On October 19, 2023 AlphaPlus hosted our eleventh Community Gabfest.
The theme was Engaged Learners.
We used a Jamboard to guide our conversation: Wayfinders Gabfest 11 Jamboard.
We started with these questions:
We had planned for these questions as well but we did not get that far. Maybe we should have a Gabfest about over-prepping 🙂
Before we got into the nitty gritty we warmed up by introducing ourselves in two words:
Then we thought about our own engagement. What keeps us engaged when we are learning and what can be barriers to engagement.
The things that help us stay engaged are:
Somebody asked about the playdough strategy:
The barriers to engagement are:
We had a conversation about some of the points that resonated with us.
We moved into break out rooms to discuss the questions:
And here is what the groups reported back:
How do we engage learners?
How do we know when they are engaged?
A variation on the question of engagement arose.
We will think about this as a future Gabfest topic.
Thank you Gabfesters for your engagement :), knowledge, and wisdom.
On September 21, 2023 AlphaPlus hosted our tenth Community Gabfest.
The theme was “Emergent Curriculum”
We used a Jamboard to guide our conversation: Wayfinders Gabfest 10 Jamboard.
We started with these questions:
You can see the responses to the first question on frame 3 of the Jamboard.
We decided to start with the question posed by a participant: Can we also talk about how we understand the word ‘curriculum’?
What is curriculum?
Where does pedagogy end and curriculum begin?
What does emergent curriculum mean to you?
We settled on the idea that emergent curriculum is based on the principle that people learn most effectively when they are actively engaged in experiences that are meaningful and relatable to their own lives—when the curriculum accounts for their interests, strengths, needs, and lived realities.
And then a participant asked, “Does emergent curriculum require experiential learning?”
Does the teacher involved in emergent curriculum on a day-to-day basis think of it as an exercise of action research?
How does an emergent curriculum approach engage and empower teachers?
And we decided to stop there. This conversation gave us a lot to thing about and raised some questions for the next Gabfest.
Thank you Gabfesters for your enthusiasm, knowledge, and camaraderie.
Sara King from Northern College – Moosonee Campus, Moose Factory, Fort Albany, Kashechewan & Attawapiskat Access Centres and Janet Oettgen from Niagara West Adult Learning Centre share how they are using using social media to effectively attract, engage, teach and stay in touch with their learners and partners.
Quick links/tips and additional resources:
On June 15, 2023 AlphaPlus hosted our ninth Community Gabfest.
The theme was “ChatGPT – delightful or scary?”
This topic came from our discussion at Gabfest 8. We wanted a place to talk about what we are finding delightful about ChatGPT and “some of these things that scare the living daylights out of us. I mean, if we can’t have each other to talk about this, then we are alone in our fear and that’s not a good place to be.”
We used a Jamboard to guide our conversation: Wayfinders Gabfest 9 Jamboard.
We started with a little background on ChatGPT in particular and Artificial Intelligence in general. We shared our experiences and these resources:
What is ChatGPT? from AlphaPlus: a resource a a resource for teachers/instructors with explanations and ideas for how to use ChatGPT for learning and program administration in an adult literacy setting.
My Digital Companion: Making Sense of ChatGPT from Contact North: a resource for students/learners to help them use this tool safely, ethically and creatively for learning.
ChatGPT: Leveraging AI to Support Personalized Teaching and Learning in the June 2023 Adult Literacy Education Journal by Sarah Cacicio and Rachel Riggs: a resource for teachers/instructors with ideas for how to use ChatGPT for learning in an adult literacy setting.
Leveraging ChatGPT Instead of Banning from Contact North: a resource for teachers/instructors with ideas for how to use ChatGPT for learning in a college setting.
EdTechTeacher Chat GPT Tips by Tom Daccord: a resource for teachers/instructors with ideas for how to use ChatGPT for learning in a K-12 setting. You can find links to the tip sheets in our resource (they are not easy to find on the EdTechTeacher website).
