+1,000 responses in a poll is a LOT.
In Monday’s newsletter, I shared a breakdown of three K-12 AI platforms — MagicSchool, SchoolAI, and Brisk Teaching.
The newsletter included a poll where you could vote for the one you use the most — and share comments about it.
I shared the image above not because of who was in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd … but because of this:
More than 1,000 people responded to this poll. (!!!)
You shared LOTS of valuable feedback and ideas about how you’re using (and NOT using) these AI tools.
FIRST: In today’s 💡 Big Idea, I summarized and shared the comments that stuck out to me most — as well as common themes across those 1,000+ responses. (I also included your “other tools” recommendations — as well as your “concerns / critiques.”)
SECOND: This poll shows a bigger thing happening in our Ditch That Textbook family. (Can I call us a family? The “DitchFam”?)
You have a LOT to say and share … and it’s amazing. We need a better place to meet.
I love this newsletter. And I get to share lots of valuable stuff with you here. (Don’t worry: It’s not going anywhere.)
But we need a Starbucks … a water cooler … a teacher’s lounge for our DitchFam. We need a place where we can get together and share — and encourage each other!
We’re building it. And we’re launching it next week. And yes, it’s FREE.
(Peep the yellow box below for another sneak peek.)
Inside:
👨👩👧👦 Coming in 1 week: The NEW DTT Community
👀 DTT Digest: 4 resources worth checking out
💡 The Big Idea: Reader feedback on MagicSchool, SchoolAI, Brisk & others
💻 Tech Tip: Refine infographics using Canva “Grab Text”
😄 Smile of the day: The faces of state testing
👋 How we can help
👨👩👧👦 Coming in 1 week: The NEW DTT Community
A discussion in our community with 17 (!) replies!
Next Thursday, we’ll launch the new DTT Community. It’s a place where you can meet other educators, read what they’re doing in their classrooms, share your own stuff … and be a part of a supportive, innovative teacher community.
You’ll find discussion boards where you can read, post, comment, like, etc.
We will do live events — live streams, sometimes to gather and hang out, other times to learn together.
We’ll offer more formal online courses where you can learn from (and alongside) me and other people.
And it’s FREE. (Well, some of the more formal online courses will be reasonably priced … just like other courses we’ve offered … but the heart of it is free!)
We have +100 beta testers in there now chatting it up (see the image above, thanks beta testers!) and warming the community up for you.
It’s being designed by edu community guru Sara Candela and supported by DTT blog/social media editor extraordinaire Karly Moura (and me).
I can’t wait to open the doors and let you in — next week!
👀 DTT Digest
4 teaching resources worth checking out today
✍️ 50 free graphic organizers and how to make your own — Download/copy these graphic organizers, adjust as necessary, and assign to your students.
📺 50+ engaging lessons you can use in class tomorrow — Free video-based lessons (with pre-made lesson plans) offered by The Achievery.
❤️ Beyond “All About Me”: Community building activities — Strengthen class relationships in a way that students benefit all year long.
📋 15 Google Forms templates for teachers and students — Gather info, assess students … and use these templates to get you started right away.
💻 TECH TIP 💻
👆 Refine infographics using Canva “Grab Text”
Use Canva’s “Grab Text” to adjust text in infographics.
I’ve been using tools like NotebookLM to create infographics and slides based on documents and other text I’m working with. (Read our NotebookLM guide here!)
I’m LOVING it. But there’s a problem …
Sometimes, these tools don’t quite get the text right. And there’s no easy way to refine them with little adjustments.
That’s where I’ll take those infographics and put them in Canva.
Once the image is in a Canva design, click the image and choose the “Edit” button.
Find the “Grab Text” option.
Choose the text you want to adjust and click the “Grab” button.
Note: Canva will try to match the font as best as possible, but sometimes it makes the “grabbed” text look different. That’s where I’ll sometimes select all text in a certain section — or all of the text all together — so that it changes it all to the same font (so it looks consistent).
Adjust your text. Hit the “Share” button to export it as an image, a PDF, or whatever.
💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡
📢 Reader feedback on MagicSchool, SchoolAI, Brisk & others
You shared lots of ways you used various K-12 AI platforms. (Image: ChatGPT)
I posted a poll about the AI teacher/student platforms that you use. More than 1,000 responses later, you’ve painted a clear picture about how you use these tools — and how you don’t.
Here are the overall poll results:
Which of these AI tools do you use most?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 MagicSchool (379)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ SchoolAI (96)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Brisk Teaching (216)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Combination of 2 or 3 (157)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ None of the above (274)
The richest part of this poll, of course … was the comments.
After sifting through more than 1,000 responses, I’m starting to see some patterns:
You use MagicSchool to create the work.
You use Brisk Teaching to respond to the work.
You use SchoolAI for student interaction with AI.
(Not that these are the only ways to use these tools … but the responses keep coming back to these concepts.)
Here are some other things I’m seeing …
You don’t use just one tool. You’re building “tech stacks” with multiple tools for different purposes (even if you marked one tool in the poll).
When you marked “none of the above,” it didn’t necessarily mean you’re not using AI tools.
