should absolutely ask whether an instructional intervention has credible research behind it. But an evidence-based intervention doesn't automatically produce evidence-based outcomes. Research tells us what can happen. Implementation helps determine what does happen.

Conversations about edtech effectiveness need to move beyond adoption and usage. Are students mastering what they're learning? Do teachers have the support to act on the data? Are districts creating the conditions for the intervention to succeed?

Ultimately, the goal isn't to get students to spend more time using technology. It's to make the time they spend learning count.

When you step up to the front of a class as a new teacher, there’s a lot you don’t know. For many new professors, the experience goes differently than they expected, and while most do a good job, it can take a semester or two to really start to feel comfortable in the job.

I know this from my own experience from having directly supervised new college professors in the past, and from conversations with many former graduate students who go on to teach.

From all this, I’ve noticed some common mistakes that arise. Some are unique to college professors, many of whom, ironically, start teaching with far less pedagogical training than teachers at other education levels. However, some of these mistakes, I suspect, apply to all new teachers.

While most educators work through these on their own, here’s a look at the common mistakes I see, with advice for overcoming.

1. They Over-Prepare

Preparation is great; too much preparation makes the job of being an educator harder. It also eliminates spontaneity and makes for ineffective class sessions and lessons.

New teachers tend to err on the over-preparation side of things. This can mean slideshows with too many slides and too much information per slide, as well as a semester with classes planned to the minute.

Not only does this stifle creativity, but it can lead to frustration when it all doesn’t go as planned, as it will inevitably will.

How to overcome this: Often this tendency comes from insecurity on the part of new teachers. I remind them to trust their instincts and that they’re knowledgeable enough to improvise and let the class go where it will go (within reason).

More specifically, if someone is struggling with their slides, I suggest alternatives such as using digital handouts. Teachers can also focus on activities and lessons that can be more open-ended and student-driven. For example, early on I spent a lot of time lecturing about interviewing best practices for new journalists. Now I spend more time answering questions students have about conducting interviews and doing more in-class interview exercises. Students pair up and interview each other, or find people to interview on campus, etc.

2. They Think They Need To Have All The Answers

Nothing can be more terrifying as a new teacher than when a student asks you a question that you feel you should know the answer to but don’t. This was something that caused me a lot of stress when I started teaching but is not a concern now. That’s definitely not because I now have all the answers, but rather because time and experience have made me okay with not having all the answers. I’ve also increasingly grown somewhat distrustful of anyone who does claim to have them.

How to overcome this: Embrace a mindset shift that moves from the "sage on the stage" thinking to "a guide on the side" mentality. This creates a space in which it is acceptable for you and students to say “I don’t know” and one where you can work on finding the answers together.

I also share with my students that in the spirit of Socrates, I believe one of the most intelligent things a person can say is, “I don’t know.”

3. Underutilizing Technology

So much more technology is available to educators today than many new professors realize. It is rarely a cure-all, and some so-called solutions are counterproductive. But it’s worth exploring potential options as there are many tech tools that are easy to use and can make your teaching more productive and effective, as well as save you time.

How to overcome this: Spend a little time experimenting with technology. Ask colleagues what resources they use for activities such as lesson planning and how they handle quizzes, etc.

Some technology can really make a difference. For instance, I used to waste a lot of time and paper making and printing handouts. Then I learned how easy it was to generate QR codes and started doing digital handouts instead.

4. Not Asking Enough Questions

We’re always encouraging students to do this but sometimes have trouble doing this ourselves, especially when we start.

New teachers often spend a lot of time developing class resources such as quizzes and slideshows that their colleagues have at the ready. Other educators can also offer guidance on everything from managing difficult students to creating effective class sessions and assessments. But much of this knowledge goes unutilized.

How to overcome: This one is easy: Ask more questions! Think out loud with colleagues during lunch or in conversations in the hall. Email former classmates who are teaching to see what they’ve learned and share what you’ve seen.

One of the challenges of teaching early on is how lonely the process can feel. Actively reaching out to colleagues and tapping into their experience fixes that and helps make you a better teacher in the process. It’s a true win-win.

For educators, rubrics have become a familiar tool to help clarify expectations, support consistent grading, and give students a sense of what successful work should look like. However, there is a downside to making a rubric, exemplar, or step-by-step checklist the starting point for every assignment: students can become very good at following directions without becoming very good at figuring things out.

As schools place greater emphasis on creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, innovation, and AI literacy, educators may want to reconsider how much structure they provide upfront. Technology makes it easier than ever to generate polished work that checks every box. The more predictable the assignment, the easier it can be to optimize for completion whether the optimizer is a student, a search engine, or an AI tool.

This doesn't mean abandoning rubrics, but we have to be more intentional about when we use one. For many years, I have intentionally not provided rubrics for many of my leadership courses, as leaders are rarely given a clear checklist of how to complete a task in the real world.

Sometimes, the most valuable assignment is the one in which students are not entirely sure what the finished product should look like. I understand students do not like that ambiguity, but it mirrors the real world into which they will graduate.

