Episode 78: Don't fear the BOT!- AI hacks for teachers!

This episode is PERFECT for someone who wants to dip their toes into using AI as an assistant in their classroom! And for those super experienced, I bet you'll pick up a new trick or two! Don't forget to share this with someone and post in your stories when you're listening and tag me!

Links and people mentioned:
Chat GPT
Goblin Tools
Which Face is Real
Heidi Trude
Gemini AI

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Transcript

Welcome!

Welcome back to teaching la vida loca, the podcast you come to for short and sweet and sometimes spicy episodes full of enthusiasm, magic and tips and tricks for your classroom. I'm Annabelle, your maestra loca, and I'm here to bring you inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. I'm turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host, I'm your cheerleader, and I'm thrilled you're tuning in. So, let's do this. Let's tackle teaching la vida loca together. Hi there. Welcome to Episode 78 of teaching la vida loca. Today, I'm going to talk to you about AI, and I know that that can feel really overwhelming for some people. Some of you might be like, Okay, do I even need to listen to this? I use it every single day. Yay for you. But you might still have takeaways from this episode. If you are a person who has been avoiding artificial intelligence in your classroom and avoiding trying chat GPT for a while, I still want you to listen to this, because I'm going to give you some ways that you can literally just dip your toes in, and you don't have to go whole hog like crazy and change everything you're doing. There are some things that you can do to just experiment with it, to open your eyes to it, and help make your life a tiny bit easier, without diving all the way in and feeling like you're not the one in charge of your classroom anymore. And I'll say this to begin, I use AI as an assistant. I do not use AI to do everything for me. I'm not in the classroom. This year, I am taking a year leave of absence with my daughter, but last year, the way I used AI was to just supplement what I was doing and to help make my life a little bit easier so that I could really be intentional about setting those boundaries that I care so much about. Y'all know that I care very much about my home time and about not working from home, and the things that AI can help me with makes those boundaries even easier. So, I'm going to give you all the different ways that I use it and all my favorite sites today, and then you can take it and use it how you want to. I'm really excited for you to start playing around. And again, if you are super experienced, then I hope that you can still get something out of this. And then let me know what your biggest takeaway is.

Chat GPT

Let us dive in. Okay, first, I'm going to talk to you about chat GPT, because that is the one that I use the most. And I'm going to start small, just so that you can experiment. Okay, one way that I use chat GPT, literally this week, I taught my adult class this week. It was a great first lesson. We did a write and discuss recap of our lesson, and at the end of that write and discuss, I literally took the paper that I wrote with them, I extended a little bit on my own, and then I plopped that into chat, GPT, and I said, help make this more comprehensible by adding loads of emojis to it. I dropped that, hit Enter, it popped it back out the exact same piece of text. It caught two spelling errors, which was also awesome. It popped out the exact same text with emojis added to it. I put that back into the Google document, and then that is what I sent out to my adult class so that they could reread what we did in class, and it could be a great review for them, but without the structure or the comprehension checks of class, I wanted them to have more support with those emojis. So literally, in seconds, I got the exact same text with emojis. If you're like, no, I don't trust it. I don't want it to create content for me, start with emojis. Give it the content and then ask it to add emojis. I've also done this anytime I am creating a worksheet, if I'm like, no, I really want all the text to be from me. I want it to be incredibly intentionally sheltered. I want it to only have the vocabulary that I am choosing. If I am doing that, I can still plop it in there and get emojis, or even emojis to be able to help them in a close activity. So that's one very simple way you can use chat GPT that's very low lift, and it's not like scary that it's not coming from you.

Letters

Another way that I use chat GPT that is huge time saver is for letters of recommendation. I don't know about you, but I am somebody who gets asked for letters of recommendation all the time. I, in fact, got one last week from a child that I taught in fifth grade, who is now in eighth grade, and the parent is asking if I can write a letter of recommendation for their high school placement. I was like, wow, it's been a while since I've taught this child, but I get asked all the time. And if you are a person who is good at building relationship with your students, I am sure you get asked all the time as well. Chat GPT is something I use all the time for letters of recommendation. What I'll just say is, I'll say I need a letter of recommendation for this high school. This is the High School's values. So, I look up the High School's values quick because I always like to show that how my student is tied to those values. And then I like to give a couple of specifics about the child so that Chat GPT can be specific. So I could say, please talk to this child's ability to take risks in the classroom, to be a leader, even when their friends are maybe not taking on a leadership role or not doing what they're supposed to, and also speak to their empathy and kindness towards me and how I think they'll be a great fit for this school and align what I said their strengths are with the values of the school. Write this with a professional tone, and then I just hit enter, and it writes the letter for me. I plop that into a Google Doc, and I make sure it's exactly what I want. I add in the child's name. I add in anything that I think is missing. I feel like it's not written with my voice specifically, I might tweak a few things, but then, boom, the letter is written, and it took me about 10 minutes to write instead of 30 to 40. So, this is a huge time saver again.

