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AI & BookTok - a Padlet by Lauren Lankford

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AI & BookTok - a Padlet by Lauren Lankford

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One of the key things that I have been working on in my library this year is teaching both the students and teachers that there is a time and a place for AI in education. It has the potential to be one of the most powerful learning tools we have ever seen, but it comes with many potential issues as well. I developed the LVHS Traffic Light System for introducing AI tools in the classroom, and I have spent the first few weeks of school introducing the ideas to our students. I have met with almost every student in the high school, and by the 6th week of school, I will have seen all of them - including the LifeSkills classes. We are talking about the benefits and pitfalls of AI. We are talking about what it means to cite information, what it means to cheat and plagiarize, and how to recognize AI hallucinations. Students are now asking teachers if this is a Red Light assignment (no AI tools), a Green Light assignment (be creative with AI tools) or a Yellow Light assignment (specific AI tools like Grammarly for editing). This dialogue is key to teaching our students that there is a time and a place for using AI in our educational journeys. As John Gilman says in the attached article, "Open discussions, thorough evaluations, and informed decisions should guide any choices regarding the use of AI technology in schools."

When we take these tools, like I have with this Padlet, and combine them with popular ideas like BookTok, it can help us to come up with wonderful examples of how we can integrate BookTok ideas in our libraries in fun and meaningful ways. The example class activities on this page have been generated by Padlet's Class Activities Tools based on the guidelines that I gave it about incorporating fun BookTok ideas.

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Illustration and SLJ October 2023 Cover by James Yang

"In a realm where knowledge meets innovation, school libraries are embracing the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to reimagine the educational landscape and empower students in unprecedented ways."

That quote isn't from a teacher or a librarian or an expert in the field, although it does come directly from the source. It was written by ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot that has captured imaginations-and stoked fears-over the impact machines that seemingly can think for themselves might have on the future of just about everything, including education.

Most readers would be hard-pressed to discern whether that first sentence was written by a human or AI. So perhaps it's understandable why so many school leaders had an initial knee-jerk response.

"It was a very fearful reaction of like, 'Oh no, everybody is going to cheat,'" says Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education. "But what has happened as the educator and librarian community has really started to explore the possibilities is that this has huge potential for education. This isn't just a cool new website. This is a real tool."

That response has played out at the macrolevel. Almost as soon as it appeared, some of the largest school districts in the country, including Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York City, banned access to ChatGPT, citing fears over the ease with which students could cheat.

Some districts have already reversed their decisions. In New York City, Department of Education chancellor David C. Banks wrote that the city's initial response "overlooked the potential of generative AI to support students and teachers."

"If you play around with it, you're like, is this thing alive? It truly seems to be understanding and manipulating language," says Maya Bialik, who teaches seventh-grade science outside of Boston.

Before moving to the classroom, Bialik was a researcher at the educational nonprofit Center for Curriculum Redesign, where she literally wrote the book on artificial intelligence in education, so she's not surprised by the initial reaction of many educators. "Definitely at first there's fear. A teacher even asked me, 'Should I be afraid?" I showed her how to use it and she became a total power user."

AI is certainly complicated. It's a powerful tool that is seemingly advancing by the day, and while some teachers and librarians might fear it, there's no hiding from the impact it will have on learning.

Clearing up misconceptions

Overcoming fear starts with understanding, and there's a lot to unpack when it comes to artificial intelligence.

First, while ChatGPT is new, AI is not. The idea of machines that can think for themselves was first proposed in 1950 by the British mathematician Alan Turing. AI was popularized in science fiction, most notably in the murderous form of HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey . But reality proved far less scary in the form of IBM's computer chess AI program, Deep Blue, which defeated world chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997.

At its most basic, AI is an advanced computer system that can process vast amounts of data to solve problems. ChatGPT and others like it are a special type of AI called large language models that are trained through exposure to huge quantities of text-billions of pages collected from websites, tweets, news stories, and more-and utilize natural language processing not only to understand human words and phrases but to generate human-like responses.

These new generative AI programs can create almost anything an individual can think of, and text is only the tip of the iceberg. There are already AI-powered tools that make artwork, photorealistic images, video, and music, all from a simple prompt.

Culatta says he recently worked with students using a tool called Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image AI program. "Students were working on a project creating a city of the future. I said, go in and have Stable Diffusion generate the image of what you're creating." The results wowed kids and adults alike.

These tools can also make the lives of teachers and librarians a lot easier, turning tasks that usually take hours into minutes. There are programs to write lesson plans, make flashcards, and create tests. In addition to using AI tools in her classroom, Bialik has created her own, QuestionWell, which generates questions for everything from exit tickets to multiple-choice quizzes and creates multiple versions of a test for student retakes.

