Comment by cube00 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cube00 | Hacker News Reader

It's heart breaking to think a whole generation will soon be brought up on learning from AI generated slop.

Here's my attempt at using this tool:

Learning Intention: To understand the differences between MP3 and WAV audio formats and the concept of audio compression.

What does AI give us?

Rambling text that adds nothing to progress a student's learning intention:

Each format has its own strengths and weaknesses, which may affect your listening experience. [..] Choosing between them depends on your needs, whether you value quality or convenience.

On a later slide in the same presentation the more rambling appears:

Audio compression is vital for efficient sound management. Knowing different types of audio can enhance your media experience. [..] Choosing the right audio format is essential for quality and convenience. Understanding audio compression will improve your listening experience.

Moving on to the AI generated quizzes with unnecessarily confusing negatives only to find out the AI slop is just flat out wrong:

True or false. MP3 files cannot achieve higher quality than WAV files.

I pick "true" and get "Incorrect: MP3 files can provide good quality for casual listening, but WAV is superior."

Edit: Also be careful with the images, it dropped one into my presentation that I found had been taken from a PDF on the web without attribution.

These are all fair points, no doubt.

Respectfully, my response is that teachers are highly trained professionals and most of us take the job very seriously. The teacher generating the presentation will review the content for accuracy before presenting it, no different than a teacher suggesting links or YouTube videos for students to use as a basis for research.

All the content and activities are editable and after an Undergrad and often a Masters, I feel that the teacher is perfectly qualified to make any adjustments necessary.

I do understand your sentiment though.

> The teacher generating the presentation will review the content for accuracy before presenting it

First header on front page: "Craft Engaging Lessons in Minutes."

Further down: "Seriously. You will be done prepping a full lesson in minutes instead of hours"

If we're no longer "crafting in minutes" then you might consider the disclaimers that ChatGPT adds warning that all content must be thoroughly reviewed by a suitably qualified professional.

Rather then blanket statements that everything that ChatGPT produces is fully compliant.

If you teach in Australia, this is huge. SlideHero aligns lessons with the Australian Curriculum, so you can confidently say, “This meets the Achievement Standards.”

Thanks for your feedback

It looks like teachers are actually creating presentations in minutes with this tool.

I'm an Aussie teacher, but in the same boat as everybody else. Swamped and time poor.

Recently we had some pastoral care activities for National Sorry Day and I whipped up a quick presentation 5mins before home group lol.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1jgetof/we_all_lo...

"lol" indeed.

>It looks like teachers are actually creating presentations in minutes

That's wonderful! I assume the presentation did not require more than 5mins to review, maybe it was only 2 slides :)

Yeah. I feel weird about this. If used wisely, I can see how a tool like this will help good teachers produce better lessons faster. But if I think back to some of my teachers, I know that they'll put in a phrase, click a bunch of times, and then present whatever comes out as-is to children.

Although I guess whatever the LLM comes up with will not be much worse than what they would have come up with on their own.

Agree with all points. It does not help with anything beyond the most rudimentary understanding of a topic (and the compulsory "Women in <Topic>: Breaking Gender Norms"). It does not seem to add any substance.

I very much respect this as a tech demo, as it obviously has sooo many moving parts and was hard to build.

But from an educational perspective: nah.

Maybe if you add in depth lecture notes, source material, etc.?

Appreciate the feedback. I built it for k-12 educators and I've used it extensively in my own classroom. I can assure you that the tool is very useful and kids love the interactives a lot.

>most rudimentary understanding of a topic

This is exactly what a year 4 student needs!

It's easy to dismiss the content as obvious, but remember that a 9 year old is learning it for the first time!

> in depth lecture notes, source material, etc.?

Hehe I'm not sure a year 6 student is ready for all that :)

Appreciate the follow-up.

> in depth lecture notes, source material, etc.?

> Hehe I don't think Timmy in year 6 history is ready for all that :)

That's exactly what we did where I grew up... Starting from grade 5.

In history class: Analysing contradictory sources and observing how history gets made. In physics: Doing our own experiments and deriving formulas from that. In politics: Debating and negotiating resolutions, UN-style. In Latin: reading (simple excerpts) from De Bello Gallico.

<insert rant about US school system>

Please rememeber that a slideshow is just one tiny piece of the teaching puzzle and SlideHero is not trying to be everything for everyone.

All those things you mention are good, and necessary (adjusted for audience age of course) and a good teacher will add all that value too and that can and should happen outside of SlideHero.

My goal is to reduce teacher load by just enough that teachers see the value in paying me $7/month :)

Yeah, I'm totally being too hard on you. Apologies if it comes off too harsh.

All the power to you & good luck with the project! Teachers deserve every help they can get.

all good :) I appreciate the discussion.

I agree. I had some really wonderful biology teachers that inspired me to go on to do a degree in biology. They would have hated the example presentation about the Amazon rainforest.

This is very nicely designed, but as an educational tool? Ugh, it's awful. Sorry OP.

Thankfully the teacher is in full control and can(and absolutely should) modify the content and sequencing to make the content shine.

AI is a force multiplier, it won't make a bad teacher a good teacher but it will make a good teacher even better!

It's the same with ai for coding. Will it make anybody a perfect dev? No, but in the right hands it absolutely does a phenomenal job at its strengths which great devs know how to leverage to help them focus on the bits that matter.

>Ugh, it's awful. Sorry OP.

All good, I'm a high school teacher, I have a thick skin :)

>AI is a force multiplier, it won't make a bad teacher a good teacher but it will make a good teacher even better

but will it make a bad teacher an even worse teacher? Or let’s just not think about it?

How about you expanding on that thought and elaborating how a bad teacher can be worse with this tool?

>I pick "true" and get...

This is almost exactly like a training experience I've had at work where it wasn't AI generated!

Weirdly, like how social media content games engagement, the wrong bits can help retention (for me).

Yes. "Audio compression is vital for efficient sound management" should be more specific, like "audio compression saves storage space on your device by reducing the size of your audio file without a noticeable reduction in sound quality"

>flat out wrong: >True or false. MP3 files cannot achieve higher quality than WAV files. >I pick "true" and get "Incorrect: MP3 files can provide good quality for casual listening, but WAV is superior."

Not simply wrong, nonsensical.

To be fair this is version 1 of the tool. Any tool will have issues in the first version but does not mean it cannot shape up to be a useful tool. Teachers will need education on when to use AI and when not to use AI. It will take time but it will eventually improve the process of teaching and help our teachers feel less overwhelmed so they can actually focus on the students.

It's a ChatGPT wrapper, it is not version 1.

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