🎓 3 Free Teacher Resources, an IEP/504 Assistant, & a New Way to Level Up Your EdTech Skills 🚀
⏰ TL;DR
🧩 Resources of the Week - Try any of these if you so desire!
💎 GEMs/GPTs of the Week - IEP/504 Accommodation Adapter ➡️ Gemini // Copy // ChatGPT
✅ Level UP with the New Badges! - ISTE & Google joined forces to help you level up and show your skillzzz!
PLEASE TELL THEM TYLER SENT YOU!!!
P.S. I’ll be helping facilitate the Boulder and Austin in-person events they’re hosting, so holla @ ya boi if you’re there (that’s me, I’m ya boi)! 🙌
🎙️Prompt of the Week (try this in Gemini) - Please create a vibrant 16-bit retro video game loading screen welcoming students to a brand-new school year, featuring a cheerful pixel-art teacher (that looks like me, picture attached) steering a rocket ship made of colored pencils through a galaxy of floating books, glowing stars, and giant floating text that says "LOCK IN AND LEVEL UP! “, nostalgic arcade aesthetic, bright neon colors.
⬇️ my result below! 😂
👋 REAL TALK
Y’all remember Max Teaching Strategies?
In my 2nd year teaching, I was just trying to just keep my head above water like I’m a 7-year old learning to doggie paddle, and they threw those Max Teaching Bling-Blongs at me to start incorporating. I was like “yo fam, ya boi trying to teach polygons whilst teenagers quote Anchorman at him! AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT.”
Teachers do not need more things to do.
I feel like we should probably stamp that sentence on on the sidewalk outside every admin district office in America. 😂
Because every new semester seems to come with another platform, another initiative, another acronym, another meeting about the meeting about a committee about a meeting we're going to have to prepare for the actual meeting about organizing this year’s meetings.
Meanwhile, you're trying to teach actual humans.
So whenever I share a resource, template, AI tool, or tech tip, my goal isn't to give you another shiny thing to add to the pile.
It's this:
Can this save you time?
Can this make something you're already doing easier?
Can this help students learn better without requiring you to sacrifice another three hours of your evening?
If yes, let’s cook (in the NBA players driving to the lane way, not the Breaking Bad way 😂😬).
If no, toss that mug back into the Internet ocean like a catfish with kind eyes! 🌊
So this week, I've got a few resources you can steal immediately, an AI tool that can help with one of the most time-consuming parts of adapting instruction, and a new way to level up your Google edtech skills (and let everyone know you did)!
Let's get into it.
Never Stop Learning!
📥 THE DROP
🧩 Free Resources of the Week - Quote of the Day Bell Ringer Digital Notebook AND A Semester Links Organization Template AND THEN A Parent Contact Form
I've got THREE for you this week.
Try one.
Try all three.
Try zero.
I'm not your boss. 😂
The goal isn't to download everything and create a beautiful new folder called "Resources I'm Definitely Going to Use Someday" that get tossed into your Google Drive like a message in a bottle.
Pick the one that solves a problem you're actually having!
💬 1. Quote of the Day Bell Ringer Digital Notebook
Sometimes the hardest part of class isn't teaching the lesson.
It's those first five minutes.
Students are walking in.
Someone needs a pencil.
Someone else is asking, "Did we do anything yesterday?"
Yes, Brayden. We did. We had an entire class. You were literally present for most of it (minus your 21 minute restroom hiatus). 😂
That's why I like having something students can immediately jump into when they enter the room.
The Quote of the Day Bell Ringer Digital Notebook gives you a repeatable structure for starting class without reinventing your bell ringer every single day.
👉Make a copy of the Quote of the Day Bell Ringer Digital Notebook
Play the video.
Give students a couple minutes to respond.
Ask a follow-up question.
Let a few students share.
BOOM.
Class has started.
And you're doing more than keeping students busy.
You're giving them an opportunity to think, write, discuss, make connections, and transition their brains from whatever happened five minutes ago into your classroom.
The best routines don't necessarily require a ton of prep.
They just need to get the ball rollin.
🗂️ 2. Semester Resource Organization Template
You ever KNOW you created something...
…but have absolutely no idea where it is?
Google Drive starts looking like Monica’s Closet from F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
Teaching resources can get the same way.
You've got Slides in one folder. Docs somewhere else. A rando YouTube video you used three semesters ago. An assessment called FINAL_Final_v3_ACTUALLYFINAL2.
That's why I made the Semester Resource Organization Template.
👉Make a copy of the Semester Resource Organization Template
The idea is simple:
Build one home base for your semester.
Instead of trying to remember where everything lives, give yourself one organized location to rule them all!
Lessons.
Assignments.
Videos.
Assessments.
Resources.
Whatever makes sense for your class.
You don't have to completely reorganize your entire Google Drive this weekend.
Please, for the love of all things, don't do that.
Nobody needs that kind of sadness in their life.
Just start creating a better system moving forward.
Future You will be extremely grateful (imhaco*).
*in my humble and correct opinion
📞 3. Parent Contact Form
Documentation is one of those teacher responsibilities that doesn't feel urgent…
…until suddenly it is VERY urgent cause your boss needs that cause a parent be runnin their mouth. 😬
You remember talking to a parent.
You remember approximately when.
You think you remember what y'all discussed.
But six weeks later, trying to reconstruct the conversation from memory while you had 45 other things happening at the same time, is not exactly the ideal workflow.
