147 ¦ Q&A: AI resources, teaching spelling and combatting forgetting

All right, let's get into this Q&A episode.

So I wanna start with the very first question, which is to do with AI.

Now, obviously, this is an absolutely huge topic that all of us are dealing with, and I posted a video on my Instagram page just about the huge environmental destruction and impact that a simple trend like the '80s photo thing on ChatGPT can cause.

We think this is very harmless, and we're like, "Oh, I'm just gonna make a funny picture." And even I've seen lots of teachers talking about, you know, 25, 30 kids in a class and then having them put into AI a prompt and create an image, you know, to summarize a reading or to summarize something else that they've looked at.

And while this might feel like a good use of time and resource, but Do we really need 30 separate images to be created then and the, and the environmental impact of that? It makes me question and go, "I'm not sure if we do." And where is the line for drawing up AI and using AI? Now, I'm not living in the Dark Ages.

I know that pretty much everyone listening to this has used AI in some shape or form to do with planning their classes, to do with resources, as have I.

However, I still think we need to talk to the students about the environmental impact, and we need to think about what happens if we just keep plowing money and resources into AI, how many of the jobs we currently value are going to disappear.

So, I got a question from someone, uh, called Ginny, who works in the US, and she reached out and said, "I'd love your thoughts on AI for the Q&A episode.

What are your thoughts on AI in the classroom, specifically to teachers using it to create lessons, plans, and activities? I'm struggling with the push to jump on board with this.

I sometimes use activities from other websites, but I feel that it is different from using AI, and I think it makes a difference that a human actually created it.

I feel that no matter what, the language and activities created by AI lack comprehensibility often.

What do you think?" So it's a fantastic question.

So here's my honest thoughts.

Sometimes AI can be great, and sometimes it's absolutely terrible.

Sometimes it saves me work and time.

Sometimes, I would say often, it creates more work.

I think that it's helping me, but actually I'm like, "I should have just written this little thing myself," or, "I should have done this myself.

It would have been way quicker." So how do I use it, and where do I think that the, the line should be drawn? I've gone away from using AI for image creation, um, things like that.

I've, I've tried to start y- doing it again myself.

I did go through a period where I used it a bit, and I just felt like it always looked generic, it looked AI-created, it didn't look great, and it was always too busy and too much going on, and I had to change it too many times.

I was like, "I'll just do it myself." So I'm back to doing that myself.

I do think it is useful in certain circumstances.

For example, if you've done a story creation with a class, and as we know when we do story creation or inventing a character, it can go in any direction.

We're not really sure exactly what the character's name will be, where they live.

You may know the plot and the storyline, but you don't know of the details.