Six years ago, Dr. Işıl Boy Ergül founded TeacherX with a simple belief: empower teachers, empower society.
For her, meaningful change in education begins not with new curricula or technology, but with the people standing in front of students every morning.
Since then, more than 80,000 teachers across Türkiye have joined the platform. Over the past three years, her work has increasingly focused on a question brought into sharper focus by artificial intelligence: how can teachers develop the judgement to work effectively with AI rather than simply being handed another tool?
Drawing on more than a decade of experience in educational technology, Ergül has come to recognise a challenge that extends well beyond classrooms.
Giving people access to knowledge is relatively straightforward. Helping them change how they work is far more difficult.
And it is a lesson that businesses investing in AI upskilling may need to confront themselves.
Highlights
Teachers Were Watching the Courses. Why Wasn’t Practice Changing?
When TeacherX first launched, Ergül believed one of the biggest obstacles to teacher development was limited access to quality educational content.
The team responded by producing professionally filmed video courses featuring leading experts, structured into short units with reflection prompts and suggestions for classroom application.
Teachers watched the courses, but the results exposed a deeper problem.
An educator could complete an excellent training programme and return to the classroom the following Monday without changing how they taught.
The issue was not necessarily the quality of the content. It was the gap between acquiring knowledge and applying it.
For Ergül, this challenged the assumption that better learning materials would automatically produce better teaching practices.
Watching an expert, she realised, was not the same as developing expertise.
And producing more content alone would not solve the problem.
What Finally Helped Teachers Put Learning Into Practice?
TeacherX gradually evolved from a course library into a professional development ecosystem designed to support teachers beyond their initial training.
Live webinars help educators stay informed as AI in education continues to evolve. Face-to-face working groups bring representatives from member schools together to examine developments in AI and Türkiye’s national curriculum model.
With expert guidance, participants develop practical outputs they can bring back to their institutions.
Rather than relying on a generic training syllabus, TeacherX also offers workshops tailored to individual schools and consultancy services that help school leaders establish sustainable professional development structures.
One significant addition has been TeacherX AI, an assistant developed around the platform’s training content.
Instead of replacing professional development, the tool helps teachers adapt what they have learned to specific grade levels, subjects and learning outcomes.
For Ergül, the distinction is important: AI should support the application of pedagogical knowledge, not replace the professional judgement behind it.
The platform also connects educators through learning communities, allowing them to exchange experiences and practices within and across schools.
This approach reflects a shift in how Ergül views professional development.
Rather than positioning TeacherX as the sole source of expertise, she sees its role as helping educators access the guidance, relationships and practical support needed to turn learning into action.
Are Companies Making the Same Mistake TeacherX Made?
Ergül sees parallels between TeacherX’s early experience and how organisations are approaching AI upskilling today.
Businesses invest in training programmes, purchase AI tools and track employee participation. Yet completing courses or gaining access to technology does not necessarily change everyday working practices.
It is a familiar assumption: provide people with the right resources, and improvement will follow.
TeacherX’s experience suggests the process is more complicated.
Professional development, in Ergül’s view, is not simply a product organisations deliver. It is an ecosystem they must build.
Employees need current knowledge, but they also benefit from peers who can help them think through challenges, expert guidance during implementation and learning structures adapted to their working environments.
Leadership commitment is equally important. Training is less likely to create lasting change when it is treated as an occasional activity rather than part of organisational strategy.
AI tools have a role within that system, but Ergül believes they should strengthen people’s ability to exercise judgement rather than become substitutes for it.
The principle applies whether an educator is integrating AI into classroom teaching or an employee is learning to use new technology at work.
Final Thoughts: The Hardest Part Was Never the Content
When Ergül founded TeacherX, its guiding principle was to empower teachers and, through them, society.
Six years later, that belief continues to shape how the platform approaches professional development.
Technology can make knowledge more accessible, but meaningful improvement depends on whether people have the confidence, guidance and opportunity to apply what they learn.
For Ergül, TeacherX’s evolution demonstrates why training content alone is insufficient. What matters is the system surrounding it: the relationships, institutional support and opportunities that help knowledge translate into practice.
That experience offers a question for business leaders investing in AI upskilling.
Beyond counting how many employees complete training, are organisations examining what those employees actually do differently afterwards?
For TeacherX, reaching more than 80,000 educators represents the scale of its learning community. The more difficult work has been building the support structures that help learning move beyond the screen.
About Dr. Işıl Boy Ergül
Dr. Işıl Boy Ergül is an educator, entrepreneur, and policy advisor specialising in AI in education. She is the Founder of TeacherX, a professional development platform that has reached more than 80,000 teachers, as well as StudentX and the Educational Technologies Summit (ETZ).
An Apple Distinguished Educator, TEDx speaker and Türkiye Ambassador for the European Training Foundation, she has contributed to international AI literacy initiatives involving the Council of Europe and the translation of UNESCO guidance into Turkish. She was recognised in NewInAsia’s 10 Top Voices You Should Follow in Türkiye (2026).
Highlights
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