Time saving tips for teachers, plus a quick introduction to The Time-Saving Teacher: From Scattered to Strategic, a weekly podcast for K-12 classroom teachers.

I'm Alison Howd, a teacher in Georgia. This is my 26th year in education and my 6th year as the K-5 technology teacher at my school, where I teach over 800 students. Every Tuesday, I share one practical tip or system you can use right away: email, Google tools, AI, and classroom routines, in about 10 minutes.

You don't need to be tech savvy to use any of it.

Follow the show wherever you listen, and join my newsletter for more: thattechsavvyteacher.com/newsletter

Time saving tips for teachers who want to use AI the right way, from my time at the Georgia Educators Tech Conference. Your free companion guide is linked right here: Episode 19 Companion Guide

In this episode:

• Why you should use your school's AI tool, if your school provides one, and never enter PII
• What surprised me about Gemini and NotebookLM
• Why learning is in the struggle
• How to help students tell what's real from what's made up

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Find me at thattechsavvyteacher.com. If this helped, please follow the show and pass it along to a teacher friend.

Get the free companion guide with the step-by-step directions, starter prompts, and force copy link steps: Talk It Out Companion Guide

The simplest way to use AI is the one most people skip. You talk to it. Out loud, messy, and out of order, the way your thoughts actually come out. In this episode, Alison walks through how she talks her ideas into AI and lets it organize them, and how that helped her build lesson plans for her membership without typing them.

In this episode:

• Why talking works better than typing when your ideas are all in your head
• How to set up your lesson plan format and I can statements one time
• Alison's monthly routine: two windows, one microphone, and a finished Google Doc
• How to make a force copy link so teachers can edit their own copy
• Keeping student information safe: school accounts, FERPA, and talking to your tech team first

Links and resources:

• Free typing practice for students (the latest thing Alison built with AI): www.thattechsavvyteacher.com/free-typing-practice
• Free Claude for Teachers account: claude.com/solutions/teachers
• Free ChatGPT for Teachers account: chatgpt.com/k12-verification
• Ready to Click Tech Lab, for K-5 technology teachers: thattechsavvyteacher.com/ready-to-click-tech-lab-membership

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Find more at www.thattechsavvyteacher.com

Get the free companion guide: Episode 17 Companion Guide (PDF)

NotebookLM (now called Gemini Notebook) is a free Google tool that can turn one lesson you already wrote into an audio overview, a quiz, flashcards, a sub plan, and more. In this episode, you will make your first notebook and your first Audio Overview.

In this episode:

• What NotebookLM is, the July 2026 name change to Gemini Notebook, and who can use it
• How to make your first notebook and your first Audio Overview at notebook.google.com
• Six tips from using it myself: say who it is for, make more than one item at a time, do not accept the first draft, pick a style, delete what you do not like, and make something for your students
• Four ways to use it: a listen-through of a lesson you did not write, a quiz and flashcards, a sub plan, and a slide deck or infographic
• Two ways I used it outside my classroom: a parent internet safety handout and an accreditation action plan
• What you can download, how Google Classroom sharing works, and why you decide who it is for before you build the notebook
• Four guardrails for using it with school material

If you only do one thing this week: upload one lesson and click Audio Overview.

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Happy teaching!

Download the free companion resource (no email required): Digital Citizenship Is Everyone's Job, Episode 16 Companion

Digital citizenship is not just the tech teacher's job. It's everyone's job, and this week is Digital Citizenship Week.

In this episode, I share why my son's first experience with the internet in 4th or 5th grade is the reason I care so much about this topic, why I only see each class about 22 times a year, and what you can do in five minutes to be one of the places kids hear it. We also talk about what to teach (including how to tell what's real and what's AI-generated) and where to find free lessons, most of which aren't mine.

Looking for everything in one place?

