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This was such a learning experience for all of us: Melissa Beam, Shadia Anderson, and Salimah Karim

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Read this free ebook by Anderson, Shadia. Find thousands of free educational ebooks for classroom use at read.bookcreator.com

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More ideas for ELA!

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Text sets, and specifically post ELA podcast pairings, help create dynamic ELA lesson plans because they provide ways for students to connect and synthesize information. When readers synthesize information, they bring together a collection of diverse perspectives and varied genres to create a better overall understanding of the material and themes.

Podcasts are my favorite text pairing media because they are unexpected, fun to listen to, and open up a whole new literacy world for students.

You know that thrill you get when you introduce a student to a new book that they love? Well, having the opportunity to introduce students to a completely new form of media that they get so into and can listen to for FREE intensifies that feeling ten-fold. So many of my students have searched out other podcasts on their own after finishing Serial. I truly believe that listening is a form of reading, so for this English teacher, that is a huge win.

ELA PODCASTS FOR TEXT SETS

HOLOCAUST TEXT SET

The Sum of All Parts podcast is a math podcast which makes it an even more interesting ELA podcast pairing! The podcast description reads, "Sum of All Parts tells extraordinary stories about the unseen influence that numbers have on the way we think, feel and behave." I paired episode 12 "The Tattoowierer" with Man's Search for Meaning and my students had a great discussion about the themes in both. This episode will pair well with any Holocaust text.

POE PAIRING IDEA

The Wild is one of my favorite podcasts because the topics are interesting and the nature sounds are so soothing! When I heard "The Brain of the Raven," I knew it would make a great pairing for Poe's "The Raven." This episode talks with an animal scientist about ravens and the blurb reads, "Being a "bird brain" is a complement if you're talking about ravens. They are smart. Their intelligence allows them to empathize and read emotions, which helps them survive. But it's their ability to manipulate others, and even plan for the future that allows them to really thrive in the wild." Have students color these raven wings and think about how the raven in Poe's poem manipulates his psyche.

INTO THE WILD OR JACK LONDON PAIRING

The Wild podcast also makes a great ELA podcast pairing for Into the Wild or Jack London stories. You could even let students do a podcast "sampling" ( template in this podcast bundle) and pick an episode that they want to pair with your whole class text!

FRAKENSTEIN INFORMATIONAL TEXT PAIRING

Overheard at National Geo is another favorite of mine. I love that their episodes are usually short, interesting, and entertaining. The Frozen Zoo would make a great ELA podcast pairing for Frankenstein!

A ROSE FOR EMILY PODCAST PAIRING

If you listen to This American Life regularly, then you will find a plethora of pairing ideas. One ELA podcast pairing idea is "Grand Gesture" Act 1 Dr. Strangelove.

The Southern Gothic short story, "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is a creepy story that will shock students. Act I of "Grand Gesture" is an equally shocking story about the same topic-except with a real-life example. This episode tells a story about a man who is so in love with a woman that he keeps her preserved body in his house and treats her as his wife. As I have explicitly pointed out in the image above, you may need to cut out part of this episode at your discretion because there are 3 mentions of sex in this episode. The value of the pairing is so good that I think it's worth the extra effort! For a super easy way to cut this episode, I recommend downloading the episode and then cutting it with EdPuzzle. All you have to do is put the link to the video in and use their simple cutting tools. The story starts around minute 14 and ends around 32:40. You will need to cut parts at approximately minutes 27, 27:38-27.52, and at 31:46. EdPuzzle also allows you to add in questions at certain parts if you wish to do so! It's a great tool that will work for any podcast that has a downloadable file or any podcast that is uploaded to YouTube.

HAMLET ELA PODCAST PAIRING

The second podcast pairing from This American Life is a full episode about a reporter Jack Hitt who followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison who-with the help of an incredible teacher- put on a production of the last act of Hamlet. This episode will bring about some really interesting perspectives on interpreting Hamlet from so many different walks of life. It also provides a nice review of the characters and new points-of-view on so many different issues. While this episode doesn't have a warning like the one above, I will say that sex is briefly mentioned around 22:38 and there's a part around 25:50 that's such a poignant point, but you may choose to edit out the graphic description. As always, preview podcasts just as you would a movie!

