Posts Tagged ‘educational technology’
Monster Project Using Makey Makeys and Scratch
This project takes the Monster Project enhancing it with interactivity created through using Scratch and Makey Makeys. It was inspired by the Makey Makey Hack a Toy Lesson. Part of the lesson included the 5th graders interviewing 1st graders. This Edutopia article discussed the benefits of interviewing – Learning to Interview Builds a Range of Communication Skills .
Standards Addressed
Common Core State Standards – ELA
- Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, orissue under study.
National Core Arts Standards
- Students will generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
CSTA Standards
- Decompose (break down) problems into smaller, manageable subproblems to facilitate the program development process.
- Modify, remix, or incorporate portions of an existing program into one’s own work, to develop something new or add more advanced features.
ISTE Standards for Students
- Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
- Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.
Making the Monsters
A 1st grade teacher was asked to have her student draw monsters.
The 5th graders used felt to recreate the 1st graders’ drawing using felt. They were then sewn together with yarn and stuffed with filling.
Preparing the Plushy
The SAGE students created larger versions of the 1st graders’ drawn monsters through using felt pieces for the base and the features of the drawing, adding a back, sewing it today with yarn, and stuffing it
Interviewing the 1st Graders
The interview questions were developed by the SAGE students first by brainstorming ideas on the Promethean board, and second sharing them on a Google Doc so they each had a copy:
Interviews
The SAGE 5th graders interviewed the 1st graders about their Monsters using Vocaroo. It produces a MP3 file which is compatible with Scratch. This file is downloaded.
Preparing the Files in Scratch
The SAGE students then uploads their MP3 files into Scratch where it is edited into clips of sounds. This link gives some details how to do so https://helpkidscreate.com/adding-audio-to-scratch/.
See more of their code:
- Elizabeth – https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/793092586
- Tao – https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/811334666/
- Emily – https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/827406003
- Valerie – https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/796614386
- Emily (Spanish Version) – https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/830970807
After the 5th graders made the plushies, they prepared them to be connected to the Makey Makey by taping in conductive tape and sewing in conductive thread as described in https://makeymakey.com/blogs/how-to-instructions/maker-class-lesson-two-hack-a-toy
The Reveal to the 1st Graders
When all of the projects were complete, they were set up in our classroom and the 1st graders were brought in for the reveal.
Presenting Their Projects at Our Innovation Fair
Several SAGE students presented their Monster Projects at our district’s innovation fair.
Extra – Animated Drawings and Blabberize
As an extra project and to enable younger students to get more involved with the technology, they can animated their drawings using https://sketch.metademolab.com/:
or Blabberize their monsters.
ChatGPT with My Students
I love educational technology. When technologies were first available online, I was an early adopter, and often got brutally criticized by administrators and colleagues in my K-6 settings for having students use the internet for research, use web tools, create webpages in wikis, and work virtually with schools in other states and countries (for example, see their work from 2008 at http://weewebwonders.pbworks.com/). Now, similar work is often seen as innovative by colleagues. Boy, have times thankfully changed, but I have not. I still am an early adopter of technologies in that I believe many can benefit students in their learning.
As many in education know, commentary about ChatGPT is appearing on the news, social media, and the internet. As I always do, I am exploring its use in my classes (elementary-level gifted education). This post describes its use in education from the perspectives of ChatGPT, itself, and from a handful of educators. Later, I describe and show the work of my students. I conclude with tools for detecting machine-generated text, and provide a parting shot.
General Ideas for Using ChatGPT in Education
ChatGPT, according to ChatGPT, is a variant of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) language model that has been specifically designed for generating human-like text for chatbot applications. GPT models are trained on large amounts of text data and are able to generate natural language text that is coherent and grammatically correct. ChatGPT is trained to generate text that is more conversational and appropriate for use in chatbot applications. It can be used to generate responses to user input, initiate conversations, and provide information and assistance to users in a chatbot setting.
According to ChatGPT, there are several potential ways that ChatGPT or similar language models could be used in education:
- As a tutor or teaching assistant: ChatGPT could be used to provide personalized feedback and guidance to students, answering questions and providing explanations on a variety of educational topics.
- For language learning: ChatGPT or similar models could be used to provide conversation practice and feedback to students learning a new language.
- To generate personalized learning content: ChatGPT or similar models could be used to generate customized learning materials for students, such as practice problems or reading assignments.
- To facilitate collaborative learning: ChatGPT or similar models could be used to facilitate discussions and collaboration among students, providing prompts and guidance for group projects and assignments.
Here are some guides created by educators, Torrey Trust and Andrew Herft, for using ChatGPT in educational settings. They include uses for teachers such as creating lesson plans and assessments as well as how students can use it:
ChatGPT in the K-12 Setting
When specifically asked how ChatGPT can be used by K-12 students, it reported the following:
K-12 students can use ChatGPT in a variety of ways to enhance their learning experience. Some examples include:
- Asking ChatGPT to explain a difficult concept or topic
- Using ChatGPT to generate practice questions and answers for studying
- Asking ChatGPT to summarize a text or article
- Using ChatGPT to generate creative writing prompts
- Asking ChatGPT to help with homework by answering questions or providing explanations
- Using ChatGPT to improve reading comprehension by asking questions about a text
- Creating interactive quizzes and games to make learning more engaging
It also (thankfully) provided a disclaimer: It’s important to note that while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for K-12 students, it should not be used as a substitute for a teacher or other educational professional. A teacher can help to provide guidance, feedback, and structure to the learning process.
