What is Artificial Intelligence

 What is Artificial Intelligence?

Image Source: Mark Tech Post

Before this class, I never really thought about Artificial Intelligence or AI. I knew that people were talking about how AI could write papers, answer questions, and do mostly everything a human could do when it comes to using the internet. I have over heard conversations with others about using it in the classroom like creating lesson plans for specific students or creating comments on report cards. I have never thought about that before. I do think that advancing the technology usage with our students is great, however, these kids especially at a young age need to make connections and relationships with real humans before connecting them to an online human. I have only interacted with a few AI computer systems; one of them being snapchat. Randomly one day, everyone had a friend named MyAI. I had no idea what this was until I went onto Instagram and TikTok and the whole Snapchat population was talking about it. My AI on Snapchat takes pictures, send snaps, answers questions, and ask questions. These computer systems are programmed to answer questions based on patterns and data that was collected before they were used. Recently, my friend sent me a TikTok that was a video of a girl messaging a robot or an artificial intelligence system about her relationship with a boy because all of her friends were sick of her talking about it. Before today, I have had zero interest in learning about AI or using AI especially when it comes to teaching. Teachers tend to stick to what they are good at instead of exploring new ways of teaching. 

Image Source: The Insane App

While I was doing my research for this topic, I realized that most of my daily digital applications have some sort of artificial intelligence. My Alexa to start, I use her almost every day to ask questions, like the weather outside, to set timers, and what time it is. I even ask it to play music. Of course, this is some sort of system that is preprogrammed to complete these tasks. Also, while I am typing this blog when the blog gives me a recommendation on a word that I might be using, that is another form of AI. With my students, I don't think that I use AI really with them. Again, this is because I have not found much interest in using it myself. I do think that when my students sign in on their tablets using their QRCode, is advanced technology for them but not necessary AI. AI is all around us without even realizing it. As a teacher, I need to be better about researching and experimenting with different types of artificial intelligence to keep up with what the students are used to.

Image Source: WBCOM Designs

For this week, I wanted to explore different artificial intelligence tools that could be used in a primary grade level classroom. Below is a list of the resources that I have found to be useful, and I want to start using them with my students. 

Scribble Diffusion: This tool turns students designs or scribbles into an actual picture. This would be perfect for brain breaks and for students to become more confident in their drawings. I could also use this when I need to create a lesson that involves some kind of drawing which I am normally horrible at. 

ChatGPT: This tool helps humans brainstorms different ideas. This could be helpful for my students for spelling, writing, how to explain certain math problems etc. This AI can also have access to a microphone so students can speak their thoughts instead of typing them. It also gives students advice to situations they might be going through that they might not want to share just yet. 

Ideogram: Generates images using a description that is given by the user. This can be used for projects for students and be a resource for our students who might speak a second language.

Pictory: Helps turns scripts or writings into videos. Students can use this to turn their writing into visual work. This will help with the writing process by the students understanding the importance of adding details. The program allows voice recordings and editing. 

Antimatter: Makes activities using memes that is relevant to students lives. This AI makes activities based on what teachers are teaching. Teachers can then assign the activities to the students to see how they are doing. The system differentiates the work based on how the student is answering the questions. 

While I was doing my research, I came across many different websites that gave resources when looking at artificial intelligence in the classroom. There are a ton of systems that teachers and students can use to create a successful experience for everyone. I found AI tutors, quiz makers, project supporters, and so much more! 

Citations: 

DitchThatTxtbk. (2024, September 25). 40 AI tools for the classroom. Ditch That Textbook.

Perez, S. (2023, April 19). Snapchat’s AI chatbot is now free for all global users, says the AI will later ‘Snap’ you back. TechCrunch.

I Can Just Google Your Name

 I Can Just Google Your Name

When I first started to get on the internet, I remember everyone; my parents, teachers, and friends would say whatever you put out there on the internet, is there to stay. Everyone can see it. This was a scary thought when I first started to apply to colleges and later jobs because I have been using the internet for years. I never really knew what was on there about me. Now, when I did google my name, nothing was terrible it was more so pictures that I would be tagged in on Facebook or that I posted. It still made me extremely worried when I was applying for jobs because I wanted to make the best impression of myself before they made a decision about me. I knew that they were going to look me up. Now, I have students who want to know personal information about myself or my family that I am not comfortable with sharing and my first graders will say "don't worry, I''ll just google you." It makes me laugh every time just because that is something I would say too but I am twenty-eight and they are six. 

