Wonder Tools

I’ve tried a dozen AI note-taking tools. Granola is the one I use daily and recommend most. Read on for 10 ways to make the most of it.
Bottom line: Granola transcribes and summarizes nearly every meeting I have. 998 so far. It helps me keep track of what I’ve learned and promises I’ve made.
What it does: It’s software you download, not a bot, so it doesn’t attend meetings. It just runs on my computer or phone. I can use it to record in-person meetings, or anything online: Zoom, Google Meet, or even Substack Live.
Setting it up: I connected my Google Calendar. Now it auto-detects my meetings and opens automatically when I start a call.
How it’s different: Unlike other bots that spit out a generic summary, Granola gives you a window for your own note-taking. That means I can include my own thoughts and highlight what I find most important. The summary then weaves in my own points in black, distinct from the gray AI summary notes. I can always return to either my own separate notes or the AI-assisted summary.
I can now query any meeting I’ve been in since I started using Granola in September 2024. I look for patterns across meetings and presentations I’ve given over the past couple of years.
Free or Paid: You can use Granola for free plan. You get excellent summaries of an unlimited number of meetings. I was on the free plan for more than a year. Now I pay $14/month to access all of my past meeting summaries. That also pays for better AI models, and lets me query my notes from Claude or ChatGPT.
👇10 ways Granola stands out
1. Write your own notes while AI fills in the rest
Most AI note-takers give you only the AI’s version of what happened. Granola keeps your own notes alongside the live transcript. You always have both.
I type my own most important observations, priorities, and reactions during a meeting. The AI fills in other details. This way I’m not reliant on a generic summary the way I am with other tools. My own emphasis and perspective helps shape the summary.
After the meeting, my original notes appear in black. The AI-generated content appears in gray. That’s a nice design touch, so you can easily tell which is which.
Tip: I use shorthand like triple asterisks (***) for key points and triple ampersand (&&&) for memorable quotes. Or choose your own “internal hashtags.” Pick ones easy to type during a live meeting. Later you can search for those to quickly find what you flagged as important. (Works with any tool)
2. Search across meetings by person or company 🔍
Granola organizes meetings by people and organizations. If I’ve had a series of meetings with someone, I can click their name and search across all of those conversations. Or I can search through all the conversations I’ve had with people at Acme Inc.
This is useful for questions like: What did we agree to last month? What themes keep coming up? What did I promise to send that I haven’t followed up on?
You can also create folders for specific projects or series. If I’m attending or teaching a series of workshops, I can then search across all of those sessions.
Tip: If you ever write or give presentations, ask Granola to compile key points or ideas you’ve shared in past meetings or presentations. It’s helpful for exploring and building on your own ideas. Instead of using AI to think for you, you’re using it to help you organize and make more of your own ideas.
3. Record in-person meetings w/ a phone or laptop 📱
I’ve been to public events where I wanted to remember what was discussed. The iPhone app is great. Same account, no separate setup. Your in-person notes sync with your desktop notes and appear in the same searchable archive. Other recording apps I’ve tried occasionally crash when I get a call or open other apps, but Granola has been consistently reliable, even for long meetings. I’ve been surprised to find that it works well even when I’m not sitting close to the speaker.
Available on: Mac, Windows, and iOS. No Android app yet, though one is expected later this year.
4. Start free with unlimited meetings
The free version works well if you just want to try it. The transcription quality is the same as the paid version. Students get Granola free for a year. Startups do too.
The paid plan is $14 a month. I pay that for unlimited access to my 1,000+ meeting summaries, the ability to query my notes from other AI tools like Claude, and access to the strongest AI models for summaries. The free plan limits how far back you can access old meetings and limits the AI models you have access to.
If you don’t need to refer back to old summaries or plug your notes into other AI tools, the free plan is great.
Try Granola free for a month with this link.
5. Give Claude or ChatGPT access to your Granola notes
This is one of the reasons I upgraded to the paid plan. Granola connects to Claude through something called a Model Context Protocol (MCP). Don’t worry about the technical details. It’s just a way to connect AI tools to one another.
