Key points:
- Despite the frenzy around AI, many learning tools have relied on AI for years
- The 3 biggest misconceptions about AI
- Don’t miss a single update on what’s new with AI in education
- For more news on AI in learning, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub
Many educators are cautiously optimistic about AI, indicating that they’d like more guidance to effectively integrate it into their instructional strategies. But while generative AI tools like ChatGPT have dominated conversations for the past year, there are many classroom tools that have quietly used AI to deliver personalized and targeted learning to students.
Let’s take a look at some classroom tools that are already leveraging AI for efficiency and learning outcomes:
Tutor.com‘s Multi-Tiered System of Supports focuses on moment-of-need in its first tier and provides immediate and comprehensive support when students need it most. This includes on-demand tutoring along with AI tools that offer feedback on written work. These AI tools help students fine-tune their essays before they connect with a live tutor or before they submit their assignments to teachers. AI Writing Review enables students to submit their drafts for lightning-fast feedback. This tool was trained in instructional methodology honed over the course of 26+ million tutoring sessions that Tutor.com has delivered. It doesn’t rewrite a student’s work, but rather provides insightful guidance about how (and where) the student can make revisions to improve an essay’s style, structure, and composition. Students get summary feedback–with advice addressing areas such as flow and transitions, showing vs. telling, conciseness and redundancy, use of imagery, grammar and syntax, and more–along with line-by-line feedback, in which certain excerpts are highlighted with suggestions for revision displayed in mouseover text.
Carnegie Learning’s MATHia gives educators real-time feedback and assessments to help them understand where students are and where they’re headed. MATHia is an intelligent math software supported by sophisticated AI technology and is designed to provide individual student support and insightful data. MATHia adjusts to every action students take in the software to meet them where they are and help them progress.
If you’ve ever used AudioPen to dictate feedback on student work, you’ve been using AI. AudioPen is an AI-powered tool that converts voice notes into text that’s easy to read and ready to share with students and fellow teachers.
Students in a classroom learn and consume information differently. Educators who use the Chrome extension Brisk are using AI to ensure information is accessible to all learners. Clicking on the Brisk extension lets teachers see the reading level of any text on the internet. Brisk uses the length of sentences and the vocabulary used in the text to determine what age level the text is appropriate for. Brisk shows up on any news article teachers land on and is accessible on most sites, which makes changing the text’s reading level as easy as clicking a button. When educators convert an article, Brisk will automatically populate it in a new Google Doc for them to then share with their students. Teachers also can have Brisk use the article to generate additional materials, like a reading comprehension quiz.
Duolingo, a popular language-learning app, has literally been using AI for years. AI is behind the app’s ability to personalize learning for its users, leveraging data around their strengths and weaknesses to create more engaging and productive learning experiences. AI helps Duolingo analyze user responses to identify common grammar mistakes and make corrections and suggestions, and analyze the sounds and patterns of users’ speech for targeted feedback on their pronunciation. It’s also behind the auto-suggest in Stories freeform writing exercises, which helps learners learn to write in the language they’re learning. Using AI, Duolingo is able to provide access to high-quality education in places where students don’t have access to good schools and teachers, and enables students to certify their English proficiency in places where accessing test centers is either challenging, or impossible. The company is fully committed to using AI for good.
Canva’s Classroom Magic is a suite of AI tools for the classroom, available to both students and teachers. Here’s a look at just some of the AI tools in Classroom Magic: Free up time for important work with Magic Write as a new AI-powered assistant. Enter a simple prompt to generate a first draft, reword complex content to suit different learning styles or summarize text to be more comprehensible. Users can also adapt content to different reading levels to further individualize the learning process. Magic Animate creates eye-catching transitions to bring your work to life in an instant. Students can create their own animations to transform their assignments into engaging classroom presentations. Redesign teaching materials and class projects with Magic Grab. Simply select the subject of your image to edit, reposition, or resize it. You can also use Grab Text to quickly extract and modify text from photos of documents or screenshots.
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