Episode 162:Why AI Matters In Education - The Power of Artificial Intelligence

Episode162: Why AI Matters In Education - The Power of Artificial Intelligence

[00:00:21] Hello everybody. And welcome to another great episode of my ed tech life. I am your host Fonz Mendoza. And as always, thank you so much for making my ed tech life. What it is today. I really appreciate all the likes shares and follows. And the continual support. And thank you so much for listening to this podcast and making it part of your education journey.

[00:00:47] And so today I'm just doing a solo episode and I just kind of want to share my thoughts on all the artificial intelligence, what we've been seeing through chat GPT as I've been going [00:01:00] through Twitter and Instagram and tic talk. And I just wanted to just share my thoughts on it. And of course, a disclaimer, I am not an expert in artificial intelligence.

[00:01:11] I don't know all the ins and outs, but I'm just simply giving you. Just my thoughts from the education standpoint and just as an ed tech enthusiast, myself. So I let's go ahead and get started. So as you all know, Chad GPT has probably been the biggest buzz word or biggest thing that we've been talking about or hearing about ever since it came out, maybe about a month ago or a little bit over that. And as people started discovering what chat GPT can do, you just see a plethora of videos about what it can do, what it can't do.

[00:01:48] Uh, I see teachers that are in a panic teachers that are wanting to, uh, cancel and block chat GPT from their districts, because they're scared of what it can do. And we'll get [00:02:00] to all of that and talk about all of that. But for myself, I am here for all of this. I, myself am really excited for what this can do for the education landscape and how it can transform education.

[00:02:14] You know, this is going to cause, um, you know, probably a little bit of roughly in a feathers, as you know, as educators, we're going to have to change the way that we teach and maybe start thinking a little bit outside the box.

[00:02:26] But I am excited as a teacher or former teacher. And even as an instructional tech, just to see the possibilities of what this can do as far as curriculum and instruction, what we can do in the classrooms, what educators can do and how we can get creative with our students, but also, uh, showing our students how to use this responsibly.

[00:02:52] As we know students are at home, they've probably heard about this. They're hearing. They're hearing about it from their friends. They're hearing about it [00:03:00] on Tik TOK on social media. And chances are when we come back in the, in, you know, right now in the spring. And maybe if you already back, you may start seeing this use. Um, yeah. Especially if you are an ELA teacher or anywhere where you may have to do some writing.

[00:03:15] Uh, I'll share my thoughts on that too, as well, but you know, let's go ahead and get started. So of course artificial intelligence is something like I said, has just quickly been pushed in our face this last month or so, and again, just talking about chat GPT, but we also need to understand how we can.

[00:03:36] Use this as teachers and leverage this power, but also how we can help our students also prepare for the future, because this is something that will not be going away. There are several companies out there. That may be offering the exact same services. So whether they may be using chat GPT or a form of, uh, you know, similar AI writer, it'll [00:04:00] be out there and there, isn't a way that we can block everything. But what I want to talk about is how AI has the potential to revolutionize or change the way that we deliver education.

[00:04:12] How there are some ways that we can use it to tweak. Our lessons and optimize our lessons and improve that learning experience. I mean, Look at it as a tool. It's almost like, you know, as a teacher, when I came into the classroom mind, you know, classroom experience. Whatsoever coming in from an alternative certification program. I pretty much had to.

[00:04:36] I guess copy. Uh, what a lot of my mentors were doing, observing what they were doing, because they were pretty much my models. Of what I can learn from and take from, to sprinkle on to what I'm already doing. Well, And kind of mesh it up in my little mixing bowl and create a style of my own. Well, pretty much that [00:05:00] is what Google, what we do on a day to day. I mean, tell me how many teachers out there. Aren't looking through Google and searching Google for lessons that are already made, where they're searching for resources that are already made.

[00:05:15] Mainly because we may not have those resources available. In our school districts, maybe because there isn't any funding for those additional supports. And we've got teachers that are going on, teachers pay teachers. Finding resources, not that there's anything wrong with that, but we're all looking to enhance our learning experience. We're all looking for those resources.

