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Speaker 1: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Chris Vela Che: My name is Chris Vella Che. And my colleague Ingrid Bairstow, will also be talking during this presentation. Our presentation is about teaching writing to ESL students in the age of artificial intelligence or AI. And, Ingrid, you want to say something or introduce yourself? I think you've been already talking to the audience online.

Ingrid Bairstow: Yes. Welcome. Good afternoon, everyone. I think what we'll do is I will look at the chat, take care of the chat, respond since I'm already online. And then, Chris, you can take care of the rumors. I can't barely see them. But I used to work with Chris at MiraCosta College. I see some colleagues. We also worked together at San Diego College of Continuing Education. Then we separated, but only by institution because we're collaborating together. Yay!

I took a job at Imperial Valley College in Imperial Valley and the wonderful desert, and Chris is continuing full-time at San Diego College Continuing Ed. So it's fun to work together. And it's fun to do this. So nice to meet you all. And my email is also there in case you have any questions.

Chris Vela Che: And something important-- because this will depend on what kind of questions we can answer-- I teach a beginning literacy class, so the lowest English language abilities. That's the type of students I get. And then, Ingrid, what do you teach?

Ingrid Bairstow: So I taught more of an intermediate non-credit with MiraCosta and San Diego. And I have gone to the dark side, and I am now teaching credit ESL. So I've done the opposite of Chris, but that's what makes working together so cool. So we can see the spectrum. I've also taught the very lowest and the intermediate and now getting towards the highest, which I have to say I miss the lower levels. It's hard to teach the credit levels, but there's something in AI for everyone. And that's the purpose of this presentation.

Chris Vela Che: Yes. So let's begin here in our room with our little warm up activity. I know all of us like to talk. And so we're going to be talking a little bit and trying to connect with everyone. So in the chat in your online space, please share what you teach. How do you feel about AI? And what tools are you using in your writing lesson or courses? And over here we're going to be talking maybe in pairs just for say three minutes, five minutes. I don't know. I didn't put a timer.

Ingrid Bairstow: I'll put the timer on. I'll put a timer on.

Chris Vela Che: Three minutes, two minutes, three minutes.

Ingrid Bairstow: On Zoom we have beginning, intermediate and advanced about the same. And it looks like some have started but mainly for lesson planning. But a few like Kristy, have been using it in the classroom.

Chris Vela Che: Yes. Only Kristy Reyes, of course. I'm kidding. But it is hard. It is something that you really have to plan. It's not something that you just say it randomly, verbally to a class of multilingual learners. You have to really be intentional and plan how you're planning to introduce such an abstract concept to ESL learners. And why do they need to learn that? And how you can use it. So there is a lot of planning on that.

That to be honest, I haven't done. And it's something that is absolutely needed. And we're going to be talking a little bit about why we need to start getting our gears in motion here with all of these AI tools that we can use in writing. So the sessions of this-- well, the goals of these sessions are exploring a few various generative AI tools. So you may feel a little overwhelmed maybe by this part.

But you have access to this line, so you can always go back and check all of these tools. And if you're willing to try one, that would be great. Also discuss caveats. Is it caveat? How do you pronounce? Is it caveat? Correct pronunciation.

Student: Caveats.

Chris Vela Che: Caveats strategies. Caveats. Anyway, so difficulties and strategies for using these resources with our adult learners in the ESL context. So let's dive into this.

So introductions to AI. I was previously saying that, I am here presenting on this AI session even though I haven't purposely present this concept to my beginning literacy class for obvious reasons. We have so many things to accomplish in our class with technology-related that I've been putting away. I've been putting off the creation of lessons where I introduce AI to my beginning literacy class.

And then after listening to our speaker, Joe Marquez, about all of these amazing things that are out in everyday life-- AI that is in our everyday life-- it's just been making me a little, I don't know, anxious and a little bit of sad and a little bit of guilt I've been feeling because I've been waiting all this time thinking, I don't need to be dealing with AI in my class yet. I can use it for my own personal-- well, I can use it for my own advantage, but I haven't really done anything to introduce it to my class.

So I feel guilty about it. And I think the picture here kind of visualize what I've been doing all this, what? Months of years since AI ChatGPT has been around. So we can do this. So, Ingrid, I don't know if you have anything to say about this picture, but I feel guilty that I've been hiding my head in the sand and occupying my mind into other things in my class but not introducing AI.

