Wonder Tools

Mornings are for deep work. Afternoons are for everything else — teaching, planning, thinking, movement, and meetings. This is part two of my daily kit. Part one covered my morning apps. Here are the apps and gadgets that carry me through from noon to bedtime. I’ve included a few AI tools, but mostly the quieter tools that don’t get as much attention.Catch up on Part 1 👇12pm: Midday BreakHealthy Minds 🧠 This free app helps me with mindfulness. The 5-10 minute audio lessons work well as walking meditations. I sometimes also use Headspace or Calm for meditation or focus music.Libby 📚 I rely on Libby for free library audiobooks. I listen when walking to lunch or commuting. Here are tools I rely on for finding great books. Lunch* Resy and OpenTable 🍱 for quick reservations nearby* The Infatuation for opinionated local restaurant recommendations * Too Good To Go for trying heavily discounted (66% off) dishes from local restaurants, bakeries, and juice bars. The fixed-price mystery bags reduce restaurant waste. Sometimes you get a delicious bargain, but the quality varies. I’ve occasionally gotten a weird bread or a bland pastry.* MealPal When I don’t bring my own lunch, I like MealPal, a lunch subscription service. Local restaurants offer one dish a day as part of the subscription, which costs about $6/day. I like the variety: you can choose which restaurant to try on any given day. It’s available so far in 12 cities. 1-3pm: Preparing to TeachAfter lunch, I continue developing teaching plans or work on other school-related projects for my job as Director of Teaching and Learning at CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. (More of my thinking in a recent Columbia Journalism Review interview).Craft 📄 My go-to for creating visually engaging digital handouts. It’s easy to use and works wonderfully on mobile or desktop. See my post on why Craft is so useful.Wispr Flow, Text Blaze and Raycast* I often use Wispr Flow to type with my voice. It works in any app. I just hold the function key and talk. * When I do type with my hands I use Text Blaze keyboard shortcuts to add snippets into my email and documents. It works for email addresses and signatures, search prompts, and phrases I type a lot. * Raycast also works well for these shortcuts. Why I rely on Raycast.Notes by Hand 📝 I like writing notes away from my laptop periodically to get my eyes off the screen and to change my brain mode. I alternate between:* I use a Rocketbook reusable notebook for lists and reminders.* A giant whiteboard helps me draw connections and play around with ideas away from the glowing distractions of my screens. * My reMarkable Paper Pro tablet hosts notes I will return to repeatedly. What works for me, paper vs. digitalKeynote for SlidesThis Mac presentation software works reliably offline or on for in-person and remote classes and workshops I lead. Keynote is now part of Apple’s new Creator Studio, a package of software that includes video and image editing tools. I haven’t found the Keynote AI features useful so far, but the basic software is excellent for designing and delivering compelling slides. Pricing: Keynote is free with any Mac. I wouldn’t recommend the subscription upgrade, at $129/year or $30/year for students and educators, unless you’re a heavy user of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, or the other pro software tools. iA Presenter I vary slide apps to keep things interesting. I sometimes write a lesson outline and paste that text into iA Presenter, which turns it into clean, typographically sharp slides. Like Keynote, it works offline. For more on why this app is so useful, watch the demo video or read my post.Kahoot, Padlet, and Slido 🤔 I rely on this trio of teaching tools to power activities that promote active learning in classes or workshops — rather than passive listening. Here are more of my favorite apps for teaching. Time Out for Screen Breaks⏳ I set this app to remind me to give my eyes a screen break every 15 minutes. It pulses over the screen to nudge me to stretch or look out the window. The Raycast Focus Mode also helps, blocking email and distractions during short, focused, deep work sprints. 3-5pm: Meetings 👥I try to schedule meetings for the late afternoon to conclude the day with collaboration, after starting with more creative work. Granola for Summaries🤖 Granola weaves my own notes into its summary, sends no bot into my Zooms, and lets me search across meetings for tasks, patterns, or insights. My full post about it👇 describes 10 of the features, along with tips, limitations, and alternatives. Camo for Webcam CustomizationCamo lets me modify my camera to zoom in, adjust lighting, or add overlays during video calls. It also lets me use my phone or other external cameras. Prezi Video and Airtime enable lower-thirds, annotations, and overlay visuals I occasionally use for presentations.Sony UX570 Voice Recorder for Interviews My reliable backup for recording audio. I like that it doesn't require an o

