AI Tools for Educators

Here are a few GenAI tools that I have found beneficial personally and for my students.

1) MagicSchool   MagicSchool includes tools for both teachers and students with the ease of a click. In the teacher page (MagicSchool), you have access to over 75 AI tools that help your role as an instructor (games, lesson planning, rubric generator, behavior interventions, accommodations, etc.) in all subject areas. The student page (MagicStudent) provides over 50 AI tools to help with writing, study habits, topic expansion, creativity, support, and content review.

I have used the Character Chatbot (MagicStudent) to introduce a literature story.  Students prompt the chatbot to act like an author or character from a book or story we will be learning in class. We had "Shakespeare" answer some questions about his decision to use Kronborg Castle as his setting of Elsinore in Hamlet. Having access to both teacher and student pages on the same website is helpful. 

2) ChatGPT or Claude  Both ChatGPT and Claude are GenAI chatbots the provide responses to student prompts.  The iteration of prompts builds critical thinking and problem-solving skills through the revision of words and change of direction that students choose in order to gain a better or more refined answer response. 

My students use ChatGPT and Claude to support and complement their own work (human intelligence). After brainstorming ideas, collaborating with peers, or researching on their own, they use ChatGPT or Claude to expand, organize, or revise their results. It's a combination of teacher-led instruction that combines human intelligence (HI) strategies complemented by GenAI tools. The goal is an appropriate blend of student understanding and learning through technology.

3) Brisk  Brisk is a Chrome extension that helps create content, give feedback, inspect writing, change reading levels or languages, and boost activities. Brisk is meant to provide teachers with time-saving tools for tasks like presentations, feedback, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lesson plans, rubrics, and lesson plans. The time saved allows teachers to spend more relational and instructional time with students.

Brisk has given me a tool that provides quick feedback to student writing that is shared via Google docs. Students are able to edit and revise writing content based on the feedback in a formative manner. It is quick feedback that students can address personally allowing me to give each student something to consider for improving their writing.  Later, I can give deeper feedback through one-on-one discussions about their writing progress.

4) Thomas Blakemore developed a "cheatsheet" for teachers listing some AI tools that would help in the generation of texts, images, videos, and quizzes along with some Chrome extensions. I have not tried all of his suggested lists, but they are AI tools to consider in the future.