THE PREP PERIOD

Quick tips, tools & tricks you can take to the classroom on Monday

K-12 Community: Create School Event Visuals | This week's tip comes from OpenAI Academy​

I recently discovered OpenAI Academy's Communities feature. Users can join communities like their K-12 group to join events and learn new schools that apply directly to their work.

The K-12 community page has lots of great tips including this week's tip "Create School Event Visuals". Visuals were always a tough one for me... ever seen a Gallon man? That's the same Microsoft Paint level charm I brought to creating visuals back in the day...

Mercifully, OpenAI provides a prompt, some parameters to remember, and some suggested refinements to help you create an image that is (hopefully) not nightmare fuel. Check out what it produced on my first try below.

SARAH'S PICK

Chalkbeat

​Randi Weingarten Newark Visit Confirmed Fears About AI in Schools​

A union president went looking for proof that classroom AI works and came away with a picture of what happens when we hand synchronous learning to a chatbot.

AFT president, Randi Weingarten toured a Newark elementary school to watch Khanmigo in action, and what she described was a room full of kids working silently at screens. She called it a "super duper tutoring center"... and I don't think that was a term of endearment.

When a whole class is heads-down with a bot during core instruction, no amount of dashboard data is going to be worth it.

To be fair to chatbots, Khanmigo specifically has taken some well-earned hits lately, including from its own creator Sal Khan, who told Chalkbeat back in April that for a lot of students the tool was a "non-event".

Also to be fair to the teacher, I think we've all been there... a bigwig is scheduled to visit your classroom and you have to give the "please guys, be cool" speech.

So probably a good amount of nuance there. But the contrast described in that room is hard to ignore. Weingarten said the students only lit up when a teacher pulled a few of them aside for a science experiment, away from the screens.

It is worth putting that next to a different model of the same technology.

In another one of this week's lounge reads, Holly Clark has worked with teachers building custom SchoolAI chatbots for a specific subject and grade, first grade astronomy for example, where kids drive the questions and the bot reinforces what they are curious about. Same tool category, completely different application. One version sits kids in silence in front of a screen for the lesson and the other gives a curious kid a place to chase a question after the teaching has already happened.

While the science experiment is for sure the winner here, these three examples prove that the closer we get to the teacher, the better the experience for the student.

LOUNGE READS

The AI headlines that matter for your classroom

This week educators using AI and tech tools share what works, what doesn't work, and what really doesn't work.

Education Week

​Lessons on AI for Elementary Students: Teach Them Good Habits Now​

Elementary teachers share what actually works when introducing AI to young students.

"While there is concern among parents, policymakers, and medical experts that AI-powered platforms are not safe for young children and that students are spending too much time with technology at school, some educators argue these concerns don’t mean students should wait until high school to start learning how to use the technology—so long as it’s in the classroom with proper oversight and guardrails."

Hechinger Report

​Schools try to block kids from accessing dangerous content and games online. Little kids are outsmarting them​

Young students are getting around filters faster than schools can update them.

"...Parents and teachers say even the youngest students are finding ways past any blocks adults try to put on school devices to play games, watch videos and message friends on school-issued devices."

Chalkbeat

​Randi Weingarten Newark Visit Confirmed Fears About AI in Schools​

A school visit surfaced real teacher concerns about how AI is landing in classrooms right now.

"The classroom is very quiet, and it’s basically a super duper tutoring center."

A NOTE BEFORE YOU GO...

I'm glad you're here! If something resonated this week, hit reply and tell me. If you know a fellow educator who would find this useful, forward it their way. The village grows when educators share with other educators.

Never hesitate to send me an email if you're looking for some human-forward, AI thought partnership!