🌟 Announcing SchoolAI Champions: Empowering Educators Around the World! #EdTech #withSchoolAI

We’re thrilled to introduce SchoolAI Champions, our exciting new program designed to celebrate, support, and reward educators who are making a difference in their classrooms and communities through the power of AI!

🎉 What Is SchoolAI Champions?

SchoolAI Champions is an evolution of our beloved Insiders program—reimagined to offer more opportunities, more recognition, and yes, more fun! This new initiative is all about uplifting the amazing work educators are doing globally and giving back through epic prizes, a supportive community, and meaningful challenges.

We’ve listened to your feedback and crafted something that truly stands apart in the EdTech world. This isn’t just another ambassador program—it’s a celebration of your brilliance, creativity, and impact.

🗓 Season 1 Launches August 5 – Be There!

Mark your calendars: Season 1 officially kicks off on August 5. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this groundbreaking journey from the very start.

Each season will bring fresh opportunities to earn swag, share how you're using SchoolAI, complete creative challenges, and rack up points that unlock incredible rewards.

✅ Ready to get started? Fill out the Champions form below and secure your spot in the program.

🌐 Join the Champions Community Space

Community is at the heart of SchoolAI Champions. When you join, you’ll gain access to our Champions Community Space—a vibrant hub where educators connect, collaborate, and celebrate each other’s success.

👉 Join the Champions Community Space now

This is where you'll find exclusive announcements, seasonal updates, behind-the-scenes fun, and the camaraderie of like-minded innovators.

🧭 Seasonal Challenges, Real Rewards

Every season brings new ways to participate and shine. Whether it’s creating resources, sharing your classroom wins, attending events, or inviting new educators to explore SchoolAI—every action earns you points that can lead to real prizes and exclusive swag.

You’ll get to:

• Complete fun, themed challenges

• Earn swag and limited-edition merch

• Be featured as a Champion spotlight

• Win big in seasonal giveaways

🤔 Want to Learn More?

If you’re curious about all the amazing updates coming to the Champions Community, we’ve got you covered. Click the link below to watch a short video explaining everything you need to know:

🎥 Watch the update video

---

🚀 Let’s Have Some Fun, Together

The SchoolAI Champions program is unlike anything else in EdTech. It’s about recognizing the real heroes in education—you. Together, we’re going to build something incredible. So come along, bring your energy, your passion, and your creativity.

We can’t wait to celebrate with you. 🎊

👉 Sign up for SchoolAI Champions today!

Stop Freaking Out Over ChatGPT #EdChat

My feed has been swamped with all of these posts proclaiming that ChatGPT is great for education and that it will bring about the demise of education. Every take in between has been given as well. I've been around long enough to have seen this reaction with multiple tools over the years. There are plenty of people out there that are going to tell you how to use ChatGPT in your classroom or how to check and see if your students are using it to complete assignments. Much like the Force, it can be used for good or for bad. It is not all one or the other. 

Ugh.

Rather than spend a bunch of time coming up with a variety of reasons about why teachers should not worry about ChatGPT, I just had ChatGPT come up with the reasons for me. 

1. Lack of personalization: ChatGPT, as advanced as it is, cannot replace the personal touch that a teacher brings to the classroom. A teacher’s ability to understand individual student needs, emotions, and learning styles cannot be replicated by a machine. ChatGPT may provide a quick answer, but it cannot provide the human connection and personalized support that students need to learn and grow.

2. Limited scope of knowledge: While ChatGPT has been trained on a massive corpus of text, it is not perfect and may not always provide accurate or up-to-date information. Teachers, on the other hand, undergo extensive training and have a deep understanding of their subject matter and the curriculum. They are able to provide students with a comprehensive and well-rounded education that goes beyond just answering questions.

3. Importance of critical thinking and problem solving: Teachers play a crucial role in fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills in their students. They do this by encouraging students to think deeply about concepts, ask questions, and engage in discussions and projects that require creativity and innovation. ChatGPT, while it may provide answers to questions, cannot facilitate the kind of hands-on learning that helps students develop these important skills. Teachers should not worry about ChatGPT as they provide a level of education and support that a machine simply cannot match.

I will throw in another reason why people should stop freaking out about ChatGPT. 

Teachers were very concerned about essay writing with the introduction of the Internet. There was this fear that students would not create an original essay every again. I always found this funny, because any teacher worth their salt can identify a plagiarized paper from a student they have had in class for a small amount of time. It is not that hard to see that a student who has written at or slightly below grade level is writing at the college level out of nowhere. While taking credit for the student's writing advancement would be nice, teachers know it came from somewhere else. Either too much "help" from a parent or from an online source. The way this was addressed in many classrooms was more in class writing assessments. Will some students beat the system and submit work they did not do? Of course they will. Students have been beating the system as long as there has been a system. The overwhelming majority of students follow the directions, do the work, and are honest about it.

The big issue that many teachers do not want to look at is WHY students would choose to be dishonest with their work. Finding the root cause might require teachers to look inward at their curriculum and overall classroom learning environment and that can be much scarier than the thought of AI taking over the teaching profession. Food for thought. 

I used AI to create an image of what AI looks like in a dystopian world. Here it is. Kind of nuts right?

Hugs and High Fives, 

Nick

It's Just A Phase #MakerEd #EdChat

I was thinking about the phrase, "It's just a phase" the other day after watching someone say it on a show I was watching. The phrase is funny to me. It is said as if it is not a big deal, but I think that is wrong. I think going through a phase is a big deal and we should encourage students and adults to go through them. Follow me on my logic here, 

A phase is a time where a child is trying something new. This could be a new style of clothing or possibly a new type of music (90's Swing Music anyone?). They will explore this new identity or hobby and claim it is who they are now. Instead of telling kids they are wrong or they will grow out of it, I think it should be encouraged. Exploring and trying new things is not easy. This is something that should be supported because you will never know what you love or don't without experimentation. If you have taught long enough, you have seen students evolve over the years because they try on many different hats. It is a fun conversation to have with them when they get older because they, like many of us, are embarrassed by their phases. I have some great pictures of me with tremendous 90210 inspired sideburns. We shouldn't be embarrassed. We should be proud that we tried something out that made us happy at the time. 

As teachers, I think it is easy to dismiss new pedagogical approaches as fads or just a phase another teacher is going through at the moment. There are plenty of things I have tried that I no longer do. I'm not embarrassed but them. I use them as points of growth along my educational journey. They are examples of where I have tried something to better support my students. I either do it because it is great, don't do it because there is something better, or I don't do it because it does not work how I want it to. Not matter the reason, I tried it for myself and I'm glad I tried it. 

The next time you think that someone is just going through a phase, also think about how you can cheer them on as they explore something new. 

Hugs and High Fives, 

N Provenzano