[00:05:37] To engage our students. But now with a tool like this, it's almost like it's a fancy Google search. Really? That's the way I see it. If you've played around with it. Yes. It may astonish you at first. Like, oh my goodness. Look at what it spit out. Look at all this form and all this information. Yes. But it's very bland.

[00:05:57] And again, these are just my [00:06:00] opinions. It is very bland. You can go ahead and create amazing prompts that can go ahead and execute some amazing outputs. But again, it's only as good as what you put into it. And just keep in mind that this thing is scouring all of Google and it doesn't have the most recent data as well.

[00:06:21] Just be cautious as to what you are putting out there. Because of course, you know, you want to put your own flavor, your own twist to it. You can go ahead and start with this and, you know, use it as a base for your lessons and we'll get into how your students can use this as well. But one thing that we have to talk about is AI technology has already been here. I mean, talk about Netflix. Geez. How many of you.

[00:06:49] Uh, you know, during the breaks sat on, uh, you know, around watch some net Netflix movies, maybe you've got another subscription service. Like prime and things of that sort. Well, guess what all [00:07:00] of those, uh, suggested by you titles? That's suggested by your behavior, what it is that you are looking at. So the AI is nothing that is new. It's just that it's shocking to us, especially in the education landscape that we're going to look at this as some sort of cheating tool.

[00:07:20] Yes. Can students use it to achieve? Well, it just all depends because keep in mind that ultimately you are the expert in the room. You are the one that knows your students. You're the one that knows their type of learning, their type of writing, where they're coming from. So if you see something that is a little out of the ordinary, maybe something that all of a sudden shows a tremendous improvement, not to say.

[00:07:47] But a student can't improve on their own, but if you just see something that is just a little bit questionable. Well, I mean, there are going to be those things, but again, did the student [00:08:00] try to T to do the assignment on their own or did they just flat out get lazy? Now that is something that we will talk about too, because the AI technology can cause people to be lazy.

[00:08:12] I mean, as a teacher, you know, you're going to go in there and say, Hey, I need a lesson on this. Or I need you to create a worksheet on two step equations and it's going to spit all this out. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, I've already done this. And that's all I got to do. I just got to show up and tell GPT what I wanted to do. And I'm going to go ahead.

[00:08:33] And pop it out, but keep in mind that one thing is creating that, but the delivery process is something that's different. The way that you personalize your classroom, the way that you give that show, that showmanship of presenting and engaging with your students. It's something that is important. And it's something that students need that one-to-one attention that an AI cannot do. [00:09:00]

[00:09:00] So going back to what students will be able to do. You know, as far as writing, you know, maybe as teachers we're asking the wrong questions, if we're just a teacher that is giving just prompts and giving questions, and it's just kind of like a worksheet or, Hey, write a. Two paragraph essay. Three paragraph essay on, you know, the industrial revolution.

[00:09:27] Well, all the student needs to do is a back in the day or. And it sounds funny, you were saying back in the day, because now Chad GPT is here, but they would just simply go through Google, probably copy and paste this into another app. Like Quill bot. And it's just going to go ahead and rewrite and spin that article or spin that writing and they can go ahead and make it more into their style.

[00:09:52] And kind of bring it down to their grade level. But let's not fool ourselves. I mean, students have been doing this [00:10:00] for the longest time. It's nothing. That is new. However, what I would like to suggest is changing the approach. As far as how you deliver a lesson. You know, many times and you know, we see it in classrooms. A lot of classrooms are still very teacher centered.

[00:10:18] A lot of students are Stu a lot of classrooms. Excuse me. Are student-centered. However, keep in mind that good teaching is still good teaching. Okay. So I'm not saying that one is better than the other. However, maybe it's the type of questioning and the type of assignments that we're giving that we can just make some slight tweaks to.

[00:10:38] So what I would do in my classroom, you know, when it, I had several students in my classroom. Uh, they, we all were one-to-one at the time because I was at one teacher that checked out the Chromebook cart the whole year is we would go through a chapter together for social studies or if it was science. And one year I did science and social studies [00:11:00] only.

