Alice Keeler, Google Developer Expert for Google Workspace, shares how to vibe code for Google workspace. She discusses privacy issues, tips for writing code, and the importance of installing tools that are maintained by developers. Then, in the show notes, how to begin creating your own Gem with prompts and tips is included for classroom teachers to get started with their own coding.
Alice Keeler created the Educator AI Assistant, a Google Sheets add-on that does not collect any data in just two days. In today’s show, Alice Keeler talks about how she vibe codes with Gemini to create extensions and tools for teachers and the classroom. Vibe coding is “all the rage,” and everyone is talking about it. But how do you do it? If you’re interested in vibe coding, you’ll want to listen to the thoughts Alice shares relating to the big-picture issues.
I recently had Donnie Piercey on the show talking about how he vibe codes for his fifth-grade classroom. However, this show is different. It specifically relates to Gemini, surfaces privacy issues we should be concerned about, and casts a vision for what school IT departments are becoming (or might need to become).
I do have to share that this was recorded in the middle of last year; however, I’ve included the timeless elements in our conversation. The principles of AI that relate to what we do to protect privacy and to help our schools succeed are constant. Some of the tools have changed, and they will continue to change. We mentioned how some of the tools from the “Web 2 days” that we used daily and discussed constantly don’t exist anymore. That will happen again. But teaching is just as important as ever, and with vibe coding we have a superpower if we dig in.
If you’re vibe coding in your classroom, I hope you’ll share with me what you’re doing by contacting me. I’d like to hear your story!
I want my toolbox to small. I don’t want to sign up fro 10,000 different products.
Alice Keeler, Google Developer Expert for Google Workspace
Table of Contents for These Show Notes
Listen to the Show
How to Vibe Code with Gemini: Build Your Own Classroom Tools with Alice Keeler | Episode 966
Key Takeaways from This Show
Here are some of the things we talked about on today’s show:
- How expertise matters, but not quite as much as you might think, when it comes to vibe coding.
- Alice’s concerns about the rapid emergence of new tools built by AI and if they are actually protecting student data.
- The benefits of vibe coding extensions for your own Google Drive and how it can protect data. Notes about how you need to work with your IT department and some features that may not be available to classroom teachers.
- What “citizen programming” is and how vibe coding fits into that approach that has been discussed for years. Also, how it impacts the IT Department of your school.
- The benefits of moving from off-the-shelf solutions to those your district creates for itself and an example of a district who built their own system.
- What we learned from Web 2.0 days that applies to AI days today.
- The importance of using tools that are maintained by the developer and examples of development tasks that are done when you create an extension or add-on.
Resources Mentioned on the Show
- Educator AI Assistant — the Google Sheets add-on she built in two days. Collects no data. Still in beta.
- TemplateTab — the add-on she references, 26M+ installs
Beginners: Start By Making a GEM
Classroom teachers, IT Coaches, and curriculum directors
A GEM is a special custom AI prompt that is pre-programmed for a specific purpose. Read Alice’s information on Gems in “What are Google Gemini Gems
Before you start making one, try a Gem like one of those found at on Alice’s shared GEM site or Edugems, made by Eric Curts.
Make a Gem to Align to Your Standards.
1. Sign in to your school account and go to your Gem Manager.
2. Find an online PDF of the standards you’re using for your class this year and attach it to the gem you’re making. Attach only your grade or course section. It will work better if it is a narrow file and not a huge file with hundreds of pages (which may not even upload to Gemini).
3. Use the following prompt and make sure you attach the PDF standards to the gem. Edit the prompt so that it is asking what you want it to help you do. (In Alice’s article on GEMS, Alice gives the acronym PARTS (Persona * Act (Task) * Recipient * Theme * Structure)
TIP: Pick a better model like Thinking or Pro and not fast as you start with it. You can also feed in sample lesson plan templates that you like and other lessons you’ve created that are examples of best practices.
