Is it time to get started with artificial intelligence? These 20 AI "first steps" for teachers will catch you up to speed.
If you've heard the buzz about artificial intelligence (AI) and want to better understand it -- and its implications on the classroom, guess what?
You're in the right place.
Generative AI (AI that generates, or creates something for us) has potential for lesson prep, for instruction ... even for student learning.
It's more than a "tool students will use to cheat."
But we also have to be careful. AI isn't without its controversies and concerns.
In this post, we'll share with you several "first steps" you can take as an educator to get up to speed with artificial intelligence -- to see how it fits and if it's something you want to use.
- Read through the summary of any step that interests you.
- Click the title of that "step" -- or the resource at the bottom of the "step" -- to dive deeper.
- Some have videos and slide presentations. Watch or flip through slides to learn.
The post is broken into three parts: 1. Learn about AI; 2. Learn about classroom AI tools; 3. Consider AI's implications on school.
Let's get started with part 1!
PART 1: Learn about AI
1. Check out AI 101 for Teachers by Code.org
If you're getting started with AI and want some foundational information about it, this is a great stop. This collection of resources -- presented by Code.org, ETS, ISTE, and Khan Academy -- includes video conversations with AI trailblazers and educators. The videos -- "Demystifying AI for Educators," "Transforming Learning with AI," and more -- will kickstart your understanding of AI and its implications on education.
Resource: AI 101 for Teachers by Code.org
2. Watch "How Chatbots and Large Language Models Work" by Code.org
Maybe ChatGPT (or other AI assistants) have caught your eye -- but large language models still feel like they run on fairies and magic dust. If that's the case, check out this video (7:21) where the CTO of OpenAI and a CEO of an AI company break the technology down. It's one of several videos offered by Code.org about how AI works.
3. Read this AI prompting guide slide deck
Once you try out an AI assistant like ChatGPT, you start to realize ... the better you prompt it, the better results you can get. Want to level up your prompting skills? Use this prompting guide slide deck (also embedded below) to learn the basics about interacting with these AI models that ChatGPT and other AI assistants use.
4. Compare the four major AI assistants
Ever since ChatGPT was released in November 2022, tech companies have rushed to catch up -- and to improve their own AI assistants. Lots of tools have come on the market, but these main four have proven to be the most capable to this point (all with a free and paid premium version):
So ... which one do you use? You don't have to pick just one. And you may find that you like one for certain tasks over the other.
The best way to find out is to use them. Try this: Open all four in separate tabs. Give all of them the same prompt (ask them to do the same task). Then look at the results. Once you do this a handful of times, you start to see how they respond -- and how they're different.
Bonus: Want to explore a different AI assistant that more accurately reflects the experience, culture, and history of Black and brown people? Check out Latimer.ai (with free and paid/premium versions). (Thanks to Dee Lanier for sharing Latimer!)
5. Ask an AI assistant for a unit plan -- then follow up with replies for more specifics.
Once you've tried out an AI assistant, you might come to a conclusion ... it didn't give you exactly what you were looking for.
That's OK! (If you feel that way, trust me ... we've all been there.) You don't have to write the perfect prompt to get what you're looking for.
If your AI assistant didn't give you what you need, just tell it what you want to be different and it'll change its response.
Important to know: Your interactions with an AI assistant like ChatGPT are like a conversation. You don't have to get the perfect prompt the first time. Plus, the AI assistants answer your prompts originally every time, so if you ask it again, it will likely give you a unique response that might be more like what you want.
A good place to start: Ask it for a unit plan about a topic you'll be teaching -- and then follow up with replies to get more and more specific. Ask it things like, "What would day 2 in that plan look like?" "What are some discussion questions I could ask my students during that conversation?" "What are some project ideas that would support this unit?"
PART 2: Learn about classroom AI tools
Presentation slides are a big part of many classrooms. Teachers and students face two common problems with them, though ...
