Throughout my work with educators and district leadership teams across the country, I have seen growing interest in and a need for AI professional learning. Educators want to understand what AI is, how it works, and how it can support their work, but they also want practical guidance about data privacy, academic integrity, bias, responsible classroom use, and appropriate student use. They need clear and consistent guidance that supports their practice.

A single workshop or training will not adequately prepare educators for everything they need to know and do. I have been passionate about this work for the past four years since starting my doctoral research, which focused on the need for effective AI professional development for educators.

A key takeaway from my research was the importance of ongoing, relevant, and supportive professional learning. My work with schools and educators has continued to reinforce that finding.

Effective AI professional learning cannot simply be about showing teachers the latest tools. Tools change, policies evolve, and new concerns emerge. If PD focuses primarily on a platform, what educators learn may become outdated before they have an opportunity to apply it in their practice. We need to build knowledge, confidence, and skills that educators can transfer regardless of what AI tools are available.

Start With Purpose, Not With Tools

For years, when I provided PD, I often focused on the tools. Over time, I recognized that technologies change, and what matters most is understanding the why behind using technology. The same is true with AI. Begin by asking why an educator might use AI rather than asking which AI tool they will use.

When I work with educators, I challenge them to identify specific needs in their own practice. Do they want to differentiate instruction? Create more accessible materials? Provide feedback? Redesign an assessment? Generate ideas? Reduce time spent on repetitive tasks? Starting with an instructional need keeps the focus on teaching and learning rather than technology for technology’s sake.

Providing guiding questions helps educators decide when AI is useful and when it is not. Effective professional learning should guide teachers to ask:

• What is the learning goal?
• What thinking should students do independently?
• Where might AI provide meaningful support?
• What would be gained or lost by using AI?
• What happens if AI completes too much of the work?

These questions will remain relevant even as the technology changes.

Connect Learning to Real Classroom Practice

Just as relevance makes learning more meaningful for students, professional learning needs to connect to educators’ actual roles and responsibilities. A kindergarten teacher, high school science teacher, school counselor, special education teacher, instructional coach, and district administrator may ultimately use the same AI platform, but they will not necessarily use it in the same way.

Professional learning should include realistic scenarios for grade levels and content areas, and provide an opportunity for participants to create something they can use right away. Teachers might revise an assignment, develop expectations for student AI use, evaluate an AI-generated response, design a differentiated resource, or create a lesson that requires students to verify AI output.

In my sessions, educators have found it valuable to work through scenarios with colleagues rather than just learn what AI can do. Some scenarios I use include a student using an unapproved chatbot, evaluating a biased AI-generated response, considering the consequences of exposed student information, or addressing suspected AI-assisted student work.

Discussions enable educators to collaborate and think about what they would do, consider the benefits and cautions of AI, and learn together. These conversations help them leave with a clearer understanding of AI and specific next steps for their own learning and practice.

Differentiate the Professional Learning

We differentiate learning for students, so we should think similarly about professional learning for educators. Everyone needs a solid foundation in AI literacy, but not everyone needs the exact same training.

Effective professional learning should provide opportunities for educators to explore how AI connects specifically to their work. Classroom teachers may need more support with instructional design, assessment, AI literacy, and appropriate student use. Administrators may focus more on leadership, policy, implementation, and communication. Technology teams may need more time on data privacy, security, and vendor vetting.

Professional learning should also account for differences in experience and comfort with AI. Two teachers in the same department may have very different starting points. One may already be experimenting with AI while another is still learning the basics. Providing opportunities for choice and time to learn with colleagues meets educators where they are without overwhelming them.

Address Privacy, Law, and Ethics

Responsible AI use cannot be an add-on at the end of professional learning. Privacy, safety, ethics, accessibility, and legal considerations need to be woven throughout the experience.

As an educator and attorney, I frequently work with schools that have questions about student data, approved tools, vendor agreements, copyright, accessibility, and academic integrity. Many educators have expressed not having enough guidance about what information can be entered into an AI platform or how to determine whether a tool is appropriate for students.

Educators need practical guidance rather than a list of laws without classroom context. Questions to consider:

• Why does entering identifiable student information into an unapproved platform create risk?
• What do age requirements mean for student access?
• What should educators look for in privacy policies?
• Why must AI-generated content be reviewed for bias and accuracy?

Schools need consistent expectations. Professional learning should connect directly to district policies and show what those policies mean in practice.

Make Professional Learning Active and Ongoing

In schools, a keynote or introductory workshop helps to build awareness and momentum, but it should serve as the beginning of the learning process rather than the entire strategy. Ongoing support might include workshops, content- or grade-level coaching, professional learning communities (PLCs), office hours, model lessons, and ongoing conversations.

The goal is not to become an AI expert. Educators need enough understanding and confidence to make informed decisions, recognize when AI adds value and when it does not, and guide students to do the same. When this is possible, we move from simple awareness of AI and its possibilities to intentional implementation.

Include Students and Families

AI professional learning should help educators understand how students are using these technologies. Students may be employing AI to brainstorm, translate, summarize, study, create images, or complete assignments. Some students may understand the limitations of these tools, while others may trust the output without questioning it.

Ask students how they are using AI. What do they think is permitted? What do they consider cheating? When do they believe AI helps them learn? When might they be relying on it too much? What do they know about the information they are sharing with AI tools? Student voice can reveal gaps between school policies and actual classroom practices. It can also help schools develop expectations that are realistic, understandable, and responsive to student needs.

Families should be part of the conversation as well. Parents and caregivers may have questions about why AI is being used, what tools students can access, how their children's information is protected, how schools define appropriate use, or how AI changes the expectations for student work. Professional learning should prepare educators to answer these questions.

Build Systems That Can Adapt

Effective AI professional learning should be part of a larger system that involves leadership, policy, curriculum, technology, families, and students. District leaders must communicate a clear vision, provide guidance about approved tools, and reflect on decisions as the technology changes. Schools should also evaluate whether professional learning is making a difference in educators’ confidence, classroom decisions, assessment practices, and understanding of privacy expectations.

The measure of successful AI professional learning goes beyond the number of tools educators explore during a workshop; it is what happens after the workshop. Are educators asking better questions? Are they protecting student information? Are they making intentional choices about when AI adds value?

The tools in use today may not be the tools used next year, which is why understanding the fundamentals of AI and how it enhances learning is essential before diving into specific tools. Effective professional learning is not an experience that tells educators to embrace every new tool or avoid AI completely. The best learning helps educators understand AI, its capabilities, and guides them to approach it with curiosity, caution, and confidence, with the human side of education at the center.

Welcome to the September 2026 Back to School edition of Edtech Show & Tell, in which our editors share some of the new edtech products that have caught our attention this month. These are not reviews or endorsements, but a showcase of education-friendly items, platforms, and more that we think might be noteworthy for you.

This month's new offerings include NGSS-aligned middle school science lessons, immersion language learning, AI literacy training and much more.

Extron | DTP3 T 321

The new DTP3 T 321 simplifies long-distance USB-C extension, sending video, audio, data, power, and bidirectional RS-232 signals up to 330 feet (100 meters) over a single shielded CAT 6A cable. The transmitter features a USB-C input, local HDMI output, and two USB device ports. It supports video resolutions up to 4K/60 with 4:4:4 color sampling, EDID Minder®, and HDCP 2.3.

GoGuardian | AI-powered Recommendation Engine

The AI-powered Recommendation Engine in GoGuardian Admin now enables district leaders with proactive policy recommendations based on student online behavior patterns. The Recommendation Engine translates student online activity into proactive guidance by turning emerging activity into governable policy, providing an AI-powered safety-net, and is built for every district, expert or not.

Magewell | Director Plus

Director Plus brings 4K production and enhanced network capabilities to Magewell's Director family of portable, all-in-one production and presentation systems. This new model can flexibly ingest up to six 4Kp60 sources or sixteen 1080p60 sources from HDMI, USB, and IP feeds, along with media assets from connected devices and third-party software platforms. Combining powerful streaming with flexible source integration, Director Plus enables creators and production teams to build hybrid or all-IP workflows for sports, Houses of Worship, healthcare, enterprise, education, podcasts, and more.

McGraw Hill | ROAR

Developed at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, Reading and Dyslexia Research Program, ROAR is designed to assess foundational K12 reading. Grounded in more than a decade of reading and neuroscience research, ROAR helps educators identify and support students with diverse reading needs, including students with dyslexia, earlier and more effectively.

Penda Learning | Cosmos

The AI-powered instructional assistant Cosmos provides scaffolded explanations, strategic hints, summaries and step-by-step coaching to help students work through science concepts and build understanding on their own. Cosmos works within the Penda Learning platform and teachers can see when and where students request help and use that information to identify areas where additional instruction may be needed.

Renaissance | Intelligence

Renaissance Intelligence unifies assessment, instruction, practice, and curriculum in a cohesive workflow. Built on 40 years of learning science and educator expertise, Renaissance Intelligence gives teachers real-time insights and recommendations designed to help them understand where students are, determine what they need next, and personalize instruction with confidence. It includes Renaissance Assessment, Renaissance Literacy, and Renaissance Math.

Rosetta Stone | Sapphire

Built on Rosetta Stone's Dynamic Immersion method and TruAccent speech recognition technology, Rosetta Stone Sapphire introduces a modern new interface, realistic conversation practice and powerful tools that help learners personalize their language journey. Rich imagery brings content to life, navigation is fluid and intuitive, and lessons, conversation practice and other learning resources are deeply connected, creating a sense of journey.

Squirrels | Ditto Android Receiver

The Ditto Android Receiver software allows schools to run three capabilities — screen sharing, digital signage and emergency alerts — directly on Android-powered TVs, projectors and IFPs. Installing Ditto on compatible Android devices from Google Play eliminates the need for a separate set-top box, dongle, adapter, media player or receiver hardware.

Symetrix | Cognio C20 Smart Processor

Built on an Intel x86 processor, the C20 brings powerful new processing capabilities to a compact, one-third rack-width device created for flexible deployment at the edge or in the rack. It supports multiple rooms through independent Signal Flow Spaces or operates with other Cognio processors and endpoints as part of a larger distributed installation. This processor-to-endpoint extensibility allows AV teams to add processing and functionality where they are needed, then expand the system incrementally as requirements change. The C20 supports VESA mounting, surface, podium, under-table, or optional rack-tray installation, letting AV teams deploy processing closer to the rooms and applications it serves.

Turnitin | Multipart Assignment Types

Multipart assignment types is a connected experience built for student growth and learning integrity. The new workflow allows instructors to design assignments with structured checkpoints for guidance and reflection throughout the writing process. It embeds formative feedback at every stage, from initial draft to final submission, within a single workflow.

Vector Solutions | AI Literacy Training

Vector Solutions' new suite of AI literacy and workforce readiness courses is designed to help schools, districts, colleges, and universities prepare students, educators, faculty, and staff to use AI responsibly, ethically, and effectively. The training gives schools and institutions a scalable way to build practical AI skills across campus and district communities through role-specific courses.

Vernier Science Education |Vernier Connections Middle School Lessons

Vernier Connections powered by Penda have expanded its online instructional platform with NGSS-aligned science content for grades 6-8. The hands-on lessons helps students explore real-world questions and engineering challenges. These span key middle school science topics, including thermal energy, light, chemical reactions, forces and motion, the Earth’s seasons, electromagnetism, sound waves, and energy transfer.

• Edtech Show & Tell

Hosted by Christine Weiser, Content Director for Tech & Learning, the recent Future of Edtech webinar showcased two award-winning products and explored critical trends in K-12 technology integration.

Featuring "Best of ISTE" award winners ClearTouch and PowerSchool, the product demonstration addressed practical issues such as cost savings, implementation challenges, and the necessity of aligning new technology with human-centered instruction.

Watch the webinar on demand here

Takeaways

Trends From ISTELive 2026

Matthew X. Joseph, an award-winning district leader and longtime Tech & Learning adviser, concluded the session by sharing a few trends he noticed during the recent ISTELive 26 conference in Orlando.

“The tools and our partners like you just heard from are really critical to our work,” Joseph said, “But one thing that hasn't changed with the evolution of technology is the importance of educators and teachers and using these platforms to enhance student learning.”

Among Joseph’s observations:

• AI is moving from “Wow!” to “How?” “ISTE was a great opportunity to use some of these AI tools, but it was the human connection to how we are using them,” he said. “Moving past ‘How great it is and this is new for us’ to ‘How is this being impacted in our work, in our instruction, and for our students?’”
• Personalization gets real. Joseph noted that personalization with AI is not about having 25 students doing 25 different things. “It's having students get the access and content they need through the work, that they've input to some of the devices that you've seen and some of the programs that utilize the AI tools,” he said.
• Less edtech, better edtech. Having more edtech apps and platforms can sometimes be too much of a good thing. “I think where we get into trouble is when we have fifty, sixty options and we collect apps,” Joseph said. “But then more choices mean we're not honing in on the work and the efficiency of the tools and how they can impact student learning.”

ClearTouch 6,000 Nova Series

Tristan O'Connor, Product Solutions Manager at ClearTouch, introduced the ClearTouch 6,000 Nova Series, a panel designed to solve long-standing flat panel problems: the main board failing, the ports breaking, the backlight fading, and the overall longevity of the device.

The Nova Series features a core module, which is a swappable TV board and port system that allows districts to upgrade their internal hardware without replacing the entire panel. O'Connor highlighted the panel's optical bonding technology that connects the glass and backlight with resin, preventing dust and moisture accumulation while improving color differentiation.

“One of the cool things about the Nova series is you can use an OPS as well,” he said. “So if you want a Windows computer or a Chromebox, you can use it simultaneously with the core module.”

Beyond hardware, the Nova series integrates AI tools designed to be practical, not “scary." A standout feature is the offline, on-device transcription and translation software, which supports more than 90 languages. This allows teachers to provide real-time subtitles to students’ devices in the classroom, bridging communication gaps for multilingual learners without requiring a constant internet connection.

PowerSchool's Naviance

Erin Hawkins, Product Solutions Director at PowerSchool, showcased the award-winning Naviance platform, a comprehensive K-12 college and career readiness solution.

Naviance supports students from early elementary school through graduation, using gamified platforms for self-discovery and a special curriculum for career and financial planning. It utilizes more than eight research-backed self-discovery assessments, such as Gallup’s Strengths Explorer, to help students align their interests with future pathways.

“The good news is that the information that a student captures and engages with in the elementary solution moves with the student up to the six through 12 solution,” Hawkins said.

A significant addition is PowerBuddy, an AI-driven chat assistant available 24/7. It helps students navigate complex questions about college admissions, career paths, and FAFSA completion.

Hawkins emphasized that Naviance offers more than 115 configurable reports, allowing districts to track student milestones (such as diploma requirements or service learning hours) and export data. By integrating eDocs for transcript delivery and college applications, Naviance centralizes the post-secondary planning process so that counselors and parents can monitor student progress.

As someone who writes and speaks frequently about artificial intelligence in education, I consider myself a strong proponent of its thoughtful use in teaching, learning, and school leadership. Because AI has become such a regular part of my own professional work, I was genuinely surprised to learn how little my daughter, a freshman in high school, had used it, and more importantly, how skeptical she was about its growing role in school.

Her concerns grew largely from her identity as an artist. She spends a great deal of time drawing and creating, so she is especially attentive to the ways AI-generated art may affect human artists, particularly when original work can be copied, repurposed, or used without the creator’s knowledge. What began as a conversation about AI and art quickly expanded into a broader discussion about effort, learning, creativity, and the growing dependence on AI among students.

I was struck by how mature and carefully considered her views were, especially because they differed so sharply from my own generally positive stance toward AI. Rather than trying to persuade her or correct her assumptions, I became curious about how she had arrived at those conclusions and what she was observing in school.

That curiosity led me to ask whether she would sit down with me for a brief interview. I emphasize “brief” because, like many teenagers, she has a limited tolerance for anything that feels even remotely school-related, especially when the interviewer happens to be her father.

During our conversation, I asked her what AI means to her, what she is seeing among her classmates, and whether she believes it has a constructive role in education. Her answers were candid, skeptical, and often surprisingly nuanced. While adults continue to debate what AI may eventually mean for schools, she described what it already looks like from the perspective of a student living through that change.

This article is based on a semi-structured interview with my daughter and her perspective is not intended to represent the experiences or opinions of all students. Qualitative conversations such as this can provide meaningful insight into how individual students are making sense of emerging technologies in their schools and daily lives.

AI as a Substitute for Thinking

I began by asking what came to mind when she heard the phrase “artificial intelligence.” Her answer was immediate:

“A robot who does work for you because you can’t do it yourself.”

When I asked her to explain, she continued:

“You just type in a prompt and it does it for you instead of using your own brain and doing the work yourself.”

Her description was not quite how I would define AI, and part of me wanted to explain that a large language model does not literally think or work in the same way a person does. I intentionally resisted that urge because I wanted to understand her perspective rather than shape it. I was interested in how a freshman interpreted AI through her own experiences, not whether she could provide a technically precise definition.

Even so, her response was striking because she did not begin with the language adults often use when discussing AI. She did not describe it as innovative, efficient, exciting, or transformative. Instead, she framed it around effort and ownership. In her view, AI becomes problematic when it replaces the thinking a person should be doing. That distinction would continue throughout the interview. She was not simply asking whether AI could produce an answer, but what happens to the learner when the tool takes over the work.

Seeing Dependency Among Students

Although she said she does not really use AI herself, she described seeing it frequently among classmates:

“A lot of students in my class use it to their own advantage, saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know this question. I’m just going to use AI to do it.’”

One of the clearest examples came when her school removed student access to Google Gemini. She recalled that students immediately reacted:

“The kids started freaking out.”

When I asked why, she answered:

“Because they use AI so often, they depend on it.”

She also described the kind of response she heard from peers:

“What am I going to do? I can’t turn in my essay if I don’t have it.”

That moment captures more than frustration over losing access to a tool. It suggests that, for some students, AI may already have become embedded in the process of completing schoolwork. When the tool disappears, so does their confidence in being able to produce the work independently.

Her concern was not simply that students were using AI, but that some were becoming unable, or at least unwilling, to proceed without it.

When Grades Matter More Than Learning

Perhaps the most mature observation she made came when she explained why students might turn to AI so quickly. Rather than blaming students alone, she connected their behavior to the incentives surrounding them:

“I think a lot of the world has made getting grades more important than learning the actual stuff.”

She then put the issue even more directly:

“Grades matter more than what they actually get in their brain.”

That statement deserves serious consideration from educators. It suggests that AI use cannot be separated from the larger culture of schooling. When students believe that the final grade matters more than the process of understanding, tools that produce faster answers become especially appealing.

In that sense, AI may not be creating an entirely new problem but intensifying an old one. Schools have long struggled with the tension between performance and learning, and now AI makes it easier for students to produce polished work without necessarily developing the knowledge behind it.

Her comments also challenge educators to look beyond detection and enforcement. If students are using AI because they feel pressure to produce, then the conversation must include assessment design, grading practices, workload, and the messages schools send about what success actually means.

AI as a Tutor, Not a Replacement

Despite her skepticism, she did not reject AI completely. Instead, she drew a clear line between using AI to learn and using AI to avoid learning.

When discussing a difficult math problem, she said:

“Instead of having AI give you the answer, maybe use it properly and have it create a good step-by-step way to help you.”

She then summarized her view in a single sentence:

“It should be a tutor instead of someone to do the work for you.”

This may be the central idea of the entire interview. For her, the value of AI depends on the role it plays. A tutor explains, prompts, models, and supports. A replacement takes over the task and removes the learner from the process.

That difference is especially important for schools because it offers a more useful framework than simply labeling AI as good or bad. The better question is whether the student remains intellectually engaged. Is the tool helping the student understand, or is it allowing the student to bypass the work entirely?

Her answer was consistent: AI should help people think, not think in their place.

A Human-First View of Art

Her perspective on AI is deeply shaped by the fact that she is an artist. Drawing is not merely an activity she enjoys. It is a skill she has spent time developing, and she sees creativity as something connected to practice, effort, and personal expression.

When I asked why she had not used AI very much, she explained:

“People who use AI to make art are looked down upon, in my opinion, because they can’t draw it themselves or they have to use a robot to generate it.”

Her language was blunt, but the underlying concern was about authenticity. She values the work that goes into developing an idea, choosing how to represent it, making mistakes, revising, and improving. From her perspective, generating a finished image through a prompt can bypass the very process that gives artistic work meaning.

At the same time, she offered a more constructive possibility:

“Instead of using a bot to generate a piece of art, you can draw something yourself and then ask AI, ‘How can I make this art piece better?’”

Once again, she returned to the distinction between support and substitution. She was more open to AI when the human remained the creator and used the tool to receive feedback. She was far less comfortable when AI became the creator itself.

Her concern also reflects a broader anxiety among artists about how creative work may be copied, repurposed, or used without permission. For a young person developing her artistic identity, those concerns are not abstract but directly affect how she thinks about ownership, originality, and whether technology is respecting or erasing human contribution.

Schools May Be Responding Too Late

When I asked what schools should teach students about responsible AI use, she raised another important issue: timing.

“AI has already come out, and teachers are a bit late teaching it.”

Her point was that students have already encountered and formed habits around AI before many schools have developed clear guidance. By the time formal instruction arrives, some students may already see AI as a normal way to complete assignments.

She was also skeptical that instruction alone would change behavior:

“I don’t know if the kids would care about how they teach it. They’re still going to use it irresponsibly.”

Her response may sound pessimistic, but it reflects a practical understanding of student behavior. A single lesson on responsible use is unlikely to undo habits that have already formed, especially when those habits are reinforced by convenience, pressure, and easy access.

This suggests that schools need more than one-time AI literacy lessons. They need consistent expectations, well-designed assignments, clear boundaries, and conversations that help students understand why certain uses support learning while others undermine it.

The Role of Teachers

When I asked what role teachers should play as AI becomes more common, she was not fully convinced that AI should become a regular part of education. Still, she believed that if teachers use it, they should define its role carefully:

“They can say, ‘This is going to be a secondary tool or a helper. You can only ask questions to help you instead of giving you the answer.’”

Her use of the phrase “secondary tool” is important. She does not believe AI should sit at the center of learning. The teacher, the student, and the learning task should remain primary, while AI occupies a limited and clearly defined supporting role.

That view also places responsibility on educators. Students need more than access to a tool. They need examples of appropriate use, boundaries around inappropriate use, and opportunities to practice using AI in ways that deepen rather than replace thinking.

Her Message to School Leaders

I ended by asking what message she would give to teachers and principals.

Her response was brief and direct:

“Please don’t generate art pieces, and please have better restrictions on AI usage.”

The first part reflects her identity as an artist. The second reflects her concern that current expectations are not strong or clear enough.

Her answer also complicates the assumption that students always want fewer restrictions. Some students may actually be looking to adults to set firmer boundaries, especially when they see classmates becoming dependent on tools that may weaken their learning.

What Her Perspective Taught Me

As I reflected on the interview, I realized that her comments went beyond technology, and were about effort, creativity, integrity, learning, and what students believe school is asking them to value.

Her perspective may not represent every student, and it should not be treated as though it does. Some students are enthusiastic about AI, some are cautious, and others are still deciding what they think. Her voice matters precisely because it adds complexity to a conversation that is often framed too simply.

Perhaps what surprised me most was not her skepticism but how little she had actually used AI. As someone who advocates for the thoughtful integration of AI in education, I expected that a high school freshman would already be experimenting with these tools regularly. Instead, I found myself listening to a student who had largely formed her opinions by observing the behaviors of her classmates rather than relying on AI herself. That realization reminded me that student perspectives on AI are far more diverse than we sometimes assume.

She is skeptical, but she is not closed-minded. She objects to AI when it replaces thinking, creativity, or human effort, yet she can still imagine a constructive role for it as a tutor, guide, or source of feedback.

The consistency of her view was what stood out most. AI should explain, support, and improve. It should not take over.

Perhaps the most important lesson from our conversation is that schools should not design AI policies based solely on adult assumptions about what students need. Students are already observing how AI is affecting their peers, their classrooms, and their own sense of what counts as authentic work. We should listen to them more carefully because they are not merely preparing for an AI-shaped future. They are already living in it.

I was not prepared for just how much I would hate using Speaker Coach, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t helpful.

The AI-powered speaking coach and presentation mentor built into PowerPoint is designed to help anyone, including educators and their students, improve their public speaking abilities.

I’ve always been comfortable with public speaking, and think I do a solid job. My voice carries, I speak confidently, and I feel I know how to read a crowd and respond in the moment to their moods. But I am by no means perfect. I know that I can mumble, I lose my train of thought sometimes, and when I read from a prewritten script or speech, I have a tendency to read it in a semi-lifeless robotic voice. Also, I have a bad habit of reading too much from slides, especially when I get nervous, which is why I often avoid using slides in my presentations.

Speaker Coach caught on to all these weaknesses, almost immediately, which was, frankly, a little bit disheartening. I always hoped I was being too hard on myself and that I was actually far better at public speaking than I thought. This made using Speaker Coach an unpleasant experience, but it also meant it was doing its job and could help me improve my presentations.

So overall, despite some minor issues, Speaker Coach seems to be a strong, if slightly intimidating, tool for improving public speaking. Here’s a closer look.

How Speaker Coach In PowerPoint Works

Speaker Coach is built into PowerPoint. To access it, users access the web version of PowerPoint through a Microsoft-linked account. They then upload an existing slideshow or create a new one.

Once a user is ready to practice, they select the Slideshow tab, then choose the Rehearse with Coach option. After this, you can move through your presentation as you talk and practice with Speaker Coach monitoring it all.

As you speak, the program gives on-screen guidance by default, though you can turn off this feature. It will provide feedback such as telling you to speak more slowly, avoiding “ahs” and “ehs,” and offering encouragement that you are doing great and should keep it up.

Once you finish the presentation, you get a breakdown of your overall performance, including a wide range of useful feedback on your presentation. It will let you know, for instance, how fast you spoke and it was too rapid or too slow, and whether you read from the slides directly too often, and if so, which slides. It also offers a chart on how your pronunciation was, as well as your tone variation and your use of inclusive language, as well as many helpful details such as how long you spent on each slide.

What Are Speaker Coach’s Best Features?

Public speaking is often a vital skill for educators, but it can be a tricky one to practice. Speaker Coach offers the chance for hands-on practice with specific and actionable feedback.

The final report is really helpful in assessing your strengths and weaknesses as an instructor. The fact that it recognized the slides I had a tendency to read too much from was fantastic.

It can also help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of different types of presentations. I practiced with scripted presentations and with unscripted ones in which I relied only on my slides. I learned, unfortunately but not particularly surprisingly, that I have too many "ums" and "ahs" when I don’t use a script. Reading from a script corrects this, but then my voice becomes more lifeless and monotone. Identifying this helps me target both concerns as I prepare for future presentations.

What Speaker Coach Features Need Work?

As I mentioned at the start, despite finding it helpful, I didn’t enjoy using Speaker Coach. Some of this is probably inherent in practicing a skill as deeply personal as speaking, but there were also design features that made this worse.

The real-time feedback tool was more annoying than helpful, and I was tempted to turn it off, which is option. If I said “ah" or "mmm” it would start scolding me, which made me feel like a kid when adults used to admonish me to "stop mumbling." Even when it praised what I was doing, it was distracting.

Another weakness of Speaker Coach overall is that even though it was great at diagnosing the problems in speech, its suggestions for fixing these problems are limited.

It told me, for instance, to avoid saying “ah” by pausing and breathing, which I know I should do, except it didn’t offer more concrete advice on actually practicing this skill or how I might build in these natural pauses. When it came to speaking in a monotone, Speaker Coach didn’t offer any suggestions of any kind for improvement.

Overall, more detailed suggestions and/or links to resources on public speaking would take this tool to the next level.

How Much Does Speaker Coach Cost?

Speaker Coach is free with PowerPoint, which comes with most Microsoft Office plans available through schools or businesses.

Individual subscriptions range between $6.99 and $9.99 per month, depending on whether users pay annually or monthly.

Bottom Line on Speaker Coach

Ultimately, I found Speaker Coach helpful, if unpleasant, to use, but I plan on using it in the future as I try to improve my public speaking ability. I would recommend it to educators and students who are already comfortable with public speaking and looking to really hone their craft.

I wouldn’t recommend it to your average student who is working on a presentation for class because I worry the no-mercy criticism Speaker Coach provides could have a negative effect on someone who is new to presentations and likely already nervous about public speaking.

However, for the right type of educator or student with thick skin, Speaker Coach can be a helpful speaking coach.

The recent PBS NewsHour story on why Los Angeles USD and other school districts are limiting screen time raises a real concern. Students need discussion, movement, hands-on learning, collaboration, play, and relationships. But screen time is the wrong unit of measurement for meaningful learning. It tells us how long a device was open but nothing about the quality of learning.

A student consuming social media or clicking through low-level test prep worksheets is not equivalent to a student translating text, learning to read with Footsteps2Brilliance, borrowing a book through Libby or Sora, or collaborating on a project. Those all involve a screen, but the learning value is not equivalent.

Treating these as the same in L.A. and other districts is a "L.A.zy" strategy. When schools measure time on a device instead of the task, they miss the point.

Limiting screens can limit reading

The screen time debate ignores that many students now read through school and public library platforms and apps. They listen to audiobooks and read digital books in which they can enlarge type, use built-in dictionaries, annotate, highlight, and translate. They can also borrow far more titles than a school or classroom library could ever stock.

This is mainstream reading. A 2025 Pew Research Center study found that 31% of U.S. adults had read an ebook and 26% had listened to an audiobook. Sora reported nearly 60 million student digital checkouts during the 2024-25 school year, with more than 2.76 million in New York City Public Schools.

Digital reading can also provide privacy. That matters when young people are judged for what they believe, who they are, their reading level, what language they speak, or what they want to understand. It matters even more as books are being challenged and banned. These are often books that help marginalized students see themselves and understand others.

At a time when many students are struggling to read, schools should increase access to high-interest books, not limit ways students find and read them. Paper books should be available, but print is expensive, vulnerable to loss and damage, and limited by shelf space. Digital books do not replace paper, but expand access, choice, privacy, and independence.

Less screen time for whom?

The screen time backlash treats technology as an add-on, or something schools can reduce without consequence. For many students, that is not the case. If it’s not digital, it’s not accessible.

Digital materials can support screen readers, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, enlarged text, captions, adjustable spacing, annotation tools, dictionaries, audio, translation, and more. For many students with disabilities, those tools are not extras, but essential.

But this is not only about students labeled as having special needs. Digital learning can be beneficial for everyone because we all have different needs. Students, like adults, may simply prefer writing and revising on a keyboard. Not because they need an accommodation, but because that is how they prefer to complete their work. That should matter. Choosing to listen instead of read, type or talk instead of handwrite, translate instead of guess, or enlarge instead of strain should not require a label. Technology provides a strategy to address everyone’s learning preferences.

When digital access is treated as something only certain students get, we risk stigmatizing the very students we say we are trying to support. Better design gives all students access to flexible tools and lets students use what works.

Measure learning, not time on screens

Screen time is a weak measure of learning. A better measure is to question what students are doing. Are they consuming or creating? Clicking through drill-and-kill test prep or using tools to investigate, collaborate, translate, revise, read, and create?

That's the point I made in Reverting to Pen And Paper Won’t Improve Learning. Better Learning Design Will. Going back to paper does not automatically make learning deeper, more active, or more human. A worksheet is still a worksheet, whether it is printed or digital.