It's not only small developers bringing AI to classroom technology. In July, Khan Academy announced a partnership to integrate its AI student tutor and teaching assistant, Khanmigo, with Instructure's learning management system, Canvas. The tool is designed to offer personalized support to students and help teachers write lesson plans, create rubrics, and even provide feedback on student essays.

The possibilities are exciting-and overwhelming. And librarians can and should play an important role in figuring out how exactly this technology can enhance student learning.

Developing AI literacy

Joni Gilman is the media specialist at Seckinger High School in Gwinnett County, GA. Her school is part of a cluster where AI is being incorporated into all areas of learning, kindergarten through 12th grade.

Gilman says she views AI tools as collaborative partners, helping to make her job more streamlined. She's used ChatGPT to brainstorm lesson ideas and for help making reading suggestions.

"Students think we've read every book in our collection. But I can ask [AI] for an engaging summary of a book, or help creating different promotional things to grab student attention, whether it's a social media post idea or giving book recommendations," Gilman says.

Gilman is already imagining a library where AI could "help us create better collections when we're making book orders. AI can give us a diversity audit, tell us where we have holes in our collection, look at usage data to find emerging topics, and make better book orders. It can help us with weeding and resource allocation."

She's quick to add that "nothing is going to replace that human interaction when talking about books with an expert." In large part that's because AI isn't perfect. ChatGPT is only trained on data up to September 2021; a lot of its responses aren't current. Once, Gilman says, it recommended a book that didn't exist, an AI phenomenon called a hallucination.

Since ChatGPT and other AI tools aren't connected to the school's library system, recommendations aren't always available in the collection, but even that will change soon. Accessit, a library management system that Gilman's school uses, is planning to give customers access to a third-party AI tool called Talpa Search, an experimental program that can help students find a book they're looking for, even if they don't know the name of it.

"For example, the user might search for 'book about dragons with a red cover,' and Talpa would then search multiple databases to find options that fit this search," wrote Sarah Jordan, chief customer support officer at Accessit, in an email. "You can see which results are in your library that you can borrow, as well as other books which fit your search criteria."

AI will be more than just a tool, however. Schools will also need to consider how to teach students to be critical users and prepare them to live in a world where they will be learning and perhaps, one day, working alongside AI.

School librarians are perfectly suited for this new role.

"They have experience curating content, they have a creative, physical space to host kids and teachers to try things out, and, by the nature of their job, they interact with nearly every faculty member and every student," Culatta says. "It's the perfectly written job description for a person to help a school explore a new tech geared to creating content."

Much in the way librarians evolved from teaching traditional literacy to training students in media and digital literacy, the next step is AI literacy. Just like learning the skills to effectively search an online database, students will need to learn how to converse with AI to get the best research results and to distinguish between what's real and what's AI generated.

"There is so much out there that students will find that won't be true or will be fake," Gilman says. "It's going to be key for librarians to build that bridge and help students better understand what they are finding on the internet."

That's easier said than done. Teaching students how to critically assess where information comes from is a crucial part of information literacy, but almost an impossibility when it comes to AI. It's one of the reasons that make Sara Kelley-Mudie, a librarian and educational technology specialist at Beaver Country Day, an independent school in Newton, MA, anxious about the technology.

"How do we ask students to be ethical consumers of information when it's easier and easier to just get an answer and not actually be able to trace it to its origins?" she says. "I teach students how to investigate sources, trace claims and quotes, and that's really hard to do with generative AI, especially because it feels so authoritative."

Opportunities and challenges

Although fears that AI might overthrow humanity are overdramatic at this point, there are certainly areas for concern, especially when it comes to students and issues of privacy, bias, and cheating.

In terms of bias, Bialik acknowledges it is a worry. But she also points out that human beings can be just as problematic, if not worse. Bialik holds a master's in Mind, Brain, & Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and says she is consistently shocked to hear teachers make sweeping, biased statements about students.

"In psychology, you gather data and make sure it's not tainted. But in teaching, you don't have time for that, and there's a lot of shortcuts that are full of bias," she says.

"At least on systems, when it becomes codified, you can see the bias," Culatta adds. "When a teacher is making decisions that are biased, there's no way I can get an audit of that. When you have a system making recommendations with bias, at least in that case you can review and do something about it."

Even privacy concerns aren't so black and white. "It's easy to say all data should be private," Culatta says. "But then when you peel it back, what if a student is at risk? Or what if I can tell through an AI interaction that a student is struggling with a math concept and AI can alert a teacher about that and make sure they aren't lost? Understanding where protections should be is critical, but it's not binary, either completely private or completely open."

