Hello History is a new iPhone and Android app that lets you chat with historical figures. The list of characters with whom you can chat ranges from pop culture icons to artists, politicians, and civil rights activists.
Hello History uses AI in a manner similar to that found when using AI tools like ChatGPT. You start a chat by selecting a person from the list of names. That person will then show a brief message about themselves. You can reply to that message with a question and through the use of AI the person will respond to you.
You can keep your Hello History conversation with a historical figure going for as long as you like, provided it stays on topic and within the realm of the AI's reach. For example, when I was chatting with George Washington I asked him a question about his relationship with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I didn't get a response to that. But I did get responses to my questions about Adams and Jefferson individually.
The list of historical figures available in Hello History is rather extensive at more than 400 people. The list of names ranges from pop culture icons like David Bowie and Elvis Presley to artists like Da Vinci to politicians like George Washington to civil rights activists like Martin Luther King, Jr.
Applications for Education Hello History does give a bunch of disclaimers before you use the app including a reminder to fact-check the accuracy of any claims made in the chat.
The app could provide an interesting way for students to learn about the lives of a wide range of historical figures. Before having students use the app, I would ask them to think about what they think a chosen character will say in response to their questions.
H/T to Nik Peachey for sharing Hello History on LinkedIn.
This week's news that Google Workspace will have new artificial intelligence tools added to it throughout the year was not unexpected. It was another sign that if you haven't being paying attention to the development of AI tools this year, you should start paying attention to them. Even if your school tries to ban or block AI tools, students will figure out a way to use them outside of school if not in your school. With that out of the way, here's a round-up of some the AI tools that I've written and or made videos about in recent months.
A Short Overview of ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that will create documents for you based on some minimal input from you. For example, I simply typed into ChatGPT "Ten Canva Features for Students" and got this article. ChatGPT can also be used to create poems like this one about the sunglasses worn by Geraint Thomas.
With a little tweaking of what you put into ChatGPT you can create longer articles than the one that I mentioned above. A simple, "tell me more" or "what about X" can generate more material from ChatGPT.
Magic Write is the artificial intelligence tool built into Canva Docs. Magic Write works in a manner that is quite similar to ChatGPT. To use Magic Write you simply select it from the insert menu in Canva Docs. Once Magic Write is opened you then enter a short prompt like "green screen video tips" and Magic Write generates a short list or paragraph for you (formatting depends on the prompt). You can then insert that writing into your document as it was written or you can edit it before including it in your document. Watch this short video to see how Magic Write in Canva works.
ChatGPT might be the first thing you think of when you read AI today, but there have been plenty of other AI tools before it. One such tool is Lumen5. Lumen5 is a tool that will produce a video for you based upon your written work.To create a video with Lumen5 you can enter the URL of your published work or submit the text of an article you've written. Lumen5 will then select highlights from your writing to feature in a video. The video will always begin with the title of your article. From there it will use any subheadings or section headings that you have in your article to create sections of your video. If you don't have subheadings or section headings in your article, Lumen5 will attempt to pull the keywords or phrases from each paragraph. Watch my demo below to see how easy it is to use Lumen5.
Whimsical is a mind mapping and concept mapping tool that I first tried a couple of years ago. In addition to mind mapping and concept mapping it can also be used for creating Venn diagrams and other common charts in a collaborative environment. Now Whimsical has an artificial intelligence component. Whimsical's AI tool generates concept maps based on any keyword or phrase that you center on the screen. To use Whimsical's AI concept mapping tool you simply have to start a new concept map, enter a keyword or phrase, and then click the AI icon. The tool will then generate a simple concept map of linked terms and phrases.
Detecting Writing Created by AI
Almost as quickly as new AI writing tools emerge, new tools to detect writing created by AI are emerging. I've tried three of them so far. All three are demonstrated in this short video. Watch the video as embedded below or skip down to read about the tools featured in the video.
