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The secret weapon overwhelmed teachers aren't using (yet)

Teachers are busy. I challenge anyone in the world to contest that statement. Speaking from experience as a former teacher, no other role I’ve had since leaving teaching has been as all-consuming. Teaching is a unique profession, demanding constant energy, adaptability, and focus.

This brings me to the role of AI in education. AI offers opportunities to reduce repetitive administrative tasks and also simplify complex ones, such as analyzing large datasets. The potential is exciting: freeing up educators to focus on achieving better outcomes, fostering creativity, and allowing time for strategic thinking.

With this in mind, I recently had an ‘AI conversation’ with a former teaching colleague. This colleague, now an education design and implementation specialist, has spent over 30 years shaping curriculum, implementing best practices, and inspiring schools to improve outcomes for students. They are widely respected in their field.

Our conversation began with my broad statement about how great AI is for schools. My statement was promptly dismissed: "Teaching is not like other professions. AI cannot be used because teaching requires physical presence, assessment is not purely in what a child writes, and AI cannot create effective learning material because there are so many considerations to make. As for AI for students..."

I paused to unpack this response because I sensed a deeper fear: that AI could somehow threaten the teaching profession. So, I asked a simple question: "What does AI mean to you?"

The answer was predictable—ChatGPT. When I asked if they had used ChatGPT themselves, their reply switched from "not enough time" to "it wouldn’t work for education" to "it can’t use student information because it’s private." Their response was a quite defensive.

I suggested they give ChatGPT a chance to see how it works and what value it could offer. Then, I clarified: AI is not ChatGPT. ChatGPT is just one example of an AI powered conversational assistant—a chatbot powered by a large language model. Unlike older chatbots that followed pre-programmed scripts, ChatGPT generates completely new responses by analyzing language patterns in a human-like way.

So, how does it work? In simple terms, ChatGPT’s underlying large language model was trained on massive amounts of text—books, websites, and more. It learned patterns in how words are used together. When you ask it a question, it guesses what words to write next, creating a response that makes sense based on your input. It’s like finishing someone’s sentence when you know what they might say. The concept of creating new content is known as generative AI.

I explained to my colleague that AI (like ChatGPT), in addition to creating content, can help analyze large datasets, uncover patterns, and provide actionable insights—tasks they already spent significant time doing manually. This sparked a lightbulb moment for my colleague. Imagine AI supporting educators by simplifying data analysis of endless spreadsheets or identifying trends to improve student outcomes.

I said that would be a great way to use AI in education, but for starters, AI could be adopted more broadly to streamline so many basic administrative tasks a teacher does on a daily basis. For example, converting meeting notes to a to do list, converting text to spreadsheets and tables, proofreading, creating images instead of finding images and endless other everyday tasks.

AI is not just about generating content. It can automate time-consuming tasks, allowing educators to focus on meaningful work like planning and innovating—such as identifying how to effectively introduce AI into the classroom. While teachers are undoubtedly pressed for time, practical AI tools can make a real difference.

Yes, AI in education is a hot topic, often surrounded by debates about student access to AI assistants, the role of generative tools in creating teaching materials, and concerns about AI encroaching on educators' roles. Moreover, further research is needed to understand the broader impacts of generative AI tools and how to integrate them effectively into school environments.

However, as these discussions unfold, schools and teachers should avoid adopting a blanket "NO AI" policy or succumbing to “AI hesitancy.” Dismissing AI in all its forms risks leaving educators—and, by extension, students—behind. Additionally, avoiding AI tools now forfeits the opportunity to reclaim precious time.

So for those with a little AI hesitancy, here are a few simple yet effective AI tools and their practical applications to help you ease in with AI:

# 1: 🤖 AI Assistants for everyday teacher tasks ✏️

ChatGPT chatgpt.com | Google’s Gemini gemini.google.com | Meta AI messenger.com | Le Chat chat.mistral.ai/chat |...etc

ChatGPT (or other AI assistant) can be used to: draft content, reword your communications so they are clear and professional, brainstorm ideas with you, summarise things so you can find answers fast, organise your information into tables and lists from a chunk of text, create templates and checklists for you, solves workplace problems, assist with proofreading and translations.

One of my favorite things to do with AI is turning text into organized tables and spreadsheets. It's a game-changer and massive time saver! Instead of manually copying and pasting to create tables and spreadsheets, I simply feed the text to the AI and tell it what I want to see.

Gemini is particularly useful because it can directly generate Google Sheets. But if you prefer Excel, you can just paste it across.

Check out the example below, where a paragraph about students has been automatically converted to a table. If you are not happy with the table columns or data, just try again by refining what you ask for in the prompt.

#2: 🤖 Generate images rather than searching for them 🎨

Facebook messenger Meta AI messenger.com (FREE)

Did you know you can generate images using Facebook’s Messenger? It sits at the top of your chats in Messenger and is called Meta AI. All you need to do is describe what you want in the image. Type a request and see the results. This is just really cool and saves you time looking for the image you need for presentations. NOTE: If you ask for an image, it will usually be photo realistic. Therefore, ask for a ‘cartoon’ (and leave off the term image). Play around. You can also generate images in ChatGPT, Gemini, Canva and loads of other places. So do it. Save time looking for the right image.

#3: 🤖 Find information in your PDFs fast 📄🔍
($$ Monthly ADOBE subscription required)

If you are often looking through PDFs to find key information, you probably use the ‘search’ tool a lot, only to be annoyed by the need to search each reference to find what you are after. A better way to search for content within documents is with Adobe’s AI Assistant. This is great if you often work on/with documents – policies, proposals…etc. Saves so much time finding exactly what you are after.

#4: 🤖 Have your staff meetings recorded, annotated and notes organised 📝🎙️📂

Otter otter.ai(FREE for 300 mins per month)

Did you know there are so many cool tools to manage meeting notes (and agendas and the like), so that you can focus in the meeting on the meeting, and you have readymade notes and action items at the end. For face-to-face meetings, Otter is great. It records, annotates, summarises and much more. Very easy to use, just press ‘Record’!

NOTE: I will do a new blog comparing Meeting tools such as Otter and Firefiles. I think difference will come down to cost...but there may be difference in performance. Leave to me and I will check and report back. (

#5: 🤖 Something for your school community: fast access to school info 🏫⚡🔍

SKLchat (school chat) sklchat.com

Add a chatbot to your school's public website and portals/intranet for parents and staff to access school info and event info easily without searching. The chatbot will only provide answers for school information it is given access to, including your website, school docs, your calendars and your FAQs. Each bot you add to your sites can be connected to different data sources and information. This means the bot on your website can show public info, whilst the portal bots can have more detailed information for current families. You can even set up a staff bot with staff calendars, docs and support material (great for onboarding and supporting new staff!!).

There is also the ability to customise the look of the chatbot, and to add campaigns with links to the top of the chat window. For example, you can promote up coming musicals or key school events, linking directly to ticketing.

Where are we headed? Just some possible ideas...

• Using AI to develop a better understanding of school data, drawing new conclusions about leaners
• Using AI to identify students at risk
• Creating education specific LLMs, trained by expert educational practitioners and theorists, using real educational datasets and best practice
• Using AI to analyse footage of the interaction between educators and students, identifying potential trends and links between different styles of engagement, to the learners outcomes
• Introducing AI tools into the classroom to develop student capacity to use AI effectively, preparing students for a world where AI tools are evolving and growing at a rapid rate

… and so it goes on.

For a really good overview of what it can look like to introduce AI into education, I highly recommend reading: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2024/11/27/university-of-sydney-ai-assessment-policy.html and importantly, viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUpoRTyNvVE&t=12s