Why Gemini is a GameChanger for Education

want to know how teachers are actually using  Google Gemini to save time and spark creativity   in the classroom in this video I connected with  one of Google's top education leaders to get the   10 most practical gamechanging tips and trust  me these are the kind of ideas you want to use tomorrow hey everyone Jamie from Teachers Tech  here today I'm joined by Jenny McGara global   head of education impact at Google best-selling  author former teacher and someone who's deeply   passionate about making learning more equitable  and innovative with technology i had the chance   to chat with Jenny about how educators can make  the most of Google Gemini from real classroom   examples to tips you can apply right away these  10 ideas will help you teach smarter not harder   and make sure you stick around to the end where  I ask her what does she think about the future   of AI and where it's going so I'm here with Jenny  Mera i'm excited to hear these tips with Gemini   uh Jenny take it away please everybody I am so  excited to share 10 fun tips for Gemini use with   teachers as many of you know I spent most of my  career as a teacher myself and when I think about   generative AI you hear all the time in the news  about how it can save people time that it could   save up to 13 hours of your time a week which  is great but I think that AI offers way more   opportunities than time saving and so we're always  asking ourselves at Google for education how can   we use AI to support teaching and learning and so  our team has worked with experts outside of our

um organization to um to surface five  learning science principles around inspiring   active learning managing cognitive load  deepening metacognition and stimulating curiosity   as well as adapting to each learner as we look  at these 10 tips they're all built on Gemini   which really adheres to these five learning  science principles and so I'm going to dig in   and hopefully you enjoy them as much as I do and  other teachers around the world first off I want

to talk about how you can use Gemini and Gemini  in classroom to generate new and differentiate   existing lesson plans for me as an educator that  blank page was so difficult i'd be sitting in at   home on a Sunday night or a Tuesday night really  any day that ends in Y trying to write a new   lesson for my young learners and I wouldn't know  where to begin sometimes I'd have lessons that I   taught every year for a decade and I was getting  bored of hearing myself repeat the same activities   using Gemini you can create new lesson hooks come  up with net new lesson plans or refresh and dust   off lessons that you've been using year-over-year  keeping the stuff that's tried and true but trying   new things to excite your new learners and  yourself to be honest there's also the idea

of creating an assessment based on a lesson so as  an educator I'd always want to be checking for my   students learning and understanding and so I might  know what I was teaching but how to assess was   always a challenge even when I was doing backwards  design coming up with the assessment itself to   make sure it was thoughtful it was intentional  that it wasn't just a wrote multiple choice   was always really hard so using Gemini to take a  lesson and ingest that lesson and then say "Here   are some really thoughtful questions. " I would  never maybe use that exact lesson assessment but   it would give me a starting off place to say "Oh  I didn't even think about asking that question   or those are really good miscues to consider. "  And so it would help me be essent essentially a   teaching assistant for me in building out that  learning assessment be it a formative or learn   a summitative learning assessment for whatever  it is that I'm teaching one school that's doing   this is Miami Dade Public Schools they're using  Gemini throughout their system to create quizzes   and answer keys so students are generating  personalized study materials because the   teachers are able to say "This is what I'm going  to assess this is how I'm going to assess it. "   and the students are able to then determine what  is it that's important in this lesson for me to   make sure that I retain as I go on throughout my  learning career now not only do we want to assess

our students we want to be able to give thoughtful  feedback and I had at one point over 300 students   that I was teaching departmentalized math to and  so around like student number 17 I'm like "Oh my   gosh what am I gonna say that doesn't feel just  like copy paste or literally copy pasting from one   student to the next? " Now with Gemini you can have  it ingest again the students um learning content   and what they did to show what they know and then  I could have it suggest tailored feedback for each   student now of course as the educator I want to be  the teacher in the loop i'm not going to end there   but at least it gives me a starting off place so  that I could have unique an uh feedback for each   student and then I could go in and personalize it  add my own voice tweak it to make sure it really   does reflect what I think is the best way to  give that feedback to that learner one of my

