Louise Worgan, Curriculum Designer at TDT, updates on her involvement in the exciting development and testing of Teacherverse.ai. The Teacherverse is an AI-powered training tool that hones teachers’ skills through immersive, role-playing scenarios.
AI is certainly a buzzword in education circles and beyond right now. In our continuing mission to create expert teachers and expert schools, considering the question of “How do we use AI intelligently in education to support teacher development?” was at the heart of our thinking in this space.
The answer? Teacherverse.ai. The AI-powered training tool that hones teachers’ skills through immersive, role-playing scenarios. A virtual safe space to navigate challenging situations and allow you to make any mistakes on AI pupils, colleagues or parents so you don’t have to in the real world!
Developing a New AI Tool for Teachers: Our Salesforce Accelerator Journey
If you have been following us on the journey so far, you will already know TDT was one of 6 non-profit organisations (and only UK charity) to be granted funding for our project as part of the Salesforce philanthropic AI Accelerator – AI for Impact.
Over six months, Salesforce was to equip us with our own team of pro bono technical and project management experts. This team would help us take our idea of creating our AI-powered immersive, role-playing training tool and make it a reality.
True to the name “accelerator”, at the end of those six months, we had achieved a huge amount. We had scoped our vision, considered ethical and practical issues, learned about the safe use of AI, and created a prototype. We also internally and externally (thanks to some willing delivery partners, facilitators and participants) tested the tool, and made a plan for how to embed the tool into our courses.
It Takes a Village
There have been some real highlights along the way, the first being our fabulous pro bono team of experts. Amy Guterman, Corinne Umali, Natrina Gandana, Debbie Kuklis, Chris Rolfe, Katie Stasaski, Adrien Gilles, and Alexander Murphy have been such great champions of what we were trying to achieve. Their insight and expertise have been invaluable.
Working alongside other non-profit organisations and their charitable missions has been humbling. We were lucky to form a community of like-minded people with a vision to make the world more equal. Coming together to share the successes and obstacles of our accelerator has been a powerful experience.
Having the opportunity to attend the Salesforce NYC World Tour was amazing. We got to tell the world about our mission, present (live and via Salesforce TV) our prototype tool, and show Teacherverse in action. We additionally got to meet with the President and Chief Legal Officer at Salesforce (Sebastian Niles) to discuss the landscape of AI. You can watch all 6 organisations talk about their projects here.
Onwards and Upwards
So, what’s next for Teacherverse? After six months of rapid development, we are pleased to be able to trial the tool. This will initially be within our Building Expert Leaders Programme.
Here, our trail-blazing participants will be the first to interact with our scenarios in the context of their course content. Their feedback will help us take Teacherverse to the next stage of development. Watch this space for more exciting updates in the coming months, or sign up for our newsletter for all of the latest TDT information.