Matt Miller of Ditch the Textbook also discussed uses of ChatGPT in K-12 education:
More detailed explanations of these can be found in ChatGPT, Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence in Education. Since the time this blog post was first composed, Matt has written a book – AI for Educators: Learning Strategies, Teacher Efficiencies, and a Vision for an Artificial Intelligence Future which can be purchased on Amazon.
ChatGPT Can Support Students’ Social Emotional Learning
Students and teachers may benefit from asking and discovered various ways it could assist someone with social and emotional skills. It gave helpful answers to all the questions below, and when asked to “regenerate the response” was able to provide additional quality responses. It can be very helpful for anyone who has a difficult time in social situations, is nervous about making friends, is conflicted about how to handle a particular situation.
- What are some questions I could ask a new friend?
- What advice do you have for someone starting a new school and wanting to make friends?
- What are some suggestions for how to say no if a friend asks to copy my homework?
- What are suggestions to explain to someone what they said or did hurt my feelings?
- What are small talk suggestions at a party?
- I am nervous about my test tomorrow; can you give me some relaxation strategies?
- I want to motivate my group members to help with our project; what are some suggestions to help motivate them?
- I made the soccer team, but my best friend didn’t make it, I feel bad and don’t know what to do. Do you have any suggestions?
- I want to practice being kind in the new year. What are some specific ways I can show kindness to others? (ChatGPT to Your Classroom-your-classroom/).
Testing ChatGPT with My Students
In his blog post, ChatGPT, Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence in Education, Matt proposed that maybe ChatCPT should be blocked until the end of the school year because, “We need some space. Some time. A little room to ponder, to sit with all of this. To talk to other educators about what they think. To talk to students and to parents.” For me, the best way to find out about the functionality and effectiveness of any potential classroom-based educational technology is to have students test it out for themselves, so that is what I did with my 4th-6th graders.
I think it is important to be intentional when any educator or I use any type of educational technology. I get frustrated when I see conference presentations about 50 educational technologies in 50 minutes. It becomes about the tool rather than about the pedagogy. When using educational technology in the classroom, instructional goals should be established beyond just learning about the tool. As such, when I asked students to explore ChatGPT, I had two purposes in mind, (1) To be critical consumers of online tools, and (2) To increase their joy of the written word.
They were given the following task:
- Test out ChatGPT (using my account under my supervision) with two of the following
- A Piece of Your Own Writing
- Favorite Book
- Favorite Song
- Current News Story
- Historical Event
- (My students ended up using it to create a written piece to go with an image generated by DALL·E 2, a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.)
- For each, try to
- Create a rap or rock song.
- Write a three act play, TV show, or movie. Specify the characters.
- Create a fairy tale.
- Write a limerick.
- Create a newscast.
- Create a holiday.
- Create a commercial.
- Make a joke.
- Get feedback.
- Rules
- No violence.
- No fighting characters.
- Focus on the positive and kindness.
Students then wrote a blog post that included their results as well as reflections on the following questions:
- Did it produce desirable results? If so, to what degree? If not, why?
- What did you like best?
- Do you think it will lose its novelty? Why or Why not?
- How can it help you learn better?
- Why shouldn’t it ever be used in school?
Here is a slide deck of their work that they posted on their Fan school blogs (note: I instructed them to indicate that the images and text were generated by AI:
A summary of my students comments about using ChatGPT at school:
- ChatGPT should not be used in school because then kids will use it instead of writing themselves, which defeats the purpose of practicing to write, a skill that is vital in later life.
- On the other hand, it could help me learn proper grammar and advanced words.
- It can help you learn by giving you examples and thoughts.
- The results were very desirable because it was very good grammar and a realistic image, I rate it a ten.
- I think this website will help me learn better by including proficient and highly advanced words.
- I think ChatGPT should never be used in school because it takes no work other than typing a few words into a search bar and then you push a button and the website does all the work for you.
- I think a reason why you should not use this for school work is because you will get in trouble.
- I like it because it is so cool the way that it creates a story just by describing something.
- I think you shouldn’t use AI at school because you are basically cheating.
I then asked students to create a pledge for using ChatGPT for work related to school:
Detecting Machine-Generated Text
Teachers, rightfully, are fearful of the potential for students to cheat using ChatGPT to generate essays, homework assignments, etc. To help offset this problem, apps and tools are being develop to help detect
- GPTZero.me rolled out their new model that includes sentence highlighting and much faster processing. GPTZero now highlights sentences for you that are more likely to have been written by AI, a key feature that teachers have been requesting. File uploads have been added You can upload a PDF, docx, or txt file where GPTZero will read the text and detect AI plagiarism!
- The AI Text Classifier, by openai, the developers of Chat GPT, is a fine-tuned GPT model that predicts how likely it is that a piece of text was generated by AI from a variety of sources, such as ChatGPT.
- AI Writing Check is a free service developed by Quill.org and CommonLit.org to enable educators to check if a piece of writing submitted by a student was written by the AI tool ChatGPT. This algorithm is designed to detect AI-generated writing. We estimate, based on testing with 15k essays, that this tool is accurate 80-90% of the time. For this reason, we’d like to encourage teachers to exercise caution when using this tool to detect academic dishonesty. AI Writing Check is a stopgap tool measure for educators to use this school year until more advanced AI detection tools are made widely available.
- Giant Language Model Test Room (or GLTR) is another tool that can be used to predict if casual portions of text have been written with AI. To use GLTR, a piece of text simply copy and pasted into the input box and anaylze is hit to generate a report.
