S10 E2: Harnessing A.I.

This episode of Practical Access offers a comprehensive look at how AI can be a valuable asset in education, from assisting in lesson planning to enhancing student engagement. Drs. Lisa Dieker & Rebecca Hines encourage educators to explore AI tools, considering ethical considerations and the potential for increased efficiency and customization in teaching and learning.

Key Points Discussed:

1. Customization through AI: Dr. Hines highlights the potential of AI, like ChatGPT, in assisting teachers with customization and differentiation in their teaching methods. 

Link: www.chatGPT.com

2. Ethical Use and Bias in AI: Dr. Dieker points out the importance of ethical use of AI in education. She emphasizes the need to be aware of potential biases in AI outputs, especially regarding historical and cultural content.

3. AI as a Scaffold in Education: The hosts discuss how AI can serve as a scaffold in education, aiding in tasks like writing and research. 

4. Empowering Students with AI: The conversation touches on how students can be empowered to use AI for tasks like crafting topic sentences or supporting arguments, fostering independence, and skill-building.

5. Innovative AI Tools and Applications: The hosts mention several AI tools like DALL-E and Blabberize, discussing how these can add novelty and engagement in the classroom. 

Link: https://openai.com/dall-e-2

Link: https://blabberize.com

6. Encouraging Clear Communication with AI: The hosts discuss how using AI can help students develop clear and concise communication skills, as precise input leads to more relevant AI-generated content.

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Transcript

Lisa Dieker: 
Welcome to Practical Access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines: 
And I'm Rebecca Hines. Lisa, I can't wait to hear what we're talking about today.

Lisa Dieker: 
Well, I have a really great question for you. I think it's one that many of our listeners will be interested in - is this whole buzz about artificial intelligence. I'm laughing because the other day, my husband even said, "I'm tired of the word." I'm like, "Yeah, because the word has no meaning because it means everything right now." So I'm kind of curious. You're always the person that, you know, kind of goes to that boots-on-the-ground thinking. What is it that you see as ChatGPT making the world better, different, easier for teachers, or student learning with teachers in the classroom? Kind of curious where your thoughts are.

Rebecca Hines: 
Well, my first thought always comes back to that same thing that we hit upon in almost every episode - customization. So I have always felt in defense of teachers, Gen. Ed, special Ed everywhere, differentiation, for example, conceptually is great. Of course, I believe in differentiating, but it is so much work for teachers to figure out three different ways to teach the same thing. And that is a tough cognitive load for teachers. So my first thought is always going to ChatGPT and saying, "What are three ways I could do this?" or "Give me a performance-based way to assess this." And so if you aren't familiar with ChatGPT, Lisa is going to tell you several ways to access it in just a minute. But the bottom line is, as educators, we need to start thinking about what we need. Use it as our personal assistant in planning to customize for kids. You can put a question in there and ask it to give you that same question reworded in three different ways so that we can give kids a choice in how they hear or read a question. So, I think customization is my first thought in how we can start harnessing the power of AI.

Lisa Dieker: 
Yeah. And I mean, again, I think we can talk about ChatGPT, but we also can just talk about AI in general that's popping up for planning in your calendar. Like, I would remind people you're already using it if you plan on a Google doc; that's AI. So, I think we have this misnomer that it's scary and it's bigger than it really is. And it is big right now, like zillions of dollars, and it's on everybody's national agenda. We're not the only country thinking about it, putting guardrails on it. You know, what's scary about it - those are the things we don't understand. But as a teacher, I think we have to say two things. One, what is the ethical use of it? Like, we've got to make sure we've got to look at the bias underneath that ethical use. Like, you know, is it giving us false statements about history, about women, about cultures, about backgrounds in general? But then, I think the second thing that we have to think about for a very practical aspect, as you said, is, you know, you can say 200 level lexile texts and you can get that versus a 1000 lexile texts. But better yet, turning that over to the students. How can they be empowered? You know, write my first topic sentence because I'm not good at the topic sentence. OK, now write the three sentences to support it. Those are great scaffolding. And that's what I really think AI provides is a scaffold. I don't think it should do the work for us as humans, but I think it should provide scaffolding. True story, I had to write something about, I don't know, 20 reasons Co-teaching is good. Well, I first asked ChatGPT, but then I went to Word and wrote it in my own words because, again, I wanted to add some of that. And then I used Grammarly to check it. And so there were several AI components in all three of those. And I think we see one being better or bigger than the other, and I think it's because it's new and it's novel. And so, I encourage teachers to not avoid novelty but to think about how anything new and novel they see might fit. And we're doing some work with AI that I know we're going to feature on this podcast with avatars. Like, there's so much AI emerging. I'm kind of curious whether there's thought you have for teachers to think about as boots on the ground.

