In addition to teaching Math and Science to two classes of 5th and 6th graders, I also get to teach a writing course on Mondays and Fridays for 50 minutes each day. My teaching partner and I are both teaching a writing course focusing on different media. She’s focusing her course on getting students ready to publish our school yearbook. In my course we are looking at publishing books with Book Creator as well as creating podcasts and video shows. We both started the year by having our students learn and write about 9/11 since we started our courses close to 9/11.
In my course I am having students research different aspects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to write stories to help current and future generations remember what happened and to focus on the heroes that helped so many and saved lives. Here’s a preview of the book so far:
The above book includes stories and articles written by both 5th and 6th graders from my writing class. Since all my students participated in drafting our class AI policy and all of them digitally signed on to follow it, I guided students through a fair way to use AI in the writing of our 9/11 class book.
I began by showing a video on Edpuzzle of 9/11 and sharing some websites with students to help them decide what they wanted to focus on and learn more about. Then students were able to Google any area of 9/11 that they wanted to learn more about. I gave students a paper copy of a graphic organizer that I generated on ChatGPT and they were supposed to write notes from their research. I explained that writing is better for learning than typing and that writing also makes it less likely that students will plagiarize or copy directly from the online resources.
Then students were to write a first, rough draft on Google Docs and share that with me. Once they had a rough draft that 100% written by them, were they able to use AI to get feedback. We went with Bing Chat since that is the service I got parent permission for my students to use.
On their school-issued laptops, using their student accounts which are for both Microsoft and Google, students can access the Bing Chat site.
Without signing in students can get two to three prompts in before Bing Chat tells them that’s all they get without signing in. When students signed in some of them got access to Bing Chat while others were not able to access it! We still don’t know why. For the students who could not access Bing Chat, I told them use Grammarly to at least get some feedback on their writing and to check spelling and grammar.
For those who could access Bing Chat, the search settings had to be changed since Bing Chat cannot be used on strict search. So I set the search settings for students myself and set it to moderate search, which still filters for adult pictures and videos just not adult words. I did not want students doing that part themselves.
Here’s an example of what one student asked Bing Chat:
Can you give me some feedback on my 9/11 article and check my spelling and grammar: September 11, 2001, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers, causing them to crumble. The catastrophic event generated a powerful wind filled with debris, resembling a tornado. As the tragedy unfolded, many courageous individuals, in an act of national unity, held up flags while facing unimaginable danger. Additionally, disturbingly, due to the dire circumstances, some people chose to jump from the towers. This devastating event unfolded before the eyes of students who were watching from their dormitories as a second plane crashed into the tower
5th grade Student
On Sept 11th the World Trade Center was attacked by two planes with terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers with all passengers inside. This attack killed over 2,997 people including children teens early adults and the elderly. Now we have one of the towers has been replaced. But no one would forget what happened that horrible horrible day.
5th Grade Student
Here is Bing Chat’s response:
Thank you for sharing your article with me. I would be happy to provide feedback on your writing and help you with your grammar and spelling.
Bing Chat
Here is my feedback on your article:
- The article provides a brief overview of the 9/11 attack and its impact on people’s lives. It is commendable that you have included personal accounts of people who witnessed the event.
- However, there are some grammatical and spelling errors in the article. Here is a corrected version of the article:
“On September 11, 2001, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers, causing them to crumble. The catastrophic event generated a powerful wind filled with debris, resembling a tornado. As the tragedy unfolded, many courageous individuals, in an act of national unity, held up flags while facing unimaginable danger. Additionally, disturbingly, due to the dire circumstances, some people chose to jump from the towers. This devastating event unfolded before the eyes of students who were watching from their dormitories as a second plane crashed into the tower.
Bing Chat
On September 11th, the World Trade Center was attacked by two planes with terrorists on board that crashed into the Twin Towers. This attack killed over 2,997 people including children, teens, early adults, and the elderly. Now, one of the towers has been replaced. But no one will forget what happened that horrible day.
Bing Chat
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions or if there is anything else I can help you with.”
Bing Chat
Bing Chat also showed the student the sources of its response:
When asking Bing Chat a follow up question about what else should be added to the article, Bing Chat responded:
Why did students need Bing Chat and why did I include its use in this activity? Not all students were able to write very much from their preliminary research and Bing Chat provided them more ideas. Also, getting feedback right away instead of waiting for me to proofread their rough drafts or having each other proofread or peer edit their rough drafts proved more efficient and time-saving. Besides, in a world that is being more and more dominated by AI, guiding my 10 and 11 years olds on how to use Chatbots ethically and effectively can only help them as they go through middle and high school. I was thinking about my why and if it was pedagogically sound after reading this article on the effectiveness of using AI to help kids write.
For the students who could not access Bing Chat, which was strange that any could access Bing Chat according to our tech director, I came up with an idea for them to get AI feedback for their rough drafts. Curipod! I remembered that Cuipod allows us to create AI feedback slides so I created a three-slide Curipod where the first slide was where students copies and pasted their already written first drafts. They then read the AI generated feedback that I instructed to check their writing for being factually accurate about 9/11 and written so the reader could understand. The second slide was time for students to take their feedback and use the suggestions to improve their draft. Then on the third slide they copied and pasted their second drafts to get some more feedback. Then I copied all the feedback they got onto the Google Docs they shared with me and they are currently re-writing their drafts to add to our book! Here are screenshots the feedback the Curipod AI gave some of my students starting with the one whose writing is featured above with the Bing Chat feedback for comparison:
AI Chatbots give students different ways to write and they tend to sound much older than 5th and 6th graders write. I wonder if that’s a bad thing or if the AI are giving kids better writing skills? What do you think? Is the feedback Bing Chat and Curipod too much or helpful for kids?
Note as of December 28, 2023: since the writing of this post I have found tools besides Bing Chat that we can use with kids under 13 years of age. I wrote about them here, here, here, and here.