When it comes to cheating, anxiety has been particularly high within the humanities where, for the first time, students have access to what is essentially a calculator for natural language. Some educators are already using Winston, a detection tool that determines if student work was created via ChatGPT or other AI large language models. Meanwhile, other disciplines have been dealing with this issue for years-from students using Photomath (photomath.com/en) to solve algebra problems to completing world language assignments with the help of Google Translate.

Educators have had to rethink instruction with those tools in mind, says Kelley-Mudie. Now the rest of the field will have to do the same. Or as Culatta puts it, if there's a concern about cheating, the problem is not with the AI tool, but with the assessment.

For example, an assignment to write an essay about the American Revolution is easily answered with the help of ChatGPT. Strategically, a teacher could assign students to actually have ChatGPT write multiple essays about the American Revolution and then go through each one to critique, find mistakes, and fill in information that the AI program may have overlooked.

Another solution for teachers is to put the focus on how students document their process. For a research seminar she taught last spring, Kelley-Mudie had students include acknowledgements in addition to works cited. Alongside sources, students referenced all the things that inspired or helped them, including AI tools.

"Not in a gotcha way but in a reflective way," Kelley-Mudie says. "The final product is great, but we really should care about the steps they took to get there."

Gilman agrees that bringing AI into the open is the right way to make it a tool for learning rather than cheating. At her school, teachers are already talking with students about how ChatGPT can be a collaborative partner to provide feedback, removing any excuse for not turning in a revised essay.

But Gilman also recognizes other areas of concern. She says equity is going to become an important issue for student access when tools like ChatGPT, which are currently free, begin to charge a fee. She also says the ability to create lifelike deep fakes has the potential to be very harmful to students from a bullying perspective. Schools will need to have policies in place to address these kinds of hazards.

Despite the risks, Gilman still says that AI and "the benefits of it, the things that it can do, are just mind-blowing."

And what does ChatGPT have to say about it all?

"As an AI language model, I don't have personal opinions or desires. The decision of whether to use AI models like ChatGPT in schools ultimately rests with educational institutions, policymakers, and educators. It is important to carefully consider the benefits, risks, and ethical considerations associated with AI implementation in educational settings. Open discussions, thorough evaluations, and informed decisions should guide any choices regarding the use of AI technology in schools."

A human couldn't have said it better.

Andrew Bauld is a freelance writer covering education.

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Librarians Can Play a Key Role Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Schools

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AI tools like ChatGPT are advancing by the day. Here's how librarians are using them, plus an overview of valuable AI tools and terms.

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BookTok has been an amazing way to connect students with reading physical books again, and has helped them to become excited about reading in general. Having #BookTok as one of the top searched terms on Instagram is a great coup of lovers of the written word, especially librarians. Take this quote from the article "As Seen on BookTok:" "For librarians, it may prove challenging to assemble physical displays of #BookTok hits if all the titles are checked out. But creating reading guides online and across a library’s social media presence can showcase the library’s interest in serving #BookTok readers while prompting other patrons to discover #BookTok. Librarians can also tap into the language of #BookTok and suggest read-alikes that don’t have dozens of holds."

As any librarian knows, it can be difficult to stock books that become popular quickly - students expect that they can get the book they want the moment they learn about it on a BookTok. By keeping up with the popular trends on BookTok, librarians can create read-alike displays and posts. For example, if you like Colleen Hoover, you might also like the drama and gritty realism of Jodi Picoult. You could create a display of Picoult books, and compare issues in them with Hoover books. Picoult we have on-hand - Hoover, we may not, and in Texas at least, stocking them in a high school library is very problematic. Read-alikes give us the opportunity to showcase books and authors that we know, while still connecting to new and innovative ideas on BookTok.

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Three years after its initial publication, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid hit the New York Times Best Sellers list in paperback. That was in January 2021, and it has been a steady best seller ever since.

While E. Lockhart's We Were Liars, published in 2014, has maintained a presence on and off the same best seller list, the book has seen a surge of interest in the past year as well.

What is driving the renewed interest in backlist titles among readers? Some say the pandemic makes people want to read known authors rather than the latest phenomenon. Another factor: TikTok's #BookTok community. The hashtag #WeWereLiars has amassed 67 million views alone on the social media platform.

What is #BookTok? When someone promotes a title on #BookTok, the impact can be dramatic and long-lasting.

@bookitqueen is a whole mood.

"What is remarkable about the app is the staying power of a book once it is working," says Shannon DeVito, director of books at Barnes & Noble. "If there is a trending title, it's likely it will stay trending for months and, in some cases, over a year."