Citing ChatGPT
With my elementary students, I simply ask/require that they cite that they used ChatGPT (and Dall-e) in their blog posts which is their writing platform.
For my graduate students, this isn’t an issue yet, but has the possibility of being so. Scribber has these suggestions for citing ChatGPT:
How to cite ChatGPT in APA Style
APA doesn’t have a specific format for citing ChatGPT content yet, but they recommended in a tweet that it should be cited as a personal communication, since the text is not retrievable (chats are unique to each user, so you can’t provide a URL for others to access your chats).
Universities and citation authorities are still working out if and when it’s appropriate to cite ChatGPT in your work. There isn’t a clear consensus yet. Always check your institution’s guidelines or ask your instructor if you’re not sure.
If you’re using ChatGPT responses as a primary source (e.g., you’re studying the abilities of AI language models), you should definitely cite it for this purpose, just as you would any piece of evidence.
If you use ChatGPT to help you in the research or writing process (e.g., using it to develop research questions or create an outline), you may be required to cite or acknowledge it in some way. Check if your institution has guidelines about this.
Don’t cite ChatGPT as a source of factual information (e.g., asking it to define a term and then quoting its definition in your paper). ChatGPT isn’t always trustworthy and is not considered a credible source for use in academic writing.
How to cite ChatGPT in APA Style. APA personal communication citations don’t require a reference entry. Instead, they’re mentioned in parentheses in the text wherever you quoted or paraphrased the source.Example: APA ChatGPT citation(ChatGPT, personal communication, February 16, 2023)
ChatGPT Citations | Formats & Examples – https://www.scribbr.com/ai-tools/chatgpt-citations/
Better Yet – Design ChatGPT-Proof Learning Activities
For years many educators have talked about having students do Google-proof activities. To do so, Doug Johnson suggested:
- Allow (or require) the student to relate the academic topic to an area of personal interest.
- Allow (or require) the student to do inquiry that has implications for him/herself or his/her family.
- Allow (or require) the student to give local focus to the research.
- Allow (or require) that the student’s final product relate to a current, real-world problem.
These suggestions are applicable to ChatGPT. Similar ideas were suggested by Alyson Klein in Outsmart ChatGPT: 8 Tips for Creating Assignments It Can’t Do:
- Ask students to write about something deeply personal – Consider having students delve into their scariest moment, the biggest challenge they ever overcame, or even answer a quirky personal question: Would you rather be the bucket or the sand? It’s difficult at this point for AI to fake highly personal writing.
- Center a writing assignment around an issue specific to the local community. ChatGPT doesn’t have a strong background in hyperlocal issues, though that is likely to change as the tool becomes more sophisticated, experts say. But for now, educators may be able to minimize how much help ChatGPT can be on a particular assignment by grounding it in the school community—maybe even by asking students to write about a new school rule or the student council election.
- Direct students to write about a very recent news event. At this point, ChatGPT can’t capture much information about things that happened just days earlier. Teachers could ask students to compare a very recent news event to a historical one.
- Have students show or explain their work. In math class, students usually show how they arrived at a particular answer to get credit for solving a problem. That concept could apply to writing. For instance, teachers could prompt students to detail their brainstorming process, explaining why they choose to write about a particular topic. Have students show or explain their work. In math class, students usually show how they arrived at a particular answer to get credit for solving a problem. That concept could apply to writing. For instance, teachers could prompt students to detail their brainstorming process, explaining why they choose to write about a particular topic.
- Ask students to give an oral presentation, along with the written work. Ask students to record themselves on a video platform such as FlipGrid, talking about their essay, story, report, or other assignment,
To these ideas, I add:
- Have students write during class time (which is my preference anyhow).
- Have students create their writing piece as part of a poster or Infographic (with graphics) using an online tool such as Canva, Adobe Express, and/or Book Creator.
- Have students create an art piece (2D or 3dD) to go along with the writing and explain how it does so.
- Ask students to do collaborative writing using Google Docs that is a truly integrated piece (not individual pieces) from several students.
- Allow students to use ChatGPT with students giving it credit, analyzing it, and adding their own ideas.
Parting Shot
Many of the same fear and arguments that are being leveraged against ChatGPT in education settings have been leveraged against other technologies in the past. Wikipedia is one of those examples. I loved it when it first came out, but I knew lots of teachers who banned Wikipedia in their classrooms.
“Big-picture, AI will cause a shift students will deal with for the rest of their lives. They’ll wrestle with questions of humanity, questions of obsolescence, ethical questions. Let’s [teachers] help them with this” (http://ditch.link/ai via @jmattmiller).
The presence of disruptive technologies like ChatGPT should cause us to reflect on our learning goals, outcomes, and assessments, and determine whether we should change them in response, wall off the technology, or change the technology itself to better support our intended outcomes. We should not let our existing approaches remain simply because this is the way we have always done them. We should also not ruin what is great about writing in the name of preventing cheating. We could make students hand-write papers in class and lose the opportunity to think creatively and edit for clarity. Instead, we should double down on our goal of making sure that students become effective written and oral communicators. For better or worse, these technologies are part of the future of our world. We need to teach our students if it is appropriate to use them, and, if so, how and when to work alongside them effectively (Advice and responses from faculty on ChatGPT and A.I.-assisted writing)
These technology-driven disruptions will not be smooth, even if they can make us better off in the long run. Among the worst things we could do would be to let the drawbacks of these technologies deny us their benefits. In addition, the net effect of these changes will not be felt equally, so we all had better improve our capacity for compassion soon. The impact of ChatGPT and similar tools on education and the workforce may not yet feel much different than the trends of recent decades, but the depth and breadth of the changes brought by AI tools is accelerating and may be something new entirely (With ChatGPT, Education May Never Be the Same).
