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The opportunities for enhancing learning in the classroom by incorporating AI are seemingly limitless. There are any number of avenues I could use it to support lessons across the curriculum. I have a particular love for teaching maths and just as an example: I could imagine creating a lesson on 3D shapes in Fifth Class, say.
The principal learning objective would be: Identify the features of and the main properties of common 3D shapes (cubes, cuboids, cylinders, spheres, prisms etc.)
To start with, I would create parts of 3D shapes (using a programme like Gemini Image Creator). Pupils would guess what the shape was using the language they already know: edge, vertex etc. This would also help elicit their prior knowledge.
Shape Viewer is another good tool where shapes can be rotated and so on, and new shapes and/or knowledge could be introduced.
We are also fortunate in having iPads for the pupils in the school so I would get them next to go on a shape hunt either in the classroom or around the school. I often use Google Lens myself and it could be adapted for this activity, but I’m sure with further exploration, I could find a more effective programme. This would be a maths trail of sorts, and the pupils could fill in pre-printed sheets (that I could have generated using Magic School, Co-Pilot etc.) on the various shapes they have found featuring a list or tick chart where they identify the characteristics they found to determine each shape.
A quiz for the end of the lesson or for the following lesson could be generated from Quizizz or indeed with Diffit, which would be used to accommodate for differentiated outcomes following the lesson. There is also huge scope with AI support for moving the ongoing lessons into creating nets of 3D shapes etc.
Hello Clare, I know my own pupils from last year would love a lesson like that. They have a strange obsession with knowing flags and countries already (which I think comes from their fascination with soccer), but I could see them being really engaged with your lesson.
I agree about Microsoft Reading Coach. It is very user friendly and, as you mentioned, I could see the game element (unlocking characters etc.) as being really appealing to the pupils. Magic School is a stand out as well – I think in time we’ll probably all become completely reliant on these programmes and wonder how we ever managed without them. It’s great that they can take away all the time spent on creating your own content, but I suppose it’s also good that you can still tailor it to your needs afterwards, so as not to become completely removed from it.
Part 1
There are some wonderful applications demonstrated on this module that I could really see myself putting to good use – all of them in fact! Just to pick two: every year I have the pupils create projects to be researched, created and then presented. Once they’ve picked their topic, they will sit at the computer and invariably say “I don’t know where to research!”. A lot of time is given over to demonstrating some good and reliable websites to start with and the hope is always that they’ll take it from there. One issue I’ve found is that their topics can be very wide ranging and it can be difficult in a short time to find sites that are both specific and reliable enough. Microsoft Seach Coach is the ideal answer. It allows me (and the pupils) to take a step back and devote more of the initial stage of the project-work into learning ways of finding relevant research websites – adding significantly to the learning borne out of their project work.
With that, presenting their work is an important stage in developing their confidence, oral language skills and so on, and I am very impressed with the Microsoft Speech Coach as I could see it being used as a preamble – where they could use it in tandem with advice from the teacher, to work on improving their presentation skills before they stand up in front of their peers. It’s a great assessment tool also as it provides feedback for both the teacher and the pupils simultaneously.
Part 2
As mentioned in Part 1, all of the tools are extremely useful. Microsoft Reading Coach is a wonderful resource. Every year I have pupils in the class who have limited English or significant reading issues. The versatility of this application is ideal for helping those pupils to access reading material at their own level. We already use a programme called Reading Eggs for some pupils, which is expensive, but the Reading Coach programme can do a lot of the same and the fact that it has such a wealth of differentiated reading material is ideal. It would be an excellent resource for a target reading group, for example, where the teacher is able to monitor closely their individual levels and learning development. Another extremely impressive tool is the Magic School programme. I only wish it was around years ago! It’s difficult to home in on what it’s best used for, but the social story and the maths question generation demonstrated in the module are great examples and it feels like they are only dipping a toe into what is possible with such a wealthy resource. I think of SESE topics where I have often spent considerable time creating content or setting questions. The ease with which presentations are created and the ability to build questions out of this input is incredible. Likewise, translating Youtube videos and creating material based on this so rapidly will open a world of access for our EAL pupils. Furthermore, it’s difficult to quantify the impact a programme like Diffit will have for the teacher. Reducing the workload with the provision of automatically differentiated content frees up time for actual teaching, monitoring pupil well-being and for tailored assessment.I completely agree about using A.I. for history, Thomas, particularly with the senior classes. The readily available material, tailored to the individual teacher’s input, saves a huge amount of time and can be adapted to suit any topic. It lets the pupil step outside the content in the textbook and engage in the material through a more multifaceted approach, providing a greatly enhanced experience.
