The Engageli Studio Showdown has wrapped up, and we're excited to announce our three winners. The competition brought together educators from universities, K-12 schools, and corporate training environments, each exploring different ways to use AI-powered course creation tools.
Engageli Studio turns videos into active learning modules through AI. The platform breaks content into micro-lessons, adds interactive elements, and includes an AI tutor called Learning Pal for questions and debate. Our winners represent three distinct approaches to AI-enhanced learning, showing how the same tools can support very different educational goals.
First place: Cold War history using Library of Congress "duck and cover" training video
Created by Keri Salyards, Co-Director of Center for Elevated Teaching and Learning and Instructional Technologist at Mount Aloysius College
Keri took first place with a course that impressed our judges with its thoughtful design and creative use of historical content. She built her course around a piece of history: a training video from the Library of Congress that was used during the Cold War to teach children how to "duck and cover" in case of an atomic bomb.
What made Keri's course particularly effective was how she structured the learning experience. She opened with a reflection prompt, giving learners a moment to collect their own thoughts about the topic before jumping into the historical content. This approach helps students connect personally with the material before encountering new information.
Throughout the course, Keri added meaningful images to quiz questions that provided context. She also included a quiz with no correct answer, just to understand student sentiment around the topic (a great use of polling). Her course concluded with an essay question, allowing students to synthesize what they'd learned.
Keri's work demonstrates that the best educational technology implementations start with solid teaching principles - like reflection and meaningful assessment - and use AI tools to enhance the overall learning experience.
Second place: Illinois College technology standardization course
Created by Jeremy Hommowun, Educational Technology Manager at Illinois College
Jeremy earned second place by turning institutional content into engaging educational storytelling. He took a promotional video about Illinois College's campus technology standardization efforts and turned it into an interactive course that showcases how the college ensures faculty and students have a consistent experience in every classroom.
Jeremy's course features great visuals of the college and technology, plus interviews with Illinois College faculty and staff. Throughout the course, he included quiz questions about the college, campus standardization initiatives, and the specific technology Illinois College uses, with a thoughtful reflection prompt at the end.
The judges loved how Jeremy transformed promotional material into meaningful educational content. Rather than simply presenting information about technology standards, his course helps viewers understand the why behind the initiatives and the real impact on the campus community.
Third place: 9th grade English Language Arts final project guide
Created by Sam Hicks, High School Teacher at West Virginia Virtual Academy
Sam created a comprehensive course that gives 9th grade English students clear guidance on their final project options. Rather than just handing out a project sheet, Sam built an entire course detailing 14 different project options, going into depth on each one's requirements, due dates, point values, and group work possibilities.
What makes Sam's approach particularly smart is the structure: after each project option is explained, there's a quiz that reinforces the requirements, helping students remember the key pieces they'll need to include. Since the course is recorded and self-paced, students can refer back to it anytime throughout the project.
This is a perfect example of using technology to give students both structure and creative freedom. They have clear guidelines and can revisit the requirements whenever needed, but they also get to choose from 14 different ways to demonstrate their learning. It's the kind of scaffolding that helps students succeed while still letting them follow their interests.
Honorable mentions
Our top three winners stood out, but the creativity across all submissions was impressive. Here are some of our favorite examples of how people used Engageli Studio:
Workplace training
Several participants transformed recorded virtual training sessions into interactive onboarding courses, making new employee experiences more engaging and accessible.
Student creators
An elementary school student created a "summer fun" geology course, while a college student turned her poetry final into an interactive course other students could learn from.
Content repurposing
A podcaster converted episodes from his machine learning podcast into a structured learning path, showing how existing content can become more educational.
Professional development
A corporate manager built a multi-module emotional intelligence course, addressing critical workplace skills through self-paced learning.
These examples show that effective course creation isn't just for traditional educators. From elementary students to corporate managers, anyone with valuable knowledge can create meaningful learning experiences. The range of applications proves that AI tools work best when they help people share what they already know well.
Congratulations!
These courses demonstrate that successful educational technology isn't about the AI features themselves - it's about how thoughtful educators, trainers, and instructional designers use those features to solve real problems and improve learning outcomes.
Each winner created something that addresses genuine needs in their educational context. Their success provides a roadmap for other educators exploring how AI tools can enhance their teaching without losing the human elements that make education meaningful.
Congratulations to Keri, Jeremy, and Sam for their outstanding work in the Studio Showdown. We're excited to see how their approaches inspire other educators!
To try Engageli Studio out for yourself, sign up for a free one-month trial.