Last Passover, Rabbi Levi Druin, the principal of Pardes Day School in Miami Beach, Fla., was debating a group of teachers on the potential of using artificial intelligence in the classroom.

“That’s not for me,” one said to him. “That’s too complicated.”

Druin yanked out his phone and showed them programs that he created using AI. One monitored student data; another tracked progress, and a third generated worksheets. The teachers sat stunned.

“They all love and care about their students,” he told eJewishPhilanthropy. “And now they know, ‘Oh my gosh, my students would love this.’”

From that interaction came an idea: a contest for educators using AI to create programs to support students. The contest would normalize the use of AI in education, inspire creativity and allow programmers — often everyday folks with little computer background — to share their work.

Presented by the Pardes Day School, The AI for Education Challenge launched on July 13 — “My wife’s birthday for good luck,” Druin said. Although only open to submissions for two weeks, entries flooded in from across the world, including Australia, England and South America. Some participants were computer experts; others were making their first app.

Entries included progress trackers, programs that created Torah-specific curricula and parsha coloring sheets, and even an AI-powered escape room that taught educators to use AI themselves. Entrants vied for $5,500 in prizes offered to a first-, second- and third-place winners, as well as an Educators’ Choice Award, chosen by peers.

Winners were announced Aug. 13, and all of the submissions — over 70 — are listed on the contest’s website. Under every submission on the website is a contact button to connect educators to programmers.

“It’s so important that we encourage our educators to use every tool available to us to enhance what they’re doing,” Druin said. “Pretend you’re a chef with 20 students all eating a different meal at the same time, and you don’t have 20 arms, 20 kitchens. That task used to be impossible or very rare for a teacher to actually give every student what they needed, but with the tools that we have available to us now, we have the ability to cater to every single student and allow the teacher to teach and not leave anyone behind.”

When teachers are competing with social media, they need to speak the students’ language, he said. Schoolchildren may not engage with a math worksheet, but will connect through a 3D printing activity.

It’s not that educators aren’t already making AI tools to support students, Druin said. They are just making them in silos, only sharing them with teachers in their immediate circles.

Druim himself knows “nothing about coding,” but AI gave him the opportunity to create a time clock system for payroll at his school. It took him three days to make, and saved the school $10,000 a year. He wished he had ways to share the program widely. A contest like this, he said, will offer others that opportunity. 

The judges for the contest included AI experts and veteran teachers, some with little computer experience themselves. The contest was sponsored by an anonymous funder.

The contest gave second-place winner Rabbi Reuven Deray the push he needed to finish several programs he’d been tinkering with, which included his winning entry, CLHDS Assessment Platform, and Attendance and Hall Pass App.

The winning program took Deray, director of general studies at SJ Abrams Cheder Lubavitch Hebrew Day School in Skokie, Ill., between 40 and 100 hours to make. (He lost track of time.) His goal was to create a testing and assessment platform personalized to the learning at his own school that gamified rewards. The program saved the school $4,500 a year.

“The money was never the reason, but it’s a nice side benefit,” Deray told eJP. “I just didn’t like the [test] results that we were getting, and I didn’t feel like I could rely on them.”

Before hearing about the contest, Rabbi Binyamin Plotzker, director of teaching and learning at Yeshivas Ohr Reuven in Monsey, N.Y., was also toying with AI. 

By the time the window closed, he had three entries: The third place and educators’ award winner The Hilchos Shabbos Animated Series, teaching the laws of Shabbat; “Yedios Klalios on the Parsha: Beraishis,” a music album co-written and produced by Plotzker and AI; and PuzzlePacket, a program that creates classroom puzzles in multiple languages, including English, Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili, Spanish and French. 

Plotzker even left “AI bloopers” in his animated series, including mistakes such as extra fingers on characters. “The guy’s walking down the street with two heads, so that’s strange,” he said. “The kids love it. Why not?”

Learning about AI’s potential in teaching Jewish law surprised him. “I was amazed to see how well [Anthropic’s chatbot] Claude understood the halacha,” Plotzker told eJP. “I am a big proponent that these things are put into the world for a purpose. Hashem put it in the world, like everything.”

AI is like cars, Plotzker said, allowing people to do things faster and go farther. “It’s giving me opportunities to be more creative, and to come up with things that I couldn’t have done.”

The contest was held in memory of Chavie Kahn, the former principal of IVDU Upper Boys School in Brooklyn, N.Y., where Druin’s father is head of school. Kahn died of cancer in July, at 42, after dedicating nearly half her life to working with children with special needs. “She was always on top of her game,” Druin said, encouraging teachers to stay up to date on technology so they can best support students. 

Since the winners were announced, educators have been reaching out to one another, sharing their programs. Druin is seeking funders for the second iteration of the contest, launching next June, and he hopes next year’s will include more awards for categories including design, usability and ingenuity. 

Meanwhile, Druin’s back to tinkering. He made a WhatsApp bot that allows teachers to message the school to clock in and out, find the week’s parsha and Shabbat times, request photocopies, pencils and time off. “I’m happy to share it,” he said.