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Welcome to MagicSchool PD Day Session Recording 9/15/2025

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Welcome to MagicSchool PD Day Session Recording 9/15/2025

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MagicSchool PD with Alicia Grade PK-4- 2025/09/15 - Recording

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 MagicSchool PD with Alicia||Buckeye Valley Local Sch Dist - 2025/09/15 09:21 EDT - Recording

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Create lesson plans, presentations, quizzes, worksheets and more with AI powered apps for teachers. 

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‎Gemini - chat to supercharge your ideas

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Bard is now Gemini. Get help with writing, planning, learning, and more from Google AI.

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Why Artificial Intelligence Won't Replace Teachers

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Why Artificial Intelligence Won't Replace Teachers

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Artificial intelligence continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

For many of us, when we met ChatGPT for the first time, we started asking lots of questions ...

What can these AI assistants do -- and what CAN'T they do?

Will students use these to cheat?

How will this change the workforce -- and what we need to do to prepare students?

And, of course, the big existential question for teachers ...
Will AI make teachers obsolete?
I've been learning about artificial intelligence -- what it is, where it's going, what impact it might have on the world. I mean ... I even wrote a book about a book about AI for educators. (It's called AI for Educators.)

After all of the books and podcasts and blog posts and presentations I've consumed, here's my best answer ...

Nope.

Of course, all of this is up to interpretation (i.e. what does "obsolete" mean ... and in what context?).

But here are my reasons why I think we teachers aren't on a quick path to obsolescence thanks to AI:

1. Education is slow-moving.

The education institution is huge and slow-moving. Think of a barge. These enormous maritime vessels don't do ANYTHING quickly. If you need to turn a barge around, sometimes it has to travel more than a mile just to make the turn.

Education is like a barge. From the top down -- from lawmakers to state officials to school boards to administrators to educators themselves -- change is really slow. We're already starting to see some initial impact of AI on the workforce. But it's going to take a massive overhaul before we're going to see big changes in the policy, curriculum, etc.

We thought COVID-19 pandemic-induced remote teaching would cause us to level up our technology use and practice. But years later, lots of classrooms and schools (and institutions) are still doing business just as they did before.

In this case, inertia is our friend.

2. Parents still want human teachers for their kids.

Let's go back to COVID-19 for a moment. After all of that remote teaching, most parents couldn't wait to send their kids back to school. Remote learning was hard on kids and on families.

(Side note: It cracked me up that some parents called it "home schooling." I was like ... please ... you're not the teacher of record. You're just trying to help your kid with their classwork and to log on to Zoom. This is NOT home schooling.)

After we went back to school face-to-face, teachers were heroes. Parents were so thankful for the skill and patience we used to teach their children.

Of course, nowadays, teachers are in the crosshairs and are under fire about lots of issues. Unfortunately, that praise was pretty short-lived.

However, it did teach us one thing. The face-to-face human connection is something lots of kids ... lots of parents ... lots of families crave.

3. Education isn't an information delivery system.

If education was an information delivery system, we teachers would have been out of a job a long time ago.

We heard it with the internet. YouTube. Wikipedia. Khan Academy. Before that, it was encyclopedias ... and even longer ago, it was books. "If we humans have access to all of the world's information all of the time, we won't need teachers."

And what happened? All of these information resources have just been that -- resources. To be more specific, they've been resources that teachers integrated into teaching to help students learn.

I'm a fan of this quote attributed to William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." The inspiration. The relationships. The camaraderie. The experience. All of it is part of the education experience.

4. AI technology has a long, long way to go.

You don't have to squint very hard to see a vision of a future where AI plays a role in education -- and, potentially, a big, big role.

AI assistants like ChatGPT can, right now, explain complex concepts to us in real time. They can compose texts -- even prose, song lyrics, dialogue.

Add all of that to the ability to track data on what students demonstrate they know -- and what motivates them -- and what logically is next. The gears are already certainly in motion to create the ultimate AI tutor.

The truth, though, is that AI models still have a long, long way to go. As of the publication of this post, at least, they're still not very good at parsing real-time information from the internet very accurately. They're still fraught with bias, incomplete information, and hallucinations.

They're getting better quickly -- faster than lots of us ever thought they would. But they're still not there.

5. AI can't provide the entire human experience.

AI models don't know what it's like to see the proverbial light bulb go off when a student understands something.