TIP: use a file name like best-practices-template.pdf and standardsname-grade.pdf.
Then set up the GEM with this as a starting point. Edit the instructions to fit your situation and needs.
Description Field
Attach or paste your lesson plan. Name the standards you are teaching in this lesson, by code.
Instructions Field:
You are a standards integration analyst. You examine a teacher's lesson plan
against the standards document attached to this Gem and report where those
standards are actually taught, where they are only mentioned, and what would
strengthen the match.Use only the attached standards document as your source of standards. Do not
generate standard codes. Do not quote standard language that is not in the
attached document. Do not substitute a standard from memory or from another
state's framework. When the teacher names a code, find it in the attached
document and quote it verbatim before analyzing it. If a named code is not in the
attached document, say so and stop rather than guessing.For the lesson plan provided, do the following in order.
1. Confirm the standards. List each standard the teacher named, with its code and
its verbatim text from the attached document, so the teacher can check the match.2. Build a coverage table with one row per named standard. Columns: the standard
code, the specific activity or step where it appears, and a rating of Taught,
Mentioned, or Absent. Taught means students do something that requires the
standard. Mentioned means the standard is named but no student work depends on it.3. Check the verbs. For each standard, name the cognitive verb the standard
requires and the verb the lesson actually asks students to perform. Flag every
mismatch and state the direction — the task sits below the standard, or above it.4. Name the evidence gap. For each standard, state what a teacher would look at to
know a student met it. If the lesson produces no such evidence, say so plainly.5. Search the attached standards document for standards the teacher did not name
that this lesson already does substantial work toward. List up to three, each with
its code and verbatim text, and name the activity that supports it. Mark this
section clearly as suggestions to verify, not claims of alignment.6. Give three integration moves, ordered by effort:
- One change that can be made tonight in under ten minutes using what is
already in the plan.
- One change for the next time this lesson is taught.
- One larger redesign worth considering when the unit is rebuilt.
For each, name which standard it strengthens.7. Suggest one way to raise the rigor without adding class time, tied to a
standard already in the plan.8. List anything in the lesson that is not serving a named standard. Do not
recommend cutting it — some of it is classroom culture. Report it so the teacher
can decide.Report in plain language a teacher can skim. Do not rewrite the lesson plan.
Then, remember, to test your gem. Part of customizing tools using AI is that we ideate, prototype (what you made above), and test. When you test and find mistakes, then you can revise the instructions and try again. Send the link to someone to test.
Learn More About Gemini and Vibe Coding
A GEM is just a start, you can go so much further with vibe coding than this. Recently, I described when I vibe-coded my AI terminology game for ISTE. (Here’s how I did that one and here’s the game.) If you want to do something like this, look at Alice’s tips for vibe coding with Antigravity for Google.
- Google Gemini for Teachers Quick Start Guide – August 1, 2026 Alice posted this which also includes 10 prompts to get you started.
- Getting Started with Vibe Coding Using Antigravity – Alice is now taking us further. First, she talks about enabling canvas to let you create an app for your classroom that does something like this Gem that she made. Then, if you want to go to a higher level, Antigravity is what Alice is using now. Antigravity is not where you start and it does require you install it on your computer and it will not work on a chromebook. She goes through every step.
Make AI-friendly handouts. I taught my students to vibe code games to reinforce what we were learning in class. This means that for almost all content, I produce a PDF and put it into Google Classroom so they can access the material to make their games. Good data helps the AI you’re programming to focus and produce better results. Students are making their own review games in all kinds of AI tools, but most will not take the time to get good information on what they should be studying. I think of these PDFs as handouts for the AI tools my students are using!
Transcript of this Show
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Click to read the full transcript
Vicki Davis: Today on Tech Tool Tuesday, we’re talking about vibe coding for Gemini for teachers with Alice Keeler. Remember, go to the webpage for this episode for a lot of amazing resources at coolcatteacher.com forward slash E966.
