5 Time-Saving EdTech Tools from GAETC 2025: What Actually Works in Real Classrooms
Class sizes are growing, grading piles are getting higher, and teachers need time-saving solutions that actually work. At GAETC 2025, I discovered 5 Time-Saving EdTech Tools that solve real classroom
I spent a week at the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GAETC), and my mind is spinning with all I learned. But here’s what I’m not doing: I’m not coming back to my classroom with twenty new tools that I’ll never actually implement. I’m not overwhelming myself with another giant to-do list of “things I should try” (as tempted as I am to do this).
Instead, I’m sharing five practical takeaways that actually solve problems we’re facing right now. These aren’t outlandish ideas that require a massive budget or a tech specialist on speed dial. These are tools and strategies you can implement this week. Some of them in the next five minutes.
And one of them is so simple it made me want to kick myself for not knowing it sooner.
Time-Saving EdTech Tools
Before we dive into the specific tools, I want to share something that reframed how I’m thinking about all of this. Epecially AI.
The vibe at GAETC this year was completely different from 2022 and 2023. Back then, we were still trying to convince teachers that AI was here to stay, that there were legitimate uses for it, that it wasn’t just a cheating tool.
We’re mostly past that now. Teachers know what AI can do and that it’s not going anywhere. And now? Now they’re desperate to find practical ways to use it. Especially as class sizes keep growing and the demands on our time keep increasing.
Here’s what hit me: Eric Curts (whose work I’ll link below) shared research from 1984 by Benjamin Bloom. Bloom found that if you could give every student a one-on-one tutor, you could move student achievement up by two standard deviations. That’s massive. We can generally only expect to be able to move them up one standard deviation.
And in 1984 two standard deviations was completely unrealistic. There was no way to give every kid their own personal tutor. Who would fund that one?
Fast forward to 2025. We have AI tutors that can work with every single student, adapt to their needs, scaffold their learning, and be available whenever they need help. What was impossible forty years ago is sitting in our classrooms right now. Often for free.
That’s the lens I want you to use as we talk through these five strategies. This isn’t just about making our lives easier (though that does really matter, too). This is about giving our students access to support that research tells us works.
1. The Simplest Tech Tip That Will Save You Time
To be fair, this one’s about you. Not your students.
And this is my favorite kind of conference takeaway: the kind that has nothing to do with a fancy tool and everything to do with “how did I not know this existed?”
I was presenting about Custom GPTs and demonstrating how to set one up. I was going back and forth between a Google Doc with my instructions and the ChatGPT interface, copying and pasting section by section, switching between windows constantly.
A teacher in my session raised his hand: “You know you can use the clipboard history, right?”
“The what?”
He explained that if you hit Windows key + V on a PC (or Command + 4 on a Mac), it pulls up the last several things you’ve copied to your clipboard. Instead of switching back and forth between windows, I could have copied everything I needed first, then pulled from that clipboard history for each section.
The room erupted with teachers trying this trick. So many of us were having that same epiphany moment.
To be fair, this feature is pretty new, but I probably wouldn’t have found out about it for a long time if it weren’t for that guy.
And it’s one of those tiny things that saves you seconds at a time, but we teachers know those seconds add up. And it makes you feel a little less frantic when you’re trying to get something done quickly.
Try it right now: Windows key + V (or Command + 4 on Mac). Copy a few different things, then pull up your clipboard history. You’re welcome.
2. Don’t Let “I Don’t Have That Tool” Stop You
Here’s a mindset shift that matters more than any specific tool: Don’t be afraid to adapt what you learn to the tools you actually have access to.
My presentation was about Custom GPTs in ChatGPT, which requires a paid subscription. ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month. Even though it was a paid feature, my session was full. Teachers are buried in grading and planning, and they’re desperate to figure out how to get some of their time back.
But not everyone can pay for ChatGPT Plus. Not everyone can convince their district to approve it. And that’s okay.
So while Custom GPTs were the star of my show, we also discussed workarounds:
How to create a prompt library so that if you’re using the free version, you can still save your best prompts and use them quickly
How Projects in ChatGPT (available on the free plan, and you can load up to five files per project) can do some of what Custom GPTs do
How Microsoft Copilot has similar features if that’s what your school uses
The principles behind these tools are consistent: how to structure a good prompt, what information to include to get useful feedback, how to think about using AI as a teaching assistant. Those principles work no matter what platform you’re using.
When you see someone sharing something cool, don’t immediately think “Well, I don’t have that tool, so this doesn’t apply to me.” Ask yourself, “What problem is this solving? What’s the thinking behind it? How could I apply that same thinking to the tools I do have?”
Teachers are incredibly resourceful by necessity. We’ve been making do with limited resources our entire careers. This is just another version of that.