Here are ten reasons to consider putting the rubric away and improve learning outcomes in the process.

1. Creativity Needs Room to Breathe

Give students a template, and many will use it. Give them an exemplar, and many will imitate it. Give them a detailed rubric, and many will work backward from the criteria. None of those behaviors are inherently bad but can limit the creative process.

When students have room to decide what a product should look like, how it should be organized, or which approach might work best, they must make creative decisions rather than simply execute someone else's. If we want to nurture creativity and innovation, we need to give them something to be creative about.

2. The Real World Rarely Provides Rubrics

Consider what happens after students leave school: A sales manager may be told to increase customer engagement; a teacher may be asked to improve student participation; a designer may be asked to solve a user problem; an entrepreneur may recognize an unmet need. Where is the rubric for any of these?

Professionals are expected to determine what success looks like, identify the constraints, develop an approach, test their ideas, and adjust along the way. Students should receive assignments that provide opportunities to build those skills before they enter the workplace.

3. Exemplars Can Become Templates

Showing students an example seems like an obvious way to help them understand an assignment. However, in my experience, it becomes a stencil for the students to copy. Instead of asking, "What could I create?" students ask, "How can I make mine look like that?" This is particularly noticeable with presentations, multimedia projects, websites, videos, and other creative products. Give a class one strong example, and you may end up with 25 slightly different versions of the same idea.

Consider providing fewer examples and guidance to encourage and generate more possibilities and results.

4. Students Need to Experience Productive Uncertainty

Learning isn't always comfortable, and there is value in giving students a challenge and allowing them to sit with the question: How am I going to approach this?

Allowing for uncertainty can lead to brainstorming, research, experimentation, questions, failure, feedback, and revision. These are not obstacles to learning but key to building critical thinking skills. If every assignment comes with a prescribed sequence of steps, students have fewer opportunities to develop the confidence to navigate an unfamiliar problem.

5. A Rubric Can Turn Learning into Point Hunting

We've all heard students ask questions such as, "How many points is this worth?” "Do I have to do this part?" or "Is this on the rubric?" Those questions are often evidence that students have learned how the system works.

By not providing a detailed rubric with specified requirements, students are more likely to ask, "How can I make this better?" instead of "Have I done everything I need to get full credit?" Those are different learning experiences.

6. AI Changes the Equation

Generative AI has made this conversation even more important. A well-crafted prompt containing the assignment directions, grading criteria, format, and desired characteristics, can produce a response designed to satisfy those requirements.

Educators should consider whether some assignments are overly optimized for compliance, and look to improve their overall approach to boost critical thinking and other skills. Many of our students can comply with instructor expectations, but that does not mean they are learning the critical thinking skills they will need to be successful.

7. Students Can Learn to Define Quality

What if students didn't always receive the definition of a "good" product before they began?

After students explore a problem or create an initial draft, teachers can ask: “What makes this effective?” Students can analyze their own work, examine different approaches, provide peer feedback, and identify characteristics of quality. The resulting criteria can become more meaningful because students helped discover what’s needed for success.

In this model, the rubric isn't the recipe for learning but a reflection of what students learned about quality. This reflection process will become more important as instructors and students optimize AI tools to support their learning.

8. Open-Ended Assignments Encourage Better Questions

A tightly structured assignment tends to produce tightly structured questions. Requiring an open-ended approach requires students to think about decisions rather than directions.

In a world where information is increasingly easy to access, knowing what questions to ask may be more valuable than knowing how to follow a predetermined process.

9. Teachers Get a Better Look at Student Thinking

Another benefit to removing some of the scaffolding is that teachers may learn more about how students think.

By allowing students to determine how to approach a task, their choices become evidence. One student may create a video. Another may develop an interactive presentation. A third may write an article. A fourth may devise an approach the teacher never anticipated. Those differences can reveal strengths, misconceptions, interests, and problem-solving strategies that a highly structured assignment might never expose.

10. Independence Is the Ultimate Goal

Perhaps the strongest argument for occasionally removing the rubric is simple: we want students to become independent learners. Eventually, students will encounter problems for which no teacher has provided a checklist. They will have to figure out what matters, determine where to begin, seek help when necessary, make decisions, evaluate their own work, and revise.

Students do not become independent by always being given the next step, but by practicing what to do when nobody gives them the next step. Taking off the “training wheels” of a rubric can give students the confidence and encourage them to ride off on their own!

Flipping The Rubric Script

This is not an argument against rubrics, which have an important place in education. Rubrics can make expectations clearer, support equitable assessment, help students understand feedback, and provide valuable structure, particularly when students are learning a new skill or when specific standards must be demonstrated.

Consider occasionally flipping the rubric script by starting with a compelling question or authentic problem. Let students brainstorm possibilities and give them time to develop an approach. Allow them to struggle productively. Have them share drafts and provide feedback. Then, once students have a better understanding of the task, introduce or co-create criteria for quality.

In this process, the rubric becomes something students use to evaluate and improve their thinking, rather than a checklist they use to avoid thinking.