First day of class? ✅
New school year. New classroom. New students. Let’s do it.
Today was my first day back with students!
This year, like last year, I’m teaching one period of Spanish 3 (dual credit) during first period. (The rest of the day I’m doing this — creating newsletters and social media posts, interacting in our DTT online community, and preparing for in-person and virtual workshops with schools, districts, and events.)
My first day has been pretty uneventful — in a good way. We went over some procedures. Then, we did a quick story in Spanish for class participation points. (I love showing students “here’s what we do in this class” on the first day in addition to the rules and procedures.)
If you’re looking for back-to-school tips and advice and ideas, you should check out the Back to School channel in our free online DTT community. Teachers are already sharing their best ideas for seating charts, classroom rules, relationships, and family connections — and you can, too!
PS: If there’s something you do at back-to-school that works, hit the “New Post” button (image below) in the community and tell us about it!
Inside:
📢 Calling all Design & Computer Science teachers
👀 DTT Digest: 4 resources worth checking out
👥 Community: Our best back-to-school tips and ideas
💻 Tech Tip: Update: Now add videos to Snorkl!
💡 The Big Idea: Free template (+ ideas): Who Wants to be a Millionaire
😄 Smile of the day: I’m not ready yet!
👋 How we can help
📢 Calling all Design & Computer Science teachers
Ready to start designing apps with your students, in the same tools as professionals?
Most of our favorite apps and websites are created with Figma Design, yet most students graduate without learning how digital experiences are designed, or getting the opportunity to build one themselves.
Let’s change that.
This fall, join Figma for a free five-part webinar series created for middle and high school design, computer science, and technology educators. You’ll learn practical ways to help students:
Create realistic, clickable app and website prototypes
Collaborate and share feedback like real-world design teams
Build confidence with professional design tools
Develop portfolio-ready projects
You’ll also hear from educators already using Figma in their classrooms and leave with ready-to-use workflows, teaching strategies, and resources.
Series dates: August 13, 20, and 27, and September 2 and 9
Time: 4:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Pacific
Register once for free access to all five sessions, then attend the full series or choose the sessions that work best for you.
Figma is free for education. No prior Figma experience is required. Let’s get building!
👀 DTT Digest
4 teaching resources worth checking out today
🗺️ Explore the Summer Road Trip Series with Kids Discover — Keep your young readers active and curious all throughout the summer as we spotlight America's most famous landmarks with free, engaging, high-interest Units.
📚 Back to school resources from Book Creator — They have tons of templates, pre-made books, and even webinars to get your school year started right.
🤖 8 Classroom AI Policies Developed by Teachers — In this article from Edutopia educators across disciplines and grade levels share their current policies.
👋🏼 60 get-to-know-you questions for students — 60 get-to-know-you questions for students, organized by category and grade — plus, easy ways to use them for icebreakers, morning warm-ups, and first-day connection.
👥 FROM THE COMMUNITY 👥
🙋♀️ Our best back-to-school tips and ideas
Our back-to-school discussions are off to a great start!
Educators are already sharing what they do during back-to-school time.
Right now, you can jump in and see what they’re saying — and add your own ideas, too!
In our Back-to-School channel in our free online community, you’ll find …
Some of my faves from these discussoins:
Kristin sits students alphabetically so she can learn their names — then lets them sit wherever.
Lissa co-creates classroom norms with her studnets for each class.
Jamie has students do an “All About Me” bag to share.
Marla uses ParentSquare to communicate with families.
You can join the free DTT Community to read ideas like this, connect with other educators, discuss, and share ideas of your own.
💻 TECH TIP 💻
🤿 Update: Now add videos to Snorkl!
Screenshot from help.snorkl.com
Have you ever wanted to climb inside your students' brains to see exactly how they're processing a lesson?
Meet Snorkl.
If you aren't familiar, Snorkl allows students to record their thinking on a digital whiteboard. They can use drawing, highlighting, typing text, inserting equations, and uploading images, while simultaneously explaining their thought process aloud.
This summer they launched a massive update: Teachers can now add videos to Snorkl activities!
