Hello 2025

There's been a lot of research and edtech in 2024

Andre Violante
January 01, 2025

MAKING IT EASIER TO BE A BETTER TEACHER

5 min. read

Ah, New Year’s Day. A time for resolutions and recovery before heading back to the classroom. You may be filled with hope for your workload, boredom if you’ve had a long break, or for many, even fear to return to it all.

The PEN’s got your back.

For our issue today, we’re going to get a little reflective as we look back on our first year of The PEN Weekly.

Below you’ll find a collection of your favorite edtech and research that we covered in 2024 (based on our data).

Thank you to everyone who’s read, shared, and learned from our twice-per-week newsletters.

Here’s to an even better classroom in 2025!

A Year in Review

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Your favorite PEN Weekly Articles from 2024

We’ve selected the 12 articles (sorted from oldest to newest) that readers loved the most from this past year to help kickstart your 2025.

Click through the links to start making your classroom even better this year.

Next week we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Concerned about social media impact on your students?

Here’s how social media can best help language learners in your classroom.

Looking for a way to make your History lessons more engaging?

This tool connects students to ancient figures through AI.

Students talking too much?

A free app to help, plus a study on how to listen to your students best.

Looking for a cheap alternative to costly virtual reality classroom tools?

What research says is the best free alternative to VR tools for young students.

Want to change up your seating plans for 2025?

Research has spoken - here are the best seating arrangements for student engagement (plus nearly-free tech tool to help set it all up).

Are your Science scores suffering?

The tech tool to help make science more engaging - plus a study on why you should consider virtual labs.

Were your students too loud in 2024?

The free app to help - plus an experiment on why noisy classrooms may be harming more than just our test scores.

Afraid to tackle political conversations in your classroom?

This interview on why your students should not know who you vote for may help you navigate the messiness of it all.

Looking for new ways to inject critical thinking into your lessons?

Click for a free tool to help, plus an experiment on how early schools need to start focusing on critical thinking skills.

Too many entitled students and parents in your current classroom?

Peek through these key strategies to better tackle it in 2025.

Are your students getting a little too comfortable around you?

Here are some key strategies about how to build a good and safe rapport.

Looking for a full service AI solution that’s not just ChatGPT?

Google’s free app can superstar lessons using your current resources.

We’re a (very) small team here at The PEN Weekly - we read every single comment, reply, share, and post you send our way.

We cannot thank each of you enough for letting us into your teaching life every week.

If we’ve helped at all - please don’t keep the gold to yourself! Continue to pass and share us along. The more teachers we can reach, the more impact we can make, and the more teachers we can help.

Thanks for a great start in 2024.

You won’t believe how amazing of a teacher you’re about to become in 2025.

See you on Monday,

The PEN Weekly Team