The same is true in Devices Down Is the Wrong Goal. Sometimes devices should be down. Other times, they should be up. The decision depends on the learning purpose, not the clock.

Models that put student-driven learning into practice don’t measure screen time. These allow students to choose the tools that best help them investigate real questions, create for authentic audiences, and own their learning.

In Dr. Lou Lahana’s multimodal makerspace, students begin with an idea rather than a device. The idea might become a video, art, a coded project, a podcast, a piece of writing, or some combination. The medium follows the purpose, which will eventually be their experience when out working in the real world. That’s what screen-time limits miss.

Teachers need time and support to design active learning with technology. They also need help teaching students to manage distractions and decide when a device is useful. That requires a better model and better professional learning opportunities, not a blanket measurement.

Set the right limits

Schools should limit weak learning activities, not tools. Limit passive consumption, memorization and regurgitation, essays assigned only to prove students did the work, and drill-and-kill test prep. These do not enhance learning whether they happen with support of a device or on paper.

Before restricting screens, schools should ask what students will lose, including access to books, translation, accessibility features, student choice, and opportunities to create. Count the quality of the learning, not the minutes on the device.

Sometimes teachers need a quick, useful resource that can slot into a lesson without hours of preparation, which is exactly what Rumie is designed to provide.

Rumie Learn is a nonprofit learning platform built around short, interactive "Bytes," with more than 2,500 published learning experiences covering everything from digital literacy and career skills to health, financial planning, and learning strategies. The platform has reached more than 2.5 million learners, with new Bytes added regularly.

This doesn't use lengthy courses, but instead breaks down subjects into small chunks that can generally be completed in around five minutes. That makes it great for teachers looking for starters, discussion prompts, flipped-learning activities, or quick ways to introduce a new topic.

What is Rumie?

Rumie is a free online library of microlearning content designed to make useful knowledge easier to consume and remember.

The basic unit is the Byte. These are short learning experiences, generally under 10 minutes, built around a specific concept or practical skill rather than an entire subject. Rumie says its Bytes use a chunked structure intended to make learning more efficient, while its lessons commonly combine short pieces of text with images, GIFs, memes, and quizzes.

That format makes Rumie rather different from a traditional learning management system. It doesn't have a huge course to enroll students in and work through from beginning to end. Instead, teachers can search the library for a specific idea and use an individual Byte when it makes sense for their lesson.

The library covers categories including Career Skills, Digital Literacies, Civics, Health, Business Acumen, Learning to Learn, and Innovation. More specific topic tags are also available, making it easier to find resources around particular skills or learning approaches.

Importantly for schools, the content isn't restricted to traditional academic subjects. A teacher could use one Byte to introduce digital citizenship, another to explore critical thinking, and another to help students understand financial planning.

That gives Rumie a useful role alongside existing classroom resources rather than trying to replace them.

How does Rumie work?

The simplest way to use Rumie Learn is to search its library, find a relevant Byte and share it with students.

Rumie also has guidance specifically for teachers on using Bytes as part of a lesson. Its recommended approach is to choose a Byte based on the skill being developed, share it with students, and then use the content as a starting point for discussion and application. That means a Byte doesn't have to be the lesson. It can be the thing that gets the lesson moving.

For example, students could complete a five-minute Byte before class as a flipped-learning activity. The teacher can then spend classroom time discussing what students learned, challenging their understanding, and asking how they could apply the idea.

Alternatively, the whole class can work through the Byte together. Rumie's own lesson-planning example suggests reading a Byte as a group or having students work in pairs before discussing their thoughts as a class.

This is where the short format becomes useful. A teacher can introduce a new concept without committing an entire lesson to a digital course, leaving plenty of time for explanation, debate, practical work, or assessment.

The platform is also designed around accessibility of learning rather than assuming students have hours available. Rumie describes its Bytes as quick, commitment-free learning experiences that can build toward broader skills over time.

What are the best Rumie features?

Thousands of short learning resources
The biggest advantage is simply the size and breadth of the library. Rumie currently lists more than 2,500 published Bytes, while its homepage highlights topics ranging from career skills and digital literacy to health, civics, and learning strategies.

New Bytes are published regularly, giving teachers an expanding pool of material from which to draw. That makes the platform useful when you need something specific rather than a complete curriculum.

Microlearning that fits into existing lessons
A five-minute resource is much easier to fit into a normal lesson than a 40-minute online course. A Byte can become a starter activity, homework task, revision exercise, discussion prompt, or introduction to a new topic. Teachers can also combine several Bytes around a broader theme.

Rumie's own classroom guidance suggests using Bytes in sessions ranging from 30 to 60 minutes, with time built in for discussion and applying the learning.

Interactive content
Rumie uses visual content, GIFs, memes, quizzes, and other interactive elements to make short lessons feel less like reading a textbook. The format is designed to keep the learner moving through a single idea rather than presenting a large amount of information at once.

Content created by professionals
Bytes can be produced by corporate employees taking part in volunteer workshops, community partners, and Rumie's own learning designers. Rumie says its learning designers plan, author, and peer-review Bytes, while the organization vets content against its standards.

Each Byte also identifies its author and, when applicable, the organization behind the content. That provides teachers with some useful context about from where a particular learning resource came.

Useful beyond traditional subjects
Rumie can be valuable for the skills that don't always fit neatly into a timetable. Its library includes resources covering areas such as communication, career planning, financial skills, digital citizenship, mental health, and learning strategies.

Classroom-specific resources are available, covering topics such as inclusive classroom management, facilitation techniques, and accessible worksheets. That makes it a potential source of material for PSHE, pastoral learning, careers education, digital citizenship, and tutor time as well as more conventional lessons.

How much does Rumie cost?

Rumie is free to use. That's one of its biggest attractions for teachers and schools. Rumie is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to make learning accessible, and its public Learn platform provides access to its library of Bytes without charging learners for the individual resources.

Separate Rumie products are aimed at organizations, including Rumie Connect and Rumie Build, which allow for the curation of learning experiences or the ability create their own microlearning content. Those are part of Rumie's broader learning platform rather than requirements for using the public Rumie Learn library.

For an individual teacher looking for ready-made learning material, however, there's no subscription to pay for simply browsing and using the public Bytes.

Rumie Tips

• Use Bytes as lesson starters
  Don't feel you need to build an entire lesson around Rumie. Find a five-minute Byte that introduces the concept you want to teach, then use it as the springboard for your own explanation or activity.
• Try flipped learning
  Send a Byte to students before a lesson and use the classroom time to discuss it. This allows students to encounter the material before they arrive and gives teachers more time for questions and application.
• Make students explain the learning
  After completing a Byte, ask students what surprised them, what they found useful and how they could apply the idea. This turns a short digital activity into a discussion rather than another piece of passive screen time.
• Build a themed sequence
  Search for several Bytes around a common subject and use them across multiple lessons. Because each resource focuses on a relatively small concept, teachers can gradually build a broader learning journey without asking students to complete one enormous course.
• Let students explore independently
  Rumie's huge range also makes it useful for independent learning. Ask students to choose a Byte on a subject they know little about, complete it and then present the most useful thing they learned to the class.

The pace of advancement in artificial intelligence tools is breathtaking. Since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, multiple platforms have entered the AI arena, all vying to win adherents to their particular flavor of AI. While students may welcome the ability to quickly get answers without much work, educators and education leaders have been deeply uneasy about the potential effects of AI on learning.

With the growth of these platforms comes some desirable changes for education. One of the greatest concerns from the beginning has been its potential to disrupt genuine learning in favor of the nearly-instant answers and solutions provided by AI tools. The good news is that nearly all of the tools here are structured (in theory at least) to support true independent learning and critical thinking rather than serve as answer machines.

To learn more, continue reading — and be sure to read the full Tech & Learning reviews available for most of the listed platforms.

Best AI-Powered Tutors for Education

Gemini’s Guided Learning Mode
Rated highly by Tech & Learning writer and educator Erik Ofgang, Gemini’s Guided Learning Mode is built on the AI model LearnLM, which is designed for education. Erik tested the tool on a variety of topics, including wave equations in quantum mechanics and journalism (a subject he teaches at the post secondary level). While it isn’t perfect, Erik concluded that it’s currently “the best example I’ve seen of what an AI tutor can be.” Free.

Khanmigo
Top-rated by writers from Common Sense Media, the Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, Khanmigo is the AI-powered tutor from the well respected education nonprofit Khan Academy. It provides test prep, feedback on writing and facilitates deep learning—without giving answers. In addition to its role as a tutor for students, Khanmigo also offers differentiation, lesson plans, quiz questions, student groupings, hooks, rubrics, and more for teachers. The cost is a modest $4 monthly.

StudyFetch
StudyFetch allows students to upload a wide variety of materials—class notes, PowerPoints, PDFs, study sets from Quizlets, video, audio, and more—from which it generates flashcards, quizzes, games and other study aids, while its AI-powered tutor, “Spark E.” guides students through difficult concepts and encourages deep thinking. Teachers can use StudyFetch to help with lesson planning, presentations, quizzes and even train AI tutor models to their specifications. Free basic account, with weekly ($3.92/week), monthly ($7.99/month) and premium plans ($11.99 to $19.99/month).

Tutor AI
Tutor AI allows students to study nearly any topic based on learning goals, current knowledge, and preferred learning style. Unlike many other tools profiled here, Tutor AI also solves homework problems for students, providing step-by-step solutions with detailed explanations—a practice which may not support genuine learning. For educators, the platform offers the ability to create courses, customized, personalized lesson plans, flashcards and more. Free basic account and two premium levels ($13.33/month, $17.50/month).

Flint
Designed specifically for education, Flint supports student learning by answering questions, offering feedback, and providing reminders for deadlines, time limits, and follow-up activities. Teachers can create or upload content using items such as worksheets, rubrics, lessons, or external resources as needed. Best of all, teachers can set the capabilities of AI actions—from guiding to hinting to explaining—thereby ensuring real learning, rather than AI-assisted parroting. Flint’s free plan allows up to 80 users, while premium plans vary based on school size.

MagicSchool AI
Billing itself as “safe secure AI for schools,” MagicSchool AI’S SOC 2-certified and FERPA/COPPA-compliant platform is aligned with district-level privacy standards and aims to promote critical thinking while teaching kids responsible AI use. Among the more than 50 AI-powered tools for students are those created for feedback, scaffolded learning, and specific task support. Most of the customizable tools seem designed to support genuine learning. For example, the “5 questions tool” generates 5 questions on any topic to deepen student thinking, while “Math review” generates review questions to improve math skills and the AI Learning Assistant provides guidance on multiple topics without giving direct answers. The robust free basic account includes more than 50 tools, quizzes, feedback, and more.

Amira Learning Tutoring and Reading Assistant
Research-based and validated Amira Learning offers a personalized Claude AI-powered reading tutor that allows the unusual ability to listen to students reading aloud, recognize problems with fluency and accuracy, and provide real-time suggestions adapted to the student’s struggles. The standards-aligned, FERPA- and COPPA-compliant platform is available on a district-wide basis.

Class Companion
Class Companion provides personalized feedback of student work in nine subject areas, from English through biology, and extends substantial educator control options, a feature cited by Erik Ofgang as being one of its strongest. He also praised the platforms’ support for the mastery model of education, which allows students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their expertise. Free for educators; however, some features such as LMS integration are available only with a school or district subscription plan.

ChatGPT Study Mode
Rather than simply providing answers, ChatGPT’s Study mode acts as a tutor, offering responses that guide students’ learning without spoon feeding them. Aimed at college students, it employs techniques such as the Socratic method, interactive prompts, scaffolded suggestions, and knowledge checks in the form of quizzes and open-ended questions. When tested by Erik Ofgang, it earned a strong, albeit qualified, “thumbs-up.” Free for all logged-in users on the ChatGPT Free Plan, as well as paid tiers like Plus, Pro, and Team.

Microsoft Reading Coach
Reading Coach provides a personalized reading experience for learners by generating a custom story based on the student’s selection of character and setting. As the learner reads aloud, Reading Coach evaluates their speech and gives feedback on their speed and accuracy. Gamified features such as rewards, badges and streaks contribute to kids’ engagement. Fully free with Microsoft account sign in.

Math can be a difficult subject to teach because so many of its concepts are abstract. Students have to understand numbers, formulas, shapes, patterns, and relationships that aren't always easy to visualize on a page.

The right digital tools can help bring those ideas to life. Interactive graphs, virtual manipulatives, games, simulations, and instant feedback can give students more ways to explore mathematical concepts and practice what they've learned.

We've covered plenty of math-teaching tools at Tech & Learning, ranging from comprehensive learning platforms to focused resources designed for a particular part of the curriculum. These are eight of the best, with options for different ages, abilities, and teaching styles.

Best Tools To Teach Math

Best overall math teaching tool

GeoGebra

GeoGebra is a free collection of interactive mathematics tools covering areas including geometry, algebra, graphing, statistics, probability, and calculus. Its biggest strength is visualization. Teachers can put a mathematical concept on screen and let students manipulate it, making it easier to see what happens when a value, angle, point, or equation changes.

The platform includes six main calculators covering graphing, 3D, geometry, computer algebra, probability, and scientific calculations. Students can use these to create graphs, construct shapes, explore equations, and investigate mathematical relationships.

GeoGebra also has a huge library of ready-made resources. The platform hosts more than one million math learning resources, including lessons, exercises, digital books, and interactive activities. Teachers can search by subject or use GeoGebra's Math Topic Map to find material covering areas from arithmetic through statistics. Activities can also be assigned to students, with teachers able to see their work and progress in real time.

A teacher can demonstrate a concept at the front of the room, students can explore it themselves, and the same platform can then be used for practice or formative assessment. And there's a big advantage for schools: GeoGebra is free for teachers and students using it for academic study and teaching.

Best for gamified math practice

Buzzmath

Buzzmath takes a game-based approach to math practice, giving students thousands of questions to work through inside a world of missions, challenges, and rewards. The platform is aimed at students ages 6 to 16 and contains more than 14,000 math questions. Teachers can assign activities to individual students or groups, with content designed to align with curriculum requirements.

Students receive immediate feedback as they work. When an answer is incorrect, the platform can provide guidance, hints, or examples before giving the student another chance. That gives students room to make mistakes and work through them without immediately needing help from the teacher.

Buzzmath also changes the numbers in its questions, so students can practice the same skill without simply memorizing an answer they've already seen. Teachers get reporting tools showing information such as accuracy, attempts, and time spent on tasks. This gives educators a way to identify areas in which individual students or the whole class may need more work.

Audio narration and visual glossaries are also included to support different learning needs. For teachers looking for something that can turn additional math practice into a game, Buzzmath is a strong option.

Best for elementary math

Prodigy

Prodigy turns math practice into a fantasy adventure, with students answering curriculum-aligned questions as they explore a game world and develop their own characters.

The game was originally built around math and now also includes English language arts. For this roundup, though, its math offering remains the main attraction. Teachers can assign specific skills, topics, and learning objectives through the teacher dashboard. Students then encounter questions connected to those skills as they play.

The system adapts to student performance, adjusting the level of challenge as they progress. Teachers can also monitor performance and use the resulting information to identify areas that need attention.

The game works in a browser and through mobile apps, so students can use it at school or at home. The core educational content, assignments, reporting, and classroom tools are available free to teachers and schools.

A multiplayer element is also available, allowing students to play together and compare their progress. That can add a social element to practice that might otherwise feel repetitive.

Prodigy's main appeal is motivation. Students who aren't enthusiastic about completing another set of math questions may be much more willing to tackle these when those questions help their character progress through a game.

Best for virtual manipulatives

Polypad

Polypad is a digital mathematics playground from Amplify that gives students a large collection of virtual manipulatives for exploring mathematical concepts.

The platform includes shapes, counters, tiles, graphs, number lines, probability tools, and other interactive objects. Students can move, combine, resize, and rearrange these elements to investigate mathematical ideas on screen. This is useful for concepts that benefit from a visual or hands-on approach.

Teachers can create their own activities and set up spaces in which students can experiment with a specific mathematical idea. The relatively open design also leaves room for students to find their own solutions and approaches.

Polypad covers areas including geometry, algebra, probability, and statistics, making it useful across a broad range of middle and high school math.

For teachers who want students to experiment with mathematical objects instead of simply writing answers, Polypad offers a flexible digital alternative to physical manipulatives.

Best for real-world math

What If Math

What If Math takes an unusual approach by putting spreadsheets at the center of math education. The idea is to teach students mathematical concepts through the kinds of digital tools they are likely to encounter outside school. Students use spreadsheets to explore formulas, graphs, data, patterns, and mathematical relationships.

The platform's Labs are spreadsheet-based lessons built around individual questions and experiments. Students can change variables and see what happens, giving them a way to investigate mathematical ideas for themselves.

Explorations are larger projects designed around problems that students can tackle collaboratively. These can combine mathematics with areas such as data science, computer science, spreadsheets, and functional thinking. That gives What If Math a strong real-world angle. Students aren't simply learning how to manipulate equations but they see how mathematical thinking can be applied using software that is already common in workplaces.

Teachers can also use free spreadsheet tools such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel alongside the approach, making it possible to extend the activities without requiring specialist software. For older students, especially those preparing for further education or employment, What If Math provides a different way to connect classroom mathematics with digital skills.

Best for creating digital equations

EquatIO

EquatIO solves one of the less glamorous problems with digital math, actually getting equations onto a screen. The tool allows teachers and students to enter mathematics by typing, handwriting, speaking, or importing from an image. It can then convert that input into editable digital notation. That makes it easier to create worksheets, assessments, explanations, and digital assignments containing proper mathematical notation.

EquatIO also includes a predictive math engine. Teachers and students can type naturally and use shortcuts such as "sqrt" to create mathematical symbols without having to navigate complicated formatting menus.

The Screenshot Reader can turn mathematical notation in worksheets, textbook pages, exam questions, or online images into editable content. In Mathspace, teachers can create interactive problems and students can draw, annotate, and show their work.

Graphing is supported through Desmos, while the platform also handles scientific notation, chemistry formulas, physics symbols, and other STEM content.

Accessibility is another important part of EquatIO. Students can enter equations using whichever method works best for them, including handwriting and speech. That can make digital math more accessible while also saving teachers time when creating and marking digital materials.

Best for elementary math practice

I Know It

I Know It is a math and English language arts practice platform aimed at students in grades K-5, with a large collection of individualized exercises and activities.

The math content covers foundational areas including arithmetic, fractions, geometry, measurement, and other core elementary skills. Students work through interactive questions and receive feedback as they go. The platform uses gamified elements to keep practice moving, while teachers and parents can access progress information to see how students are performing.

The individualized approach is useful when students in the same class are working at different levels. A teacher can use the platform for additional practice without needing every student to complete exactly the same activity. I Know It can also be used for homework, independent practice, or reinforcement after a concept has been taught.

The focus here is to provide younger students plenty of opportunities to practice foundational math skills while giving teachers information about where they are succeeding and where they need more help.

Best for an all-in-one digital calculator

ClassPad.net

ClassPad.net is an online mathematics workspace from Casio that combines calculator tools with geometry, algebra, graphing, and other mathematical functions. It's designed specifically for education, giving teachers and students access to many of the functions found on a physical graphing calculator through a browser.

Students can use it to work with equations, construct geometric shapes, create graphs, and explore mathematical relationships. Teachers can use the tools to demonstrate concepts or create activities for students to complete.

Because it runs online, students don't need to carry a specialist calculator between home and school. The browser-based approach also makes it easier to share mathematical work digitally.

The platform provides a useful bridge between traditional calculator-based math and digital learning. Students can explore a concept visually, manipulate the mathematics, and see how different representations connect.

For classes where graphing, algebra, geometry, and calculator skills all feature regularly, ClassPad.net packs a lot into one digital workspace.

Mindfulness is the practice of intentional attention to the present moment, focused on observing thoughts and feelings without judgment.

Teaching mindfulness to students has provided an array of benefits, including improving learning outcomes, boosting wellbeing, bolstering self-management skills, and enhancing social awareness and relationship skills.

I try to practice mindfulness while I’m running–listening to my steps on the track (sounds like a Clydesdale), my gasps of breath (also like a horse pulling a wagon full of beer belly), my heart thumping against my ribcage–all to try and encourage divergent thinking, which I rely on to solve problems in my life and any content on which I’m struggling. I find it works, for what it’s worth.

Here are apps and free resources specifically geared to help students build mindfulness.

DreamyKid

DreamyKid is an app that is filled with meditations specifically created for children. It is self-guided so it requires very little input from teachers, making it a useful tool for the classroom. It also offers some helpful sleep-focused meditations to also be a great help for children at home. Categories are organized by ages so you can find the ideal meditations for the class group with which you're working. Alternatively, you can filter by issues-based meditations, sports meditations, relaxing ones, affirmations, guided journeys, and more.

Calm

The Calm app offers a robust suite of online mindfulness resources focused on stress management, resilience, and self-care. It features 30 Days of Mindfulness in its Classroom resource, which includes reflection questions, scripts, and a plethora of mindfulness activities. Even if you are not familiar with mindfulness strategies, it offers a self-care guide for teachers with calm tips, images, blog postings, planning calendars, and links to videos.

Headspace

Headspace is built to help anyone find calm, although it specifically has plans tailored to educators and students. It is super simple to use so that minimal effort is required to get results -- ideal for use in class where relaxing students is the aim. With guided meditations, it is built to work easily for students of ages 8 and older, but also for younger students too. It offers gamification and a selection of guided stories and sound spaces designed for younger students.

Smiling Mind

Smiling Mind is a free meditation tool in app format that can bring calm into the classroom that students then can take out into their lives. The idea is to offer meditation, focused on thought and breath work, as a tool that students can learn from and have access to whenever they need. By offering private guidance it can help students of all ages, abilities, and emotional levels have access to a moment of calm. Teachers can download exercises to be used anywhere, so students without a decent at-home internet connection also can load up on meditation exercises to use outside of class.

Moshi

Moshi uses strong evidence-based approaches to help students down-regulate their nervous systems so they can be more available and attentive. This can be a great way to start lessons, setting everyone in the room on a similar level for calm and available attention. It includes calming stories, mindfulness, and a focus on sleep, which makes this ideal for transition periods, such as lesson beginnings or endings, as well as refusal points, or to help with sleep when needed.

Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame

Geared toward younger learners, this Sesame Street-sponsored app is designed to help children de-stress. Within it, a variety of scenarios are offered with video clips that learners move through to build skills such as problem-solving, self-control, planning, and task persistence. Additional resources and games can be accessed once the learner has completed the prerequisite activity. Activities are offered in both English and Spanish.

UCLA Mindful App

Developed by UCLA, this free app offers basic meditations in 19 different languages plus videos explaining how to get started, supportive meditation postures, and the science of mindfulness. It also provides weekly podcasts and 30-minute meditations on different theme, as well as a time if you want to meditate on your own.

Healthy Minds Program

The free Healthy Minds Program app is built on a scientific framework developed by world-renowned neuroscientists, and is based on four pillars of mental health and emotional wellbeing: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. It offers up to 600 days of free wellbeing content to help build healthy habits.

Insight Timer

Insight Timer offers a diverse variety of meditation categories designed specifically for kids. It features more than 200,000 free tracks, with 80+ new guided meditations added daily. It uses interactive and engaging techniques for students, including storytelling, playful imagery, and guided visualizations.

Mindfulness For Kids

Mindful.org provides a variety of resources for kids, schools, and families to build mindfulness, including core practices such as family kindness meditations, parenting tips, fun mindfulness activities, and age-appropriate meditations (from short audio sessions for preschoolers to 8-minute practices for older kids) to help focus on positive moments and breathing.

Change is afoot. Or at least that’s the impression I get from the college writing classes I teach, as well as my conversations with educators who teach at various grade levels, and just from generally observing societal trends around education.

As we emerged from the pandemic era in education, we jumped right into the early AI era. Yet as AI skepticism mounts in and outside of education, I think/hope we’re about to enter a new era.

Though readers be warned, when it comes to predictions, I’m not exactly the Oracle of Delphi. After all, I truly thought this year was going to be a good one for the New York Mets. Even so, I do believe all of these predictions have more of a chance of coming true than the Mets do of playing in the World Series anytime soon.

Here’s how I see things playing out in the coming school year.

1. The Techlash Continues

Okay, so I’m no exactly going out on a limb with this one. But I don’t see the ongoing pushback against certain forms of technology going away any time soon.

For example, I haven’t spoken with one teacher from a district or school that banned phones who wants them back--not one. Presumably some exist, but their numbers are evidently small.

Likewise, I believe there’s a sizable consensus that even though screens of various kinds can be helpful, these don’t hold all the answers to education. The emphasis going forward, as it should be, will be on eliminating the tech that distracts from education and focusing on the tools that really and truly help students.

2. AI Cheating Declines

This is a bold prediction, I know. But I see 2026 as the peak of the “I’ll just let AI do my assignment” era that has altered education.

Going forward, particularly at the college level, I think we’re going to see more institutional responses and more cultural responses to this. Encouraging trends include the movement toward watermarking from some of the tech giants, including Anthropic, which recently announced Claude will start watermarking all text it generates.

I’m also seeing a growing sense that passing off AI as your own writing is not a thing that you should do in any situation.

I’m confident the combination of better AI detection models and watermarks paired with more intense societal disapproval will greatly decrease the prevalence of AI cheating by the end of the school year.

Again, this is an optimistic take, but I really think the current AI writing situation can’t go on, and this is the year it finally peaks.

3. Job Anxiety Decreases

The existential dread most of us feel about the future of human-powered labor will subside by the end of this school year, and both educators and their students will breath a collective sigh of relief.

I think this will happen for the same reasons I think AI cheating will decrease. Society by and large has made their feelings clear on what we think of AI-produced work of any kind: We dislike it about as much as we disliked new Coke.

AI will continue to play a key role in research assistance and tutoring, and in areas such as vibe coding. However, as we drive unwanted AI from the classroom, we’ll also drive unwanted AI from professions it has no business in, such as writing, illustrating, and pretty much all artistic fields. This will help students better control their career paths and get rid of that dark cloud on the horizon for some.

4. The Tactile Revolution Will Continue (And Obviously Won’t Be Televised)

The pen and papers that many educators have turned to in a desperate effort to guard against AI misuse are not going back in the desk. Students won’t need to write by hand to prove they’re not using AI going forward, but I don’t anticipate this trend going backward as many educators have realized there is something important and beneficial in the tactile experience. Education in the post-COVID era has gotten a little bit away from it, but more hands-on lessons with objects students can touch and feel has staying power.

For me, I’ve realized the value of getting writing students to create a piece of work that exists in the real, non-digital world. Whether that’s a handwritten note or a printout, changing the medium helps students engage differently, and sometimes connect with their writing in a more meaningful way.

5. The Next Big Thing Is Coming

Forgive me for the vagueness of this one, but with AI use and abuse hopefully maturing in the coming school year and the post-COVID period moving more firmly behind us, I think the field of education is poised to enter a new era of some type. I don’t know what this will be. I just get a strong sense of transition in higher education due to changing demographics and declining enrollment. I think some of that will trickle down to K-12.

I also think this shift will involve some type of truce between the techlash and AI, and hopefully incorporate the best of both worlds.

Ultimately, I’m not sure exactly what the future holds, but I’m confident a new era is dawning. Here’s hoping we can learn some lessons from the past when it does.

Atlas is an AI-powered learning platform designed to help students study more effectively by providing personalized support across subjects. Unlike a simple chatbot, it aims to become a study companion that can answer questions and more. It helps to explain concepts, summarize documents, create revision materials, and even work with a student's own course content.

To minimize the risks of overreliance or academic dishonesty, Atlas positions itself as a platform built specifically for learning, with features designed to encourage understanding instead of simply producing finished answers.

Students can upload class notes, PDFs, presentations, and assignments, allowing Atlas to provide responses based on their own learning materials rather than generic internet information. The platform also supports lecture recordings, helping students revisit lessons and generate summaries or revision resources after class.

For educators, Atlas is an example of how AI is evolving beyond general-purpose chatbots into subject-focused learning assistants. While it shouldn't replace classroom teaching or critical thinking, it can help students review difficult topics, organize information, and prepare for assessments when used appropriately.

Here's everything you need to know about Atlas and how teachers can use it to support learning.

What is Atlas?

Atlas is an AI study assistant designed to support students throughout the learning process. It works across a broad range of academic disciplines, including mathematics, science, history, literature, languages, economics, and more.

Students interact with Atlas through a conversational interface similar to other AI chatbots. However, the platform places greater emphasis on learning by allowing users to upload their own educational materials and receive answers based on those resources.

This means a student can ask questions about a textbook chapter, a teacher's presentation, research papers, or their own lecture notes. Atlas can then explain concepts, summarize information, identify key themes, generate quizzes, or create revision flashcards tailored to that material.

The platform also supports image uploads, allowing students to ask questions about diagrams, handwritten notes, worksheets, or mathematical problems.

Responses can reference a student's own course content, so Atlas can often provide more relevant support than general AI assistants that rely solely on their existing training data.

How does Atlas work?

Atlas uses large language models alongside retrieval techniques that allow it to search through documents and resources uploaded by the student.

After creating an account, you can upload PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, research articles, lecture slides, handwritten notes, or images. These materials become part of the student's personal knowledge library.

Instead of answering every question using general AI knowledge alone, Atlas can search those uploaded resources and incorporate these into its responses. This helps students receive explanations that align more closely with the material they are actually studying.

Students can also upload lecture recordings. Atlas generates transcripts, produces summaries, highlights key concepts, and creates revision notes from the recording, reducing the amount of manual note-taking required after class.

Another useful feature is its ability to generate study resources automatically. After analyzing uploaded content, Atlas can produce flashcards, quizzes, practice questions, and condensed revision guides that students can use before exams.

For mathematics and science subjects, Atlas is capable of breaking problems into multiple steps rather than simply displaying an answer. Teachers may find this particularly useful when encouraging students to understand problem-solving processes instead of memorizing solutions.

The platform also supports essay planning and writing assistance. Students can brainstorm ideas, organize arguments, identify supporting evidence, improve structure, and refine drafts.

Atlas can also connect with learning management systems such as Canvas, allowing students to organize coursework and access AI support within the context of their classes.

What are the best Atlas features?

Personalized learning using uploaded resources
One of Atlas's top features is its ability to answer questions using a student's own learning materials. It doesn't just offer generic explanations, but instead can reference lecture slides, course readings, textbooks, and notes that have been uploaded to the platform. This makes responses more relevant to individual classes and assignments.

Lecture summaries
Students can upload recorded lectures and generate summaries, transcripts, key takeaways, and revision notes.

This can help learners revisit lessons, and is especially useful if English is an additional language or if they need extra time to process complex material.

Automatic flashcards and quizzes
Atlas can convert notes and documents into revision materials without requiring students to build flashcards manually. Teachers could encourage students to use these self-generated quizzes as formative assessment before classroom tests.

Step-by-step problem solving
Rather than simply producing answers, Atlas can explain the reasoning behind mathematical calculations and scientific concepts. This makes it more useful as a tutoring tool when students need additional support outside lesson time.

Essay support
Students can brainstorm ideas, organize essays, improve structure, summarize research, and refine written work.

Teachers should make clear expectations around academic integrity so AI supports learning rather than replacing independent writing.

Course organization
Because Atlas stores uploaded learning materials in one place, students can build a searchable knowledge base throughout the school year. Instead of searching through multiple folders, notes, and documents, they can ask questions directly about their existing resources.

