Developer Blog #14

Hi Teachers,

I hope you’re enjoying the wind-down to the year and are looking forward to the well-deserved holiday break. As 2024 draws to a close, we’re ramping up preparations to ensure 2025 starts with some of the biggest updates TeachersAI has ever seen.

Development Updates

No new additions to the site this week, but we’re eager to share some exciting news: we’ve brought on another highly experienced development team to help accelerate our progress.

This new team comes with a stellar track record of building and maintaining exceptional websites, particularly in the e-commerce space. While they’re new to the education sector, their expertise in creating seamless, high-functioning platforms is second to none. This partnership is a significant step forward for TeachersAI, and we’re already seeing how their fresh perspective and skills can help us push the boundaries of what’s possible.

As they onboard, we’re assessing how much sooner we’ll be able to deliver future updates, but we’re confident our timelines for early 2025 remain on track.

One of the highlights for next year will be the long-awaited schools account back-end system, which is progressing well. Phase one will allow schools to manage uploads through Excel, but we’re also working on integrating Microsoft 365 and Google account systems. This will make managing student uploads even more seamless for schools, saving valuable time. I’m already brainstorming ways to provide training sessions for schools on this new functionality, ensuring an easy transition for everyone.

Another major feature in development is the handwriting assessment tool, which we’re pushing hard to have ready for Day 1 of 2025. This will provide a much-needed solution for schools that prefer written over typed tasks, allowing them to benefit from TeachersAI’s advanced assessment tools.

Feedback from Early Adopters

Over the past year, we’ve been fortunate to receive invaluable feedback from our early adopter schools, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to see how TeachersAI is making a difference in classrooms. Many teachers have shared how the platform has transformed their workflow, saving hours of marking and allowing them to avoid those dreaded 2am marking sessions just to meet deadlines. This has allowed them to return work to students much faster—often the very next day.

However, one piece of unexpected feedback truly stood out. It came from Ashlee, a Head of English at one of our newer early adopter high schools. Ashlee highlighted something we hadn’t anticipated: the profound impact that rapid feedback has had on student engagement and learning outcomes. With students receiving tailored feedback so quickly, they’re not only able to act on it sooner but are also becoming more eager and motivated to improve their work.

Here’s what users at this school had to say:

“I can’t tell you the immense relief it was to give feedback to students within the same day, thanks to TeachersAI. It’s been a much-needed addition to our school.”
– Nicolie, High School English Teacher, Western Australia

“TeachersAI has been a game-changer for our school. Students are more engaged and eager to receive feedback, and teachers have noticed a real improvement in students actively applying it. The timesaving aspect has been a huge relief for staff—it’s truly like having the cavalry come in to support everyone!”
– Ashlee, High School Head of English, Western Australia

Ashlee’s insights about increased student engagement have been particularly inspiring for us as educators. Knowing that the tools we’re building not only save time for teachers but also improve educational outcomes for students is what drives us to keep pushing forward and to help teachers out.

As we continue developing TeachersAI, feedback like this reaffirms our mission to make education better for everyone—teachers and students alike. It’s your stories, challenges, and successes that guide the improvements we make.

If you’d like to share your experiences with TeachersAI or have suggestions for how we can improve, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Your voice truly helps shape the future of our platform.

Closing for the Year

As we approach the end of 2024, I want to take a moment to send our warmest Christmas wishes and holiday hopes to all of you. This will be our final Developer Diary for the year, as we hunker down over the coming weeks to focus on development and prepare for what’s shaping up to be a big year ahead. I’ll also be working on creating more training resources for schools that are coming onboard in 2025.

Looking back, 2024 has been an incredibly exciting year for TeachersAI. We launched our very early product, welcomed our first users, and worked closely with you to test, improve, and refine it. We even saw our first wave of schools join us, and your feedback has been invaluable every step of the way.

Looking ahead, 2025 promises to be a foundational year for TeachersAI. With the launch of our schools account backend system and features like handwriting AI, we’re gearing up to take the platform to the next level. We’re so glad to have you on this journey with us, helping to spread the word, save teachers’ sanity, and begin the transformation of teaching for the better.

Thank you for being part of the TeachersAI community and for believing in our mission. We wish you and your loved ones a joyful Christmas and a restful, well-deserved holiday break. We can’t wait to see what we’ll achieve together in 2025!

Cheers,
Stuart