Maybe you’ve heard about Claude. Maybe you are using it.
Or, like millions of others, you haven’t heard of it and it is just another “AI tool” out there that is just like ChatGPT.
In any case, I think it is beneficial for educators who want to use Claude to help their work, and their student’s learning, to have some practical ways to get started.
I recently met with my AI-Ready School Leadership Cohort, and we spent some time discussing the potential of Claude for their work.
In this article I want to break down how to get started with Claude, where you can use it with a purpose, and why I love this as my “everyday AI tool” (and I’m someone who uses them all, or at least tries the majority of tools out there).
Getting Started
When you first sign up for Claude, you’ll notice they have a very specific commitment to responsible AI use in education:
At Anthropic, we believe AI has the power to fundamentally transform education for the better, but only if educators and universities lead the charge. We develop Claude with powerful safeguards to ensure it remains a beneficial tool for students, faculty, and administrators.
If you are completely new to using AI tools for education, I also suggest you check out the Anthropic Academy free course (4 lessons) on AI Fluency.
After signing up, you may want to jump right in to a prompt.
Don’t do that just yet.
My favorite way to start using Claude is to get it to know me, my role, and what purposes I’ll be using the tool for.
Your first prompt should look like this:
I want to best use Claude for my purposes and in my role. Please start by asking me 10 questions to get to know me and the best use cases for Claude as someone who is starting with this tool. Ask any follow-ups needed to best use Claude with intention and as a creative partner. Claude will then ask you at least 10 questions about your role, your work, and how you envision using this tool.
If you start this way, you’ll be ahead of 90% of people using AI chatbots like Claude.
But, what you’ll notice is that Claude is so much more than a chatbot.
Projects (and why you should be using them)
Projects are Claude’s way of organizing your collaboration with AI so that it has some working context and memory, as well as files you can upload for additional info.
You’ll notice you can add relevant context in the form of files, links from the web, or previous chats on the right side when working with projects.
The rest of the project feels like your normal chat, but with an organized thread so you can go back to it.
Imagine if you are an Elem teacher and you have a project for each separate subject you teach. Or a HS teacher and have one for each prep you teach.
You get the point. It’s extremely helpful and useful.
Artifacts (and why they matter)
You may not care at first about Claude Artifacts. But, they are extremely helpful for creative projects that go beyond a text response. Here are some good starting points.
If you want to create a website, a document, template, or even a game. Then artifacts is for you.
One of my favorite ways to get started with artifacts is by browsing the long list of ones that have already been created and checking for use cases or inspiration.
You also can always ask Claude while using it if there are any ways your responses or content would be better suited as an Artifact. Claude always give me good applications when prompted.
Putting It All Together In Practical Ways
I wanted to show you a simple way to get started using Claude for real practical ways as an educator. I’m sure you have all different types of priorities, but I always here “engagement”, “rigor”, and “scaffolding” as three big areas we are working on in schools.
First, I created a Project in Claude and fed it information about my work on AI Fluency, including two articles I wrote about AI-Compatible vs AI-Resistant learning experiences (and the need for both).
I prompted Claude to give me an overview of what it knew based on my uploaded information, and any questions it had.
Its answer was a brief text based response that was helpful for my next step.
After giving context I asked the following:
Can you create a practical guide for educators using Claude to help student learning using this as your base.
It created an awesome guide full of examples. Claude then turned this guide into a Word Document (interestingly without me asking it to).
This was good, but after editing I wanted to take the next step and turn it into an Artifact that I could share in this article and email newsletter to ya’ll.
I asked Claude:
Can you turn this into html so I can embed it into my Squarespace blog post?
It not only created the Artifact in HTML, but also gave me instructions on how to upload it successfully. This is the magic of Claude.
Because it had my context, and working knowledge inside of the Project, it was able to pull together an artifact that matched my needs and direct me how to best use it.
Check it out below:
To see the full HTML version check it out on the web here: https://www.ajjuliani.com/blog/practical-ways-to-get-started-using-claude-for-educators
You can see why I love Claude so much. Learning the basics will help you get started on the right path and use the AI tool with a purpose.
I’ve got a follow-up to this that will take it to the next level, but I hope you got something out of this article!
A.J. Juliani
PS - Interested in bringing me in to work with your staff on A.I. Fluency with a purpose, Meaningful and Relevant Learning, and Engagement in the Classroom? Learn more on my speaking page or email me at any time!