Top 5 Simple AI Tools for Teachers

an oversized robot playing in a school gym with some kids

In the dynamic world of education, AI tools are becoming invaluable allies for teachers. These tools offer a blend of convenience, efficiency, and interactive learning opportunities. They are designed to be user-friendly, requiring minimal to no coding skills, which makes them accessible to educators from various backgrounds. These AI applications can automate administrative tasks, provide personalized learning experiences for students, and even offer insights into learning patterns. This ease of use and the diverse functionalities they provide are revolutionizing classroom dynamics, making education more engaging and tailored to individual learning needs. Whether it's through enhancing lesson plans, providing instant feedback, or facilitating remote learning, these AI tools are reshaping the educational landscape.

Teachers today have access to a growing array of AI-powered tools that can save time, increase engagement, and provide instant feedback. Many of these tools require no coding or technical skills to start using. Here are 5 top simple AI tools that every teacher should know about:

Key Takeaways:

Ease of Use and Accessibility: The AI tools discussed are designed for educators with varying levels of technical expertise, emphasizing user-friendliness and ease of integration into existing teaching methodologies.
Personalized Learning Experiences: AI tools like AudioPen and Canva enable teachers to create customized and interactive educational content, catering to the diverse learning styles and needs of students.
Efficiency in Administrative Tasks: Tools such as Gradescope and AudioPen significantly reduce the time spent on routine tasks like grading and note transcription, allowing teachers to focus more on student engagement and lesson planning.
Enhanced Student Engagement: Interactive platforms like Quizizz and visually appealing content created through Canva contribute to higher student involvement and interest in the learning material.
24/7 Student Support: The integration of AI chatbots in educational settings provides students with continuous support, addressing queries and facilitating learning beyond the classroom.

Simple AI Tools for Teachers

AudioPen

AudioPen is a web-based application designed for converting spoken words into text notes using AI technology, primarily OpenAI's Whisper for transcription. It enables users to record voice notes directly and transcribe them into written text, offering a user-friendly interface accessible across various platforms. AudioPen is particularly useful for tasks like note-taking in meetings, lectures, and for personal use, such as journaling. Its integration with Zapier further enhances its utility by allowing seamless exporting of notes to other software platforms.

Canva

Canva makes creating sleek presentations, handouts, posters and visuals easy. Teachers can choose from a wide range of templates and drag-and-drop customizable elements like images, icons, charts and shapes. The education specific templates help in designing engaging content for lessons and assignments.

Quizizz

Quizizz allows teachers to create fun quizzes, discussions and surveys. The game-based quizzes provide instant student feedback. Quizizz is easy to set up, works on any device, and helps gauge student understanding. Its auto-grading capability saves teachers' time.

Gradescope

Gradescope offers instant grading and feedback on written assignments. Teachers can assign rubrics, highlight sections or add comments easily. It captures analytics to identify student misconceptions. Gradescope saves time on routine grading and provides granular feedback to students.

Chatbots

AI-powered chatbots can act as teaching assistants to answer student questions, provide study help, and offer feedback. Teachers can customize responses or integrate existing FAQs. Chatbots are available 24/7 to support personalized learning. Some examples are Netomi, Teacher's Pet and Tutorbot.

Use AudioPen to Convert Handwriting and Notes

AudioPen is an innovative web app primarily designed to convert spoken words into text. It's particularly effective for tasks like taking notes during meetings, lectures, or brainstorming sessions. Its primary function is to capture audio through a simple recording process and then transcribe this audio into text using AI technology, specifically OpenAI's APIs, including Whisper for transcription.

The app offers both a free and a premium plan. The free version allows users to record voice notes up to three minutes in length and store up to 10 notes. The premium plan, on the other hand, extends these capabilities significantly. Paid users can record longer voice notes (up to 15 minutes), store an unlimited number of notes in the cloud, and upload a set number of their own audio files each month. Additionally, premium users can download the audio of a note within an hour of recording, and they have access to automatic summary generation. This feature is particularly useful for compiling information on a single topic from multiple notes, creating what AudioPen calls a "Super Summary."

One of the standout features of AudioPen is its ability to adapt to various writing styles. It offers flexibility in terms of the tone and style of the transcribed text, catering to different preferences and needs. For instance, users can select a style that mimics their favorite author or opt for a more academic tone. The app also provides integration with Zapier, making it easier to export notes to other software platforms.

The app's interface is straightforward, featuring a microphone button for starting recordings. After recording, the app transcribes the audio into text. While the tool is primarily a web app and does not offer a native mobile experience, it is lightweight and available across different platforms.

However, there are some limitations to be aware of. As a web app, AudioPen requires a stable internet connection for transcription. Also, for iPhone users, the web app does not have permanent access to a microphone, so permissions need to be granted each time a note is recorded.

Overall, AudioPen emerges as a useful tool for those looking to efficiently capture and transcribe spoken words into organized, written form. Its various features make it suitable for a wide range of applications, from professional note-taking to personal journaling. For more detailed information about AudioPen, you can visit the official website here and a detailed review on blog.makingonlineeasy.com and techcrunch.com.