I’ve tried a dozen AI note-taking tools. Granola is the one I use daily and recommend most. Read on for 10 ways to make the most of it.Bottom line: Granola transcribes and summarizes nearly every meeting I have. 998 so far. It helps me keep track of what I’ve learned and promises I’ve made.What it does: It’s software you download, not a bot, so it doesn’t attend meetings. It just runs on my computer or phone. I can use it to record in-person meetings, or anything online: Zoom, Google Meet, or even Substack Live.Setting it up: I connected my Google Calendar. Now it auto-detects my meetings and opens automatically when I start a call.How it’s different: Unlike other bots that spit out a generic summary, Granola gives you a window for your own note-taking. That means I can include my own thoughts and highlight what I find most important. The summary then weaves in my own points in black, distinct from the gray AI summary notes. I can always return to either my own separate notes or the AI-assisted summary.I can now query any meeting I’ve been in since I started using Granola in September 2024. I look for patterns across meetings and presentations I’ve given over the past couple of years.Free or Paid: You can use Granola for free plan. You get excellent summaries of an unlimited number of meetings. I was on the free plan for more than a year. Now I pay $14/month to access all of my past meeting summaries. That also pays for better AI models, and lets me query my notes from Claude or ChatGPT.👇10 ways Granola stands out1. Write your own notes while AI fills in the restMost AI note-takers give you only the AI’s version of what happened. Granola keeps your own notes alongside the live transcript. You always have both.I type my own most important observations, priorities, and reactions during a meeting. The AI fills in other details. This way I’m not reliant on a generic summary the way I am with other tools. My own emphasis and perspective helps shape the summary.After the meeting, my original notes appear in black. The AI-generated content appears in gray. That’s a nice design touch, so you can easily tell which is which.Tip: I use shorthand like triple asterisks (***) for key points and triple ampersand (&&&) for memorable quotes. Or choose your own “internal hashtags.” Pick ones easy to type during a live meeting. Later you can search for those to quickly find what you flagged as important. (Works with any tool)2. Search across meetings by person or company 🔍Granola organizes meetings by people and organizations. If I’ve had a series of meetings with someone, I can click their name and search across all of those conversations. Or I can search through all the conversations I’ve had with people at Acme Inc.This is useful for questions like: What did we agree to last month? What themes keep coming up? What did I promise to send that I haven’t followed up on?You can also create folders for specific projects or series. If I’m attending or teaching a series of workshops, I can then search across all of those sessions.Tip: If you ever write or give presentations, ask Granola to compile key points or ideas you’ve shared in past meetings or presentations. It’s helpful for exploring and building on your own ideas. Instead of using AI to think for you, you’re using it to help you organize and make more of your own ideas.3. Record in-person meetings w/ a phone or laptop 📱I’ve been to public events where I wanted to remember what was discussed. The iPhone app is great. Same account, no separate setup. Your in-person notes sync with your desktop notes and appear in the same searchable archive. Other recording apps I’ve tried occasionally crash when I get a call or open other apps, but Granola has been consistently reliable, even for long meetings. I’ve been surprised to find that it works well even when I’m not sitting close to the speaker.Available on: Mac, Windows, and iOS. No Android app yet, though one is expected later this year.4. Start free with unlimited meetingsThe free version works well if you just want to try it. The transcription quality is the same as the paid version. Students get Granola free for a year. Startups do too.The paid plan is $14 a month. I pay that for unlimited access to my 1,000+ meeting summaries, the ability to query my notes from other AI tools like Claude, and access to the strongest AI models for summaries. The free plan limits how far back you can access old meetings and limits the AI models you have access to.If you don’t need to refer back to old summaries or plug your notes into other AI tools, the free plan is great.Try Granola free for a month with this link.5. Give Claude or ChatGPT access to your Granola notesThis is one of the reasons I upgraded to the paid plan. Granola connects to Claude through something called a Model Context Protocol (MCP). Don’t worry about the technical details. It’s just a way to connect AI tools to one another.The practical benefit: I can ask Claude or C

