If you’re an educator, a computer science student, or anyone interested in tech careers and worried about AI’s impact, I built AI & Your Tech Career for you. It covers the biggest questions, plus skills to learn, tools to use, free courses, great readings, and student perks. Check it out at aka.ms/nocap.
Some Background
Let me start off by saying I’m not a formal educator, not in the “this is my actual day job” sense of the term. I’m a Software Engineer at a company you’ve likely heard of, but I’ve been fortunate that my role often lets me step into an educator’s shoes.
I’ve developed and delivered STEM workshops, organized events, collaborated with nonprofits, presented to groups of professionals looking to grow their skills, and worked directly with students exploring tech and software engineering.
These experiences have deepened my appreciation for teaching (it’s hard), and more importantly, for the power education has to change lives. Not just as an ideal, but as something I’ve lived.
It matters a great deal to me that students, especially those from poor households (which was me in college), have opportunities to explore tech as a path out of hardship. And in that journey, there’s perhaps no greater influence than educators. They’re on the frontline connecting students to subjects that can lead to life-changing careers.
Right now, educators face a new challenge in AI. There’s understandably a lot of anxiety surrounding it, but blanket bans don’t really work, students always find ways around them. The moment they leave class, they’ll be using AI.
I recently came across a quote that captures this reality perfectly:
Once we acknowledge that Generative AI is here to stay and most people will use it in their jobs in one way or another (including higher education STEM instructors!), it seems clear that we must teach students how to use it. At some point in their education, students learned to print, and some learned cursive writing. They learned to type, use a word processor, and use a calculator properly. Similarly, a tool as impactful as ChatGPT should be included in formal, potentially discipline-specific instruction.
Fortunately, there’s a wealth of organizations creating resources specifically designed to ensure AI enhances, rather than replaces, human learning. Here’s a few.
AI Fundamentals
These resources provide foundational knowledge about AI, presented in plain language suitable for educators and beginners. No tech experience necessary.
Microsoft: 10 AI Terms Everyone Should Know & 10 More AI Terms Everyone Should Know
These two articles clearly explain 20 fundamental AI terms in plain language. They’re perfect for educators who want to speak confidently and clearly about AI concepts without feeling overwhelmed by technical jargon.
Free or Paid: Free.
MIT Sloan: How ChatGPT Works: A Non-Technical Primer
A video lecture from MIT Sloan, led by Professor Rama Ramakrishnan, providing a clear, non-technical explanation of how ChatGPT and similar AI models operate. Ideal for educators who want a deeper understanding of how these tools generate content, handle data, and manage bias without diving into complex details.
Free or Paid: Free.
Google: AI in Education Hub
Google’s hub of AI resources, specifically designed for educators. If your school uses Google Classroom and Chromebooks, this is a great place to browse to see what might already be available to you.
Free or Paid: Freemium (some features or tools require payment).
Parand Tony Darugar: A Completely Non-Technical Explanation of AI and Deep Learning & A Non-Technical Explanation of ChatGPT & A Non-Technical Explanation of ChatGPT: Deep Learning
A series of wonderful articles from Parand Tony Darugar that break down complex AI concepts into easy-to-grasp explanations. Highly recommended for educators seeking clarity without being overwhelmed with technical jargon. I’ve personally used them as inspiration for my own workshops.
Free or Paid: Free.
Microsoft: AI in Education Hub
Microsoft’s hub featuring resources, news, and practical advice specifically tailored to educators navigating AI. If your school has an Office subscription, definitely check this page out.
Free or Paid: Freemium (some features or tools require payment).
Segun Akinyemi (Me): From Padawan to Jedi Master to Whatever Yoda Was: A Curated List of AI Learning Resources
My personal list of AI learning resources for anyone looking to level up their AI understanding. Not specifically education-focused, but valuable if you’re an educator wanting to deepen your general AI knowledge.
Free or Paid: Free.
Anthropic: AI Fluency for Educators
Free, non-technical course from Anthropic on how to work with AI without outsourcing your thinking. It focuses on judgment and verifying what AI gives you, and the lessons apply to any chatbot, not just Claude.
Free or Paid: Free.
3Blue1Brown: Large Language Models Explained Briefly
Short visual video from 3Blue1Brown that explains how these models predict the next token (word) in a sequence and how they get trained. No math or tech background needed.
Free or Paid: Free.
Classroom Tools
Tools for bringing AI into the classroom setting.
Canva: Canva for Education
Easy-to-use design tool with built-in AI features for creating slides, graphics, and creative classroom projects. Unlike most freemium tools, all premium features are unlocked for free for verified K-12 teachers and their students.
Free or Paid: Free (for verified K-12 educators and students, Freemium for everyone else).
Minecraft Education: AI Foundations & Computer Science
Free, game-based lessons that teach students how to spot AI misinformation and learn computer science basics. When you have a room of students not all interested in working in tech, this sort of education is key. It’s the new “tech savvy”, being “AI savvy”.
Free or Paid: Freemium (lesson plans and Hour of Code/AI demo lessons are free, while full access to Minecraft Education requires an eligible Microsoft 365 Education account or paid license).
Code.org: AI Foundations
Free, ready-to-run high school curriculum that teaches core computer science and AI concepts in the browser, with no prior coding experience needed.
Free or Paid: Free.
Khanmigo, MagicSchool AI, & Brisk Teaching
Three of the most popular AI assistants built for teachers to help with lesson plans, rubrics, grading, and tutoring students without just handing them the answer. Check what your school district might already have access to before signing up on your own. If I were a betting man, I’d bet on Khanmigo in terms of which of these will have staying power because Khan Academy is already a well-established name in education.