District decisions about tools play a big part in what you use — although it doesn’t rob you of choosing all together.
Let’s break down your thoughts about each platform we mentioned — and then get to some other interesting things …
Your comments about MagicSchool
Of the tools mentioned, DTT readers identified MagicSchool (MagicSchool.ai) as the one they used the most. In their comments, they talked about using it for:
lesson planning and content generation (which is a strength of MagicSchool!)
differentiation/accommodations
assessment/quiz generation
💡 A couple of common insights:
Lots of readers start in MagicSchool and refine elsewhere (Google Docs, your LMS, etc.)
They said they love the speed but know that it isn’t going to be perfect. The main idea: “It’s not perfect, but it gets me 80% there.”
👀 Some specific comments that caught my eye:
“It’s been the best tool I have found. Sometimes if I start in ChatGPT first and copy over to MagicSchool, I get even better results.”
“I have used this to summarize multiple sources of educational input for IEP's, identify accommodations, and create worksheets and other learning resources.”
“I use it for tutoring. When I am tutoring a grade level I have not taught, I use the AI feature to ask detailed questions about what is appropriate to teach to pair with what a student is learning, and it has been dependable for me.”
“I have just started using Magic School to help me assess writing, Yes, I am having AI help me to grade things. I upload my rubric to an assignment, make sure the language is similar or improved to my rubric, run the documents of student work through Magic School and then I go through each document's assessment and modify how Magic School assesses it, based on what I know about each writer. I'm trying to work smarter, not harder.”
Your comments about SchoolAI
SchoolAI (SchoolAI.com) was used less among readers like you — but the comments showed lots of very specific, student-focused ways you’re using it.
The student-facing AI chatbots (Spaces)
Guided conversations and tutoring
Creating more controlled, more structured AI interactions
Building AI into classroom activities (not just for teacher tasks)
💡 Some common insights:
You like how SchoolAI controls interactions with students (instead of them turning to major AI platforms with no guardrails or guidance).
Like MagicSchool, lots of you like to use SchoolAI alongside other tools, not just as a replacement.
👀 Specific comments that caught my eye:
“I like SchoolAI because I can control what the students see and how they interact with it. It’s not just giving them free access to AI.”
“I’ve been using Spaces with my students and it’s been really helpful to guide their thinking instead of just giving them answers.”
“The ability to monitor student responses and see their thinking in real time has been really valuable.”
“I don’t use it every day, but when I want students interacting with AI, this is what I go to.”
Your comments about Brisk Teaching
MagicSchool and SchoolAI have lots of similarities in how they work and how they’re set up. Brisk Teaching (BriskTeaching.com), on the other hand, works differently — and the way you talked about using it was very different from the other two. You’re using it for:
student writing feedback
grading and commenting
Google Docs / Google Classroom workflow
real-time student support inside their own documents
💡 Some common insights:
Lots of you use it inside Google Docs (and other tools), not as a separate destination.
You liked that Brisk meets you where you are (instead of switching back and forth between tools all the time).
👀 Specific comments that caught my eye:
“I use Brisk almost exclusively for giving feedback on student writing in Google Docs. It saves me so much time and still lets me personalize comments.”
“The Chrome extension makes it really easy to use because I don’t have to leave the document I’m working in.”
“It’s not something I use for lesson planning — it’s more for after students have done the work.”
“I still read everything and adjust, but it gives me a really strong starting point for comments.”
Other tools you mentioned
This post was really about the all-encompassing teacher/student AI platforms, but you mentioned other tools that you used to do similar tasks. They fit into some common groups …
Major AI platforms
Google Gemini (with school accounts): “My district installed Brisk, new to us this school year. Now I find Gemini the most used due to our district using Google Workspace.”
ChatGPT (for power users): “I’m a ChatGPT girl. I find you can get what you want from that.” / I have had better results using ChatGPT and giving it "rules"...”
Claude (with growing, enthusiastic support): “Recently I’ve started using Claude for lesson planning and am loving the content and UI.”
Other specific AI-driven tools
Diffit (for leveled, differentiated resources)
NotebookLM (for research and resource creation)
Flint (a different, growing edu AI platform): “Flint AI is the one I trust.”
Snorkl (a canvas + voice platform with instant feedback): “An awesome Flipgrid replacement (all of the benefits, including the addition of targeted feedback and no student faces.)”
Concerns, objections, and observations
Some of the “none of these” responses meant you were leaning away from certain tools. (And when you chose one tool, sometimes you told us why you didn’t choose a certain tool.)
Several of you have started using major AI platforms more often — like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude — and have veered away from teacher-centric tools.
This makes sense to me. In my own experience, I’ve found that if I’m proficient at prompting a major AI platform — especially if I have paid access to the best models — I get better, more tailored responses from them.
Several of you said that security and privacy concerns kept you from using certain platforms.
One reader shared: “My school uses Prompt Armor to evaluate how much data they are taking from the students. That helps us decide which tools to use and which ones stay away from.”
😄 Smile of the day
How many of these are you going to use (or suppress) in the coming weeks???
Source: Thunder Dungeon
👋 How we can help
There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:
Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.
Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.
Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!
