Category: Multimedia Learning

What AI tools I found useful in my explorations and how did you use them

I found Chat GPT pretty useful in terms of creating images. 

How accurate or successful were the learning objects you created using the AI tools?

In general, I think it was pretty successful in terms of drawing a photorealistic image. However, I think AI unknowingly draws from a lot of stereotypes which is very harmful. It’s accurate in the sense that it gives a western idea of answering whatever questions you feed it. The stereotypes that it dishes back, however, just further resurface an already very tainted view that these Indigenous communities have been trying to correct.

What ethical concerns do I have about the use of some of these AI tools?

With AI being an up and coming new vessel for everyday use, there’s still a lot of uncertainty on how to proceed with it. One thing that sticks out to me personally is how these tools are painting false narratives. If you ask Chat GPT to create a picture of an Indigenous person, it’ll most likely generate a photo emulating a “noble savage” stereotype. There’s a lot of questions to be asked there. Where is the GPT basing this narrative off of? What databases is it pulling from to generate a photo embodying these stereotypes? It’s no secret that these harmful ideas have been around for a while, and AI isn’t necessarily preventing that harm, but is resurfacing it. The truth of the matter is that these tools are only going to get even more technologically advanced and policy-making processes are going to be needed to put in place if we are to coexist with it all.  

In terms of academics, I think AI is something that is inevitable for school. It used to be considered a luxury when a student was using a laptop when my parents were in university but now, I feel it’s almost a necessity to keep up with how post-secondary is setup these days. We need to adjust to the times, and developing ways for it to be used in a fair and ethical way is what is needed over strict prevention. This technology is advancing more and more, and so, detecting that something that is written by AI is arbitrary. Because it’s so new, there’s uncertainty on how we need to react to these types of things. When the pandemic started, there was so much questions about what COVID-19 really is. However, we’ve clearly adjusted after learning more about it and we’ve learned to coexist with it. The same applies to Chat GPT, and the many other similar sites to come. What I predict is going to happen, is that there is going to be restructure in how university pedagogies are setup. Who says writing is the only avenue for learning? In my culture it’s certainly not how we’ve learned throughout generations. When technology advances, so will education. We’re going to have innovative ways to approach learning and I don’t even think we know what that looks like right now. But there’s beauty in that mystery, and we’ll be enlightened soon.

What authentic problem would you use to design a lesson using Merrill’s principles?

One thing that sticks out is teaching Indigenous languages, specifically geared towards kids and new learners. There are so many Indigenous languages across Turtle Island that are currently being revitalized and finding innovative ways to help teach them is always something to be explored.

When designing using Merrill’s Principles, I wanted to include activation. Finding English words that are familiar and frequently used will allow users to connect with the learning in a way that feels relevant. 

With that, I also want to utilize Integration. There is a level of incentive to actually use the language if you can integrate little words into your daily vocabulary. Language is a form of an everyday act of resurgence, and so being able to speak it on the daily, even if it’s just a couple words is very powerful.

My Experience with H5P

There’s a lot of opportunity with H5P and I had a lot of fun making this. An interactive experience like this is an underrated avenue for learning something new, and especially great for language learning.  I made a matching game to connect the English phrases to the matching Anishinaabemowin phrases.

How I found the balance of passive and active learning in this course. And, how it compares to my experience in other courses?

I found it super helpful to have that balance. My schedule gets super busy at times and being able to listen to videos about the different principles while doing other things like laundry or cooking was really beneficial for me.

Personally, I prefer passive learning for online classes and active learning for in-person classes. One thing I appreciate about my major (Indigenous Studies), is that most of my classes in-person have all of the students sitting in a circle and the learning feels more community-based than simply being talked at for an hour(s), which I struggled with in my science classes in the past. 

For this class, I appreciated the passive learning as I was able to work on the course on my own time. 

My Twine:

The Twine I developed follows Super Mario traversing through a world. This was my first time using Twine and it helped to create a tree for an abundance of events and seeing visually how they all connect to one another. The process of being able to click on an event and test it from there helped me a lot with making sure the sequence flows nicely and also makes sense linearly.

Having done some programming in the past, I think having a visual component similar to Twine is the direction that software development will go.

Other uses of branched narratives:

Growing up I used to play games by the game studio “Telltale Games” which were essentially “Choose Your Own Adventure” books but in the form of Video Games. One game I’ve played recently that follows a similar format is Life is Strange: True Colours which follows the story of Alex Chen, a girl with superpowers. The choices you make in the game can determine many different outcomes.