favorite tools that uses Gemini is Notebook  LM and this is an amazing thing that teachers   around the world are loving where you can upload  hundreds of sources websites PDFs Google Docs   and allow it all to become your own synthesized  learning information tool so you can use it for   a variety of goals like for example if there's a  new learning standard that you need to teach that   um wasn't there last year you can upload your  state or local standards upload the content from   um curriculum that you might be using to uh unpack  that learning with your students maybe exemplars   of student work and then have it help you generate  new content ask questions about it make deeper   meaning i love it as an educator because it allows  me to get to the core of what that standard is or   what that learning target is and make sure that I  as a practitioner fully understand what I'm trying   to get at and how to utilize the resources  that are available to me to meet that need   some examples of schools that are doing this is  Wake Forest University's Provost Office is using   Notebook LM for policy documentation so as they're  trying to understand policies they're uploading it   to be like "All right let's ask some questions to  make sure we fully understand it. " UC Riverside   students are using Notebook LM to upload their  own interpretations and create position papers and   then they're able to debate it to find weaknesses  and test their own understanding and then here's   an interesting one that's outside of the classroom  lynwood Unified School District is using Notebook   LM to review candidates to hire so as people are  submitting their resumes they're putting it all   into Notebook LM to help them find who is the best  candidate for the job description another amazing

way to use Gemini is the learning coach gem inside  of it now is a pre-made   gem from Google that provides stepbystep study  guidance um helpful active practice opportunities   and it allows you to build personalized learning  experience for students rather than just giving   them the answer and again those five learning  science principles like inspiring active learning   and managing cognitive load is really important  those first two bits because if I just say "Oh   here's the answer. " It's not really active it's  like "Okay I'm done i'm out managing cognitive   load i don't want to overly frustrate you so I  want to give you enough to make you interested   but not make you want to opt out. " And then the  metacognition the curiosity adapting to learner   it's all part of that learning coach uh gem that  is built right in there speaking of gems you can

use them to gamify existing lessons and review  content so if you have a lesson and you're like   "Hey this lesson but more fun i want to gify it. "  You can have Gemini figure out how to do that with   you chicago public school staff are actually using  GEMS to review curriculum and see how they can   make it more aligned to their existing guidelines  understand if it's meeting their evaluation needs   and find new ways to uplevel the lessons now those  tips are all about how we can use them in our   classroom around our classroom but it's a whole  another thing to think about supporting educators   and understanding how to use these tools so as  we're thinking about bringing really powerful   technologies like Gemini AI into classrooms for  teaching and learning we want to make sure that   the teachers are supported as well so they feel  comfortable and ready to use this without adding   extra mental or time burden to them and we can use  Gemini for that as well for example you can use

Gemini to create the PD content to teach Gemini  inception so you can have it build new slides and   create things like a professional  development agenda i could say I want a two-hour   agenda on how to teach Gemini i want a full day  back to school institute day on Gemini create a   whole Gemini Academy these are all things that you  can do using Gemini when it comes to creating PD   content and agendas a lot of places are creating  entire AI exploration task forces for example

university prep schools in Michigan is creating  a Prep Educator AI workg group it consists of   educators students and they're all test driving  different types of generative AI tools to figure   out how it's going to work and they're using  things like Gemini to determine how are we going   to teach the task force about AI using Gemini to  create agendas for it so they're both evaluating   uh Gemini but using Gemini in the evaluation  now we're also always sending out newsletters

i am not only an educator a Googler I'm  also a parent and I have two students   uh who live with me my six-year-old Lucy and  my three-year-old Nora and I am getting so many   newsletters and so that's a lot for me to read but  it's also a lot for all of those educators to be   writing all of those newsletters so you can use  Gemini to create your newsletters i could just go   ahead and put a bulleted list of all the updates  and it can create a beautiful easy to read pathy   newsletter for families and staff to read but then  I'm also using Gemini and Gmail as the recipient   of the newsletter to TLDDR it too long don't want  to read the whole thing but I do want to know do I   need to send in snacks for my student is there a  new update what do I need to know as a parent or   wearing my educator hat as a staff member so I can  use Gemini both to create the newsletter and also   read the newsletter ipsilani Community Schools  is an example of an amazing school system that's   using these AI tools to communicate with all of  their families but wait there's more not only are   they creating these newsletters using Gemini and  Gemini and Gmail they're also using the translate   feature in Gemini to make sure they're reaching  each and every family so that all the multilingual   families have opportunity and access to receive  that communication in their native language and

