EDT122: Formative Assessment with Dan Niessen: Quizizz, Nearpod, Pear Deck, and Snorkl, plus Google Slides, Canva Visual Suite 2.0, and Canva Sheets

Episode Transcript
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Jake (00:00):
Formative assessment is an important part of a teacher's
repertoire, but what tools andstrategies might we use effectively?
In today's episode, we explorehow EdTech can help us check for
understanding in smarter, moreengaging and more effective ways.
Dan Niessen joins me totackle the big question.
What tool or strategy would youuse for formative assessment?

(00:21):
And we talk about five or sixdifferent tools and a couple
of really cool strategies.
Plus I share some updates on GoogleSlides, Canva's Visual Suite 2.0,
and how to cite AI generated content.
Let's dive in.
Welcome, welcome in Duct Tapers.

(00:43):
Welcome and thank you for being here.
Thank you for tuning into theEducational Duct Tape Podcast.
If you're new here, welcome.
You are now a Duct taper because you'rehere and hopefully believe in what I
call the Educational Duct Tape metaphor,which is the idea that educational
technology, it's like Duct tape.
It's a tool that helps us solve problems,help us meet goals, help us address

(01:03):
learning standards in our classrooms.
It's not the end all, be all.
We don't.
Set forth to use Duct tape, nor do we setforth to use, uh, educational technology.
We set forth to have great learningexperiences for kids and to help
them learn and have sound pedagogy,and sometimes we have challenges
and things we want to achieve, andeducational technology is a tool
that could support us, just like Ducttape can help us repair that broken.

(01:25):
I don't know, glass, don't, don'tprepare broken glasses with Duct.
Tape, that'd, probably be a bad idea.
Uh, but today's episode is one wherewe have a guest, a wonderful guest.
A very intelligent guest.
So the way the episodes workis this, these come out weekly.
If I can get them out weekly.
Uh, every other episode has a guest.
So even numbered episodes like this one.
We have a guest with us oddnumbered episodes like the
one you'll hear next week.

(01:46):
There's no guest.
There's me doing what Icall a soapbox moment.
and each episode after either the guestinterview or the soapbox moment, I share
three to five-ish, ed tech or educationupdates about things going on today.
I've got a couple of big ones, onefrom Google and a set from Canva 'cause
they just had a bunch of big updates.
So stay tuned at the end of theepisode, for those two things.

(02:06):
Uh, today's guest is my friendfrom here in Ohio, Dan Niessen.
It's.
Actually supposed to be, Bryon Carpenter.
Dan's was supposed to appear two weeksfrom now, and Bryon's supposed to be
today, we had a little, uh, recordingissue during Bryon's interview.
, I thought I had lost part of the audio.
Long story short, Itracked down the audio.
Uh, so I do have that interview.
I just started editing Dan's while I waswaiting to try to figure out the issue

(02:27):
with Bryon, so I. I flip 'em outta order.
So today, Dan Niessen, twoweeks from now, the great Bryon
Carpenter from, fresh Air at five.
So you'll be hearing that soon.
You're gonna wanna subscribe so thatyou don't miss the updates that I
share next week or the episode withBrian in two weeks, or the other
episodes coming up after that.
So whatever podcast app you're in,or if you're watching on YouTube, go
ahead and subscribe so you make sureyou don't miss those upcoming episodes.

(02:49):
And please do share theseepisodes with your friends.
I, I, I share some.
Uh, interviews with some guests whoI think are incredibly intelligent
and I love talking to, so yourfriends aren't gonna wanna miss that.
Uh, and also I think that, you needa place to find the ed tech updates
and I try to be that place for you.
Uh, so I think that's a powerfulpart of the episode too.
So please do share with friends.
Also in the show notes, you'llfind a link to my newsletter.

(03:11):
You can also.
Subscribe there.
I share the same kindsof things there too.
I know different peoplelearn in different formats.
So if you want those Ed Tech and EDUnews updates weekly in your email inbox,
subscribe there so you don't miss that.
Okay.
Without further ado,let's talk to Dan Niessen.
All right.
Today our guest is Dan Niessen.

(03:32):
Dan is the Senior Technology IntegrationSpecialist at NEONet, providing all sorts
of ed tech PD for K through 12 teachers,administrators, and school staff.
He started out as a high school socialstudies teacher at a few schools around
the Cleveland, Ohio area, but thenmoved into his current position in
2018, which feels like a lifetime ago.
Dan, he's always excited toshare and learn about EdTech.

(03:55):
You could follow Dan on Twitter@Dan_EdTech or on Bluesky at
@NEONetEdTech.bsky.Social as always.
Those, contact info nuggets will be inthe show notes, but not in the show notes.
Actually, here in the show is Dan.
What's up Dan?
How you doing?

Dan Niessen (04:13):
I'm doing great, Jake.
Thanks so much for having me.

Jake (04:15):
Yeah, honored to have you on this show, Dan.
So Dan and I have been running intoeach other at EdTech conferences
in Northeast Ohio for years.
This is our first time running intoeach other in a podcast though, right.
This is new.
Yeah, So, so it's been, I can't believeI, I didn't even fathom how long that's
been that you, so NEONet is a, um,I'll let you explain what it is, but

(04:36):
NEONet is local to where I live here.
So I've known Dan pretty much since hestarted that position at NEONet in 2018.
But I, I. I can't believeit's been that long.
That's crazy long, Dan.

yeah, yeah.
So yeah, in 2018, I started at NEONet forpeople who don't know NEONet's and ITC,
which is kind of similar to the ESCs,but we handle more of like the technology

Jake (04:57):
Mm-hmm.

side of things.
So like student information support.
It, networking, support,that sort of stuff.
And so I do, ed tech training, pd, mostlyfor teachers, but occasionally we throw in
administrators and like support staff and

Jake (05:13):
Yep.

and folks like that too.

Jake (05:15):
Yeah, and you've done great stuff, and so you do a lot of stuff here
locally in Northeast Ohio, but do youdo stuff that's available outside of
the local Northeast Ohio area as well?

Yeah, absolutely.
So, uh, locally, yeah, we, ourlike geographic area is pretty big.
then also we have ouronline content as well.
in the past, you know, especiallysince Covid, it really, exploded
and there was an explosion of,you know, virtual learning and we
jumped on that train too to provide.
More like PD on demand stufffor people to get to as well.
So we have an LMS on our websiteand we also do weekly webinars that

(05:48):
anybody in the world can come to.
And those are always fun too, 'causewe'll get people coming to come into
these, webinars from all over the place.
We'll get some people from djust different parts of Ohio,

Jake (05:58):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
California, and Texas,

and Florida.
And I sometimes get peoplefrom New Zealand of all
places.
Uh, so it's really fun to, to Interactwith those people and still be able
to, hear about what, a little bit aboutwhat's going on in their classrooms,
you know, across the, across the globe.

Jake (06:14):
Yeah.
When you get those folks fromNew Zealand, are you like,
Hey, I do in-person stuff too.
If you want me to come to New Zealand?

No, you know, I haven't really advertised that.
'cause I don't wanna sit onlike a what, God, 15 hour
flight or whatever it would be.
You know?
I'm okay.
I'm okay.
We can do it virtually.

Jake (06:31):
Okay.
All right.
New Zealand folks, Dan, Danwill connect with you virtually.
I'll be there.
Send me, send me the email.
I'll make the trip to New Zealand.
I've never been.
I want to go, I, would'vevisited all the places.

okay.
Yeah.
If, like, if I can then hang out there fora while and do like the Lord of the Rings

Jake (06:47):
Oh yeah.
like

tour or whatever that they have out in New Zealand, like, okay.
All right.

Jake (06:51):
Okay.

I'll check it out.

Jake (06:53):
You'll, he'll visit, you'll go visit the Shire, right.

Yeah.
that's

Jake (06:56):
Yeah.
for sure.

the trek.