People were asking about text-to-speech options and Guylaine shared this resource: Speech recognition and text to speech tools for various devices
We talked about where we are on the delightful to scary continuum.
We were pretty much dotted across the continuum.
We did not all stay in a fixed place.
As one person said at the closing of the Gabfest, “I felt like I was watching a ping pong game. I was going from one side to the other.” Many of us are in a place where we read one thing and we feel quite positive and then read another that fills us with apprehension.
Here are some of the things people have tried so far:
We asked three questions:
Somebody posed the question about what happens if we stop using certain skills ourselves and turn them over to AI.
“What do people think about the things that technology can do for you as opposed to you doing it for yourself? Is that of value? Is that an asset? Is that threatening?”
What skills and abilities will we lose if we do not do our own problem-solving when we are writing?
As one participant reported from a breakout room discussion:
“You can you can use AI to write a great cover letter or a great essay but what happens when the rubber meets the road and you actually have to do something on your own. At that point, we’d call them pseudo skills to be able to solve something or write something — you just don’t have those fundamental tools. It’s the ultimate fake it till you make it. Are we are we encouraging people to to take the easy road? One of the things that came out of our discussion in our group was that we have to teach learners that this is a tool like computer is a tool, or hammer is a tool, or a screwdriver is a tool. It’s a tool, and you have to learn how to use it properly because if you use a hammer the wrong way, you end up with a very sore thumb.”
We talked about some of the ways that technology supports literacy learners who are working with emerging literacy skills and how tools such as Grammerly help literacy learners, student writers and anyone struggling to write clear sentences.
We had a conversation about how text-to-speech options support emergent writers and Guylaine shared this resource: Speech recognition and text to speech tools for various devices
We talked about the value of essay writing. In programs where learners are moving on to further education, a lot of time is spent on learning how to write essays. We talked about how this skill is something we only use in school and that many people will not need these skills once they have completed their school-based education. What other things do we learn by writing essays and are these things useful to us in our beyond school settings? We didn’t get to all the answers but the question of what we gain and what we lose when we adopt new technologies is always an interesting one.
We talked about the ways that AI will impact the work of preparing literacy learners for a world where AI exists. Some of our questions are:
We talked about how new technologies can amplify inequities. We saw some of the ways this had profound impacts on people during the pandemic. We touched on the idea of an AI bill of rights and how applications of AI beyond educational ones — such as facial recognition — can increase barriers along with gains in efficiency and convenience.
“There are always fears around new tech… It’s a good thing, it motivates us to find ethical and equitable solutions 🙂
Or maybe it’s the end of the world… Hard to say!”
Thank you Gabfesters for your energy, generosity, wisdom and friendship. With your help, we won’t fall off the learning curve.
ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technology that allows you to have human-like conversations and much more with a chatbot. The language model can answer questions, and help you with tasks such as composing emails, essays, and code.
ChatGPT takes online writing tools such as QuillBot to the next level—or the next few levels—by leveraging the knowledge stored on the internet to respond to queries and requests.
ChatGPT is designed to simulate human-like responses to text-based communication.
It is built on an architecture that mimics the human brain called the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) model. The GPT architecture allows ChatGPT to generate natural language text that is highly coherent and contextually appropriate.
ChatGPT uses a large database of written text, such as books, articles, and websites, that it has been pre-trained on. When a user inputs a message or question, ChatGPT uses this pre-trained knowledge to generate a response that it believes best answers the question or provides a relevant response to the message.
See some additional resources below and in the ChatGPT Gabfest summary.
