🗑 Have you seen this new Google tool???

❤️ Teaching Is Human. Brisk Saves Time.

Your energy belongs with your students—not stuck behind endless prep and grading. That’s where Brisk comes in.

Brisk is an AI-powered education platform with a Chrome and Edge extension, plus a full web hub within Brisk Next. Whether you’re in Docs, Word, Slides, PowerPoint, YouTube, or browsing the web, Brisk helps you plan lessons, create activities, and give feedback in a fraction of the time.

Think of it as support that fits seamlessly into your routine, while you focus on the parts of teaching only you can do.

💻 TECH TIP 💻

Build Complete, Standards-Aligned Units in Minutes with TeachAid

Struggling to craft complete lesson units that fit your busy schedule? TeachAid lets you create complete, ready-to-teach units for free in under five minutes.

Simply enter your topic, grade level, and standards, like Ontario's math curriculum for Grade 5 fractions. The AI generates everything: detailed lesson plans, interactive slides, collaborative activities, assessments with rubrics, and built-in supports for diverse learners.

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It's all standards-aligned automatically, ensuring compliance without extra work. As the all-in-one curricular solution, it includes an interactive classroom, AI tutors for students, collaborative activities and IEP accommodations, turning generic plans into engaging, equitable experiences.

Best part: Free to sign up and use, with no strings attached. Join over 15,000 educators and save hours weekly while boosting student buy-in through culturally responsive materials.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🎥 How to use Google Vids for classroom videos

Video creation used to be really complicated. You needed editing software … stock video … a powerful computer.

Not anymore. Google Vids makes it really easy to create videos from scratch — from your slides, from an idea in your brain, and more.

And there’s a ton of applications for this in the classroom.

If you aren’t familiar with this new Google tool, we’ll catch you up to speed. Plus, you can get all of the details in our new post: How to use Google Vids: AI powered video creation in the classroom

What is Google Vids?

Vids (vids.google.com) is an AI-powered video creation app that's part of Google Workspace.

It blends the AI power of Gemini with the easy and familiar Google Slides style format to give you a simple video editing tool that can bring static images, text and presentations to life.

You can create custom videos up to 10 minutes long, and because it's part of the Google Workspace, it integrates seamlessly with your existing and files in Google Drive. Note: Google Vids is available to Google Workspace for Education customers.

Where can I find Vids?

There are multiple ways to access Google Vids. The easiest way to start creating is to type Vids.new into your browser, this will open up the getting started screen.

You can access Vids from your Google Drive by clicking New then Google Vids or from the Google Apps launcher in the upper right hand corner of any Google Workspace main menu by clicking on the 9 dots.

Ways to create video with Google Vids

Creating a video is pretty easy and you have a few ways to get started. Note: You'll see this menu with a few other options when you first create a new Vid.

• Let AI help you create: Click on Storyboard and give Gemini a prompt or even add an existing document from Drive, and it will generate an initial video outline and storyboard for you.

• Start with a template: You don't have to start from scratch. Choose from a library of pre-built templates to quickly jumpstart your project.

• Record and upload: Want to use your own content? You can record your screen or webcam directly in the app, or upload your own video clips, images, and GIFs from your computer or Google Drive.

• Turn slides into a video: This is one of my favorites! Have a great Google Slides presentation? You can transform it into a video, where each slide becomes a scene. Try it!

Making your first video

Creating a video with Vids is designed to be user-friendly and familiar to those that already use Google apps. It seem especially similar to Google Slides.

After you have a draft of a video, you can easily customize and enhance it by adding stock media, text, transitions, and even AI-generated videos, avatars and voiceovers.

1. The main toolbar is the command center — like what you’d see in Google Docs or Slides.

2. The playback and sharing bar lets you preview your video and share with others.

3. The right side panel lets you add lots of elements like Veo videos, avatars, voiceovers, and more.

4. The video preview area is the main canvas or workspace where you see and edit video scenes.

5. The timeline is where you arrange all of your content just like you want.

10 ideas for using Google Vids in the classroom

What can you do with Google Vids in the classroom? So much! This is just the beginning. Here are a few of my favorite ideas — and you can read summaries of each of these in our full post: How to use Google Vids: AI powered video creation in the classroom.

• Science concept explanations: Enhance a traditional slideshow by adding a video element. Have students create a slideshow demonstrating a scientific concept or a labeled system (e.g., the human heart). They can then use a recorded voiceover to explain the process, with each slide or scene corresponding to a different step.

• Create a class podcast or school newscast: Empower students to become content creators. Use a pre-built Vids templates to create a recurring series like a "Week in Review" or a "School News" segment. Students can be responsible for different scenes, such as interviews, event announcements, or sports recaps.

• Make history come to life: Instead of a traditional report, have students use Google Vids to create a compelling video about a historical event. They can use the AI video generation feature to visualize the event and add a voiceover, text, and images to tell the full story. This transforms a research assignment into a dynamic, engaging project.

There’s even more!

Check out our full post about Google Vids for full explanations of everything and lots of links to extra resources.

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!