Paul Beckermann 0:01 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:16 The topic of today's episode is using AI for first line tech integration support.

Paul Beckermann 0:24 Now let me start by saying that I highly value Instructional Technology coaches. In fact, I served as one for 16 years. Nine of those were in the role of a library media specialist in a smaller district, and then seven years as a district-wide coach in a large district. I found the role extremely fulfilling and impactful. It was rewarding to see teachers consistently solve instructional challenges and grow as an instructional designer as a result of our collaboration about technology integration together.

That said, I'm also a realist. Despite the value brought to a school by Instructional Technology coaches, the truth is, they're not always available right when that inspiration strikes, right when you need them. In the best-case scenario, there may be one coach per building. Maybe you can get an appointment to meet with that person the next day, or maybe later in the same day. In many cases, however, there may be one coach supporting multiple buildings. At times, you may have to wait days or even weeks to meet with your coach in person.

While I definitely encourage you to reach out to your human tech coach whenever possible, I also believe that generative AI can help fill the gaps when the human is unavailable. While not perfect, generative AI can act as a personal technology coaching partner that you can consult anytime. Whether you need lesson ideas, tech integration strategies, or support differentiating your learners, AI is ready to brainstorm, plan, and refine with you. The AI is always available. It's not judgmental, and it never gets tired of your questions.

All right, let's look at four ways that you can leverage generative AI as a virtual tech coach.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 2:10 Here is your list of tips.

Paul Beckermann 2:14 Number one, collaborate with AI as a lesson design partner. This is one of the easiest ways to get started using AI. You can call on the chatbot to help you brainstorm ideas for delivering your lesson. Because generative AI is trained on billions of pieces of data, it can draw upon ideas shared by countless educators from across the country and world. It can make connections for us based on that content that we would never have the capacity or time to complete.

For example, in this scenario, you might enter a prompt like this: "Design a three-day lesson on ecosystems for fifth graders that integrates digital research and a multimedia presentation." Or maybe this: "Suggest ways to use collaborative documents to support group work in a high school history project." AI will respond with ideas that you can review, revise, and use as desired.

Now it's important to note that AI isn't perfect. It's simply predicting what content you may want based on the text in your prompt.

Paul Beckermann 4:06 If you see something that you don't like, don't hesitate to tell AI to generate something different. If you are presented with a list of examples and you like one best, then ask the AI to expand on that specific option.

Similarly, you can ask AI to integrate specific tech tools that your students have available by indicating that your students have access to a Chromebook, the internet, Google Workspace, maybe Canva, and research databases. You can guide the chatbot to providing examples that are most relevant to your available resources and your student experiences.

As you go through the process, you may also discover that the AI will prompt you about follow-up questions. It's become really common for the chatbots to ask questions such as: "Would you like me to format this into a one-page document that you can download?" Or, "Would you like me to generate an assessment that can be used with this lesson?" Or possibly, "Do any of these examples sound especially on target for your needs?"

Paul Beckermann 5:07 Don't be afraid to engage with AI as if it were a human. Answer the questions. Have a conversation. Share what you like or what you don't like. Provide follow-up details to help refine the response you've gotten. And remember, you are always the final judge of the information you receive. Just like with humans, AI can make mistakes. They can give us ideas we don't like. They can misinterpret our questions or go down the wrong path. Through thoughtful follow-ups, however, you can generate content that will meet your needs.

Number two, differentiation and support. Rather than using AI to generate a lesson from scratch, you can also use it to help you refine lessons that you are already using or have planned. For example, you might have a digital storytelling unit that you've designed. Let's say you like most of it, but you're concerned that it's not very differentiated to the different levels of reading proficiency of your students.

Paul Beckermann 6:07 In this situation, you might paste in your lesson plan and then ask something like, "Provide three ways to differentiate this storytelling assignment for students reading below grade level." Similarly, you might ask for ways to extend your high-end learners. For example, a math teacher might prompt AI like this: "Suggest extension tasks for advanced students in a unit on algebraic expressions using online digital tools." To improve the quality of the results, the teacher may again want to input a copy of the lesson being used or a description of the achievement levels of the students in the class. AI can propose scaffolds, enrichments, and accessibility features, often including strategies that you may not have considered.

Number three, assessment and feedback. As teachers, we all know how important assessment and feedback are to the learning process. We also know how time-consuming this can be.

Paul Beckermann 7:10 I know I've personally felt guilt around not providing as much personalized feedback as I wanted to for my students. AI can again help here. It's often really good at designing assessments and streamlining feedback channels.

When generating assessments for a project where students are creating using technology, you might prompt with something like this: "Create a rubric for a collaborative science video project." To make the rubric most useful, you want to include details about the project as well as content standards being addressed. Sharing the grade level is also very helpful.

When looking for ways to provide student feedback, you could enter a prompt such as: "Generate reflection prompts students can respond to after completing a digital research task." Again, providing more specific details will improve the outcome. The chatbot might suggest formative check-ins and digital tools that make collecting student thinking faster and easier.

Paul Beckermann 8:07 Another option is to leverage tools like School AI, which have student-facing chatbots that can be customized to your lessons and are actually used by the students to get real-time feedback on their work. These can be really powerful. If you're not sure how to do something like this, it's a perfect opportunity to ask your AI chatbot for step-by-step directions for how to set this up.

Number four, creativity and inquiry. One of the benefits of tech-rich instruction is that it often facilitates student problem-solving, inquiry, and creation. AI chatbots can help you think beyond traditional learning tasks and help you spark creativity and inquiry-driven learning. For example, you might prompt: "Generate student inquiry questions for a unit on climate change that lead to authentic research projects." Or maybe you type in: "Suggest ways students could use technology to present their understanding of historical events beyond slide decks."

Paul Beckermann 9:02 This type of open-ended prompt can reveal ideas that you may not have considered, such as podcasts, infographics, videos, websites, and interactive exhibits, all powered by student choice and creativity. These are four ways that you might collaborate with an AI chatbot and ways that you might have engaged with your human tech integration coach. Don't use this as an end-all list of options. Instead, I'd encourage you to use it as a starting point to get you brainstorming different ways that you can use AI chatbots as a tech coach.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 9:29 Here's a bonus tip.

Paul Beckermann 9:32 To end the show today, I want to offer four quick tips for building your virtual AI coaching workflow regardless of which type of prompt you ask. So number one, start with small tasks to get comfortable with the process. Maybe begin with parts of a lesson, like lesson hooks, discussion questions, or project ideas. This will make the experience more digestible and accessible.

Number two, layer in detail. As you generate your prompts, specify grade level learning goals and how you want the tech used. This will ensure the outputs you get are more targeted to your specific needs.

Number three, iterate. Don't expect perfect output based on your first prompt. Keep refining prompts and following up until you get more targeted results that will work for you.

And number four, save your best prompts. This tip can save you a lot of time in the future. If you find a prompt that works really well for one lesson, you might be able to reuse the format of that prompt by switching out the specifics and then generating another lesson idea. You can build a virtual coach bank of your best prompts to be referenced later. You might even exchange these with your colleagues.

As I mentioned at the top of the episode, AI won't replace the expertise of your instructional tech coach, but it can extend their reach and give you just-in-time coaching whenever you need it. It can be a partner ready to help you innovate, differentiate, and empower students with technology. In fact, I'd suggest you try it out this week. Pick one unit you're teaching and ask AI how technology could deepen learning and engagement in that unit. You may walk away with ideas you hadn't even considered.

Paul Beckermann 11:17 To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit avidopenaccess.org. Specifically, I encourage you to check out the article 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.