Image Source: Next Avenue 

Digital Tattoo

This week, we researched our own digital tattoo. Like a tattoo, a digital tattoo is technology permanent meaning what is on the internet cannot always go away. Yes, just like a tattoo there are many ways around getting it removed, however, you never know who got their hands on it before you were able to remove it. For this assignment, we were given many different websites to search our names. Since, I have googled my name in the past, I thought I knew everything that was out there on the internet, however, using the different sites I have found more. Below are three sites that used to look up the digital information that is linked to my name. 

Research

Google:

I wanted to start out with going back and googling my name to see what has stayed the same and what has changed. I started out with putting "Lindsey McDill" to get a more accurate search. There were 33,400 results. The first result was my school district, and my account linked to my computer. This is why that showed up. The second two were a LinkedIn account which I do not use and a white page. The other few results on the first page were a Facebook account that is not mine and another white page that was for someone else named Lindsey McDill because it had their age. I also looked up images for my name which has no pictures of me, which changed from the last time I looked up my name there was a picture that I posted a couple years ago to a Weebly account. I decided to log out of my account which I was noted to do before completing this assignment, but I wanted to compare the two. 

Image Source: Google Logged into Account 

Image Source: Google Images Logged into Account 

When I logged out of my account, I received the same results besides my school information. I am completely shocked by this as I assumed there would be a different result. After I googled, I went onto Safari instead of Microsoft Edge, and found that it has comparable results, and it does contain my picture that I thought was on Google (the first picture, the second is another Lindsey).  It also showed my father's book that he wrote that notes my name which also contains the town we live in, my grandfather's obituary and my Weebly account that I made in college.  These searches were a little different from each other. Below are the pictures that represent that. 

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill 

As I was searching, I remembered that most of my accounts are named Lindsey Heather (my middle name), so it is harder for others to find me especially since I am a teacher. Again, I was shocked that you cannot find any of my social media accounts even if you go to the next couple of pages. All that representing me was White Pages for my dad and me. After researching, I released I did a very good job of hiding my social accounts and any information that could possibly be used in a negative way on Google/Microsoft Edge. 

Image Source: Microsoft Bing 

Instant Checkmate:

Image Source: Instant Checkmate

 

Instant Checkmate is a website that looks up people's public service records. At the start, it asks you to type in your first name, last name, where you are city, and state you are located in or where you were located. It also asks you to check whether you are looking up yourselves information or if you are looking up someone else. When I did this, they then ask you whether you are related to certain people and the range of age you are. This website was able to pull my age, two locations where I have lived, and most of my family members. It, however, did not pull up my sister's name which I am very curious about. I am surprised that it did not note that I have lived in Columbia, Missouri as I lived there for four years during college. I am thinking maybe if I change the state to Missouri, it might catch that. 

During my searching, I found other websites that also looks up people's public service record. I wanted to compare Instant Checkmate to Nuwber. Nuwber allows you to search using your name, address, phone number, and email. I searched using all three options. The only two that came to correct information was searching using my name and my address. The image below was what came up when I searched my name. It even found my middle name, which Instant Checkmate just had an H. It also showed my sister's name as a relative instead of my younger brother Kyle and Dad, Kent. 

Image Source: Nuwber

Image Source: Nuwber

Above is the image I was able to capture of the results when putting in my address. This one pulled up a lot of new information. It mentions all my families ages, date of birth, phone numbers, education, length of residency, marital status, and gender. This was the only website that gave this much information. I wish the full background report was free as I am sure there is a lot more information available

Social Media Pages: 

When I searched on Facebook for my name, I did not come up so again, I searched for Lindsey Heather and still nothing. I am very happy that I am a little unfindable. I do have students who say that I was looking you up on my computer, so this is relieving. 

I kept going with the social media pages and looked up my Instagram account. My Instagram name is Lindsey_Not_Lohan. It does come up if you type in my complete username, but it does not show if you type in Lindsey McDill or Lindsey Heather. Someone would need to know that my username is as above in order to see my account. 

Finally, I wanted to see what would come up for my TikTok account. Again, the name is Lindsey Heather. Once again, my account was not a result. 

Image source: Facebook

Image Source 3x: Instagram

Thoughts? 

