AI for Schools

Last call.

Monday I'm starting a free 5-day series on an AI tool that helps teachers, parents and students make sense of documents, notes and information without having to read everything twice. It's called NotebookLM and it's completely free.

183 curious teachers & parents have already signed up!

Five short videos. Five minutes each. One practical thing per day. No technical background needed.

There's also a bonus day specifically for parents on helping children study.

If you've been meaning to sign up, now is the time.

Sign up link in the comments.

See you Monday.

I spent last week at the lovely Laerskool Garsfontein. Inspired by the parent & teacher workshops we did there, I am running a free 5-day online series on NotebookLM: a free Google tool that helps teachers, parents and students make sense of documents, notes, videos, voice notes and information without having to read everything twice.

Five short videos. Five minutes each. Starting 27th April 2026.

We cover setup, building your first notebook with your own documents, taking outputs into other tools, and real examples for teachers and parents. There is also a bonus day for parents on helping children study.

It is completely free. Sign up link in the comments.

A million years ago I attended a girls' school (Sekondêre Meisieskool Oranje), so walking through the beautiful grounds of St Cyprian's School in Cape Town last week brought back lots of memories.

Jo Brink from Techways invited me to judge the week-long AI Hackathon with their Grade 8 girls. The girls were excited to present and their apps were super creative.

Would love to see some of their apps appearing in the App Store one day.

If you have been putting off getting the paid plan for ChatGPT, we have some good news (if you live in South Africa!)

ChatGPT has launched a new pricing plan option for certain countries and South Africa is included 🎉.

It’s called ChatGPT Go and is R149 per month.

It differs from the free model:

10× higher message limits with GPT-5
10× more image generations per day
10× more file or image uploads per day
2× longer memory for more personalised responses

To activate, head over to your ChatGPT account, click on your name and select Upgrade. You will now see the new GO option under the Personal Plan.

Last period on a Friday is a tough gig but I am having lots of fun with these learners.

Schools are requesting AI literacy courses but who wants to watch a boring course where you had no say?

Generations Hermanus is being super innovative - we are creating, filming, starring in their own AI Literacy course!

Watch this space for the finished product 🎬

If your school is looking for AI literacy support that actually engages students, get in touch - let's chat about what's possible!

Thank you to ACSI for inviting me today to chat with their teachers about what AI can do.

This has to be one of my favourite photos 😂

It’s easy to forget just how special some of these tools feel when you’re seeing them for the first time. At one point I joked that I wasn’t hearing enough “wows” – just silence. One teacher explained it was because he couldn’t believe it was real.

Another told me afterwards he hadn’t realised he’d been “driving a Porsche all this time but only using first gear.”

I know I get super excited about AI tools, but Gemini's new Storybook feature... 🤯

I see so many amazing use cases for teachers, parents and students.

If you have two minutes, please watch my quick video where I test it out with my super spoilt dogs!

https://youtu.be/pVUXxDyq7Vo

Some amazing use cases:
📚 Create a story with a learner's name and their special interest to teach a new concept
📚 Ask students to create their own stories based on what they love

Remember you can upload meaningful images or simply prompt what you're imagining and it will create the visuals for you.

I'm particularly excited about giving this tool to students who might not have story books that represent them or have special interests that aren't always covered in traditional children's books (e.g. my daughter loves mushrooms and Charles Darwin!)

It's free and for now we can't edit the story (unless we regenerate) or change voices, but I'm sure that will follow shortly.

PS - ask it to create a colouring book as part of the prompt and see how cool it comes out!

Gemini Storybook Gemini's NEW Storybook Feature - Creating Stories 📚In this video, I demonstrate Gemini's brand new storybook feature by creating a story using a picture of ...

Last week, I had the absolute privilege to meet the incredible team at Khula Education.

They help over 6450 children and young people across 22 government schools in the Rorke's Drift area of KZN where youth unemployment sits
at 80 %.

We brainstormed how we can use AI to help with teacher tasks, created Claude Artifacts (that the children started using the very next day), used ChatGPT Deep Research to come up with business ideas and built websites on Gamma ready for sales. And of course we made some songs with Suno and used NotebookLM to generate some useful audio overviews and mind maps.

It was a life changing trip and I am in awe of the team! I can't wait to go visit again.

I'm not a fan of cold weather, so I was very happy to swap the Cape winter for sunny Durban.

Clifton School & Justin Bennett invited me to spend the day with their teachers and leadership team, talking about how AI is showing up in schools.

They already have a proper plan in place but as we all know, things are changing so fast it's hard to keep up.

Students pick up new tech in a heartbeat, leaving teachers to figure it out as they go.

Well done Clifton for having these important conversations and development sessions.

Last night, ISAZ (Independent Schools Association of Zambia) invited Joanne Brink (from Techways), Andy Cole (Trident College) and myself for a 60 min webinar. They're creating a community of teachers across Zambia to learn together about GenAI and how it will (and is already) impacting teachers.

We showed some AI tools that can help save time, gave our opinions on the good and bad things, and shared how we've seen schools implementing AI. Andy also shared lessons learned as he is integrating this at Trident College.

It's coming so fast and changing so quickly: everyone's nervous, not sure where to begin, which is exactly why we need spaces where we can ask questions and share experiences.