AI isn't able to console a distraught seven-year-old with any level of warmth or compassion.

It can describe the experience of the light bulb moment. And it can offer you advice for consoling that seven-year-old.

People say that AI will become sentient ... that it'll have feelings, emotions, awareness. Really, all it will do is replicate the words that humans use -- the body language that humans use -- the motions that humans use -- when they are sentient themselves.

At some point, we humans see that artificial intelligence is phony. Even if it's good. We all crave that real connection with other human beings. And, as any educator will tell you, that true human experience is still a big part of the education experience.

6. Learning is social.

Let's say, for a moment, that all of human learning could be delivered through an AI tutor. (Again, too much "filling of the pail" and not enough "lighting of the fire".)

Think of all of the important parts of the school experience that would be lacking ...

Playing on the playground (and the lessons that come from it)

Telling jokes with friends (and what we learn about human interaction)

Being a member of a club (and learning the dedication and devotion to it)

Playing on a sports team (and the teamwork and persistence it takes)

A lot of the school experience -- and the learning experience -- is social. If we want to do it exceptionally, it's going to take incredible, enormous advances in AI, robotics, haptics and VR/AR to even get close to reality.

And at some point, you have to ask ... why? Why would we even do that? What benefit would it have to do those things artificially instead of with the human touch?

Teaching is a work of heart.

I've seen that slogan on t-shirts and magnets and cheap coffee mugs that students give their teachers.

"Teaching is a work of heart." In the past, I've thought it to be a trite and oversimplified way of looking at education.

These days, I think it has a new interpretation.

Think of all of the unique parts of human teaching and learning.

Tying a shoe. Opening a milk carton. Mediating an argument.

Wiping a tear. Giving a high five.

Giving that knowing glance that says, "You got it. You finally got it. I've seen you work and work and work at this. I'm so proud of you."

Teaching really is a work of heart.

Collaboration between humans and AI can help us take teaching to new levels. It can scale some of the work of the teacher so it's more readily available and accessible to students. I could even see big parts of the information-transmitting process fulfilled by AI tutors.

But having AI bots take over the entire education process?

Please.

AI can give us knowledge. It can fill a pail.

I'm not sure it'll ever light a fire the way we humans can.

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Why artificial intelligence won't replace teachers

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Artificial intelligence continues to grow by leaps and bounds. For many of us, when we met ChatGPT for the first time, we started asking lots of

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Supercharge Your Teaching with Padlet TA--9/15 PD Session Slides

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Supercharge Your Teaching with Padlet TA--9/15 PD Session Slides

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Supercharge Your Teaching with Padlet TA--9/15 PD Session Slides (Megan Ash Presentation)

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Supercharge Your Teaching with Padlet TA - 09.15.25

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15 Ways to Use AI to Enhance Existing Lessons

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15 Ways to Use AI to Enhance Existing Lessons

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AI assistants like Google Gemini can give teachers new ideas for existing lessons.

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MagicSchool AI YouTube videos

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Join thousands of teachers saving 10 hours a week using AI to help lesson plan, differentiate, write assessments, write IEPs, communicate clearly, and more. Free to sign up at www.magicschool.ai.

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How to Use a MagicSchool Tool One Pager 

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MagicSchool Teacher-Facing Prompting One Pager

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Explore a variety of prompts to help you lesson plan and do day-to-day tasks.

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Prompt Library - Lesson Planning - AI for Education

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We have a variety of prompts to help you lesson plan and do administrative tasks with GenAI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, and Perplexity.

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September 15th BVLS Professional Learning Day Agenda

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AI in the Classroom: PK-12 Professional Learning Day Agenda

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Session Overview & Presenter Information

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Session Overview & Presenter Information

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Welcome Slideshow

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Copy of BVLS SB29 Teacher Overview &Guidance--2_2025

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Buckeye Valley Local Schools AI in the PK-12 Classroom Professional Learning Day September 15, 2025

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Complete 3 in a row and become a BVLS AI Certified Educator. Drop off your completed Choice Board at the end of the day.

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AI For Teachers ChoiceBoard Challenge (2)

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Login Here to Register for the AI in the Classroom Professional Learning Day Event.

