Welcome to the revival of the Ditch That Textbook Podcast, hosted by Matt Miller and now joined by Karly Moura! In this exciting new season, we will be recapping the content shared in the Ditch That Textbook newsletter, along with other news and updates from the education world. Join us as we dive into a big idea, delve into quick teaching strategies, and discuss a template of the week, designed to empower educators with practical tools for their classrooms. Get ready to be inspired, informed, and equipped to revolutionize your teaching approach.

News and Updates

• The Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit is almost here! Get all of the details and snag your FREE ticket at DitchSummit.com


• Google Slides is getting GIFs and Stickers!

The Big Idea

• Magic School AI has lots of tools to help save you time. Special Education teachers can check out their IEP generator.


• Use Canva's Magic Media to create quick recap videos of your class's week or school events.

Tech Tips

• You can use ChatGPT-4 for FREE with Microsoft's Bing Chat. Learn more about it in our post 4 ways Microsoft uses artificial intelligence to support teaching and learning


• AI for Education has an entire AI prompt library for educators.

Template of the Week

• Yelp Review Template from Ditch That Textbook


• April Watkins created a Virtual Field Trips choice board and then had her students write a Yelp Review after their visit. (Note: April created her own Yelp Review template to use with her students. You can create your own or use ours.)


• Lindy Hockenbary gave her students a prompt "Imagine you are an animal. What environment do you live in? Evaluate the environment that you live in by writing a Yelp review of that environment."


• Chad Miller had his students write Yelp Reviews of inventions that helped societies thrive.


• Mr. Topliff asked his students to write a Yelp Review to assess various viewpoints of key revolutions.

Next Week

• AI lesson planning


• AI for Administrators

Don't forget to join the Ditch That Textbook email newsletter at DitchThatTextbook.com/join and be sure to subscribe to the show.