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Free Tools and Resources

A curated set of free tools, collections, instruments and formats for AI in education: things you can use today rather than research you have to read first. Most are made by educators, instructional designers, librarians and researchers, and many were built with AI help by people who are not professional developers.

Not everything here is interactive. Alongside browser tools and AI tutors there are libraries of ready-made prompts, collections of classroom activities, briefing and policy documents, assessment instruments, and open file formats. Each entry links to a page about the tool: who made it, what kind of thing it is, whether the source code is open, what it costs, and when its link was last checked.

Every entry links to an external site this knowledge base does not control, and the links are checked periodically; each page shows the date its link was last confirmed. If a tool has moved, closed down, or is missing and should be here, open an issue on the repository.

Software

  • Claw-ED
    A local-first AI teaching assistant that turns your own curriculum into editable lesson drafts, student materials, and slides using a model you choose.
  • Code Viva
    A free browser tool that runs a written, timed version of an oral code defense for every student in a programming course, proposing scores with quoted evidence for the instructor to approve.
  • DeepTutor
    The open-source release of the DeepTutor agentic tutoring framework: one workspace for tutoring, question generation, mastery practice, research and visualization, with inspectable learner memory.
  • Gemini Notebook
    Google's source-grounded notebook assistant (NotebookLM until July 2026): upload a set of documents and ask questions, generate study aids, and produce audio, video and slide outputs grounded in those sources.
  • LearnHarness
    A free, open-source (AGPL-3.0) desktop app in which AI agents measure what a learner already understands, plan a dependency map to the goal, teach one reasoning step at a time, and adapt practice — with a persistent knowledge graph of propositions and reasoning chains that later sessions read instead of starting over.
  • OnMicro.AI
    A no-code builder that lets educators make focused AI apps, publish them by link, embed them in an LMS through LTI, and see how students use them.
  • OpenMAIC
    The open-source release of MAIC: a multi-agent classroom that turns a topic or document into slides, quizzes, interactive simulations and project-based activities, delivered by AI teachers and classmates.
  • PAUSE: Patterns of AI Use Self-Examination
    A ten-minute, browser-only self-check on what you offload to AI, with every item traced to the research paper behind it.
  • Playlab
    A nonprofit creator platform where educators build, share and evaluate their own AI apps, grounded in their curriculum, run on the model of their choice, with teacher visibility built in.
  • Process Feedback
    A free, process-based alternative to AI detection: it records how a piece of writing was produced and turns that into a report for a conversation about learning rather than a verdict.
  • Public AI Libraries
    A 2025–2026 national pilot that puts a shared Public AI workstation in US public libraries — chat, image, music and video generation, a code IDE and an educational guide — with a private account for each patron.
  • Snorkl
    A classroom tool that gives students instant AI feedback on recorded spoken and drawn explanations of their thinking, and gives teachers analytics on those explanations.
  • Vibes DIY
    A plain-language app builder: describe a small tool in words and get a working, shareable web app, with the underlying React packages and CLI released under Apache-2.0.

Agent skills

  • Clarity
    An open-source Agent Skill and private browser editor that turn eighteen rules for clearer writing into draft, rewrite and review modes for prose.
  • Education Agent Skills
    A library of 165 evidence-grounded agent skills covering pedagogy, learning science, curriculum, and assessment, packaged for Claude, Codex, and Hermes.
  • idstack
    An open-source set of eleven Claude Code skills that audit a course against the instructional-design evidence base, tagging every recommendation with its evidence tier.
  • Master Instructional Design
    A Claude skill that packages a veteran instructional designer's method into fifteen engagement modes and thirty-one on-demand reference files covering the full learning-and-development spectrum.
  • Skills for Real Engineers
    Matt Pocock's open-source collection of small, composable agent skills, including a multi-session teaching skill, a relentless questioning skill, and guidance on writing documents an agent can follow.

Prompt and gem libraries

  • EduGems
    A growing library of pre-made Google Gemini 'Gems': shareable, pre-written prompts for planning, feedback, forms, images and AI-use reflection.
  • The Pedagogical Promptbook
    An open-access book of evaluated prompts for evidence-based teaching and instructional design practices, each chapter publishing the prompt, its development process and its evaluation results.
  • Writing and Rhetoric Studies in the Loop: A GenAI Prompt Library
    A peer-reviewed open-access collection of sixteen tested GenAI prompts, each written by a writing and rhetoric specialist to keep expert disciplinary judgment inside the prompting loop.

