Tech Talks with Babcock

 I've had an interesting week playing and experimenting with generative AI. I'm not talking about those weird filters on social media. Oh no, I am talking about ChatGPT. I have previously been hesitant to just go to the internet and type in ChatGPT because I was hypervigilant about avoiding viruses or downloading anything. I wasn't sure what I was looking for online and, therefore, I didn't trust just any website who claimed to be ChatGPT or AI. Going out into the internet and roaming around can be similar to going into cities and getting lost in neighborhoods. Some of those neighborhoods just aren't safe.  I was lucky enough to finally get a reliable web address to access ChatGPT. It was from my college professor, so I knew it was legit. Here's the link to the website in case you were also wondering: https://chat.openai.com/. I didn't realize it was just like other websites where you create an account and then sign in. I was able to quickly just create one ...

 My title is misleading. Let me tell you why. I didn't really explore more than one social bookmarking site. Technically, according to Wikipedia, sites like Facebook and Twitter are not social bookmarking sites. I thought they were, but they're not. One of the most famous ones that I am aware of is Reddit. Yet, I never was a user of Reddit, so I can't comment much about it.  Wikipedia's page for "social bookmarking" says the first one was itList in 1996 and that the term "social bookmarking" wasn't coined until 2013 by a social bookmarking site owned by Delicious. Before reading Wikipedia's page, I was thinking Facebook was like social bookmarking because we are able to share websites and videos just like a social bookmarking site. We all know Facebook is so much more than that, but in a generalistic view of social bookmarking, it would make sense that it would fall into that category. Am I wrong? Anyways, to get back to the social bookmarkin...

       The very name of hyperdocs, with its word root hyper, implies they are "more than" a doc and that's exactly what many educators would argue: that hyperdocs are not just documents created through the process of word processing. Instead, hyperdocs are embedded with hyperlinks. But that's not all. Oh no! Hyperdocs are designed purposefully to carry out an interactive instructional multimodal lesson that incorporates interactivity, collaboration, discovery, sharing, and creativity. The users (i.e. students) of hyperdocs work their way through opportunities for engagement, exploration, explanation, application, sharing, reflection, and extension activities.      Long story short: I am a graduate student completing a graduate assignment. My professor has asked my classmates and I go explore hyperdocs. He provided one link for us to explore:  https://wakelet.com/wake/tzJYE-N631-GtuJrais57. From there, I was able to find some really great examples ...

 To YouTube or not to YouTube? That could be the question for many educators who are trying to determine if the benefits of the website outweigh the distractions that come along with it. Parents and teachers alike are already aware of the pop culture obsession with YouTube. The students are all about YouTube Shorts these days and spend many hours of the month adding views and likes to video content. Being a "YouTuber" is many kids' dream, so when it comes to whether we should use YouTube for educational purposes, I believe the answer is clear: yes! Why not help the kids out and show them how to create content that is educational and more likely to get views? Why not teach students how to create with an intended audience in mind? Why not help students use their critical thinking and higher order thinking skills without them realizing it? Making YouTube content will require planning, coordination, synthesis of information, reading, writing, and collaboration.  When consider...