Ingrid Bairstow: I don't think you have anything to be ashamed of, Chris. There's a lot of things to do.

Chris Vela Che: Thank you so much AI. I got so overwhelmed today in our sessions, but it is time for me. So I'm going to start creating my lessons on Monday. And really AI is all around us. We need to tell that to our students. When you introduce AI to the lessons like purposely so they are aware of these tools, you got to also mention that, hey, there is nothing to be afraid of because you've been using AI in your everyday life.

Examples of that is your cell phone, facial recognition. So make sure you mention those things. So that can also ease some of the fear and some of the anxiety that some of our learners may experience. Also email suggestions predicting the next words. We've seen that in chats, in text. Grammarly also integrated in some of the things that we use in our daily life, Alexa, Siri. So pretty much it's just reminding everybody AI is already in our everyday life.

And then here is an interesting question. What if I keep being me and just refuse to mention or to tell my students about AI. What can happen? Well, I can contribute to the big gap of the learning gap that-- I'm going to contribute to that learning gap between students not knowing AI and students who are more prepared on that. So we want to make sure that we also include AI, telling students what is this in our lessons. And you can see data here pulled out.

It says here, 6 in 10 workers will have 10% of work tasks impacted by GPT or AI. So 50% will have 50% of work tasks impacted. So, yes. So these are--

Ingrid Bairstow: I'm going to interrupt one thing here. I just want to say one thing I heard recently and you may have heard it is that people are worried about AI taking over their jobs. But what they really need to be worried about is that the person that knows AI is going to definitely take their job. So it's an important distinction. Yes, we can be afraid of AI, but what we really need to focus on is knowing AI so that the person who knows it doesn't take your job or our student's jobs.

Chris Vela Che: Yes. So as teachers, job security. So teachers, even if you don't like it, you gotta learn. And teach our students how to be great prompters because that's one of the skills that I think is going to be needed or is needed. It's going to being it's going to be needed soon, and it's probably going to be-- or is needed right now. How to prompt, how to ask something to these AI-based machines. So anything else, Ingrid?

I think you guys can check this great visual here of all the scary things that will happen and are happening right now. Students need to learn AI. New jobs like we were saying, we might have to be teaching very soon how to prompt ChatGPT, how to create things. And you see here some of the new fastest growing jobs already happening. We have AI machine learning specialist, sustainability specialist and all of that. Anything else here, Ingrid or maybe not?

Ingrid Bairstow: I think you've taken over my slides, but that's OK. You're doing a great job. That's OK. That's all right.

Chris Vela Che: Yes. And I think if you have an advanced ESL class that have more language, you can perhaps even pull this out and say, hey, this is the why we're doing this lesson on AI. So you can link that lesson that seems to be isolated into relevant uses for them. So this is the why we need to start doing this. Because your children are doing it, and you will have to keep up with learning all of these skills, because these are skills that are needed and will continue being needed in the near future.

Next thing is, so AI is added into tech tools and like I said, you can always mention that to students if they're familiar with all of these tools. They already have AI integrated. So even their Gmail, most of my students have Gmail. So, again, linking their experiences to the lesson you want to provide can also engage students and make them feel more interested in learning about these AI tool or AI language learning machines.

Anyone else here? I think we are good here. I think you guys know Canva, Padlet, DocsGPT, Gmail, Quizziz, Quizlet, Microsoft apps, Khan Academy and more already have AI. So these are great opportunities for you to maybe explore and see how you can possibly prompt students to use some of the AI features of all of these tools. Ingrid, anything here or maybe not?

Ingrid Bairstow: I just wanted to point out before you move on. I don't know about you guys, but every time I open up Word or Google Docs or Slides, there's always a new little star or a little new generative addition to these tools that we already use. And it's like every time you turn around it's more and more AI is being added. And it's like, stop, because it's like I haven't even learned the old one, and now I have to learn the new one.

But it's kind of cool at the same time. So I don't know if have you guys noticed that, that when you open up Google Docs or Microsoft Word, there's a little on the side that'll be like, try out our new AI tool?

Chris Vela Che: And even like or I just had an idea just when I was attending one of the sessions here using Google Docs. I mean don't have Google Doc here in the tools, but if you open up Google Doc, and then you click on the AI integration feature that looks like a little sparkling star--

Ingrid Bairstow: Little star. Yeah.

