In my first reflection, I overlooked something crucial: the ‘hustle’ and ‘hassle’ involved in implementing AI effectively.
I mean these both in the most light hearted sense, but recently, my most successful AI use cases have come from simply approaching teachers and asking if they’d like to try something out (the ‘hassling’ part).
I never pushed if they weren’t interested, but this led to some fantastic ideas, discussions, and opportunities for staff to see how AI can support them both personally and in the classroom.
While AI isn’t new, the Generative AI boom has put it in the spotlight. Gaining experience with it takes time, especially with all the information, and misinformation, out there (I will circle back to these later).
Let’s focus on one example of student-facing AI.
Chatbots for Revision: A Concrete Starting Point
Currently with student facing AI, I try to find examples that are easy to understand and build on. This might mean doing “old stuff” with “new tools,” but just like with students, we need to start with concrete examples before moving to abstract concepts.
Take creating a chatbot for revision: it’s a simple entry point for using bots. It’s not groundbreaking, but it demonstrates how AI can personalise support. In my case, I identified a need. A teacher was looking for a way to personalise a revision lesson for 20+ students who had end-of-year assessments the following week. They all wanted to revise based on their own targets, and potentially needed 20+ areas of support from the teacher at the same time.
By choosing this example, both the teacher and students understood the purpose and value of the chatbot. It was concrete, easy to setup, and showed how chatbots can be used to support learning. Now, that teacher is thinking of ways to use it next year. One positive experience opens the door to so much more.
My point is, it’s hard to see the value in new technology until you’ve experienced it. It’s like the early days of the iPhone – no one knew they wanted one until it existed. The same goes for AI in lesson planning. You need to create opportunities for people to see its value firsthand.
This is the “hustle” you need to make yourself available, supportive, and offer guidance. This should be the role of an extended “Digital/Edtech/AI” team in your school. Whoever is providing support, try to give them the time to be available when anything student-facing is happening. There’s always the odd technical glitch the first time you try something (no matter how much testing you do), and being around with a smile and support always goes down well.
You are the human face of AI now! 😉
Bad AI Use Cases and Prompting 101
Guides with thousands of prompts aren’t always helpful. They might offer some useful phrases, but they often overcomplicate things. Prompting is like having a conversation.
Also, those headlines like “New study shows ChatGPT cannot X” are often misleading. They usually focus on terrible use cases, like a lawyer using ChatGPT to write a legal document. Why would you do that? I use it to draft lesson plans, which I then check and edit and they are much lower stakes than legal documents!
Some basic AI literacy would help. There are clear uses for AI (like me proofreading this blog) and things you definitely shouldn’t do.
What Comes First: The Chicken or the (AI) Egg?
Should you start with an AI use case or with gaining experience with AI? I’d say hands-on time with AI is invaluable. Link any training to a task you’re currently working on so people immediately see the value. I used to start by showing how AI can help write a scheme of work; now, I begin with a smaller, concrete task like creating lesson activities or starter questions.
Matthew Wemyss 