• Digital Citizenship MEGA Bundle, Grades 3-5 (12 internet safety resources: games, flipbooks, an escape room, poster projects, and more) on Teachers Pay Teachers

My free resource

• FREE Digital Citizenship Resource Guide, K-5 (22 videos, 5 games, 5 eBooks, 6 lessons and projects). This one is a free email signup.

More from me (Teachers Pay Teachers)

• Internet Safety Early Finisher Digital Choice Board, Grades 6-12
• Digital Citizenship Computer Lab Warm-Ups (10-minute bell ringers): 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th
• All my warm-ups

Free lessons and resources from other organizations

• Common Sense Education: Digital Citizenship Week activities for every grade level
• Common Sense Education: K-12 Digital Literacy and Well-Being Curriculum (free)
• Common Sense Education: AI literacy lessons, K-12 (most 20 minutes or less)
• PBS NewsHour Classroom: Recognizing AI-generated content, grades 6-12
• Google Be Internet Awesome and Interland
• NetSmartz from NCMEC, including Into the Cloud
• ConnectSafely parent guides
• AAP Family Media Plan

Stay in touch

• Get one practical, time-saving idea each week: thattechsavvyteacher.com/newsletter

A quick note on email: the companion PDF does not ask for your email. Some of the resources linked inside it might, like my free guide above.

If this episode helped, follow the show and pass it along to a teacher who thinks this isn't their job.

The Time-Saving Teacher: From Scattered to Strategic

Read the companion guide (PDF) for screenshots, a checklist, and every video link from this episode.

If you've never made a video, or video has always felt like too much work, Google Vids is a good place to start. This week I tried three ways to turn something I'd already made into a video: a Slides presentation, a PDF, and the script from one of my podcast episodes. I share what worked, what I'd change, and one thing I couldn't do.

This is the third episode in our AI series. You are the professional, and you drive. AI is there for the days you're out of time or out of ideas. This episode is about you making a video for your students to watch, not about students working with AI.

What we cover

• How to find Google Vids and why the AI options depend on your organization's settings
• Slides to video, and why you should check the narration before you create the video
• Docs to video, and what I thought of the AI-generated images
• Turning a podcast script into a video
• The one thing I missed: recording my own voiceover
• My checklist before students watch

Key takeaways

1. If you've never made a video, start with something you already have, or start with a prompt.
2. Check the narration and the voice before you create the video, because the AI doesn't know your students' grade level.
3. Treat what it makes as a first draft. It's a good start, and you finish it.

Videos from this episode

• Internet Safety Rules, made from a Slides presentation (version 1, version 2)
• A professional development PDF turned into a video
• A podcast episode script turned into a video (Episode 5)

Videos I've made in Google Vids

• Browser Buttons (AI voice)
• What Is Inside a Computer (AI voice)
• Computer Parts for Kids (my own voiceover)
• Tech Savvy Teaching (my own voiceover)

Free resources

• Google Docs and Google Slides Mini Tutorials for Students: 32 short videos in one place
• Join my newsletter for a weekly email with practical ways to save time

If this episode helped, please follow the show and pass it along to a teacher friend.

This is the second episode in our AI series, and it starts with something worth saying plainly. You are the professional in the room, not AI.

When a student isn't getting something, the usual move is to ask AI to explain it younger. That works, but it only changes the vocabulary, not the delivery. In this episode I walk through a second move, changing the format entirely, and a third, getting AI to help you find the actual misconception behind a mistake instead of just handing you another generic explanation.

I also ran a real example using my Claude free teacher account, not live, a third grade water cycle passage and jingle, and I show you exactly how I caught and fixed a problem in it by asking one more question afterward.

Grab the full companion resource, all five prompts and the whole AI conversation here.

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Tools mentioned: MagicSchool AI, SchoolAI

Grab the free companion guide with copy-paste AI prompts and step-by-step directions. .

In this episode, I walk through exactly how I use AI to compare my curriculum against my state standards, find the gaps, and combine old and new material when I switch textbooks or grade levels.

Sign up free:

• Claude for Teachers
• ChatGPT for Teachers