Season 8 Episode 120

How are you using AI? Check out this episode to hear our thoughts on AI in Education and in our personal lives. 

 Show Notes: 

Episode Summary:

Are you using AI? Are you loving it or struggling with it? Like it or not, AI is going to touch almost everything in our lives. AI has the potential to change the way we live and work- both for the better and for the worse. In last week’s episode, we talked with learning advocate and early AI adopter Melissa (Missy) Emler about AI for educators and what it might look like at work and in our personal lives. It was a fascinating conversation and we barely touched the surface in discussing AI issues. Join us today as we follow up with our discussion of AI.

In this episode:

This is a summary of our conversation rather than a word-for-word transcript. We always recommend that you listen to the episode for the best experience.

Introduction:

When we initiated a discussion about the potential uses of AI with our guest Melissa Emler last week, we knew there was a lot to talk about. AI shows up in almost every discussion of educational issues. It’s fair to say that we are finding some powerful uses of AI, while struggling with practical and ethical uses of AI. Today we want to revisit some of our key takeaways from last week and continue exploring the issues with AI.

Discussion topics: 

We understand the issues with students and AI are perplexing and divisive. School districts are grappling with how to teach students to use AI in appropriate and ethical ways. On one hand, many fear we have opened the door to massive cheating and that students will no longer learn, they’ll just use AI to do all of their school work. On the other hand, the genie is out of the bottle and AI is here to stay. Before we can make those decisions, we’re going to all have to understand what it is and what it can and cannot do.

That is where we are today. We aren’t going to talk about student use of AI, we want to talk about teachers using AI.

“I’m not asking you to change, I’m asking you to learn.” 

To start framing this discussion we both took away Missy’s quote, “I’m not asking you to change, I’m asking you to learn.” That is simple, yet profound. We can tie many things back to that idea. It is especially important around this topic because most of us are still in the learning phase, there are no experts in AI because everything is changing so rapidly. We’re all figuring it out and exploring it. That is valid and it is going to take some time.

We can compare the use of AI to the early days of computers in education. There are people who did not want computers in education because it would destroy education. Others couldn’t wait to get their hands on the technology. Then the same issue was true of phones in schools.

AI in Education and Curiosity

Curiosity came up again and again. Missy talked about her curiosity, and how she was curious about AI and eager to try it. She has a curiosity mindset. She is not afraid to learn. She was an early adopter, which is a sign of a life-long learner. She is curious and trying it all.

Curiosity also speaks to being open. There are going to be changes. AI is going to change how we teach. It is important to be open to change.

Asking rote memory questions or regurgitating information is not going to be sufficient. Many teachers haven’t been using those kinds of techniques for awhile. It does require thinking of what education means and what it looks like. It is going to cause us to think about our purpose and what we want out of learning. We need to focus on thinking, especially critically thinking. We need to be able to use knowledge to know what is good information, reliable, correct, from a reputable source vs believing everything you see or everything you read.

Curiosity means that you are willing to try and experiment. It is a mindset that we could all use more of.

How to Interact With AI

At first, people used AI like they would a Google search.

AI  is at its best when it is not used like a Google search, but when it is used to to interact with or manipulate data. Missy’s example of back and forth discussion with AI that helped her understand a problem from multiple perspectives and to consider issues she hadn’t thought of. You can examine a topic by asking questions and continuing to refine your search. You can manipulate data and keep asking to refine the answers you are getting.

Paula’s example was connecting standards. She uploaded several different sets of standards and asked AI to combine them into one common set of standards. Then they refined the idea again and again, asking it for changes or additions.

We had a discussion of the importance of good prompting. We gave multiple examples of prompting in order to improve our results.

 AI We Are Already Using in Our Lives

• Alexa, Siri, Google assistant
• Home security and monitoring systems
• Smart appliances
• Calendar and task management systems
• AI photo manipulations, editing photos, headshots- things we used to need Photoshop to do
• Map and direction finding programs

We can manipulate all of these things, by clarifying and asking for what we want and need. We gave a specific example of using maps and interacting with it to get better and better information.

AI can save time. 

We can use AI to do tasks that save time. For example, Paula is interviewing teachers for several different jobs. She used AI to help her develop specific interview questions for each specific job. She used multiple different prompts to improve the questions. It saved her a lot of time.

We also talked about using AI for unit planning. You can upload standards, curriculum etc. You can get ideas and activities. Then you can ask for revisions and additions. One things that is possible is to ask AI to adapt for differing needs in your classroom. Designing adaptations can take a lot of time and this will help you time wise while improving instruction for students.

Universal Design Influence

Missy uses AI in much the same way as Universal Design works. You focus on the end first. You also focus on the experience for both teachers and students. She inputs the kind of experience and learning that she wants students to have, and then asks the kinds of questions that will get to the types of activities that will get to what they students want to know and what they need to learn. It is a very student centered way of teaching and planning.

It is not about what questions the teacher has, but what questions the students have.

Student Engagement and AI

One of the most common complaints of teachers is that students are disengaged, that they have “checked out” or are bored. or don’t care.

With AI you can ask, what is the student’s experience? What can they get out of this? How can this connect to their world? What questions do they have?

If you can get students to ask and connect to their questions, they are engaged. When they are engaged, motivation is higher. When motivation is higher, you have fewer management issues. This is a win for everyone.

Using AI in Your Life

You don’t have to do anything with AI. On the other hand, you can explore it. You can decide how much you want to do.

You could explore meal prep and planning grocery lists.

We discussed trying AI headshots.

Another example is using AI to plan a trip, giving you places to say and things to do.

Those are just a few ideas.

Conclusion: 

We’d love to know how you use AI.  What’s working for you ? What struggles do you have? Let us know.

Quote:

“I’m not asking you to change, I’m asking you to learn.” 

Melissa Emler

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Episode 119 AI in Education with Melissa Emler

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