Lemon Tech Tidbits

  The blog post b y Matt Miller titled New Google Doc Features You Need to Know is highly recommended for all teachers to read .   In the blog, Matt goes into detail about the new features now available in Google Doc such as smart chips and building blocks. Both of these use a simple method of typing in @ character to access. What I liked the most about this blog was how Matt Miller easily explains what a smart chip is and how it differs from a building block. He then goes into detail about how you can use each one to easily and more efficiently collaborate with others with a Google Doc. For example, did you know you can easily assign a task to another person? Or how about linking a slide presentation to a Google Doc without the need of copy and pasting a url address? In addition, Matt explains a few other features of Google Docs such as the pageless format, inserting an equation and adding a table of contents. 

  If you teach students how to evaluate information found online or are a journalism teacher , you might be interested in signing up for a weekly SIFT Newsletter from Newslit.com (the people behind Checkology).  “The Sift, NLP’s free weekly newsletter for educators — delivered during the school year — explores timely examples of misinformation, addresses media and press freedom topics and discusses social media trends and issues. It also includes links, discussion prompts and activities for use in the classroom.” You can view past weekly newsletters to discover articles of interest that you can incorporate into your own instructions.

  I heard about Autoclassmate.io from a Facebook group and was intrigued. It is a website in which teachers can choose to use one of three different AI tools plus another one that helps you refine a ChatGPT prompt for instructional uses which will be coming soon.  The three different AI tools are an AI Would You Rather question generator , Activation and Engagement Activity generator, and a Lesson Plan and Activity Forecast tool.  I tried all three and my favorite was the Would You Rather question generator. Although I liked the idea of the Activation and Engagement Activity generator, my prompt led it to suggest three activities that all required access to materials and equipment our school does not have access to. The Lesson Plan and Activity Forecast was okay but I prefer using ChatGPT for lesson planning as the prompt needed to generate on Autoclassmate.io required more detail.  The mission behind Autoclassmate.io is to help teachers stay on top of emerging technology. I think t

  I first learned about QuestionWell from a blog post by Richard Byrne. You can locate that post here .  What is it? QuestionWell is an AI tool developed to help teachers create reading comprehension and guided questions over a topic, a large chunk of text or an online article. The questions can then be saved to a Word document or saved to one of the popular quiz apps such as Kahoot or Blooket.  Educational Uses? I found this AI tool to be incredibly easy and useful. The prompt I used was simply to ask it to generate questions about emerging technology for 9th grade students. I did not enter any text or even a link to an article found online. With only the bare minimum, it was still able to generate 6 essential questions and 19 general questions. I love the ability to filter the questions by learning objectives. I appreciated the ability to easily select all of the questions or only the select few I needed. I then tried the same AI tool using a link to a news article. I simply cop

  What is it? HelloHistory AI is a Smartphone app (both Android and Apple) that allows you to “talk” to a historical person through the power of artificial intelligence, AI. You can keep the historical “chat” with the person going for as long as you want by continuing to ask questions as long as you stay on topic. (there is a limit to what the AI can produce).  Educational Uses? It is fun to play around with and the historical information you receive from each character is presented in more of a conversational style than if you were to search on wikipedia or a general Google search. However, it is only available as a mobile app at this time. In addition, there are disclaimers that sometimes the information is not completely accurate. In conclusion, I find it can serve as a novel way such as a teacher “asking” George Washington how he felt being the first U.S. President in front of the class but not really that useful for in depth information. Read the blog post by Richard Byrne for hi

  What is it? GPT-4 is the premium version of ChatGPT. This is the AI device that can correctly pass the Bar exam, analyze images to detect trends, and will soon be behind other educational apps such as Khan’s new teaching assistant called Khanmingo. This premium version also does a better job of giving accurate statements unlike some subjects in ChatGPT. How much does it cost? This is the paid premium version of ChatGPT.  Want to know more? In this article , “ Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, recently told me that GPT-4 has next level “science fiction” type capabilities.” In short, GPT-4 is better than ChatGPT but will only be available to those who have the money to pay for its services.  It is scary to think about what will be released next in the world of AI.