#BookTok's influence on book sales rose throughout the fall of 2020 and beyond. Some backlist titles finding popularity there moved from selling about 50 copies per week to close to 9,000, DeVito says.

"BookTok has had a massive effect on our trade paperback sales," DeVito says, especially backlist titles. "We noticed organic upticks of two bigger paperbacks, The Song of Achilles and They Both Die at the End in the summer of 2020, and realized they were tied to viral content on #BookTok."

The platform has made its mark on school libraries, too, where students seeking hot titles drive up circulation. And many students who might otherwise not have set foot in their libraries are doing just that.

"BookTok has done a lot to highlight the pure joy of reading and has introduced many extremely engaging titles that have helped high school students read for fun," says Christine Lively, librarian at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA. As for the new faces showing up at the library, she adds, "Many teens got back into reading during the lockdown and virtual learning."

Books that gain traction on #BookTok tend to trend for a long time, allowing a broad swath of readers to discover these books. Other popular titles over the last year for young adult readers included It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover, Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, and the "Heartstopper" series by Alice Oseman.

Most #BookTok creators and users are female, from age 14 to their mid-30s, DeVito says. They use passionate language to pitch their favorites. Romance, YA, and fiction are in high demand at Barnes & Noble and libraries. And thanks to #BookTok, literary staples are seeing renewed interest, too.

At Whiteland (IN) Community High School, several students follow #BookTok accounts that discuss classics and canonical titles, and some are working through lists of classics.

"My big surprise from #BookTok is an uptick in classics like Pride and Prejudice, older [YA] like Speak, and specific authors like [Colleen] Hoover, becoming wildly requested," says media specialist Raenell Smith.

BookTokkers also highlight adult titles with teen appeal, prompting high schoolers to expand their reading. Some of these books are considered crossover titles, others are surprises.

Popular titles with teens at the Free Public Library in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ, include It Ends with Us, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and The House in the Cerulean Sea.

"I've helped a few of my teens find them in the adult fiction area, which was like a mystery to them," says youth services librarian Maureen Herman.

While adult titles don't tend to be in the collection at Lively's school, she has purchased some of the most in-demand #BookTok titles.

Librarians note that there has been a steady stream of requests for inclusive #BookTok titles. Teens seeking recommendations on #BookTok come from a wide range of backgrounds.

TikTok works on an algorithm based on the content a user engages with on their "For You Page," so it surfaces diverse voices and perspectives accordingly. This can be a strength in discovery for books, as well as a reminder for gatekeepers who use #BookTok to be mindful about engaging with as diverse content as possible.

Why does #BookTok influence?
What makes #BookTok recommendations land with young readers? It could be the language book lovers use to share their favorites. BookTokkers crave emotional impact, and they aren't so interested in genre labels and category divisions. Instead, they're looking at tropes, themes, and ways a book will make them feel. Like, will it make you "ugly cry"?

"I have so many students ask for books that will make them ugly cry, and it goes beyond just contemporaries," says Leah Rae-Clark, teacher librarian in New York City Public Schools in the Bronx. "My readers aren't just looking for any graphic novel or SFF [science fiction and fantasy]. They know on a much more meta level what works for them and, BookTok subcultures have given voice to that. Want to sob hysterically? I can give you Darius the Great Is Not Okay or Six of Crows."

The fact that #BookTok trends tend to angle on themes or the feelings a book offers is another reason front-list novelty isn't a primary driver.

"As a youth services librarian and a romance reader, it's really fun to see titles and authors that may have gotten passed over in their initial release find a second, third, or fourth chance with a whole bunch of new readers," Herman says. "It's fun to see indie authors find a wider audience as well; that's something #BookTok is good at."

Popular #BookTok accounts to follow:
From left: @abbysbooks, @aymansbooks, @breana_reads,
@dayanarabooks, @emilymiahreads, @ezeekat

Beyond #BookTok, teen TikTok trends can tip librarians off to valuable library purchases. "My copies of Shine by Jessica Jung were gone the first day I shelved them," says Rae-Clark, referring to the YA novel by a former K-pop girl star. "I had been asking kids what they follow on TikTok, and K-pop kept coming up. I ordered Shine on a whim based on what I kept hearing from students."

Also, #BookTok's power doesn't depend on one's following size. Any video can go viral, and while there are certainly #BookTok influencers with devoted communities, the real magic is in the use of the #BookTok hashtag. Anyone who uses it may have their video gain traction. Teens find other teens on #BookTok who are excited about books and reading. It's contagious, encouraging more teens to find, read, and share books.