Chris Vela Che: --yeah, you can maybe assign a student in Canvas to do dictation in that document. And that's a great way to get that assessment. And it's also another way to learn language. And they're also using AI, which is what ultimately you want students to be comfortable using and acknowledging that they're using AI. Yes. So that's one of the ideas I recently had. But anyways, anything else, Ingrid?

Ingrid Bairstow: No. I think that voice-to-text can be a great tool for pronunciation even for non beginners, because by speaking it will see how well they can pronounce those words. So that's a cool idea.

Chris Vela Che: Yeah, there's a lot of things that you can always do with your class if you're learning language and also you're using AI. So what about, I mean, Ingrid, I'm going to let you talk right now.

Ingrid Bairstow: Thank you. I was just sitting back and relaxing. So--

Student: It always goes to go over my head. But voice-to-text, like which program has voice-to-text?

Chris Vela Che: Voice-to-text, well, I noticed that Word on Google Doc--

Student: Word?

Chris Vela Che: I'm sorry. Google Doc. Google Doc.

[interposing voices]

Chris Vela Che: Yes.

Student: You go to Tools. Or go to Tools in Google Docs, and then it has voice typing or so?

Chris Vela Che: Yes. So you click on that. And I can-- let me see if I can pull out.

Ingrid Bairstow: Yeah, you can probably share it right now.

Student: Nice.

Chris Vela Che: So I think everybody's familiar with Google Doc. Or do we have any beginners on Google Doc? Maybe not.

Student: Level one.

Chris Vela Che: Level one Google Doc users? Maybe not. So hang on. So if you have a Gmail account, you have Google Drive, and if you have Google Drive, then you have access to all of these tools or apps. So here is the document. And then there is an option to go I think it's Tools. Is it Tools?

Student: Well, I know voice typing.

[interposing voices]

Student: Voice typing.

[interposing voices]

Ingrid Bairstow: Go down, Voice Typing. There we go.

Chris Vela Che: So all of this-- Hello. How are you? That's going to help by. I am fine. Thank you. But it doesn't have punctuation. Or do I have to say punctuation? Hello. Period. Oh, he got the punctuation.

Student: If you say it.

Student: Yeah. I have to say the--

Chris Vela Che: Period, comma. So that would be good. Think about your writing classes where you need to be reminded of a period or a comma.

Student: But now, this one too, would we have to copy it and put it in Grammarly to correct the grammar? Because that's something that students want to do that kind of thing.

Chris Vela Che: You also integrate. I think there's an extension for grammar if you integrate it to your Google Doc. So I haven't tried that, to be honest. But I know that you can use an extension to check your grammar.

Student: It works well.

Chris Vela Che: An extension.

Student: Yeah. Extension. Add on for like on Google. It's an app that you put on Google. On Chrome. Sorry. On Chrome.

Chris Vela Che: Yes. Yes. Google Chrome. So yes. And the sky is the limit. Actually, the sky is not the limit. It goes beyond that. But let me go on to the next slide. Hang on, everybody. So any questions? I think we have one question here. Anybody else has any questions? Maybe not yet. So, Ingrid, what were you going to say here? We're you going to say something here?

Ingrid Bairstow: So just to recap the AI tools that we've just looked at, they're artificial intelligence. They're not generative. Does anybody know the difference between the generative AI and the AI we just talked about?

Chris Vela Che: No. I don't.

Student: I don't.

Chris Vela Che: Just be honest. No. I don't.

Ingrid Bairstow: OK, so this is what's so cool. And this is what is taking the world by storm right now when ChatGPT came out last year, is that their large language models, the LLMs-- I think you may have seen that word-- they actually generate, they create text from these big whole corpus, really, of what people have put into these computers.

And they can respond by going back and checking to see what other people have said and answering questions, writing content, engaging in dialogue. They're using what they've learned. They have a brain that humans have inputted in. So it's very, very different than just the other types of AI that we've had as more of predictive. This is generative. It can create. And this is what people are excited and also really scared about because this is the brave new world kind of thing. So exactly.

Chris is the queen of emojis and funny emojis. So the best known one is the ChatGPT. There's also these right here, Gemini but from Google, Bing, Chat, Claude, Perplexity, Chatsonic, and they're all being built in, like we said earlier, into your tools that we use every day. Every time you turn on, there's a little star or a little something, try out our new AI tool.

