A notebook for keeping track of the AI tools you use with students, and for noticing when they change.
AI tools change after you start using them. The company behind a tool can change who is allowed to use it, what it does with what students type, or which other companies see that information, often on pages most people never read. This is a notebook for keeping up. List the AI tools you use, choose how often to check each one, and write down what you find.
It works the same way for a teacher keeping a classroom record, an administrator or IT lead keeping a school's record, or a parent keeping track of the tools their child uses.
Each tool shows one label telling you how recent your last check-up is. It changes on its own as time passes. It is not a grade for the tool: what you concluded at each check-up is kept separately, in the tool's history.
The examples below assume a tool you check twice a year. A tool you check every month moves through the colors faster.
When a company changes something about an AI tool, it usually touches one of five things. The Language Firm tracked ten AI tools common in classrooms for four months. Most of the changes that mattered did not show up in the privacy policy. They showed up in age rules, school settings, lists of partner companies, and data settings. So it pays to look beyond the privacy policy.
Nothing to act on. Worth writing down, but nothing important moved. A new feature that does not affect who can use the tool or what happens to student information lands here, and so does something you already knew about.
Keep an eye on it. One of the five things moved, and you can say when and where. The notebook schedules a check-in in about a month. In the research, most of these settled within a month.
Look again now. The change makes you doubt the tool is still okay to use the way you agreed to. Read its policies again before you rely on it.
Most changes will not change whether a tool is okay to use. The notebook asks every time, and only changes the answer if you do.