Eduaide.AI – specifically for teachers
Perplexity – ChatBot and search engine
Anthropic Claude – an AI workplace assistant
Bing Chat (Microsoft chat bot and search)
ChatPDF
Google AutoDraw
Google Duet AI – for people with access to a Google Workspace account
GrammarlyGO
Microsoft Designer
Microsoft Copilot
Quizlet Q-Chat
Google Gemini
And the controversial AI image generators:
DALL-E 2
Midjourney
Canva: Text to Image or Magic Edit
Padlet: I Can’t Draw
Adobe Firefly
Open Prompt Book from CampGPT at the Ed Tech Centre @ World Education: a resource for and by adult educators about how they use AI mostly as a brainstorming tool. As they report, “Over and over again in CampGPT, educators describe the use of chatbots as a great “starting point.” In fact, some find that using these tools is most effective for generating ideas rather than ready-to-use materials.” Here is a description of the Open Prompt Book: “In CampGPT, educators experimented with generative AI-enabled tools like chatbots and image generators to learn and explore together. Their work and insights have been compiled in the Open Prompt Book from CampGPT. Throughout this prompt book, you’ll learn more about generative AI, what educators use it for, and key tips and tricks.”
AI for Learning and Work from the Ed Tech Centre @ World Education: You can find the recordings of the four Generative AI EdTech Bytes that cover the applications and implications of generative AI for education (YouTube Playlist) plus a series of blog posts about the use of ChatGPT and AI in education.
ChatGPT: Leveraging AI to Support Personalized Teaching and Learning in the June 2023 Adult Literacy Education Journal by Sarah Cacicio and Rachel Riggs: a a resource for teachers/instructors with ideas for how to use ChatGPT for learning in an adult literacy setting.
My Digital Companion: Making Sense of ChatGPT from Contact North: a resource for students/learners to help them use ChatGPT safely, ethically and creatively for learning.
Leveraging ChatGPT Instead of Banning from Contact North: a resource for teachers/instructors with ideas for how to use ChatGPT for learning in a college setting.
10 Practical Ways Faculty and Instructors Can Use AI from Contact North
Contact North has a series of recorded webinars on the use of AI in education.
Super Tutor: AI to Support all Learners from Control Alt Achieve: a 1-hour training video that explores both AI tools (ChatGPT, Google Bard – not currently available in Canada, Diffit, Eduaide, MagicSchoolAI, Brisk, Goblin Tools…) and practical uses (reading, writing, tutoring…) to help support learners. All the resources used in the video are included in a list on the page.
EdTech Teacher Chat GPT Tips by Tom Daccord: a resource for teachers/instructors with ideas for how to use ChatGPT for learning in a K-12 setting.
AI Writing Tools by Erin Stapleton-Corcoran, CATE Instructional Designer and Patrick Horton, CATE Instructional Designer (2023)
Teaching with AI: Stories of how educators are using ChatGPT and some prompts to help educators get started with the tool.
As this is an evolving technology, we’ve been updating this page with resources and things we have been learning about ChatGPT and other generative AI tools.
People often use the term AI to mean all of these things, one of these things, or something altogether different.
Some guides:
Open Prompt Book from CampGPT at the Ed Tech Centre @ World Education: a resource for and by adult educators about how they use AI mostly as a brainstorming tool. As they report, “Over and over again in CampGPT, educators describe the use of chatbots as a great “starting point.” In fact, some find that using these tools is most effective for generating ideas rather than ready-to-use materials.” Here is a description of the Open Prompt Book: “In CampGPT, educators experimented with generative AI-enabled tools like chatbots and image generators to learn and explore together. Their work and insights have been compiled in the Open Prompt Book from CampGPT. Throughout this prompt book, you’ll learn more about generative AI, what educators use it for, and key tips and tricks.”
AI 101 for Teachers – Large Language Model Prompting Guide (slide deck)
ChatGPT Prompts for Teachers: Unlocking the Potential of AI in Education from LearnPrompt.org
GenAI Chatbot Prompt Library for Educators from AI for Education
The Ultimate Prompt Engineering Guide for Text Generation – This site offers a spreadsheet of several hundred prompt examples.
The Prompt Index – a community of prompt engineers is developing an AI prompt database full of prompts for ChatGPT, Bard, Claude 2, Llama, Midjourney, Dalle and Stable Diffusion!
