WN #3

Simplify the Grind, Empower the Mind

Let's get one thing straight: the rise of generative AI, including platforms like ChatGPT, has many teachers worried that machines will make them obsolete. However, teachers should be excited rather than worried. Far from making you redundant, generative AI actually amplifies your reach and impact.

The philosophy here is simple: "Simplify the Grind, Empower the Mind."

The teaching profession isn't just emotionally demanding; it's a logistical nightmare. Grading assignments, crafting lesson plans, trying to accommodate an endless number of requests from students, parents, and admin, and … oh yeah … you don’t actually get time during your workday to do these things because you are, well, teaching and managing a classroom. It's no wonder educators often feel like they're drowning in a sea of to-dos.

That’s where AI comes in.

Use AI to help you with time-consuming tasks, finally freeing you up to dedicate energy to what you want to do, not just what you have time to do. Let it handle a bulk of the labor so you can take care of the more intellectually stimulating and emotionally rewarding aspects of teaching that brought you into the profession in the first place. The aim is not to surrender control but to find a harmonious balance between human intuition and machine efficiency, unlocking new avenues for creativity and innovation in the process.

And while AI can do a lot of things, it lacks the personal knowledge, contextual understanding, and human touch that only you can provide. No AI can fully understand the intricacies of student motivation, the subtle nuances of classroom dynamics, or the importance of that proverbial "light bulb" moment when a student grasps a new concept. Those irreplaceable insights are what make you indispensable.

So, the next time you hear whispers of generative AI “taking over,” remember: they're tools designed to augment your skills, not replace them. AI is the paintbrush, not the artist; the stagehand, not the star. The bottom line? Generative AI chatbots are here to stay, but so are you.

Problem Before Prompt

There has been lots of talk about the emerging skill of prompt-engineering, the ability to craft precise prompts that maximize AI’s usefulness. While it’s helpful to be able to write a good prompt, this article from the Harvard Business Review cautions that focusing too much on prompt writing may obscure what it sees as the more important skill — problem formulation. Even a prompt written by an expert can fall short when you don’t take time to properly identify and analyze the problem you are trying to solve.

Expert Prompts or Prompts of Experts?

Professor Ethan Mollick has also written about “prompt engineering” being overrated, though in a recent piece he argues that if we are going to make prompt libraries, we should be focusing on ”the prompts of experts” rather than “expert prompts.” For example, we should be compiling prompts written by experienced educators that encode domain-specific expertise and best practices moreso than ones written by expert “prompt engineers” trying to craft prompts for educators.

AI Implementation - Advice from Educators

I always appreciate getting a peek at what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, so here is how one teacher is incorporating AI into her ELA classroom, and here is how another teacher is using it. For administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals has put out a list of 5 tips for AI implementation that can be applied to schools of any level.

📌 Canva’s AI Integrations

Canva has integrated several generative AI tools into its platform this year, including image, text, and design generation, and a suite of AI-powered image editing tools. If you pay for GPT-4 (ChatGPT’s premium version), there is a plug-in to interact with Canva right in the ChatGPT interface, though it seems pretty limited for now.

📌 Bing Provides Free GPT-4 Access

The free version of ChatGPT runs on the GPT-3.5 model. You can pay to upgrade to GPT-4, but us teachers seldom have $20/month lying around. However, you can access GPT-4 for free using Bing Chat. In the app just toggle the "Use GPT-4" switch, or in a web browser choose "Creative" mode.

📌Diffit for Differentiated Instruction

Diffit is a free (for now) AI tool that allows you to adapt any article or text to a reading level of your choosing. In addition, it generates a bullet point summary, vocabulary words, multiple choice questions, short answer questions, open-ended prompts, and translations at the same reading level. One key shortcoming, as with many educator-centric AI tools, is that the ability to continue working with the AI to refine the output is very limited.

Increasing Cultural Relevance for Your Students

Drive engagement by making your content more relevant to your students. You’ve always wanted to do it, now it’s much quicker and easier. Note that I’ve also tailored the prompt to focus on a specific skill that my students need to work on (deciphering meaning through context clues).

Using ChatGPT as a Prompt Writer

It's always best to learn to craft your own prompts that are tailored to your specific needs, then modify outputs as necessary (this is easier than you might think if you spend some time playing around with AI). But sometimes it’s nice to get some help. It turns out that ChatGPT is pretty good at writing its own prompts.

• A U.S. judge has ruled that AI artwork cannot be copyrighted, saying that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement.”

• We often complain about people being fake on social media, so this new AI-based social media app decided to just lean into it.

• Home listings with 3D virtual tours attract prospective buyers at a much higher rate than those without. Now you can create professional AI-powered flythroughs using your iPhone.

• Amazon is adding AI tools to its Thursday Night Football broadcasts this year to immerse fans in more real-time analytics and strategy. Most of these will be on Amazon’s “Prime Vision” secondary stream as opposed to the main broadcast…for now.

That’s all for this week! If you appreciate the content in this newsletter, consider subscribing for free, or sharing with people in your network who may find value in it.