[Barbara Browne]

Hi Caroline, I love your idea of keeping the goal short and manageable, it is so important for the junior classes. It is a great idea for them to share with their group what they have done. It is a great way for them to develop their oral language and also lets us know as teachers if they really understand what they are doing.

[Barbara Browne]

As a teacher of senior Infants, I would consider using Scratch Junior with my pupils next year .It is usually started in the older classes in our school. Using Scratch Junior in senior Infants supports the Primary Curriculum by developing digital literacy, creativity, communication and problem solving skills. It gives the children the opportunity to learn through play while also building confidence with technology. There are lots of opportunities for integration with other curricular areas and before we turn on the screen at all, I think that we would do lots of work and games around positional language..left , right, above, below and so on.
When they are confident in the vocabulary that we need before we engage with the program, I would introduce the app to the children on the Interactive Whiteboard and show them the different parts of the screen, such as the characters, backgrounds and coding blocks. I would model how to choose a character and background, drag and connect motion blocks to make a character move and press the green flag to start the program. I would get the children to work in pairs to create a simple animation. For the children who need more of a challenge, I would give them more complex animations and for the children who need extra support, it would be a good idea to provide picture-based instruction cards.

[Barbara Browne]

Hi Tracey, I too will be using Magic school and Diffit to adapt topics for the different reading levels in my class. It certainly will be a game changer for differentiation in my classroom moving forward.

[Barbara Browne]

Part 1
Give two examples of how you can use some of the tools identified in this module to improve your own teaching, learning and assessment.
Part 2
Reflect on the potential classroom use of these examples and the other AI tools covered in Module 3 and how this can impact on future teaching, learning and assessment. Post a reflective piece (150 words min) to this Module forum as a Reply to this post

This module provided a wide variety of AI tools that I could use to enhance teaching and learning in my classroom. I teach senior infants and I can see the benefit of using Co Pilot Image creator in my class for enhancing vocabulary and storytelling in literacy in my lessons. It can be used to generate colourful images for any theme that we are exploring, for example, the seaside. I would show the generated image to the children and get them to describe what they see, ask questions and create simple stories. It would be a great resource to support oral language development, develop vocabulary and develop their speaking and listening skills
Another AI tool that I will be using to provide the children with support with their reading is Microsoft’s Reading Coach. I would assign simple decodable texts to the children that match their phonics knowledge. Pupils will read the text using the Reading Coach and this AI tool will provide support with difficult words. It is a great tool for building confidence, improve their pronunciation and develop their reading fluency while getting feedback. It is a great support for teachers to reinforce letter sound relationships and high frequency words in class.

[Barbara Browne]

Hi Caroline,

I too am looking forward to using Vidnoz. I think it will be a great tool to engage pupils and like you said hearing the same thing again but in a different way. These tools are certainly very helpful to teachers to make our lessons more interesting.

[Barbara Browne]

Hi Tracey, I totally agree that AI is there to enhance our teaching and assist us but it can never replace the human interactions and conversations.

[Barbara Browne]

AI can transform teaching and learning in a classroom by making learning more personalised, interactive, and efficient and allows teachers to spend more time on instruction.
This module outlines 4 key areas where AI is important in education: It allows for personalised learning and attends to the unique needs of every student. It allows for administrative efficiency as a teacher and as a whole school and it frees up valuable time and allows greater time for teacher instruction. It analyses educational data and identifies gaps in their learning and informs decisions based on this information. It enhances teaching strategies and allows lessons to be more engaging for pupils.
This module provides lots of examples of implementing AI tools in my own classroom and school. One that I am particularly interested in engaging with is the Immersive Reader and I can already see how it would make reading for some children in my class a lot easier. It was great to see a demonstration of how it used in a classroom setting and it is one I am keen to implement in my classroom.
One of the main challenges of implementing AI tools is the lack of professional development for teachers in this area. I have gained so much insight as to what AI tools are available in education in this module alone and I am keen to share this information with my own school.

[Barbara Browne]

Overall, AI enhances productivity, helps to create engaging content and helps teachers and schools to be more efficient when it is used properly. The possibilities of using chatbots such as Chat GBT. Co-pilot and Gemini can enhance teaching and learning and improve productivity and it was great to get the opportunity to explore each of them and their potential in this module. Teachers are time poor and AI tools help to create engaging content, research topics and help you present them, generating questions and answers, quiz’s and stories, the list is endless!