I currently teach Fifth Class pupils and have used Scratch previously with them, which they greatly enjoyed. Furthermore, the possibility of creating history lessons based on comparing and contrasting biases in various accounts is ideal for that age group. I could definitely adapt that concept for a study of The Great Famine, for example (using ChatGPT, Gemini or similar), which would include articles from both the British and Irish press. It would be interesting to let the pupils see if they could uncover sympathetic voices from the British side or indeed look for reports from the wider world.
I can also envision creating a lesson on how A.I. gathers information. Teachable Machine is a great introduction for pupils in Fifth Class on this subject. I would have them input both audio and visual content but, rather than using their faces for the visual element, they could bring favourite toys etc. to create individualised visual information. Not only does this programme demonstrate that A.I. is manmade at its root (which also ties in with the bias element mentioned), but use of this platform could open up discussion on the possibilities, both negative and positive, that this kind of technology engenders.
Looking at the final video in this module regarding the experimental/intelligence gathering type use of AI in the Chinese classroom was quite unsettling, in my opinion. There was a distinctive surveillance/population control element which, to me, borders on thought policing and seems to be more at the extreme end rather than the cutting edge of AI. It makes it all the more pertinent that AI should always be carefully regulated and it is encouraging that the department (and indeed the European Commission) are realising the massive potential for advancing the drive towards STEN learning but are also cognisant of the importance of safeguarding personal data and keeping a healthy scepticism so as to avoid encouraging any kind of overreliance on the technology. I can see myself using AI as an ideas-generator in terms of lesson creation, something to enhance a lesson but I think it will always be important to keep a keen eye on the details and adapt the suggested material accordingly.
That said, in my classroom, I can see huge benefits in creating lesson plans and the Co-Pilot example in this module really stood out, as it had been asked to tailor the lesson to the Irish curriculum context, which it did impressively. The lesson was well laid out with clear objectives, lots of practical applications and concrete examples.
I also liked the Minecraft Education platform as it something I know the pupils in my class would really love and could be used as a truly immersive and fun way to enhance their learning. There are huge benefits too to ‘Data-Driven’ elements of AI in the classroom. Used with due care, the potential to carefully map personalised aspects of learning and assessment would help to ameliorate this time-intensive process for the teacher. However, a drawback with the implementation of AI for some schools might a lack of availability of computers.
I agree that Immersive Reader is a fantastic resource. We have many pupils who find reading challenging (dyslexia, EAL pupils and so on). We used to use a pen reader, for example, that some pupils found effective, but they are expensive and a bit awkward to use. Another pupil of mine had vision difficulties and his needs required having as much reading material as possible on a yellow background. The ability to change the background colour, text size, change the voice and the reading rate, the ability to copy and paste material into the application and then segment or isolate lines etc. makes Immersive Reader a game changer for assisted reading in this regard.
Hello Clare, I completely agree with the notion that Googling, copying, pasting etc., in preparation for lessons, while once it seemed so convenient, feels now cumbersome and time consuming. The same is true of creating powerpoint displays or video editing for school projects, which invariably become mammoth tasks – have now, through the advent of AI, become something far less daunting as high quality results can be produced in a fraction of the time that it would have taken. As you note, September will certainly bring significant changes in this regard.
A few short years ago a friend of mine who works in IT told me that the next biggest change to come was “a system called ChatGPT”. I’d never heard of it up to that point, but he was close enough in his prediction. He added the caveat that it was going to change everything. I’ve seen and heard a lot subsequently about Artificial Intelligence in the media etc. and, like mentioned in Module 1, either stark warnings or unfettered naivety are probably the same extremes of opinion that we witnessed when the internet started to become the dominant force it is today. Therefore, I think that cautious optimism is probably the best way to approach its use, especially in education.
It’s such a new platform and it’s changing so fast that today’s expert is tomorrow’s novice. In which case, teachers are better off designing lessons where they are learning along with the pupils, which is a nice approach, in my opinion. I particularly liked the idea mentioned in the module of identifying real information from deep fakes. AI is becoming increasingly more convincing and, for pupils and adults alike, it is essential that the skills to recognise this are fostered.
There are countless ways that AI can enhance teaching, learning and assessment going forward. Building lesson plans, using intelligent assessment tools (as noted in the Sal Khan video), individualised learning and intelligent tutoring systems, provision of multiple modes of learning, grade management, classroom organisation etc. There will be an ever-increasing range of assistance on offer. However, teachers (and schools in general) will have to balance this with the potential risks i.e. privacy, appropriate content exposure, propaganda material and so on. Again, cautious optimism and managing carefully the balance between finding AI’s full potential in the classroom whilst also avoiding the potential harms, will be essential going forward.