Jake (06:58):
Maybe, maybe not all the way to Mordor or anything like that.
Like I love that.
I love the reference there.
I didn't see that coming.

that.

Jake (07:05):
So Yeah.
I love that, that option If I goto a conference or a PD day here in
Ohio, it's a pretty good shot thatI'm gonna be seeing Dan there and
he's gonna be put on a great session.
But it's nice that folks across thestate, across the country, across
the world, can access that too.
So we'll put that, Link to those webinarsand the free courses and things like that.
We'll have in the show notes.
if anybody wants some quick, easy and highquality pd, about EdTech, it'll be there.

(07:28):
Thanks.
Thanks for sharing that, Dan.
Yeah, Uh, so now that.
we are joking around about Lord of theRings, let's get into, let's get into an
actual game as folks on the EducationalDuct Tape Podcast know, we, we always
gotta start before we get into our actualed tech talk, we gotta start with a game.
And we're gonna start with a gameof Which of the following is less
torturous, which typically, for folksgoes by a slightly different name.

(07:50):
I'm not due to contractand copyright reasons.
I'm not able to call it by its morecommon name, I have to call it on
the Educational Duct Tape Podcast.
Which of the following is less torturous?
So Dan, I'd like to know whichof the following would be less

(08:12):
torturous losing all of your hair or.
Yeah.
permanently having a really rocking mulletand there's nothing you can do about it.
You cut it off, it grows right.
back into like the sweetest mulletyou've ever seen, which are, which
are you going with having the sweetestmullet ever, or losing all your hair.

oh

Jake (08:33):
I mean, you still have facial hair, you know,

Yeah.

Jake (08:35):
just, you're just bald.

You know, I, I do like to say that, uh, my, my hair is like
one of my few redeeming qualities

Jake (08:44):
few.
I think you've had more than that.

So, you know, I, I guess I'd rather have a mullet than nothing.
So I, I guess I'd be rocking amullet uh, yeah, I mean, I guess if
worse comes to worse, if it's likelong enough, I, I could like stuff
it into the backside of my shirt

Jake (08:59):
Oh, that's a strategy.

you know?

Jake (09:02):
Why is Dan always wearing turtlenecks and quarter zips?
Well, he is.
I heard there's a mullet hiding in there.
That's that's good strategy there.
You'll never tell
he's got really curly mullet back.
Why is Dan always wearinga hooded sweatshirt

it's

Jake (09:20):
with the.
It's 95

degrees outside.
What

Jake (09:22):
He's got the, he's got the hood up no matter what I heard, he's got a mullet
and he can't cut it off no matter Whathe does That's a pretty amazing answer.
I think I would probably, huh?
I think I've got, I think my,my head would look odd bald.
I don't think I could pull off bald.
Um, so I think I'm going mullet too.
Um, but I'm gonna wear it with pride.

(09:43):
I'm not hiding it

back in fashion, you know, so

Jake (09:46):
Right.

it'll come back around no matter what.
Eventually it'll come backaround to being in fashion again.

Jake (09:50):
Yeah.
right.
I'm going for it.
I'm like, like, like if the high schoolbaseball players can rock mullets,
I could, I could be the baseball dadon the sideline rocking a mullet.
I don't know.
I think I could do it.
we'll be hanging out at the edtech conferences with our mullets,
we'll probably have a, we'll doa joint session together called
like, um, uh, EdTech in 2025.

(10:13):
Business in the front partyin the back or something.
I don't know.

okay.
Yeah,

Jake (10:17):
We'll bring in some mullet terminology.
Yes, I think it is a good.
plan.
We bring 'em mullets.
Back to EdTech.
we're in,

That's right.

Jake (10:26):
I am now going to use AI to generate a picture of you with a mullet
for the, for the cover of this episode.
right.
The new chat.
The new chat.
GPT you proof.
Nice.
okay.
So now that we are,now that we're getting.
Entirely too silly and offtopic of educational technology.
let's redirect this train back to EdTech.
So I'm gonna ask you, Dan, what'scalled an Educational Duct Tape

(10:48):
question for anybody who's newto listening to the podcast.
An Educational Duct Tape question iswhere we think about a teacher goal or
a teacher task, or something a teacherneeds to accomplish or wants to do or
solve, maybe a problem in their classroom.
And we look at educationaltechnology as a tool like Duct
tape, that could solve that problem.
Now, I wanna point out as always thatlike the solution to all of our things

(11:11):
in the classroom is not ed tech.
Not always, but sometimes, itoffers us a really good solution.
So we're gonna focus on problems like.
That.
So the question I have for youtoday, Dan, and I'm sure you've
got some good answers with this.
Based on the work that you do atNEONet is what tool or strategy would
you use for formative assessment?
So what would you use to informativelyassess students' comprehension.

Yeah, absolutely.
So I always think of things, youknow, in terms of my experience.
Again, I was a high schoolsocial studies teacher.
That's how I kind ofcontextualize everything.

Jake (11:40):
Okay.

when I think about anything in ed tech,

Jake (11:43):
Mm-hmm.
that's just where

I go first.
And then I,

Jake (11:44):
Okay.

then I can learn from other subject areas and other grade
levels and kind of work from themto extrapolate it out from there.
But anyway, so, what I thinkof first off, for, assessment.
In high school social studies is, there'sa lot of reading and a lot of vocabulary,

Jake (12:01):
Hmm.

that, that we need to make sure students know very important
stuff, that they need to understandthe vocabulary, to understand what the
reading and kind of vice versa too.
so, you know, the first challengeis just getting kids to comprehend
the reading, to sit down and dothe reading in the first place.
And, you know, let's behonest, a lot of the time.

(12:22):
It can be kind of boring sometimesreading a history or a government

Jake (12:26):
Mm-hmm.
section

of a textbook or whatever it is.
so, what I like try to do is to tryto make it as interesting as possible.
Make it as interactive as possible, add as many visuals as possible,
chunk, the reading into smallerpieces and ask questions throughout.
So I'm gonna start with that firthat first part for chunking.
reading a part

Jake (12:47):
Mm-hmm.

asking questions throughout.
I love ai chatbots like ChatGPTand Gemini and all those things,

Jake (12:54):
Hmm.

those are perfect at achieving just that.
You can just give ChatGPT, youknow, a big old block of text
from your textbook, or an articleor whatever it is, and say, Hey.
Put this into smaller pieces and betweeneach piece ask one or two questions.

Jake (13:11):
Nice.

and that's a huge time saver for teachers.
'cause you don't have to makeup all those questions yourself.
And that it's gonna help the studentschunk that reading into smaller pieces.
So it's, you know, a lot moreconsumable and they can, you
know, split it up into smaller

Jake (13:26):
pieces
Right.

You know, the, the one thing I like, you know, you ever read
a book and you like a chapter andthen you kind of like look ahead in
to see how long the next chapter

Jake (13:37):
Yeah,

There's something in my brain that makes me mad when the chapter,
the next chapter is like 50 pages long.
I'm like, oh God, it's so long.
But

Jake (13:47):
not gonna start now.

like, yeah, but if I read like a different book, and I
look ahead to the next chapter andit's only like five pages long.
There's something in mybrain that makes me happy.
I'll still read the same like 50pages in that same like reading
session that I'm doing, but there'ssomething about it being split up

Jake (14:02):
Yeah.

pieces that there's something there.
I

Jake (14:05):
Yeah,

need to do some research
as to why that is.

Jake (14:08):
I think it makes sense.

Yeah, but I think there's a lot to be said for that, for, for student
reading materials

Jake (14:15):
Yeah.

splitting stuff up into smaller pieces, chunking it,
asking formative questions as you go.
And again, I think AIcan be a really big help

Jake (14:22):
Yeah.

handle all of that grunt work for you.