That's why a simple Parent Contact Form can be more clutch than 2022 Steph Curry (Game 4 much?).
👉Make a copy of the Parent Contact Form
Use the form whenever you phone home. Whether they answer or not. Cause it doesn’t matter, until you need it, then it’s all that matters!
Your responses live in one organized spreadsheet instead of scattered across your inbox, notes app, sticky notes, memory, and whatever you scribbled on the back of your hand in Sharpie.
💎 Gem/GPTs of the Week
IEP/504 Accommodation Adapter ➡️ Gemini // Copy // ChatGPT
This one is built around a problem I hear from teachers alls the times:
"I know what the accommodations say. I just need help figuring out what that actually looks like on THIS assignment."
Because that's the challenge, right?
You've already built the lesson.
You've already created the assignment.
You've already figured out what students neeeeeeed to learn.
Now you need to adapt the experience for individual student accommodations without accidentally changing what you're actually assessing.
That's where the IEP/504 Accommodation Adapter comes in.
The idea is to give yourself a lil co-teacher that helps you think through the adaptation.
You can give it things like:
your lesson, assignment, or assessment
the learning objective
the applicable accommodations
Then use it to help think through what stays the same, what supports could be added, and how a student might access or demonstrate the learning!
How I'd use it
Take an assignment you're already giving this week.
Drop in the assignment and learning objective, then provide the relevant accommodation needs without identifying the student.
Ask it to help you identify:
1. What cannot change? What is the actual learning target or rigor we're trying to protect?
2. What can change? Directions? Formatting? Chunking? Timing? Response options? Supports?
3. What would this look like tomorrow? Not educational-theory-land. What am I literally handing the student when class starts?
That's where AI gets useful (imhaco).
Not when it gives us 14 paragraphs explaining differentiated instruction like it's writing a formal dissertation.
👉IEP/504 Accommodation Adapter — Gemini
👉IEP/504 Accommodation Adapter — ChatGPT
The whole point is to help you save time, support students, and protect dem learning goalz.
Because you already got more on your plate than 18-year-old me at Cici's Pizza. 😂
Get the IEP/504 Accommodation Adapter FO FREE here ➡️ Gemini // Copy // ChatGPT
✅ LEVEL UP: New ISTE + Google Badges!
Free Info Webinar Link and then every other webinar/training link!
Okay, this one is more dope than Michael Jordan Jet-skiing in game-used Jordan 5’s.
ISTE + Google have joined forces to create new ways for educators to level up their skills and show what they know!!
And legit I LOVE the idea behind this.
Professional learning is at its best when it's not just:
Sit.
Watch slides.
Zone out.
Sign the attendance sheet.
Escape. 😂
The good stuff is when you actually learn something you can USE.
Learn a skill.
Try it.
Build something.
Take it back to students.
Then keep going.
That's the whole game.
You don't need to become the world's greatest Googley educator tomorrow.
You just need to know something tomorrow that you didn't know today.
That's how we get better.
Baby reps.
Consistently.
Over time.
That's how I learned pretty much every piece of technology I've ever used.
Google it.
Try it.
Mess it up.
Google it again.
Watch somebody explain it better.
Try again.
Accidentally delete it.
Hit undo.
Pretend that was part of the training.
Repeat. 😂
That's professional learning (IMHACO)!
And now you've got another opportunity to humbly showoff and put some recognition behind those skills with these new badges.
🙌 Wanna Learn More?
There is a webinar tomorrow where you can learn more about the new badges and how everything works (delivered by some LOVELY people I’ve gotten the chance to work with. PLEASE tell them “TYLER SENT ME AND HE SAID HE LOVES YOU!” 😁)
👉 Link to tomorrow’s free informational webinar!
And there are additional upcoming events you can check out here:
👉 Link to all the other free trainings and informational thingys that are awesome!
P.S. Come Holla @ Ya Boi!
I'll also be helping facilitate the Boulder and Austin in-person events they're hosting!
So if you're going to be at either one, PLEASE come say hi.
For realzies.
Don't do that thing where you see me from across the room and think:
"Oh, there's Tyler the email guy that talks about his Quote of the Day notebook waaaaay too much."
…and then six months later DM me:
"I saw you in Boulder and you’re way more awkward in-person what’s wrong with you!"
COME SAY HI! 😂
I want to meet you.
We can talk teaching.
We can talk AI.
We can talk Google.
We can talk about whatever random problem you're currently trying to solve at school.
We can talk NBA basketball and discuss how Jordan Poole is underrated and Steph Curry is the greatest basketball player of all-time DON’T AT ME, BRO! 😂
That's the best part of these events anyway.
The badge is dope.
The community is even better.
✈️ Places I’ll Be
Come hang with me if you’re nearby and/or want an excuse for a road trip! 😁
8.20.2026 Milan C-2 School District
8.27.2026 ISTE/Google GEG - Boulder
9.1.2026 Middle Township School District
9.8.2026 ISTE/Google GEG - Austin
9.15.2026 First Assembly Christian School
9.25.2026 Pueblo County School District 70
10.28.2026 District V FBLA - Middle School
10.29.2026 District V FBLA - High School
11.4.2026 GaETC
11.10.2026 Arch Ford ESC
12.2.2026 TETC
1.22.2026 Pueblo County School District 70
2.19.2027 NAREN Conference
3.4.2027 NCTIES
If you want me to speak/train at your school and/or conference, hit me up! 🙌
💌 Never Stop Learning!