The practical benefit: I can ask Claude or ChatGPT to look across my recent Wonder Tools Live sessions and tell me which topics I’ve talked about but haven’t written about yet. Or vice versa. Because Claude has access to my newsletter archive (via Mizal), it can consider what I’ve discussed in meetings and what I’ve published.
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What sets it apart is that it’s powered by human writers and editors, not AI summaries. You get substantive analysis, useful examples, and quotes from the book. You also get recommendations for related titles and a one-page overview. It’s like having a smart friend sum it up for you.
A few to check out on Shortform: a guide to What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, by Laura Vanderkam (I’m a big fan) and Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin (also an author I admire). Shortform also has podcast and article guides to get the gist of long interviews or sprawling posts.
If your reading list ever creates anxiety for you, as it does for me, it’s worth a look.
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6. Catch up mid-meeting if your mind wanders
This is the feature that surprised me the most. While a meeting is happening, you can ask Granola to summarize what’s been said so far, or to catch you up on what you missed.
This was hugely helpful recently when I was in a live session and my mind wandered. I missed what a couple of people had just said and felt bad about it. The only way to catch up without asking them to repeat themselves was to query Granola. It instantly gave me a concise recap of the last few minutes, while continuing to transcribe the session. You can also scan back through the live transcription yourself while the meeting progresses.
7. Analyze meetings with “recipes”
Recipes are prompt templates built specifically for your meetings. Instead of recreating the same query every time, you save it once and reuse it.
A few I use regularly:
* List recent to-dos. Scans recent meetings for tasks I mentioned but may not have added to my task list. I caught a missing follow-up this way just recently. Someone asked me to send them a logo. I got sidetracked, didn’t put it on my task list. The recipe surfaced it.
* Prep next meeting. If I’ve met with someone before, it reminds me of our prior conversations. If I haven’t, it can reference other similar meetings.
* Coach me. Analyzes how I showed up in meetings and suggests what I might do differently.
* YouTube description. I created this for workshops I lead. Some of them end up on YouTube, and I usually don’t have a description for them. Granola has the full text of what I said. So the recipe helps me generate a description.
You can browse a public library of recipes and grab ones that interest you. There are special recipes for sales, marketing, customer interviews, and other common business use-cases. You can also create your own, which is as simple as writing a prompt.
8. Share meeting notes others can explore
You can share a link to a Granola summary with anyone. The person on the other end doesn’t have to log in or have a Granola account. They can read the summary and even query the transcript themselves. They won’t see your private queries, and you won’t see theirs. You can also share an entire folder with a colleague, or even a workspace with your team, if you want to have collective access to shared meetings. You can also create a separate private space within your account.
Example: Here’s a Granola summary of my most recent Wonder Tools Live Show and Tell, where I talked about why I like Granola. For context, these are live monthly sessions for paid subscribers where I show what I’m using and share tips on making the most of new tools.
9. Protect privacy with text-only transcription 🔒
Granola captures only text. It transcribes in real time but doesn’t store audio or video files. Some people don’t want to be recorded video-wise, or they don’t want their voice recorded. Granola works well for that, because it stores only text.
This is a deliberate design choice. As CEO Chris Pedregal told me when I interviewed him for Fast Company recently, the value is in useful notes, not in retaining audio. The tradeoff: you can’t go back and listen to verify a quote, or hear the emotion in someone’s voice. If that matters for your work, pick an alternative below.
10. Take private notes without a bot joining your call
Open a typical AI note-taker and you’ll see a bot listed as a meeting participant and a robotic rectangle in your video window. Some people find these bots intrusive.
Granola doesn’t join your meeting. It runs on your computer (or phone). Nobody else in the meeting needs to know it’s there, though I recommend telling them anyway. Ask if it’s OK if you use an AI note-taker to help you remember what we talk about. Your data is protected. Granola is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, which basically means an independent auditor has checked that the company has safeguards to protect sensitive info.
