Writing with ChatGPT

Made with Craiyon, Prompt: w a storyboard of a robot who gets lost in the forest 

I have recently been working with small groups of Grade 5 and 6 students in their Unit of Inquiry about how people use technology to communicate. We are focusing on AI.

Today I was working with a few groups of Grade 5 students. I started by activating their prior knowledge with a quick Baamboozle (www.baamboozle.com).

I then challenged students to try to write a prompt for ChatGPT that would produce a story that matched a storyboard I found online. They did this on a shared Google Doc. After they finished their prompts, I wrote the prompts into ChatGPT and then pasted their stories into the Doc.

After they read their stories I asked a few reflection questions.
- What do you notice about the writing?
- What would you edit about this writing?
- What stage in the writing cycle do you think an AI tool would be most useful?

The next step for this group of students is exploring ways to write effective prompts.

Made with Craiyon, Prompt: draw a storyboard of a robot who gets lost in the forest 

 

Kids are going to use it so how can we stop them?

Made with Craiyon, Prompt: "cartoon bots doing what they want in a classroom"

A colleague said aloud in the staff room, "ChatGPT is down!"

(I think he was reading an article about it.)

I told him that I was able to use it earlier in the morning after I read that the IB is now allowing it according to an article in The Guardian. I wanted to confirm that I had read in their terms of use that they restrict usage to users 18+. 

He replied that we cannot control what happens outside of school and if students sign up for it on their own that is on them.

The question I was asking was: If ChatGPT is for users 18 and older, how can the IB say that students can use it when most students are under 18? 

An AI Unit of Inquiry

Made with Dall-E

Prompt: "use technology to communicate ai"

I am working with the Grade 5-5 team on their How We Express Ourselves Unit of Inquiry. They are focusing on how we use technology to communicate and specifically on AI. It's my role to pull small groups of students and work with them. 

The plan I am weaving through the UOI is to talk about 

• what AI and ChatGPT is,
• the strengths and weaknesses of AI tools,
• how to write a good prompt,
• the ethics of using AI tools.

The Unit is framed around the learner profile attributes of communicators, open-minded, and risk-takers. For my part, I have not found an authentic way to integrate risk-takers and open-minded yet, but communicators will be addressed by inquiring into how to write a good prompt and what a good ethics policy might look like.

The highlight of the unit so far was last week when students tried to write stories using ChatGPT and the resulting stories were just a regeneration of the prompt. Next week we will have to look to see what went wrong.

Let's Revamp How We Use Google Sites For Learning

I have been thinking about using Sites in class for the majority of the year. My own philosophy is to create lessons in Slides so they can be reused in the future. In my school, most teachers write their content directly into the Site - which can be OK, but something isn't working. 

"It's so confusing. It's not just this class, it's all classes. I don't know what to do."

This is what I heard from a student in one of the MYP classes I support. 

The overall look of most class Sites is pretty good. However, I think there are still a few missing pieces to supporting student understanding.

I would suggest the following changes:

1. The Unit Title, Statement of Inquiry, and ATL Skills at the top of each page.
2. Control the flow of the lesson - easy to understand.
3. Use a Google Slide deck for your lessons. 
4. Add a Google Form to collect feedback. This could be next to each day's lesson like in Alice Keeler's example here.
5. Consistency between classes.
6. Make links obvious by changing the color or font size.

This is something I will need to think more about.

Technology Advice for Parents with Toddlers

I was watching my nephew use an iPad the other day. He is 3, but I marveled at how he navigated the iPad. I watched him as he watched a video and then gracefully moved from the YouTube app to the YouTube Kids app. I guess he got bored with that first video.

I watched for a few minutes and noticed he was watching videos for a short while, never really reaching the mid-point of any of them, and then moving onto the next recommended video. Watching him I wondered about my own students and how their relationship with technology could have been different. 

The advice I would like to give to my nephew's parents and other parents with toddlers is the following:

• always know what you're child is doing on the device,

• be present - use should always happen in front of you,

• set time limits - the AACAP recommends only an hour a day for children 3-5 years old,

• talk about what they do and why - try to understand them,

• encourage creation over consumption.

This list is not comprehensive, and the points need to be expanded on, but it is a start for now.

For future thinking - Teach your brain to focus longer and accomplish more