You describe your app to your AI chatbot and give it Teacher Hive's Connected Superpower Instructions. The AI writes the code, and you paste the result into Teacher Hive. This page walks through that workflow and provides examples.
How to build one
- In Teacher Hive, click Add App on your My Apps page.
- Toggle on the Connected Superpower section.
- Click Copy AI Instructions. This is the rulebook your chatbot needs to build apps that connect with Teacher Hive.
- Open a fresh conversation in your AI chatbot (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini). Paste the AI Instructions.
- Describe the app you want. Be specific. Cover both the student view and the teacher view.
- Paste the chatbot's HTML back into Teacher Hive's App Code field, name the app, pick a short URL slug, and save.
- Share the link with students or guests. They open it on any device. No logins, no accounts.
Example prompt: Word Cloud
Build a word cloud HTML app called Class Word Cloud.
In Guest View, display a question prompt along with a single text field and a Submit button. After a guest submits a response, show the message “Thanks, your word is in.” and prevent additional submissions from that device.
In Teacher View, include a field to enter or change the question prompt and display a live count of submissions. Add a “Reveal Cloud” button that displays the word cloud to all connected guests, with more common words appearing larger. Also include a “Clear” button that removes all submissions and resets the activity. Use real-time syncing so updates appear instantly across connected devices. Keep the interface simple, clean, and mobile-friendly.
[Paste the Connected Superpower AI Instructions]
Here's the app built with the above prompt: Class Word Cloud.
Prompt tips
- Describe both views. If you skip the teacher view, you won't have one.
- Name what triggers what. "When the teacher clicks Reveal, every student screen shows the word cloud." Cause and effect.
- Spell out stop conditions. "Each student can submit once." "Submissions close when the teacher clicks Lock."
- Describe the look only if it matters. "Bright friendly colors, big buttons for elementary students" gets a different feel than "minimalist black and white."
- Iterate, don't start over. If the first try is close, tell the AI what to change instead of starting a new conversation.
Sample prompt: a Show and Tell app
Build an HTML Show and Tell app for my classroom.
Guest view: a "Take a photo" button that opens the camera or file picker, a text field for a one-sentence caption, and a Submit button. After they submit, show their photo with the caption.
Teacher view: every submitted photo in a grid with captions underneath. Each one has a "Show on screens" button that pushes that submission to every guest screen as a full-size view. Has a "Clear all" button at the top.
[Paste the Connected Superpower AI Instructions]
Here's the app built with the above prompt: Show and Tell
The AI handles the photo upload, the live sync, the dashboard layout, and the broadcast logic. You just describe the experience.
Using images and other files
If your activity needs guests to upload an image (a meme, a drawing, a photo of their work) or a teacher to push an image to every screen, the chatbot wires in Teacher Hive's upload helper automatically. You don't have to mention it. Just describe the behavior in plain English.
A few things worth knowing:
- 10 MB per image. Anything larger is rejected with a friendly error.
- Pooled storage. Your Connected Superpower image uploads share the same space as your File Locker files. Pro is 2 GB total; Builder is 50 MB total.
- View and clear from File Locker. Visit My File Locker to see each app's uploaded images. You can clear them per-app without deleting the app itself.
- Stale apps clean up automatically. If an app sits unused for 12 months, you'll get an email warning, and the files will be removed a month later. The app HTML stays put; only the uploads go.
Common app patterns to try
Patterns that consistently work well as a starting point:
- Word cloud: students submit a word, teacher reveals the cloud sized by frequency.
- Poll: students pick an option, teacher sees live tallies and reveals the winner.
- Meme push: students build a meme, teacher picks one to broadcast to every screen.
- Collaborative story: students add the next sentence; teacher picks which one to keep.
- Exit ticket: students type one thing they learned; teacher watches answers stream in.
- Game show: students hit a buzzer; teacher sees who buzzed first and awards points.
- Vote on submissions: students submit, then vote on each other's entries.
What's already handled for you
You don't have to ask your AI for any of these. Teacher Hive handles:
- Anonymous nicknames. Every guest gets a stable handle like "BraveOtter."
- Language safety. Anything a guest writes is checked before it's saved. Blocked content never reaches the screen.
- Live updates. Data changes propagate to every screen within a couple seconds.
- Saving and loading. Data persists until you clear it from the teacher view.
- Responsive design. The AI builds layouts that work on mobile and desktop by default.
When something is not quite right
Most issues fall into a few buckets:
- The AI invented a function that doesn't exist. Describe the error to your AI and ask for a fix.
- The Teacher dashboard is missing or broken. Tell the AI: "I need a Teacher view that shows X, Y, Z. Make sure both views are fully built and the Teacher view is shown only to me."
- Things stop working after several iterations. The chatbot may have drifted from the rules. Paste the AI Instructions into the chat again as a refresher.
- You can't preview the Superpower in your chatbot's canvas. Canvas previews don't connect to Teacher Hive. Paste the code into the Add App form and test on Teacher Hive itself.
If you get stuck, the simplest fix is usually to describe the symptom in your AI conversation and ask for a fix, or start a fresh conversation with the AI Instructions and rebuild.
The Connected Superpower is in beta, so please email hello@teacherhive.app with issues and suggestions.