GPTZero is a free tool that analyzes text to determine whether or not it was written by an artificial intelligence program. There are some features of GPTZero that make it a bit different from some of the other AI detection tools that I've tried. First, in addition to accepting text that you copy and paste into it, GPTZero lets you upload PDFs, Word docs, and TXT files to analyze them. Second, GPTZero will highlight for you the parts of an article that it determines to have a high likelihood of being written by an AI tool. Third, GPTZero provides a perplexity score and a burstiness score to illustrate how it was determined that a document was or was not written by an AI tool.
AI Text Classifier is a free tool from Open AI, the makers of ChatGPT, that will detect whether or not a passage of text has been written with ChatGPT and similar AI writing tools. To use AI Text Classifier you do need to have registered for a free account on Open AI. Once you have an account you can use AI Text Classifier. To use AI Text Classifier you simply have to paste a block of writing (at least 1,000 characters, roughly 175 words) into the text field and click the submit button. AI Text Classifier will then rank the writing as very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely written by AI. For the record, AI Text Classifier classified my article about detecting writing created by AI as very unlikely to have been written by AI.
AI Writing Check is a free tool created by the collaborative efforts of the non-profits Quill.org and CommonLit. AI Writing Check is a tool that was created to help teachers try to recognize writing created through the use of artificial intelligence. To use AI Writing Check you simply have to copy a passage of text of 100 or more words and paste it into AI Writing Check. The tool will then tell you the likelihood that the writing has or has not been created by artificial intelligence. That's all there is to it. AI Writing Check isn't foolproof and as is pointed out on the site, students can still develop ways to get around tools designed to detect AI-generated writing. It's also worth noting that it can't handle more than 400 words at a time.
Crossplag AI Content Detector is a free tool that you can use to try to determine whether or not an AI tool was used to generate a passage of text. Like other AI detection tools, Crossplag AI Content Detector is easy to use. To use it you simply paste a block of text into the content detector and it will give a rating of likelihood that AI was used to create that text. Watch my short video below to see how it works.
It was only a matter of time until Google made a big announcement regarding artificial intelligence in their productivity tools. That announcement came today.
All of the details about Google's implementation of AI in Google Workspace can be read here. The short version is that new AI features will be added to Google Docs and Gmail throughout the course of this year. Those new features will be used to generate suggestions for rewriting selected sections of your Google Docs and selected sections of messages that you compose in Gmail.
Other AI features in Google Workspace to look for later this year include auto-generated images and videos in Slides, data analysis tools in Sheets, and notes capture in Google Meet.
Applications for Education
I didn't see anything in today's announcement that specifically mentioned whether or not these AI tools will be available in Google Workspace for Education accounts. It will be interesting to see how Google addresses that moving forward. An AI-powered rewrite function in Google Docs could have a significant impact on how we teach the writing process. Likewise, auto-generated images and slides could have a significant impact on how we teach students to design presentations.
For the last handful of months whenever I scroll through Product Hunt and just about every other new product is an AI-powered product. Or at least they claim to be using AI. One that recently jump out to me is Whimsical.
Whimsical is a mind mapping and concept mapping tool that I first tried a couple of years ago. In addition to mind mapping and concept mapping it can also be used for creating Venn diagrams and other common charts in a collaborative environment. Now Whimsical has an artificial intelligence component.
Whimsical's AI tool generates concept maps based on any keyword or phrase that you center on the screen. To use Whimsical's AI concept mapping tool you simply have to start a new concept map, enter a keyword or phrase, and then click the AI icon. The tool will then generate a simple concept map of linked terms and phrases.
Applications for Education
Whimsical calls their AI tool an "AI mind mapping" tool. However, it's actually a concept mapping tool because the AI is doing the work for you that your mind would have otherwise done. That doesn't make it a bad tool, it just means that it shouldn't be viewed as a mind mapping tool. As a concept mapping tool it could prove to be quite handy for generating a diagram of connected terms and phrases. Showing those connections could be helpful to some students who are in need of assistance in seeing how concepts are connected.