Stop Motion Animations: A Fun and Engaging Language Arts-Educational Technology Integration
One of my favorite things to do as an educator is to create lessons plans that help students address content standards through authentic learning activities and develop transferrable skills. For the stop motion animations, both English Language Arts Common Core and ISTE Standards were addressed. Plus, students had fun, were fully engaged, and developed a greater tolerance for long term projects. This blog post provides some background information as well as presents a few student examples.
Standards Addressed
English Language Arts Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3.A
Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally. - CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3.B
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, description, and pacing, to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations. - CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3.E
Provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.
ISTE (Technology) Standards for Students
1.6. Creative Communicator
Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. Students:
- 1.6.b. create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
- 1.6.c. communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.
- 1.6.d. publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.
Creating Storyboards
Learners were assigned the following story arc template in Storyboard That.
Link – https://www.storyboardthat.com/create/storytelling-templates
Making the Stop Motion Animations
Learners used the Stop Motion Studio App to create their animations:
Student Examples
The Worm and the Cheese by Andrew
Storyboard Template Using Storyboard That
Stop Motion Animation: The Worm and the Cheese
The Adventure of the Cats by Marisol
Storyboard Template Using Storyboard That
Stop Motion Animation: The Adventures of the Cats
Artificial Intelligence: Generative AI
My gifted students, grades 4th-6th, selected Artificial Intelligence, as their elective during Spring, 2022 semester. (For more about this see Offering Electives to Elementary Students.) The Generative AI learning activities I describe below are part of their larger Artificial Intelligence elective as well as being part of the ISTE AI Explorations course I am taking.
ISTE Standards for Students
- Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
- Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions. Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
- Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions. Students understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.
- Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
The Hook
Students explore the following Generative AI technologies:
- This Person Does Not Exist https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
- Which face is real? https://www.whichfaceisreal.com/
- DALL·E mini: Generate images from text https://huggingface.co/spaces/flax-community/dalle-mini
- Image-to-Image Translation https://affinelayer.com/pixsrv/
- Deep Fakes: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/01/business/pentagons-race-against-deepfakes/
Introductory Videos
Students watch the following videos to gain some background knowledge about GANS:
Warm-Up Activity: Create a Mythical Creature
Students create a mythical creature using Google’s Chimera Painter-https://storage.googleapis.com/chimera-painter/index.html. “Chimera Painter is a demo that lets you run wild by drawing out creature shapes that become fully fleshed out by our CreatureGAN machine learning model, which was trained on hundreds of thousands of 2D renders of 3D creature models.” To begin, students watch the following video. It provides a great overview about how GANS work in the context of using the Chimera Painter. Once they create their creatures, they write a short story about them. Students can be instructed that their favorite creation can be used in the next activity – their presentation assignment.
The students loved making these.
Assignment: Create a Generative AI-Enhanced Presentation
For this assignment, students are going to make a presentation out of Generative AI Art that shows the projects they created for our AI unit (see previous blog posts). An alternative can be that the theme for the presentation is decided upon by the student and/or the teacher). It needs to include AI Art, AI sounds or music, and AI Drawing or Painting elements.
To begin students experiment with and create artifacts for the following GANS. They then choose their favorite creation from each of the following for use in their presentations. Students can use Google Slides to upload their creations, and possibly add text to create a GAN-enhanced presentation.
Generative AI Art
- Deep Dream Generator – https://deepdreamgenerator.com/
- NightCafe Creator – https://creator.nightcafe.studio/ (requires a login)
- Google Arts & Culture App – https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/arts-culture/transform-your-photo-style-iconic-artist/
Generative AI Music
- NSynth Sound Maker – https://experiments.withgoogle.com/ai/sound-maker/view/
- AI Duet – https://experiments.withgoogle.com/ai/ai-duet/view/
Generative AI Drawing / AI Painting:
- Pix2Pix – https://mitmedialab.github.io/GAN-play/
- AI Painter – https://www.instapainting.com/ai-painter
- Cartoonify – https://experiments.withgoogle.com/cartoonify
- Dream – https://app.wombo.art/
Example Student Project
Artificial Intelligence: Chatbot Activities for Students
My gifted students, grades 4th-6th, selected Artificial Intelligence, as their elective during Spring, 2022 semester. (For more about this see Offering Electives to Elementary Students.) The chatbot learning activities I describe below are part of their larger Artificial Intelligence elective as well as being part of the ISTE AI Explorations course I am taking.
ISTE Standards for Students
- Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
- Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions. Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
- Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions. Students understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.
- Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
The Hook
Learners try out the following chatbot:
Video Introduction
Main Activity 1: A Scratch Text to Speech Language Translator Chatbot
Student Examples
Main Activity 2: Create a Chatbot on a Topic of Your Choice
Learners create their own Chatbots using Scratch 3.0. They are expected to research a topic of personal interest to create a Chatbot that can answer questions about interesting facts related to their topic.
Students explain the workings of the ones they created:
Extension
To extend knowledge about and coding of Chatbots, learners do the Python-drive CodeMonkey Trivia Chatbot course: https://app.codemonkey.com/hour-of-code/trivia-chatbot/course#1
Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning Activities
My gifted students, grades 4th-6th, selected Artificial Intelligence, as their elective during Spring, 2022 semester. (For more about this see Offering Electives to Elementary Students.) The machine learning activities I describe below are part of their larger Artificial Intelligence elective, and part of the ISTE AI Explorations course I am taking.