I am so happy that I have done a great job with keeping my results to a minimum. As I mentioned before, I have researched myself and more accurate results were found of me like my high school cross country records or my soccer teams stats. I must have aged out of those records. I was extremely content with what comes up when you search for me. I always fear that something terrible is going to be attached to my name but that is just because of the adults warning me when I was younger that what is on the internet is never truly erased. I do believe that students should learn this skill about the internet, but I don't think it is the school's responsibility until they are at least at the intermediate level. If parents are allowing their students to have access to the digital world at a younger age, it should be on them to explain the cautions of posting. When it is the school's job, I believe teachers and social workers should come up with a presentation that displays a positive digital tattoo versus a negative tattoo. They could even bring in someone that deals with hiring and share their thoughts. 

Video Source: YouTube

Citations: 

Enriquez, J. (n.d.). Your online life, permanent as a tattoo [Video]. TED Talks.

P. Joyce, S. (n.d.). Why it is Vital that you Google Yourself? Next Avenue.

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Final Week of EDU 776

 Final Week Blog

Image Source: Republic Quote

I truly cannot believe that I am almost finished with this class and that we are three months into the year! It is so crazy how fast time goes by! I have had a great time completing the assignments and becoming a part of the blog world. I even thought to myself I want to start a blog talking about everything that happens daily in my classroom. I know that there would be a ton of teachers who could relate to my stories and who would probably like to add their experiences. For now, I am going to start doing some research on teacher blog pages. I have already found a great one. This blog site titled WAGOLL Teaching has so many different teaching advice from student engagement and learning activities to use in the classroom. Without taking this class, I would have never found an interest in exploring blogs. I am very grateful for this new interest. 

Tools that I have learned from this class: 

My views about technology have not changed that much from the beginning of the year. I still love to use it with my students and in my own personal time. One thing that has changed is the applications that I use. From this class, I learned so many tools that I can use in my classroom from technology tools to engagement. My favorite week was when we were asked to explore different active learning activities. My class and I have already done the Beach Ball Bingo to better their reading comprehension and we completed a Gallery Walk looking at different animals and their traits. These were not necessarily an online activity, but I gained knowledge on active learning and why it is important. I keep going back to the assignment tracker page just to see what my peers researched and how they used/would use the active learning activities in the classroom. I am really excited to keep trying new things and researching new engaging lessons. 

Another tool that I have found useful is analyzing data regarding primary classes and how this helps me as an educator. I have done lots of research on primary grades and how to work with students who are extremely behind. While I was researching, I found out that 1 in 5 students could have dyslexia. This was astonishing to me because of the success that I have had in teaching my first graders how to read, I now can research new ways to work with my students who struggle knowing that they might be the one who is struggling to view the letters correctly. From this, I found different accessibility tools for my students that they could use. I recently made sure that all my students knew how to use the Speak To Text on their tablets, that way they can use the search engine without having to be able to spell it. My students tend to get so frustrated with being on their tablets and not knowing how to get to a certain website. The accessibilities that researched about made it stress free for my kiddos. As a young teacher, I already had good idea of all the resources technology has for teachers, however, this class just opened my eyes to how much more there is in the digital world. I am someone who would say they are pretty techy, now I will not say that as I have learned so much just from this six-week course. 

GIF Source: Art Pictures

The first week of this class we were asked to pick a GIF of how we feel about the upcoming weeks of being in EDU 776. This is the GIF that I posted. The funny thing is during that time I did not know how to upload a GIF, so it plays, and now I do. There is so much blogger has to offer it is amazing. I still feel this way about this course because of everything that I have learned. From creating my own blogs, to viewing my classmates, I gained information that will help me become a better teacher with using technology. If I taught older grades, I think I would use blogs as a way to complete assignments, that is how much I have enjoyed writing them. The exploring for me will continue as I end this course. I want to say thank you to everyone who has engaged with my blogs, and who have changed the way I view internet usage in my classroom and personal life. This has been one of the best experiences I have had while taking a college course. 

Signing out for now, but I will continue to view and write blogs 💗

                                                                            Citations:

                        Learning Ally. (2024, June 21). Dyslexia Awareness Strategies from Learning Ally.  

Speak to Text-Bing. (n.d.). Bing.            

 WAGOLL Teaching blog. (n.d.). WAGOLL Teaching.