How Granola can make life easier
Granola is useful beyond work meetings. Here are some ways I’ve used it:
* Learn from conferences and workshops. Capture notes from panels and talks. Later, search across all the sessions. “Which speakers mentioned AI regulation?” or “What books did speakers recommend?” You get a searchable archive of an entire event.
* Catch up with online courses and webinars. I use Granola when I’m hosting or watching a Substack Live. If I have to step away, I can catch up. Or I can search across a series. “Remind me which tactics we covered.”
* Prepare for a follow-up. Use the “Prep me” recipe before meeting with someone again. It pulls together what you talked about last time.
* Capture medical or personal appointments. You can use Granola for therapy sessions, vet visits, or doctor appointments. Ask for permission. When you leave and can’t remember what the expert said about dosage or next steps, check the transcript.
How to make the most of Granola
* Ask permission first. Even though Granola doesn’t record audio, let people know you’re using an AI note-taker if it’s not a public event. I usually say something like: “Is it okay if I use an AI note-taker to sum up the meeting? I’m happy to share the summary with you. If you’d prefer, I can keep it off.”
* Split long events into separate sessions. If you’re at a three-hour workshop with distinct segments, stop and restart Granola between sections. You’ll get more detailed summaries for each section instead of one sprawling summary.
* Choose your AI model. On the paid plan, you can select an advanced AI model. I like Claude’s Sonnet 4.6 Thinking. You can switch to a Gemini or ChatGPT model.
Limitations
No tool is perfect. Here’s where Granola falls short so far:
* No audio or video playback. You can’t go back and listen to what someone said for the emotion in their voice.
* No file uploads yet. You can’t drag in an old interview recording or audio file for transcription. So far the focus is on live meetings.
* Chats can get messy. Granola doesn’t have a place to store answers you get when you query your meetings. You have to copy & paste into a separate notes tool. And it’s not optimized for taking notes without audio.
* Limited free archive. On the free plan, you only get access to 30 days of meeting archives.
* No Android app yet. Available on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. I expect the Android app to launch later in 2026.
Alternatives to Granola
Granola is best for people who take their own notes during meetings and want AI to fill in the rest. If you’re on Android, Otter is a popular alternative until Granola’s Android version is available. If you want to upload recordings, or if you need video or audio saved, you may want something else. Consider these alternatives:
* Fathom is a good option if you want video and audio recordings tied to a time-coded summary. Click on part of the summary to jump to that part of the recording. Start with the free version. It’s useful for sessions where you want to go back and watch specific moments. I sometimes use Fathom alongside Granola.
* MacWhisper is useful for transcribing audio files you’ve recorded elsewhere. It can run locally on your Mac, so nothing leaves your device. You can buy it as a one-time purchase for $74. The free version also works well.
* Supernormal is one I’ve used and liked.
* For more options: Wonder Tools contributor Ulrike Langer, who writes the great News Machines newsletter about how news orgs are using AI, recently wrote a guide to transcription tools with additional alternatives.
How to get started 🚀
* Try it for one meeting. Download Granola on Mac or Windows, or grab the iPhone app. Connect your calendar and join a meeting. Take a few of your own notes. See how Granola combines them with the transcript summary afterward.
* Try an in-person meeting. Bring your iPhone to a coffee meeting or a live event and open the Granola app. See how the mobile transcription feels.
* Chat with your first summary. After your meeting, try asking a few questions:
* “What were the three main takeaways?”
* “What deadlines or follow-ups should I remember?”
* “Summarize this meeting in 3 sentences for a colleague.”
Try Granola free for a month →
What are you using and why? Leave a comment 👇


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I recently talked with Jason Chatfield a New Yorker cartoonist and creator of the lively New York Cartoons Substack. He sketched while we talked, as part of his video series Draw Me Anything. We traded ideas about writing, editing, tools, and where to draw the line with AI. 📺 Watch the conversation above, or read highlights below.
Takeaways from Our Conversation 🛠️
* Teach your AI assistant to offer personalized editing suggestions. I’ve trained a Claude Project to learn from my past writing and editing. It catches typos like double commas, cliches, redundant language, weak verbs, and sloppy copy. Instead of having it make changes, I ask it for a punch list of suggestions.