Report Card Comments

Another way I use Chat GPT is for report card comments. I have worked in schools before, where I have had to write 300 comments or 350 comments every single quarter. I really like to make these a little bit unique, and I like to focus on the positive in the same way that I don't like to correct students in class. I really like to encourage and promote what I see is going well. So, I've used Chat GPT, before to give me 20 different comment ideas for report cards, focusing on risk taking, being helpful, being a leader, all the traits that we want to see. And I'll just say, make 20 different comments, focusing on these different things, and then I can literally just copy and paste those into a spreadsheet and grab the one that I feel is most appropriate for the kid and paste in the name every time. It's amazing. And if you need to, you can also say, please also write me 10 comments that I might use if a student needs to, if I'm worried about their attendance be affecting their acquisition in class, or if I'm worried about side conversations or their lack of engagement or their lack of watching me, I can literally give chat GPT some recommendations, and then they're going to formulate those into three to five sentences of comments that I can then manipulate, use and again, it's like an assistant. I am adding things in where I need to. But instead of handwriting every single comment every single time, not handwriting, but typing in every single comment every single time, I have the skeleton texts I can use, and I have lots of them that I can then just drag, copy, paste, and edit. So, it's a great assistant for report card time, especially because at that time you're like, oh my God, there's so much to do. Okay?

Texts

The next thing I use it for is parallel texts. Okay, we talked about this in group coaching last night, and Angie had asked a question about using parallel texts, and I said, oh, my God, I use Chat GPT, to create my parallel texts. Now, what this is, for example, if I wrote or if we did a clip chat in class, and let's say it was on the controller. So, I have this whole write and discuss written out that we can use as a reading, or maybe we already have used as a reading, and we've played games with it, whatever. And the kids are very familiar with the story because they've heard it, and now they've read it, and we've played games with it. And now I want a parallel text. What I do is I take the exact same write and discuss or story that we used, and I plop it into Chat GPT, and I say, I want a story that mirrors this one, with a different character and different details. I need the high frequency structures of likes to play, wants to play, doesn't want to play, save, and cleans. I need those high frequency structures still there and the same, but I need all the other details to change. So maybe instead of it being about a kid playing video games, it's a kid playing basketball. Instead of a controller, it's the actual ball. And instead of the mom not wanting the child to play video games, it's an auntie who wants the child to clean their room before they play basketball, etc. So, it writes a parallel story using those same high frequency words that I wanted, but now all the details are different. So, I can use that the next day in class and have kids read it for comprehension and answer some comprehension questions and find similarities and differences like literally compare and contrast the two stories because they know the other one so well. But again, the beauty of that is I'm still focusing on those same high frequency structures. Last month in La Familia loca PLC, and the month before, I talked about how I build out mini units and how I follow the same sequence of structures, of cycles of instruction for using and focusing on high frequency words as my scope and sequence, making my students my curriculum, and since language is my content. So that idea of how we keep using those same high frequency structures but making it novel and continue to be interesting within that mini unit cycle, parallel stories is a great way to do that and Chat GPT is an easy, easy way to write those parallel stories. I think it’s; I think it's time. Do you think it's time? Are you ready for uh, anyway, ready? Brain break.

Brain Break – AI Edition

Okay, since we're talking all about AI, I will tell you about a brain break that I learned from Heidi Trude last year, I think, and I'm obsessed with it, but the way I play is, I would highly recommend one movement and two making it quick. Okay, all Brain Breaks are quick, right under 90 seconds, if you're not doing, if you're doing brain breaks longer than that, then they're games. They're not brain breaks. You can't call them brain breaks. You're nailing a hammer on your foot if you're doing that. So short and sweet, the way that I played this brain break is, it's a website. It's called whichfaceis real.com which face is real.com? And you pull it up, you have everybody stand up, and they stand in the center of the room. You click Next face, or play again, and it's going to pop up images of two, two different faces. They have five seconds, and I would literally count down, cinco, cuatro, tres, dos, uno to move to the left or the right, identifying which face they think is real. One, it's important to incorporate the movement. And two, if you give them more time than this, they're smart. Kids are going to figure out which one is AI, because they're going to start looking at like the image, the sides of the image, and the hair follicles and all the things to determine which one's fake. Every now and then a face pops in there that is very obviously AI generated, but often, with five seconds, it's quite hard to determine which one is real, which one is fake, especially if they're not going up really close to look at it. They're not going straight up to a computer screen, etc. And so, all you must do is pop that up. And then anytime you want a new one, you just say, play again. And it'll pop up two new faces. And then to confirm, all you do is click on the face that is most voted on. So, if you have most of your students, like 60% of your students, step to the right, then click on the face to the right, and it'll tell you. It'll highlight green the face that is real, and then you just play again and again. You don't want brain breaks to last more than 90 seconds, so you only play this a few rounds, and then they sit back down, and you continue with your lesson. But isn't that a fantastic brain break and totally related to this episode? So good, I know. Thank you, Heidi. I'm gonna must blog about that one eventually. I feel like I have all the blogs to write and not enough time. Anyways, I hope you love that brain break. I'm really excited for you to try it.