Collections of tools

  • DrawSplat
    A free browser platform of small teaching tools: whiteboard, spreadsheets, slides, documents, lists, concept maps, quizzes, charts, images and video.
  • FPDS Apps and Resources
    The public resource page of Faculty Professional Development Services at Hillsborough College, collecting its AI design coaches, Canvas courses and accessibility guides in one place.
  • Learning Commons
    Open AI infrastructure for education products: a knowledge graph of standards and curricula, evaluators for scoring LLM output, model-agnostic agent skills for teacher workflows, and Curriculum Sync for loading curricula into a learning management system.
  • teacher.dev
    A non-profit studio publishing one free classroom app for every day of a public build streak, from printable figure generators to a quiet-time safari and a local-first hall pass.
  • TeacherServer
    A large free library of single-purpose teaching generators for K-12 teachers and college faculty: lesson plans, worksheets, IEP goals, rubrics, case studies, math problems.
  • The ID Toolbox
    More than fifty free single-purpose browser utilities for instructional designers: scoping, estimation, caption and translation tooling, readability and consistency checks.

Collections of activities

  • mglearn Classroom Resources
    A large set of free, browser-based classroom activity suites and print-ready materials from TCEA, including Gen AI literacy and digital citizenship modules.
  • Pressing Prompts
    Openly accessible higher-education activities and resources for pressing critical questions about AI, organised into three thematic clusters.

Assessment instruments

  • The Institutional AI Readiness Pack
    A university-wide AI readiness assessment and implementation toolkit: maturity self-assessment, researcher and supervisor surveys, gap analysis, role briefings and model policy.

Open formats and specifications

  • LESSON.md
    An open, plain-text format for block-based eLearning lessons, plus an agent skill that writes lessons, assessments and whole course bundles in that format.
  • LiaScript
    An open Markdown dialect that turns a plain text file into an interactive course in the browser, with quizzes and runnable code, plus a multi-agent assistant for building courses with it.

Ebooks and guides

  • AI + OER Case Studies: A DOERS Project
    An open anthology of eleven case studies on where generative AI meets open educational resources in higher education, in three parts with four policy priorities, covering system-level guidance, professional development, textbook revision and classroom practice.
  • AI Infused Assignment Playbook
    Sarah Lewis's 95-page guide (CC BY 4.0) for designing assignments where students use generative AI openly and still do the thinking, built on a learning-as-network-construction thesis and shipped as 17 adaptable assignment templates with rubrics, documentation tables and knowledge checks.
  • Building Intelligent Textbooks
    Dan McCreary's open-source guide to building intelligent textbooks: online textbooks with search, navigation, glossaries, quizzes, concept graphs and embedded simulations, built with MkDocs Material and generative AI, with a companion library of AI-generated interactive MicroSims.
  • Campus AI Development
    A free field guide for colleges and universities on choosing how software gets built with AI, from vibe coding to governed multi-agent work, with the review route, data ceiling and controls that match each.
  • Campus AI Framework
    A higher-education operating model for AI strategy and governance: eight institutional pillars, four application domains, and a Strategic Compass for choosing initiatives, with a diagram mapping its companion sites.
  • Integrating AI in TVET: a practical guide for institutions
    A 2026 UNESCO-UNEVOC guide for institutions that train skilled workers: six principles, a phased integration path, and three working instruments, a seven-dimension readiness self-reflection tool with four maturity levels, an AI risk register template, and a seven-domain indicator framework.
  • Learning Design Wiki
    An openly licensed reference wiki of learning design principles, elements, patterns, designs, strategies and evidence-coded claims, written and cross-linked by language models rather than people, with every page currently marked unverified.
  • Student Guide to AI
    A free three-edition student guide to artificial intelligence from Elon University, AAC&U and The Princeton Review, whose 2026 edition builds ten human capacities with teacher-ready learning modules and an anonymous self-assessment.