Post #7: "Alexa..."

It started innocently enough as a Christmas gift from a student two Christmases ago.  After running into her mother in the hallway, I thanked her for the Echo Dot and told her daughter to start thinking of ways we could use it in our classroom.  Her mother immediately intervened and said that wasn’t necessary, reassuring me that wasn’t the intent and that it could be enjoyed to listen to some music at home.

So for the remainder of the year, I did.

After spending the summer perusing the Twittersphere and Instagram, some awesome resources started to pop up on how to use these devices in the classroom. While still hesitant at first, my Echo Dot made the transition to school in time for the beginning of the school year.

At first, Alexa’s job consisted of some very basic tasks--voice command of Spotify made toggling through our different playlists a breeze, timers were easily set to hold us accountable for time, and accessing the weather app helped us to decipher whether or not recess would be indoors or outdoors (“feels like” temperature warmer than 16 degrees...bring ALL of your layers, please!).

Amazon Prime Day came and went, and the next thing we knew, we had another Echo Dot in class.  The second device, named Echo, was not hooked up to our classroom speakers, and this seemed to really open up our classroom to use Echo a bit more independently and frequently.  Features such as “flip a coin” or “choose a random number” were easy to integrate within our day, but one of the simplest, yet effective use of Echo has been simply asking her how to spell a word.

For years our team has wrestled with the issue of spelling for our third graders--phonics intervention, spelling homework (not proud...#DitchHW), spelling dictation, and spelling tests. We spent hours trying to determine how to motivate students to WANT to spell things accurately but just could not find a solution.  Echo has since changed a lot of that! I’ve learned that students DO  want to spell things correctly, they just need the resources to do so! We will continue to use our classroom dictionaries and phonics strategies, but the fact of the matter is that students will take the time to edit when they are empowered to do so!

Our Writer’s Workshop has changed drastically as I have fewer students asking for spelling help, and time can be spent discussing a student’s voice, organization, or flow of their writing.  Students also use the words they want to use--not just the ones that they can spell!

Matt Miller and Kasey Bell have a wonderful podcast episode on The Google Teacher Tribe (Episode 31), which introduces some different ways to use AI in the classroom. While my Google Home Mini was unable to connect to our school network due to some firewall restrictions, I love the idea of letting students use AI to appease their curiosity.  Imagine having students create their “non-Google-able” driving questions for Genius Hour by actually asking Google their question! There are so many innovative ways AI is already being used in classrooms. I can’t wait to start expanding and would love to hear some other personal favorites!