Jake (14:25):
So I think, not only is it nice just to chunk it and break the
text up, but it means that the kids.
Number one are kind of changing whatthey're doing regularly throughout.
Like we know when we're teaching a lessonwe shouldn't do 40 minutes of lecture
'cause the kids can't handle that.
We should be switching like themodalities of the things that we're doing.
So you are going from switching to justreading to now a paragraph later, you're

(14:47):
now answering questions about the reading.
So their minds are kind of switching,switching lanes in what they're doing.
And I think it's developing some kind ofactive reading and thinking strategies
for them because they're not just,they're not just like it used to be.
Like, think back to when we were inschool, history class, at least for
me was like, read these eight pagesand then answer these four questions.

Yeah.

Jake (15:09):
whereas.
They could have taken those four questionsand put them throughout the pages.
and so that we're going back and forth.
And so we're thinking about the specifictakeaways as we're reading them, and that
also helps the kids identify like, what'sreally important in here, in this section.
So I think that's a reallystrong, suggestion there.
I think I would level it up tooand say, when I gave that text to.

(15:31):
The bot, whatever it is I'm using,whatever LLM I'm using, I'm gonna
say like, these are the, this isthe standard that I, that I, the
kids are supposed to master here.
You know, so they focusin on the right things.
and maybe some of those, I forgetwhat they call those, like, those
are those other standards in the,in the content curricula that are
more like the skills the kids aredeveloping, you know, not just.

(15:52):
About the specific topic, butjust in general as a social
studies student, right?
So I need the kids to develop thisability to reason about cause and
effect, in, in, in all situations.
So I, I put in as much of that stuffabout those goals that I have for them.
So that it's really like not onlyis it developing those formative
assessment questions, but I knowit really strongly aligns with
what I need the kids to, to learn.

(16:13):
Because that's what we lose by havingthe AI do the work for us, is we lose our
brain thinking about what's important.
So if we could tell the AI what'simportant, then we save the time,
which is what we needed to do inthe first place while still putting
our teacher knowledge in there.
Our lens as the teacher of that class,

exactly.
Yeah.
E every time that I, youknow, do any training sessions
and, you know, PD on, on ai.
I always bring up the 80 20 rule

Jake (16:39):
Yeah.

time.
It's 'cause it's so hugely important,

Jake (16:43):
Yeah.

I think that's a good example.
You know, again, AI canhandle that 80% for you.
It can write those questions for you.
You

Jake (16:50):
Right.

the context and the reason and all that stuff.
But it can do kind of that grunt work

Jake (16:54):
Yeah.

But you still need to come in for that last 20%.
Make sure the questionsare where you need them

Jake (16:59):
Yeah.

sure they're assessing the right parts.
Yeah.
and again, that's can be a huge help.
Uh,

Jake (17:04):
Yeah.

Just a time saver for teachers who are, you know,
running on fumes sometimes.

Jake (17:09):
Yeah.
So what are you doingwith these questions next?
Are you taking them and putting them into,like Google Forms or something like that?
where are they going once you write them?
inside of the LLMI.

Yeah.
I mean, it, it's kind of up to theteacher for what they're comfortable with.
sometimes it could be just like,Hey, let's just stick it to analog
here and just print 'em out Normally.
and just give 'em to students as an
in-class

Jake (17:32):
Yeah.

thing.
it could be a jigsaw sort of situationwhere students are broken off into
groups and, you know, different groupsof students get different chunks of the
text and they kind of, do their own partsand then they come back together and
present on what they learned or, yeah.
Anyhow, we can digitize it justto make it as, you know, efficient
for the teacher as possible.
Throw it into a Google form, and say,okay, here's here's our reading Quiz here.

Jake (17:52):
Yeah.

to get, Make sure that kids have this information.
Hey, they need to take somepoints too and get some data.

Jake (17:57):
Right.
Yeah.
And that's kind of the, to me, that'sthe reason we use the, well, one of
the reasons we use the technology toolsfor formative assessment is because
it could assess the things fasterthan we can, it could show us that
data and those trends, but we need to.
Look at it.
let it do the 80% to your point earlierof actually assessing and tracking
and tabulating the kids' scores.
But then we need to do the 20% of thinkingabout that and deciding what lesson we

(18:21):
need to teach next, where we, what we needto revisit, what we could skip over that.
That's the formative part toformative assessment, right,
is making those decisions.
That's what we gotta do.
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly right.

Jake (18:30):
So you mentioned in there too that you kind of think of two different
lenses when you think about, um,formative assessment and social studies.
You think about reading, which isthat, and you think about vocabulary
if you're trying to get kids to masterthose, depth of knowledge, level
one vocab stuff, which is important.
what are you doing there?

Yeah.
So I came across this videofrom Matt Miller, not to be
confused with Jake Miller,

Jake (18:51):
Correct?
Yes.

all those millers running around out

Jake (18:53):
there.
was a lot of us.

so, so the guy from Ditch that textbook, and he made this video,
a while ago that I came across where hewas talking about those eduprotocols,
which that's a whole nother topic,

Jake (19:03):
Yes.

that's a whole nother.
but essentially he was, describingone of the EduProtocols called
the Fast and the Curious, andhe's combining it, with Quizizz.
And, you know, I'm a big fan of Quizizz.
It's probably

Jake (19:17):
my favorite
Me too.

just like in GE general, a ed tech tools that's

Jake (19:20):
Me too.

So the whole idea of this fast and the curious eduprotocol, uh,
is essentially it's a different kindof approach to drilling vocabulary.
Uh, so the way he describes itin the video is first thing when
you introduce a new unit or a newtopic is you drill the vocabulary
right off the rip on the first day.

(19:42):
Using Quizizz, then you lookthrough all the data as you
normally would, from Quizizz.
And that's, again, that's the nicething about Quizizz is it gives you
all that information into nice chartsand graphs and stuff, right, right.
When we're done,

Jake (19:54):
Yep.

you give some, give a little bit of feedback to students, call
out some certain things students didwell, students needed to work on more,
clarify any, you know, vocab terms,confusion, any of that sort of thing.
And then you run the exactsame, vocab Quiz again.

Jake (20:08):
Yeah.

And then you will probably see a pretty big bump.

Jake (20:13):
Yeah.

you repeat that same process multiple times throughout the
week or throughout the unit as you go.
And then eventually you're gonnasee students essentially acing those
vocab tests because one, becauseyou've done 'em so many times
and because they've gotten such.
immediate feedback over and over again

Jake (20:29):
Mm-hmm.

little confusions, those little misunderstandings that, that
pop up between, you know, similarsounding vocab words or what, or just
a word they've never seen before.
When they get that immediatefeedback and a chance to prove
that they understand the feedback

Jake (20:43):
Yeah.

they just got, that helps tremendously.
So I'm a big fan of that approach.
I think it's a really good approach.
And the nice thing is itcan be done pretty quickly.
This is like a 10 minute thing.
so it can be condensed down toa pretty short amount of time.

Jake (20:57):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of that, one.
So I, I used the fastand the curious protocol.
Back when I taught science, I was teachingeighth grade science and obviously
application of the science skills iswhat you're really going for, but they're
gonna have to know what convectionis and what a convection current is
before they could start to apply it.
And truly apply it at the level wewant to, to talking about what's

(21:18):
happening on the sea floor, for example.
So we do need to build thatdepth of knowledge, vocabulary,
skill, the DOK one, I should say.
And so, Yeah.
EDU protocols was a, well, thatspecific edu protocol, the fast and the
curious protocol was one I used a lot.
Actually way back in the show, early on inthe show had on, John Corripo, who was one
of the two creators of the eduprotocolsand, have never had on Marlena, I

(21:40):
believe her last name's, Hebern,but was his co-author on that book.
But Yeah.
lots of great things inthe eduprotocols, books.
That's a great one.
kids enjoy it.
Jon would tell you herecommends using Quizizz, but
you don't have to use Quizizz.
There's no reason you can't bedoing this in Kahoot or Quizlet
or, Curipod or Snorkl or like aname, any Google forms, whatever.
but I agree Quizizz, thedata in Quizizz is so strong.