This module has given me the opportunity to engage with AI that I haven’t previously used, like Vidnoz and Pictory, which will enhance lessons and make them more engaging for pupils in my classroom.
This module highlighted all the different possibilities of using AI in the classroom to improve teaching and learning. The opportunities to explore the chat bots was great and I have a better understanding of how they will support the teaching and learning in my own classroom.

This module also highlighted as teachers that we need to be aware of the harmful consequences and possible risks of using AI if not used properly. We need to engage positively, critically and ethically with AI systems and exploit their full potential.

[Barbara Browne]

I really enjoyed the Rocket Mouse activity. It is such a simple and engaging activity and I feel the children in my class  would have so much fun doing it!
To start the lesson , I would show a clip of a rocket launch , children are always amazed by this and it would start off a conversation and allow for the development of oral language.
This activity is a lovely one as an infants teacher, it has easily accessible materials. I would begin by creating a story about a mouse going to space to set the context for our activity. There is great opportunity for integration with art and the children will have fun making their mice. I will give them lots of opportunities to play and explore with the resources. I would then get them to carry out the experiment with the containers and ask them what is making the mouse fly? What is making it come down? I would get them to predict if the mouse would go higher if we used a bigger or smaller container and how could we test this? I am looking forward to trying this out in September!

[Barbara Browne]

I love the idea of getting them to retell in their own words. It allows us as teachers to assess their understanding of the concept.

[Barbara Browne]

I decided to focus on the weather and clothes activity for my Infants class. I really loved the activities and the endless opportunities for integration with other curricular areas.
To get the children engaged, I would open up the lesson using a “Have you ever” activity from Explorify.uk called “Have you ever gone out wearing the wrong coat?” The children will talk about their experience. Prompt questions such as..have you ever got wet by wearing the wrong coat? How did you decide what coat to wear to school today? How do you find out what the weather will be like? This will open up the conversation that the weather is different according to the time of the year.
A lovely activity to develop their observational skills and to engage in an Inquiry based activity around coats would be to have a collection of different coats, for different times of the year. The children will choose a coat in pairs and describe their coat using their senses.They will talk about when they might wear it? What does it feel like? What is it made from?
There is great opportunities in this activity for integration with maths, using hula hoops, getting the children to sort their coats into subsets..the coats with hoods and the coats without hoods, the coats with buttons and the coats with zips. Some coats may have buttons and zips, where will we put them?
Moving on to design and make the children could design and make a cosy coat for their favourite teddy, going through the 4 step process. The children would have a variety of materials to explore, which material would keep teddy warm? How will we keep teddy dry?

[Barbara Browne]

I really like the idea of the Friday Box. It’s definitely something that I will implement from September.

[Barbara Browne]

Space and Aliens:

I would use the activities based on space and aliens as I feel as an infants teacher, the children would thoroughly enjoy it and it offers so many opportunities for integration with other curricular areas such as Aistear, oral language, Art and drama and lots of opportunities to use their imagination.
To begin the lesson, I would use a story from the “Aliens in Underpants” series by Claire Freedman as a way to discuss the aliens features. This book can also be used to develop math concepts.. How many eyes do the aliens have? Use of more/less.
I would ask them to draw their own alien and give it a name. I would allow time for the children to introduce their alien and this would allow for the development of language such as smooth, rough,scaly,furry,small, big and so on.
The next step is to create their alien and there is great opportunities for integration with science and art. They can construct their aliens from a variety of materials.. I would ask questions such as: what materials will keep our alien dry if they arrive in Ireland and it is raining?
At the end of the lesson children are given the opportunity to look at each others aliens and compare them. There is a great opportunity here for mathematical language.. who has the most/least arms? How many more arms has alien 1 than alien 2 ect

[Barbara Browne]

I love the idea of using the Peppa Pig episode as a stimulus to the lesson. I will definitely use this idea as I know it would grab my classes attention straight away!

[Barbara Browne]

I chose the activity set: The Planets.
I really enjoyed the resources and lesson plan from Esero on The Planets. As an Infants teacher, they provide lots of opportunity for integration with other curricular areas…Aistear, Maths, Orla Language, Music and PE.I would begin this lesson by assessing the children’s knowledge around the Planets..using pictures, discussing shape, texture. I often use Explorify.uk website and would start a lesson with an Odd One Out activity to develop talk and discussion. I would use this activity” It’s Shady Business” to get them to make observations about what they see on the first two images, where might you see them, shape, colours, textures. There is a great opportunity to develop observation and questioning skills.
I love the activities using the hula hoops, The Planet Game would be a huge hit and great fun while they are also learning about the planets through active play. This can be so easily integrated into a PE lesson. The Planet dance allows for the development of directional language in maths

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