Issue 40 • August 6, 2025

Hello, friends! I’m back in your inbox and ready to kick off a new school year. My summer was packed with conference presentations, professional learning sessions, and a fun family trip to Las Vegas.

I’m heading into the 2025–2026 school year feeling energized and inspired.

Next week I’ll be leading AI training sessions for teachers in the Council Bluffs Community School District as part of their Summer Academy. Topics include Deep Dive into Prompting Gemini, Using AI for Feedback and Assessment, and Designing Assignments That Inspire Original Thinking.

In this issue, you’ll find resources, ideas, and tools to help you start the school year strong.

Student Support Settings 🧑‍🧒‍🧒

Thanks to Wayground for sponsoring this newsletter!

Have you heard the news? Quizizz has a new name. The platform has grown beyond quizzes, and because "Quizizz" can be hard to spell and say, it is now called Wayground. Watch my name reveal video, starring Pony Vincent.

Wayground gives teachers multiple ways to support students with built-in accommodations that can be set for individual learners once your class is set up.

These settings let you support every learner without creating separate assignments:

• ⏱️ Extra Time for Questions

• 📖 Read Aloud

• 🔄 Extra Attempts

• 🔢 Reduce Answer Choices

• 🔤 Dyslexia Font

• 🔠 Font Size

• 📚 Reading Mode

• 📆 Extended Deadline

• 🎯 Redemption Question

• 💡 Hints

• 🧮 Scientific and Graphing Calculators

• 🌐 Translate

• 📓 Bi-lingual dictionary

• ↔️ Font Spacing

• 📝 Note to Refer

• 🚫 Don’t Show Leaderboard

• 🔇 Turn Off Sound Effects

• 🌗 Toggle Light and Dark Modes

The free Wayground Starter Plan includes the first three accommodations listed above and allows you to store up to 20 activities.

Teachers can give specific students the support they need while assigning the same task to the entire class. These accommodations are not visible to other students, which helps everyone feel included and focus on their own learning.

Fueling Fascination with FigJam

Figma invited me to present in their booth at the ISTE Live 2025 conference in San Antonio, Texas. The Expo Hall was buzzing with energy, and Figma’s booth was one of the hottest spots. Not only were educators excited to learn about FigJam, Figma’s free collaborative online whiteboard, but there was also a make-your-own trucker hat station drawing a crowd.

Those waiting in line and those seated in the theater area all got to be part of my presentation, The Curiosity Effect: Irresistible FigJam Activities.

I recorded the 23 minute session in case you’d like to watch.

Microphone Magic 🎤

Can you spot the wireless microphone clipped to my shirt in the video above? What you can’t see is that my phone handled the recording, with a small wireless receiver plugged into its USB port.

I used the NEEWER CM28 Wireless Microphone System, which comes with two microphones, a receiver, and a charging case.

The ISTE Expo Hall is a noisy place, but this mic cuts down on background chatter surprisingly well. Without it, my voice would have been lost in the chaos.

To make the sound even clearer, I ran the audio through Adobe Enhance Speech. It uses AI to clean up audio, making it sound professional. A few parts sound a little robotic, but overall I’m pleased with the results.

Grab and Go Goodies 😜

Shapegrams are my series of digital art lessons and challenges designed to spark creativity in your classroom. With just one link, students get their own copy that includes everything they need to jump in and start designing in Google Slides or Google Drawings. There’s no prep required, and most students in grades 3 and up can work independently. Each Shapegram comes with clear instructions, encouragement, and a touch of humor to make learning fun.

Starting the school year with Shapegrams is a great way to build skills and confidence. When I taught 5th grade, my students tackled one Shapegram a week. It became a favorite routine and set them up for success in future projects.

Give your students the chance to explore, create, and surprise themselves with what they can make. You can try out several Shapegrams for free, and if you love them, the full library of 100+ lessons is available for $35 a year with a license to share with your students.

Farewell to a Favorite 😢

Sad news: Wonderopolis permanently closed July 31.

Since 2010, Wonderopolis has been a go-to site for student-friendly nonfiction. Each day, it featured a “Wonder of the Day” with a curious question like Why do cats purr? or How do astronauts sleep in space? The articles were written in plain language, with vocabulary support, videos, and follow-up questions that made it perfect for classrooms and curious kids at home.

The site was created by the National Center for Families Learning, and it’s helped spark millions of “aha!” moments over the years. Although Wonderopolis is closed, much of its content should still be available through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Smart Seating 🪑

Russell Spicer has been teaching high school math for 14 years. After attending the GaETC conference in Atlanta, he was inspired to use AI to develop a free Chrome extension that teachers who use Google Classroom might find useful. It’s called Seating Chart Generator.

Once installed, the extension adds a green Launch Seating Chart button when a Google Classroom roster is open in your browser.

Designed by a teacher, Seating Chart Generator does what educators actually need. It can import names from Google Classroom, randomize seating, set preferential seating, prioritize students, label seats, print charts and desk labels, and even call on students or form groups at random.

I was curious about how Russell used AI to build it. He told me the core project took about 10 to 14 hours to complete. The most helpful tools were Claude, VS Code, Git, and GitHub. Russell already had some background knowledge in coding, which definitely came in handy while creating the Seating Chart Generator.

Fantastic First Five 🙌

Start your class with connection. EdTomorrow’s daily First Five provides a variety of activities to kick off the day, including funny memes, thought-provoking questions, unique greetings, feelings check-ins, mindfulness moments, positive affirmations, inspiring quotes, and short personal growth videos.

This school year, they’ve doubled their offerings. You can now choose from four versions: Grades PK–1, Grades 2–5, Grades 6–12, and Spanish.

Subscribe to their email list to get a fresh set of activities delivered to your inbox every day.

Goodbye for Good Goo.gl 👋

Google shut down their link shortener in 2019. Links made with goo.gl have continued to work ever since. But that’s about to change. On August 25, many goo.gl links will stop working and show a 404 error.

If you have any documents, slides, or any other materials that rely on goo.gl, it’s a good idea to track down the original URLs now so you don’t lose them.

Note: Google Maps continues to use goo.gl to shorten links, and these will continue to work.

The Learning in Hand Newsletter lands in inboxes every two weeks. I’ll be back on August 20th with more tips and tools for teachers. 🛬

Smiles from Iowa,

Subscribe at learninginhand.com

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

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