Artists are asking for an ethical AI that respects the three Cs: consent, control and compensation. We are all content creators in the age of AI.
Art and AI Regulation : Implications for arts and culture by Valentine Godard (September 2023)
Recommendations that have been submitted to the Quebec Innovation Council, and to the AI Advisory Council of Canada’s Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says by Dan Milmo at The Guardian (January 2024)
“AI companies’ defence of using copyrighted material tends to lean on the legal doctrine of ‘fair use’, which allows use of content in certain circumstances without seeking the owner’s permission. In its submission, OpenAI said it believed that ‘legally, copyright law does not forbid training’.“
‘New York Times’ sues ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Microsoft, for copyright infringement by Bobby Allyn at National Public Radio (December 2023)
“The ‘Times’ is the first major media organization to drag OpenAI to court over the thorny and still-unresolved question of whether artificial intelligence companies broke intellectual property law by training AI models with copyrighted material.
Courts have said fair use of a copyrighted work must generate something new that is “transformative,” or comments on or refers back to an original work — something the Times argues does not apply to how OpenAI reproduces the paper’s original reporting.
‘There is nothing ‘transformative’ about using The Times’s content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it,’ Times lawyers wrote in the suit on Wednesday.“
OpenAI offers to pay for ChatGPT customers’ copyright lawsuits by Blake Montgomery at The Guardian (November 2023)
“The compensation offer, which OpenAI is calling Copyright Shield, applies to users of the business tier, ChatGPT Enterprise, and to developers using ChatGPT’s application programming interface. Users of the free version of ChatGPT or ChatGPT+ were not included.“
Some people say that using an LLM – large language model – like ChatGPT is like using a calculator but calculators do not show us content that is racist, sexist or homophobic. We can work on our critical thinking skills to adapt to a AI world but what is the benefit of being exposed to this type of content?
These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI by Lorena O’Neil at Rolling Stone Magazine (August 2023)
“Researchers — including many women of color — have been saying for years that these systems interact differently with people of color and that the societal effects could be disastrous: that they’re a fun-house-style distorted mirror magnifying biases and stripping out the context from which their information comes; that they’re tested on those without the choice to opt out; and will wipe out the jobs of some marginalized communities.”
What ChatGPT Tells Us about Gender: A Cautionary Tale about Performativity and Gender Biases in AI by Nicole Gross (June 2023)
“This paper’s central argument is that large language models work performatively, which means that they perpetuate and perhaps even amplify old and non-inclusive understandings of gender. Examples from ChatGPT are used here to illustrate some gender biases in AI. However, this paper also puts forward that AI can work to mitigate biases and act to ‘undo gender’.”
The Pear, You & AI by Valentine Godard
“The Pear, You and AI is a women-led collaborative annotation initiative, designed as part of a larger project on Algorithmic Art to Counter Gender Bias in AI. In this initial phase, we are undergoing data collection based on your words and perceptions associated with words like women, beauty, imperfection.“
A People’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence by Mimi Onuoha and Diana Nucera a.k.a. Mother Cyborg via Allied Media Projects (PDF)
“This zine, published in August 2018, explores these questions through a series of explanatory text and whimsically illustrated pages that takes the reader on a journey that demystifies the often opaque world of artificial intelligence.“
5 Ethical Implications of AI in Education: A Guideline for Responsible Classroom Implementation
by Luis Pardo (June 2023)
“A responsible AI implementation in a school context begins with careful planning and consideration of all stakeholders’ needs. This involves ensuring that AI tools are accessible and designed to accommodate diverse learning needs, including those of students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Schools must ensure all students have access to the necessary technology to prevent the widening of the digital divide. The AI tools should be trained on diverse data sets to minimize algorithmic bias and should be designed to offer personalized learning experiences, considering each student’s unique learning pace and style.”
The Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
“The Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative (AIEI) is an innovative impact-oriented community of practice seeking to understand the innumerable ways in which AI impacts equality for better or worse. We work to empower ethics in AI so that it is deployed in a just, responsible, and inclusive manner.”
