Magic School AI – Let’s Make Teacher’s Lives Easier

I decided to play with Magic School AI to see what I could get it to do for me from an education and teacher standpoint, and let me say I had fun playing with it. 

For example, I saw the Song Generator feature, and I wanted to see if it would create a song for me to the tune of an inappropriate song. The first song that came to mind was WAP by Cardi B, so I got the generator to create a song about volcanoes to the tune of WAP. I also got the song generator to create a song about figurative language to the tune of Happy by Pharrell Williams.  Here is a screenshot of the results from both songs. I actually find it quite funny, and I definitely plan to use this feature in the future. 

Magic School AI can also help teach cyber safety and digital citizenship. For example, I used the Project Based Learning Generator to create a project for grade 4 students on cyber safety. I also found out you can share your generations publicly, so here is the link to see what Magic School AI created as project ideas for cyber safety. 

There are so many functions on Magic School AI that could be useful to teachers and help them do some of the grunt work that takes up a lot of time. Here are some of the features I played with and found extra helpful:

• YouTube Video Summarizer (I used a resource from EDTC to try this out.)
• Make It Relevant! (I chose a random outcome and based the student off of a couple of children from my work)
• Text Rewriter (I used this feature to rewrite an article from EDTC so it was shorter and in language a grade 5 student could understand)
• Student Work Feedback Tool (I used this on an assignment I completed for a different class to see how their feedback differed from my professors – AI gave me more useful comments unfortunately.)
• Academic Content Generator (I used this tool to create a short story about community and identity for Grade 4 students. It even came up with questions for students to answer about the story.)

These are just some of the super cool and fun features of Magic School AI. Overall, this resource could save teachers a ton of time planning and, therefore, help with teacher burnout and allow teachers to focus more on their students and teaching, not the prep and planning that goes into it. It also has functions to support differentiation and students with extra needs. The text rewriter tool or the text scaffolder tool can help you take a text you use in your classroom and modify it for students with a lower reading level. The text translator tool can significantly help EAL students by putting a text into a language they are fluent in. It will help you create unit plans and lesson plans. There is even a function that helps you make a class newsletter you can easily share with student’s families. I highly recommend you check it out. 

It can be a slightly ‘iffy’ tool to use in some situations. Should you use AI to write report card comments, email families, write assignment feedback, or even create lessons? It is a hard question to answer, and I do not believe there is one simple answer. It depends on the situation and the educator. One would also have to look into security and privacy settings and features before putting student work or information into one of the tools on Magic School AI. One would also have to be concise in the accuracy of things the tools generate. Does the text rewriter tool accurately rewrite a text to include the same main ideas, or does it change the meaning? Does the song, the song generator tool, create on figurative language convey accurate information about figurative language?

AI definitely has a place in the classroom in the future. I think it can help with teacher burnout and stress levels, especially in the first few years of a teacher’s career, if used properly. It is and will definitely be a helpful tool for teachers. What I am unsure of is how a student could use AI in productive ways in the classroom (not cheating or plagiarizing on an assignment). In my mind, AI usually does the work for you, which often does not encourage a growth mindset, critical thinking, or a student’s ability to learn and grow. So, if anyone has any ideas on how a student could productively use AI in the classroom but still encourage the student’s learning and thinking, please leave them in the comments!