Education as it should be – passion-based.
Artificial Intelligence: Chatbot Activities for Students
My gifted students, grades 4th-6th, selected Artificial Intelligence, as their elective during Spring, 2022 semester. (For more about this see Offering Electives to Elementary Students.) The chatbot learning activities I describe below are part of their larger Artificial Intelligence elective.Here is another
ISTE Standards for Students
- Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and
troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies. - Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions. Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
- Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions. Students understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test
automated solutions. - Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations
Introduction to Machine Learning Via Videos
Real World Examples
Teachable Machine Activities
Introductory Activity: Using Teachable Machine with Google
Website Used: https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/
Here is a video tutorial how this works:
My students tried the Teachable Machine using three categories of objects (images) found in the classroom:
Rock, Paper, and Scissor – Machine Learning for Kids
This project uses Google’s Teachable Machine (images), the Machine Learning for Kids website, and Scratch 3.0 to create an interactive game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Website Used: https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/#!/welcome
The following video used in conjunction with the website above describes how to create this project.
Machine Learning with Marshmallows and Tiny Sorter
This project uses Google’s Teachable Machine (images), p5 Sketch, and Arduino’s Circuit Playground to create a mechanism that sorts mini-marshmallows and cereals into respective cups.
Full directions for this project can be found at: https://learn.adafruit.com/machine-learning-with-marshmallows-and-tiny-sorter?view=all
micro:Pals
This lesson uses Google’s Teachable Machine (poses), Stempedia’s Pictoblox, and a micro:bit to create a micro:Pal (see the video below for an example).
Web Resources Needed:
- Pictoblox Software – https://thestempedia.com/product/pictoblox/ (needs to be downloaded)
- Pictobox Link – https://thestempedia.com/product/pictoblox/pictoblox-link/ (needed to connect the micro:bit; needs to be downloaded)
- Making a Mask Identifier: Machine Learning in PictoBlox – https://thestempedia.com/tutorials/making-a-mask-identifier-machine-learning-in-pictoblox/ (used as a reference for this activity)
I created the following video to describe the step-by-step directions for this project.
Here are my students doing making their microPals:
Transmedia, Digital Storytelling Project
As someone who, for years, has been using educational technology, I have \said the often stated quote, Technology won’t replace teachers, but teachers who don’t use technology will be replaced. More recently I heard the quote from my brilliant colleague, George Couros, Technology won’t replace great teachers, but in the hands of great teachers can be transformational. This better fits my sensibilities.
As an educator of 1st-6th grade gifted students, I love asking them to use digital platforms that permit them to be content creators. I believe that learners, in this high tech, highly connected world, should be producing as much or even more content than they are consuming. From Digital Promise:
Schools, libraries, and classrooms have traditionally been a place for the consumption of information and ideas. Empowering students as creators means educators shift their professional thinking, instruction and instructional program to enable authentic opportunities for students to individually and collaboratively tinker, build, inquire, design, create, and iterate.
The research surrounding students as creators recognizes their potential to engage, participate and their potential for developing agency as citizens of the world. As digital-age learners, students are not merely consumers of content and ideas. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) identifies “Empowered Learners,” “Knowledge Constructors,” “Innovative Designers,” and “Computational Thinkers” among seven core standards for students (Empowering Students as Creators).
To support students as content creators, they were asked to create transmedia, digital stories. Digital stories are:
At a basic level digital storytelling means using technology to tell stories. You can tell digital stories in many ways, for example: through text on a website or social media tool, through narration and images in a video, or through narration in a podcast. Digital stories are not just facts presented with accompanying images, they are narratives crafted to take the listener or reader on a journey. Just like a novel or a documentary, digital stories have a plot, characters, and themes (What is Digital Storytelling?).
. . . and similarly, transmedia storytelling is defined as:
Transmedia storytelling uses multiple media platforms tell a coordinated story. Multiple narratives come together, constructing a larger storyworld. Like a giant puzzle, each piece contributes to a larger narrative. The process is cumulative and each piece adds richness and detail to the story world, such as character backstories and secondary plotlines. This makes for a richer audience experience and multiple access points (What is Transmedia Storytelling?).
For this project, my gifted students, grades 4-6, were asked to write a fictional story, alone or with a partner (most chose a partner). It was open-ended in that the fictional content was determined by them. They did, though, have to create:
- Characters with each student creating a Makey-Makey/Scratch bottle character,
- The Story Setting with each individual or team creating a CoSpace to portray their story setting,
- A Story Arc using Storyboard That or Google Docs.
Makey Makey/Scratch Bottle Characters
To begin this aspect of the project, students were asked to compose 5 facts about their characters. They then created sculptural versions of their characters using water bottles and craft materials. They used Makey Makeys/Scratch to “speak” those facts – see the video below. Scratch is coding language with a simple visual interface that allows young people to create digital stories, games, and animations. Makey Makey is a simple circuit board you can use to create your own keyboard for a computer. For this project, students used Scratch to work using the Makey Makey. See Biography Bottles With Makey Makey for how to do this.
CoSpaces Story Settings
CoSpaces Edu is a 3D creation web and app-based classroom tool that allows students to create in a 3D augmented and virtual reality environments. It permits for collaborative creation so students were able to work with their partners to create a 3D, VR versions of the settings for their stories.
Since CoSpaces projects are VR enabled, I bought a cheap Bnext™ VR headset from ebay so students could view their spaces in virtual reality. It was so much fun to watch their reactions.
(The above images are royalty-free, but my students looked like this when viewing their sites. I couldn’t take photos as they were using my phone/camera to view CoSpaces.)
