High Options to Use With College students in 2026

Jeff Bradbury is an creator, podcaster, public speaker, creator of the TeacherCast Academic Community and father of the world well-known #EduTriplets.

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The 2025-2026 faculty 12 months introduced a wave of highly effective AI-enhanced instruments to Google Workspace for Training. These aren’t simply shiny new options—they’re sensible classroom instruments designed to save lots of you time, personalize studying, and unlock scholar creativity. Better of all? Most are free for educators and college students. Now that 2026 is upon us, I’m excited to share with you a few of my favourite new options that can be utilized in your classroom together with your college students. In case you are already utilizing these, I might love to listen to from you and find out how you’re exploring AI and Google Workspace in your lecture rooms.

Let’s stroll by the standout Google options it’s best to strive together with your college students this 12 months.

Google Gemini for Training: Your AI Instructing Assistant

Google Gemini is not simply one other chatbot. It is an AI assistant constructed straight into the Google apps you already use—Docs, Slides, Sheets, Gmail, and Classroom. No extra copying and pasting between tabs.

• Why it issues: Gemini 2.5 Professional incorporates LearnLM, making it the world’s main mannequin for studying. It is purpose-built for training with enterprise-grade information safety. Your information is not reviewed or used to coach AI fashions.
• Do this on Monday: Ask Gemini to “Create a lesson plan on photosynthesis aligned to NGSS requirements” or “Generate a 25-question a number of alternative apply examination from this syllabus.”

Key Options for Ok-12 Lecture rooms:

Deep Analysis — College students can analysis advanced subjects and obtain synthesized experiences with sources and citations in minutes. As a substitute of spending hours looking out, they get a complete report they’ll then discover additional.

Gemini Canvas — Create quizzes, apply exams, examine guides, and visible timelines in a single interactive house. Go from clean slate to dynamic preview in minutes. College students can construct interactive prototypes and code snippets with out realizing learn how to code.

Gemini Dwell — College students can discuss by advanced ideas, get real-time assist, and even share their display or digicam for personalised suggestions on drawback units.

What Are Google Gems?

Consider a Gem as a specialised AI assistant you create for a selected objective. As a substitute of writing the identical immediate time and again in Gemini, you construct a Gem as soon as with customized directions, and it turns into your go-to skilled for that activity.

The distinction: Common Gemini is a generalist. A Gem is a specialist.

For instance, as an alternative of typing “Create a Jeopardy recreation concerning the water cycle for fifth grade” each time you want a evaluate recreation, you create a “Jeopardy Recreation” Gem that already is aware of your grade degree, topic space, and most popular format. You then simply give it the subject.

Creating Customized Gems: Construct Your Personal AI Consultants

When you’re snug with Gemini, Google Gems allow you to create customized AI assistants tailor-made to your classroom wants.

The way it works: Give Gemini directions, examples, and sources so it behaves precisely the way you want it to. Add unit plans, pacing guides, rubrics, or anchor texts so your Gem can reference them when creating content material.

Instructor-facing Gems:

• Lesson Plan Generator — Aligned to your particular requirements and instructing model
• Father or mother Communicator — Drafts emails that match your tone and college insurance policies
• Emergency Sub Plan — Creates ready-to-go actions whenever you’re out sick
• Requirements Unpacker — Breaks down advanced requirements into teachable chunks

Pupil-facing Gems: Create a Gem and share it together with your class by Google Classroom. College students work together together with your customized AI skilled independently.

• AI Tutor — Supplies step-by-step assist with out freely giving solutions
• Writing Coach — Provides suggestions on essays and helps college students revise
• Examine Companion — Creates apply questions from their notes
• Profession Explorer — Helps college students analysis potential profession paths

EduGems: Pre-Made Gems by Eric Curts

Do not wish to construct Gems from scratch? Eric Curts (Management Alt Obtain) created EduGems—a rising library of ready-to-use Gems organized by class.

