TeacherServer is a collection of over 1,000 AI-powered tools created to support teachers. Rather than providing a suite of student-facing AI experiences, TeacherServer is focused on providing time-saving tools for teachers.
While you can likely get the same results using one of the main generative AI chatbots, like ChatGPT or Gemini, this site helps guide teachers through the process of creating targeted AI prompts.
You choose a tool, and then TeacherServer will ask you to fill in a few key fields that help guide the AI toward more targeted and effective results. If you know what you need and feel comfortable crafting your own prompt from scratch, tools like ChatGPT will serve you well, but if you want a little extra guidance or some help getting ideas for what you might ask, that’s where TeacherServer comes in.
TeacherServer is run by the College of Education at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and is completely free, with no ads or subscriptions.
How It Works
The first step is to navigate to teacherserver.com and set up your free account. You can log in with Google, Microsoft, or your email with a custom password that you generate.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll arrive at your user dashboard. This has a large customizable section in the middle of the page where you can organize your favorite tools. It also features a list of tools on the left-side navigation bar. That’s where you will find more than a thousand AI chatbot tools organized by audience and tool type.
At the top of the list, you’ll see a Welcome page that provides lists of the top tools used by visitors to the site. If you find the sheer number of tools initially overwhelming, the list of popular choices can be a good place to get started.
The Welcome page also offers a list of site benefits, where it states that TeacherServer offers unmatched speed because they use their own server. They also claim to offer full privacy and security, compliance with the U.S. Department of Education privacy and safety guidelines, and a completely free web experience.
Under the Welcome link, you’ll find a Search Tools page. You can search the site by keywords to find a specific tool, or you can browse the extended list of the most popular apps that appears on the page.
Appearing next on the left navigation panel is a PreK-12 Teachers section that is broken down into a variety of subtopics, some of which include: Science, Social Studies, Math, Leadership, and For Parents. When you click into one of these areas of focus, you will find all the tools related to it broken down even further into helpful subcategories.
For instance, by clicking into Science, you would find subcategories that include General Science, Biology, Chemistry, Earth-Space Science, and Physics. This structure helps to save the teacher time by guiding them directly to custom chatbots that will be relevant to their work and content area.
When you find a tool that looks helpful, click into it. When you select the Science Lesson Plan Generator, for instance, you will be prompted to choose a grade level; a topic, standard, or objective; and any specific instructions that you want the chatbot to consider when generating the lesson idea. There’s even an “Autofill” button that preloads each field with an example to help guide you.
Click “Generate Response” to receive the AI-generated lesson ideas. At the bottom of the generated material, you will find an open-ended chatbot field where you can ask for refinements or further information. This can lead to an efficient back-and-forth conversation and refinement of the generated materials.
There are over 1,000 different teacher tools on the site. To give you an idea of what you might find, some of the choices include:
- Worksheet Generator
- Text Proofreader
- Math Word Problem Generator
- IEP Goal Generator
- Critical Thinking Exercise Generator
- Group Work Idea Generator
- Quiz Maker
- Rubric Generator
- Vocabulary Based Reading Generator
As you move further down on the left-hand navigation menu, you’ll find a College Faculty section, which contains similar ideas for college faculty members. The next section, Interactive, provides interactive tools that allow you to upload a PDF, YouTube video, URL, or content standard. Then, based on the resource you provided, you can ask the chatbot questions or generate related content specifically linked to the uploaded material.
For instance, under the Chat with PDF feature, you can choose to get a summary, quiz, PowerPoint outline, vocabulary list, or discussion questions. Again, while you could do these things with any AI chatbot, TeacherServer’s value lies in guiding you through the process and giving you ideas about what you might want to ask.
A Thought Partner
Think of this site as a teaching thought partner and idea generator. It is there to help jump-start your thinking and get past the writer’s block stage of the planning process. In general, planning is probably the area this tool thrives in the most.
While this site outlines lessons and activities, it’s generally better at providing structure and ideas than the actual class materials. In some cases, though, it will generate materials.
The interactive “Chat with” tools section is valuable as well since it allows you to inquire about specific documents, videos, or websites. This can be a great way for teachers to get general summaries of longer source material. These summaries can save you time and allow you to filter through potential resources quickly. Once you find one that sounds promising, you can then dig into it more deeply rather than wasting time on less relevant materials.
You can do this with other tools as well, like Google’s NotebookLM, but TeacherServer provides this tool conveniently within its workspace.
If TeacherServer seems like it may have a place in your classroom planning, upon setting up your free account, you can start browsing and add a few options to your favorites menu. Any tools you find that are particularly beneficial can be shared with your colleagues using the integrated share feature.
AVID Connections
This resource connects with the following components of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework:
- Instruction
- Systems
- Align the Work
- Collective Educator Agency
Extend Your Learning
- TeacherServer (official website)
- 5 Teacher-Tested AI Tools for Beginners (Eric Curts via Edutopia)