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😱 Gemini will let you listen to this email (April EDU Updates)
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✨ Explore Gemini for Education with me! Free webinar April 23, 2025 ✨ Hi Reader! As usual, there are a good number of updates and new features to share this month. Google has been working hard on some pretty cool Gemini features. I'm hosting a free webinar on April 23 to demo and discuss what's new. Details are at the bottom of the email. I hope you had a good spring break...let's check out this month's updates! 😱 Listen to the Gemini Audio Overview of this email 😱 Custom content for Read Along - Teachers in EDU Plus domains can now upload custom content to Read Along. This means you can provide students with reading support for your own stories, articles, and assignments. Google Vids Education Film Festival - teachers can submit their Google Vid creation to be featured in a Google For Education blog post. The submission deadline is May 15, 2025. New sidebar menu for Google Slides - this handy menu provides quick access to templates, building blocks, and other features, based on your Google license. Clone yourself in minutes - my latest YouTube video discusses three ways to use video in your classroom. It’s not as hard as you might think! 5 end of year project ideas - I know it's hard to believe, but the end of the school year is not far away. Take some time to plan an end-of-year project to help students reflect on their learning. Audio Overview for Gemini - This popular feature first appeared in NotebookLM, but is now available in Gemini as well. It is especially useful when using the “deep research” model. I used this feature to create an audio summary of this email. Canvas for Gemini - When working on longer, complex writing projects, “Canvas” makes it easier to use Gemini as a co-writer. This is a great tool to use when developing lesson plans or assignments. 5 advanced Gemini features - Google has added a LOT of impressive features to Gemini. If you aren’t using these, you are missing out! A Classroom Teacher’s take on AI - Blake Harvard, HS social studies teacher from Madison Alabama, shares his honest thoughts on the incursion of AI in education. uBlock Origin Lite - you may have noticed that some of your Chrome extensions are no longer available including some popular ad-blockers. uBlock Lite is an alternative that will work, although not quite as well as the original. Let's explore Gemini together!Keeping up with the latest AI updates is hard work! Let me be your guide! Join me for a FREE webinar on April 23 where we'll review the latest Google AI updates and look at some cool new features!
See you there! John R. Sowash 📨 Did someone forward this email to you? Click here to add your name to my monthly email list!
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The Google EDU Update
Tired of missing out on the coolest Google updates and new features? Join thousands of other teachers who rely on my monthly newsletter to stay ahead of the curve. Get the top 10 updates, teaching inspiration, and time-saving links delivered straight to your inbox.
Hi Reader, The Google Admin console has many helpful reports that provide insight into what’s going on on your domain. Strangely, most of these reports are DISABLED by default. The video below will walk you through the process of enabling key policies that will begin collecting useful data on your devices, user activity, and district data. 👉 Don't wait for an incident to realize you're missing crucial information. 💻 Professional Development for teachers For the past 12 years I have been...
✨ Now scheduling summer and fall professional development sessions! ✨ Hi Reader! Over the past few months I have been intentionally experimenting with different ways to incorporate AI into my daily life. Some of them are very helpful, others, not so much (see my fails below)! There is no question that AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT can improve productivity and access to information, but it’s not exactly the “magic wand” 🪄 that we were promised. As I reflect on the ways that AI is helping...
✨ The winter Google Certification Academy starts January 21. There are only five spots left! Don't miss out! ✨ Hi Reader! This week I am attending the FETC conference in Orlando, Florida. FETC is one of the biggest and best edTech conferences in the United States. If you ever get a chance to attend, do it! One of my FETC sessions is all about integrating AI into Google Classroom. I’ve put together some of the highlights below. I am cautiously optimistic about the use of AI in the classroom....