Back to school: AI edition 🍎

Hey AI Puppies,

Student or not, we’re firm believers that the back-to-school season is an opportunity for everyone – from business owners to parents to recent college grads – to bask in the feeling of a fresh start 🍂

But this time around, there’s something new in the back-to-school toolbox just waiting to be put into action 👀

Are you thinking what we’re thinking? That’s right: Generative AI is here to shake up the way we learn as students and organize as parents.

In this edition of the AI Puppy newsletter, we’re exploring AI applications on three fronts:

👉 Tools for staying organized as your family settles into a new routine

👉 AIs that can help you help your child with schoolwork

👉 How to leverage AI to improve any learning objectives of your own

After all, we are called the AI Puppy for a reason – to training school we go!

Reclaim Your Routine With AI

If you manage a household with growing children, we’re willing to bet that with back to school comes some much-needed peace and quiet 🙏 

But in order to keep things running smoothly throughout the school year, it’s important to set up a routine that keeps your kids organized – especially if you’re short on time these days.

Let’s take a look at two ChatGPT prompts and one AI tool that make life easier for busy families!

🍽️ First up: meal planning. To spend less time at the grocery store and ensure everyone’s happy come dinner time, try a prompt like this:

“I would like a dinner only meal plan for 7 days for a family of 6. The meals should be healthy and easy to make. One of the kids in our family is allergic to peanuts. Can you provide a plan with complete step by step recipes and a grocery shopping list for every ingredient.”

We entered this exact prompt into ChatGPT, and got:

📅 Next up: scheduling. Can’t settle on a schedule that accommodates every school drop-off, soccer practice, tutoring session, and playdate?

Head over to ChatGPT, and ask for a weekly schedule recommendation.

We entered:

“Generate a daily school day schedule for each of my three children. The oldest needs to be leaving by 7:10, the middle needs to be outside for the school bus at 7:30, and the youngest needs to be in the car by 7:40. They all need 45 minutes to wake up, get ready, and eat breakfast. The oldest gets back at 4:30 and the middle and youngest get dropped off at 3:15 but need to be leaving for sports practice by 3:45. Include wake up times, 30 minutes for chores, and one hour for homework, and a good time for everyone to eat dinner together.”

And got…

🗄️ Finally: Quivr (again). Having multiple children in school means receiving and sending paperwork – lots and lots of paperwork. Need a better way to organize it this year?

We’ve recommended Quivr before for general productivity, but it has plenty of potential for parents, too!

The cloud-based AI allows you to upload any type of document into a massive folder, then ask a chatbot to source specific information from your own documents.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

Get ready to never lose track of permission slips, study guides, and field trip dates again 👏 

Help Your Little Ones Learn

When you have kids who need help with homework, you’re basically taking their classes alongside them 🙃

Let’s run through three AIs to make this scenario easier for both you and your little one:

🧠 First up: step-by-step explanations. If you can’t crack the code on a homework question, don’t panic – just pull up ChatGPT and ask for a step-by-step explanation of how to get the final answer.

You obviously don’t want to show your child the answer, but using ChatGPT’s insight, you can explain the concept to your child in a way that makes sense for them.

For example, we entered a challenging SAT practice question and added “explain your reasoning for choosing that answer”

📚 Next up: catch up on a lengthy reading. Although we very much believe your child should do their own assigned reading, if you need to help them with an assignment, you likely don’t have time to read anything yourself.

Next time you’re in that situation, pull up genei.io, an AI that summarizes background readings in seconds:

📖 Finally: make a study guide. When final exams roll around, you might very well be tasked with helping your child study.

If you have some extra time on your hands to help them out, take a look at Study Fetch, an AI that generates interactive flashcards and quizzes based on PDFs:

Your student will learn more by making their own study guides, but in a pinch, it doesn’t hurt to save the day with ready-made materials!

Learn Something New Yourself

Missing the student life? AI makes learning something new so easy, you can tap into the magic of back-to-school season whenever you’d like!

Here’s a ChatGPT prompt we found on TikTok from @TheAutonomousNomad:

“I want to learn digital marketing. I am a complete beginner. My goal is to be able to effectively market online for a business. I am willing to devote one hour per day to learning this new skill 5 days per week. My preferred learning style is reading and watching videos. Please create a 6 week course curriculum to follow including tutoring and learning resources”

We entered this directly into ChatGPT – here are the first four weeks it gave us:

Happy training, puppies 🎉

Your Next Assignment

📲 As usual, we challenge you to try one of the tactics above and share your experience with a tag on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, or TikTok 📲

We share updates and experiments of our own there, too, so be sure to follow along to check out the latest 👀

Oh, and we still want to know your dream newsletter topic! Send us a quick message and tell us what AI applications you’d like to learn more about at [email protected].

Best of luck with the changes to come, puppies! With AI on your side, we know this school year will be a great one 🐶 

Talk soon,

The AI Puppy