Guiding students toward AI literacy through image generation

How I teach and practice AI image generation in Middle school

Mar 25, 2024

Prompt: Transform the refined concept into a cartoon style, maintaining the scene's simplicity and diversity. In this cartoon version, three students of varied backgrounds are sitting at a desk, engaging in digital art creation with AI. Each student wields a magic pen that releases exaggerated, vibrant sparks of creativity and colorful beams of light, embodying the whimsical and exaggerated features typical of cartoons. The students have cheerful expressions, with smiles that highlight their excitement and joy in the creative process. The background is kept minimalistic to focus on the cartoon characters and their dynamic interaction with the magical technology. This illustration is designed to emphasize the fun and accessibility of learning technology through a playful and inviting art style, making technology learning appealing and engaging for all.

Generating images with AI tools is one of the most engaging ways to explore the possibilities and limitations of generative AI. Introducing the topic and tools to Middle school students is a no-brainer for me. Media competency and AI literacy are on the curriculum in Austria - in the form of a subject called “Digitale Grundbildung”, which can be translated to Foundational Media Training, as well as part of the transdisciplinary principle espoused in Überfachliche Kompetenzen (aka Unterrichtsprinzipien) where Medienbildung is firmly placed alongside political and environmental education. In Austria, all teachers are encouraged to create learning experiences incorporating digital tools that support the achievement of pedagogical objectives. As generative AI becomes the new normal, I aim to promote AI literacy - students know, understand, can use, can evaluate and are aware of ethical issues - where I can (Ng et al., 2021).

In an introductory lesson, the goal was to get a feel for how AI image generators work, test three tools using the same prompt, and then rate the result. Also, part of the task was to add the tool used with hyperlinks (documentation). I provided my students with

a digital booklet in Pages on iPad with explanations and instructions
a list of 10 free tools for AI image generation
freedom to explore

I gave my group of 13-year-olds a list of tools for them to allow them to discover the differences themselves. After explaining the task and how to do it, students worked in pairs to experiment with the different AI tools. Where logins were required, students used their school-issued accounts.

Prompt results: Tanzende Fische im Weltall

Prompt results. pink fluffy unicorn dancing on rainbows

In a second step, they tested whether two different people using the same prompt and tool would yield similar results. The answer is, surprisingly, sometimes yes.

In the third step, we discussed limitations and biases. Simply showing them these results enabled us to have lively discussions on where biases came from.

We’ve since gone on to practice image generation in English lessons - where they were tasked to use Canva to generate an image depicting “friendship” using prompts in English.

In other classes, students have generated portraits of characters in books they have read.

Or to generate re-imagined versions of book covers.

Prompting for images does take a bit of practice to get it right. Simply typing "draw me a picture of loyalty" will be less successful than having the user describe what they think loyalty LOOKS like. Students pick this up quite quickly and can perfect their prompting skills. It need not be as detailed as what ChatGPT suggests below, but setting the scene in a more detailed way is more powerful.

Using AI image generators, students are empowered to produce authentic outcomes by using language in their prompts to fine-tune results. They love the instant feedback and I, as a teacher, love the fact that their thinking has been made visible.

I’m stoked that there are so many possibilities for using AI for language classes, and can’t wait to see what ideas other educators share.

As always, thanks for reading!

Alicia Bankhofer

Here 10 free tools you can use for image generation:

https://leonardo.ai/

https://www.canva.com/

https://padlet.com/

https://www.adobe.com/de/sensei/generative-ai/firefly.html

https://stablediffusionweb.com/

https://openai.com/dall-e-2

https://ideogram.ai/

https://www.craiyon.com/

https://www.freepik.com/ai/image-generator

https://playground.com

Here is my Padlet page, with many resources on image generation

https://padlet.com/aliciabankhofer/creating-images-with-generative-ai-jvk7en4211219lzn

Links:

Ng, D., Leung, J., Chu, S., & Qiao, M. (2021). AI Literacy: Definition, Teaching, Evaluation and Ethical Issues. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 58. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.487.

Paparone, Rachel. (2024): Enhancing World Language Instruction With AI Image Generators https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-ai-image-generators-world-language-classes

Tools used in this post:
ChatGPT (4) for prompts and title image (prompt in alt text)

Deepl.com/write for improvements

Alicia Bankhofer is a Middle school teacher in Vienna, Austria.