Lit and Tech

Teaching literacy with technology in an era of educational innovation. By Jen Roberts @TheJenRoberts

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Showing posts from July, 2024

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Digital Alchemy: Transforming Images with Adobe Express

July 18, 2024

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Jen is available to speak virtually and in person depending on your needs and geography. Please reach out if you have an event coming up where her perspective would be helpful. JenRobertsTeaches at gmail.com

Edutopia Articles

What ELA Teachers Should Know About AI Detectors
Using AI Tools to Give Feedback on High School Students’ Writing

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NBCT: My Experience with Component 2: YA ELA

Assembling Component 2 Considering National Boards? I recommend the process, but you should know what you are getting into. Start early and get organized. In the spring of 2016 I began pursuing National Board Certification for teaching. I know eventually someone will ask me for my thoughts and advice about that process, so I'll capture them now while the experience is fresh. Because I teach 9th grade, and previously taught middle school for ten years, I decided to do my NBCT in the area of Young Adolescent ELA. (Yes, I also taught 11th grade for six years, but that was a while ago.) Though some do it in one year, I'm taking two years to complete my NBCT. Last summer, at a small local conference, I stumbled into a conversation about National Boards and happened to find out that my County Office of Education sponsored a support program. I was just in time to sign up. Through that program I got early advice and support to help me understand expectations and deadlines. Th...

What Happens When Students Have Access to Instant AI Feedback?

I teach English to 9th graders, which means I frequently ask them to write things. Right now we are working on a narrative unit and I often ask them to write stories related to our readings. Recently, we have watched the famous TED talk about the danger of a single story, and read a great essay on the same topic, and then I asked students to write about a time when they had a single story about a person or place, or a time when someone else had a single story about them. Nothing revolutionary here, just a pretty typical classroom writing exercise, except that I also gave them access to immediate AI feedback through Magic School . What happened: Some students started writing, some went to the idea generator in the Magic Student room I gave them, and then started writing. So, as usual, the first ten minutes of writing time was pretty productive and on task. Initial AI Feeedback Then we hit the usual wall. You know the wall. The moment when one student ...

Revising From an AI Created Essay Draft: An end run around potential unethical behavior

I just finished packing up my classroom for the 23-24 school year; my 28th year as an English teacher. What a ride it has been. I'm not retiring, I just mean this last school year has been quite a ride. In 22-23 ChatGPT became a thing and students started to try using it. I started to try to guide them in ways to use it better. You can find previous posts about lessons for introducing AI and strategies for promoting academic honesty elsewhere on this blog. Ideogram: A high school English classroom of seniors 23-24 though, was the year we all took more than just a few cautious steps. A new group of students meant I had to start over with my campaign to convince them I can tell when they use AI instead of doing their own writing. Teenagers are natural risk takers, and that is generally a good thing, but it also means a few of them will take a risk and try using AI to cheat. Eventually, they believe me that they will probably be caught. I overheard one of my seniors tell a ...

Can AI Assist You With Grading? Probably

Ideogram: A synthwave-inspired illustration depicting an AI and a teacher collaboratively grading papers. Teachers are adding AI tools to their classroom workflow and lots of educational technology companies are offering products that help with daily teacher tasks like preparing materials and designing lessons. But, can an AI grade student writing? And if it can, should teachers consider using an AI grading assistant? To the first question, yes, AI can grade student writing. There are already tools like Cograder built specifically to grade student work. Other tools like Writable have added AI scoring and feedback to their offerings. Individual teachers have found that, with the right prompt, chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude can grade student writing and provide feedback. Are these scores and feedback accurate though? In many cases, yes. They are at least as accurate as a range of human teachers scores would be. A 2023 study using ChatGPT 3.5 (Steiss) ...

Preserving Authenticity in Student Writing in the Age of Generative AI

Ideogram: student writing synth wave A huge part of the angst about generative AI centers around the generalized concern that students will use it to cheat. News flash, they will. Student will cheat with AI because there have always been students who cheat, this is just a new way for them to do it. Cheating is not new. But, let's put this problem in perspective. Risk taking is normal teenage behavior. All teens take risks, some drive too fast, some jump off roofs into swimming pools, some drink in excess, some lie to their parents, and some turn in work they did not do. Some teens are more cautious and some are less cautious. Brain science, and yes I have read about this with my students, shows us that teens value rewards higher in many risky situations, therefore making poor decisions seem more attractive. I am not trying to excuse academic cheating. It's just that I stopped viewing it as a moral failing, and I now see it as part of the risk taking, adventureso...