Create Engaging Visuals with Canva

Canva is a user-friendly graphic design platform that makes creating sleek presentations, documents, posters, graphics, and more a breeze. With Canva, teachers can easily produce visually engaging content to captivate students without needing any design experience.

buckets of paint and a hand dipping a brush in one

The beauty of Canva is its massive library of templates and media. Just search through Canva's extensive collection of professionally designed layouts to get a head start. Customize the template with your own text, images, icons, shapes, and illustrations. Canva has millions of stock photos, graphics, and design elements available right within the editor.

Teachers can quickly build eye-catching presentations, worksheets, posters, newsletters, and more. The drag and drop editor is intuitive enough for anyone to use. With just a few clicks, you can create stunning visuals from scratch or by using one of Canva's many education templates.

Canva is free to use for basic projects. But teachers get access to the premium version and additional features for free. Take advantage of Canva's library of illustrations, customizable shapes, animated elements, color schemes, and fonts to engage your students.

With Canva, teachers have a powerful design tool to create professional visuals that reinforce learning objectives and make content more memorable. Ditch the plain text documents and PowerPoints. Canva's simplicity and wealth of customization options let teachers turn lessons into visual masterpieces.

Quizizz

Quizizz is a fun, game-based learning platform that allows teachers to create interactive quizzes, flashcards, and surveys. Teachers can use Quizizz to:

Create engaging quizzes and turn lessons into a game. Quizizz adds memes, GIFs, and more to make learning fun. Students progress at their own pace in an auto-generated game.
Get instant insights into student understanding. The platform tracks student progress so teachers can identify gaps and provide personalized instruction.
Increase student engagement. The game-like format makes reviewing material more enjoyable and motivates students to progress through the activity.
Find pre-made activities. Browse from a library of millions of ready-to-use quizzes and flashcards created by other teachers.
Promote active learning. Students are more engaged responding on their own device rather than passive listening. The platform works across devices.
Use it offline. Once activities are downloaded, Quizizz can be used without an internet connection in classrooms with spotty connectivity.

With Quizizz, teachers can make any study material more engaging and interactive for students. The games and memes keep students interested while allowing teachers to track class progress and identify concepts that may need review or reteaching. Quizizz is easy to use, free, and requires no coding or technical expertise. Teachers of any subject can use it to boost student motivation and understanding.

Gradescope

Gradescope is an AI-powered grading and feedback platform designed for educators. It can save teachers a tremendous amount of time grading assignments and tests by providing instant automated grading and feedback.

With Gradescope, teachers can upload student work like homework, quizzes, and exams. The platform can instantly grade the work and provide feedback based on advanced AI capabilities. This allows teachers to avoid spending hours manually grading assignments.

The automatic grading works for a variety of assignment types including multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, and even short answer questions. For short answer questions, Gradescope uses natural language processing to analyze student responses and determine if they match pre-defined acceptable answers.

Teachers can customize the automated grading to align with their own grading scheme and policies. The platform allows setting up rubrics to provide scoring criteria. Teachers can also manually adjust grades or provide additional feedback for any student if needed.

After assignments are graded, Gradescope generates detailed analytics and reports for teachers. This allows quickly identifying where students struggled with course concepts. The analytics can inform how to adjust teaching methods.

Students also benefit from the instant grading and feedback Gradescope provides. They can immediately see where they went wrong and improve their understanding. The platform allows students to attach questions or comments to the feedback, further enriching the learning experience.

By leveraging artificial intelligence to automate time-consuming grading tasks, Gradescope allows teachers to free up more time to focus on student development. It's an invaluable AI tool that saves teachers effort while enhancing learning.

Chatbots

Chatbots leverage artificial intelligence to simulate human conversation and provide customized support to students. These AI-powered bots can be integrated into learning management systems or used as stand-alone apps to provide 24/7 tutoring and answer student questions in real-time.

Some key benefits of using chatbots in the classroom include:

Provide 24/7 tutoring support - Chatbots never get tired and can provide personalized tutoring anytime students need help, even after school hours or on weekends. They allow students to get their questions answered immediately without having to wait for the next class.
Simulate conversations - Advanced chatbots use natural language processing to understand student queries and continue conversations on specific topics. This allows students to ask follow-up questions and engage in meaningful dialogue to improve comprehension.
Answer student questions - Chatbots serve as virtual teaching assistants that can quickly answer common student questions on assignments, deadlines, procedures and more. They provide consistent information 24x7 and help take the workload off teachers.

Chatbots like ChipBot, Jill Watson and SnatchBot are being used in classrooms to provide tutoring in math, science and other subjects. They analyze student profiles and conversation history to offer personalized support. Teachers can review chatbot interactions to identify student knowledge gaps and improve instruction. With continuous training, chatbots are getting smarter at simulating human-like conversations and enhancing student learning outcomes.