There is no doubt that AI is on everyone’s minds these days, and teachers are no exception. In order to help teachers understand some of the possible applications of AI in their field, OpenAI and Common Sense Media have launched a free online course called ChatGPT Foundations for K-12 Educators. It’s designed to demystify AI and offers examples of ways teachers can use it while also stressing the need to be mindful of issues like privacy and AI bias.
This short course offers teachers many ideas for integrating AI into the way they work, both in and outside of the classroom. Examples include using AI to assist with lesson planning or facilitating more productive meetings. The course demonstrates ways that AI can be used by teachers to increase their productivity and how it can be used to support planning and scaffolding as well as integrated into their pedagogy.
Piloted in schools with great feedback (the majority of participants having found it useful), this free training is a step toward taking the somewhat intimidating concept of AI and showing how it can be applied to the classroom. No ChatGPT subscription is needed—just a little time and an open mind.
As Leah Belsky from OpenAI put it, “adopting AI in education is a team effort, involving educators, tech experts, and organizations working together to enhance teaching and learning”. This course is just the beginning, with more tools and resources expected in the future to support teachers and improve learning outcomes for students.
For any teachers curious about how AI can support their work or any school districts looking to innovate responsibly, this is a great starting point!
What This Means for Teachers:
Demystifies AI
There are, of course, a lot of preoccupations over AI. However, it’s here to stay and the focus needs to shift to understanding it and its applications.
While it may seem daunting, the training breaks AI and its applications for educators into By explaining what AI (namely generative AI) is, how it works, and how to use it responsibly—this course removes a lot of the fear factor. Teachers don’t need a computer science degree to get started; teachers already have all the skills they need to make use of AI -, they just need to learn how to use it.
The course also speaks to teachers’ biggest concern - the ethics of using AI. This is key to overcoming the trepidations around the use of AI by ensuring educators know how to use AI thoughtfully and are aware of the issues of privacy and fairness.
Saving Time, Gaining Ideas
Ask any teacher what they wish they had more of, and the answer is always the same: time. Whether it’s endless lesson planning, grading papers, or trying to adapt materials for different learning levels, teachers have an endless to-do list.
This is where AI tools like ChatGPT come in. With the right training, teachers can add hours back to their day. Imagine creating a week’s worth of lesson plans in minutes or using AI to brainstorm fresh ideas for keeping students engaged. ChatGPT even lets you grade papers 1 at a time. EssayGrader takes this to the next level by letting you do this with an entire class’s submissions instantly.
The best part of this course? It doesn’t just show you what AI can do; it teaches you how to use it in ways that save time and spark creativity.
Early feedback from the course is already promising—98% of educators found new strategies they could apply immediately. That’s huge! It means teachers aren’t just learning about AI in theory—they’re walking away with practical tools to immediately make their classrooms better.
Understanding AI Grading
For many educators, the challenge isn’t just about time or tech—it’s trust. AI is still relatively new in education, and teachers might worry they’ll “mess it up” or that it won’t give accurate results. This is true if educators aren’t using the right type of AI.
When it comes to something as important as grading, accuracy and fairness are paramount, and teachers may fear that AI might overlook nuances in student work or apply unfair standards. But with the right tools—like EssayGrader, which is designed with accuracy and teacher oversight in mind—AI can actually help increase trust in the grading process. It can handle the heavy lifting of initial assessments, flagging issues like consistency or clarity, while still allowing educators to review and adjust the final feedback.
What This Means for EdTech
Breaking Down Barriers
One of the most exciting things about this course is its accessibility—it’s free and doesn’t require you to pay for subscriptions. That’s a big deal because it means teachers from all kinds of schools, whether urban, rural, well-funded, or resource-strapped, can benefit from it. OpenAI is sending a clear message: AI isn’t just for elite institutions or tech-savvy educators, it’s for everyone. This move could inspire a broader push for equity in education, especially as AI tools become more integral to the classroom.
As for the Edtech industry, a 2023 survey by HolonIQ found that global EdTech investments reached $16.5 billion, with much of that funding focused on AI-driven tools. While the growth of Edtech looks promising, free resources like this course help close the knowledge gap, ensuring that more educators can confidently adopt AI regardless of their school’s budget or resources. Once more educators adapt and get used to AI, they will likely opt for specialized plans and tools that they can rely on.
