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Showing posts from 2023

The Power of "Why?"

One year teaching Multimedia Design, our class had just completed a project on creating geometric portraits. During this assignment, students chose a person they admired and selected a personal quote from that individual. Their task was to create a stylized vector portrait based on their chosen figure. To my surprise, one of the students approached me and asked if they could make a second portrait, a portrait of me. Feeling flattered, I agreed. Then, the student inquired if they could include a quote from me. Without much thought, I casually replied, "Sure." Over the next couple of weeks, during our lunch breaks, the student diligently worked on the portrait in my classroom. They never allowed me a sneak peek, but it was evident from the occasional hushed chuckles among other students that something amusing was taking shape. My curiosity piqued, and when the student finally unveiled the finished artwork, I understood the source of the laughter. The portrait was remarkably wel...

From Turing Test to Empathy Test: AI's Role in Teaching Interview Skills

The explosion of artificial intelligence use since November 2022 has been staggering. ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app in history, reaching over 100 million monthly users just two months after its launch. One of my goals with any new technology is figuring out ways to make our lives easier and our work more efficient. So, I've been experimenting with ChatGPT in my high school classroom. We've used it to brainstorm new ideas and lessons, quickly come up with backstories for RPG games we're developing, and proofread our work. As it turns out, ChatGPT does all these things incredibly well. But as we began our unit on design thinking, we examined the importance of empathy interviews at the beginning of the process. Before students can effectively hold empathy interviews, they need to be taught HOW to interview someone. What if AI could help students learn how to interview someone? AI could serve as a training tool for techniques like designing open-ended questions, reflec...