Discover some new tools for teaching and learning, leadership, productivity, and even relaxation!

Byrdseed – This site from a teacher features hundreds of ways to “get kids brains sweating,” along with differentiated lesson examples.

CommonLit Curriculum – Complete, free ELA curriculum available for grades 6 through 12. Registration required. They also provide texts in Spanish.

Excelets – This free site from a Professor Emeritus in science and engineering allows you to explore common models such as quadratic equations, potential energy, and ideal gas law. Or, for more fun, try investigating the height of a stack of cookies, septic tank pump-out calculator, or the smallest meteorite calculator. Some are also available in Google Sheets.

Figjam – A great replacement for Google’s Jamboard. This collaborative tool includes an infinite canvas for an unlimited number of individual student collaborations, ability to include video playback, stamps and comments, and a built-in timer to keep everyone on track. Free for students and educators.

Insight Timer – The completely free app has the world’s largest library of free guided meditations with more than 170,000 tracks. It also offers meditations for sleep, breathwork, yoga, and contemplation. Get rid of your stress and take back your sanity! Free account required.

L. Houle’s Ed Tools – This is a huge list of web tools in a variety of categories, none of which require registration and all of which are free. Each tool is briefly annotated. Unfortunately, the list is not updated, but you can still find some good resources here.

Maple Calculator – Available for Android and iOS, this app provides answers, 2-D and 3-D graphs, and even step-by-step solutions. Use your smartphone to take a photo of the problem or of your solution for quick entering. Free.

ReadTheory – Free, personalized by AI reading comprehension exercises for K-12 and ESL.

Random Acts of Kindness Day – This site has amazing and free resources for encouraging all of us to be a little kinder. From a downloadable 2024 Kindness Calendar to RAK Day on February 17, 2024, you’ll definitely make the world a better place if you check out these resources.

Text Blaze – This free Chrome extension is a real time saver. Install it and then set up custom shortcuts for things you type a lot, including templates. It works on any website.

What If? – This site from a former NASA scientist answers wild questions with scientific scrutiny and analysis. What if there was a robot apocalypse? Is there enough energy to move the entire current human population off-planet? What if a rainstorm dropped all of its water in a single giant drop?

AI Prompts – You can always make your chatbot prompts better. Here are a few tips:

Format: Ask for answers in your desired text and file format, like bullet points or spreadsheets.

Restrict: Enforce restrictions such as word limits or timeframes to get the answer you’re looking for.

Roles: Assign a role such as “you are a marketer writing copy for an ad“ to get better results.

Chain-of-Thought: For complex prompts, adding instructions such as “take your time“ or “think through it step by step“ can also increase performance.

AudioPen – Accessible from your computer or on the go from your phone, Audio Pen takes spoken words and converts them to text. Once text has been generated, you can review, edit, copy and paste, or share it with others. The free version of AudioPen allows for three-minute recordings.

Book and Bot – This is an interesting use of AI to supplement reading. Students read the book Maya Jam Invents a Pet and then can chat with an AI bot acting as the character. Free to chat, but requires the paid version of ChatGPT.

Freepik Pikaso – This free drawing program is great for both hand-drawing and using prompts to generate images. Have students use it to imagine scenes from books or to illustrate science concepts. Free.

Goblin Tools – This is a collection of small, simple, single-task tools, mostly designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult. It uses AI to help individuals perform tasks and is completely free. Mobile apps of the tools are offered at a low price. Tools include:

·   Magic ToDo – Break down tasks into small, manageable steps.

·   Formalizer – Convert your writing into something more professional or more to the point or more social, and many others.

·   Judge – Enter your text and it will help you identify the tone.

·   Estimator – Enter an activity and it will provide an estimate of how long it will take to complete.

·   Compiler – Merge a brain dump of tasks into a cohesive list.

·   Chef – Enter the ingredients you have and any dietary constraints, and it will suggest what you can cook.

GPT Workspace – Use ChatGPT 3.5 directly inside Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Drive to save time and work more efficiently with this extension. The free version includes 3,000 credits per day.

Mizou – This is an AI Chatbot that can tutor, assess, and grade our students in 50 different languages. You can create your own chatbot easily for students to interact with and learn from. Free for teachers.

Poe – While the Poe AI chatbot isn’t new, it does have a new feature that you might want to check out. ChatGPT requires that you have a Pro/paid account in order to use GPTs, but Poe doesn’t. That means that you can create GPTs easily for your students to access and use. Check out this example from Herb Coleman for his students; it provides an interactive way to ask questions about the class syllabus.

TextFX – Help your students play with language with the nine different tools included in this offering from Google: Simile, Explode, Unexpect, Chain, POV, Alliteration, Acronym, Fuse, Scene, and Unfold. This would be good for generating creative writing prompts. Learn how to use it with this YouTube video. Free.

Twee – This tool is for ELA teachers and can help with reading, writing, vocabulary, listening, speaking, and grammar. The free version allows you to have 20 runs/month for Text Tools; 10 runs/month for Media Tools; a 5-minute input limit on media; and the ability to export to PDF.

The Universal Sandpit - These six tools use a ChatGPT API linked to some web forms. They are all free. The six tools include (descriptions below taken from the tool website):

·         Using Interests: Use this tool to input an interest that a student has (for example, Pokémon) and a class topic you’re planning to teach (for example, Shapes in numeracy), and then you’ll be provided with ten ideas for incorporating that interest into the content.

·         Visual Teaching: Use this tool to input a lesson topic (for example, How electricity works) and the age of the students in your class (for example, 7). Then hit “Show Ideas,” wait around ten seconds, and you’ll read a list of ten ideas to help add visual teaching strategies into your classroom.

·         Differentiation: Use this tool to input a topic (for example, US history) and then the age of your students (for example, 13), hit the button and wait around ten seconds to receive five levels of differentiated instruction.

·         Social Scripts: Use this tool to enter a social skill you need support with (for example, Learning to make friends) and then hit the button. You’ll receive a unique social script that you can then adjust and individualize for a student.

·         Explain to Me: Use this tool to enter a concept (for example, How does electricity work?) and the age of the student you want to explain it to (for example, 5) and then hit Explain to receive an age-appropriate summary of the concept.

·         Task Analysis: Type a task into this tool to break it down into simple steps. For example, you could try something like Making toast, or you could try something social like Saying hello to my friends.

Acrostic Poem Generator – Enter a word or name and this free site will create a lovely acrostic poem.

Character.ai – Chat for free with historical figures, celebrities, and other characters created by the community.

LiveCams – Need to get rid of some stress and relax for a few minutes? Then visit on of the many live cameras available free. Watch kittens, puppies, pandas, and so many more. If the animals leave you still tense, then try listening to Rainy Mood or A Soft Murmur, where you can create your own background sounds.

Songmeaning - This tool leverages artificial intelligence to analyze song lyrics, providing unique interpretations of themes and sentiments that might not be immediately apparent. Just enter in the name of a song and it will provide you a very detailed analysis and background information about the song. (Try "Hotel California" by the Eagles, for fun.)