While I have many qualms with how inquiry is being pushed and explained differently by everyone I encounter, I did appreciate an excuse to expand my horizons each week. Furthermore, I liked that we had the opportunity to build our inquiries over a full semester and to switch inquiries when we felt our learning journey was complete.
To summarize I learned…
That I hate baking
But Poetry makes me happy. I glad I took the time to read new poets and collections I might not have gotten to.
Surprisingly my biggest takeaway is my obession with AI image generators (specifically Bing image creator) specifically putting in lines of poetry and character descriptions.
Like come on!!!! for someone not artistic getting to see visual representations of my favourite poems and characters is amazing.
For this week I was curious what ChatGPT would recommend as a Poetry Collection based on my interests.
Below is a screencast:
there is a lot of background noise I would recommend muting the video
After I stopped casting I continued prompting it and very quickly is began suggesting poetry collections that did not exist. It very obviously does not have much data on Canadian female poets or poetry collections themed around women’s experiences and injustices. This is a shame as I know there is a lot of content that does exist out there which is found easily through search engines.
I found this document which was incredibly insightful
In class we talked about the drama of cloud storage and the problem concerning where and why our data is stored. This is an issue but Fippa seems most concerned with consent specifically with the lack of informed consent from teachers and students. Fippa is unhappy not only with the contracts school districts are agreeing to (not negotiating) but mainly with how the end-users (teachers, students, parents) are not taking part in the agreements and do not know what they are agreeing to by simply just logging on.
Another interesting thing was that as google becomes more integrated into school districts (which they accomplish through grants and free trials) it becomes less likely for accomodation to be provided for students and families who do not agree with the terms and conditions (which are obscured to begin with)
I was shocked by the amount of information google has access to and tracks. School districts gain consent by telling students its only for educational purposes however there is no definition of that. If a student searches something, watches a youtube video, looks at a map even for entertainment purposes or otherwise google has that information and considers it educational.
One reason it is considered educational is because the school district and teacher are considered by google to be supervising its use. However Fippa notes that teachers are not trained on how they and their students should or shouldn’t be using their google learn accounts
if a student wants a 10 minute brain break to browse or watch YouTube what would you say? is that educational?
one of my favourite essential questions was:
If our (teachers) benefit of using google classroom outweighs theirs (students) and their risks as minors outweigh ours should we use it? why are we still using it?
This is my slide from the presentation (I created it using Canva)
Here is a screen cast briefly explaining everyone else’s parts:
the concept is three unnamed young women on a night out partying in a city (in my head, Toronto, where the writer spent 10 years of her life). It brings us forwards and backwards in time throughout the night. It is messy and dark and chaotic perfectly representing a night out in Toronto with two friends.
Th title of the collection is swines and on the cover there are three women diving so I thought it would be interesting to ask Bing Microsoft image Designer AI what it thought swans personified as three young women in a dive bar would look like. What they came up with fits the collection swimmingly.
*note my mom was with me when I was generating using microsoft designer and was shocked that most of the renderings looked like me. This makes her and now me wonder if microsoft somehow knows what I look like. A little strange that 80% of the renderings are brunette girls my age with my skin tone and features.
What strategies can we employ as educators to teach the ethical and productive use of AI?
I think a good strategy is to do what has been done in this class and by that I mean explaining how AI works, how it can be unreliable, and the politics or lack there of surrounding it. Ethic and Productivity can be combined as it gives the student the ability to decide for themselves if what is being generated is ethical and how to critically think about that. It’s interesting to think of AI as a means to develop critical thinking because it seems a theme in criticism amognst many is that reliance on AI will prevent us from thinking for ourselves. I disagree.
Develop or incorporate modules that explicitly address the ethical considerations of AI within the curriculum. Cover topics such as bias, transparency, accountability, and societal impact. Integrate case studies and real-world examples to illustrate both positive and negative aspects.
Hands-On Projects with Ethical Considerations:
Assign practical projects that involve designing, developing, or evaluating AI systems. This hands-on experience not only deepens technical understanding but also allows students to grapple with the ethical implications of their work.
Promote Critical Thinking and Collaboration:
Foster a culture of critical thinking by encouraging students to question and discuss the ethical implications of AI. Emphasize collaborative projects, where students work together to consider ethical considerations, promoting a holistic understanding of AI’s impact on society.
Honestly this collection as a whole wasn’t a vibe.
I thought I would like it because it was marketed as capturing the mundane and the city (Toronto)
And I love the mundane, lyrical poetry, and Toronto so I was like heck yeah
Except it was too mundane and not enough City so it was meh
disappointing
the lyrical poetry was good though.
It was also marketed as Canadian but it was like not that Canadian. That was a let down.
There was not much of a theme or narrative, which made me realize when reading and writing collections, I prefer strong cohesion through theme or narrative.
My favourite poems were titled ” ” which paralled a woman being flayed with a sunset and ” ” which had the most city vibes and featured a fifteen year old girl crying in the rain.
Here are AI representations of 15 year olds crying in the rain in downtown Toronto. THEY ARE EXACTLY WHAT I IMAGINED!!!!!!!
I asked ChatGPT how it thinks AI benefits Education this is the top 5 things it came up with:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers several benefits for education, making it a valuable tool in enhancing the learning process. Here are some reasons why AI is good for education:
Personalized learning: AI can adapt to the individual needs of students. It can analyze a student’s learning style, strengths, and weaknesses and provide customized learning materials and feedback. This helps students progress at their own pace, increasing engagement and understanding.