Plot – Story Arc: Storyboard That
I really love using Storyboard That, a digital tool aimed at students who want to create a storyboard to communicate. The online-based platform lets anyone easily create a storyboard in order to tell a story in a visually engaging way. For this project, I assigned the Plot Diagram and Narrative Arc template for students to use, a more complex one for older students and a less complex one for younger students.
Benefits/Results
From observing my learners for the multiple hours they were engaged in this project, I found it had the following benefits:
- Full and total engagement,
- Increased creativity and use of imagination (more than simple, written work) ,
- Student voice and choice,
- Learning how to use new content creation technologies,
- Learning the mechanics of writing,
- Project management (due to the long term nature of this project),
- Joy and pride in learning.
Scratch Monster Mash Up: A Language Arts/Technology Project
This project was developed by Colleen Graves. I found information about how to do it at the Makey Makey blog post entitled, Scratch Coding Literacy Project Ideas for Makey Makey micro:bit Inventions. She designed it to be used with Scratch programming and the micro:bit micro-controller. I asked my students to create their monster mash ups using only Scratch programming. Scratch programming permits remixing of projects. I gave my learners a version of the project Colleen Graves shared so that they could remix hers and concentrate on creating their creatures and the accompanying text.
Standards Addressed
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3
- Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
ISTE Standards for Students
- Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
- Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.
Introduction
Students are shown and explore the book. Myth Match: A Fantastical Flipbook of Extraordinary Beasts. “ou might have heard of the unicorn and the griffin, but what about the unifin? This fantastical flipbook collects together magical and mythical creatures from all over the world, then lets you mix and match their fronts and backs to create even more wondrous beasts of your own!” See the video below for some examples from this book.
Main Activity: Creating Monster Mash Ups in Scratch Programming
Specific directions as to how to do this can be found in Colleen Grave’s blogpost, Scratch Coding Literacy Project Ideas for Makey Makey micro:bit Inventions. Below are some artifacts for this project.
The Template for the Writing Part
Some Examples of Monster Mash Ups Created in Scratch
A Finished Scratch Example (click on the image or the link below it)
Energizing Students Right From the Start
I am a student-centric, hands on/minds on teacher. In normal times when students come to my classroom (I provide pull-out services for gifted elementary level kids), I get them doing hands-on activities within minutes of entering into my classroom. My goal is to change these frames of mind to alert, ready-to-go frames of mind. I use a variety of beginning-the-class energizers. It is pretty amazing how well these short activities work in changing the energy of my students. Quickly they become energized, joyful, and engaged.
Beginning of class activities have been used to gain student attention, provide accountability, review material, engage with new content, or establish routines. To gain students’ attention, class might begin by using multi-media, hands-on activities, surprising events, humor, or appealing to students’ emotions (Davis, 2009) ( A Starter Activity to Begin Any Class).
I encourage [teachers] to think carefully about the first five minutes of class. In my lesson plan template, one of the first tasks we discuss when planning in-class time is to prepare what I call a “focusing activity.” A focusing activity is designed to immediately focus students’ attention as soon as they walk in (or log in) to the classroom. Most focusing activities take fewer than five minutes of class time and are highly flexible. Focusing activities may include collaborative activities to connect students, generate discussion, and compare ideas; individual activities where students work on their own by reading, reflecting, or writing; or a brief quiz or some other type of assessment. Finally, focusing activities can be high-tech, low-tech, or no tech (Three Focusing Activities to Engage Students in the First Five Minutes of Class).
When I seek or develop activities to engage students right from the start, I want the activities to achieve the following:
- Activities wake up students’ minds and emotions.
- Activities are emotionally and cognitively engaging.
- Students enjoy the process of engaging in the activities rather than seeking specific academic outcomes.
- Activities are fun.
- Student playfulness naturally emerges.
- Students develop feelings of competence and confidence.
- Critical thinking is often activated.
- Activities become so engaging that students want to keep playing.
- Activities promote discourse and connection between students.
Sample “Engage Students from the Start’ Activities
Here is a list of sample activities I have used with my students. Students find them so much fun that I use them several times during the semester. I will add to this list as I find more. If you have used any of these type of energizers with your students, put them in the comments so I can add them.
Rebus Generator
Rebus Generator creates rebus puzzles from sentences. “A rebus is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words and/or phrases.” This particular generator has two levels – normal and hard and has the capability to create rebus puzzles from two dozen languages. Here is an example rebus puzzle – see if you can guess it:
My students generate their own and do a screen share. Others yell out their guesses word by word. A few students do it for each class period until all students get a change to share theirs. The students love this so much that we have done it for two cycles of students.
Online Mad Libs for Kids
Online Mad Libs for Kids offers an online version of Mad Libs: “short, silly stories based on your words. Just pick ten words, click the “generate” button and read your own short story!” This website offers mad lib options about jobs, photo shoot, pizza party, gingerbread man, me, queen, butterflies, and balloon animal. Here is an example about jobs:
Students volunteer one at a time to be the facilitator. They choose the which mad lib they want to facilitate, share their screens, ask for the words to fill in the mad lib, and then share the results. Students, who have done mad libs in the past, have gotten so excited about this activity. Those, who have not, learn what they are and their excitement escalates as we play. Similar to above a few kids facilitate the mad libs each class period until all of them get a change to do so.
Two Truths and a Fib
I have been using two truths and a lie with students of all ages.
