So I’ve been working on the materials for Camp Creative: Your Back-to-School Kickoff Kit, this year’s iteration of the free summer PD I run every year. (By the way, you can get all the details and sign up right here for this fun, free, async PD). And it seems to me that one of the most vital conversations this year for us all to be having is what exactly it means to use AI at school – the risks and dangers, the helpful aspects in terms of accommodation, the temptation, the citation process, all of it.
I’ve been in and out of the rabbit hole on AI for months and years now, following along with policies, trends, Ted Talks, teacher frustrations, and most recently, the growing movement away from letting AI increase its foothold in our classrooms (a movement I’m very glad to see, as it matches up with my own take). My rabbit hole life has led me to one particular resource for you that I’d like to highly recommend as a conversation starter this week, and that’s the student finalist gallery from The New York Times’ Growing up with AI Multimedia Contest.
This contest plays a central role in the AI Conversations & Research Stations I’ve created for Camp Creative, and whether you join us there or not, I hope you will take a minute to explore what kids have shared about their experiences living at the epicenter of the AI explosion.
Screenshots of multimedia in this station mockup are from The New York Times Multimedia Contest Finalist Page and the Finalist Video, “In Progress”
Watch this Video: “In Progress”
To start, I’d like to share the video I found most impactful. It represents what so many of the pieces in this contest do, which is help us to see how AI feels for students, something that can get lost in our debate over how to regulate it. This video became a central part of the second station I created, in which I asked students to discuss with a partner what they lose and what they gain when AI writes/draws/creates for them, and then add their names and opinions to a printed sliding scale of opinion on the matter.
This video is called “In Progress,” and it was created by Ailey Takashima, Grace Kozak, Sophia Kim, and Wanya Zafar, teenagers from Houston.
I think you’ll agree it does an incredible job of showcasing how a student trying to persevere in doing original work can feel when surrounded by others who are not, inside the high school tornado of constant pressure to succeed.
You could use this video as a writing prompt, as part of a choice board of AI exploration, as a mentor text for inviting students to create short videos of their own on this highly relevant NYT prompt, or perhaps to share with your department in your next conversation around AI. It puts student feelings in the spotlight, an important place for them to be.
Now, there are DEFINITELY more amazing student pieces to explore in the collection of finalists, and many more ways you might use them in class too. But as is our custom with “highly recommended,” I’m going to stick to this one powerful recommendation today. I really hope you can find a few minutes to watch this video and consider how you might use it in class.
And don’t forget to sign up for Camp Creative later this month (July 27-31), where I’ll be sending out the full AI stations activity and we’ll all be sharing ideas in the Camp Community around AI policy for next year.
