The DEEP Build Kit · Card 16
Glossary: engineering words in teaching terms
The words you will hear today, each with a plain definition and the nearest thing in teaching.
For: Everyone
Card 16 · All stages · keep it beside you
Software engineers and teachers already do much the same job: say what good looks like, then check whether the work meets it. These are the words you will hear today, with the nearest thing in teaching.
Planning the tool
| Word | What it means | In teaching terms |
|---|---|---|
| Outcome | The change you want the tool to make for its user, written before you build | A learning objective: the change, not the activity |
| User | The person who will use the tool: who they are, what they know, where they go wrong | The learner you plan for |
| Success check | A test anyone can run: "When I [do this], it [does that]." | A success criterion |
| Red line | Something the tool must never do | A non-negotiable, like a safeguarding rule |
| Spec (specification) | A written description of what to build, for whom, and how you will know it works. Also called a brief | A lesson plan written for a cover teacher: clear enough that someone else could deliver it without asking you |
| Prompt | What you type to the AI | The instructions you give a class |
| Context | Everything the AI can see when it answers: your spec, the chat so far, any files you shared | What a cover teacher knows about your class: only what you left them |
The complexity ladder: what the tool does (card 01)
| Word | What it means | In teaching terms |
|---|---|---|
| Show | Presents something. The user reads or looks. | A labelled diagram on the board |
| Respond | Reacts to what the user does. | A quiz with feedback on every answer |
| Remember | Keeps progress between uses, in this browser only. | A bookmark that keeps a student's place |
| Think | Uses AI inside the tool. Think (AI inside the tool) is beyond this session: see card 18. | A teaching assistant in the room, who needs their own safeguards |
On the web
| Word | What it means | In teaching terms |
|---|---|---|
| HTML | The language a web page is written in. Most builds today end up as one .html file that holds the whole tool | A worksheet with its layout marked in, so it looks the same wherever it is printed |
| Browser | The program that opens web pages, such as Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox. It opens an .html file saved on your computer too | The projector: it shows whatever you give it |
| URL | A web address, such as www.deepeducationnetwork.com/courses/build-with-ai/kit | A room number: it says exactly where to go |
| index.html | The file a website opens first. GitHub Pages opens the file named exactly index.html at your site's main address (card 17) | The front cover of a booklet |
Building it
| Word | What it means | In teaching terms |
|---|---|---|
| Thin slice | A small piece of the tool that works from start to finish, built before the rest | One worked example before the whole unit |
| Iterate | Improve in rounds, checking after each one | Redrafting |
| Coding agent | An AI that works on the files in a folder for you: it plans, writes and changes them, and runs commands (Claude Code, Codex) | A capable assistant who needs a clear plan and whose work you check |
| Terminal | A window where you type commands to run programs, instead of clicking buttons | No close match: it is typing an instruction rather than clicking one |
| Hallucination | AI output that sounds right and is wrong | A confident wrong answer |
Testing and fixing
| Word | What it means | In teaching terms |
|---|---|---|
| Bug | Something the tool does that it should not, or fails to do | A mistake in an answer key, or a misprint on a worksheet |
| Bug report | "Check / Expected / What happened": one line per failure (card 05) | Feedback that names the success criterion, then says what the work actually did |
| Run log | Your table of every check you ran: what you expected, what happened, pass or fail, and the fix needed (card 05) | A mark book for the tool |
| User test | Watching one real user try the tool | Trying it with one student before the whole class |
| Offline test | Open the final saved file in a private window with Wi-Fi off and run the normal and error checks. It checks the paths you exercised; checking for network calls also needs a code and browser Network review (cards 05 and 08) | Checking a lesson still works when the internet is down |
| Regression | Something that used to work and broke after a change, often a fix | A redraft that fixes one paragraph and breaks the one after it |
| Accessibility | Whether everyone can use it: with a keyboard alone, a screen reader, a phone, or without relying on colour (card 08) | Access arrangements, planned in from the start |
| Screen reader | Software that reads out what is on the screen, for people who cannot see it | Someone who reads the paper aloud to a student in an exam |
| Contrast ratio | How far text stands out from its background, from 1:1 (no difference) to 21:1 (black on white). WCAG asks for at least 4.5:1 for normal-sized text | Whether the back row can read the board |
| WCAG | The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: the W3C's standard for accessible web pages. The kit uses version 2.2 | An exam board's published criteria: the standard everyone checks against |
Saving and sharing
| Word | What it means | In teaching terms |
|---|---|---|
| Commit | A saved version with a note of what changed | A dated "v3 after Year 9 feedback" |
| Repository (repo) | The project folder with its full history, for example on GitHub | A department shared drive that remembers every version |
| GitHub | A website that keeps repositories online, where you can share them and work on them with others | The shared drive itself |
| GitHub Pages | GitHub's service that turns a file in a repository into a live website. On a free account, the repository must be public (card 17) | Pinning a resource to a noticeboard anyone can read |
| Publish (deploy) | Turning your file into a live link other people can open | Putting a resource on the class page |
| API key | A password that lets a program use a paid service, such as an AI model. It spends money or opens data, so it never goes in any page or repository, or any file you share or upload. No build today uses one | The key to the stock cupboard: whoever holds it can use it |
Card 18 has more words for the next step: public and private, environment, branch and pull request.
DEEP Education Network · Build with AI · Two rules: no student names or data anywhere; nothing student-facing calls AI.