Issue 30 • February 26, 2025

There was no social media, Google Sites, or shareable docs back in the late 1990s when I started teaching 5th grade. The internet was new, and it was almost entirely read-only. But I knew that if I could publish my students’ writing online, it would give them a real audience.

The one place I found to easily share their work? Amazon! At the time, Amazon primarily sold books—and it allowed customers to leave reviews. So instead of having my students write book reviews just as “proof” they had read, I had them post their reviews on Amazon. Suddenly, their words, thoughts, and opinions were reaching real readers who were considering those books.

The quality of their writing improved. Their attitude toward book reviews shifted from seeing them as a chore to seeing them as something that mattered. Experiencing the power of an authentic audience and purpose made me eager to find even more ways to publish my students’ work.

Nurturing Narratives 📢

This issue of the Learning in Hand Newsletter is kindly sponsored by Book Creator.

Book Creator gives teachers one library with up to 40 books, accessible by an unlimited number of students. Premium subscribers can create unlimited libraries, store up to 1,000 books, use real-time collaboration tools, and access premium apps.

Kids have stories to tell—big ones, small ones, funny ones, and deeply personal ones. Be An Author Month is all about giving students the tools, time, and confidence to turn those stories into something real—something they can share.

That’s why I’m partnering with Book Creator to help spread the word and provide resources that make student publishing easy and exciting. March is already packed with literacy celebrations, from National Reading Month to Listening Awareness Month, making it the perfect time to help students find their voices. And what better way to do that than by becoming authors?

Why Authorship Matters

Turning ideas into something tangible gives students a sense of accomplishment. When students know their words will be read by others—whether it’s classmates, families, or the world—they rise to the challenge. Writing suddenly feels more real, more important, and more exciting.

And here’s the thing: stories don’t have to be told with just words. Some students might prefer to draw, record audio, make videos, or even code their ideas into an interactive experience. The goal is to give them space to express themselves in ways that feel meaningful.

Tell Your Story Competition

Book Creator is hosting a writing competition with three categories: Elementary, Middle, and High School. A winner will be selected from each, with entries judged on originality, design, communication, and literacy skills. And yes, there are prizes—including a class pizza party!

📅 Competition Dates: March 5 – April 5, 2025
📖 Entry Requirements: 5–30 pages, created in Book Creator

But you don’t have to wait for the competition to open to get started! Book Creator is providing a Teacher Guidebook, student workbooks, and story templates. The screenshot below is from the Tell Your Story Workbook for Grades K-5, which takes students through the writing process—including collecting peer feedback.

More Ways to Inspire Young Authors

Beyond the contest, Book Creator is offering:

• 🎤 Webinars for teachers on using digital tools for storytelling

• 📚 The "Authors Studio" webinar, where students hear from real authors

• 📝 A daily writing journal with prompts for every day in March

Get Started with Be An Author Month

Ready to help students tell their stories? Head over to Book Creator’s Be An Author resource hub and start exploring!

Padlet’s Planning Partner 🤖

A great first step for teachers exploring AI is to use educator-focused assistant tools.

Magic School offers one of the most popular collections of AI-powered resources for teachers. After logging in, you can browse nearly 100 tools, including a text leveler, lesson plan generator, and rubric creator.

Similar AI-powered tools are available for free from Khanmigo, Brisk Teaching, and Teacher Server.

Now, Padlet is testing its own AI assistant for teachers, called Padlet TA. It’s in beta at ta.padlet.com, free to use, and doesn’t require a login. According to Padlet, TA uses “premium AI models (Gemini, GPT-4o, and Claude) with privacy-first data handling—your inputs are not used to train their models.”

Padlet TA takes a streamlined approach, focusing on fewer but higher-quality tools. You can start a task using a link, Google Drive file, text, YouTube video, or file upload. It can generate lesson plans, presentations, worksheets, activities, rubrics, and more.

Bitly Bummer 😟

Bitly will soon start displaying a preview page before directing users to the destination URL—and that preview page may include ads. According to Bitly, you can remove the preview page experience by upgrading to a paid plan.

I appreciate that Bitly offers analytics and lets you customize shortened URLs, but I prefer links that are easy to pronounce, easy to type, and free of homoglyphs (characters that look similar, like O and 0 or l and 1). Paying $120 per year just to remove a preview page isn’t worth it when free alternatives exist.

Here are some solid options:

• TinyURL has been around since 2002, and it allows you to customize the back half of your link. However, because it's been around so long, finding an available custom URL may be tricky. (Example: tinyurl.com/tonynewsletter)

• is.gd launched in 2008 and offers a custom URL option under the "Further options/custom URL" menu. You may need a few tries to find an available name. (Example: is.gd/tonynewsletter)

• Edushare.ing is a free URL shortener launched by educator Brent Warner, who plans to keep it running indefinitely. Clicking "Customize Link" lets you create your own URL. (Example: edushare.ing/newsletter)

• Padlet TA's new Short Link tool generates links that start with teach.link and automatically creates a QR code. Since it’s brand new, getting a good custom URL should be easy. (Example: teach.link/newsletter)

If Bitly’s preview page is a deal-breaker, these alternatives should keep your links short, clean, and free to use.

Mapping Magic 🗺️

Google My Maps lets users create, customize, and share interactive maps by adding markers, shapes, directions, and layers. You can import location data from a spreadsheet, whether it’s a list of addresses, place names, or geographic coordinates.

I’ve used Google Forms to collect locations, linked the responses to Google Sheets, and mapped those locations in My Maps. When I taught 5th grade, we did this while researching where students’ ancestors came from. Teachers can also use My Maps to visualize where books students are reading take place or were written.

A My Map can be an interactive way to showcase students' research on historical events, current events, community landmarks, or geography.

I created the graphic below to guide you through the workflow of importing locations from Google Sheets into My Maps.

PDF Playground 😍

I Love PDF is a collection of 26 tools to modify, enhance, and convert PDFs.

• ☯️ Merge PDFs

• ↔️ Split a PDF

• ✏️ Edit a PDF

• 🔄 Rotate a PDF

• ✒️ Sign a PDF

• 🌊 Watermark a PDF

• 📉 Compress a PDF

• 🟧 PDF to PowerPoint

• 🔐 Password a PDF

• …and more!

Gemini Gains Goodies ✨

Speaking of PDFs, you can now upload files to Google’s Gemini AI chatbot for free. (ChatGPT added this feature in May 2024.)

You can upload PDFs, Docs, PowerPoints, and Google Slides for Gemini to summarize, generate questions about, or use as context for your prompts.

Unfortunately, spreadsheets don’t seem to be supported—but converting them to a PDF first might work as a workaround.

Two-Minutes of Tranquility ⏳

Take a moment to unwind with a two-minute countdown at the Do Nothing For Two Minutes webpage. Once started, you’ll be immersed in a peaceful water scene with calming sounds. But be warned—this site is serious about your break! Touching your mouse or keyboard will reset the timer.

Samuel, one of my fifth graders, wrote a book review for Chocolate Fever in 1999, and I posted it on Amazon. Today, the book has 923 ratings and hundreds of reviews—but to my amazement, Samuel’s review is still there 26 years later! Seeing it still standing after all these years is a nice reminder of the impact a real audience can have on student writing.

Smiles from Iowa,

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Al was used to revise and proofread some of the text in this newsletter. It was also used to generate possibilities for section titles.