* Talk before you type. I turn on my AI dictation app, Letterly, and just start talking. The AI-enabled transcription and summary I get helps me make sense of ideas rolling around in my mind. Then the next part of the writing process becomes more about shaping and editing those ideas, rather than staring down a blank screen.
* Ask AI to interview you. After a conference or a day of meetings, get your AI assistant to ask you follow-up questions. That conversation forces you to articulate ideas you haven’t fully formed.
* Teach your AI assistant to be a critic, not a ghostwriter. Ask it to challenge your structure, suggest sections to cut and to explain why, and to point out your blind spots. Your friend might be too polite to tell you a section of your piece you’ve worked on for hours is redundant or dull. Your AI assistant will, if you train it to.
* Let’s read books collectively. We’re reading 10 AI books in 2026 through the Wonder Tools Book Group. (For WT paid subscribers). We started with AI Snake Oil, whose co-author was a surprise guest at our first gathering. Reading together allows us to benefit from dialogue. And we can learn more deeply from books than we can from a random diet of posts and videos.
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Tips Jason shared during our conversation
* Work from a calendar, not a to-do list. Sometimes what’s most valuable is a workflow, not a specific tool. Like timeboxing. Jason predicts how long a task will take, blocks time in his calendar (iCal), then learns from the difference between his estimate and how long the task actually took. His timeboxing Medium post about the process went viral.
* Build a grumpy editor. Jason created a J. Jonah Jameson–style editor persona in Gemini. If you’re not familiar with the Spider-Man character, he’s a cantankerous, chain-smoking newspaper editor who tears apart a writer’s drafts. Jason says he takes about half of the suggestions.
* Choose your tools based on who built them. Jason uses Grammarly and Gemini, but refuses to use Meta AI or Grok. If he doesn’t trust those building a platform, he opts out.
* Learn the analog way before you go digital. Jason suggests students draw by hand first, not on an iPad. If you draw a bad line with a dip pen, you can’t hit undo. You learn through that process.
* Use AI to brainstorm, but know when to stop. Cartoonist Alex Hallatt of Cartooning in the Age of AI used an AI assistant to riff on cartoon premises from messy notes. Jason said she was intrigued by the results, until the bot offered to draw the cartoon for her. 👇
Tools & Apps We Discussed 👇

After my 7am wake-up alarm, I lean on about 20 morning apps, sites and gadgets for reading, writing, listening, and getting stuff done. I revisit this toolkit every year. Here's what's stayed, what's changed, and what's new.
🌤️ 7:00 am Wake up and prepare for the day
⏰ Peakeep “Invisible” Alarm Clock
This $14 bedside clock wakes me up. I set its brightness at zero to keep the bedroom dark at night. I tap the top to check the time if I need to. I bought the clock when I decided to store my phone in another room so it doesn’t suck me in before bed.
⭕️ Oura Ring
For the past five years I’ve worn an Oura ring to keep track of my exercise, sleep, and heart rate volatility. I like that, unlike an Apple or Google Watch, it has no distracting screen or notifications.
I ran a two-week experiment pairing the Oura with a Stelo glucose biosensor to see how my diet impacts my sleep, fitness, and energy levels. I can export my data and query it with AI assistants. Or I use Oura’s own AI chat to ask things like “How is my evening snacking affecting the quality of my sleep?”
In the morning I check my sleep quality and resilience scores to calibrate my expectations for the day. Having an objective measure of how well I’ve slept helps me decide whether to push my meager exercise regimen a bit or take it easy. It also helps motivate me on dreary days, and signals when I’m getting sick before I notice.
(Read my original Oura 2020 post. Note: I’ve bought my own Oura rings — no affiliation).
🧠 Brain Games and 🎶 Music
A breakfast ritual: playing the NYTimes’ Spelling Bee, Wordle, and Connections with my wife and daughters while listening to our favorite classical music host, Jeff Spurgeon, on WQXR. We talk about the music and what’s ahead at school or work, avoiding stressful headlines.