(22:02):
The ease of use of Quizizz is so strong.
Kids enjoy it.
Maybe not as much as they enjoysomething like Blooket or Gimkit,
but I think the data that you getin the free version is so rich.
and the accessibility features inQuizizz, have you seen the accessibility
features that are in there?

Yeah, you can like tag accomodations

Jake (22:18):
Yeah.

to

Jake (22:19):
Yep.

students

Jake (22:20):
Yep.

up every time that you run a, that's really, really awesome.

Jake (22:23):
Yeah.

You know, similar tools to, to Quizizz, to use your
Educational Duct Tape analogy.
It doesn't matter the brand of Duct tape

Jake (22:35):
Mm-hmm.

using,

Jake (22:36):
100%.

this tool to reach the, it's a means to, to reach
the ends that, that we need.

Jake (22:42):
Yeah.
For, Yeah.
for sure.
it's the goal that matters of what we'retrying to achieve here, which is that,
that formative assessment, that buildingof that skill, and that, It doesn't
matter what tool specifically we're using.
I think the cool thing here is acouple things are happening when we
do the fast and curious protocol.
One is the kids are self-assessingbecause they're seeing this data.
They're thinking abouthow they're performing.
they're seeing how they're performingin comparison to the class.

(23:04):
they're seeing their selves grow, which iskind of a growth mindset piece there too.
and we are, and they're getting kind of.
Interested in learning about,they're actually learning about
the vocabulary through the activitythat's formatively, assessing them.
And then we know when it'stime to be done right.
We know, okay, you know, like everybody'sat 95%, we could stop doing this one.

(23:25):
You know what I mean?
We don't have to do thisone every day anymore.
We can move on.
one thing that I always wondered about.
When I was doing this back in the day inmy science classroom, I had this other,
author on years ago on the podcast,Jared Cooney Horvath, who writes about
some brain science kind of stuff.
And he talked when he was on,this is like 20, I don't even
know, 2018 or something like that.
He was on the show.

(23:46):
he talked about.
How our brains, and he would say thismuch more intelligently than I will, but
our brains connect, the things our brainconnects, knowledge and content that we
learn about to specific applications.
So he gives us this example in the book.
That's something like if you'repreparing for the mcat, I'm not sure
if that's what his example was, and youprepare by taping flashcards on your

(24:07):
bathroom mirror and you look at themevery morning when you're getting ready
for school, you are going to learn.
Those vocabulary words really well, butyou're going to know them better while
you're standing in your bathroom thanwhen you're sitting in your classroom
that you've maybe never been, neverlike, never been in taking the test.
So, Yeah.
so he, he says that we really.
We connect it to certain things.
And so if we always study that thingin the same way, in the same place,

(24:30):
and then we go to a totally differentplace and are asked about them in a
different way, we'll know some of it,but our brain's gonna have a hard time.
Tracking back to that informationis something you talked about.
So what I always wondered was, okay, ifthe fast and the curious protocol Rapidly
moves in a way that kids enjoy, movesthem to that understanding of those words.
What do I need to do next to take thatknowledge and kind of un-pair it from

(24:56):
Quizizz and fast curious protocol.
Does that make sense?

yeah.
Absolutely.
And that's where, you know,I. That's where you can kind
of get into more nuance and

Jake (25:05):
more details
Yeah.

and stuff from direct instruction, you know,

Jake (25:08):
Yeah.

as a high school social studies teacher, surprise, surprise,
I did a lot of direct instruction, you

Jake (25:14):
Right,

and there's nothing wrong with that, uh, of

Jake (25:16):
right, right.

of course, like, like you said, limit it so it's not
the entire class period's,not just one big long lecture.

Jake (25:22):
Yeah.

and you know, that's where, you know, things like Nearpod
and Pear Deck can come in and thatcan fill, that nice, need there

Jake (25:30):
Yeah.

to foster some, interactivity in there.

Jake (25:34):
Yeah.

relating it back to, kind of the next step up vocabulary, not.
vocabulary just seem like they'rekind of just these, terms just kind of

Jake (25:43):
Yeah.

there in space so kids actually connect them to the
content that we're talking about.
we can reinforce those vocab terms,throughout the direct instruction.
And again, if we throw in just a littlequick little Quiz, or knowledge checks

Jake (25:57):
Mm-hmm.

from a Nearpod or a pear deck as we go throughout our direct
instruction, that can help, you know.
I'm a big fan of graphic organizers

Jake (26:06):
Yeah.

so especially like Venn diagrams or Frayer models,

Jake (26:10):
Yeah.

throw those into a pear deck or a Nearpod as you're doing your
direct instruction to give kids fiveminutes to fill out, you know, a couple of
Frayer models for those really important,

Jake (26:20):
Mm-hmm.

terms.
So they have to do the definition,but then they also have to do like
examples or characteristics or

Jake (26:27):
Yeah.

like that to kind of that kind of.
Expands upon the vocabulary term.
So it's not just simple term/definition,it adds more context to it.
So it

Jake (26:36):
Yeah.

you know, bridges that gap.

Jake (26:39):
Yeah.
I think what happens by doing all ofthose things is then that knowledge of
that specific vocab word is no longer.
Just attached to doing this in theQuizizz, it's now also attached
to doing this in the pear deck.
It's also attached to what they heardMr. Niessen say during the lecture.
It's also attached to what theywrote in their Frayer model.
And in a Frayer model, you're doingthese four different versions of.

(27:02):
Of understanding of that vocabulary term.
So maybe it's, a drawing and it's areal life example, however you set
up the categories on your Frayer.
and so now that word and yourknowledge of it is now connected
to so many different things

Yeah.

Jake (27:16):
I think, uh, what Cooney Horvath would say is that, you've now kind
of solved that problem because thatknowledge is now interconnected
with a lot of different things.
And so I think you've probably reallywell solved that problem there.

Absolutely.

Jake (27:29):
yeah.
So in the Nearpod pear deck debate,I think they're both fantastic tools.
Um, I used Pear deck, in my classroom.
That's just what I had access to, so I've.
You know, sometimes you have the thingthat you're used to and you're familiar
with, and it becomes your favorite.
So I tend to lean towards Pear Deck,although I think Nearpod is fantastic too.
but one thing that Pear Deck was alwayslacking was the ability to auto grade.

(27:52):
It didn't do that.
for me.
now it does.
Did you see that they've added thoseauto grading features to it now?

Interesting.
I
didn't

Jake (27:58):
know that
Yeah.
Yeah.
so you could take like a, so it usedto be the multiple choice question
I think was just called a pollquestion, or maybe it was called
Multiple Choice, but now they'vesplit it out to two different ones.
Now there's Poll or maybe I,maybe the other one's called
quiz or Multiple Choice.
but you can have some auto grade and somenot auto grade, and they built in ai.
So going back to your earlier point, youcan now say we're having a discussion

(28:20):
about this topic and you know, whatare some formative assessment questions
I should be asking about them and
pear Deck will now develop those,with the answers already programmed
in so that you're getting thatformative assessment as you're going.

Yeah.
And, and, that, that's kind anotheridea too for, integrating AI as you are.
Uh developing lessons

Jake (28:40):
Yeah.

to kind of stuff that you already have.
'cause of course, nobody wants tosit there and reinvent the wheel
when they don't really need to.

Jake (28:48):
Yeah.

but when AI can come in and be like, Hey, I can make this.
Thing easier

Jake (28:53):
Right.

you don't really have to do that much to, to make it happen.
so what I suggest people do is take,like a PDF of your, slideshows that
something that you already have,something you've used maybe for years.
it into chat GPT or Gemini andsay, Hey, what would be some
good formative knowledge check

Jake (29:10):
Yeah.

that I can put in here?
or if you wanna, you know, if you're kindof good on that part and you wanna move
away from direct instruction, you can say.
What would be some ideasto expand upon this topic

Jake (29:22):
Yeah.

to dive deeper into whatever this topic is, what are
some hands-on, student activities thatcould be connected to this content?
And again, maybe throw insome standards in there too.