Speaking of resources: I’ve created a Custom GPT Planning Template that guides you through building your own planning assistant, even if you’re new to this (I also threw in a link to my conference presentation on this sheet). It’s organized for easy pasting into ChatGPT’s configuration, and I’ve included a meta GPT that helps you create it in a conversational way. You can grab it in my Free Resource Library. You also might want to check out another Meta GPT Builder I made for you. My Custom GPT Builder for Grading.
If you don’t have access to my Free Resource Library, you can grab it (for free, of course) HERE.
Click Here to Watch: How to Create a Custom GPT Video
3. Give Every Student Their Own AI Tutor
This is the one that has the most potential to actually change what’s happening in our classrooms, especially as class sizes keep growing.
Remember that Bloom research I mentioned? One-on-one tutoring moves student achievement up by two standard deviations. AI tutors make that possible for every single student.
I use Magic School AI Rooms in my classroom, and I love them. I talked about it in this podcast episode. You can set up a chatbot that students interact with. Program it with specific knowledge, learning objectives, and guardrails about what it should and shouldn’t do. Then students can ask questions, get help working through problems, and have concepts explained in different ways.
Here’s what makes Magic School AI Rooms work for me: I get summaries of student interactions. I can see the length and quality of engagement. I can click between the summary and the full transcript. The system even flags potentially problematic conversations.
This is why I won’t use student-facing AI tools that aren’t designed for education. I need these summary reports to ensure students are safe and on task.
These bots truly act like tutors. They don’t just give students answers. They coach students through the learning process. They ask questions. They scaffold. They adapt to what each student needs.
You can also get creative with these bots. Turn them into historical figures that students can interview. Use a science tutor, a writing tutor, a math tutor. Preprogram them with your learning objectives and expectations.
I know some teachers worry that students will use AI to cheat or that it’s replacing human connection. But here’s how I think about it: I can’t be in seven places at once. I can’t sit with every student who’s confused and walk them through every problem. But I can set up a tool that helps them when I’m not available, and then I get to spend my human time on the things that actually require a human. The relationships, the deeper conversations, the moments of real connection.
Other options: Eric Curts has an excellent YouTube video about Magic School AI Rooms that walks you through setup. School AI and Brisk also have similar features, all available in their free versions.
4. Turn Any Website Into an Interactive Learning Experience
This Brisk feature absolutely blew my mind when I saw it demonstrated, and it’s now on my “trying this with students” list.
Brisk is a Chrome extension I’ve used before for creating materials and giving feedback. But this feature lets you turn any website into an interactive, adaptive learning experience.
Here’s how it works: You find an article or webpage you want students to learn from. Pull up the Brisk extension, tell it your learning objectives, and Brisk creates an AI chatbot that guides students through that content.
Curts’s demo at the conference showed an article about the butterfly life cycle. Students got a link to the bot, and when they opened it, the bot started with a multiple-choice question. Then it asked them to explain the butterfly life cycle in their own words.
Here’s the part that got me: When the student (me in this case) said, “I’m not sure, can you just give me the answer?” the bot responded, “I can’t do that because you learn best by figuring this out for yourself. But I can help you.” Then it showed emojis representing the life cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly, and it prompted the student (again, me) to go back to the article and read about each stage.
This is scaffolding in real time. This is differentiation at scale. This is something we’ve been told to do forever but rarely have time to actually do.
You can do this with any website. Primary sources for history, science articles, news stories, whatever you’re teaching. The setup is straightforward: install the Chrome extension, navigate to the site you want to use, configure the bot with your learning goals, and share a link with students.
I’m already thinking about how I could use this with primary source documents in AP World History. Instead of just assigning a reading and hoping students do it, I could have a bot that walks them through it, asks them questions, and helps them make connections.
Click Here to Watch: How to Make Any Web Page Interactive with Brisk Video
5. Canva Forms: Real-Time Feedback Without Leaving Your Presentation
I know what you’re thinking. I already use Canva.
Me too. I use it for graphics and the occasional presentation. But this is about using Canva in a way I hadn’t explored before: for presentations and real-time student feedback.
Canva just upgraded their forms feature, and it’s beautiful. You can create forms with gorgeous design (because it’s Canva) and embed them directly in your presentation slides. Students scan a QR code or type in a link, answer your questions, submit their responses, and you get all the data in real time. All without leaving Canva.
I’ve done real-time feedback before with Google Forms and I know people who use Mentimeter. But what I love about doing it in Canva is that everything stays in one place. You’re not switching between platforms. Students aren’t opening separate tabs. Everything stays integrated.
Here’s a tech tip that will save you frustration: When you create a form and embed it on a slide, go to the bottom preview pane where you can see all your slides. Click the three dots on the slide with your form. Then grab the link and use it to make a QR code or just share it in your LMS to take students directly to that slide instead of the beginning of your presentation. Then they don’t have to scroll through twenty slides to find your form.
Click Here to Watch: How to Use Canva Forms in Your Presentations Video