The main instructions of the game are that each member of the group introduces themselves by stating two truths and one lie about themselves. The statements don’t have to be intimate, life-revealing things—just simple hobbies, interests, or past experiences that make each person unique. The lie can be outrageous and wacky, or it can sound like a truth to make it harder for the other participants. One at a time, each person shares their statements. The group has to guess which statements are true and which statement is the lie. You can keep score to see who correctly guesses the most lies, or just play for fun to get to know one another—it’s up to your group (How to Play Two Truths and a Lie).
A Jamboard version of Two Truths and a Fib was found on Ditch the Textbook website and was written by Kris Szajner.
The Jamboard is set to “anyone can edit” and shared with the students. Each student gets a slide and types in their name. They use the text tool to write out their two truths and a fib – one per column/area. They should be told to randomly place their fib meaning not all of the fibs are put in area 3. Once all of the students have completed this part, they place a sticky note with their name on each of other students’ slides to indicate which one they think is a fib. Finally, each student, one at a time, tells the group which one was the fib. Laughter and squeals of joy result.
Rebus Puzzles
Rebus Puzzles are a little different than the Rebus Generator discussed earlier. Rebus puzzles are pictures, often made with letters and words, which cryptically represent a word, phrase, or saying. Here are some examples – see if you can guess what they are:
I screen share rebus puzzles one at a time. Students can call out their guesses.
Which On Doesn’t Belong
Which One Doesn’t Belong provides lots of examples in the categories shapes, numbers, and graphs.
Absurd Words
Here are some activities to go along with this book. (source: Absurd Words – Judy Bradbury)
- Choose a theme from the book. Ask students to write an essay on the theme. Once complete, have students revise, using the book to “level up” their language.
- Explore the Roots sidebars throughout the book. Ask students to illustrate one that catches their interest and provide a caption. Post the Roots around the classroom or in the hallway.
- Ask students to write a story in which they use words from the “Once Upon A Time” chapter and also create one or two new words that fit the tale.
- Place words from the book on index cards. Have teams arrange the words in categories according to their meanings. Next, ask each team to choose a category and team-write a story using those words.
What is Going on in this Picture
What is Going On in this Picture are ambiguous pictures published by the New York Times. See examples below:
As per the New York Times directions, students are asked the following questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
Students are given a few minutes to jot down their responses and volunteers then share their responses. As with several of these activities, this one can be used over several class periods with different New York Times pictures used.
Matchstick Puzzles
Drawing Conclusions
Drawing Conclusions is a Jamboard activity developed by Julia’s #STEAMing up Jamboards. It consists of a series of visual puzzles for students to solve – see below for some examples:
The original Jamboard has the answer for each of the puzzles. The one I share with students doesn’t have the answers. They can work alone or with one/two other students in a breakout room (sadly, our district took away the option for breakout rooms). There are nine puzzles. Students can work on all of them in one sitting or they can be split between several class periods.
Cryptology
Discover Crypt is a game designed to introduce a beginner level amount of knowledge to those intrested about learning cryptology. Discover Crypt is targeted for all those wanting to learn, but is great for those wanting to use cryptology in a career, as a hobby, or in education (http://highschool.spsd.org/crypt/about.html).
For more puzzles, see http://highschool.spsd.org/crypt/play.html
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Games
Two AI games, the Akinator and Quick, Draw!, really don’t have any educational value but the are fun and get the students excited which wakes them up in preparation for learning.
Examples can be at https://logiclike.com/en/matchstick-puzzleshttps://logiclike.com/en/matchstick-puzzles
Akinator is a computer game and mobile app. During gameplay, it attempts to determine what fictional or real-life character, object, or animal the player is thinking of by asking a series of questions (like the game Twenty Questions). It uses an artificial intelligence program that learns the best questions to ask through past questions asked by players (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinator).
Quick, Draw! is an online game developed by Google that challenges players to draw a picture of an object or idea and then uses a neural network artificial intelligence to guess what the drawings represent. The AI learns from each drawing, increasing its ability to guess correctly in the future (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick,_Draw!).
Minute Mysteries
Minute Mysteries are riddles where students ask yes or no questions to try and solve the riddle. These work best in smaller groups so the shyer and quieter students feel more comfortable asking questions. My students like them so much that they often request for them.
6 Word Story or Memoir with Image
Using Unsplash.com, a website dedicated to sharing stock photography under the Unsplash license, students find an image that speaks to them; that is autobiographical in some way. They then write a 6 word story or memoir for that image. Each students screen shares their image and shares their stories or memoirs. To add suspense and engagement, students can email their images and stories to the teacher who shares them with their students. The students then guess who image/story/memoir it is.
Kahoot or Quizziz
Kahoot and Quizziz use a quiz-style teaching and learning method where users answer questions in a competition with other users on the same quiz. Teachers can create their own quizzes but the libraries of these two websites are so extensive that teachers can find quizzes on most any topic. Students cheer when I say we are going to play Kahoot, thus it achieves the goals for using beginning of the class energizers.
Starting the Year with “All About Me” Activities
I have written before about the beginning of the school year, Beginning the School Year: It’s About Connections Not Content.
I begin all classes focusing on having the students make connections between each other and with me. I want students to learn about one another in a personal way. I want to learn about my students so my instructional strategies can be more personalized and tailored to their needs and interests.
This year given remote learning, both synchronous and asynchronous, I developed technology-enhanced “all about me” activities that my learners could do remotely. These types of activities are even more appropriate than ever as a substitute for the typical “what I did over the summer” assignments.