Jake (29:33):
Yeah.

and I really like to think of AI as a brainstorming partner.
I'm a huge, fan of ai, as you could tell.

Jake (29:39):
Yeah.

I especially really like it just to be someone to bounce ideas off of.
that's a very, very quick and,

Jake (29:46):
Yeah.

something that you can get immediate feedback from and
also tell it to tweak whatever bitsand pieces that you want after it
spits something back out at you.
You can say, okay, I like this idea,but I don't quite like that idea.
Change this to that, and it willjust kind of do it and it'll

Jake (30:04):
Yeah.

possibly some ideas that you wouldn't have thought of just on your own.

Jake (30:08):
Yeah.
My son and I have gotten intoprepping our family smoothies lately.
We've got a bit of a formula,which essentially boils down to
add enough kale, spinach, andbroccoli to make it really healthy.
And enough blueberries, bananaand vanilla yogurt to keep us from
actually tasting those veggies.
It's a balance.

(30:28):
If the smoothie's too green, noone drinks it, not even the dog.
And I've been thinking that's kind of howscreen time works in the classroom too.
The promise of screen-basedlearning sounded great a decade ago.
Engagement, personalized pacing,one-to-one devices, but sometimes I
worry that all that screen time leavesno room for what really matters.

(30:50):
Reflection.
Critical thinking and goodold face-to-face connection.
And I think that with technology,especially screens just like
vegetables, there is such a thingas too much of a good thing.
That's why I love M2, the intelligentco-teacher from today's sponsor, swivl.
It's AI powered support that doesn'tdump more devices into the room.

(31:13):
M2 just listens quietly andsteps in when you need help.
Whether it's summarizing a lessonfor late arrivals, or bridging
between concepts on the fly.
Teach smarter not noisier at swivl.com/M2.
That's swivl.com/M2.

(31:33):
Now back to our interview with Dan
Yeah.
That, that idea of it beingused as a thought partner, I
think is a really good idea.
it's the way I findmyself using it a lot too.
I don't want it to do the thinking for me.
but if it could be kind of anotherbrain that I'm bouncing ideas
off of or that it's helping me,it's sparking thinking for me.

(31:54):
I agree that there's alot of potential there.
Do some

of the grunt work as,

Jake (31:57):
Yeah.

I

Jake (31:57):
like

to say.
say

Jake (31:58):
Yeah, for sure.
I like that.
I like that.
In your point about giving it yourslides and having it develop the
formative assessment, you're makingsure that it's still, because we
know that AI's not perfect, right?
But we're giving it the content,saying these are the, this is the
important knowledge that's coming to it.
You could even potentially recordyour lesson and give it to it, or,
you know, turn our voice to text andgive it your lesson and say like,

(32:20):
here's exactly what I'm gonna say.
Say to my kids, here's exactly whatthey're gonna see on the slide.
what questions should I beasking them along with that?
Because then you know that it'sreally focusing in on your thinking.
And it's really just to your point,just doing the grunt work for you.

Absolutely.
. One of the PD sessions I do,is called, PBL in the AI era,

Jake (32:40):
Hmm.

in that session I essentially just explain that we can
use AI as, as a thought partner, asa brainstorming partner to help us
develop, you know, activities andprojects and assessments and stuff that.
Hard to think of and hardjust to put all the resources
together to actually make happen.
Uh, and they can save us asignificant amount of time, as

(33:02):
opposed to us putting all thatstuff mainly together ourselves or

Jake (33:05):
Yeah.

the internet to try to find the exact thing that I'm looking for.
you know, and I'm sure you've been to PDs,I've been to PDs, you know, about all the
great stuff on, on project based learning.
which is great, I mean,but, it's very theoretical

Jake (33:19):
Mm-hmm.

you know, At the end of the day, if a teacher goes to
one of those sessions, they'relike, wow, that's really cool.
And then they hit, they're hit withthe reality of, okay, how do I take
all those ideas and implement itinto these specific content points
that I have to teach next week?

Jake (33:35):
right.

And it's just really hard to connect those dots.
And

Jake (33:38):
Yeah.

back to AI, being the brainstorming partner, well.
ChatGPT.
Gimme some ideas for howI can connect these dots

Jake (33:46):
Right.

me start to put a plan together.
And that,

Jake (33:48):
Yeah.

That's a big way that AI can really be a help to, to educators.

Jake (33:53):
To me, I always think about like when somebody might say no, the teacher
should be the one coming up with thosePBL connections and those questions
and that format and stuff like that.
and I think I, I see what they'resaying, that it's gonna be better
if it's coming from a teacher brain.
And it's important for the teacherto be a part of that process.
But one thing I often come back tois like, what's the alternative?
Like.

(34:14):
Meaning, in that situation, if theteacher doesn't have time to do that
work, right, to think about those thatPBL application and the alternative
is not doing the PBL at all, then Iwant them to use the AI to help them.
Because if the alternative is not doingit at all, We want the AI help there.
And to your point, sometimes the teachercan do the thinking but have the AI

(34:34):
just support them in doing that andbe that kind of thought partner there.
So I think it's a big one there too.

We all have, you know, just so much mental bandwidth that we

Jake (34:42):
Yep.

at

Jake (34:43):
Yeah.
Yeah,

and so AI can kinda lighten the load, right?

Jake (34:47):
yeah, for sure.
and that's where I come tend to come downon is let it, let's let it help us, right?
we gotta be realistic.
We can't do all the things.
so in terms of tools, we talked aboutQuizizz, we talked about Pear Deck
and Nearpod, which I love as well.
I love that those embedformative assessment right
into the lesson experience.
are there any other ones that you'reexcited about or you see teachers being
excited about when you work with 'em?

Yeah.
So, I, sticking on the AI train,because that's been my life for the
past, you know, year and a half now,I'm a fan of these like AI tutors

Jake (35:17):
Mm-hmm.

there.
again, they have to be, you know,set up correctly and everything.
But I like the MagicStudent,the part of MagicSchool.

Jake (35:23):
Mm-hmm.

school ai.
I think they do a good job of havinga kind of a new spin on helping
students develop skills and knowledge.
And the nice thing about themis the, these companies have set
them up in a pretty smart way

Jake (35:37):
Yeah.

where students aren't giving away any of their personal information.
When they sign in, they don'tactually log in with an account.
All students.
Really just join as guests

Jake (35:46):
Yeah.

and the whole time teachers get a, a transcript of
everything, the entire interactionbetween the student and the AI bot.
And even though like the AI will like,give a summary of the conversations
between the student and the ai, And Ithink that's good for two main reasons.
one, it helps with the content itself

Jake (36:07):
Yep.

students can be given an AI chat bot that's focused on a certain topic
or maybe it's, you know, impersonating ahistorical figure or something like that.
Um, it's kind of funny 'cause even iflike a student tries to take it off task.

Jake (36:21):
Yep.

The AI bot will always like, bring it back around
to the conversation at hand.
It actually does a really good job of

Jake (36:26):
It does.
Yeah.

it a lot and trying to make it mess up and like go off
on a weird tangent, but it alwaysdoes a really nice job of just
coming back to the content at hand.

Jake (36:35):
Right.

and then the other part is getting kids comfortable with ai.
You know, like it or not, there's noputting the toothpaste back in the tube

Jake (36:43):
Right.

for ai.
kids are gonna have toget used to talking to ai.
I'm sure they don't reallyhave a problem with it.
I think we have, I think it'smore of educators getting used
to kids getting used to to

Jake (36:55):
Right.
talking to

ai, if that makes sense.

