The AI Teacher Lounge

Hey there, friends.

Personal note: I am out here at Baylor University this week teaching classes for WeTeach_CS, so sorry for getting this newsletter out a little later in the day.

Okay, let’s get to it.

It’s that time again when we sort through the AI news and focus on what actually matters in our classrooms, labs, training rooms, and course design work.

This week, the theme is pretty clear: before AI can do anything useful, the foundation has to be solid. That means clean data, better access to information, smarter communication, and students who understand more about their own learning.

We are also looking at Smore, a newsletter tool built for educators. Hey, that’s what I use. It is not the flashiest tool in the world. In fact, it is not really an AI tool at all. But it solves a real education problem: getting information to families and students in a way they might actually read.

Let’s get into it.

Source: THE Journal
Link: https://thejournal.com/articles/2026/06/29/report-ai-impact-starts-relies-on-strong-data-foundation.aspx

What happened: THE Journal covered a new TDWI report that makes a pretty straightforward point: successful AI projects depend on strong data foundations. That includes data architecture, governance, access, quality, and management.

In plain English, if the data underneath the AI is messy, scattered, outdated, or poorly managed, the AI is going to struggle.

Why educators should care: This may sound like an IT department issue, but it connects directly to education.

Schools already depend on a pile of data systems: student information systems, learning management systems, assessment platforms, intervention tools, attendance records, behavior data, certification results, and more. Now vendors are adding AI features on top of those systems.

That can be useful. But AI is not magic. It is built on data. If the data is wrong, incomplete, disconnected, or hard to access, the AI output may be polished nonsense. We used to call this GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

And polished nonsense is still nonsense. It just has better formatting.

What to watch: When a vendor says their AI tool can personalize learning, predict student needs, or help with decision-making, ask what data it uses and how that data is managed.

Teachers do not need to become database administrators. But we should be part of the conversation when AI tools are making claims based on student data.

Source: Tech & Learning
Link: https://www.techlearning.com/learning/classroom-tools/what-is-smore-and-how-can-i-use-it-to-teach

What happened: Tech & Learning published a helpful overview of Smore, a newsletter and flyer builder designed for educators. Smore lets teachers and schools create digital newsletters with text, images, videos, links, calendars, buttons, forms, polls, and other interactive elements.

Why educators should care: Communication is one of those teacher tasks that sounds simple until you are actually doing it.

You need to remind families about dates, explain assignments, share resources, celebrate student work, post updates, and make sure people can find the information later. That can turn into a pile of emails, PDFs, screenshots, attachments, and “Did you see my message?” follow-ups.

Smore helps turn those updates into something cleaner, more visual, and easier to share.

This matters because good communication reduces confusion. And less confusion means fewer repeat emails, fewer missed deadlines, and fewer moments where you wonder if anyone reads anything you send home.

What to watch: If you already send regular classroom or program updates, Smore may be worth trying. Start simple. One weekly update. Same structure each time. Dates, reminders, resources, student highlights, and one clear next step.

No need to make it a digital theme park.

Source: eSchool News
Link: https://www.eschoolnews.com/educational-leadership/2026/06/29/we-need-accessible-data-and-greater-student-agency/

What happened: This eSchool News piece focuses on the need for more accessible data and greater student agency. In other words, schools need better ways to help students understand their progress, goals, strengths, and next steps, not just collect grades and test scores behind the curtain.

Why educators should care: This is where the data conversation gets very practical.

Student data should not only live in dashboards that adults look at during meetings. If we want students to take more ownership of their learning, they need access to information they can understand and use.

That does not mean dumping spreadsheets on students and wishing them good luck. It means helping them see patterns, reflect on progress, set goals, and understand what they can do next.

Good data should help students ask better questions:

• What am I improving on?
• Where am I stuck?
• What skill do I need to practice?
• What goal should I set next?

That is much more useful than treating data like a secret teacher spreadsheet hiding in a locked digital filing cabinet.

What to watch: Look for small ways to make learning data visible to students. Rubrics, progress trackers, self-reflection forms, goal-setting sheets, and quick conferences can all help students connect the dots.

Data is more powerful when students can actually use it.

This week’s tool worth watching is Smore.

Smore is not an AI tool, and that is perfectly fine. Not everything useful needs to have a robot hiding in the bushes.

Smore is an educator-focused newsletter and flyer builder that helps teachers and schools create professional-looking updates without needing graphic design skills. You can add text, images, videos, buttons, links, calendars, forms, polls, and other interactive pieces. Then you can share the newsletter through email, a link, social media, a QR code, or a website embed.

The reason it is worth watching is simple: communication is part of the work.

If families cannot find the information, students miss the resource, or staff members do not know what is happening, the best lesson plan in the world still runs into a wall.