Book Creator All About Me Activity Descriptions
The following Book Creator of descriptions and examples of all about me activities is shared with my learners, grades 3 through 6, via our district’s Open Access website:
This format provides my learners with a kid-friendly presentation of their All About Me activities.
Detailed Activity Descriptions
Bitmoji Learning Environment
Bitmoji classrooms have become a bit of a craze. They are described in more detail in the Edutopia article, Educators Turn to Bitmoji to Build Community and Engagement. A legitimate criticism leveraged against them is that they are teacher-centric. It is the teacher doing the work. I believe that if learners are not doing as much or even more creating than consuming, then this is a problem. As such, I am asking my students to create their own optimal learning environments. To begin, I ask learners to have a look at mine.
I ask them to note my sofa, picture of my cats, bookcase with books and art materials, my refrigerator with my diet Coke, plant, and window. Then I provide each of my learners (I only have 12 of them) with a Google Slide template, Build Your Own Bitmoji Classroom, developed by @HollyClarkEdu and @themerrillsedu. To their template I add a variety of Bitmojis I created for them due to them being under the age of 13. To learn how to create bitmojis for your learners, see this post by Matt Miller, https://ditchthattextbook.com/bitmojis-for-your-students-how-to-create-and-share-them/.
Personalized Feelings Chart
I start all my classes, both elementary school and college classes, with an emotional check in. I discuss this in more detail in Emotional Check-Ins in a Teaching Webinar. Last year, I had my elementary students make their own feelings pillows for our emotional check-ins (made with felt of different colors, sharpies, yarn for sewing, and stuffing). They loved them. This year, due to remote learning, they are making their own personalized feelings chart. They start by identifying 8 to 12 feelings they typically experience using the Mood Meter developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence:
They are asked to select a few from each color. They use either Adobe Spark or a Google Slide to create their own. I show them how to do image searches with each platform and my own personalized feelings made with Adobe Spark as an example:
Lego Selfie
I learned about the Lego Selfie through a post on Aaron Maurer’s Coffee for the Brain. Most of my learners love Legos and have them at home so I think this would be a great choice for them. For those who do not have them at home, they can use the virtual Mecabricks or choose a different activity. Examples of Lego Selfies can be seen at https://photos.app.goo.gl/N1AJSchhanykYgTq7.
Kahoot Selfie
Most teachers and students these days know about Kahoot, a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes. For this All About Me activity, learners create their own Kahoot Selfie with 5 or more Kahoot quiz questions about themselves, each question having a four possible answers with only one of them being correct. Here is a template to help them with planning – https://kahoot.com/files/2017/07/kahoot_paper_template-1.pdf and an actual Student Selfie Kahoot that they can duplicate and edit with their own questions and answers (they will need their own account to do so).
Nature Materials Self-Portrait
To get my learners away from their computers, one of the All About Me activity choices is to go outside to collect natural materials to create a self-portrait. They have to collect and use at least two dozen objects from nature as part of their design.
Comic Strip: A Change I’d Like to See in the World
For this activity, learners create a comic strip of at least 6 cells that describes a change they’d like to see in the world. I really like StoryboardThat and have an account for it so this is the platform my students use. Here is an example I found so learners can have an idea what to create:
Flipgrid Video: My Hero and Why
Flipgrid, as most educators know, is a social learning platform that allows educators to ask a question, then the students respond in a video. Students are then able to create video comments to one another’s posts. For this activity, learners first watch For the Heroes: A Pep Talk From Kid President. They then access our class Flipgrid to create a video that describes their hero.
Here is a link for you to make your own copy – https://admin.flipgrid.com/manage/discovery/details/24147.
Fake Instagram Account
Because my learners are elementary age, they don’t (or shouldn’t) have their own Instagram account. This activity allows them to create their own (fake) one. The blog post, Fake Instagram Template with Google Slides (FREE), describes the process for doing this. This template – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_gupBqIZBToioNFgbAb4nFVlsJgbdW5xneccto6pcFk/edit?usp=sharing – can be used by going under file to make a copy.
Here is my example:
Google Tour Creator
For this All About Me activity, learners create their own 360 degree virtual tour using Google Tour Creator. They need to include at least 6 geographic locations where they’d like to visit. This Google Tour Creator Tutorial video can help you and/or the learners use this tool. Here is the example I created – https://poly.google.com/view/8HpqhXYHzN4.
Aggregating Their Artifacts
Learners are instructed to aggregate all of their All About Me artifacts on a Google Site they create (we are a Google district). For artifacts that aren’t web based like the Lego Selfie and Nature Self portrait, they take photos of them to upload into these photos into their site. A Google site provides me with a way to check their work and give feedback. The learners will also have them all in one place to show their families and easily revisit at a later date.
All About Me Class Badge Progress Chart
The following chart is used to keep track of each student’s progress. They are required to complete the Bitmoji Learning Environment and Personalized Feelings Chart. They can then choose four out of seven others. They can work on the activities in any order they choose. Once completed, I check them and award the badge using this chart to indicate its completion for the individual students.
Here is a link in case you want to make your own copy – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HNDc202wJE50BGh97CteNdpt8tOGTYg96DOeP49YvGc/edit?usp=sharing
Personal Progress Chart
Learners are asked to make a copy of the following progress chart which is in the form of a Netflix playlist template (created by the talented @MeehanEDU) in order to create their own playlists of completed activities for this unit as well as ones we’re doing later in the school year. You can also make a copy and adapt it for use with your learners.
Here is a link to the template – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19Nkwml_hHK6N2KNyHxynOjkUltp_ld9AMGQ0K05y2yI/edit?usp=sharing.
Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D.
User Generated Education 