Exploring AI Tools

I have used the basic AI tools like Chat GPT before, but I had never used a platform like Stable Diffusion, this was a very interesting tool to use, and I think that it is something that I would use a lot in the future.

I gave the generating machine a lot of different prompts to see what it would be able to do and to my surprise it actually was able to draw the images just like how I wanted them to be drawn, well at least most of them. The area where I think that it struggled was when you tell it to draw a real-life scenario or when there is people’s faces involved. One of the prompts that I gave it was to draw me an image of two famous basketball teams playing against each other. The image that it generated me was not very descriptive and only showed players from one team. What I had expected from this prompt was a sort of bird eye view of the floor with the players playing against each other. I think that this was partially my fault as I did not give it enough information and that it was really only working with a few words that were not very descriptive.

One of the best images that it gave me was when I have it the prompt of “A man watching his house get carried away by a tornado”. The image of what it generated can be seen below and when I first looked at it, it took me a minute to realize that this was not actually a real image but that it was AI generated. This image which can be seen below was done incredibly and honestly scares me a bit about the potential of AI and its capabilities. For someone who did not know that this was AI generated I think that it would be a while before they realized it was AI generated and I think that as time goes on it will be harder and harder to tell the difference between what images are AI generated and what images are real.

Fig 1. “draw me an image of the 72-10 Chicago Bulls playing against the 73-9 Golden State Warriors” prompt, Stable Diffusion Online, 29 Mar. 2023, https://stablediffusionweb.com.
Fig 2. “a man watching his house get carried away by a tornado” prompt, Stable Diffusion Online, 29 Mar. 2023, https://stablediffusionweb.com.

Section Analysis of Twine

I chose to analyze twine as a multimedia tool that we used throughout this term.

Students

When looking at the students in this course and their access to technology I think that Twine was very easily accessible for all students as to do this course you need access to the internet and since Twine is a platform that can be either downloaded or used directly on the internet, I think that this makes it very easily accessible for students

Ease of Use

Twine has some aspects that students might not be able to comprehend right when they open up the software, but a quick tutorial on the website or on YouTube is more than enough to get a hang of how to use the platform. Once students figure out the basics like, creating buttons that will take the user to the next branch, the platform is very easy to use and lots of fun to use as well.

Cost

From my knowledge of the platform there is no cost associated with the website as well as with downloading and using the software. You are able to download the stories that you have created and share them wherever you want without any cost associated with it.

Teaching

I think that Twine is a good medium that supports good teaching as it allows students to both learn how to use a new platform as well as promotes storytelling and creativity within students. I personally learned a lot from Twine as it taught me a creative way to do something like a presentation or in-class activity which can be both educational but also fun.

Interaction

I think that Twine is a great medium to promote interaction between students as well as between students and teachers. This platforms allows for students to publish their stories and share them with others, which would allow other students to interact with the stories that they created as well as teachers to interact with and assess the stories created by the students.

Organization

To my knowledge there is no real need for funding or support from institutions to access this technology. When it comes to security it may be an issue when it comes to what age group someone wants to work on this with. Since the stories need to be published on the internet on a platform like Itch.io or GitHub teachers may need to review their institutions policies around privacy and publishing content.

Networks

Twine has the ability to network to a large group of people as when a student creates and publishes their stories, they are open for almost anyone to see, at least anyone they give the link to. When publishing on GitHub the repository that a student sets up gives someone who has a link to that repository access to the code, this is a great way for students to learn from one another and also learn about coding and the code associated with the Twine stories and how the stories actually work.

Security

Twine is secure since there is nothing that links the story to the person that is creating it and the author can very much choose to be anonymous. The issue with security may come when students have to publish their work, but this can be handled too with a group account being made by the teacher and all the students just publishing their work onto the teachers account on a platform like Itch.io or GitHub.

Reflection Questions

Guidelines for AI Use in Educational Institution

I personally think that AI is a great tool and that students should begin to learn how to use it while in school as once they are out of school AI like Chat GPT can be used in real world situations very effectively. I also think that with the recent developments in the AI world and with AI software there is a lot of opportunity for students to cheat and possibly get away with it. I understand that there are a lot of software that educational institutions and teachers can use in order to screen for use of AI but it seems to be like an endless cycle where the AI get smarter than a screening program comes in to watch for use of AI software but then just a little while later there is a newer and more advanced software created that the screening software cannot detect. I also think that the use of AI like ChatGPT kind of takes away from a very useful skill that students learn at a very young age which is the ability to conduct research. With the use of AI software like ChatGPT it is very easy to ask it to give you papers on something that you may be working on, whether that be a presentation or a research paper, and ChatGPT and other software are typically pretty good at gathering that information for you. I think that although this is good it takes away from the learning experience of going onto google and finding reputable and reliable sources by yourself. When it comes to guidelines of how AI should be used in school I think that some usage of AI should be allowed but it should definitely be limited as students will most definitely be using it in the future, but they still need to learn skills like conducting research as those are useful life skills.

How might I Use AI Tools Going Forward and Where Do I Think These AI Tools Will Be in the Next 2-3 Years

I think that I might use AI tools a lot more now that I have been made aware of the different types of AI tools that are available and most of them for free. Before this Module the only ones I really knew of were ChatGPT and DALL-E2 all the other ones that were given to us in the Module were new to me. Looking into the future I think that there are several different ways that I might use AI such as Tome to help create presentations, or one of the different image creating AI platforms for creating images that I might need to use. Although I might be more inclined to use these AI tools more often now I think that I will still use a lot of caution when using them because of different concerns. One of the things that concerns me with AI is that it is not always up to date with the most recent information, and has the chance of giving you wrong information sometimes. For example what was looked at with ChatGPT saying that President Donald Trump was black was clearly wrong information given by ChatGPT and makes me a bit hesitant to put all my trust into a AI tool right now. Another concern that I have is the ethics and legality behind using AI tools and how different educational institutions police and regulate the use of AI. When I think of the upcoming years and how AI might change I really think that the sky is the limit. Already there are so many different platforms that you are able to use and so many different things that you can create using AI that it seems impossible to think that it would get even better. I think that in a few years AI will pretty much be able to take over many mundane and easy tasks that students and professionals have to undertake like writing research papers, creating presentations, conducting research, creating videos, and even more. I think with time it will become harder and harder to differentiate between work done by a human and work done by AI. I think this is scary in terms of something like deep fakes, in which videos of notable personnel are sometime created in which you cannot differentiate between if it is a real person talking or an AI generated person, but along with this I think that it is also exciting. Thinking about what can already be done with AI I’m excited to see what more there is to come.