Jake (36:57):
Yeah.

it's gonna, it's here, it's gonna be here, it's gonna stay here.
It's getting just more and moreintegrated into everything that we have.
for better or worse.
Of course,

Jake (37:06):
Yep.

misuse and there's bad examples and bad
actors of course, out there.
but.
We can't, you know, put our head in thesand here and tell kids to ignore it and,
tell 'em just to pretend it doesn't exist.

Jake (37:18):
Mm-hmm.
'Dan Niessen: We
gotta teach

em how to use it properly.
And if we can put up some walls arounda specialized version of an AI chat
bot that focuses on talking about ahistorical event or whatever it is, well
that's a good place to get them started.

Jake (37:32):
Yeah.
for sure.
I think.
And it's a great, like having themkind of do an assessment through that
conversation, I think is really powerful.
The we'll lose that data that we'll getout of like a pear deck or a Quizizz where
we could see really quickly, hey, allthe kids worked with this chat bot and
they answered these questions in there.
How they perform, where were the gaps.
We're probably not gonna getthat unless there's something
in there I don't know of.

(37:52):
But I think that's okay.
I think the kids are assessing throughthat conversation, the kids are
learning through the conversation.
I think that's really, really strong.
Do you think it could.
You were talking earlier about the,reading a passage and having it
chunked and asking questions after it.
Do you think you could take, the customchatbot in MagicSchool, for example, and
say, kids are gonna read this passage.

(38:14):
I want you to prompt them toread one paragraph at a time.
After they read each paragraph,ask 'em questions about it.
Once you're sure theyunderstand, move them on.
Tell them to read the next question.
Ask them question or, I'msorry, the rest paragraph.
Do you think it would do that?
Well?

So I, I tried to do that in SchoolAI.
I haven't tried that in MagicStudent,

Jake (38:32):
Mm-hmm.
but I did try it

with SchoolAI it took some additional prompting, if you're
not familiar with SchoolAI, it letsyou go in and just give the custom
instructions to your own AI chatbot and tell it to do whatever.
So I did try that.
It did work.

Jake (38:45):
Yeah.

a little clunky,
you have to like set it up.
each like reading sectionthat you're doing.

Jake (38:50):
I see.

but the answer is yes.
you

Jake (38:52):
Yeah.

that.

Jake (38:53):
And I think that's a pretty powerful way for kids to learn from reading is
talking it through with a chat bot.
I mean, ultimately we'd like themto be talking it through with their
teacher, but we know that we'regonna be realists here and know that
might not be possible all the time.
so Shantel Lott was on the showrecently and talked about making
these like, learning pathways inthe MagicSchool custom chatbot for
students, where you say, you know.

(39:15):
Answer this question.
If you get It, right, you'regonna move on to this.
If you get it wrong, we'regonna ask you another one.
and I tried it out with math.
it worked really well.
I was really impressed with it.
that was all text-based, so I thinkI, I could see some students being a
little bit bored with that, but still,it, it did a pedagogically speaking.
It did a good job of doing it.
And so I could see itdoing this really well too.
If you said, I want thekids to read this article.

(39:37):
And I want you to questionthem as after every paragraph.
I think it could do apretty good job at it.
Yeah.
There's some benefit there too.

of down to, to prompting the AI bot.
With enough details to get the

Jake (39:48):
Yeah.

that you want.
It's not super hard to do, I don't

Jake (39:51):
Yeah,

it's just, it's, it is kind of tedious as you're
writing the directions to the AI

Jake (39:55):
yeah.

feels weird when you first do it 'cause you're

Jake (39:57):
Yeah.

it's a computer, it's not gonna understand what I'm talking about.
Well, that's kind of the thing about ai.
It does

Jake (40:02):
It does.
Yeah.

in natural language.
That's kind of, its like whole thing.

Jake (40:06):
yeah, for sure.
another tool I'm excited about rightnow for formative assessment, is
Snorkl, have you messed with Snorkl yet?

Yes, I have.
Yeah.

Jake (40:14):
what are your thoughts on Snorkl?

It's really, you know, it makes me think of Flipgrid funny enough.

Jake (40:20):
Yeah, I can see that.

would, what I would like to see is, I. that is for Snorkl to like
build in like flipgrids old features that

Jake (40:30):
Yeah,

really cool.
This is a,

Jake (40:32):
that would be cool.

moonshot thing,

Jake (40:35):
Yeah.

imagine if, Start with like a Flipgrid assignment.
You know, a teacher posesa question to the students.
The student responds back with video,but instead of having to wait for
another kid or the teacher to respondto the kid's video, AI comes in and

Jake (40:51):
Hmm.

Hey, I. here's your, grading rubric.
Here's what you did.
Well, here's what you did.
Here's what you neededclarification on, or whatever it

Jake (40:58):
Right.

And so it's like Flipgrid, but with that bit of
AI feedback built in there too.
But then you can still also have thecommunity stuff where other students
and the teacher can come in andalso respond back and give feedback.

Jake (41:09):
The first half of that is kind of what it already does right As the kid
responds and it assesses, it just doesn'thave that community piece in there.
So that would be cool to add in there.
it's interesting you bring that upbecause I actually think that Flipgrid
or flip or nothing 'cause it's gone.
unless you're a Microsoft school district,you have access to it through their tools.
But I think it was kind of one ofthe ideals for formative assessment.

(41:29):
It was, it took a lot longer toprocess and assess than something
like Quizizz would take, right?
Because it does, it's not multiple choice.
The Quizizz does more than that.
More than multiple choice.
But it's not like auto grading.
It's not.
Calculating averages and percentagesand total scores and stuff like that.
The way that a tool like that does,

Yeah.

Jake (41:47):
Flipgrid, you're gonna have to go through and watch all
of those videos individually.
But the best way to formativelyassess the kid is really to
see what they're thinking.
Not just did they get,did they get the Right.
answer?
What actually what elementsof that answer do they know?
And so that's what was reallystrong about a tool like Flip.
which therefore makes a tool likeSnorkl really strong because you're
processing student, thinking, studentspeaking, student explanation, not just.

(42:08):
A, B, C, or D, you're like, reallyprocessing, of course it's the
AI doing it, but processing itactually what they say and kind
of taking a peek into their mind.
So I think that's a really strong step.

Yeah.
and that's, I think another example of whyI'm so giddy about all this AI stuff is a
lot of like the fast feedback that we can

Jake (42:25):
do traditionally
Yeah.

has to be, Quantitative in nature,

Jake (42:29):
Mm-hmm.

A, B, C, or

Jake (42:30):
D
right

or wrong, and move on a lot of AI stuff.
It can break thingsdown like qualitatively

Jake (42:37):
Yeah.

and see, okay, it has a lot more nuance that it

Jake (42:40):
Yeah,

And, yeah, and I'm a huge fan of that capability
because that's just way more timeconsuming for a teacher to do.
But again, if you have anAI assistant in there in

Jake (42:49):
yeah.

or another.
To help you grade some sort ofqualitative information that you have.

Jake (42:56):
Yeah.

that's good stuff.

Jake (42:58):
Because years ago if I had gone to a teacher and said, best practice
for formative assessment is the kidsget feedback as quickly as possible.
and that they're being assessedon more than just the answering
a multiple choice question.
That they're actuallyexplaining their thinking.
The teacher's gonna say, Idon't have time for All of that.
And they don't.
right.
in most situations, theydon't have time to do that.
It's just not possible.
And so if we're leveraging thesetools, it potentially could

(43:21):
be doing those things for us.
Now there's steps that the teacher needsto take to screen this work to curate what
the tool is doing, to follow up with thekids that are struggling and not let it
all be an interaction with the computer.
But I think there's a lotof potential there to use AI
to do these kinds of things.
Yeah.

still in early days here.
Right.
So

Jake (43:38):
Oh yeah.
Isn't that crazy?

this, yeah, I mean, like, when did ChatGPT come out?
Like publicly?
Was that like end of 22

Jake (43:45):
Yeah.
I think November 22.
Yeah.

Okay.
So it's not that long.

