With the ever-expanding reach of Artificial Intelligence (AI) teachers should consider using this technology in their classrooms to enhance learning. I spent some time over the past week going through different types of AI and there was one area that I was very interested in, photo generation. I wanted to try to construct an activity for my classroom that would support the state standards while also being something fun for my students to do. The activity is in the works currently, but I think this will be a big hit.
The program that I want to use is Gencraft. This site gives the user the ability to enter a prompt and then choose the style in which they would like to see that image depicted. For example, I typed in "Ronald Reagan riding a T-Rex" into the generator and asked it to be constructed in an anime format.
Figure 1
Note. Image generated using Gencraft from the prompt Ronald Reagan riding a T-Rex.
I was very impressed with the creation that the generator provided. It was after creating a few images that I decided that I am going to turn this into an assignment for my World History students.
I think that this program will help support my teaching because it will allow the students to not only interact with what we are discussing in the classroom, but gain some ownership from creating their own art. My plan is going to be to have the students create three images that depict changes in democracy during the early 20th century. I will then have them do some writing to explain how their image connects to the topic.
Some advantages of using this technology are that the many different image styles will provide students with the opportunity to show what they care about and what is interesting to them. It also provides them with the opportunity to be more creative in the classroom. I know this will also just be something different for my students because to my knowledge, no other teacher in my building has a desire to use AI. As far as the drawbacks, the program only allows a certain number of images that can be created every day. If students are not paying attention, this will prevent them from finishing the assignment. Also, if I do not provide enough structure from the activity, the whole thing could spiral quickly into a rabbit hole for the students. One thing that I do appreciate though is that there are boundaries that prevent the students from creating anything inappropriate.
One thing that I really appreciated about this time to look through different types of AI based technology was that it allowed me to look for what I wanted. I believe that as a teacher, it is important to find out what works for you. Teachers need to be allowed to have dedicated time to do their own professional learning and expand their PLN (Professional Learning Network) (Tour, 2017, pg. 180.) Gencraft was only one of the many programs that I looked at. I just believe that it will be the best for implementing with what I am doing with my students at this time. In the future I am looking to add in more types of AI, not just image generators. I believe that it will also be important to introduce my students to programs like Chat GPT. Too many students are using this program the wrong way, I want to help them discover that this program can be used for more than just generating answers or essays. It allows new insights that you might not have previously considered. This experience led me to venture down my own rabbit hole and I am working on expanding my PLN when it comes to implementing AI into my classroom. As this portion of my PLN continues to grow, it is my hope that it also impacts the experiences of my students.
Citations
Ekaterina Tour (2017) Teachers’ self-initiated professional learning through Personal Learning Networks, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 26:2, 179-192, DOI: 10.1080/1475939X.2016.1196236
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