Picture this: You’re staring at a Google Doc with an assignment you definitely meant to differentiate for three different reading levels, translate for your ELLs, and modify for that one student who needs a simplified format… and the bell rings. Again.
You blink. You sigh. You whisper, “Surely there is an AI tool that does this?”
There is.
It’s called Brisk Teaching, and it’s like having a curriculum coordinator, translator, special ed support person, and instructional coach rolled into one tidy little Chrome extension. Except this one doesn’t judge your inbox or ask how long your coffee’s been microwaved.
🚀 What It Is: An AI Co-Pilot That Works Inside Your Docs
Brisk Teaching is a Chrome extension that lives right inside Google Docs, Google Slides, and even PDFs. You just highlight what you want help with, click the Brisk icon, and boom. The magic happens.
No switching tabs. No downloading. No awkward copy-pasting into ChatGPT while praying your principal doesn’t walk by. Just AI help exactly where you already work.
It’s fast. It’s flexible. It’s dare I say, brisk.
✨ What It Can Do (Without Breaking a Sweat)
Brisk isn’t trying to be cute. It’s not giving you vague suggestions or half-baked summaries. This tool rolls up its digital sleeves and gets to work:
- Simplify reading level: Adjust content to any grade level: perfect for differentiation, special education, or students who just need more accessible text.
- Translate instantly: Converts your assignment instructions, passages, or rubrics into dozens of languages, right in the doc.
- Give feedback on student writing: It can analyze a student’s draft and offer targeted, standards-based feedback.
- Build rubrics: You can generate standards-aligned rubrics tailored to your assignment. Click. Boom. Done.
- Catch plagiarism and AI use: You can scan documents for AI-generated content and potential plagiarism right from Google Docs. (Lookin’ at you, suspiciously perfect 9th grade essay on quantum physics.)
And yes, it can do all of that while you’re in the hallway monitoring kids “heading to the bathroom.”
🧠 AI Behind the Tool: A Teacher’s Brain, Supercharged
Brisk runs on a carefully tuned version of GPT (OpenAI models + educator-designed prompts). But here’s the difference: it’s built to understand classroom context. This isn’t ChatGPT giving you a generic answer. It’s an AI trained for lesson-level nitty-gritty.
It can spot vague objectives and help you rewrite them. It can tailor reading to 3rd or 10th grade without butchering the content. And it doesn’t assume that your students all read at the same level or live in a textbook.
It’s the teacher brain we all wish we had after three IEP meetings and one cold lunch.
🔐 Ethics & Data Stuff: Built for Teachers, Not Surveillance
You don’t need to worry that Brisk is secretly collecting all your Google Drive content or selling your rubric writing style to the highest bidder.
- No student data is stored
- FERPA-compliant
- You control what Brisk sees and does: you highlight, and it helps
- There’s no Brisk “bot” lurking in the background reading everything you open
This is about giving teachers support, not giving Big Tech another invitation to your classroom.
😅 Real Talk: Why You’ll Use This More Than You Admit
Brisk isn’t the flashiest tool. It won’t turn your lesson into a game show or remix your slides with sparkles and auto-playing ukulele music. (Thank goodness.)
But it will save you from:
- Rewriting the same assignment 3 different ways
- Copy-pasting your rubric into 5 places
- Googling “how to say ‘inferencing’ in Spanish”
- Wondering if a student’s essay was a little too good
It’s practical, reliable, and best of all? It’s not trying to be your boss. It’s the friendly tool in your browser bar that’s just there to help you breathe again.
🏆 Final Verdict: Add Brisk to Your Toolbar Now
If you’re a teacher working in Google Workspace, Brisk Teaching is an absolute win. It’s intuitive, powerful, and made to work the way we do: multitasking, tired, and trying to make lessons better without burning out.
It’s one of those tools that doesn’t make a big scene. It just makes your day a little easier.
If you’re enjoying these weekly tech tools with a dash of teacher sass, you can show some love over at ko-fi.com/paulajohnsontech.
Paula Johnson Tech 
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