Tag: AI

Three Wish Men carrying AI logos

3 (not so) wise AI chatbots stumble on the 12 days of Christmas

Dale

Over the winter break, we watched Candy Cane Lane starring Eddie Murphy. Murphy was unexpectedly more serious in this movie while sillier characters swirled around him. Tracee Ellis Ross, known for her role as Rainbow Johnson in Black-ish, essentially reuses her familiar character as Eddie Murphy’s wife. The movie unfolds around a neighborhood where a spirited competition for the best holiday decorations takes center stage. Soon the movie jumps to a bit of Gremlins meets Jumanji meets The Twelve Days of Christmas. All these themes get a little messy. For me, this made Candy Cane Lane just an okay movie. I don’t think I’d ever re-watch it.

However, there is a scene in the movie that presents a math problem based on The Twelve Days of Christmas. This math problem kept me thinking about the movie more than anything else!

The question boils down to this:

In the song The Twelve Days of Christmas 5 golden rings are received on the fifth day. Write an equation where y equals the total number of golden rings that are received at the end of the song. Use x to represent the number of golden rings received on a single day.

That was the prompt, along with several other iterations, that I gave ChatGPT, Claude and Bard. All three of these AI chatbots had difficult with the problem. They gave me totals of 5, 78 and 75 respectively.

SPOILER ALERT: They figure out in the movie that it is 40 golden rings.

Since I do all my algebra in spreadsheet, I set this up to solve the problem for any of the gifts:


Cell C2 is:

=(12-(A2-1))*A2

I SO wish spreadsheets were part of more math classes.

In math class, this would be:

y = [12-(x-1)]x

That was good enough for me to get the answer but my mother-in-law is a retired HS math teacher and visiting for Christmas, so we HAD to reduce it:

y = -x2 + 13x

Hey! This looks like something we can graph!

While the AI chatbots couldn’t deliver the equation I was looking for, one did help me along the way. I made Claude spit out the list of gifts for the drop down in cell B2. Claude also gave me the formula for cell A2 so it would change according to what was in B2:

=IF(B2="partridge in a pear tree",1,IF(B2="turtle doves",2,IF(B2="french hens",3,IF(B2="calling birds",4,IF(B2="golden rings",5,IF(B2="geese a-laying",6,IF(B2="swans a-swimming",7,IF(B2="maids a-milking",8,IF(B2="ladies dancing",9,IF(B2="lords a-leaping",10,IF(B2="pipers piping",11,IF(B2="drummers drumming",12))))))))))))

There is no way I wanted to type all that on my own.

As a matter of fact, I asked Claude “How many total of each gift were given after this?” and gave it the lines of The Twelve Days of Christmas. It delivered a table of correct answers.

So, out of the three wise AI chatbots I tested for this task, Claude brought the gold!

script to Forms

Import AI generated questions to Google Forms

Dale

As someone who frequently conducts surveys to gather insights and feedback from teachers, I found myself facing the tedious task of manually entering survey questions into Google Forms. I knew there had to be a more efficient way, so I turned to ChatGPT for help.

If you give it some parameters, ChatGPT is good at generating survey questions. I decided to see if I could take it one step further and train it to generate questions in a defined format. Once I got ChatGPT to give me the format I wanted, I asked it to name this the “Baslery” format so I could use it for future question generation.

"Baslery" format
“Baslery” format

To use this format in your own ChatGPT account, I have shared my chat so you can continue the conversation and generate your own questions that are pre-formatted for the next step.

With my question format in place, I worked on a script that imports survey questions from a Google Doc into Google Forms.

Script imports questions from Google Docs into Google Forms

The script takes advantage of my pre-formatted questions that I pasted into Google Docs and parses the data so it can be imported into Google Forms.

To use the script, follow these steps:

  1. Use this template to get your own copy of the Google Doc.
  2. Add your own questions to the doc (use my format)
  3. Click the Extensions -> App Scripts menu item.
  4. Click the Run button.
  5. Follow the steps to authorize the app starting with selecting your account.

After the script is run, you can find a link to the new Google Form in the Execution log or just go to Recent in Google Drive.

There are a couple of caveats when using this script:

  1. The script only works for multiple choice questions.
  2. Double-check your questions before running the script to make sure each one is formatted correctly.
  3. Watch out for True/False questions. ChatGPT likes to forget to list “true” and “false” as options.

Happy surveying!

    More Random Class List Tools Created with AI

    Dale

    Earlier this year, with the assistance of ChatGPT, I created a Random Name Picker using HTML and CSS.

    Now, I know that random name pickers are nothing novel. I actually created my name picker after seeing another teacher share the name picker at www.flippity.net. To be fair, I still like the one at Flippity better (its got a spinner!) but by creation was more about seeing what I could learning using ChatGPT.

    To continue exploring the possibilities, I made two new randomizers with the help of ChatGPT.

    Pick Canvas User

    The first one is a handy bookmarklet designed specifically for people who use Canvas for their Learning Management System. It works when you’re at the “People” section of Canvas. Click the bookmarklet to run the script and it will randomly select the first name of a student and display it in an alert box.

