Meeting each student where they are is one of the biggest challenges teachers navigate. It’s also the challenge Kira was built to help with.

In a recent live panel, Greg Bagby, an instructional technology coach in Tennessee, and Harl Roehm, a CS and CTE teacher at Collierville Schools, shared how they approach the start of the year: building relationships first, learning what each student needs, and turning those insights into clear next steps.

If you’re planning for the first few weeks back, their conversation is a great place to start. You can also explore the key takeaways in our guide, 5 Ways to Personalize Learning This Fall.

Introducing the DTT Community Spotlight! Every few weeks we will now highlight the life and work of one of our community members.

First, we're catching up with Tim Belmont, a high school ELA teacher and instructional technology specialist out of New Jersey, and one of the most consistent voices in the DTT community since it opened. Tim's the kind of Ditcher who shows up, tries something, and comes back to tell you how it went. We asked him a few questions about teaching, community, and what he's thinking about next.

How'd you find your way to Ditch That Textbook, and what made you stick around?

I've been following Matt Miller's work and the practical resources found on Ditch That Textbook for quite a while. Once the community opened, I knew I wanted to be a part of it!

What's something you tried in your classroom recently that you wish you could tell every teacher about?

Consistent, meaningful reflection is always worth the time for students. I've used it through post-speech written reflections in Public Speaking, formal writing portfolio reflection in Language Arts, and quick informal reactions throughout the year. I've seen how it can both encourage growth and also reinforce how different concepts are connected. Highly recommended for everyone!

Has there been a time someone in the community helped you rethink something?

My fellow New Jersey friends Danny and Kaylee have helped me contextualize my role as school technology specialist, empowering me to have a bigger impact by sharing my experiences and ideas.

Do you have a small win from this past year that's important to you?

Podcast creation is a big part of my elective classes, and this past year students were able to share their creations with a wider audience. I hope to expand that audience as time goes on!

What do you wish more people knew about teaching your grade/subject?

Language Arts, particularly at the high school level, is so much more than reading books together and then writing essays about them. English teachers bring so many different skills and disciplines into their classrooms including history, media literacy, and digital skills. These different approaches to literacy make an LA class an excellent place for students to explore their personal interests and truly find their voices.

Outside of school, what's keeping you sane, inspired, or entertained lately?

I've been on a music kick lately, playing bass guitar and adding to the record collection. Spending an afternoon listening to an album and looking at the large-format liner notes is good for the soul, even if it's a very loud metal album.

⭐ What makes you a Ditcher?

I'm always on the lookout for alternatives and new ideas. If a practice is still happening just because it has been that way for a while, I'm not afraid to ditch it for something better.

What's one thing you're hoping to try, learn, or figure out next?

Everyone is using AI, but I want to learn more about how it works under the hood. It seems to be a 'black box' to many, so I want to make sure I have a grasp on neural networks and large language models.

Tim's answers say a lot about what this community is for: the kind of conversation that even helps a teacher see their own role a little differently. If you've got a Danny or a Kaylee in your corner, or you're still looking for one, that's exactly what we're here to build.

You can “meet” Tim directly by leaving him a comment on this interview in the community.

You can join the free DTT Community to read ideas like this, connect with other educators, discuss, and share ideas of your own.

Whether you’re stepping into your first classroom or giving your space a refresh, we know how overwhelming finding the right tools can be.

That’s why the What’s New in K-2 newsletter team put together "Amazon Finds for the Classroom"—a curated, 40+ page guide filled with 30+ teacher-tested, affordable items to save you time and keep your day running smoothly! 🙌

We created this guide to take the guesswork out of setting up and running your classroom.

👋🏼 Psst! Know a K-2 teacher who would LOVE to get resources like this sent straight to their inbox each week? Share this link with them so that they can get their own copy of this ebook and sign up for the newsletter!