After students hear about this unique production, have them create their own mini play using these Hamlet finger puppets!

ELA PODCAST PARING FOR THE CRUCIBLE

Lore is the only fictional ELA podcast recommendation on this list. As you can probably tell, I much prefer to create text sets with informational texts or literary nonfiction, but many ELA teachers love using Lore and this specific episode (Half-Hanged) makes a fantastic pairing for The Crucible.

YEATS POETRY TEXT SET

Rick Steves has a number of episodes devoted to celebrated authors or novel settings. I use his program 392 Ireland's W.B. Yeats; Scotland's Robert Burns; Agatha Christie's England to teach Yeats' poetry. There's really nothing like hearing a native Irishman recite Yeats-it's mesmerizing. Download this lesson here: W.B. Yeats in Ireland

PODCAST AND POETRY PAIRINGS

Speaking of poetry, my favorite text sets are ELA podcasts and poetry pairings. I've found these two genres go well together because:

Class time normally allows for both an episode and poem

Both poetry and podcasts are meant to be listened to and come alive through sound

Poetry and podcast are very different genres so students have to use deep thinking skills to make the connections

You can find all of my ELA podcasts and poetry pairings here: Activities for teaching podcasts and poetry

In college, my absolute favorite class was Literary Nonfiction. We read things like In Cold Blood and Devil in the White City, and I fell in love with the genre. When I found Serial last year, I knew that it would be in my top 5 list. It's so well done, and it works well in upper grades because: 1. It's free 2. It's relevant (deals with high school-aged subjects) 3. It's rich in teachable content. I actually use this unit as a stand-alone text, but I have heard teachers report pairing it with In Cold Blood. Because of the similar reporter relationships, I think this would make a powerful combination.

One thing that really surprised me while teaching it for the first time was that my students CHOSE to read the transcripts while listening to it. Studies have shown that reading comprehension greatly increases when students both read and listen simultaneously, so I was thrilled when the majority of my students would open their Classroom OneNote to the transcript each time we listened in class (it would be very hard to print this many copies for each episode. If you don't use OneNote, you can email them the transcripts or put them in Google Classroom). For more on transcript use, read more here: How to plan a podcast unit for middle school and high school

As we read and listened, we hit a ton of standards. We had four Socratic Seminars where students had to use evidence to prove their insights, we close read and compared 3 writing styles (fiction, nonfiction, and literary nonfiction), we found examples of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, we wrote speeches to work on argumentative skills and so much more.

I can tell you that I had students excel with this unit in a way that they would have never excelled during a traditional classical-fiction unit. Though this podcast has some mature language and topics, I feel that analytical and interest value outweigh the risks of pushback. Some students just need something real and raw to make a connection with their lives, and this production will do just that. You can read more about teaching Serial here: Teaching Serial Podcast in High School ELA

I hope that this post has inspired you think outside of the typical text set box and try some ELA podcast pairings! If you need more resources and ideas, here are some helpful links:

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ELA PODCAST PAIRINGS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL - Building Book Love

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Text sets, and specifically post ELA podcast pairings, help create dynamic ELA lesson plans because they provide ways for students to connect and synthesize information. When readers synthesize information, they bring together a collection of diverse perspectives and varied genres to create a better overall understanding of the material and themes.

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Here are some podcasts that students can listen to in class. I love her idea of Podcast Mondays! They can then do a reflection on the podcast, or talk about it with a partner in their own podcast.

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The other day as I set out on my rollerblade, I realized I'd listened to everything I wanted to hear in my podcast queue. Disaster! I found myself scrolling through episodes as I skated under cherry trees on the backroads of Austria, looking up often to make sure I wasn't about to hit a cyclist or one of the "ziesels" or wandering "kroten" the road signs warned me against. (By the way, the ziesels are so stinkin' cute). Finally I found a show to love.