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wondertools.substack.comI recently talked with Jason Chatfield a New Yorker cartoonist and creator of the lively New York Cartoons Substack. He sketched while we talked, as part of his video series Draw Me Anything. We traded ideas about writing, editing, tools, and where to draw the line with AI. 📺 Watch the conversation above, or read highlights below. Takeaways from Our Conversation 🛠️* Teach your AI assistant to offer personalized editing suggestions. I’ve trained a Claude Project to learn from my past writing and editing. It catches typos like double commas, cliches, redundant language, weak verbs, and sloppy copy. Instead of having it make changes, I ask it for a punch list of suggestions. * Talk before you type. I turn on my AI dictation app, Letterly, and just start talking. The AI-enabled transcription and summary I get helps me make sense of ideas rolling around in my mind. Then the next part of the writing process becomes more about shaping and editing those ideas, rather than staring down a blank screen.* Ask AI to interview you. After a conference or a day of meetings, get your AI assistant to ask you follow-up questions. That conversation forces you to articulate ideas you haven’t fully formed.* Teach your AI assistant to be a critic, not a ghostwriter. Ask it to challenge your structure, suggest sections to cut and to explain why, and to point out your blind spots. Your friend might be too polite to tell you a section of your piece you’ve worked on for hours is redundant or dull. Your AI assistant will, if you train it to.* Let’s read books collectively. We’re reading 10 AI books in 2026 through the Wonder Tools Book Group. (For WT paid subscribers). We started with AI Snake Oil, whose co-author was a surprise guest at our first gathering. Reading together allows us to benefit from dialogue. And we can learn more deeply from books than we can from a random diet of posts and videos. Sponsored MessageBuild a site or app with LovableTry Lovable Free. Lovable lets you describe what you need and turns it into a working website or app. Now it even builds slides for you. Go from idea to polished deck in under 10 minutes. No coding needed. I use it to quickly prototypes like an uplifting news page and a landing page for educators. Others have built everything from portfolio sites to custom business tools — you can browse hundreds of templates. If you have an idea you’ve been putting off, this is a fast way to start. Tips Jason shared during our conversation* Work from a calendar, not a to-do list. Sometimes what’s most valuable is a workflow, not a specific tool. Like timeboxing. Jason predicts how long a task will take, blocks time in his calendar (iCal), then learns from the difference between his estimate and how long the task actually took. His timeboxing Medium post about the process went viral.* Build a grumpy editor. Jason created a J. Jonah Jameson–style editor persona in Gemini. If you’re not familiar with the Spider-Man character, he’s a cantankerous, chain-smoking newspaper editor who tears apart a writer’s drafts. Jason says he takes about half of the suggestions. * Choose your tools based on who built them. Jason uses Grammarly and Gemini, but refuses to use Meta AI or Grok. If he doesn’t trust those building a platform, he opts out.* Learn the analog way before you go digital. Jason suggests students draw by hand first, not on an iPad. If you draw a bad line with a dip pen, you can’t hit undo. You learn through that process. * Use AI to brainstorm, but know when to stop. Cartoonist Alex Hallatt of Cartooning in the Age of AI used an AI assistant to riff on cartoon premises from messy notes. Jason said she was intrigued by the results, until the bot offered to draw the cartoon for her. 👇Tools & Apps We Discussed 👇

