For nearly 20 years, I have been posting edtech goodness on social media, sharing helpful ideas, best practices, clever solutions, and creative classroom activities. Lately it seems fewer teachers are accessing social media, and I hope this new Learning in Hand Newsletter will become a great way to reach educators.

You’re receiving this newsletter because at some point you opted in to receiving updates from me. If you’re no longer in education or you don’t want an extra email, please click the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email.

If you stay subscribed, I plan to send you no more than five emails a month. I strive to make each newsletter relevant by sharing resources, tools, tips, and ideas for teachers. You’ll also be the first to know when I offer online workshops.

Yes, I’m a little late to the edtech newsletter party. But, as I find myself learning more from newsletters than I do from social media, it makes sense to offer my own email updates.

Brisk in Your Browser 🅱️

The free Brisk Teaching extension for Chrome gives you easy access to lots of handy A.I. tools, right from where you are already working.

After installed, you can toggle on or off a tiny black B that lives in the bottom right corner of your browser window. Click the B to create a quiz, presentation, or resource about the webpage you’re viewing. It can also rewrite the text on the page at a different reading level (which it places into a Google Doc).

Brisk Teaching can draft feedback on a document you’re viewing. Simply click the B in the corner, click Give Feedback, choose the style of feedback, and then specify the focus of your feedback. You can revise the feedback before copying. The feedback can be pasted into the document, into a comment, or into Google Classroom.

Google Guidance 🔐

Prevent yourself from making edits in a Google document.

Find the file in Google Drive and click More actions (the three dots) on its thumbnail. Hover over "File information" and click Lock.

This is handy for templates that you don't want to accidentally edit.

Apple Advice 🪫

An iPad with USB-C is a portable power bank.

Charge items you connect with a USB cable, including phones, Apple Watches, and AirPods.

Padlet Pointers 🎨

Prevent people from changing the color of their posts on your Padlet.

Go to Settings → Post Fields and change Color from Show to Hide.

Font Fun 🔠

GenType is a Google Labs AI experiment that lets you make an alphabet out of anything. Simply type what you want your alphabet to look like, and 26 letters are generated based on what you asked for. Download or copy anything you make.

Please help me grow my newsletter audience. Let your friends and colleagues know they can subscribe for free at learninginhand.com.

Smiles from Iowa,
Tony