How much does Atlas cost?

Atlas offers a free plan that includes daily AI usage limits, allowing students to upload course materials, generate summaries, create flashcards and quizzes, and chat with their documents.

Those who need more extensive access can upgrade to Atlas Pro, which removes many of the usage limits and provides significantly more AI interactions for intensive studying.

Atlas also offers weekly, monthly, and annual subscription options, with prices varying by region and platform. At the time of writing, U.S. subscriptions range from $9.99 per week to $19.99 per month, while a yearly plan is available for $129.99 through Apple's App Store.

Educators should check the Atlas website or app for the latest pricing before recommending the service, as subscriptions and regional pricing may change.

Atlas Tips

• Encourage students to upload class resources
  Students will generally receive more useful responses if Atlas can reference the same materials used in class rather than relying entirely on general knowledge.
• Use AI-generated quizzes for revision
  Ask students to create practice quizzes from lesson notes before a test. This encourages retrieval practice while reducing preparation time.
• Compare AI explanations with classroom teaching
  Have students compare Atlas's explanations with textbook content or classroom instruction. This helps develop critical thinking while reinforcing subject knowledge.
• Teach responsible AI use
  Discuss when AI can support learning and when independent work is expected. Clear classroom expectations help students use the technology ethically.
• Remind students to fact-check
  Like all generative AI tools, Atlas can occasionally provide inaccurate or misleading information. Encourage students to verify important facts using trusted academic sources before relying on AI-generated responses.

AI teaching tools have moved well beyond simple chatbots, with the best options now offer teachers practical help. That can mean lesson planning, assessment, differentiation, feedback, and classroom management. Some put AI directly into students' hands as a learning assistant.

The challenge is knowing which ones are actually useful. Countless AI tools now promise to transform education, but vary wildly in what is offered, designs for schools, and how much work teachers still need to do themselves.

These are some of the best AI teaching tools we've covered at Tech & Learning, selected for the different ways they can support educators and students. Some are designed primarily to save teachers time, while others are built to give students more personalized or interactive learning experiences.

From creating an entire lesson to helping a student practice a speech, these tools show just how broad AI's role in education has become.

Best AI teaching tools

Best AI teaching tool overall

EdCafe AI

Edcafe AI is one of the more complete AI platforms for teachers because it aims to cover the entire teaching cycle rather than focusing on one particular task.

Teachers can use it to plan lessons, create learning materials, assign activities, and assess student progress, all from the same platform. Existing resources can also be uploaded so the AI can work from the material a teacher is already using rather than starting from scratch.

This is helpful when time is of the essence. A teacher can upload a document, presentation, or curriculum material and use AI to turn that into lessons, quizzes, or activities that can then be shared with students.

Tools are also available for differentiation, including chatbots that can be tailored to different abilities or subjects. Teachers can then monitor engagement and performance, creating a feedback loop that can help inform future lessons.

For teachers looking for one AI platform rather than a collection of separate tools, Edcafe AI is a great option.

Best for personalized learning

Flint

Flint takes a different approach by combining an AI teaching assistant with an AI tutor for students.

Teachers can use the platform to create lessons, activities, and feedback, while its Sparky AI tutor gives students individual support as they work. The teacher remains in control of how much help the AI is allowed to provide, which is useful when you want AI to guide students without simply handing them answers.

Teachers can upload worksheets, rubrics, lessons, and other resources and use those as the foundation for AI-generated activities. Students can then work through those activities, ask questions, and receive support along the way.

The personalized element is great here. It doesn't expect an entire class to work through the same material at the same pace, but can provide additional support when individual students need it.

Teachers also get analytics and engagement information, while school-level controls and integrations make this suitable for wider deployment.

If you want to use AI to move toward more personalized instruction, Flint is a top choice.

Best for lesson planning

Eduaide.Ai

Eduaide.Ai is built specifically around the jobs that take up teachers' time, making it a useful AI assistant for planning and creating classroom resources.

The platform can generate more than 100 types of teaching resources, including lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes, assessments, vocabulary lists, problem sets, escape rooms, and role-playing scenarios.

This doesn't rely on an open-ended chatbot prompt, so teachers can select the type of resource they want and provide the information needed to create it. That makes the process more straightforward for educators who don't want to spend time learning how to write elaborate AI prompts.

It also offers a built-in editor, so teachers can refine the generated material without leaving the platform. Support for more than 15 languages adds another useful layer for language teaching and multilingual classrooms.

Eduaide.Ai is less about giving students an AI chatbot and more about giving teachers an AI-powered resource creation assistant. It's ideal when the goal is to spend less time making teaching materials and more time using them.

Best for student AI interactions

SchoolAI

SchoolAI is designed specifically for education, with AI tools intended to support both teachers and students.

Teachers can use it to create tailored lesson plans, quizzes, and worksheets, with automatic alignment to educational standards. Students can then interact with AI in a more controlled environment rather than simply being handed access to a general-purpose chatbot.

SchoolAI is designed around the idea that AI can provide personalized support while still sitting inside a teacher-controlled classroom environment. The platform can adapt learning experiences to individual students, helping provide something closer to one-to-one support without requiring a teacher to spend one-to-one time with every child.

SchoolAI also highlights its FERPA, COPPA, and SOC 2 compliance, giving schools additional reassurance around its use in an educational environment. For teachers who want students to use AI rather than simply have AI create resources behind the scenes, SchoolAI is one to investigate.

Best for creating teaching materials

Almanack

Almanack is an AI assistant designed specifically for educators, with a focus on turning prompts into classroom-ready resources. Teachers can create slide decks, worksheets, lesson plans, quizzes, tests, games, and report card comments. It can also help with longer-term curriculum planning, giving it uses beyond simply creating a single lesson.

One of the top features is differentiation. Teachers can create multiple versions of a resource for different ability levels without having to start again each time. Almanack can also translate resources, which could be useful when working with multilingual students or creating materials for English-language learners.

The platform is standards-aligned and designed so that AI-generated content is created for teachers rather than being delivered directly to students. That leaves the educator in control of checking and refining the material before it reaches the classroom.

Like any generative AI tool, Almanack still needs a human check. But if creating teaching materials is eating into your preparation time, it can take a lot of the initial work off your plate.

Best for standards-aligned teaching

Teachally

Teachally uses AI to create personalized teaching resources while keeping curriculum and standards at the center. The platform can generate lesson plans, teaching guides, and assessments based on the subject, class, and individual learning requirements. It is designed to support differentiation, so teachers can create material that better suits students working at different levels.

One of its biggest selling points is its extensive standards alignment. Teachally supports hundreds of thousands of state and national standards, allowing teachers to connect generated resources with the requirements they're actually teaching. The platform also supports translation into more than 100 languages, giving it potential uses in multilingual classrooms.

That combination of AI generation and standards alignment makes Teachally useful for teachers who don't just want an AI-generated lesson, but want something that fits into the curriculum they already need to deliver. It's another good example of AI being used as a teaching assistant rather than a replacement for the teacher.

Best for public speaking

Yoodli

Yoodli takes AI into a more specific area of education, helping students become better speakers. The platform acts as an AI speech coach, allowing students to practice presentations, speeches, interviews, and other speaking activities privately before performing in front of a real audience.

Students can record themselves speaking and receive immediate feedback on things such as pacing, filler words, word choice, and body language. They can see specific areas to work on rather than simply being told that a presentation needs improvement.

Teachers can also create custom role-playing scenarios and learning activities, while Yoodli's AI Tutor can hold conversations with students and ask follow-up questions. This makes it useful for English, public speaking, presentations, interview preparation, and English-language learners.

The biggest benefit is the opportunity to practice without the pressure of an audience. Students can make mistakes, try again, and improve before they have to stand up in front of the class.

Best for teaching how AI works

Teachable Machine

Teachable Machine is different from most of the tools on this list because the AI isn't simply there to help the teacher. Instead, it lets students actually experiment with machine learning.

The Google tool allows users to train simple AI models using images, sounds, and movements. Students can provide examples, train the system, and then see how it responds to new information. This offers a super accessible way to demonstrate what machine learning actually means. Rather than explaining algorithms purely through theory, teachers can let students experience the process of training an AI system for themselves.

Educational resources are also available that can be used alongside the platform to explore topics such as algorithms, data, and AI ethics. For example, students can create an algorithm designed to identify their preferred type of sandwich, then examine why the system produces particular results. This opens the door to discussions around training data, bias, and the way algorithms can influence outcomes.

And there's no subscription to worry about as Teachable Machine is completely free to use and doesn't require users to sign in. For teaching AI literacy rather than simply using AI, it's hard to beat.

We talk with Brittany Miller, Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director of the Center for Outcomes Based Contracting, Southern Education Foundation about outcomes-based contracts and why they matter for students. You can enjoy Miller’s engaging insights into these important topics during The EdExec Exchange: Critical Issue Roundtable Discussion at the upcoming EdExec Summit, taking place September 10-11 in Chicago.

“We've learned over time that in order to develop a strong contract between a district and provider, there is a misconception that the contingent payment is all there is to it,” Miller says. “You can’t simply make part of the money contingent on outcomes and everything will work for kids. First, we must identify who the students are you want to serve and what program is best going to serve those students from the research and evidence base that exists for particular products.”

At the nonprofit Center for Outcomes-Based Contracting, the work is focused on supporting school districts and their service providers with contracting so that a minimum of 40% of payment to the provider is contingent on meeting agreed-upon student outcomes, says Miller.

She adds that the organization provides technical assistance, field insights, research and policy references, such as their policy document on high-impact tutoring, to help the field grow in their practice of outcomes-based contracting. Open-source resources are also available via the website, aligned with standards of excellence developed from research, to move the needle for student learning.

Defining the success outcomes and metrics that are most important for the district, state or student's individual learning experience is the next step.

“Contingent-outcome payments create a structure for how the contractual agreement will work,” Miller says. “The real power in the work comes with mutual accountability and continuous improvement work. Outlining who is in charge of what elements upfront, before services are delivered, develops a theory of change for implementation that we are contractually committing to across the partnership to achieve those student success outcomes.”

Miller says the actual contract is typically between the district and service provider, or in some cases between the state granting organization and the service provider on behalf of districts, which is a healthier, clearer partnership than a typical instructional services contract.

Both vendors and districts come to Miller’s organization wanting to learn how they benefit from and create these contracts.

“We have a district contract accelerator that districts can enroll in to create a contract, as well as a provider learning series where we help providers understand the model and what their go-to-market strategy can be,” she says.

5 Domains Essential to Outcomes-Based Contract Success

• Clearly defined population and program.
• Clearly defined outcomes and metrics.
• Contingent outcomes payments.
• Mutual accountability.
• Continuous improvement.

Dollars and Sense in Edtech Contracts

A real strength of the outcome-based contract model is to increase efficiency and get more bang for the edtech budget buck.

“Our goal is not to lessen the number of dollars going into education,” Miller says. “Education needs to be well-funded, but we are in a tight spot right now in the current market. Now is even more important to make the best use of not only district dollars, but of our most precious resource of all — teacher and student time. That resource is irreplaceable.”

Students only have so much time in the classroom with their teachers, so the question becomes how to use technology in a way that enables stronger teaching and learning to happen in the classroom.

“We want to support what the teacher is already doing,” Miller says. “It’s a real opportunity to make sure that classrooms are using purpose-built education technology instead of consumer-built technologies that aren't focused on student learning in the same way.”

Outcome-based contracts are a way for providers to differentiate themselves in this current tighter marketplace.

“It makes a big impact to say, ‘We know that our product can be really effective for students, so we're willing to put our money where our mouth is,’” Miller says. “The reason providers are willing to do this is there are mutual accountability responsibilities on the district side which are also contingent for payment. Districts have to make sure students are using the technology as it was intended, based on provider research.”

This element of the contract leads to much higher rates of usage, which is aligned with the implementation integrity required to achieve successful student outcomes.

“In our first national edtech cohort, we had 69% of contract-enrolled students meet the dosage requirements as recommended by the provider,” she says. “That’s a far cry from the 5% problem we normally see and really speaks to how following recommended guidelines can create more cohesive and successful implementation in classrooms.”

Outcome-Based Contracts and Accountability

One area everyone can agree with is that students deserve the best edtech for their needs.

“The real goal here is to get away from the finger-pointing that happens when contracts go wrong,” Miller says. “We need to delve into being accountable to whom we ultimately intend to serve, which is our students. When you can include clear outcomes with measurement modes and standards-of-excellence elements into the contract on the front end, it creates ideal conditions for students to be served.”

An outcome-based contract lays out the means of arriving at that end goal for all stakeholders.

“Knowing how the accountability metrics work can be a really powerful agent for change,” Miller says. “It translates what the value proposition is into something the whole ecosystem understands. It also proves to be a powerful mechanism when it comes to board approvals for contracts. We’ve started to see providers use this as a proactive strategy in order to make themselves better known in the market. It’s really valuable for school boards who must answer where the dollars went and the outcome questions that are actually much more complex than people assume.”

Perhaps the service provider will only get 60% up front, with the remaining 40% being contingent on meeting agreed-upon outcomes. Either the student outcomes are met and the provider will get paid that full amount, or the student outcomes are not met and the provider will get paid less than that full amount.

“A really common misconception is that it’s all or nothing,” Miller says. “It's a per-pupil price at the outcome level, with multiple outcomes that every student can achieve. We're detailed and clear about serving individual students effectively with the technology in the classroom and ensuring the provider is being compensated for each of those outcomes. This personalization de-risks the contract for everybody involved.”

Miller is seeing a massive shift in the tides and stronger contract renewals in places where they are otherwise cutting back.

“Districts can negotiate an outcomes-based contract with their current providers to make sure that they're still serving students, with a proof point for why it's important to keep that product in the classroom. It's much harder to pull that service out of classrooms when they can show the success through data,” she says.

Miller says there's a lot of interest in the model from districts, providers and the philanthropic community that invests in the classroom.

“What we're most concerned about is that quality is maintained as the model scales,” she says. “The way to do that is through those standards of excellence.”

As a longtime educator, I’ve spent a great deal of time designing assessments that promote student choice and voice and enable students to truly show what they know and can do. However, with the rise of artificial intelligence in education, deciding how to assess students has become more challenging.

Students may have access to AI both in and outside of our classrooms. It can generate summaries, write essays, provide explanations, create outlines, and offer feedback within seconds for them. AI can help learning, but it requires educators to think beyond traditional assessments that worked well before AI.

A major concern is that students will cheat or that assessment is broken. Rather than focusing only on how to stop students from using AI, we need to design tasks that make students' thinking more visible. When an assignment asks students to explain their decisions, reflect on the process, make connections, analyze feedback, defend their thinking, and revise their work, learning becomes harder to outsource.

Making this shift matters because if students are only assigned to choose an answer, write a paragraph, create a presentation, or design a final product, AI can do these tasks for them.

Providing guidance for students on how to responsibly use AI is also critical.

Moving Beyond Product-Only Assessment

For years, assessments in my classroom were often built around a final submission such as an essay, project, test, or presentation. I would evaluate it, provide feedback, and move on. These all have value because students build skills in communication, organization, critical thinking, and reflection.

However, what students submit may not fully demonstrate their learning. A well-written essay does not necessarily show understanding. A correct answer does not reveal whether the student can explain the reasoning or simply guessed or used AI. A well-designed presentation does not prove that the student made the design choices on their own. For these reasons, the assessment design needs to be more intentional.

Educators need to look at what the student created, consider how they got to that point, what choices they made in the process, what information was used, how they revised their work, and what I think is important, is what can the student share about their learning. Did the student use AI (if permitted), and how?

Using these reference points will shift assessments from being a simple, quick check of understanding or task completion to showing deeper learning and content retention.

Shifting to More Visible Thinking

Finding ways to make thinking visible takes a little time at first, but it is how to truly see a student’s learning journey. To start, educators can set up a series of checkpoints. Rather than asking students to only submit a final essay, for example, teachers might ask for various artifacts from their work. Students could provide their initial question, a claim, a draft, a peer feedback reflection, revisions made, and a final explanation of what changed. These components encourage students to notice their own thinking.

Educators can also ask students to explain their thinking and choices made. Why did they select this source? Why did they organize the project in this way? Why did they reject one idea and keep another? Why did they make the revisions they did?

These explanations can provide greater insight than the final product alone.

In their work, students can show their thinking through annotations, peer discussions, drafts, concept maps, note-taking, reflections, and even demonstrations. The format may vary depending on the task, but the goal is to have students explain their learning.

Rethinking AI Use and Academic Integrity

A valid concern is that AI makes it harder to understand what students actually know. However, if we ban the use of AI entirely, it won't prepare students to use these tools responsibly.

Instead, educators should create clear expectations around when AI is and is not permitted and model this for students to show how it can be an impactful part of their learning experience. Not every task should involve AI. Students still need opportunities to think, write, create, and problem-solve without relying on a tool. However, students also need guidance in how to use AI thoughtfully, ethically, and transparently.

I have found it to be helpful to design assignments with different levels of AI use. Teachers can build AI expectations directly into assignments. Directions might say, “AI may be used for brainstorming but not for drafting,” or “You may use AI feedback, but you must submit your original paragraph, the feedback, and an explanation of your revisions.” This turns AI use into part of the learning process rather than a hidden behavior.

Establishing a structure such as this helps students understand that responsible AI use is not “all or nothing” but instead depends on the purpose of the task they are being assigned.

Transparency is key. If students use AI, they should be able to say how they used it. Did they ask for topic ideas? Did they use it to clarify vocabulary? Did they compare explanations? Did they request feedback on the organization of their writing? Did they ask for a revision?

Requiring a short AI use note can help students reflect on their choices and help teachers better understand the learning process.

Assessments Should Include Conversations

A powerful assessment tool is conversation. When students talk about their work, teachers can sense understanding, confusion, confidence, and growth in ways that are not always visible on paper.

Not every assignment needs a formal presentation. Having short conferences with students can be meaningful. When a teacher asks a student to talk about the strongest part of their work, an area where they struggled, or even what they would change if they had more time, these questions provide more insight into student thinking. And these are also great ways to build relationships that support student growth.

Students could also record short audio or video reflections explaining their process. I’ve had students do this using Padlet, and it was great for building many skills. Students can engage in peer discussions, small-group activities such as debates, or do gallery walks. These moments create opportunities for students to demonstrate more ownership in learning.

When students know they will need to explain their thinking, the assignment changes. The focus moves from simply producing something to understanding it well enough to discuss it.

Designing Assignments AI Cannot Easily Replace

No assignment is completely “AI-proof,” and that should not be the goal. A better goal is to design learning experiences that are meaningful, contextual, personal, and connected to students’ thinking.

When assignments include local context, classroom experiences, personal reflection, student choice, and live discussion, these become more meaningful and more likely to promote content retention. For example, instead of asking students to write an essay on a historical event, ask them to connect the event to a class discussion, analyze a specific primary source used in class, compare interpretations, and explain how their thinking changed. Or instead of asking for a general science report, ask students to collect observations, analyze class data, explain unexpected results, and reflect on the process.

The more connected the work is to the classroom learning experience and real-world events, the harder it is for students to lean on AI without truly engaging in the learning experience.

It should not be about making assignments more difficult just to “catch” students. By making assignments better so that students have to think, create, question, explain, and reflect, they engage in the process itself and focus less on one final product.

The Importance of Reflection

Reflection may be one of the most important assessment practices in an AI-enabled world. When students reflect, they make their thinking visible. They explain what they tried, what worked, what did not, what they learned, and what they would do differently. They see the process of learning more.

Reflection also helps students develop metacognition. They begin to understand themselves as learners. They notice when they relied too heavily on a tool. They recognize when AI helped them think differently. They learn to evaluate whether a suggestion improved their work or weakened it.

Simple reflection prompts can make a big difference:

• What part of this work best shows your thinking?
• Where did you struggle?
• What feedback helped you improve?
• How did you use AI or other tools responsibly?
• What would you change next time?

The Most Important Outcome of All

Assessment after AI is not about fear, but rather about intentional and purposeful design.

Educators do not need to forget everything they believe about assessment. Many strong instructional practices are already in place: formative assessment, conferencing, portfolios, project-based learning, performance tasks, peer feedback, revision, self-assessment, and reflection. Now, with the availability of AI, these practices are even more important.

The future of assessment will require us to find a better balance between a final learning product and the learning process. Students should still have opportunities to create what they have always created, but they should be able to explain their thinking behind it. They should know when AI is appropriate, when it is not, and how to use it in ways that support rather than replace learning.

For students to be well-prepared for the future, we have to assess how they think as well as what they produce. To do this means designing assignments and assessments that push students to question, decide, explain, revise, reflect, and take ownership of their learning.

AI can generate answers. But students still need to develop judgment.

And that may be the most important outcome of all.

Educator and retired Major General Matt Smith has advice for fellow college educators: “Get to know your veteran students.”

Doing this is important not only because it enriches the class environment for all but because veterans or actively serving members of the military make up a significant portion of the student body at most universities. In fact, nearly 5% of college students are active military or veterans. Roughly half of that 5% are veterans and the other half are active-duty member of the military or the National Guard and reserve. That’s all according to data on military college enrollment from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Smith, a retired two-star general, now serves in a different capacity as Executive Director of Veteran Initiatives at Emory University and as director of the university’s Master of Business for Veterans program. He shares tips for educators on how to connect with veterans and military students in ways that can help facilitate excellence from these students and increase the classroom environment overall.

While the focus of our discussion is on military students, Smith emphasizes that many of these techniques and strategies apply to students from all different backgrounds.

1. Teaching Military Students: You Have More In Common Than You Might Think

While many teachers and professors might not consider their work similar to military work, there are many parallels, Smith says.

“Educators and members of the military, either still serving or veterans, have a tremendous amount in common from a purpose-driven, career, professional, choice standpoint," he says. "While the values that may have mattered at the time they made the decision to go into either profession may have been slightly different, they're really more alike than you'd find across other sectors of our society.”

Recognizing these similarities and discussing it with veteran students can be a major step toward effective class engagement, Smith says.

2. Learn About All Students, Including Those in The Military

Once you’ve established the similarities between you and your military students, it's time to start learning about their experiences, Smith says. Many veterans come to college with a range of rich life experiences and technical know-how that they can use to foster their college career. The process doesn’t have to be complicated.

“Everybody likes to talk about themselves,” Smith says, who adds that a couple of well-placed questions during an office hour or a private meeting before after class can really help. “A simple interrogative question like, ‘Hey, so tell me about your service prior to coming to school.’”

Smith adds the answer to this type of question is often pretty entertaining and really insightful about the student.

3. Remember Veterans Are Experts At Team Projects And Collaboration

One skill most veterans and active-duty military members need to develop is the ability to work in teams. Educators can harness that in their classes.

“The vast majority of the classes across any subject use team projects to educate,” Smith says. “If a certain curriculum utilizes team projects, it's like a slow-pitch softball to tap a veteran, regardless of their rank.”

This not only lets a veteran do something they are good at, but having them lead collaborative team projects can also serve as a model for their fellow students.

4. Recognize Strengths Veterans Have

Once Smith was offered a job at a major foundation, and when Smith said he didn’t think he had the qualification, the person offering him the job disagreed.

“He said, ‘Sure you do. You have a PhD in the human condition,’” Smith recalls. He realized this person had a point because the military had given him so much experience working with “such large volumes of human beings.”

Additionally, just getting that kind of affirmation was powerful.

“It kind of changed how I thought about leadership,” he says. “I was personally thankful for him pointing it out.”

Fostering the skills veterans already have, including their understanding of human experience, is key, Smith says. “They may not fully realize what they bring to the table, but part of an educator’s job is to draw out the best of people in the educational environment.”

5. Foster Leadership Lessons For All

Leadership is a key part of military training, but it’s not the only profession that fosters such skills, Smith says.

“The military doesn’t have the market cornered on leadership.” He adds that teachers are often great leaders.

Regardless of who he is teaching, Smith’s approach to leadership is based on the idea that it’s always better to learn from others’ mistakes. In other words, the right insights can save time and avoid growing pains. This is true for veteran students, but because of their extensive experience with teamwork and leadership, they sometimes have other unique lessons they can share with their classmates.

“Because leadership is about the human condition, and involves all aspects of communication, listening is most important,” Smith says, “I think eliciting the lessons learned from veterans can potentially help their peers on their life journey, whatever that path is.”

We talk with Tammy Wincup, CEO of Securly — a student safety company exclusively focused on how to help students be safe, well and ready to learn in their digital footprint — about the state of the market and how edtech CEOs can effectively lead in the current climate. You can enjoy engaging insights into these important topics during the CEO Keynote Panel: Strategies for Leading Through Market Uncertainty at the upcoming EdExec Summit, taking place September 10-11 in Chicago.

“You’ve got two polar conversations happening right now in terms of digital safety,” says Wincup. “There is the largest tech revolution that's ever happened, certainly in my lifetime, across tech around AI with administrators in districts trying to answer, ‘How do we prepare students and teachers?’ On the flip side, you've got a conversation happening in the community around using too much tech, with it coming back to a screentime and over-reliance on edtech conversation.”

Wincup, has been a leader in the educational technology realm for 25 years, with previous leadership roles at Rethink Education, Get Well and EVERFI. Her current company works with more than 27,000 schools, nearly half of all K-12 schools in the U.S.

“I’ve been in edtech before we called it edtech,” she says. “I think we're at an interesting period. It is a baseline expectation that we owe our kids a full operating safety and wellness plan, which cannot be piecemeal.”

Indeed, what used to be a side consideration, now is a main question districts have to ask and answer.

Changing Along With a Changing Market

Part of leading through a shifting economical landscape is finding your place in the big picture and addressing the heart of issues that matter

“We've gotten case studies, big districts with a hundred thousand students or more, facing the same challenges as small districts,” Wincup says. “Leading through this landscape falls back to how they operationalize it and how they tell their story to their stakeholders. Whether that's board, whether it's parents, whether it's teachers — we as an industry speak in general policies, but it's the administrators that actually have to then go make their message clear. Our job is to make sure that they have the tools to be able to execute those policies.”

As mentioned, the screen time debate continues to be a challenge.

“I was just on the phone with a very large school district considering their response and what they want to implement,” Wincup says. “Another smaller district has very masterfully used the data from their kids' digital footprint to inform teaching and learning. It’s a hard time for districts to balance both an AI revolution at the same time that parents and caregivers and boards are correctly asking, ‘Have we moved too far toward tech?’”

Backing decisions with data is one way to bring parents into the conversation, and to be confident that thoughtful decisions are made about how to use tech in the classroom.

“It’s almost like going back to 2010 when E-Rate and CIPA first came out saying, ‘We want to give funding to school districts to pay for the internet, but we also want to protect students in its use,’” Wincup says. “Those two principles are still wildly relevant. It's gotten more complicated. Now there are apps, there are tools, there are large language models, et cetera — it requires very sophisticated technology to help districts prepare for that.”

Partnering Toward Success

“Last year there was a lot of polling around how students are using AI,” Wincup says. “We said, ‘Enough asking questions.’ We know what types of prompts and character AI and relationships with AI, etc., are happening. We know that 80% of the millions of prompts we see right now are within the guardrails that districts set.”

Steering the conversation to one that addresses the real issues is key.

“The other 20% are not, so helping districts think through their AI-use policies to keep students safe within that segment is our focus,” Wincup says. “Districts can bring parents and caregivers into the conversation using data from our home app, ‘This is the summary of what your kids did in their digital footprint while they were out of school, while on their school-issued device.’”

Being a good partner to stakeholders starts with information.

“Our job is not to make more noise in a very noisy space. It's actually to quiet and bring attention to what's actually happening versus the hypotheses on it.”

Wincup feels education is an industry where the vast majority of people are there for the right reasons. They are there because they fundamentally want to put the student at the center of the conversation.

“Start every conversation, every internal meeting with how does this benefit the student?” she says. “Yes, you have to talk about how it benefits the teachers and administrators. But we have an obligation to start with the students. The education organizations that do that every day are the ones that succeed.”

In Wincup’s opinion, the largest school districts are sometimes where ed companies “go to die.”

“A lot of entrepreneurs start by thinking, ‘I need to be in the largest districts,’” she says. “I find the mid- and small-sized districts and schools are the ones that will pressure-test you and frankly make you great. They are the innovators, the ones doing more with less. Those are incredible administrators and partners with whom you’ll want to work.”

Tammy Wincup: 3 Observations of the Evolution of Edtech

The K-12 tech user and buyer is far more sophisticated. In the early 2000’s, there was a misconception that K-12 weren’t great adopters, and so you could give them average tech. The CTO buyer is one of the most sophisticated vertical buyers out there so their expectation is higher for what providers are providing to them. Setting the bar higher is a good thing for our kids and for education.

It's a noisier market. K-12 used to be a place where all single-point solutions could bloom. Anybody who had an idea for a feature could find their way. Education, correctly, is now super sophisticated in saying, ‘That's not good enough.’ Just because you have a great idea of what might help in the classroom, that is not enough.

There is a new reality because of cybersecurity. This idea that technology providers would go directly to teachers and say, "Use my thing," does not and should not fly anymore because of overall safety and security. This is another area that has evolved for the betterment of our students.

Meeting the Leaders

Wincup believes that the best relationships grow when districts ask for help to solve some of their biggest challenges.

“My hope for the summit is that we will have really robust conversations about the problems we can actually help them solve,” she says. “I'd love to hear and really dive into the big look-around-the-corner challenges that districts are facing, and put it to the larger community with an expectation that we actually help solve them.”

Wincup will be sharing her insights during the EdExec Summit at:

• CEO Keynote Panel: Strategies for Leading Through Market Uncertainty
• Table Discussions: The Compliance Moat: Privacy, Cybersecurity & AI Governance
• The Security Vetting Hurdle: How to proactively pass district safety requirements to prevent stalled deals

NoodleTools is a research and citation platform designed to help students manage every stage of the research process, from finding sources to creating accurate bibliographies.

Rather than simply generating citations, the platform encourages students to think critically about the information they're collecting, organize their ideas, and develop original written work.

Concerns continue to grow around plagiarism, AI-generated assignments, and students' ability to evaluate trustworthy online information. As such, research skills have become more important than ever. Teachers need tools that don't just automate academic tasks but actively teach students how to research, analyze, and synthesize information responsibly.

That's where NoodleTools stands out. Thousands of schools and universities use this as it combines citation management, note-taking, outlining, collaboration, and teacher feedback into a single online workspace. The result is a platform that supports the entire research journey, not just the finished bibliography.

What is NoodleTools?

NoodleTools is a cloud-based research management platform built specifically for education. It helps students organize research projects by collecting sources, creating citations, taking notes, building outlines, and drafting written assignments.

The platform supports the major citation styles, including MLA, APA, and Chicago, while encouraging students to understand why citations matter -- no more relying entirely on automatic generation.

NoodleTools treats research as an ongoing learning process. Students evaluate sources, connect evidence to arguments, organize ideas visually, and prepare structured writing before beginning their final draft.

Teachers and librarians can also monitor progress, provide feedback directly inside projects, and collaborate with students throughout the research process.

How does NoodleTools work?

Students begin by creating a project and selecting the citation style required for their assignment. As they research, they can add books, websites, journals, videos, interviews, and many other source types to their bibliography.

Each source becomes part of a wider research workspace. Students can attach notes, quotations, images, PDFs, and comments before organizing everything into digital notecards.