Quick tip: We listen on our old Google Home Mini kitchen smart speaker. A quick voice command pulls up just about any radio station in the world. (I saw the newer Google Nest Mini on sale this week for $19).
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While a lot of summary apps I’ve tried have 5-min, AI-generated, surface-level book overviews, Shortform’s writers and editors produce in-depth coverage of nonfiction titles.
I also like the business section, which has detailed guides for classic titles and new books I’m curious about like Two Awesome Hours by Josh Davis. In addition to an expert-written overview of key points, with examples, excerpts, and references to related books, you get a one-page summary and contrasting ideas from other authors. Now Shortform has podcast and article guides as well. Wonder Tools readers get a discount. Try it free to explore.
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🚶🏼8:00 Walk My Daughter to School 🏫
No tools or tech.
🚊 8:25 Commute
I use Snipd to listen to podcasts on the way to work. Here’s my full take. I also rely on Readwise Reader to catch up on articles I’ve saved. It works offline on the subway. Here’s why it’s worth trying. I use Superhuman to check work email.
📆 8:50 Plan the Day
When I get to work, I map out what's ahead with a mix of paper and apps.
📅 Google Calendar I check GCal for meetings. I‘ve tried other calendars, including Vimcal, Akiflow, Fantastical, and Notion Calendar. They each have useful features, but I tend to return to the free GCal out of habit. It’s reliable, simple, and lets me easily see shared calendars.
✅ Apple Reminders I keep three priority tasks at the top of my list. I add to that tier only when I’ve completed one. I have a menu of other tasks and reminders in a “Soon” list. I adopted that tactic from Oliver Burkeman’s great book, Four Thousand Weeks.
📄 Remarkable Paper Pro Move I use this paper tablet — or a notebook — to timebox my day. I map the hours based on priorities, energy level, and scheduled meetings. Having a detailed plan helps me avoid decision fatigue later. When I inevitably lose focus, the plan pulls me back on track.
✍️ 9:00 Writing
I start creative work early, when my focus is freshest.
Letterly I dictate my thoughts into this app. That helps me get ideas flowing, and I get a bulleted summary or outline to build on. When I want an AI assistant to challenge my ideas, I use ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode or Gemini Live.
Letterly and other apps like it (AudioPen) are great for what I call bionic dictation— using AI to structure raw speech into a clean outline or summary.
Free alternatives: You can use Apple Notes for dictation on iOS or Mac, or a variety of Google apps if you’re on Android or a Chromebook.
Google Docs / iA Writer I like both of these reliable blank canvases with minimal friction. (Read my take on what’s new in GDocs and why I like iA Writer). I’m also exploring new writing apps like Versey, a minimalist editor with thoughtful AI features.
Raycast Without switching apps, I type [control-space] to open a floating Raycast window. I can then quickly add something to my reminder list or calendar, check a thesaurus, calculate something, or do other tasks. That helps maintain my writing flow. (Why Raycast is a hidden gem).
Headspace Focus music without lyrics helps me block out noise around my Times Square office.
📨 10:00 Email Sprint
Superhuman I use keyboard shortcuts to move quickly through 80 morning messages. To help me keep track of replies I’m waiting for, Superhuman lets me attach automated reminders to resurface messages weeks later. Boomerang is a good alternative for follow-ups if you use Outlook or Gmail.
Flow Dictating messages saves my hands from typing fatigue. It’s remarkably accurate and plugs text directly into whatever app I’m using.
⏸️ 10:55 Break
Wakeout This app features short video loops of real people doing stretching and cardio moves. I can imitate their movements for one-minute exercises. These body breaks improve my focus.
🔬 11:00 Research
* Perplexity provides thorough, citation-backed search results powered by AI models that understand my detailed queries. The summary saves me from digging through hundreds of raw links. (My Perplexity update).
* Claude Projects & NotebookLM These AI tools help me find common themes, key ideas, and examples in prior materials I’ve created, so I can build on my own past work. (More on Claude Projects & my guide to NotebookLM).
