There are new developments in AI in education every week. Our newsletter is here to keep track of, select and explain what really matters, so that teachers don’t have to do it on their own.
New lesson plan!
Creating chatbots based on historical figures. Teacher Ricardo Carvalho, in his Information and Communication Technology class, joins his 9th-grade students in celebrating the 50th anniversary of democracy in Portugal — at the Esgueira School District (Portugal). He shared with AI goes to school the lesson plans for the curricular unit in which students created conversational chatbots based on relevant historical figures who played a role in the April 25, 1974, revolution. The students researched, selected, and verified information to train the AI. In the end, their classmates tested the chatbots and provided feedback.
What teachers are saying
On the Critical EdTech page, researcher Neil Selwyn shares several interviews he conducted with teachers at different educational levels about their thoughts on the use of AI in the classroom, as well as their concerns, dilemmas, and enthusiasm. In the interview with Teacher Ben, we get a sense of the delicate tension surrounding the use of AI to provide feedback on students’ work, and how this might affect the relationship of trust between him and his students.
I’ve tried AI for things like student feedback and been very surprised.(…) So, I showed it to the students who were very impressed as well. And I said to them that morally I find that a bit weird. I’m not going to use AI grading with them. I want students to know that I’m working for them in terms of building relationships. I don’t want them to think that I just go home, press a button and the work gets marked.
I feel like a really important part of being a teacher is understanding your students and how they learn.(…) (Ben, Geography teacher, Brookdale High School, 30_10_24)
Selwyn, N. (2025, January 2). “The whole point is we’re trying to teach” – Pedagogical reflections on AI grading. Critical Studies of Education & Technology. https://criticaledtech.com/2025/01/02/the-whole-point-is-were-trying-to-teach-pedagogical-reflections-on-ai-grading/
Science
A scientific study by Tully et al (2025) reveals that lower AI literacy is associated with a greater propensity to use AI for all tasks, and to view AI as something magical, feeling a sense of wonder at its ability to perform tasks that appear to require exclusively human attributes. Efforts to demystify AI are important for its responsible adoption).
Tully, S. M., Longoni, C., & Appel, G. (2025). Lower artificial intelligence literacy predicts greater AI receptivity. Journal of Marketing, 89(5), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429251314491
Events
Next: On 10 April, we’ll be at the Education Summit 2025 in Guimarães, taking part in the Artificial Intelligence panel: Marta Pinto, founder of AI goes to School, alongside Nuno Gomes, CEO of Growappy, and Bruna Neto, Pedagogical Director at Professores do Futuro. Full programme.
Past:
Our first keynote of the year 2025 at Jornada Forum Schools & AI, Marta Pinto discussed ethics in AI and how schools can develop ethical approaches to the adoption of AI, involving the whole school community in the debate and promoting critical thinking when adopting AI in the classroom. Watch on YouTube.
We attended the 6th SEaD Conference – Artificial Intelligence and Education – on 11 March 2025, organised by the Distance Learning Section of the Portuguese Society for Educational Sciences. Watch on YouTube.
Marta Pinto was at the 1st Literary Festival of Penacova (Portugal), on February 21st, joining AI goes to School to the stage alongside researchers and school library teachers to reflect on the role of three powerful forms of literacy in the age of AI: information literacy, media literacy and AI literacy.
