One of the reasons I like Google Workspace for Education is it gives me all of the core tools that I need to be successful as a teacher. I don’t have to constantly be looking for the next great thing…I have pretty much everything that I need.

Each year I like to highlight five helpful and interesting things that you should try. This year, all of my recommendations are built into the tools that you use every day. There’s nothing new to purchase, sign up for or configure…you already have it!

Not all of these recommendations will work for you, but I think there will be 1-2 that might be useful! Here are my five things to try during the 2026-27 school year

Google Vids

If you haven’t explored ​Google Vids​, this is the year to get started! You can use Google Vids to create short tutorials, book reports, videos for parents, record presentations, and more. Google Vids feels like Google Slides which makes it very easy to use.

Related Post: ​Three video project ideas for your classroom​

Google Vids isn’t quite as creative and flashy as Canva, WeVideo, or Capcut, but it’s easy to use and integrates seamlessly with the rest of Google’s tools like Classroom, Docs, and Slides. This makes Vids an ideal choice for student projects where you want to focus on demonstrating learning rather than figuring out how to use a new tool.

Here are five quick tips for using Google Vids: 

1. Assign your Vid project with Classroom – You can attach a Vids file to Classroom just like a Doc or Presentation. This includes the “make a copy” option which means you can give students a template to work from. 
2. Stock Video – Google vids includes a good selection of stock video and images that you can use in your project. This means your younger students don’t need to scour the web for videos and images for their project. Just use the built in media library!
3. Use the teleprompter – Have your students type a script in Google Docs. Copy and paste the script into the Vids teleprompter for confident delivery. This also works for creating videos for parents or your school community! 
4. Slides to Vids – You can quickly convert a slide presentation into a recorded video. This works great for student assignments or when you need to convert a presentation into a video for staff or parents who missed the presentation. 
5. Go “TikTok” – Vids now support vertical video which means students can create “Tiktok-style” videos. Here are some ideas to spark your imagination.

AI Agents

I’m sure you have heard lots of people touting their amazing “AI Agents” which do all of their work so that they can relax and sip lemonade all day. The reality isn’t quite this amazing, but agents aren’t something you should ignore. 

An agent takes action based on a “trigger” that you configure, helping accomplish a task based on your instructions. This makes agents different from tools like Gemini and ChatGPT which don’t do anything until you enter a prompt into the box.

Let me be brutally honest for a moment — creating useful agents takes a LOT of work. It is not as easy and “magical” as others make it appear. You will probably be frustrated as you build your first agent. This is a necessary “toll” for learning a new skill. Start small, with realistic expectations. Your understanding and creativity will grow with time. 

Talk to Google Classroom with Gemini

Gemini can now directly access your Google Classroom courses and student progress which means you can “talk” to Classroom using Gemini! To get started, type “@classroom” in Gemini (you may need to enable this connection the first time you use it). Here are five prompts you should try: 

1. “@Classroom please make a list of students who have not turned in their chapter 3 summary in my 9th grade biology class.” 
2. “@Classroom draft an announcement for my 3rd hour history class reminding them to study for their quiz on Friday.” 
3. “@Classroom I have a meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Jones later today to review how James is doing in ELA9. Please create a printable progress report that I can give to them that lists his completed and missing assignments.” 
4. “@Classroom Please review the assignments in my 5th grade class and draft a newsletter that I can send to parents, summarizing what we are working on. Add some additional enrichment activities they can do at home with their student.”
5. “@Classroom Please review the attached requirements for the band practice log and draft an assignment for my 4th hour band class. Attach the file to the assignment”

There is a lot of data locked up in Google Classroom. Gemini can help you access this information to better understand what your students need in order to be successful. 

Related Post: What’s New with Google Classroom for 2026-27?

Read Along for Classroom

Read Along is a free tool for helping students improve their reading fluency. Read Along for Classroom gives teachers the ability to assign and track reading improvements. While this tool was created for elementary classrooms, it can also be used in world language courses to improve reading fluency for language learners. 

For the first time, this feature is available to ALL teachers 100% free! You don’t need an upgraded account or premium access. 

Here are five cool features you should explore: 

1. Enormous Library – Google has purchased access to the more than 800 decodable books from ReadWorks and Heggerty. You can select books based on lexile score, decodable skill, or topic. 
2. Track Progress – As students read, Google Classroom will collect student data including accuracy, reading speed, and comprehension. You can see individual student data and whole-class analytics presented in a nice dashboard inside Google Classroom.
3. Language Support – Read Along can be used in English, Spanish, Arabic, and 10 additional languages. 
4. Custom Reading Content – Teachers can use AI to write custom stories OR copy and paste text from articles into Read Along. This makes it a great option for teaching world language to MS and HS students! 
5. At-home practice – Parents can download the free Read Along app for iOS or Android to help students practice reading at home. 

Use AI to “differentiate” 

One of the most powerful ways that a teacher can use AI is to “differentiate” content. I’m not talking about traditional differentiation where you make different assignments for students in various learning styles or abilities. Instead, I’m going to take a piece of content and use AI to generate a handful of useful resources. 

Here’s what this might light like: I develop a really fun project for my students by drafting a document with the key requirements, deadlines, expectations, rules, learning objectives, etc. 

• I feed this project outline into Gemini and ask it to build a Google Slide presentation that I can use to introduce this project to my students. 
• Knowing that there are a lot of moving parts I ask Gemini to draft an infographic timeline of the key due dates for this project which I post to Google classroom. 
• There are a few students who were absent when I introduced this project, and some more who weren’t paying attention. I use Gemini Notebook to generate an audio summary of the project that I can share with anyone who needs a reminder. 
• This is a big project, and I want to make sure that parents are informed so I ask Gemini to draft a quick email that I can send to parents summarizing the key purpose and deadlines for this assignment. 

In this example, I’m taking something that I created (the initial lesson project) which I am using as the foundation for all of the AI generated resources. The more detailed and specific I make the initial outline, the better the AI content will be. None of the AI generated resources will be perfect, but they should be 75-80% ready to go. I will review each artifact, add my unique contributions before sending it to students. 

This gives a whole new perspective on “lesson planning.” In the age of AI, planning a lesson or drafting a unit plan is about establishing the core ideas and learning objectives. AI can help us fill in the specifics, based on that initial guidance. 

Having trouble keeping up?

Staying on top of the latest updates to Classroom, Gemini, Drive, and Chromebooks is a really challenge. Let me be your expert assistant! Each month I send out the Google EDU Update that highlights important updates from the last month. One email, once per month.