ISTELive, organized by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), stands as one of the world’s premier EdTech conferences. The event serves as a platform for established EdTech products to unveil their latest features, and for new innovations to make their debut. Undoubtedly, ISTELive is a treasure trove of insights for educators and enthusiasts in the education technology realm. Here I bring my week in Philadelphia to you and share my top takeaways:
- AI tools for teachers
- Immersive learning in the metaverse
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools for Teachers
At ISTELive 2023, AI emerged as a prominent topic, and it’s not hard to see why. Engaging in discussions about AI in education throughout the week only strengthened my belief that employing plagiarism checkers and blocking is not the ideal approach to navigate this pivotal moment in education.
Instead, let’s place further emphasis on the 4 C’s of 21st-century skills:
- Creativity
- Critical thinking
- Collaboration
- Communication
The 4 C’s represent essential human skills, and with the advent of AI, we have an incredible opportunity to spend more time and energy cultivating these skills. This is a new world, and we must prepare students for that world! During my ISTELive session, “Assessments to Engage the Modern Learner,” I presented these ideas:
- Let’s expand the horizon of collaboration to include collaborating with AI.
- Let’s embrace AI’s potential to reduce cognitive load, freeing our minds in order to focus on critical thinking.
- Let’s utilize AI to streamline tasks and use the saved time to nurture our creative abilities.
In my blog post, AI-mazing Modern Assessments: Assessing Learning with AI in the Classroom, I expand on the concept of collaborating with AI.
It feels like every day there’s a new AI tool emerging on the educational scene, each with its unique potential to support educators in various ways. Investing time to explore these tools has become a normal part of my workflow, as I strive to uncover the ones that offer the most value to educators. A few months ago, I shared “5 AI Tools for Teachers.” Since then, I have added my favorite AI tools to this Wakelet collection:
AI for Education Wakelet Collection
If you find yourself short on time to explore the ever-expanding list, don’t worry! Here are my top 5 favorite AI tools for teachers from the curated Wakelet collection:
Diffit
Instructional purpose: Differentiation made easy.
What: Diffit is your leveled resources generator for…literally anything. Copy a URL to an article, upload a PDF or search for your desired topic, and watch as Diffit works its magic to convert the text to the identified reading level.
But that’s not all! Drift goes the extra accessibility mile by translating text into several languages.
NotebookLM
Instructional purpose: One of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles is multiple means of representation. This principle focuses on providing content in a variety of formats, including text, video, audio, and images.
What: NotebookLM makes multiple means of representation a reality as it generates audio conversations from sources of your choosing; the key here is audio conversations. The inputted text is organized similar to a podcast or news story.
QuestionWell
Instructional purpose: Create formative assessments.
What: Question Well generates multiple choice questions tailored to identified content, learning outcomes, or standards. These questions can be exported to virtually any tool, such as Kahoot!, Quizziz, Blooket, Google Forms, Gimkit, Canvas, and more.
Fetchy
Instructional purpose: Save time so you can spend more time with your students.
What: Fetchy is as brand new as it gets, as it was released to the public just this week. Fetchy functions much like a generative AI chatbot (think ChatGPT) but is designed specifically for educators. Fetchy helps with all the teaching tasks:
- Creating lesson plans and project ideas
- Writing emails and newsletters
- Generating and restructuring reading passages and stories
- Brainstorming solutions to classroom management challenges
I asked Fetchy to generate project ideas for this middle school Next Generation Science Standard:
MS-LS1-1 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes: Conduct an investigation to provide evidence that living things are made of cells, either one cell, or many different numbers and types of cells.
It generated not one but five ideas, each complete with objectives, materials list, and bulleted instructions.
goblin.tools: Magic ToDo
Instructional purpose: Support executive functioning skills. Provide support to neurodivergent individuals.
What: goblin.tools is a collection of tools designed to support neurodivergent individuals by making tasks less overwhelming. One such tool, Magic ToDo, excels at breaking down a task into smaller, more manageable steps.
I tasked Magic ToDo with breaking down this learning task: Create a short-form video to show what I know about erosion. It provided me with nine specific steps to follow in the order of completion.
Immersive Learning in the Metaverse
Conversations surrounding immersive learning and the metaverse in education have recently been somewhat overshadowed by discussions about generative AI. Therefore, it was nice to see that ISTELive had an entire area called the ISTEVerse dedicated to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in education.
My takeaway from the ISTEVerse was the array of new VR content solutions for K–12 education. Join me on my metaverse and education journey through this Wakelet collection:
The Metaverse in Education Wakelet Collection
Again, if you find yourself short on time, below are two of my favorite VR and AR tools from the curated Wakelet collection.
MegaMinds
As an advocate of virtual learning, I have been exploring how to use immersive worlds for virtual learning. Until now, there hasn’t been an immersive world that was built to meet the unique needs of K–12 education. Enter MegaMinds, which transforms traditional lessons into immersive and interactive 3D experiences.
Transfr
With Transf, students can explore careers and learn essential career-based skills in VR.
Let Us Help You
Do the words “AI” and “immersive learning” leave you feeling overwhelmed? Are you unsure about how to effectively implement these technologies at your school?
Embracing technology as a learning tool has become a necessity, but I understand the challenges it presents. The rapid advancement of AI can be particularly daunting. That’s where I step in.
I’m here to support your school every step of the way. From providing expert recommendations on AI tools for teachers to curating frameworks that guide decision making, I’ve got you covered.