After my 7am wake-up alarm, I lean on about 20 morning apps, sites and gadgets for reading, writing, listening, and getting stuff done. I revisit this toolkit every year. Here's what's stayed, what's changed, and what's new.🌤️ 7:00 am Wake up and prepare for the day ⏰ Peakeep “Invisible” Alarm Clock This $14 bedside clock wakes me up. I set its brightness at zero to keep the bedroom dark at night. I tap the top to check the time if I need to. I bought the clock when I decided to store my phone in another room so it doesn’t suck me in before bed.⭕️ Oura Ring For the past five years I’ve worn an Oura ring to keep track of my exercise, sleep, and heart rate volatility. I like that, unlike an Apple or Google Watch, it has no distracting screen or notifications. I ran a two-week experiment pairing the Oura with a Stelo glucose biosensor to see how my diet impacts my sleep, fitness, and energy levels. I can export my data and query it with AI assistants. Or I use Oura’s own AI chat to ask things like “How is my evening snacking affecting the quality of my sleep?”In the morning I check my sleep quality and resilience scores to calibrate my expectations for the day. Having an objective measure of how well I’ve slept helps me decide whether to push my meager exercise regimen a bit or take it easy. It also helps motivate me on dreary days, and signals when I’m getting sick before I notice. (Read my original Oura 2020 post. Note: I’ve bought my own Oura rings — no affiliation).🧠 Brain Games and 🎶 MusicA breakfast ritual: playing the NYTimes’ Spelling Bee, Wordle, and Connections with my wife and daughters while listening to our favorite classical music host, Jeff Spurgeon, on WQXR. We talk about the music and what’s ahead at school or work, avoiding stressful headlines.Quick tip: We listen on our old Google Home Mini kitchen smart speaker. A quick voice command pulls up just about any radio station in the world. (I saw the newer Google Nest Mini on sale this week for $19). Sponsored MessageAccess the World’s Best IdeasI love reading. But no matter how much I read, I can’t keep up with all the great books I hear about.That’s why I’ve been relying on Shortform for the past several years to help catch up with books I’m curious about but haven’t had time to read. I also use Shortform to remember key points from books I read years ago. I like the biography section, where I’ve learned about the lives of Malala, Bono, and Leonardo da Vinci. While a lot of summary apps I’ve tried have 5-min, AI-generated, surface-level book overviews, Shortform’s writers and editors produce in-depth coverage of nonfiction titles.I also like the business section, which has detailed guides for classic titles and new books I’m curious about like Two Awesome Hours by Josh Davis. In addition to an expert-written overview of key points, with examples, excerpts, and references to related books, you get a one-page summary and contrasting ideas from other authors. Now Shortform has podcast and article guides as well. Wonder Tools readers get a discount. Try it free to explore.Enjoy a free trial and $50 off the annual plan.🚶🏼8:00 Walk My Daughter to School 🏫No tools or tech. 🚊 8:25 CommuteI use Snipd to listen to podcasts on the way to work. Here’s my full take. I also rely on Readwise Reader to catch up on articles I’ve saved. It works offline on the subway. Here’s why it’s worth trying. I use Superhuman to check work email.📆 8:50 Plan the DayWhen I get to work, I map out what's ahead with a mix of paper and apps. 📅 Google Calendar I check GCal for meetings. I‘ve tried other calendars, including Vimcal, Akiflow, Fantastical, and Notion Calendar. They each have useful features, but I tend to return to the free GCal out of habit. It’s reliable, simple, and lets me easily see shared calendars.✅ Apple Reminders I keep three priority tasks at the top of my list. I add to that tier only when I’ve completed one. I have a menu of other tasks and reminders in a “Soon” list. I adopted that tactic from Oliver Burkeman’s great book, Four Thousand Weeks. 📄 Remarkable Paper Pro Move I use this paper tablet — or a notebook — to timebox my day. I map the hours based on priorities, energy level, and scheduled meetings. Having a detailed plan helps me avoid decision fatigue later. When I inevitably lose focus, the plan pulls me back on track. ✍️ 9:00 Writing I start creative work early, when my focus is freshest. Letterly I dictate my thoughts into this app. That helps me get ideas flowing, and I get a bulleted summary or outline to build on. When I want an AI assistant to challenge my ideas, I use ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode or Gemini Live. Letterly and other apps like it (AudioPen) are great for what I call bionic dictation— using AI to structure raw speech into a clean outline or summary. Free alternatives: You can use Apple Notes for dictation on iOS or Mac, or a variety of Google apps if you’re on Android or a Chromebook.Google Docs / iA Writer I like