Smore helps reduce some of that friction.

The caution is that a pretty newsletter is not automatically an effective newsletter. If you put too much in it, bury the important details, or change the format every week, people may still miss what matters.

My take: Smore is worth trying if you send regular updates and want them to look better, read better, and become easier to organize. Keep it simple, repeatable, and useful.

This week, I want to recommend TLDR AI. The AI Teacher Lounge is focused on AI news as it relates to education, but sometimes it helps to zoom out and see what is happening across the larger AI world.

TLDR AI is a free daily newsletter that rounds up AI news, research, tools, model updates, and industry movement in a quick format. It is more technical than what I try to do here, so I would not call it light beach reading unless your beach bag also includes a whiteboard and a suspicious amount of coffee.

That said, it is a useful way to keep an eye on where AI is heading outside education. TLDR also has newsletters across areas like data, information security, development, IT, design, and marketing, so if you are trying to stay current in the broader tech world, it is worth a look. Start with TLDR AI, skim what matters, and do not feel guilty about skipping the stuff that gets too deep in the weeds.

Send One Better Update

This week (or you know, when school starts up again), try sending one classroom, program, or department update in a cleaner format.

It does not have to be fancy. In fact, please do not make it fancy just because the tool lets you. That is how we end up with newsletters that look like a digital garage sale.

Use a simple structure:

• What we learned this week
• What is coming next
• Important dates or reminders
• One resource or link
• One student highlight, question, or reflection prompt
• One clear action item

If you use Smore, try adding one interactive element. That could be a quick poll, a link to a resource, a short embedded video, or a simple button that points families to the most important thing.

The goal is not to impress people with your newsletter-building powers.

The goal is to make communication clearer.

Bonus idea: after you send it, look at what people actually clicked or read. That little bit of data can help you improve the next one. If nobody clicks the giant resource section, that may be a sign to shorten it, move it higher, or give it a clearer label.

The best communication tool is the one people actually use.

I have been using Smore for newsletters for years, so seeing it pop up in Tech & Learning made me smile a little.

Smore is one of those tools that does not sound exciting until you actually need it. Nobody wakes up thinking, “You know what would complete my life? A better newsletter builder.” Well, maybe I do, but I am getting help.

Then you have to send updates to families, students, teachers, staff, or a community group, and suddenly a clean, organized, good-looking newsletter feels like a small miracle.

Communication is one of the invisible workload monsters in education. It does not always show up

in the lesson plan, but it eats time. You write the update, send the email, answer the follow-up, resend the link, clarify the date, explain the thing again, and then someone says, “I never got that.”

That sound you hear is every teacher’s eye twitch activating at once.

So yes, I like tools that make communication easier.

But the bigger story this week is data.

The TDWI report is aimed at enterprise AI, not schools specifically, but the lesson absolutely applies to education: AI depends on the quality of the data underneath it.

If a school has messy data, disconnected systems, unclear ownership, inconsistent labels, or poor access, AI is not going to magically fix that. It may actually make the mess harder to see because the answer comes out sounding confident.

That is the danger. AI can make weak data look official. That is why I think educators need to stay involved in these conversations. We may not control the database, but we understand the classroom reality behind the data. We know when a number does not tell the whole story. We know when a student’s performance is affected by attendance, language, confidence, home life, access, or a dozen other things that do not fit neatly into a dashboard.

So yes, let’s explore AI. Let’s use better communication tools. Let’s give students more agency.

But let’s also get the basics right.

Good data. Clear communication. Human judgment.

That is a better foundation than chasing the next shiny thing and hoping it grades itself.

This week in StackFord, I have been thinking a lot about the data teachers deal with every day.

Grades. Practice scores. Certification readiness. Attendance. Progress checks. Lab completion. Assessment results. Engagement. Missing work. Student confidence. All of it matters, but it can become noise fast.

The reason I care about this is because teachers do not need more dashboards just for the sake of dashboards. They need information that helps them make better decisions without requiring a second full-time job as a data analyst.

That is especially true in certification-focused courses. A teacher needs to know who is ready, who is close, who is drifting, and where the class is getting stuck. That data needs to be easy to find and easy to act on.

The bigger takeaway is this: before we ask AI to help us make decisions, we need to make sure the data is organized enough to be useful.

That might mean cleaning up gradebook categories, using clearer rubrics, tracking progress consistently, or choosing tools that show information in a way teachers can actually use.

Good data work now saves headaches later.

And possibly a few forehead-shaped dents in the desk.

• Is the data behind this tool good enough to trust?
• If the answer is “I have no idea,” that is not a dealbreaker. But it is a sign to slow down, ask better questions, and keep teacher judgment in the center.

That is all for this week. Catch you in the lounge next time.