From the Ask a Tech Teacher crew, here’s a topical article on how to use AI in your education journey:

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Education

Technological innovation is now casting its shadows over the education sector as well, making learning experiences better than ever before. Better engagement, reduced pressure on students, and easy accessibility to learning are some of the many benefits that the education sector is receiving through technology.

In the last decade, technology and software delivery has improved tremendously due to the support from third-party solution providers like GitLab, Cloudbees, and Jfrog. Artificial intelligence is just one of the major technologies that is changing how we perceive learning and education.

AI in education is expected to grow 41% by 2025. With this rise, we are preparing for a global adoption of artificial intelligence in education. Moreover, artificial intelligence will allow education providers to offer a more customized experience to different learning groups. Let’s discuss how artificial intelligence is changing the education sector:

(more…)

The hottest disruptive technology to come to education since iPads is ChatGPT. It sounds too simple when I read the dozens of articles that fill the internet so I asked the AI to tell me what it was:

“ChatGPT is a computer program that generates text based on what you type to it. It uses advanced language processing to understand your prompt and respond with relevant, coherent text. You can talk to ChatGPT like you would with a person, and it will generate text that sounds similar to human writing. ChatGPT can be used for a variety of text-based tasks such as having a conversation, answering questions, writing content, and more.”

That is so human-like, it’s scary. So as a teacher, how will you know if an AI is doing student homework? Check out what Ask a Tech Teacher contributor and technology expert, Jodi Williams, has to say about ChatGPT:

Is ChatGPT Writing Your Students’ Homework? A New Technology Will Be Able to Detect It

It has been unthinkable for decades to suspect that artificial intelligence could write your students’ homework, yet it appears to be true with the famous ChatGPT bot. Since it’s relatively easy for a college professor to detect cases of plagiarism manually, it’s much safer when you can represent some proof that a student has used AI-generated writing for an assignment. The good news is that we have a technology that is able to detect it. Currently, Turnitin is able to implement a specific technology that will analyze what has been written and checked in terms of originality and machine learning algorithms. Although artificial technology is always getting better and more cryptic, the tools that are used by Turnitin are also evolving, thus allowing college professors to do the checking and save valuable time. 

TurnItIn Has The Grip On ChatGPT Artificial Writing Tool 

The Battle of Robots. 

The use of TurnItIn provides educators with a great opportunity to get things checked. While it is a commercial tool, it does not reveal the specifics of how things work, yet it uses AI-based technology against machine learning algorithms used by the ChatGPT tool. Now, if you are feeling stuck and need help with writing, it’s much safer to use a plagiarism free essay writing service and discuss your concerns with the trained experts who can assist you in completing your work in a legit way. Sometimes you need just a bit of human assistance to understand the objectives and overcome writer’s block, among other things. Most importantly, it’s a legit way to avoid plagiarism and learn how to analyze and process information. 

Highlighted Parts. 

If locating the parts in question sounds problematic, TurnItIn will also highlight the odd sections with different colors and offer an intelligent search through the Internet to see whether some parts have been copied. The combination of both will help to be sure that there are no false alerts. Some students will also use tools like Google Translate, yet it’s a different matter and not a case of plagiarism. If you know a foreign exchange student, suggest dealing with TheWordPoint service instead to approach things correctly when some grammar and structure correction must be done. It will help to avoid trouble and the possible false alerts that AI-based tools may detect. 

Analytical Reports. 

The best part about detecting ChatGPT with TurnItIn is the presence of built-in analytical tools that will help you to check the report and confront the student if there is a clear denial stage. If a student claims that no ChatGPT has been used, ask for a revision and see if it maintains the same style. Of course, if you see drastic changes, one can assume that other AI tools might have been used, yet it is not always the fact! Use analytical reports and try to do your best to maintain contact with a student!

The Dangers of ChatGPT in Practice 

While there are evident dangers like plagiarism and academic misconduct, it also brings modern students into an abyss of chaos as artificial intelligence technology is not able to understand the text that is being generated. Since most learners do not proofread or edit what’s being generated, it becomes easy for educators to see that an assignment does not make sense. Ultimately, it’s not only the time wasted but an academic future that becomes even vaguer. Therefore, using tools like ChatGPT is dangerous as it doesn’t teach you anything and cannot even be considered a form of cheating per se because it’s way worse than that! 

BIO 

Jodi Williams is a technology expert passionate about learning and innovative teaching methods. She loves to share bright ideas and her discoveries in writing. Follow Jodi to learn new things and find inspiration. 

–image credit Deposit Photos

Copyright ©2023 askatechteacher.com – All rights reserved.

I don’t often get personal on this blog. It’s not about me–it’s about educators and their profession–but times are different this year. When you’re geeky, you don’t always think like the people around you or answer questions in the usual way. A writing class I took asked us newbies to tell the class a little bit about ourselves. Here’s how I answered that:

I am a multi-cellular, hairless, short-snouted, large-brained bipedal omnivore, evolved over millions of years within the classification of Primates, in response to dramatic environment changes on the planet Earth to become Homo sapiens sapiens.