The best way to use EduGems:

1. Go to edugems.ai
2. Browse by class or seek for what you want
3. Click on any Gem to see particulars
4. Click on “Use” to open it in Gemini, or “Copy” to customise it

Well-liked EduGems for College students:

• 🧑‍🏫 AI Tutor — Guides college students by issues with questions, not solutions. Nice for homework assist and impartial apply.
• 🎭 Reader’s Theater — Converts tales or historic occasions into scripts college students can carry out. Brings content material to life by drama.
• ❓ Jeopardy Recreation — Creates Jeopardy-style evaluate video games on any matter. Excellent for check prep and engagement.
• 🤔 Pupil Brainstorming — Helps college students generate and arrange concepts for tasks and writing assignments.
• 💼 Profession Explorer — College students discover profession paths, find out about required training, and uncover associated occupations.

Well-liked EduGems for Lecturers:

• 📋 Lesson Plan — Generates full lesson plans with goals, actions, and assessments.
• 📦 Requirements Unpacker — Takes advanced requirements and breaks them into clear studying targets.
• 🚨 Emergency Sub Plan — Creates full sub plans with actions, supplies, and directions.
• 🔀 Re-level Textual content — Adjusts studying degree of any textual content for differentiation.
• 📊 Evaluation Information Analyzer — Analyzes evaluation outcomes and suggests focused interventions.

EduGems Classes:

• Curriculum & Lesson Design (13 Gems) — Lesson plans, unit plans, alternative boards, station rotations
• Pupil Actions (11 Gems) — Video games, simulations, debates, interviews
• Evaluation (15 Gems) — Quizzes, rubrics, check prep, information evaluation
• Help (14 Gems) — Lodging, scaffolds, habits plans, social tales
• Literacy & Language (6 Gems) — Decodable texts, dialogue prompts, sentence starters
• Skilled Duties (11 Gems) — Newsletters, advice letters, PD plans

Professional tip: Begin with EduGems to see how efficient Gems work, then customise them on your particular wants. It’s also possible to submit your personal Gems to be added to the gathering.

Be taught extra: Watch Eric Curts’ full Gems tutorial video or discover his AI sources at controlaltachieve.com.

NotebookLM: Your AI Analysis Assistant

Lecturers and college students work with overwhelming quantities of knowledge. NotebookLM turns into an on the spot skilled on no matter paperwork you add.

What makes it particular: It grounds all responses within the particular paperwork you present—no hallucinations, no random web sources.

Options you may use:

• Audio Overviews — Flip lecture recordings, textbook chapters, or analysis papers into podcast-style audio summaries. College students can examine wherever—on the bus, at apply, throughout their commute.
• Doc synthesis — Add PDFs, articles, unit plans, and curriculum sources. Ask questions and get solutions pulled straight out of your supplies. Create summaries, examine guides, and student-friendly sources immediately.
• Pupil independence — Assist college students perceive advanced texts with out fixed trainer intervention. They’ll ask clarifying questions and get explanations grounded of their assigned readings.

Google Vids: Create Skilled Video Content material in Minutes

Pupil consideration spans are shrinking, and lecturers want instruments to ship content material that sticks. Google Vids is Google’s reply: an AI-powered video creation device that lives proper in your Google Workspace.

What Makes Google Vids Completely different?

Assume Google Slides turned 90 levels—as an alternative of slides organized vertically, you’re employed with scenes organized horizontally. If you need to use Google Slides, you need to use Google Vids. However this is the game-changer: it is powered by Gemini AI.

The “Assist me create” characteristic: Sort what you wish to create (“Make a 3-minute tutorial on the water cycle for fifth grade”), and Google Vids generates a whole first draft in below 60 seconds—script, visuals, timing, transitions, and all. You customise from there as an alternative of ranging from scratch.

Key Options Lecturers Love:

• AI-Powered Creation — Describe your video in a sentence, and Gemini builds the primary draft for you. Add your personal screenshots, alter the timing, select AI voice or document your personal.
• Convert Slides to Movies — Have already got a Google Slides presentation? Import it into Vids and rework it into an interesting video with music, transitions, and narration in minutes.
• Inventory Media Library — Entry 1000’s of royalty-free movies, photographs, music tracks, sound results, GIFs, and stickers with out leaving the platform.
• Skilled Templates — Begin with fantastically designed templates for tutorials, bulletins, scholar tasks, and extra.
• Actual-Time Collaboration — Work collectively on video tasks similar to you’d in Google Docs. Excellent for group tasks or co-planning with colleagues.
• Seamless Google Classroom Integration — Assign movies as templates so every scholar will get their very own copy. Evaluate scholar work straight in Classroom and see their progress in real-time.

