✨ Wednesday Webinars Start Oct. 7...there's room for YOU! ✨

Hi Reader!

One of the reasons I like Google Workspace for Education is it gives me all of the core tools that I need to be successful as a teacher. I don't have to constantly be looking for the next great thing...I have pretty much everything that I need.

Each year I like to highlight five helpful and interesting things that you should try. This year, all of my recommendations are built into the tools that you use every day. There's nothing new to purchase, sign up for or configure...you already have it!

Here are five things to try in the 2026-27 school year!

Don't feel like reading? Watch on YouTube or Listen to the Podcast!

Each school year I select five strategies, tools, or ideas you can use to engage your students and shake things up a bit. These five tools and strategies are all about making your life easier and your students' learning more engaging.

1. Google Vids

If you haven’t explored Google Vids, this is the year to get started! You can use Google Vids to create short tutorials, book reports, videos for parents, record presentations, and more. Google Vids feels like Google Slides which makes it very easy to use.

Google Vids isn’t quite as creative and flashy as Canva, WeVideo, or Capcut, but it’s easy to use and integrates seamlessly with the rest of Google’s tools like Classroom, Docs, and Slides. This makes Vids an ideal choice for student projects where you want to focus on demonstrating learning rather than figuring out how to use a new tool.

👉 Resource: Three video project ideas for your classroom​

2. AI Agents

I’m sure you have heard lots of people touting their amazing “AI Agents” which do all of their work so that they can relax and sip lemonade all day. The reality isn’t quite this amazing, but agents aren’t something you should ignore.

​Google Workspace Studio is the new home for creating AI agents. You create a “trigger” and then specify the response action. I have an agent that helps me categorize incoming email and another that notifies me via chat if someone requests an invoice.

Let me be brutally honest for a moment — creating useful agents takes a LOT of work. It is not as easy and “magical” as others make it appear. You will probably be frustrated as you build your first agent. This is a necessary “toll” for learning a new skill. Start small, with realistic expectations. Your understanding and creativity will grow with time.

👉 Resource: The agents are coming (podcast episode from May 2026)

Professional development that doesn't suck! Let's be honest, PD can be a waste of time. My Wednesday Webinar program is designed to be PD you won't hate because it is flexible, fast, and focused on what you need as a teacher. Here's how it works: Watch the sessions that are interesting...skip the ones that aren't relevant. Watch any time, on any device Earn continuing education credit AND professional certifications! One flat price for the entire year Registration ends next week! First session will be posted on Oct. 7! New sessions every Wednesday Earn 1 hour of cont. education credit for each session Earn your Gemini educator certification Cost: $99 (yep, for the entire year) Register today! Bulk pricing is available if you would like to register your entire district or department! Click here for details.

3. Talk to Google Classroom with Gemini

Gemini can now directly access your Google Classroom courses and student progress which means you can “talk” to Classroom using Gemini! To get started, type “@classroom” in Gemini (you may need to enable this connection the first time you use it). Here are five prompts you should try:

1. “@Classroom please make a list of students who have not turned in their chapter 3 summary in my 9th grade biology class.”
2. “@Classroom draft an announcement for my 3rd hour history class reminding them to study for their quiz on Friday.”
3. “@Classroom I have a meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Jones later today to review how James is doing in ELA9. Please create a printable progress report that I can give to them that lists his completed and missing assignments.”
4. “@Classroom Please review the assignments in my 5th grade class and draft a newsletter that I can send to parents, summarizing what we are working on. Add some additional enrichment activities they can do at home with their student.”
5. “@Classroom Please review the attached requirements for the band practice log and draft an assignment for my 4th hour band class. Attach the file to the assignment”

There is a lot of data locked up in Google Classroom. Gemini can help you access this information to better understand what your students need in order to be successful.

👉 Resource: Chatting with Google Classroom via Gemini​

4. Read Along for Classroom

Read Along is a free tool for helping students improve their reading fluency. Read Along for Classroom gives teachers the ability to assign and track reading improvements. While this tool was created for elementary classrooms, it can also be used in world language courses to improve reading fluency for language learners.

For the first time, this feature is available to ALL teachers 100% free! You don’t need an upgraded account or premium access.

👉 Resource: Video overview of Read Along for Classroom​

5. Use AI to “differentiate”

One of the most powerful ways that a teacher can use AI is to “differentiate” content. I’m not talking about traditional differentiation where you make different assignments for students in various learning styles or abilities. Instead, I’m going to take a piece of content and use AI to generate a handful or useful resources.

Here’s what this might look like: I developed a really fun project for my students by drafting a document with the key requirements, deadlines, expectations, rules, learning objectives, etc.

• I feed this project outline into Gemini and ask it to build a Google Slide presentation that I can use to introduce this project to my students.
• Knowing that there are a lot of requirements for this project, I ask Gemini to draft an infographic timeline of the key due dates for this project which I post to Google classroom.
• There are a few students who were absent when I introduced this project, and some more who weren’t paying attention. I use Gemini Notebook to generate an audio summary of the project that students can listen to.
• This is a big project, and I want to make sure that parents are informed, so I ask Gemini to draft a quick email for parents, summarizing the key purpose and deadlines for this assignment.

This gives a whole new perspective on “lesson planning.” In the age of AI, planning a lesson or drafting a unit plan is about establishing the core ideas and learning objectives. AI can help us fill in the specifics, based on that initial guidance.

I hope that one or two of these ideas will have an impact in your classroom. I'll be going into more depth on each of these ideas this year during my Wednesday Webinars. We have room for you!

John R. Sowash

📨 Did someone forward this email to you? Click here to add your name to my monthly email list!

​​​​​