For this week’s blog post, I decided to test out the program Tome. This AI tool gives layouts for various projects but can also generate entire presentations on various topics. In the video below, you can see the fruit fundraiser presentation it made for the imaginary school that I work at.

How could this tool be used to enhance teaching? Could it aid in personalized learning, automate administrative tasks, or provide new ways of engaging students?

Tome could be used to enhance teaching; if you wanted to make a presentation about a topic, it generates one for you that flows well. I wasn’t able to check its ability on making lesson presentations that are grade appropriate because I used all of my free credits, but this is definitely something you should watch out for.

As I said, it may give good outlines for lessons and cut down on some planning time, but you’d still have to go over it to ensure it’s curricular based and accurate if you wanted to use it for your teaching. As seen in my video above, you could use it for some admin or extra curricular tasks where it doesn’t need to be curricular based. All you need is an idea and Tome will create the presentation — and it seems very persuasive. But again, you’d need to add any personal details and I’ve noticed that the images it adds on the slides lack variety. Tome can also build resumes, work portfolios, invoices, and mood boards which could also be used to lessen the time you spend on making them yourself. Everyone, especially teachers, spend too much of their off duty time working on things for their jobs, Tome helps give back some of that time so you can spend it with your loved ones. As for engaging  students, I’m not sure it would help in creating your lesson more engaging, unless you are having them make their own.

How might this tool support different learning styles, assess student understanding, or encourage critical thinking and creativity?

Tome could be used to support those who struggle with creating aesthetic layouts. Though Tome is able to type and come up with ideas for you, as an educator, I would hesitate before recommending a student use Tome because as mentioned, it writes the presentation for you…you can add your own texts but how can I be sure that they aren’t just passing the AI off as their own? Unless I was specifically teaching about AI, like our lecture from this week, I honestly don’t think I would allow my students to use Tome for that reason. Teaching about AI could help with critical thinking skills, like “How would using AI affect this job? Our world? What are the positive/negatives about using AI in our world?” but I still feel like I don’t know enough about it to teach my students about it.

What are some of the ethical or practical challenges of using this tool?

As mentioned, I don’t think assigning Tome as a tool for kids to complete assignments would be very practical. I would have no idea if they added their own thoughts or even read through the AI generated content before handing it in. In general terms I still don’t think AI has a place in the classroom, at least in the hands of students. Even in university, it’d be very unfair if two people received the same grade on a paper, with one of them spending hours on it and the other spent 5 minutes using AI.

AI tools should only be allowed in the hands of teachers for to help with planning and get ideas, not as a substitution for you. If teachers use it for more than just ideas, we are cheating our kids out of a great education.