Building CARL is a behind-the-scenes look at the decisions, research, and thinking that shaped how CARL works, from lesson frameworks to feature design. Follow along as we share what we learned building an AI planning tool for teachers, here in Canada.
Every unit plan CARL builds arrives with three things you didn’t ask for. Short suggestions for Equity and Inclusion. Social Emotional Learning. Trauma-Informed Safeguards. They’re written for that unit, not pulled from a generic list. You can edit them. You can remove them. What you can’t do is switch them off before the unit is … Read more
Ask an image generator for “a doctor” or “a family” a few times, and you might notice the results start to look pretty similar. That’s just how these tools tend to work. Without much direction, they lean on a default. For most things, that default is harmless. For classroom materials, it isn’t. The images on … Read more
I’ll be straight about something a lot of AI tools won’t: AI gets things wrong. Sometimes confidently. It can produce errors, bias, and convincing-sounding misinformation, and no amount of clever prompting fully removes that. So when people ask whether any AI tool is truly “safe,” I don’t think the honest answer is a flat yes. … Read more
Compass helps you see what’s next. CARL helps you build it. That’s the simplest way to explain how the two fit together. They’re connected, but they’re not the same thing, and that’s on purpose. Why Two Tools Instead of One We could have crammed everything into one big platform. We didn’t, because planning is really … Read more
I know, weird metaphor. Stay with me. A good insole makes the whole shoe more comfortable. It reduces strain and makes a long day a little easier. But the insole isn’t the shoe. You still need the structure, the fit, and the person wearing it. That’s how I think about AI and planning. AI can … Read more
Inside CARL Beta 1: where teachers are most stretched, the planning support they said they need, and how those findings are shaping what we build next.
