At EdTech Nerds, we blend mindfulness with practical tech solutions to help teachers streamline their workload without sacrificing their well-being. Our goal is to help educators reclaim their time, avoid burnout, and build a more balanced, fulfilling teaching life.
🤓 NerdSquad Notes 26.01
🎊 Happy New Year!! 🎉In celebrating the New Year, EdTech Nerds are offering the first month FREE on our NERDSquad+ Membership! Just use the discount code FMF2026 at checkout. If you're curious what's inside, here's a sneak peek. Oh! One more gift, just for January. Build a better mindset with our Vision Board Workshop. Check the Announcements section of this newsletter for more information. AI can be a lot of things, but this month we are keeping it gloriously un-mystical: personal assistant energy. The kind that helps you knock out the mundane grind, the copy-paste chaos, and the never-ending “just one more thing” list, without you having to donate your evenings to the Chromebook gods. Think less “robot teacher replacement,” more “tiny digital helper” that handles the boring parts so you can spend your brainpower on students, instruction, and, you know, basic hydration. In this issue, we are focusing on practical, teacher-friendly ways to use the AI tools you already have access to for everyday tasks, like drafting parent emails, turning messy notes into a clean plan, generating quick rubrics and checklists, organizing information, and creating first drafts you can tweak in your own voice. The goal is not perfection. It’s progress, and fewer late-night tabs open while you whisper, “I will get my life together on Monday,” for the 47th time. ✨ Hot Tips, Calm BrainsTip 1: Check out Goblin Tools​Goblin Tools is a delightfully simple set of single-purpose AI helpers for when your to-do list starts feeling monstrous. Drop a big project into Magic ToDo and it will break it into doable steps, with a “spiciness” slider that controls how detailed the breakdown gets. For communication, Formalizer is a lifesaver. Paste in that draft email, and it can rewrite it more professional, more polite, more to the point, or even “less snarky” (no judgment). Bonus: it’s built as a collection of small, simple tools meant to make overwhelming tasks feel manageable, and the web version is free. Tip 2: Don't forget to Brisk it​Brisk Teaching is the Chrome extension that handles the “I have 47 tabs open and all of them are judging me” part of teaching. It works right inside tools you already use (Google Docs, Slides, web pages, PDFs), so you can generate targeted feedback as Google comments, align it to a rubric or standards, and still keep control before anything posts. It is a fast way to move grading and feedback from hours to “done before you start bargaining with the universe,” while keeping your teacher brain in the driver’s seat. Tip 3: For the GooglersIf your school is already living in Google land, Gemini for Education can act like a built-in personal assistant across the tools you use every day. It can help you draft and polish emails and newsletters, brainstorm lesson hooks and examples, and turn rough ideas into first drafts in Docs, all without hopping between a dozen tabs. In Google Classroom, Gemini adds a central “teacher helper” hub with 30+ time-savers, including things like converting rubrics into Classroom-ready rubrics and generating classroom content faster. Bonus for the privacy worriers among us, Google says Gemini has enterprise-grade data protections for Workspace for Education users, and chats are not used to train their AI models. Mindful Moment: AI as Email Rage TherapySometimes the most mindful thing you can do is not send the email you want to send. So here’s a safe little ritual: open a doc, type the unfiltered version first. Let it be dramatic. Petty. Shakespearean. Get it out of your system. Then paste it into an AI tool of your choice and ask for “calm, clear, professional, and firm,” with your actual goal spelled out. You keep the message, lose the nuclear fallout. The magic is not AI writing your email, it’s AI helping you regulate the temperature so you can communicate what you need without torching relationships, or your job, or both. 