You can drop in a YouTube link or upload your own video file to provide instructions, demonstrate a concept, or give students a clip to analyze.
🛠️ Step-by-Step: Adding Video to Snorkl
Ready to embed your first video? It's incredibly simple.
Open your whiteboard — Jump into creating or editing a Snorkl activity.
Click the Video button — You'll find this right in the whiteboard toolbar.
Choose your source — Paste a YouTube URL or upload a file right from your computer. (Supported upload files include MP4, MOV, and WebM!)
Drag and resize — Move the video exactly where you want it on your whiteboard and size it to fit your layout perfectly.
👀 What the Students See
The student experience is designed to keep them focused and in control of their own learning pacing.
Full-screen auto-play: Videos automatically play in full-screen mode on the student side to eliminate distractions.
Play, pause, and rewind: Students have full control to rewatch the clip as many times as they need while formulating their response.
Read-only mode: Note that video uploading is a teacher-only superpower! Students cannot upload their own videos, nor can they edit or replace the ones you've added.
💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡
💰 Free template (+ ideas): Who Wants to be a Millionaire
Grab our free template — with pre-made games and a quiz builder!
Gameshow-style games are not just "filler" activities—they are goldmines for engagement because they offer immediate, zero-prep utility that gets kids and adults ridiculously excited.
Why I love this format for the classroom
The classic game show format is the ultimate engagement tool because it combines three powerful elements:
Low-Stakes Tension: Students love the thrill of "leveling up" with high-stakes questions, even if the "money" is just points or pride.
Immediate Feedback: Reviewing content becomes a dynamic, real-time conversation instead of a grading chore. My sequential slide system highlights the correct response in red on the very next slide so everyone gets instant feedback.
Plug-and-Play Ease: You do not need to be a developer. You just need my Google Slides or PowerPoint template and your standards.
That’s why we spent some time this summer gathering ideas and putting together a whole pack of gameshow templates, games and tools to help you get playing right away with your class or even your colleagues!
The classic Who Wants to be a Millionaire template
This interactive slide deck features a clean layout with four multiple-choice options and a progress ladder that climbs step-by-step from $100 all the way to the $1,000,000 prize.
The magic is in the smart sequential slide system: you present the first slide with the question and choices, and the very next slide automatically highlights the correct response in red. This gives everyone instant feedback without any complicated coding. The deck concludes with a victory slide where you can easily swap out the million-dollar prize for your own classroom reward, like extra credit or class privileges.
Three ready to play games
Prep time is hard to come by, especially right now, so we have taken the work off your plate:
Three Ready-to-Play Games: We have created 16-question games for different audiences. You can use these games as they are or make a copy and edit for your group.
Who Wants to be a Tech-Savvy Teacher is great for EdTech workshops. Play the game/Get the template
Who Wants to be a Millionaire: Education Edition is perfect for middle or high school warm-ups. Play the game/Get the template
Who Wants to be a Gemini Genius is designed for exploring AI tools. Play the game/Get the template
Custom Quiz Generator: If you want to make your own game, simply input your theme and audience age level to our quiz generator, and it will instantly generate 16 questions and answers in increasing difficulty.
Level Up with Lifelines: You can easily add classic lifelines like "50:50," "Phone-a-Friend" (calling an "expert" student or teacher in another room), and "Ask the Audience" using a quick digital poll like Pear Deck or Mentimeter.
Perfect for the start of the year
You do not have to save this just for end-of-year unit test prep. As we head back to school, try using the game for:
Formative Pre-Assessments: Flip the game show format to the beginning of a unit to spark instant curiosity and catch common misunderstandings before diving into instruction.
Parent Night & Open House: Warm up the room and build relationships by testing parents on homework expectations, school trivia, or even playing "Are You Smarter Than A Grader?".
Staff PD & Culture Building: Beat faculty fatigue by gamifying handbook updates or kicking off staff meetings with custom "Teacher Trivia" about colleagues.
😄 Smile of the day
Wasn’t it??????
Source: Seventeen.com
👋 How we can help
There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:
Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.
Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.
Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!