I recently talked with Lance Eaton, Senior Associate Director of AI and Teaching & Learning at Northeastern University and writer of AI + Education = Simplified. We traded ideas about what’s actually working. We came up with 10 specific, practical ways anyone who teaches, coaches, or leads can put AI to work.📺 Watch the full conversation above, or read highlights below.10 Ways to Use AI 🛠️Note: Lance and I alternated tips below 👇1. Spark Richer Student Reflection 🪞Lance: Ask students to reflect through a conversation with AI rather than staring at a blank page. A well-prompted AI will keep asking follow-up questions, pushing students past “I didn’t like it” toward real analysis. 2. Strengthen Your Syllabus 📋Jeremy: Give an AI assistant your syllabus and ask for a critique — for clarity, inclusivity, student-friendliness, and completeness. You’ll get specific, honest feedback. The AI won’t write the syllabus for you, but it will challenge you to make yours better. We don’t always have colleagues at our side who can offer input on our work. So this is an objective, independent, instant, constructive way to get a useful critique.3. Make Materials More Visual 🎨Lance: Turn your syllabus into a graphic version students actually want to read. AI assistants can help you create visual layouts and simple comics-style explanations without any design experience. 4. Improve Lesson Plans 📐Jeremy: Describe your learning goals, your class size, your constraints — then ask AI to generate 10 warm-up or closing activities. You won’t use most of them, and you might remix a couple. But having options means you’ll often figure out something better than what you’d have designed alone.5. Try It Until Something Clicks ⚡Lance: Play with AI until it does something that genuinely surprises or excites you. That moment of “Wait, I could actually use this,” is what shifts the conversation from theoretical to real. “For some students, this is really powerful, including students navigating English as a second language or ADHD or dyslexia — these tools can unlock things.”Sponsored MessageCatch Up On Books: Maximize Your Time 📚Life is short. Your reading list is probably long. Shortform simplifies your journey to success. Whether you’re into self-improvement, business, or psychology, get in-depth book guides with summaries, actionable insights and exercises. Start applying what you learn immediately.Each guide has a concise, useful one-page summary. You also get chapter breakdowns and practical exercises to apply what you’ve learned. Imagine mastering key lessons from books like Atomic Habits in just two hours. Accelerate your career and boost your productivity.Stay ahead of the curve with new summaries added weekly, and use the AI browser extension to quickly summarize articles and videos, freeing up valuable time for what matters most.Get a free trial and $50 off the annual plan. 6. Build Engaging Class Activities 🧩Jeremy: When you need a compelling analogy for a hard concept, or a historical anecdote, or a mini case study for a short role-play exercise, AI assistants can be helpful in expanding what we consider. If you’re teaching a subject you know well, you can set the direction and take responsibility for verification. NotebookLM and Claude can generate examples quickly, and can search your own notes to surface examples you’ve created yourself but lost track of. The goal of using AI in this context is strengthening engagement and improving the learning experience. It’s not for whiz-bang special effects.7. Generate “Bad Examples” Safely 🚫Lance: Examples can be useful to illustrate what not to do, but you’d never embarrass a student by presenting their work as an example of a mistake.“We’re never, ever going to — nor should we — ask a student, ‘This was a really horrible thing, can I use it as a bad example going forward?’” AI tools can generate intentionally flawed examples: a weak argument, a poorly structured paragraph, or circular reasoning. Students learn what to avoid. 8. Catch What You’re Missing 🔍Jeremy: Ask an AI assistant to review your materials for accessibility gaps, unclear instructions or areas where your material could be more inclusive. Think of it as a thoughtful colleague who reviews your work and catches what familiarity made you miss.9. Analyze Student Feedback 📊Lance: Strip names and any identifying information from end-of-semester feedback, then ask AI to identify themes, patterns, and gaps. As Lance put it, “What are some things that I’m not seeing? What are some assumptions I’m making or missing? What are some ways I might redirect the course?” Instead of spending hours manually categorizing open-ended comments, you get a usable overview in minutes — leaving more time to actually act on what students told you.10. Remember What Was Said 🗒️Jeremy: Use an AI note-taker like Granola to capture transcripts of student meetings, advising sessions, and office hours. Request permission first. You’ll have sear