Rebecca Hines: 
Well, I think that there are, here's my practical tip for any of my techies out there. There are inexpensive, sometimes free, at least as a playground, ways now to create your own chatbox. So, if I'm a history teacher, if I wanted to, I could literally create a chatbot to put on my webpage. The way that this type of AI works is it just goes out and explores whatever database you provide for it. So, as a teacher, if I wanted to, I could put every assignment that I have and make that the data that the data that is searched. So a student could go in and type in their question to the chatbot. If they don't remember something, they could find it because this AI could go and search all of your information from the whole school year. So, I think a really novel use by anybody who wants to try something is to start creating customized ways for students to access not only your content but your instructions, your rules, anything out there, and it just pops up as a simple chatbot.

Lisa Dieker: 
Well, I'm gonna go a little old school here, but I think it's actually very practical. It's very funny I bring this up when I talk about AI, and people like I didn't know that was out there, and I love it. But, you know, two really simple Blabberize and Voki, those are both really easy ways to have AI agents, but it's your voice. So again, if you're looking – we know we call this the TikTok generation loves novelty – those are very easy. On Blabberize, you can take – I could take your picture and put my voice in it and now make me talk like you. Well, maybe not, but again, it would be my voice through your face. But again, with Voki, kids can pick different avatars. And again, thinking about, so maybe I'm uncomfortable standing in front of the room presenting, but maybe I'm not uncomfortable with my avatar presenting. And again, giving kids that customization and choice. And then, if you haven't played with OpenAI, which is where ChatGPT lives, there's also DALL-E, and you can make some really fun, crazy images. When I made somebody's like, "Show me an example," I made me. If you don't know about the KU basketball team, you will hear about it. So, you know, I made me a professor. I said, "Make a middle-aged professor with brown hair dunking a basketball in Allen Fieldhouse." And sure enough, within four seconds, I had an image that made me laugh so hard. So think about that. Could you use DALL-E to add some fun things that your students create? You know, what's the image that they would put as their perspective in the story? Those are the kind of things I think you shouldn't fear but you should put guardrails on it so that I'm not making something that's inappropriate. I mean, no different than when you give a paper pencil that could be as dangerous as AI without teachers' supervision and giving kids ethical parameters.

Rebecca Hines: 
Well, you know, you mentioned this idea of, you know, everybody's thinking of AI right now as let's block things because kids are cheating and we really should. I feel, in special Ed, in particular, I wish all teachers could understand that this is the perfect way to add layers of universal design to every lesson. So just as you mentioned, you could have a great graphic organizer created instantly. We're used to Googling every single thing we need. Well, you know, it's to Google, but now I get so many ads and stuff I cannot easily find what I'm looking for. So at its most basic level, something in the AI realm brings me exactly what I need and exactly as I describe it. So when it comes to adding layers to universal lesson plans using UDL, you know, I have a presenter next week who's going to be talking to students about how you find a lesson plan online and then ask ChatGPT to add layers of UDL for people with whatever disabilities or needs are present in the classroom. And that type of tool really is valuable because it reduces the workload on us so we can spend our time delivering those great lessons instead of worrying about whether we are adding the layers that all kids need.

Lisa Dieker: 
Yeah. My last point will be a great example aligned with that. Teachers, hold on to your hats. My favorite thing that happened recently as I was in an algebra two class, and we were talking about, you know, writing IEP goals. That's a tough one to write goals for. So I said, based on the standards in this state, please write five IEP goals for a student who lacks mathematical reasoning skills. They were, the teacher and I both were like, "Yeah, those might be the best goals I've ever seen in my life." And again, she's going to personalize and individualize as needed, but it took for a second, and now we get to use our energy to personalize instead of writing the goalie... It's like the time saver, which every teacher in America needs more time. Think about how this saves time for you. Guess what? It's also going to save time for your students as future learners. 

Rebecca Hines: 
And, Lisa, as you know, when you use something like ChatGPT, if you don't like the response you get the first time, you can enter the exact same question, and you'll get a fresh version. So you do have an opportunity. You don't have to feel bound by what is first retrieved. It will keep thinking and brainstorming with you.

Lisa Dieker: 
Yeah, and I found if you're really good, I'm getting really good at it. And again, great skill for your students of synthesizing what you're saying with really specific content. You get pretty good outputs for the first time. When I first started playing with it, I did it. I wonder what skill that would be that kids could actually make sit. Give them a message that's clear, concise, and precise. What the information is. Think about those verbal skills they're gaining by trying to find the right information. So with that, we just wanted to give you kind of the cliff we're jumping off with everyone else. And we think, you know, AI is here to stay, and we think it's a real benefit.

Rebecca Hines: 
And, Lisa, be sure that we put in our chat the links to some of the tools that we've mentioned in this podcast.

Lisa Dieker: 
Well, and I think we might ask ChatGPT what I thought of this podcast. That might be an interesting link to add. So well, we appreciate you joining us. And if you have any questions, please put them on our Facebook page or send us a tweet at Access Practical.