The focus of this week was artificial intelligence in the classroom, and how AI platforms can be beneficial, or detrimental to teaching and learning.
We’ve learned throughout this semester that聽Chat GPT, in particular, can be a tool for educators and learners to use for guidance, entertainment, and to “focus on the聽process of learning聽and not just the聽product“鈥攖he last point can be difficult for users to grasp since this website generates answers and information in mere seconds. With this in mind, this free platform should never be used to cheat, and its information should not be taken and used as one hundred percent factual. These precautions are intuitive, but even so, I have avoided using Chat GPT until recently as our cohort has begun discussing its efficient and practical qualities for our future teaching careers.聽
I want to emphasize an interesting point that our professor outlined in today’s class: the importance of “celebrating humanness” and that AI cannot generate an authentically personal, human response. We should celebrate our opinions, interests, and perspectives in our teaching practices, as this is incredibly valuable and genuine for students to receive.
Thinking back to my initial experience with open AI, I was actually excited to experiment with the visual version:聽DALL-E! I absolutely love this platform when used respectfully. I love visual arts, but it can be difficult to visualize or conceptualize an image from my mind. It’s a great tool for defining artistic intentions and expanding your creativity. I would never have had the time to paint a small bear working with beads in oil paint (an adorable image I have used on this blog!), but I am so glad to have created that rendition with AI. Like the writing tool, I always try to use this website with respect and patience, always crediting the images it provides since there is a grey area in copyright for all AI-generated content.
To demonstrate my use of this platform, I asked DALL-E to generate a version of one of my favourite paintings, based on my prompt: “an abstract, colourful rendition of Claude Monet’s “The Water Lily Pond“, oil paint.”
This was not what I was picturing in my head, but this is such a cool adaptation of the original! It almost looks like small islands surrounding a waterfall.
This was super fun to play around with, though I am not yet this comfortable with its written counterpart! I hope to find more resources on how to effectively and meaningfully use these platforms as a teacher and learner in the future.