- Slides are time-consuming to create.
- They're not very interactive for students.
Thankfully, Curipod (curipod.com) can help with BOTH of these.
Just tell Curipod what you want to build a lesson about. Include any objectives or standards you want to meet. It'll create a short slide presentation about that topic with text, facts, images, and more. (And remember, AI helps us create a first draft, so if it isn't exactly what you want, you can always change it.)
And to make the lesson more interactive, just add one of the many slide types that Curipod offers, including polls, students writing feedback, word clouds, and more.
As a high school Spanish teacher, I've used LOTS of songs to help my students learn new language concepts. And I've written some short songs of my own. (No, they weren't any good ... but yes, they were effective!)
Why? Put it to a beat and it'll stick in your students' memory. Research has connected educational songs and student achievement.
Suno (suno.com) uses AI to create songs based on whatever content you choose -- and composes the lyrics and music in seconds so you can press play and listen.
Use it to write a song about something that happened in history -- or in current events. Use it to write a song about covalent bonds or the printing press or economics concepts. Or use it to write a special song on a student's birthday -- or to celebrate an important occasion for your students!
When students learn something new, we want it to stick. We want them to understand how the pieces fit together -- and how it connects to other parts of life.
MirrorTalk (MirrorTalk.ai) creates instant custom questions about whatever students are learning. Then, it creates an in-depth AI analysis of student responses to show gaps in understanding or next steps.
Students tell MirrorTalk what they're working on or what they're learning. Then, MirrorTalk uses what students said to create questions for them to ask to dive deeper.
If you use Google Workspace, one thing you probably love about it is that everything is in one place. You don't have to hop from one product or app to another. All your Google stuff is in Google.
If you live your life in Google, you might as well add the AI superpowers of Brisk Teaching.
Brisk Teaching (BriskTeaching.com) is a Chrome extension that adds a little "B" icon in the bottom right corner of your Google products. Click that little icon -- it's the Brisk Teaching button -- to open up all sorts of AI capabilities like ...
- Create (quizzes, rubrics, lesson plans, exemplars, etc.)
- Give feedback on student writing
- Inspect student writing process (in the version history)
- Change grade level of text
Turning students loose on a commercial AI chatbot like ChatGPT can come with risks. Many non-education AI companies aren't that interested in student data privacy. Plus, there can be no way to know how the AI is interacting with students -- or how students are interacting with AI.
Thankfully, there's a safer alternative -- and one where you can program the chatbot to interact with students in a certain way.
SchoolAI (SchoolAI.com) lets you create Spaces, custom student-facing chatbots that interact with students how you want. Write the instructions for a Space the same way you would write a prompt for an AI assistant.
When you give your students a link to that Space, they can interact with the AI with your specific instructions. Plus, you can watch a transcript of student interactions with the AI -- and SchoolAI will summarize your students' interactions.
Teachers can spend countless hours looking for the right image for a learning activity, a slide presentation, or a lesson. Now, AI offers a new option to save you time and get exactly what you want.
AI image generators like Ideogram (Ideogram.ai) can help. Users create a text description of the image they want. Then, AI image generators like Ideogram create an image.
I've used images created by Ideogram for students to describe in my Spanish classes. They can be used to illustrate all sorts of concepts -- and even provide images for students to critically analyze to look for inaccuracies and inconsistencies.
Microsoft Designer (designer.microsoft.com) is a very capable AI image generators with lots of fun modes. But one of its features really sets it apart ...
If you create a prompt you really like to create an image, you can share it with friends -- and let them fill in the blanks to customize it for themselves.
Think of it as a "Mad Libs"-style prompt where you fill in the blanks with what you want.
It's a great way to get beginner AI users comfortable with generating images. It can also streamline image creation to save time.
13. Try out new AI features in edtech tools you already use
Lots of new AI-powered edtech tools have popped up recently. You can't seem to avoid the words "powered by AI" or "AI features" anymore. This has brought lots of new players into the educational technology landscape.
