I attended a fantastic webinar this morning at 8:30 AM, Learn With AI: 10 Ways to Try AI in Your Classroom Right now, co-hosted by Maha Bali at the American University in Cairo and Jon Ippolito at the University of Maine. Jon has a comprehensive site, Learn with AI, which is pretty impressive and well worth a looksie.
A recording of the webinar will be made available which I’ll try to remember to post if/when I have the link. Maha is generally excellent at following up on what she promises by making such professional development opportunities available as open education resources. The webinar over Zoom was a 20 minute or so lecture by Jon followed by 20 minutes of a breakout room with educators who got to select an activity from wide-ranging topics. And then, each group submitted their work for further analysis and research by Maha and Jon. Lots of folks on the call so no doubt there were a number of submissions. I selected the Literature breakout room and worked with an education professor (also interested in this topic) from a university in the the Middle East.
After coming up with a plan and following the group activity outlined in the document’s instructions (shared in the above link to the workshop), we worked with prompts to build an assignment for a 10th grade English teacher to introduce Charles Dickens’, A Tale of Two Cities, to students. After the teacher introduces 15-20 minutes of lecture about the novel and its author, students are asked pair up to draft an outline ultimately leading to the creation a 5 slide presentation using two quotes from Dickens’ novel that resonate with them. I won’t paste the lengthy engagement with GPT but here’s the final product we submitted. Jon and Maha will then use the data and share back what they are working on with crowdsourced input from teachers. It’s the first time I’ve used GPT in a live call in a breakout room with another educator whom I don’t know.
PROMPT:
From #4 on this most current list we are making together, “Generate Ideas: Brainstorm” and jot down all ideas that come to mind from the activity. Don’t filter yet; the goal is to have a range of ideas to work with, have students find 2 quotes from the text. They prepare 5 slides. last two slides have the quote on each slide. Make a very clear execution plan for students to follow.
GPT REPLY: For the activity where students are generating ideas and incorporating quotes from “A Tale of Two Cities” into their presentation, here’s a step-by-step breakdown for creating the slides:
Slide Creation Instructions for Students:
1. Brainstorming:
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- With your partner, brainstorm and list down as many ideas as you can, drawing inspiration from the activity you have chosen.
- Look for themes, characters, conflicts, and historical contexts within “A Tale of Two Cities” that resonate with your brainstormed ideas.
2. Selecting Quotes:
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- From your brainstorming session, identify two key themes or elements that stand out.
- Find two compelling quotes from “A Tale of Two Cities” that best represent these themes or elements.
3. Slide Outline:
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- Slide 1: Introduction slide with the presentation title, your names, and a brief overview or hook to engage the audience.
- Slide 2: Context slide where you provide background information about “A Tale of Two Cities,” its setting, and the relevance of your chosen themes.
- Slide 3: Discussion slide where you start delving into the first theme or element, leading up to the first quote.
- Slide 4: Quote slide that features your first selected quote. Include a relevant image or background to set the tone and visually represent the theme.
- Slide 5: Quote slide that features your second selected quote. Similarly, add a thematic background and perhaps a short explanation or question that will prompt audience reflection.
4. Designing Slides:
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- Use a consistent and readable font and color scheme that fits the historical context of the presentation.
- Add relevant images or illustrations that complement the text and enhance understanding.
- Keep the slides uncluttered and visually appealing to maintain audience engagement.
5. Reviewing and Practicing:
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- Once the slides are created, review them together. Check for typos, alignment, and ensure that the quotes are accurately cited.
- Practice presenting the slides to each other, ensuring a smooth transition between slides and a clear narrative that connects all the ideas and quotes together.
Example Quotes from “A Tale of Two Cities”:
For the purposes of demonstration, here are two quotes that students might choose:
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- Quote for Slide 4:
- “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”
- This quote could be used to discuss the duality of the era and the contrasting conditions between London and Paris.
- Quote for Slide 5:
- “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss…”
- This quote could highlight the theme of resurrection and the transformative power of the human spirit.
By integrating these quotes into their presentations, students can provide a powerful narrative thread that ties their insights to Dickens’ original text and underscores their understanding of the novel’s enduring themes.
Wow, I find that pretty useful!
Then, we asked it to generate some images with DALLE. The Logo Creator app can crank out a visual, a logo of sorts, to brand the assignment. This can help students eventually make one of their own while at it! I pasted the above chat into DALLE and massaged it a few times.
Wow.
version 1
version 2
version 3
A few interesting things I noticed during the meeting. At one point, a chat came in about an AI assistant self-identifying as being present in the meeting and taking it all in… OtterPilot. I’d heard of it, but didn’t know what it really does. Fascinating how Maha politely ejected it. Check this out:
I wonder if as soon as OtterPilot is connected, it requires disclosing its presence as a condition of hooking up a Zoom meeting. Good question!
A few screenshots of Jon’s excellent presentation.
A tip on structing an effective prompt from a template. You can insert what’s relevant to your inquiry.
This activity below, Improve a portfolio, is a research question I have currently when when working with community members on building professional websites.
I could envision having colleagues using this kind of prompt to update their website’s look and appearance, (like I need to do) or using a similarly-structured templated prompt when first building a website. That’s something I’m really interested in for my work with the Think Tank this semester. We’re already prototyping a GPT design here in LEDS with two student assistants. More on that later. But for now, back to website redesign prompting.. I’ve been collaborating with Ryan Dowling ’24 on his professional website for nearly two years. Ryan just custom-branded his site and has put the final touches on a major update. He’s just now sharing its link actively with prospective employers. In January, during one of our meetings, we invoked Gen AI to help think over his layout. I think it sparked some creativity for Ryan because, a week later, he majorly overhauled along “with a little help from our AI friends…”
Because I’m having so much fun, it’s time to wrap up this post.
I explored a few GPT in the “app store.” Riffing with line from a popular Beatles song, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” Bing images gave me this image.
I downloaded and uploaded to “GPT4 Logo Creator,” Ro the GPT invokes “DALLE.”
Logo creator rejects it stating it’s copyright material. It suggested I describe this prompt without the image. I did. And it returns this:
But I was perplexed by the copyright question, so I tried out a different GPT, Super Describe, which was fine with it. It took the image and generated this one. Wow. It produces impressive figures but totally gets text wrong! It would take more corrective prompting to fix this. But I had to Let It Be for now.
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