So how do librarians cope with viral demands for titles they don't have? Buy more books or suggest read-alikes.

"It took us a while to figure out what was going on when students kept asking if we had copies of Song of Achilles and It Ends with Us. I finally asked them where they had heard of those titles, and one told me that they were featured on TikTok," explains Lively. "Since then, we have asked students to tell us if the books they're requesting are books they've seen and heard about on TikTok and we order copies to meet that need. We ordered 10 copies of It Ends with Us, and they're circulating like crazy."

Smith says that requests for 40 copies of Speak was untenable for her library media center. She realized she could harness that excitement and recommend similar books while they waited for their hold.

Popular #BookTok accounts to follow,
from left: @fowlervillelibrary, @kateslibrary, @kendra.reads,
@leilareadsalittle, @thedogearedbook, @what_is_this_b_reading

"When I finally caught on to why the specificity, I would ask them about #BookTok," she says. "It has opened the door to really getting to know some students, and to help them curate book lists beyond the title they were looking at."

Barnes & Noble has helped tip off librarians as well: In-store displays across the country feature a prominent "As Seen on #BookTok" collection. These books are curated on the local level, showcasing popular titles within a given area.

"Our booksellers get a lot of feedback from customers and can tell what is being asked for, and what is selling, so they use that info to build their own #BookTok displays," says DeVito.

For librarians, it may prove challenging to assemble physical displays of #BookTok hits if all the titles are checked out. But creating reading guides online and across a library's social media presence can showcase the library's interest in serving #BookTok readers while prompting other patrons to discover #BookTok. Librarians can also tap into the language of #BookTok and suggest read-alikes that don't have dozens of holds.

Rae Clark sees a golden opportunity to recommend not-yet-BookTok-popular books, including diverse works. "A read-alike list for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (which is still HUGE on #BookTok) would include This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron, Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia, by Alexandra Bracken, and Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. I can push students to more diverse titles that are still available," she says.

Lively and others note that #BookTok has become a source of joy for her in the library, particularly during such a challenging time for students and educators.

"That they're reading and what they've read has become a valuable social currency in a way that I have only ever seen in elementary school with series and super popular characters," she says. "It has made working with teens this year really joyful."

Kelly Jensen is an editor at Book Riot and the editor of three YA anthologies, including Body Talk, (Don't) Call Me Crazy, and Feminism for the Real World.

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As Seen on BookTok: Inspiring Young Readers, TikTok is a Boon for Books

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Three years after its initial publication, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid hit the New York Times Best Sellers list in paperback. That was in January 2021, and it has been a steady best seller ever since. While E.

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Students will create their own BookTok-style video recommending a book from the library. They'll use smartphones or computers to film and edit a 15-60 second video highlighting why others should read their chosen book. This activity encourages creativity, public speaking skills, and promotes reading.

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Using the Cricut machine and design software, students will create alternative book covers inspired by popular BookTok aesthetics. This activity combines graphic design skills with literary analysis as students capture the essence of their chosen book in a visually appealing way.

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Students will research current BookTok trends and create a presentation on how these trends are influencing reading habits and book sales. They'll use computers to gather data and create visually engaging charts and graphs to present their findings.

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Create a scavenger hunt throughout the library based on popular BookTok categories or challenges. Students will work in teams to find books that fit specific BookTok-inspired prompts, encouraging them to explore different sections of the library.

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Students will develop a simple 'recommendation algorithm' based on BookTok trends. Using spreadsheet software, they'll create a system that suggests books based on user preferences, mimicking how social media algorithms work.

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Organize a virtual book club where students discuss books popular on BookTok. Use video conferencing software to connect students, encouraging them to share their thoughts and create collaborative BookTok-style content about the book.

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Students will work in groups to create a marketing campaign for an underappreciated library book, inspired by BookTok strategies. They'll use computers to design digital posters, write catchy slogans, and plan a theoretical social media campaign.

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Organize a classroom debate on the merits of BookTok recommendations versus traditional book reviews. Students will research both methods, prepare arguments, and engage in a structured debate, enhancing their critical thinking and public speaking skills.

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Create a BookTok-Inspired Library Display

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Create a BookTok-Inspired Library Display

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Students will design and set up a physical display in the library based on current BookTok trends. They'll use the Cricut machine to create eye-catching signage and arrange books in an attractive manner, learning about visual merchandising in the process.

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Inspired by TikTok's use of audio, students will create short, engaging audio snippets from books. They'll use computers to record and edit 15-second audio clips that capture the most intriguing parts of a book, which can be used in future BookTok videos or library promotions.