Announcer: This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.
Vicki Davis: I am so excited today to be talking with my friend Alice Keeler. She is the queen of spreadsheets and yes, Google gave her that name and she has her cat on camera. For those of you who are watching YouTube, well, I am the cool cat teacher, so there you go. She is a mom of five, author of eight books. She blogs at alicekeeler.com. She has an AI teacher toolbox that you definitely want to check out at educatoraiassistant.com. It not only creates lesson plans rubrics, but it collects no data. All of her data collection-free add-ons are at alicekeeler.com. Forward slash codedbyalice. You sent me a text the other day that said, how many? 37. 37 add-ons.
Alice Keeler: And it just feels like so many, I can’t keep track. I’m like, is it really that many?
Vicki Davis: Yeah. And you start as a math teacher.
Alice Keeler: I taught myself to code. And now with Vibe Coding, I’m killing it with the Vibe Coding. So Vibe Coding would be that when you use AI to code. So I go to Google Gemini and I’m like, this is what I want. I code Google Workspace, right? So Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides. I know how to code. So my prompts are pretty good. This is what I want the add-on to do. Honestly, Vicki, the other day, it was really disappointing because it worked the first time. No edits. I’m like, how boring is that? But it also is like, how quickly can I get out new features and improve the functionality and things that I kind of know about, but I don’t know? I can actually incorporate those things really quickly into my add-ons and into my code. So Vibe Coding is coding with AI. So it took me two days to create this AI teacher toolkit. So what I wanted to do is to have something that collects no data. I feel very squishy about all of these products that have seemed to have popped up over the last year. There’s some rumors about some companies just signing whatever the schools give them. But are they? I mean, it’s easy to sign something, but what are they really doing with your data? So I want my toolbox to be small. I don’t want to sign up for 10,000 different products. So what can I do with Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Forms, stay in the Google ecosystem if you’re a Google user? This is the ecosystem you’re in. It’s in your own Google Drive. You should, like, keep your data with yourself. So what I coded was the ability to, it’s an add-on for Google Sheets, that will allow you to create lesson plans, rubrics, respond to an angry parent, lesson plan simulator that turns your lesson plan into a D&D adventure. Honestly, anything you want, like, literally anything you want. IEP writer, Dungeons & Dragons, any of those things and more because I have a feature that allows you to describe what you want, what tool you want, and it will create the prompt for you and add it into your toolbox. In my particular case, everything is sitting in your Google Drive, in your Sheets. So, I mean, like if it’s in your Google Drive, we have a lot of PII in our student drive, right? Like all the student work, rosters, everything, Google Classroom has that PII.
Vicki Davis: Now that vibe coding exists and people can write their own extensions, There are bad actors that can write extensions that can take information. So how do we determine which extensions we really want to trust? And do we just write them ourselves?
Alice Keeler: I think you should write them ourselves. I mean, it took me two days to write this teacher AI toolkit. Now, granted, I have a lot of background knowledge and things that helped me to do this. I don’t know that your average person with no knowledge could just pull this off tomorrow. But that’s what’s really exciting is that school districts can look at these tools and be like, we want that, but we want the privacy. They can literally have somebody with honestly very mediocre skills in coding, put one together, distribute it out to the whole school district, and you know it’s safe because you made it internally and you published it. And it’s so easy to publish internally. Now, you have to have permissions. Like, probably as a teacher, you don’t have the ability to make a cloud project at your school. So you’re going to want to work with your IT department, Either get them to do it because it’s insanely easy to do that. We’re in a really exciting time of more security because it’s really doable. If these companies can pop up overnight, why can’t your school district make that themselves and then share it with other school districts? Like, it feels to me like the democratization of EdTech right now. I’m really excited about it.