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9 AI Titles for Teachers from Teaching & Learning

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9 AI Titles for Teachers from Teaching & Learning

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Some reading about AI in education to help better understand its potential impacts and harness its capabilities

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AI Prompt Cheat Sheet for Fall and Winter

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AI Prompt Cheat Sheet for Fall and Winter

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Transforming Teaching & Learning with Gemini

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Transforming Teaching & Learning with Gemini

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Transforming Teaching and Learning with Gemini

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Is it time to get started with artificial intelligence? These 20 AI "first steps" for teachers will catch you up to speed.

If you've heard the buzz about artificial intelligence (AI) and want to better understand it -- and its implications on the classroom, guess what?

You're in the right place.

Generative AI (AI that generates, or creates something for us) has potential for lesson prep, for instruction ... even for student learning.

It's more than a "tool students will use to cheat."

But we also have to be careful. AI isn't without its controversies and concerns.

In this post, we'll share with you several "first steps" you can take as an educator to get up to speed with artificial intelligence -- to see how it fits and if it's something you want to use.

Read through the summary of any step that interests you.

Click the title of that "step" -- or the resource at the bottom of the "step" -- to dive deeper.

Some have videos and slide presentations. Watch or flip through slides to learn.

The post is broken into three parts: 1. Learn about AI; 2. Learn about classroom AI tools; 3. Consider AI's implications on school.

Let's get started with part 1!

If you're getting started with AI and want some foundational information about it, this is a great stop. This collection of resources -- presented by Code.org, ETS, ISTE, and Khan Academy -- includes video conversations with AI trailblazers and educators. The videos -- "Demystifying AI for Educators," "Transforming Learning with AI," and more -- will kickstart your understanding of AI and its implications on education.

Maybe ChatGPT (or other AI assistants) have caught your eye -- but large language models still feel like they run on fairies and magic dust. If that's the case, check out this video (7:21) where the CTO of OpenAI and a CEO of an AI company break the technology down. It's one of several videos offered by Code.org about how AI works.

3. Read this AI prompting guide slide deck

Once you try out an AI assistant like ChatGPT, you start to realize ... the better you prompt it, the better results you can get. Want to level up your prompting skills? Use this prompting guide slide deck (also embedded below) to learn the basics about interacting with these AI models that ChatGPT and other AI assistants use.

4. Compare the four major AI assistants

Ever since ChatGPT was released in November 2022, tech companies have rushed to catch up -- and to improve their own AI assistants. Lots of tools have come on the market, but these main four have proven to be the most capable to this point (all with a free and paid premium version):

So ... which one do you use? You don't have to pick just one. And you may find that you like one for certain tasks over the other.

The best way to find out is to use them. Try this: Open all four in separate tabs. Give all of them the same prompt (ask them to do the same task). Then look at the results. Once you do this a handful of times, you start to see how they respond -- and how they're different.

Bonus: Want to explore a different AI assistant that more accurately reflects the experience, culture, and history of Black and brown people? Check out Latimer.ai (with free and paid/premium versions). (Thanks to Dee Lanier for sharing Latimer!)

5. Ask an AI assistant for a unit plan -- then follow up with replies for more specifics.

Once you've tried out an AI assistant, you might come to a conclusion ... it didn't give you exactly what you were looking for.

That's OK! (If you feel that way, trust me ... we've all been there.) You don't have to write the perfect prompt to get what you're looking for.

If your AI assistant didn't give you what you need, just tell it what you want to be different and it'll change its response.

Important to know: Your interactions with an AI assistant like ChatGPT are like a conversation. You don't have to get the perfect prompt the first time. Plus, the AI assistants answer your prompts originally every time, so if you ask it again, it will likely give you a unique response that might be more like what you want.

A good place to start: Ask it for a unit plan about a topic you'll be teaching -- and then follow up with replies to get more and more specific. Ask it things like, "What would day 2 in that plan look like?" "What are some discussion questions I could ask my students during that conversation?" "What are some project ideas that would support this unit?"

PART 2: Learn about classroom AI tools

Presentation slides are a big part of many classrooms. Teachers and students face two common problems with them, though ...

Slides are time-consuming to create.

They're not very interactive for students.

Thankfully, Curipod ( curipod.com) can help with BOTH of these.

Just tell Curipod what you want to build a lesson about. Include any objectives or standards you want to meet. It'll create a short slide presentation about that topic with text, facts, images, and more. (And remember, AI helps us create a first draft, so if it isn't exactly what you want, you can always change it.)