For more AI resources, take a look at the links below:
Artificial Intelligence was the theme of February in the educational technology world. That theme is continuing as we begin the month of March. On that note, I've found another new tool designed to try to detect writing generated with AI tools like ChatGPT.
Crossplag AI Content Detector is a free tool that you can use to try to determine whether or not an AI tool was used to generate a passage of text. Like other AI detection tools, Crossplag AI Content Detector is easy to use. To use it you simply paste a block of text into the content detector and it will give a rating of likelihood that AI was used to create that text. Watch my short video below to see how it works.
Applications for Education
Just like all of the other AI content detection tools that have popped-up over the last six weeks, this one isn't perfect. That said, it's worth noting that these tools exist. Use these tools to start conversations with your students about responsible use of AI tools like ChatGPT, Moon Beam, and other AI writing tools.
If you haven't heard, AI writing tools are the hot edtech topic of the year so far. Your students are probably using them whether you know it or not. And if your middle school or high school is trying to ban them, your students are definitely using them (tell teenagers what they can't do and they'll do it).
Almost as quickly as new AI writing tools emerge, new tools to detect writing created by AI are emerging. I've tried three of them so far. All three are demonstrated in this short video. Watch the video as embedded below or skip down to read about the tools featured in the video.
GPTZero is a free tool that analyzes text to determine whether or not it was written by an artificial intelligence program. There are some features of GPTZero that make it a bit different from some of the other AI detection tools that I've tried. First, in addition to accepting text that you copy and paste into it, GPTZero lets you upload PDFs, Word docs, and TXT files to analyze them. Second, GPTZero will highlight for you the parts of an article that it determines to have a high likelihood of being written by an AI tool. Third, GPTZero provides a perplexity score and a burstiness score to illustrate how it was determined that a document was or was not written by an AI tool.
AI Text Classifier is a free tool from Open AI, the makers of ChatGPT, that will detect whether or not a passage of text has been written with ChatGPT and similar AI writing tools. To use AI Text Classifier you do need to have registered for a free account on Open AI. Once you have an account you can use AI Text Classifier. To use AI Text Classifier you simply have to paste a block of writing (at least 1,000 characters, roughly 175 words) into the text field and click the submit button. AI Text Classifier will then rank the writing as very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely written by AI. For the record, AI Text Classifier classified my article about detecting writing created by AI as very unlikely to have been written by AI.
AI Writing Check is a free tool created by the collaborative efforts of the non-profits Quill.org and CommonLit. AI Writing Check is a tool that was created to help teachers try to recognize writing created through the use of artificial intelligence. To use AI Writing Check you simply have to copy a passage of text of 100 or more words and paste it into AI Writing Check. The tool will then tell you the likelihood that the writing has or has not been created by artificial intelligence. That's all there is to it. AI Writing Check isn't foolproof and as is pointed out on the site, students can still develop ways to get around tools designed to detect AI-generated writing. It's also worth noting that it can't handle more than 400 words at a time.
Yesterday, I shared a brief overview of AI Text Classifier which can be used to determine the likelihood that a article was written with ChatGPT. Today, I have a similar tool to share with you. GPTZero is a free tool that analyzes text to determine whether or not it was written by an artificial intelligence program.
At first glance GPTZero works much like the other AI detection tools that I've tried in the last couple of weeks. To use it you paste a block of writing (at least 250 characters) into the text field and GPTZero tells you the likelihood of that text being written by AI.
There are some features of GPTZero that make it a bit different from some of the other AI detection tools that I've tried. First, in addition to accepting text that you copy and paste into it, GPTZero lets you upload PDFs, Word docs, and TXT files to analyze them. Second, GPTZero will highlight for you the parts of an article that it determines to have a high likelihood of being written by an AI tool. Third, GPTZero provides a perplexity score and a burstiness score to illustrate how it was determined that a document was or was not written by an AI tool.
