March 3

AI Chatbots with Students…Dipping My Toe in the Water

So, I have been using various forms of Artifical Intelligence, (AI), for awhile now, mainly as a virtual graduate assistant. I would input data into several programs and ask for various outputs, which I adapted and personalized for my classes. I would sometimes input a lesson and have AI adapt that information to a variety of grade levels for my classes. Taking work that was cumbersome and time consuming and in seconds setting up a framework that I could easily check, fine-tune, and personalize for my classes.

My goal for this year is to roll out AI usage with my students, now is the time. I am using MagicSchool.ai for this process. We just finished up an overview of “Early Cold War Events,” without going deep into any specific topic. I want the students to use their class notes, inquisitiveness, writing skills, and creativity to delve deeper into some of the topics we discussed in class. I am doing this through Chatbots.

Each class will be given a group/class in MagicSchool.ai and and assigned an AI Chatbot which will be given the characteristics of one of the key figures we discussed in class. Those key figures will be leaders involved in events we discussed, I will not get into the specific names at this time.

Today, I modeled the concept with each class on the interactive flatscreen in my room. I asked the class about a key figure from the COld War they would want to have a conversation with, then we proceeded to program the Chatbot. We worked as a team, setting the parameters of the discussion, telling each Chatbot who they were to be, who they were talking to, and what the focus of the discussion would be. I then opted to have AI further refine each prompt. We discussed the prompts as a class and chose which to use, the site giving us a synopis of the changes between our original prompt and the update.

From there the Chatbot was generated. As a class we worked through some questions and discussed the options MagicSchool suggested. we took a variety of paths, not always using the suggestions, creativity and following a thread as in a natural conversation was emphasized. A couple of students asked non-sensical questions, which brought about the discussion of appropriateness and staying on task. Students were told they could ask “fun” questions, on topics that were not necessarily all about global conflicts, but about culture, entertainment, and recreation. It was emphasized to always be APPROPRIATE.

We discussed bias and the need to fact check some points of the conversations we had. Students did understand that the point of view of the character being “role played” by the Chatbot could possibly influence the presentation of the information. I was able to verify most of the information as factual without too much extra research, but students without a depp understanding of the issues may need to fact check through more research.

Tomorrow, each class will be given a different “Person of Interest” to interact with on their own. It wil be experimental since I have not done this with an entire class, each student on their own computer interacting with the Chatbot, so I am interested to see how things go. The goal is to have the students interact with the Chatbots, then save their work to a Google Doc. The next day, they will receive reflection questions to explain their take on the overall exercise, their interactions with the Chatbot, their likes, and dislikes of the exercise.

My Honors US II classes will upload their reflections to their blogs on Edublogs, my regular US II classes will submit their Google Docs to me and I will publish their reflections by posting them to Wakelets and then to the class wiki. I will also reflect on the exercises. This is a work in progress, hopefully it does not collapse or blow up into a mess. My students are good at being patient and working with me on experimental lessons, hopefully things go well tomorrow.

February 2

Fear of Technology…so unfounded…

This post was originally posted in my Substack.

Yesterday, I had an unexpected change in plans. Instead of my usual Saturday routine, Zoom meeting with the PAECT President, recording my class podcast, and grading student work, I spent the day away from home with a family health issue. All is well now, but my usual schedule was thrown off.

Those who know me, yes my OCD flared up, but I was able to switch up and work on some class tasks using…mobile technology. Accomplishing a lot during down time and saving me from wasting more time today to get caught up, plus work on my usual Sunday routine. 

Many people fear technology and do not see a use for it in an educational setting. Technology, mobile technology specifically, gave me the ability to be away from home and still be productive with my classwork. I set up lessons, adjusted information for my classes, built out resources, all from a remote location. 

None of this could be accomplished without mobile technology, don’t fear it, learn how to use it efficiently. 

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January 22

FID Day: A More Accurate Attendance Model?

Flexible Instruction Days, FIDs, some people like them, others do not. I personally prefer them over straight cancelations. The debate over these days is not a topic for this post. The focus of this post is going to be tracking my students’ attendance. I discussed this on the PAECT Pod last night, January 21, 2025.

Our school gives students several days to complete remote instruction assignments on these days. I see no problem with that at all, students may or may not have issues accessing the Internet on these days. If you have students with siblings in school, their Internet connection may be taxed to the limit if they are all pullling bandwidth at the same time. The assignments I give students to complete are set up so even students who have unrelable Internet can complete them. The issue I run into as a teacher is that I have students who will forget to turn in assignments, be they on paper or digital in nature, even when in the physical classroom, as I remind them, and ask them, and double check with them, to please submit their assignments. I still have students who will walk out of class without turning in work they completed.

On a FID Day, yes I know adding “Day” to “FID” is redundant, but I like it. On a FID Day, that could be  even more of a negative issue. Not only do I not see the students’ completed work, but they do not get credit for being “present” in class online that day. That can pose a problem. I understand about personal responsibility and such, but from a bureaucratic standpoint it hurts the school and makes my life much more difficult atttempting to rectify attendance. I found a way to simplify attendance, which I wish I would have thought of sooner.

My easy-peasy solution, a ONE POINT ASSIGNMENT, students log into Schoology, our district’s LMS, and go to the current day’s folder. I post what they are to do for the FID Day, and the first assignment is a one question task. Students click “Submit” and type in Schoology, “YES” that they are online. That does not skewer grades, it is just one point, but that gives me proof of their attendance for the day.