Vicki Davis: Programming we’ve been talking about for years. The rise of citizen programming, which is basically vibe coding, means that by describing an app or a tool that you can create it adds another layer of what IT departments will do, which is the approval of apps, programs, websites, all of these things to deploy them. Because if you can do that, you can have more safety and more security. But, you know, there are some IT departments who say, hey, we’re not programmers, we’re computer fixers. Right. That’s got to change.
Alice Keeler: I think that’s true for every job. It’s not just the IT department. What does the job of teachers look like moving forward now that we have this democratization of ed tech and all of the things? So I would hope that the IT department is always moving forward because technology moves fast. So what we were doing in the IT department 10 years ago, 15 years ago, was obviously not the same today, right? How many of them were writing AI policies 10 years ago? None of them. And I hope they all are now. So let’s just assume that’s happening. But getting them on board with the citizen coding, with the vibe coding, is that you have people from your community, your school district, contributing to solve your really unique problems. Yeah. And anything you buy is pretty much off the shelf, right? It addresses your problems, but does it really solve what you need it to do? Now, I’m just doing it with Google Workspace, but of course, you can vibe code in anything. You can vibe code Python and different things for whatever your applications are. What could we do if we were to vibe code and create these tools that we know that they’re safe because we made them ourselves and worked on them internally? Some of it’s going to be too much. I don’t know that I’m going to recreate PowerSchool anytime soon, as much as I need. But there’s a lot of things that we can look at. And like, that’s a cool feature. Could we build it internally? Could we band together with some other schools? I know like Fresno Unified and their Microsoft school. They’re awesome. They do make their own power school. And so they do it all internally. It’s gamified. And so it does happen. And it is possible. But Fresno Unified is the third largest school district, I think, in the state of California. So they have a lot of resources. But better yet, if we were to just, you know, make a conglomerate that we work together.
Vicki Davis: One thing at ISTE that perplexed me, I guess, a little bit is I’m a big one for using like the actual direct model. Like if I’m going to be using Gemini, I’m going to go straight to Gemini and use it. If I’m going to be using Claude, so many of these tools built on top of models, A, they don’t tell you which model they’re using. B, they don’t tell you how they’re using the data. And you’re not transparent to like, where is this data going and who’s using it? And then you’ve got the issue of, listen, you and I have known each other a long time and we lived through the web 2 era. So many apps that we talked about daily in the Web 2 era, including one of them was Wikispaces, bought by TES and then went away. Daily tools, big players, thinking they’re going to be here forever. Right. And then they went away.
Alice Keeler: Right.
Vicki Davis: And that’s going to happen again. And as OpenAI or Gemini or whoever updates these app models, it’ll break. And then we start from scratch.
Alice Keeler: When I, when I connected up, I put in my code, a link that says model name and I click model name. So it’s really easy for me to update which model. So, and so all I literally have to do is swap out, not even a line of code is just a text string have to be actively supporting, but I hope that you’re using tools that are being actively supported anyway. So for example, my add-on template tab, I have 30 something million installs on that. [Editor’s note: the Google Workspace Marketplace listing for TemplateTab shows 26M+ installs.] So what that does is it takes your roster of students on the first sheet, and then you design your graphic organizer on the second sheet in Google Sheets, and then it’ll replicate your graphic organizer for each student on your roster and put their name on the tab at the bottom. So at some point, Google had changed the way that they handled folders and moving files and some of those things. And so they are deprecated. So I go in and I look at my code and some things are like lined out because they’re not supported anymore. So in that case, I did have to update my code, but not because of AI per se, but just because that’s how software works.
Vicki Davis: Your point is really valid. Like this is helping me understand is that the value of, is this being actively maintained and updated so that you can have access to the new models? So Alice Keeler at alicekeeler.com, what she’s great at is helping people become massively efficient with Google Workspace. So if your school is Google Workspace, you should reach out to Alice. She can help you just be a game changer. We’re not going to get more people, so we got to get more efficient. We got to streamline admin so that we can free up resources to have more people in the classroom. So thanks for coming on the show, Alice.
Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com forward slash newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.
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