As I’m currently on maternity leave for this full school year, I’m not using AI in an educational/professional context at the moment, apart from my own post secondary education. However, I have been using it more and more for personal uses, and I’m 100% still nerding out over how cool it is.

Since I’m not in the classroom right now, I haven’t ventured too far beyond ChatGPT, but I know that when I’m teaching again, I’ll be exploring other generative AI tools that are specifically suited for education, like MagicSchool. Learning more about chatbots, however, it seems to be less about the platform and more about the prompt.

One way I’ve been using it at home is for cooking, and man oh man, it’s been a lifesaver on some of those what the heck are we having for supper nights. Being able to ask for a recipe with whatever random ingredients I have left in my fridge and pantry on those scrounging days has been a huge help in whipping something up that is half decent! It typically takes me two or three “tries” to get the type of recipe that will work for the night, but eventually, it always gets it.

Another way I’ve been using AI is for parenting help (yes, seriously). My 4 year old daughter is entering the age of making friends and increased socialization at school and other places like parks and play places. Expectedly, we’ve run into some challenges with exactly how to make friends or even how exactly to be friendly! ChatGPT has been a major help in creating social stories with June as the main character, walking her through how to initiate conversations, ask to play, or how to respond in situations that might not go as she planned. The possibilities are really endless with this one as I can keep prompting the AI tool to generate stories based on whatever situation we find ourselves in (getting a needle, first day of Kindergarten, trying new foods, etc!). All this valuable help…and all for free…at the minute I need it. Pretty darn cool.

Another AI use in the parenting realm has recently been for generating rhyming clues for an Easter egg hunt. I had high hopes for this one. However, I ended up writing the clues myself after several attempts to get ChatGPT to do what I wanted it to do. I don’t think I could get the prompt right, or maybe AI isn’t great at rhyming yet? Either way, after several prompt tweaks here is an example of what I got:

Uhhh…what?

I wonder if I kept tweaking it if eventually it would have got it. Maybe? But at that point I figured the time spent changing my prompt could just be spent creating the clues myself in roughly the same time. It makes me wonder about the ability for artificial intelligence to be creative and if the human mind still has the upper hand with this one. I don’t doubt that this area will improve with time and ChatGPT will be spittin’ rhymes much better than the ones I could drum up.

When it comes to AI, the possibilities are truly endless. Which is equal parts exciting and terrifying. Something I find extremely comforting, though, is that no matter how good AI eventually gets, humans will still crave HUMAN connection. And it will always be an important part of the experience of life. So I don’t think AI will ever be able to fully replace humans. But thinking about the medical and technological advancements it could make for our world for the better is pretty incredible.