That's a glimpse into my morning toolkit. In a follow-up I’ll share tools I use from late morning through bedtime. 🛌
What tools are YOU using today?
Some links are referral links. In some cases they provide you with a free month of access. If you make a purchase, Wonder Tools may earn a small commission, at no cost to you.


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I recently talked with Lance Eaton, Senior Associate Director of AI and Teaching & Learning at Northeastern University and writer of AI + Education = Simplified. We traded ideas about what’s actually working. We came up with 10 specific, practical ways anyone who teaches, coaches, or leads can put AI to work.
📺 Watch the full conversation above, or read highlights below.
10 Ways to Use AI 🛠️
Note: Lance and I alternated tips below 👇
1. Spark Richer Student Reflection 🪞
Lance: Ask students to reflect through a conversation with AI rather than staring at a blank page. A well-prompted AI will keep asking follow-up questions, pushing students past “I didn’t like it” toward real analysis.
2. Strengthen Your Syllabus 📋
Jeremy: Give an AI assistant your syllabus and ask for a critique — for clarity, inclusivity, student-friendliness, and completeness. You’ll get specific, honest feedback. The AI won’t write the syllabus for you, but it will challenge you to make yours better.
We don’t always have colleagues at our side who can offer input on our work. So this is an objective, independent, instant, constructive way to get a useful critique.
3. Make Materials More Visual 🎨
Lance: Turn your syllabus into a graphic version students actually want to read. AI assistants can help you create visual layouts and simple comics-style explanations without any design experience.
4. Improve Lesson Plans 📐
Jeremy: Describe your learning goals, your class size, your constraints — then ask AI to generate 10 warm-up or closing activities. You won’t use most of them, and you might remix a couple. But having options means you’ll often figure out something better than what you’d have designed alone.
5. Try It Until Something Clicks ⚡
Lance: Play with AI until it does something that genuinely surprises or excites you. That moment of “Wait, I could actually use this,” is what shifts the conversation from theoretical to real.
“For some students, this is really powerful, including students navigating English as a second language or ADHD or dyslexia — these tools can unlock things.”
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6. Build Engaging Class Activities 🧩
Jeremy: When you need a compelling analogy for a hard concept, or a historical anecdote, or a mini case study for a short role-play exercise, AI assistants can be helpful in expanding what we consider. If you’re teaching a subject you know well, you can set the direction and take responsibility for verification.
NotebookLM and Claude can generate examples quickly, and can search your own notes to surface examples you’ve created yourself but lost track of. The goal of using AI in this context is strengthening engagement and improving the learning experience. It’s not for whiz-bang special effects.
7. Generate “Bad Examples” Safely 🚫
Lance: Examples can be useful to illustrate what not to do, but you’d never embarrass a student by presenting their work as an example of a mistake.
“We’re never, ever going to — nor should we — ask a student, ‘This was a really horrible thing, can I use it as a bad example going forward?’”
AI tools can generate intentionally flawed examples: a weak argument, a poorly structured paragraph, or circular reasoning. Students learn what to avoid.
8. Catch What You’re Missing 🔍
Jeremy: Ask an AI assistant to review your materials for accessibility gaps, unclear instructions or areas where your material could be more inclusive. Think of it as a thoughtful colleague who reviews your work and catches what familiarity made you miss.
9. Analyze Student Feedback 📊
Lance: Strip names and any identifying information from end-of-semester feedback, then ask AI to identify themes, patterns, and gaps. As Lance put it, “What are some things that I’m not seeing? What are some assumptions I’m making or missing? What are some ways I might redirect the course?” Instead of spending hours manually categorizing open-ended comments, you get a usable overview in minutes — leaving more time to actually act on what students told you.
10. Remember What Was Said 🗒️
Jeremy: Use an AI note-taker like Granola to capture transcripts of student meetings, advising sessions, and office hours. Request permission first. You’ll have searchable records of what was discussed, questions that came up, and what you suggested. That’s particularly useful as time passes and it gets harder to remember the nuances of what you talked about.
