Listening to one of my favorite AI podcasts this morning on the way into work, I was shocked to hear one of the hosts refer to all the junk formatting codes (also known as markdown) messing up with the use of prompt results. The problem? When you use a chatbot, it outputs the result in markdown format. To keep the formatting of the on screen content, you have to run that output through a markdown to HTML/webpage converter, then paste that webpage output into your word processor of choice, whether Google Docs or Microsoft Word.

Some of my colleagues complain about having to do this. “It’s one to many steps to get usable content.” I don’t see it that way, of course. And, Google Docs has made it easier to export content as Markdown (see screenshot below), which makes things a little easier. You can take that export and drop it into an AI chatbot directly without losing the formatting. It’s only when you want to go back from the AI chatbot to Google Docs that formatting must run through a converter first..

AI Chatbots have found their way into the hands of teachers and students around the globe. In classrooms, about half of U.S. teachers and K-12 students now use an AI chatbot like ChatGPT on a weekly basis. Only about 20 percent of students say they haven’t used AI. With widespread use of AI, many continue to struggle with getting information in and out of chatbots. With that in mind, it’s worth brushing up on file formats.

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Looking for some easy ways to get content into and out of AI chatbots? Learn to use Markdown. Here are some digital tools you may find helpful. If you are copying-n-pasting from an AI chatbot, chances are it supports markdown. Copy it, paste it into a Markdown to HTML converter, then copy the HTML formatted version into your word processor.

Read on for some more tips with markdown and AI tools.

Copy Webpage Selection as Markdown

You’re on a website. You want to grab part of it. Format and all. Use a browser extension. “Copy selection as markdown” is what you need. Install it. Highlight text on any site. Right-click. Choose “copy selection as markdown.” It’s in your clipboard now. Paste it into your AI chatbot. The formatting stays. It’s that simple.

Here are some good ones for Chrome:

• Selection to Markdown Link
• Copy as Markdown
• Copy as Markdown
• ChatGPT to Markdown

Using Firefox? Try one of these add-ons.

Grab text from a website. Check if it’s fake news. Copy your own writing. Rework it. Select text to show colleagues. Get AI feedback.

Try it. It’s easy. Website to markdown. No fuss.

Convert Google Docs to Markdown

I use Google Docs a lot. My documents have headings. They have formatted text. Sometimes I need to move them. I don’t want to export. I don’t want to save files. I convert them in my browser. I use a Google Doc extension.

The Google Marketplace has many options. I use one. It’s reliable. It’s called Docs to Markdown. Bean Road Communications made it.

Convert WebP to JPG or PNG

ChatGPT and other places give you WebP images. It’s a problem. Many programs don’t use WebP. There’s a fix. Use browser tools. Right-click an image. Save as JPG or PNG. These formats work everywhere.

Here are three tools:

• Convert to PNG
• Convert to JPG
• Convert to WebP

The first two change WebP to PNG and JPG. The last does the opposite. Use them. Make your images work everywhere.

Researchers from the Pew Research Center have found that gamifying learning stimulates interest and deep engagement with content. Two tools that facilitate this include Kahoot! and the relative newcomer, Quizizz.

Quizizz allows you to create multi-player quizzes that work on almost any device. What’s more, you can access others’ assessments that can be completed in class or assigned as homework. With your free account, you can export the results as well. Teachers create their account and publish the link to the Quizizz. Then students, working at their own pace, complete the quiz using any Internet-connected mobile device. The more quickly they respond, the more points they gain.

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Technology department staff often ask how they can better secure confidential data, especially in these days of hackers and leaks. One approach involves improving the data processes themselves. Another is to coach other staff before they choose a new instructional platform. Start with Georgetown ISD’s template to get the conversation started. For technology departments, reflect on your responses to these four questions.

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Unleash your inner artist with DrawCharts, the AI-powered tool that transforms your data into stunning, hand-drawn visualizations.

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With the upcoming unavailability of Microsoft Flip (f.k.a. Flipgrid) effective July 1, 2024, many are looking for alternatives. Enter Padlet.

Padlet, which costs $99 a year and is worth every penny if you need an online collaboration, bulletin board, AI-powered space for classroom projects and professional learning, is offering an alternative. Since I hadn’t played around with this yet, I thought I’d kick the tires. This is an illustrated walkthrough, more to teach myself. I plan to incorporate this into my upcoming sessions and workshops with adult learners.

Pricing for Padlet

You can see Padlet’s pricing or subscription rates online, but here’s a screenshot of a portion of that page:

Padlet should consider running a special for educators. That said, these options are available in the free option

Discussion Boards via Padlet

Padlet offers the Discussion Board option, as you can see in the image above. Below, you can see an example Padlet where you can leave a message using Padlet’s video option, which you can see is one of the options in the plethora of choices available:

Too many choices?

Narrow the Choices for Responses Down

You can, of course, disable many of these choices so that video is the only one available. To do so, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Go to Settings

Click the gear on the right side of the screen, and access the Settings, including the Engagement settings. Then, click on POST FIELDS. You are going to click on that then modify ATTACHMENTS.