And I don't know if anybody has tried Google Bard when it was Bard or now as Gemini? Has anybody tried Bing? I have friends that really love Bing. I'm not a big fan. I still prefer ChatGPT though it does sound very formulaic. Has anybody tried any of these LLMs?

Student: I tried the Google Bard.

Ingrid Bairstow: Do you like it?

Student: Yeah, I think so.

Chris Vela Che: Yes, I see some nodding and you guys have. I haven't tried it. But some people here are nodding their heads that they have tried. What have you tried, Mariana, Gemini?

Mariana: Google Bard when it was Bard. I've heard that recently their terms has changed.

Chris Vela Che: Two weeks ago just, oh wow.

Ingrid Bairstow: Yeah, it just changed. And the good thing about the Google and Microsoft is that you don't have to log into a ChatGPT. Now that you can get it on your phone, you can get the app for ChatGPT. But you still have to leave what you're doing if you're working on any of those word processors to go and use it. So this is right in there. So try them out, and play with them. I think that's the best way to do it right now is just to practice and try them out.

Chris Vela Che: And I want to add something to that. Gemini or is it Gemini or Gemini, how do we pronounce?

Ingrid Bairstow: Gemini.

Chris Vela Che: Our speaker, Joe Marquez, recommended that we should use Gemini to craft maybe ideas, and then paste those ideas into ChatGPT. I mean, you have to follow that. Joe Marquez, he is the director of technology innovation at CUE or Computer Using Educators, which is a great organization, all technology savvy instructors. So you should follow Joe Marquez. He's got really great ideas.

He's to me like the AI doctor. Why have you used this? Can I use that? But be careful with that. Or if I use this, can I put my data here? No, because you're getting-- so just follow Joe Marquez. He is very good. Any questions? Maybe no questions you see in the chat. Ingrid, anything?

Ingrid Bairstow: No. Just there's a comment here. Ulrika said that she learned about something called Magic School yesterday. I don't know. I've never heard that before. Has anybody heard? It's AI. OK. Ulrika, do you want to share what it is? Can you speak or?

Ulrika: I can speak. Yeah.

Ingrid Bairstow: OK, go ahead, Ulrika.

Ulrika: So they mentioned it yesterday in one of the sessions. I don't know anything about it. But you had to log in, and it gave you a list of all different types of AI things to do with it. It does lesson plans. There was one section where it writes jokes. And I think it's more that the students can use it than teachers for planning. And I have nothing about it. If you want to look it up, it's just something to keep in mind. It looked really neat the five minutes we played with it in the session.

Ingrid Bairstow: They all look so neat. Thanks, Ulrika. Yes.

Chris Vela Che: Is it free?

Student: No.

Chris Vela Che: No.

Ingrid Bairstow: Oh, it's not free. OK.

Chris Vela Che: Dang it. OK, then.

Ingrid Bairstow: Thank you, Emma.

Chris Vela Che: So, Ingrid, do you want to introduce this portion over here? So this is the part where we came for this session for this portion. AI in the case of writing teachers, I mean, the writing teacher. So we have a picture here. We haven't even put the source. I didn't have time to put. This was AI-generated picture. So I apologize for that. But it's a beautiful picture.

And it illustrates very well that we need to consider AI as our friend because it's in every day activities that we do. So with that being said, we have to also address concerns of a writing teacher. I don't know how you guys feel, but I do feel fear for humanity, not for my class. Because my beginning literacy students have other problems that are not AI problems at this point.

But I know that if I don't do my job as a teacher to introduce the idea or introduce this AI and what it does and the pros and cons, then I feel like I'm doing a disservice because I'm not preparing them for the 21st century. I mean, it's a scary world out there, and things could be easily manipulated, and we need to be aware of that. And how do we become aware of that? It's by educating and just allocating time to create content and lessons that express or communicate all of these things that are happening already.

And just get on board, even though it's a little overwhelming and scary at the same time, but it's the duty of our field to be there and be the best advocate for our students and help them navigate this AI-infused world. And then, Ingrid, anything else?

Ingrid Bairstow: So I'm just going to jump in here. And I want to just to see, feel the room and feel and the Zoomers, what are your fears? I mean, we think we've identified most of them from our point of view, but is there any other fears that you have of using AI? Let's just address that big elephant in the room. We don't want them to cheat. We want to teach them how to create from themselves. They're already using their translators all the time. What are some of your concerns? Being scammed. Jodi. Yes.