Lance’s Free Resources for Educators 🎁
Lance is unusually generous in sharing what he’s learned. A few to bookmark:
* AI Syllabi Policies Collection — 200+ real AI policies from faculty across disciplines. See Lance’s post for more context and ideas for applying this.
* Prompts for Educators — a curated tab of tested prompts on his Substack
* Faculty Cohort AI Survey — Lance is gathering data about AI training
* AI + Education = Simplified — his newsletter, worth following for insight
4 More Ideas Worth Noting 💬
1. Nostalgia for the Pre-AI Era 🏺
AI is making polished, professional-looking output trivially easy to produce. That may make what’s authentically human and imperfect more valuable.
“There’s this moment of longing,” Lance said, “for the days when papers students submitted had grammatical errors.” Professors are already nostalgic for flawed student papers.
We may look back on writing of the early 2020s the way we now look at 1900s-era hand-drawn maps or handmade clothing: reminders of a period when you could look at something and know a person made it.
I’ve been thinking about this in terms of pottery and homemade cookies. 🏺🍪Our imperfect things often have more appeal precisely because they’re made with human hands.
“There’s a growing thread about the irrelevance of higher education,” Lance said, “and AI feeds that.” Institutions and creators who figure out how to signal genuine human authorship will have an edge.
Tools are already emerging to signal human authorship. I recently began testing a tool called OKhuman, which verifies that you actually typed something yourself, using your mic to listen to your keystrokes for evidence. This tool’s existence tells you something about where we’re headed.
2. Why Higher Ed is Struggling 🏛️
It’s easy to be impatient with schools that still haven’t developed a coherent AI approach three years in. Lance pushed back on that frustration with useful context. “This happened right on the heels of the pandemic,” he said.
“Every semester it was just like, ‘We have a new format for you.’” Faculty had restructured entire courses repeatedly, switching to remote teaching mid-semester, then hybrid, then back.
Then AI arrived and disrupted assessment design all over again. “If you do that well,” Lance said, of traditional course alignment, “then your course is a deeply intricate web in which everything is related. AI comes in and, in some ways, obliterates the way we do assessments, which means everything else also has to be changed.”
Add funding cuts, political pressure, and leadership distracted by institutional fires, and the picture is complicated.
3. You Can Build Your Own Tools Now 🔧
Lance mentioned that he’s been building custom software, including an MP3 player designed exactly the way he wants it, an RSS reader, and a podcast organizer, even though he doesn’t have a coding background. “This is the first time I’ve really felt like, ‘Oh! I can actually build stuff.”
If you’ve assumed that building custom tools requires a developer, revisit that assumption. AI-powered “vibe coding” tools have lowered the barriers to creating software, making it easier for educators to build what they need.
4. AI May Lead to a New Equity Gap ⚖️
When schools don’t provide AI tools and leave students to their own devices, they inadvertently create a two-tiered system.
As Lance put it: “You have the inequity of the person who’s using the frontier, high-paid model, and the student who gets a limited amount on the free version.” This isn’t an abstract concern. It affects the quality of work students can produce and the skills they develop. For educators and administrators, it’s a reason to push for institutional access, rather than assuming students will figure it out on their own.
Thank you Tom Daccord, Shittu Isaac, Heather Dawn, Robert Hammond, Uyghur Monitor, and many others for tuning into this live video with Lance Eaton, Ph.D.!


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

Escape AI slop by reading more books. 📚 That’s my plan for making the most of leisure time this year. One book a week. Some short. Others mostly visual — I love graphic novels. Plus a new AI & tech book group I’m starting.
Books get my eyes off screens, and my brain welcomes that break from news, vitriol, and ads. Read on for my updated guide to finding great read this year.
📖 Find your next read
* Most Recommended Books Pick the name of an expert to see what books they recommend and why.
* Goodbooks.io and Read This Twice Explore interesting expert picks.
* En.app Describe the kind of book you’re looking for and get suggestions.
