We all want to write beautiful, meaningful report comments for our students, but usually, the enthusiasm wears off and we can end up writing short, meaningless comments, or we end up trying to match the student to pre-existing texts. Using AI prompts to create end-of-term report comments can be a way to overcome this and return the focus to the student and away from grammar, spelling and mistake-avoidance. In sum, if prompted correctly, AI tools can create well-written comments. Here is a method which uses a spreadsheet to generate the prompt so that you can focus on the student and let the AI take care of the mechanics of writing.

There are many good reasons for using a slide show in a lesson. There are ways to maximise the learning that can be achieved when a teacher uses slides. The basic idea is to use the slides to increase active engagement, rather than kill it.

Consider this data. Imagine they have been received by doing some kind of survey where we are investigating the relationship between the amount of time spent studying and the score achieved. Each row represents the data for a different student. If you select the data and ask your spreadsheet to draw a graph, you get could some kind of nonsense. How to fix this?

When you make a presentation for a lesson or set up a project, you probably expect students to read the instructions and information on the screen. But, somehow, for many students, it only makes sense when you explain it to them, even if all you do is just read what’s there. So, it can be useful to make videos of yourself explaining the material.

When you click the Create button on the Classwork page, you have many options. This article focuses on Assignments, and specifically the value of creating assignments that function as templates.

When you click the Create button on the Classwork page, you have many options. This tip focuses on Material.

When you set up your classroom, it is important to manage the Stream - don’t just go with the flow! The default setting can be a hindrance to learning.

When you click the Create Assignment button on the Classwork page, you have many options. One of the most useful features is found in Assignment: Rubric.

A Google Form is a great way to conduct a survey. It even produces nifty graphs of the results. But, it does not give you a breakdown of the data. More specifically, it does not answer Independent/Dependent variable questions, eg "Are Males or Females more likely to..." That's where a Pivot Table comes in handy.

When you write your end of year report comment, you will be commenting on the student's progress or lack thereof, and the actual mark received. If the mark is low, and/or the progress is negative, you will want to suggest some kind of remedy. These comments need to be based on verifiable information. This got me thinking about Nested IFs in spreadsheets...

When you have marks and/or rankings in a spreadsheet, you can use a formula to convert them to text. That text can form the basis of a comment.