Brisk Teaching alternative for Ontario teachers
Short version: Brisk is quicker inside the document you are already in, and its writing feedback is genuinely good. We are the better fit when the unit has to be aligned to an Ontario expectation, and when students are the ones talking to the AI.
Competitor details checked November 2026.
Choose The Secondary AI if
you want one description to produce an aligned Ontario bundle, the expectation code stored on every resource, and students talking to an AI whose conversation you can grade.
Choose Brisk if
you grade a lot of student writing and want fast, in-your-voice comments without leaving Google Docs, or your board has already deployed it across Classroom, Canvas or Schoology.
Use both if
Brisk for feedback on essays inside the doc, this for the unit, the Ontario coding and the student-facing activity. They overlap less than the marketing suggests, and nothing here asks you to cancel a free extension.
Ontario codes are not a marketing line on this site. They are a field on the resource.
Our curriculum picker holds Ontario course and expectation codes from the published curriculum. When you generate a lesson plan, quiz, rubric, exit ticket, discussion prompt, worksheet, assignment or chatbot, the code you selected is stored on that record. It shows on what you hand students, it shows on the rubric, and it is still there months later when a department head asks what this task was built against.
Brisk, like most in-document tools, handles standards as text you add inside the document you are already working in. That works until you have to prove the alignment, and then you are reconstructing it from memory.
| What matters | The Secondary AI | Brisk Teaching | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ontario expectation codes stored on the resource | A curriculum picker with Ontario course and expectation codes. Codes attach to lesson plans, quizzes, rubrics, exit tickets, discussions, worksheets, assignments and chatbots. | Standards are generally handled as text inside the document. Ontario codes are usually added by you. | The Secondary AI |
| Where the tool lives | A standalone platform you open in a browser. Nothing to install. | A Chrome and Edge extension that works inside Google Docs, Slides, YouTube and your LMS, plus a web hub for generating and bundling materials. | Brisk Teaching |
| Feedback on student writing | Rubric evaluation of AI chat transcripts. We do not annotate essays you upload. | Personalised, in-your-voice comments on student writing at scale, in the document. Inspect Writing also analyses depth, structure, originality and how a student revised a submission. | Brisk Teaching |
| One description, an aligned bundle | The plan, worksheet, quiz, rubric, exit ticket and chatbot come from the same brief, so they agree with each other. | Each output is a separate generation inside the current document, with no enforced alignment between them. | The Secondary AI |
| Student-facing AI chatbots | Students join with a share code and talk to an AI configured for one of eight teaching approaches. | Yes, but a different shape: Brisk Boost turns a resource into one of 14 student activities (Tutor, Debate, Writing Coach, Character Chat and others) that you set up with objectives and guardrails. Students join by link, QR code or class code with no accounts. | Level |
| Grading the student conversation | Rubric-based grading of the transcript, per-outcome progress, and class-level insight summaries. | Boost Learning Insights show who is engaged, who is stuck and how students are progressing. Rubric scoring of a stored transcript is not the workflow it is built around. | The Secondary AI |
| Bringing your own source text | Describe the unit in plain language, or attach files as context for a chatbot or bundle. | Acts on the document in front of you, including levelling a text in place and building a quiz from a video. | Brisk Teaching |
| Free Ontario science simulations | Cell membrane, enzyme active site, enzyme activity and DNA replication labs, free and public. | Not a simulation library. | The Secondary AI |
| Presentations | A presentation generator that saves decks to your library. | Slide generation inside the document flow. | Level |
| Student accounts and personal data | None required. Share code or anonymous ID, no student email collected. | Student identity and access come from the host LMS. | The Secondary AI |
| Learning-management-system integration | You share a link or code. No LMS plugin. | Sits inside Classroom, Canvas and Schoology, which is why boards deploy it easily. | Brisk Teaching |
| Price model | Free tier: 10,000 output tokens and 500 chatbot messages a month, permanently. Paid plans from $14.95. | Free for individual teachers with 20+ tools and usage limits. Premium (schools and districts, 35+ tools) and Intelligence (districts, your own curriculum) are custom-quoted. | Level |
The Brisk Teaching column reflects publicly documented features as of November 2026.
Competitor details come from each vendor's own published material, checked November 2026: Brisk Teaching. Products change, so confirm anything that decides your choice with the vendor directly.
Real codes from the published curriculum, and the resource we would build from each
- B2Biochemistry
investigate the chemical structures, functions, and properties of biochemical compounds and their roles in metabolic processes
Enzyme active site lab - C3Metabolic Processes
demonstrate an understanding of the chemical changes and energy conversions that occur in metabolic processes
Lesson bundle with quiz and exit ticket - D3Molecular Genetics
demonstrate an understanding of the processes of DNA replication, transcription, and translation, and the role of genes in the synthesis of proteins
DNA replication lab - E2Homeostasis
investigate the feedback mechanisms that maintain homeostasis in living organisms
Socratic chatbot with outcome tracking
- B3Organic Chemistry
demonstrate an understanding of the structures, properties, and chemical behaviour of organic compounds
Lesson bundle with rubric - C3Structure and Properties of Matter
demonstrate an understanding of the structure and properties of matter at the atomic and molecular levels, and of the quantum mechanical model
Discussion prompt set - D3Energy Changes and Rates of Reaction
demonstrate an understanding of energy changes and rates of reaction, and the factors that affect them
Worksheet and exit ticket
- B1Reading and Literature Studies
read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, informational, and graphic texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning
Socratic seminar discussion prompts - C2Writing
draft and revise their writing, using a variety of literary, informational, and graphic forms and stylistic elements appropriate for the purpose and audience
Assignment with AI-proof design check - D1Media Studies
demonstrate an understanding of a variety of media texts
Role-play chatbot
Expectation wording is quoted from the published Ontario curriculum. Overall expectations are shown; the curriculum picker in the app includes the specific expectations beneath each one.
| Plan | Price | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10,000 AI output tokens a month, 500 chatbot messages, unlimited chatbots, every generator |
| Starter | $14.95/mo | 50,000 output tokens a month, 2,500 chatbot messages |
| Pro | $44.95/mo | 100,000 output tokens a month, 10,000 chatbot messages |
| Premium | $99.95/mo | 250,000 output tokens a month, 20,000 chatbot messages |
We are not going to call ourselves the cheapest, because we cannot prove it and you would be right not to believe it. The figure that decides this is how much AI output your classes actually use in a month. Both tools publish their limits, so compare those against your own volume instead of a headline price. If your honest answer is a handful of worksheets a term, a free tier is a free tier and you should not be paying anyone.
Full plan comparisonFaster inside the document
If your prep happens in a Google Doc, Brisk removes a step we add: you have to come to us. That friction is real, and on a busy Tuesday it decides which tool gets used.
Their writing feedback is best in class
Personalised, rubric-aligned comments on student essays, left in the doc at scale, is a genuinely strong feature. We mark AI conversations against a rubric; we do not annotate prose you upload.
They are already inside your LMS
Classroom, Canvas and Schoology integration is why boards can roll Brisk out without a procurement fight. We cannot match that, and if your board has deployed it, that removes a hurdle we cannot remove for you.
Their free tier costs nothing to try
So does ours. But a free extension you already have installed wins on convenience unless the second tool does something the first cannot.
Try it on a course you teach
Pick an expectation code, generate the bundle, and read it against the expectation. The free plan is permanent and needs no card, which is the only way a comparison page is worth reading.