On our final day at Grand Maria School my technology session included:
- A digital StickTogether poster of some Canadian wildlife – a moose
- A digital Kahoot review game about PowerPoint. This group is very competitive so they liked to see who was on the leader board. I chose to go ahead with the Kahoot even though their own students don’t have internet access because it shows technology tools that are possible in education…some day!
- A ChatGPT showcase. (For those who haven’t heard of this, ChatGPT is an AI- artificial intelligence- tool that is able to respond instantly to generate thoughtful accurate, well-written response to queries.
Many of these Ugandan teachers had heard of ChatGPT but none had experimented with it. Folks were astounded as we worked through some example queries. It even worked very well on some very specific Ugandan themed questions.
Here were some of the prompts that we asked it:
- Please create a menu for a traditional Ugandan celebration meal for 50 people. Include a shopping list.
- You are the principal of Grand Maria School, a primary school of 750 students in Uganda. Write a letter of recommendation for student who has just completed primary 7. This student, David, has excellent marks, is well-disciplined, is God-fearing, and is good at badminton and swimming.
- Write a newsletter to parents of Grand Maria School indicating that the report cards will be sent on line and parents will not need to come to school to pick them up.
- Write a poem in rhyming couplets from the point of view of a frustrated Ugandan boda-boda driver.
- Write a 5 paragraph essay on the topic “Is it safe to travel in Uganda?”
- Summarize this essay into 3 sentences.
- Write a lesson plan for teaching place value to one millions to 12 year old students.
- Thank you. Now please provide 10 sample questions to use with the students.
- Write a multiple choice quiz about the basics of using Microsoft Powerpoint
Unlike in Canada where our teachers see this tool and wonder about students cheating, the access to technology is so limited in Uganda that the idea students could use it to write essays, etc hadn’t even occurred to them. Instead, they saw its potential for saving teachers time.
This ChatCPT show case was a great way to end out time together. Unlike working with Microsoft tools like Word and PowerPoint where everyone has such a varied skill level, this was new and exciting to all.
Kann Klan Adventures 