And to make the lesson more interactive, just add one of the many slide types that Curipod offers, including polls, students writing feedback, word clouds, and more.

As a high school Spanish teacher, I've used LOTS of songs to help my students learn new language concepts. And I've written some short songs of my own. (No, they weren't any good ... but yes, they were effective!)

Why? Put it to a beat and it'll stick in your students' memory. Research has connected educational songs and student achievement.

Suno (suno.com) uses AI to create songs based on whatever content you choose -- and composes the lyrics and music in seconds so you can press play and listen.

Use it to write a song about something that happened in history -- or in current events. Use it to write a song about covalent bonds or the printing press or economics concepts. Or use it to write a special song on a student's birthday -- or to celebrate an important occasion for your students!

When students learn something new, we want it to stick. We want them to understand how the pieces fit together -- and how it connects to other parts of life.

MirrorTalk ( MirrorTalk.ai) creates instant custom questions about whatever students are learning. Then, it creates an in-depth AI analysis of student responses to show gaps in understanding or next steps.

Students tell MirrorTalk what they're working on or what they're learning. Then, MirrorTalk uses what students said to create questions for them to ask to dive deeper.

If you use Google Workspace, one thing you probably love about it is that everything is in one place. You don't have to hop from one product or app to another. All your Google stuff is in Google.

If you live your life in Google, you might as well add the AI superpowers of Brisk Teaching.

Brisk Teaching ( BriskTeaching.com) is a Chrome extension that adds a little "B" icon in the bottom right corner of your Google products. Click that little icon -- it's the Brisk Teaching button -- to open up all sorts of AI capabilities like ...

Create (quizzes, rubrics, lesson plans, exemplars, etc.)

Give feedback on student writing

Inspect student writing process (in the version history)

Change grade level of text

Turning students loose on a commercial AI chatbot like ChatGPT can come with risks. Many non-education AI companies aren't that interested in student data privacy. Plus, there can be no way to know how the AI is interacting with students -- or how students are interacting with AI.

Thankfully, there's a safer alternative -- and one where you can program the chatbot to interact with students in a certain way.

SchoolAI (SchoolAI.com) lets you create Spaces, custom student-facing chatbots that interact with students how you want. Write the instructions for a Space the same way you would write a prompt for an AI assistant.

When you give your students a link to that Space, they can interact with the AI with your specific instructions. Plus, you can watch a transcript of student interactions with the AI -- and SchoolAI will summarize your students' interactions.

Teachers can spend countless hours looking for the right image for a learning activity, a slide presentation, or a lesson. Now, AI offers a new option to save you time and get exactly what you want.

AI image generators like Ideogram ( Ideogram.ai) can help. Users create a text description of the image they want. Then, AI image generators like Ideogram create an image.

I've used images created by Ideogram for students to describe in my Spanish classes. They can be used to illustrate all sorts of concepts -- and even provide images for students to critically analyze to look for inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

Microsoft Designer (designer.microsoft.com) is a very capable AI image generators with lots of fun modes. But one of its features really sets it apart ...

If you create a prompt you really like to create an image, you can share it with friends -- and let them fill in the blanks to customize it for themselves.

Think of it as a "Mad Libs"-style prompt where you fill in the blanks with what you want.

It's a great way to get beginner AI users comfortable with generating images. It can also streamline image creation to save time.

13. Try out new AI features in edtech tools you already use

Lots of new AI-powered edtech tools have popped up recently. You can't seem to avoid the words "powered by AI" or "AI features" anymore. This has brought lots of new players into the educational technology landscape.

But pay attention ...

Lots of your favorite tried-and-true edtech apps are adding AI features, too. You just might not have noticed them yet.

Look around in Google and Microsoft products. But also look at other third-party edtech tools like Quizizz, Padlet, and others for new features you didn't have before. If you want new AI features, you don't always have to find an "AI app". They might already exist in your favorite tech tools!

PART 3: Consider AI's implications on school

Yep, this is my book ... and there's a good chance I wrote it for YOU.

It's targeted toward busy teachers who are just starting to learn about AI. In this book, you'll learn about ...

the implications of AI in education and in classrooms

practical ways AI can support teaching and learning

how to maintain academic integrity in the face of AI and cheating

the AI-powered future our students face (and how to prepare them)

You can find AI for Educators in paperback, Kindle ebook, and Audible audiobook on Amazon.

