Bringing fun into the classroom with AI

One of my core pedagogical beliefs is that learning should be interesting and fun. Sure, there are parts of education that are generally not very interesting, but with a little creativity, even the most boring subjects can become tolerable, at the very least.

I recently spent a week guest-teaching in a grade eight classroom. This classroom is one of my favourites to be in. The students are amazing kiddos, the teacher leaves great sub plans (thank you, Kristan!), and they are generally hard workers. They have been working on a novel study of a book that they all LOATH; hate isn’t a strong enough word in this case. So, when the Animated Drawings AI tool was brought up in this class, I instantly thought of these grade eights. Why? Because it is fun!

 

What is Animated Drawings?

Animated Drawings, is an AI tool that allows users to upload drawings to the website and then choose from a variety of animations to apply to the drawing. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I gave it a try with a picture of a bird my daughter had hanging on the fridge…here is how it went.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started by uploading the image to the website. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out since it is on a grey background. Luckily, the AI tool was prepared for that and preselected the image it thought I wanted to use. I had to trace in the beak myself, but it was simple to do.

 

 

Then came the hard part. The tool preselects areas of the image that will be affected by the animations (eyes, hips, ankles, elbows). Now, you’re probably seeing where I ran into trouble since I was using a bird…who does not have those parts. I estimated as best I could, but you cannot delete the points, so my bird ended up with a hip somewhere mid-stomach. But I pressed on, selected an animation, and this is what I ended up with…

 

 

 

 

For obvious reasons, I think this AI tool is best used with drawings that are more human-like or at least share some of the same anatomy.

How could this be used in the classroom?

Circling back to that grade right class, I have a couple of ideas…

Character biography

Students are given a character from the book, and they must write a biography for this character. Animated Drawings can then be used to bring the character to life. Students can edit clips together to construct a continuous video that plays out while they narrate the biography they have written.

 

Scene reconstruction

Small groups are given a scene from the book to recreate. They will use Animated Drawings to bring their characters to life. The clips are then edited to create a continuous video that can use voiceover for narration.

 

Benefits of this technology

• Increase student engagement
• Incorporate creativity into the assignment
• There is less focus on the mechanics of writing for students who struggle in this area.
• Addresses multiple areas of curriculum (ELA, art, social studies*, health*).
  • * These subjects apply specifically to the book that this group of eighth-graders is working on.

In both application ideas, EAL students would be able to utilize text-to-speech AI tools (ex. Eleven Labs) to narrate their videos, allowing them to fully participate in the assignment without the barrier of language.

 

AI is here to stay; embrace it!

I have no problem admitting that anytime I hear someone bring AI up, I get my back up. I immediately start envisioning the student who is using ChatGPT to write their papers, or to summarize articles they can’t be bothered to read (you’re paying big money to be in that university course, read the article, get something out of it!). However, the more I learn about AI and the different learning opportunities it presents, I soften…maybe just a little.

AI has its place. It’s great for generating ideas for create lessons, rewording a sentence that you’ve been trying to write for ten minutes, and even teaching substitute teachers how to solve for the slope of the line when they’re teaching grade eight but are in the middle years program (It’s me, hi!). But it also has the capacity to bring differentiation, creativity, and play into all grade levels. Students learn more when they are engaged and interested in what they are learning. In the early years, we talk a lot about the importance of play in education, and I think AI provides an opportunity to bring that play into the older grades as well.