Contributor: Nilushi Karunaratne
When navigating the landscape of educational technology in the new era of AI, educators find themselves presented with many tools. These tools, ranging from interactive simulations to AI-driven chatbots, serve distinct purposes. When exploring generative AI, it becomes imperative to determine which tools align with your specific educational objectives. This guide delves into various tools and platforms, examining their purpose and utility in educational contexts.
This guidance will help you gain a deeper understanding of the available AI tools and their application purpose. Understand the capabilities and limitations of specific AI tools. Consider and promote the responsible and ethical use of AI tools in teaching.
AI tool aggregators are platforms or websites that curate and organise various artificial intelligence (AI) tools, resources, frameworks, libraries, datasets, and other relevant materials in one place. These aggregators serve as comprehensive repositories for developers, researchers, and AI enthusiasts to discover, compare, and access different AI tools and resources conveniently.
AI Image and Art Generators and Editors
These are software applications or platforms leverage AI technologies, to create, modify, enhance, or manipulate images and artworks. These tools enable users, including artists, designers, photographers, and enthusiasts, to produce visually stunning and creative works with greater efficiency and versatility.
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DALL·E 2 is an AI system that enables users to create images and art from a text description in natural language.
Benefits
Create imagery for class presentations
Turning text concepts into imagery
Being a source of creative inspiration
Limitations
Risk of the art breaching copyright by containing substantial parts from another artist
Can misinterpret prompt
Fine detail can be of low quality
Iterating the same image, tweaking elements, isn't easily done
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https://stablediffusionweb.com/
Stable Diffusion is an AI art generator that enables users to create unique imagery from short text descriptions, also known as prompts.
Benefits
Creating imagery for class presentations
It can generate high-quality images from low-quality sources, which makes it a useful tool for enhancing old or low-resolution photos
It can be used to enhance specific features in an image, such as colours, textures, and more
It can be used for both static and dynamic images, making it a versatile tool
It can save time and effort when compared to manual editing
Limitations
It can be computationally intensive and time-consuming, especially when dealing with large images or videos.
The quality of the results may vary depending on the input data and the network parameters used.
It may not be suitable for all types of images, such as low-contrast or noisy images
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Midjourney is a generative AI-powered platform that allows users to generate unique artwork such as characters, images and depictions through short text prompts.
Benefits
Offers high resolution images - Midjourney can generate images with resolutions of up to 1,792 x 1,024 pixels, allowing more space and detail in the images created
Well-structured, defined and realistic images, making it a strong competitor among other AI tools such as DALL-E and Stable Diffusion
The Discord server, through which this AI tool is accessed, provides an active community where users can share their creations, ask questions, and receive help from both other users and the Midjourney team
Limitations
Requires Discord account
No edit option for the created image
Midjourney images are public domain and cannot be deleted
It is still in open beta version, so it may have bugs or limitations
It may raise ethical or legal issues regarding the ownership or originality of the generated images
AI Tools for Everyday Use
These applications or platforms utilise AI technologies to to help users with various writing tasks, including drafting articles, composing emails, generating creative content, and improving overall writing quality. These tools are designed to automate tasks, improve productivity, provide personalised experiences.
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https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot developed by OpenAI. It uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to answer questions, write content, summarise information and more, in a conversational tone.
Benefits
Copyediting and improving grammar, sentence construction and other language elements
Summarising information like your class or research notes
Generating practice or quiz questions for exam preparation
Translating text into different languages
Providing stimulus or generate ideas that you extend and develop
Limitations
Doesn’t reference/cite its sources
May generate false information (referred to as hallucinations)
Can be generic and lack true understanding of content area
Can misinterpret the question or prompt
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Microsoft Bing is a search engine with recently integrated AI-powered features. It offers web, video, image, and map search, as well as real-time chat and creation capabilities. Powered by GPT-4, Bing provides up-to-date information and citations.
Benefits
AI-enhanced search results provide more relevant and contextual results
Bing offers a variety of search options, including web, video, image, and map search
Bing's use of AI can help ensure that search results are current
Bing AI features are free to use
Limitations
Users may need time to adapt to the AI-enhanced features
AI systems, including search engines, may introduce bias in search results or recommendations
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Bard is Google's experimental, conversational, AI chat service. It is meant to function similarly to ChatGPT, with the biggest difference being that Google's service will pull its information from the web.
Benefits
Conversational Human-like Responses
You can use Bard for different purposes, such as creative writing, learning, research, entertainment, etc.