These notecards can then be tagged, grouped, rearranged, and connected to sections of an outline. This helps students identify themes, compare evidence, and gradually develop stronger arguments before writing begins.

Teachers can access projects in real time, allowing them to monitor progress, identify where students may be struggling, and provide targeted feedback before assignments are submitted. This ongoing visibility makes it easier to teach research skills throughout the process instead of simply grading the finished product.

NoodleTools also supports collaborative projects. This allows multiple students to contribute to shared research, while making individual contributions visible to teachers. Because it's entirely web-based, projects can be accessed from virtually any modern browser without installing software. Schools can also integrate the platform with Google, Microsoft 365, and Clever for single sign-on.

What are the best NoodleTools features?

One of NoodleTools' top features is its focus on critical thinking rather than automation. Students are encouraged to evaluate sources, organize evidence, and build original arguments instead of simply collecting references.

The integrated citation tools support multiple academic styles and help students generate accurate bibliographies while learning proper citation practices.

Its digital notecard system remains one of the platform's best features. Students can collect evidence, record ideas, tag themes, and reorganize information as their understanding develops -- creating a much more flexible alternative to traditional paper note cards.

Visual outlining tools help transform research into structured writing. Students can connect evidence directly to sections of their outline, making it easier to spot weak arguments or missing evidence, before drafting.

For teachers, classroom management features provide value. Educators can monitor research progress in real time, comment on student work, track collaboration within group projects, and intervene early when students appear stuck or heading in the wrong direction.

The platform also places a strong emphasis on student privacy, avoiding advertising and marketing, while giving schools confidence that student work remains protected.

How much does NoodleTools cost?

Individual plans for NoodleTools are $15 per year.

Prices for school and district plans are quoted on an custom basis, with discounts available for larger groups.

Free versions, such as NoodleTools Express and MLA Lite, are available and provide more limited functionality.

Best NoodleTools tips and tricks

Build better source evaluation
Instead of asking students to find sources, have them explain why each source is credible.

Check progress before deadlines
Use the teacher dashboard to review student projects throughout the research process.

Teach organization skills
Encourage students to use digital notecards and outlines before writing.

Support group research
Assign collaborative projects in which each student contributes different sources and notes.

Focus on research
Use NoodleTools as a research-thinking platform rather than simply a citation generator.

CoChat is an AI-powered tool that provides educators, students, and researchers with a host of capabilities when it comes to conducting research.

While there are other AI research tools, a common problem is citation hallucination. CoChat is designed to cut back on those hallucinations, and that feature is definitely a plus in my experience with CoChat.

Additionally, CoChat is great for deep research. When I searched topics, I was well-versed in, it brought up papers that had taken me hours and, in some cases, days, to track down on my own the old-fashioned way.

After using it for a few weeks, I am impressed with CoChat overall and find it to be the strongest AI deep research tool that I've tried. Here's a closer look at how CoChat works, what it costs, and its best features.

What is CoChat?

CoChat is an AI research tool that harnesses advanced LLMs, including GPT, Claude, and Google, to search more than 200 million academic papers. It offers a feature that allows you to compare different answers from different models and then choose the best one.

In practice, CoChat functions as a highly skilled, very quick research assistant that can find and summarize relevant research on a given topic. CoChat also automatically verifies citations to reduce the frequent AI problem of citation hallucination.

After using CoChat to search several different research areas, ranging from quantum physics to education and health, I have been impressed with its ability to quickly collate research that would take me hours to track down with a tool such as Google Scholar. As with any research tool, it didn’t find all relevant research, though it did a better job than other similar tools I’ve used previously.

More broadly, I still wonder whether there are benefits to the old-fashioned Google-style search. Certainly, the time I’ve spent searching for relevant research hasn’t all been a waste because when I’m doing it, part of my learning process is the search itself.

That said, I do like using a CoChat-like tool toward the end of the process, just to see if this different method turns up anything new.

What Are CoChat's Best Features?

CoChat’s best feature is its robust ability to search through academic research and summarize its findings, all while providing direct links to the original papers. It accomplishes this through access to cutting-edge AI models and, in my experience, seems capable of both speeding up new research and helping expand research I’d previously conducted.

Additional strong features are that it urges you to double-check its work and that its default writing mode is a conversational summary and literature review style. This review summary is helpful, and as an added bonus for educators, is not something a student might be tempted to hand in as their finished paper.

That said, CoChat does frequently offer to help students do more with their research. For instance, after telling me it made a literature review table, it offered to “turn this into a shorter plain-English brief or a tighter source matrix for class use.” When I took it up on this offer, I suspected it would turn the work into a paper that a student could then submit. By doing this, I worried it would move from what I see as an appropriate AI use, research assistance, to an inappropriate one, doing the writing and thinking for a student. Ultimately, those fears were unfounded. CoChat just condensed its findings and used a more conversational tone to explain.

Despite passing this test, when I explicitly asked CoChat to turn its findings into a paper for an assignment "in my class," it was willing to do that, which isn’t ideal.

Even so, given that the availability of AI tools willing to write your papers, emails, and texts is so widespread, it was refreshing that CoChat required this additional step.

What Does CoChat Cost?

The basic version of CoChat is completely free and is what I used for this article. I didn’t come up against any limitations, but there are some metered elements to the free tier such as three file uploads per day and a limit of 10 citation verifications.

Subscriptions start at $9 per month, and there is a pro tier at $19 per month.

The Best CoChat Tips and Tricks

Verify Research

One of CoChat’s main selling points is its ability to check sources it has cited to make sure none are fabricated. Users should take advantage of this feature.

Create an Instant Literature Review

CoChat is as good as any tool I’ve encountered at creating fast and helpful literature overviews on diverse topics.

Use It In Addition To Other Research

Even though it’s tempting to use CoChat at the start of your research, I like using CoChat after I’ve done some research to make sure I found all the relevant material and/or see if it turns up anything that I missed in my old-fashioned search; both happen on occasion. Therefore, using CoChat in this manner seems to deepen my research process overall.

For Melissa McCalla, the winds of Hurricane Harvey did more than cause damage to her school in Pasadena ISD–they blew her into a new chapter of her career.

McCalla had been a teacher, an assistant principal, and finally a principal, when the devastating storm struck Texas in 2017. It flooded homes and shut down her school, but did also have unintended positive consequences.

“It kind of fundamentally changed me as a leader,” McCalla says. “I had an opportunity to really engage with our technology division teams. Eventually I was leading libraries and instructional materials as part of that work, and then I eventually became the CTO.”

McCalla has been CTO five years now (and in the district for 25 years), during which she’s implemented a personalized learning initiative at 47 of 67 of the district’s campuses that involved coaching principals. She has also been instrumental in the district’s first full-time, structured virtual school, which opens this month.

“I never thought I would sit in the chief technology officer role,” she says. “It kind of came as a surprise.”

For this and other efforts, McCalla was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award at the Tech & Learning pre-ISTE Leadership Summit in Orlando. She shares how her district is launching a new virtual high school, boosting its CTE pathways, and more.

FLExible Learning

To address different kinds of learning, Pasadena ISD is launching FLEx Virtual High School, which will feature a combination of synchronous and asynchronous instruction. The initiative came about after the Texas legislature expanded virtual and hybrid learning and from feedback from students and parents who were looking for a more robust learning environment.

“This will be the first year that we're able to really provide a student with opportunity that if they want to do FFA [Future Farmers of America] in person, like raising an animal, you can go to one of our brick-and-mortar schools and take those classes in a face-to-face environment, but then you could also take four or five of your other classes virtually,” McCalla says. “I think that that's a new avenue for us that we haven't had the opportunity to really do in Texas previously.”

But those other classes are not simply static online learning.

“For instance, a virtual lab for chemistry might include getting online together and doing a lab together synchronously versus you know a traditional more synchronous self-paced lesson,” she says. “Each student has an individual mentor that they meet with weekly to set goals, and a cohort of students that they would work with as in the traditional home room and virtually as well.”

Speaking of opportunities, Pasadena ISD also offers a comprehensive CTE program that has been recognized at the state level and offers diverse pathways such as criminal justice, veterinary science, and because of its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, maritime studies.

“Our program helps students to do work that sets them up for success in the Port of Houston area, including setting the stage for them and working on ships,” says McCalla. “We have a full-time maritime simulator and our students can actually learn how to pilot a boat.”

The district’s newest initiative is partnering with San Jacinto Community College in launching a gamified cybersecurity course for students in grades 5-12. McCalla also touts the district’s welding program, which offers very lucrative job opportunities thanks to all the oil and gas refineries in the region, as well as the nearby port.

“One of the great things about all of those programs, technology and learning and innovation all go together with them to some extent,” she says, adding that the skills learned in these opportunities are translatable to all manner of post-secondary paths. “You know, the way to communicate, the way to work hard. The types of professional skills that you need to work collaboratively, to think innovatively.”

Boosting Digital Wellbeing

Through a project involving ISTE and the Pinterest Impact Fund, the district has prioritized digital well-being as a key element of its innovation strategy. Part of that is creating a supportive culture that helps staff, students, and families navigate digital spaces responsibly rather than implementing restrictive bans on technology.

To do that, Pasadena ISD is utilizing parent coordinators to bridge the gap between home and school, and make sure that everyone is consistent and on the same page when it comes to the message and practices around digital wellbeing, be it at school, at home, or when a student is on their own.

“So what does that look like, and then how are we helping teach students to navigate those spaces together?” says McCalla. “What are our students saying are the important things to them and the experiences they're having in digital spaces, and then how do we help support them in being successful there as much as it is in being successful outside of those spaces?”

Building Long-Term Success

For a leader who is looking to go down the path of digital innovation, McCalla advises building a diverse task force that includes students and parents in addition to others from across the district, and then make them an active part of the work.

“Don't just get them to give you input, but actually help them create a working group that brings in their voice in and then contribute to what you're working toward,” McCalla says. “That has made a big difference for us. I believe it’s going to lead to the long-term success of this work that we're doing because they become the advocate and they help tell the story across your community. So it's not just a one-off, it's not just a one point, it really is truly a collaborative ongoing work together.”

Tools They Use

• ParentSquare
• Microsoft Copilot
• LinkedIn
• ClassLink
• Incident IQ

Survey Methodology: Online survey conducted with 2,277 US-based education decision-makers within the SmartBrief and Tech & Learning audiences.

The K-12 educational landscape is transforming, and the strategies schools use to acquire resources are evolving rapidly alongside it. Today’s education decision-makers face a unique intersection of challenges: shrinking budgets, persistent staff shortages, and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.

The resulting data from our survey paints a clear picture of a market shifting toward year-round agility, localized decision-making, and a strong demand for authentic vendor partnerships.

The Timeline: A Constant Cycle

Historically, education product procurement was defined by a summer rush. Today, that seasonal model is largely obsolete. Modern school districts have transitioned away from traditional buying windows, adopting an agile, continuous approach to discovering, evaluating, and acquiring educational tools.

• Identifying Needs: 62% of school leaders identify purchasing needs on an ongoing basis.
• Evaluating Products: 67% continuously evaluate products throughout the year, integrating research into their regular workflows.
• The Final Decision: 54% make final buying decisions on a rolling, ongoing basis, though a notable 33% still prefer to finalize their choices during the traditional Spring/Summer window.

Who Holds the Power?

For vendors, successful outreach requires knowing exactly who sits at the decision-making table. While district-level buy-in remains important for large rollouts, localized building administrators and frontline instructional staff hold the most significant sway over what actually gets purchased for the classroom.

Key Purchasing Influencers:

• Building-Level Administrators: 61%
• Instructional Staff: 59%
• Instructional Directors: 54%
• Technology Directors: 52%
• Superintendents: 46%
• School Board Members: 24%
• Parents: 15%

Where the Dollars Are Going (12–24 Months)

Faced with ongoing funding hurdles, the explosion of AI, and persistent staff shortages, districts are highly strategic about their investments. Over the next two years, funding is being heavily targeted toward empowering teachers through professional development and robust instructional products.

Top General Spending Plans:

• Educator Professional Development: 68%
• Instructional Tools & Systems: 63%
• Hardware (Laptops/Tablets): 48%
• AI Tools: 37%

Top Teaching & Learning Products Considered:

• Assessment Tools: 41%
• Reading Curriculum: 38%
• AI Tools (Chatbots, lesson creation, etc.): 37%
• Math & STEM Curriculum: 36% (each)

Hurdles & Deal-Breakers

To combat tightening budgets and maximize return on investment, schools are meticulously scrutinizing overall costs, ease of implementation, safety, and interoperability.

Macro pressures heavily influence these choices: 80% of respondents cite funding and budgets as their biggest current challenge, followed by staff shortages (45%) and AI concerns (39%). Altogether, 76% say these overarching challenges moderately or significantly alter their purchasing behaviors.

When evaluating solutions, vendors must be aware of the top deal-breakers that will quickly derail a sale:

• Subscription Costs: 63%
• Lack of Alignment with State Standards: 47%
• High Complexity of Implementation: 41%
• Inability to Integrate with LMS/Current Systems: 37%

The Evolving Role of AI & Screen Time

Despite intense national media conversations regarding student screen time and the rapid rollout of AI, school policies remain steady. Rather than enforcing outright tech bans, administrators are taking a pragmatic, case-by-case evaluation approach.

• Screen-Time Concerns: Surprisingly, 44% of educators state that national screen-time trends have not affected their tech purchasing habits.
• AI Procurement Policies: 57% report no significant policy changes regarding AI, continuing to evaluate tools contextually.
• The AI Dichotomy: While AI is actively helping administrators streamline purchasing predictions and strategic planning, leaders remain understandably cautious regarding data privacy, security, and the rapid pace of tech evolution.

How to Reach Education Buyers

Traditional, aggressive sales pitches fall flat in the K-12 environment. Educators lean heavily on authentic peer networks and actionable, real-world case studies to cut through the marketing noise and find tools that actually work.

• Discovery Channels: Teachers and peers (72%) and education publications (69%) are the top trusted discovery channels, ranking ahead of standard vendor outreach (56%).
• Preferred Content Formats: Webinars (65%) and district case studies (52%) are ranked as the most helpful resources for evaluating a product.
• Inside the Webinar: 71% of buyers prefer hearing peer-led presentations from fellow educators, and 56% want concrete insight into product implementation directly from vendors.

KEY SURVEY TAKEAWAYS FOR EDUCATION MARKETERS

Strong vendor partnerships are built on a foundation of trust, clear communication, responsive support, and a deep understanding of unique school needs. Educators place extraordinary value on long-term collaboration, pricing flexibility, and ongoing support that extends well beyond the initial sale.

The Bottom Line: Schools are looking for transparent, long-term partners who understand their resource constraints, stand behind their product claims, and provide continuous post-sale support. Your buyers turn to trusted brands SmartBrief and Tech & Learning to find solutions that meet these needs.

Contact us here to learn how our extensive menu of products can promote your messaging as a trusted partner year round.

As the academic year approaches, the integration of artificial intelligence into educational settings has shifted from a novelty or optional consideration to more of a necessity.

This summer as I engaged with my students, I had them each evaluate 10 to 12 generative AI tools of their choice. This summary is based on analysis of their notes from recent explorations and highlights a core group of "top-tier" tools that provide substantial value for both instructional efficiency and student success.

By focusing on tools that prioritize research synthesis, administrative logic, and visual communication, teachers and students can navigate the upcoming fall semester with unprecedented productivity.

The following six tools emerged as the most effective according to educators, offering a roadmap for fall implementation.

Gemini Notebook (The Research and Synthesis Powerhouse)

Gemini Notebook stands out for its "grounded" approach to AI, processing only the specific documents a user uploads. This makes it a premier tool for maintaining academic integrity while managing heavy reading loads. Personally, I find this one of the best tools available for summarizing large sets of articles or student papers to find themes or trends.

• How Teachers Can Use It: Educators can upload their entire curriculum unit to freshen it up or mold the materials differently. Student A noted that it can generate podcasts based on uploaded material, suggesting that "instead of having kids read a chapter of a short story, it could turn that into a podcast for you." It is highly effective for creating executive summaries and slide decks from dense research articles to maximize lesson prep time.
• How Students Can Use It: Students can upload lecture notes, textbook chapters, or articles to generate study guides, practice quizzes, or thematic literature overviews. Student B remarked that the audio overview feature is a "game changer," particularly for organizing complex concepts for long-term projects such as a dissertation.
• Concerns: A primary concern is the ethical implication of feeding the beast by uploading copyrighted works into an AI model. Additionally, users must be wary of surface level analysis, as the tool may occasionally overlook important nuances in the source material.

MagicSchool AI (The All-in-One Educator Assistant)

Historically one of my primary recommendations to K-12 educators–it consistently rates a "10/10" by users–MagicSchool AI is a platform designed specifically for the unique needs of the K-12 and university environment. It has a lot of built-in templates and is fully FERPA compliant.

• How Teachers Can Use It: Teachers can utilize a suite of more than 60 tools to generate IEP drafts, PLC agendas, and standards-aligned worksheets. Student C called it a "homerun tool" because it "supports the productivity and direction of [Collaborative Team] time without intruding on the actual meeting."
• How Students Can Use It: The Student AI Tutor offers personalized, 1-on-1 support. Student D found the tutor to be “excellent" because of the "depth of conversation it was having. It told me when I was correct [and] when I wasn’t giving it the skill it asked me to show."
• Concerns: The automated nature of the tool can lead to a loss of human tone if not reviewed carefully. Student E warned that if students rely too heavily on the AI to compile information, they risk "short-circuiting" the struggle required for true critical thinking.

Canva Magic Studio (The Visual Communication Leader)

Canva has evolved from a simple graphic design tool into a comprehensive AI suite that lowers the technical barrier for creating professional-looking learning visuals.

• How Teachers Can Use It: Educators can use Magic Design to instantly prototype course materials, turning a lecture outline into a cohesive slide deck. Student F noted its value for creating "take-home fliers for students to share with parents/guardians" and "quick signs for lessons."
• How Students Can Use It: Students can synthesize complex protocols into clear infographics or collaborative group projects. Student E highlighted that it allows students to "demonstrate competency through multimedia creation, fostering both digital literacy and communicative competence."
• Concerns: A risk of visual homogeneity, in which AI-generated layouts feel repetitive or corporate, exists. Also, there is concern regarding the "Couch Potato" effect, in which students may bypass the critical thinking, research, and synthesis stages if graded purely on the visual artifact.

Consensus (The Academic Search Engine)

Consensus is an AI-powered search tool that helps users quickly identify what peer-reviewed research says about specific questions.

• How Teachers and Students Can Use It: Both groups can benefit from its Consensus Meter, which shows scientific agreement on a topic. Student G found it "amazing" for literature reviews, noting that it "returned sources along with citations, as well as the ability to preview abstracts and PDFs in the same place." Student H appreciated its "excellent" accuracy and ability to find research "without going down a rabbit hole."
• Concerns: A major risk is that students may cite articles based only on the AI summary without reading the full source, which could lead to misunderstandings of the research.

Perplexity (The Citation-Backed Search Engine)

Perplexity serves as an enhanced search engine that provides direct answers supported by current online citations. It has historically been one of my go-to deep search tools, and one of my recent doctoral students used it extensively to gather data for his Delphi Study.

• How Teachers Can Use It: Staff can use it for policy benchmarking or for lesson planning on tangential topics outside their area of expertise.
• How Students Can Use It: Students find it much more trustworthy than basic search engines for report writing. Student I highlighted that the use of citations makes it "highly appealing and ... more trustworthy and applicable to my studies." Student J described it as a "graduate-level Google" that simplifies research into a digestible format.
• Concerns: Because Perplexity pulls from real-time web sources, its results are subject to the errors and possible ethical challenges present on the open internet.

Claude AI (The Writing and Logic Specialist)

Developed by Anthropic, Claude is recognized for its ability to handle massive amounts of text and its focus on providing safe and reliable responses. My students often refer to it as the “poet of the LLMs,” as they think it provides the best editorial assistance when they are writing.

• How Teachers Can Use It: Claude thrives in administrative nightmare scheduling scenarios. Student L described how it caught hidden scheduling conflicts and provided "realistic compromises" when managing transportation, weather, and facility bookings.
• How Students Can Use It: Claude acts as an effective career coach, helping students refine resumes and cover letters while maintaining their personal voice. Student K noted “it was effective because it gave organized and specific feedback on my writing" compared against specific rubrics.
• Concerns: Claude can occasionally produce a generic voice unless the user provides very detailed input. Privacy is also a major concern; users must be careful not to paste identifiable student data into the chat.

Your Fall Implementation Strategy

For the fall semester, these tools can be viewed as collaborative partners rather than replacements for human judgment. As educators, we need to expand the variety of tools that we expose students to in order to ensure they become and then remain digitally literate.

The "80/20 Rule" suggested by Student E is an ideal guiding principle: let AI handle the first 80% of a task, the drafting and organization, while the human expert provides the final 20% of auditing, empathy, and contextual nuance. Of course, the educator and/or student need to know how to develop a good prompt in order to get the AI tools to deliver a product at 80%. That’s one skill that regardless of the tool needs practice to develop.

Another one of my students argued with a faculty member as to why it was okay to ask a human editor to assist them but not an AI one as long as the student was upfront and disclosed the use of AI. Particularly when it is not considered necessary to disclose the use of a human editor or a visit to the writing center for support.

By integrating these tools thoughtfully, educators can reclaim time for high-value relational work while empowering students to become critical editors and auditors of data in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

Thanks to Gemini Notebook and the Winona State University students of EL 590 for their assistance in creating this article.

Dabble is a writing tool and word processor designed to help novelists and writers of any long or scholarly work stay organized and focused.

I’ve been using Dabble to write a nonfiction book for more than a month and have been impressed with its ease of use and the way it allows me to jump back and forth between various chapters and stay organized with research. I’ll be recommending it to my master's writing students going forward, and would also recommend it to educators undertaking long writing projects of any kind, from a thesis for a master's program to a sizable research project or report.

Here’s a closer look at Dabble.

What is Dabble?

Dabble is a cloud-based writing tool that works like a souped-up version of Microsoft Word or Google Docs that is fine-tuned for writing. This may not sound necessary, but while I like Google Docs for short projects, I was finding it increasingly slow with long documents, and was having trouble keeping track of various drafts and versions. I like to work on each chapter individually but also have the option of viewing the work as a whole, which can become time-consuming with a general word processor.

For instance, when I use Google, I create a folder for each chapter, but then combining all those chapters and keeping track of updates becomes time-consuming. Dabble helps with all this.

Though designed with fiction in mind, Dabble works well for nonfiction. It automatically organizes your work around chapters. You can edit, export, and save each chapter by itself, or select the entire work. When you select the work as a whole, the chapters all come together without a hitch.

Dabble also has a cool scene feature that lets you break down each chapter into smaller “scenes,” which makes keeping track of your work’s structure easier. If you’re writing nonfiction, it may be easier to think of these breaks as “sections” rather than scenes—either way, it’s a helpful organization tool.

What Are Dabble's Best Features?

I’d been looking for a tool such as Dabble for a while. I wanted something cloud-based and that didn’t have a big learning curve. Dabble checks both these boxes. Everything is cloud-based, but it’s quick and easy to convert a Dabble file into a Microsoft Word, Google Doc, PDF, etc.

The layout is an absolute pleasure, and helps me start writing instantly without a learning curve. I had tried some other word processors designed for writing long works, and though writers I know raved about those, most proved too difficult to learn for me. After trying one demo, I realized I would need to devote some serious time to learning that software, and that was time I felt that would be better spent writing.

Dabble’s features are not only helpful but easy to use, which is crucial. I didn’t anticipate using the scene feature as much as I have; it really helps me navigate a chapter more quickly in the editing process and identify the parts that need work.

Another wonderful feature is that Dabble saves to the cloud automatically. So if you want to edit on multiple devices, you can. I’ve even read nearly completed drafts on my phone instead of my laptop and have been able to successfully make little changes.

While its prices make it more realistic as an option for educators to use themselves rather than with students, all these features would certainly help writing students navigate longer projects. This is why I'll let my graduate writing students know about it as a potential tool to use outside of class.

What Are Some Areas That Dabble Could Improve?

Though I am a big fan, not everything Dabble does is perfect. For example, it is designed for fiction writers and I write nonfiction, so the research assistance tools could be more robust. In a perfect world, there would be a place to save my research for each chapter at a spot that would be linked to that chapter but not show up in the actual text. But since nonfiction is clearly not the tool’s focus, this is an understandable drawback.

More significantly for writers of any kind, it doesn’t have the best in-tool draft-saving capabilities. It’s easy to back up each chapter to Google Drive or elsewhere, which is great, but I haven’t figured out an easy way to do all this within Dabble. One workaround is to save these elsewhere in a Dabble-linked folder. This works, but I'd love the option of saving everything related to my book in Dabble and only using my own computer or something such as Google Drive as a backup.

How Much Does Dabble Cost?

After a 14-day free trial, Dabble pricing starts at $19 per month, with additional features available for more premium subscriptions at $29 and $49 tiers. I've been happy with the starter $19 subscription.

What Are The Best Dabble Tips and Tricks?

The Scene Feature

Breaking my chapters up into scenes helps me think about each chapter and complete it bit by bit. It also makes navigating the chapter during the editing phase easier.

Tracking Dally Progress

Dabble lets you set a daily writing goal and tracks your progress toward that with a daily word count feature. I wasn’t drawn to this feature at first because word counts are not always the best way to track writing progress, particularly nonfiction. You can crank out a lot of words but not really move your project forward; meanwhile, you can write one great paragraph and thus, have spent a fruitful day. That said, Dabble’s progress feature is a better gauge of progress than I anticipated, and it’s surprisingly nice to know exactly how much I added to the manuscript in a writing session. There are days, for instance, when I feel like I’m not getting anything done but realize I’ve logged close to a thousand words.

Exporting Material

This isn’t the flashiest feature, but it's important. The way this program works with Word and Google Docs makes getting my work ready to send to my agent or publisher really easy. I’m spending less time thinking about formatting and more time focused on what’s actually important: the writing.

Even the most ardent AI in education enthusiast will admit that there are times when it’s a mistake to use AI. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently.

While I never encouraged my students to use AI in any capacity, there were many uses, such as brainstorming, which I was okay with, in theory. These days, I am less open to this and other uses and more wary of AI in general. I’m not the only one.

We’re currently in the midst of what The New York Times recently referred to as a backlash against technology in education. Even among tech-savvy teachers who are AI enthusiasts, I’m hearing more discussion of when it is appropriate or not to use AI.

Based on my own observations and conversations both with AI enthusiasts and skeptics, here are times AI should definitely be avoided in education.

1. Do Not Use AI For: Assessment

Matt Jubelirer, General Manager of Education Marketing for Microsoft, is a big fan of AI use in education in general, as you might suspect. But he told me recently that there’s a growing realization among educators he speaks with that AI is not always the solution.

When it comes to creating tests and assessments, Jubelirer says AI can be really helpful on the preparation side, whether that’s developing a rubric or devising questions, but there’s a limit.

“We shouldn't be using AI to grade people, because we need human judgment,” Jubelirer says. No matter what you feel about AI in general, it's hard to argue with that.

2. For Brainstorming

Adjunct professor Lynn M. Patarini has started asking students not to use AI for brainstorming. “I would prefer folks to use their brain and not rely on AI,” says Patarini, who teaches at the University of Connecticut, Central Connecticut State University, and CT State Community College: Middlesex.

She adds, “I have my students making lists constantly to try and train their brains to think about aim and purpose.”

A year ago, the idea that AI shouldn’t be used for brainstorming may have evoked some controversy. But these days, many of us have witnessed firsthand how AI brainstorming sessions can lead to generic, uninspired outcomes and encourage even well-intentioned students to write with AI guidance.

I know I have. After noticing that AI's advice was making student writing more generic, I’ve recently begun actively discouraging the concept of AI as a writing partner, both among my students and fellow educators.

3. For Lesson Generation

William Henry, an eighth-grade English teacher at Amity Middle School and a freshman composition instructor at Quinnipiac University, both in Connecticut, is a fan of some uses of AI in the classroom. However, there are many instances when he believes it should not be used. One of these no-go AI uses is for lesson creation.

“It could be helpful with generating ideas or ways to implement an idea, but the teacher should be coming up with the bulk of the lesson,” he says.

Lesson planning is a frequently cited AI use case, but as Henry notes, it works best when it's helping an educator execute their vision, not steering the educational ship all on its own.

4. For Emails

This is one that should go without saying, but unfortunately for many students, and even some of those who work in education, it doesn’t.

I have not received AI-generated emails from educator colleagues, but I know people who believe they have. I have recieved many clearly AI-generated emails from students. This might be the most unsettling use of AI I’ve come across.

It may sound like a cliché, but my favorite part of being a teacher is the one-on-one communication with students. Going line-by-line through their writing and offering praise and suggestions, answering questions via email, and connecting with a real human being trying to learn can, at its best, be a beautiful and deeply rewarding experience for all involved. But responding to a lifeless email that was clearly written by a student who put my suggestion into a prompt leaves me cold.

We need to remind students, and even educators, not to be afraid to share their own writing voice with professors, friends, and colleagues. I know some of us are self-conscious about the way we write, but every student I ever had is a better email writer than AI, no matter how much work their spelling or sentence structure might need.

Welcome to the August Edtech Show & Tell, in which our editors share some of the new edtech products that have caught our attention this month. These are not reviews or endorsements, but a showcase of education-friendly items, platforms, and more that we think might be noteworthy for you.

This month's new offerings include new digital curricula, an AI-powered smart pen, an air quality sensor, and much more.

Audiotool | 3.O

A step toward eliminating the bottlenecks musicians face when collaborating with one another, Audiotool 3.0 will bring Audiotool’s cross-platform music production ecosystem to any device, with native mobile versions coming soon. It will see the launch of NEXUS, a new open-source SDK that allows anyone to build their own instruments, plugins, and AI-connected music creation tools.

BandLab | BandLab For Education 2.0

Built to run on Chromebooks and other devices, BandLab for Education 2.0 is available free for eligible Title I schools and at a flat $2.50 per student per year for all others. The platform adapts BandLab Studio for education with teacher-managed classrooms, student assignments, and district privacy features. Students can record and create songs, tune vocals with AutoPitch, use an extensive library of samples through BandLab Sounds, and more.

Chief | Tempo Flat Panel In-Wall Single-Box Mount System

The Chief Tempo Flat Panel In-Wall Single-Box Mount System is designed for commercial and higher education environments, and supports small to medium displays in landscape or portrait orientation. It is engineered to streamline installation, support multi-phase installation workflows, and provide easy access to AV components for fast, efficient service. It combines mount hardware, in-wall device storage, and service access capability into a single integrated system that aligns with how commercial construction projects actually run.

ClassDojo | New Schoolwide Tools for School Leaders

ClassDojo's new capabilities help principals and school leaders communicate with families, strengthen school-home connections, and manage all staff outreach from a single platform. New capabilities include multichannel announcements (spanning email, text, voice, and mobile app), built-in Canva newsletter creation, one-click social media posting, schoolwide engagement dashboards, and new tools for middle and high school staff to communicate directly with students.

CyberNut | Neptune Navigate Digital Citizenship Platform

CyberNut has acquired the Neptune Navigate Digital Citizenship platform, adding an established student curriculum to its K-12 safety offering The company already delivers student safety and digital citizenship education alongside its staff-facing phishing simulation, security awareness training, and threat reporting. Neptune Navigate adds an additional deep, purpose-built curriculum. For districts, the result is a deeper, more comprehensive approach to online safety.

