What the Heck, Pear Deck?
Short term relief, long term problems
Here is a lesson I created using Pear Deck. Working with this first hand kind of blew my mind. My initial thought was going to be that there would be some kind of lesson plan with a basic outline, but Pear Deck exceeded those expectations. But for what good?
I am pretty passionate about my patrons learning about AI and good digital citizenship so I took this opportunity to learn a little bit more myself.
When I hopped onto Pear Deck I was met with choosing a lesson plan, typing in the key words of "digital citizenship" and then linked the website of Common Sense Education since I am familiar with their content on digital citizenship and have found that their work is solid and comprehendible for many ages, something crazy happened.
Within seconds, I had a thorough lesson plan with all sort of materials for both me to teach and students to utilize and learn. I explored some more and Pear Deck was even able to make whole Google Slides presentation that is below.
I am truly amazed by the power of this AI technology. There are so many opportunities and resources to use, its almost overwhelming!
Doing this little experiment and testing out AI technology frankly made me sick to my stomach.
Doing this little experiment and testing out AI technology frankly made me sick to my stomach.
Throughout my years of schooling, the most important part of learning in not just getting information to spit back out, but using that information and critical thinking skills to educate and solve problems. Its not about getting the perfect grade, but about the retention o
f information.
So with the thought of knowing that teachers are using these resources, I think it does more harm than good to the whole education system. If we as educators or people in the information world cannot use our own intelligence to come up with a lesson or PowerPoint, how are we supposed to teach and advocate for a better learning environment?
The use of AI is not going away anytime soon. We, as advocates for learning, have the responsibility to yes, show and demonstrate this technology, but also explain how it can be harmful for comprehending new material and information. And as we know, AI does is not always factually correct.
Please take a look at my AI generated lesson that was created all within minutes and the most minimal effort I have ever put into a project and let me know what you would use this resource for.
Hi Josie,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some very good points about using AI to complete projects. I can relate to feeling sick while using AI, because I do as well. I believe it is perfectly natural and healthy to be skeptical of AI. I personally am concerned that we are being encouraged to use AI instead of our perfectly capable human brains. I do not believe AI should be used to do things that require problem solving or critical thinking- it will cause humans to lose their abilities to problem solve or use critical thinking skills. Your statement on how AI is harmful resonates with me as I find it careless and lazy. I do not see how it is any different from plagiarism. Overall, I thought you presented a very good analysis of being forced to use AI for something humans can do just fine.
Josie! I totally agree with your assessment that AI offers a short-term relief but a long-term problem. And I agree that using AI to create entire lesson plans, presentations, etc. is super counter productive, ironic, and overall kind of lame. It's seems odd to preach to kids and students "your thoughts matter" "your voice matters" and then turn around and say "well... not *my* voice". I really believe that what you get is what you give. So if we're giving nothing, then that's all we'll get.
ReplyDeleteHi Josie! I think your fear of AI when it comes to education is so spot on! It's not just the students that make me nervous, but also the educators! I know it can be a timesaver, but at what cost? For example, when looking at your project I had to smile at the exit tick and how it used multiple choice to select a rating. Only AI would think of that. And I agree that we have juggle both aspects of AI, the good it can do but also being aware how it can limit our own growth and push us to create outside of knowledge we already have.
ReplyDeleteAlso, students are smart-they know we don't create everything we use, whether that's through sharing resources with other educators or using purchased or inherited curriculum. So if we are examples to our students, we have to be honest with them, too, and not use AI to replace the work that we should be doing. It has to be a balance. If they can't use AI irresponsibly, then we shouldn't be able to, either! Learning how to use it ethically and responsibly is a goal we all need to have and it should never be used to get out of doing work that we should be doing.
I was at an AI conference this past fall, and someone said that they have started to put footnotes on what they create that states their content was created with the assistance of AI. They said that being honest about it and not hiding it was a good start. And I've reflected on that and think maybe that's how you start being okay with using some assistance. Especially for those of us who aren't super comfortable with it!
I hit enter too quickly! Sorry! This was from Bethany Ginter
DeleteI tend to agree with you entirely on this! It was so easy to simply type in a command and have an entire lesson, with slides and pdfs included, spit back out at me within seconds. Though it was nice to have it all done with minimal effort on my part. As a counselor who might not always have time to lesson plan it could be useful as a starting point, but not as the entirety of the lesson. Using AI for what it's meant to be - a tool - is one thing, but using AI for the entirety of anything is unethical in my opinion and, like Marie commented early, could easily be construed as plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteAH! I did what Bethany did too - this is Lindsay Letourneau!
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