Chris Vela Che: What about here in the room. You guys have any fear for that?

Student: Yeah, kind of.

Student: What's the point? Because I looked at the AI and that from CATESOL oh, it's great. It's great. So I said, OK, I'll try to figure it out. It's a database. I mean, if you put a prompt, it answers. I mean, I wasn't blown away. It didn't give me Picasso. It didn't give me Mozart. Not to that point.

Ingrid Bairstow: No.

Chris Vela Che: And I'm going to show a lesson that I'm planning to do. I mean, you can solve some of-- I mean, you can show the powerful thing that they can do with AI like solving problems. Like my students, my population, they're like newcomers. They don't have the language skills. They do have skills of their native countries. That the language is a barrier. So how can we use these tools so they can craft who they are in another language?

So I will talk a little bit about a lesson that I like to implement in my beginning literacy class, where we use ChatGPT as a way to create maybe a resume on five facts about themselves. So then they see the use. Hey, maybe if I use this, if I'm looking for a job and I don't have references in this country, I don't have experience in this country, how do I craft something maybe in my native language and then use this tool to translate and then craft something in English and then with your guidance as an instructor, check accuracies and everything?

I mean, that could be a solution to the life. Maybe the job aspect of their lives, the possibilities of them finding a job if they have something. I mean, they don't have the language to write a resume, but they do have experience. They have abilities. They're very smart. They're trilingual but it's just the English language that is the barrier there, among other things. But I think that this AI if we use it creatively, we can solve some of these problems.

And we can show them, hey, this is a powerful tool. We did this lesson in class. Perhaps you can maybe use it in other parts of your life. I don't know how to write an email to my boss. Use it for that. And see how it's being. If you prompt ChatGPT to write an email to your boss about you're going to be absent such and such, I mean, they're going to start looking professional with the help of AI.

Student: If it's correct.

Chris Vela Che: Correct. Yes. So they need a lot of guidance. This is where teachers and humans come into the formula. Is we cannot just release AI and then, OK, you do it. You think-- no. We got to just guide them and see that they need to make sure that if they submit something, all of these things that we have to take into account like citing AI if they're writing something that is not theirs and it is AI-generated. So oh, there's a lot of things that we have to be helping students with.

Mariana: I wanted to say, I haven't used this a lot. I explored it on my own, but I was talking to my colleagues how I feel like we're actually creating more inequities between our students. So let's say you have somebody like one of these students trilingual moving to this country and they need a job. They don't care-- I mean, they may want to learn English, but they need a job first and foremost.

So they apply for a job. And apply for the same job. I get the job because my English is my English and their skills are great, but they don't speak as much English as I do. So that's an inequitable thing. Maybe the student could do the job as well as I could do it or even better than me. Some jobs don't require as much talking. So they can progress on that later. I feel like it's an equity tool. And if one student has it and the other one doesn't, it's kind of having access to digital tools regardless of what tool you're thinking about.

Chris Vela Che: Yeah, and that's a great point there. Just to think in that, just looking at that, having that angle like looking at ChatGPT or all of these tools in that angle in the student angle priorities, most of my students' least concern is like going to school. They just want to get a job because they need to feed their families. And they're anxious about getting jobs, basically. But it's just the language that is the barrier. And why not?

Just introducing this tool can really, really help them. And like Mariana said, that can just help with equity, just have the same skills but it's just the language that is just interfering with that. So absolutely great point there, Mariana. Anybody else in the chat, Ingrid? I don't know. I see like 54 messages.

Ingrid Bairstow: Kristy says, exactly. And she said, just like teachers who don't use AI will be replaced by teachers who do. Same for our students. Not to scare anybody, but yeah, exactly. Same for our students. Exactly. Not fear-based at all. Just reality. Just reality.

Chris Vela Che: In any form, I mean, I have a kid with autism. And I'm afraid of his future. Like, if he's not aware of all of this, he can be easily manipulated. That's what my fear is, and that's why I was telling my colleagues here, the last session I was with all these things that we explore that AI is already generating and creating. I feel like very anxious and afraid because this can be easily manipulated for elections in the future for a gazillion things that can affect a lot of us if we're not ready and not aware of all of this.

