[Aoife Coffey]

You’ve outlined some great ideas here Kate. I especially like your use of copilot when teaching about the vikings. This could be a good jump off point for the children to produce their own art also. We often ask children to draw pictures to illustrate the areas in which we teach. Hopefully this use of copilot would encourage the children to overcome the blank page issue discussed in module one.

[Aoife Coffey]

I really like the idea of creating a Christmas drama with the help of AI. I will certainly use this going foward. It would be great to ceate a script for x number of students, maybe include songs etc and maybe it could suggest stage settings.

[Aoife Coffey]

I agree Carrie, I hope to use AI for children suffering with ‘blank page syndrome’ too. The anxiety they feel before starting to write a story can often lead to frustration and upset. As a teacher I will often brain storm ideas with the student or use imagery as a jump off point but AI would be a useful tool for children to become more independent leaners and hopefully this will encourage confidence in themselves as they become more practiced in the art of creative writing.

[Aoife Coffey]

For this assignment I chose to write a creative literacy plan for children aged 11 with severe dyslexia, I used Chatgpt to help to create this plan. I asked them to use Copilot and Magicschool as AI tools. I asked them to include creating illustrations for the story as part of the lesson. I found the time it took to create this lesson extremely efficient. They set up clear headings for the lesson and even provided extension work. I can certainly see myself using AI for planning in the future. With practice I will get better at promting the AI tool for more accurate results. This will hopefully ease the hours of planning and paper work going forward.

Creative Writing Lesson Plan
Age Group: 11 Years Old
Special Needs: Severe Dyslexia
Tools: AI Copilot, MagicSchool
Duration: 1.5 hours

Lesson Objectives:
Engage Students in creative writing using AI support.
Develop Storytelling Skills through structured writing prompts.
Enhance Typing Skills by encouraging typing out stories.
Incorporate Visuals to complement written stories, supporting comprehension and expression.

Materials Needed:
Computers/Tablets with AI Copilot and MagicSchool installed
Projector/Interactive Whiteboard
Example story and illustrations
Writing Prompt Cards
Graphic organizers
Digital drawing tools or pre-made images

Lesson Outline:
1. Introduction (10 minutes)
Greeting and Settling In: Welcome students, ensure everyone is logged into their computers and ready to use AI Copilot and MagicSchool.
Overview of Objectives: Explain that they will be creating their own stories with the help of AI and illustrating them.
Story Example: Show a simple, short story with illustrations. Discuss the elements of the story (characters, setting, problem, solution).
2. Warm-Up Activity (10 minutes)
Brainstorming Session: Use the interactive whiteboard to brainstorm story ideas. Encourage students to think about:Characters (Who is in the story?)
Setting (Where does the story take place?)
Plot (What happens in the story?)
3. Introduction to AI Tools (10 minutes)
Demonstration: Show how to use AI Copilot to generate story ideas and how MagicSchool can help with organizing thoughts and creating illustrations.
Practice Activity: Allow students to explore the tools briefly, generating a few sentences or ideas with AI Copilot and experimenting with MagicSchool.
4. Main Activity – Writing and Illustrating (45 minutes)
Writing with AI Support:Step 1: Students select a writing prompt card to start their story.
Step 2: Using AI Copilot, they generate the beginning of their story. Encourage them to type out the sentences suggested by AI, modifying them as they like.
Step 3: Continue using AI Copilot to develop the middle and end of the story. Remind them to keep their story simple and clear.
Illustrating the Story:Step 1: After writing a few paragraphs, students switch to MagicSchool to create illustrations. They can use digital drawing tools or select from pre-made images.
Step 2: Integrate the illustrations into their stories. Ensure that each part of the story has at least one illustration.
5. Sharing and Feedback (15 minutes)
Peer Review: Pair up students to share their stories and illustrations with each other. They provide positive feedback focusing on what they liked about the story and illustrations.
Class Sharing: Volunteers can share their stories with the class using the projector. Discuss what makes each story unique and interesting.
6. Conclusion (10 minutes)
Recap: Summarize what the students learned about storytelling, writing with AI, and illustrating stories.
Homework Assignment: Encourage students to think of another story idea to write and illustrate at home using AI Copilot and MagicSchool.

Differentiation Strategies:
Scaffolded Support: Provide sentence starters or additional writing prompts for students who need more help.
Visual Aids: Use more visual aids and examples for students who struggle with conceptualizing story elements.
One-on-One Assistance: Offer individual support to students who need extra help navigating the AI tools or typing their stories.

Assessment:
Participation: Observe student engagement during brainstorming and writing activities.
Story Completion: Check if students were able to complete their stories with both text and illustrations.
Peer Feedback: Use peer reviews to assess understanding and application of storytelling elements.

Extensions:
Storybook Compilation: Collect all student stories and illustrations into a class storybook, either digitally or printed.
Class Blog: Publish student stories on a class blog where they can share their work with parents and friends.

By incorporating AI tools like Copilot and MagicSchool, this lesson plan aims to make creative writing accessible and enjoyable for students with severe dyslexia, allowing them to express their ideas effectively through both text and visuals

[Aoife Coffey]

The AI application I will focus on is Khan academy.

I’ve used this application in a special class where the varying needs of the children were huge. I found it excellent to explore lots of different subjects particularly math and literacy skills. As I was in an SEN class the children needed one to one teaching time. Teaching children to use the Khan academy app was great as some of my students could work indepencently on skills I had taught them in class and practise these skills through the app allowing me time to work with another child whilst Khan Academy keeping a log of the pupil’s progress and continually challenging them. It was also a nice app to send home with the children to practise skills at home. They really enjoyed the colourful graphics and sound effects.

[Aoife Coffey]

This was the most exciting part of the course so far.

I really liked copilot, the idea of using it for creativve writing is so clever and something I will deffinitly use going forward. The other AI apps look fantastic too, I’ve signed up to Magic School as I think personalising reading passages and math questions would motivate students alot!

The only problem with some of these applications is the monetary aspect. It would be great if we got more funding to be able to subscribe to these amazing resources. Or have a school account. It is something I will be asking about when I return in September. I’m working in a special school where diffrentiation and creating our own resources is a huge amount of our work load so these reources would be hugely beneficial.

[Aoife Coffey]

I thought the indivividualised programmes looked excellent. Especially in math. For children to be able to work at their own pace and teachers to get a good insight into where help is needed. However I would expect those programmes are costly and therefore maybe not a realistic option in the class.

I have used AI for planning and although it helped get over my writer’s block I found it didnt save me an enormous amount of time as I still had to go and ammend the plan. Often the AI tool would over load a lesson so I would have to go back and edit it. With more practice I’m sure I could improve my own commands to make AI work for me.

As a teacher of dyslexic students I embrace AI to make the student’s life easier. However the use of Immersive reader and speech to text should not take the place of teaching these children to read and type. Children with dyslexia should be taught to read using a structured scientifally based reading intervention programme. Maybe I will write an AI program myself to teach this! Make a fortune 🙂

[Aoife Coffey]

Although I was wary of AI in education as I was worried about killing creativity and the death of natural intelligence through passive usage of AI through this module I can see the benefits.

After doing some additional research I came across Sal Khan using AI with his son. They were using Chatgpt as a math tutor.  I found the results impressive. With a two tiered education system creeping in with some students affording grinds and others not maybe AI will become the great equaliser for education.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nSmkyDNulk&pp=ygUUc2FsbWFuIGtoYW4gY2hhdGdwdCA%3D

 

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