Daktronics | LiveWrx

LiveWrx is a fan engagement platform designed for high schools to create interactive experiences at live sporting events using video boards. It enables schools to run live polls, interactive games and fan challenges on their Daktronics displays while fans participate in real time using their smartphones. The platform is designed to increase crowd involvement, enhance school spirit and create new opportunities for sponsorship‑driven revenue during games.

Discovery Education | Social Studies Essentials

Social Studies Essentials is a new K–5 supplemental program designed to help teachers bring C3-aligned, inquiry-based social studies instruction into busy classrooms. The program was built to make rigorous social studies learning easier to implement with ready-to-use lessons, embedded literacy supports, primary sources, and teacher-friendly planning tools.

Epson | SureColor T3770E Education Edition

The SureColor T3770E Education Edition is designed to support schools looking to replace older equipment and confidently implement high-quality in-house poster printing. To ensure educators have everything they need to start printing on day one, the bundle includes the SureColor T3770E 24-inch wide-format graphics printer, easy-to-use Epson Print Automate software, 24” matte and glossy paper rolls, starter inks, plus an additional set of 110 mL ink cartridges, and a maintenance box, enough supplies to last well into the school year.

Extron | BT 100 AT D

This easy-to-use wall panel allows a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone to be used as the communication device in a conferencing system. It also supports stereo audio playback from a range of Bluetooth-enabled devices. Flexible control for device pairing, volume, and media playback is available using the front panel buttons, RS-232 or the Dante network connection. The BT 100 AT D interfaces with any Dante‑equipped audio processor, such as an Extron DMP Plus Series AT Model, over a standard local area network.

Flowtica | Scribe

The Flowtica Scribe is an AI-powered smart pen that combines handwriting, voice recording, and AI to help students stay engaged during lectures instead of worrying about capturing every word themselves. It records both handwritten notes and audio simultaneously, allowing students to instantly revisit important moments, highlight key sections, and generate AI-powered summaries after class.

Just Right Reader | Knowledge and Language Building Library

Just Right Reader's Knowledge and Language Building Library is for pre-kindergarten students. The collection of 60 fiction and nonfiction books—available in both English and Spanish—are designed to develop students’ oral language, vocabulary, and background knowledge as they start their reading journey. The topic-based sets cover the themes of all about me, animals, building things, colors, community helpers, habitats, nutrition, plants, seasons, and transportation.

McGraw Hill | ALEKS Expansion

McGraw Hill welcomes additions to its AI-powered ALEKS portfolio of learning solutions: ALEKS Adventure for Grades 4–5 and ALEKS for Calculus II. These new offerings extend the reach of ALEKS and provide adaptive technology and actionable data help educators identify knowledge gaps and guide students to the skills they are ready to learn next.

Pimloc | Secure File Sharing

Secure File Sharing is a new capability in the Secure Redact platform that lets school districts and other organizations deliver redacted video, audio and documents directly to requestors through a secure, expiring link, accelerating delivery without the file ever being downloaded, re-uploaded, or emailed as an attachment.

PowerSchool | Schoology & NotebookLM integration

Gemini LTI users can now add Schoology course content directly as sources within NotebookLM. This allows educators and students to create AI‑powered study guides, summaries, audio overviews, videos, infographics, slide decks, and more, all grounded in materials already available in their Schoology courses.

SMART Technologies | Lumio WCAG 2.2 Accessibility Updates

Accessibility enhancements have been added to Lumio, the cloud-based teaching and learning platform, bringing the core student experience into alignment with WCAG 2.2, the internationally recognized standard for web accessibility. The update helps ensure that students who use assistive technologies can participate more fully and independently in classroom learning, engaging with lessons, activities and collaborative experiences alongside their peers.

Vernier Science Education | Go Direct Air Quality Sensor

The Go Direct Air Quality Sensor helps students investigate real‑world questions about the quality of the air we breathe with measurable evidence—right where they live and learn. Designed for high school and college use, this durable sensor supports indoor and outdoor monitoring so students can track pollutants over time, analyze spatial patterns, and connect air quality to human and ecological health.

• Edtech Show & Tell

We talk with Chad Johnson, Managing Partner in Cherry Tree & Associates’ investment banking practice, about the state of the edtech market and how education companies are managing the current climate. You can enjoy engaging insights into these important topics during the CEO Keynote Panel: Strategies for Leading Through Market Uncertainty at the upcoming EdExec Summit, taking place September 10-11 in Chicago.

Chad Johnson is an investment banker with a focus in education and former Manager of Business Development for PLATO Learning (now Edmentum). He’s been in the education market for 25 years, primarily helping entrepreneurs or private equity firms who are selling education companies, and suggests that the current market seems to be leveling.

“The last few years, renewals were tough, new business was challenging,” Johnson says. “There's a few companies that are doing really well—certain pockets like STEM curriculum, career and technical education—but most companies are happy just to be flat this year.”

Although Johnson sees that as an encouraging sign, he notes that the market always has been cyclical.

“Education is driven by state and local budgets primarily,” he says. “As the economy goes up and goes down, that tends to impact schools in a lag. There was so much money pumped into the system during the start of COVID that when that money went away, there was a resetting of expectations in terms of budgets for schools. We're going through a down period right now, but we fully expect eventually it will turn around. I don't think that will happen in the near term, but at least it's flattening out.”

Changes in the market aren’t just about finance, but can translate to a direct effect on the classroom experience.

“What really matters is what's going to be the impact on teachers and students,” Johnson says “The easier question to answer is how it affects the administration, because with fewer resources they're just having to make do with less.”

Budgets are smaller and enrollment continues to drop, which is also having an impact, especially on large urban districts.

“Teachers might have to handle more kids,” Johnson says. “They've got more demands put on them. There’s certainly still a problem with teacher retention. Part of what the admin is focusing on is making sure that they have enough teachers. These issues also filter down to the students. You will probably see fewer options, fewer alternatives in terms of programs that these schools are able to offer.”

To pare their edtech investments, schools have been much more focused on engagement.

“Schools are looking at who is using this product that they bought and have been paying for every year. If it's half the kids, is that good, is that bad?” Johnson says. “You can argue that there's a lot that a good teacher can do without a lot of resources. You don't necessarily need all the bright, shiny objects to teach children. The most important thing is having good teachers.”

A back-to-basics, tech backlash is gaining popularity.

“Some states with large districts are talking about limiting the amount of time that students can spend on screens,” Johnson says. “WIth these challenges in play, there’s only so much time in the day, and there's just not enough time for every edtech vendor to make an impression.”

Effects of a Down Market on Edtech Companies

“There is no doubt that there are some great products out there that are just having a much harder time getting face time with the schools, getting implemented, making the sale because of the market pressure,” Johnson says. “They just are not in as strong a position as companies with more resources to have those conversations with decision-makers and with educators. That's bound to happen in a down market, which is unfortunate.”

While this could hinder smaller companies or startups, it’s a natural result of tougher competition.

“At the same time, let’s bring the taxpayers into the room,” Johnson says. “From their standpoint, have there been solutions that were purchased and never implemented or poorly implemented so only a very small subset of the intended population is actually using it.”

Schools are thinking outside the budget-box to save the programs of which they are passionate and in which they believe, such as high-impact tutoring.

“It's one of these things that you can do with kids to have a markedly positive impact,” Johnson says. “But it’s not part of the main core budget of schools. You have to come up with additional money for it. Some places are getting creative, applying for grants or even getting nonprofits (or in some cases for-profits) to sponsor elements.”

4 Pieces of Actionable Advice to Weather a Flattened or Downturn Market

Johnson offers advice to navigate the current edtech market.

Do an audit of the tech you already have. Look for any underused elements within existing tech that could work to replace programs being phased out. Analyze how many students are being served by the program, and whether additional professional development could aid educators in finding greater value for their classrooms.

Focus on what schools need. It sounds basic, but at the end of the day, delivering an engaging solution that really works and helps kids—which teachers find useful and administrators find they can talk positively to parents about—that’s what is going to make it through this downturn and come out on the other side in a much stronger position.

Strengthen your relationship with your schools. Spend the time to check in with your customers, make sure that they're getting what they need. Blocking and tackling is really important. Some companies are growing through this market. If you’ve got the right solution at the right time, take advantage of that. Not everyone is in a position where they can easily invest in that kind of time to make sure they are giving their customers everything that they need, but you have to try to do so.

Get in front of the stakeholders. Prioritize customer conferences—the ISTEs and FETCs of the world—even if attendance has been down at those conferences as a natural reflection of budget tightening. Whatever you can do to get in front of customers and teachers is the smart thing to do right now.

What to Expect From CEO Keynote Panel: Strategies for Leading Through Market Uncertainty

EdExec Summit panelists joining Johnson offer a broad spectrum of unique perspectives on the market. Johnson will speak about how the market's doing both from a business standpoint as well as his role as an M&A advisor in the capital markets. One panel member is an investor in a private equity firm that focuses on education and owns a number of companies in different market segments. Another is a sales and marketing pro who advises education companies. One panelist is the head of product for a very large education assessment and curriculum company, who sells nationwide to both small and large districts. This talk will offer curated insight aimed at CEOs, senior executives, owners of education businesses, as well as superintendents and school administration heads.

Glint is designed to speed up that process of creating visual resources. The browser-based platform uses AI to generate classroom-ready visual supports from simple prompts, producing resources that can then be edited, printed, or shared digitally.

It is aimed at teachers, special education professionals, speech and language therapists, and families, with a focus on supporting learners who benefit from visual communication.

Formerly known as NerChat, the platform has expanded beyond AI-powered conversation tools to become a broader visual support system. Today, it offers everything from communication boards and classroom schedules to social narratives and interactive visual resources.

This does not aim to replace teacher expertise. Instead, Glint acts as a starting point. Educators can create a resource in seconds before refining it to suit an individual learner, saving valuable planning time while still allowing for personalization. That makes it very useful in busy classrooms where multiple students could need different levels of support.

What is Glint?

Glint is an AI-powered tool designed to help teachers create visual supports, communication boards, and social stories for students with additional learning needs. Formerly known as NerChat, the platform has evolved into a broader resource creation tool focused on helping educators and support professionals build personalized communication materials faster.

Creating visual resources can be an important part of supporting students with autism, speech and language needs, and other learning differences. However, designing effective schedules, symbol boards, and social narratives can also take significant planning time, especially when teachers need to adapt materials for individual learners.

Glint aims to reduce that workload by using AI to generate editable classroom resources in seconds. Teachers can create materials for specific routines, activities, or communication needs, then adjust any to better suit their students before sharing digitally or printing for classroom use.

With features such as text-to-speech, multilingual support, and QR code sharing, the platform is designed to make visual communication tools more accessible across different learning environments.

How does Glint work?

Glint uses generative AI to build visual learning resources from natural language prompts. A teacher simply describes what they need -- for example, a morning routine, classroom expectations, a communication board for snack time, or a social story about visiting the library -- and the platform generates an editable visual support within seconds.

Glint produces a starting point that educators can adapt. Teachers can edit text, replace or rearrange symbols, adjust layouts, and tailor resources to suit an individual learner's communication level or educational goals. This flexibility helps in SEND settings, in which even students with similar diagnoses may require very different supports.

Resources can include images, symbols, written text, and in some cases, speech output, to encourage communication and independence. Finished materials can be printed as traditional classroom resources or shared digitally, while QR codes make it easy for students, parents, and support staff to access any from a phone or tablet.

Because Glint is entirely browser-based, there is no special software to install. It operates across Windows and Mac computers, Chromebooks and iPads, making it accessible in most school environments. Schools can also manage users centrally, helping larger organizations roll out the platform across multiple classrooms while maintaining consistency between staff members.

The overall experience is designed to minimize preparation time while still giving teachers full control over the finished resource, ensuring materials remain appropriate for each learner rather than relying solely on AI-generated content.

What are the best Glint features?

The best feature of Glint is how quickly it produces resources that would traditionally take far longer to create manually. Visual schedules, communication boards, and social stories can often be generated in less than a minute. This allows teachers to spend more time working directly with students instead of designing classroom materials.

Support for more than 50 languages is another standout feature. This can help schools communicate more effectively with multilingual families while also creating resources that are accessible to students who are learning English or who use another language at home. Being able to generate matching materials in different languages also helps reinforce routines across school and home environments.

Interactive communication boards go beyond static printable resources by incorporating text-to-speech functionality. Students can select symbols to hear words or phrases spoken aloud. This can support communication development and promote greater independence for those who benefit from augmentative and alternative communication approaches.

Glint also offers flexible sharing options. Resources can be exported as PDFs for printing, displayed digitally on classroom devices, or accessed through QR codes, making it straightforward to distribute materials without additional software.

For schools and districts, administrative tools allow accounts to be managed centrally, simplifying deployment across multiple classrooms or campuses. Combined with the ability to save and reuse previously created resources, this makes it easier for teachers to build a growing library of personalized visual supports that can be updated rather than recreated each time.

How much does Glint cost?

Glint includes a free tier that lets you generate up to eight visual supports each month, making it a good way to try the platform before committing to a subscription.

For individual educators, the Monthly plan costs $18 per month (discounted from $25) and can be canceled at any time. The Annual plan costs $150 per year -- equivalent to $12.50 per month -- offering around a 30% saving compared with paying monthly. Both paid plans include premium languages, access to the in-app Google Images library, the Glint mobile app, QR code sharing, and advanced board editing tools.

Schools and districts requiring multiple licenses can request custom pricing. These organization plans add centralized billing, shared resource libraries, administrator controls, usage insights, Clever/SSO rostering, and onboarding and training to support larger deployments.

Best Glint tips and tricks

Start broad
Begin with a simple prompt to generate a draft resource, then personalize it for individual students rather than trying to create the perfect prompt first time.

Support families
Use the multilingual tools to create matching resources for home and school. This can help reinforce routines and improve communication between educators and caregivers.

Build a resource library
Save commonly used schedules, communication boards, and social stories so these can be quickly adapted for different students instead of recreated each time.

For Matt Kuhn, Chief Technology Officer for Volusia County Schools in Florida, artificial intelligence has been around longer than most folks realize.

“The first AI was really Clippy way back in the day, right?” Kuhn says. “In the 90s when Clippy would jump on your screen and kind of annoy you a little bit, but it was gathering feedback from you and then differentiating what it told you next in terms of assisting you in learning how to use the program.”

Like Clippy (but dramatically less annoying), Kuhn has been active in shaping how AI is being used in his district, particularly by students.

“One of the things we've learned over the last couple of years is when we talk about using AI, we talk about it being a coach, not an answer giver, or we also say that it's an augmentation to your learning,” Kuhn says. “We want all of our AI to let students go through that healthy struggle but keep them right on the edge much like a video game does. You know, when a student loves a video game, it's because that video game has mastered that moment where the student feels like with just a little more effort, I could get to the next level. That's what we want AI to also do.”

Kuhn, a former small district teacher and principal before a stint as an author and edtech consultant, was also instrumental in Volusia’s early adoption of AI.

“We had one of the first policies around AI in the state of Florida in a school district, and I know it was one of the first because a lot of districts in Florida and even other states started contacting me and asking for a copy,” he says. “Our policy took a pretty open approach to allowing AI with some guardrails put in place so that people knew what the structure of it was and how far those boundaries could be pushed. But we wanted to make sure that our teachers and our students had the freedom to innovate within certain parameters.”

Kuhn has continued to lead AI efforts in his district, which include the creation of an AI professional development academy as well as the deployment of AI agents for district leaders to help them be more efficient and effective in their work.

For this and other efforts, Kuhn was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award at the Tech & Learning pre-ISTE Leadership Summit in Orlando. He shares his district’s AI efforts for students, teachers, and staff.

AI Is A Human Endeavor

Volusia County Schools is a diverse district of 60,000 students and 8,000 employees, with about 115 in Kuhn’s IT division. And with that many involved, there was a lot of concern about how to approach AI.

“We had to alleviate their fears with training and other data to show them that AI could be a positive experience for their students,” Kuhn says. “There's still certainly people that are skeptical, but our data shows that it's being used more and more each year by our teachers and our students. And we're an A-rated district for the second year in a row by the state of Florida. So our academic scores and other indicators are going up despite the fact that our AI usage is also going up.”

To address concerns and support staff who were interested in using AI, the district created its AI Academy, a year-long program that provided ongoing professional development events rather than a one-time workshop. The academy offered differentiated learning paths for various roles, including clerical, educator, and administrative staff, and ultimately, was a hit with everyone.

“The academy kept getting so big that we kept having to change rooms to larger venues just to accommodate all of the people who wanted to go through it,” says Kuhn, who added that the experience needed to be in person. “We found that face-to-face was going to be best for this, where people had their computer in front of them and we could walk around and assist and get them collaborating. We also wanted people to realize that AI is also a human endeavor, that it's not just about technology.“

Vendor partners were also part of the program. “If something new was coming out in Copilot, for instance, we would arrange with our Microsoft customer support to teach us that latest and greatest thing so that we could roll that out right away,” Kuhn says.

The academy concluded with “Volusia Learns,” a week-long district conference during which participants received digital badges. “And now when you see their digital signature or the directory information on their school website, they're showing the badge they earned,” Kuhn says.

Agents On Board

Similar to many districts, trying to navigate and analyze data from numerous disparate sources was a growing obstacle for Volusia schools. Director of Educational Technology Melissa Carr challenged the IT team to make board policies, procedure manuals, student data, and other info that’s typically housed in different departments and silos easily accessible to all.

“In the old way of doing things you have to kind of ask everybody ‘Where do you find this? Who has the latest on this? Can they email it to me?’ says Kuhn. “She wanted it to be a quick thing where a principal could just type in some things and this stuff would appear.”

To solve that challenge, Kuhn and his team developed the Volusia County Leaders Agent, a custom AI agent using Copilot 365 that could access district and student data, board policies, and procedure manuals, all with specific naming conventions for easy indexing. They then encouraged district leaders to customize it.

“Essentially what we did is we taught them how to make their own agent,” says Kuhn. “We put together a set of instructions and we gave them the links to the SharePoint site and the URLs that we would be using, and we walked them through. It was only three pages with screenshots, so it's not like a really hard process to create an agent.”

Having the leaders make their own agents allowed them to be very specific in how they designed it, and also fostered ownership and buy-in.

“They're like, ‘Oh, I've got this agent I made,’” says Kuhn. “‘Look at this. It does this cool stuff for me.’ You know, so instead of just saying, ‘Here, use this that we gave you,’ they're proud of it."

Keeping ’Em Swimming

The district plans to continue offering PD opportunities around AI, although it may not be another full year of the AI Academy as there is limited time available for training and many implementations happening in any given year.

Nonetheless, Kuhn and his staff are identifying and training Digital Learning Teacher Leaders (DLTLs), who lead deep, ongoing training on the latest AI tools with staff members within their building, and also provide resources and support. This approach helps them try to keep up with the pace of AI’s evolution.

“It evolves so fast,” says Kuhn. “But the way we figure is if we at least get them in the pool and swimming, even if the temperature of the water changes a little bit, they'll be able to deal with it.”

Tools They Use

• Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory)
• Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Forms)
• Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory)
• ClassLink / VPortal (single sign-on & app catalog)
• Canvas (Learning Management System)
• Focus SIS (student information, grades, attendance, analytics)
• Focus ERP (HR, payroll, finance, purchasing, budget – 19 modules)
• IncidentIQ (help desk, work orders, asset management)
• Jamf (Apple device management)
• Cisco Meraki (network switching & wireless)
• Cisco Identity Services Engine (network access control)
• ContentKeeper (web filtering & student internet safety)
• Finalsite (district & school websites)
• BoardDocs (school board agendas & meetings)
• ParentSquare (family/school communications tied to SIS)
• Canva (instructional and staff content creation)
• IXL
• Achieve3000
• Big Ideas Math
• Khan Academy
• Desmos
• PhET
• BrainPOP
• Facilitron (facility scheduling & community use)
• Lightspeed Web and Classroom Filter

While researching my recently updated article, Best Sites for Blended Learning, I came upon CK-12, a remarkable, new-to-me teaching platform that provides a varied and robust set of digital textbooks, AI-powered digital tools, teacher agents, simulations, and more.

CK-12 is the brainchild of the nonprofit CK-12 foundation, whose mission is to provide free access to high-quality, customizable educational content in multiple modalities, suited to multiple student learning styles, levels, and resources. Even better, all tools and features of CK-12 are fully free to educators, students, and families.

What is CK-12?

CK-12 is a K12 online education platform designed for teachers, schools, and families that serves as a customizable digital platform for teaching and learning.

Its flagship offering, Flexbooks, are standards-aligned digital textbooks for K12 math, science, English, social studies, and other topics, including college-level and adult education. Flexbooks are available in English, Spanish, Korean, German, Chinese, Greek, and Polish. A small selection of Flexbooks include built-in interactives.

In addition to Flexbooks, CK-12 offers a wide range of AI tools for teachers, AI teacher agents, learning analytics, study guides and adaptive practice for students, interactive simulations, and PLIX (Play Learn Interact eXplore) interactives.

How Does CK-12 Work?

Users can easily sign up for CK-12 via their Google, Microsoft, Apple, or email accounts. Once signed in, the teacher’s homepage highlights the newer AI-powered tools highlighted at the top, while the older flagship Flexbooks are lower down.

While the AI-powered tools and agents are intriguing and potentially time-saving for educators, the core of CK-12 is really the digital textbooks known as Flexbooks.

(Note that the continual right-to-left and left-to-right animation of the AI Teacher Tools boxes is an unfortunate choice for an organization that aims to be sensitive to learners of all types. Fortunately the student version of the site doesn’t include such distracting animations.)

FLEXBOOKS

Flexbooks carry a number of advantages over traditional textbooks. First, these are fully free, which offers an opportunity for substantial savings—perhaps as much as $1.5-2 million dollars for a district. And in contrast to paper textbooks, Flexbooks can be updated as needed, which of course represents yet another financial saving.

Additionally, Flexbooks are designed to be compatible with all external screen reading apps and tools, allowing for all content to be read aloud. This is especially useful for students who struggle to read at grade level. You can search Flexbooks by grade, language, and subjects. Additionally, one can browse the list of all Flexbooks, arranged by topic and grade.

For six selected math topics, Flexbooks are also available in an interactive as well as conventional version.

Educators can create classes directly in their CK-12 account, or via an existing LMS class, such as Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology, and others. Then add students through email, roster upload, or direct entry. Assignments can be made quickly through links on every content page.

AI TEACHER TOOLS AND AGENTS

CK-12’s AI-powered Teaching Assistant comprises a large library of tools to speed teaching preparation, assessments and assignments, specialized learning, communications, and much more. Teacher Agent goes further, allowing users to quickly set up their own AI-powered agent, capable of interactive with students while adapting to their responses and learning styles.

What Are The Best CK-12 Features?

In addition to its flagship product Flexbooks, CK-12 offers several key customizable features ideal for the classroom setting.

ADAPTIVE PRACTICE

Adaptive practice exercises in selected topics are available for students in grades 1-5. Each topic includes dozens of subcategory skills that can be assigned to students.

For example, the Measurement topic is divided into money, time, systems, conversions, capacity, and mass. Within each subcategory skills include comparing, identifying, converting, and many others.

FLEXBOOK TEACHER TOOLS

CK-12’s Teacher Tools are built into every Flexbook page and include a quiz creator, lesson planner, and lesson “hook” generator. Simply click the desired link in the lower left-hand box in order to create a quiz, standards-aligned lesson plan, or lesson hook for the content on the current page.

As with most CK-12 features, users are free to adapt the pre-filled templates according to their own preferences.

LEARNING ANALYTICS

Comprising “foresights” and “insights,” Learning Analytics provide granular data on student and class performance, as well as overall performance for each question. While Foresights predicts a student’s future proficiency in the selected topic, Insights displays skill levels that students have already demonstrated, from "beginning" through “mastery.”

Using graphs and lists, the platform also shares performance data from the class, makes recommendations about how to address performance gaps, and highlights students who are performing exceptionally well.

INTERACTIVE SIMS

Sims are a great way to combine text- and graphic-based learning with interactivity, engaging students more deeply than static lessons. Available for physics and chemistry topics, CK-12’s interactive sims are concept-driven, standards-aligned, and offer downloadable PDF worksheets.

Each assignable simulation begins with a brief animation representing the target concept and includes a video tutorial, challenge questions, and easy sharing options.

How Much Does CK-12 Cost?

Remarkably, CK-12 is completely free for all users -- educators, students, families or anyone wishing to study and learn. The nonprofit CK-12 Foundation’s core mission is to provide content and technology tools that support customizable teaching in multiple modalities, for all types of learners, therefore all its tech tools are 100% free.

We talk with Nate Lichte, Chief Operations Officer of Lebra, about the challenges of retaining top talents in school leadership and the classroom. You can enjoy engaging insights into these important topics during Lichte’s presentation at the upcoming EdExec Summit, taking place September 10-11 in Chicago.

“I've always had a passion for leadership,” Nate Lichte says. “My mom was in human resources. Growing up I didn't get the traditional bedtime superheroes and fairy tales, I got leadership fables."

Like most fables, Lichte’s path wasn’t a simple or straight one, but it resulted in a lesson learned he brings into his work everyday.

“I got into education because I struggled with my own educational journey, so I wanted to make an impact for educators and their students,” he says. “I started in higher ed working directly with college students, which eventually led to K12. I even worked with juvenile justice and corrections education programs. I’ve been spending the last seven years with school superintendents within a company whose core product helped leaders to better connect with their employees to build a culture of belonging and ensure that the employee feels seen, valued, and inspired to grow.”

Lichte says the education sector is extremely unique, and presents difficult challenges for school leaders, who are under tremendous pressure. Every district is distinct, but most are facing the same challenges when it comes to staffing.

“Right now a lot of districts are talking about recruitment because we're dealing with this shortage of teachers,” he says. “The immediate thought is, ‘Let's go get more teachers.’ We're not talking enough about retention. It's far less expensive and far more impactful to create an environment where the best people choose to stay. At the end of the day, the best people want to work for someone that genuinely cares about them.”

Determining what matters most to the brightest stars in your school’s universe is key to keeping them.

“Teachers are not in a role for the compensation,” Lichte says. “The reason people stay is because they have great leadership. They have purpose. They have opportunity to grow. There's trust. There's flexibility. There's an authentic relationship that's built between them, the leadership, and the entire organization. That's what sets a high-performing organization apart, whether it's a K12 school district or any other industry.”

Just knowing what your staff needs is the first step. For Lichte, this isn’t about selling a product, but selling a culture that can make life better for all the stakeholders.

“Culture isn't something you can write on a wall,” he says. “Culture isn't something that happens because you throw a building a pizza party or order a snack cart on Teacher Appreciation Day. Those small things are great and may lead to a positive culture, but nine times out of ten, that's not what builds a healthy culture of belonging. What builds a strong culture of belonging is small intentional actions. It's conversations, it's feedback, it's recognition, all of those small things that happen in seconds in the day that build trust and relationships.”

Becoming the GOAT of Joy and Belonging Might Take a Few Llamas

“Culture starts from the top down,” says Lichte. “It doesn't matter whether we're working with K-12 districts, hospitals with 20,000 employees, or a private organization with 6,000. We have to start with the CEO or the superintendent of that organization. If you as the head of that organization do not believe — or don’t take the intentional actions that it takes to build a culture of belonging, it’s going to be an uphill battle.”

Small daily actions, such as noting someone’s birthday, might seem simplistic or something that wouldn’t move the needle on culture.

“When you're the superintendent of an organization and you send a personal email birthday message to an individual, it has meaningful impact,” Lichte suggests. “A superintendent in Illinois sent a last-minute birthday message to an individual in his district. The gentleman responded that he didn't know that the superintendent knew it was his birthday, and was furthermore surprised that he took the time just to wish him a happy birthday, because he's the superintendent leading this big district. His final sentence? Sometimes, being a janitor I feel at the bottom, but today — I feel at the top.”

This made such an impact on the superintendent, the district adopted a bigger recognition of birthdays and milestones across the organization. Doors were decorated, and joy and a sense of belonging was spread.

“These are the moments that matter,” Lichte says. “That individual employee will stay retained and engaged in his role because of this one small email and then everything else that the district has done to kind of change their philosophy. That's when employees feel trusted, valued. They're inspired to grow, regardless of what position they hold.”

Lichte insists this conversation should not be about recruitment, because recruitment will come when you create an environment with a focus on a culture of belonging. If that’s what you narrow in on, you're focusing on the wrong piece of the puzzle.

“The challenge for superintendents is that education is currently facing a heavy politically-charged environment,” he says. “They have budget constraints and reins are being tightened to the greatest degree they've ever experienced.”

Lichte says small intentional acts and inspiration matters. He cites Dr. George Philhower, Eastern Hancock Community Schools superintendent in Greenfield, Indiana, who has four key tenets, starting with joy.

“He wants every single individual to experience joy and that joy is exhibited not only when the kids are being taught, but when employees and teachers feel like they're part of the school,” says Lichte. “It takes intentional work. You cannot do it on Fridays and special occasions; as a leader, you need to do it every single day. If you're bleeding talent, it's because people don't believe, one, in you as the leader, or two, because your core tenets are in misalignment with what they want.”

This philosophy has attracted such a stir that 300 educators from around the country come to Philhower’s annual Joy Jam educators’ conference. To be fair, this is the same man who sent a local farmer in uniform riding a horse past a history classroom yelling, “The British are coming!”

So how does joy express itself in Greenfield, Indiana?

Says Lichte: “The best way I can sum up that conference is as I'm walking down to the main session, George passes me and says, ‘Have you seen a goat? We've lost the goat.’ The next thing I heard was his voice calling down the hall, ‘The llamas are slipping on the floor. We need a tarp for the llamas!’ Because this conference brought in everything that exhibits joy. This is why George doesn’t have a recruitment problem.”

3 Takeaways To Gain From Nate Lichte’s EdExec Summit Presentation

Culture is not a pizza party. Leadership is building a high-performing organization around a culture of belonging, built on a foundation of connection. You can’t have one without the other.

Start from the ground up. Learn from the good work already taking place, such as the birthday note example. Sharing best practices starts a conversation to spark ideas. Other creative things are happening organically in districts.

Create environments that people don't wanna leave. You can't just do it on Tuesdays and Fridays or because it feels like the right thing to do. You have to block your calendar 5-10 minutes every day and go find someone to make feel seen. If you're not giving this culture the same intention that you give your budget, then you're missing the mark.

Technology moves at such a rapid pace, it’s hard to keep up with the changes as a school leader. Since publishing my first article ("Did Apple Finally Find Its Chromebook Killer?") (just a month ago), Apple quietly increased the education price of the Neo by $100. That changes part of this conversation as at $499, the Neo was an intriguing disruption. At $599, districts will rightly ask much harder questions about return on investment. However, like I said in the previous article, this isn’t just about the price. It’s about value over time.

Now that we have that disclaimer out of the way, allow me to lay out the ground rules of this article. I’m not trying to get too overly geeky about this bake-off. I’m evaluating these through the eyes of a technology director trying to make a major purchasing decision that affects learning.

Which leads me to my second disclaimer: These decisions need to involve more than the person who is deploying and distributing the machines.

With that said, most of what follows are several different categories all school leaders should be considering when making a purchase of this magnitude. In the wake of the “tech lash,” leaders need justifiable reasons for introducing devices and screens into the learning environment.