So not only for my son, I'm afraid, I have to teach him that. And I hope at that schools, I hope that my fellow educators in K through 12 are also telling our children about AI and how to use it and what it's for. So I think all educators, we are all in this together. It takes a village, and the village is all of us. So please learn AI, and please introduce your students to AI. Don't wait like me.

I'm waiting and waiting, and now I feel anxious because I've been wasting all this time instead of creating content about it. Because this is important and it is priority. I don't know. No more. So let's continue everybody. Approaches to student writing with AI now. So, Ingrid, I think you wrote some of these questions. So we have some statements here, and we would like to know your thoughts. So how would you approach AI in your writing classes?

So the first one is in class only handwritten writing assignments or outright ban. What are your thoughts? For me, no. That's too black and white answer there. In class, only handwritten writing assignments. Would you only do only handwriting or handwritten writing assignments in your ESL classes? Maybe. Would that be a solution or an approach to avoid the fears of AI?

Student: No.

Chris Vela Che: No. Have students only write from personal experience with a lot of reflections on their own experiences and lives? So AI does not know a lot of your personal experiences unless you share it. So yeah. Ingrid, anything here too that you want to say?

Ingrid Bairstow: We created this slide just because if we do still-- like you said, we want to embrace this AI just because it is the future. Maybe we don't like it, but it is what it is. It's reality. But at the same time, we have this balancing act as teachers. Just like with the calculator, I don't know if you're old enough to remember when the calculator came out. But I remember math teachers were worried about using the calculator. And people are going to forget how to do math.

So we don't want to let our students only use AI. We do want to still teach the craft and the process of writing. So these are some ways that we're doing this. If you go back one slide, Chris just to the very first one. Like the in-class only handwritten writing assignments. Even before on the computer, they could use their translators. They could use the internet to write.

So the only way you can get away from not using any tools is to hand write it. So that's one approach that we may be using now or we can continue to use, or like you said, from personal experiences. So do we continue with this? Do we have a balance of both? I mean, these are some of the thoughts as we go forward. You can go to the next slide.

Another way is just like the math teachers, have them show their work. How do they come up with the solution? Perhaps asking students to share their drafts, which we're doing now, and maybe continue so that we can see that they're still learning that process. But as we enter the AI journey using what they're writing on their own and how they use AI, which tool did they use? And what did they use it for?

So this is more advanced, obviously, this last approach. And I did a little bit of this with my intermediate advanced course at San Diego College last year. And I'll show you what I did. And I think somebody in the Zoom room had also mentioned that they'd been using this similar type thing. So these are ways that we're using now. And then we can have that balancing act of not just throwing the AI in there, but carefully balancing the writing process and adding it the AI to it. Any thoughts about that?

Chris Vela Che: Good for the brainstorming ideas.

Ingrid Bairstow: Yeah, definitely for brainstorming. Exactly. And do any of you have students share their notes when they're doing their paragraphs or their essay writing?

Student: My students were supposed to write the essay, a diploma student, and he went back and faked the scaffold writing stuff. So he had turned in an AI essay and then faked the other stuff. And that to me, this is why I was like, OK, you're going to have to sit here and write this by hand because obviously, it's like, OK, I really want to help these diploma students, but at the same time, if that's their temptation, I'm fighting an uphill battle.

Chris Vela Che: What I think is that it's a great tool. We need a tool.

Student: It's still learning, right?

Chris Vela Che: If we need to give them instruction on how to use a tool, for example, like you told the student to write something and she could write it by himself, and then he has to put it in the ChatGPT and ask the ChatGPT, can you please correct my grammar? That's the first step. So after that ChatGPT correct his grammar. And then he has to learn about it.

And then he takes to that ChatGPT again, and then ChatGPT, can you rephrase that for me? So the ChatGPT would rephrase that for him. And then after that, she had to combine and see which one I'm using and come back and come up with this lesson. And that's the process of learning. That's the beauty of the AI. That's how we use AI to teach our students. And guess what? We don't have to correct their grammar one by one.

[interposing voices]

Ingrid Bairstow: That's very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[interposing voices]

Chris Vela Che: Say, OK, this is writing one on one with ChatGPT. And these are the steps. And this is what you're going to write about. And this is number one. You write with your own ideas. Number two, we're going to use the tool that you're going to sneakily use anyway. Come on, ChatGPT, correct my grammar. So that way that they learn the grammar. And then they rephrase it, and they learn how to make their text richer, their writing better.

Student: So that he started writing on ChatGPT.