[00:11:00] So we would go over a whole chapter. I would break them up into groups and they would create presentations or they would work individually. And I would allow them to present their assignment in the matter that they felt most comfortable with. I had a lot of students that created presentations on Google slides.

[00:11:20] A lot of students just simply recorded themselves using Screencastify and submitting that a lot of students did a combination of both. I did have some students submit podcasts that they created. So what I'm trying to say here is rather than just giving the basic assignment of, please go write a five paragraph essay on the industrial revolution is along with that.

[00:11:44] I create some sort of presentation or a learning artifact. Okay. Now, does this mean that the student is not going to go out there and use chat GPT?

[00:11:54] However, one of the options would be is that you would ask them to create a [00:12:00] video for you or a Google slide for you. Along with their writing. This is a way for you to see. If the students really dove deep into the subject and did invest some time. In their learning process. Or if they just simply went in, put in a prompt.

[00:12:21] And just whatever. Uh, chat GPT spit out. That's exactly what they're submitting to you and writing. So again, This is a great, it's a game changer because students can find information a lot quicker, but you're also just adding that additional element where the student creates that learning artifact for you. And from there, you can see, like I mentioned,

[00:12:42] If there was learning that took place. So, this is something that even I did when I was a fifth grade teacher and sixth grade teacher, students not only turned in essays, but they turned in presentations what their essays, because again, how do I know that that student just didn't go home [00:13:00] and just plagiarize off of Google?

[00:13:02] Now many moons ago when I was in grade school. I didn't have a computer and computers were way out of our reach, you know, being where we lived in the demographic area and the type of jobs that my mom and dad have. There was no way that we would ever be able to afford a computer. And as a matter of fact, I didn't even get my first laptop till I was probably about.

[00:13:26] 22. Around there. That's when I got my first laptop, but before that I was going to the library and I remember when we would have research papers and I was in elementary. My mom would drop me off in the public library and she would drop me off there for about three hours. And the first thing that I want to go do is just get the encyclopedia Britannica.

[00:13:48] And yes, I'm dating myself there, but some of you that know about an encyclopedia Britannica, you know what I'm talking about? I would just simply open the encyclopedia to whatever subject matter I was [00:14:00] doing my research paper on. So if it was for science, You know, I go ahead and look up whatever topic or if it was for history and guess what I did.

[00:14:08] I was just pretty much making copies of those pages and writing exactly. What was on those pages, maybe, you know, trying to change things up a little bit, but at the time that's the tech that I had and nobody had taught me anything about plagiarism. It was mainly just go ahead and write a research paper.

[00:14:28] You know, it wasn't until I got into high school, then you learn about citation. You learn about, you know, given a proper, um, You know, references. And so on. So again, that's something that the students are still going to have to do. Keep in mind, if you do go play with chat GPT, you will see that it's going to spit out a lot of information for you.

[00:14:50] But it is going to be very generic and very bland. But it's also not going to come in with any resources as far as source or citations, I [00:15:00] should say. So students are still gonna have to do some research. Now, could this be something that students can use to improve their writing? Absolutely. Can this be something that teachers can use to improve their lessons or create lessons or maybe ways to elaborate on current curriculum and get ideas to enrich that curriculum?

[00:15:21] Absolutely. So, like I said, I am here for this side of the AI use. And again, it's not only going to be chat GPT and also keep in mind. That there are going to be other writers that are out there. Um, you know, Chad GPT will probably soon be at a price. It'll have a price point. So it's going to price a lot of people out. However, now that we've had a taste of what it can do.

[00:15:49] I mean, we see Canva doing it. All right now, they don't do it in their education, uh, suite. But they do it on the regular creator suite where they do have the, the [00:16:00] documents and they've got the magic writing. So you've got so many options that are out there. So it's a matter of also, you know, training your teachers as to how they can use it, the benefits of it, and then training the students to as well, to be good researchers, to be able to curate information properly.