Applications for Education
GPTZero was created with teachers in mind. That's evident in the fact that you can upload documents to have them evaluated instead of having to copy and paste the text of a document to have it evaluated. Uploading a copy of a student's document is much more efficient than trying to copy and paste it to evaluate it. The highlighting and perplexity score that GPTZero provides should help to facilitate conversations with students if you do find that they have used an AI tool to create a document that they've submitted for a grade.
As I wrote yesterday about AI Text Classifier, show your students how AI detection tools work and have discussions about responsible use of AI writing tools.
In this week's Practical Ed Tech newsletter I included a video overview of a tool called AI Writing Check that detects whether or not an article has been written with the use of a tool like ChatGPT. Two days after publishing my newsletter, the makers of ChatGPT announced the launch of their own tool designed to detect whether or not an article has been written by ChatGPT.
AI Text Classifier is a new tool from Open AI, the makers of ChatGPT, that will detect whether or not a passage of text has been written with ChatGPT and similar AI writing tools. To use AI Text Classifier you do need to have registered for a free account on Open AI. Once you have an account you can use AI Text Classifier. To use AI Text Classifier you simply have to paste a block of writing (at least 1,000 characters, roughly 175 words) into the text field and click the submit button. AI Text Classifier will then rank the writing as very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely written by AI. For the record, AI Text Classifier classified my article about detecting writing created by AI as very unlikely to have been written by AI.
Applications for Education
If you're concerned that your students have submitted work created by AI, AI Text Classifier could be the tool you need to check it. But before you get to that point, show your students how tools like AI Text Classifier work and have discussions about responsible use of AI tools.
AI Writing Check is a free tool created by the collaborative efforts of the non-profits Quill.org and CommonLit. AI Writing Check is a tool that was created to help teachers try to recognize writing created through the use of artificial intelligence.
To use AI Writing Check you simply have to copy a passage of text of 100 or more words and paste it into AI Writing Check. The tool will then tell you the likelihood that the writing has or has not been created by artificial intelligence. That's all there is to it.
AI Writing Check isn't foolproof and as is pointed out on the site, students can still develop ways to get around tools designed to detect AI-generated writing. It's also worth noting that it can't handle more than 400 words at a time.
Applications for Education A couple of weeks ago my Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week was to get to know AI writing tools before your students use them to turn in an essay. In that newsletter I explained and demonstrated two AI writing tools. The first was ChatGPT and the second was Canva's Magic Write tool. In response to that newsletter I got at least two dozen notes from teachers who were concerned about students using those tools to "cheat." If that's one of your concerns about AI, you may want to take a look at AI Writing Check.
On Tuesday I published a short overview of ChatGPT which is a free artificial intelligence writing tool. I followed that up with a post on Wednesday morning about Canva’s new artificial intelligence writing tool called Magic Write. In both instances I mentioned that I think there are some good things that could come from these kinds of AI tools and there are some bad things that could come from these kinds of tools. Let’s take a look at some of each.
The potential good things about AI writing tools:
Earlier this week I had a meeting with the CEO of a company that is developing a new tool that utilizes AI to generate lesson plan ideas based on some basic input from you. For example, you can enter grade level and topic or standard to have a lesson plan generated. The lesson plan can be modified by simply entering the length of time that you want an activity to be. For example, the lesson plan changes based on whether you enter 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 60 minutes. For the teacher who has run out of ideas for a lesson plan, this use of AI could be a good thing.
Next week I will publish a blog post about Canva’s new AI feature that turns your documents into slideshows. The potential good of a tool like that is the ability for teachers who have lots of lesson outlines to quickly generate some slideshows that are easy to incorporate into online and in-person classes.
AI writing tools could be the answer to the age-old “I don’t know what to write about” lament of students in language arts classes who have been given a block of “free write” time. A quick entry in either ChatGPT or Canva’s Magic Write will generate a list of creative writing prompts.