Time for Dinner!

Okay, so the next thing that I want to tell you about is a different site, and it is for your dinner. No, I literally just want to slide this one in here, because every now and then I like to share real life tips, and I know I've talked to you about this one before. If you go to goblin dot tools, Goblin dot tools and go to Chef, Chef is an option in there. And you can, oh, it's so beautiful. Y'all, you can say I have a half hour before I have to leave the house and I want to throw something in the crock pot and have it ready when we get home in four hours. What can I make with chicken thighs and a can of pineapple? It will give you a recipe like it did for me yesterday, and I had chicken thighs and pineapple, and it asked if I had soy sauce and honey, and I made the most fire recipe yesterday with very few ingredients, and I had 20 minutes to throw it together and then leave it at the crock pot. So, I'm so obsessed with that feature. In fact, Goblin tools has another feature that you'll probably like. It is, I can't remember what it's called. Let me look it up right now. It's the ability to check your tone before you write something. So, for example, if you're really frustrated with your boss, oh, it's called formalizer and you want to say, Are you out of your mind? No, absolutely I cannot take on a third club this year. I am already helping with prom decorations. I am planning our excursion abroad. I am already the leader of our French club. Absolutely not. Are you out of your mind? Can you not see that I'm already burnt out? You can write that all those feelings in the formalizer, and then you can ask the formalizer to make that more professional, more polite, less snarky, easier to read, more sociable, less emotional, more sarcastic. You can literally ask it to be more sarcastic, which is hysterical, and sometimes I do that just for fun, anyways. But the formalizer is another great tool that you can use right now for you and your job. And you're welcome, no problem.

Images

Okay, the last thing I want to tell you about is using AI as image generators. Okay, so I love making one-word images with my students, and I have several blogs, old, old blogs about how I bring those one-word images to life. And I've done workshops on this as well, where the next day I'll come in and if they created a story about a soccer ball with blue eyes and a chef hat. That was one of our ONE WORD images for real last year. Named, what was his name? Maradona. It might have been no Messi. It was named Messi. Okay, it was named Messi, and he's a chef, and he lives behind Walmart, and if so, if they made that story, I often would go home, and the next day I'd come in, and during my planning, I would prep that one-word image so that they could see it come to life on the screen. Now, yes, do I have students draw the one-word image absolutely, but I love to bring it to life on the screen, using tips and tricks and tools that I've, I've learned to use over the year, and it takes maybe 10-15, minutes to create. But my God, is the reaction amazing? Now with AI, I don't have to take all the time to do that anymore. I can go to Gemini, which Gemini is like the Google AI, and I can literally type in soccer ball with cartoon blue eyes, wearing a chef's hat, looking angry, and it will generate that image for me. Y'all, it's actually insane. And then if you don't like it, you could say, generate a few more. It usually spits out two or three as the first to see if it's on the right track. And then you can get more specific. You can download that image and put it straight into your Google Slides, and it takes seconds. So now that was always a day that I had to go in a little bit early, because if I'm doing a one-word image with all my classes, and I have seven classes, and it's gonna take a little bit of time, but now it takes me, I don't know what is that 14 minutes to generate all the images that I need. And usually, I spend a little bit more because I'm like, I have so much fun with it, but I love Gemini AI for bringing my one-word images to life. It's amazing. I also use Gemini to create images for my students to do writing prompts from. So, I will ask it. For example, last year, we were reading Capybara combotas. I said, create an image of a capybara running in a jungle with boots on. And it created this amazing image. It, I think one of the capybaras. It had two capybaras in it, but one of the capybaras had an extra leg, so it was very obviously AI generated. And the kids thought it was hysterical, but still they were, I was like, Okay, class you know, their due now was to write as many sentences as they could about the picture on the screen. And they had so much language because of the book we were reading, they were just able to write and write and write. And most of them wrote a sentence about the una pierna extra, an extra leg, which was funny. But I love Gemini for generating images, and I think that you will too.

Thank You!

So, I hope this is helpful for you, and I really, really want you, after this episode to let me know. Maybe go on Instagram and tag me with your biggest takeaway. Tag me and tell me the thing you want to try. And if you aren't on Instagram, email me and let me know what you're going to try. If you're really experienced in AI, I feel confident that there's probably some little takeaway that you had, and if you are totally new to it, I want you to just dip your toe in, give it a shot, because it's not going anywhere, and I promise you, it can make your life a lot easier. These were just some of the many ways that I use AI, and I am really excited for you to start experimenting with it and playing with it. If you love this episode, please don't forget to send it to somebody you care about and make their lives a little bit easier with AI. Don't forget to tag me on Instagram that you're listening, because that helps the social proof and helps more people to tune in. And then finally, if you have five minutes, please, please, please, go and write an apple review. I'm so grateful for those reviews. It really, really makes a difference as far as putting my podcast on the map for people to listen to. Oh, do you hear that little baby waking up? Perfect timing, huh? Okay, have a great day. Until next time, you'll be teaching la vida loca, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to support you. Take care and bye, bye.