AI and education: guidance for policy-makers from UNESCO (2021)
“…while AI might have the potential to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, the rapid technological developments inevitably bring multiple risks and challenges, which have so far outpaced policy debates and regulatory frameworks. And, while the main worries might involve AI overpowering human agency, more imminent concerns involve AI’s social and ethical implications – such as the misuse of personal data and the possibility that AI might actually exacerbate rather than reduce existing inequalities.”
One in five Canadians using generative artificial intelligence tools from KPMG (June 2023)
“A survey of 5,140 Canadians found 1,052 (20 per cent) have used generative AI to help them do their jobs or schooling. The most common uses include research, generating ideas, writing essays and creating presentations. Respondents say the use of the technology has enhanced productivity and quality, created revenue and increased grades but, in the process, they are engaging in behaviour that could create risks for their employers.”
More than one third of Canadian businesses experimenting with ChatGPT from KPMG (April 2023)
“A majority of Canadian businesses are aware of the risks of having poor quality data, with more than half (54 per cent) admitting they are very concerned their organization might be making decisions based on poorly designed AI algorithms, and yet only 44 per cent regularly retaining independent third-party experts to vet or assess their AI algorithms for errors and bias.”
Automation Nation? AI Adoption in Canadian Businesses from The Dais at the Toronto Metropolitan University (September 2023)
“In all businesses with five or more employees, as of the end of 2021, only 3.7 percent of firms say they had adopted artificial intelligence in any way.”
Canada’s AI imperative – From predictions to prosperity from Deloitte (November 2018)
“Truthfully, there are still many unknowns about general AI’s potential and humanity’s ability to grasp it. But regardless of whether we ever reach the point of general AI, there’s still a clear imperative for a country and its businesses to invest in AI technologies, and to shape the economic and social conditions required to foster their uptake.”
The CommonCraft library of videos is designed to help us introduce and explain complex subjects in about three minutes. Most come with a transcript and lesson plan. Close captioning is available.
Find the transcript for this video here: Generative AI explained by Common Craft
Download a lesson plan
Find the transcript for this video here: Large Language Models (LLMs) AI explained by Common Craft
Download a lesson plan
Find the transcript for this video here: Chatbots and AI explained by Common Craft
Download a lesson plan
The SAMR model was developed in 2010 by education researcher Ruben Puentedura and lays out four tiers of online learning, presented roughly in order of their transformative power.
SAMR is a reflection tool that can help educators think about how digital technology integration is supporting learning in specific blended learning lessons and activities.
The SAMR model gives educators a common way of communicating about technology integration. The SAMR framework can help us talk about the ways we are using technology, assess technologies to see how they will fit our context and help us plan future uses.
SAMR helps us ask and answer questions about what teachers and learners will gain from the technology before implementing it.
SAMR should not be regarded as a mountain to climb. Good technology integration isn’t about living at the top of the SAMR model; it’s about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy—or strategies—for each context and learning outcome.
Dr. Puentedura proposed that curriculum becomes more learner-centred and activities become more learner-driven as we move from substitution to redefinition but, teachers have to consider the capacity of the program to support inventive uses of technology and the capacity of learners to use technology in inventive ways.
When planning the integration of digital technology into activities, lessons and curriculum, teachers often start with substitution and modification. As teachers and learners become comfortable in a technologically enhanced learning environment, the last two levels of the SAMR model—modification and redefinition—can be added to the mix.
We can use digital technology to support learner agency as they make choices over how, when and where to learn. As they expand their power over their own learning, learners will enhance their ability to make choices over the what and the why. Facilitators leverage digital technology and online learning to give learners flexibility over the rate and pace at which they learn.
Digitally-enhanced and online learning spaces provide learners with opportunities to make decisions about how to learn or how to demonstrate learning. Empowering learner voice and choice over what materials they access or how they complete assessments can increase learner autonomy in a way that is manageable for learners.