On a similar note to generation of writing prompts, an AI tool can generate lists of related research topics for students who have hit a dead-end as well as those who need a little help forming their first queries.
The potential bad things about AI writing tools:
I’ll bet you a year’s supply of my favorite Christmas cookies that there are students who have already used a tool like ChatGPT or Canva’s Magic Write to generate an entire essay and passed it off as their own work. And I’ll bet my favorite bicycle that there will be many more who try to do the same.
As handy as it is to have a list of writing prompts or research queries generated for you, I fear that we’re outsourcing our creativity to an algorithm. That kind of easy resolution when you’re “stuck” doesn’t help to build perseverance or problem solving ability. On a similar note, I worry about collections of AI-generated lesson plans getting packaged together by a big publisher who then sells it as a canned curriculum that every teacher in a school or school district has to follow verbatim.
I’ve seen mention of AI being used to generate narrative report cards about students. On the surface it seems like a time-saver for teachers. Unfortunately, it removes true personalization from the process.
Living With AI
I’m old enough to remember teachers telling students that they couldn’t use internet sources in their research papers. And I remember many raging debates about whether or not students should look at Wikipedia. Hopefully, I’ll live long enough to remember the current debates about the use of AI in education.
AI isn’t going away so we need to figure out how to teach knowing that it exists. I’ve seen some people suggest requiring students to include a level of personalization in their writing and or presentations that “proves” they didn’t use AI. The trouble with that is the AI is improving all the time and soon personalizing via AI will be easy to do.
I’m still thinking about how AI will fit in the context of classrooms. I don’t have a perfect answer and I might not ever get to a perfect answer. But that’s okay because “perfect” is a moving goal anyway when we’re trying to figure out what’s best for the kids in our classrooms today.
By the way, after writing all of the above I asked ChatGPT to write something about the pros and cons of AI in education. The screenshot below shows what it generated. (Click the image to view it in full size).
Last week Canva opened access to their highly anticipated Canva Documents tool. It includes all of the features that you'd probably expect to find in a modern document creation tool. Those include collaboration, commenting, and many formatting options. Canva Documents also includes an artificial intelligence feature that's called Magic Write.
Magic Write is the artificial intelligence tool built into Canva Docs. Magic Write works in a manner that is quite similar to the ChatGPT tool that I wrote about yesterday. To use Magic Write you simply select it from the insert menu in Canva Docs. Once Magic Write is opened you then enter a short prompt like "green screen video tips" and Magic Write generates a short list or paragraph for you (formatting depends on the prompt). You can then insert that writing into your document as it was written or you can edit it before including it in your document. Watch this short video to see how Magic Write in Canva works.
Applications for Education
As I wrote yesterday, there are a lot of potential ramifications of this kind of technology in school settings. Some of those are good, some are bad. Later this week I'll publish a longer blog post about the use of AI writing tools in school settings.
Yesterday I published Ten Canva Features for Students - An Experiment. The first part of the experiment was publishing a blog post that was written entirely by the artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT. The second part of the experiment was to compare the visits to that blog post with those of blog posts on the same topic. That part is still a work in progress. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a short overview of ChatGPT (not written by me, not ChatGPT).
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that will create documents for you based on some minimal input from you. For example, I simply typed into ChatGPT "Ten Canva Features for Students" and got the article that you saw yesterday. ChatGPT can also be used to create poems like this one about the sunglasses worn by Geraint Thomas.
With a little tweaking of what you put into ChatGPT you can create longer articles than the one that I published yesterday. A simple, "tell me more" or "what about X" can generate more material from ChatGPT.
Later this week I'm going to publish a longer article about the potential good and bad of tools like ChatGPT. Until then, take a look at the video embedded below to see how it works.
Canva is a graphic design platform that offers a wide range of features for creating professional-looking documents. Some of the key features that may be useful for students include the following:
1. Templates: Canva offers a variety of customizable templates for different types of documents, including posters, presentations, reports, and infographics. This can make it easy for students to create professional-looking documents without having to start from scratch.
