Aila vs Make My Lesson

Aila is Oak’s free web-based AI lesson assistant for teachers. It creates editable, downloadable lesson packages containing one lesson plan, one slide deck, two quizzes, and one worksheet. Teachers can also request glossaries, tasks, and quizzes for Oak lessons or their own material. Lessons can be adapted by changing content, reading age, geographical context, tasks, and activities. Aila uses retrieval-augmented generation from Oak content written by teachers and checked by subject experts, with emphasis on the English national curriculum. Its FAQ says the system is built to use ChatGPT-4 while Oak evaluates other models. Usage is subject to request limits for lessons and resources, and fair-use limits may apply. Aila is in beta and under active development, so Oak advises checking generated material. It does not currently make images or diagrams, and results are weaker in some subjects, particularly STEM and modern foreign languages. Use requires a laptop or computer with internet access; mobile use is unsupported.

Make My Lesson creates curriculum-aligned teaching packs, including lesson plans, presentations, classroom activities, and assessments. Plans can contain standards-aligned objectives, timings, differentiation, and Bloom’s balance. Its presentation stage uses lesson objectives to produce a slide deck calibrated to the lesson’s duration, with speaker notes. Activity materials include a student sheet and teacher answer key; assessment materials include a paper and mark scheme. The service lists 69 curriculum routes across Australia, the UK, Canada, International Baccalaureate, and US/AP, along with 16 teaching methods. Teachers can export PDFs and PowerPoints, download ZIP files, print, or share to Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams. Android, iOS, and web platforms are listed. The Free plan includes five generations and requires no card; the listed Monthly plan is $9.99 a month. The pricing note also says paid plans start at $15.99/mo. Unused paid credits expire at the end of the plan period. Lesson inputs are sent to US-based AI providers, which are instructed not to train on them; teachers are advised not to enter identifying student information.