[00:16:21] To take out what is, what is not correct? What is fake? I guess you would say, or fake news or whatever you want to call it. If you want to take out all that stuff, there's still going to have to sift through it. And it's a skill that they're still going to have to learn. So those are some of the things there that I do want to touch on.

[00:16:42] You know, again, going back to the education, the personalized learning. And, uh, you know, and lessons. There are platforms that we use in our district. One of those platforms is I Excel and I Excel pretty much is based on your diagnostic. [00:17:00] It's gonna kind of give you a skill set or a pathway that you're going to follow.

[00:17:04] Imagine learning. That's another one most education platforms right now, they have a diagnostic little exam that they can give or a little screener. And based on those screeners, they will put the student in a particular path. Well guess what that is, that is some form of AI there. So as the student gets better,

[00:17:23] I am better than closing those gaps, then the go the program. We'll go ahead and push them into either a different path. Move them out of those particular types of exercises and have them continue to grow within their grade level. One of the things this year, since this is the first year that we adopted IXL was that we had some ninth grade teachers that were calling me.

[00:17:47] It's telling me like Mr. Mendoza, this program is broken. This program is not working. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? I don't understand. Said yes. I gave my student a diagnostic, their ninth grade algebra student, and [00:18:00] it shows here. Uh, that they're getting fourth grade skills I XL has given them fourth grade skills, and I don't want that they need to be learning those ninth grade skills. And I say, well, that's kind of like the way the program works.

[00:18:13] Because believe it or not, a student can get to ninth grade algebra and still not know how many inches there are in a foot. Which incidentally was the, one of the topics that was measurement. So the teacher was panicking and because of that lack of knowledge, and it's something new. Um, she panicked and we just kind of had to talk it out and have her see that she still has control over what she can assign, but that I Excel will or is trying to close those learning gaps.

[00:18:47] So that was a scare. So talk about being scared about what a platform can already do, such as IXL. Again, coming back to chat GPT. I completely understand. You know, all the buzz and all the [00:19:00] talk and all the fear that has come to light because we're seeing this all over social media. But think about the advantages that some of these AI tools can have. Just like I mentioned through IXL, providing the opportunity for the students to learn at their own pace.

[00:19:17] It tailors their pathway like IXL, like imagine math education, galaxy many programs that are out there tailor the path based on how well the student is doing. So if the student is doing well, it's going to keep moving them up and taking them to another level. If there's a student that may be struggling a little bit, you know, they're going to get that additional support.

[00:19:39] And that's what we're, that's what we want. Isn't that what we're asking for? Day-to-day how can we help our students and tailor. Her lessons. In a personalized and specific way. Well, this is a way that these programs are doing it. So the personalized feedback to each of these platforms. Like I mentioned [00:20:00] before those math ones that we use and for, uh, our K through five platforms too, they give personalized feedback to the students telling them, Hey, I'm going to give you more of these skills because the students can go and check the reports.

[00:20:13] And they're going to see what skills they still need to improve on. So they can go ahead and continue to close that gap, still working at level, but trying to catch them up. So that is something that is wonderful. There. So we already seen. AI to some extent in our classrooms. So why the fear of chat GPT?

[00:20:36] Many teachers are like, oh great. You know, there goes my job. I'm not going to be able to teach. You know, now my students are going to be just plagiarizing and S uh, you know, turning in. Essays and submitting this and that, you know, it, you as a teacher, don't panic, you are though. And I always say this, you are the master of your classroom. Like I said, getting that relationship with your students, getting to know [00:21:00] your students and getting to know the type of work that they submit will immediately bring up those flags.

[00:21:05] As far as wait a minute, this is the way that you are writing. In the fall semester now, all of a sudden the spring. You've jumped out, jumped up or have improved. You know this much and not to say that students can't. I was one of those late bloomers that had a light bulb moment. And I wasn't good at math until I got to seventh grade in junior high because of my teacher, Ms. Garcia. I still remember Ms. Garcia, but in sixth grade I was a terrible student, but I did improve. Did it take me some time? Yes. It took me some tutoring.

