A RECAP OF A WONDERFUL YEAR

 Hello for the last time (for now), forest dwellers!🌱🌲

 

Yes, I am sad to announce that this will be my last blog post for this semester. We've had a year full of interesting assignments, some hardships and some fun moments. Today I will recap my experience with the course and share it with you :)

Before I took this course, I knew of technology integrated teaching and even experienced it as a student. So I wasn't completely ignorant. However, I had some personal assumptions and judgements. For example I thought relying on it could make students lazy or not help them. However my thoughts changed a bit after this course. I see now that it can be integrated in a way that's not too much, and it can help foster English learning. 

We completed a lot of assignments throughout the semester such as creating a podcast, writing using collaborative writing tools, creating a digital story video, and conversing with AI. Many of these tasks were things I had never done before, like AI conversations and creating my own podcast. Doing these myself helped me understand how they could be used in ELT. I also realized my shortcomings and things I am good at such as coming up with ideas and creating digital comics. 

My favorite tasks were probably podcast and digital story creation. I loved making a podcast because I am a huge podcast fan and it made me excited to create my own! As for the digital story, it was a lot of work but it paid off at the end and it let me use my creativity.

I honestly think the course is great as it is, but maybe there could be more individual tasks because I am personally more comfortable working alone. Other than that, it was great and taught me a lot.

I hope to see you forest dwellers soon, and I hope you have a wonderful summer holiday! Remember to take care of yourself and engage in your hobbies 😁

THE FUTURE OF TEACHING: AI

Welcome back to my humble forest, forest dwellers 🌱🌲

I hope you are all doing well since I last posted on here. Today, I will be talking about a very hot topic not just in ELT but in general: Artificial Intelligence.

AI is a rising field of technology that gets further development every single day. In such a short time, it has become a part of our lives, or if you are a skeptic like me, it will soon become a part of yours.

The new AI tools can do almost anything: write, draw, make plans, edit videos, create music...and we don't even have to lift a finger!

 

For our AI assignment, we were instructed to use a site called MagicSchool AI which is for students and educators. It has many tools that can provide feedback, summarize videos, plan lessons, write stories etc. But the one we focused on was Character Chatbot which allows students to converse with any historical figure or known fictional character. We were to ask the bot questions and write a report first. I had a lot of trouble trying to think of someone...At the end, I chose Dr. Henry Jekyll from the famous book, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"; because the real life bots seemed a bit ridiculous to me (no offense!) and contained false information. (Marie Curie isn't native to France...)

The bot was a good conversation partner and in character, although it did make up things that obviously didn't exist in the book to keep me going. That did not bother me though. The biggest issue was just how long the replies were! Summarize button exists but I didn't want to use it. It also repeated some sentences over and over again. But overall, it was good.

After writing our report, we submitted it to the feedback tool. I asked for feedback on cutting some parts since my report was very long, and asked for criticism. It said my general paper was great but too long, and gave me some tips to reduce word count. It was actually quite helpful and I easily edited my paper.

Personally I am bit of a skeptic about AI, and if I integrated it in my lessons I would do it in a fashion that would foster my students learning and make them do most of the work. For example it could be something like an assignment where they talk by themselves to a chatbot and try to find out some repeated or wrong parts, and  then write a report on it. I could also see myself encouraging feedback AI for when I am unable to  be around or when students do homework. I think it can be beneficial because students will be able to receive detailed feedback anytime, anywhere! They will also improve their AI literacy which is crucial.

As a setback, I believe AI can cause demotivation to study or do work, because it already does everything for us. Even today, we see students using AI to pass classes (or attempt). I think AI use is tricky for that. We need to teach AI literacy and use it as a SUPPORT SYSTEM, not as a substitute for actual learning and exercise.

What do you think, forest dwellers? Maybe you disagree with me and think my ideas are outdated, or you agree. Do you think AI will be helpful in ELT or just a tool that will make us lazy? Please give me your ideas below.

Oh and also check out some excerpts from the feedback I was given, and my reports:

First Draft / Revised