Free Digital Templates to Save Time and Teach Creatively

Well, hello everybody and welcome to Day Seven of the 12 Tech Tips of Christmas for 2025! It’s lovely to have you here.

We’re officially halfway through the series, and over the next six days we’ve still got plenty more tips, tricks and tools to share. But today’s episode is a little different — because instead of spotlighting one tool, we’re sharing something designed to make all your tools easier to use…

Today, we’re diving into digital templates.

What Are Evolve EdTech Digital Templates?

At Evolve EdTech, we’re big on giving educators practical resources they can use immediately. Our free digital templates are designed to help teachers feel:

• Confident using educational technology

• Organised with planning and classroom workflow

• Inspired to create engaging learning activities

These templates are built to take pressure off you. Whether you’re planning lessons, tracking learning, running reflection activities, or building student-friendly tasks — our templates give you a head start so you can focus on what matters most:

Great teaching. (Because that’s our core business.)

Why Do Educators Love Our Templates?

Here’s the honest truth: teachers are busy. The workload is real. The “I’ll just quickly make a worksheet” lie has trapped us all at some point.

That’s where templates come in.

Educators love our templates because they:

• Cut preparation time dramatically

• Help create visually engaging, professional resources

• Promote consistency across units, lessons and student tasks

• Support teachers at all levels of EdTech confidence

• Require no coding, no fancy setup — just register, download and use

They’re designed to be plug-and-play. Simple, practical, and classroom-ready.

A Snapshot of Templates You Can Access for Free

We’ve got a growing library, so today we highlighted a handful of favourites to show the variety and how they can be used in real classrooms.

1) Stop and Jot (Exit Ticket)

A quick and effective end-of-lesson template where students jot down:

• Key learning

• Interesting facts

• New ideas

• Questions they still have

Perfect for quick formative feedback — and a great way to spot misconceptions before they snowball.

2) Ready to Roll (Reading Strategy Series)

This template is part of a series (with additional slides) built around reading comprehension and text features.

Students work through prompts connected to:

• Main topics

• Images, diagrams, tables

• Context clues

• Key reading strategies

It’s structured but still fun — and ideal for explicit literacy teaching across KLAs.

3) Summary Shirts (Exit Ticket + Creativity)

This one is a crowd-pleaser.

Students identify two new or interesting ideas from the lesson and design a “summary shirt” to represent their learning.

It works beautifully in:

• English and Humanities

• Science concepts

• Maths formulas

• PDHPE reflections

• Even quick revision lessons

It’s learning… with a bit of personality.

4) Visible Thinking Routines (Harvard Project Zero)

We’ve created templates inspired by the Visible Thinking Routines from Harvard Project Zero, making it easier to actually implement them in class.

Examples include:

• Beginning, Middle, End

• See, Think, Wonder-style routines

• See, Wonder, Connect

The structure is done for you — students simply add their thinking.

5) My Learning Awards (Weekly Reflection)

A reflective activity where students:

• Choose their top three pieces of work for the week

• Allocate Gold, Silver and Bronze

• Explain why each earned that award

It’s a great way to build:

• Metacognition

• Pride in learning

• Goal setting and reflection

• Student voice

Yes, it’s brilliant for primary… but it absolutely works in high school too.

6) Character Summary Template (A Classic)

One of our earliest templates (hello, COVID era!) and still a favourite.

Students capture a character using prompts like:

• Character name

• Who they are

• What they do

• What they say

• What they represent

A simple, structured way to build deeper textual understanding.

7) Bingo Card Template (Because Bingo Works)

This one is delightfully simple: a 5 x 5 grid that you can customise.

Use it for:

• Vocabulary bingo

• Revision bingo

• Reading or spelling bingo

• Topic review across any subject

It’s easy to create, easy to reuse, and students always buy in.

8) Question Chart (Who/What/When/Where/Why/How)

A brilliant scaffold for building quality questions after reading, viewing or listening.

Students combine starters to form questions like:

• Who is…?

• What did…?

• Why does…?

• How might…?

It’s a strong literacy tool and supports inquiry-based learning.

9) REF Assessment Reflection Grid

A powerful post-assessment reflection activity:

• Easy Right

• Easy Wrong

• Hard Right

• Hard Wrong

Students place reflections into each quadrant (digitally or with post-its), helping you spot patterns and plan what to reteach or reinforce next.

It’s student reflection that actually leads somewhere — not just “I need to try harder.”

Where to Find the Templates

All our templates are available on the Evolve EdTech website, ready for you to access 365 days a year.

You can find them by:

• Going to the homepage and selecting Templates, or

• Using the top menu: Resources → Digital Templates, or

• Heading directly to the templates section via the website

Once you find a template you like, you simply:

1. Click the template

2. Enter your name and email

3. Submit the form

4. Receive the template via email and start using it

Easy.

Quick Facts About the Template Collection

Here’s the wrap-up from today’s episode:

• There are currently around 80 templates available (and growing)

• They’re 100% free to access, download and use

• New templates will continue to be added over time

• Share them with your colleagues — they’re designed to help educators everywhere

And here’s the exciting extra…

Coming in 2026: Even More Access Through the Academy

In 2026, members of The Tech-Ready Teacher Academy will be able to access the full template collection inside the membership, with editable Canva versions so you can customise templates for your class, faculty or school.

Final Thoughts: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Templates aren’t about cutting corners — they’re about cutting the time you spend reinventing the wheel.

If a template helps you:

• plan faster

• teach more creatively

• support students more clearly

• reduce workload stress

…then it’s doing exactly what it should.

See You Tomorrow for Day 8!

That wraps up Day Seven of the 12 Tech Tips of Christmas for 2025.

Don’t forget to:

• Subscribe to the Evolve EdTech YouTube channel

• Give the video a thumbs up so more educators can find it

• Join us tomorrow for Day Eight — we’ve got plenty more coming