👾 More ChatGPT, standardized tests, and how to be unremarkably average – Of bits and bytes for May 15, 2023

Internet Travels

Of bits and bytes is my weekly round up of interesting links and ideas I discovered on the internet. It is published on Mondays for the previous week

Apps

Here’s an interesting way to use ChatGPT’s ability to just make things up, try using it to brainstorm ideas! ChatGPT is great at making lists, so after defining your core question, ask it to make a list. I tried it out with this prompt:

After lunch recess my students return to my classroom all wound up. Give me 8 ways to get my class’s attention and put their minds in a state of wanting to learn.

ChatGPT returned some pretty lame ideas, but I do like this one:

Provide Choice and Autonomy: Offer students choices in their learning by incorporating different learning modalities or allowing them to select from a range of topics or assignments. When students feel empowered to make decisions about their learning, they become more invested in the process and are more likely to actively participate and seek knowledge.

My statement wasn’t the best, you would want to play around with different ways to ask the questions.

Pedagogy

Standardized testing has all sorts of issues, and Peter Greene does a great job of explaining the five hard truths about standardized tests. I find number 3 especially important, “State test results are influenced by family income and background knowledge”. Our community has a lot of Amish, and I saw a test for primary that had pictures of 4 modes of transportation with the question, “Which of these would you find on the roads in your community?”. The options were a picture of a plane, a boat, a car, and a horse and buggy. Two of those you find on our roads.

Another hard truth he talks about are that the tests are not diagnostic. I had read about a data driven school that was using tests scores to drive the curriculum. The students had taken a test, and a majority were having issues with one skill. Data driven means that they needed to provide additional support for this missing skill. However, upon examining the test, the teachers found that the particular skill was assessed once, in the last question of the test. So all of the students that didn’t finish in time were marked deficient. With standardized tests, teachers don’t even have access to the test questions to provide this feedback.

Lisa Nielsen checks out what it means to teach with access to ChatGPT.

Technology

One of the best ways to keep yourself safe is to turn on two factor authentication, and here’s how to convince others that it’s important. Two-factor authentication (or multifactor authentication) combines something you know, like a password, with something you have, like your smartphone. An attacker would need access to both your password and your phone to be able to sign in to your account. We require our administrators and our treasurer’s office to have it turned on, and will be rolling it out for teachers next year. It’s currently optional for everyone in the district, including students. Several students have turned it on for their school Google account.

I love the idea of reducing cognitive load, and here are ways to do it with AI.

Tips

Larry Ferlazzo has a new best list, SOME “BEST” IDEAS FOR USING MINI-WHITEBOARDS IN THE CLASSROOM

Pop Culture

Another out of the box idea for using ChatGPT, Man Turned ChatGPT Into a Fitness AI That Helped Him Lose 26 Pounds. I especially liked how ChatGPT basically “left him wanting more” which was a huge motivation.

Pot Pourri

I read this list of How to Be Unremarkably Average and am now a little depressed.

History

Posts on Eduk8.me from the past week.

Extra Credit

Here are extra links that I found interesting that may or may not be education related or interesting to you and I didn’t want to lose them.

👾 More ChatGPT, standardized tests, and how to be unremarkably average – Of bits and bytes for May 15, 2023

Internet Travels