Setting the Standard
This partnership between OpenAI and Common Sense Media sets a powerful precedent. It shows that tech companies and educational organizations can work together to introduce AI in a way that’s thoughtful, ethical, and accessible. Other EdTech companies will likely take note, potentially leading to a wave of new initiatives aimed at empowering teachers and students through the use of AI.
For example, as schools adopt tools like AI tutoring, personalized learning platforms, and automated assessment systems, companies may start offering more free trials, open-source tools, and training programs. The idea is to make sure educators aren’t just handed tech but are also supported in understanding how to use it effectively.
Stay tuned for some updates from EssayGrader, we’re working behind the scenes to build more tools and resources to help teachers even more 💜
A Glimpse of What’s Next
This course feels like just the beginning. OpenAI has hinted that more tools and collaborations are on the horizon, which raises exciting possibilities for the future of EdTech. Here are a few trends we might see:
- Integrated AI Systems: Similar to EssayGrader, more tools that combine AI with classroom needs will emerge.
- Student-Centered AI: Tools that adapt not just to a teacher’s needs but also to individual student learning styles, helping to close achievement gaps.
- Focus on Digital Equity: With around 39% of low-income households lacking reliable internet access in the U.S., EdTech companies may increasingly prioritize offline-friendly tools and mobile-based solutions to ensure no student is left behind.
The Difference Between This Course and EssayGrader
The ChatGPT Foundations for K-12 Educators course demonstrates how to make use of ChatGPTs general functionality in the education context. In contrast, EssayGrader was developed by and for teachers specifically to assist teachers with one of their most time consuming responsibilities, grading essays.
The ChatGPT Foundations for K-12 Educators provides a helpful overview of generative AI. It’s designed to help educators understand how ChatGPT can be leveraged to assist with various aspects of teaching, from lesson planning to brainstorming creative classroom activities. It focuses on building confidence in using ChatGPT AI as a general-purpose tool to enhance teaching.
EssayGrader, on the other hand, is a dedicated grading platform specifically tailored to assist with assessing student writing, creating feedback, creating rubrics for better grading, and more. It’s built to address one of the most time-consuming tasks for teachers: providing meaningful, constructive feedback on written work. Unlike ChatGPT, which can support grading but isn’t solely designed for it, EssayGrader zeroes in on the nuances of grading, offering detailed insights and structured feedback while still allowing teachers to have the final say when it comes to evaluations.
Using ChatGPT by itself to grade essays will result in inconsistent grading, but the same tool you use in your classrooms everyday - a rubric - can improve your results. Teachers have had success creating their own process to use rubrics with ChatGPT to grade their students’ essays, but this is hard to replicate across a department or school board. A solution like EssayGrader solves this problem by taking the guess work out of the process and allowing you to use the same rubrics and grading approach for every teacher in your school or district.
While this course helps educators integrate ChatGPT into their work, it is hard to set up a grading workflow for ChatGPT yourself without a significant investment of time and effort. Additionally, needing to download essays from an LMS like Google Classroom, Canvas or Schoology to grade with ChatGPT adds more complications to the process.
With EssayGrader, you can skip the grueling work and steps involved in grading papers with ChatGPT and get started with AI grading instantly.
By combining the insights from the ChatGPT course with a purpose-built platform like EssayGrader, teachers can fully harness the potential of AI to save time, reduce stress, and focus on what matters most—supporting their students. Together, they’re a powerful duo for transforming classroom workflows.
The Big Picture:
AI isn’t a fad, it’s here to stay. Rather than avoiding it, educators should understand that it has the potential of making their lives easier, helping students learn more effectively, and building a bridge between traditional education and the tech-driven future we’re all stepping into. For teachers, this is a chance to lead the way in innovation. For EdTech, it’s a call to design tools that genuinely help educators and students thrive.
The growing availability of resources designed to empower educators, such as the ChatGPT Foundations for K-12 Educators course and specialized platforms like EssayGrader ensure that the future of Edtech looks bright. While the course helps educators understand AI tools and how to integrate them into their work, EssayGrader offers immediate value without the learning curve. You don’t need to learn how AI works to benefit from EssayGrader. It’s designed to be intuitive and give teachers a reliable way to streamline grading right out of the box.
The future of education is here. It’s time for educators to embrace AI and its applications in the education sector, including by integrating EssayGrader and other AI tools into their work.
