Teacher Only Day - Create Workshop

I recently had the opportunity to run a workshop during our Tamaki Cluster - Manaiakalani Teacher-Only Day.  I chose to show how I've used Craiyon (AI image generation) in my classroom to assist with descriptive writing. 

I started the session with an analysis of our Year 6 data, which revealed some important insights:

• Students were using creative tools effectively to demonstrate understanding.
• Students were primarily confined to using the Google Suite.
• There was a noticeable lack of collaboration around creative tasks.

In our RPI course, I was reminded that our tasks should ideally be:

• independent from the teacher, encouraging self-directed learning.
• providing opportunities for students to work together.

Craiyon is an site that generates AI images from text prompts. Craiyon can be employed for both loose and tight tasks:

• Loose tasks - can be completed over one to two weeks.
• Tight tasks - expected to be finished within a single class period.

For this workshop, I focused on a tight task as part of a larger narrative writing unit.

The reason I chose to focus on descriptive writing was because descriptive writing typically : 

• enhances creativity and imagination - skills that often diminish as students get older.
• develops critical thinking and observation skills - encouraging students to notice and think about details.
• improves communication and storytelling abilities - helping students convey their ideas more effectively.

How AI Tools like Craiyon help

• visualising descriptions - helping students see what they are describing.
• provides immediate feedback - allows for quick comparisons between their writing and the generated images.
• encouraging detailed writing - motivating students to include more details to achieve better results.
• engaging different learning styles: catering to visual learners who benefit from seeing representations of their descriptions.
• fostering creativity and critical thinking - inspiring students to think creatively and critically about their writing.

I was initially nervous about presenting to other teachers, but the positive feedback and engagement from everyone made me proud of my efforts. It's exciting to see how these AI tools can transform our teaching practices and inspire our students.