Escape AI slop by reading more books. 📚 That’s my plan for making the most of leisure time this year. One book a week. Some short. Others mostly visual — I love graphic novels. Plus a new AI & tech book group I’m starting. Books get my eyes off screens, and my brain welcomes that break from news, vitriol, and ads. Read on for my updated guide to finding great read this year. 📖 Find your next read * Most Recommended Books Pick the name of an expert to see what books they recommend and why.* Goodbooks.io and Read This Twice Explore interesting expert picks.* En.app Describe the kind of book you’re looking for and get suggestions. * Whichbook’s World Map 🗺️ Find books set anywhere in the world. Select a country to see a collection of books that take place there. See how it works👇* Where to find book recs is a nice evergreen list from Writing About Reading. I also like the eclectic recs in the NYTimes’s Read Like the Wind newsletter and its intriguing list: Top 100 books of the 21st century. * The most mentioned books in podcasts is a neat list from Snipd. In Snipd’s podcast app you can see which books any podcast has mentioned most.* BookClubs lets you find a book group near you or organize your own. * Fable hosts book clubs & communities for nearly any genre. Find free and cheap books 🔦* Project Gutenberg offers more than 75,000 free ebooks and audiobooks. No registration required. The Top 100 list is a nice source for free reading.* The Internet Archive has searchable e-books and a free library collection.* Bookbub spotlights discounted ebooks on its site and email newsletter. Sponsored MessageStop Wasting Time Sorting EmailWhy bother spending hours organizing your inbox every week when AI can do it for you? SaneBox — which PCMag called the best thing that’s happened to email since its invention — is an AI-powered email tool that brings sanity back to your inbox.SaneBox ensures only important emails land in your inbox, and files other emails into folders. It even lets you hit Snooze, and reminds you to follow up on emails you sent a few days ago.📚 Announcing the NEW Wonder Tools Book Group 🌟I’m excited to launch a new Wonder Tools book group 📚 exploring the most fascinating recent AI and tech books. Each month we’ll have a live online session with a lively discussion, and you’ll also get a book guide with quotes, highlights and insights. Occasional surprise guests will join. 💫This new series, starting in March, is sponsored by Shortform, which publishes high-quality, in-depth guides to non-fiction books. All paid subscribers are invited! Join now for this, and free AI tool access, live monthly online workshops introducing new tools, + other inner circle benefits. Libby has free ebooks and audiobooks from libraries in 78 countries. It works for 90% of U.S. libraries. Check out nearly anything instantly, for free, on any device. You can read your free ebooks in the app or on a Kindle. * Audio or text Check out and listen to free audiobooks or ebooks. * Multiple cards Libby lets you add cards for multiple libraries. That’s useful if a book you want has a waiting list. You can check which library has the shortest waiting list. See where you can get non-resident library cards.Limitation: Libby is digital-only — you can’t use it for physical books. That requires a separate app or site, like the NYPL app in New York. Kanopy provides free access to top-notch feature films and documentaries. I log in with my library card. Watch on the web, iOS or Android, or on a smart TV app like Google TV, Roku, or Amazon Fire TV. Libraries cap the number of videos you can watch monthly. Hoopla is a free app for accessing 3 million audiobooks, ebooks, comics, magazines, and music from 11,500 libraries in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Read, watch or listen in 120 languages from the web or on a mobile device. Bingepasses let you access movies, TV shows, & video courses.World Cat tells you which library near you has a book you want. It works in multiple languages and covers 10,000 global libraries. Search for books in print, ebook, braille, or audio. 📕 Support Independent booksellers* Find the cheapest places online to buy any book: Bookfinder * Find a nearby independent bookstore: Indiebound * Get cheap used books: Abebooks. Check its bargain books + collections.* Support your local bookstore with an online purchase. Bookshop.org has raised more than $40 million for indie bookstores. * Buy audiobooks from local bookstores: Libro.fm* Shop at an online co-op bookshop owned by readers: TertuliaBonus Tip: Prompt AI for personalized reading recommendations 📚Create your own taste atlas. Make a list of books you’ve liked or learned from. Add movies and music you love too, or other interests. Share the list with Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT. Ask for recommendations based on your tastes.🧒 Find great children’s books * Sora, the library app, not the AI video tool, is a digital library for kids. Schools make ebooks and

