Chemene's 337 Site

This week was a very fun and interesting one. I have personally always been nervous to use AI, and I have also been somewhat displeased with its impacts on the art world. However, this week I gained some insight into the benefits of AI, especially within the academic and learning setting.

Not only was I able to quickly create resources I was able to use with my current students, I was also able to play around and have quite a bit of fun with different AI resources. I especially enjoyed using ChatGPT and was able to create a number of math questions (and answer keys) for my students to practice certain skills that we have been working on in class.

When I plugged in the prompt for this weeks blog post into ChatGPT it was interesting to read the different ways I could get it to explain the SAMR and TPACK models. I was able to ask it to write it for me in an elaborate way, a concise way, and even for it to put the information for me into a flow chat. I found its responses to be accurate, and I found it interesting to read the answers after the AI was prompted in different ways. I found asking for the information to be placed into a flow chart to be the most simple way for ChatGPT to explain those two models, I think this is because this was the most concise response.

Overall I really enjoyed not only learning more about AI but also getting the opportunity to explore various uses for different formats of AI that currently exist. And as an educator I am really grateful for having been introduced more to this, as there are truly so many ways that this is beneficial. I am really excited to explore the use of AI in teaching, learning, and creating resources.

1st screencast- forms

This week I created a screencast of myself exploring through using forms on microsoft. I have honestly never use microsoft for anything other than word really, so this was a cool experience for me to realize the multitude of benefits that exist merely at my fingertips simply within microsoft.

I also realized the benefits of being able to do something as simple as screencast. In a day such as today where the expectations are huge on not only teachers, but also students, it is imperative to be able to streamline learning and make it not only engaging but also coherent for all students. By being able to prepare lessons with screen casting it allows for educators to place a personal touch on their lessons, which can be a helpful factor in terms of increasing student engagement.

There are many examples of where multimedia learning principles were not followed by me in the past. However, it is largely due to the fact that I am not completely comfortable with many aspects of technology and due to certain limitations of technology (such as accessibility) that exist. Nevertheless, I do see the benefits of having technology boost a lesson, and I also think that this course is pushing me to see the very many benefits that exist with using technology to learning. And as is explained by the TPACK model which was introduced in 2006 by Mishra et.al of Michigan State University it is important for educators to be balanced in terms of their content knowledge, pedagogy and technology use.

Now I will continue to push myself to look a little beyond my comfort zone in term of technology assisting me in the classroom. I am hopeful that this will not only benefit my students, but that it will also help me to streamline the work I need to do in class. Which in turn will allow me to be more present with my students are the classroom learning, as opposed to always needing to be present in terms of what is required next.