CCHS Technology May Newsletter

As the flowers bloom and the days grow longer, we can finally feel that unmistakable energy of the school year’s final home stretch. May is a season of growth and reflection, providing the perfect opportunity to celebrate how far your students have blossomed since August. While the "to-do" lists might feel like they are growing as fast as the spring grass, this month is all about streamlining your workflow and finishing strong with a sense of accomplishment. Let’s lean into these last few weeks with positive vibes and some tech ideas to make them as smooth and rewarding as possible!

Gemini Side Panel is now built directly into Google Docs, Slides, and Drive. Instead of constantly toggling between tabs to find resources or draft communications, you can simply click the Gemini icon in the top-right corner to open a powerful assistant right alongside your work. You can use it to instantly generate an Exit Ticket based on the content of your current slideshow, or summarize a long student essay into key talking points to use when conferencing with the student. By bringing the power of AI directly into your workflow, the side panel allows you to stay focused on your content while it handles the heavy lifting of drafting and brainstorming, helping you spend more time on teaching and learning.

Exciting news!!! NotebookLM’s Slide Decks are now revisable. Once the Slide Deck has been created, you can click the triple dots and revise. From there, you type the changes you would like to see in the prompt box for each individual slide. Once you have all of the edits you need, click the generate button. It preserves the original copy and generates a second iteration of the slide deck.

Need more information? Check out Google’s NotebookLM Help Center.

Reflection question: It is our job as educators to prepare our students for their next adventure after high school. This now entails building AI literacy! If you are considering using AI with your students, start by asking yourself, what are the goals/standards/objectives for this lesson/unit. Then, ask yourself, will having my students use AI allow me to effectively assess them on this/these goals/standards/objectives? If the answer is no, do not use AI. If the answer is yes, brainstorm ways AI can support the student’s learning journey as they master the lesson/unit’s goals/standards/objectives.

Resources:

• How to Activate Eye Protection - Brightness

• Explore TouchView Interactive Panels

• 10 Ways to Better Engage Students with Interactive Panels

• TouchView How to Guides

Has anyone checked out/used Practice Sets in Google Classroom? This tool allows you to transform your existing PDFs or documents into interactive assignments that provide students with real-time hints and automated feedback as they work. By giving students immediate support when they get stuck, you can encourage more independent problem-solving, while the built-in Class Insights dashboard identifies exactly which concepts might need a quick review

If you have not had the chance to explore practice sets this year, you can now generate question ideas or draft entire practice sets based on your specific lesson goals/objectives in just a few clicks. In addition, a new built-in recorder allows you to record audio and video instructions directly within the practice set workflow, making it easier than ever to provide personalized scaffolding. You can also now tag assignments with learning standards and even convert existing Google Forms into Practice Sets to take advantage of these new interactive features.

Here is a link to more information on Google Classroom Practice Sets.

Did you know that your Concord-Carlisle Google Calendar is viewable by anyone in CCRSD by default? 😳 Here are directions on how to change your Calendar share setting to make your Google Calendar private.

CCHS Tech Website

Email: AJ Melanson

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***This newsletter was enhanced using Gemini***