Step 2: View Attachments Available

Once you have clicked on them, view available Attachments. Items that have a checkmark next to them will appear, while other unchecked items will not be available to students:

Step 3: Uncheck Attachments

In this step, uncheck any unwanted attachment types: Then, SAVE your work.

Step 4: View Your Changes

Once changes have been saved, you’re ready to leave a response. Here’s what the more limited choices appear as:

Step 5: Try It Out

Give it a try and record a video. This is what that looks like:

When you are done recording a video, then you get two options, after which you can publish:

Once your video is posted, you can download or save the video to your device. Others participating in the Padlet can also respond to your video. This was all very easy and took more time to explain that it took me to do…and that’s great!

Explore

Want to give it a try yourself? Here’s a Padlet focused on the question:

How can we integrate AI ethics into current K-12 digital citizenship curricula effectively?

Give this a shot on this Padlet a colleague of mine decided to host.

Ever wish you could turn student-created ePub files into narrated audio books? Or make any ePub into an audio book? You can on your Windows computer, by taking advantage of the Freda ebook’s built-in audio reader. Before we go through the process, let’s take a moment to revisit how you can create an ePub-formatted ebook for free.

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Get an editable prompt template and create a rubric with ChatGPT in less than one minute! Watch it work its magic in an example video. As educators, we all know and appreciate the importance of the rubric in providing quality student assessment and feedback. But actually creating a solid rubric that’s clear, aligns with the curriculum, and is well-structured can be daunting and, let’s be real, time consuming. If you’re like me, rubrics are perfect for overthinking. I’ll build one, and then continue to refine and adapt to “improve it,” in hopes of making it airtight. But then, I look at the clock to realize hours have passed. Can this be avoided? Yes. Thank goodness! You can create a rubric with ChatGPT in less than a minute and free up precious time for other priorities.

Read more of Emily Horn’s blog at TCEA TechNotes blog

Need to get a set of quiz questions from one system (e.g. Quizlet, Kahoot!) into another? Find out how to convert quizzes easily! Are you an online quiz user? Not the social media quiz kind, but the teacher who uses tools like Quizlet, Kahoot!, Quizizz, and others? While quiz questions are often available in various places, they may not be on the platform you want them to be in. How do you get a quiz from Quizlet Flashcards into Kahoot!? Or a quiz from Kahoot! into ClassQuiz? Let’s learn how to convert from one quiz maker to another and how to export and import questions. We’ll walk through the following actions, and you can feel free to jump to any section that will meet your needs.

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Dig into this K12 SIX series of cybersecurity tools, which offers specific actions you can take as a CTO and school leadership team. Since the start of 2024, there have been 5,300 school districts that suffered a data breach. These schools are all in the United States. In 2021, 56% of schools reported data breaches. In 2022, 80% of schools reported ransomware attacks (source). Almost half resulted in ransom payments (source). Massive data leaks expose sensitive information. This information ends up on the dark web in the hands of nefarious individuals. It is a big money business. Let’s explore a free resource by K12 SIX that’s available to K-12 schools in the United States.

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This is an interesting take on how AI can help out with K-12 school district IT and technology management. I’m not exactly sure this aligns to my experiences as a tech director, so I’m going to have to revisit this list after brainstorming a list of topics. In the meantime, I’m dropping this list here to save it some place. You may find it helpful.

This table provides a clear and organized overview of the recommended AI tools and chatbots, along with their descriptions and suggested uses to support the various needs of K-12 school district IT and technology management.

Citations: [1] tea.texas.gov/academics… [2] www.hurix.com/how-ai-is… [3] www.forbes.com/sites/nei… [4] elearningindustry.com/how-ai-is… [5] www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-… [6] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic… [7] www2.ed.gov/documents… [8] www.k12insight.com/solutions… [9] www.linkedin.com/advice/0/… [10] www.tidio.com/blog/ai-c… [11] www.edweek.org/technolog… [12] hub.teamdynamix.com/industry-… [13] www.instructure.com/resources… [14] www.k12six.org/essential… [15] er.educause.edu/articles/… [16] www.cisa.gov/K12Cybers… [17] www.salesforce.com/service/c… [18] www.cisa.gov/online-to… [19] www.ada.cx [20] www.teamdynamix.com/5-reasons…

Looking for ideas to build coach-to-teacher relationships that serve as the foundational obstacle to success? This blog entry can help.

Are you an instructional coach supporting teachers with instruction or technology questions? You may find this collection of tips and resources worth pondering for next year.

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Celebrate World Password Day with Password Guardian, a free educational game that teaches students how to create strong, secure passwords. One of my favorite television shows features Jimmy Fallon and Keke Palmer— the Emmy-award-winning show Password. Every day, many of us play our own “Guess That Password” password game as we attempt to log in to one of our many online accounts. This can be hard since, on average, we need to remember 80+ passwords. On World Password Day, let’s make this game a little easier for ourselves.

Read more and explore Digital Tools for World Password Day.

Why not introduce students to the concept of creating timelines to document their adventures? Consider guiding them through crafting timelines of their recent experiences. Demonstrating how to illustrate events with pictures and videos can be a powerful learning experience at any time of the year.