Jake (43:49):
Yeah.

But I mean, just so many AI apps in

Jake (43:52):
Yep.

AI apps specifically for education have

Jake (43:56):
Yep.

in that time.
And so, I mean, you Know, uh, twoand a half years ago or whatever.

Jake (44:01):
Yeah.

what's it gonna look like in another

Jake (44:03):
Oh gosh.

years?

Jake (44:05):
I, dunno if I, want to know.
It's like it's gonna beso hard to keep up with,

Yeah, so of course that's what makes this whole, ed tech
industry very interesting to follow is

Jake (44:15):
that's for sure.

evolving very quickly.
There's a lot of cool stuffout there that, that can
legitimately make education better.

Jake (44:21):
Yeah.
Well, I think I'm gonna point out here.
That if folks as during the next threeyears, if they want to keep up with
all the things happening in EdTechAnd the evolution with ai, they could
certainly keep listening here to theEducational Duct Tape Podcast or not, or.
And

And

Jake (44:39):
keep listening and go to the link in the show notes to the
NEONet tech integration page sothat you could watch those webinars.
Dan does see the courses Dan leadsbecause you do a really good job
at going like, here's this new.
Here's school AI came out, or this newfeature came out, or Canva added this,
or Pear Deck added that, and you're doingcourses and doing videos and webinars

(45:01):
about those things to keep us up todate on the things that are happening.
So that's.
a really strong resource that'll belinked in the show notes for sure.

absolutely.

Jake (45:08):
Dan, thank you so much for all of your wisdom and all of your sharings.
There's a lot of fun buddy.

Thank you so much for having me.
It was a great time.

Jake (45:15):
Yeah, I'm gonna give you back the rest of your day and not take
all day listening to all of yourwisdom 'cause there's a lot to share.
but I know I'll be heading over to thatsite and bookmarking it, making sure
I'm following up on those webinars.
I hope everybody else does as well.
Thanks for being here today, Dan.

Thanks

Jake (45:29):
Thanks.
Isn't Dan great?
What a great episode.
Great chatting with him.
I've really respected his work for yearsand learned a lot from him at conferences
and things like that, and I'm glad tohave shared his insights on the show.
I hope you'll follow him.
I hope you'll check out thatwebpage where he has the webinars
and updates and things like thatso you can keep learning from Dan.
As you can tell, he's gota lot of wisdom to share.

(45:51):
and now, as always, before wewrap up the episode, let's share
some ed tech and education news.
Updates.
Uh, got a couple big ones today.
So first up, uh, you ever had thatfeeling, uh, where you open up one of
your regularly used tech tools, likesomething you use almost every day?
You open it up, you're in abig rush to get something done.
Like you got your lesson coming up in15 minutes and you just gotta get this

(46:13):
thing ready for it, and you open up thattool and you're confronted with a popup.
About some new features inthat app or website, and you
have those mixed feelings.
One part of the feelingsays, get outta my way.
I'm in a rush.
And the other feelingis, Ooh, new features.
And you have both of thosefeelings at the same time.
Well, that happened to merecently with Google Slides.

(46:36):
I closed the popup.
Because I was in a rush, but Iimmediately felt some remorse.
'cause I was like, oh, but Iwanna know what that update was.
So I came back later, uh, to learnmore about it and boy was I glad I did.
because Google has added a lot of stuffto Google Slides, you probably all know at
this point, but they just rolled out a newdesign sidebar in slides, and it's packed

(46:57):
with stuff that I'm pretty psyched about.
we're talking templates, a searchablestock image library, building
blocks, and even AI generated images.
Uh, but I'll get to that one in a second
Now, this sidebar will look differentfor different users, and if you have
multiple Google accounts, it mayeven look different on each account.
So listen closely to understand whatyou do and don't have on your account.

(47:21):
So we'll start with the thingsthat everyone should have.
First up is a stock image library.
So over on the right side ofyour screen in Google Slides,
you'll now see a sidebar.
One of those buttons isa stock image library.
Um, it's totally searchable, soyou can grab legit free to use
images without opening a newtab or falling into an image.

(47:41):
Search rabbit hole onUnsplash or in Google Images.
Um, and they add 'emright into their slides.
I do wish it automatically addeda citation to your slide, saying
where that image came from.
But the info is available in thatsidebar that comes up if you want to add
it manually, which in my opinion, youshould, we should model these things for
our kids, even though it's free to use.

(48:02):
Somebody did take that picture,and so I think we should cite that.
Uh oh.
And you could also access this fromthe insert image menu up at the top in
the toolbar, not just from the sidebar.
Next up templates and themes.
So I've always felt like thedefault themes and slides were a
little, *yawn*, boring compared toslide templates from slidesmania,

(48:25):
or presentations made in Canva.
But this update to the templates andthemes available is a definite step up.
So in the new sidebar, you couldbrowse themed slide decks with
titles like Workshop FacilitationClassic or Portfolio Bold.
And each one includes multiple slidetypes that stick to that theme.

(48:46):
So each one of those.
Features, like, I don't know, 10 or12 different actual slides within it.
Same theme, same purpose, uh, and then youcan pick and choose which ones you want
to use, and you can modify them as needed.
Then there are also buildingblocks available now in that side
menu, uh, think of them as thesmaller cousins of templates.
So they're not full slidesthat are laid out for you.

(49:09):
They're slide components, like somefancy text boxes or some charts
or tables or callouts for quotesor titles and things like that.
there are 13 different categoriesin there at the moment.
There's agendas and keystats, quotes, text call outs.
Badges and more, uh, 13 total.
, and then each of those has ahandful of different things in

(49:30):
there, and then you can modify themonce you get them on your slide.
They're perfect if you just needto zhuzh up a few slides without
rebuilding the whole deck.
And then you can keep them like ontheme with colors and things like
that, and they look pretty great.
Now the next few updates I'm a littlemeh on, so I'll explain while we go.
The first one that I'm mehon is proportional scaling.
The blog from Google says that you can nowresize grouped elements proportionally.

(49:54):
So if you group multiple things,then you go to resize them,
they'll resize proportionally, but.
I'm feeling meh about this becauseI thought we could do this before.
, but hey, maybe I'll spot the improvementnext time I'm editing and I'll
realize, oh no, we couldn't do it.
Now we have this nice feature, but I, Ithought this was something we could do
the other updates are meh forme because of their availability

(50:15):
rather than their usefulness.
They're very useful, but they'renot available to everybody.
So two of these new features,the speaker Spotlight and slides
recording, let you show your videoin the corner during a presentation.
Or, and or record yourselfpresenting directly from in slides.
You don't have to go to Screencastifyor something like that to record.
You could do that right in slides.

(50:36):
But these are only available tofolks with Education plus licenses.
So if you don't have education plusyou don't have this, if you've ever
wondered if your account is EducationPlus or not, just go into a slideshow
and see in that sidebar there, ifthese options for speaker spotlight and
slides, recordings are there or not.
If you see them.

(50:57):
Congratulations, you havean Education Plus account.
If you don't, well you don't.
So there's a third and final meh featurefor me, and I teased this one earlier.
This is an AI image generatorbuilt right into Google Slides.
It's not meh againbecause it works poorly.
It, it's actually pretty awesome.
I tried it out, uh, but it's not availableto everyone, so that makes it kind of meh.

(51:19):
Anyhow, it's called Imagen 3 Imogen.
Imagine.
Image N uh, it's I-M-A-G-E-N.
I don't know how they pronounce that.
Uh, imagine, I guess three,let's just say imagine.
Maybe I'll just be wrong.
Maybe it's Imogen.
I'm gonna go with Imagen.
Anyhow, it lets you type in a promptto generate high quality photorealistic

(51:39):
images right inside of slides.
You can even request certain shapes,like square or vertical or portrait
or whatever, or certain styles,like certain kinds of pictures.
Or have it adapt to your slide deckstyle and theme, but, and this is
a big one, it's only available ifyour school has the Gemini education
or Gemini Education Premium.

