Trying New Technology for Teaching

When I was a first year teacher, I spent most of my nights preparing for school. I had no structured curriculum to pull from, no resources left from a past teacher, and no coworker who taught the same subject who I might have been able to collaborate with. It was tough. That first year, to plan my classes, I pulled from my Professional Learning Network (PLN) at that time, which was mostly online resources such as Teachers Pay Teachers, and other classmates I had gone to undergrad with. This network helped me stay afloat.

Over time, my PLN has grown. Now it consists of connections made through both my undergraduate and masters experiences, many online resources, and now the connections I have made at my current district.

"My PLN Map" by Emily Vailliencourt

While I had some useful online resources my first year, I do wish artificial intelligence (AI) had come around just a year or two earlier. Now I can say that I’ve added AI to my PLN. Since AI became more widely known, I have been slowly learning more about it and how best to incorporate it into my lesson planning. With the development of these new resources, I have had to try a lot of new technology. The first AI resource I tried was ChatGPT, and it was great! Suddenly I had someone else to brainstorm with and help me develop activity ideas.

Recently I’ve been branching out and trying several different AI resources online. One of the first resources that stuck out to me was Diffit. One of the great things about Diffit is that you can design readings that are specific to your lessons and then differentiate it for your students. You’re able to type in a short description about what you would like and it generates an article that matches. But it doesn’t stop there! It can also give you a vocabulary list, multiple choice questions, and short answer questions all based on that reading. You then can also change the grade level to help differentiate for your students, which is great for me because I have a very large range of abilities in my classroom. These resources are presented in easily digestible documents that are easy to change.

AI Generated Article About the 5 Themes by Diffit

This is just one of the many AI resources that I’ve tried and enjoyed. Other honorable mentions include Magic School and Curipod. These tools of technology can be highly beneficial in the educational world. I think back to my first year of teaching, and I wonder: how much time could I have saved on planning if these resources had been available to me then? AI has helped me brainstorm and develop my ideas, speed up my thought and creation process, given me constructive feedback which encourages me to continue to grow, differentiate assignments, as well as taking emotions out of heavy parent emails. Overall, I have had a very positive experience with AI technology.

Even though my experience has been so positive, there are some downsides. One of the first things I learned when I began using it, is that I have to be very specific in my requests. For example, when creating a document on Diffit, if I don’t include the specific topics and vocabulary terms that I want to focus on, the outcome might not be exactly what I want. It takes practice to adjust your prompts in order to get what you need on the first try.

One of the other big downsides that I have with AI usage is the negative environmental impact. It is believed that the “industry is on an unsustainable path” with the current amount of energy that data centers use (Zewe, 2025). I care very deeply about the earth and taking care of it, so I can’t help but feel guilty sometimes when I use AI. I am hoping that with time, the usage of AI becomes more sustainable.

Technology is always going to be changing, and it is important as educators to continue trying new things that can make a positive impact in our classrooms. With technology, there are always downsides, however, by bringing awareness to these issues, hopefully overtime we can mitigate these problems.

References

Diffit. (2025). AI Generated Article About the 5 Themes. [Large language model]. Diffit. https://diffit.me

Zewe, A. (2025, January 17). Explained: Generative AI's environmental impact. MIT News: On Campus And Around The World. https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117