    Here was my exchange with ChatGPT and below is the code I used for the final product:

    javascript:(function() {  var elements = document.getElementsByClassName("roster_user_name student_context_card_trigger");  var firstWords = [];  for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {    firstWords.push(elements[i].innerText.split(/\s+/)[0]);  }  var randomFirstWord = firstWords[Math.floor(Math.random() * firstWords.length)];  alert("Random Name: " + randomFirstWord);})()

    To install this bookmarklet, follow these steps:

    1. Start by creating a new bookmark in your browser.
    2. Give the bookmark any name you’d like. I used “Pick Canvas User” for mine.
    3. Paste the code listed above into the URL or “Location” field of the bookmark.

    With this tool, you can effortlessly select a random name from your student roster, making the process of choosing an individual for a specific task or participation seamless and fair.

    Create Random Groups

    The second tool is a Random Student Grouping page that simplifies the task of distributing students into groups. (Again, Flippity can do this too, but I had fun making my own.) By simply entering a list of students and specifying the desired number of groups, this tool randomly organizes them, ensuring each group is balanced and unbiased.

    Give it a try.

    Okay, that’s enough random AI tinkering for now but here is one last thing I thought I’d share.

    A few days ago, I was testing out Bard’s new image upload feature. The screenshot of my Random Student Grouping page was sitting on my desktop so I thought I’d give it a try and ask Bard to describe it.

    Below is what I got:

    Whoa!

    The Hunt for a Sticky Notes Generator

    Dale

    I’ve been searching for a simple way to transform spreadsheet cells into digital sticky notes that I can drag and sort. While the search for an add-on or tool that accomplishes this proved challenging, I discovered a workaround with the help of ChatGPT.

    My quest began with a bunch of internet searching. This feels like one of those tools that should already exist so I was hoping to find an Excel or Google Sheets add-on that could automatically generate sticky notes in Microsoft Whiteboard or Jamboard.

    Despite my efforts, I couldn’t find the perfect fit. Disappointed but undeterred, I turned to AI chat bots for assistance. I tried to work with Google’s Bard but it kept hallucinating and suggesting tools that didn’t exist.

    ALL LIES!!

    ChatGPT couldn’t help me find exactly what I was looking for but it did provide something that comes closer to the results I am seeking.

    With ChatGPT’s help, I developed an HTML form that allows me to paste lines of text and instantly transforms them into draggable sticky notes. You can give it a try for yourself.

    While the HTML form is a step in the right direction, I’m aware that it’s not the perfect solution. I am still on the lookout for a seamless integration between spreadsheets and digital sticky notes within existing whiteboard software. If you have any knowledge or insights about a true text-to-whiteboard sticky note tool, I’d greatly appreciate your input.

    Random Name Picker created in Minutes!

    Dale

    Last night I told ChatGPT, “I want to make a webpage that will pick a random name from a list.”

    In seconds, it delivered this to my phone:


    This morning I fed it the suggestions below until I got what I wanted:

    Is there a way for me to submit a list of names into the website and then it pick a random name?

    I’d like the selected name to be displayed larger and at the top of the page. Can you add some CSS to give the page more style?

    Instead of each name being separated by a comma, can this page be changed so the user submits the names with one name on each line?

    When the submit button is pressed, can the page first display a random half of the names quickly one right after another and then end on the final one?

    Can you double the selected name’s size?

    Is there a way that the submitted names could be saved so that the user still has the last set of names they submitted from a previous browsing session?

    If there are no names loaded in localStorage, can the page load with ten names to demonstrate the page? I’d like the ten names to be the first names of famous scientists.

    I’d like to change the button title to Select Name. Also, can you add instructions above the bottom that explain to the user that they can replace the names in the box with their own but that they need to put one name on each line?

    Can you add 10 more names to the defaultNames?

    Here is the final product for you to try.

    ChatGPT Makes Greeting Cards!

    Dale

    Was there ever a time when greeting cards were looked at as a form of cheating?

    While shopping at Target, this thought came to me as I noticed several people browsing through greeting cards. My guess is that they were looking for the perfect words that they can use as their own to say things like: thank you, happy birthday, congratulations, I love you and many other other personal and heartfelt messages.

    Companies like Hallmark and American Greetings have been helping us find the right words for decades. However, I discovered there is a new option – ChatGPT. You can ask ChatGPT to create a greeting card for any occasion.

    For my example, I chose to have an all-AI creation. First, I asked DALL·E for an image to use on the front of the card.

    DALL-E used to create image of a thankful elephant

    Next, I asked ChatGPT to create the card and told it about the image I wanted to use.

    Asked ChatGPT to create a thank you card with an elephant

    ChatGPT gives you text that is labeled for the front and inside of the card. More importantly, you can collaborate with the AI to modify your card to address the specifics that you are looking for.

    make it shorter

    can you add a joke?

    this card is for my brother

    Once you are happy with the greeting card elements that you created, then you can drop them into a greeting card template and print.

    I asked ChatGPT if it could create a printable document for me that I can fold into a card. It cannot do this – for now. Therefore, I created some greeting card templates in Google Slides that you can use to get started.

    Enjoy!