Digitally enhanced and online learning means learning can happen anywhere and at any time. Facilitators and learners can be in the same bricks-and-mortar spaces or at a distance from each other. Having access to online learning materials, especially environments that provide feedback, provides learners with choice over when to learn.
We can provide choice in simple ways by allowing learners agency over the pace, time and place of learning. We can create a doc with links, a full HyperDoc or something in between—depending on the needs of the learners and our own capacity for prep time—that gives learners agency over a learning pathway.
Being creative and finding engaging options for learners to explore and develop their own “personal sense of wonder” while learning inspires teachers and learners alike.
A HyperDoc is a digital document—such as a Google Doc—where all components of a learning cycle have been pulled together into one central hub. Within a single document, students are provided with hyperlinks to all of the resources they need to complete that learning cycle.
The Basic HyperDoc Lesson Plan Template from HyperDocs Templates for Getting Started nicely illustrates how a lesson cycle can be incorporated into a hyperdoc.
To help practitioners who are exploring the use of HyperDocs to enhance learner agency, AlphaPlus has a created a website dedicated to the creation and use of HyperDocs in adult literacy where you will find tips and examples.
On May 11, 2023 AlphaPlus hosted our eighth Community Gabfest.
The conversation starter was “What is your favourite blended learning resource? And why?”
We received a suggestion that the Gabfest may be a good place to share ideas for good resources, strategies and tools for blended learning— the kitchen-tested stuff that practitioners find useful and effective in a variety of settings.
We used a Jamboard to guide our conversation: Wayfinders Gabfest 8 Jamboard.
We started by brainstorming what we are looking for in resource recommendations – what elements are important to us.
We asked three questions:
And here is the list we came up with:
Citizen Literacy app (useful for learning disabilities/difficulties, uses a phonetic approach, can use the app on an Android or you can access the lessons on the website)
Teach Online from Contact North
Linkedin Learning and Gale Learning
Virtual reality (e.g. Body swaps – Soft Skills simulations): through Contact North centres, literacy programs can use these tools at no cost
Maps apps (various ways to use them)
Music streaming apps (Lyrics for reading, pronunciation and poetic writing)
Podcasts (transcripts for vocabulary development, digital skills, reading skills)
Fair chance learning (Achievia – Microsoft apps training)
Informable app from the News Literacy Project
CBC Gem Video – You are Soaking in It
The video is no longer available on Gem. I cannot find it online anywhere so far. Here is the documentary webpage and press kit.
More recommended resource lists:
Thank you Gabfesters for your energy, generosity, wisdom and friendship. With your help, we won’t fall off the learning curve.
We hear about the challenge of embedding digital skills in literacy learning when working with learners who have beginner literacy skills or digital skills that do not meet the requirements of an educational setting.
Visit our Computer Basics Google site to see a collection of resources you can use to to support learners who are trying to “catch up” on digital skills.
You will find a collection of places that support learners with beginner literacy skills who want to learn more about using digital devices and leveraging connectivity for learning.
There are Lessons and Tutorials that you can use as a curriculum, build into your own curriculum or supplement a curriculum you are using as well as Lessons and Tutorials created by Ontario Literacy and Basic Skills programs.
Under the Standards tab we have collected resources to help literacy learners reflect upon and assess their computer skills.
Lots of people know about and use GCFGlobal (GCFLearnFree – edu.gcfglobal.org) resources as a place to send learners and to learn about techy stuff themselves.
Here are some other sites for getting started reviewed on this site:
You can read more about these places to learn at the AlphaPlus Computer Basics site under the Lessons and Tutorials tab.
You will find activities from these sites organized by topic at the AlphaPlus Digital Technology Readiness site Table of Contents where you will find some basics (parts of a computer, the mouse and the keyboard, etc.) under Getting Started. The rest of the topics are to help learners get ready for using digital technology for learning.
Activities from these sites are also accessible through the Digital Skills Library where they have been indexed and are searchable.