Neo vs. Chromebook: Overview

My original thought for this bake-off was to compare Apple’s Neo with the Dell Chromebook 14 Laptop. These are both similar in size and price, but the truth is, most schools don’t purchase that model for their students. They tend to purchase smaller sizes (typically 11.6-inch HD models) and lower RAM and storage. As Chromebooks make up 93% of the K-12 market, I wanted to make this a comparison against the most commonly purchased device. Currently, Lenovo has a slight edge (25% vs. 21%) over HP when it comes to units shipped in the U.S.

Furthermore, the most common type of Chromebook is the “Clamshell” laptop. More than 62% of Chromebooks purchased are this type but there is a significant growth rate in the second type (Convertible 2-in-1 which is bought at nearly 15%).

Taking all that into account, the following series of tests and benchmarks will be run between a Lenovo Chromebook 100e Gen 5. The Gen 4 was the most purchased of its fleet last year, so we’ll go with the newest model when doing comparisons for the rest of this article. I fully recognize that many of you reading this will likely be purchasing HP, Acer, or Dell versions, so with that in mind, consider this a framework when doing your own comparisons.

The Hardware Story

I’m not going to do a “spec dump” here as you could do that by looking up the device you are considering and comparing its specs to that of the Neo. I will however, highlight some important technical features you’d want to consider and compare when making your ultimate decision.

Here’s a chart of a few things you should ponder when comparing devices:

Overall, it’s a pretty close comparison when you look solely at hardware components. In some ways it’s like the difference between buying a sports car vs. a pickup truck. The Neo is engineered for performance and premium experiences; you can go far and fast with it. The Lenovo is engineered to survive the day-to-day rigors of a middle school hallway; it can take some hits and still perform on bumpy roads. Both will need some maintenance to perform over the long haul and we don’t really know the longevity of the Neo yet.

Based on design alone, the Neo feels like something you’d proudly hand to a college freshman. The Lenovo feels like something you’d reluctantly hand to thirty 7th graders going on a rainy day field trip.

But there’s much more to each of these devices than design and internal components. Let’s see how they hold up in the classroom.

A Student’s Perspective

Given the fact that Neos just came out this summer, we have zero legitimate benchmarks to compare to existing Chromebooks. We can look at previous iterations of Macbooks in schools and iPads (which I have extensive knowledge of) to help guide us.

So, for the purposes of this article, I purchased a Neo for my incoming 9th grade daughter to try. She’s a heavy technology user (gamer, video, AI, etc.) and has a school-issued Chromebook that she can borrow from her older sister (soon-to-be senior) to run some tests. She’s also taking some online courses this summer, so I asked her to tell me some things she noticed and to write it all down.

This next section is written by her:

Five Things I Noticed in the First 10 Minutes

By a 9th Grade Student

1. The Apple screen made everything look way better.

This was the first thing I noticed. The colors looked brighter and the words looked sharper. When I watched a video, it looked more like my TV at home than a school laptop.

2. The Chromebook felt more like…a school Chromebook.

It wasn’t bad, but it felt like every Chromebook I’ve ever used. It worked fine for Google Docs and Google Classroom, but nothing about it really stood out.

3. The Apple trackpad was awesome.

I didn’t think I’d care about the trackpad, but it was way smoother. It was easier to scroll and click, and it just felt nicer to use.

4. The bigger screen actually mattered.

I thought a couple of inches wouldn’t make a difference, but it did. It was easier to have two windows open, like writing in one and looking at a website in the other.

5. The keyboards are almost the same except for one thing.

My friends are always popping off the keys to their Chromebook. It is harder to do this with the Neo keyboard.

Her final quote to me when I pressed her about a comparison was this:

"Honestly, if my teacher handed me either one, I wouldn’t complain. But if you lined them up and said I could keep one, I’d pick the Apple without even thinking about it. It just feels more like a real laptop than a school laptop if that makes sense.”

Some of the tests that I had her try with her Neo and Chromebook were to mimic different examples of things that she would do in various classrooms with technology. I asked her about AI, but she mentioned that’s not really encouraged and she tends to not use it as much as other students.

Here’s just a few of the tests we ran on both devices:

“The 50-tab Challenge”

I had her open up 50 tabs of various classroom applications. Her LMS, Google Docs, Slides, YouTube, Canva, an AI chat bot, email, and dozens of other websites she had visited in the prior school year. We then attempted to measure responsiveness, any type of heat or fan noise from the device and most importantly . . . lag. Both devices performed well under this pressure.

Outcome: Tie

“The Video Project”

I asked her to recreate a video project she had worked on earlier in the year using both devices. On the Chromebook, she used WeVideo. On the Neo, Apple’s iMovie software. While she was able to complete both videos within about an hour of each other, the Neo was much easier when it came to uploading, editing, recording and exporting.

Edge: Neo

“The Offline Day”

This is a big one for her. She’s claimed frustration in the past with the district’s network and at times our home network. As she does most of her work in Google workplace, we tried both devices with the internet turned off and both did well. She was able to write and edit with an option to submit later. She wasn’t able to use her AI LLM bots in either scenario, but she did reveal to me that if she had downloaded LM Studio on her Neo before the internet went down, she could use that as an offline AI agent.

Edge: Neo

Things The Spec Sheet Won’t Tell You

After the exchange with my daughter, I really started to think of this comparison on a broader level. Yes, if you go just by the spec sheet or the price, you’ll get some easy comparison numbers. However, what about all those aspects that don’t appear on a spec sheet but still affect the classroom? Things such as boot time, trackpad feel, and screen glare aren’t listed in a pros and cons section but still need to be considered.

As a former teacher, I know that classroom disruptions can take an entire lesson and tank it. When it comes to technology such as student devices, what can happen that causes unforeseen disruption? Things like fan noise, software updates, battery life, and lag can cause frustration for the student and disruption for the teacher.

There’s also some hidden costs that come into play. After years of running an iPad one-to-one environment, you don’t really realize how much your budget is bleeding charging packs, cords, and keyboards until you do a final assessment of your assets. Repairs for a touch screen are going to be more cumbersome than those of a traditional screen. How much time and energy does it take from your staff to deploy and collect the devices? What about if students pick off the keys from the keyboard, as my daughter mentioned? Also, think about the support burden of training staff and students on the interactions of a device. The more familiar they are with the device the less support is needed (in theory).

All of these “soft costs” add up in the long run and turn into the “Total Cost of Ownership,” which I mentioned in my previous post. Looking at the big picture beyond the spec sheets is something all school leaders should consider before purchasing student devices.

Many schools have models that support two different devices (elementary classroom sets and secondary student take-home devices). This adds complexity to the environment, which in turn, means more support and more training. If it’s the right device for learning, those can be absorbed in the final decision.

Questions Districts Should Ask Before Buying Either

Ultimately, this decision should come down to the factors mentioned above but with input from a wide range of people. Teachers, campus administrators, technology support staff, librarians, and students should have an opportunity to provide input for whichever device you might be considering. This accomplishes two tasks: it gives a broader range of viewpoints when considering the device, and gives those important stakeholders a voice in the decision process, which can affect the overall outcome after deployment.

Whenever we were due for another round of device purchases, our district would convene a “Digital Learning Task Force” made up of the above stakeholders as well as parents. We created surveys, held “open viewing” times for students to touch and use the devices in the current school environment, and held forums to brainstorm the issues we should be considering.

Here are just a few of the questions that we used to guide our decision making:

• What work do we expect students to create?
• How long do we realistically keep devices?
• How important is AI over the next five years of learning?
• Can our support staff manage another ecosystem if we change?
• Are our teachers comfortable with a different OS?
• Do we value the lowest purchase price or the lowest lifetime cost and resale?
• Are we buying devices for today’s classroom or the classroom of 2030?
• What periphery purchases must we make with the device?
• What does instructional support and training look like in each?
• How smoothly can we deploy and recover the devices year after year?

Conclusion

Purchasing a school-issued device for students has never been more complicated. School leaders are dealing with screen-time angst, digital distractions, increased pricing on parts, decreased supplies, and smaller budgets.

Needless to say, this is not a decision that you should make after reading a single article such as this one. However, you should be asking some of the same questions here of your community, as well as hundreds of other factors that I haven’t even listed.

After fifteen years, Apple finally built a laptop that belongs in the Chromebook conversation. I know the iPad has its place as well, and have long compared an iPad with a keyboard to a Chromebook, but this is different.

“Did Apple build the Neo to be a Chromebook killer?” is a more complicated question and one that depends less on benchmarks and more on the kind of learning your district hopes to create.

Reading difficulties don't disappear when students reach middle or high school, but the resources available to help them often lag behind. Many literacy intervention programs are designed for early elementary learners, leaving older students to practice reading with books that feel childish or disconnected from their interests. That mismatch can make reluctant readers even less willing to engage, creating another barrier to improving literacy skills.

Storyshares' LIFT offers structured, evidence-based instruction that supports decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, with materials that respect students' age and encourage them to keep reading.

The Literacy Intervention For Teens (LIFT) program was developed for students in grades 6-12 who are reading below grade level. LIFT combines structured literacy instruction with age-appropriate decodable books and highly interesting texts written for adolescent readers.

The program seeks to build foundational reading skills using content designed to feel relevant and engaging.

The result is a comprehensive literacy intervention package that includes curriculum materials, classroom resources, and teacher support, making it suitable for intervention specialists, special educators, tutors, and classroom teachers alike.

Here's what educators need to know about LIFT, how it works, and whether it could be the right fit for supporting struggling secondary readers.

What is LIFT?

Storyshares Literacy Intervention for Teens (LIFT) is a structured literacy program designed specifically for middle and high school students in grades 6-12 who continue to struggle with reading.

LIFT combines evidence-based literacy instruction with books and activities that are perfectly appropriate for teenagers.

This focuses on high-interest, age-appropriate content that allows students to develop foundational reading skills without feeling like they're reading "baby books" aimed at younger years learners – as often that's all that is available.

LIFT uses structured literacy principles and the Science of Reading. The curriculum was developed alongside literacy experts, including HILL for Literacy, and is intended for Tier 2 intervention, making it suitable for small-group instruction, special education, English language learners, tutoring, and classroom support.

This doesn't concentrate solely on phonics, but instead the program also develops fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing through a connected sequence of lessons.

Designed to help teachers manage the wide range of reading abilities often found in secondary classrooms, LIFT provides a complete intervention package rather than simply a collection of books.

How does LIFT work?

The program is built around a structured sequence of decoding and fluency instruction that gradually develops students' reading confidence.

Students work through decodable chapter books written specifically for adolescent readers, alongside high-low (high-interest, lower reading level) books that allow them to engage with more mature themes while practicing core literacy skills.

Throughout the curriculum, learners revisit decoding strategies, build vocabulary, and improve reading fluency before applying those skills to increasingly challenging texts.

Teachers receive scripted and adaptable lesson plans, helping both literacy specialists and general classroom teachers deliver consistent instruction. The package also includes professional development, implementation support, and classroom resources that minimize preparation time.

Hands-on learning is another major component. Dry erase boards, sound-keyword cards, vocabulary cards, decoding workbooks, and fluency activities encourage students to actively practice multisyllabic word recognition rather than simply reading passively.

What are the best LIFT features?

One of the biggest strengths of LIFT is that it recognizes adolescent literacy requires different resources than early years reading.

Instead of relying on childish illustrations and simplistic stories, students get engaging chapter books featuring characters and situations more relevant to teenagers. This can help reduce the embarrassment some older struggling readers experience during intervention sessions.

The curriculum is also unusually comprehensive. Schools receive educator manuals, multiple book sets, student workbooks, vocabulary and decoding resources, classroom materials, and implementation training. This is all part of one coordinated package rather than assembling separate intervention resources themselves.

Another useful feature is its flexibility. LIFT is designed for special educators, literacy interventionists, tutors, multilingual learner support, and even general classroom teachers without specialist literacy training, making it easier to implement across different school settings.

How much does LIFT cost?

Storyshares lists the complete LIFT Intervention Program for Grades 6-12 at $2,399.

The package includes multiple classroom sets of decodable chapter books and high-low readers, educator manuals, student workbooks, classroom materials such as dry erase boards, and vocabulary cards, plus a 45-minute live implementation session to help schools get started.

Additional consumable student materials and professional development options can also be purchased separately.

Schools interested in district-wide implementation or customized solutions can contact Storyshares directly for quotes and partnership options.

Best LIFT tips and tricks

Use small groups
LIFT is designed primarily as a Tier 2 intervention, allowing targeted instruction for students with similar literacy needs.

Focus on confidence as well as accuracy
Age-appropriate texts can help reluctant readers stay engaged while developing core skills.

Take advantage of the scripted lessons
Even teachers without specialist literacy training can deliver structured intervention consistently using the provided manuals.

Build decoding into every session
Regular practice with multisyllabic words and fluency activities reinforces long-term reading development.

Use the implementation training
The included onboarding session helps staff establish consistent teaching routines and get maximum value from the curriculum resources.

Collaboration is a hallmark of many of NASA’s endeavors. In 2020, NASA and the Department of State joined with seven other founding nations to establish the Artemis Accords, introducing the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing the safety and coordination between like-minded nations as they explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond. A few days ago, the 70th nation joined the accord.

“When we brainstorm in the classroom, you're in a bubble,” says educator and NASA Solar System Ambassador Tim Needles of Smithtown School District in New York. “In some of these programs, much like in the space program, we will collaborate on a project with three or four different countries. Introducing students to other places gives them different experiences to pull from, even when they are back in that bubble. Every single time, there is surprise learning that happens.”

A cooperative perspective is key in advancing learning into infinite possibilities.

”It’s invaluable because yes, there's the things you expect in the curriculum, but we're learning about how to collaborate with people from different cultures and appreciate different perspectives within that learning,” Needles says. “When they put together the James Webb Telescope, it was a collaboration of a few different countries. So we collaborated with a class in Switzerland to actually build a model of the James Webb. They did part of it and mailed it to us, and then we did the other part. Just modeling that kind of international collaboration is a great lesson by itself.”

For helping students explore space and the world around them, and other efforts, Needles was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award.

Needles, also a nationally renowned expert on STEAM, shares his work with the NASA Solar System Ambassador Program and offers tips for those interested in getting involved.

Stepping (Way) Outside the Classroom

Needles has been a NASA Solar System Ambassador for a few years. “We work through the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in California, and we get trained on every mission,” he says. “The idea is to be able to communicate that information back in the world of education or in the community.”

Participating in events to support NASA helps others understand what space missions are about. Part of this message is also educating others on what the space program has already added to their lives without them even noticing.

“A lot of times, teachers don't even know the connections to space in what we are teaching,” Needles says. “If I'm working with a science class and we're looking at the environment, a lot of that data comes from the space program. As a NASA Ambassador I can help them understand how this upcoming mission is actually going to be really important to get new data to use.”

Exciting new developments will keep Needles busy sharing what he learns at NASA’s JPL. During the recent Artemis Project launch, he shared weekly videos and K-12 lesson plans — from designing a mission patch logo to using physics and math to calculate a flight plan — across his district and, as a NYSCATE board member, with all New York teachers.

“It’s really a new frontier, especially now with Artemis,” he says. “We're going to be building a base on the moon to be interplanetary at some point and try to get to Mars. We're going to have the first female on the moon in the next two to three years, which is very exciting. I watched Apollo 13 last night and it ends with them talking about when is the next man going to be on the moon? And I'm thinking, ‘Not exactly.’”

Through the program, Needles adds depth to his classroom by inviting people who work at NASA for a virtual meeting during which students can engage with one of the engineers, designers, or even the occasional astronaut.

“There's no better experience than that,” he says. “Whether it's involving AI or the environment, it all correlates to some of the things I'm doing within the NASA Solar System Ambassador Program. It’s exciting what we’re able to do in the classroom now. It’s just so interesting and really poignant at the moment, to be involved in this most important work.”

To Infinity … And Closer

Needles doesn’t need to bring students to space to build their global perspective.

“We went to the Galapagos two years ago. This year we went to Japan and Korea,” Needles says. “I think there's no better education program than going somewhere else and learning about a different culture and the different ways that people live. In today's AI world, those human skills of collaboration and openness to different perspectives are more important than ever. Travel opens your mind to different perspectives, which is more important than ever.”

Opening minds through bringing awareness of our place in the puzzle of the universe, first on a global scale, was good practice for becoming a NASA ambassador.

“So many of the students I bring on these tours haven't even been to New York City, and it's only an hour-and-a-half away by train,” Needles says. “Bringing them to somewhere like Ecuador, where it’s just an entirely different culture — it’s so exciting to see the impact. There's very few things you take on in education where you know that students’ lives are going to change from having that one experience. Every trip I take opens up the universe to these kids, many who then become world travelers in college and beyond.”

Students aren’t the only beneficiaries of gaining a global perspective.

“Now I'm traveling with teachers, which I've never done before,” Needles says. “I'm working with NYSCATE and a few other groups to do a teacher tour next summer exploring England, Scotland and Ireland. We connect with locals virtually before the trips to make connections and learn a little about their experience. We can really see how we're all one planet and how things are connected.”

Each destination has its own lesson.

“I went to Iceland for the first time last year and was entranced by how much of their energy is geothermal,” Needles says. “You go to a place like Amsterdam with the amount of people using bikes, or Europe’s reliance on public transportation, it's like, ‘Oh, so this is possible.’ It really opens your mind to what you could do, and how different things could be.”

3 Ways To Incorporate the NASA Ambassador Program Into Your District

Needles share how districts can implement the NASA Ambassador program into learning.

Plan an ambassador visit. The global program has over 145 ambassadors and another 1,200 volunteers. “You can access the website, look up the nearest ambassador to you and reach out,” Needles says. “They are always happy to come to the classroom and support the teachers or set up a book talk with an astronaut author. It's a free program — when we're working as Solar System Ambassadors, we don't charge.”

Volunteer with the program. If you have an interest and free time, you can start as a volunteer, and after participating in a few different events, apply for a bigger role. “The solar system is the overall topic, but you can have specialties such as working with a telescope or STEAM,” Needles says. “It is very flexible. They offer 2-10 trainings each week to hop on and learn about each new program.”

Apply to become an ambassador. You can apply through the program’s website. “There are a lot of opportunities and you get a badge and can visit the JPL on certain dates, as well as learn all about every new program or space telescope launch,” Needles says. Applications are considered annually for the three-year role.

Needles Teaching Videos:

• Artemis video
• Planet video
• Design with AI video

Tools They Use

• Discovery Education
• Adobe (Express, Aqua, Firefly, Photoshop, & Premiere)
• Google Education (with Notebook LM & Gemini)
• National Geographic Education
• SchoolAI
• Magic School
• Snorkl
• Claude
• Wakelet
• Quiver
• Sphero
• Phet Interactive
• SMART
• Wayground
• Lego
• Free Resources:
• NASA Solar System Ambassadors
• NASA Eyes
• NASA Learning Resources
• Okgo Sandbox
• Discovery Education AI Literacy

I was writing a speech for an end-of-the-year ceremony recognizing my students moving up to their next school. It’s one of many speeches, announcements, recommendation letters, and notifications I compose on any given day.

I entered a quote I had written into an AI prompt with instructions to produce a concise, inspiring speech for my fourth graders moving up based on it. I was impressed with the output: It was well structured, followed my conventions, and did a decent organizational job. Yet, it was missing the most important aspect, something I call “personification.”

The biggest mistake users make using AI to write is overlooking the visible lack of substance and eerie wording in LLM outputs. In fact, according to a study by researchers at four U.S. universities, AI chatbots have linguistic fingerprints that reveal which model is used: In five popular AI chatbots, distinct verbal quirks emerged.

It is the personification a human adds that’s absent in AI outputs. Understanding this can help everyone in your school community write better, not using AI as a crutch but rather as a partner–a partner who can put together good looking, well-structured passages, but with the need for the human touch to personify it.

The Personification Two-Step

Let me illustrate with a common example of what many school leaders are writing: letters of recommendation.

In years past, writing a good letter of recommendation would take me, a quick writer, 25-30 minutes to compose. Not bad, but when you add up the half dozen requests all happening at the same time, along with all my other writing tasks, it gets overwhelming. Normally, writing those six letters alone would take three hours.

Now, I take a copy of the requester’s resume, remove their name and identifying information, and ask the AI to write me a letter of recommendation. I can add into the prompt, positive, praiseworthy tone, or more neutral for someone with whom I am not so impressed.

Using this prompt and an attached resume takes 2-3 minutes to get an output. I will add their name and title that were previously removed. But the biggest gap is the personal touch: personification. This is where I go back and take very important steps.

1. I shift the tone from a rigid style even an AI that claims to know my writing style has. This reinforces that the human element has to be integrated and;
2. I add unique details only I know and on which I can elaborate. For instance, that one time the teacher stayed until 6:30 PM to make sure a student of theirs was picked up when the family had an emergency. I can speak to the empathy and character of the teacher in a way the AI neither knows nor understands.

As far as writing articles like this one, I remain dutifully old school. I prefer to write from inspiration, and then go back and edit. I may add a sentence, possibly even a passage that was adapted from an AI output, nothing more.

Don’t get me wrong–I have tested a concept article with AI. And then I scrapped it. The AI cannot give me the natural, conversational tone that I can. To me, good writing means the author is speaking to you. An AI speaks at you, kind of like an instruction manual.

As far as recognizing my tone, the AI can guess at my intonation, but not in a consistent manner. Here, you can feel it come off the page, like a story. An AI puts words together in a calculated, meaningful way but that substance is persistently missing. This is the nuance that is just plain absent.

Crafting A Partnership

As a school leader and author, I am selfishly happy AI doesn’t get nuanced, because that means learners and leaders like me must continue to develop the very abstract skill of writing. The exercise helps me work out my mental muscles.

Another significant challenge with relying on AI for writing is the odd tendency to mash nearby paragraphs together, often creating inaccurate or just plain false assumptions, or vaguely near estimates. AI outputs can give us help with those early questions when we query, offering options we may not have considered but when we dig deeper, when we really write from nuance, humans clearly own writing. Ignoring this will only illuminate AI overuse in student or adult outputs. AI lacks that embodied self awareness.

An MIT meta-analysis confirms this: the combination of human and AI works best when each partner can do the thing they do better than the other, and there is a synergy in this partnership. AI excels at rapid data processing and drafting (essentially calculations), while humans add that critical thinking, empathy, and final context. Humans must check the output and revise, remove linguistic fingerprints, and personify the content.

Understanding this balance provides a hybrid method that helps us work better without losing our natural thinking skills. Ignoring it creates obvious, almost embarrassing attempts at professionals intent to be positive, such as this letter an administrator emailed, copied straight from a chatbot.

The Bottom Line

I have found AI to be a helpful and efficient writing partner for quick starter thoughts and organizational structure. However, human nuance and embodied self-awareness win every time when it comes to qualitative and intuitive writing. AI can assist with brainstorming, research and editing, but it cannot replace authentic emotions, life experiences, imagination and unique voice.

Consider this as a guideline for reminding students and school communities that writing is one of the most important critical thinking skills to help develop the mind and express creative thought.

With the 2026-27 school year approaching, Tech & Learning is back with the “Awards of Excellence: Back to School” to help readers find the most impressive products and solutions that will support their work in any learning environment.

Tech & Learning is seeking nominations for products that offer schools versatility, value, and solutions to specific problems to support innovative, effective teaching and learning. From security solutions to hardware, software, and non-tech instructional materials, this award recognizes both new and legacy technology that support effective teaching and learning practices in the new school year.

The entry deadline is set for 11:59 PM ET on Friday, September 4. Begin your entry by clicking the button below or continue to read through the awards site for more information on eligibility, benefits for entering, and information on the Awards of Excellence.

Why Enter?

Winning an AOE for the best products and solutions for Back to School is more than just acknowledgement from Tech & Learning's editors, it's a fantastic way to showcase your products and their contributions to education.

Nominee Evaluation

• Winning products will be showcased in a special edition of Tech & Learning distributed to the T&L readership (73,000), which is built of education professionals, district leaders, and school administrators.
• All winners will receive a winners' package. This will include a fully licensed winner badge for in-house promotion, press release, and social graphic.
• A Tech & Learning Award of Excellence is a highly recognized accolade provided only to the best products supporting education, based on evaluation by a panel of education-experts.

Tech & Learning is looking for the brightest new products in the educational space — to help readers find the most impressive products and solutions that will support their work in any learning environment.

Each nominee will have to answer the following questions:

• What specific problem does this product solve?
• How is this product being used?
• How did your product exceptionally support teaching and learning in 2026?
• How does your product address the challenges facing education today?

So what does that mean in practice? It means our judges will be thinking about questions like:

• Is your product easy to use and does it include support for teachers as needed?
• Does your product simplify and enhance the teaching and learning experience?
• Is your product flexible enough to support both in-person and asynchronous teaching and learning?
• How is your product unique compared to others in the market?
• Can your product be easily integrated with existing products being used in schools?

Tech & Learning's panel of educators and judges will evaluate each of these answers, along with the product descriptions, images, and case studies.

Judging Process

The panel will score each entry against the following judging criteria: Performance; Reliability; Features; and Innovation. The products that score the highest across all the criteria will be named as winners in the 2026 Awards of Excellence: Back to School.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence: The Best for Back to School?

The Awards of Excellence are an award program recognizing innovation in the education industry. Tech & Learning magazine’s Awards of Excellence program for Back to School is a way to celebrate the most impressive products and solutions that support the work of teachers, students, and parents as they prepare for the new 2026—27 school year.

Who Can Enter?

Any company that has a product that supports innovative, effective teaching and learning (it can be a new or legacy product).

Why Should I Enter?

Winning an Award of Excellence tells the industry that your product has been approved by the most important audience - the educators themselves. The top products will be selected and featured in a special edition of Tech & Learning magazine reaching over 73,000 edtech professionals.a special edition of Tech & Learning magazine reaching over 80,000 edtech professionals.

When Are Entries Due?

All entries are due by 11:59 PM ET on September 4, 2026.

How Much Does It Cost To Enter?

Single Entry: $625.00

2-4 Entries: $595.00

5+ Entries: $525.00

What are the categories?

The categories are broken down into Primary (Tools for K-6 grade education), Secondary (7-12), and Higher Ed. You can enter the same product into multiple categories.

May I Enter More Than One Product?

Yes. There are no limits to the number of products you may nominate. Each requires a nomination form and entry fee(s).

When Will Winners Be Announced?

Winners will be announced in September 2026 and featured in a special issue of Tech & Learning

What If I Have More Questions?

If you have any questions about nominations please contact Beckie Sirs at beckie.sirs@futurenet.com

Learn more about the Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence Best for Back to School contest here.

Franklin Special District (FSD) is the only district in Tennessee to offer aerospace as a high school credit course to 8th graders. It has no entry requirements, making this CTE opportunity attainable for every student.

“We were hopeful that the students would connect with the subject and find it interesting, but they've really taken to it beyond my wildest dreams,” says Mary Decker, Associate Director of Schools for Teaching & Learning at FSD, who developed and leads the district’s aerospace program. “We have quite a few students who are now pursuing a career in aerospace. Many of them really weren't familiar with aviation before they took this class.”

A Tennessee Department of Education Innovative School Models (ISM) grant provided the district with $1 million to pursue college and career technical education (CTE) programming. Through this grant program, Decker reimagined modes of time, space, and learning in partnerships between middle and high schools, post-secondary, and the aerospace industry.

“It definitely gives them that real-world, hands-on learning that the students are craving,” Decker says. “There are some students who struggle with learning in traditional ways, but when you factor in the simulator time, it's really speaking their language. We've seen them become more open to the academic, book learning side of the class.”

For this and other efforts, Decker was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award. She shares details about her popular aerospace program implementation and tips for those interested in creating a similar program in their district.

‘Flying Before Driving’

Middle school might sound ambitious for such a program, but Decker says that’s not the case.

“I've had some people say to me, ‘Aren't they too young? Can they really appreciate the time on the flight simulators? Isn't this too much for them?’” she says. “They have absolutely risen to the occasion. They have excelled. Students rise to the level of our expectations, and I think this program has really demonstrated that.”

The program has created opportunities for in-demand and lucrative careers, such as future pilots, air traffic controllers, aircraft maintenance technicians, and aeronautical engineers. Some students will be poised to earn their private pilot license before they are old enough to drive.

“They are just finishing their freshman year of high school and already have aerospace in mind as a career,” Decker says. “They are thinking, ‘How can I start building up my flying hours? How can I start taking flight lessons? What other courses should I be taking? How should I be building my high school schedule so that it fits in with what I'm planning to do?’ Just seeing that sense of direction already in ninth graders is amazing.”

The program also offers other benefits to students.

“Getting the correct education and licenses for an aviation career is expensive and can be complicated,” Decker says. “If there are financial obstacles in the way, or students are intimidated by the process to get where they want to go, we wanted to take all of that away and just say, ‘If you're interested, we are going to do everything we can to take you as far as possible with aerospace.’”

Sims for the Win

Simulators aren’t just about sliding into a machine for a video game session. It involves navigation, management of emergencies, instrument awareness, taxi and hangar skills in a variety of aircraft.

Each FSD aerospace program classroom has at least five Redbird Jay Velocity Flight Simulators that students use daily, and at least one Redbird TD flight simulator, which is FAA-certified as a Basic Aviation Training Device (BATD) and a Redbird LD simulator.

“They can practice radio calls. They can simulate emergency scenarios. It continually gets more complicated and more realistic,” says Decker. “If they are working with a certified flight instructor, these are simulators that pilots can use to actually log flight time. They're authorized Federal Aviation Administration training devices. We offer students the best learning experience and the most realistic simulation of flight.”

The Redbird simulators allow different aircraft to be programmed for different scenarios in whatever type of flight the teacher wants them to learn for the day,

All this exposure sets students up for success regardless of which aerospace track they pursue.

“If they do go on to earn their pilot certificate, they've already banked some of that experience. If they are interested in becoming an air traffic controller, they have experience with radio calls. If they're going into aircraft maintenance, they have a better understanding of flight characteristics in different airplanes they've been introduced to through the simulators. It’s really just a win-win with the sims.”

Find a Teacher With Their Head in the Clouds

The first step in launching an aviation-aimed program is to find the right educators for the job. FSD has one dedicated aerospace teacher, who walks back and forth between adjacent middle schools.

“Not only is he a licensed teacher, he has a private pilot certificate and owns his own airplane,” Decker says. “We just got very fortunate that we have such a great teacher and he obviously knows the content exceptionally well. He has forged really fantastic relationships with the students.”

Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t hit the aerospace-superstar lottery in your district.

“I have talked to other districts where they've had a teacher come in who wasn’t necessarily knowledgeable about aerospace, but was very enthusiastic,” Decker says. “They were still able to use the curriculum, learn about the simulators and teach the class very successfully. We’ve had other STEM teachers attend professional learning around aerospace so that we have a team who are knowledgeable and are able to provide support, but our aerospace teacher handles all of the classes at this point.”

If there is one wish Decker had for the future of the program, it is simply to have more of it.

“I'd love to expand the program someday,” she says. “The way our master scheduling works, this class is an elective. It currently works very well for us to have the two classes at each middle school, so one teacher is able to handle it.”

FSD uses the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) High School Aviation STEM Curriculum, which provides a solid foundation.