Here are a few highlights from the 40+ pages waiting for you:

Keep your classroom clutter-free and make cleanup effortless for young learners:

Build smooth routines and quiet transitions from day one:

Keep energy high and learning active with hands-on tools:

Because taking care of yourself is just as important as running your classroom:

Plus, you'll find a complete printable shopping checklist at the end of the guide to help you budget for the year ahead!

Click below to open your guide and start exploring:

Sharing is caring! Know a teacher who would LOVE this guide? Share this link with them so that they can sign up for What’s New in K-2 and get a copy sent straight to them too!

In today’s education world, there’s a LOT of talk about using technology (and not using technology) to learn.

There are lots of strong opinions about using paper and pencil (or not using paper and pencil) to do learning activities.

Here’s what I don’t see …

How we can use the best of BOTH worlds.

With tech and with paper/pencil, it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing thinking.

In fact, when we use paper and pencil to start the learning process, we can amplify / augment / extend it with technology in meaningful ways.

I’ve recently started offering a conference breakout session called “Tech + Paper.” I always tell people it’s a work in progress. I am experimenting with these combinations in my own high school Spanish class — and am trying to put my finger on what I like about it and why it works (when it does work).

Here are some of the conclusions I’ve found …

As I’ve experimented more and more with this concept, a pattern has emerged …

It’s still somewhat early, so I’m sure there are probably other ways this can be configured, but this is the workflow that I keep seeing repeated in the work my students and I are doing.

✂️💻 Have any ideas for paper + tech activities? Share them in our DTT community here — and see what others have posted!

The students in my Spanish class were learning jobs/professions vocabulary. I liked the idea of using an AI image generator (like the ones in Google Gemini or ChatGPT) to make flashcards with illustrations and the terms.

Here’s the prompt I used to make them:

I'd like you to create an image of 12 trading cards depicting various careers. Make the cards in rows of 4, 3 total rows (a 4x3 layout). each trading card should have an illustration of the job and a little label at the bottom with the Spanish word for the job. For the illustrations, use modern animated movie style. image size 11" x 8.5". Make them like a perforated sheet where the cards are edge to edge.

The students cut the cards out … but what good are these cards if we don’t have anything to do with them?

I started brainstorming with AI to come up with games and hands-on activities students could do. I talked about some of them in this video, but this one was my favorite …

The two-by-two matrix. We drew a two by two grid (making four total squares) and ranked the jobs on our flashcards based on two criteria. Here’s an example …

higher salary
⬆️
⬇️
lower salary
more outdoors ⬅️➡️ more indoors

So the top left would be higher salary / more outdoors …

the bottom left would be lower salary / more outdoors …

the top right would be higher salary / more indoors …

and bottom right would be lower salary / more indoors.

We changed the criteria around. It got students thinking, interacting with the cards and using the vocabulary words.

All in all, this wasn’t a perfect example of the “make, capture, amplify” workflow, but it was fun — and it was a blend of AI-generated images and hands-on activities.

Sometimes, I have the students in my Spanish classes do “rotating stories” or “add and pass stories.” They start a story on a sheet of paper, then pass it to someone else. The story makes its way around the classroom and everyone has a part in creating it.

In the past, I’ve always thought: “These stories are amazing! It’d be a shame for this activity to just end when we finish the stories.”

Now there’s a new way for us to extend the fun — and use AI to reimagine the students’ work.

I’ll take pictures of some of the students’ stories and give them to Gemini or ChatGPT and ask it to make a comic strip of the stories they’ve written.

Then, I’ll put those comic strip images on a slideshow and show students so we can critique the AI-generated output (building their AI literacy skills!) and get more repetitions with new vocabulary words.

Plus, it’s just fun to see how students’ work is represented visually.

Have you tried something like this?

Does this paper + tech concept — or the “make, capture, amplify” workflow — spark any ideas?

I just started a new discussion thread in our FREE DTT online community about this. Share anything you’re thinking or something you’ve tried … or just jump over there to see what others are sharing!

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