In a search to better my life as a teacher, I have searched for new technology to help me automate the parts of being a teacher are more difficult. In my tremendous search, I have found that AI, artificial intelligence, has found its way in the educational sector and it is trying to help teachers in their methodological documentation. Lesson plans, worksheets, unit planners are all to be made via AI generators that will only take less than an hour instead of taking all the free time of the teachers, bettering their social life and health altogether.
I have experienced to see the available tools that I could find on teaching French, as I am currently teaching FLE, Français Langue Etrangère (French as a Foreign Language). The tools in this domain of teaching seems scarce for now but as technology develops in this century of high development we live in, I consider that the AI generators will be perfected in the domain of preparing the paperwork for teachers. In addition, this, in my opinion, is much better than the previous vector of development that had been expected in the 20th century, where the computers would take over teaching. As the poorly made online schooling in countries as Romania has proven, except, of course, the teachers that have taught in online as if online teaching was a painting and they were Bob Ross, neither teachers, nor the majority of the students and the parents are ready to leave the traditional dusty ‘prison’ school behind. A physical human teacher is needed to teach human children, however as the same teacher is required, mostly at the start of the career, to create methodological documents as if they had years of experience and a large database from which to choose from, the AI generators are a way to get started.
Lessonsplans.ai seemed like an interesting tool, however it only provides a lesson plan generator that could work for FLE teachers, however it is working properly in English and it provides a free trial, and later requires a subscription of 49$ per year. It provides a function in which you can in fact choose the grade you are preparing the lesson plan for, but as you can only add the lesson title and the lesson description, the result may not be what you are looking for. Moreover, neither does it generate a worksheet for the material in the lesson plan nor it links you to any textbook from which you can work your way out.
I have not found a worksheet AI creator for now but as the Jewish people have wondered for 40 years in the dessert of Paran on their way to the Promised Land and they had succeeded in the end, I have not given up on my search yet. What I could find were worksheet generators in which the teacher is still required to do most of the work. However, I recommend fellow teachers and parents who want to help their children learn more to try tools such as Education.com, Canva, TopWorksheets etc. because they are fast and good to create interesting games, some of which interactive to make learning fun.
Sites such as kahoot.com, Twinkle and Wordwall, which are terrifyingly popular after the COVID feardemic and the online school, are full of interesting activities and have materials that could help you, but you have to spend hours to search for materials that are prepared for a specific grade level. Nevertheless, I recommend them as well for the schools that had upgraded to have technology in their classrooms.
Back to our subject of discussion, a useful tool is without a doubt is Copilot. It provides an AI generator of unit planners, which however can only make up to 15 lesson plans for a unit. Usually the app is free trial, but my luck I bugged the app and my account is not counting the generated documents. Either that or the Lord helped me there as well. The way this app works is that it creates lesson plans, handouts for students and context builders, but the handouts are made relatively the same way as a lesson plan would, thus not helping the final receiver, the student. In addition, it does not have a function in which you can choose the grade level, and thus the app may have minor problems such as ask first graders to use present and past in French. Overall, it works too well in the generation process not to consider it better than others do.
As we can see, each mentioned tool available for teachers nowadays are having their difficulties and problems, and we can summarize from each and possibly make a conceptual idea of a perfect AI generator for Romanian teachers. This generator should have, first, the function of analyzing the curriculum for the class available on programe.ise.ro. Second, the tool has to have a function to upload the textbook that the teacher works on. It is important but not obligatory that the textbook is the source of organization, because it is ultimately cheaper to work with the textbook than to always bring worksheets that you have to print from your own money. Third, the tool has to be fully available for free as the teacher’s monthly salary is barely enough to survive let alone pay for extra tools, many schools not funding the teacher’s extra necessities. This could in fact be a partnership between the didactic preparation institutions and the tool developer as a free account coming with their qualification degree in teaching.
Fourth, this tool could allow you to add the school calendar by county and the teacher’s personal schedule in order to organize the time in the methodological documents without having to look and calculate until you understand the theories of madness. Fifth, the tool should be able to generate in Romanian, English, French and any language the person is teaching in, because we are a global society and we should act like one. Sixth, the tool should be an AI generator for calendar planning, unit planning, lesson plan, worksheets and tests, all linked together, also providing teachers with the answers for them. Given how each teacher is required to have different formats in which they present their work to be done at class, the final products should be editable. Finally, the tool should be able to proofread itself and make sure there are no problems as in huge documents it is harder to spot mistakes.
Many publishing companies in Romania had decided together not to create teacher’s books anymore, not to give any help to the teachers. Most of the teachers nowadays in my country have to change the school each year and even work in two or three. Many times, they do not know the grades they will be teaching, the available materials, and when they discover, the school year is already started and they have to survive working overtime. As one teacher said: “If I do lesson plans for everything, I make my calendar planning and my unit plans the way they want, when do I teach?” A teacher can grow only when he or she is allowed to. But overworking teachers is not going to help.
Bibliography
• Programe Scolare > Actuale > Programe in vigoare (ise.ro) programe.ise.ro/
• Kahoot! kahoot.com/
• Twinkl www.twinkl.ro/
• Wordwall wordwall.net/community
• Topworksheets www.topworksheets.com/
• Canva www.canva.com/create/worksheets/
• Education.com | #1 Educational Site for Pre-K to 8th Grade www.education.com/
• Copilot (educationcopilot.com) app.educationcopilot.com/unit-planner
• LessonPlans.ai app.lessonplans.ai/
• Instrumente cu inteligență artificială pentru educație educatia-digitala.ro/instrumente-cu-inteligenta-artificiala-pentru-educatie/