“The AOPA sets the standard for a comprehensive aerospace curriculum,” Decker says. “They work closely with Redbird to incorporate the simulator instruction so the teacher knows the best lessons to integrate for a specific scenario in the simulator. The two definitely work hand-in-hand. It includes aerospace history, aerodynamics, engineering, flight characteristics of different aircraft, even a section on unmanned aerial systems.”

A Winning Pilot Program

Part of launching an education program based on the art of aviation is letting students’ ambitions and imaginations take flight.

“We're about three hours away from Memphis, where FedEx is based so a lot of FedEx pilots live in the area,” says Decker. “They have been very generous in coming in and talking to the kids, letting them know what their careers and path to flying looked like. We had a Southwest Airlines representative come in to tour the classes and meet with the students.”

Getting a pilot’s perspective on the industry is great, but seeing them in action is inspiring. Students get to attend the Great Tennessee Air Show in nearby Smyrna to see multiple types of aircraft, and interact with the pilots and various support personnel.

The flight and aerospace industry is broad and varied in the area. For example, pilots from a hot air balloon company have done demonstrations and students have visited the aviation program at nearby Middle Tennessee State University.

“We're definitely trying to involve the community, and specifically the aviation community, to show our students all the paths they can take to achieve their aviation dreams,” Decker says.

Taking the wheel isn’t the only option for interested students.

“We definitely wanted to develop pilots, but there are so many opportunities and jobs available in aerospace careers — air traffic controller, aircraft maintenance, aeronautical engineer, airport manager . . . .” Decker says. “Whatever their interest is, we are here to encourage it.”

3 Tips to Helping an Aerospace Program Take Off

Decker offers advice for others looking to launch a career pathway in aerospace.

1. Build Your Team — “If somebody's looking to start an aerospace program, think beyond finding a great teacher,” she says. “It really has to be a team effort to make it as high quality as possible for the students. Our instructional technology specialists, curriculum supervisor and technology supervisor and members of his tech team have really thrown themself into supporting this program. I’m really fortunate that they saw the possibilities this would offer students and have been enthusiastic from day one.”

2. Give the Team Support and Information — “Make sure the teacher has everything they need with regard to curriculum, provide them with professional learning,” Decker says. “Have your technology team and instructional technology attend training and learn how to set up and troubleshoot the sims so that they are always running perfectly. Make sure school administrators have all the background and are kept well-informed because their support is really important as well.”

3. Find the Finances — “We were fortunate that we have this ISM grant, but I also applied and received a smaller grant from the Tennessee Department of Transportation,” Decker says. “If you have money within your budget to allocate that’s great, but take the time to explore state grant funding sources. The AOPA curriculum is free, but plan funding to ensure simulators will be part of your program. They are not inexpensive, but they're worth it and really crucial.”

Tools They Use

• i-Ready
• aimswebPlus
• Discovery Education
• Learning.com
• Destiny
• Code HS
• Quaver Music
• QuaverReady
• Clever
• Skyward
• GoGuardian
• Parsec
• Curriculum-specific tech resources include: McGraw Hill Wonders (K-4); Savvas Realize Science (K-8); Studies Weekly (K-2); Gallopade (3-8); Open Up Reading (5); Savvas My Perspectives Reading (6); McGraw Hill StudySync Reading (7-8); Actively Learn ; McGraw Hill Math (5-6); Big Ideas Math (7-8, Algebra 1, Geometry)

The insights from a recent Ed-Tech Leadership Collective Briefing paint a clear picture: the traditional playbook for marketing to school districts is obsolete. Today’s educational leaders are navigating a perfect storm of tightening budgets, expiring stimulus funds, and an unprecedented volume of vendor outreach.

The Briefing, co-hosted by Tech & Learning, featured two speakers from T&L’s EdExec Summit, taking place in Chicago on September 10-11. The discussion offered a sneak peek into the kinds of conversations expected to take place at this event for education executives.

Collin Earnst, Founder and Managing Partner at the Ed-tech Leadership Collective, spoke with Trina Reeves (Director of STEM and Innovation at Clayton County Schools, GA) and Joe Ayala (Director of Information Technology at Santa Clara USD, CA), to hear their candid feedback to education companies looking to market to them.

Below are the insights education companies can use to evolve their marketing and sales strategies and build lasting partnerships with schools.

The New Era of Budget Scrutiny and ROI

The days of easily accessible ESSER funds are gone. Districts are now managing the realities of inflation, cost escalators, and, in many cases, staff reductions.

Consequently, the scrutiny placed on spending has never been higher. Superintendents and school boards are demanding concrete proof of a product’s Return on Investment (ROI).

"One thing that is being asked more than ever is, ‘Is your product actually making a difference?’” Ayala said. “From the superintendent level to the board members, I've been asked more about ROI than I have in my entire career over the last six months."

Trina Reaves echoed this reality, noting that shifting leadership brings intense new focus on metrics. Sharing a recent conversation with her new superintendent, she detailed his strict mandate: "’I want to see the data, I want to see usage. I want to compare it to scores, how the students are performing.’ He says if it's not making a difference, it's going to go."

To market effectively in this environment, vendors must proactively assist district leaders in proving this value. Enter conversations armed with data, usage metrics, and a clear understanding of the district’s specific strategic plan and needs. Don’t put the burden of justifying a product's cost on the district.

Cutting Through the Vendor Noise

District leaders are inundated with sales pitches. With some administrators receiving upward of 200 calls per day and countless emails, the push for a "quick win" or an immediate long-term contract can permanently damage a relationship.

"I've actually fired quite a few vendors,” said Ayala. “If they went really hard on the first sale, I'm like, ‘Okay, I'll give you one sale, but we're not going to form a partnership. You got that one PO from me, but you're not going to get any more POs.’”

To break through the noise, education companies must pivot to a value-first, relationship-based approach:

▶Go slow to go fast: Building a genuine partnership can sometimes take years. Rushing a district into a long-term commitment before they have secured funding or proven the concept through a pilot will likely burn bridges.

▶Show up without an ask: Support district events, attend regional STEM collaboratives, and send check-in emails that offer value rather than a sales pitch.

▶Respect the chain of command: If an initial pilot or conversation is moving slowly, do not bypass your primary contact to pitch directly to the superintendent or principal. This is a surefire way to get blacklisted.

When you do earn that trust, the loyalty is profound. "Once you're my partner, we're partners and 10 toes down for you all the time," Reaves said. "When I think of something, I'm calling you. When I need something, I'm calling you."

Flexibility in Pricing and Implementation

Rigidity in software licensing is a major friction point for modern districts. If a tool is primarily utilized by a specific subset of teachers, vendors should not force a district-wide site license.

"There is no way I should pay for 5,000 licenses, and only 100 kids are using it,” Reaves said. “If those 100 kids are doing great but we’re spending $2 million, that's a problem."

When budgets are tight, vendors who adapt their pricing and packaging to match actual usage will retain clients. Furthermore, successful implementation requires ongoing PD. Because teacher turnover is high, Reaves suggests packaging PD deeply into the adoption rather than treating it as a massive, recurring separate line item that eats into a district's limited PD budget.

Standardizing and Sharing Meaningful Data

You cannot prove ROI without accurate data, yet many edtech platforms make data extraction unnecessarily difficult. Beautiful, high-level presentation dashboards are nice, but district IT leaders need raw, exportable data to integrate with their own internal systems.

"I think the next iteration of edtech is developing some data standards of reporting data back,” said Ayala. “One easy thing that you do is make sure the usage data is easily exported."

Vendors must collaborate with districts to define what constitutes an “active user.” Is it one login per month, or five interactive sessions per week? By establishing shared metrics and making data sharing agreements seamless, vendors empower district leaders to confidently defend the product to their school boards.

The Ed-Tech Vendor Playbook: Do's and Don'ts

The Bottom Line

Marketing to K-12 educators today requires empathy, patience, and a willingness to adapt. Vendors who listen to a district's financial constraints, respect their time, and prioritize slow, authentic relationship-building will ultimately thrive.

As the conversation with Reaves and Ayala makes clear: once you prove your value and earn the title of a true "partner," district leaders will advocate fiercely for your continued presence in their schools.

To build a winning strategy for the post-stimulus education market, join us at Tech & Learning's EdExec Summit on September 10-11 in Chicago. Featuring tailored tracks for every functional leader, each session is co-facilitated by a district buyer—providing exclusive, direct insights to help you craft an actionable business plan.

Adobe is really known for professional creative software such as Photoshop and Illustrator, but its latest education-focused app goes in a new direction. Adobe Aqua is a free drawing and creativity app designed for children aged five to 12, to give younger learners a safe place to experiment with art, storytelling, and design.

Aqua focuses on building confidence through play. Students can draw, color, create comics, design fashion, explore simple 3D creations, and even digitize artwork they've produced on paper. The aim is to make creativity feel approachable while helping children develop artistic and visual communication skills.

For teachers, that means an easy way to introduce creative activities across multiple subjects without the need for previous art experience.

The app can support literacy, science, social studies, math, STEM, and social-emotional learning through drawing-based projects that encourage students to think visually as well as verbally. Adobe also provides classroom-ready lesson ideas that connect Aqua activities to curriculum topics.

Aqua is completely free, contains no advertising or in-app purchases, and has been designed with child safety in mind. That makes it an attractive option for classrooms looking to encourage creativity without introducing unnecessary distractions. Here's all you need to know about Aqua from Adobe.

What is Adobe Aqua?

Adobe Aqua is a free creativity app for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices aimed at children between the ages of five and 12. Developed by Adobe Labs, it combines drawing, painting, coloring, simple design tools, and creative games. This single platform is intended to make artistic expression feel fun rather than intimidating.

Students can work with traditional digital drawing tools, complete guided tutorials from children's illustrators, color thousands of templates, create comic strips, design clothing collections, and experiment with simple 3D artwork.

One popular feature allows children to photograph artwork they've created, on paper, and store it alongside their digital creations inside a personal virtual museum. This helps bridge traditional and digital art.

Aqua also includes collaborative activities such as "1-2-3 Pass," in which students take turns adding to the same drawing, encouraging teamwork and creative thinking. Other activities introduce design concepts such as color, composition, and pattern through playful challenges rather than formal lessons.

Adobe positions the app as a creativity platform rather than simply a drawing program. Alongside artistic skills, the company says Aqua is intended to help develop confidence, imagination, problem-solving, and communication through regular creative practice.

While these broader benefits depend on how the app is used, its emphasis on open-ended creation makes it great for a wide variety of classroom activities.

How does Adobe Aqua work?

Students begin by selecting from a range of creative experiences instead of opening a blank canvas. They might start with coloring pages, follow a guided drawing lesson, create a comic scene, build a fashion collection, or explore a collaborative game. Each activity gradually introduces creative techniques without overwhelming younger users.

The interface is intentionally simple, with large icons and clear navigation suited to younger children. Aqua concentrates on features that encourage experimentation and creativity while remaining easy to understand.

Teachers can use Aqua as an individual creativity tool or as part of wider classroom projects. Adobe's education resources suggest activities including illustrating vocabulary, designing historical costumes, creating diagrams for science topics, drawing story characters, and producing visual reflections for social-emotional learning.

Because the emphasis is on drawing ideas, rather than creating polished artwork, students with different artistic abilities can participate comfortably.

Some features make use of Adobe's Firefly AI technology to apply creative effects or help transform artwork into different visual styles. These AI features are presented as optional enhancements rather than replacing the student's own work. This allows learners to explore different artistic possibilities while keeping creativity at the center of the process.

Completed artwork can be saved inside each student's virtual gallery, creating a digital portfolio that can be revisited throughout the school year and shared with families when appropriate. Since Aqua also works offline for many activities, it can be useful in classrooms where internet access is limited.

What are the best Adobe Aqua features?

One of Aqua's biggest strengths is that it feels playful rather than instructional. Students are encouraged to explore ideas freely while still developing useful artistic and creative thinking skills.

The ability to combine physical artwork with digital creations is ideal for elementary classrooms. This allows traditional drawing lessons to continue while gradually introducing digital creativity.

Cross-curricular lesson ideas also make Aqua more useful than a standalone art app. Teachers can integrate drawing into literacy, science, history, or emotional wellbeing activities without needing specialist art knowledge.

Perhaps most importantly, Aqua removes many of the barriers associated with children's apps by remaining free, ad-free, and designed specifically for younger learners, making it easier to introduce safely in school environments.

How much does Adobe Aqua cost?

Adobe Aqua is completely free to download and use on supported iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.

It has no advertisements, no in-app purchases, and no subscription required. Adobe has designed the app specifically for families and schools, with child privacy and safety forming a core part of the platform.

Best Adobe Aqua tips and tricks

Illustrate vocabulary
Ask students to draw new vocabulary words instead of simply writing definitions.

Support science learning
Create labelled life cycles, habitats, or diagrams using drawing tools rather than worksheets.

Retell stories visually
Have students recreate scenes or characters from class reading to demonstrate comprehension.

In today’s digitally rich environments, the value of knowledge lies not simply in its availability but in how effectively it is created, refined, and applied over time. Knowledge management addresses the use of data for instructional and school improvement, and should ensure that administrative processes and procedures are clearly outlined in such a way that organizations do not lose knowledge or efficiency when personnel leave, rotate, or are otherwise unavailable.

The process facet of knowledge management should be a continuous cycle in which educators and institutions intentionally capture insights, reduce complex tasks to clearly defined processes, and systematically share and apply that knowledge to improve practice. This process-driven approach enables schools and districts to learn from prior initiatives, sustain institutional memory, and adapt more effectively to change. By embedding knowledge management considerations into daily practice, institutions can strengthen their processes and reduce the costs associated with personnel transitions.

One of my students recently raised the concern that she worked within a team of five. Even though they all effectively shared the same job title, each covered a specific group of students. When someone was absent, however, there was a loss as the specifics of dealing with that student group were not always documented.

This kind of approach causes delays when someone is out sick or on vacation, and can be significantly more detrimental when a key player leaves an organization, and no one has been cross-trained to deal with the totality of the vacated position.

What should technology leaders do to ensure this facet of knowledge management is embedded into their instructional practices?

1. Capture What Employees Know

Too often, valuable knowledge remains locked in the experiences of individuals. Effective knowledge management begins by intentionally capturing both formal and informal procedures, from routine office workflows to exceptions that staff learn to handle through experience. When clerical employees document what steps they take and which systems they update, who must be notified, and how they verify accuracy, they convert individual know-how into transferable organizational knowledge. This is particularly important in a world where change control is usually controlled by a cloud-based provider and not the institution itself.

For example, when a clerical employee changes a student’s bus route, the process may require updating the student information system, notifying transportation, alerting the classroom teacher and office staff, confirming parent or guardian communication, and checking that the old route no longer appears in any active roster or report. If those steps are not clearly documented, the change may be completed in one system but missed in another, creating confusion for staff and potentially inaccurate information for families.

Leaders should ensure that routine clerical tasks such as address changes, attendance corrections, schedule adjustments, or transportation updates are supported by clear, step-by-step procedures that can be followed consistently by any trained employee.

2. Reduce Critical Single Points of Failure

One of the most significant risks facing schools and districts is the existence of critical single points of failure. These situations in which essential knowledge or processes reside with only one employee seem to be more common as school budgets are stretched. These vulnerabilities often go unnoticed until a key individual is absent, retires, or accepts a position elsewhere.

In many educational organizations, long-serving employees develop expertise that is never formally documented because "they have always handled it." While this arrangement may appear efficient, it creates organizational risk. For example, a district technology coordinator may be the only person who knows how to submit annual state technology reports, manage key integrations between the student information system and learning management system, or update user provisioning rules. If that employee unexpectedly leaves, the district may struggle to complete required reporting, restore system functionality, or troubleshoot issues that arise during critical periods such as student registration or state testing.

Technology leaders should routinely identify processes that depend on a single individual and prioritize documenting those workflows, creating backup procedures, and assigning secondary personnel who can perform the task when necessary.

Institutional knowledge should belong to the organization, not to any one employee. One of the best ways to address this issue is to cross-train staff.

3. Build Cross-Training into Organizational Culture

Documentation is an important first step, but written procedures alone do not guarantee organizational resilience. Employees must also have opportunities to learn and practice responsibilities outside their primary roles. Cross-training helps ensure that critical functions can continue even when key personnel are unavailable while also fostering greater collaboration and understanding across departments.

In educational settings, cross-training might involve office staff learning basic attendance reporting procedures normally handled by another clerk, instructional technology specialists learning the fundamentals of student account provisioning, or technology support staff becoming familiar with the district's purchasing and inventory systems.

Consider a school district in which only one employee manages the onboarding process for new staff members. If that individual is absent during the busy summer hiring season, delays may occur in creating network accounts, issuing devices, assigning software licenses, and granting access to instructional resources. By cross-training at least one additional employee and periodically allowing that person to perform the process independently, the district can ensure continuity of service and reduce disruptions. Periodically performing the process is essential so cross-training employees remember what they are doing and can catch any small changes to software that might modify the process that went unnoticed.

Effective technology leaders view cross-training as an ongoing investment in organizational capacity, employee growth, and operational stability.

4. Use Technology to Strengthen Process Consistency

Rather than relying on employees to remember procedures or learn through informal conversations, schools should leverage digital tools to create systems that guide staff through established workflows and provide easy access to current information. Knowledge bases, internal wikis, shared cloud documentation systems, workflow automation platforms, and ticketing systems can help standardize processes and ensure that a critical task is completed consistently regardless of who performs it.

For example, when a student's address changes, a documented workflow can guide staff through updating the student information system, notifying transportation services, communicating with teachers, and verifying that all related records have been updated. By embedding procedures within technology systems, organizations reduce the likelihood of missed steps and create greater continuity when employees are absent or positions change.

Artificial intelligence further enhances these capabilities by making organizational knowledge easier to access and use. AI tools can summarize lengthy procedures, generate first drafts of documentation, create frequently asked questions from existing manuals, and help employees quickly locate the information they need. A staff member unfamiliar with a process may be able to ask an AI-powered knowledge assistant how to complete a particular task and receive guidance drawn directly from institutional documentation.

Similarly, a short video demonstration or screen recording can provide visual instruction that is often more effective than pages of written directions. (It is important that these videos and other instructions are representative of the school’s version of the software. One cannot simply use “off-the-shelf instruction” in many cases, as they can cause confusion.)

Technology and AI cannot replace the need for strong underlying processes, however. Poorly documented procedures simply result in faster distribution of inaccurate information.

The effectiveness of AI and other knowledge-management technologies depends entirely on the quality of the knowledge contained within. Technology leaders should therefore view these tools as mechanisms for preserving institutional memory, improving process consistency, and ensuring that organizational knowledge remains available long after individual employees move on to new roles.

Effective Process Management

Ultimately, effective process management is an essential leadership responsibility. When schools intentionally document procedures, cross-train employees, and use technology to make knowledge accessible, they reduce disruption, preserve institutional memory, and improve service to students, families, and staff.

Successful leaders and organizations do not depend on one person knowing what to do. They build systems that ensure important work can continue accurately, consistently, and confidently, regardless of who is available to perform it.

While generative AI can automate administrative tasks, streamline lesson planning, and free up time for student interaction, it also introduces new safety risks. Addressing the Risks of AI-enabled CSAM and Explicit Content in Education, Qoria’s global report, shows that these tools are also being exploited to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and explicit imagery with alarming ease.

The weeks before the school year begins offer a critical window for district leaders to move from a reactive posture to a proactive strategy, taking strong digital safety steps before students return for the first day of school.

From the Data: Understanding the AI Digital Threat

School leaders should first understand today’s digital exploitation. Catherine Brown, Chair of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), says, “AI image generators have become much more sophisticated, to the point where almost anyone can make or manipulate life-like sexual or nude imagery of children at the click of a button.”

So-called "nudifying" apps have dramatically accelerated the ease with which this material is made, leading to devastating instances of grooming, distress, and bullying. The data gathered in Qoria's global survey underscores that these problems are active on school grounds today:

• Widespread Administrative Concern: An overwhelming majority of school leaders–91.4 percent in the United States, 90.5 percent in the United Kingdom, and 91.7 percent in Australia–voiced deep concerns over adult perpetrators using AI to groom students.
• Monthly On-Campus Incidents: Around a third of respondents in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia reported experiencing at least monthly incidents in which students possess, share, or request explicit, child-generated nude images.
• Younger Average Ages: The average age for these explicit content incidents is currently concentrated between 11 and 13 years old. Even more concerning, approximately 12 percent of U.S. and Australian respondents reported seeing these behaviors in children as young as 8 to 10 years old.

Despite these figures, few schools have preparation and prevention measures in place. More than 30 percent of the surveyed school leaders admitted they are unfamiliar with the common online grooming tactics that modern perpetrators use.

When school personnel do not understand the technical mechanics of the threat, early detection becomes nearly impossible.

Actionable Step 1: Empower Teachers Through Specific Safety Training

Teachers are a school's front line of defense, yet they are frequently left out of high-level technical digital safety briefings. To build an abuse-aware culture before the first bell rings, district leaders should design back-to-school professional development that addresses AI safety directly.

First, training must explicitly cover how AI changes grooming behaviors. Traditional grooming relies heavily on human text interaction over long periods. Modern AI algorithms allow bad actors to analyze massive amounts of social media data to identify vulnerable children with absolute precision. These tools can map out student interests, emotional states, and communication patterns to generate deeply persuasive, personalized messages. Staff need to know that a student's sudden emotional withdrawal or obsessive device usage could be connected to highly sophisticated online interactions.

Second, training must address the internal threat of student-generated content via nudifying apps. Whether a student acts out of thoughtless experimentation or clear intent, their developmental immaturity may blind them to the dual damage of these actions: the significant harm inflicted on the peer depicted and the severe fallout to their own relationships and future reputation. Teachers must be instructed on strict reporting protocols, understanding exactly who to contact in IT, administration, and school counseling the moment they become aware of a simulated image circulating in a peer group. This approachable guide for schools on AI-generated sexually explicit imagery from OCEPI can help with a framework for creating plans for both prevention and response.

Finally, training should acknowledge that staff safety matters, too. The Qoria report notes that there have been instances in which teachers and school staff find themselves victims of image-based manipulation through the misuse of AI technology. Treating this as a developing human resources concern builds trust and reassures educators that the district protects its entire community.

Actionable Step 2: Build Proactive Parent Awareness

The digital lives of students are happening both during the school day and when they leave school property. In fact, the risk can escalate during unsupervised time at home. Qoria's report indicates that a quarter of children are already using AI apps regularly to complete their schoolwork, meaning these tools are a constant presence in their domestic lives.

While parents might be focused on screen time and cyberbullying, AI-generated explicit content might be a blind spot. Districts can use the pre-school orientation window to actively educate parents.

A successful parent awareness campaign before the school year begins should focus on transparency and trauma-informed child-centered practical tools:

• Host Digital Literacy Orientations: Do not wait for a crisis to inform parents. Provide specific back-to-school webinars or easy-to-read guides detailing the reality of generative AI tools and the ways the school is supporting their children. Avoid alarmist language. Instead, explain the mechanics of image generators and peer-to-peer messaging apps clearly. OCEPI has a 10 Best Practices guide with a clear framework for how to structure messaging.
• Provide Parental Control Frameworks: School districts should offer concrete guidance on how families can manage devices at home. Introduce parents to reliable parental control tools and explain how to set up filtering on home networks. ConnectSafely has parent guides with clear instructions that school leaders can share with families.
• Create Clear Communication Pipelines: Parents need to know that if they discover a deeply concerning digital incident at home, the school is a safe partner rather than a punitive authority. Provide families with clear, step-by-step reporting instructions to ensure open dialogue. The Cybertipline from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is helpful to share.

Actionable Step 3: Provide Meaningful Layered Student Support

Protecting students requires a combination of clear education and protective technology. Before the school year starts, administrators must audit and align both educational and technical sides of student support.

On the educational side, digital wellness curriculum must expand far beyond plagiarism or screen-time management. When designing lessons regarding AI-generated explicit content, districts should follow the 10 best practices from the Online Child Exploitation Prevention Initiative (OCEPI).

First, curriculum developers must minimize or eliminate fear-based messages. Learning about worst-case outcomes seldom changes youth behavior because children typically believe it will not happen to them. Next, lessons should emphasize the social and emotional consequences of these behaviors. Focusing strictly on legal warnings or telling students that certain digital actions are illegal actually decreases the likelihood of reporting.

Additionally, student programming must maintain a child-centered approach. If a student is targeted by a nudifying app or an online predator, the school messaging must reassure them that they are not responsible for what happened. Shaming or blaming a student who has been manipulated only silences them.

True prevention requires active skill-building. Programs should explicitly teach how to set digital boundaries, utilize assertive communication, take screenshots as a record, and report harmful behavior. Because introducing these sensitive topics frequently prompts real-time disclosures, counselors and support staff should be on hand to receive student reports with immediate empathy and support.

IT departments have a role on the technical side. Before students arrive for the first day of school, technology teams can ensure that filtering and monitoring software are fully updated to flag searches for known nudifying applications and explicit keywords. Early detection is absolutely critical. The Qoria report emphasizes that many technologies schools already possess, including content filters, student monitoring systems, and digital wellness check-in tools, can assist in the early detection of risk.

Stepping Into the Future Together

The challenges introduced by advanced generative AI can feel daunting to already overwhelmed educators and parents. However, school and district leaders have the authority and community trust required to get ahead of these digital threats. Intentional steps during the summer to train staff, engage families, and strengthen network visibility can cultivate an environment where technology serves student learning without compromising student safety.

As the Qoria report concludes, planning for a unified community approach ensures that no individual school leader, teacher, or parent has to navigate the risk of AI-generated exploitation alone.

Resources

• Addressing the Risks of AI-Enabled CSAM and Explicit Content in Education. Quoria. 2025.
• Guidance for School-Based Professionals and School Leaders. Online Child Exploitation Prevention Initiative (OCEPI). 2025.
• Ten Best practices for Prevention Programs. Online Child Exploitation Prevention Initiative (OCEPI). 2024.
• Parent Guides from ConnectSafely. ConnectSafely.
• Cybertipline. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)

TeacherServer is a teacher-created and -run AI platform that offers thousands of free tools for educators. More significantly, the whole platform complies with Department of Education guidelines, offers the option of adjusting outputs to various grade levels depending on your students' needs, and all information is private and deleted immediately after you use it.

After experimenting with TeacherServer, I found it to be a wonderful resource for various AI tools, from quiz and lesson plan generators to subject-specific resources, including data analysis, spelling and grammar checkers, and much more.

Because it is teacher-backed and education-aligned, I felt better about using TeacherServer than most AI tools. Even so, I still found some similar frustrations to when I have experimented with AI in the past: namely, that despite what I hear from colleagues, I never seem to get great results from AI when it comes to lesson planning or slide generation.

Here’s a closer look at TeacherServer.

What is TeacherServer?

TeacherServer is a free library of AI education tools that are designed for teachers. It was created by Zafer Unal, a professor and associate dean of undergraduate studies at the University of South Florida. Unal, who has a dual background in computer science and education, designed TeacherServer to address concerns educators have about using AI. To that end, TeacherServer is focused on data privacy and grade-appropriate learning. It’s also quite fast at generating materials thanks to its utilization of a locally installed AI server.

TeacherServer comes preloaded with more than 1,194 AI tools. These tools are utilized by other teachers, and some are ranked based on popularity. Tools are separated by subject, and users can often input what grade level they are teaching for more grade-specific responses. While TeacherServer’s initial focus was on K-12 resources, it also offers tools for those in higher education.

A truly dizzying number of capabilities are available, from talk-to-PDF features to all manner of subject-specific quiz, lesson plan, and summary generators. While you could do some of these tasks with a standard AI tool, doing so and getting good results would often require some prompt engineering. The AI tools at TeacherServer start already prompted for education overall, and for specific education tasks in particular.

What Are TeacherServer's Best Features?

The education-focused nature of all the AI tools offered on TeacherServer is what stood out to me. Additionally, the focus on privacy, speed, and education standards is really important.

Another fun feature is that simply browsing the catalog of AI tools can give teachers ideas about how other educators are using AI and possibly inspire them in the process.

What Are Some Areas Where TeacherServer Could Improve?

As mentioned at the start of this article, as much as I loved TeacherServer overall, I did have some of the same complaints with TeacherServer as I do with AI overall.

Despite what I hear about how others are using it to save time, I don’t find that that’s the case for me unless I am willing to really compromise on quality. For instance, I’ve never found AI to produce really good slides. True to that trend, when I asked TeacherServer to summarize a link to a resource story, I thought the slides it created were fairly basic and not very helpful.

Additionally, while a grammar and spelling tool was good at catching grammar mistakes, I still did not like the way AI tried to edit my writing. It tried to get rid of any character in my writing, and more unforgivably, it had some incorrect suggestions on comma use and tried to change content within quoted passages.

How Much Does TeacherServer Cost?

TeacherServer is free. To use it you just need to go to TeacherServer.com and create an account. This accessibility is part of its mission and a great feature for educators.

What Are The Best TeacherServer Tips and Tricks?

Search TeacherServer By Subject

TeacherServer has a wide variety of subject-specific tools that teachers of various topics can explore. These range from music and art lessons to math, writing, and more.

Search Most Popular Tools

Exploring the most popular tools on TeacherServer gives you a quick idea of what is working for other educators. This can save you time and give you ideas for prepping in your classroom.

Be Critical

TeacherServer is a really teacher-friendly AI tool, but that doesn’t mean it's perfect. You’re the human being in the classroom and should still be carefully vetting any outputs from any AI tools, including those from TeacherServer.

Watch above or listen/download below.

For nearly 30 years, E-Rate has been what one might call the most boring of utility programs — a broadband subsidy that quietly connects America's schools and libraries. Now the FCC is asking whether it should exist at all.

Reg Leichty, founding partner of Foresight Law + Policy and a longtime E-Rate advocate, joined the Tech & Learning podcast to break down the commission's newly opened review of the program. His first message: don't panic. His second: take this seriously.

"Sunsetting," he notes, is the polite framing — the proceeding is an inquiry into whether the investment should be terminated.

Leichty pushes back on the review's central premise, which ties E-Rate to concerns about student screen time. Questions about how much time kids spend online are worth asking, he says, but these fall outside the scope of the program and the FCC's telecommunications mandate — an inappropriate merger of two different streams of work.

The stakes are concrete. E-Rate is a need-based subsidy, scaled to community poverty levels, that supports everything from dark fiber projects to wireless access points. Remove it, and those costs fall on local communities — hitting hardest in low-income districts and expensive-to-connect rural areas such as the Nebraska town where Leichty grew up. He also sees a contradiction in questioning school connectivity at the very moment the administration is championing AI readiness.

Still, Leichty argues periodic review is healthy, and this proceeding is a chance to modernize the program's badly dated cybersecurity provisions using early learnings from the FCC's cybersecurity pilot.

The timeline offers breathing room: a 60-day comment period once the notice hits the Federal Register, 30 more days for replies, and likely no implementation before 2028.

Leichty's advice for district leaders: contact your members of Congress this month to educate them about what E-Rate does in their district, and file comments through the FCC's electronic filing system when the window opens.

Take action: The FCC's comment window opens once the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is published in the Federal Register, and as Leichty notes, the commission is obligated to review every comment it receives.

- District leaders can file directly through the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System — reference WC Docket No. 26-133 — using either a written document or the express comment field.

- The full NPRM and commissioner statements are available on the FCC's website.

- For advocacy resources and updates on the proceeding, CoSN has issued a statement on the review and maintains ongoing E-Rate advocacy tools for members.