There are more detailed tasks they have to complete for class and those vary from day to day. Students must take responsiblility for submitting those for credit, but attendance is no longer complicated. The tasks count for meaningful points and they can be one with limited bandwidth from home. As meentioned previously, they have several days to complete those assignments, so we can work through any complications.

I wish I would have thought of this idea sooner.

 

 

January 4

Saturday Mornings

This post was first published on my Substack.

“Saturday Mornings” a time for productivity. I used to wake up on Saturday mornings rather late, since I was usually up late on Friday nights. As that changed, I would get up early on Saturday and participate in an educational “#satchat” on Twitter, mostly lurking and answering only on occasion.

Then, I restarted my Saturday morning podcasts back up for my classroom. I switched to being a creator over being just a consumer. That counts, even if few people consume what I produce.

Now that I have added the title of Vice President of PAECT to my responsibilities, my Saturdays have become even more productive. The President of PAECT, Eric Verno has a weekly meeting where we collaborate on PAECT business. Saturday mornings work best for our schedules, so on top of my weekly podcast, I have added a weekly meeting, and from there I wrap up some tasks we discuss. My thought is that everything is fresh in my mind and I already have my computer open, so just keep going. That then frees up the rest of the day for relaxation and fun.

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August 5

The end of Flip…or Flipgrid

Flip, or as it started out Flipgrid is no more. Microsoft is ending that tool after purchasing it and incorporating it into their Teams. We are not a Microsoft School, so I do not know how cumbersome it could be to use Teams with my students; only time will tell.

In the meantime, I am pulling down my existing videos from the site to store them elsewhere. I am using iMovie to stitch them together by theme, then pushing them out to either TikTok or YouTube. Most of the videos were set up as Optional Enrichment Projects, so student participation varied. I unfortunately must admit there is not a lot of video content to transfer.

Moving forward, in my attempt to gamify my classes I am hoping for more student created content in the near future. I am using the PAECT Book Study on Explore Like a Pirate: Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners to bolster my attempt at this endeavor. That is a story for another blog post…

Category: Book Study, class work, Lessons and Teacher Things, Random Musings, Student Projects, Student Stuff | Comments Off on The end of Flip…or Flipgrid
March 15

Old Guy Moments…Argh!

So, AI is all the RAGE or FEAR depending on your view of the future…of education…of the world…of humanity. I believe it is here to stay, at least in some form, just like the Internet, Google, Wikipedia, Web 2.0, and other forms of technology. I have been playing/experimenting with it for a while now, I want to learn more so I can address it APPROPRIATELY with my students. There will be other posts on that later, or you can listen to our discussions on the PAECT Pod. I am off-topic from the start of this post…let’s redirect…

For my classes Civil Rights/Black History Month Projects we once again were creating video projects, this time using Canva.  I have some students who are a bit shy and do not like recording their voices for projects.  The idea was to find a TEXT TO SPEECH TOOL my students could use for their projects, like VOKI. I went through my lists of resources from my PLN and Google and played with other free AI tools.  Some worked, but some were not really free if you wanted to download and use the text-to-voice file elsewhere.  Students used several of the free tools, one that worked well, we broke when it read every student using it in our building as the same user.  It found us “SUS” and shut down our attempts.  I have to reach out to them and see if I can correct that issue.

Anyways, yesterday I had a student who had been absent finishing up their project, but could not record audio due to losing their voice from illness,  Instead of going to Wakelet to look over my curated resources, I had the student open up the apps tab in Canva…THERE IT WAS THE ENTIRE TIME!!!! A TEXT-TO-VOICE app right within the tool we were using!!!!  ARGH!!!!  In the immortal words of Mr. Dierks Bentley, “What was I thinking!” Murf.AI was right there.  We connected through Google, and the student copied and pasted their script from Google Docs into the Canva-connected app which automatically pushed the audio into their project.  No downloading MP3s uploading MP3s then dropping them in to the projects, which is easy enough, but this is integrated right in the same program.

Why I did not check on this first, I have not a clue, but alas and alack, I now know better. I learned from my error, which I attribute to my age…yes, it is a low-hanging fruit of an excuse, but it works today.

Below are screen shots of Canva and Murf.AI along with an embedded video made with that app.

Search for Murf.AI in apps.


Create or log into your account, we used our school Googler Signins.

You can choose which voice to use, some are PRO Account only.

Choose tone of voice and type in or copy and paste what you want the app to say.

You can test the voice and adjust as you feel is necessary. When you are satisfied, click “Add to design.” Once you add the audio, you may need to adjust the length of your clip to get the audio and image to match up.

Granted, there are limitations to what AI can accomplish at this time.

 

September 9

Our Second StickTogether

My classes participated and completed our second StickTogether as an OPTIONAL ENRICHMENT ASSIGNMENT, It went well and more students worked on completing this activity than the first StickTogether.  Once they work on the activity they are to take a screenshot of their work and submit it to me via email or messages in Schoology so they can be given the points they earned.  At times I put the activity on the big board, the interactive TV, in the front of my room.  Students could come up and click squares to complete the puzzle.

You can read more about StickTogether here.

A screenshot of the completed  activity is below: