Picture This: Creative Ways to Use AI-Generated Images in Your Language Classroom
It is ACTFL week, and I’m starting to think about packing, maybe, so I decided to write this blog instead. (Wow… That first sentence directly relates to my session at ACTFL with Bertha! Ha! We will be presenting on Saturday morning! Come see us!)
Ok back to it… I wanted to elaborate on something I shared in a recent podcast episode where I talked about various ways you can EASE into using AI in your classroom without feeling like you’re having a bot do everything. If you’re like me, you can TOTALLY tell when someone is using ChatGPT to write their emails/blogs etc. Which is why I choose NOT to use it for that but instead use it as an assistant for various things in my classroom to support my students!
You can listen to the episode and the many different ways I use it here.
Many people, after listening, emailed to ask for more info on using AI for image generation and asked how I’ve used it in the past with students, so here’s a blog!!!
Changing up my Do Nows!
Let’s start with the simplest way! I started using AI to help generate images for ‘do nows’ to change things up! I love creating ‘do nows’ that EVERYONE in my class can “do”. The purpose of my ‘do nows’ is to give EVERYONE immediate success. Last year, I started experimenting with AI generated images to give students a different kind of ‘Do Now’. Instead of coming in and answering questions about what we’d read the day before, they’d come in and see an image based on the book; something super general that I know students can generate language about.
Now, that is going to look different for everyone because, like almost ALL world language teachers I know, I have CRAZY different levels of learners in class. Some kiddos will be able to write words or chunks of words, others will write a few sentences. ALL students will be successful with the activity. Here are some images that I generated for this purpose last year:
Image #1
This one was for my 4th graders when we were reading Capibara con botas by Mira Canion. Did it only give me an image with two boots!? Yes, could I have worked harder to make it give me one with the boots on the same feet as Carlos wears them? Yes, did I!? No, it made it more compelling and students LOVED writing their sentences. They thought it was hysterical.
Image #2
This one was from when we were reading Brandon Brown dice la verdad ny Carol Gaab. It ended up leading to TONS of personalization as we talked about what cell phones were best because they weren’t sure WHAT kind of cell phone this was. A few kids also wrote sentences about the hand because it appears to only have a thumb and three fingers, but that spun into another great conversation about 1. AI generated images and 2. Some students and I knew people who were born with less fingers (and my cat was born with MORE! I love when organic language like that happens, don’t you!?!)
Image #3
This one was from when we were reading El Chico Global by Leslie Davison. My students were obsessed with various cultural clips that I’d brought in to show them open air Asian markets, and I wanted to give them something to bring that vocab in and relate it back to the book.
Image #4
This one was from when we read El Último Arbol by Margarita Peréz García. I wanted kids to think about how it related to her book. The art in her book is INCREDIBLE! I called it “El Último Iceberg en el Mar”.
Brain Break!!!
This one deserves its own blog like my other Brain Breaks but until then, watch this Instagram video of Paul and I doing it! I’ll blog ASAP! If you can’t watch on Instagram because you don’t have it, you can also listen to the podcast I mention above because I explain it in detail there!
Leveling up my One Word Images!
If you saw me in a conference in 2017 – 2019, you VERY likely learned from me how to “bring your One Word Images to life”. I used to take about 20-30 minutes creating a digital likeness of the one word image we would create together in class and bring it to class the next day… kids would FREAK OUT… it was like actual MAGIC! I had brought our beloved character to life. It was the ONLY time I did work from home because when teaching 7 classes a day I HAD to if it meant getting them all created. However, the pay off was HUGE, plus we also used them in our OWI Scavenger hunts.
I’ll walk you through how I generate images
First, since I can never remember the specific details from class to class (I taught 9 classes per day last year!!!) I would use my student secretary’s note book to remind myself of who each of our characters were. My student secretary is one of my most important class jobs. Read and learn more about those here, or take my “life changing” course that John Sifert and I created together here. (no… that isn’t me being dramatic… it will legit CHANGE YOUR TEACHER LIFE!)
Once I have those details I put as many of them as I can into Gemini AI and see what it comes up with. If I need to, I can eliminate some details to make it simpler. Here’s an example:
I wrote:
I find that I tend to have better luck if I include the word “cartoon” because the FREE AI image generation tools still struggle with life-like images, and I’m totally ok with the cartoons.
Now, since it did such a great job I can add more if I want or I can just take that image over to Canva and add the rest of the story details. But, so far, I’ve spent 30 seconds on generating this image that before took me more like 20 minutes!!!!!
Option one
Add details to Gemini to come up with a new image – I don’t love it anymore. Now Ronaldo, (this was a real OWI my fifth graders created last year) has one eye, bummer.
Option TWO
Hop over to Canva with the original image, and add the chocolate thought bubble myself. If you want to see my process with that you can watch the video above, or you can just check out the final product below that! (P.S. We are doing a WORKSHOP on Canva for La Familia Loca PLC tonight!!! If you’ve thought about joining our community, what are you waiting for!? We would love to have you! We have epic workshops like this EVERY MONTH!)
Now, I’m sure you can only imagine the EXTREME excitement of my students when they walked in the next day to see our character, the one that our class artists had drawn, and BROUGHT TO LIFE on our screen! They just LOVE it, and now I spend about a 20th of the time making it happen and STILL get to witness the JOY!
I hope that this inspires you to start playing with AI Image generation! And, I hope to see you at ACTFL in Philly! Please stop me and say hiiiiiii!!!! If not, guess what!? It comes back to NOLA next year!!!! WAHOOOOO!!!!
Sending lots of love and hugs!
Joyfully yours,
Annabelle