If you are not using AI in your instruction, you are missing out, period! There is no way an innovative technology with all these capabilities at the palm of your hands and you are not using it. Yes AI does come with its own set of limitations and caveats, but this is no excuse for not tapping into its educational potential.
The first step towards embracing AI in your work is by building a solid AI literacy that provides you with a working understanding of how this new technology works and familiarizes you with the different ways you can apply it efficiently in your teaching.
Next comes the need to search for educational AI tools that can help you meet your teaching goals and improve your students learning. There are tons of AI tools our there and I have an entire eBook with other 100 educational AI tools to try out but for the purposes of this post, I selected for you some of the best ones out there. I arranged them in this Q&A list to make it somewhat engaging
There’s an AI Tool for That !
So, if ever you found yourself wishing for a faster, smarter way to tackle classroom tasks, these AI tools might just make you say, “Why didn’t I try this sooner?”
🎨 Q: How can I make eye-catching visuals for my class without being a design pro?
👉 A: Pair Canva with a creative AI like Midjourney, Leonardo, or DALL-E. Your classroom visuals will go from basic to brilliant in minutes!
🎥 Q: I want to create polished, professional videos for my students—what should I use?
👉 A: Try Pictory, Synthesia, InVideo, Veed, Fliki, or Lumen5. These tools let you produce instructional videos that look like they came straight from a studio!
📊 Q: How do I craft stunning presentations without spending hours on slides?
👉 A: Use Slidesgo, SlidesAI, MagicSlides, Beautify, or Canva AI. These tools can transform plain slides into works of art in no time.
📝 Q: Writing lesson plans takes so long—any tools to speed it up?
👉 A: Try DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Claude, MagicSchool, Twee, or Almanack. These AI tools help you brainstorm ideas and create engaging plans faster than ever.
📚 Q: Where can I find academic papers quickly?
👉 A: Check out Connected Papers, Research Rabbit, Scite, R Discovery, Elicit, Consensus, or Semantic Scholar. These tools make academic searches less of a chore.
📖 Q: Is there a way to annotate or even chat with my PDFs?
👉 A: Yes! Use NotebookLM, SciSummary, ChatPDF, SciSpace, or ChatDoc to highlight, annotate, and even interact with your PDFs like never before.
🎙️ Q: I’ve got audio recordings that need transcription—any recommendations?
👉 A: Try Rev, Otter AI, Fireflies AI, MeetGeek, or Sonix. They’ll turn your audio into text with speed and accuracy.
🌐 Q: I use Chrome as my browser—any AI tools to boost my productivity as a teacher?
👉 A: Try Monica for organizing tasks, Merlin for smart AI assistance, Text Blaze for creating templates and snippets, Grammarly to polish your writing, Brisk Teaching for quick educational resources, Eightify to summarize videos, Quizizz for interactive quizzes, or Answer AI for quick research help.
⚠️ Tip: Don’t go overboard with too many extensions—it can slow down your browser. Pick the ones that meet your top needs.
📅 Q: I have too many meetings—how can I manage them better with AI?
👉 A: Tools like Zoom AI Companion, Fathom AI, tl;dv, Otter AI, Equal Time, or Fireflies AI can make a world of difference. These tools help you record, transcribe, summarize, and even keep discussions on track. No more missing key details or manually taking notes!
🤖 Q: What are the best AI chatbots to help me with creating lesson materials?
👉 A: You’ll love using DeepSeek for in-depth educational searches, ChatGPT for brainstorming and content generation, Claude for detailed lesson planning, Perplexity AI for instant answers with references, Gemini for interactive guidance, or Copilot to streamline your creative workflows
I hope you have found this list helpful. Please keep in mind that the goal is not to use AI for the sake of AI but to transform your instructional practice. If an AI tool does not add any value or does not change the way you used to do things in a transformative way no need to use it. We want to be able to operate at the highest level of the SAMR model!