Are you in any leadership position in education and involved with decision-making related to AI? This FREE community / email newsletter is for YOU.

AI for Admins connects you with a community of like-minded educators who are trying to set students and teachers up for success in an AI world.

The AI for Admins email newsletter shares news, ideas, and solutions for educators by educators. The community is a forum-style discussion board where you can interact directly with other educators from around the world.
Join the AI for Admins community / email newsletter here.

Our students will face a future unlike ours -- especially with the implications of growing artificial intelligence.

How can we prepare them for this future? (Hint: It isn't just "teaching them more about artificial intelligence.")

Some timeless skills -- like emphasizing process over product -- and some new skills will set them on a solid path to success.

Schools are starting to confront the challenges -- and opportunities -- that AI presents to education. Lots of discussions need to take place.

But what specifically should we be talking about?

Sure, let's talk about behavior we want to avoid. But what does responsible AI use look like? How can we set students on a course to success -- academically in school, but also in life?

Let's have these conversations in staff meetings -- but also with students.

18. Consider how much AI use is appropriate in learning tasks

When AI tools like ChatGPT were released, one of our first thoughts as teachers was -- "Students are going to use this to cheat."

But how much AI use constitutes cheating? And in what ways should we encourage students to take advantage of AI? (Let's remember -- spell check runs on AI, and it's been standard in word processors since 1995.)

This graphic ( available as a PDF download here) shows a spectrum of AI use in a student writing assignment. The graphic can encourage conversations with students, with staff, and even with parents.

PS: There's a whole chapter about this graphic and academic integrity with AI in my book, AI for Educators.

Anyone who uses AI in their lives should be aware of the dangers. One of those dangers: AI might portray a world that doesn't exist -- or encourage a world that puts marginalized people at a disadvantage.

Here's what Rebecca Heilweil writes in this Vox article :
Humans are error-prone and biased, but that doesn't mean that algorithms are necessarily better. Still, the tech is already making important decisions about your life and potentially ruling over which political advertisements you see, how your application to your dream job is screened, how police officers are deployed in your neighborhood, and even predicting your home's risk of fire.

But these systems can be biased based on who builds them, how they're developed, and how they're ultimately used. This is commonly known as algorithmic bias. It's tough to figure out exactly how systems might be susceptible to algorithmic bias, especially since this technology often operates in a corporate black box. We frequently don't know how a particular artificial intelligence or algorithm was designed, what data helped build it, or how it works.

Education author and speaker Rick Wormeli writes that we should keep student learning paramount in a world with more and more AI at our fingertips.

In this article, Wormeli suggests that we keep eight principles in mind in classrooms and schools. They include: not short-cutting important thought processes for students, asking students to create a first draft on their own first, and revisiting what learning really means periodically.

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Is it time to get started with artificial intelligence? These 20 AI "first steps" for teachers will catch you up to speed.If you've heard the buzz about

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30 Ways AI Can Support Teaching and Learning

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30 Ways AI Can Support Teaching and Learning

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30 Ways AI Can Support Teaching and Learning

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Explore upcoming live MagicSchool teacher AI webinars or watch past sessions on-demand. Browse now!

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Activity and Lesson Plan Generating Prompts

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ISTE offers free resources and guides for educators who are interested in learning about how artificial intelligence can empower learners at every level.

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AI Snapshots

✏️ Grades 7-12 🧑🏽‍🏫 Teacher-led ⏱️ 180 x 5-minute warmups

180 classroom warmups built to spark debate, ignite curiosity, and build community!

Incorporates brand new, fascinating technologies like cow facial recognition

Built for innovative English, science, math, and social studies teacher

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✏️ Grades 7-12 🧑🏽‍🏫 Teacher-led ⏱️ 180 x 5-minute warmups 180 classroom warmups built to spark debate, ignite curiosity, and build community! Incorporates brand new, fascinating technologies like cow facial recognition Built for innovative English, science, math, and social studies teacher

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When using Padlet TA's AI-powered tools, the quality of your prompts directly affects the quality of the results. Here are some tips to help you craft effective prompts and get the most out of Padlet TA.

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Best practices for prompting. When using Padlet TA’s AI-powered tools, the quality of your prompts directly affects the quality of the results. Here are some tips to help you craft effective prompts!

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100+ ways to use Gemini and NotebookLM in education [Shared]