SchoolAI

SchoolAI

In today’s episode, we'll explore how SchoolAI and tools like it can make the learning and integration of artificial intelligence easier for educators. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

#303 — SchoolAI

Keywords

ai, teachers, sidekick, students, options, prompted, explore, space, great gatsby, symbolizes, generator, provide, academic standards, chose, create, clicked, felt, assistant, including, text

Speakers

Paul (98%), Transition (2%)

Paul Beckermann  0:01  

Welcome to Tech Talk for teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann. 

Transition Music  0:05  

Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So what's in the toolkit? Check it out. 

Paul Beckermann  0:17  

The topic of today's episode is SchoolAI. There are a few realities I've been noticing lately regarding AI and education. 

Transition Music  0:26  

Let's count it, let's count it, let's count it down. 

Paul Beckermann  0:30  

Here's my list. One, AI is dominating a lot of conversations. Two, students are using AI, especially at the secondary level. Three, teachers want to keep up with AI. Four, teachers also want to keep students safe, and they don't want students to use AI to cheat. Five, at the same time, teachers know that they need to empower students and teach them how to use AI responsibly. Six, teachers are so busy that it's hard for them to keep up, and seven, teachers really need an on ramp to using AI in their classroom. So that's the reality I'm seeing in our schools. As teachers look for ways to get up to speed and keep up with generative AI, they could wait for school professional learning opportunities, or they could experiment with one of the leading chat bots, like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. While those are good options, for many, they're either too late in coming or a little too wide open. Just like individual teachers, school districts are trying to find the best path forward. And for those diving into ChatGPT for the first time, the blinking cursor and the empty text box can feel a bit overwhelming, leaving users with questions like, Where do I start? What do I need to know before I start typing? What can this even do for me? And is it safe? If you don't want to wait for district PD to catch up, but you want some sort of guidance, you might consider options like SchoolAI. These tools provide a helpful structure to generative AI, offer some safeguards, and provide an educational context using language that teachers will understand. In other words, it simplifies it and presents it in a way that makes sense in an educational context without needing to be an expert on AI. There are other programs out there like MagicSchoolAI, which we've reviewed in an earlier episode, but today I'm going to explore SchoolAI and take it for a little test drive. I'll share that experience with you, and then you can decide if this is something you'd like to explore. 

Transition Music  2:37  

How do I use it? Integration inspiration. Integration ideas. 

Paul Beckermann  2:44  

Let me take you through the steps of my experience. Step one, accessing the program. I didn't even know where to find this program, so I googled SchoolAI, and found it at the top of the search results. I clicked the link, which took me to SchoolAI.com, I was greeted by a screen that told me this site offered an all-in-one AI platform for my classroom, and it was designed for K-12 students with built-in monitoring and controls for teachers. This sounded good to me, so I clicked the Free for Teachers button. From there, I was prompted to set up my free account. I chose the "Continue with Google option. I could have also signed in with Microsoft or set up an account with another email, but Google was convenient for me. Once I was logged in, I was greeted with a home screen that suggested three options at the top: Sidekick, which it said was intended to give my students managed access to their very own AI assistant; Find a Space, which said I could discover thousands of ready-to-launch spaces organized by category; and Create a Space, which I found would allow me to create a custom space to meet my students' needs, and that AI would make it easy for me. 

All right. Then on to step two, Exploring Sidekick. The Sidekick icon looked really inviting, so I chose that option first, plus it said it was popular. The introduction to Sidekick said, "Students can take advantage of AI's powerful capabilities to explore various topics, answer questions, quiz themselves, and more. You have full access to all chat sessions, allowing you to monitor student activity." The screen contained form fields to fill out, and it was pretty easy to see what to do. One field prompted me to describe what I wanted the Sidekick to do with my students. So I typed, "I want the Sidekick to help students analyze a piece of literature, especially identify literary elements and themes." There were additional fields that prompted me to describe my class, suggest how I wanted the sidekick to interact with my students, including the type of tone it should use, and then I could set up rules for the session, like how much assistance the bot should provide. It all felt pretty intuitive, and I felt like I was being guided by an educator who spoke my language. From there, I had several options, including to launch the activity. When I did this, I was given a URL and a QR code that I could share with my students. Well, this was slick. I could paste that link in my LMS, project it on the screen, or have students scan the QR with their device cameras. With one of those options, they could get access to Sidekick, and because this entered them into the SchoolAI system, I would then be able to track their progress as their teacher. Nice. I like to be able to see what my students are doing and track their progress. There was also an option for me to preview the Sidekick and to try it out for myself before sharing it with my students. There was even a button that allowed me to get a link to share with my colleagues. That's a nice feature so we all don't need to reinvent the wheel and create our own. When I tested the Sidekick, it politely introduced itself to me. Typing out, Hey there. Let's dive into analyzing a piece of literature together. What literary elements do you notice in the text we're looking at? I typed: Symbolism. The bot replied, "Symbolism in literature is when an object, person, or situation, represents a deeper meaning beyond its literal interpretation. For example, a dove often symbolizes peace. Can you identify any symbols in the text you're analyzing?" I replied, I think the car is a symbol in The Great Gatsby. Sidekick replied, "That's a great observation. How do you think the car symbolizes different themes or character traits in The Great Gatsby? Can you provide specific examples from the text to support your analysis?" To that I replied, I think it might symbolize his wealth. He showed it off, and is a bit reckless with it. He even hits a person. The bot returned, That's a solid interpretation. How do you think Gatsby's car, symbolizing wealth and recklessness connects to broader themes like materialism, social class, and the American Dream in The Great Gatsby? How do these symbols impact the characters in the plot of the novel? Overall, I thought this was a pretty solid interaction, and the Sidekick was on target with its references to the book. I also like how it prompted me for more without giving me all the answers. A student actually could grow from this interaction. 

