Apple Intelligence: 5 Tools for Educators

The releases of iPadOS 18.1 and iOS 18.1 bring with them the first set of Apple Intelligence features for our devices. I've been exploring these features in school for the past month and I've found five that have proven really useful which I wanted to share in this blog post.

As time goes by and devices are updated I expect more and more people will have the tools needed to access Apple Intelligence, but for now it will be limited to more recent iPads and iPhones. For this reason I've taken the perspective of a teacher for these tips, rather than a students, as it's educators who are perhaps more likely to have a compatible device initially.

So, let's dive in!

Safety Filter is an incredibly quick and simple way to pixelate faces in photographs using the new Apple Intelligence Clean Up feature. Whilst this tool is normally used to remove distracting objects from the background of your photos, it has a hidden trick which is perfect for teachers.

Simply use the Clean Up tool to draw a circle over someones face and it'll immediately apply a pixelated filter on top - making the person unrecognisable.

As a teacher this is incredibly powerful as it means I can protect my students privacy when sharing photos online as well as ensuring that in group photos we can protect those students who don't wish to have their image shared.

In my testing I've found that this feature also works with Airplane Mode enabled on the iPad, meaning this edit is happening locally and on device - a big win from a safeguarding perspective.

Here's how the feature looks in action:  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MFqaYmvRb4w?showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1

 

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel pretty snowed under with emails sitting in my inbox - especially when more keep joining them!  I often find it hard to know which ones need actioning immediately, which ones need deleting and which can wait for a little bit.

Apple Intelligence has come to my aide here in a really effective way.  Traditionally, messages have appeared in your inbox with a preview underneath.  That preview has always consisted of the first few lines of the message, which often aren’t particularly important.  This has changed with iPadOS 18.1 to now display an intelligent summary of the message contents, created using Apple Intelligence.

So what does that mean in plain English, I hear you ask?  Well essentially a message preview in my inbox no longer reads “Hi Jacob, hope all is well at your end…” and instead reads “James needs the Apple Intelligence Keynote emailed over by 5pm.” Far more useful, I’m sure you’d agree!

You can even change the length of these previews, with options ranging from a 1 line summary to a more detailed 5 line preview.  Simply go into Settings, scroll right down to Apps and then select Mail.  From here you can enable (or disable) Summarise Message Previews as well as selecting the Preview Length.

Another handy feature in Mail is the ability to summarise a whole message into a few key lines - check out that and how to configure inbox previews in my QuickTip here:  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9TdAjLCA0MQ?showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1

 

Another feature that I’ve found really useful has been the Key Points settings found within Writing Tools. Here we have the ability to turn a large passage of text into a set of key points in seconds.  That means emails can quickly become actionable items, minutes from meetings are easier to digest and lengthy documents can be stripped back to the key information.

This tool is incredibly easy to use and works anywhere you have editable text on your device, whether that’s Notes, Mail, Pages or somewhere else entirely.

Here’s how it helped turn a page of text into a few key points in my tutorial:  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cUlkbKikJtA?showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1

 

I’m personally a big fan of Focus Modes when I’m at work because it allows me to hide all but the most important notifications to stop myself being distracted during lessons and planning time.  However, I’m always left with a nagging feeling that I might have missed something important - or just as often finding myself bothered by a notification that’s been marked as Time Sensitive which is really anything but!

The new Apple Intelligence powered Reduce Distractions Focus Mode solves these problems by using it’s machine learning tools to intelligently pick and choose which notifications are important in the moment and which can wait until later on.

Despite being initially sceptical as to how good this mode would be, I must say I’ve been really impressed with how it’s handled my notifications and triaged the most important ones to surface and let the rest get delivered silently.  And of course because it’s a Focus Mode you can have it enable and disable at certain times or locations as well as customising people and apps that always have permission to break through your filter.

Learn more about this new Focus Mode here:  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vQFReD9IhJY?showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1

 

My last feature for this blog is probably my most used of the five: the built in Writing Tools - and in particular the Proofread feature.  I can now highlight a block of text in my email and have it proofread it there and then, without having to copy and paste to another app.  I can check my grammar on a newsletter to parents before hitting send, I can ensure my spellings are perfect on my class activity sheets and I can feel confident that I’m not making any silly punctuation mistakes.

I’ve long been a fan of using external apps and tools for this purpose, but to have it built right into iPadOS is an absolutely massive time saver.  See more about how this works here:  

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RoKFMYs3SBA?showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1

I hope these five tips have given you some ideas on how to best utilise these new Apple Intelligence features in your professional life and I’d love to hear which other features you’ve been enjoying so far if you’re able to access Apple Intelligence.  I know it’s a staggered rollout across regions and languages so would be fascinated to hear from more teachers who are using this in their classrooms to hear their experience too.

And finally if you'd like to see what else is new in Apple Intelligence with iOS 18.1, including the features which extend beyond the classroom, you can see all my other videos here.