Happy end-of-summer, everyone! John here.

August is here (say it ain’t so!), which means teachers everywhere are getting ready to head back to school… and getting bombarded with recommendations for new tools, platforms, apps, AI features, and assorted digital bells and whistles along the way. Sound familiar? I feel your pain!

Some of them are genuinely useful. Some… will disappear or be renamed by October (still not over the name change from NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook). And some will inevitably leave us wondering why we created another account when the thing we were already using worked just fine.

That tension is part of what I’m excited to dig into on Thursday, August 13 at 3 PM ET, when I’ll be joining a star-studded group of educators for FETC’s free Back-to-School EdTech: “Smarter Tools, More Learning” webinar.

Did I mention I’m also one of the Featured Presenters for the 2027 FETC Conference in Orlando? Kiiiiiiiiiiinda’ geeking out over that one 🙂

I’ll be part of the conversation alongside Scott Bricker, Lindy Hockenbary, Christina Núñez, and FETC Chair Jennifer Womble. We’re all coming at this work from different angles, which should make for a much more interesting conversation than five people taking turns recommending their favorite apps.

The Back-to-School EdTech webinar is completely free and kicks off at 3 PM ET on Thursday, August 13. If you’re sorting through your own plans for the year ahead, come hang out with us for an hour.

We’ll talk tools, trends, classroom realities, and the choices educators are making as another school year gets underway. My hope is that you leave with a few ideas worth stealing, adapting, or experimenting with — and perhaps permission to ignore a few shiny things along the way!