Dyslexc Buddies

Posted 05/10/2023

Given that an interesting set of Ai video tutorials have reached my desktop, I have tried to combine here emotional intelligence strategies with practical Ai tools that are making classroom work transformative.

The focus today is on inclusive classrooms, neurodiversity, and producing materials that are dyslexic friendly, as it is well-known by now that 21st century skills are present in Dyslexic Thinking traits = an approach to problem-solving, assessing information, and learning, often used by people with dyslexia, which involves pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, lateral thinking, and interpersonal communication.

The five areas on display are:

Research for relevant figures with dyslexia.
Interact and share apps to support dyslexic students.
Develop tools that will offer support to dyslexic students with their learning and assessment.
Create Ai low-stakes quizzes.
Explore empathy.

SMALL GROUPS (4-5)

So we are going to give students an Ai assignment where they will be using Bing in creative mode (which is connected to the internet) to read a website like Wikipedia and create quizzes about an important figure with dyslexia (i.e. Agatha Christie). Our intention here is to invite students to empathise with their dyslexic classmates by showing them all that having dyslexic traits can be their strength rather than their weakness. It was certainly not a hindrance for Agatha Christie to become the world’s best-selling fiction writer of all time.

At this point we can ask students to cultivate empathic skills by putting themselves in the shoes of a dyslexic learner and endeavouring to write for seven minutes about a topic of their choice using no «b» or «e» (original idea from BDA).

Ethan Mollick from Wharton Interactive’s Faculty recommends clarifying Ai Policies in the classroom.

Students

become responsible for the output of their products
get the facts right
give data and information to the Ai to make good decisions
provide all the prompts they used with the Ai
write a reflection paragraph after assignments (where Ai was or not good

Following Director Mollick exact words, we must teach our students how to discern credibility as Ai would definitely feel like it’s a real person and it can be a phenomenal TA when the right prompts are used. Ai can invent things or hallucinate so we must make sure the students are accountable for their work and they should critically evaluate any output that the Ai gives them. To get the most of the interaction they should ask questions to clear up areas of confusion, and generally take the lead. The students have to remember that they are in control if the Ai gets stuck in a loop and tell it to move on and give the Ai direction. We must bear in mind that Ai is undetectable and it is limited.

Reference Ethan and Lilach Mollick from Wharton Interactive’s Faculty (click image)

We will now ask our students to research for important figures with dyslexia using a Microsoft Edge browser to then activate Bing and give our Ai model the prompt in the image above. Bing will create a quiz with an answer key that we will need to check and make sure that they are accurate. The questions and answers will be transferred to digital format for «Show time!».

Ai will produce a different quiz every time you ask so students will never run out of questions and answers. Here is a quiz based on the wikipedia page and this is the students’ production:

The second game-based activity will be for students to create with Genial.ly the Alphabet Game which will show in alphabetical order, tools to offer support with learning and assessment. Here are the definitions of the DYSLEXIC TRAITS & TOOLS they will need, to create an activity (similar to this) for their classmates to provide accommodations for dyslexic students.