Immediate feedback: AI-powered educational tools can provide instant feedback on assignments and assessments. This quick feedback helps students identify and correct their mistakes, leading to more effective learning.
Accessibility and inclusivity: AI can make education more accessible to a wider range of learners, including those with disabilities. It can provide speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities, translation services, and other tools that accommodate diverse needs.
Automating administrative tasks: AI can automate administrative tasks, allowing educators to focus on teaching rather than paperwork. This can improve efficiency in educational institutions and reduce the administrative burden on teachers.
Advanced analytics: AI can analyze vast amounts of educational data to identify patterns and trends, helping educators make informed decisions. It can be used for predicting student outcomes, improving curriculum design, and identifying at-risk students who may need extra support.
The list had up to 12 points but i thought that was excessive. unsurprisingly it had a lot to say on the topic.
I agree with point one on personalized learning I think we will see this widely implemented in the future.
For point two I am hesistant because we do not and should not trust this “instant feedback” wholely as AIs might not provide accurate and/or appropriate feedback. I do not think this leads to more effective learning. Perhaps more efficient but not more effective.
I think AI is great for Accessibility and inclusion. With the Caveat that access to the technology itself might not be inclusive.
I think Automating administrative tasks for teachers is a great benefit however we must be cogniscient of our responsibilities to ensure these tasks are still done right.
Advanced analytics sounds great in theory but I could see logistical flaws and inequalities and worry of Artificial Halucinations in this context.
One method I thought of to incorporate Gamification into Social Studies Classrooms is through history simulation games.
During my undergraduate education, I was involved with facilitating a number of Crisis Simulations at high school level Model United Nations Conferences. I have never seen students so passionate and engaged about history content. Yes, they were there voluntarily with their friends, but the fact that they chose history crisis simulations as an extracurricular says a lot. Students often expressed they wished they knew about crisis simulations at the beginning of their high school education.
I would love to incorporate History Sims into my classroom and as an extracurricular at any school I end up at. Of course, at Conference there is a competitive aspect of awards being handed out at the end but I believe teachers can creatively replicate this somehow. And honestly, I’ve observed throughout the course of the conference that the awards are a small thing, and students know they are unlikely to get one as there are three for groups of usually 30 students. They actively engage and participate out of fun. And the camaraderie and group dynamics are amazing to watch.
Here are some links to a website on history simulations for more information:
Reflect on what we discussed in this weeks zoom class, including issues in the visibility of certain disabilities, accessibility-minded frameworks (UDL, for example), using web accessibility tools, and other methods for supporting inclusivity. Try using speech-to-text in your post creation.
I used a program called Otter.AI to do speech-to-text. I was having trouble finding a software/website to do the speech-to-text. Otter.AI is meant to record meetings/conversations for professional use. It’s very user friendly and a aesthetic professional platform.
This is what it came up with:
Okay, so this is me using speech to text. I’m using a program called otter.ai. That’s, I think meant a function to like record meetings like for professionals, but it’s just the easiest one I found the platform which actually looks great. I think this would be perfect if you’re interviewing someone, or even maybe to just like us, when students are doing like an oral presentation or something. Yeah, as for that week, that lecture, I thought it was really interesting when we looked at, like accessibility of websites and like contrast colors, and then also UDL since then I’ve like done more assignments, obviously. And I found that it’s once you put your mind to it is really easy to implement UDL because you do a lot of it without realizing it. Like one assignment I was like, Okay, for the write up. I’m just going to connect it to UDL as much as I as much as I could and I connected literally everything to UDL, and all of the like, boxes were ticked and it was like perfect. So, yeah, that’s my thoughts on accessibility. Okay, bye
I thought it fascinating that it creating a summary of the “meeting” using buzzwords
For this week, I read Joshua Whitehead’s (he/him) poetry collection Full-Metal Indigequeer.
I had read the poem Mihokwaniy in an introductory Canadian Literature course during my undergrad and it has sat with me ever since. Mihokwaniy means rose in Whitehead’s cultural language which is also the name of his grandmother for whom the poem is written. Rose Whitehead . Who is not just a murdered or missing indigenous woman. She is a grandmother. She is “a beauty queen extraordinaire” (see pages 99-104) .
I decided to order the collection as a whole when I embarked on this journey of exploring new (to me) forms, themes, and organization of poetry collections. Of all the collections I have acquired, this one is by far the most unique and experimental in form. I went in knowing it was not similar to my own style of poetry. I am glad I went out of my comfort zone because I really did learn a lot.
The collection is from the point of view of an indigequeer rebel computer virus named ZOA. Zoa creates a continuity in the collection, which is inherently discontinuous in a way for a purpose. It sounds confusing, but it really works, and it’s really beautiful. Most of the collection is incredibly visual in form, which gets across the computer virus angle. Poems are interspersed with computer code and lots and lots of seemingly random numbers. I have opted not to include photos because of copyrights and to support the integrity of the work, but if you are interested come see me!
The video below is a talk Joshua Whitehead did following the collection’s release. It touches on many of the themes of the collections. In the video, he also provides information about his background, including his indigenous nation, his family, and the work and connections he is making in Calgary, where he completed his Ph.D. and continues to work/study. It also highlights the power and poetry Joshua Whitehead’s words have both in their oral and written form.
If you can’t find the collection at a local bookstore here are some links from the publisher (TalonBooks), Indigo, and Amazon.
