About the journal
We write about learning the way we wish someone had written about it when we were learning.
Satinni is an independent journal covering EdTech, AI-assisted study, and the science of learning. Built by people who teach, design courses, and learn hard things for a living — and who got tired of search results that looked like ads.
Mission
Help people learn better, not just faster.
Software keeps promising to "revolutionize education." Most of it doesn't. The tools that do change how people learn — flashcards, problem sets, deliberate practice, good books, a teacher who cares — are usually old and unfashionable. The tools that marketing departments are excited about are usually new and undertested.
We exist to sort one from the other. Every article on this site is a small attempt to answer the same question: if a friend asked me whether this is worth their time, what would I honestly say?
Editorial principles
Four rules we don't bend.
Test before we tell
If we write that a tool, method, or course works, somebody on the editorial team has actually used it for real work — not for a demo.
Cite the source
Every empirical claim links to its source: the paper, the documentation, the changelog. Minimum one citation per 500 words. We assume readers will check.
Respect attention
No engagement-bait titles, no auto-generated SEO filler, no slideshow articles. The goal is that you finish a piece and feel sharper, not exhausted.
Update, don't bury
When something we wrote becomes wrong, we fix the article and say so at the top — with a date and what changed. Old URLs keep working.
What we cover
Four beats, one obsession.
AI-assisted learning
How students and professionals actually use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Khanmigo, and the next ten of them — without losing the skill of thinking.
EdTech tools
Notion, Anki, Obsidian, Notability, Quizlet — and the smaller, weirder, often-better tools nobody reviews.
Pedagogy & cognitive science
Spaced repetition, retrieval practice, interleaving, dual coding — what the research really says, translated for people who have to teach or study Monday morning.
Online courses & credentials
Coursera, edX, DataCamp, Maven, bootcamps — what moves a CV, what costs too much, and what the employers we talk to actually look at.
How an article gets made
Five stages between an idea and a published essay.
01
Pitch
Author proposes a piece they could only write because of personal experience.
02
Field test
We use the tool, take the course, run the experiment — for at least two weeks.
03
Draft
A working draft with citations, comparison tables, and the author's actual opinion.
04
Edit
An editor pressure-tests every claim, kills clichés, and verifies sources.
05
Ship & maintain
We publish, monitor for errata, and revise when the world moves on.
Disclosures
Things we will not do.
If we ever break one of these, point at this page and tell us. We'll fix it publicly.
- 01Run sponsored reviews labeled as editorial.
- 02Publish AI-generated articles without a human author signing off paragraph by paragraph.
- 03Use clickbait titles or fake scarcity ("only 3 spots left").
- 04Recommend a tool we have not tried for at least two weeks of real work.
- 05Stack affiliate links inside a comparison and pretend they didn't shape the ranking.
Corrections policy
If we got it wrong, we'd like to know.
Email corrections@satinni.com with the URL, the claim, and the source that contradicts it. Material corrections get a dated note at the top of the article. Typos and small clarifications are fixed silently.
Questions
Frequently asked.
- Why does Satinni exist?
- Because most writing about EdTech is either vendor PR, AI-generated content farms, or academic papers that never reach the people doing the teaching. There is a gap for honest, practitioner-grade writing — and we're trying to fill it.
- Who writes for the journal?
- Teachers, instructional designers, learning engineers, and lifelong students. Every contributor has hands-on experience with what they're writing about. We disclose author bios and conflicts of interest on every article.
- Do you use AI to write?
- We use AI as a research assistant and editor — for outlining, fact-checking, and pulling quotes from long sources. Every sentence that ships was written or rewritten by a human author. Articles that lean on AI more than that are labeled at the top.
- How can I pitch a story?
- Email hello@satinni.com with a one-paragraph pitch and a link to something you've written or built. We respond within ten business days, even if it's a no.
- Is the journal free?
- Yes. Everything we publish is free to read. The newsletter is free. We may launch a paid tier later for archives and bonus essays, but the core journal stays open.
Read the journal
Start with our first cover story.
Or browse the archive. There's a topic for whichever rabbit hole you're in.