Maybe you've been in this situation with your students (minus the rollerblades). You know you want to share more podcasts with them, and good ones, but you're not really sure what to put in their queue. What will they like? What will complement your curriculum well? Which shows are too mature, and which ones are just right?

Today I want to share some of my favorites with you to help you skip the overwhelm of a search through the podcast directories. Because there are so many ways to work podcasts into your curriculum!

You can share them as models before a podcasting unit, start podcast clubs, pair them as complementary texts in units you've already got in motion, or integrate them as mini texts of their own through a program like "Podcast Mondays."

You can also use them as informational texts, as with podcasts like Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, The Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast, or Grammar Girl.

Personally, I have podcasts I listen to just for fun, ones I listen to for teaching ideas, news source podcasts, and podcasts I snag to help me when I'm trying to learn something new related to writing, podcasting, or social media. My podcast queue is a bit like my TBR pile - fiction, nonfiction, cooking, self-development, work...

Today, I'm going to share some of my go-to shows when I'm searching for great models and listening options for students. And I'll be sharing even more resources around this topic - like QR-code listening sheets, podcast sketchnotes templates, and interactive podcast bulletin board displays during Camp Creative: The Roadmap to Student Podcasting next month! So if you haven't yet signed up for this free and fun PD June 13-15, take a second to sign up here and then come on back.

A quick note as we begin. It always makes sense to listen to a podcast episode before playing it in class. While I think these are all wonderful models, I can't preview every episode, and I can't know everything about your classroom, students, and district. Please preview your classroom content to make sure it's a good fit for you!

On How I Built This, Guy Raz interviews entrepreneurial leaders about their journeys, walking listeners through their success from its origins to the current day. Over and over themes of growth mindset, curiosity, creativity, and grit come up as guests talk about all the ways they failed before they succeeded.

Featured Episode: Ben & Jerry's (Wait till your students hear about how Ben and Jerry learned to make ice cream through a mail order course!)

If you love Ted Talks, the Ted Talks Daily podcast is a way to bring them into your curriculum quickly and easily. With sooo many topics , search for what's related to your current themes, or let students choose what they're interested in.

This wildly popular podcast tells stories. About themes. Every week. Pair it with a personal essay or narrative unit, or find a theme that relates to your essential questions.

Featured Episode: Check out the first two acts of episode 765: Off Course. Your students will be hooked on the stories of these two girls - one who spent her childhood preparing for life as a professional violinist only to get a huge surprise at her audition, and the other who suddenly realized her morning practice swim was taking place in the company of a baby whale.

When Dr. Laurie Santos taught a class on happiness at Yale, it became so popular that it eventually grew into a podcast with an international audience. On her show, she shares the research behind what makes people happy, and it's often not what you'd expect.

Consider letting students vote on episodes they find intriguing from season one. Titles like "The Unhappy Millionaire" and "Making the Grade" are great hooks.

Radiolab is part science, part storytelling, investigating the answers to big questions with a heavy dose of interesting sound design.

Featured Episode: Try " For the Birds," a story of conservation with a highly unexpected twist

Life Kit takes on allll the topics! Whether teaching listeners to listen better, choose clothes in their own style, maintain friendships, take back life from the internet, or something else, each short show is a deep dive into a topic people can use to improve their own lives. This would make a fun choice board for students.

Featured Episode: How to Get a Job After College (or, I'd go so far as to add, anytime!)

Rick Steves has been traveling Europe for decades, and he shares close-up looks at the culture and attractions of hundreds of locations through his podcast. This one could be fun to pair with a unit on travel writing, a virtual travel research project, or a project in which your students are creating podcasts about their own city or neighborhood.

Serial (season one) is a wildly popular investigative reporting show looking into the murder of a popular senior girl. Each show is a new chapter in the story, as host Sarah Koenig digs deeper into what really happened.

Featured Episode: Better start with Episode 1, The Alibi

OK, for me, this one was a bit too scary! But it was also highly addictive and super surprising, and it's a hit with a lot of students. This would make a great option when you're giving students choice, for kids who like mystery and thrill. But they would need to know that it has scary moments (and you should listen to it too, so you know if it's ok for your class). When I first listened, I thought it was real investigative reporting, but it turns out it's a fictional radio drama! You decide whether or not to tell your students that.

