🗑 New guide: Techy ideas to engage students

🎙️ I’m keynoting FRIDAY at this free AI summit

I’m giving a 30 minute keynote speech on FRIDAY about how I’m embedding AI literacy in my classroom — and how you can, too!

WHAT: The Back to School AI Summit 2025
WHEN: All this week (ending on Friday)
WHERE: Online from anywhere
COST: Free

After you register, you’ll be sent to the webpage for the summit. You’ll be able to watch all the presentations on previous days — including the keynote speeches, practical breakout sessions, and sponsor sessions. (Just scroll down on that page.)

My presentation is from 9:00 to 9:30am U.S. Eastern time tomorrow (Friday).

PS: I’ll be in my classroom! My class is scheduled to end — and the bell to ring — at 9:01am. 🤣 You’ll get to watch me pull all of that together at the last minute!

💻 TECH TIP 💻

📺 Retro Report’s “Teaching About 9/11” resource

Today is the 24th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks here in the United States.

If you’re looking for resources to use today — or even to use tomorrow (or soon), you’ve got to check out Retro Report’s resources.

(I wish I could have shared these in Monday’s newsletter but I only just found out about them!)

They have videos, webinars, full lesson plans, interactive timelines and more that'll prepare you to teach -- and lead student discussions.

And yep, it’s all free. Retro Report is one of my favorite free teaching resources. Check it out.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🐝 5 buzzworthy, techy teaching ideas for your class

It’s getting harder and harder to capture — and keep! — our students’ attention.

You see the competition all over the place. Short-form video. Social media. Students are constantly inundated with quick messages begging for their attention.

It’s hard enough for those advertisers to capture attention.

But they don’t have it as hard as we teachers do!

So … how can we do it? Cut through all the noise and get through to our students?

In my own classroom, I started to find an answer … a big idea that I started using in countless little ways all over my class.

“If they love it, USE IT.”

I worked with RocketPD to create a quick guide about this very concept — a six-page downloadable PDF to explain it and give you some ideas.

You can grab the guide with the red button below — and then I’ll explain more and provide some extra resources below.

What do you mean: “If they love it, USE IT”?

Years ago, I watched my Spanish 1 students excitedly talking about this brand new social media platform …

Vine. (Do you remember Vine?)

It featured these six-second looping videos. They loved watching them … and they already had several favorite videos and creators.

I started thinking: If that’s what they’re into, can I make use of it in the classroom somehow? (I think students would tell us this is exactly how adults ruin EVERYTHING. 😂)

• I couldn’t ask my students to use the Vine app for classwork for a variety of reasons.

• I identified the essence of the Vine experience: creative short-form videos.

• We started making “vocabulary Vines” — quick, fun videos depicting their vocabulary words.

• It touches on a big idea — You don’t need the app to create the experience.

• Can you make learning feel like things that students love?

5 ways to apply “If they love it, USE IT”

In free student attention guide I created with RocketPD, it outlines five ways to apply that principle: “If they love it, USE IT” …

1. Use tech to mimic students’ favorite experiences

2. Make learning interactive, not passive

3. Design with student motivation in mind

4. Start small, simplifying your tech stack

5. Use collaboration to stay inspired

Each one of those ways comes with explanation and a few examples of how to put it into practice. I love this guide … it’s quick, it sparks some new ideas, and it gets you started right away.

💼 Resources to put these ideas into action

When you get the guide, you’ll see some very practical techy teaching ideas and suggestions.

Here are some resources to get you started …

• Instagram Stories: Use this pre-made Google Slides/PowerPoint template to make your next assignment feel like Instagram Stories.

• Yelp Review: This fun template lets your students review locations, historical innovations, and people’s services like they do on Yelp.

• TikTok Template: This free Slides/PowerPoint template lets students drop images (or even videos) into slides to create a TikTok experience.

• More templates: You can find these and even more in our free templates library.

🤖 BONUS: Use AI to see how to use these ideas —

• Download the student attention PDF guide.

• Upload it to your AI assistant of your choice (i.e. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic’s Claude).

• Use a prompt like this: “I teach <your content area/grade level> and love the ideas in this PDF guide. Can you suggest 20 ways I could incorporate ideas like this in my class?”

• Even better: Also add what your next unit/chapter/lesson is going to be about for specific recommendations!

❤️ Love this idea? Let’s do a deep dive …

I’m hosting a live 5-week online course in November and December with TONS of ideas and insight into capturing (and keeping) student attention in your classroom.

DATES: Wednesdays (Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 19, Dec. 3, Dec. 10)
TIME: 3:30-5:00 pm U.S. Eastern time
LOCATION: Live via Zoom

You can get all the details here — and learn about group discounts.

This course is a deep dive into the ideas from my book, Tech Like a Pirate. I’ve never done a comprehensive online course about the book, expanding on each chapter and big idea in a live cohort like this.

• Session 1: Attention Deficit - And How We Capture It (+ Social Media & Apps)

• Session 2: Teaching to a New Generation: Meet GenZ, Alpha, & Beta (+ Video)

• Session 3: Tap Into Your Own Creativity: How to Source Buzzworthy Teaching Ideas (+ Games)

• Session 4: Exploring the Link Between Interactivity & The Science of Learning (+ Images)

• Session 5: Move Learning Forward & Student Attention Forward + Everything Else

I’d love to see you — once a week for five weeks! — in this live cohort-based online course in November and December.

👋 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!