
This week’s news that new AI tools will be added to Google Workspace throughout the year didn’t come as a surprise. It was another sign that if you haven’t been paying attention to the development of AI tools this year, you should start paying attention to them. Even if your school tries to ban or block AI tools, students will find a way to use them outside of school, if not at your school. In the absence of that, here’s a roundup of some AI tools I’ve written about and/or made videos about in recent months.
A brief overview of ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that will generate documents for you based on some minimal data you provide. For example, I just typed in ChatGPT “Ten Canva Features for Students” and got this article. ChatGPT can also be used to create poems about sunglasses worn by Geraint Thomas.
With a little tweaking of what you put into ChatGPT, you can create longer articles than what I mentioned above. A simple “tell me more” or “what about X” can generate more material from ChatGPT.
Video – A short overview of ChatGPT
Magic Write
Magic Write is an artificial intelligence tool built into Canva Docs. Magic Write works very similar to ChatGPT. To use Magic Write, simply select it from the Canva Docs tab menu. When Magic Write opens, you type a short prompt, such as “green screen video tips,” and Magic Write creates a short list or paragraph (formatting depends on the prompt) for you. You can then paste that note into your document as it is written, or you can edit it before including it in your document. Watch this short video to see how Magic Write works in Canva.
Video – How to use artificial intelligence in Canva documents
Turn writing into videos
AI generated concept maps
Writing detection powered by AI
AI Writing Check is a free tool created by a joint effort between the nonprofit Quill.org and CommonLit. AI Writing Check is a tool designed to help teachers try to recognize writing created using artificial intelligence. To use AI Writing Check, simply copy a piece of text of 100 words or more and paste it into AI Writing Check. The tool will then tell you how likely it is that the writing was or wasn’t created by artificial intelligence. That’s all there is to it. AI Writing Check is not foolproof, and as noted on the website, students can still devise ways to circumvent tools designed to detect AI-generated writing. It is also worth noting that it cannot accept more than 400 words at a time.
Crossplag AI Content Detector is a free tool that you can use to try to determine whether or not an AI tool was used to generate a piece of text. Like other AI detection tools, Crossplag AI Content Detector is easy to use. To use it, you simply paste a block of text into the content detector and it will estimate the probability that AI was used to generate that text. Watch my short video below to see how it works.
Video: Another AI-powered text detection tool