Reinforce Concepts & Increase Engagement with AI Image Generation

It's only October, and already this year, I have found myself working with a handful of teachers to design AI activities for students! This isn't new - in the last two years, I've worked with many teachers in different subject areas to create SchoolAI Spaces to enhance learning and increase engagement. So what's different about this year? Images!! New this year, SchoolAI can incorporate image generators (among other "PowerUps") into Student Spaces.

I know what you're thinking...AI image generators? That sounds terrible. That was me as recently as just a few months ago. As a former professional photographer/videographer married to a fellow former professional photographer with a graphic design degree...I was adamantly opposed to AI being used for any sort of creative work. But just like anything with AI (or technology in general), there are actually some really solid educational uses.

Let's look at some real examples from this year. First, we had an English class that was learning about Native American myths. They then had to research their own tribe and write their own myth. We created a Space whose primary goal was to help the students through the writing process. It provided feedback on each paragraph to ensure the students met all the requirements. At the end, the Space looked at the whole myth and generated an image to match the story! The students ended up recording themselves reading the myth and then added the image as a visual to go along with the spoken story. The image wasn't the main focus of the assignment, but it added a fun twist that would never have been possible before without Photoshopping together multiple images. Here's one of the images - the myth was of the Blackfoot tribe who prayed to the sky spirit and the buffalo to keep them safe. In return, the sky spirit raised the Rocky Mountains.

Example number two comes from Social Studies. They've been spending some time focusing on teaching students how to use lateral reading to determine the validity of a source. As part of that digital citizenship unit, we developed a lesson focusing on spotting "deepfakes" (AI generated or otherwise digitally altered audio, video, and images). Students learned what types of things they should look for to determine whether images are real or fake. To close out the unit, the students created their own "Find the Fake" slideshow where they first pulled in stock photos from Canva and then used this Space to try to generate similar images with the goal of fooling a group of teachers and administrators. Just like the first example, the image generation is not the main focus, but it gave the students the chance to learn:

1. How easy it is for people to generate deepfakes

2. How to write a good AI prompt and how to re-prompt if needed

3. How to focus on and write about specific details

Here's a quick example...

The last example comes from English again. In this case, students were doing a big project focused on researching the best vehicle for person in a specific scenario. As a final piece to the project, the teachers wanted to give the students the chance to design their "perfect" car. We built this Space that again asks students to focus on providing details and then generates 3 different images - an exterior, a front seat interior, and a back seat interior. The next plan is to teach the students about creating marketing materials, so they will now create commercials using those three images! Here are my own car images...if you want to test it out as a student, click here!

There are so many ways to use AI image generators to take your Spaces to the next level. If you want to learn more about using SchoolAI 2.0's image generator within Spaces, you can check out this video or just reach out to me!