I just discovered Curipod, a lesson creator with AI feedback built in. It looks like a valuable tool more suited to language learners than Kahoot. I like the flexibility of customization while there is a good lot of lesson templates. For now, it looks like short writing sessions can set a scene for discussion.
Oh, and most of the functions are available for free. Sadly, if you want feedback to student writing in a non-English language (something my students would actually read), you have to negotiate school or district pricing, which I have not looked into yet.
This TTS (Text to Speech) tool from Kokoro (early development) is an early look at what I will probably use to create short listening passages from content my students create, or that I create. It works really fast (60x live speed, this clip took less than 5 seconds).
Here is the Text:
It was late autumn in Cedarville, the kind of day where the air smelled like wood smoke and the leaves were all shades of orange and gold. I had just run into Nakayama at the old diner by the train tracks—the one we used to hang out at after football games in high school. Nakayama was still the same as ever, wearing that beat-up denim jacket and grinning like life was one big inside joke.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, sliding into the booth across from him. He had a cup of coffee in front of him and one of those little plates with a half-eaten slice of pie.
“Yeah, well, life’s funny like that,” Nakayama said. “I was just passing through, thought I’d stop in for old times’ sake. You still living here?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Figured someone should stick around and keep an eye on the place. How about you? Still playing music?”
Nakayama shrugged, looking out the window at the empty street. “Not really. You know how it goes. Things don’t always pan out the way you think.”
I’m a regular reader of Future Perfect, a Vox column that had its start with the Effective Altruism movement. I know Sam Bankman Fried took a lot of people’s money using EA as a mask for his intentions, but I think Vox and Future Perfect have recovered.
At least 6, and maybe 8, of these Rotating Sandwiches are not sandwiches. But controversy aside, this is a great resource for language teaching. Besides our yes/no, we can compare, we can guess the prices, we can list ingredients, we can make recipes. I’m sure there is more. Thanks to Kottke for the link.
Advances in technology are, for me, heartwarming. I am at heart a progressive. As a world, we must always be improving, or we are decaying. Sometimes both happen at the same time. But these are in the plus column.
Khanmigo gets better. This looks like something we may even use for language learning. Especially the writing part. Watch this 13-minute section from the TV documentary 60 minutes.
I get a firehose of new tools with daily newsletter/posts from There’s an AI for That (TAAFT) and TLDR. It’s nice to focus on one thing once in a while. I like the first better because I can customize what it sends to me more easily.
Three more from Google this week. One for right now, one for a year or two down the road, and a third farther out.
Gemini Version 2. I find Google’s AI just so much more useful when connected to things like Docs and Forms and their whole infrastructure. Looking forward to the improvements.
XR Glasses: eXtended Reality includes AR and VR and is the fashionable term (Microsoft has been using it for years). The Glasses are a definite upgrade from Google Glasses of a few years ago. Lots of progress. Looking forward to seeing a real product soon.
Quantum Computing. I’ve been spending way too much time learning what a big breakthrough this new chip called Willow is. Great explanation at NYTimes podcast Hard Fork (see the second story).
Here is one for teachers and other spreadsheet users. Kevin Stratvert has wonderful how-to videos. He used to do pretty much excusively Microsoft software. This is new for him and for me. AI in a spreadsheet. It does a couple of things like matching up names and grades on two different sheets that take me a long time to do. I’ve signed up and plan to use it this weekend.
That’s all for now. Lots more stuff coming down the pike, though. Teachers, check out Russel Stannard‘s channel for lots of good hands-on tools. Check out his latest on Magic School.
