“Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men.” ― Marvin Minsky

I’ve been meaning to do an AI/writing post and hadn’t gotten around it, but, since AI has been in the news a lot lately, now seems like a good time.

Also, completely randomly, I saw this AI video on Instgram last night and was fascinated by how real it looks.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dylan Miller (@dxmillaa)

What on earth. And because I had to search to find it, the algorithms are going to show these even more now. XP

If I didn’t know great white sharks can’t live in captivity or that they must be swimming to breathe, I’d have really struggled with this sight (and apparently sharks don’t blink so that was a giveaway, too, but I learned that in the comments X)

I’ve never used AI bots like ChatGPT; I am just not a fan. I know it has some benefits, but it’s such a cheating way, and I think less thorough way, to write. However, I’m sure middle school or high school me would have sacrificed thoroughness for time to go outside and play instead. And many of the modern students have my same old mentality. It’s understandable. Not okay, but understandable.

The advent of these AI writing, composing, art creating systems definitely allow students more free time, but they also enable students to plagiarize…without plagiarizing a specific, human source. It used to be (and sometimes still is) so, painfully, easy to catch the plagiarizers because they would literally copy and paste entire web posts and submit them as their own. I would find these posts, print them and attach them to their papers when I handed them back so there could not even be a “But I…” excuse starter. But with AI like ChatGPT, and I figure this new China one, I can’t just type in some key sentences and expect an original source to pop up. Several years back a coworker received an essay from a student that he obviously did not write, however, it wasn’t triggered for plagiarism by Turnitin either. The thought was a family member wrote it for him, so he had to rewrite the essay, at the sacrifice of his lunches, with eyes on him. His second essay was rather different from the first!

Anyway…!

These newfangled AI things make ELA teacher life, or any heavy writing-based course, a little more difficult. To mitigate this, my last two or three classroom years, students had to write everything in class, and it had to be collected each day. Extended time students had to come on lunch or before or after school. Sigh. Without clear organization, instruction and goals, this can be a class time eating nightmare.

Fortunately, I have some writing lessons to help mitigate that at least. From writing prompts, to introductory doodle notes to full writing units and themed writing units (for Fever 1793), I manage to cover a lot of bases.

Keep students, focused, organized and, most importantly, original with some units that layout clear expectations and guidance.