2. Drag-and-drop editor: Canva's user-friendly interface allows users to easily create and edit their documents using a drag-and-drop editor. This makes it easy for students to quickly arrange and format their content, even if they don't have advanced design skills.
3. Stock images and graphics: Canva offers a library of over a million stock images and graphics that users can easily incorporate into their documents. This can help students add visual interest to their documents and make them more engaging for readers.
4. Collaboration tools: Canva allows multiple users to collaborate on a single document in real time, making it easy for students to work together on group projects.
5. Cloud-based platform: Canva is a cloud-based platform, which means that documents can be accessed and edited from any device with an internet connection. This makes it easy for students to work on their documents from anywhere, at any time.
6. Download and share options: Canva allows users to download their documents in a variety of formats, including PDF, JPEG, and PNG. Users can also share their documents via email, social media, or other platforms.
7. Text formatting tools: Canva offers a range of text formatting options, including font styles, sizes, and colors, as well as text alignment and spacing. This can help students create documents that are easy to read and visually appealing.
8. Image editing tools: Canva offers basic image editing tools, such as cropping, resizing, and adjusting the contrast, brightness, and saturation of images. This can help students enhance the visual appeal of their documents.
9. Visual design elements: Canva offers a variety of visual design elements, such as shapes, lines, and icons, that users can easily incorporate into their documents. This can help students create documents that are visually appealing and professional-looking.
10. Easy integration with other tools: Canva integrates with a variety of other tools and platforms, such as Google Drive and Dropbox, making it easy for students to access and edit their documents from a variety of devices and platforms.
This Was an Experiment!
The opening paragraph and the list of ten items was written entirely by ChatGPT. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that will generate lists and entire articles based on a few inputs from you. There are a lot of potential ramifications, both good and bad, of using this kind of technology in education. I'll be publishing an article about that later this week. That article will be written without the use of AI.
51 Canva Tutorials for Teachers and Students
Without the use of AI I've created 51 tutorials on how to use Canva's features in classroom settings. The playlist of those tutorials is embedded below and can be seen here on my YouTube channel.
Every once in a while a new video pops-up at a time that perfectly coincides with where I am in my curriculum. That just happened this morning as I was planning to introduce the role of artificial intelligence in IoT (Internet of Things) to my Comp Tech I students. Yesterday, TED-Ed released a new video on the topic of AI. The video is titled How Does Artificial Intelligence Learn?
How Does Artificial Intelligence Learn? provides a concise overview supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement machine learning. The narration of the video is quite flat and boring, but the explanations are good so I'm going to use the video at the beginning of my class today to get students thinking about and asking questions about AI.
Machine learning is a hot topic in the ed tech start-up community. You may have heard of an ed tech start-up or two that is touting how machine learning and or artificial intelligence will help them help students. But what is machine learning? CGP Grey recently tackled that topic in a new video.
After you watch CGP Grey's video consider the information within it as you think about the screenshot I have posted below. It's one that I took on Friday morning while scrolling down the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page. You'll see that it tells me the demographic with which my video is most popular.
If you have ever doubted that Facebook is watching what you watch, look at this little insight from my Facebook page. pic.twitter.com/Hz0xhlHEQI
Bit by bit artificial intelligence (AI) is working its way into our lives. If you have seen IBM's Watson in action, you've seen AI at work. Some of the seating chart programs available online today include a small bit of artificial intelligence. See ClassCharts.com for an example of that. But what is AI? And where is it going in the future? Those questions and more are tackled in the latest video from Common Craft.
Applications for Education
After watching the video ask your students to think of aspects of their lives that could be affected by artificial intelligence. Ask them to brainstorm some problems that AI might help people solve in the future.
I occasionally hear people confuse artificial intelligence with augmented reality. That's an understandable mistake as they do sound kind of similar. Augmented Reality (AR) is explained in the following Common Craft video.
