Favorite Student Picks for AI Tools
Feb. 3, 2026: How Mike Reilley's AI Journalism students are using AI for school, journalism and life.
Editor’s note: We have a new site and newsletter sponsor on the Journalist’s Toolbox: Media Help Desk from the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. It offers case studies, resources and help for local newsrooms. Check it out. It’s free.
Every semester I have my AI Journalism students to do short presentations on AI tools they’re using as journalists, students or in everyday life. Over the past 18 months, we’ve read about some interesting tools from past semesters.
This past fall, 18 intrepid students shared their AI tools. Here are some of our favorites:
Creative | Multimedia
Lidia Nieves shared Good Notes, a tool she actually used in an editing class with me when she sketched a news page design. Rather than sketching on paper, she used Good Notes (pricing models vary) to sketch it. It’s a versatile tool for collaborations, brainstorming and more
Max Ayoub presented Gamma AI, a tool for designing presentations, websites and more. Max showed how he organized a paper into a presentation for a class.
Raed Amjad had a blast showing us Quick, Draw, a Google tool that times you while you sketch an image. For example: It gives you 20 seconds to sketch a broom. The audio lends to the urgency. Try it and you’ll see.
Muna Aden spurred an interesting ethics discussion with her AI tool, Cleanup.Pictures. The tool lets you import and image and remove, add and edit the image. Our discussion centered on truth-telling and where to draw the line with photo editing and AI.
Phillip Segarra shared one of my favorite audio tools, Suno.ai, using text to build and mix music.
Sponsor
News Media Help Desk is a hub for local media news organizations to get digital help.
We’ll help you with free resources like case studies, how-to guides and our Scorecard database of tools. For more help, send us a note and we’ll answer your question or refer you to our fractional services partner who can match you with a vetted expert.
Visit the Help Desk at newsmediahelpdesk.org
Research | Writing | Editing
AI browsers have been all the rage in 2025. Oscar Hidalgo demonstrated the Atlas browser from OpenAI. It shares many of the features that Perplexity’s Comet and Chrome’s Gemini feature. Atlas is the best for heavy ChatGPT users, obviously. You can use this guide to decide what works best for you.
Fatima Aliu works full-time in healthcare. She presented Explain it Like I’m 5, which is great for breaking down complex stories, academic studies and other research. Just load the content in and you get a summary that anyone can understand.
Hunfa Khan shared Akknoledge, a study group tool that was created by UIC students. It has a free model with various pricing plans based on needs and usage. You need a .edu email address to create an account.
Audy Nicko demonstrated Base44, a no-code tool that lets you build fully-functional apps in minutes with just your words.
Dylan Shrake showed us DeepAI, a versatile Large Language Model that can generate text, images, video and music. It has a versatile pricing plan starting at $4.99 a month.
Fitness and Healthy Eating
Fitness and lifestyle apps have been popular every semester. Shereen Sattar shared Foodieprep.ai, a phone app that helps develop recipes and allows you to shoot photos of ingredients to build the recipe. Yaofeng Zhao showed how he manages his workouts with the MyFitnessPal app. And Daniela Delgado showed the AI Recipe Generator by DishGen, which lets you develop meal plans.
I’m teaching the class again in the Spring 2026 semester, so we’ll see what it yields in a May newsletter post. Do you have a favorite AI tool? Share it here and we’ll feature it on the site and/or newsletter and credit you.
More AI Tools
Alltext.nyc
Search a term like “Times Square” or “Tribeca” and it will give you images of signage, etc. around the city with lat/long. location.Automat
Turn screen recordings or written instructions into production-ready automations for enterprise workflows.Poly
A universal file browser that searches docs, images, videos and audio by understanding their actual contentAI Detector
Identifies whether text was AI-generated with more than 95 percent accuracyAI Image to Prompt
Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and Flux prompt generator
Sponsor
Be sure to check out the incredible production tools suite with our new sponsor at HeyNota.com
Textbooks
The Journalist’s Toolbox
My new book, “The Journalist’s Toolbox A Guide to Digital Reporting and AI” was published by Routledge in December. You can order it here,
Data + Journalism
Samantha Sunne and I co-authored a textbook, “Data + Journalism” that’s available now on Routledge. (Order here). It’s an introductory- to intermediate-level guide to learning data storytelling from A to Z.
Want More Training?
Contact Mike Reilley at mikereilley1 (at) gmail (dot) com to schedule an AI tools training for your staff.
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In Quotes …
“AI might be a powerful technology, but things won’t get better simply by adding AI.” – Vivienne Ming, theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur and author
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