* Whichbook’s World Map 🗺️ Find books set anywhere in the world. Select a country to see a collection of books that take place there. See how it works👇
* Where to find book recs is a nice evergreen list from Writing About Reading. I also like the eclectic recs in the NYTimes’s Read Like the Wind newsletter and its intriguing list: Top 100 books of the 21st century.
* The most mentioned books in podcasts is a neat list from Snipd. In Snipd’s podcast app you can see which books any podcast has mentioned most.
* BookClubs lets you find a book group near you or organize your own.
* Fable hosts book clubs & communities for nearly any genre.
Find free and cheap books 🔦
* Project Gutenberg offers more than 75,000 free ebooks and audiobooks. No registration required. The Top 100 list is a nice source for free reading.
* The Internet Archive has searchable e-books and a free library collection.
* Bookbub spotlights discounted ebooks on its site and email newsletter.
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📚 Announcing the NEW Wonder Tools Book Group 🌟
I’m excited to launch a new Wonder Tools book group 📚 exploring the most fascinating recent AI and tech books. Each month we’ll have a live online session with a lively discussion, and you’ll also get a book guide with quotes, highlights and insights. Occasional surprise guests will join. 💫
This new series, starting in March, is sponsored by Shortform, which publishes high-quality, in-depth guides to non-fiction books. All paid subscribers are invited! Join now for this, and free AI tool access, live monthly online workshops introducing new tools, + other inner circle benefits.
Libby has free ebooks and audiobooks from libraries in 78 countries. It works for 90% of U.S. libraries. Check out nearly anything instantly, for free, on any device. You can read your free ebooks in the app or on a Kindle.
* Audio or text Check out and listen to free audiobooks or ebooks.
* Multiple cards Libby lets you add cards for multiple libraries. That’s useful if a book you want has a waiting list. You can check which library has the shortest waiting list. See where you can get non-resident library cards.
Limitation: Libby is digital-only — you can’t use it for physical books. That requires a separate app or site, like the NYPL app in New York.
Kanopy provides free access to top-notch feature films and documentaries. I log in with my library card. Watch on the web, iOS or Android, or on a smart TV app like Google TV, Roku, or Amazon Fire TV. Libraries cap the number of videos you can watch monthly.
Hoopla is a free app for accessing 3 million audiobooks, ebooks, comics, magazines, and music from 11,500 libraries in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Read, watch or listen in 120 languages from the web or on a mobile device. Bingepasses let you access movies, TV shows, & video courses.
World Cat tells you which library near you has a book you want. It works in multiple languages and covers 10,000 global libraries. Search for books in print, ebook, braille, or audio.
📕 Support Independent booksellers
* Find the cheapest places online to buy any book: Bookfinder
* Find a nearby independent bookstore: Indiebound
* Get cheap used books: Abebooks. Check its bargain books + collections.
* Support your local bookstore with an online purchase. Bookshop.org has raised more than $40 million for indie bookstores.
* Buy audiobooks from local bookstores: Libro.fm
* Shop at an online co-op bookshop owned by readers: Tertulia
Bonus Tip: Prompt AI for personalized reading recommendations 📚
Create your own taste atlas. Make a list of books you’ve liked or learned from. Add movies and music you love too, or other interests. Share the list with Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT. Ask for recommendations based on your tastes.
🧒 Find great children’s books
* Sora, the library app, not the AI video tool, is a digital library for kids. Schools make ebooks and audiobooks available on the app. It works well with graphic novels, picture books, as well as comic books and textbooks. (My family also uses Libby to check out kids books).
* Epic is another popular kids ebook app. It’s fun to use, but it leans into gamification and extrinsic motivation. It entices kids with points and streaks to keep them opening the app.
* Kanopy has a great kids section with video versions of books by Eric Carle, Mo Willems and other greats. It also has math and science lessons.
* How to Raise a Reader is a wonderful guide to children’s books.
* Common Sense Media has helpful info for parents about sensitive content in children’s books to help with finding age-appropriate books and movies.
Bonus tools: Check out a well-curated list of 55 apps for book lovers from Bookscouter, where you can buy and sell books.
📚 Your Comment? What’s an underrated way to find great books?


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe