The best AI tools for teachers

While we tend to think of generative AI as being for personal creativity or big business, there’s plenty of middleground between those points — including, of course, more generous pursuits like teaching. These are some of the best AI tools for teachers, whether you’re prepping lessons or correcting homework.

The best AI tools for teachers

You could in theory apply AI to many aspects of teaching, but the best applications are usually the ones we mentioned a moment ago. We should note by “correcting homework,” we mostly mean fixing spelling and grammar, catching plagiarism, and detecting AI-generated content — as useful as AI can be, students need to be able to write papers on their own.

• Canva Magic Write
• ChatGPT
• Copyleaks
• Curipod
• Eduaide.Ai

Canva Magic Write

Canva’s Magic Write tool makes it easier to draft text in the context teachers need it, such as visual presentations, lesson plans, and handouts. The tool handles not just writing but tasks like brainstorming, outlines, paraphrasing, and rewriting.

You’ll probably need to finesse the end result to get something you’re happy with, but that’s to be expected. The most important thing is that Canva is free to use on a basic level, and includes other AI assist options such as Magic Edit and Magic Design. Just be aware that on a free plan, you’re limited to 50 uses of Magic Write. Past that you’ll have to upgrade to Canva Pro, which costs $119.99 per year or $14.99 per month.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT might be an obvious choice for a list like this, but it’s the tool that kickstarted the hype for generative AI, and with good reason. It can answer questions, summarize reading, and help draft and proofread writing projects. As with Magic Write you may need to learn a few tricks and refine your prompts to get the results you’re after, but for a lot of teachers ChatGPT may be the only AI tool they need to bother with.

One underrated aspect is its usefulness in research and brainstorming, since it can quickly produce lists and outlines. With research, be sure to note your sources and doublecheck them — there’s no way to force GPT to pull from the most reliable textbooks and research papers.

ChatGPT is typically free to use, although you may have to wait in line depending on demand. To get around that you can subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month, with further benefits such as plug-ins, faster response times, and access to the AI’s latest language model.

Copyleaks

If you’re at the college/university level you may already be familiar with Copyleaks, which is regularly used to flag suspected plagiarism as well as AI-generated content from sources like GPT-4 and Google Bard. It can even spot plagiarized code, so if you’re teaching Computer Science, it’s a way of both catching cheaters and teaching students about open-source attribution.

You can try Copyleaks for free, but beyond the first 5 pages (at 250 words per page) you’ll have to sign up for a subscription that starts at $109.92 per year or $10.99 per month. The good news is that there are educational plans, so if your school approves, it may not be on you to pay.

We should note that while there’s an AI grading feature, it’s really geared towards grading standardized tests en masse rather than the work you whip up for your own class.

Curipod

Curipod is a straightforward tool for producing interactive lessons, complete with slides, graphics, and activities like polls, word clouds, and drawing prompts. As that suggests it’s mostly intended for K-12 classrooms, but you could probably make it work at the college level for some lessons.

What’s nice here is that the tool is entirely web-based, and even free to use for the most part, the main catch being a 1,000-character limit on AI feedback. You need to upgrade to a Premium, School Site, or District plan to gain things like a 2,300-character feedback limit and the ability to save lessons as PDFs. Premium is $90 per year or $9 per month.

Eduaide.Ai

If Curipod is too basic for your lesson needs, Eduaide.Ai takes things to the next level. The tool can generate more than 100 resource types, from simple grammar and spelling prompts to role-playing skits, resume creation, and mock budgets and business models.

In fact Eduaide.Ai goes well beyond lessons, offering help with things like administrative tasks and student assessment. You can also use it for brainstorming or knowledge questions if you want, though at that point you might as well be using something like Google Bard or ChatGPT.

When you try the tool for free, you’ll get 15 AI prompts per month with few options and limited feedback. Unlocking all the features we’ve talked about so far requires upgrading to a Pro or school-wide plan. Pro subscriptions are $49.99 per year, or $5.99 per month.