Featured Episode: Better start with Episode One of Season One, " What We Know."

This fun, quirky show spotlights places in society where Shakespeare is showing up. Whether that's in YA novels, sonnets based on pop songs, or hip hop, there are a lot of episodes to help students to connect to the work of the bard. This show demonstrates one way that research and literary analysis can lead into an appealing podcast full of stories and interviews.

Featured Episode: Pop Sonnets (seriously though, it's hilarious)

OK, that's a wrap on our nine featured shows! Don't forget to sign up for Camp Creative: The Roadmap to Student Podcasting, coming June 13-15. I'll be sharing so many helpful resources, like the listening kit below and everything you need to get students started podcasting quickly and easily.
Sign up here!

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9 Engaging Podcasts for Secondary ELA Students - Spark Creativity

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The other day as I set out on my rollerblade, I realized I'd listened to everything I wanted to hear in my podcast queue. Disaster! I found myself scrolling through episodes as I skated under cherry trees on the backroads of Austria, looking up often to make sure I wasn't about to hit a cyclist or one of the "ziesels" or wandering "kroten" the road signs warned me against.

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POST 7 - Resources that I use in my classroom

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In this study, the difference in achievement test, self-regulated learning scale, and motivation scale scores between the groups was statistically significant in favor of the students who used AR. The study’s qualitative findings show that the AR application is fun and interesting for the students and positively affects academic achievement and active participation in the lesson.

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AR ideas

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Classroom Resources

Augmented Reality has gone from something of the future to a unique and interactive way to engage classrooms like never before.

First, what is Augmented Reality? It is a "technology that layers computer-generated enhancements atop an existing reality in order to make it more meaningful through the ability to interact with it." AR is developed into apps and used on mobile devices to blend the digital and real worlds in a way that enhances each another, but can also be told apart easily. ( Source).

AR is quickly becoming mainstream. It is being used to display score overlays during sports broadcast, in 3D emails, photos, and text messages, and even in some medical treatments. And, of course, it has made its way into the classroom!

Here are a five ways to use augmented reality in the classroom.

Aurasma - Already one of the most apps for teachers to bring AR into the classroom, the Aurasma app allows teachers to create their own "Auras" or AR experiences. Teachers can turn art or math class into an interactive experience with the help of tablets or smartphones. A student can scan a math equation, for example, and get an interactive learning experience. The opportunities are limitless!

Daqri Studio - Daqri Studio another option for teachers to design their own AR experiences. It has proven especially beneficial for science teachers who have used the product to create 3D images of the human body and its organs or to bring the periodic table to life.

Quiver - Quiver has coloring pages for every subject area. When paired with the app, these pages become animated. For example, a student can color an image of an airplane flying over New Zealand, pair it with the app, and watch the airplane travel around the country.

Fetch Lunch Rush - This free game from PBS uses printable cards as augmented reality pieces. Students help Ruff the dog feed sushi to a movie crew by solving math problems. Each game piece is an AR element that brings them to life when scanned with the accompanying app.

AugThat - Developed by a former teacher, AugThat creates AR content for classrooms targeted to students who may not be as engaged in learning as their peers. Their animated lessons come in a variety of formats, including both 3D and 360-degree views.

Are you using Augmented Reality in your high school, middle school or elementary school classroom? Do you plan to? Tell us about your experience.

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5 Ways To Use Augmented Reality In the Classroom | WorldStrides

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Augmented reality has become a popular tool in the classroom. We're looking at five ways teachers can use augmented reality to enhance their curriculum.

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POST 6 - Reflection on content and readings

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POST 6 - Reflection on content and readings

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Cognitive and Affective Brain–Computer Interfaces for Improving Learning Strategies and Enhancing Student Capabilities: A Systematic Literature Review

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Cognitive and Affective Brain–Computer Interfaces for Improving Learning Strategies and Enhancing Student Capabilities: A Systematic Literature Review

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This is how I was introduced to BCI - on TV :) 

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This is how I was introduced to BCI - on TV :) 

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Here is clip from HBO's Years and Years Episode 2

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Bethany puts a phone in her hand | Years And Years Episode 2

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ChatGPT -- If you can't fight 'em, join 'em.