Free or Paid: Freemium (all three have free tiers for teachers, but for your students to use them or to unlock everything, you’ll have to check if your school district covers it).
Privacy First Tools
These tools are built with privacy at their core, offering educators AI-powered solutions without compromising on data security.
Free local AI app that runs fully offline on your computer. You can drop in your own documents (lesson plans, student essays, policies) and chat with them privately without sending data to cloud providers.
Free or Paid: Free.
Basically the same thing as LM Studio but a different user interface, slightly different features, but same “download this one thing and now you can do private local-first AI on your laptop” idea. Unsloth’s desktop app lets you run and fine-tune models privately on your own documents, with nothing being sent to the cloud for training some company’s models, all without needing to write any code.
Free or Paid: Free.
Teaching Strategies
This section offers practical strategies, classroom assignments, and professional development resources to help educators integrate AI into their teaching.
TeachAI: TeachAI Toolkit & Stanford: CRAFT
Practical guidance and free, ready-to-teach classroom lessons from TeachAI and Stanford that help schools set AI policies and teach AI literacy across both STEM and humanities.
Free or Paid: Free.
Pamela Fox: The Impact of AI on Software Engineering Live Slides & GitHub Repo & Demos
Great presentation from Pamela Fox, a former UC Berkeley CS teacher who now teaches software and AI engineering at Microsoft. She breaks down how software is now built on AI and by AI, and shows CS teachers how to shift class time from typing code to problem design, system design, and checking AI output (mapped to CSTA K-12 Standards). Worth going through on your own time if you teach coding.
Free or Paid: Free.
OpenAI: Teaching with AI & ChatGPT for Education
Resources from the creators of ChatGPT on responsibly integrating AI into education. Seeing as they started what has become the challenge of the century for educators, it’s only right they’re providing some advice for how to navigate it.
Free or Paid: Free (guides are free, and ChatGPT for Teachers is free for verified U.S. K-12 teachers through June 2027).
MIT Sloan: Generative AI for Teaching & Learning
A collection of resources from MIT for using Generative AI to enhance education rather than destroy it. There’s some really good resources in here, such as their glossary.
Free or Paid: Free.
Microsoft: AI for Education: Educator Center
Microsoft’s hub for educators looking to bring AI into the classroom. Packed with training courses, guides, and professional development resources. Good if your school already uses Microsoft stuff.
Free or Paid: Free.
Deeper Dives
For a deeper dive into how AI is changing education, check out these detailed resources and expert insights.
Mark Russinovich & Scott Hanselman: Redefining the Software Engineering Profession for AI & Microsoft + Carnegie Mellon University: PRAISE Program
Software engineering legends Mark Russinovich and Scott Hanselman explain why AI speeds up senior engineers (“AI boost”) but trips up beginners (“AI drag”) who don’t yet have the judgment to catch AI mistakes. Paired with how Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are teaming up to mentor and teach new developers in the age of AI (so if you’re reading this please don’t give up on a tech career WE STILL NEED SOFTWARE ENGINEERS).
Free or Paid: Free.
The Atlantic (Lila Shroff): There’s Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science
Great piece on how colleges are adjusting computer science classes for AI, why we still need people who understand computer systems, and why some professors have moved intro exams back to paper so students actually learn the fundamentals.
Free or Paid: Free.
ETH Zürich (CHI ‘26): Computer Science Achievement and Writing Skills Predict Vibe Coding Proficiency & Anthropic Research: How AI Assistance Impacts the Formation of Coding Skills
Actual scientific studies show the fundamentals still matter. The first study proves that computer science knowledge and good writing skills predict who succeeds at vibe coding (which isn’t what you’re doing if you’re putting in effort, you’re doing Agentic Engineering). Anthropic’s study shows that leaning on AI too early hurts how well you learn the material.
Free or Paid: Free.
Stanford, Carnegie Mellon & Cornell: Stanford Course: The Modern Software Developer, Carnegie Mellon Course: Effective Coding with AI, & Cornell Course: Software Engineering in the Era of AI
Public university syllabi, slides, and reading lists showing how top CS programs are teaching students to build software with AI coding tools.
Free or Paid: Free (public course websites, syllabi, slides, and reading lists are free online).
Parting Words
There has never been a scarier time to be an educator. The way people talk about AI is rife with misconceptions, misunderstandings, and outright lies meant to scare, fearmonger, and overstate how good something is so OpenAI and Anthropic can get more investments. It’s just a mess.
The kind of frustration you see in articles like this one is widespread. But underneath it all, there’s a fundamental truth to the kind of AI we have in the real world, rather than the kind we expected from science fiction and movies over the years. It isn’t alive. It isn’t like Skynet or JARVIS from Iron Man. It’s not Artificial General Intelligence. And because of that, we still need human beings to be smart. To know stuff. To understand. And we need educators to help those humans get that way.
As some great person we can’t readily identify once said:
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
If you’re an educator reading this, don’t give up. Human beings are frighteningly resilient. We’re finding a way forward with AI and its role in education. As a software engineer who frequently does career days and workshops at universities, I can tell you students might be scared, but they’re not disheartened. They still want a part of building stuff with computers, and there’s still a place for them in a world where AI can generate text, images, videos, etc. So we need educators to keep heart as well.
Education’s primary focus, its heartbeat, its guiding light, has always been preparing students to thrive, pursue their passions, and build better futures. If that requires educators to learn and understand new technology so they can bring that knowledge back to eager, curious minds, then so be it.
Teach students what will help them thrive when the sense of “I have time, I’m just in school right now” is no longer there. Don’t shut yourself off to AI because it’s uncomfortable. In the end, it’s not you who will be most affected. It’s the students looking to you to guide them.