But pay attention ...
Lots of your favorite tried-and-true edtech apps are adding AI features, too. You just might not have noticed them yet.
Look around in Google and Microsoft products. But also look at other third-party edtech tools like Quizizz, Padlet, and others for new features you didn't have before. If you want new AI features, you don't always have to find an "AI app". They might already exist in your favorite tech tools!
PART 3: Consider AI's implications on school
14. Read AI for Educators by Matt Miller
Yep, this is my book ... and there's a good chance I wrote it for YOU.
It's targeted toward busy teachers who are just starting to learn about AI. In this book, you'll learn about ...
- the implications of AI in education and in classrooms
- practical ways AI can support teaching and learning
- how to maintain academic integrity in the face of AI and cheating
- the AI-powered future our students face (and how to prepare them)
You can find AI for Educators in paperback, Kindle ebook, and Audible audiobook on Amazon.
15. Sign up for the free AI for Admins community and email newsletter.
Are you in any leadership position in education and involved with decision-making related to AI? This FREE community / email newsletter is for YOU.
AI for Admins connects you with a community of like-minded educators who are trying to set students and teachers up for success in an AI world.
The AI for Admins email newsletter shares news, ideas, and solutions for educators by educators. The community is a forum-style discussion board where you can interact directly with other educators from around the world.
Our students will face a future unlike ours -- especially with the implications of growing artificial intelligence.
How can we prepare them for this future? (Hint: It isn't just "teaching them more about artificial intelligence.")
Some timeless skills -- like emphasizing process over product -- and some new skills will set them on a solid path to success.
Schools are starting to confront the challenges -- and opportunities -- that AI presents to education. Lots of discussions need to take place.
But what specifically should we be talking about?
Sure, let's talk about behavior we want to avoid. But what does responsible AI use look like? How can we set students on a course to success -- academically in school, but also in life?
Let's have these conversations in staff meetings -- but also with students.
18. Consider how much AI use is appropriate in learning tasks
When AI tools like ChatGPT were released, one of our first thoughts as teachers was -- "Students are going to use this to cheat."
But how much AI use constitutes cheating? And in what ways should we encourage students to take advantage of AI? (Let's remember -- spell check runs on AI, and it's been standard in word processors since 1995.)
This graphic (available as a PDF download here) shows a spectrum of AI use in a student writing assignment. The graphic can encourage conversations with students, with staff, and even with parents.
PS: There's a whole chapter about this graphic and academic integrity with AI in my book, AI for Educators.
19. Learn about how AI and algorithms can be biased, racist, and sexist
Anyone who uses AI in their lives should be aware of the dangers. One of those dangers: AI might portray a world that doesn't exist -- or encourage a world that puts marginalized people at a disadvantage.
Here's what Rebecca Heilweil writes in this Vox article:
Humans are error-prone and biased, but that doesn’t mean that algorithms are necessarily better. Still, the tech is already making important decisions about your life and potentially ruling over which political advertisements you see, how your application to your dream job is screened, how police officers are deployed in your neighborhood, and even predicting your home’s risk of fire.
But these systems can be biased based on who builds them, how they’re developed, and how they’re ultimately used. This is commonly known as algorithmic bias. It’s tough to figure out exactly how systems might be susceptible to algorithmic bias, especially since this technology often operates in a corporate black box. We frequently don’t know how a particular artificial intelligence or algorithm was designed, what data helped build it, or how it works.
Resource: Why algorithms can be racist and sexist
20. Consider these guiding principles on whether to use AI in the classroom
Education author and speaker Rick Wormeli writes that we should keep student learning paramount in a world with more and more AI at our fingertips.
In this article, Wormeli suggests that we keep eight principles in mind in classrooms and schools. They include: not short-cutting important thought processes for students, asking students to create a first draft on their own first, and revisiting what learning really means periodically.
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