[00:21:37] Yes. But now same thing with these tools, you know, we want our students to improve. So again, I see chat GPT as just a resource to enhance that learning. For somebody that may need some additional support, some help. So just a way to get their ideas out there. Many students suffer from writing writer's block, [00:22:00] teachers suffer from writer's block. So this is a way that, you know, also you can use this to enhance your practice as well. So those are some of the things that I do want to share.

[00:22:12] Now, are there some disadvantages to this? Yes, of course. There's disadvantages like in any tech. We're always worried about privacy. So privacy concerns are definitely huge. And as artificial intelligence and all these systems, they track your student data, of course, for the purpose of customizing their learning. But also you have to always be very careful because the accessibility to some of this information is unknown to us.

[00:22:40] Many times we adopt programs in our cloud. If for our school districts. And we don't know how that program may be using that information. Especially a lot of programs that are out there that are free, you know, free to teachers. And then you wonder, it's like, wait a minute, this has been free for this long as time. [00:23:00] And everybody's using this information.

[00:23:02] How are they making their money? We'll keep in mind, you know, as far as a lot of those platforms, We end up being the product. So that is a couple of things to be always, you know, keeping an eye open for, because we don't know how our information is going to be used. And as educators, we often love to try new things and we jump on several platforms because we have access to that and we jump on and we try everything and we're putting in.

[00:23:33] Our information where, you know, doing either SSO and, you know, putting in our Google information and wait a minute, this is free. This is free for teachers for education for. Forever. Yeah, but what's the catch. If I don't have to pay for it, who's paying for it. Well, What is that information that, that, you know, that we're putting in all that creation, all that input, what are they doing with that information? Well, start thinking [00:24:00] about those things very carefully. Now, again, I'm not saying this to scare you and to keep you away from tech. We need tech. I love tech.

[00:24:08] If tech is going to help me be more efficient as a teacher or in anything that I do such as podcasting. Man. I am all for it. There are several tools that I use that have helped me increase my workflow, where podcasting to me felt like a burden. Every episode I was doing about three hours of work, post-production now in a matter of, you know, maybe about an hour or less than an hour, actually like maybe now even 40 minutes, you know, I'm already done and have my podcast episode up after it's recorded.

[00:24:41] But thanks to some of these tools. I mean, you've got Canva. Also the Adobe suite. They've got AI features now in a lot of their platforms, they've got, you know, Adobe podcast. Where it'll essentially take some bad audio and really you think that it's tweaking your audio, but really it's [00:25:00] creating a different audio version, you know, to add, give you that more professional sound. So it's really, you know, they're taking your voice in there.

[00:25:08] Changing it a bit. It still sounds like you, but it's really, you know, they're not cleaning up the audio. It's probably a lot easier just to use AI to completely copy the audio, take out your words, enhance it. And you know, now you have some clean audio that sounds sometimes very, very, uh, Over-processed however it is clean because it'll take away all that additional sound or background sound. So.

[00:25:36] Y the fear. AI is here. AI has been here, but again it's because it's been sensationalized. Through social media also just be very careful with all of these creators that are like, Hey, here's your thousand dollar idea using chat GPT and how I'm going to make them, you know, a hundred thousand dollars and all of this stuff.

[00:25:58] Keep in mind [00:26:00] that they're just putting this stuff out there for content. You know, some of it, I'm not saying won't work, but you have to put in some work again, the chat GPT is something that'll serve as a base or a skeleton of sort for that work that you're going to be doing. Now I know also that Google is cracking down on AI content. So for example,

[00:26:25] Um, they want to see content that is helpful to people that is personalized. They just don't want you to go in and use a writer like Chad GPT and just put out, you know, content and expect it to do well. They ate. They want you to even tailor and personalize it to your specific niche, to some area that you're trying to help. So it will get flagged. Now I have seen some reports.