Chris Vela Che: Yes.

Ingrid Bairstow: Go ahead.

Chris Vela Che: Yes. So have them do that. Maybe doing the task that lead them to do a feature and then they know how to do it. Even if it's not 100% correct. Just have them write. And then you see that they're writing, OK, now the next step is putting it into ChatGPT. I mean, that could be something that could be-- it's under a different approach. So that maybe that can solve potential problems, like just going into-- oh, you have an assignment of writing this. Go figure.

Go figure it out yourself. Just integrate that. That there are many ways to-- you have to think creatively to AI and your writing lessons. So I like that idea of the steps.

Student: She's our IT lady.

Chris Vela Che: Yes.

Ingrid Bairstow: I'm just going to share a couple of comments from the chat. And let's see here. Josh was talking about, he asks for outlines, but I also-- and Eureka says, they share notes. Kristy says, they brainstorm collaboratively. And they write intros and conclusions on their own or with AI assistance. But what Laura Nickerson said, which is really interesting, I don't know, Laura, if you want to talk or I can just read your comment?

AI can imitate your writing if you upload a sample. And it can invent personal experiences that could fool an instructor. So the point is, we're beyond the point of trying to prevent students from cheating. I think that's where we're at. And even though it's a tool, but we also-- I like what she said here-- as educators, we need to rethink how we assess students in this new reality. So we're going to talk about that if we have time. There's so much here to unpack.

But yes, so it's definitely a change, a shift of paradigm of what learning is and the whole cheating and paralogism that we've been kind of attached to for so long. So that's a whole other discussion as well. But it needs to be there. And to get into teachers' minds that maybe we just cannot stop the cheating, but maybe we just need to change the way that we teach.

Chris Vela Che: Yes. You want to talk about this one, Ingrid, the caveats and limitations of AI?

Ingrid Bairstow: Yeah. So I think we've covered this a lot in the discussion. Like people say, yeah, it's not accurate. And this is just what Laura was saying in the chat, AI checkers are not reliable. They can see now. I didn't know that, Laura. I didn't know that they could create stories. So it's changing rapidly. And this is the slide that I think we should all take. Yeah, exactly, Laura. I don't teach in a credit course.

My school is coming up very slowly with AI, but they've got to take their head out of the sand. But this slide here is very important. And I think if everybody doesn't see any other slide, this one take a picture of it. It's from Ditch the Textbook. I don't know if you've seen his lessons from MAT. So, I mean, this is the, rethink plagiarism and cheating, which is exactly what we just talked about.

So as you go forward creating your lessons and teaching writing, how are we really preparing our students for the real world? Which of these would you use for work as an adult? So take a look at these. We don't have time to go through them little by little, but that's an important question for our future. Some workarounds, we don't have to go through this anymore. Revise work and assign formats. Yes, blah, blah, keep going.

Umm-- AI I think, continue, continue, continue. So even here the syllabus-- I don't even know if this is even valid anymore. I mean, I know all our schools have a syllabus policy that plagiarism and AI cheating is not allowed. So I even think that this is evolving constantly. So how do we describe what academic honesty is? And I think this can only come with discussions like this one with our students even at the beginning levels.

If you're using other people's work, just give credit for it. So these are-- at the credit level I have to have this in there. And even that the higher non-credit levels, I'm sure you have to have this kind of syllabus policy. But the most important conversations are the ones you have in the classroom with the students. This one. I said go back one more.

Just to recap what we've been talking about and those slides at the beginning that about the future of AI, whether we like it or not, students are demanding it. This is from August 2023, just a few months ago. Students organized a conference for professors across the country. That was designed to teach the educators about ChatGPT and other new tools. Students want their teachers to teach them, and if they're not, they're going to start teaching themselves.

So I thought this was fascinating from a higher Ed newsletter. So they're going to demand it, and they're probably going to be teaching us. So this is something also to keep in mind. I don't think we need to be fear-based. We're going to keep doing what we're doing. We have the experience. We have years of experience. But we can be very frank and honest that this is brand new for all of us. And we can do it together.

And that's the way I approached my writing class last year, which we'll talk about hopefully. We have about 10 minutes left, but so we can rush through these, Chris. This is the writing process. We just wanted to have a quick check in with you guys. Where do you think to use AI? I think we've covered it a little bit-- especially the lady. I didn't see you but I heard you-- about editing. Having AI edit so you don't have to do all that menial work. Anybody else have any comments about where you see AI in the writing process?

