EduGems

In today's episode, we'll explore EduGems, a free collection of premade AI Gems for K-12 Education offered by Eric Curts. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:00 Welcome to Tech Talk for teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:15 The topic of today's episode is EduGems. On episode 338 of Unpacking Education, Rena Winston and I had the pleasure of hosting well-known ed tech leader Eric Kurtz on the show to talk about AI in the K-12 classroom. If you missed that episode, I encourage you to go back and check it out. Eric is a fantastic teacher and one of the most knowledgeable people in the area of educational technology that I've met. He pairs his vast content knowledge with the ability to communicate really well. In my world, that's a combination that's always a recipe for success, and Eric brings it in everything he does.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:52 Here's the, here's the, here's the tool for today.

Paul Beckermann 0:56 In today's episode, I want to highlight one of Eric's most recent endeavors. He's put together a new and free website called EduGems. It can be found at www.edugems.ai. EduGems is spelled E, D, U, G, E, M, S. EduGems is a growing collection of pre-made "gems," which are custom prompts that have been designed and saved for educators to use later in Google Gemini. In other words, they're prompts that someone has created and saved for repeated use.

This is a huge time-saving move, especially for prompts that you might find yourself using over and over again. Rather than having to develop that prompt from scratch or retyping it time after time, you can simply click on the saved gem and begin your work. If you'd like to learn more about creating and using gems, check out episode 433 of Tech Talk for Teachers, where I explain that process in detail.

Paul Beckermann 1:51 To make gems even more useful, they're shareable. That means that anyone who has access to even the free Google Gemini AI chat bot and a link to the pre-made gem can use these tools. In other words, if someone comes up with a great AI prompt that is successfully saving them time or allowing them to level up their work, they can share it with others.

This is exactly what Eric is doing with EduGems. He's both writing and gathering excellent AI prompts for teachers, turning them into reusable gems and saving them on this free website for others to access and use. If you really like a gem on the site, you can copy it, edit it, and make it your own. For instance, you might find a gem that is aligned to a specific standard and you want to use it for another standard, or perhaps an entirely different content area. You can copy Eric's gem, change the language in the prompt to align with your standard, perhaps upload a copy of the standard itself, save it, and then use it repeatedly for your own purposes. Also, any gem that you use appears in your personal list of gems inside your Google Gemini account, so you can track them back down later.

Paul Beckermann 3:03 At the top of the EduGems site, you'll find a list of helpful hints to provide context and insight. Here are a few of those tips. When you click on the "Use the Gem" link, it will open in Gemini, and you can begin interacting with it right away. Eric suggests simply typing in the word "Hi" to get the gem started. Once you do that, Gemini will begin asking you for input based on the directions it has been programmed with, so it can generate relevant outputs for you.

For better results, you can also toggle from the fast to the "Thinking Mode" inside of Gemini. The Thinking Mode will take longer to process, but you'll get richer and more insightful outputs. In my opinion, the wait is generally worth it.

There are additional links available that allow you to contact Eric, view a tutorial video, sign up for his newsletter, and even to submit your own gems to be considered for inclusion in his collection. The page is simply laid out and easy to navigate.

Paul Beckermann 4:00 At the time of this recording, Eric has six categories of gems as well as a list of the newest additions. At the top, you can scroll down the page to view the options or choose a menu shortcut on the left. When you see the title of a gem that looks useful, you simply click on it to reveal a description, directions, a link to the gem, and a link that allows you to copy the gem into your own account. This structure is consistent across the site, making it even easier to navigate.

Let me give you an overview of the categories as well as examples of what you'll find in each. First, you'll see a section for curriculum and lesson design. Here you will get AI gem options such as "Lesson Plan," "Unit Plan," "Lesson Hooks," "Station Rotations," "Jigsaw Activity," and "Choice Board."

To try one out, I clicked on "Choice Board" and was taken to a description of that gem. It read: "This gem helps you quickly generate a detailed, accessible, and engaging choice board for any student assignment. It is designed by a UDL specialist by offering maximum student agency and varied rigor by including options across the three UDL principles: representation, action and expression, and engagement."

The description goes on to describe how the experience will play out: "To use this gem, you will have a collaborative conversation with Gemini. You'll start by providing details such as the specific learning objective or key standard to address, your student's grade level, any known learning differences or preferences, and the desired format of the board (for example, a three-by-three grid)." Gemini will guide you through the process, ask clarifying questions, and offer suggestions for refinement, ensuring the choices are tightly aligned to your instructional and UDL goals. That's really good stuff.

Paul Beckermann 5:45 The next section is titled "Literacy and Language." There are currently six gems here: "Decodable Texts," "Discussion Prompts," "Informational Text," "Reading List," "Sentence Starters," and "Song Lyrics." Below this is a section for generating student activities. Here you'll find options such as "Two Truths and a Lie Game," "20 Questions," "AI Debate," "AI Role Play," and even a "Career Explorer."

Paul Beckermann 6:10 The last three sections are for assessment, student support, and professional tasks. The assessment collection is what you'd expect: tools for developing both practice and assessment activities. It includes things like "DOK Analysis," "Exemplar and Non-Exemplar Generator," and "Rubric Creator."

Paul Beckermann 6:27 The Student Support section is great for both special educators and core classroom teachers alike. The gems here can help you develop accommodations, behavior interventions, differentiated materials, re-level text, and social stories. Finally, the "Professional Tasks" section offers tools for action, such as writing better AI prompts, emailing parents, planning PD, and generating a class newsletter.

With any of these prompts, you can use Gemini's upload feature and add in additional documents and resources about the work you're doing, so that way the gem has specific details and context for your classroom. Whether you're new to using AI prompts or a seasoned pro, I think you'll find value in Eric's collection of gems. For some of them, you'll probably want to click and use just as they are; they're literally ready to go. Other times, you may want to copy the gem and edit it a little bit so that it more aligns specifically to your needs. Either way, seeing the gems that have been created on the page will provide you with prompts you can use right now, models for helping you write your own quality prompts, as well as ideas for the types of prompts that you might want to create yourself in the future. You might think of this as educational AI opportunity knowledge.

Paul Beckermann 7:43 If you're further along in the journey, you might even decide to create your own gems based on the inspiration that you find here. You can do that in your own Gemini account, and if you develop one that really works well for you, you might consider submitting it to EduGems for possible inclusion in Eric's list. You might find that this is a rewarding way to give back and help others in the profession.

Paul Beckermann 8:05 Again, you can find EduGems at www.edugems.ai.

Paul Beckermann 8:10 To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit avidopenaccess.org. Specifically, I encourage you to check out the article collection "AI in the K-12 classroom," and, of course, be sure to join Rena Winston and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.