Final Reflection

 This semester has been really intriguing. This is the most that I've used and tried out AI, and I've learned a lot about how to use it to help me as an educator. The other various tools that we've explored have been helpful as well, but AI was my favorite to get to try.

When I initially considered AI, all I associated it with was cheating. I tell my own students all the time to stay away from it because it doesn't help them actually learn. There are definitely ways to use it effectively, but I know my students aren't using it in that capacity. I teach math, so I believe in can be useful if they used it to learn what mistakes they may have made, but usually they use it to just get the answer. All that being said, when we started using it in this class, I felt like I was cheating or taking the short way when I should be doing everything that way I'm putting in the most effort. After this class, I've come to realize that we can use it as an actual tool to help us get stuff done and it doesn't mean that you're putting in less effort. We can also blend it with human touch so that whatever is created with it doesn't come off as disingenuous. I used ChatGPT mostly in this course, but dabbled in Canva's built in AI. ChatGPT always worked great for me even if it was hard sometimes to get it to do what I wanted. I would like to explore more and I like that this course gave me multiple different ones to take note of to try in the future. 

The most difficult one to use was the podcast. I'd never created one before and searching through all the platforms to decide which one would be best was challenging. My partner and I used Zoom to record together and then we took the audio file and uploaded it to Podbean. The whole process ended up being pretty simple once we figured out what to do, but the audio didn't sound as crisp or clear as I would've liked. The transitions also weren't as seamless, so in the future I want to learn how to make everything blend together better. I think that would help with it sounding more professional and just make it more pleasing for listeners, which would hopefully lead to more engagement.

The one that I think will most benefit students is the website The ALA Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning. This will benefit them most because there are so many different great sources compiled into one. The librarian is able to choose from a variety of tools to help with engagement and student exploration. Following with that is the Wakelet Gallery for similar reasons. In this class we shared lesson plans using those tools, so we have examples to use and plans already made that we can alter if necessary. Having these already compiled saves time and sparks ideas for us in the future.

Overall, this course was a great way to explore different tools, some that I have heard about and use frequently, like Canva, and others that I'd never even heard before. I got an idea of which ones I liked and didn't like and know what to look into more in the future.