For Lecturers: Scale Your Influence

Create skilled growth movies, flipped classroom content material, and educational supplies in 20-Half-hour as an alternative of 2-3 hours.

Sensible use instances:

• Software tutorials — Document as soon as, share without end. Each new trainer will get on the spot entry to coaching.
• Flipped classes — Create micro-lectures college students watch at residence, releasing up class time for hands-on work.
• Lab procedures — Document security demos and complicated procedures college students can evaluate anytime.
• Customized suggestions — Ship fast video messages as an alternative of prolonged written feedback.
• Skilled growth — Construct a library of PD sources lecturers can entry on-demand.

For College students: Voice, Alternative, and Creativity

Google Vids offers college students an accessible solution to show understanding without having superior tech expertise.

Pupil tasks:

• Video essays — College students clarify their pondering, cite sources, and current arguments visually.
• E book experiences — Create “film trailers” for novels or informational texts.
• Science demonstrations — Document experiments with narration explaining the method.
• Digital portfolios — Showcase studying progress all year long.
• Public service bulletins — Mix analysis with persuasive communication expertise.

Scaffolding tip: Begin easy. Have college students brainstorm in Google Preserve, create a 3-slide presentation in Slides, import these slides into Vids, change slides with video B-roll, add music and transitions. This development teaches cross-tool workflows whereas constructing video literacy expertise.

Getting Began is Easy

Entry Google Vids at vids.google.com or vids.new. No software program to obtain, no sophisticated setup.

3 ways to start out:

1. Document — Best for screencasts and fast tutorials on Chromebooks
2. Use templates — Begin with skilled designs for numerous functions
3. “Assist me create” — Describe what you need and let AI construct the primary draft

Movies save mechanically to Google Drive. Share by Classroom, Drive hyperlinks, or export as MP4 information.

Why It Issues for Ok-12

Google Vids democratizes video creation. College students and lecturers with out technical experience or costly software program can now create professional-looking content material. This ranges the taking part in subject and opens doorways for creativity that had been beforehand closed.

Need the entire information? Try these in-depth sources:

Getting Began: Your Motion Plan

This week:

1. Go to gemini.google.com together with your faculty Google account
2. Ask it to create one lesson plan or evaluation
3. Strive Deep Analysis on a subject you are instructing subsequent week

This month:

1. Create your first customized Gem for a unit you train often
2. Have college students add their notes to NotebookLM and create an Audio Overview
3. Document one educational video in Google Vids

This semester:

1. Share the faculty scholar provide together with your seniors
2. Construct a library of customized Gems for various items
3. Let college students create their very own Gems as examine companions
4. Assign a Google Vids venture—have college students create a 2-minute video explaining an idea, e book report trailer, or science demonstration

One Essential Reminder

With all these highly effective AI instruments at our fingertips, remember that essentially the most significant studying nonetheless occurs by dialog, hands-on exploration, and human connection. Expertise ought to improve—not change—the relationships and dialogue that make your classroom particular.

Use these instruments to reclaim your time and power so you’ll be able to concentrate on what issues most: your college students.

Incessantly Requested Questions

Need to Be taught Extra?

Take a free course: Getting Began with Google AI from Google for Training

Discover use instances: 100+ methods to make use of Gemini in training

Deep dive: Instructing Channel’s course 5381: Instructing with Google’s AI Instruments covers Gemini, NotebookLM, Google Vids, and picture creation

Able to strive one in every of these options? Decide only one from this listing and check it this week. Reply and let me know which one you selected and the way it went.

• Jeff Bradbury, your digital studying coach 🎸

Do not Miss the Subsequent EdTech Breakthrough

Google is not achieved innovating, and neither are dozens of different EdTech corporations constructing instruments particularly for Ok-12 educators. New options drop each month—some game-changers, some duds.

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