All activities Professional learning
Teams vet three fictional classroom apps through four lenses (learning value, privacy, accessibility, AI transparency) and turn the verdict into a pilot a teacher can actually run.
Teachers forward coaches a steady stream of "Can we use this?" messages, and more of the tools now include AI features that write, grade, or talk to students. In this protocol, teams review fictional app profiles and policy excerpts through four lenses, cite the exact line behind every score, and practice reading vendor claims laterally rather than taking them at face value. The session ends with a decision and a pilot plan built around the 2026 ELE question: what student evidence will show the tool improved the learning?
Hook
Read aloud: "Hi! I saw QuizNova at a conference and it writes a whole quiz from any article in ten seconds. Kids love it. Can I start Monday? My whole team wants it too." Ask: "What's your gut reply, and what would you need to know before you hit send?" Collect questions on a sticky-note wall. Say: "Today we turn those questions into a protocol you can use for the next hundred emails."
Facilitator noteMost questions will be about privacy. Notice whether anyone asks what students will learn. That's the lens most often skipped.
Explore
Each team reads its assigned profile on Handout A and scores it with Handout B. The rule: every score needs a quoted line from the profile, written in the margin. If the profile is silent on a criterion, that silence is scored as Beginning. Teams also star any vendor claim they would want to verify independently.
Facilitator noteWatch for teams that score on reputation ("everyone uses it") or design ("it looks clean"). Ask: "Which line in the profile tells you that?"
Model
Take one starred claim, such as QuizNova's "100% accurate, curriculum-aligned questions" or StoryBloom's "Student Privacy Certified" badge. Think aloud: "Who says so? The vendor. So I leave the page." Show the moves: search the badge's name to learn who issues it and what it requires; look for the vendor's name on your state's or district's list of signed data privacy agreements; ask for sample output and check five questions yourself. With devices, do the searches live on a real certification program you know. Unplugged, narrate what you would search and why.
Facilitator noteThe lesson for teachers transfers straight to students: a claim on the product's own site is advertising until someone else confirms it.
Practice
Teams swap to a second app and score it more quickly using the same rule. Then each team posts its scores on the room's 3 × 4 grid. Where two teams scored the same app differently, they meet for two minutes and reconcile using quoted lines.
Facilitator noteThe disagreements are useful: they usually reveal a criterion that needs a sharper definition in your own district's version of the rubric.
Apply
Each team chooses one app and completes Handout C: approve, pilot with conditions, or decline. For a pilot, they name the conditions (for example, "district opts out of AI training on student content"), the teacher and class, and, most importantly, the student evidence that would show the tool improved learning compared with what the teacher does now.
Facilitator notePush on the evidence box. "Students liked it" and "usage minutes" are not learning evidence. "Students' quiz explanations cite the article" is.
Debrief
Teams read their one-sentence reply to the Hook email. Ask: "Which lens changed your mind the most? Which lens does our district's current approval process skip?" Close by naming the real approval process in your district and where this protocol could feed into it.
Facilitator noteCoaches are not usually the final approver. The goal is to arrive at the approval conversation with evidence, not opinion.
The protocol runs fully on paper: the profiles contain everything needed to score, and the Model step works as a narrated think-aloud of the searches you would run. Teams add a "Questions for the vendor" list for anything the profile can't answer, which becomes their next step.
Teams score in a shared spreadsheet with the four lenses as columns and a comment for each quoted line. Run the lateral-reading model live on a real privacy certification or state data privacy agreement list. In a virtual session, assign one app per breakout room and reconcile scores in the main room.
Does it need a screen? A live lateral search shows how quickly a badge or a "compliant" claim can be checked, or found to be unverifiable, and that speed is what makes the habit stick. A shared scoring sheet also becomes the district's record of why a tool was approved or declined.
What you should be able to see or collect if it worked.
Coaches score apps on privacy, accessibility, and AI transparency and verify vendor claims laterally, habits students need for privacy and source reliability.
Use Handout B on the next "Can we use this?" request you receive and reply with your quoted evidence and a pilot proposal. Share one completed review with your campus technology or library team.
