Artificial intelligence (AI) has made this an interesting time to be in education.
As soon as ChatGPT was introduced to the world in November 2022, it had instant implications on the classroom. If you’re like me, you went through a roller coaster of emotions. You saw lots of exciting potential for what it could create and do for you. But on the other hand, you immediately saw the potential for students to misuse it and avoid the important thinking and work that leads to learning.
We are still at that crossroads today, aren’t we?
Educators all over the United States and all over the world are still trying to figure out the place of AI in education. Lots of us are wondering …
- Is it cheating to use AI?
- Can it actually be used to support student learning?
- Can it help me save time and be more efficient as an educator?
- What about concerns like data privacy, bias, and inaccuracy?
- How do we prepare students for an AI future?
- What’s the future of the workforce – and of the classroom?
I’m with you. I’ve felt all of those same emotions.
Instead of getting overwhelmed, there’s one very proactive step we can take.
Start small.
It helps us take action and builds momentum. And it gives us time to understand what we are getting into little by little.
That’s why I created the Ditch That Textbook AI Teacher Toolkit. It’s a free ebook full of practical steps educators can take to use AI responsibly and productively in the classroom. It includes …
- 40 AI tools for teachers
- AI prompt examples
- Five ways parents can use AI at home
- AI lessons and units
… and more! You can get the AI Teacher Toolkit here.
Here’s a taste of what you will find in the tool kit …
“By the way” lessons. To prepare students for an AI future, some people are convinced that we need to give students a comprehensive unit on machine learning and neural networks. That’s helpful in certain circumstances, but for most students, they just need a practical education on how real people are using AI in real ways. That’s why I’m a big proponent of “by the way” lessons. These are little, quick nuggets of wisdom about how to use AI in real-life scenarios. For example, you might say, “By the way, did you know that AI makes mistakes sometimes? They’re called hallucinations, and they happen most often when an AI model doesn’t have very much information about a topic. So be careful!” This is an approach that educators in any content area or grade level can use to start preparing students for an AI world. The AI Teacher Toolkit has “by the way” lessons you can use whenever you need them.
AI tools to support teaching. If you throw a rock in the expo hall of an edtech conference, you can’t help but hit a company that’s trying to leverage AI to support teaching and learning. (By the way, throwing a rock in a conference expo hall is a really bad idea, so don’t do it!) But some of these products really can help you get creative teaching ideas and outsource some of the daily drudgery that we face as teachers. Some of my favorite AI teacher tools include Diffit, Brisk Teaching, SchoolAI and MagicSchool. Each has a very robust free plan that lets you accomplish a lot even if your school district hasn’t purchased a license.
AI to support learning. Whether your students are able to access AI tools or not, they can be used to level up learning for your students. If you’re a teacher and have access to an AI assistant like ChatGPT, there are lots of ways to bring that AI assistant into classroom conversations as an additional voice. In the tool kit, there are copy and paste prompts. You can customize them to fit your needs. They include prompts to generate student activities, prompts for lesson planning, prompts for exit tickets, prompts to create rubrics, and more.
Using AI to support families at home. Sometimes, parents and guardians can feel overwhelmed at the thought of supporting kids in their learning journey. They might feel poorly equipped to help with homework. They might not even know what’s going on at school and what strategies are and are not helpful. In our toolkit, we have a printable page to send home to parents and guardians with some suggestions to help them out.
Sure, AI can stand in the way of student thinking. Students can use it to avoid work that they don’t want to do. But that’s been the case even before classroom technology. We get the opportunity to model how it can be a positive force – and how we can help prepare students for their future.
Get your copy of the AI teacher toolkit here.
About Matt Miller
Matt Miller is an educator, blogger and presenter from West Central Indiana. He has infused technology and innovative teaching methods in his classes for more than 10 years. He is the author of the six books, including Ditch That Textbook: Free Your Teaching and Revolutionize Your Classroom. He writes at the Ditch That Textbook blog about using technology and creative ideas in teaching. Matt is a Google Certified Innovator and Microsoft in Education Expert. He was named a ‘23-’24 Top 100 Influencer in EdTech by EdTech Digest. He won the WTHI-TV Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching.
After trying to do the traditional “teach by the textbook” for a few years, he launched into a textbook-less path where learning activities were often custom-produced for his students as well as infused with technology. He likes the results a lot, and his students do, too.
Matt has presented to thousands of teachers at hundreds of workshops on a number of topics related to educational technology, student engagement, and more. He combines a conversational, engaging speaking style with loads of resources, leaving teachers equipped and inspired to move forward
Follow Matt on Twitter/X @jmattmiller.