You can export Python code to Google Colab directly from Bard
You can join Bard's community and share your feedback and ideas
Limitations
You need a Google account and an invitation to use Bard
You cannot use a Google Workspace account to join Bard's waitlist
Bard’s self-learning means it absorbs the views and opinions of those who created the content it’s trained on
Bard can oversimplify complex discussions (e.g., a description of the theory of relativity) or misunderstand context (e.g., if asked about “the meaning of life,” it might not know whether to define the word or give a philosophical answer)
AI Research Tools
These are software applications, platforms, libraries, and resources are specifically designed to support and facilitate research in the field of AI. These tools provide functionalities that aid researchers in various aspects of research development, experimentation, analysis, and collaboration. They encompass a wide range of capabilities, from data collection and pre-processing to model training, evaluation, and visualisation.
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https://www.semanticscholar.org/
Semantic Scholar helps you stay up to date with the latest research trends in your field. It indexes more than 2 million academic research papers and can extract key findings from them in seconds.
Benefits
Semantic Scholar is free to use
The AI's ability to extract key findings from research papers can save researchers valuable time
They have recently introduced Semantic Reader, an additional AI tool for researchers
The tool is free to use
Limitations
While Semantic Scholar provides access to a vast collection of papers, it may not cover every niche
Researchers must trust the AI's ability to identify and recommend relevant papers
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https://www.researchrabbit.ai/
Research Rabbit AI can swiftly scan through vast amounts of academic papers, journals, and research articles, extracting key information and summarising relevant content. This feature saves researchers significant time and effort in conducting comprehensive literature reviews.
Benefits
It allows researchers to visualise papers and discover author networks using interactive graphs
It offers personalised digests of the latest papers related to the user's collections
It supports citation management and article summarisation
Limitations
It may not cover all the relevant sources or databases for a specific research topic
It may not be able to handle complex or ambiguous queries or provide accurate summaries of long or technical papers
It may not be compatible with some citation styles or formats
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An AI tool for researchers based on GPT-3. It can be used as an AI powered search engine to quickly find relevant papers and provide abstracts.
Benefits
It helps you find answers based on the questions you type in
Besides that, it also helps with brainstorming, summarisation, and text classification
Elicit is free to use and works in any browser
Limitations
You can try the tool out, but that requires creating a profile
Elicit offers a vast paper collection, but it might miss niche topics
It can save you time, but it is not a substitute for human judgement
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Perplexity AI uses OpenAI's GPT-3.5 models and Microsoft's Bing search engine to summarise search results and provide users with an answer to their query rather than returning a list of links. The information returned comes with citations, allowing users to determine the reliability of the information.
Benefits
It can provide fast and comprehensive answers to complex questions
It can improve users' critical thinking and research skills by showing them the sources of the information
Limitations
It may not always give accurate or reliable answers, depending on the quality of the sources it uses
It may not be able to handle subjective or ambiguous questions very well, as it relies on objective facts and data
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https://www.connectedpapers.com/
Connected Papers is a website that allows you to enter a paper identifier (such as DOI, arXiv ID, URL, title, etc.) and get a visual graph of similar papers in the field. Connected Papers is not a citation tree, but rather a similarity graph. It uses the concepts of co-citation and bibliographic coupling to measure the similarity between papers based on their citations and references. This means that even papers that do not directly cite each other can be strongly connected and very closely positioned in the graph.
Benefits
It supports papers from all fields of science using the Semantic Scholar database which contains hundreds of millions of papers
It allows users to discover the most relevant prior and derivative works, as well as literature reviews and state of the art papers
Limitations
It is not a citation tree, so it does not show the direct citation relationships between papers
It is optimised for desktop browsers, so it may not work well on mobile devices or tablets
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An AI tool for researchers based on GPT-3. It can be used as an AI powered search engine to quickly find relevant papers and provide abstracts.
Benefits
It helps you find answers based on the questions you type in
Besides that, it also helps with brainstorming, summarisation, and text classification
Elicit is free to use and works in any browser
Limitations
You can try the tool out, but that requires creating a profile
Elicit offers a vast paper collection, but it might miss niche topics
It can save you time, but it is not a substitute for human judgement
Elicit is free to use and works in any browser
AI Video Generators and Editors
AI video generators and editors refer to software applications or platforms that utilise AI technologies to create, edit, enhance, or manipulate videos automatically. These tools leverage various AI techniques such as machine learning, natural language processing, and deep learning to perform tasks that traditionally require human intervention or expertise in video production.
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Create videos with human presenters by simply typing in text. Starter plan: $29 for 10 minutes of video, billed monthly with an option of an annual subscription.
