Future of Learning SEA Conference

 

Unintentionally Tricking the Youtube Algorithm

Google decided to kill off their podcasting and music platforms and merge them all with Youtube. To make this process easier for those of us with podcasts, they offered a way to transfer a podcast to Youtube using the RSS from the original podcasting host. This was great news to me, because I was actually trying to move at least some of my podcast episodes to Youtube. It was a pain, because I was basically having to remake each episode, so I created video versions of a few of the episodes I was more happy sharing, but it left many episodes not on Youtube due to simply not having enough time to deal with the process. I was very happy to see this simpler option. I created the podcast link on my Youtube channel and plugged in the RSS feed. It took a long time to transfer all those episodes from my hosting site on Podomatic over to Youtube, it is 164 episodes at the time. LOL. It actually took two days before all of the content was ready to be published on Youtube. I hit the button and went on about my day without really thinking about it. When I checked the next morning, I have receive a ton of traffic on my Youtube podcast. Like a whole lot, over 1500 views and 9.7 hours of watch time, which is more than my podcast had ever received before. I was quite surprised and definitely happy to see it. 

During my ELA class, one of my students was asking about the podcasting project we are currently working on. The student was asking me about the logo requirement and I showed him mine as an example. He went back to his computer and suddenly said, "Wow! Your logo is everywhere on Youtube!" I took a look at his screen and sure enough, my logo was all over his stream... And then it hit me, I had unintentionally tricked the algorithm with the massive upload and publishing of 164 episodes all at once. LOL. It just went everywhere. I'm enjoy the short term popularity. I know in a few days it will go back to being only a few views per episode.

My audience stats are interesting, because they are basically just Youtube in a nutshell. Men between 18-44 in the US, India, and the Philippines. 

Choice Board Generator with MagicSchool AI

 

MagicSchool AI has a great tool for creating choice boards that is super simple to use. You only need to input the grade level, the learning goal, and any additional details you want for your choice board. Bam! That simple. I created one for Grade 7 ELA about similes and metaphors and asked for it to provide multiple modalities. The output is the second photo. Even if you don't want to use the exact ideas given from the generator, it is a great way to start to get your ideas flowing. You can then use the Rubric Generator to help you come up with how to assess your choice board options. I'm not 100% satisfied with the output, but the output always helps me develop better final products for my students.

MagicSchool Rubric Generator

I came across MagicSchool quite by accident and was immediately intrigued due to the Rubric Generator. One thing I'm not great at is creating rubrics, so finding an easier and reliable method for making them is something I'm always on the hunt to find. I have used it for a couple of Project Based Learning assignments now and I'm happy with the outcomes. It is easy to use and can be exported to Google. You can select the grade level, add the standard, provided the title and description of the assignment, select a point scale, and add any additional information. After that you click generate rubric and — BAM! You have your rubric. Here is a sample one from my class about Short Answer Responses.

Using Bard in Creating Grammar Lessons for ELA

I'm back in an ELA classroom part-time at ASP for G6 and G7. I'm loving being with students everyday in the role of teacher, rather than principal. I enjoy the challenges and struggles of administration, but being in the classroom is always more fun. Our current textbook for ELA is from HMH and it is a good book, but sometimes I feel like not doing certain work online. Grammar is something I feel works better offline for me. Giving students time to practice reading examples of sentences and then creating their own examples without the distractions of the online world can be a good break from digital life. The grammar lesson for this particular unit is dealing with Simple, Compound, and Complex sentences. The HMH lesson was good, but I thought — let's see how Bard handles the idea.

I typed in the following prompt: Explanation for 7th grade students about simple sentences with 10 examples of simple sentences. The results were this lesson about Simply Sentences. I was pretty happy with the results and the style, so I used the prompt two more times, but changed it to Compound Sentences and Complex Sentences. I'll be teaching these lessons next week, so I will return to provide my experience with the students.

Update 12.19.23

I used the lessons with both of my middle school classes and it went quite well. Students asked many questions about how I used AI to create the lessons. It lead to natural discussions about ethical use of AI technology. We wrote our practice sentences together in class. We will be working on Argumentative Essays after the holiday, so they will be expected to use Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences correctly in the essay.