🧩 Featured Tool: EasyClass.AIEasyClassAI was created by Carleigh Standifer, a classroom teacher with five years of experience, who wanted one simple place to handle the repetitive tasks teachers face every day. After constantly switching between multiple tabs to plan lessons, create materials, and adjust instruction, she realized teachers needed one streamlined platform where everything could live - and be easily tweaked for the next lesson. EasyClassAI was built to give teachers back their time while keeping them in control of their content. The platform includes 38 AI tools and 7 teacher tools designed specifically for real classrooms. Teachers can generate lesson plans, sentence starters, YouTube video questions, math spiral reviews, and coloring pages in minutes. In addition, EasyClassAI offers practical classroom tools like a Bingo Board Maker, Word Search Maker, and a Noise Meter to support daily instruction and classroom management, all within one platform. EasyClassAI’s most-used feature is the Create workspace, which acts as a central hub for building and organizing instructional materials. Teachers can generate worksheets and reading passages, build standards-aligned presentations, run review days or centers with interactive display boards, and create intentional seating charts using AI insights. Tools like AI Grading and a built-in digital planner further help teachers stay organized, assess student work efficiently, and start the semester strong - all without juggling multiple tools. Teachers can explore EasyClassAI with a free trial and see the time-saving benefits immediately. It’s an easy way to begin the new semester organized, efficient, and confident. We have found EasyClass AI to be an all-in-one teacher productivity hub packed with AI helpers to tame the busywork, with a free tier that is genuinely useful (no credit card required). You can crank out AI-generated coloring pages (use the ready-made ones, or create your own, up to 5 per day on the free account), build digital display boards and seating charts, and knock out the “paperwork planet” stuff like recommendation letters, 504 plan supports, and professional emails. You can also preview premium tools from the homepage to see if upgrading is worth it, and the annual plan comes out to a little over $3 a month.
Upcoming EdTech Nerds Events📢🤓 Announcements:Get a peek into our membership and jump in on our NERDSquad+ Monthly Coaching Call for free on Wednesday, January 14th at 6pm CST. We'll be taking questions and talking about leveraging the power of AI as your own Personal Assistant, getting it to handle the grunt work so you can focus more on actually teaching. 🔗: https://meet.google.com/ovg-rjcm-yek​🪄 Need a quick win (and maybe your Sunday back)?Check out the EdTech Nerds Digital Shop, packed with ready-to-roll lessons and digital goodies that do the heavy lifting for you. 💡 Nerd Hack: Join NERDSquad+ and score shop discounts and early access to every shiny new product we cook up. You get to test-drive the goods for free before they hit the shelves because real nerds get the good stuff first.
📣 Bring EdTech Nerds to Your School or District!Want a fun, high-energy PD session that leaves your staff feeling energized and equipped? We offer custom workshops on everything from mindful tech use to creative classroom tools, and we’d love to support your team. Let’s make PD feel like less of a chore and more like a collaborative recharge.
“That was the first PD where I left with actual tools I could use the next day - and I didn’t feel overwhelmed!” ​ — Instructional Coach, Texas
đź‘€ Check out the new Vision Board Workshop!Create a vision that feels aligned, meaningful, more valuable than a resolution, and grounded through guided reflection, movement, and creative exploration. In this course, you'll settle your mind and body through meditation and short yoga practices. Release what no longer feels supportive and clarify what truly matters to you. Connect with your future self and create a vision board that reflects your intentions and direction. For January only, we're offering this online mini-course on a Pay-What-You-Can basis. If free is what you need, that's okay, too. Thank you for being a part of the NERDSquad!
👨‍💻 Know anyone who might find this newsletter helpful?Forward them this newsletter and have them click here to sign up. New subscribers also get free access to our Calm+Focus Starter Kit. As we step into 2026, may AI lighten the load and open space for deeper learning and connection. Until next time, Note: EdTech Nerds shares product recommendations based on personal experience and professional insights. We are not affiliated with nor compensated by the companies or creators of these products. Our goal is simply to provide valuable resources for mindful educators. Find out more about us | Book us for trainings | Read our blog posts | See our latest products ​www.edtechnerds.com​ Join our free private Facebook group, Calm Teachers Use Tech​ (c) 2024, EdTech Nerds, LLC, All Rights Reserved |
EdTech Nerds
At EdTech Nerds, we blend mindfulness with practical tech solutions to help teachers streamline their workload without sacrificing their well-being. Our goal is to help educators reclaim their time, avoid burnout, and build a more balanced, fulfilling teaching life.
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