last but not least this is the one that I really  feel like is a showstopper back to Notebook LM   using Gemini one of the really neat features about  it is if it's like a too long didn't read it's   like a okay too long want to listen so some of you  might be listening to this podcast right now while   you're driving folding laundry waiting in line at  Target you might want to listen to all the emails   that you get from your principal or about all  the articles that are coming out about the latest   research on generative AI or the product updates  from Google you can upload all of those into   Notebook LM again hundreds of sources you could  paste into that and be like boom give me a 20   minute podcast with a super engaging guy and gal  who are chatting about these topics and I'm just   going to pop in my headphones and listen to it  while I go for a walk or do my errands i do this   all the time with emails from my team with the  latest research and I love it because then I get   to show up to meetings and sound like the smartest  gal in the room like I've read all this research   but really I use Notebook LM to summarize it in an  audio overview there are so many organizations and   that are doing that right now with their staff to  help create PD on the go through audio overviews   there are so many use cases I could give you  if we had more time you could go to goo. gleedu   gleeedu examples to see what our AIEDU fellows  from all over the world are using Gemini to do to   uplift students and teachers in their communities  but on behalf of our children I want to thank you   all for listening and I hope that you enjoyed my  tips thanks Jenny um Jenny I'm curious what do you   think the future of education and Gemini how this  all interweavves and what does it look like   you know I think that I think when people ask me  about the future I have a lot of different   responses but it the first thing is it takes me  back to um you know Jamie when you and I first   met back in WDC17 right we were this was like  way before we were talking about GE generative   AI anything like this gemini wasn't a twinkle  in our eye yet and we were talking about like   onetoone back then right we're like oh how do  we bring onetoone devices into the classroom   and I remember like a lot of educators were  talking about this concept of technology being   ubiquitous but invisible and I heard a lot of  different speakers and educator bloggers kind   of using that phrase that technology should be  ubiquitous but invisible and I think what they   were trying to say is everyone has access it's  everywhere when you need it how you want it but   it's not intrusive it's not something where it's  about the technology it's kind of happening in the   background and it just becomes a muscle memory  or a second sense for how you make meaning or   get access or get something done and that's  where I see honestly same for generative AI same   for Gemini i am hopeful that in the future it  is ubiquitous it's everywhere anybody wants it   it's ready it's easy to access but that it's not  about Gemini it's not about the generative AI it's   just the way that we as humans are upleveling  and elevating what we're trying to do to create   more opportunity and accessibility for all of  our learners and educators no I know with the   new learners now if I show the other day I was  showing a kindergarten class some generative AI   and they won't know anything else it will just  be there for them their expectation is   for the technology just to do that and if you  were older and looking at it takes a while   just to transform the way you think about it  and everything i like that answer though thank   you but for what it's worth I mentioned earlier  I am a Googler and educator and a mom and so my   six-year-old Lucy we have Google Nests all around  our house with Google Assistant and she's always   like she'll ask me a question i'll be  like "I'm not sure Lucy. " She's like "It's   fine. " And she's like "Okay Google. " And then  she'll just ask the Nest and now I've let her   um play with Gemini under my supervision on my  phone and she'll be like "Oh I don't like the   answer that Google gave me it was too short  it wasn't deep enough. " And she's like "Can I   talk to Gemini? " So my six-year-old she's mentally  agile and she's already creating her own context   for how to get answers in the world now I hope you  found Jenny's tips practical and things that you   could apply right away in your classroom and gave  you a few more ideas now stay tuned as I'm going   to try to connect with Jenny again to get more  tips and other people at Google Education thanks   for watching this time in Teachers Tech i'll see  you next time with more tech tips and tutorials