In the summer of 2023, I started using ChatGPT to help with preparing materials for summer school. In August 2023, I met Kasey Chambers, and she bullied me into using SchoolAI. Over the next few years, I presented at numerous conferences, opened my classroom to whoever wanted to see AI in education, and pushed the platform to the limits (shoutout the engineers I spammed with requests). I have had access to SchoolAI 2.0 for a bit now, and these are some of my thoughts.

This is not a comprehensive review, but, following the launch event, I felt it was the time to share some of my early thoughts:

1. SchoolAI 2.0 has an incredible upgrade to the user experience and overall seamlessness of transition between chat and tools. I think my biggest takeaway from this upgrade is the ease with which newer users or people just getting started with AI will have on the platform. In my experience, this UX upgrade does not come with any detriment to power-users or those with more experience and established workflows with AI.

2. My biggest gripe with 1.0 was the experience for the user in Spaces. With 2.0, Spaces are no longer just text-based. Power-ups have been introduced into Spaces that now allow for more unique experiences in the chats. For example, you can add flash cards, doodle boards, a graphing calculator, presentation generators, etc (and they are working on way more). These power-ups change the experience of Space and are a welcomed upgrade.

3. Spaces are now easier than ever to create. When I first got access to the “Create your own Space” tool, I was creating insanely long prompts to make the Space function the way I wanted it to. The new Space creator scaffolds the long prompting I used to do. Now, you start with a chat that moves you into a rough draft of the Space. The draft will have different sections/stages where you can edit the prompt/requirements for each portion. You can also add the power-ups to individual sections of the Space. It appears I will no longer spend hours writing pages text for a prompt.

4. Organization now exists on the platform. You can organize and share Spaces in a folder system. If you are an organized mess like me, you are going to be very happy with this change. (Shout out Nate for making this organizational dream come true for me.)

2.0 is in beta still, but the upgrades to the platform are (as I said in my last post) not a demonstration of what they can do. 2.0 is a version of SchoolAI that was created because of teachers. Caleb said it many times yesterday: AI is not the thing. AI is the thing that gets us to the thing. SchoolAI listened to our feedback, and reimagined the platform to support what we wanted and needed.

… and they gave us Dot. I love Dot. ❤