I occupy the geologic address

34E43.29 N and 117E10.82 W

…the political address

xxxx xxxx Dr., Laguna Hills CA.

…the email address

[email protected]

…and the internet address (my IP location)

xx.x.xx.xx

I am one of over 8 billion big brained creatures living on Earth, each with unique talents and traits allowing us to best fit our local environment. I am a social animal, living in a large community–too large to know my neighbors by the methods other Primates use of ‘grooming’. Instead, we ‘gossip’ and ‘storytell’. I am surrounded by peers who feel superior to other mammals based on subjective factors such as physical characteristics or brain size. This primitive attitude has allowed my kind to take over the world but not run it well.  Without significant changes, we will not remain the dominant species for even as long as dinosaurs, sharks, jelly fish, alligators, Great Apes, or horsetail ferns.

(more…)

There’s always been something mystical about people in technical professions–engineering, science, mathematics. They talk animatedly about plate tectonics, debate the structure of mathematical functions, even smile at the mention of calculus. The teaching profession has their own version of these individuals, called ‘technology teachers’. They used to be stuffed in a corner of the school where most teachers could pretend they didn’t exist, that what they did was for ‘some other educator in an alternate dimension’.

That all changed when technology swept across the academic landscape like a firestorm:

• iPads became the device of choice in the classroom
• Class screens became more norm than abnorm(al)
• Technology in the classroom changed from ‘nice to have’ to ‘must have’
• 1:1 became a realistic goal
• Students researched online as often as in the library
• Students began spending as much time in a digital neighborhood as their home town
• Textbooks morphed into resources rather than bibles

Today, teachers who don’t use technology are an endangered species. Often, they’re too young to retire, so they get a digital map from a colleague to that place where they’ve been told they’ll find help–from a person variously called the ‘tech teacher’, ‘integration specialist’, or ‘tech coordinator’.

As they enter the room, they figure the person they’re looking for must be the one who looks up as they enter, fingers flying across the keyboard, never pausing and never slowing even as she smiles and says, ‘Hi!’.

Before you ask your question, I have a short list of signs that will help you have a more positive experience when you confront this big-brained Sheldon-look-like:

• You can’t scare them (in fact, even Admin and politics don’t frighten them). They’re techies. Try kindness instead.
• Patience and tech are oxymorons. Know that going in.
• Bring food. Techies often forget to eat, or ate everything in their snack stash and need more.
• Some days, tech looks a lot like work. Distract them with an interesting problem.
• Start the encounter with a discussion on Dr. Who, Minecraft, or Big Bang Theory. Find a clever tie-in to your topic.
• Understand that tech teachers often think trying to teach teachers to tech is like solving the Riemann Hypothesis (many consider it impossible). Bone up on basics before the Meeting.
• Life after the 100th crashed computer is what Oprah might call a life-defining moment. If that just happened as you walked through the door, turn around and come back another time.
• Understanding a techie who’s in the zone is like understanding the meaning of life. Again–leave the room; come back later.

(more…)

This past weekend I attended the fifth annual Orange County California two-day geek WordCamp (#wcoc). These are affordable tech-centric events held all over the country where WordPress experts share their knowledge in 50-minute sessions (or three-hour workshops) on how to better use your WordPress website or blog (I have four blogs and one website that use WordPress). I was first introduced to it when TimeThief over at One Cool Site Blogging Tips posted on a WordCamp she attended in San Francisco. It sounded over my head–I’m not into coding and PHP and CSS–but she made it sound fun, like I wished I was into programming. That made me open-minded when a girlfriend suggested we attend.

The $40 registration included all the events, lunch both days, snacks (see the pictures of the snacks below), designer coffee (or black-no-sugar like I like it), two T Shirts, a mug… Too much to list. A popular room was the Snack Spot which included everything you imagine coders and programmers and computer folk consume. Snacks were non-stop, varied, abundant, with lots of water and coffee. Few sodas or diet drinks. Interesting…

And it was a blast. Packed with geeks who had personalities. The attendees were open, funny, engaged and engaging, buzzing with energy like overcharged power plants. Everyone was there to learn and share–in equal measure. I was one of the least experienced (for example, one of the presenters started with the ‘easy stuff’ for five minutes–half of which was over my head).

The presenters were eminently qualified. They knew their topics, fielded audience questions without a problem–and weren’t afraid to say they didn’t know but would find out, rarely ended early, never ran out of hints. One of the speakers was the guy who developed Amazon.com’s first website. That’s cred! Overall, presenters were professional, varied in their voice and focus, approachable, on-topic, and more than half, I understood. Why not all? Back to that PHP and CSS stuff that I could learn (I know I could), but who has time?

The most valuable thing I got from #wcoc knowledge. Here are my top twelve take-aways from my two days with these folks:

(more…)

The British-based Telegraph recently posted an article about how technophobia could hold back the use of technology in the classroom. Their experts (including Lord David Puttnam, Member House of Lords and Chancellor of Open University) had this to say:

“We are watching a massively disruptive evolution within education, possibly for the first time in 100 years,” he continued. “A lot of people are finding that very uncomfortable…”

I recently had a conversation with my PLN about how they like technology in their classrooms. Few contest it’s presence (though some teachers absolutely refuse to allow it in the front door–some whole schools even), but is it used because we find it helpful or we’re forced to?