The hardest part of teaching — or leading meetings — is sparking engagement. Getting people to engage enthusiastically with something new can be tough. It’s especially challenging if people are overwhelmed, super busy, or just tired. As we aim to stretch people’s thinking in a new direction, tools are just one part of the overall picture. But they can help. Last week I shared five tools for creating learning paths, interactive lessons, and new kinds of digital notebooks. Today’s follow-up recommendations focus on creative engagement. You don’t have to be a teacher to find these resources for opening up participation useful. If you lead a team, run meetings, or collaborate with colleagues, you can benefit from these tools. I’ve baked into this post multiple ways to engage. * Chime in on the teaching tool chat thread* Share your idea on the shared Padlet about teaching tactics * Test out your trivia skills on my new open Kahoot quiz game* Add a comment to the shared Craft doc about lesson planningPadlet — Inspire Creative CollaborationPadlets are digital bulletin boards where people can post comments, links, voice recordings, or short videos. How it works: Set up a board with a topic or a template. Start with a blank grid, map, timeline, discussion thread, or an image gallery. Participants can use their own devices to add notes, documents, images or comments. Or they can use Padlet’s built-in recorder to add audio or video.How you can use it: Build a board to accompany a live, collaborative lesson, event, or meeting. Or have people contribute to it asynchronously. You can also use it as a showcase for exceptional work, or as a space for peer collaboration. How I use it: I find Padlet useful for group brainstorming, icebreakers, and for online learning activities. For remote classes, I’ve used Padlet to collect questions before class and for team-building collections, gathering people’s favorite songs, books, and snacks, to help us get to know one another. I’ve also used Padlet as a more visual, welcoming, version of an online discussion board. Who it works for: It’s easy to use, so most people jump in without any training. Padlet works at all levels. I’ve used it with graduate students and for mid-career training., as well as with colleagues. It’s popular in elementary and high schools too. It’s one of the best tools for getting people to build on each other’s ideas, rather than passively consuming content.Example — try it! Jump into my board on Engagement tactics for impactful teaching. Explore the ideas others have added and contribute one of your own! Pricing: It’s free to create up to three boards, or $120/year for unlimited use.Sponsored MessageThesys: Build conversational analytics agents without codeBuild conversational analytics agents without setting up data pipelines or building dashboards manually. Get started in just 3 easy steps:* Connect your data* Ask questions in natural language* Get rich insights in charts, tables, slides and reportsPublish and share it with your team.Kahoot — Add Fun to LearningNo other teaching tool generates as many smiles and laughs as Kahoot. It turns quizzes into playful learning games. Why it’s so useful: What makes Kahoot especially engaging is the variety of question formats: In addition to standard multiple-choice and true-false queries, you can have students drop pins on images, fill in blanks, guess numbers, or order items in a list. How to get started: Design your own quizzes or pick from a massive library of questions by teachers and organizations around the world, like National Geographic and NASA. People can play individually or in teams, live or asynchronously. You can share a link or show the game on screen. People play on their own phone or laptop by answering questions and earning points.. How I use Kahoot: Sometimes I start class with icebreaker questions, or conclude a session with a review game. Occasionally, if I sense students losing energy or focus, I’ll turn class-related questions into a playful Kahoot competition for a change of pace. Example — try it! Play a new Kahoot I created about journalism AI. Email me afterwards with a screenshot of your completed game for a digital prize. New tip: Kahoot has a new AI assistant built in, so you can quickly convert text from any document or handout into editable quiz questions. Pricing ranges from $3/month (50 players at a time) to $19/month (200 players). Kahoot’s pricing has gotten more complicated: some quizzes & special features now require premium plans. Alternatives: Gimkit, Wayground and Blooket are good alternative game-style quiz platforms that offer fuller free plans for those on a tight budget. Genially also works well for classroom games, or try the free JeopardyLabs. (Browse and try out existing Jeopardy boards like AI in Schools). Craft — Organize your MaterialsCraft is a surprisingly useful, underrated tool for creating and organizing notes and documents. Use it to develop attractive lesson