(52:02):
Add-on, again, you'll know if youreducation account has that add-on or not.
By checking to see if this appearsin the insert image menu at the top.
Or the sidebar on the right.
So if it's there, you have theGemini education or the Gemini
Education Premium add-on.
If you don't see it, you don't havethose add-ons, so you don't have it.
So of these updates,which ones have you tried?

(52:23):
What have you been impressed with?
Can you tell me why I should be excitedabout the proportional scaling thing?
Hit me up on Bluesky with a#eduDuctTape or leave a voice
message at speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.
On the topic of tools, gettinga glow up, Canva is not willing
to be outdone by Google.

(52:44):
They did their new yearly traditionwhere they host an extravagant live
stream called Canva create wherethey announced so many features.
That it leaves people in charge of helpingother people learn about tech like myself,
breathing into paper bags like that oneGIF of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.
So many updates, so many like ahyperventilating level of updates.

(53:08):
How am I gonna tell my coworkersabout all of these things?
So the first one from this year's Canvacreate event is their Visual Suite 2.0.
So not too long ago, Canva expandedfrom being just like a graphic design,
like, you know, make the invitation foryour kid's third birthday, um, tool to
offering a whole bunch of things likedocs and whiteboards and presentations.

(53:31):
That was just a year or two ago andvideo editing, all kinds of stuff.
And that was reallyexciting when they did that.
That's the Canva we'vecome to know and love.
But what they've added now with whatthey're calling Visual Suite 2.0.
Is the ability to have each of thosethings within the same project.
So picture this, you're on slideone of a presentation, and you

(53:51):
decide that you now need a docfor the next piece of the project.
So you click the plus button in thebottom right corner and instead of
automatically getting a new slide.
You get choices for what to add.
Maybe it's a doc, maybe it's awhiteboard, maybe it's a presentation,
maybe it's a slide, and so on.
So you add a doc after that, maybe youdecide next I actually need a video or a

(54:14):
whiteboard or another presentation slide.
And you could do that all in one project.
And again, collaborative.
'cause it's Canva, it's mind boggling.
And it's really cool.
And I haven't dug in yet, butI'm really excited to try it out.
I actually don't know if itshowed up in my Canva account yet.
Uh, but it sounds really cool.
Now I left out one important pieceof the features in Visual Suite 2.0.

(54:36):
That's because they've added a new toolthat also is one of those options that
you could add inside of the projects.
It's a tool that Canva has beenmissing, uh, but not anymore.
That's right.
There are now spreadsheets inCanva, and because it's Canva,
it's totally different from whatyou get from Microsoft or Google.
They look great.
They have functions that wenever even realized we needed.

(54:59):
They are called Canva Sheets, and Idon't think they're trying to compete
with Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel
in terms of raw formulasand number crunching.
Not to say that they're bad atthose things, but that's really
not the point of this tool.
These are spreadsheetswith design superpowers.
Think color coordinated tables, smartdrag and drop visuals built in charts

(55:21):
that actually look good and get this.
You can even add images and videos.
Into the cells in your sheets.
It's really rad.
It comes loaded with AI featureslike magic insights, magic charts,
and magic formulas that mean youneed less spreadsheet knowledge
to benefit from your data.
No more Googling spreadsheet formulas.
Just describe what you want to thebuilt-in AI and it'll handle it.

(55:45):
It's pretty crazy and becauseit's part of the Visual Suite 2.0.
It means that your data can easily gointo other Canva products, presentations,
docs, et cetera, or content from there caneasily come right into the sheet and they
could be housed within the same project.
So all that information is in one place.
I honestly, as I'm telling you about this,I feel like I'm barely scratching the

(56:05):
surface of the Canva Create announcements.
There were more announcements thatI'll share in an upcoming episode.
Uh, there's also more features tosheets and things like that that
I haven't even mentioned here.
I need to dig in myself.
And so that'll be coming in futureepisodes, but I am eager to see how
they can be integrated into classrooms.
That's what I'm really excited about.
If you've tried any of them, I'd loveto hear your thoughts, share about

(56:25):
it on Bluesky with the #EduDuctTape,or leave me a voice message for the
show at speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.
For our final update for the day,we have all been playing around with
AI tools, text generators, imagegenerators, maybe even video generators.
, but here's a question that we should bethinking about, especially as educators.

(56:46):
How do we say this came fromchatGPT, or this was made by
Canva, ai, things like that.
How do we admit that?
And we gotta model that to our kids.
So I haven't had to do this a tonmyself yet, but I did come across a
blog post from Kapwing, which is avideo creation tool that clearly lays
out how to cite AI generated content.
I thought it was a reallywell-written blog post.

(57:09):
They recommend notingthe name of the tool.
The prompt you used and when yougenerated it, pretty simple, right?
Like this video was generated using blankwith the prompt blank on April 10th, 2025.
Boom.
Transparent, easy to follow.
Everybody knows what youdid and where it came from.
, it's not just about giving credit.

(57:29):
In this situation, it's about modelingresponsible tech use for our students.
, so I'm big on doing this.
Uh, and this process, they're talkingabout doing it with videos 'cause
they're a video tool, but it cancertainly apply to AI generated
images or audio or text, you name it.
, this should work well and all of those, Ithink we've gotta get ahead of this stuff
and show our learners how to use thesetools ethically, not just creatively.

(57:50):
Now I'm wondering if right nowthere are some folks listening to
me out there who have more expertisein copyright and educational
fair use and citations than I do.
I'm not an expert in this stuff.
I'm looking at youlibrary media specialists.
You might be out there saying like, Hmm,actually Jake, I would say you should
do this as well or do it this way.
Um, if you.

(58:11):
It would propose some changesto what this blog suggests.
Let me know.
Share on Bluesky #EduDuctTape or dropa note at speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.

So today's interview with Dan Neeson was much better
than a kale only smoothie.
Uh, but yeah, kale in a smoothie,great kale only smoothie, not so much.
And as we said earlier, the samegoes for screens in the classroom.
We want them there, butnot too much of them.
Like kale tech can be powerful, butonly when it supports not overshadows

(58:46):
what actually makes learning stick.

Jake (58:49):
Connection, reflection, and a real live teacher in the room.
And that's why I love M2 fromtoday's sponsor Swivl.
With M2.
You don't have to choose.
Between embracing AI and protectingwhat makes your classroom special,
you get the best of both worlds.
Check it out at swivl.com/M2.
That's swivl.com/M2.

(59:14):
It's like putting thatbanana in your tech smoothie.
It's best practice and it tastes great.

(59:41):
. We just got a puppy about two weeks ago.
oh.
Look at that.

we got a Cavalier King Charles mixed puppy
name is Charlie.

Jake (59:49):
I, of course.

we got, we got very creative

Jake (59:51):
Oh,

with his name.

Jake (59:53):
yes,

I

Jake (59:53):
I'm,

human names

Jake (59:55):
yeah.

like

Jake (59:56):
As human as possible, right?
like Frank George,

yeah.

Jake (59:59):
Steve, this is my dog, Steven.

Dan Niessen (01:00:01):
yeah, See that's just funny.

Jake (01:00:04):
It is
funny.
the more human, the name it like thelike, and it can't be like super playful.
Like, like it can't be likeI, I don't know, Teddy.
I think that Teddy's fine, but yougotta go like, this is Bartholomew.
This is my dog, Bartholomew.

Yeah, we, we go back and forth between
calling him Charlie and Charles

Jake (01:00:22):
Charles Charles.

do a little, little bit of an accent on

Jake (01:00:25):
Yes.

Charles.

Jake (01:00:27):
No, Charles.

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

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EDT122: Formative Assessment with Dan Niessen: Quizizz, Nearpod, Pear Deck, and Snorkl, plus Google Slides, Canva Visual Suite 2.0, and Canva Sheets

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