Benefits
It is very intuitive and easy to use, suitable for complete beginners
It supports over 120 languages
It has the best avatar quality on the market
It has many templates you can choose from to help you get started
Limitations
It only works in a browser
It is not clear how much the corporate plan costs
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https://research.runwayml.com/gen1
Gen-1 Runway uses images and text prompts to generate videos.
Benefits
Creating videos
Apply special effects onto your video (such as converting motion capture image into animation)
Being a source of creative inspiration
Limitations
Requires Discord account
Constraints of the Discord platform (generating multiple user content simultaneously)
Can misinterpret the question or prompt
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Colossyan can help you create engaging and professional videos for various purposes, such as learning, training, or communication. Colossyan also allows you to translate your videos into more than 70 languages and change the accents and clothing of the AI avatars.
Benefits
It can save time, money and effort for video creation
It offers a diverse range of AI avatars, enabling you to create your own custom avatars without the need for a real presenter
Limitations
It is still in beta stage and may have bugs or errors
It may not have the same quality or authenticity as human actors
It may not support complex animations or transitions for videos
AI Design Tools
These software applications, platforms, and plugins leverage AI technologies to assist designers and creative professionals in various aspects of the design process. These tools incorporate machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and other AI techniques to automate tasks, generate design assets, enhance creativity, and improve workflow efficiency.
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Tome enables users to create content such as presentations, portfolios, guides, reports and more. You describe the topic in a prompt and Tome will source the information and imagery for you to adapt.
Benefits
Creating content quickly
Templates that can be easily adapted
Limitations
Free trial has creation constraints
Requires fact checking to ensure accuracy
Doesn’t reference/cite its sources
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Slides AI it offers a variety of presentation types to choose from, including general, educational, and conference. This allows teachers to select the most suitable template for their needs and quickly create engaging presentations.
Benefits
Offers a wide variety of professionally designed templates for different purposes
Templates are crafted with attention to aesthetics and visual appeal
Allow you to jump-start any project
Limitations
Limited free plan, however can download up to five templates per month
Customisation challenges
There is a possibility that many people might use the same templates
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Galileo AI is powered by state-of-the-art AI models that have been trained on thousands of outstanding user interface (UI) designs. The AI learns from these examples and builds the UI that meets your needs. All you have to do is type a simple text description of what you want to design, and Galileo AI will generate a high-fidelity UI design for you. You can also edit the design in Figma, a popular design tool.
Benefits
Generate a complex UI in a flash, saving you hours of work and frustration.
Explore different design possibilities and get inspired by the AI's suggestions.
Rely on the AI's expertise and knowledge to create high-quality and consistent UI designs.
Limitations
Galileo AI is still in its early stages, and may not always generate designs that match the user's expectations or needs
It may not be original or unique. Galileo AI generates designs based on existing ones, and may not be able to create something truly novel or innovative
Requires signup to a monthly play
AI Tools as Tutors
These educational tools and platforms utilise AI to assist and enhance the learning experience of individuals. These tools can take various forms, including chatbots, virtual tutors, adaptive learning systems, and personalised learning platforms.
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TutorAI is an AI-driven platform that allows users to quickly and easily learn about any topic of their choosing. With TutorAI, users can learn about anything, anytime and anywhere.
Benefits
Enables voice command input
Accesses millions of resources
Easy accessible information on a large variety of topics
Allows user-interest driven learning
Good for self-learning
Fast query response
Limitations
Limited to text/voice inputs
Database relevance questionable depending on topic
Limited to English only
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Coursable is a personal AI study guide that helps users easily begin learning something new. It generates personalised courses by curating approved study materials from the web.
Benefits
Enables generation of customised study guides
Curated online materials
Adjustable course structure
Course research tool
Enables self-paced learning
Provides personalised online course generation
Provides convenience in new skill learning
Limitations
Not a professional course substitute
Relies on pre-existing materials
Study guide quality varies
No standardised content format
Requires user input
May not cover advanced topics
Sharing limited to PDF
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Yippity has the capability to transform any text or webpage into a quiz with ease. By utilizing the text entered, it automatically generates a set of questions and answers that can be copied and pasted into a flashcard app or quiz tool.
Benefits
It can save time and effort by generating flashcards automatically from any text or website.
It offers a free trial and a low-cost premium plan with unlimited AI question generation and superior quality.
It can help generate quizzes that test their comprehension and retention of the material
Limitations
It has a 2000 character limit for each text input, which may require chunking longer notes into smaller paragraphs.