I tested more than 200 educational sites, apps and services last year. Some were so confusing that I quickly gave up. Others were too costly. A few went out of business. Many were narrowly useful, e.g. for 3D modeling, math, or music.The top tier tools have consistently been super valuable for me — in my teaching, in my job at the City University of New York, and as a dad of two daughters. To save you the time and effort of sifting through the chaff, I’m sharing the ones I find most useful. Even if you’re not a teacher, these tools may help you gather, organize, share, and present material creatively.The huge number of teaching tools clamoring for attention can be exhausting. School districts access 2,739 edtech tools a year, according to Instructure research and The 74, a nonprofit news organization that covers America’s education system, where I wrote recently about today’s tools.Below you’ll find my first batch of recommendations, whether you teach once in a while or every day, children or adults. The services are all free to try, with paid upgrades available. I don’t work for any of these companies, I’m just a prof and writer who appreciates and shares helpful teaching tools. My list — starting with part one today — is designed to support teaching and learning at any level. I’d love to hear about the tools you find most useful for teaching & learning — add a comment to share here, or join the new chat thread about top teaching tools.Pathwright — Design a learning pathPathwright is one of the best-kept secrets among teaching tools. Launched by a nimble South Carolina startup, it’s a simpler, sleeker alternative to complicated learning management systems like Blackboard or D2L. It’s more elegant and flexible than Google Classroom.Rather than giving students dozens of menus to choose from, Pathwright lets you create a simple learning path to follow one step at a time. You can create a path with a few steps for guided independent learning, or set up a full online course that’s easy to navigate. I like making mini courses that students or readers can complete in an hour to quickly learn something new.Any learning step you create can include a reading, video, activity, assessment, embed, or any other interaction. Learning paths offer a visually delightful alternative to clunkier systems. They work well for professional development, and I’ve found Pathwright works well for remote journalism training.Figjam — Spark visual thinking with collaborative whiteboardsWhen Google shut down Jamboard and Microsoft discontinued Flipgrid, teachers went searching for lively alternative tools. Figjam came to the rescue. Digital whiteboards enable the kind of open-ended visual thinking that’s invaluable, whether you’re teaching about historical networks, systems thinking, scientific processes, or anything requiring students to explore connections and relationships.The platform is free for educators. Figjam also has new AI capabilities, allowing you to instantly categorize student comments or transform a scattered brainstorm into an organized handout. You can even use Figjam for presentations. To add color and bring boards to life, Figjam includes playful stickers, stamps, and templates specifically designed for teaching and learning — from icebreakers to built-in timers.Gamma — Craft superb presentationsConsider replacing PowerPoint or Google Slides with Gamma. You’ll save time preparing slides and they’ll be more engaging for students. Create vertical, square or horizontal slides. Import existing PDFs or PowerPoint slide decks.Unlike PowerPoint, Gamma makes it easy to embed live websites, videos or data visualizations inside your slides to make them stand out. You can even use Gamma to build simple sites, social posts, or interactive lessons.Gamma works well without any AI features, for a traditional deck. Or use its AI to jumpstart a new presentation from an outline, text prompt or document you upload. You can export whatever you design to Google Slides or PowerPoint. Or share a link to your presentation. It’s free for educators to get started.* Here’s a quick example deck I made about journalism tools.* Before Gamma’s most recent popularity boom, I interviewed CEO Grant Lee about why he started the company, which now has 70 million users and a $2.1 Billion valuation.Sponsored MessageBento — A calm focus timer for unlocking better focusGenially — Create interactive handoutsGenially is terrific for creating interactive lessons. Add clickable hotspots to any image, timeline, map, or other image. When students interact with your creation, they’ll see informational pop-ups, links, videos, audio files, instructions, or whatever you’ve added. These hotspots transform static visuals — like simple maps or timelines — into engaging, exploratory learning elements. You don’t have to code anything — it’s easy for tech novices to use.I’ve used Genially to turn old handouts into resources with embedded audio. Students can click on images