[00:26:54] Where there have been some YouTube videos that have been flagged and been taken down because they did [00:27:00] show that it was AI content that was created. Th that was used to create it. Now, I haven't seen too much of that. I need to dig in deep, but I did see a couple of posts where people did have their videos taken down.

[00:27:13] Um, you know, so just be very cautious with the way that you use something like this. I mean, really, like I said, harnessing the power for good and making something that is, uh, creating a product. That has your voice that still. Uh, gives that one to one. Uh, connection with your consumer is something that we need. And that's something that as educators, we need to note.

[00:27:41] That AI. Cannot replace that. Those soft skills that we as teachers have to communicate with our students. So that's something else that AI can't do. Teachers, don't worry about like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be replaced. No, you're not going to [00:28:00] be replaced. Is AI going to be more prevalent? Yes. But it's a matter of time before it gets better. The, I.

[00:28:07] AI will get better, but as teachers too, we have to start thinking outside the box. And again, like I mentioned, it may ruffle some feathers that we may need to change our teaching style. And be able to adapt to the technology because again, keep in mind technology, like I mentioned, He is not going to go anywhere.

[00:28:29] So these are some of the things that I wanted to share with you today. Um, again, these are just my thoughts. Like I said, full disclaimer in the beginning. I am not an AI expert. This is just me speaking from the heart and sharing with you. Why I'm so excited about this new TAC, why K through 12 and even higher ed should be very excited. I mean, for higher ed, this is probably going to be a game changer because they may need to change the way [00:29:00] that their classes are being delivered.

[00:29:02] You know, oftentimes it's, you know, learning modules that you go in through and they may be async learning modules, but now it's maybe forcing them to be more, student-centered getting more responses from students, creating more, uh, being able to use our creative juices and amplify creativity, which really excites me.

[00:29:23] Like I said, you know, am I, if I'm in the classroom, my students are not just going to turn in a plain Jane essay on the industrial revolution or on. On my ptosis, but they're also going to create a presentation. And that way I will know if the student really did get a grasp on that learning, or if it's just something that they just, you know, copied and pasted from Chad GPT. And now they're just regurgitating to you.

[00:29:51] Um, so again, just be very cautious about those things, but also change things up again. I'm really excited to hear [00:30:00] how you, as teachers are going to leverage this. And I see a lot of educators on Tik TOK that are also as much excited about as excited about this as I am. So, um, I'm curious to hear from you all, what are some ways that you will be using this technology?

[00:30:19] What are some ways that you can see. Chad GPT being useful to you for curriculum, lesson planning, uh, maybe content creation. And I also am curious to see what are some benefits for your students. For the same thing, content creation for learning, for accessibility, to be able to get personalized learning. So share your thoughts and ideas with me. I love to hear about them and, um, you know, shoot me a message and then we can also have a podcast on this. I'm definitely looking for some education leaders and in this space that we'll love to talk more about artificial intelligence.

[00:30:57] So if that is you, please make [00:31:00] sure that you reach out to me, go to my ed tech. Dot life and go to the contact me page. And shoot me a message and I would love to have you on the show, but again, guys, just, you know, in closing. You know, AI can provide a very unique opportunity for a lot of us and more so just to help us immerse ourselves more as learners. We always say that we're lifelong learners. So why not learn this new tech and why not also model responsible use of this new tech to our students as well. But it's also very important.

[00:31:35] Like I mentioned that we need to model it and we need to use this tech responsibly. Also in order to ensure quality education in our classrooms, we want to make sure that we are doing our due diligence as educators to bring the best of us each day and to bring our students the best of us each day. So they weigh vacant, also feel comfortable in [00:32:00] the classroom and feel comfortable with the tools.

[00:32:03] So yes, AI is already revolutionizing the way that we will teach. And of course, keep in mind that this is only something that's going to get better and better. Right now we're just barely scratching this at the surface. And there are multiple companies that are already out there to capitalizing on this as well. So again, it's an exciting time for a lot of us that are interested in exploring what artificial intelligence has to offer.

[00:32:34] So again, guys, thank you so much for listening to our show. I really appreciate your support.

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