A Look Back: The [Few] AI Tools That I Use Regularly & How I Use Them

(I’m republishing my greatest posts from the second half of 2024. You’ll be able to see the whole listing of them right here)

geralt / Pixabay

Benjamin Riley requested me what AI instruments I have discovered helpful in my educating, and I thought I’d flip my response right into a weblog put up. By the best way, Ben is likely one of the most considerate critics of AI in training on the market.

Right here’s my response:

I use ChatGPT for some materials creation, and have revealed posts sharing some particulars at My God! I Can’t Consider How A lot Time ChatGPT Is Now Going To Save Me In Creating One Of My Favourite Educating Assets! and I Found One other Wonderful Method To Use AI – To Generate “Jigsaws” For ELLs About Present Occasions.

I have my ELL Newcomer college students use Speakable and ESL video (their “chattybots”) for pronouncation follow, and you may examine them at I Suspect That “Speakable” Is Going To Turn into A VERY Widespread On-line Instrument For ELLs – If It Isn’t Already… and A Forgotten (By Me!) Gem That Has Been Rediscovered (By Me & My College students): ESL Video.

Quizizz has an excellent AI quiz/formative evaluation instrument (see Quizizz Pronounces Some Intriguing New Synthetic Intelligence-Powered Options) that periodically use.  Up till three weeks in the past, Quizizz had what could have been some of the helpful education-related AI instruments – the flexibility to show any YouTube video into an interactive one.  However YouTube modified their insurance policies, and that’s not potential (see One Of The Few Really Helpful Methods AI Has Helped Academics Seems To Have Been Snuffed Out).  Theoretically, Google is preserving that capability to itself to be used in its paid model of Google Classroom.  Nevertheless, in line with Google’s disappointing AI observe document (see Google’s NotebookLM Has Some Enjoyable Capabilities However, Like Most Of Google’s AI Merchandise, Doesn’t Ship A lot That’s Really Helpful), our district’s tech workers can solely get it to work with a mean of 1 out of each six movies.

Talking of Google, in addition they have an excellent studying instrument known as Learn Alongside, that has nice potential for each literacy instruction and for supporting pronunciation expertise for English Language Learners (see Google Unveils A Bunch Of New Schooling Updates, Although I’m Most In What They Mentioned About “Learn Alongside”). They now embody it as a part of their paid Google For Schooling package deal, although I suppose it’s additionally obtainable exterior of it.  I’m unable to make use of it proper now, although, as a result of it hundreds very, very slowly.  Our district tech workers is making an attempt to determine if that’s a district or Google drawback.  I’m positively going to make use of it loads if and when it might get mounted.

I don’t use it usually, however Padlet’s “I Can’t Draw” function works properly as a text-to-image generator (see How I’m Utilizing AI Artwork Technology To Educate English To Newcomers).

So, that’s what I use, or hope to make use of, within the classroom for now.

There are two different methods I discover AI helpful – in writing first drafts of scholar advice letters, and in creating infographics for this weblog.  Examine these makes use of at A Look Again: ChatGPT Is A Scholar Letter Of Advice Miracle! and Infography Could Be The Finest Instrument For Bloggers Since Public Area Photos.

These have been useful however, as somebody on Twitter commented when a humorous AI-generated picture was shared, I don’t suppose they’re value-added sufficient to be price destroying our planet by local weather change……

ADDENDUM: I Found One other Helpful Method To Use AI In Class Immediately

SECOND ADDENDUM: I initially uncared for to say Quill, which is a wonderful writing instrument that makes use of AI for adaptive studying, and has been doing so for just a few years. Hundreds of academics are utilizing it with their college students, together with me, however I suppose many people don’t sometimes consider it as an AI instrument.

THIRD ADDENDUM: I ought to point out two different instruments that I hope to make use of within the close to future as soon as they make some adjustments.

I talked about earlier that I was underwhelmed by Google’s NotebookLM, and I proceed to really feel that method. Nevertheless, it does have the flexibility to create a considerably creepy podcast on any uploaded textual content. As soon as it provides the function of with the ability to obtain a transcript of the creepy podcast, it could be a superb listening train for ELLs for academics to show that transcript right into a cloze (with, maybe, each tenth or twentieth phrase lacking). College students might take heed to the “present” and fill within the blanks. Proper now, after you add the textual content and create the present, you’ve got obtain the audio, then add the audio file to ChatGPT and ask it to create the cloze transcript. It could be simpler if the transcript was already there.

The second instrument is Groovelit (see Wow! I Suspect “Groovelit” Could Be A Widespread Recreation In English Lessons This Yr). It’s a Kahoot-like writing recreation powered by AI. It’s too superior for Newcomer ELLs proper now, however I’m in dialog with them about methods to change that.

I’m including this put up to:

THE BEST POSTS ABOUT USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH ELLS

My Finest Posts On Synthetic Intelligence In The Classroom