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Explore Adobe Express! Dig into new generative AI resources from Adobe Education Exchange and discover media literacy resources, too. Need resources on how to best blend generative AI into your middle or high school classroom? Want to foster creativity and media literacy among your students? Then you will want to explore Adobe’s newest generative AI resources. These offerings focus on using Adobe Express for AI education. What’s more, they include media literacy resources available on their education website.

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Dig into the last two stages of the five stages of ed tech adoption. Get more examples, infographics, and ed tech tools for the classroom! When teachers grow in confidence, they change the way they teach using technology. This is Stage 4 of the Five Stages of Ed Tech Adoption in K-12; the last stage is Innovation and Leadership (Stage 5). Let’s dig into these last two stages.

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Explore and adopt digital tools to generate safe passwords and secure them from prying eyes. Be sure to check out the TCEA TechNotes blog entry, World Password Day: A Free Game To Teach Password Security.

Digital Tools for World Password Day

Use these digital tools below:

Tool #1: Secure Password Generator and Vault

Generating secure passwords has gotten easier, but people still stumble with keeping track of them. Tools like Bitwarden, Keepass, and others serve as a secure password generator and vault. Bitwarden, which is free for personal use on all your devices, allows you to also generate two-factor authentication codes (2FA).

• Get Bitwarden for your Android, iOS, web browser
• View video tutorial

Tool #2: Authentication App for Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

What is it?

2FA is an extra layer of security used to make sure that people trying to gain access to an online account are who they say they are. First, a user will enter their username and a password. Then, instead of immediately gaining access, they will be required to provide another piece of information. This second factor could come from 1) something you know like a PIN or answer to a secret question; 2) something you have, like a credit card number or last 4 digits of your SSN#; or 3) something you are, like a fingerprint, an iris scan, or a voice print. (adapted from source)

Authentication software and apps rely on generating a code. But how do you know what code to use? A digital authenticator like Authy can help:

• Get Authy for Android or iOS devices
• View video tutorial

Tool #3: Removing Old Internet Files

Cleaning out your computer can help out a lot. Use Bleachbit to clean out old deleted files still on your computer (Windows, Mac), or securely wipe your internet history. Bleachbit is also available in a portable version, which means you can run it off a USB flash drive or external drive.

• Get Bleachbit for your Windows and/or GNU/Linux computer | View video tutorial
• Get OnyX for your Mac computer

Learning to use these tools is easy. Most come with a video tutorial you can watch.

More Tools

Here are some additional tools for your consideration.

Wish you had a free no-cost, open-source tool that supports evidence-based strategies but doesn’t violate student privacy? Try ClassQuiz.

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Need to clean, protect, and back up your digital files? Learn some tips and tools for digital spring cleaning. Get started now!

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Need to get a set of quiz questions from one system (e.g. Quizlet, Kahoot!) into another? Find out how to convert quizzes easily!

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Ready to safeguard your school district network and devices? The Texas Education Agency can help with cybersecurity funding and resources.

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Keeping track of time can be a full-time job for some students in a group. Why not make that job easier with a countdown timer? Even as an adult, when leading workshop sessions and classroom activities, one app is close at hand for me: either the iPhone Stopwatch or a Google time keeper. Let’s take a look at several free timer options you can use in the classroom. FREE is the key word for all time trackers on this list. Paid countdown timer solutions abound, like CountingDownTo or CountDownKings, but this list will give you quite a bang at no cost.

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Google announced its updated K-12 Cybersecurity Guidebook. The guidebook starts with key points from CISA’s Protecting Our Future report and covers NIST’s (National Institute of Standards and Technology) updated Cybersecurity Framework. For certain, cybersecurity is keeping people up at night. Let’s take a moment to explore these changes and potential implications.

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Worried about contracting a virus or messing around with malware via your browser? Almost twenty percent of computers are subject to web-based malware attacks. Your browser and the plug-ins or security software you add to your browser can help to prevent web-based attacks. Let’s explore a few more security tools during Cybersecurity Awareness Month! We’ll look at some add-ons that can protect your browser and some websites that offer information for school personnel on safeguarding against cyber threats.

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Safeguarding your data and devices grows more important every day. In July 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a new certification program for smart devices, like your television set. This cybersecurity and labeling program is intended to assist Americans in choosing safer devices. As the Biden-Harris Administration continues to shine a spotlight on cybersecurity focused on the Internet of Things, schools must do the same with their data. That’s why the Texas Education Agency (TEA) approved cybersecurity funding for schools. But more can be done.

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Looking for a quick and paper-free way to share your info? Use one of these digital business card creation tools. Or make your own!

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Did you know that Firefox offers a host of security features and is a viable alternative to the Chrome browser? If you’ve not used Firefox, it might be worth giving it a try. Let’s explore a wealth of extensions for Firefox that I use every day. And maybe you can, too.

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It’s easy to see the massive cybersecurity threats facing schools as “not my problem.” That is, “What can I do to help protect sensitive data?” The answer is to protect your devices against malware and encrypt your data. With ransomware incidents increasing, backing up your data in encrypted format is critical.

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