“schulKI” is an AI chatbot for teaching: safe, cost-effective, trustworthy and designed by teachers. René Richter, co-owner of Schulverwaltung GmbH, the provider of “schulKI”, provides insights into development, functions and security aspects.
“With the AI, I got immediate feedback. It praised me. I didn’t have to wait 20 minutes for the teacher.” What is it about? That’s right: school. Presentation in German. Things like spelling, grammar or comma placement – students need feedback in order to improve. So far the teacher has checked all texts – perhaps 100 papers. Now the AI can help. And the teacher sees the summary to evaluate the performance.
A platform by teachers for teachers
René Richter teaches computer science and physics at a high school in Dresden. “I enjoy developing understandable, modern and practical teaching concepts,” he says. Since 2021 he has also been bringing this enthusiasm to Schulverwaltung GmbH. “We are teachers and we develop for teachers.” School Administrator was founded in Leipzig six years ago. Of the three founders, two came from the teaching profession. “It all started with the digital class and grade book Beste.schule, because there was nothing that met our requirements. The top priority is to support schools and students wherever digitalization can make everyday school life easier. With the necessary data protection, of course. Digital systems really save time: sick notifications are made via an app, teachers report absences directly to the school administration and the secretariats follow up at home. Or students check their grades themselves and report any discrepancies immediately.”
An idea becomes a company with many employees
When René heard about the grade and class book for the first time, he asked the staff: “Don’t we want to test this out?” Today he is co-owner and takes care of sales, support and training. The former startup has grown into a large team. School administrator is part of Telekom’s Techboost funding program, which supports start-ups in the area of technology and digitalization. “I would like to remain a full-time teacher and bring our ideas directly to the school. We will test the products directly in everyday life.” At the end of 2022 – when ChatGPT was barely even being talked about – the team started the first tests to integrate AI.
schulKI for individual and barrier-free learning
And now there is the “schulKI.de” platform. schulKI offers a variety of different AI tools that have been developed specifically for schools and teaching. They are operated on schulKI.de. The platform is designed to be age-appropriate and is intended to enable the use of AI in teaching in a safe and data protection-compliant manner. schulKI also helps with lesson preparation, assessment, communication and individualized learning.
Teachers and learners use schulKI as a learning aid, research partner, tutor or historical figure. Students read content from websites and videos, solve arithmetic tasks or analyze sources such as PDF documents with the help of AI. The software creates tables, diagrams or web graphics. Teachers configure specialized assistants for their tasks. schulKI creates an environment in which everyone has the opportunity to learn individually. “Let’s think about the topic of language, about integration,” explains René. “Everyone should be able to participate. Ideally, the teacher differentiates a task in terms of content and language.” With schulKI this is easy: “Explain the task to me more simply” or “translate the task” is the instruction to the AI.
This is how students use schulKI safely and anonymously
Via interfaces, schulKI offers access to ChatGPT and other AIs that normally require paid licenses per person. But with schulKI, students don’t need their own accounts. Using QR codes, students can join the teachers’ meeting for a specific time – without entering any personal data. They are given aliases that allow the teacher to associate results without violating privacy policies. You only connect to servers in Germany. The teacher can set a time frame for the task, view the students’ chats and have them summarized and evaluated with the help of AI.
schulKI supports teachers…… when creating tasks and evaluating them: teachers can create tasks in the system; The AI automatically evaluates student answers, awards points and generates hints or shows model solutions. The tool also recognizes text from images. This means that photographed magazine entries or worksheets can also be evaluated. Students receive immediate feedback.
… in the formulation of certificates, learning development reports, funding recommendations, protocols and letters to parents as well as in the formation of balanced learning groups.
schulKI offers both European, data protection-compliant providers such as DeepSeek (hosted in the Netherlands) and Llama in Germany as well as international platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude. They enable text recognition, speech transcription, text-to-speech, AI image generation and also provide avatars for lessons and projects.
“She’s talking nonsense”: promoting digital literacy
Of course there are also reservations. René remembers a presentation to history teachers. The AI should play Marie Antoinette and convey historical knowledge in conversation. “She’s talking nonsense,” is the opinion of the teachers. “Use this consciously,” replied René: “The first person to recognize false facts gets a reward. This way we have a double learning effect, because we also teach media skills.” René emphasizes: “All current AIs can make mistakes. We only recommend using them in supervised lessons. And then practice, practice, practice together.”
schulKI uses Telekom capacities for computing power and server locations exclusively in Germany. For example, all data processing for speech and handwriting recognition takes place in German Telekom data centers. This means the platform remains independent of US service providers and meets European data protection standards. schulKI only processes technically necessary data. All data is deleted immediately after processing and there is a data processing agreement with schools to ensure compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation.
Many schools now use schulKI, including in Austria and Switzerland. “The product is constantly evolving,” says René, “we teachers bring in our ideas, get feedback at user meetings, during training courses and directly in schools. Conversely, experiences from the company, such as project management, flow directly into my teaching design: How do I program an app? How do I found a startup, how do I develop my own ideas and implement them? In this way, we further develop the platform through mutual exchange without An hourly rate is charged for this. What is crucial for us is that the idea of AI really resonates with the school – and that the project is sustainable in the long term.”
Without the internet, there can be no digitization in schools: Schools that rely on fiber optics create the basis for a future-proof digital infrastructure. Fiber optic is the basis for stable and fast internet and comprehensive WiFi, is less susceptible to interference and is energy efficient.
– With 1 Mbit/s per user A “good basic service” is guaranteed – ideal for web access, emails and cloud services.
– 2 Mbit/s per user correspond to the “comfort zone” for using video streams, learning platforms and larger file transfers in parallel and without bottlenecks.
– For schools with intensive digital use (tablets, cloud backups, video lessons) are more than 1 Gbit/s for the entire school recommended. That’s about the same 1 Mbit/s per student with around 1,000 devices.
More information
https://public.telekom.de/digitalisierungsloesungen/digitale-bildung-und-schule
https://techboost.telekom.com/