Blog Post 5: Generative AI and Evaluating Content and Tools for Learning

What Generative AI Applications Have I Found Useful?

I have found that ChatGPT is an extremely useful tool. In the past, I have found it really advantageous to use this tool to help me with studying, as oftentimes I will have so many readings to do for an exam but feel like I won’t have enough time to read them all, then begin retaining the information. By using ChatGPT, I can copy my big readings or textbook chapters into the text box, and ask the AI to summarize the information in an organized and detailed way. This allows me to obtain the important points of my readings without having to get through over fifty pages of information that is likely not to be tested. This allows me to feel confident about the information that I am studying, and really decreases the density of my study load, as I often neglect reading my textbooks if I have more time sensitive tasks at hand. ChatGPT is also really a great tool to help individuals come up with study guides or plan out their learning in an effective way. Because of the lack of accuracy with AI tools that often occurs, I don’t often trust them to come up with new information for me, for fear of it being inaccurate, dated or holding biases. To avoid this as much as possible, I always make sure to feed the AI the direct and whole information I want it to work with, and just have it spit it back to me in a more efficient way. Before this class, I had only used ChatGPT, and had never branched out to other open AI tools as sometimes I get intimidated by a different technology than what I am used to and like to stick with what I know how to navigate. I had never heard of or used Stable Diffusion before, had so much fun playing around with it, feeding it different prompts and seeing what it would come up with. I was definitely pleasantly surprised, and a little shocked with how well the images were able to be done, and how you could specify details you wanted the AI to incorporate into the image. I was also surprised at how quickly it is able to generate the image!

What Apps Have You Used That Are Not in the Explore Section?

The only image creator AI I had ever used was the Bing AI chatbot, that utilises the Chat GPT 4 model – which is the one you’d have to pay for on the Chat GPT site. I love using Bing AI to play around with image creation, and had to use the site last semester during an elective I took on the History of Japanese Animation. During one assignment, we had to create an anime style character using popular features of the art genre and could use any mode of creation. Because I am not the most artistically gifted, I opted to use the Bing AI tool, and fed it specific prompts of how I wanted my character to look, and what setting I wanted her to be in. Bing AI is really useful because you can further prompt the AI after the original image is created to tweak it, add details and make it more complex over time without overloading the AI with too much information or too many details all in the first prompt.

This is the image I created! I wanted it to be cute haha, I was really impressed by the details on the fur!

“A bunny wearing a chef hat baking a cake” prompt, Stability AI, Stable Diffusion, Version 2.1, 24 March, 2024, https://stablediffusionweb.com/app/image-generator

I also tried out creating an animation from a drawing on Sketch!! I am not the most artistically talented, especially when attempting to draw something digitally but I think it turned out super cute! Let me know what you think!

What Ethical Concerns do you Have About the use of Some of These Tools?

I do think there are some ethical concerns about the use of AI tools, especially when considering the fact that many of these AI tools could be competing for the same jobs as humans who worked hard to hone their skills in these positions through years of training, schooling and hard work. I think especially in the creative sector, including writing, design, film and music, there is risk of AI replacing human effort as there is potential for the technology to save money and be more time efficient. I also think there are some concerns around the use of AI tools to aid in the completion of assignments and writing tasks in high school and University, which could cause concerns surrounding plagiarism and academic integrity.

What Might you use AI Tools for Moving Forward? What Would you not use Them for?

Moving forward, I would continue to use AI tools to help me streamline my studying and note taking, and could potentially find it useful to use AI tools embedded in sites like Grammarly to revise my writing by checking for mistakes in spelling, grammar or punctuation that I might miss by just reading my paper over. If I had to create and plan out another creative project using something like a storyboard, I also think I’d like to play around using AI to create the images for said process, rather than simply just taking pictures of my process on my phone, or using the alternative of drawing them out by hand. I would still refrain from using AI to create my work for me, as I know that other than it breaching academic integrity, there is pretty great risk for inaccurate, dated and biased information that I can easily avoid by doing my own research and writing my papers myself. I know for many students it may be tempting to use AI tools to help complete assignments faster, because we always have so much going on, but it is important to remember the risks that come from doing so.

SECTIONS Analysis of Twine:

Students- Students are easily able to access this storymaking tool conveniently and affordably! It is so rare nowadays that technologies are free for public use with no paywalls or subscriptions services, especially with the amount of features of the site, such as Javascript. It does require wifi and a computer device for the media, and while this may be a barrier to some students who may not be able to afford a personal computer or laptop, this barrier is mitigated due to the availability of public computers within university campus libraries, as well as public libraries. The use of public wifi services would mitigate this barrier as well. 

Ease of Use – Even though I have never been that tech savvy, and sometimes find it difficult to navigate a new tool, I found Twine to be pretty intuitive to use on the basic level! Each function is effectively labelled, making it easy for students and instructors to learn what they need to do and how to add different features as they go along. It would be easy for instructors to point out and explain the functions they wish their students to use, as they are all set up to be simple to find and understand. For more advanced functions such as the addition of conditional logic or the use of Javascript, I believe additional training may be necessary for some users (including me haha), but could the extra training is easily accessible through the “Twine Cookbook” under the help button, which provides tutorials on working with HTML, Working with CSS and Javascript, as well as beginner tutorials explaining the basic functions of the site along with some story examples. I really like how it provides tutorials on the site and does not require students or instructors to search outside of the page for user made tutorials on platforms like Youtube.The site is reliable to use, and is able to be used for its intended purpose of creating a story without extra learning required. 

Cost – The site is completely free to use which is a really great factor. However, if you are setting out to make a pretty complex or lengthy story, it may cost the user a few hours of their time, as each addition of the story is added one at a time, and can take a while if you’re adding multiple pathways, then continuing onto each of those pathways. 

Teaching – The medium might not directly support good teaching, as it is a pretty niche activity to ask for students to complete, but for classes on creative writing or english I think this would be a really fun and unique way to supplement lessons and get students writing creatively in a way that isn’t just on a page or online document. I think Twine could potentially be used as low as a middle school level, as at that time students would likely be capable of utilising and understanding the functions of the online tool, and would be able to think at the level necessary to create a complex branching story.

Interaction – While this is a great tool, it does not foster a high level of interaction between students within the site, as to my knowledge there are no interactive features that allow for direct collaboration. However, students could easily collaborate on one story by working together in person and using one device together to make their story. Students can creatively interact with the given content by reworking it into their own story or pathway of connected learning concepts, which allows for increased consolidation of information. 

Organisation – I am not quite sure what is available support wise from UVIC to develop, maintain or access this technology. Before this class, I had never heard of Twine before, which may be a reflection of a lack of institutionally backed access. However, if an individual sought out library resources or information technologies they may have information about the Twine tool. 

Networking – I do not think Twine would be the best tool to use if you wished to widen networks and include more people in the course by using a medium. It works best as a creative way to process the course content or come up with new material, but does not provide functions that allow for connections to be made between people within or outside of the course. However, connections could be formed between the learners by sharing their twine stories with each other by exporting them outside of the platform into an HTML, which Twine is capable of.

Security – I am not quite sure of the security policy of twine, but it is an open platform and does not require the user providing their personal information such as an email, name or password.