It may not generate accurate or relevant questions for some types of texts, such as poetry, fiction, or technical jargon
AI Summary Generators
These tools are powered by AI algorithms that automatically generate summaries of text, documents, articles, or other written or video content. These generators can be used to quickly distil large volumes of text or information into shorter summaries, saving time and effort for readers who need to grasp their main ideas.
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Nutshell is an innovative AI-powered product that allows users to quickly summarize informative YouTube videos in a matter of seconds.
Benefits
Makes complex information more accessible to a wider audience
Particularly useful for students, working professionals, and researchers who want to learn about new topics without having to sift through hours of video content
Limitations
While they provide a quick overview, critical details could be missed.
May struggle with diverse accents, regional dialects, or non-standard speech patterns
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SciSummary is a web-based tool that uses AI to summarize scientific articles and research papers. You can use it by simply sending an email with a link, a text, or a PDF attachment of the article you want to summarise.
Benefits
It can save time and effort for scientists, students and science enthusiasts who want to keep up with the latest scientific developments
It can help users read between the lines and understand the main points and implications of complex scientific texts
Limitations
It may not capture all the nuances and details of the original articles or papers, which may be important for some purposes or audiences
It may not be able to handle some types of scientific texts, such as highly technical, specialized or interdisciplinary ones, that require more domain knowledge or context
It may not be able to summarize some sources of scientific information, such as websites, videos or podcasts, that are not in text format
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Genei can extract keywords and generate summaries by paraphrasing sections from PDFs or webpages.
Benefits
Quickly generate a summary of key sections
Find crucial information faster
Locate other research papers that might relate to your topic
Limitations
May provide inaccurate analysis or evaluation of a research paper
Requires a paid subscription
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QuillBot is an online platform designed to assist users in rephrasing sentences, paragraphs, and even entire documents. It leverages advanced AI algorithms to enhance your writing, offering suggestions for more natural and polished language.
Benefits
Quick and user-friendly paraphrasing tool
Multiple modes to suit different rewriting needs
Time-saving for rewriting sections of text
Note-taking on research articles
Effortless creation of source citations (MLA, APA, etc.)
Offers Chrome and Word extensions for grammar checking
Limitations
Offer only two writing modes for free
OpenAI GPT AI writing is not available
Character limitation for free as well as paid plans
Manual intervention is often needed
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Otter.ai aims to help people save time and collaborate better by providing them with accurate and searchable meeting notes. Otter can also identify different speakers, highlight key points, and add comments and action items to the notes. Otter can be connected to various platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Google or Microsoft calendar.
Benefits
Saves time and effort by automatically capturing and organising audio, text, and images from meetings, interviews, lectures, and other voice conversations
Allows users to search, edit, share, and collaborate on their notes with teammates, classmates, or colleagues
Integrates with popular platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Dropbox
Offers a free plan for individuals with up to 600 minutes of transcription per month and affordable plans for businesses and education with more features and benefits
Limitations
May not be able to transcribe accurately in noisy environments or when speakers have strong accents or dialects
May raise privacy and security concerns for some users who do not want their voice data to be stored or processed by a third-party service
May not be able to handle overlapping speech or interruptions well and may miss some important information or context
AI Tools for Lesson Planning
These tools or platforms utilise AI to assist educators in creating, organising, and optimise lesson plans. These tools offer a range of features designed to streamline the lesson planning process and enhance instructional effectiveness.
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LessonPlans.ai is an AI-powered lesson plan generator developed specifically for teachers, by teachers. Input a detailed description of the topic, grade level, and objectives of your lesson and have AI analyse your input and generate a complete lesson plan with engaging activities and resources to help students learn and retain the material.
Benefits
It can save time and effort for teachers who need to create lesson plans quickly and easily
It can provide a step-by-step guide for each lesson, making it easy for teachers to follow and implement the plan in their classrooms
It can inspire teachers with new ideas and strategies for teaching different subjects and skills
Limitations
It may not always align with the curriculum standards or learning objectives of the educational institute
It may not always include sufficient assessment or feedback methods to measure the students' learning outcomes or progress
It may not always account for the students' prior knowledge, interests, abilities etc.
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Copilot is an excellent AI tool for teachers as it can quickly generate handouts that cover everything a teacher and a student need to know about a specific topic, concept, or subject area. The AI lesson planner at the core of Education Copilot is perfect for generating quality, structured lesson plans for any subject, lesson, or concept, making it an invaluable resource for teachers looking to save time and increase productivity.
Benefits
It provides personalized and flexible learning plans based on the student's needs and goals
It has a free trial option and affordable pricing plans for different budgets.
Limitations
It may have technical issues or glitches that affect the quality of the tutoring sessions
It may not guarantee the student's academic success or improvement