Custom Bots - Teaching with AI Resources, Workshops, and More

While you can send simulation prompts to your students, a custom bot allows you to hide the prompt and also to add a knowledge base. Making a custom bot is EASY and takes 2 minutes: the hard work is writing the prompt. (See the Simulations or Meta Prompting page for LOTS OF EXAMPLES, that also use meta prompting. It is, however, useful to do your first custom bot the hard way–this IS the pedagogy part!)
Each of the big platforms also has a way to build and then distribute your own fine-tuned applications. You can do this for free with Bots from Poe (see the separate buttons for “Explore” and “Create”), Custom Bots from BoodleBox, Gems from Google, SchoolAI, and Assistants (from HuggingFace). Paid subscribers can also create GPTs (in ChatGPT) and K-12 teachers get a secure Chat GPT for free. BoodleBox also allows you to control and see the interactions students are having, which is a big plus. Here is a link to a sample of custom bots, but you can/should also search for GPTs at ChatGPT and Explore Bots in Poe.
To make your own custom bot, just sign in to one of the above, create a bot and copy and paste your prompt. Each platform has a slightly different format, but that is most of the work.
You might also want to add a knowledge base or other operational instructions.
BoodleBox, SchoolA I, MagicSchool and Khanmigo all provide tools to help with specific tasks that are free, FERPA compliant and secure. This includes creating specialized tutors. BoodleBox has these instructions. In SchoolA I go to Spaces and then Create. You can simply prompt it (Help students master content X by providing an overview and asking questions etc) or you can upload documents and set a standard for mastery. Importantly, SchoolAi also has a back-end that tells you have students have engaged and what they might still be confused about. Here is a great example (solving Linear Equations in One Variable from Rebecca Tyler at Great Falls College MSU).
Snorkl provides feedback to student on their verbal or visual thinking.
NOTE that a simulation or custom bot can be a learning tool, but it can also be the assessment. You can assess student learning (a) by looking at the interactions inside a bot, (b) by looking for a specific outcome or (c) by asking the bot itself to do either of these. See the Meta Prompting page for LOTS OF EXAMPLES.

EXAMPLES: University & Faculty Custom Bots

Here are links to my Thomas Cromwell simulation, critical thinking bot, Presidential Simulation , Chemical Bonds Tutor, and my bot builder support bot for faculty.
Here is a fabulous sample of faculty created custom bots you can try.
Writing tutor from Mark Marino
AI Tutor Pro from a group of Canadian faculty
MyEssayFeedback from Eric Kean
The University of Sydney has now created Cognifi which also allows complete security and control over student use but there will be some institutional cost (and I think pricing is still being worked out for other countries?)
Solving Linear Equations in One Variable from Rebecca Tyler at Great Falls College MSU
Auckland University of Technology: Jack, an AI marketing manager from Auckland FC, built by Sarah Wymer.
Georgia Tech: Jill Watson, an AI wrapper for the pre-AI course tutor
University of Michigan: MiMaizey, everything from class info to menu and student support “designed to enrich daily learner life with personalized support”. Whether you need information about dining options, class materials, learner organizations, or transportation, MiMaizey has you covered.””
University of Texas at Austin: UT Sage, a virtual instructional designer and AI Tutor that allows instructors to design tutor sessions on any topic.
Arizona State University: Sam health science students practice patient interviewing skills
Grand Valley State University: ADA (or Advanced Digital Assistant) to help business students learn software
Jeanne B Law has created this bot to assistant instructors in first-year college writing courses in creating assignments, rubrics, syllabus and more.
Here is a link to the Presidential simulation as a link as a custom bot in BoodleBox. Here it is as a custom bot in Poe. (Both are free to create and share.)
Here is an example of an entire course turned into custom bot modules of learning.
How to Build Your Own Customized Chatbot (free chapter from Levy and Albertos (2024 Teaching Effectively with ChatGPT.
How to use Speaker Progress in Microsoft Teams to get feedback on your/student presentations

RESOURCES & FACULTY SUPPORT BOT TO BUILD BOTS

Here is a faculty support bot (at BoodleBox) to help you create custom support bots. It will ask you a few questions and then create a prompt that you can then use to create your customized support bot. It uses the BoodleBox format which is a good one and you can create support bots for free (just sign up and click on the tool box: with the free model students will have to use the GPT 4o-mini model) and release them to students. Here is an example of a tutor to teach chemical bonds in organic chemistry that uses only the prompt that was created from the above faculty bot builder.
Here is a Custom AI Tutor Builder from BoodleBox (so a tutor to build tutors).
If you use ChatGPT then you should read Chapter 10 Customizing ChatGPT for You and Your Students from Teaching Effectively with ChatGPT by Dan Levy and Angela Pérez Albertos.
How to Create Custom AI Chatbots That Enrich Your Classroom by Tim Lindgren from Harvard Business Impact.
Four strategies for implementing custom AIs that help students learn, not outsource from the University of Sydney.

INTERACTIVE WEB SIMULATIONS

Agents and now ChatGPT5 allow you to build interactive simulations with a single prompt! ChatGPT5 can do this but Manus and Genspark both seem easier to me. (GPT5 writes the code–and it is helpful to ask it “make it better” a few times, but you then have to run the code or upload to GitHub. Easy with GPT5s instructions–which worked–but still another step.)
Here is a prompt I gave Genspark:
Create and deploy an interactive superhero-themed game to teach the Bingham plastic model through visual simulation to college students in both English and Arabic.
And here is what it produced in 10 minutes. Free.

See the Meta Prompting page for MORE EXAMPLES.

If you have any sort of institutional policy or framework for AI, you could create a custom bot for faculty on your campus to create a syllabus policy specifically for their course but aligned with your campus policy. You could write this yourself, but try this. (This is simple enough that ChatGGPT, Claude or an agent like Genspark could do it.)
Write code for an interactive interface that will produce a Generative AI syllabus policy for a college course that is both customized for individual faculty needs in that course and aligned with the university or college framework or policy. [Attach or provide a link to the campus policy or framework.] Start by asking faculty a few question about how they want to approach AI usage in their course, and offer the option of uploading a syllabus or learning goals. Offer some options based on the university framework and then provide a draft syllabus for the faculty member.