Student: Could be working on transitions. Like if you do transition work with the student and then they write their own piece of writing their paragraph and then put that into chat and say, can you include some transition words? Transition words [overlapping voices] in their paragraph. Yes.

Chris Vela Che: I think for me, pre-writing. I have a hard time-- and this is my personal experience of writing-- something that I'm not very familiar with. So I struggle with the beginning of the writing for like pre-writing. Perhaps you can ask ChatGPT to bring some ideas on such topics. That could be a way for me to use or integrate AI there like a partner who is telling me all of these ideas and just giving me ideas so I can start writing.

So the pre-writing portion I would integrate AI. Anybody over here, where do you think you can proof reading, editing. I think this is probably more editing. And in the chat I don't know--

Student: Researching as well.

Chris Vela Che: Research. Yeah, researching.

Student: So ChatGPT can find a list of ideas in regard to Napoleon and give me links and--

Student: Give me links. Yeah.

Chris Vela Che: I heard people suggesting that have them read, write their essay and then they input their rubrics on the teacher. And they ask AI to give, so how well did I write? How much my writing like adapted the rubric? And it gives you an idea. Your idea is to evaluate their writing basically using the rubric.

Student: Well, that's an interesting idea.

Chris Vela Che: I like this. Well, just like brainstorming ideas here like how we will be integrating AI in our writing process here. We need to write all of this or maybe the next TDLS ideas.

Ingrid Bairstow: Do we have the AI summary on?

Chris Vela Che: The AI summary, yes, we do have AI summary here on Zoom. Did we activate that, Ingrid? I don't know.

Student: Is it active?

Chris Vela Che: I think it is.

Ingrid Bairstow: I didn't do anything.

Chris Vela Che: I think it is activated.

Student: So which one is it? Is it the app?

Chris Vela Che: It is in Zoom feature where you, activate and then it'll give you a summary. Yeah, it will.

Student: It's flashing. It's in the top left corner.

Chris Vela Che: Yes, I think so. At the end of this session maybe we'll get you the summary of this session just by going to Zoom and copy paste, and you can get bullet points of important things that we discussed today. So absolutely, that could be a great idea. If you're teaching a higher level class in writing, we'll use AI to get all the summary. And from there I'll write something about that session or instructions on how to write something.

There are many ways, many ways, and I think we're just kind of brainstorming in which part of the writing process we would integrate that. So that's why we're taking a few seconds here to think and imagine where we would add it. Anybody in the chat have any ideas or should we move on here?

Ingrid Bairstow: So we have six minutes left. Just wanted to--

Chris Vela Che: Yes. Let's go to the next one. Well, let's try it. Let's try it. This is a student. Imagine this is your student, and you're introducing your student to AI. So your student is meeting AI. So I'm going to show you my idea. And I'm going to tell you that this is-- I haven't tried it. But this is what I envision doing in a few weeks or so.

So my class is a beginning level class. And the lesson that I like to create very soon is called beginning literacy meets ChatGPT. So I'm going to pick one tool, and that tool is going to be ChatGPT. So that will be the name of my lesson. And then the challenge, I find out-- I first identify a problem, a persistent problem in my class and that is beyond English teaching. So the problem that I usually get is students not being engaged in my class because their minds are in other things like trying to get a job.

They are newcomers and they don't have job experience in the US. They don't have any references. They just move to the US and limited English skills. So I see there is a language barrier and then getting a job. By then getting a job then that'll help them concentrate on my English class, perhaps. So a solution it would be writing a resume. I know they are all willing to get any job anywhere so they can start building that job experience and everything else.

So the tool that I like to use for this lesson, of course, is ChatGPT. Having students download the app. And then the goal would be, write a short resume based on five personal facts. So the objective of my lesson will be learning about ChatGPT. So I'm going to be linking the whole thing. What is ChatGPT? And then learn to type on a cell phone keyboard, which is a skill not many of my students have.

So this is kind of like an outline of a lesson I'd like to try next in the next few weeks or so. So here is what I envision doing. First in my class, I'm going to have students write personal information. Remember, my class is just the beginning literacy class. So we are already doing personal information. So my first name is, my last name is, I am from Haiti. I speak Portuguese, Spanish and Creole. I used to be a farmer in my native country. Five facts about themselves.