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ChatGPT -- If you can't fight 'em, join 'em.

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Here is an interesting article on how colleges want students to use ChatGPT.

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Before the 2022-2023 academic year began, ChatGPT was likely not on the radar for many college professors and students. But less than a year later, many in higher education say they can't imagine life without it.

Launched in November 2022 by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI, ChatGPT can craft essays, solve math equations, write or check the accuracy of HTML code and brainstorm ideas for graphic design, as well as complete other tasks. The artificial intelligence tool can generate readable text on demand in a wide range of styles and voices and for a variety of purposes.

It's been described as "revolutionary" by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, but opinions on its place in education vary. Some K-12 educators are skeptical, citing ethical concerns and the potential for students to use it to cheat. Those concerns and others exist in higher education as well, but there's also a sense of optimism and willingness among some college educators to engage with ChatGPT's vast capabilities. Many see it having a permanent place in the professional world students will enter into.

"With artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, knowledge is ever more readily available to anyone who knows how to search it," says Andrew Hsu, president of the College of Charleston in South Carolina. "So how do we teach students in the future to prepare themselves for this rapidly changing world?" I think that's something higher education has to contend with in the next few years."

From January to March 2023, ChatGPT registered more than 3.3 billion users worldwide, according to data from similarweb, which tracks web traffic. ChatGPT saw more than 1.6 billion users in March alone, nearly a 56% increase from the month before.

Experts in educational technology say students and educators are using the tool at a rate they've rarely seen with other innovations. As ChatGPT continues to stake its claim in higher education, here are some ways educators say it can be useful.

Helping Students Develop Marketable Skills

ChatGPT can do a lot, but it still requires a human to use it effectively. Plenty of professions are starting to look for people who can do that, experts say, and hiring managers will expect applicants to display proficiency in tools like ChatGPT.

That includes skills like fact-checking and editing, as some of what ChatGPT generates is not factual or grammatically correct. Being able to judge whether something that came from ChatGPT is fact or misinformation will become essential, experts say, as will knowing how to prompt AI tools to get the best results.

"In computer science or any computing-related discipline, we always say garbage in, garbage out," Hsu says. "That's also true for any AI algorithm. If you feed it enough misinformation, it's going to generate misinformation. That's where human knowledge is needed."

The market is changing rapidly, and companies who don't adopt AI tools like ChatGPT could be left behind, says Rajesh Talpade, senior vice president of product at D2L, an education technology company that creates learning management platforms.

This is why Diane Gayeski, a professor of strategic communications at Ithaca College in New York, says she's requiring its use in her class.

"It is already a tool in our industry, so for people who are writing content marketing, they're already using tools like ChatGPT to help them with at least some first drafts," she says. "It's a tool that I feel (is) necessary to teach."

Enabling New Teaching Opportunities

While some educators have expressed concern over the potential for students to use ChatGPT to plagiarize and cheat, others say the tool poses a unique opportunity for professors to reevaluate their assessments in a way that benefits both them and students.

"I think it will force us to teach differently, or at least teach writing differently," Hsu says. "But to me, I think we need to embrace these types of technologies because, in the future, I think we're going to use it on a regular basis, whether we like it or not."

It's on professors to design course content and assessments that can't be completed or accessed easily through ChatGPT, experts say. This creates an opportunity for professors to focus on a student's application and understanding of the content rather than just their writing, Gayeski says.

Ultimately, it's the skill of researching and displaying the information that professors are most interested in seeing from students, educators say.

A wise way forward would be for professors to assess students in a way that both parties can engage with in real time, Gayeski says. What that looks like in her class is allowing students to use ChatGPT to gather basic background knowledge on topics, but having the real meat of the assessment come from presentations or essays that require students to draw directly from content that was only delivered in class.

In other words, it's still on students to do the heavy lifting.

