Using AI in the classroom
Welcome!
We’re unashamedly heavy on links about AI again this week. Almost everything we’re reading in the education and digital space at the moment is addressing the rapid changes happening as a result of the latest developments in generative AI. As always, we’ll draw together some of the interesting work that other educators are producing, as well as signposting you to useful guidance, reports and resources.
What’s been happening
Sarah presented at a headteacher conference on what school leaders need to know about AI, and emphasised the need for school leaders to be aware of how the edtech industry is working and developing products. It’s important to understand the direction venture capital investment is heading – moving from HE to schools and targeting teacher time saving more than students’ learning. Being alert to costs, subscriptions and models that lock in users is also crucial.
As well as reading the usual reports and newsletters, we’re also listening to a varied diet of podcasts. We’ve been enjoying a broader viewpoint about AI regulation from the Centre for Humane Technology on the podcast Your Undivided Attention. Last week’s discussion with Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI and founder of Google’s Deep Mind, was a fascinating listen. Suleyman advises that “in order to truly reap the benefits of AI, we need to learn how to contain it. Paradoxically, part of that will mean collectively saying no to certain forms of progress.”
For a really practical, classroom-focused discussion about how to introduce AI in your school, check out this useful conversation between Daren Coxon and Chris Goodall (both worth following on LinkedIn) on Darren’s The EduCAIte podcast. It’s a good place to start to gain an understanding about AI in the school sector.
And if you are getting into learning about the craft of prompting, have a listen to Darren talking to Justin Germishuys on transactive memory, extended mind and why prompt tactics are better than recipes.
AI roundup
Latest OpenAI developments
ChatGPT can now access up-to-date information by browsing the internet, plus GPT-4 and GPT-4V AI models can respond verbally to spoken questions and analyse images and react to them as part of a text or voice conversation. This means users will be able to ask verbal, not just text-based questions, in the way many people have become familiar with through voice-based assistants such as Alexa and Siri. Image search – ie ChatGPT answering questions about an image – has some obvious practical uses (one example we saw was uploading a page of Ikea’s typically obscure image-based instructions and asking the AI to turn them into step-by-step written instructions instead) but also raises yet more questions of privacy and security. For now, at least, OpenAI says it has deliberately limited ChatGPT’s “ability to analyse and make direct statements about people”.
Seeing is believing?
The Guardian’s excellent Techscape newsletter looking at AI generated images and their use in political contexts is worth a read and is a good starting point for a class discussion on AI-enabled disinformation, misinformation and democracy. You could combine it with this very clear explanation from Scientific American about how programs such as DALL-E and Midjourney learn to generate images from text.
Using AI video in the classroom
Deputy head Lex Lang has been exploring using Invideo, which has opened up its AI video generation platform to the public. His Year 6 has been creating custom videos on a learning topic, showing their prompts and refinements. At the CLC we saw a decline in the standard of films produced on iPads when the iMovie app added templates. But the point Lex is making here is not about the techniques of filmmaking but providing children with the opportunity to extend their learning in a novel format. As he explains:
“The creation (planning, discussing, drafting) and refinement (editing, redrafting, recreating) of the product are where we see the bulk of the understanding. The production, whilst sometimes important in itself, is often the slow part that takes the time and which prevents the child from having the opportunity to really explain or extend their learning. Something that allows the whole process to go from half a term to half a lesson unlocks so much time.”
Quick links
AI curious? UCL’s EDUCATE is offering a free 30-minute introduction to AI in education webinar at 4pm on 11 October for teachers to get to grips with the basics.
Edtech is a union matter! Neil Selwyn explores a variety of ways in which he believes digital technology is problematic for teachers, including worsening work conditions and driving workplace surveillance.
‘Attendance? Life’s too short’: there are alarming figures and insightful comments in this new report on the school attendance crisis from Public First but no mention of how digital could help. It’s been shown to support with attendance issues through access to digital learning activities from home, together with personalised support, as Sarah sets out in this Bett article.
Secret agent chat: lovely little resource from Raspberry Pi to engage children in cybersecurity learning by teaching them how to create and use an encryption technique in Python to send top secret messages.
Digital Parenting Pro: great resource from Vodafone to share with parents explaining how to use parental controls and safety settings.
Mobile phone ban: if we can bear to, we may delve into the evidence around mobile phones in classrooms in a future newsletter but, for now, here’s Sam Freedman on that conference announcement.
Give it a try
Magic Padlet
As well as shiny new AI playthings springing up everywhere, established tools are also introducing AI elements into their tried and tested products. Padlet has long been an educators’ favourite and it’s not immune to the lure of AI. So Magic Padlet uses AI ‘to create an entire padlet based on your description’. For example, you can use it to create lists, timelines and summaries based on factual content, or brainstorm lists of ideas, such as activities.
Bonus give it a try! Google Arts and Culture's Blob Opera has long been a favourite of Michelle’s (go on, give it a try - you won’t regret it!) and we’re delighted that Blob Opera has been joined by Viola the Bird – a playful stringed instrument experiment inspired by the cello.
Connected Learning is by Sarah Horrocks and Michelle Pauli