My PLN’s answers were all over the place, but far too many along themes like these–

• unable to squeeze one more thing to learn into my daily schedule
  
• are teachers prepared well to be effective facilitators
• training needs to be ample, effective, constructive, continuous and mandated
• serious lack of training and I’m so over loaded that I do not have the ability to add on one more thing
• we oooh and ahhh ANY TIME technology is used and label it innovative, creative, etc. when in reality it is not
• it is simply about common sense and using the tool that the teacher and the students get the best results with

(more…)

Here’s a free lesson plan from the newest Ask a Tech Teacher book, How to Achieve Common Core with Tech–the Language Strand. This covers K-8, 87 Standards, and has 8 projects.

BTW, the lines at the front of each step are to check off the skill–track progress in case you don’t complete it in one class period. Feel free to print to out for your classroom use:

Essential Question

Why is appropriate vocabulary essential to academic success?

Lesson Summary

Students teach each other domain-specific words through presentations. This reinforces vocabulary, as well as presentation skills.

By the end of this unit, 3^rd-middle school students will review up to 7 L, 4 SL, and 1 WHST, as well as authentically use and review Tier 3 vocabulary (or optionally, Tier 2).

Big Ideas

• Words are beautiful.
• Knowing Tier 3 vocabulary helps students understand the subject.

Materials

Internet, Speak Like a Geek assessments, Speak Like a Geek sign-ups

Teacher Preparation

(more…)

If you teach technology, it’s likely you’re a geek. Even if you didn’t start out that way–say, you used to be a first grade teacher and suddenly your Admin in their infinite wisdom, moved you to the tech lab–you became a geek. You morphed into the go-to person for tech problems, computer quirks, crashes, and freezes.

Overnight, your colleagues assumed you received an upload of data that allowed you to Know the answers to their every techie question. It didn’t matter that yesterday, you were one of them. Now, you are on a pedestal, their necks craned upward as they ask you, How do I get the Smartscreen to work? or We need the microphones working for a lesson I’m starting in three minutes. Can you please-please-please fix them?

Celebrate your cheeky geekiness. Flaunt it for students and colleagues. Play Minecraft. That’s you now–you are sharp, quick-thinking. You tingle when you see an iPad. You wear a flash drive like jewelry. The first thing you do when you get to school is check your email

(more…)

UPDATE

Are you going on road trips? Are you playing with your children, seeing friends you forgot existed, or engaging in retail therapy?

If I have time in between what I HAVE to do, I’ll join you. It might be a virtual trip, but we’ll make it happen.

Here’s what’s on my plate (so far) this summer of 2012:

1. Attending ISTE 2012. It’s in my backyard this summer–San Diego.
   
2. Attending training my school signed me up for on UbD, our new grading program (forgot the name), and robotics. One of the training sessions comes with a free lunch.
   
3. Editing a K-6 technology curriculum and a keyboard book for Structured Learning (a great publisher of edtech resources for the classroom)
4. Working on a tech thriller I hope to finish and get off to publishers. Of course it has lots of cutting edge technology in it and a quirky AI named Otto.
   
5. Picking the brains of my two children. One works in cybercom for the Navy; the other the Signal Corps for the Army. Most of the stuff they can’t tell me, but I love hearing what they can.
6. Working with tech teachers at my local school district on a technology curriculum for their K-6 classes.
7. Presenting at several schools on tech ed topics. If you’re interested in working with me on that, please contact me at this link.
8. Consulting with a Denver school district online to train their new tech teachers in what to teach in their computer labs next year.
9. Getting back to my inquisitive, curious roots. I used to spend hours figuring out how to solve problems, find solutions, determine what made something tick. Now, I’m too busy. I can feel the rift in my spirit, my sapped energy, my fuzzy brain. This summer, I’m getting back to that. Here’s my promise:

For the next six weeks, when I see something techie I don’t understand, I’ll stop and ask the essential questions:

(more…)

Celebrate your geekiness. Flaunt it for students and colleagues. Play Minecraft. That’s you–you are sharp, quick-thinking. You can’t help but smile when you see an iPad and the first thing you do when you awake is turn on the computer.

It’s OK. Here at Ask a Tech Teacher, we understand. The readers understand. You’re at home. To honor you, I’ve created this poster. It gives fifteen more ways to get your fully geek on as you go through your day:

1. Be smart. Yeah, it feels good
2. That’s my inner Geek speaking
3. Think. Exercise your brain.
4. Waves. Sigh.
5. Repeat after me: People are my friends. Like Siri.
6. Move away from the keyboard–Not.
7.  Some people watch TV. I play with a Rubik’s Cube
8. Be patient. I’m buffering.
9. There must be a shortkey for that
10.  Life needs an Undo key
11. Leave me alone for 2 minutes and I’ll go to sleep
12. Yes, I can fix your computer
13. Like a computer, I do what you tell me to
14. My RAM is full. Come back later.
15. Slow down. My processor isn’t that fast

Want that as a poster? Here you are:

(more…)