Subscribe to this blog!

It has been said, "you can't outrun AI". There is a truth here, yet I find this mental image exhausting and demoralising. When something is changing as rapidly as generative AI, how can we grab hold of this slippery thing enough to be the guides our students need us to be? Teachers can feel simultaneously exhausted at the thought of staying ahead and guilty because they recognise critical thinking about AI's threats and opportunities is a skill our students need. What is th

Teaching Data Science in NSW science classrooms Skilling our students to evaluate competing claims to truth has never been more important and the NSW science modules, Data Science 1 & 2 provide a wonderful opportunity for this. The CRAAP test is a golden oldie still used in many schools and has probably found its way into some Data Science teaching programs. I argue (challenge) that for this post-AI age, and especially for science education, CRAAP is no longer fit for purpo

Maybe hearing about the staggering environmental cost of using generative AI has promoted you to read this article. Knowing how it works is the key to understanding why these two simple suggestions can significantly reduce your environmental impact when using Generative AI. Before others say it, early estimates of energy use are likely to be 10 times higher than reality and reasonable AI use is a small fraction of your entire energy budget if you live in a developed country.

AI takes ages to generate an image and it is still not quite right  (despite consuming a bunch of electricity). When you ask for a revision it starts from scratch and sometimes things that were  OK, not longer are. Switch to using Procedural Image generation . OK, its NOT good for generating photo-real images, what it is  great for are graphics and diagrams - things teachers use to explain concepts and ideas. Before we jump into the what and how , here are some advantages:

The Conversation - link: https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-feel-about-doing-exams-our-research-unearthed-4-types-of-test-takers-261552 If you had to do a test, how would you respond? Would you relish the chance to demonstrate your knowledge? Or worry you were about to fall short of the mark and embarrass yourself? Research tells us students’ attitudes towards taking tests or doing exams can have an impact on their performance . This is because what they think about them

It has been a joy—and a genuine professional privilege—to work alongside giants in educational research to explore a question that’s rather timely: how do we introduce generative AI to students in a way that supports, rather than overwhelms, their learning? In our recently published paper, we bring together the worlds of educational neuroscience and classroom practice. It’s somewhat ironic: the very tools designed to mimic neural networks can, if introduced poorly, overload t

Google's new NotebookLM is a novel approach to interfacing with generative AI. Not quite an agent, not a chat..but one feature that caught my eye was the Deep Dive conversation . As a teacher, the critical test of using new tech is "Does it help learning?". Let me share a shallow and a deeper use of NotebookLM I have tried in the classroom and the results thus far, then what my next idea is. NotebookLM is Beta, which means it might be buggy but (perhaps only for now) it is fr

Depth studies are vital ways to get students doing science and their science project can be one of the more memorable and enjoyable parts...

TIP 1: Know the process. A science test is an instrument we use to probe minds. I used the word "instrument" intentionally on many...

Key points: Learn how to quickly generate a study-revision game for your class using Generative AI. More importantly, see the IDEA to...

Models are the core of science. Scientists build models of reality, generate testable hypotheses from models and then gather evidence to...

How to use a this water model of electricity to drive deep and robust understanding of the basics of simple electric circuits....

A series about making electricity "visible" to students to drive resilient understanding of the basics AND giving students an authentic...

The invisible and abstracted nature of electricity in simple circuits makes it hard for students to develop an accurate mental model....

How wonderful to see the new NSW Stage 4-5 Syllabuses are featuring data science skills. It is vital to nurture skeptical and data-savvy...

A ready-to-go example mini assignment to up skill you and your students to use GenAi as creators not consumers. I thought nothing is a...

The new NESA Stage 4 and 5 Science syllabus is a great opportunity to critically evaluate the what, how and why of some elements in our...

Two recent gems of educational research are of immediate relevance to all teachers and especially those in remote and regional settings....

Confirmation bias is the vortex than swirls good people down dark holes Sometimes I have a flash of rationality But most times I do just...

The Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) recently released a thought-leadership piece on generative AI and...