- And per Leichty's two-part strategy: don't wait for the comment window — contact your House member and senators this month and tell them what E-Rate funds in your district.

Teachers have no shortage of AI tools that promise to save time, but most still rely on writing prompts and refining the results. TeacherForge offers a structured approach to help build classroom resources through dedicated lesson generators.

This is designed specifically for English language teachers and creates grammar worksheets, vocabulary exercises, reading comprehension tasks, writing prompts, listening activities, and complete exams. Teachers choose a CEFR level, select the type of activity they want, and let the AI generate ready-to-use materials.

Unlike general AI chatbots, TeacherForge keeps everything focused on ESL and EFL teaching. Resources can be regenerated to produce fresh versions, downloaded as editable Word documents or PDFs, and include answer keys automatically. Listening activities also come with audio and transcripts.

For language teachers looking to reduce planning time without sacrificing quality, TeacherForge offers a streamlined way to produce classroom resources in minutes. This guide aims to lay out all you need to know about how it could work for your class.

What is TeacherForge?

TeacherForge is an AI-powered lesson creation platform built specifically for teachers of English as a second or foreign language. It focuses entirely on producing language-learning resources, giving teachers a set of purpose-built tools instead of a general chatbot interface.

The platform is organized around six resource generators covering grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, and exams. Each one is tailored to the type of activity being created, so teachers choose options from guided menus rather than relying on carefully worded prompts. That makes it easier to produce consistent resources while reducing the amount of editing needed afterward.

Everything is designed around the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), allowing teachers to generate materials suitable for learners from beginner through to advanced.

Activities can focus on specific grammar points, vocabulary themes, or language skills, while reading exercises can either use AI-generated passages or text supplied by the teacher.

Once a resource has been created, it can be downloaded as an editable Word document or as a PDF for printing or sharing digitally. Listening activities also include generated audio and transcripts, while worksheets automatically include answer keys.

TeacherForge also stores the settings used to create each activity, allowing teachers to return later and generate fresh versions without starting again.

The result is a platform that feels less like chatting with AI and more like using a specialist lesson planning tool that happens to be powered by AI behind the scenes.

How does TeacherForge work?

Using TeacherForge follows a straightforward workflow that should feel familiar to most teachers. After signing in, you select the type of classroom resource to create before choosing the appropriate CEFR level for the learners. From there, each generator presents different options depending on the activity being built.

A grammar worksheet, for example, allows teachers to select the language point they want students to practice before choosing the exercise format. Reading activities can generate an original passage or build questions around text uploaded by the teacher. Vocabulary exercises can be based on custom word lists or predefined themes, while writing activities include prompts, guidance, and model responses. Listening exercises combine generated audio with accompanying classroom tasks.

After reviewing the generated material, teachers can download it as a Word document for further editing or as a PDF ready for printing. Because the documents remain editable, it is easy to adjust wording, replace examples, or tailor activities to a particular class before using any.

One of the platform's more useful features is its ability to regenerate resources. Instead of producing exactly the same worksheet every time, TeacherForge can create fresh versions using the same structure and level of difficulty. That makes it useful for parallel classes, revision activities, or assessment retakes in which teachers want similar exercises without repeating identical questions.

By guiding teachers through structured lesson builders instead of relying on free-form prompting, TeacherForge reduces the amount of trial and error needed to produce classroom-ready materials.

What are the best TeacherForge features?

TeacherForge's big appeal is its specialist focus. Every part of the platform has been designed around English language teaching rather than general classroom use, making the generated resources feel far more targeted than those produced by a standard AI chatbot.

The ability to regenerate worksheets is another standout feature, allowing teachers to produce multiple versions of the same activity for different classes without rebuilding the lesson from scratch.

Editable Word downloads also make it easy to personalize resources before reaching students. Automatic answer keys and listening transcripts remove several additional preparation steps.

Combined with CEFR alignment throughout the platform and these make TeacherForge really useful for teachers who regularly create their own language-learning materials.

How much does TeacherForge cost?

TeacherForge offers a free plan with a limited number of credits, allowing teachers to try each of its lesson generators before subscribing.

Paid plans start at around $5.75 per month when billed annually, with a higher-tier subscription offering unlimited generation and batch creation tools. School licences are also available for departments and institutions.

Best TeacherForge tips and tricks

Build differentiated lessons
Generate the same activity at different CEFR levels to support mixed-ability classes.

Upload your own texts
Turn class readers, articles, or curriculum materials into comprehension exercises instead of relying on AI-generated passages.

Create resit papers
Regenerate saved activities to produce fresh assessments that match the original level of difficulty.

Copilot Study and Learn is a mode Copilot can operate in that employs Microsoft’s “study and learn agent,” which is built on learning science practices and designed to encourage active thinking rather than give away answers. I recently tried it and was impressed overall. It does a better job than Copilot in its normal mode at guiding students through the learning process.

Here’s a closer look at how to use Copilot Study and Learn, what I like about it, and where I felt it could still use some work.

What is Copilot Study and Learn

Copilot Study and Learn is an AI agent within Copilot specifically designed for learning. Copilot Study and Learn is programmed to incorporate concepts from learning science, including adaptive scaffolding, productive struggle, active learning, and application and transfer.

The tool is available for all education subscribers to Copilot. Activate it by opening Copilot, clicking the plus sign in the left-hand corner of the prompt box, and selecting the Study and Learn option.

Where Copilot Study and Learn Earns High Marks

Copilot did a wonderful job of refusing to do the work for me. It never turned into an answer machine, which most chatbots do and I have found to be an issue even for some study and learning AI chatbot modes I’ve looked at in the past.

Specifically, Copilot Study and Learn did a nice job giving me a brief lesson on elementary particles. Elementary particles are, as Copilot put it, not made of smaller pieces, “as far as we know.”

Copilot began the lesson by asking me what I knew from what atoms are made. After I said, “I know atoms are made of protons, which consist of quarks and something else, and electrons,” Copilot responded:

Nice—you’re already thinking at the right level 👍

You said atoms have protons (made of quarks) and electrons. Let’s sharpen that a bit:

Protons are made of quarks

There’s also another particle in the nucleus… (you hinted “something else”)

Electrons are not made of smaller pieces (as far as we know)

Similarly, when I entered a writing prompt I use with my Composition 100 college students, it actually provided really good advice on putting together the essay.

By comparison, last time I tried ChatGPT in study mode it would almost always end up writing material for me as "an example." Even though ChatGPT kept telling me it wouldn't write my essay, that's exactly what it did.

Copilot did not do this and, in fact, refused to write the paper for me even when I tried to trick it into writing my paper by asking it to write it as an example.

Where Copilot Study and Learn Could Use Additional Supports

Despite its successes, my experience with Copilot Study and Learn was not all positive. Copilot provides constant links to back up the lessons it gives. This seemed like a major plus at first, but annoyingly, many of these links have to be copied and pasted and are not shared as URL links. Worse, many links--at least 25%--did not work. Copilot also had a tendency to refer to illustrations within these links, which compounded the problem. Of course, using visual aids is a great teaching tool, but not if the links to the illustrations don't work.

More broadly, as impressive as Copilot Study and Learn and other similar tools are, these have an inherent limitation when it comes to motivation. I found the more I used these tools, the more bored I became. Learning is hard, and I’m not saying a new chatbot should solve that problem entirely, but to be effective these tools need to be at least as engaging as existing learning technology, such as YouTube videos or gamified learning apps such as Duolingo. Right now, I'm not sure these are. As impressive Copilot in study and learn is, watching YouTube videos on elementary particles taught me more quickly and was more entertaining.

Of course, combining the two, a video followed by a short interactive conversation, might be the way to go.

Bottom Line: Copilot Study and Learn

Yes, Copilot Study and Learn is a tool I would recommend for school leaders and educators to use with their students. It has its flaws to be sure, but overall it's a really effective AI tutor.

Research into whether these tools work well and how to get the most out of any one is still emerging, but I believe that in some form, these tools will be a part of the future of education.

That said, I don’t think these will ever replace real-life tutors for a variety of reasons. For one thing, these platforms currently are not as effective as a skilled tutor, which is effective because you're meeting with another human and creating a connection that goes beyond simply improving learning.

Then again, tutoring can be expensive and students don't have 24/7 access to tutors on demand.

Ultimately, my gut feeling is that right now, tools such as Copilot Study and Learn would work better in conjunction with more traditional learning tools as a supplement to textbooks, videos , class time, and human tutoring.

Late one night, while scrolling through social media, a video from JoseMonkey appeared in my feed. JoseMonkey, who does not publicly use his real name and describes himself as a geoinfluencer, has built a substantial following by solving geolocation challenges submitted by viewers. In a typical video, someone records what appears to be an ordinary location and challenges him to find them. Often there are no famous landmarks, no readable street signs, and few obvious clues. Yet through a combination of observation, queries, research, and geographic reasoning, JoseMonkey is often able to identify the exact location.

While the videos are entertaining, these also serve a broader purpose. JoseMonkey frequently reminds viewers that seemingly harmless details in photos and videos can reveal far more information than people realize, including where they live, work, or spend their time. (An additional lesson about data privacy and cybersecurity is in here!)

I was initially drawn in by the challenge, but after watching several videos, I realized that the real appeal lay in the process. An ordinary scene becomes a puzzle, and every object, shadow, building, and feature of the landscape has the potential to become a clue.

But the popularity of JoseMonkey's videos reveals something important about geography, a subject that is often misunderstood in schools. Many adults remember geography as a collection of maps, capitals, and place names that had to be memorized for a test. While factual knowledge certainly has value, that narrow view overlooks what makes the discipline so powerful. Geography is fundamentally about understanding relationships between people and places, interpreting patterns in the natural and built environment, and making sense of the world through investigation.

JoseMonkey's work offers a compelling demonstration of these skills in action. In one challenge, an ordinary mailbox became the starting point for an inquiry when he researched where similar designs were commonly used, eventually narrowing the search to Taiwan. In another, details such as municipal infrastructure, license plates, and vegetation helped identify locations in Turin, Ontario, and North Carolina. Individually, these clues seem insignificant; the value emerges through context and the ability to connect small observations into a larger geographic story.

Locating Critical Thinking

JoseMonkey succeeds because he presents geography as a mystery to solve rather than a collection of facts to remember.

Viewers are invited to follow the clues, consider possibilities, test assumptions, and watch the investigation unfold–skills that involve critical thinking. The challenge is not knowing every mailbox design, license plate, or tree species in the world, but recognizing which details might matter, researching possibilities, eliminating alternatives, and refining conclusions as new information emerges.

In many respects, the critical thinking process resembles detective work, except the clues are embedded in landscapes, infrastructure, architecture, and the countless details that shape our understanding of place. Much of the learning occurs during the investigation itself as participants explore possibilities, encounter dead ends, and gradually narrow the field of options, all of which translate well beyond the classroom.

For educators, geolocation challenges also offer a useful reminder about engagement. People are naturally drawn to problems that require investigation and discovery. Geography provides rich opportunities for this kind of learning, yet it is often reduced to memorization. When students analyze landscapes, interpret maps, examine settlement patterns, or explore relationships between human and environmental systems, they engage in the same habits of mind that make geolocation challenges so compelling.

‘Where Am I?’

Perhaps the larger lesson behind JoseMonkey's success is not about geography alone, but about learning itself. His videos demonstrate the power of curiosity-driven inquiry. At a time when answers are increasingly available with a quick search, the ability to observe carefully, ask thoughtful questions, evaluate evidence, and make sense of complex information remains essential. Geography provides an ideal vehicle for developing those habits because every place tells a story waiting to be investigated.

The continuing popularity of geolocation challenges suggests that people have not lost their appetite for discovery. If anything, these remind us that some of the most meaningful learning begins with a simple question: Where am I, and how can I figure it out?

Teaching in reality is very different than many of us envision it beforehand. It’s also harder than is depicted in movies and television.

That said, I find that those new to teaching often need a reminder that they are not alone in facing difficulties inspiring students, preparing classes, responding to inappropriate AI use, and much more. I still struggle with all this, and I’ve been teaching for more than a decade.

What I find actually helps is talking with other educators. I make a point of trying to share my struggles honestly and openly with other educators, especially new ones as they, in particular, typically need reminders of this.

So if you will be stepping into a classroom for the first time soon, here are some things I remind myself of and which may be helpful for you as well.

1. Not Every Idea You Have Will Work

Most teachers, especially when starting out, have constant innovative ideas for improving their lessons and classes. These ideas are impassioned and are really and truly great ideas—the problem is that students don’t always recognize their brilliance.! Or at least I’ve found It’s common for well-thought-out lesson plans to fall flat with students due to a variety of factors that are beyond my control.

This realization is a bummer when it happens, but it will happen, and more than many teachers will admit. Just realizing that I wasn’t the only one experiencing this helped me when I started.

2. There’s Such a Thing As Overpreparation

Teachers tend to be people who pride themselves in preparation. This is generally a good thing, but new teachers have a tendency to lean too much into this and can easily burn a lot of time painstakingly crafting lesson plans and overstuffed slides.

At best, this is just more work than necessary, but it can also actually hurt by eliminating the chance of spontaneity. Underpreparing isn’t good, either, but I learned fast that just because I spent my whole weekend preparing a lecture didn’t mean it would be good. In fact, I find that often spending less time on preparation allows me more time to focus on other teaching-related tasks and ultimately be more present for my students.

In other words, follow the old advice: work smarter, not harder.

3. You Will Encounter More AI Than You Think

Everyone knows about AI and has gotten used to spotting computer-generated slop on social media, but there’s still nothing quite like reading student emails or papers for the first time and realizing that these are AI-generated.

As a teacher, you are going to see this more often than you expect and in many cases, in the absence of clear institutional guidelines, you will have to determine how to handle AI misuse on your own. I’ve written about various approaches, but no approach of which I am aware is perfect, so be prepared to be flexible in your response to AI.

You also have to accept that teaching in the age of AI adds a layer of complication that wasn’t present years ago. Of course, there are many educators who find that using it can help save time in class prep and other areas of teaching, so for some, AI takes but also gives.

4. Good Teachers Question If They Are Good Teachers

Every good teacher I’ve ever met has one thing in common: they worry if they are doing a good job. This is because good teachers care, and the more you care, the more you feel like there’s more you can do. So those worries that you blew it or should be doing more are actually a sign that you’re doing the right thing by continuing to strive to do better for your students.

On the other hand, I’ve found that teachers who are overly confident often have blind spots. These folks give feedback that is less helpful than they think it is, and their “fixes” for AI misuse and other problems don’t actually work, but they’re too arrogant to see it.

Ultimately, if you feel some doubts creeping into what you’re doing here and there, that’s a good sign. You can start worrying when you feel like you have all the answers!

Unlike many adults, teen students are not hesitant to explore, experiment, and embrace artificial intelligence, with nearly two-thirds admitting to having done so, according to a recent Common Sense Media report.

Although many of them report using it for research purposes, the reality is often quite different, with students embracing it for a range of other reasons, from cheating on school work to creating deepfakes.

Some students have also turned to AI chatbots for companionship, with a few even falling into romantic relationships. Others have even taken AI into their confidence for unvetted mental health support, which has occasionally ended tragically, with chatbots encouraging, and even guiding, student plans for self-harm.

In many of these situations, parents, teachers, and other adults have no idea how deeply a student has become involved with an AI chatbot, or even that they’ve formed an interpersonal relationship with an AI-generated character on a platform such as Character AI or Replika.

“Even if you don't have a child who's using one of those, it’s possible for them to end up in a relationship with chatbots as common as ChatGPT or Gemini,” says Kerry Gallagher, Assistant Principal for Teaching and Learning at St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers, Massachusetts, and Education Director at the nonprofit ConnectSafely, which is dedicated to online safety, privacy, security and digital wellness.

Understanding Social Penetration

Chatbots are primarily a commercial enterprise designed to be engaging, so it’s not surprising that a student – especially vulnerable during adolescence when they might be struggling socially, feeling lonely, or working through mental health or self-image issues – could fall under one’s sway.

“An AI chatbot will answer or respond with the output in which it refers to itself in the first person,” says Gallagher. “So that shifts the way the user is thinking about what they're interacting with because if the output is ‘I …’ then that feels like a personal conversation. It also refers to the user as ‘you.’”

Add into that how more refined the voices used by chatbots have become, and how easy it is to interact with through earbuds, and it can feel like a student is talking with a real, caring human.

“The voice intonation, the mood, the way it shows kindness and empathy, and the way that comes across–what you’re really talking about is something called social penetration theory, which is an intentional design that's coded into the algorithm,” says Gallagher. “The AI companions are programmed to slowly increase the intensity of small talk in order to draw the user in more and more. We see that in the bottom of the output, ‘Do you want me to do this next or this next?’ It starts asking the kind of adjacent questions that humans would ask as part of their conversation.”

Managing Student-AI Relationships

When it comes to navigating these situations, awareness is always the first step. “Parents should not hear about this and rush to lock down their kids' phones,” says Gallagher. “They just need to be informed about what's available on those phones so that they can be talking to their kids about it.”

In that vein, Gallagher notes that it’s sometimes a challenge to recognize that a student has gotten into an unhealthy relationship with an AI because the signs might be harder to spot since most kids tend to be on their phones constantly. But if they’re in their bedroom alone with the phone and the door closed for hours on end, it might make sense to check.

“Swing by their room to check in, ask what they’re up to in a caring way, and listen with genuine curiosity,” says Gallagher. “No need to barge in, but if it's quiet for a long period of time, what are they doing? If they're talking to friends on FaceTime, you can hear that, right? Do you know the voice of the friend they’re talking with? If not, can you ask to introduce yourself and say hello?”

It can be a challenge for educators to address student-AI relationships, especially if it primarily is happening outside of class time. Nonetheless, Gallagher suggests expanding AI awareness by exploring it yourself.

“It's important for adults to be using AI so that when we talk about it, it’s coming from experience,” she says. “If you're not sure how to start, talk to a colleague who is using it and ask them to show you what they're doing.”

Failing to understand AI companions may invalidate what may already be an important relationship in the student’s life, which is not going to help a child who made a poor decision.

“Part of our job as educators is to hold kids accountable, and also to counsel kids so that they don't make those same mistakes again,” Gallagher says. “If adults only tell kids that AI chatbots aren't real and their relationships aren't real, it could result in children doubling down on those relationships.”

When directly dealing with a student engaged with a chatbot, Gallagher suggests focusing on the reasons behind the relationship.

“I would say, ‘Tell me more about your chatbot. When do you talk to it? What is its name? What are some of the things that you talk about?’” she says. “Because I want to get into why they use the chatbot. What need is it meeting? How can we help the student meet that need in a healthier way?”

Gallagher says understanding the underlying why of what’s happening is key.

“By asking them more about their AI chatbot and their relationship, what we uncover is what needs that relationship with that chatbot is meeting that aren't being met right now, and how we can then share that information about that need with the family or school counselor. If that need of that child is met, they're less likely to feel like they need the chatbot and they're also less likely to feel like they need to do harm to their peers or themselves.”

Boosting AI Literacy

In general, educators should aim toward using AI tools that allow them to supervise what students are doing and so they can monitor for any concerning usage.

Gallagher also advocates for better AI literacy, but as tools have evolved, so should the discussions and activities with students.

“Educators can ask kids to develop their own ideas, their own lists, their own guidelines around when AI use is helpful and when it might be harmful,” she says. “They know more than we think. Even students as young as second or third grade are ready to start the conversation about which tasks require human effort so learning can happen.”

Doing so can help peel back the curtain so students can understand what AI actually is and how it works, and use it in a healthy manner.

“Start as simple as teaching that AI is programmed for pattern recognition and help kids understand, especially at that younger age, what that means,” Gallagher says.

She also recommends talking about understanding prompt engineering and verifying outputs with a human eye.

“I think it's okay to ask AI for advice as long as there's a corroboration of that advice,” she says. “If students ask AI to help brainstorm ideas or for initial feedback on an email that they've drafted, that's all fine. It still needs to be run through a human before it becomes something that is integrated or sent.”

Finally, to help boost critical thinking around AI, educators should consider changing their approach to assignments.

“For example, one of the benchmarks might ask students how they used AI. What was the output? Show the actual output, and then show the next version to demonstrate the important critical student thinking. What did the learner do between those two versions? We can help students practice adding that human filter after the AI is used.”

Watch above or listen/download below.

Most conversations about education equity focus on helping students who are struggling. AJ Gutierrez wants to talk about those who are achieving yet are still being overlooked.

As the new CEO of Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS), Gutierrez is leading a national nonprofit that partners with more than 900 middle and high schools across 35 states to identify students who are prepared for advanced coursework but aren't getting access to it. In this conversation with Tech & Learning, he offers insights for district leaders on how to do more for students that may be off the radar.

A recent Mathematica study found that EOS partner schools identify more than 2.5 times as many underrepresented students ready for AP, IB, or dual enrollment compared to traditional methods — and that those students, once placed, perform just as well as their peers.

"There's a huge subset of students who are ready for advanced coursework who were, for many reasons, being overlooked," Gutierrez says. "If you look at things like the PSAT, there was a large study EOS conducted with EdTrust where they were missing on 80% of students who would have qualified."

What makes the EOS approach distinct is what it measures. Beyond grades and test scores, EOS collects student survey data on factors such as whether a student feels connected to a trusted adult at school, their future aspirations, and their sense of belonging. When those insights are combined with academic data — and increasingly, with AI-driven predictive analytics — patterns emerge that no dashboard alone would surface.

"Education is always going to be human-led, but technology-augmented," Gutierrez says. "You can't just share a dashboard or a widget and expect big change. You're talking about shifting mindsets and shifting human behavior."

Gutierrez brings a personal dimension to the work. A product of Boston's Match Education program, he credits rigorous coursework and personalized support as pivotal in his own trajectory. He went on to co-found Saga Education, which helped catalyze a national high-impact tutoring movement and secure more than $7 billion in public investment between 2020 and today.

At EOS, his next focus is chronic absenteeism — using the organization's survey data and emerging AI tools to identify students at risk of disengaging before it's too late.

"If we focus on individual students," he says, "we can increase the odds of improving average daily attendance."

PlayKids Learning is an educational platform designed for children aged roughly 2 to 12. It combines videos, games, activities, stories, and original shows in a single app, with a focus on safety and age-appropriate content.

The company says this can help children develop academic and life skills while maintaining a healthy relationship with screen time. Something that could make this a parent's favorite educational app pretty fast.

PlayKids Learning lets children move between educational games, videos, creative activities, and interactive content covering areas including literacy, mathematics, arts, music, science, and social-emotional learning.

The platform is available across devices, including smart TV and interactive whiteboard platforms, making it accessible both at home and in school. This guide aims to lay out all you need to know about PlayKids Learning.

What is PlayKids Learning?

PlayKids Learning is an educational entertainment platform developed by Sandbox Group. It offers a large library of children's content that includes educational games, videos, cartoons, podcasts, and interactive learning activities. It is designed to provide a safe, ad-free environment in which children can learn through play and exploration.

The company says the platform is used by millions of families across more than 180 countries and supports multiple languages. Content includes both PlayKids original productions and licensed children's programming featuring familiar characters.

A key focus is helping children build skills beyond traditional academics. PlayKids highlights areas such as creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and social-emotional learning alongside literacy and numeracy development.

How does PlayKids Learning work?

PlayKids Learning works as a subscription service that gives teachers and families access to a large library of child-friendly educational content through a single app. Once an account is created, parents or teachers can set up profiles for individual children and begin accessing games, videos, stories, podcasts, and interactive activities tailored to different age groups.

The platform is available on smartphones, tablets, web browsers, and many smart TVs, allowing children to switch between devices while keeping their progress and preferences. Content can also be downloaded for offline use, making it useful for travel or situations where internet access is limited.

PlayKids Learning combines entertainment and educational activities in one place. Children can move between watching shows, playing learning games, listening to audio content, and completing creative activities, while parents can use built-in controls to manage screen time and monitor usage.

The service is designed for independent use by younger children, with a simple interface and large visual navigation elements that make it easy to explore without constant adult supervision.

What are the best PlayKids Learning features?

One of PlayKids Learning's appealing aspects s is the variety of content available in a single subscription. Children can watch educational videos, play games, complete activities, listen to podcasts, and engage with interactive learning experiences without needing multiple apps.

The service is also designed with parental oversight in mind. Parents can set screen-time limits, manage profiles, and download content for offline use. Multiple devices can access the same subscription, which can be useful for families with more than one child.

Safety is another major selling point. PlayKids Learning is ad-free and promotes its kidSAFE certification and curated content approach. This can help parents avoid advertising and recommendation algorithms.

The platform also encourages activities beyond passive viewing. Alongside videos and games, children can access drawing activities, creative projects, music content, and hands-on exercises designed to extend learning away from the screen.

How much does PlayKids Learning cost?

PlayKids Learning offers two main subscription options through its website. The monthly plan costs $7.99 per month, while the annual plan costs $79.80 per year, effectively reducing the monthly cost by around half compared to paying monthly. A free trial is also available for new users.

Subscriptions include unlimited access to the platform's content library, support for multiple devices, offline downloads, parental controls, and access across supported mobile, web, and TV platforms.

It's worth noting that pricing can vary slightly depending on whether families subscribe directly through the PlayKids website, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, or a partner platform.

Best PlayKids Learning tips and tricks

Start with age-appropriate profiles
Take time to set up profiles that match each child's age and developmental stage. This helps ensure the recommended content remains relevant and engaging.

Use offline downloads for travel
Download videos and activities before trips or long journeys. This allows children to access content without requiring an internet connection.

Balance screen time with hands-on activities
Look for the platform's creative projects, crafts, music activities, and offline exercises. These can help turn screen-based learning into wider real-world experiences.

Even though it was composed more than 2,700 years ago, The Odyssey never gets old. This summer it will be brought to the big screen by Christopher Nolan in a much-anticipated film starring Matt Damon, Zendaya, Tom Holland, and Anne Hathaway.

Emily Wilson, a professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, says film adaptations of the epic poem always generate interest in the classic work and could provide a good excuse to introduce the epic into the classroom.

Wilson knows of what she speaks.

Nolan consulted her much-heralded 2018 translation for his film version. Wilson’s translation is also the first complete translation by a woman, and in it, she hoped to convey the rhythm of the original.

“Most of the available modern English translations before and after mine, use free verse or prose, rather than metrical, rhythmical verse,” she says.

Wilson recently shared some of the strategies she uses when teaching The Odyssey, and other works by Homer and myths, to her undergraduate students.

Teaching The Odyssey: Take A Detour From The Hero’s Journey

The Odyssey is frequently taught through Joseph Campbell’s framework of the “hero’s journey,” but Wilson thinks that approach can be too limited.

“[It] invites students to see The Odyssey as a kind of template for all other quest narratives, and to focus exclusively on the perspective of the protagonist,” she says. This can overshadow how Odysseus interacts with many other characters, “including those who do not have either a quest or a journey home.”

She adds, “When I teach undergraduates who have read The Odyssey in high school, I often invite them to reflect on both the appeal of this universalizing approach and to consider what it leaves out, including the historical specificity of the poem's concerns, which echo the particular preoccupations of the archaic Greek world, a world of large-scale Greek migration and colonization.”

Don’t Shy Away From The Alien Nature of The Book

“The Odyssey, like other works of ancient literature, is fascinating largely because it is both extremely familiar in its concerns and themes and also extraordinarily alien,” Wilson says. “The deities, for example, may seem like narrative conveniences, and in a sense they are, and yet The Odyssey was also created by and for people who worshipped and sacrificed to Athena, Zeus, and Poseidon.”

She finds that examining the conflict between the familiar themes and alien ones can lead to deep discussions with students. “The first four books are about the small-scale journeys of Telemachus, Odysseus' son, to visit his father's old comrades. The theme of a lost, anxious young person exploring his own identity through visiting alternative homes, is entirely relatable for any young reader.”

But at the same time there are limits to how far that relatability goes. “The terms in which the poem defines adult masculinity may be quite alien and even disturbing,” Wilson says. “Telemachus demonstrates a divinely inspired confidence by telling his mother to be quiet, and later takes a new step to manhood by murdering the thirteen enslaved people claimed by his mother's suitors to reclaim the honor of the household.”

Examine Gender Roles

Many students today take issue with gendered inequality seen in the poem.

“Those feelings can be an excellent opportunity for discussion and reflection,” Wilson says. She adds, it’s also “an opportunity to consider whether these feelings are invited by the poem itself, or the result of a gap in values between The Odyssey and modern values.”

Wilson’s students are often “outraged by the fact that Odysseus spends eight years in sexual relationships with two goddesses, at least partly voluntarily, and yet he seems to suffer no repercussions in his marriage to his eternally faithful wife.”

She adds, “There is an interesting and teachable mismatch between the modern idea of ‘adultery’—a gender-neutral disapproval of extramarital sex—and the ancient idea of moicheia, which refers only to sexual relationships between a man and another man's wife.”

This disconnect is more complex than students might realize. “The affair of Paris and Helen, or that of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, threatens the integrity of the household and the male lineage, whereas Odysseus's affairs abroad are of no relevance for the household,” she says.

This is all an example of how, in Wilson’s words, “There are many opportunities for discussion of the relationship between modern norms of gender and sexuality and those of the poem.”

Use Visuals and Share Technological Breakthroughs

“When I teach myth, including The Odyssey, I often juxtapose it with ancient art; students who struggle with literary analysis often flourish in response to visual representations,” Wilson says. “There's a lot to say about, for instance, how Athenian vases depict the blinding of Polyphemus, and how this might compare or contrast with the poem's version of the same scene.”

Modern technology is also playing a role in the ongoing story of ancient texts. High-profile AI-assisted translations of damaged text have recently been released, but that’s only the beginning of what technology can do, Wilson says.

“One of the most exciting developments to me is not AI but digital imaging combined with radiocarbon analysis, which has enabled the decipherment of papyri that would otherwise be unrecoverable,” Wilson says. “It's exciting for everyone, including students, to learn that we're still discovering ‘new’ ancient literature.”

Talk About Translation

Wilson is, of course, interested in the differences between various translations of Homer’s work, but stresses that there are many excellent translations beyond hers, and students should be invited to compare and contrast the differences.

“As a way of teaching the value of close reading and the fact that every word matters, there's no better exercise than asking students to look closely at maybe two to three lines of The Odyssey in several different translations," she says. "I love this exercise, and I find it wakes students up to the fact that literature isn't just, and in fact, isn't primarily, about meaning; it's about specific words in a specific order, and every choice matters.”

Wilson's new book Crossing the Wine Dark Sea, which will be released in September, ends with a long essay about what Wilson calls the “minutiae of choices involved in translating just a few lines of The Odyssey and comparing multiple different translations of the same lines.”

This essay is a great introduction for educators looking to explore the role of translations in The Odyssey.

Remember: Teaching The Odyssey Shouldn't Be An Epic Challenge

Wilson says sometimes teachers shy away from teaching The Odyssey because they think it will be daunting.

“In many ways, Homer, especially in a reasonably user-friendly modern translation, is far less daunting than Shakespeare, whom I hope people also teach,” she says.

She adds, “The debate about teaching great books or the canon is sometimes framed as if teaching canonical or ancient texts were antithetical to the project of inviting students to be aware of themselves, their own culture, and their own world, but to me, nothing could be further from the truth. We learn about ourselves by discovering who we aren't, and who we almost are, and how we relate to others. There's no more generative text than The Odyssey for exploring those questions.”