[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Louise,

Welcome to the course. It is great that you have been thinking so deeply about key takeaways and how you feel AI can simultaneously be used to enhance the learning in the classroom, whilst also reducing the time spent on evenings and weekends preparing for lessons. This course will outline a variety of different AI tools (beyond Chat GPT) that are very useful and suitable for an educational context. However, it is through trial and error that we will become more adept at tailoring these to be more specific to our own classes. As you have referred to, the prompt is so important and may require refining based on the initial suggestions provided. Hopefully, this course will allow for some thought around how to construct prompts and how these can be refined if needed.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Yvonne,

It is probably true to say that Microsoft and Office 365 have more accessibility tools built into their core products. However, the Chrome web store within Google Workspace offer a number of extensions that do very similar things. ‘Helperbird’ is a Chrome extension that incorporates the Immersive Reader and can be used within the Chrome browser and Google’s content tools such as Docs, Slides, etc. This link offers a range of AT options to support children with different needs, specifying the platforms they can be used with in some cases: https://www.ahead.ie/Our-12-AT-Categories

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Ursula,

I’m delighted to read that you found the content of the module so useful and that you can see the potential benefits of using the Immersive Reader to enhance and invigorate the language and reading experiences of children with a variety of different needs. The beauty of it is that so many of the accessibility features within it can be beneficial for all learners, and as such it doesn’t have to be solely contained to those with reading or wider literacy difficulties. The writing process is often something that I have found even more challenging than reading in terms of motivating pupils – having accessibility tools such as Dictate or speech to text can really open up the learning to all children and ensure their creativity can be recognised.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Anna,

Thank you for your post here and welcome to the course. I think you have hit on a great point regarding the children constructing their own quizzes and assessments using digital tools. Far too often, children spend their time in school answering questions but have far less time to construct their own. This is a key skill in itself that needs to be taught and practices. The use of Forms or other similar digital tools can be a great way to introduce this for children.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Elaine,

Thanks for your post here. Having a general idea of the content you wish to teach and the direction you want to go with it is an excellent starting point when incorporating AI tools to enhance the learning. Using a specific storybook is a great example of this – getting some specific learning activities to do with this, alternative scripts that can be used to re-enact a class drama, etc. are all great ways to use AI in this regard. Indeed, some of the suggestions provided could then be tailored to other texts and end up becoming a core tenet of your instruction for the subsequent years. With careful and specific prompting, a plethora of excellent activities and experiences can be provided.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Theresa,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Google Classroom here, particularly within the context of SSE and how its use can drive whole-school improvement plans across a number of LAOS domains. The beauty of a platform like Classroom is that it can be used at a whole variety of levels, bringing about varying benefits to classrooms and administration practices. Supporting diverse learner needs is something that all teachers are faced with on a daily basis, and the use of Google Classroom can help in this regard. Subsequent modules on the specific Google tools will allow you to see how some of these can be integrated into Classroom to support individual needs and provide differentiated instruction.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Theresa,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Google Classroom here, particularly within the context of SSE and how its use can drive whole-school improvement plans across a number of LAOS domains. The beauty of a platform like Classroom is that it can be used at a whole variety of levels, bringing about varying benefits to classrooms and administration practices. Supporting diverse learner needs is something that all teachers are faced with on a daily basis, and the use of Google Classroom can help in this regard. Subsequent modules on the specific Google tools will allow you to see how some of these can be integrated into Classroom to support individual needs and provide differentiated instruction.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Michelle,

It is so important that children understand how AI applications operate and the information that they draw upon. Google’s Teachable Machine is a great tool through which this can be explored. It is so important to have these discussions around the mistakes that can still be made by AI and how we can best go about fact checking and ensuring the information we have is accurate. These are key skills that our children will need as they progress through second-level education and beyond.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for sharing such a comprehensive overview of a potential plan to assist ‘Seán’ using the SETT Framework. Your overview clearly outlines your understanding of the framework and how it can be used to provide targeted interventions to address the needs of individual children or groups of children. Your final comment is one which really strikes a chord with me (and many others likely). For a huge length of time, I was always looking for the next tool or the next piece of content. A couple of years ago I decided to step back and think about the specific children in my class, and what their needs and motivations were. I found it really transformational and had so many knock on effects in terms of classroom culture, behaviour, etc.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Shane,

Thanks for sharing this classroom experience with us here. I am sure it is an experience that many of us can relate to and will have had to deal with at some point in recent years. I think you have raised an important point around how these attitudes and behaviours are either passed down or learned from online sources. Our children are very unlikely to acquire these mindsets automatically by the time they have reached 5th class, meaning it is likely that they have latched on to the opinion of others. The Netflix series, ‘Adolescence’ dealt with this on a much deeper level than sporting events, but it illustrates the potential direction these attitudes (formed from online influencers) can have on our young people and is certainly something to be cognisant of.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Eleanor,

Thanks for sharing your reflections here. Like many other things, when we get further into something we can often get the clarity we are looking for at the outset. Broadening our use of AI tools beyond Chat GPT is a really important step – whilst they are all pulling from the same data, many apps such as those listed can play a key role in saving time and increasing productivity. Various platforms have been specifically designed with education settings in mind and can often create ready made templates and designs that are in tune with exactly what you are looking for. As you work through the course, I hope more of these will be discovered.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Leanne,

Thanks for sharing the first hand experience the children in your school have of the impact of extreme climate conditions on our local areas. The damage that can be caused to local areas from extreme weather conditions, both directly and indirectly, can often be overlooked and quickly forgotten. As you have said, working together with those in your school to put clear and actionable targets in place is so important in  this regard. Having everyone on board can ensure consistency in messaging and can ensure that the key principles underpinning the improvement plan are permeating all aspects of school life.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Thomas,

Thank you for your post here and for your engagement throughout the course. I really like how you have been able to incorporate the children’s use of multiple AI tools into this lesson outline. As you have said, you can often be provided with way too much information and detail for a single lesson, but this content could be used over a series of lessons. Additionally, you could ask AI to further refine this lesson outline down also.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Mary,

Thank you for your contribution here. It’s great to see that you have found the SETT model useful, and thinking of a specific child to which it can apply is a great of simulating its potential use in a classroom scenario. Like you have alluded to, it allows us to consider a plethora of resources to support an individual child. What’s great is that it removes much of the ‘outside noise’ that we might be thinking and allow us to think solely about one child’s individual needs and the tools that may be best suited in meeting this need.

[Eoghan O’Neill]

Hi Oonagh,

Thanks for your post here. It is great that you have had the chance to look through some of the Microsoft tools that are available through the 365 suite. It really is an impressive collection, and fully available within the education license. Immersive Reader is a hugely beneficial tool for allowing children understand information better and help those with reading difficulties to consume information. However, Dictate can be so beneficial for those seeking to create content and turn speech into written text. As you have said,m this could be a powerful tool for students wishing to make their own content within PowerPoint.

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