"If I require my students to write an essay incorporating discussions that we had in class or examples that I provided in class, that has to be original work," she says. "ChatGPT can't find what I spoke about two weeks ago."

Boosting Productivity

A major function of AI is automating certain tasks. Professors are using ChatGPT to build assessments, assist with grading, create syllabi or complete other time-consuming or mundane tasks.

Professors are also using it to generate questions or assignments for specific students based on what they need. It's a way of customizing or tailoring their lessons, but efficiently.

"There's a lot of very innovative work going on around making life easier for the professors," Talpade says. "There are other things going on at the student level as well."

Students can use it to complete practice math problems and check their process of solving an equation. It can also be used as a tutoring tool for students, especially those studying a foreign language, says Melissa Loble, chief customer experience officer at Instructure, an education technology company that creates learning management systems for colleges.

Loble, who also teaches an e-learning certificate program at the University of California, Irvine, notes that ChatGPT can translate precisely, even in certain dialects. Meanwhile, students in computer science classes can check their code on ChatGPT, and those in marketing classes can workshop pitches to potential clients.

ChatGPT also has the ability to craft writing in a variety of tones or voices.

"Sometimes that's a difficult concept to teach because students tend to write in a very generic tone or in their own voice," Gayeski says. When it comes to tasks like adapting a message for five different audiences, "ChatGPT will at least take a crack at it."

Supporting Students in Their Learning

For some students, one stumbling block to productivity is getting started. Others might hit a hurdle midway through a project. Wherever they struggle, ChatGPT can help fill in the gap to move past the part of a project that typically holds them up, experts say.

"Additionally, ChatGPT can level the playing field for students with distinct needs, such as students who are neurodivergent and learn in their own unique way, or students who are learning in a second language," Ashley Chiampo, chief learning officer at education technology company Emeritus, wrote in an email. "It has the possibility of making learning more efficient and more effective by providing customized experiences for learners tailored to their ability and needs. By delivering learning support right when the learner is stuck or needs added help, it reduces frustration and increases the probability of course completion."

As the education world grappled with how to respond to the rise of ChatGPT, Edward Tian, a senior at Princeton University in New Jersey, launched GPTZero in January 2023 - an app that allows professors and teachers to check the originality of someone's work and detect any ChatGPT-generated text. In the first month, the app saw 500,000 users, he says. Now more than 6 million people have used it, and almost 90,000 use it daily, he says.

He says some of his professors at Princeton have taken "a laissez-faire approach" to ChatGPT, while others are more guarded. He has his concerns, just like others, particularly that overreliance on it could prevent students from doing original work or that users might not exhibit caution about its propensity to deliver misinformation.

But ultimately, he says, colleges should embrace the technology if they haven't already.

"These AI tools are the future, and students deserve the chance to be exposed to them in our education, especially as we're entering an AI world," he says.

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Why Some College Professors Are Embracing ChatGPT

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The AI tool can be used to tailor instruction, support struggling students and more.

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Here is my review of PIXON -- a software that students can use to collaborate when they need to show their storytelling abilities in both humanities and STEM.

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New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

"Technology is a game-changer for education - it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching," said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. "But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren't great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently."

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students' use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities - for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. "I'm heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers' lives better - not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do," he said. "I hope to see more on that front."

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. "AI is not going away," said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. "We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology."

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

"This is an area that's really going to explode over the next couple of years," said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. "Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live."

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. "If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers."

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students' attention.

"Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful," said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. "If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn't mean I'm going to be motivated to do math anywhere else."

Gamification sometimes tries to make "chocolate-covered broccoli," Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students' activities in the classroom and online. "We're now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes," said Schwartz - data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data - now owned by tech companies - is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students' interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that's being collected, said Schwartz - and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is "requiring people to check their assumptions about education," said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. "But it's also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It's an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching - this is the path I hope to see."

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How technology is reinventing K-12 education - Stanford Report

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Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

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Post 1: Salimah Karim's Thoughts on Technology

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Post 1: Salimah Karim's Thoughts on Technology