🎃👻 Dark Tales and Digital Reflections: A Halloween Activity

Yesterday’s Halloween advisory session took a spine-tingling turn as students gathered in the library for a read-aloud from Things That go Bump in the Night by Patrick Carman. 

We kicked things off with an introductory video before diving into the story “Heart of Stone,” a creepy, captivating short story. After the read-aloud, students watched the story’s wrap-up video, setting the perfect atmosphere for a reflective activity. Using Padlet, students responded to the prompt “Whatever you do…” with creative, eerie responses that tied directly to the story. To bring their words to life, students typed their thoughts and used the Padlet AI image generator to create visuals related to their statements, resulting in a hauntingly engaging mix of text and imagery.

CLICK HERE to access the full Padlet of students' responses.

Here are a few of the students' responses close up:

This activity not only added Halloween fun to an advisory session but also supports my professional development goal of promoting positive relationships, mindfulness, and bibliotherapy in the library. By choosing thought-provoking stories and prompts, students engaged in reflective thinking and shared their creative responses with their peers in a supportive environment. The visual component helped them connect with the story on a deeper level, allowing for self-expression and opening doors to conversations that promote empathy and connection. A big "thank you" goes to my teacher librarian colleague Dani whose work with Padlet and image generating inspired me to give this a try!

🌟💻 Exciting First Adventure with AI!

It's hard to read anything about schools and libraries or scroll through social media and *not* read about AI. I've been fascinated about AI's potential in classrooms and in the library, and with encouragement from a colleague, I've joined the world of SchoolAI to find ways to engage and inspire students beyond the traditional classroom setting and learning. Today was my first foray into AI with students, and I'm hooked!

SchoolAI offers tools and resources for teachers, as well as Spaces to share with students. For our first endeavor with AI, I decided to have students try an already-created Choose Your Own Adventure activity that uses AI-powered prompts and guides students on a journey of creativity and exploration. With student input, we developed a 6-item list of topics that appealed to them: pets, food, music, travel, hobbies, and gaming. Students narrowed the list to their three favorites before narrowing the list to the winning topic--hobbies.

Using either the SchoolAI-generated web address or QR code, students accessed the hobbies-themed adventure, immersing themselves in a world where the boundaries of imagination knew no limits. Armed with curiosity and a sense of adventure, students eagerly experimented with different prompts, eager to see where the AI would take them. So many great conversations about how to prompt the AI, especially when the AI placed students in a world or offered hobbies students didn't want or weren't interesting to them!

What made this experience truly great was the freedom and flexibility it offered students. Don't want to move through a fantasy setting? Prompt the AI. Don't like the hobby options it suggested? Prompt the AI. Looking for a certain type of hobby? Prompt the AI! Unlike traditional classroom activities, where the path and outcome may be predetermined, this Choose Your Own Adventure with AI allowed students to take control of their own narratives, shaping the story with each prompt they chose. This prompt writing and rewriting and revising is definitely an added benefit to the activity as it pushed students to think about word choice and clarity when generating a new prompt.

Another benefit to using SchoolAI is that the students' interactions with the bot are saved, and as the teacher, I can see a brief analysis of students' engagement, and I can also see their chats. SchoolAI offers an overview of the students' participation, like these seen below:

Chats between student and chatbot are also available to access:

Seeing students' enthusiasm and curiosity come to life in such a tangible way as they interacted with the AI was great! It reaffirmed my belief in the power of technology to inspire, empower, and transform the learning experience, opening doors to new possibilities, as well as technological and learning adventures.

So, what's next? With so many AI tools and possible interactions to consider, the journey continues, full of possibilities waiting to be discovered. And as the students and I embark on this exciting new chapter, I invite you to join us on this AI journey, where the only limit is our imagination!