Tech Talks with Babcock

Now that I had a chance to check out different Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning, I realize how those tools can make my job so much easier as an educator. I can use ChatGPT to help create worksheets, assessments, or even leveled reading passages. It can help design lesson plans and write emails to parents. There are endless uses for AI. But Web 2.0 isn't just AI. It's also all the other online platforms and software that are available both on and off the internet. Some are backed by research, while others are not. It's important to choose tools that not only meet your needs, but also meet other criterion. This is why a Web 2.0 evaluation rubric is so handy. It helps use objectively decide if a tool is worth using and implementing in the classroom for teaching and learning.  Here is the rubric my group created: Educators have a limited amount of time in a classroom with their students. We must teach state standards (i.e. a specific set of predetermined knowledge and sk...

 When we think of something being created, it is either by willful purpose, requiring conscious effort, or by nature, like how a seedling "knowing" how to sprout.  So what category would AI fall in? Does AI create with willful purpose? Does it use conscious effort? Of course! It's a software program. It really just creates based on preprogramed responses and algorithms. The information that AI uses comes from a database. And the database from which all that data comes from? Anything on the internet in digital form. Better yet, though, it comes from humans. Humans created the writing, the art, the music--all of it. So anything AI can "think up" really is just a collage of tiny pieces of data pulled from the buffet of digital media.  Last week, I was so excited to play around with image-creating AI. But after playing around with it, I lost my enthusiasm. AI simply cannot replace humans when it comes to writing beautiful stories or poetry, drawing or painting optic...