Step three, Explore Spaces. So after finishing Exploring the Sidekick, I decided to look into Spaces. I discovered that Spaces is SchoolAI's name for an AI learning experience or custom learning space. The "Find a Space" section let me pick something that was already made. For a busy teacher, this could be really great. I could choose options like the Sidekick, which I already tested out, Bell Ringer, Exit Ticket, and Video Explorer. There was also a collection of subject tutors for all ages. This included options for the main subject areas like English, history, math, science, and others. These options felt much like the Sidekick, except they were already targeted to specific content area to save me time. It appears that SchoolAI is doing some helpful prompt engineering behind the scenes to help focus the area of expertise for each tutor. The experience using them was much like using the Sidekick. At the bottom of the page, there was a library of teacher-created spaces that I could browse and use with my students. If I liked it but it wasn't quite right for my students, I could remix it and make it my own. That was nice. Next I explored the Create a Space section. The format here was much like the other experiences on the platform, and I like that consistency. I think it'll help reduce the learning curve when moving from feature to feature within the program. The Create a Space option was more wide open than the premade spaces, and it gave me greater freedom to shape what I wanted to create. There were once again, form fields for me to enter, including a title, my AI prompt or description of the activity and instructions, alignment to academic standards, a teacher and student description, as well as the ability to choose my own cover image. From there, the experience was, again, like the others I tried. I could launch it, preview it, share it with my colleagues. It felt very much like creating a custom GPT with ChatGPT, but with educational guidance. 

In step four, I explored Tools. I clicked the Tools option at the top navigation menu. This took me to a menu of Teacher Tools that reminded me of the ones that I had seen in MagicSchool.ai. Some of the options included lesson planner, multiple choice quiz generator, rubric creator, worksheet generator, text leveler, IEP goals and IEP generator, behavior intervention plan, syllabus, and PLC agenda. These seemed like common tasks that teachers would actually want help with. I chose to try out the rubric generator and was prompted to enter a grade, assignment title, assignment details, a point scale, and even align it to academic standards. I briefly filled out the fields and then clicked Generate. I was given a grading rubric that aligned to what I had entered. I wanted it formatted differently. I wanted it to look like a table, so I asked a follow-up question, asking if it could format the rubric as a table. It did, and it looked great! I could then copy and paste this into my own document to modify and fine-tune as needed. I could see where a teacher would use this. 

Step five, Exploring Assistants. So the last section of the site I explored was the Assistants tab. This was essentially a collection of teacher assistants. There was a co-teacher, an AI and education coach, a curriculum coach, a digital literacy coach, an essay grading assistant, and even a project-based activity expert. I tried out the project-based learning option because I think that while project-based learning is really needed in our schools, not a lot of teachers have experience or training with it. The initial assistance screen looked very much like ChatGPT with a single text field at the bottom, I entered: Can you help me create a coding project? The Assistant responded: Absolutely! And asked me a series of questions about the project I wanted to create, including the grade level, previous learning, outcomes, and details about any coding requirements I wanted. I responded grade seven, no prior experience. gain an understanding to coding, and any free tool is fine. The assistant proceeded to outline a PBL learning experience, complete with objectives, steps to success, and additional resources. It gave me a really good foundation for the project, and I could ask follow up questions as needed to fill in any gaps to provide additional details. It really was like having a coach to work with. 

So after all that, what's my impression? Well, I think it's a really good tool, and believe that it would be helpful for someone who might not know where to begin with AI. SchoolAI gives guidance in an educational context and provides students with a safe and monitored AI experience, something that many cannot get with the regular versions of AI chatbots. This offers a useful space in which to teach students about generative AI and help guide them to develop ethical habits of use. I should also note that this is a freemium product, so you have to pay for some features. While it seems to me that you get enough to start out with, your school can choose to purchase a subscription to get unlimited functionality. If you don't have the option to purchase, I think the free version is usable and worth trying out. It's also important to point out that this is just one product. There are many more on the market. My review of this one is not intended to endorse it as the go-to option. Instead, it's to help you see how AI can become more accessible with this type of go-between product. It can help bridge the gap between education and generative AI, especially for newcomers or those with very little time to spare. I definitely think it's worth exploring. 

To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit AvidOpenAccess.org. Specifically, I encourage you to check out the collection, AI in the K-12 Classroom. And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening, take care, and thanks for all you do. You make a difference. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai